the cassandra pages

Caryatids, and an Olive Tree

My favorite site on the Acropolis is not the Parthenon, but the porch of a much smaller temple called the Erechtheum. I've been fascinated by the graceful women, holding the roof on their heads, since I first saw pictures of them almost half a century ago. When we visited in 2018, I kept looking at it from different angles, first from far and then walking close and around the building, unable to let it out of my sight for long.

A recent pen and ink sketch of mine.

This single olive tree marks the site where, according to the legend immortalized on the western pediment of the Acropolis, Poseidon and Athena competed for patronage of the city. Poseidon struck his trident against the rock of the Acropolis, and a salt spring came forth. But Athena planted an olive tree, and won the contest and the hearts of the people. Supposedly, an olive tree has always stood there, each successive one propagated from branches of its predecessor. I'm sure that's not entirely true. Somewhere nearby, a mark in the rock supposedly shows where Poseidon struck it (!)

Athena and Poseidon square off (replicas of the Acropolis pediments, Acropolis Museum, Athens)

Athena is crowned victorious next to her father Zeus, while the other gods look on.

Pericles ordered the Erechtheum to be built as part of the splendid rebuilding of the damaged Acropolis after the Persian invasion (480 BCE) that included the construction of the Parthenon. The Erechtheum was built of shining white Pentelic marble, and named after Erechtheus, an early, mythical, demi-god king of Athens. It was begun in 421 during a peaceful period, but halted after war began with Sparta, and only finally completed in 406 -- the last of these major buildings to be finished.

The Parthenon frieze shows the Panathenaic procession: in this segment, two figures hold the folded peplos, a new robe being carried up to the statue of Athena.

The temple was one of the holiest places for the Athenians. Inside was placed the ancient olivewood statue of Athena that was clothed in a new, specially-woven robe every four years, carried up to the Acropolis in the Panathenaic procession -- a statue that retained its historic, cult status even though a huge crystal and gold statue of Athena had recently been placed in the rebuilt Parthenon. A sacred serpent, said to be a reincarnation of Erechtheus, lived in one of the western chambers of the temple, and was fed on honey cakes. If the snake refused to eat the cakes, it was considered a very bad omen.

The scale of the Erectheum (far right) compared to the Parthenon.

The robed women on the Erechtheum's porch strike me as both beautiful and enigmatic -- there's something personal and almost  intimate about them, especially in the context of the grandeur and immensity of the Parthenon. The Roman architect Vitruvius first used the term Caryatid: he said it refers to a town called Caryae in the Peloponnesus which sided with the Persians against Greece; after the war, the Greeks retaliated against Caryae, killing the men and enslaving the women. "The architects of the time," he writes, "designed for public buildings statues of these women, placed so as to carry a load, in order that the sin and punishment of the people of Caryae might be known and handed down even to posterity."

An archaic kore, statue of a standing, draped female figure at the Altes Museum in Berlin.

It seems plausible, considering the historical time when the Erechtheum was built, but there were many earlier examples of young, draped female figures being used as columns, from the korai of Archaic times to some of the treasuries at Delphi. And the Caryatids look anything but burdened -- part of their charm is how graceful and light they appear.

Restoration work on the caryatids in progress, 2018.

The Erechtheum's statues, of course, attracted the attention of Lord Elgin during his plunder of the Acropolis. In the early 1800s he removed one to his manor in Scotland - she is now in the British Museum - and bungled the removal of another which he had sawn into pieces. Eventually, the remaining statues were removed from the porch and placed in the old Acropolis Museum; recently they were moved to the new Acropolis Museum, where they've been cleaned and restored in place, in a process that could be observed by visitors. Obviously the statues we see today on the porch of the Erechtheum are reproductions, but they're still very beautiful. The five originals, in the museum, are placed exactly as they were on the porch, with a blank for the missing one which Greece still hopes one day will be returned.

The Acropolis Museum is one of the finest museums I've ever visited; no one who saw the state of the art of display and preservation there could argue that the Greeks are "not capable" of taking care of their own monuments, or protecting them from pollution. Probably the Elgin marbles have been better preserved by being in the British Museum over the last 200 years, but that is no longer a question; will the 21st century see the return of cultural artifacts taken by colonial powers, or will imperialist arguments continue to prevail?

A Byzantine angel, and where she came from

Hosios Loukas Monastery

During the past two years, we've visited several very old Orthodox monasteries in Greece. The most famous of them all, Mt Athos, is closed to women, so that was not a possibility, but we went to the mind-blowing clifftop monasteries at Meteora, which I'll write about here someday, and the Vlatadon monastery in Thessaloniki, founded on the site where St. Paul is thought to have preached. During this past trip, we visited the abandoned Byzantine city of Mystras in the Peleponnese, near Sparta, which contains a number of no-longer-used churches and monasteries, and the still-viable 10th century walled monastery of Hosios Loukas, located not far from Delphi on a remote mountainside north of the Gulf of Corinth. Our interest is not only in Byzantine art, but the fact that much of it was made during a brief but extraordinary period of cross-cultural flowering, when Greeks, Arabs, Italians and Normans co-mingled in this part of the Mediterranean. Much of Greece feels like it is still looking east, toward Constantinople and the early seat of the Eastern Church. Arab craftsmen often built parts of these structures, and it's not unusual to see Arabic calligraphy alongside Christian mosaics, or eastern domes, vaults, and arches, pierced-stone windows and elaborate tilework in Christian sanctuaries.

That's Peter on the left, and Paul on the right. Where the mosaics come alive the most is in portraiture -- saints, apostles, martyrs, monks, abbots, and church benefactors are shown in roundels or full-length portraits, with unique faces: you can always identify Peter, or Paul, for instance. The most dramatic portrait in many churches is the immense Christ Pantocrator, usually in the central dome or the half-dome over the apse: a depiction of Christ "the All-powerful" in a particular gesture and attitude that, in the most compelling renditions, appears to be looking straight into your soul. This one is on a wall and seems less striking.

My Christmas print this year was inspired by a mosaic from this monastery. That mosaic (upper picture, top right) was golden and glittery, but I was taken by the archangel's hairstyle and the clever way the artist had fit the portrait into the circle, and thought it could be simplified for a linocut. I gave the angel a longer face and made her gender definitely female, changed the staff into more of a wand with stars, and added floral corner motifs inspired by another ceiling, shown below.

The amount of decoration in these Byzantine monasteries and churches defies description. Every surface is decorated in some way, giving the visitor and monk alike endless things to look at, but somehow a harmonious whole is often created. In this church we were intrigued by the amount of faux painting, imitating patterned marble blocks of alternating color -- maybe a Medieval cost-saving measure.

A mosaic floor.

More faux painting, with very free, almost calligraphic brushwork.

I've come to appreciate the tilework on the floors, the painted, inlaid, or carved decorations on walls and pillars, the stylized, often naive depictions of scenes from the Old Testament and the lives of Christ and the apostles, and the technical achievement of creating these stories in the medium of mosaic.

I was quite taken with the one above, showing Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan River. Isn't the water great? The inscription above reads "H βαπτη", "the Baptist".

And here's Jesus washing Peter's feet at the Last Supper.

These churches are filled with the smell of beeswax from the long handmade tapers that are always burning, and available in graduated sizes for you to light and place in large bowls or trays of fine sand, and the scent of myrrh, the holiest of incenses, which is burned in copious amounts, but also said to exude from the bodies of buried martyrs and saints, or from the springs of water that flow near them. And the churches always have martyrs and founding saints buried in them, their skulls often removed and placed in silver reliquaries, and devout worshippers kneeling in prayer beside the tombs, or affectionately brushing them with their fingers as they pass by, crossing themselves. Ancient icons behind glass or plexi show the marks of thousands of kisses by the faithful, who make the rounds of each sanctuary, kissing and praying before each icon in turn, as a cantor intones hours of chant.

The tomb of the monastery's founder, Luke (not the evangelist), was originally in the crypt, but his bones now lie in the tiny glass-topped coffin shown above, in a passage between the two churches on the site. Luke, known as a great healer, levitator, and worker of miracles, died in February 953, and for centuries afterward, pilgrims came to be healed by "incubation," which meant that they slept in the main church building (katholikon) or in the crypt near his tomb, breathing the scent of the myrrh, being exposed to the oil from the lamp above, and experiencing dreams in which the saint would appear and tell them what they needed to do to be healed. I found this practice particularly fascinating, because earlier in the trip we had also been to the 5th century BC Shrine of Asclepias at Epidaurus, where pilgrims did pretty much the same thing -- sleeping in the katholikon, among holy snakes that slithered on the floor, and experiencing dreams whose healing instructions were interpreted by pagan priests.

Most of the monasteries are much quieter than the Orthodox churches in the cities; in order to stay viable, they are open a few days per week to tourists, but the monks stay mostly out of sight. It's possible to see into their lives a bit, though -- there are herb and vegetable gardens and pens where chickens cluck and peacocks cry; goats and other small animals like rabbits; fruit trees; grape arbors, and, of course, a large grove or even a hillside of olive trees. The monk's cells are located in a particular building, along with a refectory (dining area) that can sometimes be glimpsed and more often not. In a corridor or cloistered walkway, there is usually a rustic iron gong or bell that summons the monks to prayer. Here we entered a former stable (now an art gallery), saw the ancient cider- and wine-presses, and a cemetery with the tombs of recent abbots. In the small shop visitors can buy food products made by the monks as well as icons, candles, incense, local herbs and ointments.

And everywhere we went, there were cats. As Hosias Loukas, near the ancient cider press, these yellow feral cats hid under a pomegranate tree, but were curious enough to let me take their picture. I sometimes felt like the ever-present cats, which seems quite well-fed, contented, and used to humans, were stand-ins for the invisible monks, showing us that daily life continues among these ancient stones.

Why is 3-D Compassion So Hard?

Pieta, Igresa de Sao Domingos, Lisbon.

Holy Week has coincided this year with the fire at Notre-Dame, and the resulting debate about what the billionaires and governments of the world should be supporting. Each day, I've read the arguments on social media and op-ed pages. Every night, I've gone to the Anglican cathedral where I sing, put on my red cassock and white surplice, and participated in ancient liturgies that commemorate a great miscarriage of justice 2,000 years ago, when the powers of religious establishment and the government of the time came together to crush the leader of a movement whose teaching was based on entirely different values, and different authority. Thursday was the observation of the Passover supper when Jesus established the practice of the Eucharist, knowing he would die soon; on this night he told his followers that he was giving them a new commandment, more important than all the Jewish laws: "Love one another as I have loved you." If you do this, he said, I will know that you are my disciples. Sitting in a dark church hearing those words, it's impossible not to feel like an utter failure -- as his disciples often were, too. Loving was not enough to save Jesus from death. And yet, trying (and failing, and trying again) to keep that simple commandment has been enough to form the basis of my entire life, and many other people's lives. Lent is an annual time to think about this more intentionally, and Holy Week is its culmination. These seasons of penitence are not about guilt; they're about Love: seeing what blocks us from loving better, and committing to a renewed sense of love for all people, and for the world in all of its failings and ugliness, and its beauty and miraculous joys.

The gasps of genuine shock and dismay that accompanied our first awareness that an 800-year-old medieval cathedral was burning were shortly followed by self-serving comments by French politicians, hoping to use it as a unifying  point in a society fragmented by racism and division. Hatred of the Catholic Church came next; many people didn't realize (or take the time to find out) that the French state owns Notre Dame, not the Catholic Church or the Vatican. Then, when French billionaires came forward with enormous pledges for the reconstruction, social media really heated up. In the UK, there were cries of "Where were the billionaires when Grenfell Tower burned?" In the US, it was "Where were they when the black churches burned?" We were admonished for not caring enough about Yemen, or Aleppo. Internationally, pictures were posted of dead coral reefs, with the poignant and appropriate caption "Rebuild this Cathedral!" 

Every one of these reactions is understandable and, to my mind, worthy. What bothers me is that we don't seem able to hold them all together, without shaming those who expressed sadness at the loss of irreplaceable architecture and art. As my friend Dick Jones said, "We don't seem capable of 3-D compassion." The reaction to the Notre Dame fire was only one example of this phenomenon.

When I lived in Vermont, for many years I was part of a grassroots activist group working to revitalize our poor neighborhood. Early on, we went door-to-door canvassing the residents, most of whom lived in run-down rental apartments. When we asked them what should be our priorities, they named things like better sidewalks, playgrounds, streetlights and safety, but the overwhelming consensus was on the need for beauty: they wanted trees and flowers, places to sit and see something other than the pavement and poverty that created a sense of shame and isolation. And they wanted to know their neighbors; they wanted a sense of community. It took time, and some grants from the local government and the state to accomplish some of those things, but building community and creating a more beautiful environment began immediately, from within ourselves and our own resources, not from outside. It is not either/or. Human beings need dignity and respect, they need decent housing, food and work, they need education and equal opportunity for their children, clean water, and health care. We also have an innate desire for beauty, whether it is found in nature, or in the arts. Somehow, we have to find a balance where we can hold all these human needs together, and have compassion and zeal whenever they are threatened or destroyed.

We are living in depressing and frustrating times, surrounded by increasing economic inequality and government inaction on the most pressing issues that affect all of humanity, such as climate change and the health of the oceans -- and nothing that we do to demand change seems to have an effect; the forces arrayed against the common people seem overwhelming, just as they did 2,000 years ago. So it's not at all surprising that people's anger is directed at powerful institutions, like the Catholic Church, or wealthy individuals who choose to give their money to a high-profile cause. These outbursts of frustration point out conflicts of priorities, but they also fail to acknowledge the many philanthropic individuals and small and large organizations who are already working tirelessly and often almost anonymously to support the environment, scientific and medical research, racial and ethnic inequality, the arts and education, and many other causes.  

More than that, though, I am concerned about the division created among good people through the tactic of shaming. The Left is particularly susceptible to this, and it's incredibly destructive. Ironically, the same people who totally get "Black Lives Matter" and were outraged when conservatives countered with "Blue Lives Matter" or "All Lives Matter" are doing the exact same thing when they insist that their cause is more worthy, and others should be ashamed of their own feelings.

Shame never brings people together, or creates lasting change of heart. We are individuals; each of us is drawn to different aspects of life, and it's natural for us to put our emotions and energy there; these proclivities should be complementary, not competitive. Some of us are meant to be guardians of the arts, or of children, or the elderly, or nature, or of immigrants, or of animals, or of human history...the list is long, because human beings and human culture are varied and complex.

I come back to that neighborhood group. At our very first meeting, which happened after a shooting, a lot of anger was expressed at "the authorities." People blamed the schools, the police, the town government, and they clearly expected these outside institutions to step in and fix the problems. But as we talked more, we began to see that if we waited for that, we might wait forever: we had to start within our own community, with ourselves, and with what we had in common. We had to talk to each other, ask questions, express our hopes and fears, get to know each other's strengths and limitations, and work together. In other words, we needed to "love one another."

It's worth remembering, perhaps, that medieval cathedrals were not built by like modern-day skyscrapers by multi-national corporations, or even by wealthy centralized church institutions. They were built by people who came together to try to do something greater than themselves that lifted their spirits and short lives above the difficulties of feudal societies beset by plagues and wars that spared no one. Yes, wealthy donors gave money, and so did peasants, each according to their abilities, and all were able to see the progress and feel part of a great process that would extend well beyond their own lives. It still astounds us that these huge works of art were built essentially by hand, and have lasted through the centuries.

The point is not that a western cathedral is inherently more precious or worthy than art of any other part of the world, or more important than insuring the safety and well-being of the neediest among us, or rebuilding black churches, or caring for the oceans. It is that human beings can do astonishing things when they work together, and when we decide to make love of something greater than our own selves a priority. The question for each of us is where we want to put our energy, and how to care for one another during these difficult times so that we can actually work together for the common good.

 

Home from a Journey

Dear Readers, apologies for my long silence. I've been away on a trip to Greece, a place I've wanted to visit for an entire lifetime. As the title of this blog implies, I've felt a personal identification with ancient Greece and its stories, gods and goddesses, art and thought. It's what I studied when I was young, and for a while I thought I'd either be a ancient art history professor or a conservator of antiquities. That's not how my life turned out, and part of the reason for this trip was to revisit that earlier self, as well as the place, and see what I thought from a different point in life.

It was a marvelous journey, filled with surprises and adventures not only in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki, but in the mountains of northern Greece; and not only concerned with ancient history and art, but also with a quest to see and learn more about the Byzantines. We were gone for sixteen days, and started our travels in Berlin, where we visited one of the best collections of ancient Greek vases and sculptures in the world, at the Altes Museum, as well as going to the Reichstag, taking long walks, trying to stay warm (it was almost as chilly as Montreal) and eating some excellent German food. Then we flew to Athens, where we began and ended our travels in Greece.

I have a lot I want to write about, but it's going to have to wait a bit because...Christmas...and singing, and friends and family, as well as some significant responsibilities here at home. The jetlag in this direction, back home, was really fierce, and I've been really busy besides. Today is the first day since returning a week ago that I've had any time to work on my pictures and videos, and I did get them transferred to my computer. So, eventually, there will be more to share here.

Travel completely engages me when I'm there, and then feels almost unreal when return to my own space. And yet, flight makes those sudden shifts in reality possible. I wouldn't call it disorienting, per se, but it is certainly strange to find yourself inhabiting an image like the one above, that you've seen in countless sources, from textbooks to travel videos. We don't go on tours but figure out our itinerary and plans completely from scratch, and unexpected things happen, so during the trips we always feel like we're very heads-up, paying sharp attention; there's a high level of intensity. I try hard to really be in a place -- to feel it and engage with it with all my senses as well as my mind -- and not just be a person behind a camera, capturing moments like trophies. It takes time to think about a significant journey and to see what I've learned and how it has changed me; I'm doing that now and will be doing it for quite a long time. And I already want to go back. There were good reasons why, as a young girl, Greece got under my skin. I see that better now, and am glad I wasn't disappointed by being face to face with the real thing. Yet I also see that I made the right decision to live a less linear and more personally creative life; it was a better fit with who I really am, but in many ways, it has been a reflection of the values and ideals that attracted me to the Greeks in the first place. As a woman, I'm lucky I live now, though, instead of back then.

So, more to come, soon. 

 

Aerie

The view southwest from the roof.

We rented an apartment in Mexico City, in the same general area (Condesa/Roma) we've stayed in recently, but a bit closer to Chapultepec Park, metro and metrobus stations, and the major streets of Paseo de la Reforma and Insugentes Sur. It turned out to be an excellent fit for us, with a well-equipped kitchen, good appliances, a comfortable bed and living room, lots of storage, a washing machine, a balcony, and 24-hour security.

Looking northwest from our balcony, toward Reforma.

But one of its best aspects was its height: we were on the 8th floor of a 14-story building, with access to the roof, good views to the west of the city and Chapultepec castle, the flight path of airplanes coming into Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez, and the dramatic thunderstorms that moved eastward across the mountains into the city on a number of late afternoons. We spent way more time than we'd anticipated in this aerie, just watching and looking and listening, whether it was the life on the streets and rooftops below or helicopters landing on pads on top of the skyscrapers on Reforma.

Street vendors below a date palm.

Mexico City's official color is hot pink, and so are its taxis.

Nighttime on a beautiful, clear evening - usually the pollution got worse during the day and then sometimes cleared out at night.

It was interesting and disturbing to see the differences in pollution and atmospheric conditions each day -- sometimes we could see the mountains, but more often not. We only went up on the roof once, on the afternoon we arrived, which turned out to be one of the clearest days of the sixteen we were there. More often, it was like the photo below.

I sketched the urban landscapes from our windows: not my usual subject, but the view and its endless details compelled me to try. Here's a pen-and-ink version:

And one with added watercolor and gouache:

The first drawing engendered this exchange on Instagram:

Me: I had fun doing this but it's also kind of exhausting!
XB: I can imagine it, hard to keep chaos and balance all together.
Me: Yes, it's just a lot of stuff, and easy to get confused where you are, while trying to keep a general sense of balance through the whole scene. What to leave out, what to leave in. And, of course, perspective. I don't use lines but try to be fairly accurate by eye, and mistakes always happen!
XB: mistakes are... beautiful

Monreale 2: the Duomo

The cathedral, however, wasn't open, and we began to internalize an important Sicilian lesson: shops,  churches, and museums close for a long mid-day break. Instead, we took the opportunity to walk around the small town looking for a lunch place that served something besides pizza, and was open during this non-tourist season. Eventually we found a little cafe with a white-aproned waiter proffering a tray of cheese and charcuteries at the door. We took the bait -- it was delicious -- and a blond woman who seemed to be the owner gestured us to one of two small tables at the back. "Perhaps you'd like a sandwich?" she suggested, in English, pointing toward a deli case full of cured meats and cheeses. "We have different Sicilian hams, cheeses...a glass of Sicilian wine?" An hour later we had consumed two delicious prosciutto, cheese and tomato sandwiches, some of that fine Sicilian wine, two almond cookies, and an espresso and a cup of lemon tea, and enjoyed a conversation with the proprietor and her husband, while watching the couple at a neighboring table eat an antipasto platter that looked even more delicious than our panini. Fortified and happy, we headed back down the cobblestone street, past a little market brimming with tomatoes and oranges, and down to the cathedral again, which had just re-opened.

"We should have visited in the morning," was our first thought when we entered the dark interior of what must be, in brighter light, glittering and brilliant. The huge, illuminated Byzantine mosaic in the apse, of Christ Pantocrator (παντός pantos ="all", κράτος, kratos = strength, might, power) dominated our sight for the first minutes, but as our eyes adjusted, we began to be able to see the mosaics all around the walls, and the golden coffered ceiling.

These mosaics were completed somewhat later than the building, and they illustrate biblical stories  -- on the top panel in the picture above, you can see Adam and Eve, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Below is the story of Noah and the Ark. It didn't matter at the time if many of the worshippers were illiterate: the cathedral itself was a picture book that they could read.

The floors are covered with the same sort of Cosmatesque pavements as in the Martorana in Palermo, and every inch of this huge interior is gilded or encrusted with stone inlays or mosaics. Because of its size, the space is overwhelming, and I found myself glazing over, unable to take it all in. But perhaps that was also in contrast to the light, airy, enchanting cloister, just a few hours earlier. We had a choice of going into an inner chapel, or climbing up into the northern tower. "Let's go up now, while there's still light," J. said, and I quickly agreed.

In the image below, you can see the southern tower that stands over the town's piazza. From the interior of the cathedral, we bought tickets from a clerk, bundled in scarves, and began climbing ancient stone stairs. On the first landing, we reached a window that looked out into the cloister, and then continued climbing until we came out on the walkway behind the green dome, and continues to the right of the picture, following the great nave of the cathedral.

Beside the walkway, this slanted roof of beautiful glazed tiles. At the end, a small door led into a dark passageway, just wide enough for one's shoulders. Light filtered in through arrow-slits on the cloister side, and also on the cathedral side. I peered through: we were above the choir stalls and organ, and then above the crossing, almost at eye-level with Christ Pantocrator. It was not only a place of worship, but a fortress: the Bishops's archers would have lined this passageway if the cathedral had been attacked, able to shoot down into the sanctuary. Two people descending from the tower met us in the passage, we all turned sideways, and squeezed by one another. J. and I kept going down to the far end, and then out onto the roof, where more steps, lined with intricately-glazed tiles, led up to the tower, with its pointed arches and geometric Arab patterns of tile and stone.

The view, toward Palermo and the sea, was magnificent, but also strategic. In those days, long before airplanes were even imagined, high ground was the best defense, and I began to understand why Italy had so many medieval hill towns. Thoughts of wars and sieges soon gave way to the wonder of standing in such a place.

That wonder increased when I later learned that King William II of Sicily, builder of this cathedral, had given refuge to friends and kinsmen of Thomas Becket, after the newly-consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury refused to do the will of his former friend King Henry II of England, and was forced to flee to the Continent. King William had become betrothed to Henry's youngest daughter, Joan, in 1168, when she was still a child. When Becket returned to England, and was murdered in 1170 by the King's men in Canterbury Cathedral, the marriage was called off, but after Henry did public penance at Becket's tomb, and Beckett was made a saint and martyr by the Pope, the relationship between the two royal houses improved again, and Joan was sent to Sicily where she and William were married, in 1177, just a few years after this cathedral was built, and by all accounts lived happily together.

Joan's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her brothers -- of whom Richard I (the Lionhearted), and King John (of the Magna Carta) were two -- had plotted to overthrow Henry; one of the younger brothers had been sent to live with Thomas Becket, and wrote that "Thomas showed me more kindness in one hour than my father did in my entire lifetime." It's almost certain that Joan's sympathies were with the murdered archibishop.

In any case, the earliest known depiction of Thomas Becket anywhere in Christendom, which bears the inscription "Saint Thomas of Canterbury," is in the apse of the Monreale Cathedral. I imagined Joan standing here, looking out over the sea toward England, turning to William, and saying, "We must memorialize Thomas, who was always kind to me."

Monreale 1: the Cloister

We took our first excursion out of Palermo on a bright November morning after buying a ZTL pass that allowed us to take our car in and out of the limited traffic zone for one day. This time, in daylight, armed with our phone GPS and better prepared, we managed to find our way out of the tangle of streets that had snared us the first night, and soon were driving south, and already uphill, through Palermo's suburbs. Small trucks loaded with neatly-arranged purple cauliflowers, tomatoes, or artichokes were parked near intersections, and the farmers stood nearby, waiting to sell their produce to local residents who lived in these poorer, crowded neighborhoods. Soon we were out of the city, and heading upward into the mountains.

The piazza outside the Duomo, Monreale

The piazza seen from the opposite direction. The Duomo is the central building behind the tall palm trees.

Monreale is located only about 9 kilometers from Palermo, but the drive takes a while because it goes so far uphill. We encountered our first switchbacks, and stopped at a pull-off to look down on a valley full of orange trees and tiled roofs, and back toward the sea. When we reached Monreale, a medieval hill town, all the streets were sharply angled and narrow, and only the very top of the town was flat. We parked in a commercial lot far below the street level, and climbed back up to the Duomo, or cathedral, in the town's central piazza, through tunnels formed by the tall walls of the old buildings, now full of lung-choking diesel fumes.

The extraordinary main doors of the cathedral, with Arab, Norman, and Italian/Byzantine elements.

The large bronze doors of the cathedral were shut when we arrived, and it was unclear where to enter. On a wall at the right, we pushed open an ancient wooden door to find ourselves in a gift shop that had been set up inside thick stone walls. This room opened onto a courtyard -- and as we stepped out of the stony darkness, we gasped. We were in the cloister of the Benedictine monastery that had been established after the cathedral was constructed, a square bordered by marble columns, each decorated with inlaid mosaic decorations and carved capitals, arranged around four quadrants of lawns inside clipped hedges.

Each quadrant of this garden had a small tree at its center, and the walkways joining them met at a large, low palm at the central point. It was a monastery cloister, to be sure, but unlike any monastery I had ever seen in Europe; the feeling was Arab, Spanish, Andalusian, and yet the carvings were Italian, and Christian. In one corner, a second room of columns formed an open "room" that contained a fountain with a broad basin: clearly reminiscent of an ablution fountain at a mosque.

These were conscious choices. King William II of Sicily, the grandson of Roger II, built the Montreale cathedral in 1174, and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary; today it's one of the most important and justifiably famous monuments on the entire island, but in an oddly remote location. The reason goes all the way back to 831, when the Arabs -- Islam would have only been 200 years old then -- took control of Palermo. The cathedral of Palermo was immediately converted to a mosque, and the Bishop of Palermo was allowed to go into exile in the hills. He settled in the small village of Monreale, overlooking Palermo and the sea, and built a modest church to keep a witness to Christianity. It remained so until the Norman conquest of the island in 1072. The Palermo cathedral was re-consecrated; many of the Norman royalty, including Roger II, were buried there. Partly to honor the memory of the exiled bishop, and partly because the Norman aristocracy was beginning to use this rural area as a hunting retreat, King William II built his great cathedral in Monreale. He also brought a community of Benedictine monks to the area, whose mission was to proselytize and convert the Arabs who formed the majority of the population. As in Palermo, Arab craftsmen were employed in the design and building, and, as we can see all over the world, the new religious leaders incorporated elements of the local religion in order to make it more familiar and acceptable. It's unclear how many Muslims actually converted, but the years of the Norman reign in Sicily were largely and deliberately peaceful for people of different faiths.

King William II of Sicily and his wife, Queen Joan of England, the daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. More about them in the next installment.

I have never been in a space that affected me quite like this cloister. It was one of the most beautiful and calm places I have ever experienced. We wandered through the colonnades and paths for a long time, studying the mosaic inlays and individual carvings, and absorbing the calmness that seemed to emanate not only from its history as a refuge from the outer world, but from the scale, colors, and harmonious placement of the individual elements, which achieved something close to perfection.

This was true for the courtyard as a whole, and also when one looked at the details: the stories carved on the column capitals had been carefully chosen, the inlaid mosaics which never seemed to repeat the same patterns. And instead of flower beds and vines, here were four single trees that reflected this particular place as well as the scriptures common to all the Abrahamic faiths: an olive, a date palm, a pomegranate, and a fig. I thought of my father-in-law saying, "When I think of the Arabs, I like to think of them in Spain." This was not Andalusia, but a place he would have loved just as much.

I washed my hands and forearms in the fountain basin, and we left to go inside the cathedral. 

Palermo's Mosaic - 2

Next door to St. Cataldo stands the Concattedrale Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, also known as the Martorana. Its founding charter dates from 1143, written in Arabic and Greek, and the church must have been completed by 1151, when its founder George of Antioch - an admiral and minister to King Roger II - was buried there. When the Arab traveller Ibn Jubayr visited the church in 1184, he described it as "the most beautiful monument in the world." 

Although I had seen pictures of individual elements of the Martorana, I was unprepared for the effect of the interior when I walked inside. Every inch of every surface is decorated, often in minute detail. On the far end of the church, the original Byzantine mosaics in glittering gold set off figures, patterns and scenes in celestial blue, reds, pinks, lighter blues, greens, browns and white. On the nearer end, the columns and ceiling were decorated in a Baroque style between the 16th and 18th centuries, with paintings and architectural details covered in intricate patterns of carved and inlaid marble. The visual effect is overwhelming: you have to sit down.

We were greeted by one of the most famous pieces of art in all of Sicily: a mosaic portrait of Roger II being crowned by none other than a levitating Christ himself.

This portrait was commissioned by Roger himself, and originally placed on the Norman Facade of the building. The Sicilian kings had a longstanding feud with the Pope, who would normally crown them himself -- by bypassing the Pope in this representation and going straight to Christ, Roger was making a bold statement about his right to the throne. His coronation robe has been preserved and is now in a museum in Vienna. On the opposite side is another portrait, also from the original facade, of the church's founder, George, prostrating himself at the feet of the Virgin.

Because I can read some Greek, the mosaic lettering all over the walls and ceiling attracted me like a cereal box: I couldn't help but try to read what was written. Here the letters read "Rogerios Rex" but I was confused until I realized that the Greek "S", or Sigma (Σ) that I expected to see was replaced by a C. I learned later that this is a simplified variation of Σ that was used in Hellenistic handwriting, and on coins, called the "lunate sigma" because of its crescent-moon shape  -- it appeared in all the inscriptions in the Palermo area, and must reflect its Greek heritage as well as common usage in religious contexts during that period.

The floor, and all the walls not given to mosaics, are covered in geometric Cosmatesque patterns in colored stone, typical of the Byzantine period in Italy but also reflective of Arab style and crasftmanship. This church contains inscriptions in Arabic, and like St. Cataldo and other monuments we would see later, its architecture derives from Islamic styles also found in north Africa.

This one is shown just slightly smaller than life-size. The red and green starbursts reminded me of poinsettias.

Overhead: full-length portraits of all the apostles, busts of lesser saints and contemporary figures, and the archangels surrounding Christ on a throne, while Biblical stories are depicted on the sides of the arches. My neck began to ache -- a feeling I'd have many times during our stay in Palermo.

Some of my favorite images were, not surprisingly, botanical. I loved this tree growing on rocks: it felt like  a place to rest my eyes, but it also gave the same quiet feeling, on a larger scale, as depictions of nature in Ottoman and Persian miniatures.

A French tour group entered the church while we were there, led by a local guide. When he was finished with his introduction and the people were looking around on their own, I sat down and talked to him for a while: he was a young man, and told me he specialized in the Arab-Norman heritage of the area. If we had had more time, and if J. were more fluent in French, we might have hired him to take us around for an  afternoon, but I enjoyed our conversation.

Only halfway through our first day, we began to see that "mosaic" was both a literal and figurative term in Palermo, describing not just these Byzantine, 12th century wonders, but the city's past and present history. Africa was never very far away, nor was Greece, nor was the Middle East. The Phoenicians had sailed here first, from Tyre, followed by Greeks and north Africans, then Romans, then Arabs, then the Normans who originally were, of course, "Norsemen" or Vikings. All of these cultures had left their marks and their patterns, and during some periods -- especially the 12th century under Roger and his descendants -- they had coexisted peacefully. During much more of its history, the island had known experienced terrible violence or, at best, constant tension. And yet, these monuments of a better time had been preserved, perhaps as a reminder of what was possible.

Palermo's Mosaic - 1

The obscurity of the previous night was banished by a glorious sunrise, and we stood on the balcony of the apartment, looking out over steeples and domes, tiled roofs, and below us, winding cobblestone streets where people began to go about their day. It was time for coffee.

We walked past still-closed shops to find the small cafe recommended the night before by our host. The colors and styles of the buildings were reminiscent of Rome, but where Rome was grand, Palermo seemed grittier, worn, rougher. The light off the sea bathed the stuccoed walls and Baroque facades in a stronger brilliance, while casting the tiny alleys into deep shadow. Old Italian men wearing dark caps stood in groups, bantering, while younger men and even small boys raced by on Vespas and motorcycles. There were few women anywhere, but many tall dark-skinned men also walked or gathered in groups, looking restless, some in western dress and others in North African attire: tunics over flowing robes, small round caps. In the side streets near us we passed small shops selling halal kebabs, couscous, Indian food. None of these people spoke to us, or even looked at us closely, and I tried not to appear to be paying much attention to them. We had never been in southern Italy before, and certainly not in Sicily. The first 24 hours in a new place are for acclimation: getting the lay of the land, and also trying to take its emotional temperature: what's going on, what's safe and what isn't, where should we walk, is there hostility toward tourists, westerners, North Americans; how are the women behaving, are people walking alone, what does their body language say? We have pretty good antennae, and had read up on these places ahead of time, but a lot of the things that create comfort or discomfort are subtle, and even personal. As we walked, I knew that we were both paying close attention, and that we'd compare notes soon.

After we crossed Via Maqueda, a main street that runs, uncharacteristically, straight and parallel to the harbor, we found ourselves in Piazza Bellini, a broad paved square bordered by two historic churches. It had just begun to rain. Cafe Stagnitta was around the back of the piazza, and we entered the typical, rather elegant Italian coffee-bar: narrow, with mirrors on the walls, a glass display case filled with sweets or sandwiches beneath a high counter, several busy clerks in aprons, and a huge, shiny espresso machine. You stand at the counter to drink your espresso and eat a pastry, or pay more to sit at a table. We stood, taking the place of two regular patrons who were just leaving. There were no tables in this tiny room anyway; probably in better weather there were several out on the piazza. I ordered my usual cafe latte decaffeinato and a small lemon-filled pastry, while J. asked for an espresso and a croissant filled with green pistachio cream - a Sicilian specialty. The small white cups clinked in their saucers; the barista smiled at us; the coffee was dark, rich, delicious. I scraped the last bits of foam from my cup with the small spoon, and we paid our bill and stepped out into the drizzling rain, careful not to slip on the slick marble pavement.

--

What had brought us to Sicily? Perhaps it was J.'s obsession with pizza, at first: we kept trying to get to Naples but always seemed to end up in other destinations. I had become even more curious about southern Italy after reading Elena Ferrante's four Neapolitan novels. There was our attraction to volcanos: Vesuvius, of course, south of Naples, but here on Sicily, the continually-active Mt. Etna. But it was the intersection of Sicily's history with our own that had sealed this decision. For me, there was the fact that this island was a major part of Magna Graecia -- the Greeks had established city-states here in the 5th century BC, and fought nearly continual wars with their great rival, Carthage, on the north coast of Africa, close to Sicily's southern coast; I was anxious to visit these ruins. For Jonathan, the Palermo area in particular had unique architectural monuments that blended the Norman kings' Christian religion and Byzantine art with the traditional work of native Arab craftsmen -- the island was mostly inhabited by Arab Muslims when the Normans arrived. Two of those Arab-Norman sites were right here, in this piazza.

 

We stood outside these buildings for a while, under a tall bell tower covered with geometric Arab motifs, and a towering date palm laden with branches of dark orange fruit. Dark pink bougainvillea bloomed in a courtyard behind a wrought iron fence; along the walls were agaves, palmettos. Where exactly were we: Damascus? Spain? Mexico? Florida?

 

A narrow path led along the side of the wall, above the piazza, and there we found the entrance to the smaller building, the Church of St. Cataldo, a straight-sided cube with three red domes. St. Cataldo, named after the medieval Irish Saint Cathaldus who came through southern Italy, was built in 1154 by Maio of Bari. Maio was magnus ammiratus ammiratorum or "great admiral of admirals" under the Norman King William I of Sicily , a title derived from the Arabic word "amir": he was an admiral but also a chancellor who wielded a great deal of influence. His primary legacy was to complete the centralisation and consolidation of Sicily that the earlier kings had begun, and he was responsible for a treaty that finally put an end to conflict between Sicily and the Pope. Maio is described variously as a totally honest, upright man and a corrupt womanizer who was the Queen's lover and involved in a plot to kill the King; in any event, he was assassinated not long after this church was built, and for that reason the interior was never finished.

The feeling, as we sat down under the stone domes, was of coolness, solidity, and immense calm. Two young women sold tickets in front of a curtained doorway, and serious conservation work was quietly proceeding in the altar area by white-coated technicians. Another couple sat quietly in wooden chairs. A middle-aged man paid, entered, took one look around, and loudly demanded his money back -- "This is all there is?" he shouted, in a mixture of English and Italian. "And it's under construction? You expect people to pay to see this?" The older of the two women politely and firmly refused to refund his money. "You have entered, you have to pay," she said, "It is how we finance the conservation." He finally gave up and stormed out; the rest of us exchanged amused glances.

The altar itself was original, as was the elaborate mosaic floor, but many of the interior decorations had been lost over the centuries, when the building had been used for other purposes such as a post office. The red color of the domes was probably an error of restoration from the 1800s.

Later I was glad we had seen this church first, both because of the emotional intensity that derived, I thought, from its simplicity, and because we could see the architectural structure so much more clearly than in interiors encrusted with Byzantine mosaics. The windows here, in particular, stood out for their varying, geometric Arab lattice motifs, which gave a lightness that contrasted with the massive arches. I had never been in such a place; Jonathan said it reminded him very much of buildings he had seen in Damascus.

Next: Byzantine mosaics, and King Roger of Sicily.

Rome VI: St. Valentine

The Tiber Island, looking east: Trastevere would be on the right, and Rome on the left.

We often crossed the Tiber from Trastevere to Rome at the eastern end of its island via the Ponte Fabricio, the oldest surviving Roman bridge across the river, which was constructed in the year 62, when Cicero was consul of Rome. A Latin inscription on the bridge still reads "Lucius Fabricius, Son of Gaius, Superintendent of the roads, took care and likewise approved that it be built." From this bridge I always noticed the umbrella pines crowning the top of the Palatine Hill, in the distance, and closer, a tall medieval bell tower.

There are two Roman temples just beyond the end of the bridge, and beyond them on the corner, an old church beneath that bell tower. Every time we walked past, there was a line of tourists waiting to take a picture of themselves with their hand inside the mouth of a giant, circular, stone face in the church's portico - the Bocca della Verita, or Mouth of Truth - which, according to legend, will snap shut on the hand of a liar. Because of our aversion to the hoards of selfie-stick-toting tourists, we were well into our second week before we entered the church, at a time when the portico was closed.

There are so many churches in Rome, and almost all are so Baroque, that we became used to bracing ourselves for a visual onslaught. So it was impossible not to sigh when we entered the utterly simple interior of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a Byzantine church built in the 8th century on top of an ancient temple of Hercules and decorated by Greek monks who were escaping the iconoclastic persecutions that were prevalent in the Eastern Church at that time. The church was badly damaged by the Norman invasion in 1084 and the medieval bell tower - the tallest in Rome - was added when restorations were made.

This is a portion of Santa Maria in Cosmedin's Cosmati pavement, a mosaic technique named after the Cosmati family who pioneered this style of work in Rome in the 12th century; it is similar to some kinds of Byzantine mosaic, but instead of using stones all the same size, Cosmati work uses varying sizes framed by white marble. This sort of inlay spread in Europe; the most northern example is the Cosmatesque pavement of the high altar at Westminster Abbey, unusual because the stones are set into a dark surrounding substrate. My quilter's eyes were dazzled by the variety of patterns here, and the colors of the stones, which art historians think were mostly sliced-up bits of broken, ruined Roman monuments scattered around the city, recycled into these floors during the middle ages.

 

Although the church is no longer used by a congregation, it felt holier than many of the others we visited. We returned several times to absorb its quiet atmosphere and sit for a while in the beauty of the plaster walls and astonishing floor.

 

There are few visitors: most of the tourists have followed their guidebook's list of Romans "must-see"s to the Bocca della Verite, and afterwards merely stick their heads in the church door, see nothing of interest, and then leave.

A recording of Orthodox chants plays at all times, contributing to the calm and quiet. The music carries faintly into the stone crypt below the main altar, hollowed out from volcanic blocks that formed the central podium of the much earlier Roman temple. In this crypt are a small marble altar and candle-lit niches that once held the relics of early Christians, removed from the catacombs by Pope Hadrian in the 8th century.

Inlaid wall decorations above the entrance to the crypt.

I was wandering around upstairs when I found myself in front of a chapel where a flower-crowned skull rested on the altar, and was rather shocked to see that it was labeled "St. Valentine."

Reliquary with St. Valentine's skull (Wikipedia)

There are conflicting hagiographies and several different martyrs by the name "Valentine," but the story I like best says that he was a Roman priest in the 3rd century; this Valentine secretly married couples, in defiance of Emperor Claudius, so that the husbands would be able to escape military service and going off to war. The priest was arrested. The Emperor met the prisoner and came to like him, but when Valentine tried to convert him to Christianity -- or, alternately, when Valentine refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods - Claudius changed his mind and had him beaten with clubs and then beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate, and buried in an unmarked grave, from which his followers later removed his body. Churches as widely separated as Dublin, Madrid, and Prague claim to house St. Valentine's burial site or relics, but I think I will just decide to believe that the skull of the patron saint of lovers, whose Feast Day is February 14, is this one.