THE CITY OF PAVIA

 

Some thirty-five miles south of Milan lays the city of Pavia, ancient Ticinum.   The Romans called the whole area Ticinum Papiae, which in Italian became Ticino and Pavia. Ticino is a river and Pavia the town. The river runs through a part of the town and intersects with the Po River some fifty-miles south. When under the Roman dominance it was an important military site. Historians indicate that the end of the Roman Empire in the West began here with the defeat of Flavius Orestes by Odoacer, the chieftain of a number of German tribes: the Heruli, Sciri, and Rugii. 

These tribes were mercenaries in the service of Rome who were under Orestes’ command along with Roman soldiers. There were disagreements amongst the soldiers and their commanders. The soldiers switched their allegiance to Odoacer and he led them in a revolt; thereby, killing Orestes. The soldiers then proclaimed Odoacer as Rex Italiae, the king of Italy. He then laid siege to Ravenna, the new Roman capital and deposed the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, who was the son of Orestes.

During the revolt the citizens of Pavia sided with Orestes, and in revenge Odoacer destroyed the city. It wasn’t long before he had to do battle again to maintain his position. Theodoric, a Goth, engaged Odoacer a number of times, the last time at the siege of Ravenna in 492. Theodoric was able to block the cities only source of survival—its Adriatic seaport. The city’s bishop negotiated a treaty and organized a banquet to celebrate the end of the hostilities. But Theodoric, in a toast to Odoacer, killed him. Then his men massacred his soldiers and supporters. Theodoric was now master of Italy.

Under the reign of the Goths, Pavia became their citadel toward the end of their control. It was their last stronghold in their wars with Balisarius, a general of the Byzantine Empire (505-565), who fought to reunite the West with the Eastern Roman Empire. In Northern Italy, the Lombards (the long beards), a Germanic tribe, originally from Scandinavia, migrated to Pannonia, modern day Hungary. However, in and around 569, they migrated en masse to Italy and conquered any remaining Goths. They established a kingdom which grew in size and strength to cover almost all of Italy. Today a large part of northern Italy is the region of Lombardia, named after the Lombards.

In 773 at another the battle in Pavia, Charlemagne triumphed and established it as the capital of his Regnum Italicum, a vassal kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire. In the twelfth century it became a self-governing city-state. In 1359, it yielded to the Visconti family of Milan and they ruled until 1525, when it came under Spanish rule; later Austrian rule, Napoleonic rule and then back to Austrian rule. Finally in 1859, it became a part of unified Italy.

Today, Pavia is a bustling town with many ancient buildings some are: Il Duomo, begun in 1488 and just recently finished. The Church of San Michele Maggiore, The Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel D’Oro (ceiling of gold), Il Castello Visconteo, Santa Maria Del Carmine, and many other art treasures and towers.  All of these were built during the Renaissance period1100-1699 AD. (In regard to towers also see article on Skyscrapers of Middle Age Italy)

The most famous landmark is La Certosa de Pavia, a Carthusian monastery. The beauty of this place is difficult to describe as well as all the other sites, but this one stands out from the rest since it is still a monastery and fully intact. The origins of this monastery date back to 1390 AD, when Catherine Visconti, the wife and cousin of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, made a bequest in her will that a monastery for the Carthusian monks be built in the Pavia region. At the time she made the bequest she was pregnant and asked her husband to fulfill her vow if she died during childbirth. She did not die; nevertheless, they began building it in August of that year. A visit to the monastery will clearly show why it took until 1507, to complete. The church and façade dazzle the eyes when one tries to perceive all that is there. It is full of decorative sculptures, carvings and reliefs of many inlaid marble patterns.

The monastery covers acres of land with a thirty-foot wall surrounding the whole complex. One enters by gate going through a large reception building leading into a courtyard with buildings on both sides into the church. The inside of the church is as dazzling as the outside with all of its crypts, statues, and adornments. The Carthusian practices allow for hermitage, and part of the complex has a large rectangular area consisting of a few acres of land. Surrounding this plot of land is twenty-one small two story cabins attached to each other like row houses. Each has a fireplace, small eating area, courtyard and sleeping quarters for the hermits. The doors to each have a shelf in the upper part and a small door for the hermit to open to retrieve any items placed on the shelf. The occupants take a vow of silence and isolation from human contact.  Below is a close up of the façade, a distant shot of the façade and the Grand Cloister with hermit quarters in the background.

ALLEY OOPS!

 

After twenty-five years of marriage, all of our children left the nest; it was now time for my wife and me to do some traveling. The first place on our list was Italy. Since it was the country of my grandparents, I always dreamed of visiting it. I was full of excitement of the unknown, wondering what it would be like. I believed there would be a sense of culture shock. Instead, from the moment we arrived at the airport, I felt like I came home and that I belonged there. Everybody looked like my cousins, their mannerisms were the same, they spoke like my grandparents, and the food was the same as we ate at home. It was like going to the Little Italy in the United States where my relatives lived.

When I was in my formative years my parents warned me about traveling in cities; don’t talk to strangers, stay out of alleys, and walk close to curb, lest someone pull you into an alley. And stay out of those sections where you don’t belong. And if any one calls to you to talk to you keep your distance. So that meant, I should only walk in the Italian neighborhoods or in familiar area of any city.

These warning were justified since we often went into the cities, like Newark and Patterson, N.J, and New York City to visit relatives. These were basic survival techniques that they gave my brother and me. My mother grew up in an Italian slum in New Jersey and my father in a rural Italian neighborhood in a New York community. Their living conditions were quite a contrast. Nevertheless, my father was street wise. As a young man he often was on the road traveling across America on foot, by freight train, bus and car. He told me many stories of significant ethnic problems he encountered on the road. The contents of his stories and the warnings remained in my memory.

On our trip to Italy we landed in Milan; rented a car and drove to Varese, a small city, on the outskirts. We arrived in the afternoon, acquired a hotel room and rested. That evening we went out to eat. As we were strolling we came upon two young teenage girls, and greeted them saying, “Hi! We are strangers, looking for a restaurant. Do you know of any nearby?”

 “Yes, follow us. We’ll take you to one.”

We followed them having a lively conversation. The first thing they did was to walk into an alley off the main thoroughfare. I immediately became wary. But, not my wife, who grew up in Italy, continued to walk nonchalantly along chatting. We continued and went into another alley, and another, and then into a small plaza where three or four alleys conjoined. In it were many young people. Some were standing in small groups, some sitting on motorcycles and looking tough to my perception. I became more nervous and suspicious.

We entered another alley and as we were coming to the end of it, I finally asked in Italian, “Are you sure there is a restaurant close by?” They both looked at me astonished, and at that moment responded simultaneously, “Si, Signore é lá.” They extended their arms pointing across a small plaza to a cafeteria.

Oops! I felt like a fool, I mentally wiped my brow, musing, “Phew!” For the rest of our trip I learned that many thing of interest to see in the large and small cities in Italy are in alleys.

It was a unique experience. I didn’t have to concern myself with where I went. The cities small and large are rife with alleys. Great works of art, Roman ruins, cathedrals, and the best of restaurants are in them. For example, the famous Pantheon, temple to all the gods, sits three alleys back off of a main thoroughfare, and once there six more alleys span from the piazza in front it. My fears dissipated.

Something else that help any misgivings about Italians occurred in the same town. We wanted to cross the street but there was a lot of traffic. We noticed many people entering to what I thought was a staircase leading down to a subway. But, when we approached it we realized it was a sottopassagio, an under-pass to cross the street. We entered, went down the stairs and when we were at the bottom there was a three way intersection. It was quite wide, and enough so that it contained a few shops and a small plaza. A group of about eight young people were gathered at the plaza and standing in the front of the entrance to one of the passageways. I looked at them with suspicion until I saw an elderly lady, walking with a cane, come ambling directly toward them. As she approached, the group automatically, without losing a word in their conversations, separated to let her through. Once she passed, they melded back together like she never passed through them. They continued talking. 

  Below is an 1836 painting of the Piazza della Rotonda by Jakob Alt and a picture of the back of the Pantheon from the Piazza della Minerva, note the alleys. Also is a picture of the alley way in front of the Synagogue in Casale Monferrato. The dark door is the main entrance.

RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

 

Rita was born on the twenty-second of April, 1909, in Turin, Italy. She was one of four children, three girls and a boy, she being a twin of one of the girls. Her mother was Adele Montalcini. The family was wealthy and of Sephardic Jewish faith. The family was Victorian in their values, and her father Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer, believed women should not attend higher education as it would interfere in their role as future mothers. The family, as a whole engaged in intellectual pursuits; thus, it didn’t take much effort for the daughters to change his mind.

She studied medicine at the University of Turin and in 1936, she graduated from medical school with a summa cum laude degree in medicine and surgery.  After which she enrolled in a three year specialization program in neurology and psychiatry. She did research on the effects peripheral tissues have on nerve cell growth. But, because of her Jewish ancestry, Mussolini’s “Manifesto per la Defesa della Razza,” (Manifest for the defense of the Race), caused her to lose her job. When things became worse in Turin, the family escaped to the country side, and had to follow that with going to Florence where the family remained in hiding during the German occupation of Italy (1943-45). By 1944, the Americans cleared Florence of the Nazis and she was able to surface and became actively involved in nursing and caring for refugees suffering with infectious diseases. When the war ended in 1945, she was able to resume her research at Turin.

In 1947, she accepted an invitation to a post at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri by zoologist Viktor Hamburger. Here she was to repeat the research performed before the war in the study of the growth of nerve tissue in chick embryos.

In 1948, they discovered that a variety of mouse tumors spurred nerve growth when implanted into chick embryos. The two traced the effect to a substance in the tumor that they named nerve-growth factor NGF. Levi-Montalcini further showed that the tumor caused similar cell growth in a nerve-tissue cultures kept alive in the laboratory. Stanley Cohen, another interested scientist, joined her at Washington University, and he was able to isolate the nerve-growth factor from the tumor.

Levi-Montalcini planned to remain only twelve months, but the excellent results of their work impressed her to continue. In 1956, the University offered her the position as an associate professor and two years later that of full professorship. In 1962, she developed a research unit in Rome. She remained active both here and abroad. She also held the position of Director of the Institute of Cell Biology of the Italian National Council of Research in Rome.

NGF was the first of many cell-growth factors found in the bodies of animals. In 1986, Dr. Levi-Montalcini received due recognition when she, along with her colleague, Dr. Stanley Cohen, earned the Nobel Prize in medicine for the discoveries of NGF and of EGF, epidermal growth factor, which is used in the treatment of severe burns.

She published an autobiographical work, In Praise of Imperfection, in 1988. At the following internet address she provides a short interesting autobiographical sketch telling of her parents, sisters, and brother and war experiences. Levi-Montalcini held dual citizenship of Italy and of the United States. She passed away on the thirtieth of December 2012, at the age of 102.

http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1986/levi-montalcini-autobio.html.

 

The image below is from Wikipedia via Barnard B ecker Medical Library, Washing School of Medience circa 1975 and the following from 2009.