What is Venice’s carnival actually like? Venice’s modern carnival is not a traditional folk and fertility festival. It does not have mummers and green men and pitchforks and man-women and ceremonial uses of straw and swords and alcohol (for that see a friend’s excellent post on a Basque Carnival). It is also not what it […]
Hello, all. My latest post has been delayed by, among other things, Venetian Carnival, book projects, visiting friends, private tours of the back rooms of the Cathedral, doing my taxes, preparing to upgrade this website, and the investment of the Archbishop of Florence as a Cardinal. I hope to post soon, but as a quick […]
I was cheered recently by the juxtaposition of a pair of articles on my Italian news feed: Pretty-much Everyone in Italy is About to Go On Strike Italians Refuse to Give Up their Ice-cream Amid Belt-Tightening Both articles struck me, of course, as perfectly natural, since, as the ever-groaning gears of the Italian government, law […]
I have just returned from a jaunt through Sicily, where the change of cityscape was a perfect reminder of how useful the ability to spot saints can be. I popped into church after church, and by the fourth it was easy to tell we weren’t in Florence anymore, and not just by the prevalence of […]
The Italian legal kerfuffle over “Fake Centurions” abruptly came to make sense on my recent visit to Bologna, when I discovered the Legio I Italica camped out in the cathedral square. Legio I Italica is a group of top quality, professional Roman Legionary reenactors, who travel around Italy by […]
‘Tis the season for a review of the vague saintly origins of the modern Hallmark Christmas: Saint Nicholas of Bari (or of Myra; San Nicola, 270-343 AD) Common attributes: Bishop (with robes, hat, miter), holding 3 golden balls, or 3 coins, or 3 bags of gold Occasional attributes: Accompanied by ship, accompanied by barrel containing […]
The Vatican museum: hall after hall of ancient Rome. Shelves crowd the corridors with busts of Caesar, of Cicero, of a hundred obscure Senators, of still more-obscure Romans, anonymous but vivid with two-thousand-year expressions of resolve or grit or whimsy crowded shelf on shelf. Here sits Penelope still patient, Diana hunting, Bacchus laughing merry, while […]
Since a friend I recently visited wanted something more challenging in our saint spotting, I’m starting in on some of my favorites, the monk saints, very easy to separate from non-monastic saints, but sometimes a real challenge to separate from each other. I’m going to start with the Dominicans, who, as the most scholarly order […]
Since I talked recently about the Heavenly Court, comparing the office of Patron Saint to nobility holding landed titles, I would like to pause a moment to discuss Florence’s two former patron saints. Just as cities and counties move from noble house to noble house and dynasties replace each other over the course of meandering […]
Drum roll please… time for the results of my Guess the Purse – Guess the Price challenge: I often stroll through what I call the “thousand dollar purse” district, but even I stopped short the first time I spotted Purse #2 in the window. Did they put in an accidental extra digit? I […]
"Warm, generous, and inviting," Inventing the Renaissance provides a witty and irreverent journey through the fantasies historians have constructed about the supposed Dark Ages and golden Renaissance, and exposes the terrible yet often tender reality beneath.
