VENICE BIENNALE / VENEZIA BIENNIAL 2013 : BIENNALIST

www.emergencyrooms.org/biennalist.html

 

Biennalist is an Art Format by Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel debating with artistic tools on Biennales and other cultural managed events . Often those events promote them selves with thematics and press releases faking their aim . Biennalist take the thematics of the Biennales very seriously , and test their pertinance . Artists have questioned for decade the canvas , the pigment , the museum ... since 1989 we question the Biennales .Often Biennalist converge with Emergency Room providing a burning content that cannot wait ( today before it is too late )

please contact before using the images : Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel 1@colonel.dk

www.colonel.dk

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In 2013 Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel is represented at the Malives pavilion at the Venice Biennale and then went further and received hospitality at the Zimbabwe pavilion with the Emergency Room Mobile

www.emergencyrooms.org/biennalist.html

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lists of artists participating at the Venice Biennale :

Hilma af Klint, Victor Alimpiev, Ellen Altfest, Paweł Althamer, Levi Fisher Ames, Yuri Ancarani, Carl Andre, Uri Aran, Yüksel Arslan, Ed Atkins, Marino Auriti, Enrico Baj, Mirosław Bałka, Phyllida Barlow, Morton Bartlett, Gianfranco Baruchello, Hans Bellmer, Neïl Beloufa, Graphic Works of Southeast Asia and Melanesia, Hugo A. Bernatzik Collection, Ștefan Bertalan, Rossella Biscotti, Arthur Bispo do Rosário, John Bock, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Geta Brătescu, KP Brehmer, James Lee Byars, Roger Caillois, Varda Caivano, Vlassis Caniaris, James Castle, Alice Channer, George Condo, Aleister Crowley & Frieda Harris, Robert Crumb, Roberto Cuoghi, Enrico David, Tacita Dean, John De Andrea, Thierry De Cordier, Jos De Gruyter e Harald Thys, Walter De Maria, Simon Denny, Trisha Donnelly, Jimmie Durham, Harun Farocki, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Linda Fregni Nagler, Peter Fritz, Aurélien Froment, Phyllis Galembo, Norbert Ghisoland, Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, Domenico Gnoli, Robert Gober, Tamar Guimarães and Kasper Akhøj, Guo Fengyi, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Wade Guyton, Haitian Vodou Flags, Duane Hanson, Sharon Hayes, Camille Henrot, Daniel Hesidence, Roger Hiorns, Channa Horwitz, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, René Iché, Hans Josephsoh, Kan Xuan, Bouchra Khalili, Ragnar Kjartansson, Eva Kotátková, Evgenij Kozlov, Emma Kunz, Maria Lassnig, Mark Leckey, Augustin Lesage, Lin Xue, Herbert List, José Antonio Suárez Londoño, Sarah Lucas, Helen Marten, Paul McCarthy, Steve McQueen, Prabhavathi Meppayil, Marisa Merz, Pierre Molinier, Matthew Monahan, Laurent Montaron, Melvin Moti, Matt Mullican, Ron Nagle, Bruce Nauman, Albert Oehlen, Shinro Ohtake, J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Henrik Olesen, John Outterbridg, Paño Drawings, Marco Paolini, Diego Perrone, Walter Pichler, Otto Piene, Eliot Porter, Imran Qureshi, Carol Rama, Charles Ray, James Richards, Achilles G. Rizzoli, Pamela Rosenkranz, Dieter Roth, Viviane Sassen, Shinichi Sawada, Hans Schärer, Karl Schenker, Michael Schmidt, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, Tino Sehgal, Richard Serra, Shaker Gift Drawings, Jim Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons e Allan McCollum, Drossos P. Skyllas, Harry Smith, Xul Solar, Christiana Soulou, Eduard Spelterini, Rudolf Steiner, Hito Steyerl, Papa Ibra Tall, Dorothea Tanning, Anonymous Tantric Paintings, Ryan Trecartin, Rosemarie Trockel, Andra Ursuta, Patrick Van Caeckenbergh, Stan VanDerBeek, Erik van Lieshout, Danh Vo, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Günter Weseler, Jack Whitten, Cathy Wilkes, Christopher Williams, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kohei YoshiyUKi, Sergey Zarva, Anna Zemánková, Jakub Julian Ziółkowski ,Artur Żmijewski.

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other pavilions at Venice Biennale

 

Andorra Artists: Javier Balmaseda, Samantha Bosque, Fiona Morrison

Commissioner: Henry Périer Deputy Commissioners: Francesc Rodríguez, Ermengol Puig, Ruth Casabella

Curators: Josep M. Ubach, Paolo De GrandisAngola Artist: Edson Chagas Commissioner: Ministry of Culture

Curators: Beyond Entropy (Paula Nascimento, Stefano Rabolli Pansera), Jorge Gumbe, Feliciano dos Santos

Argentina Artist: Nicola Costantino Commissioner: Magdalena Faillace Curator: Fernando Farina

Armenia Artist: Ararat SarkissianCurator: Arman Grogoryan /AustraliaArtist: Simryn Gill Commissioner: Simon Mordant Deputy Commissioner: Penelope Seidler Curator: Catherine de Zegher /AustriaArtist: Mathias Poledna ,Curator: Jasper Sharp /AzerbaijanArtists: Rashad Alakbarov, Sanan Aleskerov, Chingiz Babayev, Butunay Hagverdiyev, Fakhriyya Mammadova, Farid Rasulov /Commissioner: Heydar Aliyev FoundationCurator: Hervé Mikaeloff

Bahamas Artist: Tavares Strachan Commissioner: Nalini Bethel, Ministry of Tourism Curators: Jean Crutchfield, Robert HobbsDeputy Curator: Stamatina Gregory/BangladeshChhakka Artists’ Group: Mokhlesur Rahman, Mahbub Zamal, A. K. M. Zahidul Mustafa, Ashok Karmaker, Lala Rukh Selim, Uttam Kumar Karmaker. Dhali Al Mamoon, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Gavin Rain, Gianfranco Meggiato, Charupit School/Commissioner/Curator: Francesco Elisei. , Curator: Fabio Anselmi./BahrainArtists: Mariam Haji, Waheeda Malullah, Camille Zakharia /Commissioner: Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, Minister of Culture /Curator: Melissa Enders-Bhatiaa/BelgiumArtist: Berlinde De Bruyckere

Commissioner: Joke Schauvliege, Flemish Minister for Environment, Nature and Culture .Curator: J. M. Coetzee ,Deputy Curator: Philippe Van Cauteren /Bosnia and Herzegovina

Artist: Mladen Miljanovic .Commissioners: Sarita Vujković, Irfan Hošić

Brazil Artists: Hélio Fervenza, Odires Mlászho, Lygia Clark, Max Bill, Bruno Munari

Commissioner: Luis Terepins, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo,Curator: Luis Pérez-Oramas ,Deputy Curator: André Severo

CanadaArtist: Shary Boyle /Commissioner: National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada ,Curator: Josée Drouin-Brisebois/Central AsiaArtists: Vyacheslav Akhunov, Sergey Chutkov, Saodat Ismailova, Kamilla Kurmanbekova, Ikuru Kuwajima, Anton Rodin, Aza Shade, Erlan Tuyakov

Commissioner: HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation)

Deputy Commissioner: Dean Vanessa Ohlraun (Oslo National Academy of the Arts/The Academy of Fine Art)

Curators: Ayatgali Tuleubek, Tiago Bom

Scientific Committee: Susanne M. Winterling

ChileArtist: Alfredo JaarCommissioner: CNCA, National Council of Culture and the Arts Curator: Madeleine Grynsztejn

ChinaArtists: He Yunchang, Hu Yaolin, Miao Xiaochun, Shu Yong, Tong Hongsheng, Wang Qingsong, Zhang Xiaotao

Commissioner: China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG) ,Curator: Wang Chunchen

Costa Rica Artists: Priscilla Monge, Esteban Piedra, Rafael Ottón Solís, Cinthya Soto

Commissioner: Francesco EliseiCurator: Francisco Córdoba, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo (Fiorella Resenterra)

Croatia Artist: Kata Mijatovic ,Commissioner/Curator: Branko Franceschi.

CubaArtists: Liudmila and Nelson, Maria Magdalena Campos & Neil Leonard, Sandra Ramos, Glenda León, Lázaro Saavedra, Tonel, Hermann Nitsch, Gilberto Zorio, Wang Du, H.H.Lim, Pedro Costa, Rui Chafes, Francesca Leone ,Commissioner: Miria ViciniCurators: Jorge Fernández Torres, Giacomo Zaza

CyprusArtists: Lia Haraki, Maria Hassabi, Phanos Kyriacou, Constantinos Taliotis, Natalie Yiaxi, Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Jason Dodge, Gabriel Lester, Dexter Sinister /Louli Michaelidou

Deputy Commissioners: Angela Skordi, Marika Ioannou/Curator: Raimundas Malašauskas

Czech Republic & Slovak RepublicArtists: Petra Feriancova, Zbynek Baladran ,Commissioner: Monika Palcova, Curator: Marek Pokorny /DenmarkArtist: Jesper Just in collaboration with Project ProjectsEgypt

Artists: Mohamed Banawy, Khaled Zaki

EstoniaArtist: Dénes Farkas ,Commissioner: Maria Arusoo ,Curator: Adam Budak

FinlandArtist: Antti Laitinen , Commissioner: Raija Koli , Curators: Marko Karo, Mika Elo, Harri Laakso

FranceArtist: Anri Sala ,Curator: Christine Macel

GeorgiaArtists: Bouillon Group,Thea Djordjadze, Nikoloz Lutidze, Gela Patashuri with Ei Arakawa and Sergei Tcherepnin, Gio Sumbadze/Commissioner: Marine Mizandari, First Deputy Minister of Culture Curator: Joanna Warsza

GermanyArtists: Ai Weiwei, Romuald Karmakar, Santu Mofokeng, Dayanita Singh Commissioner/Curator: Susanne Gaensheimer /Great BritainArtist: Jeremy Deller ,Commissioner: Andrea Rose , Curator: Emma Gifford-Mead

Holy SeeArtists: Lawrence Carroll, Josef Koudelka, Studio Azzurro ,Curator: Antonio Paolucci

Hungary , Artist: Zsolt Asztalos , Curator: Gabriella Uhl

Iceland , Artist: Katrín Sigurðardóttir ,Commissioner: Dorotheé Kirch

Curators: Mary Ceruti , Ilaria Bonacossa/IndonesiaArtists: Albert Yonathan Setyawan, Eko Nugroho, Entang Wiharso, Rahayu Supanggah, Sri Astari, Titarubi

Deputy Commissioner: Achille Bonito Oliva , Assistant Commissioner: Mirah M. Sjarif

Curators: Carla Bianpoen, Rifky Effendy

IraqArtists: Abdul Raheem Yassir, Akeel Khreef, Ali Samiaa, Bassim Al-Shaker, Cheeman Ismaeel, Furat al Jamil, Hareth Alhomaam, Jamal Penjweny, Kadhim Nwir, WAMI (Yaseen Wami, Hashim Taeeh)

Commissioner: Tamara Chalabi (Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Culture)Curator: Jonathan Watkins.

IrelandArtist: Richard MosseCommissioner, Curator: Anna O’Sullivan

Israel , Artist: Gilad Ratman , Commissioners: Arad Turgeman, Michael GovCurator: Sergio Edelstein

ItalyArtists: Francesco Arena, Massimo Bartolini, Gianfranco Baruchello, Elisabetta Benassi, Flavio Favelli, Luigi Ghirri, Piero Golia, Francesca Grilli, Marcello Maloberti, Fabio Mauri, Giulio Paolini, Marco Tirelli, Luca Vitone, Sislej Xhafa ,Commissioner: Maddalena Ragni

Curator: Bartolomeo Pietromarchi /Ivory Coast Artists: Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Tamsir Dia, Jems Koko Bi, Franck Fanny

Commissioner: Paolo De Grandis , Curator: Yacouba Konaté

Japan ,Artist: Koki Tanaka ,Curator: Mika Kuraya

KenyaArtists: Kivuthi Mbuno, Armando Tanzini, Chrispus Wangombe Wachira, Fan Bo, Luo Ling & Liu Ke, Lu Peng, Li Wei, He Weiming, Chen Wenling, Feng Zhengjie, César MeneghettiCommissioner: Paola Poponi ,Curators: Sandro Orlandi, Paola Poponi /Korea (Republic of)Artist: Kimsooja

KosovoArtist: Petrit Halilaj ,Commissioner: Erzen Shkololli ,Curator: Kathrin Rhomberg

KuwaitArtists: Sami Mohammad, Tarek Al-Ghoussein

Commissioner: Mohammed Al-Asoussi ,Curator: Ala Younis /Latin AmericaIstituto Italo-Latino Americano

Artists:Marcos Agudelo, Miguel Alvear & Patricio Andrade, Susana Arwas, François Bucher, Fredi Casco, Colectivo Quintapata (Pascal Meccariello, Raquel Paiewonsky, Jorge Pineda, Belkis Ramírez), Humberto Díaz, Sonia Falcone, León & Cociña, Lucía Madriz, Jhafis Quintero, Martín Sastre, Guillermo Srodek-Hart, Juliana Stein, Simón Vega, Luca Vitone, David Zink Yi. /Harun Farocki & Antje Ehmann. In collaboration with: Cristián Silva-Avária, Anna Azevedo, Paola Barreto, Fred Benevides, Anna Bentes, Hermano Callou, Renata Catharino, Patrick Sonni Cavalier, Lucas Ferraço Nassif, Luiz Garcia, André Herique, Bruna Mastrogiovanni, Cezar Migliorin, Felipe Ribeiro, Roberto Robalinho, Bruno Vianna, Beny Wagner, Christian Jankowski ,Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal ,Curator: Alfons Hug

Deputy Curator: Paz Guevara /Latvia Artists: Kaspars Podnieks, Krišs Salmanis ,Commissioners: Zane Culkstena, Zane Onckule ,Curators: Anne Barlow, Courtenay Finn, Alise Tifentale

LithuaniaArtist: Gintaras Didžiapetris, Elena Narbutaite, Liudvikas Buklys, Kazys Varnelis, Vytaute Žilinskaite, Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Jason Dodge, Gabriel Lester, Dexter SinisterCommissioners: Jonas Žokaitis, Aurime Aleksandraviciute Curator: Raimundas Malašauskas /LuxembourgArtist: Catherine LorentCommissioner: Clément Minighetti Curator: Anna Loporcaro /MexicoArtist: Ariel Guzik ,Commissioner: Gastón Ramírez Feltrín ,Curator: Itala Schmelz

Montenegro ,Artist: Irena Lagator Pejovic .Commissioner/Curator: Nataša Nikcevic

The Netherlands ,Artist: Mark Manders

Commissioner: Mondriaan Fund ,Curator: Lorenzo Benedetti

New Zealand Artist: Bill Culbert ,Commissioner: Jenny Harper ,Deputy Commissioner: Heather Galbraith ,Curator: Justin Paton /Finland: ,Artist: Terike Haapoja ,Commissioner: Raija Koli ,Curators: Marko Karo, Mika Elo, Harri Laakso

Norway:Artists: Edvard Munch, Lene Berg

Curators: Marta Kuzma, Pablo Lafuente, Angela Vettese

Paraguay Artists: Pedro Barrail, Felix Toranzos, Diana Rossi, Daniel Milessi ,Commissioner: Elisa Victoria Aquino Laterza

Deputy Commissioner: Nori Vaccari Starck , Curator: Osvaldo González Real

Poland Artist: Konrad Smolenski Commissioner: Hanna Wróblewska Curators: Agnieszka Pindera, Daniel Muzyczuk

Portugal Artist: Joana Vasconcelos Curator: Miguel Amado

RomaniaArtists: Maria Alexandra Pirici, Manuel Pelmus Commissioner: Monica Morariu Deputy Commissioner: Alexandru Damia Curator: Raluca VoineaArtists: Anca Mihulet, Apparatus 22 (Dragos Olea, Maria Farcas,Erika Olea), Irina Botea, Nicu Ilfoveanu, Karolina Bregula, Adi Matei, Olivia Mihaltianu, Sebastian MoldovanCommissioner: Monica Morariu ,Deputy Commissioner: Alexandru Damian ,Curator: Anca Mihulet

Russia Artist: Vadim Zakharov ,Commissioner: Stella Kasaeva ,Curator: Udo Kittelmann

Serbia Artists: Vladimir Peric, Miloš Tomic .Commissioner: Maja Ciric

SloveniaArtist: Jasmina CibicCommissioner: Blaž Peršin ,Curator: Tevž Logar

South Africa Commissioner: Saul Molobi ,Curator: Brenton Maart

Spain Artist: Lara Almarcegui , Commissioner/Curator: Octavio Zaya

Switzerland Artist: Valentin Carron Commissioners: Pro Helvetia - Sandi Paucic and Marianne Burki

Curator: Giovanni CarmineVenue: Pavilion at Giardini

Syrian Arab RepublicArtists: Giorgio De Chirico, Miro George, Makhowl Moffak, Al Samman Nabil, Echtai Shaffik, Giulio Durini, Dario Arcidiacono, Massimiliano Alioto, Felipe Cardena, Roberto Paolini, Concetto Pozzati, Sergio Lombardo, Camilla Ancilotto, Lucio Micheletti, Lidia Bachis, Cracking Art Group, Hannu Palosuo

Commissioner: Christian Maretti Curator: Duccio Trombadori

Taiwan Artists: Bernd Behr, Chia-Wei Hsu, Kateřina Šedá + BATEŽO MIKILU Curator: Esther Lu

Thailand Artists: Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch, Arin Rungjang

Curators: Penwadee Nophaket Manont, Worathep Akkabootara

Turkey Artist: Ali Kazma Commissioner: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts Curator: Emre Baykal

Ukraine Artists: Ridnyi Mykola, Zinkovskyi Hamlet, Kadyrova Zhanna Commissioner: Victor Sydorenko

Curators: Soloviov Oleksandr, Burlaka Victoria

United Arab Emirates Artist: Mohammed Kazem /Commissioner: Dr. Lamees Hamdan Curator: Reem Fadda

Uruguay Artist: Wifredo Díaz Valdéz

Commissioner: Ricardo Pascale Curators: Carlos Capelán, Verónica Cordeiro

USA Artist: Sarah Sze Commissioners/Curators: Carey Lovelace, Holly Block

Venezuela Colectivo de Artistas Urbanos Venezolanos , Commissioner: Edgar Ernesto González Curator: Juan Calzadilla

 

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Encyclopedic Palace is curated by Massimiliano Gioni

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Other Biennales (Biennials ) : Venice Biennial , Documenta Havana Biennial,Istanbul Biennial ( Istanbuli),Biennale de Lyon ,Dak'Art Berlin Biennial,Mercosul Visual Arts Biennial ,Bienal do Mercosul Porto Alegre.,Berlin Biennial ,Echigo-Tsumari Triennial .Yokohama Triennial Aichi Triennale,manifesta ,Copenhagen Biennale,Aichi Triennale

Yokohama Triennial,Echigo-Tsumari Triennial.Sharjah Biennial ,Biennale of Sydney, Liverpool , São Paulo Biennial ; Athens Biennale , Bienal do Mercosul ,Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art

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Countries( nations ) that participate at the Venice Biennale 55 th ( 2013 Biennale di Venezia ) in Italy ( at Giardini or Arsenale or ? ) : Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria,

Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech , Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Canada, Chile, China, Congo,

Slovak Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia,

Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore

Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe

the Bahamas, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Republic of Kosovo, Kuwait, the Maldives, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Paraguay

Eight countries participate for the first time in next year's biennale: the Bahamas, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Republic of Kosovo, Kuwait, the Maldives, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Paraguay

 

Siena è un comune di 54.391 abitanti della Toscana centrale, capoluogo dell'omonima provincia.

La città è universalmente conosciuta per il suo patrimonio artistico e per la sostanziale unità stilistica del suo arredo urbano medievale, nonché per il suo famoso Palio; il centro storico è stato infatti dichiarato dall'UNESCO patrimonio dell'umanità nel 1995.

Siena fu fondata come colonia romana al tempo dell'Imperatore Augusto e prese il nome di Saena Iulia.

All'interno del centro storico senese sono stati ritrovati dei siti di epoca etrusca, che possono far pensare alla fondazione della città da parte degli etruschi.

Il primo documento noto in cui viene citata la comunità senese risale al 70 e porta la firma di Tacito che, nel IV libro delle Historiae, riporta il seguente episodio: il senatore Manlio Patruito riferì a Roma di essere stato malmenato e ridicolizzato con un finto funerale durante la sua visita ufficiale a Saena Iulia, piccola colonia militare della Tuscia. Il Senato romano decise di punire i principali colpevoli e di richiamare severamente i senesi a un maggiore rispetto verso l'autorità.

Dell'alto Medioevo non si hanno documenti che possano illuminare intorno ai casi della vita civile a Siena. C'è qualche notizia relativa alla istituzione del vescovado e della diocesi, specialmente per le questioni sorte fra il Vescovo di Siena e quello di Arezzo, a causa dei confini della zona giurisdizionale di ciascuno: questioni nelle quali intervenne il re longobardo Liutprando, pronunziando sentenza a favore della diocesi aretina. Ma i senesi non furono soddisfatti e pertanto nell'anno 853, quando l'Italia passò dalla dominazione longobarda a quella franca, riuscirono ad ottenere l'annullamento della sentenza emanata dal re Liutprando. Pare, dunque, che al tempo dei Longobardi, Siena fosse governata da un gastaldo, rappresentante del re: Gastaldo che fu poi sostituito da un Conte imperiale dopo l'incoronazione di Carlo Magno. Il primo conte di cui si hanno notizie concrete fu Winigi, figlio di Ranieri, nel 867. Dopo il 900 regnava a Siena l'imperatore Ludovico III, il cui regno non durò così a lungo, dal momento che nel 903 le cronache raccontano di un ritorno dei conti al potere sotto il nuovo governo del re Berengario.

Siena si ritrova nel X secolo al centro di importanti vie commerciali che portavano a Roma e, grazie a ciò divenne un'importante città medievale. Nel XII secolo la città si dota di ordinamenti comunali di tipo consolare, comincia a espandere il proprio territorio e stringe le prime alleanze. Questa situazione di rilevanza sia politica che economica, portano Siena a combattere per i domini settentrionali della Toscana, contro Firenze. Dalla prima metà del XII secolo in poi Siena prospera e diventa un importante centro commerciale, tenendo buoni rapporti con lo Stato della Chiesa; i banchieri senesi erano un punto di riferimento per le autorità di Roma, ai quali si rivolgevano per prestiti o finanziamenti.

Alla fine del XII secolo Siena, sostenendo la causa ghibellina (anche se non mancavano, le famiglie senesi di parte guelfa, in sintonia con Firenze), si ritrovò nuovamente contro Firenze di parte guelfa: celebre è la vittoria sui toscani guelfi nella battaglia di Montaperti, del 1260, celebrata anche da Dante Alighieri. Ma dopo qualche anno i senesi ebbero la peggio nella battaglia di Colle Val d'Elsa, del 1269, che portò in seguito, nel 1287, alla ascesa del Governo

dei Nove, di parte guelfa. Sotto questo nuovo governo, Siena raggiunse il suo massimo splendore, sia economico che culturale.

Dopo la peste del 1348, cominciò la lenta decadenza della Repubblica di Siena, che comunque non precluse la strada all'espansione territoriale senese, che fino al giorno della caduta della Repubblica comprendeva un terzo della toscana. La fine della Repubblica Senese, forse l'unico Stato occidentale ad attuare una democrazia pura a favore del popolo, avvenne il 25 aprile 1555, quando la città, dopo un assedio di oltre un anno, dovette arrendersi stremata dalla fame, all'impero di Carlo V, spalleggiato dai fiorentini, che cedette in feudo il territorio della Repubblica ai Medici, Signori di Firenze, per ripagarli delle spese sostenute durante la guerra. Per l'ennesima volta i cittadini senesi riuscirono a tenere testa ad un imperatore, che solo grazie alle proprie smisurate risorse poté piegare la fiera resistenza di questa piccola Repubblica e dei suoi cittadini.

Dopo la caduta della Repubblica pochi senesi guidati peraltro dall'esule fiorentino Piero Strozzi, non volendo accettare la caduta della Repubblica, si rifugiarono in Montalcino, creando la Repubblica di Siena riparata in Montalcino, mantenendo l'alleanza con la Francia, che continuò ad esercitare il proprio potere sulla parte meridionale del territorio della Repubblica, creando notevoli problemi alle truppe degli odiati fiorentini. Essa visse fino al 31 maggio del 1559 quando fu tradita dagli alleati francesi, che Siena aveva sempre sostenuto, che concludendo la pace di Cateau-Cambrésis con l'imperatore Carlo V, cedettero di fatto la Repubblica ai fiorentini.

Lo stemma di Siena è detto "balzana". È uno scudo diviso in due porzioni orizzontali: quella superiore è bianca, quella inferiore nera,con la Lupa che allatta Senio e Ascanio. Secondo la leggenda, starebbe a simboleggiare il fumo nero e bianco scaturito dalla pira augurale che i leggendari fondatori della città, Senio e Ascanio, figli di Remo, avrebbero acceso per ringraziare gli dei dopo la fondazione della città di Siena. Un'altra leggenda riporta che la balzana derivi dai colori dei cavalli, uno bianco ed uno nero, che Senio e Ascanio usarono nella fuga dallo zio Romolo che li voleva uccidere e con i quali giunsero a Siena. Per il loro presunto carattere focoso che, si dice, rasenta la pazzia, anche i senesi sono definiti spesso "balzani".

 

Siena (em português também conhecida como Sena) é uma cidade e sede de comuna italiana na região da Toscana, província do mesmo nome, com cerca de 52.775 (ISTAT 2003) habitantes. Estende-se por uma área de 118 km2, tendo uma densidade populacional de 447 hab/km2. Faz fronteira com Asciano, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Monteriggioni, Monteroni d'Arbia e Sovicille.

Siena é universalmente conhecida pelo seu património artístico e pela notável unidade estilística do seu centro histórico, classificado pela UNESCO como Património da Humanidade.

Segundo a mitologia romana, Siena foi fundada por Sénio, filho de Remo, e podem-se encontrar numerosas estátuas e obras de arte mostrando, tal como em Roma, os irmãos amamentados pela loba. Foi um povoamento etrusco e depois colónia romana (Saena Julia) refundada pelo imperador Augusto. Era, contudo, uma pequena povoação, longe das rotas principais do Império. No século V, torna-se sede de uma diocese cristã.

As antigas famílias aristocráticas de Siena reclamam origem nos Lombardos e à data da submissão da Lombardia a Carlos Magno (774). A grande influência da cidade como pólo cultural, artístico e político é iniciada no século XII, quando se converte num burgo autogovernado de cariz republicano, substituindo o esquema feudal.

Todavia, o esquema político conduziu sempre a lutas internas entre nobres e externas com a cidade rival de Florença. Data do século XIII a ruptura entre as facções rivais dos Guibelinos de Siena e dos Guelfos de Florença, que seria argumento para a Divina Comédia de Dante.

Em 4 de Setembro de 1260, os Guibelinos apoiaram as forças do rei Manfredo da Sicília e derrotaram os Guelfos em Montaperti, que tinham um exército muito superior em armas e homens. Antes da batalha, toda a cidade fora consagrada à Virgem Maria e confiada à sua protecção. Hoje, essa protecção é recordada e renovada, lembrando os sienenses da ameaça dos aliados da Segunda Guerra Mundial de bombardearam a cidade em 1944, o que felizmente não veio a acontecer.

Siena rivalizou no campo das artes durante o período medieval até o século XIV com as cidades vizinhas. Porém, devastada em 1348 pela Peste Negra, nunca recuperou o seu esplendor, perdendo também a sua rivalidade interurbana com Florença. A Siena actual tem um aspecto muito semelhante ao dos séculos XIII-XIV. Detém uma universidade fundada em 1203, famosa pelas faculdades de Direito e Medicina, e que é uma das mais prestigiadas universidades italianas.

Em 1557 perde a independência e é integrada nas formações políticas e administrativas da Toscana.

Siena também deu vários Papas, sendo eles: Alexandre III, Pio II, Pio III e Alexandre VII.

Os dois grandes santos de Siena são Santa Catarina (1347-1380) e São Bernardino (1380-1444). Catarina Benincasa, filha de um humilde tintureiro, fez-se irmã na Ordem Terceira dominicana (para leigos)e viveu como monja na casa dos pais. É famosa pelo intercâmbio interior com o próprio Cristo, que num êxtase lhe disse: "Eu sou aquele que é e tú és aquela que não é". Apesar da origem modesta, influenciou papas e príncipes com sua sabedoria e seu exemplo, conseguindo inclusive convencer o papa de então, contra a maioria dos cardeais, a regressar a Roma do exílio de Avinhon na França. Quanto ao franciscano São Bernardino, ele é célebre por ter sido o maior expoente, no Catolicismo, da via espiritual de invocação do Nome Divino, que encontra similares em todas as grandes religiões, do Budismo (nembutsu) ao Islã ([[dhikr]]) e ao Hinduísmo (mantra). Os sermões que Bernbardino fez na praça central de Siena provocaram tal fervor religioso e devoção ao nome de Jesus que o conselho municipal decidiu colocar o monograma do nome de Jesus (composto pelas letras IHS, significando "Jesus salvador dos homens")na fachada do prédio do governo. Do mesmo modo, muitos cidadãos o pintaram sobre as fachadas de suas casas, como até hoje se pode ver na cidade.

  

Siena also widely spelled Sienna in English) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.

The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008.[1] Siena is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and the palio.

Siena, like other Tuscan hill towns, was first settled in the time of the Etruscans (c. 900–400 BC) when it was inhabited by a tribe called the Saina. The Etruscans were an advanced people who changed the face of central Italy through their use of irrigation to reclaim previously unfarmable land, and their custom of building their settlements in well-defended hill-forts. A Roman town called Saena Julia was founded at the site in the time of the Emperor Augustus. The first document mentioning it dates from AD 70. Some archaeologists assert that Siena was controlled for a period by a Gaulish tribe called the Saenones.

The Roman origin accounts for the town's emblem: a she-wolf suckling infants Romulus and Remus. According to legend, Siena was founded by Senius, son of Remus, who was in turn the brother of Romulus, after whom Rome was named. Statues and other artwork depicting a she-wolf suckling the young twins Romulus and Remus can be seen all over the city of Siena. Other etymologies derive the name from the Etruscan family name "Saina," the Roman family name of the "Saenii," or the Latin word "senex" ("old") or the derived form "seneo", "to be old".

Siena did not prosper under Roman rule. It was not sited near any major roads and lacked opportunities for trade. Its insular status meant that Christianity did not penetrate until the 4th century AD, and it was not until the Lombards invaded Siena and the surrounding territory that it knew prosperity. After the Lombard occupation, the old Roman roads of Via Aurelia and the Via Cassia passed through areas exposed to Byzantine raids, so the Lombards rerouted much of their trade between the Lombards' northern possessions and Rome along a more secure road through Siena. Siena prospered as a trading post, and the constant streams of pilgrims passing to and from Rome provided a valuable source of income in the centuries to come.

The oldest aristocratic families in Siena date their line to the Lombards' surrender in 774 to Charlemagne. At this point, the city was inundated with a swarm of Frankish overseers who married into the existing Sienese nobility and left a legacy that can be seen in the abbeys they founded throughout Sienese territory. Feudal power waned however, and by the death of Countess Matilda in 1115 the border territory of the Mark of Tuscia which had been under the control of her family, the Canossa, broke up into several autonomous regions.

Siena prospered as a city-state, becoming a major centre of money lending and an important player in the wool trade. It was governed at first directly by its bishop, but episcopal power declined during the 12th century. The bishop was forced to concede a greater say in the running of the city to the nobility in exchange for their help during a territorial dispute with Arezzo, and this started a process which culminated in 1167 when the commune of Siena declared its independence from episcopal control. By 1179, it had a written constitution.

This period was also crucial in shaping the Siena we know today. It was during the early 13th century that the majority of the construction of the Siena Cathedral (Duomo) was completed. It was also during this period that the Piazza del Campo, now regarded as one of the most beautiful civic spaces in Europe, grew in importance as the centre of secular life. New streets were constructed leading to it, and it served as the site of the market and the location of various sporting events (perhaps better thought of as riots, in the fashion of the Florentine football matches that are still practised to this day). A wall was constructed in 1194 at the current site of the Palazzo Pubblico to stop soil erosion, an indication of how important the area was becoming as a civic space.

In the early 12th century a self-governing commune replaced the earlier aristocratic government. The consuls who governed the republic slowly became more inclusive of the poblani, or common people, and the commune increased its territory as the surrounding feudal nobles in their fortified castles submitted to the urban power. Siena's republic, struggling internally between nobles and the popular party, usually worked in political opposition to its great rival, Florence, and was in the 13th century predominantly Ghibelline in opposition to Florence's Guelph position (this conflict formed the backdrop for some of Dante's Commedia).

On 4 September 1260 the Sienese Ghibellines, supported by the forces of King Manfred of Sicily, defeated the Florentine Guelphs in the Battle of Montaperti. Before the battle, the Sienese army of around 20,000 faced a much larger Florentine army of around 33,000. Prior to the battle, the entire city was dedicated to the Virgin Mary (this was done several times in the city's history, most recently in 1944 to guard the city from Allied bombs). The man given command of Siena for the duration of the war, Bonaguida Lucari, walked barefoot and bareheaded, a halter around his neck, to the Duomo. Leading a procession composed of all the city's residents, he was met by all the clergy. Lucari and the bishop embraced, to show the unity of church and state, then Lucari formally gave the city and contrade to the Virgin. Legend has it that a thick white cloud descended on the battlefield, giving the Sienese cover and aiding their attack. The reality was that the Florentine army launched several fruitless attacks against the Sienese army during the day, then when the Sienese army countered with their own offensive, traitors within the Florentine army killed the standard bearer and in the resulting chaos, the Florentine army broke up and fled the battlefield. Almost half the Florentine army (some 15,000 men) were killed as a result. So crushing was the defeat that even today if the two cities meet in any sporting event, the Sienese supporters are likely to exhort their Florentine counterparts to “Remember Montaperti!”.

The limits on the Roman town, were the earliest known walls to the city. During the 10th and 11th centuries, the town grew to the east and later to the north, in what is now the Camollia district. Walls were built to totally surround the city, and a second set was finished by the end of the 13th century. Much of these walls still exist today.[2]

Siena's university, founded in 1240 and famed for its faculties of law and medicine, is still among the most important Italian universities. Siena rivalled Florence in the arts throughout the 13th and 14th centuries: the important late medieval painter Duccio di Buoninsegna (1253–1319) was a Sienese, but worked across the peninsula, and the mural of "Good Government" by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico, or town hall, is a magnificent example of late-Medieval/early Renaissance art as well as a representation of the utopia of urban society as conceived during that period. Siena was devastated by the Black Death of 1348, and also suffered from ill-fated financial enterprises. In 1355, with the arrival of Charles IV of Luxembourg in the city, the population rose and suppressed the government of the Nove (Nine), establishing that Dodici (Twelve) nobles assisted by a council with a popular majority. This was also short-lived, being replaced by the Quindici (Fifteen) reformers in 1385, the Dieci (Ten, 1386–1387), Undici (Eleven, 1388–1398) and Twelve Priors (1398–1399) who, in the end, gave the city's seigniory to Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan in order to defend it from the Florentine expansionism.

In 1404 the Visconti were expelled and a government of Ten Priors established, in alliance with Florence against King Ladislas of Naples. With the election of the Sienese Pius II as Pope, the Piccolomini and other noble families were allowed to return to the government, but after his death the control returned into popular hands. In 1472 the Republic founded the Monte dei Paschi, a bank that is still active today and is the oldest surviving bank in the world. The noble factions returned in the city under Pandolfo Petrucci in 1487, with the support of Florence and of Alfonso of Calabria; Petrucci exerted an effective rule on the city until his death in 1512, favouring arts and sciences, and defending it from Cesare Borgia. Pandolfo was succeeded by his son Borghese, who was ousted by his cousin Raffaello, helped by the Medici Pope Leo X. The last Petrucci was Fabio, exiled in 1523 by the Sienese people. Internal strife resumed, with the popular faction ousting the Noveschi party supported by Clement VII: the latter sent an army, but was defeated at Camollia in 1526. Emperor Charles V took advantage of the chaotic situation to put a Spanish garrison in Siena. The citizens expelled it in 1552, allying with France: this was unacceptable for Charles, who sent his general Gian Giacomo Medici to lay siege to it with a Florentine-Imperial army.

The Sienese government entrusted its defence to Piero Strozzi. When the latter was defeated at the Battle of Marciano (August 1554), any hope of relief was lost. After 18 months of resistance, it surrendered to Spain on 17 April 1555, marking the end of the Republic of Siena. The new Spanish King Philip, owing huge sums to the Medici, ceded it (apart a series of coastal fortress annexed to the State of Presidi) to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to which it belonged until the unification of Italy in the 19th century. A Republican government of 700 Sienese families in Montalcino resisted until 1559.

The picturesque city remains an important cultural centre, especially for humanist disciplines

Same tree. Different day.

 

The 'Park of Honour of Those Who Were Shot'

 

Memorial and graves of resistance heroes and martyrs - brave Jews, brave Christians, dissidents, anti-fascists, socialists, rebels, samizdat journalists and organisers - those who dared to question and fight oppression, and the evil Powers That Be.

 

Here you see the faces of my brothers, my own dear family, my partners in fighting sheer political evil - resting in their graves here, in perhaps the most poignant place in all of Brussels, Belgium. Here lie those in Belgium who were shot fighting the Nazis of the 1940s - as I myself have nearly been killed fighting the more recent fascists, some of the 'new Nazis' of the 21st century.

 

Shortly after I arrived in Brussels as a political refugee from the US, under threat of murder by far-right political figures, this is one of the first places I visited. I came here to weep some tears amid the companionship of my anti-fascist comrades, who also looked death in the eye as they tried to speak and act for what is right.

 

The camera used here, and the chance to make these photos, are gifts of the brave dissident US Jewish physician, Dr Moshe 'Moss' David Posner, who risked and gambled his own life, to support me and help keep me alive in the face of threats by neo-Nazi assassins.

 

These are photos from the daily life of writer and political refugee from the US, Dr Les (Leslie) Sachs - photos documenting my new beloved home city of Brussels, Belgium, my life among the people and Kingdom who have given me safety in the face of the threats to destroy me. Brussels has a noble history of providing a safe haven to other dissident refugee writers, such as Victor Hugo, Karl Marx, Charles Baudelaire, and Alexandre Dumas, and I shall forever be grateful that Brussels and Belgium have helped to protect my own life as well.

 

(To read about the efforts to silence me and my journalism, the attacks on me, the smears and the threats, see the website by European journalists "About Les Sachs" linked in my Flickr profile, and press articles such as "Two EU Writers Under Threat of Murder: Roberto Saviano and Dr Les Sachs".)

 

This extremely moving memorial and gravesite, is known locally as the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusillerden (Brussels is bi-lingual French- and Dutch-speaking, so place names are given in both languages here.) - In English, the name is perhaps best rendered as the "Park of Honour of Those Who Were Shot".

 

The Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden includes many martyrs of the Belgian resistance of World War II, being both their gravesite and also the place where many of them were shot to death by a Nazi firing squad. - And it is also a memorial and the place of death, of other heroic figures who were shot to death in the previous German occupation of Belgium during World War I. One heroine from the First World War who was shot by the Germans and is now commemorated here, is the famous British nurse Edith Cavell.

 

The reason that this was a convenient place of execution by firing squad, is that it was originally part of a Belgian military training area and rifle range that existed here once upon a time, and you still see here the tall hillside that served as an earthen 'backstop' to safely absorb high-powered rifle bullets. The hillside was thus ready-made for the German commandants who occupied Brussels in both wars, to carry out their firing-squad executions.

 

Nowadays, the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden appears quite 'central' in urban Brussels, as it lies in the Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek commune, directly in the path from the EU institution area toward the roads that lead to the airport, and very near to the 90-metre high VRT-RTBF communications tower that has long been a major Brussels landmark.

 

The Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden is walking distance from the eastern Brussels 'prémétro', which is a grouping of tram lines that run underground for several stops on both the eastern and western sides of the Brussels city centre, supplementing the regular métro underground system with a similarly high frequency of service and also underground. If you continue along the prémétro lines south from the Diamant stop which is near the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, you shortly arrive at the elaborate 19th-century military barracks buildings which once housed the soldiers who used the rifle range and parade grounds, which later become the place of martyrdom for members of the anti-Nazi resistance.

 

This is a place of great emotion for me personally, because the resistance martyrs who lie in these graves - a number of them socialists, journalists and with Jewish-heritage, critics of corruption just like myself - are my comrades in my own ordeal. I barely escaped alive out of the USA, nearly murdered by neo-Nazi-linked thugs, who themselves spoke favourably of Hitler as they moved toward killing me, as well as trying to ban my ability to write and speak.

 

It is sad that this place, Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, is very little visited nowadays. Most of the time when I come here to contemplate and shed a few tears amid my comrades, and also to gain strength from their brave spirits, I am alone. Many of the family members and children of those who died or are buried here, have now themselves often passed away.

 

But on occasion there are people visiting, and on one day I was privileged to meet the daughter of one of the resistance martyrs who is buried here. She spoke to me of being a little girl, and seeing the Nazis arrest her father inside their home. She spoke about how they tied his hands behind his back, and yet how bravely he looked at her one last time. - She never saw her father alive again, and she is now in her seventies. - But when she spoke of her father, her voice grew energised and strong. She said she remembered the day of her father's arrest like if it was yesterday. And as she spoke, I could feel it and almost see it, as if I had been there myself.

 

The heroes in these graves are quite alive for me still. I am a religious man, a person of faith, and I believe in the life hereafter. - Many people have been afraid to help me, abandoning me to be murdered by the powerful forces of the American government - people too frightened to dare oppose the deadly US power of global assassination, the vicious US global media slandering of a dissident's reputation - Yet when I walk here at the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, I feel myself amid a powerful throng of comrades, among brave people who understand me, people who know what it is like to be menaced with murder and to look death straight in the eye. - I feel the spirits in these graves support me and sustain me, that they welcome me as one among themselves.

 

It is my privilege now to honour these brave companions of mine, giving their memory some further renown and support. And I have wanted very much to do so, as the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden still is in need of expanded documentation on the Web, before some of what can be seen here fades away much further.

 

One of the most powerful aspects of visiting this tree-lined and grassy cemetery and memorial, is that you see on a number of the grave markers, not only names and comments from loved ones, but in some cases actual pictures of these brave people, pictures rendered into sepia-type photos on porcelain. Though efforts were made to make these photographs permanent, the elements and the years and decades have taken their toll. Many of the pictures are now faded, or cracked, or broken, or fallen on the ground from their mountings. In one case I held a cracked porcelain image together with one hand, while taking the photo with the other hand. The years are passing, and I have wanted to document the faces of these brave heroes before they disappear, before time takes a greater toll on this place of sacred honour.

 

You look into the eyes of these brave people, and you see and feel the spirit of true bravery, of genuine resistance of oppression, resistance to the point of death, their hope that sacrificing one's own life in the fight, will yet do some good for others in the world. Look into their eyes, and you see their faces, faces of real people, quite like anyone in some ways, but in other ways very special, with a light in them that carries far beyond their own death - people who yet had the fire of faith in that Greater than mere earthly existence.

 

In this hillside that you see in the photos - the hillside in front of which many of these heroes stood in the moment as they were shot to death - in that hillside is a large memorial marker to the heroes of World War I who died here. On that marker it says:

 

Ici tomberent

sous les balles allemandes

35 héros victimes de leur

attachement à la patrie

 

Hier vielen

onder de duitse kogels

35 helden ten offer

aan hun liefde voor het vaderland

 

Here fell 35 heroes

who offered their lives

for their country

shot by the Germans

 

You'll notice that the 4th name down on the marker is that of Edith Louisa Cavell (1865-1915), with just her initial and last name and the date of her death here, on 12 October 1915:

 

Cavell E. 12-10-1915

 

The banners that you see here, in the colours of red, yellow, and black, are in the three colours of the national flag of Belgium

 

There are 17 rows of graves here at the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, 12 on the upper level closer to the hillside, and then five on the lower level below. Between the upper and lower levels is an obelisk serving as a kind of centre for the memorial as a whole. On the obelisk it says, on one side in Dutch, on the other side in French:

 

Opgericht door de Verbroedering van de Vriendenkringen der Nazikampenen Gevangenissen

XXVe Verjaring

April 1970

 

Erigé par le Fraternelle des Amicales de Camps et Prisons Nazis

XXVe Anniversaire

April 1970

 

In English this would be:

Constructed by the Association of Friends of Those in the Nazi Camps and Prisons

25th Anniversary

April 1970

 

Around this obelisk lay some faded but still visibly grand wreaths, placed here by the highest figures of Belgian public life. One great wreath at the centre, placed here by the King of the Belgians, Albert II, and his wife Paola, whose royal household has very quietly but effectively supplied some of the protection for me in Belgium, that has so far prevented me from being murdered here by foreign powers. - You see the ribbon say simply 'Albert - Paola'.

 

And another large wreath has a ribbon saying 'la Gouvernement - de Regering', from the government of Belgium.

 

Though many of the resistance martyrs buried here, were shot by firing squad right on this spot, a number of these martyrs died in other places, most especially in the Belgian concentration camp at Breendonk (Breendonck), which due to its stone structure is one of the best-preserved Nazi concentration camps. Breendonk can be visited today, about 40 kilometres north of Brussels in the direction of Antwerp, very near the Willebroek train station.

 

Among the graves here, a number are of heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance whose names are unknown: 'Inconnu - Onbekend' say the grave markers in French and in Dutch. In one row, there are six unknowns side-by-side; and then the entire final last row of the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, is all the resting place of unknown heroes, 21 altogether.

 

In any struggle against oppressive government, there are often unknown heroes. - And as I myself am a victim of brutal deceptive media smear campaigns, as well as the US regime ordering search engines to suppress my own websites, I can testify as to how hard the evil powers work, to try to see that those who fight the system, remain unknown, or else smeared and slandered with propaganda and lies.

 

There are perhaps yet other heroes of the World War II resistance, whose anonymous graves somewhere, may yet one day be found. One of the photos here is of a maintenance area by the side, where fresh grave markers are ready, some with crosses, some with a star of David, awaiting use for some other hero whose remains are yet to be discovered.

 

In addition to the photographs on the grave markers, which speak for themselves, a number of the graves are also marked with heartfelt statements by those who loved and honoured them. Most are in French, and with photos where there are such engraved statements, there are transcriptions of what you find, along with a translation.

 

Many of these resistance martyrs to the Nazis who lie here, are of course Jewish. The majority are Christians of Belgium, but a significant proportion of the heroes who lie here, are Jewish resistance martyrs of the Holocaust. And even more than one from the same family - the Livchitz brothers who lie here. Moreover, some of the Christians who are buried here, are of Jewish heritage as well - as I am myself, a unitarian Christian.

 

My own heritage on my mother's side is Jewish, and it was my commitment to honour the memory of relatives and other Jews who died in the Holocaust, that led to my being forced to become a political refugee from the United States. - Back when living in the US, I received a letter threatening the book-burning of the books of this Jewish-heritage writer, and I responded strongly. A few weeks later my freedom to speak and write was banned, and threats to extort and murder me were put in motion. This story has been told in other places (see link to press articles in my profile), but suffice it to say here, that it was my honouring the memory of murdered Jews, which led me to be a Jewish-heritage political refugee today in Brussels.

 

Though I am unitarian Christian by faith, the old Jewish sites of Brussels and Belgium strike deep chords within me, as I very much feel the spirit of the Jews who suffered and died under the kind of racist threats I have also suffered.

 

One of the things I am often-asked, as a Jewish-heritage political refugee, is why the Jewish groups and Jewish leaders, do not say or do more to defend me, against the threats to have me murdered, against the lies and hoaxes spread about me, against the blocking of my own journalism sites from the internet search engines. - For example, in my efforts to stay alive these last few years, I have received much more comfort and assistance and support from brave Muslims, than from the Jewish people who share my own heritage.

 

There are two main reasons for this kind of neglect of someone like myself by Jewish leaders. One is that I am not a political Zionist - I favour peace and justice for all the residents of the ancient holy lands of Palestine. - A second reason, is that there is a sad heritage among Jewish people, to stand by and do nothing while other Jews are attacked by the dominant power of the day. - It was that way in the old pogroms of Eastern Europe, it was that way under the Nazi-era exterminations, and it is that way today regarding the case of the United States. - Since it is the US regime which has been attacking me and forcing me to be a refugee here, Jewish 'leadership' simply does not want to confront the USA. Given that I am a non-Zionist, and a unitarian Christian in faith, well, that settles it as far as Jewish leaders are concerned, and they turn away and say nothing.

 

There are still some brave Jews, however, like one brave Orthodox Jewish physician in America, a friend who has helped me to be able to be here now, supplying these photographs of the Jewish and other martyrs of anti-Nazi resistance.

 

And the Jewish heritage is there in me, and I am glad I honoured the memory of the Holocaust dead, even though it led me into terrible sufferings at the hands of US political figures and the US regime.

 

There is a sense of profound spiritual achievement that I have, as I place on-line this historical record of the martyrs of the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden. It is perhaps only by the grace of God that I was able to escape the US alive, from the clutches of the people menacing to illegally jail me and murder me in a US jail cell. - My now being able to honour the memory of my fellow anti-fascist figures in Belgium, who were shot dead by the Nazis of an earlier era, feels to me to be one of the important purposes, for which I was kept alive by divine hands.

 

To visit the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, you can walk about 600 metres from the Diamant 'prémétro' or underground tram stop which includes tram lines 23, 24, and 25. If you wish to get even closer by bus, you can take buses number 12, 21, or 79 the two stops from Diamant to the Colonel Bourg - Kolonel Bourg bus shelter sign. Alternatively, if you are in the EU area, you can take these same buses 12, 21 or 79 directly from the Schuman métro station by the EU's main Berlaymont building. Another route is that bus 80 from the Mérode metro station will also take you directly to the Colonel Bourg - Kolonel Bourg stop. A few tens of metres west of where the bus halts, along the rue Colonel Bourg - Kolonel Bourgstraat, you see the sign directing to the entrance of the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden.

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

When I cut this yam, this milky substance oozed out around the edges of the cut surface. Is this normal? Update: Yes, apparently.

 

The 'Park of Honour of Those Who Were Shot'

 

Memorial and graves of resistance heroes and martyrs - brave Jews, brave Christians, dissidents, anti-fascists, socialists, rebels, samizdat journalists and organisers - those who dared to question and fight oppression, and the evil Powers That Be.

 

Here you see the faces of my brothers, my own dear family, my partners in fighting sheer political evil - resting in their graves here, in perhaps the most poignant place in all of Brussels, Belgium. Here lie those in Belgium who were shot fighting the Nazis of the 1940s - as I myself have nearly been killed fighting the more recent fascists, some of the 'new Nazis' of the 21st century.

 

Shortly after I arrived in Brussels as a political refugee from the US, under threat of murder by far-right political figures, this is one of the first places I visited. I came here to weep some tears amid the companionship of my anti-fascist comrades, who also looked death in the eye as they tried to speak and act for what is right.

 

The camera used here, and the chance to make these photos, are gifts of the brave dissident US Jewish physician, Dr Moshe 'Moss' David Posner, who risked and gambled his own life, to support me and help keep me alive in the face of threats by neo-Nazi assassins.

 

These are photos from the daily life of writer and political refugee from the US, Dr Les (Leslie) Sachs - photos documenting my new beloved home city of Brussels, Belgium, my life among the people and Kingdom who have given me safety in the face of the threats to destroy me. Brussels has a noble history of providing a safe haven to other dissident refugee writers, such as Victor Hugo, Karl Marx, Charles Baudelaire, and Alexandre Dumas, and I shall forever be grateful that Brussels and Belgium have helped to protect my own life as well.

 

(To read about the efforts to silence me and my journalism, the attacks on me, the smears and the threats, see the website by European journalists "About Les Sachs" linked in my Flickr profile, and press articles such as "Two EU Writers Under Threat of Murder: Roberto Saviano and Dr Les Sachs".)

 

This extremely moving memorial and gravesite, is known locally as the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusillerden (Brussels is bi-lingual French- and Dutch-speaking, so place names are given in both languages here.) - In English, the name is perhaps best rendered as the "Park of Honour of Those Who Were Shot".

 

The Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden includes many martyrs of the Belgian resistance of World War II, being both their gravesite and also the place where many of them were shot to death by a Nazi firing squad. - And it is also a memorial and the place of death, of other heroic figures who were shot to death in the previous German occupation of Belgium during World War I. One heroine from the First World War who was shot by the Germans and is now commemorated here, is the famous British nurse Edith Cavell.

 

The reason that this was a convenient place of execution by firing squad, is that it was originally part of a Belgian military training area and rifle range that existed here once upon a time, and you still see here the tall hillside that served as an earthen 'backstop' to safely absorb high-powered rifle bullets. The hillside was thus ready-made for the German commandants who occupied Brussels in both wars, to carry out their firing-squad executions.

 

Nowadays, the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden appears quite 'central' in urban Brussels, as it lies in the Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek commune, directly in the path from the EU institution area toward the roads that lead to the airport, and very near to the 90-metre high VRT-RTBF communications tower that has long been a major Brussels landmark.

 

The Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden is walking distance from the eastern Brussels 'prémétro', which is a grouping of tram lines that run underground for several stops on both the eastern and western sides of the Brussels city centre, supplementing the regular métro underground system with a similarly high frequency of service and also underground. If you continue along the prémétro lines south from the Diamant stop which is near the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, you shortly arrive at the elaborate 19th-century military barracks buildings which once housed the soldiers who used the rifle range and parade grounds, which later become the place of martyrdom for members of the anti-Nazi resistance.

 

This is a place of great emotion for me personally, because the resistance martyrs who lie in these graves - a number of them socialists, journalists and with Jewish-heritage, critics of corruption just like myself - are my comrades in my own ordeal. I barely escaped alive out of the USA, nearly murdered by neo-Nazi-linked thugs, who themselves spoke favourably of Hitler as they moved toward killing me, as well as trying to ban my ability to write and speak.

 

It is sad that this place, Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, is very little visited nowadays. Most of the time when I come here to contemplate and shed a few tears amid my comrades, and also to gain strength from their brave spirits, I am alone. Many of the family members and children of those who died or are buried here, have now themselves often passed away.

 

But on occasion there are people visiting, and on one day I was privileged to meet the daughter of one of the resistance martyrs who is buried here. She spoke to me of being a little girl, and seeing the Nazis arrest her father inside their home. She spoke about how they tied his hands behind his back, and yet how bravely he looked at her one last time. - She never saw her father alive again, and she is now in her seventies. - But when she spoke of her father, her voice grew energised and strong. She said she remembered the day of her father's arrest like if it was yesterday. And as she spoke, I could feel it and almost see it, as if I had been there myself.

 

The heroes in these graves are quite alive for me still. I am a religious man, a person of faith, and I believe in the life hereafter. - Many people have been afraid to help me, abandoning me to be murdered by the powerful forces of the American government - people too frightened to dare oppose the deadly US power of global assassination, the vicious US global media slandering of a dissident's reputation - Yet when I walk here at the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, I feel myself amid a powerful throng of comrades, among brave people who understand me, people who know what it is like to be menaced with murder and to look death straight in the eye. - I feel the spirits in these graves support me and sustain me, that they welcome me as one among themselves.

 

It is my privilege now to honour these brave companions of mine, giving their memory some further renown and support. And I have wanted very much to do so, as the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden still is in need of expanded documentation on the Web, before some of what can be seen here fades away much further.

 

One of the most powerful aspects of visiting this tree-lined and grassy cemetery and memorial, is that you see on a number of the grave markers, not only names and comments from loved ones, but in some cases actual pictures of these brave people, pictures rendered into sepia-type photos on porcelain. Though efforts were made to make these photographs permanent, the elements and the years and decades have taken their toll. Many of the pictures are now faded, or cracked, or broken, or fallen on the ground from their mountings. In one case I held a cracked porcelain image together with one hand, while taking the photo with the other hand. The years are passing, and I have wanted to document the faces of these brave heroes before they disappear, before time takes a greater toll on this place of sacred honour.

 

You look into the eyes of these brave people, and you see and feel the spirit of true bravery, of genuine resistance of oppression, resistance to the point of death, their hope that sacrificing one's own life in the fight, will yet do some good for others in the world. Look into their eyes, and you see their faces, faces of real people, quite like anyone in some ways, but in other ways very special, with a light in them that carries far beyond their own death - people who yet had the fire of faith in that Greater than mere earthly existence.

 

In this hillside that you see in the photos - the hillside in front of which many of these heroes stood in the moment as they were shot to death - in that hillside is a large memorial marker to the heroes of World War I who died here. On that marker it says:

 

Ici tomberent

sous les balles allemandes

35 héros victimes de leur

attachement à la patrie

 

Hier vielen

onder de duitse kogels

35 helden ten offer

aan hun liefde voor het vaderland

 

Here fell 35 heroes

who offered their lives

for their country

shot by the Germans

 

You'll notice that the 4th name down on the marker is that of Edith Louisa Cavell (1865-1915), with just her initial and last name and the date of her death here, on 12 October 1915:

 

Cavell E. 12-10-1915

 

The banners that you see here, in the colours of red, yellow, and black, are in the three colours of the national flag of Belgium

 

There are 17 rows of graves here at the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, 12 on the upper level closer to the hillside, and then five on the lower level below. Between the upper and lower levels is an obelisk serving as a kind of centre for the memorial as a whole. On the obelisk it says, on one side in Dutch, on the other side in French:

 

Opgericht door de Verbroedering van de Vriendenkringen der Nazikampenen Gevangenissen

XXVe Verjaring

April 1970

 

Erigé par le Fraternelle des Amicales de Camps et Prisons Nazis

XXVe Anniversaire

April 1970

 

In English this would be:

Constructed by the Association of Friends of Those in the Nazi Camps and Prisons

25th Anniversary

April 1970

 

Around this obelisk lay some faded but still visibly grand wreaths, placed here by the highest figures of Belgian public life. One great wreath at the centre, placed here by the King of the Belgians, Albert II, and his wife Paola, whose royal household has very quietly but effectively supplied some of the protection for me in Belgium, that has so far prevented me from being murdered here by foreign powers. - You see the ribbon say simply 'Albert - Paola'.

 

And another large wreath has a ribbon saying 'la Gouvernement - de Regering', from the government of Belgium.

 

Though many of the resistance martyrs buried here, were shot by firing squad right on this spot, a number of these martyrs died in other places, most especially in the Belgian concentration camp at Breendonk (Breendonck), which due to its stone structure is one of the best-preserved Nazi concentration camps. Breendonk can be visited today, about 40 kilometres north of Brussels in the direction of Antwerp, very near the Willebroek train station.

 

Among the graves here, a number are of heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance whose names are unknown: 'Inconnu - Onbekend' say the grave markers in French and in Dutch. In one row, there are six unknowns side-by-side; and then the entire final last row of the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, is all the resting place of unknown heroes, 21 altogether.

 

In any struggle against oppressive government, there are often unknown heroes. - And as I myself am a victim of brutal deceptive media smear campaigns, as well as the US regime ordering search engines to suppress my own websites, I can testify as to how hard the evil powers work, to try to see that those who fight the system, remain unknown, or else smeared and slandered with propaganda and lies.

 

There are perhaps yet other heroes of the World War II resistance, whose anonymous graves somewhere, may yet one day be found. One of the photos here is of a maintenance area by the side, where fresh grave markers are ready, some with crosses, some with a star of David, awaiting use for some other hero whose remains are yet to be discovered.

 

In addition to the photographs on the grave markers, which speak for themselves, a number of the graves are also marked with heartfelt statements by those who loved and honoured them. Most are in French, and with photos where there are such engraved statements, there are transcriptions of what you find, along with a translation.

 

Many of these resistance martyrs to the Nazis who lie here, are of course Jewish. The majority are Christians of Belgium, but a significant proportion of the heroes who lie here, are Jewish resistance martyrs of the Holocaust. And even more than one from the same family - the Livchitz brothers who lie here. Moreover, some of the Christians who are buried here, are of Jewish heritage as well - as I am myself, a unitarian Christian.

 

My own heritage on my mother's side is Jewish, and it was my commitment to honour the memory of relatives and other Jews who died in the Holocaust, that led to my being forced to become a political refugee from the United States. - Back when living in the US, I received a letter threatening the book-burning of the books of this Jewish-heritage writer, and I responded strongly. A few weeks later my freedom to speak and write was banned, and threats to extort and murder me were put in motion. This story has been told in other places (see link to press articles in my profile), but suffice it to say here, that it was my honouring the memory of murdered Jews, which led me to be a Jewish-heritage political refugee today in Brussels.

 

Though I am unitarian Christian by faith, the old Jewish sites of Brussels and Belgium strike deep chords within me, as I very much feel the spirit of the Jews who suffered and died under the kind of racist threats I have also suffered.

 

One of the things I am often-asked, as a Jewish-heritage political refugee, is why the Jewish groups and Jewish leaders, do not say or do more to defend me, against the threats to have me murdered, against the lies and hoaxes spread about me, against the blocking of my own journalism sites from the internet search engines. - For example, in my efforts to stay alive these last few years, I have received much more comfort and assistance and support from brave Muslims, than from the Jewish people who share my own heritage.

 

There are two main reasons for this kind of neglect of someone like myself by Jewish leaders. One is that I am not a political Zionist - I favour peace and justice for all the residents of the ancient holy lands of Palestine. - A second reason, is that there is a sad heritage among Jewish people, to stand by and do nothing while other Jews are attacked by the dominant power of the day. - It was that way in the old pogroms of Eastern Europe, it was that way under the Nazi-era exterminations, and it is that way today regarding the case of the United States. - Since it is the US regime which has been attacking me and forcing me to be a refugee here, Jewish 'leadership' simply does not want to confront the USA. Given that I am a non-Zionist, and a unitarian Christian in faith, well, that settles it as far as Jewish leaders are concerned, and they turn away and say nothing.

 

There are still some brave Jews, however, like one brave Orthodox Jewish physician in America, a friend who has helped me to be able to be here now, supplying these photographs of the Jewish and other martyrs of anti-Nazi resistance.

 

And the Jewish heritage is there in me, and I am glad I honoured the memory of the Holocaust dead, even though it led me into terrible sufferings at the hands of US political figures and the US regime.

 

There is a sense of profound spiritual achievement that I have, as I place on-line this historical record of the martyrs of the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden. It is perhaps only by the grace of God that I was able to escape the US alive, from the clutches of the people menacing to illegally jail me and murder me in a US jail cell. - My now being able to honour the memory of my fellow anti-fascist figures in Belgium, who were shot dead by the Nazis of an earlier era, feels to me to be one of the important purposes, for which I was kept alive by divine hands.

 

To visit the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden, you can walk about 600 metres from the Diamant 'prémétro' or underground tram stop which includes tram lines 23, 24, and 25. If you wish to get even closer by bus, you can take buses number 12, 21, or 79 the two stops from Diamant to the Colonel Bourg - Kolonel Bourg bus shelter sign. Alternatively, if you are in the EU area, you can take these same buses 12, 21 or 79 directly from the Schuman métro station by the EU's main Berlaymont building. Another route is that bus 80 from the Mérode metro station will also take you directly to the Colonel Bourg - Kolonel Bourg stop. A few tens of metres west of where the bus halts, along the rue Colonel Bourg - Kolonel Bourgstraat, you see the sign directing to the entrance of the Enclos des Fusillés - Ereperk der Gefusilleerden.

 

Any Questions for Ben? Premiere In Sydney, Australia

 

The Sydney premiere of the rom com Any Questions For Ben? enjoyed its premiere in Sydney, Australia tonight.

 

The weather was wet, but the atmosphere was warm.

 

With a big name and ultra talented cast, this movie is set to do extremely well in a tough market.

 

St George Open Air Cinema was the venue for the premiere showing, and actress Rachael Taylor did the honours, coming back to Australia especially for the promos.

 

Promo

 

For 27-year-old Ben (Josh Lawson), life couldn’t be better. A well paid job, friends, parties, girls and nothing to tie him down. But when he is invited back to his old school to join several other ex-students including Alex (Rachael Taylor) and Jim (Ed Kavalee) in talking about their personal achievements, something goes wrong. Ben is the only speaker not to be asked a question by the school kids. This triggers a year of soulsearching and looking for answers in all the wrong places.

 

From his best friend Andy (Christian Clark) whose solution is that they both take another holiday, to his mentor Sam (Lachy Hulme) who loans him a sports car in the belief that there’s nothing like excessive speed to resolve emotional turmoil. Not even Ben’s father (Rob Carlton) or friends Nick (Daniel Henshall) and Em (Felicity Ward) can offer much in the way of meaningful guidance.

 

Of course, it’s not easy seeking enlightenment in nightclubs, or on the ski fields of New Zealand, and when you start dating a Russian tennis star things can get really complicated. As the poster boy for a generation desperate to tick every box, Ben begins to suspect that the meaning of life may well reside in the things he's already doing - and a girl he used to know.

 

Stars: Josh Lawson, Rachael Taylor, Daniel Henshall, Felicity Ward, Christian Clark, Jodi Gordon

Director: Rob Sitch

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Cinema Release: 9 Feb 2012

 

Websites

 

Village Roadshow Australia

www.village.com.au

 

St George Open Air Cinema

www.stgeorgeopenair.com.au

 

Working Dog

www.workingdog.com

 

Eva Rinaldi Photography Flickr

www.flickr.com/evarinaldiphotography

 

Eva Rinaldi Photography

www.evarinaldi.com

 

Music News Australia

www.musicnewsaustralia.com

 

There are many things to question about the automotive world, but why did the Wedge ever take off?

 

With that said, I give you the Triumph TR7, British Leyland's once great hope for domination of the American market, crushed by poor design, miscommunication, terrible advertising and shoddy workmanship.

 

The Triumph TR7 was first launched in 1974 as British Leyland's top ranging sports car. Looking very sheek and stylish (and like a block of cheese with pop up headlights) with its low riding wedge shape, the car did indeed look the part...

 

...minus a few things here and there. One was that massive composite bumper, which was yoked onto the front of the car to conform with American safety legislation. Another was the roof design, which was hastily slapped on to conform to American safety legislation. And finally there's the tail lights, which were not designed to conform with American safety legislation, they were just poorly put together.

 

Yes the TR7 was in the grip of American safety legislation. Following the tragic death of James Dean, America planned to ban convertibles, and thus car manufacturers across the globe had to redesign their cars in order to work with this new legislation. However, instead of taking a leaf out of their own book and giving the TR7 a curious T-Bar arrangement like on the Triumph Stag, they decided to slap on a roof that completely compromised the profile of the car.

 

But styling was the least of the TR7's worries, it was then bogged down with how it was built. Underneath that wedgie body, the TR7 was nothing more than a humble Triumph Dolomite, powered by the fundamentally flawed Twin Dolomite V8 and built on the same chassis. The result was a car so faulty that it would hardly ever run, as was found in the filming of the popular British TV show, the New Avengers, where the character of Purdy was coupled with a yellow TR7 much like this one. Apparently the car was so unreliable that all the filming involving the car had to be done in 20 minutes or less before the car broke down again!

 

It was also interesting to note that when the car underwent trials Frankfurt Motor Show in 1977, the car overheated on a 2.5 mile speed test, and after 19 days in a shed, a troop of British Leyland engineers still couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

 

But set aside the failure in giving it a reliable engine and a good design, the TR7 was then botched by Red Robbo's rowdies at the Speke Factory in Liverpool. Strike after strike occurred and cars were released onto the roads only half put together. The results were either massive unreliability, leaking panels, electrical infidelity and/or other problems, such as hitting the indicator switch which would cause the horn to blow. This downfall was assisted by the factory shutting down for nearly a year due to seemingly constant industrial action, with many unfinished TR7 shells rotting out in the Liverpool drizzle.

 

Eventually, order was somewhat restored when production moved to the factory in Coventry, and reliability began to improve, but with its reputation in tatters, the TR7 simply would not sell, even with promotion on the New Avengers. However, in the end the threat of American legislation was lifted, and the cars were allowed to be sold as convertibles, which were quite handsome looking machines. This was later added to by the fitting of a Rover V8 engine to replace the unreliable Dolomite engine, and as such the formula was perfected in the form of the Triumph TR8...

 

...only to be axed the following year in 1981 as that poor reputation mixed with build quality issues and an unusually strong Pound meant the car was surprisingly more expensive than its rivals, and so the TR7 and TR8's were dead. But even so, towards the end they did begin to sell well, and a TR8 also found its way into the world of Rallying under the command of Tony Pond, the 300bhp monster he drove was simply untouchable.

 

Today these cars can be common if you know where to look, but don't expect to find many in everyday usage as like most British Leyland cars, they don't react well to the rain.

The question almost everyone asks after seeing this image is "What is that they're holding?"

 

The answer is "Why, the Brown Scapular, of course!"

 

In the Spanish-speaking world, this image is known as Nuestra Señora del Carmen. Here, she's Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

 

According to Wikipedia:

 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid-13th century.

 

Since the 15th century, popular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has centered on the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, also known as the Brown Scapular, a sacramental associated with promises of Mary's special aid for the salvation of the devoted wearer.

 

Traditionally, Mary is said to have given the Scapular to an early Carmelite named Saint Simon Stock. The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 July.

 

A 1996 doctrinal statement approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments states that

 

"Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel is bound to the history and spiritual values of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and is expressed through the scapular. Thus, whoever receives the scapular becomes a member of the order and pledges him/herself to live according to its spirituality in accordance with the characteristics of his/her state in life."

 

According to the Church on the Brown Scapular:

 

"The scapular is a Marian habit or garment. It is both a sign and pledge. A sign of belonging to Mary; a pledge of her motherly protection, not only in this life but after death. As a sign, it is a conventional sign signifying three elements strictly joined: first, belonging to a religious family particularly devoted to Mary, especially dear to Mary, the Carmelite Order; second, consecration to Mary, devotion to and trust in her Immaculate Heart; third, an urge to become like Mary by imitating her virtues, above all her humility, chastity, and spirit of prayer."

 

Since the Middle Ages, Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been related to Purgatory, where souls are purged of sins in the fires.

 

In some images, she is portrayed as accompanied with angels and souls wearing Brown Scapulars, who plead for her mediation.

 

In 1613, the Church forbade images to be made of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel descending into purgatory, due to errors being preached about certain privileges associated with the Brown Scapular (known as "the Sabbatine Privilege").

 

That privilege appears in the noted Decree of the Holy Office (1613). It was inserted in its entirety (except for the words forbidding the painting of the pictures) into the list of the indulgences and privileges of the Confraternity of the Scapular of Mount Carmel.

 

In the 21st century, the Carmelites do not promote the Sabbatine Privilege. They encourage a belief in Mary's general aid and prayerful assistance for their souls beyond death, especially her aid to those who devoutly wear the Brown Scapular, and commend devotion to Mary especially on Saturdays, which are dedicated to her.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Mount_Carmel

 

Cathedral Basilica of Montevideo, Uruguay.

  

Had to post another Monty pic, to balance out the stranger pic!

  

__________________________________________________

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LICENCE INFORMATION

You are free to share or adapt this work but must attribute me as the original author of the image. This image may not be used for any commercial purposes without my written consent, which may be easier to get than you would think. Email me for licensing

Creative Commons Licence - Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic

 

If you have any questions or would like to contribute to this archive, please visit tigerjams.art/ and contact me on Twitter DM or Telegram ♥

This question mark butterfly was so preoccupied it allowed me to get very close - so I accepted the invitation! You can spot the "question mark" on the underside of the wing towards the end.

Marcus

While out clicking my daily photos of the isthmus, I found myself admiring what has become quite the undertaking on the 100 Block of State Street. Lot's of private money has been put into a project tear down and rebuild several historic buildings on the block. and while I can't say I totally agree it's fun to see the changes unfold. As I looked through my viewfinder I saw out of the corner of my eye I saw a man watching me in a Wisconsin winter jacket, he seemed intrigued about my clicks so I decided to extend a word. He (being Marcus) asked me if I was a photographer, and being a smart ass I replied with a chuckle "Being one with a camera, I do suppose that make's me a photographer." He was such a good spirit and laughed along, as we discussed the changes to one of the existing buildings on the 100 Block I gave my usual speech explaining who I am and what I do. He thought it was a great idea to capture these fading buildings as they were and as they grow into a new skin of sorts. When I asked him if I would be able to click his photographed he smiled and agreed: While at first he seemed a little uncomfortable by the time I composed and exposed my third frame he fit perfectly in frame with the question mark in the window of the recently reopened central library building. I extended my hand and formally introduced myself as Chris aka local paparazzi, and he informed his name was Marcus. Such a simple name to remember especially with the large question mark in the background, we parted ways leading onward with the evening knowing that we were no longer strangers. I place his photo along side many others in my 100 more strangers project album as well as the 100 strangers group on flickr, as there are many talented photographers sharing stores and portraits of strangers from all across the world. Check it out if you feel like seeing some awesome portraits, and just maybe find yourself inspired enough to do your own project!

031/100

 

50mm f/1.4 USM

f4 1/80

ISO2500

#TBT: John Carroll, the founder and first Jesuit of Georgetown University, was honored with a bronze statue through the fundraising efforts of Georgetown alumni. Test your Georgetown knowledge! Can you guess when the statue was unveiled? #JesuitHeritageWeek Bonus Question: And how many people have sat in his lap?(Just kidding!) 😉 ift.tt/2kwus6D

 

Shawn 'Animal' Flaherty 32/52

  

Meet The Person:

 

Shawn the Animal Flaherty. The man, the myth, the legend.

 

Animal has been a cook most of his life and has been doing industrial insulating for the past 11 years. He likes working with his hands and the creativity he can get from certain jobs.

 

Personally Animal really enjoys watching and playing sports. He has been playing soccer (don't hold it against him folks) most of his life and still continues playing in intramural leagues. Animal also loves to be in the kitchen cooking and grilling. He got that passion from his Dad who was a cook. His Dad owned a great restaurant out in Haycock, PA that was a huge car meeting place in the late 1970's and 1980's.

  

Influence:

 

Animal. The Animal. His name is synonymous with greatness because, well, he is great. He’s the Animal.

 

First, we will start with the name. How does one get such a badass nickname? No one really knows except for a story from his good childhood friend and neighbor, Brian Scholl. I asked Brian this question back in high school. His response was simple and to the point. “Because he’s the Animal!” And it stuck ever since elementary school. So Animal went all through middle school and high school with friends and even teachers calling him Animal. Hell, in college I had our friends ask me who Shawn was after I called him that once. They literally didn’t know what his real name was after three plus years of knowing him! Haha.

 

So Animal and I got to know each other real well in our Sophomore year at Pennridge. It was Chemistry class and we sat right by each other and hit it off right away. Ever since then we have been best friends. Animal and I would hang out a lot in high school and we haven’t stopped since. We would plan our schedules around each other so we could have classes together. Some of my funnest moments with Animal came in high school. We would take Woodworking class together and had a blast there, too. One of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life occurred during our Senior year, right before Thanksgiving break. Animal and I were coming out of our Chemistry II class. Which, by the way, was like an AP or Honors class or some crap. Basically, we were in way over our head with a bunch of smart kids. Animal and my combined IQ didn’t equal what these kids had in like third grade but we didn’t care. We caused a ruckus in there, got bad grades but laughed our ass off. Anyway, it was at the end of the day, right before we left for Thanksgiving break. The cheerleaders had put up this scarecrow, dummy like mascot person thing in the middle of our audion (The audion was a general stepped down sitting area, right in middle of the school with lockers and classrooms surrounding. It’s where everyone would hang out in between classes.) So they had this thing decorated in the rival colors and jersey (Quakertown is Pennridge’s huge next door rival and the Thanksgiving day football game has been going on for decades.) So they had this dummy looking football player in the middle of the audion with like hay bails around it or some other crap. So Animal says to me “Yo, I think I am going to tackle the guy after class on our way out.” I of course see this as a golden moment in time and talk this up like its the greatest idea I have ever heard. Which it was! So I hype him up all week, with the ‘tackle’ coming on Wednesday, when we get out at noon for early dismissal. Word spreads quickly amongst the student body so when we come out from our classroom there is plenty of onlookers ready to see the action. We both come out of class with a mission ready to execute and nothing was stopping Animal. In one of the greatest acts of physical domination I have ever seen, Animal gets a running head start, leaps over the bottom step and dives head first at the dummy. He absolutely plows this thing, blows it completely up. He pulls himself out of the rubble and runs off like a kid stealing candy at a store. I am laughing hysterically, kneeling on the ground laughing so hard that I can barely move. It was so great. I ran out after him and we proceeded to bask in the awesomeness of the act. It has been 13 years since he made mincemeat of the cheerleaders football dummy and I can still see it vividly as if it happened 10 minutes ago.

 

Animal and I also went to college together. We went to Bucks County Community college for two years and then went off to Millersville together. We were also roommates at MU along with my future wife and another friend. We had some great times out at school, many, many unforgettable nights and funny stories to go along with them. Like the first party we had at our apartment when he got wasted off of some sort of fruit punch and vodka. He got so drunk early in the night that he went to puke, ran to the bathroom all to find a friend of ours in the bathroom taking a pee. He couldn’t hold his puke so as he opened the door he blew red chunks all over the bathroom and the kid taking a pee. Needless to say in the hot summer air, it smelled great in there. Oh and if you were to go back to 2 E-Courts, chances are you would still see red debris in the bathroom floor vent. I’d bet money on it!

 

We have been best friends ever since sophomore year, went to school together and he was in our wedding. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Animal is a great guy. He is humble and can be slightly reserved but he is a great friend. We get to see each other often and talk on the phone a decent amount still. It’s usually always sports talk. He is my go to sports talk guy to vent about Philadelphia sports frustrations and how I could possibly lose a fantasy matchup when there was no way I should have. I can usually count on Animal for anything I ask him for as well. He’s been on vacation with my family many times and has really become part of my family. Everyone loves having him around as he is great company. But one of his best attributes has developed over the last two years. The last two years that my son Cooper has been around. “Uncle Aamal” as Cooper would say has become one of Cooper’s good friends. Animal is so good with him, get’s him great Christmas presents and really has a great relationship with him. Let’s be honest, most guys are not always the best around children. Something about kids gets them nervous or scared thinking they might have to take care of one. But not Animal. He really enjoys playing with Cooper and Cooper just loves him as well. Animal came to the hospital the day after Cooper was born and held him - it was one of the best moments I have had as a Dad. To see your closest friend holding your kid is something that is hard to describe. So glad Animal has been around in my life these last 15+ years and to help be a great Uncle as well.

 

Thanks for being a best friend and a great uncle, Animal!

  

Questions for our Skype chat this week with the Rauch Brothers:

rauchbrothers.com/blog/

  

 

The Project [R]evolution Digital and Social Media Conference offers a unique opportunity for business, government and media managers to glean insights, ask questions and mix with some of the leading players in the field.

 

the-project.co.nz/

 

One of the keynote speakers:

 

Alec Ross

 

Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

  

Alec Ross serves as Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In this role, Alec is tasked with maximizing the potential of technology in service of America’s diplomatic and development goals.

 

Before that appointment, Alec worked on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team and served as Convener for Obama for America's Technology, Media & Telecommunications Policy Committee.

 

In 2000, Alec Ross and three colleagues co-founded One Economy, a global non-profit that uses innovative approaches to deliver the power of technology and information about education, jobs, health care and other vital issues to low-income people. During his eight years at One Economy, it grew from a team of four people working in a basement to the world's largest digital divide organization, with programs on four continents.

 

Power to every citizen

 

To me “digital revolution” can be defined as the massive shift in power that has taken place from hierarchies to citizens and networks of citizens as a result of powerful digital technologies.

 

What this means in practical terms is that everyday citizens have power today that they did not have as recently as five years ago. Anybody with a smart phone now has the kind of global reach that was once reserved for governments and large media companies. This shifting power has disrupted commerce, communication and governance.

 

I see this “digital revolution” as being overwhelmingly positive. Some of the disruption it has caused (and will cause in the future) is negative, but this has been far outweighed by the ability of people to connect and engage with the world and with the marketplace in ways that were previously unimaginable. I think about my own experience as a school teacher in an impoverished community. When I was a teacher, the only educational resource my students had beyond my own knowledge were a set of tattered, 30-year old textbooks. Today, that same classroom is equipped with an internet connection that can deliver world-class educational resources directly to the students that most need them. While there is no replacement for a good teacher, our students should not have to suffer with out-of-date and substandard educational resources. With the digital revolution, that no longer needs to be the case.

 

Another Keynote speaker:

Emily Banks

Associate managing editor for Mashable

Emily Banks is responsible for organizing and overseeing Mashable‘s growing editorial operations, including assigning, editing and publishing stories, as well as sharing them to Mashable's social accounts. She is also responsible for coordinating with partners on video and syndicated content. She joined Mashable‘s New York team in October 2010. Mashable is well known as the largest independent news source dedicated to covering digital culture, social media and technology.

 

Some of Emily’s recent engagements include "Social Media 101" for New York Women in Communications, "The New Face of Social Good: How to Make Your Own Social Media Magic!" and "Challenging Conventional Wisdom of Social Media".

 

Abstract: Social media and the newsroom: the Revolution of the Newsroom

Without question, social media has changed the pace of news; how and where it breaks and who breaks it. How does this change our trust in media organisations, journalists as individuals and news-makers? As we remove the layer of authority provided by news organisations, by placing the news directly in the hands of journalists on social media, how do -- or should -- our readers approach the news? This talk will discuss tools for verifying news through social media, cases of misinformation caused by the rapid nature of breaking news on social and the ethical questions involved in reporting in this new age.

 

newzealand.usembassy.gov

 

twitter.com/usembassynz

 

facebook.com/newzealand.usembassy

 

mémoire2cité - A la fin des années 1930, sous le Front Populaire, s’amorce une démocratisation des loisirs et du sport. Cette massification des loisirs sportifs, et en particulier de la natation, s’intensifie après-guerre, grâce à la mise en place d’une véritable politique d’Etat en faveur du développement de la pratique sportive, accompagnée par la construction d’équipements de proximité. Cette politique conduit à redéfinir et à rationaliser la conception de la piscine, autant d’un point de vue architectural que fonctionnel.

 

I. Vers une étatisation des politiques sportives

 

1. Une idée en germe depuis les années 1930

 

Vers la fin des années 1920, le sport, et en particulier la question de l’équipement sportif, commence à s’imposer au niveau national, comme un objet incontournable de souci et d’action politique. La volonté de créer une structure institutionnelle chargée de concevoir et de contrôler cette politique publique relative au sport s’affirme de plus en plus. Cette idée est en germe depuis l’armistice, comme l’indique la réflexion d’Edouard Herriot, maire de Lyon : « Peut-être arriverons-nous ainsi peu à peu à la constitution d’un grand service central – ministère ou non – de l’Éducation physique » (Édouard Herriot, 1919).

 

Parallèlement, des revendications sociales se font entendre pour une meilleure accessibilité au sport par la classe populaire. Ces requêtes sont entendues par le Front populaire, qui initie une politique de démocratisation de la culture sportive, s’appuyant sur l’invention de notions telles que temps libre et loisirs. Dans le but de diffuser et de mettre en oeuvre cette conception du sport pour tous, est créé en 1937 (à l’occasion d’un remaniement ministériel), un sous-secrétariat d’Etat aux Sports, aux Loisirs et à l’Education physique (rattaché au ministère de l’Education nationale dirigé par Jean Zay), à la tête duquel est placé Léo Lagrange. Ce dernier entreprend une série d’actions, à la fois concrètes et symboliques, comme l’aide à l’équipement communal (dont la nécessité est rendue évidente par les conclusions d’un inventaire national des installations existantes) ou la création d’un Brevet sportif populaire. Cette conception du sport de masse n’obtient cependant pas la faveur de tous. On note d’ailleurs, dans le mouvement sportif national, le rejet d’une politique d’intervention autoritaire des pouvoirs publics. Si les actions du Front Populaire sont stoppées par la déclaration de la guerre, elles ont toutefois conduit à une véritable prise de conscience de l’enjeu politique sportif au niveau national.

 

Sous le régime de Vichy (juin 1940-juin 1944), est créé un Commissariat Général à l’Education Générale et Sportive (CGEGS), qui s’appuie sur le sport pour diffuser l’idéologie du gouvernement, prônant des valeurs de discipline, de redressement moral, physique et intellectuel et de retour à l’ordre. Dans ces années, où le sport est surtout un outil de propagande, s’esquissent toutefois de nouvelles prescriptions concernant l’architecture des piscines (qui se doit d’être épurée et rationnelle), et la volonté de rattraper le retard de la France en matière d’équipement sportif par rapport aux autres pays européens.

 

2. Quelques réalisations remarquables des années 1950

 

Au sortir de la guerre, la question sportive n’est pas une priorité et la période 1945-1957 se caractérise par une faible intervention publique. Malgré les constructions réalisées grâce à des politiques municipales sociales et volontaristes dans les années 1930, le nombre d’équipements sportifs, et en particulier de piscines couvertes et chauffées, est encore très faible par rapport à la moyenne européenne. Ce sous-équipement va rapidement poser problème, d’autant plus que l’accroissement démographique est en plein essor, entraînant une augmentation de la jeunesse et donc une recrudescence de la pratique sportive, parallèlement à une forte urbanisation. Si l’effort est d’abord porté vers la reconstruction (du secteur industriel et du cadre de vie : logements, services administratifs, voirie, etc.), les questions de la jeunesse, du sport, de l’éducation populaire et du plein air travaillent les esprits du gouvernement.

 

Dans les Hauts-de-France, de nombreuses piscines ont subi des dégradations pendant la guerre et nécessitent une rénovation (une grande partie des piscines cheminotes par exemple).

 

Le stade nautique olympique de Tourcoing est complété, en 1951, d’un toit en partie ouvrant, une première du genre, amené à un grand développement dans les deux décennies suivantes. Faute de moyens financiers suffisants (il existe des subventions, mais les moyens alloués à la Jeunesse et aux Sports restent faibles) et d’une volonté politique forte, le nombre de constructions de piscines entre 1945 et 1958 demeure restreint. Ainsi, à Lens, suite à la destruction du stade nautique pendant la guerre, la construction d’une nouvelle piscine est projetée dès l’après-guerre, mais faute de financement, il faut attendre les années 1960 pour que le projet aboutisse.

 

Les quelques installations nautiques nouvelles qui sont réalisées au cours des 1950, sous l’impulsion d’initiatives locales, sont majoritairement découvertes et ne sont donc exploitables que quelques mois dans l’année. Si ces édifices sont aboutis au niveau technique et architectural, ils ne sont pas en mesure de satisfaire les besoins en matière de bassins éducatifs praticables pendant l’année scolaire. Ils répondent plus à une volonté d’offrir à la population un équipement de loisirs sportifs. Il s’agit souvent de la réalisation de projets municipaux d’avant-guerre, n’ayant pas eu l’occasion de voir le jour.

 

Dans ces piscines des années 1950, le double bassin est définitivement adopté et elles répondent aux nouvelles prescriptions édictées dans les années 1940 en matière d’architecture sportive, qui se doit avant tout d’être fonctionnelle et pratique, largement ouverte sur l’extérieur par des baies vitrées, sa beauté résidant essentiellement dans l’harmonie de ses proportions et l’agencement de lignes géométriques pures.

 

Ainsi, dans l’Oise, la ville de Compiègne décide en 1949 (sous le mandat de Jean Legendre), l’édification d’une piscine en bordure de l’Oise, rendue possible grâce aux indemnités des dommages de guerre et de la reconstruction, ainsi qu’à une subvention élevée de la part du Secrétariat d’Etat à l’Enseignement technique, à la Jeunesse et aux Sports. La piscine, conçue par l’architecte-urbaniste de la ville, J. Gossart, est inaugurée le 1er juin 1952. Des bains-douches sont aménagés dans les sous-sols. Il s’agit d’un grand bâtiment blanc rectangulaire en béton armé, inséré sur la berge boisée de l’Oise, s’ouvrant en son centre sur les deux bassins de plein-air de la piscine (25 x 12,5 m et 8 x 12,5 m), avec un plongeoir à double hauteur (3 et 5 mètres). Les baigneurs surplombent l’Oise et évoluent dans un cadre propice à la détente, correspondant bien aux prescriptions d’avant-guerres recommandant la construction d’équipements sportifs et de loisirs en plein air, dans un environnement naturel. Les gradins d’environ 800 places, font également face à l’Oise. L’architecture est simple et fonctionnelle, sans aucun décor ; elle obéit à un modernisme pur et efficace. Elle est remarquable du fait de sa situation en bord de rivière, comme l’était également la piscine découverte de l’Hôtel-Dieu à Pontoise (Val d’Oise) construite en 1961 par l’architecte Jean Letu et aujourd’hui détruite. La piscine de Compiègne, ouverte de mai à septembre, connaît un grand succès, qui ne cesse de croître d’année en année. Fermée dès 1985 car son bassin souffrait de fuites (et remplacée par la piscine Mercières, construite en 1988), elle est aujourd’hui à l’abandon.

 

A Caudry (Nord), le stade nautique municipal est construit en 1951-1952, sur les plans d'Edmond Lancelle (1898-1957), architecte du Cambrésis actif pendant les deux périodes de reconstruction, grâce à la volonté du maire Albert Dhélin (maire de 1947 à 1965). L’architecte est associé à Marc Revaux, ingénieur-conseil spécialisé en construction de piscines. Son architecture semble inspirée de la piscine de Bruay-en-Artois et est similaire à celle du Cateau-Cambrésis, reconstruite en 1954 par la même équipe d’architecte-ingénieur. Elle allie le style Paquebot de l’Art Déco (présence d’oculi en forme de hublots) aux codes du mouvement moderne international des années 1950. Les bassins sont entourés sur deux côtés par les bâtiments des vestiaires, et sur le deuxième grand côté par des gradins surplombés par une terrasse avec buvette (dans l’angle). La forme de U renversé de l’élégant plongeoir associée à la ligne courbe du toboggan qui lui fait face, animent l’orthogonalité des alignements de cabines. Le portique d’entrée, reprenant ces lignes courbes, s’ouvre sur un guichet vitré aux formes dynamiques et sculpturales. La piscine est dominée par une grande tour-horloge, rythmant les séances de natation. On retrouve cette tour-horloge marquant l’entrée de la piscine, à la piscine olympique de la Scarpe à Arras (1955) et au stade nautique de Bapaume (Pas-de-Calais). A Bapaume, le bâtiment abritant l’accueil et les vestiaires est largement vitré et s’ouvre sur les bassins, entourés d’un portique. Son architecte, Emile Cauwet, est spécialiste de l’architecture scolaire (groupe scolaire Ferdinand-Buisson à Boulogne-Billancourt), industrielle et sportive, et prône une esthétique moderniste et fonctionnelle.

 

A Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais), une piscine municipale est judicieusement intégrée au nouveau casino, bâtiment monumental, manifeste de l’architecture des années 1950, conçu par les architectes Sonrel et Bonhomme, et situé derrière la plage de la station balnéaire. La piscine, localisée au rez-de-chaussée, est vitrée sur deux côtés et donne vue sur la plage. Le bâtiment en béton armé, monté sur pilotis (rappelant l’architecture de Le Corbusier), est décoré sur ses façades extérieures de mosaïques réalisées par l’artiste Françoise Lelong. La façade côté plage s’ouvre par un portique avec terrasse.

 

Ainsi les piscines des années 1950, souvent d’une grande sobriété correspondant aux préceptes architecturaux du mouvement moderne, s’inscrivent dans la continuité des piscines de la fin des années 1930. Il faut attendre les années 1960 pour qu’une nouvelle impulsion soit donnée à l’innovation architecturale dans le domaine des piscines, grâce à la mise en place d’une véritable politique interventionniste de l’Etat en faveur de l’équipement sportif sous la Ve République, dans le cadre de trois lois de programme planifiant la construction d’équipements sportifs et socio-éducatifs. Ce nouveau cadre législatif se traduit par une "mise en administration" du bâti sportif par l’État1.

 

II. Les mesures mises en place entre 1961 et 1976 par l’Etat en faveur de la construction des piscines

 

A partir de la Ve République, le sport et la construction sportive sont désormais perçus comme un service d’intérêt public du ressort de l’Etat. Déterminé, l’Etat entreprend une série de mesures incitatives visant à créer un maillage de piscines publiques praticables en toutes saisons (la plupart des piscines étaient alors découvertes et non chauffées) sur l’ensemble du territoire national. L’objectif principal est que tous les enfants aient accès à un bassin pour apprendre à nager, et qu’ainsi soit enfin mis en application l’apprentissage obligatoire de la natation à l’école (dans les programmes depuis la fin du 19e siècle). La priorité des piscines des années 1960-1970 est donc portée vers la jeunesse et l’éducation.

 

1. Les lois programmes : une nouvelle politique économique en faveur de l’équipement sportif

 

Lors de l’instauration du premier gouvernement de la Ve République, est créé un Haut-commissariat (puis Secrétariat d’Etat) à la Jeunesse et aux Sports (rattaché au ministère de l’Education Nationale), dirigé par Maurice Herzog. Ce dernier souhaite impulser de manière urgente une politique de construction afin de combler le sous-équipement en matière d’édifices à destination de la jeunesse : "Notre objectif, notre seul objectif est de mettre à la disposition de notre jeunesse, les moyens de s’exprimer plus complètement. Nous voulons que des millions de jeunes Français puissent aller au stade, à la piscine, se rencontrer dans les Maisons de Jeunes" (Equipements pour la jeunesse et les sports, 1962). Cette volonté se concrétise le 28 juillet 1961, avec la promulgation, dans le cadre du IVe plan, de la première loi de programme, qui instaure, sur une durée de quatre ans (1962-1965), un plan assurant un financement national durable et concret en faveur des équipements sportifs et socio-éducatifs. Ce plan prend la forme de subventions élevées (représentant généralement entre 20 et 50% du coût total) destinées à aider de nombreuses collectivités locales dans leur projet de constructions sportives. Ces aides se poursuivent et sont même revalorisées lors de la deuxième loi de programme d’équipements sportifs (1966-1970), votée le 2 juillet 1965. La troisième loi (1971-1975), votée le 13 juillet 1971, montre une détermination encore plus forte de l’Etat à augmenter massivement le nombre d’équipements à grande échelle, en particulier dans les nouvelles zones urbaines, et à former des éducateurs, ceci pour favoriser le sport de masse pour tous. Ces années marquent en revanche le début du désengagement financier de l’État, que l’on discerne par la baisse progressive des montants des subventions accordées. Ces subventions sont bien sûr soumises à certaines conditions. Et, pour assurer et contrôler la qualité technique et le respect des normes des piscines construites, les municipalités doivent en faire valider les avant-projets par l’Etat.

 

Certains dossiers de subventions conservés aux Archives nationales montrent que de nombreuses municipalités des Hauts-de-France bénéficient de cette aide dès les années 1960 (par exemple les piscines de Lomme, de Noyon, de Chantilly, de Lens, etc.).

 

Ces lois de programmes d’équipements ne se résument toutefois pas à ces aides financières : l’Etat développe également des mesures permettant d’inciter plus efficacement les collectivités à entreprendre la construction d’une piscine, en facilitant leurs démarches administratives et en réduisant les coûts de construction.

 

2. L’agrément de modèles de piscines : normaliser, encadrer et faciliter la construction

 

Suite à l’application de la première loi de programme, le Haut-Commissariat à la Jeunesse et aux Sports, constate que les prix de revient des équipements sportifs sont fréquemment trop élevés et que les architectes municipaux chargés de ces constructions ne sont la plupart du temps pas qualifiés pour ce type de constructions complexes et techniques. D’où la volonté de normaliser et de rationaliser les équipements sportifs, notamment les piscines, et de contrôler les projets proposés par de plus en plus d’entreprises, de constructeurs ou de bureaux d’études aux collectivités. Dans ce but est créée le 25 mai 1963 une commission spéciale dont la mission est d’agréer, sur le plan technique, des projets-types d’équipements susceptibles d’être réalisés dans toute la France. La commission est composée de treize sièges et se réunit plusieurs fois dans l’année pour donner son avis sur les projets d’architecture présentés à l’agrément. Pour ce faire, elle se base sur les qualités techniques du projet, sur les possibilités d’adaptation de l’architecture aux terrains divers, ainsi que sur les qualifications professionnelles des candidats à l’agrément. A partir de 1967, la commission se montre plus exigeante sur l’esthétique, l’harmonie, et l’originalité architecturale.

 

L’objectif principal de cette commission était de pouvoir proposer aux collectivités un panel de modèles de piscines variées et conformes aux caractéristiques définies par l’Etat, livrables clefs en mains et ayant des prix fixes. Cette procédure de normalisation devait de cette façon, assurer la qualité des équipements construits en France ainsi qu’une plus grande rapidité de réalisation. Le premier numéro de la revue Piscines informations résume avec enthousiasme tous les avantages que présente pour les municipalités le choix d’un projet-type agréé, se faisant ainsi le relais des services de l’Etat : "Plus que jamais, ces projets-types agréés sont la solution simple et économique. Prix plafonnés, projets clairement déterminés, normes parfaitement respectées, marché de gré à gré, financements faciles et par conséquent, réalisations rapides, tels sont les principaux avantages que permet d’obtenir le choix d’une exécution conforme à un projet-type agréé". Tout est mis en oeuvre pour inciter les collectivités à s’orienter de préférence vers un projet-type. Une documentation fournie permet en outre d’aider les maîtres d’ouvrages à choisir un programme (nombre et taille des bassins, piscine couverte ou non, etc.) adapté aux besoins de leur commune, notamment en fonction du nombre d’habitants.

 

Il faut attendre 1966 pour que les premiers projets-types soient validés par la commission d’agrément, qui est alors placée sous la responsabilité du nouveau ministère de Jeunesse et des Sports, créé en janvier 1966. La procédure d’agrément est un succès auprès des constructeurs, ingénieurs et architectes. Ils sont ravis de pouvoir bénéficier de ce moyen permettant d’officialiser leurs projets, et mettent à profit leur savoir-faire et leurs idées au service de l’élaboration d’une nouvelle architecture des piscines. Ainsi, parmi les 134 projets-types validés par la commission d’agrément entre 1966 et 1971 (date de mise en arrêt de la procédure), on compte 64 modèles de piscines. La plupart de ces projets présentent des programmes simples et polyvalents, avec un ou plusieurs bassins susceptibles de s’adapter à différents besoins. Avant le lancement de la procédure, toujours dans le but de promouvoir l’apprentissage de la natation, le secrétariat d’Etat avait également agréé trois modèles de piscines-écoles, bassins de natation découverts ou couverts. Ces piscines scolaires, en matériaux préfabriqués, sont constituées d’un bassin métallique suspendu sous lequel sont situées les cabines de change et les installations techniques. Une carte postale montre un de ces bassins découverts (type PF) construit à Barlin (Pas-de-Calais).

 

Seuls certains de ces modèles agréés ont eu du succès et ont été sélectionnés à plusieurs reprises par les municipalités mais ils n’ont pas véritablement été construits à grande échelle. Pour "vendre" leurs piscines, les constructeurs n’hésitent pas à vanter les avantages de leurs projets agréés à travers de nombreuses publicités diffusées dans la presse spécialisée2, ou grâce à des brochures publicitaires envoyées aux municipalités. Dans les Hauts-de-France, on dénombre onze modèles adoptés une ou plusieurs fois par les communes, conduisant à la construction de vingt-trois piscines couvertes. Certains modèles de piscines sont construits avant que les architectes en demandent l’agrément : par exemple la piscine S.5 de l’architecte Michel Denisse, qu’il met en oeuvre dans sa ville natale, Hénin-Liétard, et pour le district urbain de Montreuil-sur-Mer en 1966, alors qu’il n’obtient l’agrément qu’en 1967. C’est le cas également pour la piscine couverte de Cambrai, inaugurée en 1964, qui sert de prototype à Pierre Prod’homme et René Lancelle (architectes à Cambrai) avant de proposer à l’agrément un modèle de piscine.

 

On relève toutefois que, si la commission privilégie l’agrément de piscines couvertes ou transformables (c’est-à-dire pouvant s’ouvrir aux beaux-jours), en ne validant qu’un seul modèle de piscine de plein-air, c’est encore ce type qui est majoritairement construit en France, en raison de son faible coût de fabrication.

 

Ainsi les résultats de la procédure d’agrément sont plutôt satisfaisants mais pas suffisants pour l’Etat qui souhaite intensifier davantage l’implantation de piscines publiques exploitables toute l’année en France, en particulier dans les petites et moyennes communes, ou les quartiers populaires de grandes agglomérations, dont les budgets sont très modestes et qui n’ont pas pu bénéficier de l’élan de construction des décennies précédentes. Pour ce faire, le ministère de la Jeunesse et des Sports, lance, suite à l’organisation de plusieurs concours d’architecture sur le thème des piscines économiques et transformables, une opération nommée « Mille piscines » visant à une répartition uniforme et égalitaire des piscines sur tout le territoire, afin que désormais tous les enfants puissent apprendre à nager. La création d’un réseau d’équipements natatoire apparaît d’autant plus nécessaire depuis la décentralisation de l’enseignement du second degré en 1964 et la création de collèges d’enseignement secondaires (CES) dans des petites villes.

 

3. L’opération "Mille piscines" : une industrialisation totale des piscines pour équiper le territoire à grande échelle

 

Mise en place de l’opération Mille piscines

 

La troisième loi de programme prévoit, en 1971, la réalisation prioritaire, entre autres équipements, d’un millier de piscines (dont 850 industrialisées et 150 destinées à la compétition) en quatre ans (1972-1976). Cette opération, appelée "Mille piscines", entre dans la continuité des volontés étatiques édictées depuis le début de la Ve République en matière d’équipement natatoire, mais elle est également motivée par deux évènements qui ont frappé l’opinion publique à l’été 1968 : la noyade de 150 personnes, dont une majorité d’enfants, suite au naufrage d’un bateau de plaisance sur le lac Léman à moins de 50 mètres de la rive ; et les mauvaises performances des nageurs français aux jeux Olympiques de Mexico. Le général de Gaulle donne alors pour mission à Joseph Comiti, secrétaire d’Etat à la Jeunesse et aux Sports, d’équiper la France d’un maximum de piscines afin d’enseigner la natation à toute la jeunesse française.Devant l’importance de l’objectif à atteindre : mille piscines, pouvant s’adapter aux possibilités financières souvent limitées des petites et moyennes communes (de 8000 à 15000 habitants) et dont le programme doit concilier l’apprentissage de la natation, la détente et l’entraînement sportif quelle que soit la saison , le secrétariat d’Etat oriente résolument la recherche vers le développement de techniques de préfabrication et d’industrialisation totale de l’architecture, afin de pouvoir produire des piscines en grande série à moindre coût (le prix de revient doit être situé autour de 1 200 000 francs). Pour augmenter l’efficacité et la rapidité de l’opération, l’Etat centralise et facilite le processus administratif (conception et passage des marchés), assure le suivi des réalisations et des travaux, devenant ainsi le maître d’ouvrage des opérations, dont il subventionne largement le coût auprès des villes qui se portent acquéreurs. Les municipalités doivent seulement fournir le terrain et se décider pour un modèle de piscine parmi ceux proposés. A noter que l’Etat se réserve toutefois de refuser ce choix et d’attribuer un autre modèle à la commune, compte tenu des obligations liés aux marchés de série. Pour aider à choisir et expliquer les démarches à mettre en oeuvre, le secrétariat d’Etat diffuse auprès des communes intéressées une documentation abondante et incitative (dépliants, brochures, albums techniques, etc.). Ce système très rationalisé laisse donc peu de marge de manoeuvre aux petites communes qui, si elles souhaitent s’équiper rapidement d’une piscine, sont quasiment obligées de passer par ce système. Ainsi, il s’agit, selon Patrick Facon (2006), de "construire plus vite, moins cher, sans viser d’emblée la perfection – mais en donnant des outils même rudimentaires dans les meilleurs délais".

 

Dès 1970, l’Etat amorce le lancement de cette opération avec la création de 50 "bassins d’apprentissage mobiles" (B.A.M.), dont la fabrication, la conception, le montage et la mise en service sont réalisés par deux entreprises sélectionnées sur concours en 1969 : Walrvae Nausicaa et la société Techniques et Loisirs. Ces bassins de 12,5 x 6 m, peu onéreux et facilement mis en oeuvre, en service d’avril à septembre, sont à affectés par roulement à des communes ne possédant pas d’établissement natatoire. Ils ont pour but de faire patienter les municipalités pendant l’avancée de l’opération "Mille piscines", et de sensibiliser, en attendant, les futurs usagers des piscines industrialisées et ainsi amorcer le développement de la pratique massive de la natation à l’école. Ce service rencontre un grand succès et le secrétariat passe une deuxième commande de 45 B.A.M. en 1972. Ces installations ont été mises en service dans plus de 700 communes jusqu’en 1976 (date fin de l’opération "Mille piscines").

  

Les concours nationaux d’idées de 1969

 

Précédant le lancement de cette opération, l’Etat avait organisé en 1969 et 1971 des séries de concours d’architecture nationaux sur le thème de la piscine, qui devaient conduire à une sélection de modèles de piscines facilement industrialisables. Les deux premiers concours sont lancés le 22 mai 1969 et ont pour objectif de recenser et de comparer toutes les idées nouvelles en matière de piscine. Ces concours sont avant tout ouverts aux architectes, contrairement aux agréments qui mobilisent plutôt des entreprises.

 

Le premier concours porte sur les "piscines transformables", confirmant l’orientation voulue par le ministère de favoriser la construction d’équipements conciliant, en un seul équipement, les bénéfices d’une installation de plein-air et d’une piscine couverte. Les architectes doivent imaginer une piscine ouverte aux beaux-jours, destinée aux agglomérations moyennes et aux quartiers de grandes villes et comportant les équipements suivant : un bassin sportif de 25 m sur 15 m équipé d’un plongeoir, un bassin d’apprentissage de 15 sur 12,5 m, une pataugeoire de 30 m2 et des annexes fonctionnelles et techniques.

 

Le second concours concerne les "piscines économiques". Le programme, plus dépouillé, visant à l’économie tant du point de vue de la construction que de la gestion, correspond aux besoins des petites villes : un bassin mixte de 25 m sur 10 m (dont la profondeur varie de 0,7 à 2 m) permettant de nombreuses activités (baignade familiale, entraînement sportif, apprentissage, compétition, détente) et des annexes fonctionnelles et techniques. Comme pour le premier concours, la façade ou la toiture doit être largement ouvrable. L’architecte doit également prévoir la possibilité d’extensions par l’ajout de bassins de plein air.

 

Ces deux concours connaissent un grand succès : d’après Joseph Comiti, 400 architectes s’y sont intéressés et 150 projets ont été reçus. Neuf avant-projets de piscines transformables sont retenus et quatre pour les piscines économiques. Ces projets, d’une grande originalité, présentent tous des systèmes inédits de toitures ou de façades escamotables permettant l’ouverture complète de la piscine sur l’extérieur. La piscine Tournesol de Bernard Schoeller remporte le premier prix aux deux concours. Robert Hirt gagne le deuxième prix pour les piscines transformables, tandis que le deuxième prix pour les piscines économiques est attribué à la piscine Caneton de Jean-Paul Aigrot, Franc Charras et Alain Charvier. Tous les avant-projets primés doivent normalement faire l’objet d’un prototype en vue d’étudier les possibilités concrètes d’une industrialisation. Mais au final, peu de projets s’y prêtent véritablement. Quelques projets du premier concours sont construits à titre expérimental, et seuls les deux premiers projets lauréats au concours des piscines économiques (Tournesol et Caneton) sont retenus en février 1970 par le secrétariat d’Etat pour la poursuite des études techniques en vue d’une construction en série. Les architectes sont mis en contact avec le bureau d’études SERI-Renault pour approfondir leur projet, puis un appel d’offres international pour les différents lots (tous les éléments doivent être préfabriqués en usine) est lancé en août 1971 pour la construction de prototypes. Pour la réalisation de la coque de la piscine Tournesol, c’est la proposition de la société Durafour qui est retenue, et l’entreprise générale GBA pour la piscine Caneton. Les prototypes primés sont construits à Nangis (Seine-et-Marne) pour la piscine Tournesol et à Salbris (Loir-et-Cher) pour la piscine Caneton. Après une année d’observation et de fonctionnement, les marchés en série sont conclus en décembre 1972 et les premières piscines Tournesol et Caneton sont construites sur tout le territoire national à partir de 1973. Il est prévu de construire 250 exemplaires de chaque piscine. En réalité, 183 piscines Tournesol ont été réalisées en France, et 196 piscines Caneton.

 

inventaire.hautsdefrance.fr/dossier/les-piscines-des-tren... -

 

les Piscines TOURNESOL En réalité, 183 piscines Tournesol ont été réalisées en France, et 196 piscines Caneton.

 

inventaire.hautsdefrance.fr/dossier/les-piscines-des-tren... - @ les pisçines Tournesol ↑ a et b Dossier sur la piscine de Carros

 

↑ Notice de la piscine de Bonneveine [archive], sur le site de la DRAC de PACA.

 

↑ Notice de la piscine de Carros-le-Neuf [archive], sur le site de la DRAC de PACA.

 

↑ Bilan 2011-2012 : Patrimoine architectural du xxe siècle, édifices « labellisés », édifices « labellisés » inscrits ou classés [archive], sur le site du ministère de la Culture.

 

↑ Christine Lescoutte-Gardent, « La piscine en travaux », Sud Ouest,‎ 9 février 2013 (lire en ligne [archive]).

 

↑ Marc Gaillard, Architectures des sports, Éditions du Moniteur, coll. « Architecture / Les bâtiments », 1981 (ISBN 2-281-00014-1), p. 54.

 

↑ « Piscine de Carros » [archive], 2006 (consulté le 9 décembre 2017)

 

↑ « Les piscines Tournesol de Monsieur Schoeller » [archive], sur archipostcard.blogspot.fr (consulté le 9 décembre 2017)

 

↑ www.pss-archi.eu/immeubles/FR-50129-19686.html [archive]

 

↑ « Piscine du bois du château à Lorient » [archive], sur guide-piscine.fr, 1er juin 2016 (consulté le 21 août 2016)

 

↑ « Piscine de Baud » [archive], sur guide-piscine.fr, 28 juin 2016 (consulté le 21 août 2016)

 

↑ a et b « La piscine Tournesol en phase de démolition » [archive], sur ouest-france.fr, Ouest France, 27 novembre 2015 (consulté le 21 août 2016)

 

↑ « Démolition de la piscine communautaire | CCB – Communauté de Communes du Bouzonvillois » [archive] (consulté le 29 août 2016)

 

↑ « Lille : la piscine tournesol de la rue françois coppee, c'est déja fini » [archive], sur www.lavoixdunord.fr/ [archive], 26 avril 2016 (consulté le 9 janvier 2017)

 

↑ « Fermeture définitive de la piscine Tournesol à Louvroil » [archive], sur Agglo Maubeuge-Val de Sambre, 24 mars 2016 (consulté le 9 janvier 2017)

 

↑ Dixième anniversaire de la piscine Atlantis. [archive]

 

↑ « Sa démolition a débuté : la piscine à ventre ouvert ! » [archive], sur lavoixdunord.fr, 19 décembre 2012 (consulté le 9 janvier 2017)

 

↑ Emmanuel Delahaye, « La piscine Tournesol a vécu », L'Alsace,‎ 5 février 2016 (lire en ligne [archive])

 

↑ « La piscine a été démolie », L'Alsace,‎ 12 janvier 2014 (lire en ligne [archive])

 

↑ CMS Anan6, « Communauté de Communes du Sud-Ouest Amiénois | Piscine communautaire » [archive], sur www.ccsoa.fr (consulté le 9 janvier 2017)

 

↑ Schoeller, Bernard, Piscine tournesol, plans de projet M 1:100, Archives Commune de Larochette, Paris, 1974.

 

↑ Galerie d'architecture moderne [archive], sur citedechaillot.fr.

 

↑ [PDF] Plein air, Beauvais, Diaphane, 2008 (ISBN 978-2-9530799-1-3, lire en ligne [archive]), chap. 15 (« Jurisprudence, dénomination, botanique »), p. 40–41.

 

Bernard Schoeller et Secrétariat d'État à la Jeunesse et aux Sports, Projet Tournesol : Opération 1000 piscines, dossier technique de présentation, Paris, R. Lacer, 1972, 31 p. (OCLC 1505704, notice BnF no FRBNF35900611, LCCN 75503940)

 

Gérard Monnier (dir.), L'architecture moderne en France, vol. 3 : De la croissance à la compétition : 1967-1999, Paris, Picard, coll. « Librairie de l'architecture et de la ville », 2000, 311 p. (ISBN 2-7084-0571-3), « Les piscines Tournesol », p. 16–18

 

Patrick Facon, « Les piscines Tournesol », dans Gérard Monnier (dir.) et Richard Klein (dir.), Les années ZUP : Architectures de la croissance, 1960-1973, Paris, Picard, 2002, 301 p. (ISBN 2-7084-0629-9), p. 91–110

 

« Remise à neuf de la coupole d'une piscine 'Tournesol' », Les Cahiers techniques du bâtiment, no 279,‎ mai 2008, p. 32–34 (ISSN 0241-6794)

 

Odile Fillion, « Volumes d'eau », D'A. D'Architectures, no 104,‎ août-septembre 2000, p. 36–51

 

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piscine_Tournesol

8/8

 

Rennes, le 30 mai 2015

In creating the plant, I based my design on this question: Had it been based on a real living plant, what would it look like?

 

I used clay, a strengthened wire skeleton and a special mix of acrylics to get the right appearance of flesh (particularly the inside of the mouth).

 

To see a making-of vid of the the plant, go here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMp4JKcz5kE

Sir Joshua Reynolds

 

West Building, Main Floor—Gallery 59

 

•Date: 1784

•Medium: Oil on Canvas

•Dimensions:

oOverall: 91.6 × 76.4 cm (36 1/16 × 30 1/16 in.)

oFramed: 108 × 93.7 × 5.7 cm (42½ × 36⅞ × 2¼ in.)

•Credit Line: Andrew W. Mellon Collection

•Accession Number: 1942.8.21

•Artists/Makers:

oPainter: Gilbert Stuart: American, 1755-1828

 

Provenance

 

Commissioned by John Boydell [1719-1804], London; probably inherited by his nephew and business partner, Josiah Boydell [1752-1817], London. Possibly sold by an unidentified consigner at (Greenwood & Co., London, 3 April 1806, no. 49) and (Greenwood & Co., London, 21 May 1807, no. 40), purchaser not recorded.[1] Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin and 1st Marquis of Thomond [d. 1808];[2] by descent to his nephew, James O’Brien, 7th Earl of Inchiquin and 3rd Marquis of Thomond [1769-1855], Bath.[3] (T.H. Robinson, London, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York), October 1919; sold 11 December 1919 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York) to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1942 to NGA.

 

[1]The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century, Burton B. Fredericksen, ed. (Santa Barbara, California and Oxford, England, 1990), 2: 951, as “Stuart, An Original Protrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” consigned by “a gentleman,” and as “G. Stuart, A Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds.” Only the second price is recorded, with some question, as three pounds, six pence. Since this is a very small price for a full-size portrait, perhaps these sales are instead for the “Small head, Sir Joshua Reynolds, sketch” attributed to Sturart that was sold at Christie’s on 5 February 1818 by a Mr. Rising, with a small head of the Marquis of Landsown, also attributed to Stuart. The pair went for five guineas. (Information courtesy of The Getty Provenance Index, 7 April 1992).

[2]Jane Stuart, “The Youth of Gilbert Stuart,” Scribner’s Monthly 13, no. 5 (March 1877), 644 recorded that “Lord Inchiquin” paid 250 guineas for her father’s portrait of Reynolds. It has been assumed that this was the 5th Earl, whose wife was Mary Palmer [d. 1820], Reynolds niece and heiress. On the Earls of Inchiquin see Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 104th ed., London, 1967, 1325-1330.

[3]According to Knoedler’s records (letter from Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, 5 June 1992, NGA curatorial file), the portrait was from the estate of James O’Brien, the 3rd and last marquis of Thomond, and “the present Lord Inchiquin is unable to say when the picture left the family.” Henry William Beechey, ed., The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, First President of the Royal Academy, rev. ed., 2 vols., London, 1855, 300, records the portrait and reproduces an engraving of it as his frontispieces, but he does not record any owner after Boydell.

[4]Knoedler purchased a joint share from T.H. Robinson in October 1919 and sold the painting to Clarke in December. The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of Portraits by Early American Painters of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, (Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928) annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library).

 

Associated Names

 

•Boydell, John

•Boydell, Josiah

•Clarke, Thomas Benedict

•Greenwood & Co.

•Greenwood & Co.

•Knoedler & Company, M.

•Knoedler & Company, M.

•Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.

•O’Brien, 5th Earl Inchiquin, Murrough

•O’Brien, 7th Earl Inchiquin, James

•Robinson, T.H.

 

Exhibition History

 

•1786—John Boydell’s Gallery, London, 1786.

•1792—Possibly Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, London, 1792-1802.

•1922—Portraits Painted in Europe by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, January 1922, no. 1.

•1928—Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928-1931, unnumbered and unpaginated catalogue.

•1944—Gilbert Stuart: Portraits Lent by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1944-1945, no. 1.

•1967—Gilbert Stuart, Portraitist of the Young Republic, National Gallery of Art; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1967, no. 12.

•2004—Gilbert Stuart, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art (for the National Portrait Gallery), Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, no. 14, repro.

 

Bibliography

 

•1784—Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Diary, 1784, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

•1786—”Fabius.” “The Arts. No. II. Alderman Boydell’s Gallery.” The Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser. 14 November 1786: 2.

•1792—Felton, Samuel. Testimonies to the Genius and Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. London, 1792: 67.

•1804—”Monthly Retrospect of the Fine Arts.” Monthly Magazine; or British Register 17 (1 July 1804): 595.

•1855—Beechy, Henry William, ed. The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Renolds, First President of the Royal Academy. Rev. ed., 2 vols. London, 1855:1:frontispiece, engraving by E. Scriven, 300.

•1865—Leslie, Charles Robert and Tom Taylor. Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with Notices of some of his Contemporaries. 2 vols. London, 1865:2:468

•1869—Dunlap, William. A History of the Rise and Progress of The Arts of Design in the United States. 2 vols. Reprinted in 3. New York, 1969 (1834): 1:184, 219.

•1877—Stuart, Jane. “The Youth of Gilbert Stuart.” Scribner’s Monthly 13, no. 5 (March 1877):644

•1879—Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 248.

•1880—MFA 1880, 52, no. 508

•1913—Strickland, Walter G. A Dictionary of Irish Artists. 2 vols. Dublin and London, 1913: 2:416

•1922—Sherman, Frederick Fairchild. “Current Comment: Exhibitions.” ArtAm 10, no. 3 (April, 1922):139 repro., 143-144.

•1926—Park 1926, 641-642, no. 702, repro.

•1928—Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, unnumbered.

•1932—Whitley 1932, 46-47, 55-56

•1949—Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 133, repro.

•1959—Mount, Charles Merril. “A Hidden Treasure in Britain.” The Art Quarterly 22, no. 3 (Autumn, 1959): 220, 223

•1964—Mount 1964, 90, 362

•1970—American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 104, repro.

•1974—Bruntjen, Hermann Arnold. John Boydell (1719-1804): A Study of Art Patronage and Publishing in Georgian London. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1974:28-29, 36, 58, 63

•1975—Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 382, color repro.

•1980—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 233, repro.

•1981—Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 50, 62.

•1984—Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 378, no. 534, color repro.

•1985—Bruntjen, Sven H. A. John Boydell (1719-1804): A Study of Art Patronage and Publishing in Georgian London. New York and London, 1985: 28-29. 36, 58, 63.

•1986—McLanathan, Richard. Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1986:51, 54, color repro.

•1990—Harris, Eileen. “Robert Adam’s Ornament for Alderman Boydell’s Picture Frames.” Furniture History: The Journal of the Furniture History Society. 26 (1990): 93-96, figs. 1-3

•1992—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 346, repro.

•1993—Rather, Susan. “Stuart and Reynolds: A Portrait of Challenge.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 27, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 61-84.

•1995—Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 172-177, color repro. 175.

•2000—Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 262.

•2016—Rather, Susan. The American School: Artists and Status in the Late Colonial and Early National Era. New Haven, 2016: 172-174, color fig. 128.

  

From American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century:

 

1942.8.21 (574)

 

Sir Joshua Reynolds

 

•1784

•Oil on canvas, 91.6 × 76.4 (36 1/16 × 30 1/16)

•Andrew W. Mellon Collection

 

Technical Notes

 

The primary support is a mediumweight, plain-weave fabric with a vertical seam 4.5 cm from the left side. A second, almost identical fabric is stretched beneath this support. Both the added strip and the lining appear to be original to the painting, as only one set of tack holes is found in the fabric, which has its original tacking margins. The four-member mortise-and-tenon, keyed stretcher also appears to be original. The thin, grayish white ground extends over the edges of the fabric, indicating that the canvas was prepared before stretching. The ground color contributes generally to the tonality in the more thinly painted passages in the hair, scroll, and column. In the more thickly painted coat, face, and hands, the ground is visible around the eyes and in the sitter’s left hand.

 

A mild, retouched abrasion is in the more thinly painted passages, with an untouched area of abrasion in the sitter’s left hand. Heavy retouching is evident in the areas of abrasion in the jacket. The varnish is a somewhat discolored, thick, and uneven glossy layer of natural resin.

 

Provenance

 

Commissioned by John Boydell [1719-1804], London; probably inherited by his nephew and business partner Josiah Boydell [1752-1817], London. Possibly sold by an unidentified consignor at (Greenwood & Co., London, 3 April 1806, no. 49) and (Greenwood & Co., London, 21 May 1807, no. 40), purchaser not recorded.1 Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin and 1st Marquis of Thomond [d. 1808];2 by descent to his nephew James O’Brien, 7th Earl of Inchiquin and 3rd Marquis of Thomond [1769-1855], Bath.3 (T.H. Robinson, London, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York), October 1919; sold 11 December 1919 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;4 his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh.

 

Exhibited

 

John Boydell’s Gallery, London, 1786. Possibly at Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, London 1792-1802. Union League Club, January 1922, no. 1. Philadelphia 1928, unnumbered. Richmond 1944-1945, no. 1. Gilbert Stuart, NGA; RISD; PAFA, 1967, no. 12.

 

Gilbert Stuart painted this portrait of sixty-one-year-old Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the celebrated English painter and president of the Royal Academy of Arts, in July 1784. It is one of fifteen portraits of painters and engravers commissioned from Stuart by John Boydell, the London print publisher, of the men associated with his commercial success. In addition to Reynolds, Stuart painted portraits of John Singleton Copley (National Portrait Gallery, London), Benjamin West (National Portrait Gallery, London), Ozias Humphrey (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford), William Miller, and Richard Patón, and engravers James Heath (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford), William Woollett (Tate Gallery, London), John Hall (National Portrait Gallery, London), Johann Gottlieb Facius, Georg Sigmund Facius, John Browne, and Richard Earlom, as well as Boydell and his nephew and partner Josiah Boydell.5 He completed the portraits of Copley, Heath, and Josiah Boydell by 3 April 1784, when Robert Adam, the Scottish architect, designed an elaborate frame that positioned the portraits as a group above Copley’s history painting The Death of Major Peirson (1782-1784, Tate Gallery, London).6 Boydell had commissioned the Death of Peirson and had employed Heath as its engraver. He exhibited these paintings at 28 Haymarket, London, before moving them to the gallery in his print shop at 90 Cheapside.7 On 12 June, Robert Adam designed a second grouping of a number of circular, oval, and rectangular frames on one wall, perhaps for the display of some of Stuart’s fifteen portraits with other, horizontal works.8

 

Reynolds sat for his portrait that July. He listed the sittings in his pocket diary : on 23 July, “9½ Mr. Stewart” (fractions indicate the half-hour), and on 28 and 30 July, also at half past nine.9 A month later, on 27 August, “Mr. Stewart” had a final appointment at nine o’clock.10 The result shows Reynolds in a black suit, white shirt, and powdered gray wig. His cheeks are ruddy and his wig frizzy, in a natural style. Seated in an upholstered chair, Reynolds rests his hands in his lap as he holds a gold snuffbox in his left hand. Between the thumb and index finger of his right hand he takes a pinch of snuff. On a red-draped table beside him are rolled sheets of paper; a column and a red curtain fill the background.11 Stuart’s technique, with its loose, dry brushwork, is similar to that in his full-length of The Skater (Portrait of William Grant of 1782 [1950. 18.1] and his portrait of Sir John Dick of 1783 [1954.1.10], English works that mark the artist’s transition from the more evenly painted colonial American manner to his later fully calligraphic style. This transitional quality can be seen in his modeling of Reynolds’ face, where hatched brushwork defines the features, the shadows, and the wig, while a more thickly applied paint layer depicts the skin. The looser brushwork was undoubtedly a conscious imitation of Reynolds’ own technique.

 

In this portrait, Reynolds appears slightly older than in his self-portrait in academic robes with the bust of Michelangelo (c. 1780, Royal Academy of Arts, London). Instead, he more closely resembles his self-portrait of about 1789 (Royal Collection, London).12 Despite this similarity, Sir Joshua remarked about Stuart’s painting, according to American painter Charles Fraser, that “if that was like him, he did not know his own appearance.”13 As Susan Rather indicates in her close reading of the portrait, Reynolds no doubt was referring to the characterization. As she aptly points out, the two men, one a young artist and the other the most admired British portrait painter of the time, shared the habit of taking snuff. She suggests that Reynolds might have though the gesture of taking snuff was inappropriate for his portrait. Through this response to the portrait, however, she interprets Stuart as satirizing Reynolds “by coded references to his deafness and irascibility, while overtly presenting the Royal Academy president in a manner that Reynolds, in his public addresses on art, condemned.”14 The gesture of pinching snuff might, on the other hand, be seen as an early example of Stuart’s exceptional gift of interpreting personality through the choice of a characteristic pose, in this case, one with which he was very familiar.

 

Stuart’s series of artists’ portraits was completed by the fall of 1786, when it was exhibited at Boydell’s gallery at 90 Cheapside. Among the many visitors who saw the portraits there was Sophie de la Roche, a young traveler to London who noted in her journal on 28 September 1786 that Boydell’s second floor exhibition room was “devoted to works by native artists, and contains portraits of famous English painters, especially engravers.”15 “Fabius” wrote a more detailed description for the 14 November issue of the Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser. “The inner room is now furnishing wholly with modern paintings—around it on the top are portraits of the most eminent English artists, whose works have been purchased, and engraved from by the Alderman, or of engravers, whom he hath at different times employed to engrave for him—They are strong likenesses, and by Stuart.” A writer for the London Monthly Magazine; or British Register later wrote about the group of portraits when remarking on the generally commonplace appearance of the artists of his time in their portraits, compared to the distinguished air of Van Dyck’s portraits of seventeenth-century painters.

 

Very different are the portraits of the painters of the present day. A large number of them sat to Gilbert Stuart the American, who painted them for Alderman Boydell; they were afterwards shown at his gallery. They were all strong resemblances, but a set of more uninteresting, vapid countenances it is not easy to imagine; neither dignity, elevation nor grace appear in any of them; and had not the catalogue given their names they might have passed for a company of cheesemongers or grocers. The late President of the Royal Academy [Reynolds] was depicted with a wig that was as tight and close as a hackney coachman’s caxon, and in the act of taking a pinch of snuff. The present President [West] and many others were delineated as smug upon the mart as so many mercers or haberdashers of small wares, all of which originated in the bad taste of the sitters.16

 

The commission for this series of artists’ portraits predates by two years Boydell’s announcement in December 1786 of plans for a collection of paintings by English artists on subjects from Shakespeare. He intended to commission the series and to offer two sizes of engravings for public subscription. By the time the Shakespeare Gallery opened at 52 Pall Mall in 1789, thirty-four of the paintings were completed.17 Boydell moved Stuart’s portrait of Reynolds there by 1792, when Samuel Felton, the author of Testimonials to the Genius and Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds (London, 1792), listed a number of portraits and self-portraits of Reynolds, including one “in Mr. Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, among those of the other painters who are now engaged in painting scenes for Mr. Boydell’s edition of that poet.” Felton declared the Boydell portrait “undoubtedly the best painted Head of Sir Joshua,” thinking it was a self-portrait.18 That he was referring to Stuart’s portrait is confirmed by an engraving of it by Johann and Georg Facius that Boydell published in 1802. Crediting Stuart as the painter, it is inscribed “From the Original Picture in the Shakespeare Gallery.”19 The Shakespeare Gallery project went bankrupt in 1804, and Boydell offered the collection for sale by lottery to raise funds to repay extensive loans. His Plan of the Shakespeare Lottery lists sixty-two prizes, the last being the entire contents of the Shakespeare Gallery. The lottery was held on 28 January 1805.20 None of Stuart’s portraits was included, however. The most likely scenario is that they remained at the print gallery at 90 Cheapside, which became the property of Boydell’s nephew Josiah after Boydell’s death in 1804.21 In 1825 Henry Graves acquired the holdings of the Boydell firm when he, Francis Graham Moon, and J. Boys purchased the company’s stock and leasehold and changed the firm’s name to Moon, Boys and Graves.22 Three of the Stuart portraits—those of John Hall and Benjamin West (National Portrait Gallery, London) and James Heath (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford)—can be traced to Henry Graves and Company, the successor firm of Moon, Boys and Graves.23

 

Charles Bestland (b. 1764?) copied the portrait in miniature.24

 

EGM

 

Notes

 

1.Fredericksen 2:951, as “Stuart, An Original Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” consigned by “a gentleman,” and as “G. Stuart, A Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds.” Only the second price is recorded, with some question, as three pounds, six pence. Since this is a very small price for a full-size portrait, perhaps these sales are instead for the “Small head, Sir Joshua Reynolds, sketch” attributed to Stuart that was sold at Christie’s on 5 February 1818 by a Mr. Rising, with a small head of the Marquis of Lansdowne, also attributed to Stuart. The pair went for five guineas. (Information courtesy of the Getty Provenance Index, 7 April 1992.)

2.Stuart 1877, 644, recorded that “Lord Inchiquin” paid 250 guineas for her father’s portrait of Reynolds. It has been assumed that this was the 5th earl, whose wife was Mary Palmer [d. 1820], Reynolds’ niece and heiress. On the Earls of Inchiquin see Burke 1967, 1325-1330.

3.According to Knoedler’s records (letter from Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, 5 June 1992; NGA), the portrait was from the estate of James O’Brien, the 3rd and last Marquis of Thomond, and “the present Lord Inchiquin is unable to say when the picture left the family.” Beechey 1855, 300, records the portrait and reproduces an engraving of it as his frontispiece, but he does not record any owner after Boydell.

4.Knoedler purchased a joint share from T.H. Robinson in October 1919 and sold the painting to Clarke in December. The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in an annotated copy of Clarke 1928 in the NGA library.

5.Whitley 1932, 55, lists the portraits without giving his source. It may have been the catalogue to which the anonymous author in Monthly Magazine 1804 referred; no copy has been located. On the portrait of West see Walker 1985,11543-544; 2 :pl. 1352. A portrait at the Holburne of Menstrie Museum, Bath, has been identified as that of Josiah Boydell, but the identity is open to some question. Many of the portraits are unlocated today.

6.Harris 1990, 93, and fig. 1 (Sir John Soane’s Museum, London); this reference courtesy of Jacob Simon, National Portrait Gallery, London.

7.Prown 1966, 2:307.

8.Harris 1990, 94 and fig. 3, dated 12 June 1784 (Sir John Soane’s Museum).

9.Reynolds’ pocket ledger for 1784, Royal Academy of Arts, London. The entries are also cited in Leslie and Taylor 1865, 2:468, and in Whitley 1932, 46.

10.Mount 1959, 223, proposed without documentation that the August appointment was for Stuart to finish a copy of one of Reynolds’ self-portraits (the attribution of the copy to Stuart is Mount’s). Stuart has also been credited, without apparent documentation, with the copy of a Reynolds self-portrait that was exhibited at the Maryland Historical Society in 1853 and is now in the Charles J.M. Eaton Collection, Peabody Institute, Baltimore. See Peabody Institute 1949, 19; Yarnall and Gerdts 1986,3418.

11.Stuart widened the canvas of the portrait from the standard kit-cat proportions of 91.4 by 71 cm (36 by 28 inches) by adding a 5~cm (2-inch) strip of canvas on the left, which did not change the composition appreciably. It may have been done in keeping with its setting in Boydell’s gallery.

12.Penny 1986, 287-288, no. 116, repro., and 320-322, no. 149, repro.

13.Dunlap 1834, 1:184, quoting Fraser, who added that the remark “was certainly not made in the spirit of his usual courtesy.”

14.Rather 1993, 63-65.

15.Her description of BoydelPs shop is quoted in Bruntjen 1985, 28-29, from Sophie in London (London, 1933), 237-239.

16.Monthly Magazine 1804, 595, quoted by Rather 1993, 63.

17.Friedman 1976, 3, 71-73.

18.Felton 1792, 67; Whitley 1932, 47.

19.See Park 1926, 642; an example of the engraving is in the NGA curatorial file. Another engraving by E. Scriven is listed in O’Donoghue 1906, 3 (1912): 564.

20.For an example of the Plan, published in London on 5 April 1804, see the scrapbook collection of Press Cuttings 3 : 815-81 8. William Tassie, a gem engraver, won the lot that included the Shakespeare paintings, which he sold at Christie’s, 17-20 May 1805. The catalogue is discussed in Fredericksen 1:52; the paintings are indexed under Boydell’s name and listed by the name of each artist.

21.Boydell also acquired Copley’s Death of Major Peirson, which he sold at Christie’s on 8 March 1806, lot 98; it was bought in and sold to Copley; Prown 1966, 2:440, and Fredericksen 2:264.

22.Bruntjen 1985, 242-243; on the history of this firm see also Graves 1897, 143-148 (the author was the son of Henry Graves), and the entry on Henry Graves (1806-1892) in DNB 22 (supplement), 771-772.

23.Information on the provenance of these portraits is courtesy of Jacob Simon, Keeper of i8th Century Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London, and Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, curator of American Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford.

24.Foskett 1972, 1:163.

 

References

 

•1786—”Fabius.” “The Arts. No. II. Alderman Boydell’s Gallery.” Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser. 14 November: 2.

•1792—Felton : 67.

•1804—Monthly Magazine : 595 .

•1834—Dunlap: 1:184, 219.

•1855—Beechey: 1:300, and frontispiece engraving by E. Scriven.

•1865—Leslie and Taylor: 2:468.

•1877—Stuart: 644.

•1879—Mason: 248.

•1880—MFA: 52.no. 508.

•1913—Strickland: 2:416.

•1922—Sherman: 139 repro., 143-144.

•1926—Park: 641-642, no. 702, repro.

•1932—Whitley: 46-47, 55-56.

•1959—Mount: 220, 223.

•1964—Mount: 90, 362.

•1981—Williams: 62, color repro. 50.

•1984—Walker: 378, no. 534, color repro.

•1985—Bruntjen: 28-29, 36, 58, 63.

•1986—McLanathan: 51 , color repro. 54.

•1990—Harris: 93-96 and figs. 1-3.

•1993—Rather: 61-84.

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. Update - the recent archaeological surveys in ‘Roma / Regione VII., Il Tempio di Traiano’ & the Via di S. Eufemia 13 at the Spanish School of Archaeology in Rome (2019-20) (06/2020). wp.me/pbMWvy-lV

 

Aggiornamento - Le recenti indagini archeologiche presso la Regione VII., Il Tempio di Traiano e la Via di S. Eufemia 13 a Roma della Scuola Spagnola di Roma (2019-2020) (06/2020).

 

ROME - In the new edition of the Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. 120, 2019 (2020); in the section on: “Relazioni su scavi, trovamenti, restauri in Roma e Suburbio 2017-2019”. (1). There is a brief notice of recent archaeological surveys conducted at the site of the Spanish School of Rome on the Via di S. Eufemia 13; located directly across from the north-eastern side of the Palazzo Valentini (or formerly the site of the Temple of Divine Trajan), see:

 

--- Relazioni su scavi, trovamenti, restauri in Roma e Suburbio 2017-2019: Regione VII. Via di S. Eufemia 13. Ritrovamenti archeologici nella Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma di Antonio Pizzo, Massimo Vitti. BCom 120 (2019).

 

The recent archaeological surveys conducted at the site of the Spanish School of Rome was brief presented at the following conference in Rome in late January 2020, see:

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/49680679936

 

--- LA TOPOGRAFIA DELL’AREA A NORD DEL FORO DI TRAIANO. Giornata di studio. Rome, the Auditorium dell’ Ara Pacis (30 January 2020) (2).

 

Likewise, a month earlier in late December 2019; the recent work at the Palazzo Valentini was discussed & presented in a You-Tube video by: Dr. Paola Baldassarri (Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale), “L'area a Nord della Colonna Traiana e il Tempio dei divi Traiano e Plotina : riflessioni in merito alle indagini di Palazzo Valentini.” Conférence - Topographie et urbanisme de la Rome antique, Caen, France (11-13 Dec. 2019) (3).

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/49680674011

 

--- Also see: Paola Baldassarri (2016), “Indagini archeologiche a Palazzo Valentini. Nuovi dati per la ricostruzione del tempio di Traiano.” RM 122, pp. 171-202 [in PDF]. (Abstract in English) (4).

 

More recently sometime in early to mid 2020, Dr. Antonio Pizzo of the Spanish School of Rome briefly published a small summary of the recent archaeological surveys undertaken in the basement substructures of the Spanish School of Rome, entitled:

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/50039085866

 

--- Dr. Antonio Pizzo, “Arqueología de la Arquitectura. Arqueología de la Construcción Romana. Topografía y Urbanismo de época romana. Metodología de la investigación arqueológica.” LÍNEAS Y PROYECTOS DE ARQUEOLOGÍA E HISTORIA ANTIGUA. CSIC / La Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (EEHAR). ROME (2020). www.eehar.csic.es/lineas-proyectos-arqueologia/ (accessed June 2020).

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/50039085781

 

Below is a vague translation Spanish-to-English of Dr. Antonio Pizzo article with the accompanying three photographs from the article; with the exception two other photographs cited in the brief notice on the recent excavations and restorations of the Spanish School on Rome Via di S. Eufemia 13 in = “Historia EEHAR / La Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (EEHAR) (2020) (5). Dr. Antonio Pizzo's original text in Spanish was translated in English by myself (Martin G. Conde) and only a few changes were made in the grammatical context for the English language reader.

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/50038539053

 

--- Dr. Antonio Pizzo, “Architecture / Archeology. Archeology of Roman Construction. Topography and Urbanism from Roman Period. Archaeological Research Methodology.” CSIC / La Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (EEHAR). ROME (2020).

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/50039085706

 

PROJECTS - Antonio Pizzo, Architectural and urban analysis of the archaeological remains preserved in the EEHAR [= the Spanish School of Rome].

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/50038539038

 

During the renovation phase of the new EEHAR headquarters, a series of archaeological structures from various periods were discovered in one of the basements of the building. After the first preliminary excavation(s), an exhaustive study of the remains has been carried out for two years. This study has revealed the extraordinary importance of what is preserved in the EEHAR due to the presence of different historical phases that have been possible to read after the stratigraphic studies. The main historical phases analyzed can be summarized in the following points:

 

--- A first structure from the republican era.

 

--- Republican-era structures formed by a large foundation probably belonging to a first funerary building.

 

--- Construction of a columbarium in the Augustan period.

 

--- Destruction of the columbarium and construction of a large building with materials similar to the forums of Augusto and Nerva.

 

--- Construction of a building from Trajan's era and in phase with the major remodeling of the northern area of ​​the Forum of Trajan [or the Imperial Fora].

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/50038539118

 

The importance of the remains due to the ancient topography of the area of ​​the Imperial Forums and a first presentation of results at a recent congress held at the Auditorium of the Ara Pacis [= LA TOPOGRAFIA DELL’AREA A NORD DEL FORO DI TRAIANO. Giornata di studio. Rome, the Auditorium dell’ Ara Pacis. 30 January 2020] discussing the new findings in this area of ​​the city; thus having a better understanding of the updated archaeological / architectural survey methodologies (e.g., stratigraphic analysis of elevations, new graphic surveys with Scanning 3D technology) with the series of the recent results, utilized in the particular area of the city of Rome, as attributed to the series of historical patterns associated with the archaeological remains.

 

The archaeological evidence recorded in the elevations testify to the evolution and transformation of an almost unknown sector of Rome, here at the site of the EEHAR, and now adding to the scientific debate of the last several years relating to the Temple of Divine Trajan in Rome. The presence of various historical stages and, above all, the discovery, among the remains, of a funeral monument in an area so close to the nerve center of the administrative and political machinery of Rome has opened a new reflection on the transformations of the limits of the city in the different historical periods.

 

The findings made in the basement of the EEHAR may offer, in the future, after new analyzes, fundamental data in the context of the reconstruction of the urban landscape of such an emblematic area. With these premises we believe it is necessary to expand the investigated area and we propose new archaeological investigations that allows the range of data to be available, and resolve questions relating to the recent studies, and above all, the recently discovered archaeological remains below the EEHAR headquarters now becoming a new element in archaeological debate on one of the most representative areas of ​​ancient Rome.

 

[---End of Text---]

 

1). Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. 120 (2019) [2020]. L'Erma di Bretschneider, (2020). 195.231.2.149/index.php?pg=SchedaTitolo&key=00013619

 

2). ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA E RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020: Update - The Forum and Temple of Trajan in Rome (2018-20): "L’evidenza archeologica ha dimostrato che il tempio c’è.” With New Comments & New Information Courtesy of Prof. James E. Packer (18 March 2020), in: ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. wp.me/pbMWvy-5t (18 March 2020).

 

3). See: Note 2 above.

 

4). See: Note 2 above; along with: Prof. James E. Packer, with John Burge (2003), “TEMPLUM DIVI TRAIANI PARTHICI ET PLOTINAE: a debate with Roberto Meneghini.” JRA 16, pp. 109-136 [in PDF].

 

5). “Roma - 2014-2015 Descubrimiento y excavación de las estructuras romanas situados en uno de los sotános de la EEHAR,” Historia EEHAR / La Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (EEHAR) (2020).

www.eehar.csic.es/historia-eehar/ (accessed June 2020).

 

Cover photograph foto / fonte / source:

 

--- Angelo Giordano, “ROME - MORNING,” in: Skypixel (25/04/2020).

www.skypixel.com/photos/roma-0b97a498-dbd8-43ee-bf7e-d69f...

 

--- ROME, the Palazzo Valentini and the Spanish School of Archaeology in Rome along the Via di S. Eufemia, in: GOOGLE / MAPS / EARTH (2020).

www.google.com/maps/@41.8962226,12.4844202,158m/data=!3m1...

 

--- For a detailed online collection of recent and historical research materials relating the studies of the Forum and Temple of Trajan in Rome (1995-2020), please see:

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA E RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. PART 1 – “ROME – THE IMPERIAL FORA: SCHOLARLY RESEARCH & RELATED STUDIES 1995-2020,” in: FLICKR (August 2006-20) / Updated (25-26, May 2020). wp.me/pbMWvy-hI

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/49681033917

 

Part. 1 / Section 7). ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA E RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020: The Forum of Trajan / the Column, Markets and Temple (1995-2020): the Excavations, Restoration & Systemization of F. of Trajan (1995-2020) & (1928-34); And the Metro C Archaeological Surveys (2010-20) (05/2020).

 

--- Along with a detailed online collection of recent and historical research materials relating the studies of the Forum and Temple of Trajan, the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali Building [Roman Domus 1st thru 5th century A.D.,] and the Athenaeum di Adriano archaeological surveys, also see:

 

-- Part. 1 / RARA 2020: 9.5). The Metro C Project and the Archaeological Excavations, Architectural Surveys and Historical Studies in Rome (2005-2020): Piazza Venezia - The Victor Emmanuel II Monument & the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali Building (05/2020).

 

-- Part. 1 / RARA 2020: 9.8). The Metro C Project and the Archaeological Excavations, Architectural Surveys and Historical Studies in Rome (2005-2020): Piazza Venezia / Pz. Madonna di Loreto Station - Franesco Ciresi, Donatella Mighela & Antonio Lopez Garcia. Thesis / La Sapienza (2009-10) (05/2020).

 

--- Part. 1 / RARA 2020: 9.9). The Metro C Project and the Archaeological Excavations, Architectural Surveys and Historical Studies in Rome (2005-2020): Dr. Antonio Lopez Garcia, the F. di Traiano, Athenaeum di Adriano, Pz. Venezia / Pz. Madonna di Loreto Station (2010-20) (05/2020).

 

I’m off to visit my first rain forest this weekend, and I’m not too sure what to expect. Plus I’ll be traveling alone hence, the nervousness. Would really appreciate it if anyone who’s been there could answer my slightly hysterical questions. :)

 

You will be rewarded in chocolate chip cookies and kind. :)

 

1.As crazy as it sounds, what does one wear to a rain forest? (!)

 

2.I’ll be fasting, will that be a problem?

 

3.Will I need anything else apart from Siddhalepa to ward off the leeches?

 

4.What does one do when approached by a snake?

4.1 Yell

4.2 Run

4.3 Play dead

  

A question mark from nature

This picture is featured on the prosperity blog at www.prosperityblogger.wordpress.com.

Andrea Zittel (born 1965) is an American artist based in Joshua Tree, CA whose practice encompasses spaces, objects and modes of living in an ongoing investigation that explores the questions "How to live?" and "What gives life meaning?"

Her work has been described as an "expansive approach to art and space making, creating social sculptures that traverse boundaries between art, architecture, design and technology." Her installations, wearables and sculptures transform the necessities of daily living, such as eating, socializing, sleeping and bathing, "into artful experiments and scenarios for new ways of living.”

 

In the early 1990s, Zittel began making art in response to her own surroundings and daily routines, creating functional objects relating to shelter, furniture, and clothing "in an ongoing endeavor to better understand human nature and the social construction of needs." It was then she began working under the name "A-Z Administrative Services," which evolved into the A-Z Enterprise that continues to encompass all aspects of day-to-day living. Home furniture, clothing, food all become the sites of investigation in an ongoing endeavor to better understand human nature. Zittel reconsiders the significance of given social structures, revealing that what may seem fixed and rational is often arbitrary. "What I'm interested in," Zittel said, "is that each person examines his own goals, talents and options, and then based on these begins to invent new models or roles to fulfill his or her needs." From Zittel's 2005 manifesto:

"What makes us feel liberated is not total freedom, but rather living in a set of limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves."

 

(Wikipedia)

THE FORGOTTEN BEATNIK WHO LIVED ON THE LEFT BANK IN AN ATTIC. Who knows what great work he wrote that earned him fame and fortune?

 

Tags: Henry-Murger German Who-is-he? Writer Beatnik-Quiz Questions Monmartre Died-Poor Died-Young Cafes Lived-in-Monmartre FREE-ART OUTDOOR-CAFES LEFT-BANK BOHEMIANS BEATNIKS WINE ARTISTS WRITERS LOVERS MUSICIANS POETS THE-ARTS FRANCE ALCOHOL IMPRESSIONISM PAINTINGS POETS LIFESTYLES

Opening Remarks Before the House Armed Services Committee

 

Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, I’m privileged to be here this morning with Secretary Hagel and General Dempsey, and we are all of us – all three of us – very much looking forward to a conversation with you about this complicated, challenging, but critical issue that our country faces.

 

And we don’t come to you lightly. I think Secretary Hagel and I particularly come here with an enormous amount of respect for this process, for what each of you go through at home, and the challenges you face with constituents, and the complexity of this particular issue. So this is good. It’s good that we’re here, and we look forward to the conversation.

 

And as we convene at this hearing, it is no exaggeration at all to say to you that the world is watching. And they’re watching not just to see what we decide; they’re watching to see how we decide it, and whether or not we have the ability at this critical time when so much is on the line in so many parts of the world. As challenges to governance, writ large, it’s important that we show the world that we actually do have the ability to, hopefully, speak with one voice. And we believe that that can make a difference.

 

Needless to say, this is one of the most important decisions that any member of Congress makes during the course of their service. And we all want to make sure we leave plenty of time here for discussion. Obviously, this is a very large committee, and so we’ll try to summarize in these comments and give the opportunity for the Q&A.

 

But I just want to open with a few comments about questions I’m hearing from many of your colleagues, and obviously, from the American people and what we read in the news.

 

First, people ask me – and they ask you, I know – why we are choosing to have a debate on Syria at a time when there’s so much that we need to be doing here at home. And we all know what that agenda is. Let me assure you, the President of the United States didn’t wake up one day and just kind of flippantly say, “Let’s go take military action in Syria.” He didn’t choose this. We didn’t choose this. We’re here today because Bashar al-Assad, a dictator who has chosen to meet the requests for reform in his country with bullets and bombs and napalm and gas, because he made a decision to use the world’s most heinous weapons to murder more than – in one instance – more than 1,400 innocent people, including more than 400 children. He and his regime made a choice, and President Obama believes – and all of us at this table believe – that we have no choice but to respond.

 

Now, to those who doubt whether Assad’s actions have to have consequences, remember that our inaction absolutely is guaranteed to bring worse consequences. You, every one of you here – we, all of us – America will face this. If not today, somewhere down the line when the permissiveness of not acting now gives Assad license to go do what he wants – and threaten Israel, threaten Jordan, threaten Lebanon, create greater instability in a region already wracked by instability, where stability is one of the greatest priorities of our foreign policy and of our national security interest.

 

And that brings me to the second question that I’ve heard lately, which is sort of: What’s really at stake here? Does this really affect us? I met earlier today with Steve Chabot and had a good conversation. I asked him, “What are you hearing?” I know what you’re all hearing. The instant reaction of a lot of Americans anywhere in our country is, “Woah, we don’t want to go to war again. We don’t want to Iraq. We don’t want to go to Afghanistan. We’ve seen how those turned out.” I get it, and I’ll speak to that in a minute.

 

But I want to make it clear at the outset, as each of us at this table want to make it clear, that what Assad has done directly affects America’s security – America’s security. We have a huge national interest in containing all weapons of mass destruction. And the use of gas is a weapon of mass destruction. Allowing those weapons to be used with impunity would be an enormous chink in our armor that we have built up over years against proliferation. Think about it. Our own troops benefit from that prohibition against chemical weapons.

 

I mentioned yesterday in the briefing – many of you were there, and some of you I notice from decorations, otherwise I know many of you have served in the military, some of you still in the reserves. And you know the training we used to go through when you’re learning. And I went to Chemical, Nuclear, Biological Warfare school, and I remember going into a room and a gas mask, and they make you take it off, and you see how long you can do it. It ain’t for long.

 

Those weapons have been outlawed, and our troops, in all of the wars we fought since World War I, have never been subjected to it because we stand up for that prohibition. There’s a reason for that. If we don’t answer Assad today, we will irreparably damage a century-old standard that has protected American troops in war. So to every one of your constituents, if they were to say to you, “Why did you vote for this even though we said we don’t want to go to war?” Because you want to protect American troops, because you want to protect America’s prohibition and the world’s prohibition against these weapons.

 

The stability of this region is also in our direct security interest. Our allies, our friends in Israel, Jordan, and Turkey, are, all of them, just a strong wind away from being injured themselves or potentially from a purposeful attack. Failure to act now will make this already volatile neighborhood even more combustible, and it will almost certainly pave the way for a more serious challenge in the future. And you can just ask our friends in Israel or elsewhere. In Israel, they can’t get enough gas masks. And there’s a reason that the Prime Minister has said this matters, this decision matters. It’s called Iran. Iran looms out there with its potential – with its nuclear program and the challenge we have been facing. And that moment is coming closer in terms of a decision. They’re watching what we do here. They’re watching what you do and whether or not this means something.

 

If we choose not to act, we will be sending a message to Iran of American ambivalence, American weakness. It will raise the question – I’ve heard this question. As Secretary of State as I meet with people and they ask us about sort of our long-term interests and the future with respect to Iran, they’ve asked me many times, “Do you really mean what you say? Are you really going to do something?” They ask whether or not the United States is committed, and they ask us also if the President cuts a deal will the Congress back it up? Can he deliver? This is all integrated. I have no doubt – I’ve talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday – Israel does not want to be in the middle of this. But we know that their security is at risk and the region is at risk.

 

I also want to remind you, you have already spoken to this. Your word is on the line, too. You passed the Syria Accountability Act. And that act clearly states that Syria’s chemical weapons threaten the security of the Middle East. That’s in plain writing. It’s in the act. You voted for it. We’ve already decided these chemical weapons are important to the security of our nation. I quote, “The national security interests of the United States are – the national security interests of the United States are at risk with the weapons of mass – the chemical weapons of Syria.”

 

The fourth question I’ve been asked a lot of times is why diplomacy isn’t changing this dynamic. Isn’t there some alternative that could avoid this? And I want to emphasize on behalf of President Obama, President Obama’s first priority throughout this process has been and is diplomacy. Diplomacy is our first resort, and we have brought this issue to the United Nations Security Council on many occasions. We have sent direct messages to Syria, and we’ve had Syria’s allies bring them direct messages: Don’t do this. Don’t use these weapons. All to date, to no avail.

 

In the last three years, Russia and China have vetoed three Security Council resolutions condemning the regime for inciting violence or resolutions that simply promote a political solution to the dialogue – to the conflict. Russia has even blocked press releases – press releases that do nothing more than express humanitarian concern for what is happening in Syria, or merely condemn the generic use of chemical weapons, not even assigning blame. They have blocked them. We’ve brought these concerns to the United Nations, making the case to the members of the Security Council that protecting civilians, prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, and promoting peace and security are in our shared interests, and those general statements have been blocked.

 

That is why the President directed me to work with the Russians and the region’s players to get a Geneva 2 peace negotiation underway. And the end to the conflict in Syria, we all emphasize today – is a political solution. None of us are coming to you today asking for a long-term military – I mean, some people think we ought to be, but we don’t believe there is any military solution to what is happening in Syria. But make no mistake: No political solution will ever be achievable as long as Assad believes he can just gas his way out of this predicament. And we are without question building a coalition of support for this now. Thirty-one countries have signed on to the G-20 statement, which is a powerful one, endorsing the United States’ efforts to hold Assad accountable for what he is doing. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and many others are committed to joining with us in any action. We’re now in the double digits with respect to countries that are prepared to actually take action should they be needed were they capable of it. More than 25 – I mentioned 31 nations signing on to the G-12 statement.

 

But our diplomatic hand, my former colleagues, our diplomatic hand only becomes stronger if other countries know that America is speaking with a strong voice here, with one voice, and if we’re stronger as a united nation around this purpose. In order to speak with that voice, we need you, the Congress. That’s what the President did. Many of you said please bring this to Congress. The President has done that, and he’s bringing it to Congress with confidence that the Congress will want to join in an effort in order to uphold the word of the United States of America – not just a president, but the United States of America – with respect to these weapons of mass destruction.

 

Now, I want to be crystal clear about something else. Some people want to do more in Syria; some people are leery about doing anything at all. But one goal we ought to all be able to agree on is that chemical weapons cannot be under the control of a man so craven that he has repeatedly used those chemical weapons against his fellow Syrians with the horrific results that all of us have been able to see.

 

Yesterday, we challenged the regime to turn them over to the secure control of the international community so that they could be destroyed. And that, of course, would be the ultimate way to degrade and deter Assad’s arsenal, and it is the ideal weapon – ideal way to take this weapon away from him.

 

Assad’s chief benefactor, the Russians, have responded by saying that they would come up with a proposal to do exactly that. And we have made it clear to them – I have in several conversations with Foreign Minister Lavrov – that this cannot be a process of delay, this cannot be a process of avoidance. It has to be real, has to be measurable, tangible. And it is exceedingly difficult – I want everybody here to know – to fulfill those conditions. But we’re waiting for that proposal, but we’re not waiting for long.

 

President Obama will take a hard look at it. But it has to be swift, it has to be real, it has to be verifiable. It cannot be a delaying tactic. And if the United Nations Security Council seeks to be the vehicle to make it happen, that cannot be allowed to simply become a debating society. There are many countries – and many of you in the Congress, from those who wanted military action to those who were skeptical of military action – want to see if this idea could become reality.

 

But make no mistake – make no mistake – about why this idea has any potential legs at all and why it is that the Russians have reached out to the Syrians and why the Syrians have initially suggested they might be interested. A lot of people say that nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of a hanging. Well, it’s the credible threat of force that has been on the table for these last weeks that has, for the first time, brought this regime to even acknowledge that they have a chemical weapons arsenal. And it is the threat of this force and our determination to hold Assad accountable that has motivated others to even talk about a real and credible international action that might have an impact.

 

So how do you maintain that pressure? We have to continue to show Syria, Russia, and the world that we are not going to fall for stalling tactics. If the challenge we laid down is going to have the potential to become a real proposal, it is only because of the threat of force that we are discussing today. And that threat is more compelling if Congress stands with the Commander-in-Chief.

 

Finally, let me just correct a common misconception. In my conversation with Steve Chabot earlier today, he mentioned this. I’ve heard it. I’ve talked with many of you. You’ve told you me you hear it. The instant reaction of a lot of Americans – and I am completely sympathetic to it, I understand it, I know where it comes from, I only stopped sitting where you sit a few months ago – I know exactly what the feelings are. People don’t want another Iraq. None of us do. We don’t want Afghanistan.

 

But Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, we can’t make this decision based solely on the budget. We can’t make this decision based solely on our wishes, on our feeling that we know we’ve been through the ringer for a while. We’re the United States of America, and people look to us. They look to us for the meaning of our word, and they look to us for our values in fact being followed up by the imprint of action where that is necessary.

 

We are not talking about America going to war. President Obama is not asking for a declaration of war. We are not going to war. There will be no American boots on the ground. Let me repeat: No American boots will be on the ground.

 

What we’re talking about is a targeted, limited, but consequential action that will reinforce the prohibition against chemical weapons. And General Dempsey and Secretary Hagel will tell you how we can achieve that and their confidence in our ability to achieve that. We’re talking about an action that will degrade Assad’s capacity to use these weapons and to ensure that they do not proliferate. And with this authorization, the President is asking for the power to make sure that the United States of America means what we say.

 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and members of this committee, I can say to you with absolute confidence, the risk of not acting is much greater than the risk of acting. If we fail to act, Assad will believe that he has license to gas his own people again. And that license will turn prohibited weapons into tactical weapons. And General Dempsey can tell you about this. It would make – it would take an exception, a purposeful exception that has been in force since 1925, and make it the rule today. It would undermine our standing, degrade America’s security and our credibility, and erode our strength in the world.

 

In a world of terrorists and extremists, we would choose to ignore those risks at our peril. We cannot afford to have chemical weapons transformed into the new convenient weapon, the IED, the car bomb, the weapon of everyday use in this world. Neither our country nor our conscience can bear the costs of inaction, and that’s why we’ve come before you, at the instruction of the President, to ask you to join us in this effort.

 

# # #

  

Washington, DC

  

September 10, 2013

  

PRN: 2013/2101

From the autumn 2016 trip to Vietnam:

 

Touchdown brings me ‘round again to find…solid ground. Though I sometimes do feel like a rocket man. Including layovers, this trip to Vietnam consisted of 8 separate flights. The third one brought me to tiny Phu Quoc Island, a tropical island 40 kilometers west of the southern tip of Vietnam (and less than 5 kilometers from Cambodia on the mainland). The island, then, is actually west of the southern tip of Vietnam, and less than an hour flight from Saigon. The flight goes something like this: “Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated as it’s time for take…and now we’re landing.”

 

There are actually two tropical islands off the southern coast of Vietnam that I would have liked visiting, Phu Quoc being the more appealing of the two. (The other, for those curious, are the Con Dao Islands which actually are south of the mainland…but there doesn’t seem to be daily flights to/from there, which took it out of this trip’s consideration.)

 

Compared with Thailand, you would probably never think of coming to Vietnam for a tropical island experience – mainly because it’s not developed – and you’d be correct. I can easily name a handful of islands in Thailand (or Malaysia) that I would prefer to visit from an island standpoint.

 

However, that’s not to say that I was disappointed by Phu Quoc. On the contrary, I love the island. I found myself thinking, many times, “If I were an investor interested in developing a tourist resort, this would almost be at the top of my list.” (So, any investors reading this…feel free to take a slightly closer look at this island.)

 

It’s an easily accessible island with many daily flights to Saigon, and also flights to Hanoi. It claims to be an international airport, so I assume there are flights from Cambodia, as well, though I can’t say for certain. I can only say…it’s easy to get here.

 

Once you get here, you’ll find Vietnam’s largest island (though not large in comparison with many others). It’s 50 kilometers from north to south and 25 kilometers at its widest. It’s triangular in shape and, poetically speaking, can be said to look like a tear drop. Located in the Gulf of Thailand, the island also includes smaller neighboring islands as well.

 

Phu Quoc has slightly over 100,000 full-time residents, mostly living in Duong Dong, the island’s main town on the midpoint of the west coast of the island. Other than tourism, the economy here is driven, obviously, by the sea. Fishing, seafood, and so on are the staple here. Phu Quoc is the producer of the most famous fish sauce coming out of Vietnam. (Phu Quoc’s fish sauce can be found on grocery store shelves around the world.)

 

It’s also an island of hills. Our tour guide claimed that Phu Quoc has 99 mountains and, while I can’t (or won’t) dispute that, it struck me as a curious claim. There are hilly parts, though, and they include two waterfalls, one of which we visited on a day trip.

 

I mention that Phu Quoc struck me as being somewhat underdeveloped. I’ll elaborate by saying that they have a solid foundation – lots of restaurants (catered to foreigners; western food, pizza joints, etc., in addition to local/Vietnamese cuisine) – and hotels ranging from budget to top end. The basic utilities on the island (electricity, internet, etc.) are also completely stable and reliable. Where they could develop more is in the following: infrastructure and the actual amenities of tourism.

 

The roads weren’t shoddy, by many standards, though there’s still a lot of room for development. Once this is improved, it’ll make getting around more comfortable for anyone who wants to be completely insulated from “natural.”

 

The other thing that struck us as a little odd is that there doesn’t seem to be much going on at night (unless you’re a fisherman). It’s still a very quiet island and there weren’t many options for bars, clubs, live music, for example. (This is a huge difference between here and, say, Koh Chang in Thailand; the only other nearby island I have for comparison.) There aren’t convenience stores here that are open 24 hours a day and they don’t have much to offer after dark…besides the Night Market. Perhaps that’s the way they want to keep it, but there’s certainly potential here.

 

During the daytime, though, there’s plenty for tourists. As a photographer not equipped with waterproof gear, I was much more limited, but for the typical tourist you have options of fishing, diving, snorkeling, and swimming. The beaches were, in my opinion, a little dirty, but there are others on the island that are better, I think. (All in all, it would be nice to see things cleaned up a bit…)

 

In addition to water pursuits, there’s Phu Quoc National Park (that we didn’t visit; apparently better other times of the year) and – though the crux of the economy is tied to the sea – there are also other aspects of the economy that they represent well: pearl farms, pepper farms, cashew plantations, fish sauce factories, and local wine (wine aficionados, don’t get your hopes up).

 

For the land-loving folks, this is far from a crowded island. There are a number of beaches, the national park in the northern part of the island, and a few small waterfalls (one a classic, the other more of a rapids where you can swim). In short, there’s not a lack of things to do during the day.

 

With the long-winded generalities about the island out of the way, time to carry on with our experience. We took an early flight out of Saigon, around 9 or 10 o’clock. Flying into the airport, in the heart of the island (on the south side), my first impressions were “green” and “hilly.”

 

Naturally, it’s a small airport – everything here is small – which made it easy to get our things and be on our way to the hotel. I paid about $5 for the ride into Duong Dong. Our hotel, the Sea Breeze, had very friendly staff. (I can actually say that about every hotel we stayed at, with the New Moon in Danang being the least friendly…and they weren’t bad by any means at all.)

 

Anyway, the Sea Breeze was a fine place to sleep, though the Cat Huy was slightly nicer. But, for three nights, this hotel was perfect. Comfortable bed…and they did same day laundry service. I don’t remember the cost, but it was probably between $20-30 USD/night.

 

The hotel wasn’t one that had a restaurant or breakfast included (Saigon, Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi all did), but there was a restaurant attached and a few feet away. I had breakfast there two of the three mornings and, while not the best western breakfast I’ve had, the staff were exceptionally friendly. I think that’s a Vietnamese quality…be really cordial to folks.

 

We had most of Friday on the island, plus the entire weekend, with a Monday morning flight to Danang (via Saigon) around 10:00 in the morning. Friday, then, was a completely unplanned day. So we spent Friday toddling around Duong Dong.

 

The first place we went (besides the hotel, obviously), was to find something to eat. We ended up going with was a decidedly non-Vietnamese restaurant named Buddy’s, walking there via the Night Market street. For me, I loved ‘em because they had milkshakes with real ice cream. Didn’t matter what else they had. That was enough to get me to go back 2-3 times.

 

After lunch and sitting around Buddy’s for a while, we walked across the street and followed the river out to its mouth in the Gulf of Thailand. (The river is why the main town was built at this spot.)

 

At the river’s head is a curiously named spot called Dinh Cau Castle. There is nothing about this place that shouts out “castle” if you were to just chance upon it. It’s actually a combination lighthouse-temple. The temple aspect is just a small room with a statue dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea. The lighthouse, obviously, has its practical purposes. It’s more a light station, though; there’s no house for a keeper.

 

However, this was a very enjoyable spot (much nicer than the Thien Hau “Pagoda” in Saigon) and would end up being the spot where we watched the sunset on Friday and Saturday. The lighthouse-station-temple was built in 1937. There are a few tables benches on an upper platform to sit and enjoy the view of the sea (or the river mouth with its fishing fleet behind you) and there’s also a jetty going out into the sea that gives some nice perspectives. I can only say that I was surprisingly pleased with both Friday and Saturday’s sunsets.

 

Staying at Dinh Cau well past sunset, we strolled back towards the Sea Breeze via the Night Market, which is rather clean as far as Asian markets go. (I mention this to contrast it with Phu Quoc’s Day Market, mentioned below.)

 

Before getting back to the hotel, we stopped at the recently (2015) established Crab House (Nha Ghe Phu Quoc) on the main road at the south end of the market. The owner was – as all seem to be – very friendly and talkative. I was curious to know why the interior had banners from a handful of SEC schools (US folks will know what this is) along with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Turns out, the guy used to live in Muskegon, Michigan, which isn’t terribly far from where I was born (and a town I’ll be passing near in about 3-4 weeks’ time).

 

Junebug & I split the Crab House battered garlic pepper fries (65,000 VND); miniature crab cakes with sweet mango coulis (175,000 VND); and com ghe: hot, steamy jasmine rice with fresh, sweet crab meat, julienne cucumber, and nuoc mam cay (Phu Quoc fish sauce) for 175,000 VND. Add in two cans of Sprite at 20,000 VND a pop and that’s a happy stomach. (The exchange rate, while we were there, was around 21,000-22,000 VND to the US dollar, so we’re looking at…$20-25 for a fresh seafood dinner for two.) With a thoroughly happy stomach, it was time to call it a night, even though it was barely 8:00.

 

Saturday brought with it another day trip with a small group. This was similar to the Saigon trip with Bao in terms of time and what we did, though I think Bao was a better guide than the girl here. She seemed disinterested half the time, though was never rude or mean, per se. Anyway, at $11/person, it wasn’t a bad way to spend the day.

 

Since the one part of this tour I was looking forward to most was a waterfall, I was grateful that it was overcast almost the entire day. For parts of it, rain was pretty heavy. (It even made me mildly – albeit very mildly concerned about the flight out on Monday as it was the first of two for the day.)

 

First up, though, was a pearl farm where I found it interesting to see them pulling pearls out of oysters. That thrill lasted for about a minute or two. However, we were scheduled to be here for close to an hour. (They were hoping that people would buy pearl jewelry.) Given that we were in a fairly heavy rain, I was surprised that there were so many people here. It made me think the entire day would be like this with overcrowded spots. (Forunately, that didn’t come to pass.)

 

With no interest in buying jewelry, I spent the hour on the back patio looking out at the very rough and stormy sea, and a few of these shots are from there. Finally ready to go, we were waiting on two Vietnamese women from the group (a recurring theme for the day) before we headed off to the next stop: a pepper farm.

 

To call it a pepper farm would be to stretch one’s imagination to its utmost. It was about 5 rows of pepper trees with each row being no more than 10 meters long. (I’d like to hope this is just the “sample” section they show us dopey tourists.) Much more attractive was the attached shop where they hoped you’d buy pepper. This time around, I pulled out my wallet. There’s one of us born every minute, you know. I bought four separate jars of pepper, one of which wasn’t a powder (and was subsequently confiscated in Guangzhou as I rarely check luggage and this trip was no exception). At about a dollar a jar, it wasn’t a bad deal.

 

From the pepper farm we were off to the wine shop. This tour was beginning to feel like just going from one spot to another to buy local goods. This wasn’t grape wine, but was a berry wine and was, for the most part very sweet. Don’t think port or sherry, though. It wasn’t quite that sweet, but it was close. Certainly not bad, but also something I could’ve done without. However, they seemed proud of their wine, and I don’t blame them. (It’s better than most of what I had in Korea.) Once again being held up by the Vietnamese ladies, we finally all settled back into the van and went off to Suoi Tranh.

 

The waterfall was actually much nicer than I expected. Apparently, half the year, it’s dry, so it worked out well that we came at the end of the rainy season. The fall is a classic cascade in a very nice, wooded setting. (Even if it were sunny, it probably would’ve photographed rather well because it had enough cover to give it shade.) We were given 45 minutes to walk the 600 meters up to the falls and back, which meant a bit of a rush for me, but…fortunately, the Vietnamese ladies were even slower than I was.

 

The creek leading up to the falls had some nice rapids, too, but it also had some unfortunate eyesores: a manmade fall at the entrance (why would you need that when you have the real thing a few minutes away?) and, worse, some fake animal statuary. Count my lucky stars, but these all disappeared after the first 100-200 meters, and you were left with a tasteful and well-made natural path leading up to the falls.

 

After this – it was around 12:00 or 12:30 by this point – we hopped in the van and headed to Sao Beach at the southern tip of the island. To get here required driving down a very bumpy road for a few minutes at the end. (As I said…they can still do a little infrastructure work here unless one of the unstated tourist goals is to make people feel like they’re bouncing around in a bag of popcorn.)

 

The beach was…pleasant, I guess I can say. It wasn’t a large beach. In length, it covered a small cove, so it had a nice setting. It also isn’t a wide beach; only about 30 meters from the restaurant to the water, and maybe even less than 20 meters. I saw a little too much trash around which disheartened me, though we aren’t talking dirty to levels that I’m accustomed to seeing in China. I didn’t go swimming, and the lunch at the restaurant here – though Vietnamese – was among the most unimpressive meals we had in the entire two weeks here. The best part of the time at the beach is that the weather cleared up from overcast and rainy to mostly cloudy. So it wasn’t crowded here, nor was it raining.

 

We left the beach at 2:00 and drove to a nearby fish sauce factory. This was a lot like the pearl farm, pepper farm, and wine shop. “We make this here. Please buy it.” Of the four of these places, the pearl farm is the only one who actually had some kind of “demonstration,” and that lasted about a minute.

 

If it seems I’m being critical of the roped in commercialism of these types of tours, perhaps I am a little jaded. The spots in and of themselves are actually quite interesting and I just accept this as an unnecessary evil. They need to survive somehow, and for that, I guess I’m grateful that they do this. Back to the actual tour, the fish sauce factory was quick and interesting. (Though I don’t like seafood that much, I do like fish sauce to add flavor.)

 

The last “scheduled” stop was Nha Tu Phu Quoc – Coconut Tree Prison – right across the street. This isn’t a place that I would otherwise go out of my way to visit, though in conjunction with the beach and the fish sauce factory, it was perfect. (Individually, none of the three spots amazed me, but as a whole, they were quite pleasing.)

 

The prison was built by the French in the 1940s and this was one of the ARVN’s POW camps during the Vietnam War. Apparently, prisoner treatment here was quite inhumane, as detailed by the signs around the barracks. The recreations of people, though, aren’t the most lifelike I’ve ever seen and seem kind of cheap. There aren’t any period photographs, so there’s a little “oomph” missing here, but it’s still a good effort all around.

 

Our last stop before being dropped off back in Duong Dong was at Ham Ninh, a small fishing village on the east coast of the island (almost directly across the island from Duong Dong. We didn’t do anything here except have 15-20 minutes to walk to the end of the pier and come back. As uneventful as that may sound, I enjoyed it a lot because the surrounding scenery and seeing the fishing fleet up close (along with a lot of small floating restaurants) made it unique and worthwhile to me.

 

When we got dropped off, we went right back to Buddy’s and repeated the same thing from Friday night (minus eating at the Crab House). I can’t recall what we ate for dinner on Saturday night and perhaps we didn’t. Lunch at Buddy’s was late enough that I doubt we were terribly hungry by evening except for some snacks.

 

The only difference between Friday & Saturday was my positioning to photograph the sunset. Friday night was from up near the lighthouse, and Saturday was a little ways out on the jetty. Skies were equally moody both nights.

 

I’m easy like Sunday morning. No rush to wake up since there was absolutely nothing whatsoever on the agenda. Brunch, around 9:00 or 10:00, after stopping by the post office to send off some postcards, was at Buddy’s. From there, we crossed the river to the day market and spent about an hour or so wandering up and down the street photographing a variety of things.

 

Going back to the west side of the river, we spent a little while at Dinh Cau, but decided not to watch the sunset there for the third night in a row. We had a late (and small) lunch of a wood-fired pizza, which was surprisingly delicious – so much so that I considered going back for dinner.

 

Instead, we went to one of the few access points for Long Beach (the beach nearest the hotel) to watch the least spectacular of the three sunsets in my opinion. Sunday night’s was cloudier than Friday and Saturday’s. However, there are still some interesting pictures. It’s just the most muted of the three, by far, and there’s simply less to work with.

 

After sundown, we walked the few hundred meters north up the main road, passing the Sea Breeze, and stopped at a local restaurant. (I suggested it not because it was local, but because they proudly talked of the ice cream that they have.) The food was not terribly great. I had fish and chips that didn’t have enough tartar and was a bit bland. I also ordered some smoked cheese that, when they brought it, they didn’t say what it was and, since it looked more like noodles than cheese, didn’t eat it. The ice cream, however, was sorbet, and it was wonderful.

 

All in all, Phu Quoc was about as good as I wished it would be, and I was lucky enough to have three reasonably good sunsets and decent weather for the weekend. Also, the waterfall was actually nicer than I had expected, we ate well (for the most part), and it was a relaxing weekend. Not a bad way to spend life.

 

After breakfast Monday morning, we grabbed our bags and headed to the airport at 9:00 for the first of two flights on the day.

 

As always, thanks for dropping by and viewing these pictures. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments and I’ll answer as I have time.

This picture was taken over 5 years ago. I love it because it captures my "essence".

50 Questions

Tagged by ShePuppy

Post a pic of yourself & answer the questions.

 

1: What are you doing?

Watching America's Next Top Model...

2: Something about you that nobody ever knew?

I've never been kissed. I've never had a "true" relationship.

3: Biggest phobias?

I am so scared of the dark.

4: How tall are you?

5ft 3

5: Ever been in love?

Yes

6: Any tattoos that you want?

I'm actually getting a tattoo of my fave girl, Alice next Saturday!

7: Any piercings that you want?

I really want a tragus piercing but I have terrbily sensitive ears.

8: Makeouts or cuddling?

No.

9: Shoe size?

8 1/2

10: Favorite bands?

Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Switchblade Symphony, Rasputina...things of that sort.

11: Something you miss?

My friends. I have none outside of my house right now. (My sister, my cat and Alice are literally my friends...so sad)

12: Favourite song?

The Great Below by NIN

13: How old are you?

26

14: Zodiac sign?

Pisces

15: Hair Color?

White with a hint of pale green.

16: Favourite Quote?

"..I listened to the old brag of my heart, I am, I am, Iam." ~Sylvia Plath from the Bell Jar

17: Favourite singer?

Trent Reznor

18: Favourite colour?

Pink

19: Loud music or soft?

What does loud music consist of? I hate lite rock and easy listening...so I guess loud?

20: Where do you go when you're sad?

My bed.

21: What's your grail stock Blythe? Goldie

22: What are some of your grail custom Blythes?

I really REALLY want a Calvera girl but it has to be perfect.

23:How many kids do you have? None.

24: Turn on?

An open mind, a sense of humor, good taste in music and a big...nose.

25: Turn off?

Guys who KNOW they're good looking.

26: The reason I joined Flickr?

Blythe

27: Most recent Blythe obsession:

Mimsy Beuno hats.

28: Last thing that made you cry?

Talking about my inability to drive.

29: Last time you cried?

A couple days ago.

30: Meaning behind your url:

Daifuku is a type of mochi (asian bean cake) that I used to eat. I got really sick one time from eating too much and now I can't eat it any more. Darling is just one of my favorite nick names.

31: Last book you read?

Good grief...Its been a while since I've ready anything. I have severe ADD so reading is a problem.

32: Last song you listened to?

"Folksom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash

33: Last show you watched?

America's Next Top Model

34: Last person you talked to?

My sister, Melissa

35: The relationship between you and the person you last texted?

Father

36: Favourite food?

Unagi Sushi roll (eel)

37: Place you want to visit?

The Daikenyama (sp?) district in Japan. Blythe shopping!!

38: Last place you were?

Outside of the house-Party City, inside the house-My bedroom

39: Do you have a crush?

Does Trent Reznor count?

40: Last time you kissed someone?

I already told you, I've never been kissed...

41: Last time you were insulted and what was it?

My sister told me I need to plan things out better about an hour ago...but it's true.

42: What are you looking forward to?

Next Saturday's tattoo appointment!

43: Any dolly plans today? Straightening up the doll house.

44: Are you tired?

Ermgerd..So very tired

45: Wearing any bracelets?

No.

46: Last sport you played?

......

47: Last song you sang?

"Freedom" by George Micheal

48: Last prank call you remember doing?

I Pony-fied my sister's computer so that everything she ready said "Call Me Maybe" lyrics.

49: Last time you hung out with anyone?

Maybe a month or two ago. Unless you count my sister, which was yesterday.

50: Do you consider yourself to be approachable?

Hmm...Personality wise, yes. Image wise, I'm a bit intimidating.

Texas panhandle. Long time ago. Galaxy far, far away.

Baltimore's iconic Natty Boy mand and Utz Potato Chip painted on crab shells. No question you are in Baltimore

Grand Canyon National Park,

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA

Scouts hike along Thomas Road for the first area show. 2010 National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, Wednesday July 28, 2010. Photo by Jim Brown

 

**********Beginning of Shooting Data Section**********

Canon EOS 5D Mark II iso - 500 f/11 shutter - 1/500

file name - 6732-07-001-128 date - 7/28/10 time - 8:26:49 AM

program - Program AE white balance - Auto

meter - multi-segment tone comp - 0 exp. comp - 0.0

flash - off

photo published on www.dumblittleman.com/2007/10/10-smartest-ways-to-live-be...

 

Save your money and one day it'll return the favor.

Ah money... to spend it or to save it, that is the question.

I found this philosophical add on a phone booth a few months ago. And thought it was the perfect time to post it: before black Friday, before the craziness of the holidays, before we start working on all those wish lists, ...

This campaign is sponsored by The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The bottom of the add sends you to www.feedthepig.org/, an entertaining website to entice us to save our precious dollars. It is full of interesting facts and tips but also videos, calculators, ... I recommend the click. You'll be greeted by Benjamin Bankes, the only pig I know who wears a white tuxedo so well. And of course, you can befriend Benjamin Bankes on MySpace. Of course.

 

__________________________

used in:

• www.pluggd.in/entrepreneurship-in-india/money-saving-tips...

• www.whereyouarenow.com/blog/2008/09/16/8-steps-to-more-mo...

• www.marketproteges.com/2008/05/this-weeks-feature-saving-...

• www.dumblittleman.com/2007/10/10-smartest-ways-to-live-be...

• littlemickle.com/stash_your_cash_away/

 

There is no question about it, staying here for a few nights is a wonderful experience and it is impossible not to recommend Gabriel House. If you are booking make sure to include breakfast.

 

I stay here every time I visit cork and this time I booked four nights rather than my usual two nights and for the first time since 2008 rain was not a problem because if it did rain it did so during the night and did not impact on my photography.

 

The hotel is described as being on a hill and when they say a hill they are not joking. If you are not fit and fully mobile and you plan to walk around the city you may need to consider elsewhere but the prices are likely to be much higher. This year I found a very good solution in that there is an excellent and frequent bus service with stops beside the hotel. My advice is purchase a LEAP card and use the bus service.

 

If you need to get to the hotel from the railway station there is a short route described as follows: Come out of the train station onto the Lower Glanmire Road; cross the street and turn left. You will see a series of steps on your right hand side. climb these steps and continue straight ahead to Summerhill North. Turn right and you will see Gabriel House after 200m or so. In the past I have used these steps on a regular basis but this year I avoided the steps as there now appears to be a group of individuals engaged in heavy drinking towards the top of the steps from about 3pm onwards and it can be difficult to get by them especially if you are alone.

 

I am already planning my City Visits for 2017 and started booking hotels yesterday using booking.com and expedia.ie and already I got a big surprise when I tried to book. This year I paid Euro 59.40 per night in 2015 I paid 110 for two nights so I was expecting to pay about Euro 125 in July 2017. Using expedia.com the price was Euro 216 for two nights [free cancellation] this was much more than I was willing to pay so I decided to try booking.com and found a room at Euro 102 for two nights which was really good but there was a catch in that the terms and conditions had changed since I last booked. Now an up-front part-payment is required and it is no longer possible to cancel without having to pay 70% of the total.

 

The Euro 102 price is very good, as it includes an excellent breakfast, but I am not willing to book a year in advance, part pay up-front and then not have the option to cancel.

 

The Metropole Hotel is available at a much higher price [Euro 198] but they are offering free cancellation.