by Ben Atlas on 01.11.2010.6:22pm
WBUR reports on the rumor that MFA is negotiating to acquire Leonardo’s self-portrait discovered last year in Basilicata, Italy (although it was never confirmed officially that it’s a Leonardo). The painting was discovered during a research into the history archives of the Tempeleers, Ordre Souverain et Militaire du Temple de Jérusalem. I guess something good came out of the Da Vinci Code after all (Times).
MFA is undergoing a massive renovation and it would be a fitting cherry on top of the new museum structure.
Although the portrait might beat all time records in an auction, it really makes sense that a painting of this significance finds a home in an established, properly curated collection. (photo via 2baci)
by Ben Atlas on 12.27.2009.11:26pm
Photo taken on December 23, 2009 shows St. Mark's Square under water. Much of the historic Italian city of Venice, including St. Mark's Square, has been underwater since November 30 following a meteorological depression combined with natural tide waters. ANDREA PATTARO/AFP/Getty Images
by Ben Atlas on 12.10.2009.9:11am
The Seven Liberal Arts are the Trivium (you start by learning these):
And the Quadrivium (your “graduate disciplines”)
- geometry
- arithmetic
- music
- astronomy
During the Renaissance Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari argued for the inclusion of architecture, painting and sculpture. Let me guess who are the muses in the Sandro Botticelli’s fresco (the one with the glasses sitting on top is the shadchan, she doesn’t count).
Sandro Botticelli, A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts c. 1484. Fresco transferred to canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Starting from the upper left:
- Grammar with the parchment,
- Astronomy with the crab,
- Rhetoric is trying to say something.
The three we see from the back, starting from the lower left:
- Music with the tambourine,
- Either Arithmetic or Logic (no signs of the “trade”),
- Geometry with the angle,
- The muse standing next to the young man is also either Arithmetic or Logic. I say he probably picked the Logic. The young man needs to go back to school for picking the “logic”…
Sandro Botticelli is published with permission from the Web Gallery of Art
by Ben Atlas on 12.8.2009.9:17pm
Zucchero performs with Rafi Adar in the Roxane Club in Tel Aviv. Judging by Zucchero’s looks, this must be in the late 80s, the time he wrote his best songs. A very nice rendition. ►►►read more
by Ben Atlas on 12.8.2009.1:22pm
Caravaggio, David 1606-07. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Todd Bolen points to the contradictory passage in 1 Samuel 17:53-54 – Where Did Goliath’s Head Go?
“And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines, and they plundered their camp. And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent.”
The fight between David and Goliath was when David was a teen. The triumphant entry to Jerusalem was years later when David became a King. Perhaps he just kept and carried the head around. Even more confusing is the reference to Goliath’s armor that was “put in his tent” separately from the head? The Transcriber was getting really tired when he wrote that one.
Caravaggio, Boy with a Basket of Fruit (self portrait), c. 1593. Galleria Borghese, Rome
By the way on the subject of Caravaggio and his paining. Caravaggio was a notorious brawler and he eventually murdered a man during a fight in Rome. His patrons could no longer protect him and he fled to Naples. Later someone attacked Caravaggio in Milano and disfigured his face. All along Caravaggio was begging for a pardon asking for permission to return to Rome and he died from a fever on his way there. In any case the gory biblical scenes are a common subject in Caravaggio paintings (like the Sacrifice of Issac I published here). In the painting above Caravaggio was offering his own head as that of the slaughtered Goliath. I find it interesting that the young David there resembles some of the self portraits Caravaggio painted when he was young. So perhaps this painting is Caravaggio the slaughterer and Caravaggio being slaughtered (they do look alike). Uncle Freud missed that one… ►►►read more
Guardian – Voluntary Redundancy or Leave Role to Relative:
“It is a problem many a company faces in these tough times: how to replace older – and costlier – workers with younger, cheaper ones. A Rome bank has what it thinks is the solution: to make the jobs hereditary. Under a deal signed with unions this week, 76 employees of Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Roma (BCC di Roma) must take early retirement but they will get a choice: either take a payoff or leave your job to your son or daughter (or indeed any relative “up to the third degree”, which would allow the post to be left even to great-nieces and nephews).
A recent study found 44% of architects and 42% of lawyers were the children of people who had practised the same profession. It is next to impossible in Italy to own a chemist’s shop unless your father or mother had one because the number of licences that can be bequeathed is controlled by the authorities. Perhaps the most bizarre example of inheritable employment surfaced in Florence, where the legal entitlement to sketch tourists outside the Uffizi gallery was also hereditary. Talent for drawing, of course, may not be passed on.”
In 200bc Rome starts to grow rapidly and the population tops at 1 mil between 44bc and 120, at the time when Rome was the world’s superpower. In the year 330 the emperor Constantine shifts the center of the empire to Constantinople and Byzantium. This coincides with rapid population decline. The end of the western roman empire is in the year 476 when the Germanic Roman general Odoacer deposed the titular Western Emperor Romulus Augustulus. The population of Rome drops to around 100K by the year 500. David Galbright notes in his post that surprisingly the population decline coincides with the Christian era of Rome. Rome was only 20K for the four decades between 1000 and 1400 (“the Black Death killed at least a third of the people in Italy from 1347 and 1352). The mighty Rome of the Grand Inquisitors was the size of an average American suburban village. Even during the Renaissance, as Michelangelo was redecorating the Vatican, the population of Rome circa 1550 was only around 50K. Rome reaches 160K by 18000. And then the industrial revolution and the urbanization cause the population to explode. Everywhere the farmers move into the European urban centers. Rome is 1/2 mil in 1900, 1 mil in 1930, 2 mil in 1960 (Summer Olympics) and 2.7 mil in 2009.
The graph via David Galbright – Graph of the Population of Rome Through History.
Palazzo Vecchio
Art historian Maurizio Seracini got permission from the city of Florence to prove his theory that the most significant masterpiece by Leonardo Battle of Anghiari is intact behind frescos by Giorgio Vasari in Palazzo Vecchio. Numerous sketches (below) are scattered around the world museums, although no one knows where the final work is. Telegraph – Italian palace fresco may hide Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece.
Leonardo, The Battle of Anghiari, 1503-05, Black chalk, pen and ink, watercolour on paper, Musée du Louvre, Paris
“The Battle of Anghiari (Wikipedia) was fought on June 29, 1440, between Milan and the Italian League led by Republic of Florence in the course of the Wars in Lombardy. The League’s army concentrated on Anghiari, a small centre of Tuscany, and comprised: 4,000 Papal troops, under Cardinal Lodovico Trevisan; a Florentine contingent of around the same size, and a company of 300 men-at-arms (knights) from Venice, led by Micheletto Attendolo. Other men joined for the occasion from the Anghiari itself. The numerically superior Milanese force was led by the famous condottiero Niccolò Piccinino in the name of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and reached the area on the night of June 28. Some 2,000 men from the nearby town of Sansepolcro joined the Milanese. Confident in his superior manpower, and on the element of surprise Piccinino ordered an attack in the afternoon of the following day. However the dust lifted by the Milanese on the Sansepolcro-Anghiari road was noticed by Micheletto and the League’s forces were made ready for battle.”
In 1503 Florence deposed the Medici mafia and proclaimed a Republic. They commissioned The Battle of Anghiari to Leonardo. 57 years later in 1560 the Medici family returned to power and allegedly asked Giorgio Vasari to cover the most significant art commission of the Republic.
Telegraphs reports that “Prof Seracini thinks he [Giorgio Vasari] left a clue to what was beneath by depicting a military banner which bears the words “Cerca Trova” – seek and you will find.” ►►►read more
There are several versions of this classic Italian song, few by Elisa. This one is from San Remo 2007 concert, a treat. ►►►read more
This poem was written by Leon Modena in 1584 when he was only 13 years old and dedicated to his departed teacher Rabbi Mosè della Rocca. It’s my understanding that the Italian translation is also authored by Leon Modena (via on the main line):
קינה שמור אוי מה כםס אוצר בו
כל טוב אילים כוסי אור דין אל צלו
משה מורי משה יקר דבר בו
שם תושיה און יום כפור הוא זה לו
כלה מיטה ימי שן צרי אשר בו
צייון זה מות רע אין כאן ירפה לו
ספינה בים קל צל עובר ימינו
הלים יובא שבי ושי שמנו
Chi nasce, muor. Oimè, che passo [a]cerbo!
Colto vi è l’uom, cosí ordina ‘l Cielo
Mosè morí, Mosè: già car di verbo
Santo sia ogn’uom, con puro zelo
Ch’alla metà, già mai senza riserbo
Si giunge, ma vedran in cangiar pelo
Se fin abbiam, ch’al cielo ver ameno
- Ah – l’uomo va, se viv’ assai, se meno.
I continue to research the vast collection of photos from the LIFE Magazine. I like to collate photos thematically or select photos from a series by one photographer. I noticed very interesting photos by Paul Schutzer, most of them as a Life correspondent in the early 1960s. In this post are Paul Schutzer’s photographs titled ‘The Italian Men’ dated 1963. Here some I really like (I also plant to republish Paul’s photos on fashion and Israel). ►►►read more
