Naples, Petrarch and absence

No more magnificent way to open a blog post than with the roof of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Here Apollo presents Italy's greatest poets to Athena. I was rather surprised when the guide explained this; as others have noted, it's unusual for Athena to have the seat of honour here, with Apollo in a kind of intermediate role.

You'll notice, in each of the boxes, a mirror mounted on the wall at a specific angle. As the guide explained, these have a peculiar function- to allow the box's occupants to see the royal box, and so judge when to clap; you can't clap before the king!

Above: The sumptuous Royal Box

Just visible above the stage is half a clock; at its feet a siren begs Cronos, relentless time, to check his 'wingèd chariot,' so we may better relish the art on display in the theatre.

Here's the splendid Baroque cupola of the chapel of Naples Cathedral, bursting with afternoon light. The latter, for a second, annoyed me as I tried to take the photo, before I grasped its effect on the image.

The Paradise was painted by Giovanni Lanfranco.

And the crypt, housing the remains of San Gennaro, a wonder of white marble. The ceiling, with its 18 cassettoni (regular cavities) depicting saints, is magnificent.

Kneeling is the cardinal who had it built, Oliviero Carafa. Look at the detail in the folds in the tail of his robe.

Though, to be honest, in the midst of all this elaborate ornamentation, I was most pleased to see the fading frescoes in the adjacent Basilica di Santa Restituta.

It was nice to see Dante on the streets of Naples- the famous closing lines of Paradiso, describing the fountainhead of God which Dante is allowed to glimpse. 'The love which moves the sun and the other stars.'

And finally, a sign seen in Sant'Angello, Ischia:

'We kindly request that Signori Dogs have their owners poop elsewhere. Thank you.'

Reading Caroline Walker Bynum's intriguing book on 'Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval Europe.' Walker Bynum explores the actual significance of these objects, and notes that:

'[...] the footprint in medieval Christian devotion is both like and unlike that which it instantiates. In a way particular to medieval understandings of devotional objects, it images and is presence and absence. That is, it is itself a trace of something gone away or beyond, and yet it is in itself active and full of power.'

I was reminded straight away of a poem by William Allingham:

'Everything passes and vanishes

Everything leaves its trace;

And often you see in a footstep

What you could not see in a face.'

*

Was also reading Petrarch after a while, and came across these elegant lines from Sonnet 56:

Italian	English (tr. Kline)
Qual ombra è sí crudel che 'l seme adugge, ch'al disïato frutto era sí presso? et dentro dal mio ovil qual fera rugge? tra la spiga et la man qual muro è messo?	What shade is so cruel as to blight the crop which was so near to a lovely harvest? And what wild beast is roaring in my fold? What wall is set between the hand and grain?

And was put in mind of these lines of Tennyson:

'Thy leaf has perish'd in the green,

And, while we breathe beneath the sun,

The world which credits what is done

Is cold to all that might have been.'

The last two lines are particularly poignant and have always lingered with me.