Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmina, To PRIAPUS

This place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turfbuilded cottage, Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges; I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet, Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving. [5] For here be owners twain who greet and worship my Godship, He of the poor hut lord and his son, the pair of them peasants: This with assiduous toil aye works the thicketty herbage And the coarse water-grass to clear afar from my chapel: That with his open hand ever brings me offerings humble. Hung up in honour mine are flowery firstlings of spring-tide, [20] Wreaths with their ears still soft the tender stalklets a-crowning; Violets pale are mine by side of the poppy-head pallid; With the dull yellow gourd and apples sweetest of savour; Lastly the blushing grape disposed in shade of the vine-tree. Anon mine altar (this same) with blood (but you will be silent!) [15] Bearded kid and anon some horny-hoofed nanny shall sprinkle. Wherefore Priapus is bound to requite such honours by service, Doing his duty to guard both vineyard and garth of his lordling. Here then, O lads, refrain from ill-mannered picking and stealing: Rich be the neighbour-hind and negligent eke his Priapus: [20] Take what be his: this path hence leadeth straight to his ownings.

Catullus. Carmina. Sir Richard Francis Burton. trans. London. For translator for private use. 1894.

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Marrakech

La chiamano Marrakech la Rossa. La terra è rossa, le mura sono rosse e le montagne dell'Atlante riflettono un cielo rosso. Winston Churchill, uno degli innamorati di questa città, la definì la "Parigi del Sahara". Delle sue permanenze all'allora mitico Hotel Mamounia (purtroppo dopo i recenti rifacimenti molta dell'allure di un tempo è sparita) restano alcuni dipinti, non proprio pregevoli appesi alle pareti dell'albergo. Marrakech è la città imperiale per eccellenza, fondata nell'undicesimo secolo dalla dinastia berbera degli Almoravidi, un esercito di cavalieri venuto dal sud che oltrepassate le montagne dell'Atlante, si accampò in questa valle. La città divenne un centro di vitale importanza nel passaggio tra nord e sud ed ebbe un periodo di fulgore quando al ritorno dalla felice campagna di Spagna contro il Cid Campeador, gli Almoravidi ne arricchirono piazze e palazzi. Fu così edificata la Koutoubia, il cui minareto - alla cui base vi erano cento librerie (kutub in arabo significa libro) - domina tuttora la città (fratello gemello della Giralda di Siviglia). La sua costruzione ebbe una storia assai complessa. Una volta terminata, gli architetti si accorsero che non era orientata esattamente verso la Mecca e furono costretti a ricostruirla. Dall'Andalusia arrivarono anche pietre e marmi, maioliche e terracotta e la città si impreziosì. Basta andare a visitare il palazzo Bahia, residenza del visir di Marrakech, o la Medersa Ibn Youssouf, la scuola coranica che ospitava fino a 400 allievi, completamente decorata da stucchi e marmi, o le Tombe Saadiens riscoperte dai francesi nel 1917 dopo secoli di abbandono. Ma di tutte le bellezze della città la più intrigante è la Medina, un labirinto fitto di passaggi, vicoli, tetti e case che all'interno nascondono fontane e giardini. Il punto di partenza ideale per inoltrarcisi è la piazza Jemaa el Fna, una delle piazze più belle e vive al mondo. È uno spettacolo unico, con il suo brulicare di persone e di venditori di ogni sorta. Ci si potrebbero passare giornate intere prima di carpirne gli intimi segreti. È una piazza al di fuori del tempo che deve essere stata sempre così, con i suoi cantastorie e acrobati, venditori di spiedini e incantatori di serpenti. Una piazza viva ma dedicata alla morte: deve il suo nome "piazza dei trucidati" al fatto che qui venivano eseguite le pene capitali ed esposte le teste dei morti.

Dalla terrazza del Café Glacier o dai tavolini del Café Paris si potrà godere appieno del brulicante formicolio di questa piazza. Sorseggiando un tè alla menta e aspettando il tramonto quando il cielo si arrossa e le lampade ad acetilene dei venditori rischiarano la piazza. La Medina con il souk è una delle più belle del Marocco (con quella di Fes). È consigliabile affidarsi ad una guida per evitare di perdersi tra vicoli e androni. Si inizia con il souk Semmarine dove troneggiano stoffe e broccati, per poi passare al souk Attarine, regno degli artigiani del rame. Poco distante il souk Smata, dedicato esclusivamente alle babbucce, e poi il souk El Kebir con negozi di pelletteria. Per chi non fosse ancora stanco c'è il souk Haddine, quello dei fabbri, e la piazza Rahha Kedima che ospita il mercato degli ortaggi e del pollame. Dopo tutta questa camminata ci si può ristorare al Café de Paris o optare per una più romantica gita in carrozzella lungo le mura. Il rosso del tramonto le infiamma e le cicogne tornano ai propri nidi. Per gli amanti dei giardini, la visita d'obbligo è alla Majorelle, tra ninfee e bambù...

Roman masculinity in a nutshell...

For a Roman freeborn citizen it was not important who their sexual partners were. These might have been male or female, including slaves or prostitutes of any gender and age, a wife or freeborn of any gender and age, even though, having sex with the latter would have created legal problems (stuprum). What really mattered to them, however, was that their integrity, as real men (vir), would not be harmed.

For having a stigma of softness or of not being a real man (male marem), to a Roman man meant losing all his privileges and stopped him from taking political office, or joining the army, his credibility would have been lost and he would have become an object of derision.

Roman men were known to be dominant in every aspect of their lives, however, in the beginning they were a sober hard working, practical nation of farmers, and there were no similarities between the early ancient nation of farmers and the later conquerors. Yet, it was exactly these roots of having being born as a nation of hard working, practical people that moulded the character of the great civilisation that was to come.

International Gothic

"These paintings are full of naturalistic detail. 

The miniature are remarkable for their 

mastery in rendering space strongly suggesting 

that one or more of the brothers had visited 

Italy, and they occupy an important place in 

the development of the northern traditions of 

landscape and genre painting." 

By the end of the 14th century, the fusion of Italian and Northern European art had led to the development of an International Gothic style. For the next quarter of a century, leading artists travelled from Italy to France, and vice versa, and all over Europe. As a consequence, ideas spread and merged, until eventually painters in this International Gothic style could be found in France, Italy, England, Germany, Austria and Bohemia. The International Gothic Style can be described by pointing out its absolute taste for beautiful flowing lines and for dainty motives, the immense desire of refined and elegance, the particular care given to small precise work and the extreme attention to the decorative details. Among the many characteristics that defines this style we can see an intense attention to the realistic and naturalistic contents that shows the artists’ acute observation of human beings and nature. However, because the lack of space the manuscripts and all the small works were over loaded with thin elaborated figures wearing highly fashionable clothes. Foreshortening could be seen on the individual and on the exotic animals. The use of precious materials, again gold, very rare minerals, plants or chemicals, in creating colours; the use of perspective and proportions, even though, in specific ways appealing to the artists’ taste. Human figures, landscapes and spaces in a realistic approach were accompanied by a peculiar quality of dreams, decorative dimension and deep emotional charges. Another very important method that defined this style was that the artist started actually to study the nature and used a sketchbook, and started to gather up groups of sketches of rare and beautiful plants and animals. Where before was sufficient to have just a general knowledge of all and then to adopted into different work of art.

The Limburg brothers book of hours, Les Trè Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, is considered by common consent one of the supreme masterpieces of manuscript illumination and the archetype of the International Gothic Style. The twelve-page illustration of the months is superb, for the first time a calendar was so lavishly treated. Full of exquisite ornamentation and the naturalistic details are amazingly observed, which strongly suggest their studies on this matter. To conceive this book the Limburg brothers have used a wide variety of colours obtained from minerals, plants or chemicals and mixed with either Arabic or tragacinth gum to provide a binder for the paint. Some of the minerals and materials used to produce these colours were extremely expensive, precious and rare like the Middle Eastern lapislazuli to paint brilliant blues or the green made with especial plants. Moreover all their work, which were executed with amazing fine details and surprising beauty, needed to be achieved with precise and specific brushes and almost certainly lenses.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel (b. ca. 1525, Breughel, d. 1569, Bruxelles) known as the Elder, has given an immense contribution to art.  He was an expert in depicting landscapes and scenes of peasant life. He stressed the absurd and vulgar, yet, his paintings are full of zest and fine details.  Bruegel, in his landscapes and town views, was able to show minute lively figures and was wonderful in rendering movement.  He was also able to depict, as Bosch’s the “ Ship of Fools” the human weaknesses and follies: in the Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) he uses a bird’s-eye perspective and his role players are the rustic people of every day, they aren’t covered with artificial and conventional gentlemen’s manors, on the contrary they are, indeed, the real peasants, butchers, farmers, the house women and the kids playing, who do not bother to pose elegantly, for they are not acting they are living!  Bruegel, utterly succeeded,  in representing them and the artists to come where deeply influenced by his style. Michelangelo once said: “They paint in Flanders only to deceive the external eye… their paint is of stuff, bricks and mortar, the grass of fields, the shadow of trees and bridges and rivers, which they call landscapes, and little figures here and there”. I disagree…

Grove, the dwelling of the gods...

Ovid writes: There was a grove below the Avantine dark with the shade of oaks and when you saw it you would say there is a deity there a numen. Similarly the Elder Pliny use to assert:  Trees were the temples of spirits and […] according to ancient rituals simple farming communities even now dedicate an outstanding tree to a god.  We worship groves and their very silence.

Religion?

Religion is an all-round movement in the light of faith in a Supreme Sovereign Creator and a sense of responsibility for the formation of thought and belief. This belief leads to the promotion of high principles of human morality for the very purpose of the establishment of good relations among members of the society and the elimination of every sort of undue discrimination.

The Great wall of China - The Wall’s unique communication system

Continued from: The Great Wall of China - The Farming Garrison

 All the architectural structures along the wall, which I have already mentioned, were of great tactical importance in the wall’s defence system. The section of the wall at Badaling for example, still well preserved was about 22-26 feet in height, 19-22 feet in breadth at the foundation and 10 feet on top, and permitted a pathway for the garrison troops, allowing five cavalryman or ten soldiers to gallop or walk abreast respectively[i]. All along the wall, watchtowers, wall towers and beacon towers had grown in multitudes creating an impressive sight, built at intervals of 300 yards in less dangerous areas and at 100 yards in a more hazardous one; their size varied from the geographically areas in which these towers were built, however, generally measuring 40 feet in height, 40 feet square at the base and 30 feet square at the top.  Similarly to the turrets of a Medieval European castle, in it 30 to 50 men were able to hold up position; stoked with enough provisions, they were able to withstand a four month siege. ‘At the height of the wall’s usefulness there were as many as 25,000 such towers […] as well as several thousand others that were free standing further north as outpost to warn of marauding bands’[ii].  Accuracy was of vital importance in communication matters, any misbehaviour was severely punished:

beacon towers, together with their guards, must be inspected regularly.  Stocks must be stored in quantity, and lookouts placed around the clock.  In case of emergency, raise smoke in the daytime, or light a fire by night, to pass on the alert.  See to it that no damage is done to the towers, so as to ensure prompt communication.  Those who convey the information quickly and help defeat the enemy will be rewarded. Violators shall be punished according to military law.[iii] 

The soldiers on guard at the beacon tower were obliged also to reconnoitre the terrain, safeguarding the terrain lands reclaimed by the garrison troops, checking and protecting the passing trade caravans, supporting troops during attacks.  From Ch’in’s period to the later Ming one, an accurate system of communication with specific guidelines was drawn up and significantly improved during the years.  While in the early centuries only beacon fires and drums were used to warn the approach of the enemies, later on flag signals were added:

 

The main signals used from Ch’in’s time and onward were: beacon fires, coloured torches, signals derricks, flags, smoke – wolf dung and sulphur as the preferred burnable material – and drums.

By the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.) messages could be conveyed more then 1000 km in 24 hours, compared with only a few hundred kilometres in the earlier days.  With Ming dynasty cannons were also introduced as a means of signalling:

Furthermore, the use of colour smoke or lantern was also added:

Enemy force less than 100: one yellow flag in daytime and one lantern at night.
Enemy force 100-500: one black flag in daytime and two lanterns at night.
Enemy force 500-1,000: a sheepskin hoisted in daytime and three lanterns at night.
Enemy force 5,000-10,000: a long white cloth strip in daytime and four lanterns at night.
Enemy attacking: artillery fire.
Enemy not withdrawing; repeat alarm every two hours[iv].

Secret and urgent messages were delivered by dispatching a courier, who would find fresh horses along his way and 400 km in a day was the record for delivery.  Each of these tower were guarded by a minimum of 3 soldiers, up to 29 soldiers, and each group had its beacon officer.

(To be finished...)

---

[i] Lou Zewen, The Great Wall, McGraw-Hill Book Company, England, 1981, p.145.

[ii] Jonathan Fryer,  The Great Wall of China, New English Library, London, 1975, p. 51.

[iii] Lou Zewen, The Great Wall, McGraw-Hill Book Company, England, 1981, p. 152.

[iv] Ibid

Does freedom of thought means freedom of speech?

IT is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never be hindered from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. The working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private thinking is of little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker himself, if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to others, and it is obviously of no value to his neighbours. Moreover it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have any power over the mind. If a man’s thinking leads him to call in question ideas and customs which regulate the behaviour of those about him, to reject beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of life than those they follow, it is almost impossible for him, if he is convinced of the truth of his own reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance words, or general attitude that he is different from them and does not share their opinions. Some have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer to-day, to face death rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of thought, in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech.

Mexico - Yucatan

Preciso subito che Cancun non ha niente a che spartire con lo Yucatan o con il Messico in generale. È semplicemente una riproduzione del "paradiso per turisti, preferibilmente yankee" sulla costa caraibica: alberghi, negozi, ristoranti, discoteche e di nuovo alberghi, negozi .... Venti chilometri di fine sabbia bianca bagnata da una stupenda laguna blu massificati in nome del turismo. Un progetto studiato a tavolino che con grande dispendio di mezzi ha, nel 1970, creato questa Miami di plastica per edonisti bushiani ... Se vi piace il genere, parapendio-pesca d'altura-beach volley-disco-tette al vento (e a chi non piace), siete a cavallo. L'unica traccia caratteristica sono i mercatini di artigianato, anche questi ad uso yankee.

Ma le spiagge bianche non sono esclusiva di Cancun. Tutta la costa è un susseguirsi di insenature e azzurri accecanti che si rincorrono. Playa del Carmen è meno gaudente del "vaso di oro" (il significato maya di Cancun) ma più piacevole (sullo stile hippy tranquillo) anche se preda di nuovi massicci investimenti nella zona denominata Playacar. Le isole: Isla Mujeres e Cozumel hanno splendide baie e fondali intaccati, paradisi per subacquei. Ma lo Yucatan non è soltanto spiagge, qui si trovano alcuni dei più bei reperti archeleogici pre-colombiani, come Tulum, una fortezza sui Caraibi, Chitchen Itza e Uxmal che resistono impassibili alle orde di turisti armati di macchina fotografica e cinepresa (andateci al mattino presto e forse rivivrete la magia della pietra). E poi Merida che amava definirsi la "Parigi del Messico", ricca città agli inizi del secolo grazie alla vendita dell'henequen, la fibra usata per la fabbricazione dei cordami. Godetevi la città comodamente seduti su di una calesa, la carrozzella trainata da cavalli, come i ricchi possidenti di una volta. Anche questo è Messico…