Sessa Saturday: Dragon Portal 2

Another portal with sculpted dragon decoration, this time near the seminary.

Corinthian capital and dragon, detail of a portal, Via Ugolino

Here, a grinning dragon appears rampant in the spandrel of an arched portal, flanked by an elegant Corinthian capital. The foliate treatment of the dragon's form, visible in the vine-like quality of his long, floppy crest and the two leaf-like shapes at the tip of his tail, harmonizes with the leafy decoration of the capital beside him. Note also the repetition of the spiraling forms of the capital's volutes and the coils of the dragon's lower body. The portal, and the palazzo it adorns, date to the Renaissance. (For the other dragon portal I've written about, see this post.)

An Improvement

Sometimes you open your door to find a hideous pink basket on the landing. Other times, it's a half-dried sausage. And every now and then you find something much better. Much, much better:

Basket of figs

Props to the aunt.

Stambergo Strillante

The Shrieking Shack (from Harry Potter) is called "La Stamberga Strillante" in Italian, and the first time I heard it, stamberga seemed to my anglophone mind a rather imposing word for what a shack is. I'd been repeating it in my head, the way I do with words whose sounds please me, until the episode recounted in this post tainted it by association.

A little over a week ago, we started getting phone calls from a man who mistakenly believed that our number was the number of one of his friends. I've noticed that callers of this type of wrong number (one that hasn't simply been misdialed) tend to be less willing to accept that they've made a mistake. I think their logic must go something like this: they've accurately dialed a number that someone has given them, someone has answered, so there's nothing wrong with the number, isn't it reasonable then to expect that they be permitted to speak with the person they're trying to reach?

In this case, the caller, a certain Dottor Stambergo, was convinced that I was the person he wanted to reach. Our first conversation:

KC: Pronto?
Stambergo: Pronto? Ehi, Ciao!
KC: Buon giorno. Con chi parlo? (Who am I speaking to?)
Stambergo: Ehi! Who are you speaking to!?
KC: I don't know you.
Stambergo: You don't know me!?
KC: I think you have the wrong number.
Stambergo: Excuse me, Signora. Click.

Later that day, I noticed that there had been several calls from the same number within a two hour period. Not recognizing the number, and thinking it could have been one of N's clients, I called to find out who it was. A woman with a Ukrainian accent responded.

Woman: Pronto?
KC: Good evening, I found this number, which I don't recognize, on my phone. I'd like to know who wanted to contact us. There were several calls and I think it might be important.
Woman: I don't know, Signora. It must have been Dottor Stambergo.
KC: Dottor Stambergo?
Woman: Yes.
KC: Do you know why he called?
Woman: No, Signora.
KC: Oh. Well, thank you. Good evening.
Woman: Good evening.

Over the next few days, we had more calls from Dott. Stambergo. Every time, I politely explained that while our number was in fact the one he had dialed, I was not his friend, and I suggested that either she had given him the wrong number, or he had misremembered it. During one of these calls, we had an exchange that I consider the most absurd of them all:

Stambergo: Well, who is this?
KC: I've told you before, Signora C., this is the C. residence.
Stambergo: Oh, come on! Always with this Signora C., Famiglia C.!

I suppose that the consistency of my responses counted for nothing.

For a few days I didn't answer when he called, but he persisted anyway. Yesterday morning, when he called yet again, I picked up the receiver and hung it up, hoping to prompt his memory. It didn't work, and a few minutes later, he called again. I wondered how to prove to him that I wasn't his friend coyly pretending to be someone else, and I thought that speaking English might be a trick she wouldn't be able to repeat. I answered politely, tried to explain to him again that he had the wrong number, that he could call it until the end of time and that he would never find his friend here, and that he needed to stop. He protested. So I told him the same thing in English, then repeated it once again in Italian, at the end asking if he'd finally understood.

"No I don't understand you!" he yelled, and turning away from the receiver, he addressed someone else, saying, "you talk to her, I don't understand her, she's a foreigner."

In all our previous conversations, I'd spoken Italian well enough that he mistook me for his (Italian) friend, and despite my repeated protestations to the contrary, he persisted in that conviction. Now that he knew that I was a foreigner, my formerly acceptable Italian had become unintelligible. This is one of my biggest pet peeves, (as absurd it seems, it has happened to me more than once) and I wish I had a name for it, something like immigrant-induced comprehension dissonance. I find it disturbing because it demonstrates the extent to which our reality is conditioned by our prejudices.

(It calls to mind a couple of related pet peeves, the first being accent-induced comprehension dissonance, which sometimes occurs whenever I betray my origins with a badly accented word. It causes the listener to become mute. The second is the more annoying accent-prompted language assistance that I receive from helpful people who feel that they must finish my sentences for me. They never actually guess what I'm about to say, and protest my every attempt to correct them with a polite, "no, no, I understand, I understand.")

But back to the phone call:

Woman: Pronto? Signora? I don't understand about this "foreigner?"
KC: I'm a foreigner too. This man has been calling my house, and I don't know who he is. I've explained to him that he has the wrong number but he continues to call. I have a baby and it's not easy for me to run to the phone whenever it rings, especially if it's a wrong number.
Woman: Oh, I understand, excuse me.
KC: No, it's not your fault. HE is fixated on this number and won't stop calling. It's not you.
Woman: Okay, Signora, excuse me.

(That would be the immigration-induced exaggerated politeness of foreigners who are often reminded that they are outsiders; I recognize it because I have it too.)

KC: Okay, Signora, good day.
Woman: Grazie, ciao.

I haven't heard from Stambergo since. I think that our last conversation finally convinced him that rather than being the friend he is looking for, I am just (an)other.

Sessa Saturday: Madonna

Niche with fresco of the Madonna, centro storico

This is my favorite of the many public devotional images of the Madonna scattered throughout Sessa Aurunca. It's more visible than most of the others because it hasn't been closed behind a protective glass or metal grate, but its unprotected state has left it exposed to the sun and rain, which have faded it and reduced it to little more than a trace. Its fragmentary state reminds me of a bit of oratory, important to my dissertation, in which the author explains that we commemorate the lives of those who came before us so that our memory of them “which has begun like a beautiful painting to fade with the passing of time, might be renewed as if with new colors."* In my dissertation, those words were significant as an example of the rhetorical device of comparison; here instead they are a reminder of the fragility of the images we create.

*"pictura egregia sed vetustate evanescens: novis quasi coloribus anima laudatione renovaret," in Tommaso Inghirami, T. Phaedri Inghiramii Voterrani Panaegyricus in memoriam diui Thomae Aquinatis seuatui apostolico ad Minervae dictus, Rome: Euch. Silber, c. 1495, fol 2r.

Medieval Bestiary: Eagle

Eagle clutching personification of sin or paganism, ca. 1224-59, pulpit,
cathedral of Sessa Aurunca

The eagle is a bird with eyes so strong that it can gaze directly into the sun. While flying high above the clouds, the eagle can discern a fish swimming in the sea, and swooping down upon its prey, seizes it in its talons and pulls it to the shore. When an eagle grows old, with dimmed eyes and heavy wings, it finds a spring of purest water, and soars above it, flying toward the sun, which it fixes in its gaze. In this way it rises until the light of the sun burns its eyes and feathers. Then it plunges itself three times into the water and bathes until it is healed and newly young.

***

The motif of an eagle clutching a human figure entwined in a serpent's tale is a frequent one in Campanian pulpits, and likely represents the triumph of the Gospels over sin. The eagle is traditionally associated with St. John the Evangelist, while the figure trapped in the serpent's coils is a borrowing from classical art, which, within its new Christian context, becomes a symbol of paganism, and hence, sin. This is a particularly opportune blend of Christian and classical iconographies, due to the preexisting symbolism of the serpent in Christian art, and due to the appearance of the motif on a pulpit, the place from which the gospels are preached.

Honest Scrap

Laura at Ciao Amalfi! has bestowed the Honest Scrap Award upon the Shock of the Old! The conditions of accepting the award are posting a list of ten honest things about myself, and passing the award on to "a fellow blogger whose blog’s content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

So here's my list of honest things:

I've known very few people more introverted than I am.

I prefer architecture to painting but didn't specialize in it because I worried that the addition of a third dimension introduced a new level of meaning I wasn't ready to confront.

I tend to overthink things, (obviously.)

I once gave up chocolate on the advice of a doctor; I lasted eleven months without it. I dreamed of it every night and carried a piece with me everywhere, so that in the event of a fatal accident, I could eat some before dying.

I love gardens and used to know the names of a wide variety of plants and trees, but I've since forgotten most of them.

Sometimes I wake up in the night and can't fall back asleep because I need to hold Pata but I don't want to wake her.

I would probably eat gelato every day if there were a good gelateria in town.

I miss quiet snowy mornings.

Sometimes I go looking for a book that I didn't bring to Italy with me, forgetting that I sold it or donated it. Then, when I can't find it, and I remember that it's gone, I feel its absence in my heart, like part of my soul has died.

I pretend not to understand much of what the aunt says just to annoy her.

And now, a few brilliant blogs:

Postcards from Istanbul
Flavors of Abruzzo
Care and Feeding of Wild Things
Under the Neapolitan Son (I'm not sure if Rompipalle is back to blogging permanently, but her current series on Naples is brilliant on its own.)

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to Laura for sharing the award!

Sessa Saturday: Door Panels

A couple of mornings ago Pata and I went out to buy some elastic for peasant blouses, but finding the fabric shop closed, we explored some of the small side streets off the Corso instead. Near the old seminary, which has a façade interesting enough to warrant its own post, we came upon a pair of very large and very old wooden doors. All but two of the panels have the same cartouche decoration, visible in this photograph:


The other two are carved with inscriptions, one of which is a date:


That's 1622 for those of you who are Roman-numeral-challenged, or just too lazy to work it out. I wondered whether the doors could really be that old because they aren't in a protected position. But then I remembered the doors of the fifth-century basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome, (perhaps the most beautiful church of that city,) and the nearly twenty original panels that have survived all these centuries. Among them is one of the earliest visual representations of the Crucifixion, notable for its omission of the cross. That was one of my favorite works to teach, and I think I may have to write a post about it, someday. All of which is a long way of saying, yes, I suppose that the very big doors near the old seminary in Sessa Aurunca really could be as old as they purport to be.

Recent sewing projects

Peasant blouse

Peasant blouse with matching shorts

Peasant blouse, skirt and matching underwear, shorts

Justice, (or pettiness?)

I left out an episode from the intercom saga because it was already too long, but something happened last Sunday that, while an amusing anecdote on its own, becomes much funnier (and more satisfying) if you know the earlier story.

One hot day last August, I left Pata with my mother-in-law, who was staying with us, while I went to the supermarket. Pata was sick, and Mother-in-law asked me to leave my keys with her in case they needed to go out while I was gone. I couldn't imagine any reason they'd need to leave the house in the short time I'd be at the supermarket but my mother-in-law is a very nervous sort of person, and I didn't want to cause her any additional anxiety. So I left my keys with her.

That month, BIL and his family were staying upstairs in their weekend/vacation/party house. Now Mother-in-law has the habit of moving often between the two houses when she stays with us, a habit I failed to take into consideration when deciding to leave my keys with her. You know where this is going, right? Did I mention in the earlier post that BIL never answers his cellphone? It took a good twenty minutes of screaming up to his balcony to get someone to hear me over the blaring television, all the while the sun beating down on the meat, eggs, milk, and other perishables I'd just bought. BIL found the whole thing hilarious.

He and his family were here with some friends last weekend. We didn't see much of them because they went to the beach while we had errands to run. Sunday evening, BIL stopped by on his way out to buy gelato. He invited us upstairs and told us he'd be back in fifteen minutes. I finished cleaning up in the kitchen (we had just finished eating dinner) and once I was done, I suggested to N that instead of waiting for BIL, we go directly upstairs so that Pata would have more time to play with her cousins.

After about half an hour up there with no sign of BIL, I began to think that he was having a very hard time finding gelato. Ten minutes later, his wife happened to hear him screaming up at the kitchen window to open the door for him. By then it was raining. Apparently he didn't have his keys. I couldn't keep from laughing, and I didn't care at all that BIL's friends glared at me in obvious (and exaggerated) disapproval. I have every right to laugh," I told them, "because the same thing happened to me." I doubt very much that BIL learned a lesson, or that if he did, it'll stick, but it was quite satisfying to even the score, even if I did it unintentionally.

Sessa Saturday: Cherries

Cherries at Campo di Pere

This week, I thought I'd do something different for Sessa Saturday because I've spent the last several days eating, baking and preserving cherries, all of which were picked at Campo di Pere.

Sessa Aurunca from Campo di Pere, March 2009 (click on photo to enlarge)

I think Sessa is typical of Italian country towns (more knowledgeable readers may correct me if I'm wrong) in that the agricultural holdings in the outlying areas are owned and tended by townsfolk. What I mean to say is that if you pass through agricultural land around here, you won't see many farmhouses, because the people who own the farmland tend to live within the walls of the town. Such is the case with Campo di Pere, which is several kilometers from our house, on the road that leads to Roccamonfina.

Cherries are the year's first fruit at Campo di Pere. This year we picked less than we have in the past because, owing to our rather laissez-faire treatment of the land, the grass and weeds were taller than knee-high and no place for a toddler to be cavorting because of all the burs. We left when I could no longer distract Pata away from them. Nonetheless, we managed to pick several kilos, N and I taking turns picking the cherries and distracting the toddler.

Cleaning up after eating "cheddy"

Medieval Bestiary: Dragon

Dragon, ca.1224-59, from a capital, pulpit, cathedral of Sessa Aurunca

Dragons are the greatest of all serpents. They hide along paths where elephants walk, waiting for them to pass. When the elephants appear, they throw themselves upon them and crush them with with their long tails. Thus it is said of dragons that they kill by beating, not by biting. Indeed, they have neither venom nor need of it. When a dragon emerges from his lair and takes flight, he disturbs the air around him, making it luminescent. There is a stone called draconites that must be removed from the brain of a living dragon, otherwise it will not be a precious gem. Wizards steal into dragons' lairs and scatter enchanted grains to hasten the serpents' sleep. Once they are deep in slumber, the wizards cut off the dragons' heads and remove the stones.

***

This diminutive dragon doesn't have the sort of tail that could crush an elephant, but he does have a mouth full of saw-like teeth, which he uses to bite one of his wings. He is one of several beasts, including the owl and the wolf, who decorate the thirteenth-century pulpit in Sessa's cathedral.

The Shock of the Old is the intellectual outlet of a housewife with a Ph.D. I didn't begin it that way; if you read some of my earliest posts, you'll notice that I started with a different mindset. But after a couple of years of living unemployed in a small southern Italian town, and a year into being a stay-at-home mom, I began to notice a vague, unpleasant sensation in my head. It wasn't until I woke one morning with the realization that I would always be an art historian even if I never taught again, that I understood that the unpleasant feeling was my intellect dying. And immediately I knew why: I'd been keeping myself from doing one of the things that I love best in the world, writing about art, for too long and for no good reason.

I then decided that, in the absence of a research library and vast stretches of uninterrupted time to devote to a significant project, this blog could be a worthwhile temporary substitute for the intellectual life I left behind when I moved to Italy. And I began to post more often about art and architecture. If you find that personal posts interspersed with art historical ones make for a strange or artificial admixture, keep in mind that to me the combination of the two is completely natural. My intellectual development as an art historian has so conditioned how I experience the world that it would be artificial for me not to write about art when writing about my life. In fact, it is only now that I feel that this blog is truly indicative of who I am. The Shock of the Old remains an expat's chronicle of a small corner of the world, but that corner is now seen squarely through the eyes of an art historian.