THE CITY OF MILANO

 

Milan, in English, is as of 2014, the largest city in population in Italy with Naples being the second, and is the capital of the region of Lombardy. The city has a long history as the other communities of the Peninsula.

Milan is the main industrial, commercial, and financial center of the country. It hosts the Borsa Italiana (the equivalent of Wall Street). It has the third largest economy after London and Paris. It is also a capital of fashion. Some of its land marks are: the Milan Cathedral—Il Duomo di Santa Maria Nascente, simply known as Il Duomo, which is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the fifth largest cathedral worldwide. Its construction began in 1386, of which many say is yet incomplete.  The fifteenth century Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie containing the paintings of Da Vinci, such as the Last Supper; La Scala Opera House, the Sforza Castle, the famous glass roofed shopping arcade―The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio. These are only a few of the sites of the city which began as a community sometime in 400 BC. Two hundred years later the Romans conquered the area and gave it the name of Mediolanum, from which the name Milan derived.

When Caesar Augustus (Gaius Octavius), Julius Caesar’s grandnephew came into power, he made Milan a capital, and named the region Transpadana. In the third century AD it became the capital of the western empire. By this time Christianity had spread throughout the Mediterranean area and became imbedded in Milan. Many of the churches today trace their origins of beginning to this period. The city’s first bishop, by popular acclaim, was Aurelius Ambrosius, St. Ambrose, in 340 AD. He became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the fourth century. He is the patron saint of the city.

When the Roman Empire went into decline, a large Germanic tribe, the Lombards, invaded and took control of the city and much of Italy. Today, as mentioned, the region of which Milan is the capital is Lombardia, named after the Lombards. The Italians, called them  Longobardi, meaning, long beards. Below are pictures of exterior and interior of Il Duomo.
 

THE CITY OF PAESTUM

 

Eighty miles south of Pompeii is a place of which many tourists are unaware, and that is the ancient city of Paestum. The Greeks settled there in seventh century BC and many of the temples they built are still intact. It is an ancient town dating back to 700 BC.  It later became a part of Magna Graecia. The Greeks founded a community there around 600 BC.  The original inhabitants were the Oscans and archeology reveals that the two, the Greeks and Oscans, lived together harmoniously.  When the Greeks arrived they called it Poseidonia after their sea god Poseidon. The name is equal to the Roman god Neptune. Sometime around 400 BC, the Lucans, an Italic people, conquered and ruled until 273 BC, after which it became a Roman colony. They renamed it Paestum. In Italian Poseidnonia translates into Positano, which is a nearby famous resort town on the Amalfi Peninsula.

Since the Greeks mostly settled in southern Italy they gave the names to many communities. These names later became Italian. For example, Napoli was Neapolis, meaning new city, Siracusa, Sirako, (swamp), Brindisi, Brentension, (Deer head), Cefalú  cephalic or khefale meaning head…

When Hannibal was raising havoc in the peninsula the people of Paestum kept their allegiance to Rome. After the defeat of Hannibal, it received special recognition and was able to mint its own coinage. It stayed under the dominion of Rome until the end of the Empire in the West.

During the Middle Age, the town declined into complete abandon.  It wasn’t until 1840, when an interest in things ancient became popular, that the city was uncovered. To the amazement of everyone a number of temples the Greeks built were still standing. Unlike Pompeii and Herculaneum that the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius covered in volcanic debris; weeds, trees and vines overgrew whatever was in Paestum. It is because of that, much of the city remained intact.

 Paestum was originally a coastal city, but due to siltation it now sits one mile from the seashore. The temples yet standing have many different missing parts, mainly the roofs and the statues of the gods that sat in them. The base of the temples are huge, easily the size of a football field or larger. The main temples standing today are those of Hera, Apollo, and Athena. All these temples are in the Doric style of architecture. These gems of Greek construction, many consider second to those of Athens in architecture, in general, many historians ascribe them as the best-preserved Doric temples in the world.

When they were uncovered in the eighteenth century archeologist misidentified two of them as the temples of Neptune and Ceres, and that they were basilicas, which for the Romans, were administrative buildings, not temples. The city had a forty-nine foot in height wall around it, with a number of redoubts. A moat protected the wall. The area, in and immediately outside of the city proper, covers some twenty-five hectares―each being ten-thousand square feet. 

On the grounds is a museum with many artifacts. An imposing one is of Zeus, the chief of all gods.  He lived on Mount Olympus and played games with the people and the other gods. This statue portrays very clearly the view the Greeks had of their god. They considered their gods human like themselves, they had all the wants, weaknesses and strengths that they have, but the gods were one step above them. The statue of Zeus or Poseidon shows him with a smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye as if to say, “Gotcha!”  Wall paintings show him wearing a hat that looks like the ten-gallon type worn in the American West. He appears to be quite the character.

Also see, https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Paestum+museum. 

 

FOGLIO DA LAURO

The Laurel Leaf

 

Bay leaf is a flavoring used in cooking, the Italian name is Foglio da Lauro―the Laurel Leaf. This leaf has an interesting history besides its use as a flavoring agent in cooking. In ancient Greece and Rome winners in the Olympic Games, and other forms of competition received as an award—the privilege of wearing a crown of laurel leaves. Many statues of Roman Emperors wear such crowns and on some ancient Roman coins appear the laureate crowned heads of emperors. Our English word baccalaureate meaning the conferring of a bachelor’s degree at college graduation ceremonies derives from the ancient practices.

The Italian word for receiving a degree is laurare. In regard to the baccalaureate exercises, Bacca may refer to Bacchus the god of grape growing, wine and celebration. In ancient depictions of him, he wears a laurel leaf crown. The conferring of a baccalaureate degree is a time for celebration. Dante Alighieri the renowned poet of the renaissance received the award poet laureate, indicating he was a poet worthy to wear a crown of laurel leaves.

The origins of the use of a laurel wreath lie in Greek Mythology; Apollo, the handsome Olympian God and son of Zeus, fell in love with a beautiful nymph named Daphne. Cupid, in revenge for Apollo’s arrogance, struck him with a love arrow and Daphne with one of odium. As the story goes, Daphne, could not reciprocate the feelings of love Apollo had for her and fled from him. In her flight she asked the river god Peneus for help. When Apollo caught up to her and extended his arms to embrace her, Peneus turned her into a laurel tree. Apollo in his despair from his loss of such a love, cut off a branch to wear as a wreath and declared the plant sacred. This myth initiated the presentation of the laurel wreaths to the victors in the Olympic Games to honor Apollo. One would think the opposite since he lost her love rather than to have won it.

Many statues and frescoes of the mythological Apollo exist. Often the title of these statues bear the name Apollo Belvedere, meaning he is pretty to see, bel—pretty and vedere—to see.

The laurel-leaf as a cooking spice is most frequently available in the dried form. One must be careful in using the leaf in recipes, since too much will embitter the dish. Fresh laurel is difficult to come by unless you have a tree in the yard. It is a pretty tree with long straight branches reaching upward with dark green leaves. The fresh leaf when picked and crushed emits a strong pleasing odor and adds a delicious flavor to many dishes. 

The dried leaf is readily available in the grocery store under the name Bay Leaf. But bay leaf becomes confused with Red Bay Leaf. Both have aromatic leaves and are used in cooking. Red bay leaf is Persea Borbonia and different from the common laurel, Laurus Nobilis, which is the one available at the grocery store. Both, are members of the laurel family (Lauraceae). Red Bay Leaf, a bush common to the south, is slowly fading from American forests due to a wilt disease passed on by a non-native insect, the Red Bay Ambrosia Beetle. Fortunately, Laurus Nobilis is not affected.

The following are a painting of Dante wearing a laurel wreath by Sandro Botticelli, a fresco of him in the chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto by Luca Signorelli, and a statue of Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican Museum.

ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

 

The census for the decade of 1850-60 indicated approximately 11,000 Americans listed themselves as having been born in Italy. There are many reasons for this immigration, the political situation in Italy at the time was at the apex of transition from a divided peninsula to a unified nation from among many different powers: the Church, Spain, France, Austria, kingdoms and principalities. Thus, there were many political positions available from which activist could choose.  Consequently, many decided for whatever reasons to immigrate to the United States. Most had the destination of New York City; it was here where they could find people of their own backgrounds speaking their language and other cultural aspects. They had their own schools, when they could afford them, and their own newspapers.

Francesco Secchi de Casale, a political activist who escaped from Italian authorities, found refuge in New York City and funded the publication of L’Europee Americano, the first periodical printed both in English and Italian. It failed and later, it is purported, he sold his watch and wife’s jewelry to fund a different periodical, L’Eco d’Italia, The Echo of Italy. Many considered it the first important Italian language weekly published in the United States. This was the newspaper in which Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the telephone, published news of his invention. And this was prior to his patent court case in the 1880s.

Italians in New York City had to deal with a number of social issues, one was the teaching of Italian and its culture.  Casale sought to raise funds to start an evening school for Italians in the Five Points slum area of New York City. His intentions were to have Italian children receive the opportunity to read and write Italian, develop math skills, and learn about the history of Italy and the United States. Once again another one of his projects did not pan out due to a lack of support. Undaunted, he went on to create another project which was to move Italian immigrants out of the cities and into the farmlands of America.

He attempted to get backing from both the United States and Italian governments, neither one accepted his proposals; consequently, he turned to the business world. Charles Landis, a property developer, donated Twenty acres of land near Vineland, New Jersey, to start a grape farming cooperative. Uniquely, after the Italians cleared the land and planted the grapes, Thomas Barnwell Welch, founder of Welch’s Grape Juice, bought the grapes to produce grape juice which at that time people referred to it as unfermented wine.

While Casale was involved in many social activities, the Civil War was looming in America. For many Italians, Giuseppe Garibaldi was their inspiration. Many conjecture his republican views led many Italians to back the Union cause. Nevertheless, there were Italians in the Confederate army as well, for example a list of 341 Italian male residents of New Orleans is available at http://www.ustica.org/genealogy/italian_brigade.htm.

Francesco Casale spearheaded the formation of an Italian Legion, and later the founding of the Garibaldi Guard. Many like-minded Italians joined Casale such as Luigi Tinelli, a former consul to Portugal and an industrialist, who had experience as a militia commander. Francesco Spinola recruited four regiments in New York, and President Lincoln appointed him as their general. Count Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a veteran of the Crimean War, heroically fought in the Civil War and suffering wounds, capture and imprisonment by the Confederates. (See previous article about Cesnola).

Spinola, a hero, like Cesnola, was engaging in a battle with his Spinola Empire Brigade, when they found themselves in a precarious situation, i.e., they were outnumbered six to one. Spinola ordered his men to fix bayonets and charged the enemy scattering the amazed adversaries before them into disorder.

 

  THE GARIBALDI GUARD

 

The Garibaldi Guard was the nickname of the 39^th New York Infantry, a regiment of Italian-Americans recruited mostly from New York City under the auspices of Francesco Casale and other Italian leaders in the North. Most of the members of this regiment were men who had fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi, the freedom fighter and republican agitator. They wore a distinctive styled red shirt as part of their uniform to show their connection to their countrymen, whose partisans had worn such shirts in Italy. Other Italian nationals joined the guard as well; apparently, out of a feeling that the Union’s cause, matched their own ideals of freedom and equal justice. They also viewed the northern ideology as closely-allied with the aims of Garibaldi and felt such an alliance lent credence to the great patriot’s ideas, since other nations were clearly adopting those ideals.

 

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Societys-Encyclopedia-American/.

 

In the South, especially New Orleans, the biggest seaport, it is not surprising that many Italians landed there. Consequently, with the outbreak of the civil war an Italian contingency developed. A call went out for volunteers and Captain Joseph Santini, a most prominent recruiter, gathered and led a small group of Italian Americans calling themselves the Garibaldi Legion. They too showed their ethnic pride by wearing a hat with plumes of the Italian colors and red shirts as that which Garibaldi’s men wore in the famous, Expedition of the Thousand, when in 1860 a corps of 1000 volunteers, led by Garibaldi, sailed from Genoa and landed in Marsala, Sicily to free the area of the rule of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Bourbons.

Below is a picture of a Garibaldi Legionnaire from the Confederacy and The Garibaldi Guard Marching Troop of he New York 39th Regiment.

 

 

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 THE REGION OF TOSCANA

Tuscany

 

Toscana is a region in Italy that lies one-hundred and seventy miles north of Rome and overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea and backs up to the Apennine Mountains; it has a population close to four million. It is the most visited region in Italy, and in the world. Upwards to ten million people visit each year. Tuscany contains six localities designated as World Heritage Sites. They are the historical centers of Siena, San Gimignano, Pienza, and Florence (the capital and the most visited locality within the region). The other two are the Leaning Tower and Cathedral of Pisa, and Val d’Orcia, known for its landscape.

The region is the true birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and a number of notable people in the arts and sciences were born there. They are: Dante Allegheri, Francesco Petrarch, Sandro Botticelli, Niccoló Macchiavelli, Luca Pacioli, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarotti Simoni, and Giacomo Puccini. The region has several museums, containing works of these great artists, scientists, and others. They are: the Uffizi, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Pitti Palace, the Chianciano Museum of Art, and the Academia di Belle Arti, where in the Tribuna stands the original statue of David by Michelangelo. The region also contains many loggias, piazzas, fountains, buildings, churches and cathedrals that are impressive works of art and architecture.

When Italy became a country in 1861, one of its first tasks was to select a language, since the peninsula of Italy consisted of many principalities, and autonomous regions, it did not have a unifying language. They may all have derived from Latin but they were dialects and not uniform. Thus, due to the impact of the arts and sciences written and spoken in the Tuscan dialect, the new government selected it as the national tongue. However, the full standardization of the Italian language occurred in the decade of 1950-1960 with the rise of mass media and television.  Nevertheless, a modern Italian can read the works of many of the great artist of the renaissance with ease.

Tuscany is also famous for its wine region of Chianti.  Many wineries exist throughout the area producing varied wines, some are Chianti, Chianti Classico, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Tenuto Tignanello, Barone Ricasoli ‘Brolio’ and Ruffino, some of these are blends of Sangiovese and Cabernet.  It can’t go without mentioning that Tuscany is famous for its cuisine too.  Some popular dishes are: crostini di fegato, liver paté on toast, ribollita, boiled again vegetable soup with hard bread, panzanella, bread soaked in balsamic vinegar topped with onions, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. Another favorite dish is fagioli con salsiccia, cannellini beans with sausage. An interesting baking aspect is the Tuscans bake their bread senza sale, without salt.

Below are photographs of the statue of Perseus by Cellini  and the Kidnapping of the Sabine Women by Giambologna (Jean Boulogne, a Flemish) that stand in the Loggia degli Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and of David in the Academia di Belle Arti. For a gallery of photographs see www.florencepictures.com/historical-center/paiazzo-della-signoria-vecchio.

THE SCAVI OF ST. PETER’S CATHEDRAL

 

The Excavations of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome

 

Nero Augustus Caesar had St. Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ and whom Catholics recognize as the first Pope, crucified in his Circus (race track) that he had built where the Vatican stands today. After the crucifixion, St. Peter’s followers buried him in a nearby hillside necropolis, a city of the dead. It was a place fashioned to look like a city in miniature. Wealthy pagan families entombed their dead in houses where they could continue their new lives.

Some two hundred years later, the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian and, in the fourth century, ordered the construction of a church over the tomb of St. Peter. He had the roofs of all of the mausoleums removed and filled them and the streets with soil; thereby, creating a flat surface on which to build.  A thousand years later, the Catholics dismantled the original church, leaving the floor, and built the present St. Peter’s Basilica. It sits above the floor of the original church. Thus they built the “new” Basilica without any systematic excavation of what lie underneath. Consequently, the graveyard remained untouched since the time of Constantine. Beneath the main floor of the present church is the catacomb of the Popes, the floor of which is of the original building. Tourist can freely visit this area.

The primary artist involved in the designing of the Basilica was Donato Bramante, who died on the eleventh of March 1514. After his death, a number of architects continued his work; however, the Vatican later commissioned Michelangelo to complete it. He designed most of the apses and the main dome before dying. Domenico Fontana completed the dome in 1589. Its dedication was in 1593.

As the centuries passed, so did the memory of the necropolis beneath the Basilica. In 1939 workers digging a tomb for the deceased Pope Pius XI, broke through a wall beneath the church and rediscovered this small city of the dead. Pope Pius XII ordered the excavation, but kept the work secret in case they didn’t find St. Peter’s tomb. Since the necropolis acts as the foundation for St. Peter’s Basilica, the entire area could not be uncovered without the possibility of having the Basilica experience damage. Work continued for a decade and on the twenty-third of December 1950, Pope Pius XII announced the discovery of St. Peter’s tomb.

On the twenty-sixth of June 1968, Pope Paul VI announced that they discovered the remains of St. Peter. His remains are encased in an altar-shrine (The Trophy of Gaius) built sometime around 200 AD. 

Amid the fragments of St. Peter’s bones, the skull, vertebrae, arms, hands, pelvis, and legs, there is nothing from the ankles down. Theory has it that if a man was crucified upside down, as tradition says Peter was, the easiest way to remove what was left of his body would have been to chop off the feet and remove the rest of the corpse from the cross. I doubt his followers did that. Most likely the assistants to the persecutions did it.

I Scavi, pronounced ee scahvee, are the Italian plural words meaning the excavations.  Public tours are available; however, in order to visit these excavations reservations are necessary and need to be made months in advance of one’s visit and can be made via the internet. When one tours I Scavi it is an exceptional visit back in time to when one can “feel” the presence of those who may have been the followers of Christ. A walk through them is a walk into some important truths concerning early Christianity. Information is also available under the subject of the Trophy of Gaius.

On my visit, I was able to get a distant view of Gaius Trophy, which contain St. Peter’s relics. I say distant since, the closest they allow you to approach is about twenty feet. Because of the other tombs, it is not a very good see. Nevertheless, there is a light over the trophy which helps in viewing. The tour is intriguing since you walk along narrow passage ways past the facades of tombs. A guide leads the way while you listen to a hand held electronic device describing in selective language what you are viewing.  For more photos go to www.holidaze.com, www.culturaltravelguide.com ..under St. Peter’s Basilica,

 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.