The idea of fate fascinates me: that a thousand tiny decisions–even things that happen before you were born–conspire to lead you down one path in life instead of another. I started this story by describing the unexplainable pull I have always felt toward Italy, without which it’s virtually impossible that I would have met my maritino. Perhaps it’s more of a stretch to think that finding my great-great-grandmother’s wedding ring somehow had an influence on my destiny, but that is how it seems to me.
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This past Tuesday night, our little parish in Trastevere, Santa Dorotea, staged a pretty impressive living Nativity Scene. I was expecting a couple of kids dressed as shepherds or angels draped with sheets à la The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I was completely unprepared for a massive production that included over 50 children and dozens of adults, two choirs, a violinist, a spotlight, and numerous live animals.
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As a baby, he was noticed to be cross-eyed, and so Giovanni Francesco Barbieri became know as il Guercino, "the squinter", a nickname that stuck until his death. Luckily, this supposed cross-eyedness did not affect his painting skills. Born in 1591 in Cento, a small town in Emilia-Romagna, Guercino's talent was recognized early, and he was sent to study in Bologna, before migrating to Rome, the center of the art world and the heart of the Baroque explosion.
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A few days ago, in part 1, I gave you the back story on how the unscrupulous art-addict Scipione Borghese was able to amass his immense collection in such a short time. Well, about 200 years after all this art extortion occurred, the still prosperous Borghese family was forced to pay back some of their karmic debt.
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Do any of you out there like solving rebuses? You know what I'm talking about, right, those pictogram puzzles? I'm the only one? Okay...I know Sudoku is all the rage, but since I am generally interested in what was popular in the last decade, if not the last century, I must admit to my preference for this particular type of brain-teaser.
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Visiting the extraordinary new exhibit at the Galleria Borghese, which opens in Rome today, I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of situation. Sixty works of art, mostly antiquities, once part of the Borghese collection, have been temporarily returned from their current location at the Louvre in Paris back to their original home at the Boghese Gallery. But how did they get to Paris?
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Knowing the Roman habit for eating any and every part of the animal (someday I'll explain what pajata is) and their lack of qualms about consuming equines (yes, they eat horse here, there is even babyfood made of horse!), I wouldn't have been surprised if the label was literal, although they do seem a little big. Luckily I read fine print: puro suino, pure swine. Ah, that makes it much better, doesn't it?
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This one was overheard at work last week: Sfingica. I love this word; I love how it feels to say it. (I take particular delight in saying s+consonant words in Italian, but this one has an especially nice ring to it.)It means "like a sphinx, or pertaining to a sphinx" (la sfinge). In particular, it is used to describe someone with no facial expression, who shows no emotion or personality. Impassive, vapid, dull.
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A new exhibit opened this Wednesday, not at the Scuderie del Quirinale (where the Filippino Lippi exhibit is still in full swing) but at the actual Palazzo Quirinale itself. This palace is the residence of the President of the Republic, and is generally open only once a week, on Sunday mornings at a cost of 5 euros. As you can imagine, it can be stiflingly crowded.
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Let me state for the record that I do not use double exclamation points lightly. Only for occasions of exceptional importance, and this is one of them.On my way to the post office yesterday morning in my wonderful little neighborhood, I ran smack dab into this:
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