The Last Street

The last hidden street, Via S. Antonio, Sessa Aurunca

I learned early in my walks around Sessa of the town's trick of hidden streets. The old houses in the center, built one upon the other, jut irregularly into narrow, meandering streets, making it impossible to judge from any sort of distance what is the corner of an intersection and what is just the end of a façade. Narrow alleys, often stepped, intersect with streets at irregular intervals, looking like flights of stairs that lead to houses. I learned to suppress my shyness and walk confidently through spaces that seemed private, and sometimes the reward was a new street or alley I hadn't seen before.

Over a year ago, or maybe two years, I thought that I had found them all. The last one had been a particularly spectacular discovery (from the point of view of someone who likes to walk around old towns looking at crumbling buildings) but it was a bit disheartening, because I took it to mean that Sessa no longer had any surprises for me.

One evening this summer, while out for a walk for in the area of Piazza Mercato, we passed a small, short street that I had photographed unsuccessfully countless times.

"Have you gone up this street?" N asked.

"Oh yes, I can't tell you how many times I tried to photograph its diaphragm arches. I gave up perhaps a year ago."

"Then you know it lets out near our house."

"Cosa? (What?)"

At the end of the little street, at its very end, or rather at what seems like its very end, a narrow flight of steps turns ninety degrees, invisibly to anyone who is not standing directly before it, and leads to another level where the street opens up again. Then, at its end, its real end, it widens into a piazzetta, with a water fountain on one side, and a gated niche that holds a statue of St. Anthony of Padua on the other. At the far corner, a narrow flight of stairs leads to one of the wide streets that mark the edge of the newer part of the historic center, which is our neighborhood.

Niche with statue of Sant'Antonio da Padova

It was gratifying to feel that old sense of excitement at having seen something new and it made me laugh to think that after all my years of exploring the town, I had been unable to find its last hidden street, as close as it was to where I pass almost all my time, without the help of someone who knew Sessa better than I did.

A very clever trick, indeed.

Food drop-off log, July 2011

9 July:
400 grams of homemade tagliatelle, dried in wound circular forms, piled in a large white plastic bowl

July 12:
twelve tomatoes
sixteen overripe peaches
a watermelon weighing eleven kilograms

July 14:
two bottles of chickpeas cooked in broth with tomatoes and celery stalks

July 21:
bean soup in a white porcelain tureen with a broken handle, covered with an aluminum lid, in a white plastic shopping bag

July 27:
200 grams of homemade tagliatelle, dried hanging over the back of a chair, in a reused perforated bread bag
366 grams of beef fillets from the supermarket, shrink-wrapped on a white polystyrene tray, with the instruction to eat them immediately "lest they loose their blood"

July 29:
thirteen fried zucchini blossoms, on a reused polystyrene tray, green and brown decomposed organic material visible through the perforations in its surface
tomato-based meat sauce with various unidentifiable ingredients in the white porcelain tureen with a broken handle, covered with an aluminum lid, in a plastic SISA produce bag; nine meatballs with zucchini chunks, cooked without salt, four in the sauce in the tureen, the remaining five loosely and partially wrapped in a reused sheet of aluminum foil

Sant'Agata dei Goti

View of Sant'Agata dei Goti, in the province of Benevento

Sant'Angelo de Munculanis

Bar 'Perna'

Spoliate shaft with Neoclassical portal

Marching band

View toward Duomo tower

Belltower, Santa Maria del Carmine

'Piccolo Bar'

Pata at the fountain

Historicism

Roman relief of Mercury and scenes from the thirteenth-century St. Peter cycle
on the portico of the cathedral of Sessa Aurunca (click to enlarge)

The low-relief sculpture fragment of Mercury in an archaizing style dates to the reign of the emperor Hadrian (117-38 CE.) Its presence on the portico of Sessa's cathedral, together with an inscription reading "MERC"once visible in the interior, gave rise to a tradition that the cathedral was built over the ruins of a temple of Mercury. While excavations on the site have not produced evidence supporting this claim, it is likely that some spoliate material used in the construction of the cathedral came from a temple dedicated to Mercury.

Its placement beside the thirteenth-century sculptural cycle illustrating scenes from the life of St. Peter creates an interesting juxtaposition of two very different episodes of historicism. The sculptor of the Mercury panel carefully emulates the stiff figural poses and stylized drapery treatment of Archaic Greek art; at the time of its creation, older styles were favored by the Roman market. In the case of the Petrine sculptural cycle, the referent is Rome, though here there is another sort of relationship between the work and its visual influences. For the artisans who carved the cycle, Rome was a memory, distant, though refreshed through the continued presence of ruins and spolia, and viewed through a prism of centuries of iterations and interpretations.

Corbels

Upper portion of the façade, cathedral of Sessa Aurunca, twelfth century (click to enlarge)

The long restoration campaign at the cathedral is nearing completion and the scaffolding has finally been removed from the façade. I had been waiting for months to photograph some of the animal sculptures, and a couple of mornings ago, as I trained my camera on the ox at the upper left of the window, I was reminded that quite a few of the façade's decorative corbels are animal heads, among them, a pig, without question my favorite.

Figural corbels, façade, cathedral of Sessa Aurunca, the pig is second from the left
(not a great photo, click to enlarge)

A corbel, or console, is a projecting, usually load-bearing, architectural element, functioning much like a bracket. A series of corbels supporting an arcade is called an arched corbel table, a common motif in Romanesque architecture. These were often left unadorned, but sometimes their corbels were carved with decorative or figural ornaments, as at Sessa. The pig appears in the corbel table beneath the gable of the façade, which is the only one that retains all of its decorative corbels.

Food drop-off log, June 2011

1 June:
beef fillet folded in half, wrapped in plastic wrap, in a plastic shopping bag with the SISA logo
chickpea soup with tomatoes and celery greens, in a white porcelain tureen with a broken handle, covered with an aluminum lid, in a plastic Paone pasta bag

3 June:
four cucumbers from an unspecified garden and about two hundred grams of slightly under-ripe cherries, both in a plastic shopping bag with the SISA logo
artichokes, cooked almost to a pulp with a considerable amount of garlic, in a plastic container with a screw on lid

5 June:
fish soup in a bottle and two cucumbers, all in a plastic shopping bag with the SISA logo

10 June:
nine zucchini, half a kilogram of green beans, and six eggplants, all in a large pink plastic bag

17 June:
lasagne rolls, in a pale green casserole dish, loosely covered with a sheet of reused aluminum foil

18 June:
lentil soup, in the pot in which it was cooked

20 June:
two kilos of plums known for their laxative properties, in a plastic bag with the SISA logo

22 June:
three pizzette with provola and dried sausage, one with cherry tomatoes and garlic; two tramezzini filled with smoked salmon sticking to the stale white bread; two slices of a rustico made with provolone and and prosciutto crudo; seven small crescents of puff pastry dough filled with a variety of savory fillings, none identifiable; baked tagliatelle with tomato sauce, miniature meatballs and hard boiled eggs, in a pale green casserole dish; six bignè with oozing cream, on a single-use plastic dish, covered with a loose sheet of reused aluminum foil; all items delivered in a large circular aluminum pan, covered with a pastel plaid dish cloth

29 June:
white beans with tomato, celery greens, and garlic, in a bottle; fried peppers, in a reused jam jar;
additional fried peppers, in a removable tray within a plastic container with a screw on lid, and eggplant cooked in such a way to make it green, in the same container, but beneath the removable tray; all in a plastic shopping bag with the SISA logo

The pendulum swings

Last month we decided not to send Pata to preschool anymore we couldn't deal anymore with her getting sick every.single.week. I'm going out of my mind trying to entertain one very talkative and extroverted little girl, but there has been a huge upside:

Pata: Papà, voglio un popsicle (pronounced pahpsseekuhl; Papà, I want a popsicle.)

N: Che cosa? (What?)

Pata: Un qualche popsicle! (Just some popsicle!)

Me: He doesn't know what that is, you have to explain it to him.

Pata: It's a stick with...

Me: I know what it is, you have to tell him.

Pata: Eh...è... un...qualche...popsicle, papà. (Um...it's...just...some...popsicle, papà)

Montecassino

So-called "Cloister of Bramante", Abbey of Montecassino

I was a freshman in high school first time I ever heard of the abbey of Montecassino. As Sister Helen, the librarian, pointed out the features of the school's library on the first day of Library Science class, she mentioned that the fireplace was from an Italian abbey, destroyed in the second World War, and called Montecassino. (The school had once been the townhouse of an art collector.) I can't remember now how old she said it was, or even what it looked like except that it was elaborate and imposing. It shocks me that I have failed to remember any more of it, especially because I was interested in art history even before finishing high school.

Detail of the triumphal arch of the well, with landscape beyond

Years later, I did one of my Ph.D. exams on eleventh- and twelfth century architecture in Italy; Montecassino was one of the monuments central to my reading. In the time of the Abbot Desiderius (1058-87,) the abbey must have been spectacularly beautiful. Desiderius acquired vast quantities of spoliate marble (including columns and capitals) from Rome and had them shipped to the port of Suium, from where they were transported over land and up the steep rocky hill to the abbey. Of the works of the mosaicists that Desiderius hired from Constantinople, the chronicler Leo of Ostia tells us, "one would believe that the figures...were alive and that in the marbles of the pavements flowers of every color bloomed in wonderful variety."*

Atrium (this small person kept getting in my photos)

Of course, the Montecassino of Desiderius doesn't exist any more; it had ceased to exist long before the abbey's near destruction in February of 1944. Centuries of alterations and restorations canceled out the colorful, glimmering richness of its medieval appearance. What exists now is a handsome ensemble, staid for the most part, but a bit pompous in the decoration of the basilica. (I will refrain from posting any photos of that.)

Courtyard

The small courtyard that leads to the museum entrance has some spoliate columns and capitals on view. There are a couple of dark, gated chambers on the right hand side that have fragments from the Cosmatesque pavement.

View of the dome from the courtyard

As we moved from space to space, Pata repeatedly proclaimed "che bel posto! (what a beautiful place!)" I forgive her lack of discrimination because she is only three, and because I know that the abbey seems less beautiful to me mostly because I compare it to a mental image of a thing that no longer exists, a thing which I myself have never seen. In fact, her appreciation of the place made me happy: she has a childhood of looking at art and architecture ahead of her and I hope she won't spend it complaining about how she'd rather be doing something else. Her enthusiasm did wane at the entrance to the museum but that's fine, mine did too when I saw that admission was 7 Euro for adults. (I had also visited the museum on an earlier trip to the abbey.)

Having fun (and wearing her favorite blouse, which I made for her)

So we enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air and (relatively) wide open spaces instead. Everything in its own time.

*Leo of Ostia, Chronicle of Montecassino, reprinted in Caecilia Davis Weyer, Early Medieval Art 300-1150 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003) 138.

May flowers

No fruit yet at Campo di Pere, just wildflowers. These were the prettiest:

Girl Italian

Pata likes to hear a story every night before she goes to sleep. She has long tired of following along as I read, preferring instead to babble to her dolls or bears. Whenever I pause, she insists that she is listening. I ask her questions just to be sure.

"What is he looking at?" I ask, pointing to the Little Nutbrown Hare.

"The lune," she tells me.

"What? A loon is a bird. What is that?" I ask, indicating a white crescent.

"The lune," she tells me once again, giggling.

"That is the moon. It is not a loon."

"Moon," she says, smiling. "Moon," she says again, emphasizing the 'n' so much that it sounds as though it is followed by a vowel. Laughing, repeats herself: "Moon-uh," she says, as though it were a Neapolitan word.

***

In the parking lot of the municipio she wants to know why there is a pile of trash near where N has parked the car. "Ma chi ha messo tutta questa sporcizia qua?! (Who put all this filth here?)" she asks him.

"Dove? (Where?)"

"A terra! (On the ground!)" she exclaims, pointing to the pile.

"Dirty people," I tell her, "dirty people put it there."

"Where they are?" she asks, looking around.

"Where are they?" I correct her.

"I don't know, Mommy. I don't see them. I think they went to their home."

***

She pushes her armchair next to mine and snuggles up to me. "Mommy, I want one thing good because I love you."

"You've had enough today," I tell her.

"Mommy," she says, shaking her finger, "now I am angry to you because you won't give me a caramella!"

***

"Papà's mommy is nonna my," she tells me, as she draws a row of faces on a bit of scrap paper.

"Oh, really, and who are you?"

"I'm the baby your," she says smiling.

"Yes, you are my baby."

A couple of minutes later, I see her jabbing at the table with the pencil. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"No Mommy, I'm not ruining your cloth table," she assures me.

"My what?"

"This, Mommy," she says, poking at the tablecloth with the pencil, "I am not marking up your cloth table beautiful."

***

Preschool hasn't caused Pata's English to suffer as much as I feared it might, but it has made it clear that even though she is a native English speaker, it is not her first language.

Medieval Bestiary: Stork

Stork devouring a serpent, ca.1224-59, pulpit, cathedral of Sessa Aurunca

The stork is a gregarious bird. Having no call, it converses with the clatter of its beak. Led by a pair of crows, storks fly across the seas; they go to Asia, where they herald the spring. Returning each year to nest in the same place, they warm their broods with feathers they pull from their breasts. In their old age, they are fed by their children, who remember their parents' solicitous attention. They are the enemies of serpents, which they catch in their beaks, and eat.

***

The small figure of the Stork devouring a serpent adorns the corner of one of the six capitals of the pulpit in the cathedral of Sessa Aurunca. Its placement allows for a dynamic composition in which the stork, its wings splayed to conform to the concave shape of the capital, twists its head back to pull at the serpent it holds in its bill. Given its context on the pulpit, it is likely a symbol of triumph over sin.

Zainetto

Pata's new zainetto (backpack)

On Pata's first day of preschool I sent her off with a water bottle that never returned. Next I tried juice boxes. They did come back, empty, a good portion of their contents spilled onto the bottom of her backpack. After I tired of cleaning the mess, I decided to send her with nothing but a cup. She came home parched, begging to drink. Once I happened to give an English lesson while the children from another class had their snack. I saw that a few of them had bottles that had clearly been reused. The next day I wrote "non buttare, grazie (don't discard, thank you)" on a bit of masking tape and stuck it on a bottle I filled with water, and like magic, the bottle found its way back home.

But by then the backpack was already ruined, filled with crumbs and stained by juice and half-eaten fruit, and one of its pockets smeared with chocolate from half a pastry of unknown provenance. (As I came to learn, at the end of snack time the teachers direct the children to toss whatever they haven't finished directly into their backpacks.) That old backpack was store-bought, a gift from a teacher aunt excited about Pata's first year of preschool. It was typical of the backpacks the preschoolers here bring to school: brightly-colored, wheeled, and adorned with cartoon characters. It was not machine-washable. I knew that if we bought another, it too would soon be juice-stained and chocolate-smeared, a waste of money and a waste of a backpack. I also knew that a backpack made of sturdy cotton, without an irremovable cardboard insert, plastic frame or wheels, could be put in the wash whenever dirty, and once old, faded, and torn, could even be cut down into cleaning rags.

I made Pata's new zainetto using the toddler backpack pattern and tutorial from Indietutes, lengthening it a smidgen because Pata is a smidgen bigger than a toddler. I didn't have interfacing so I used a canvas-weight cotton and doubled up the fabric on the side panel to give the backpack more structure. I sewed the two layers of the side panel together with several rows of stitches help it keep its shape, and I did the same with the straps. You can see the stitching in the next two photos:

detail of the side panel

detail of the straps

I'm very excited about how well it turned out. I intend to make another for next year, altering the proportion of the pattern to make it longer and thinner, and perhaps adding a zippered pocket.