28 September 2014

Looking out, looking in


Andrew Wyeth, Frostbitten, 1962.
watercolor on paper. 16 x 23 ½ in.

Of the more than 370 entries I have written here, the second-most popular has been Rooms with a View which offered small 19th-century Scandinavian paintings of mostly bare rooms with windows. The National Gallery in Washington, DC is presenting until the end of November another window exhibition, this of paintings by Andrew Wyeth. I have followed Wyeth since I first discovered him Christina's World in the late 50s,and have made many pilgrimages to Brandywine, PA to his countryside (where I saw a pair of foxes courting in the snow).

One painting in this exhibition might at first glance be at home in the Scandinavian exhibition:

Andrew Wyeth, Big Room, 1988,
watercolor on paper. 22 ½ x 30 in.

but it makes clear the differences. Where the little paintings showed the love of detail, this begins to melt away detail, to merge outside with inside, tree branches with man-made bricks. Wyeth has always seemed to me to paint death. I see each of his paintings not as lament or scare but as a statement of infinite calm: death is apples on a windowsill, sunlight in an empty room, a wind from the sea. That wind is the poster picture for this exhibition.


.
Andrew Wyeth, Wind from the Sea, 1947.
tempera on hardboard 18 ½ x 27 ½

The sea is invisible. So much in Wyeth's paintings is invisible, like the lovers looking out the blue window, or "Her," or the fog, or the spring, or the window itself in paintings below. Like Piero della Francesca he paints the silence between the notes of music. But visible here in the lace of these wind-torn curtains are returning swallows, swallows coming toward the viewer whose face is about to be touched by the curtains, about to be touched by the incoming fog.
Andrew Wyeth, Rod and Reel, 1975.
watercolor on paper 21 ½ x 29 ½ in.

Andrew Wyeth, Love in the Afternoon, 1992.
tempera on panel


Andrew Wyeth, Her Room, 1963.
tempera on panel




Andrew Wyeth, Blue Door, 1952.
watercolor on paper 29 x 21 in.




Andrew Wyeth, Incoming Fog, 1952.
watercolor on paper 29 x 21 in.




Andrew Wyeth, Drying Room, 1973.
watercolor on paper 19 x 30 in.




Andrew Wyeth, The Reefer Study, 1948
watercolor on paper 22 x 30 in.

Andrew Wyeth, Spring Fed, 1967.
tempera on masonite 27 ½ x 39 ½ in.





Andrew Wyeth, North Light, 1984.
watercolor on paper 21 x 29 ¼ in.



Andrew Wyeth, Bird in the House, 1979.
watercolor on paper 29 ½ x 21 ½ in.





Pictures from Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In.
Nancy K. Anderson & Charles Brock. National Gallery of Art, 2014.

20 September 2014

Oranges, salt pork, and grain


This picture and the one below are from Michael of Rhodes.

In trying to find out how Greeks lived their lives in the fifteenth century, I have come across a few – a very few – references to Greeks in commerce who owned their own ships. Almost all these references come in records from Ragusa (Dubrovnik), where permission is being granted for ships to enter the harbor. There are more references for Greeks from Corfù and Crete, but my focus is the Morea. I am reading a French summary of medieval Latin entries, and I am getting very few indications of types of ship. The ship above may be generously-sized. It is likely that quite a few are like these:


I have one reference from Nauplion in 1450, to an Andreas Fantalouris whose family owned a ship. Andreas was a large landholder, and may have been involved in a court case with Anonymous of Nauplion who has been a guest of this blog. Otherwise, all the sources I have now are from Ragusa.

Other Naupliots transacted business in Ragusa. In 1408, Costantinos reported that 20 dozen bread knives were stolen from him while he was drinking in a tavern. In 1428 a Yannis Canakis brought a ship of merchandise. In 1435 a Yannis spent 3 1/2 ducats to buy 300 pounds of ship's biscuit for his ship. These don't give us much information about Nauplion shipping.

There is more for Koroni. In 1428 George arrived in a griparia with salt meat, oranges, and cheese. Kyriakos Maropoulos brought salt meat, oranges, and cotton. In 1437 Kosta brought a ship of cheese, barley, fats, and other merchandise to Ragusa. In 1439 Theodoros brought salt meat. In 1442 Nikola Mortato brought oranges and merchandise. In 1443 Maropoulos and Nikolaos brought ships with cheese, lard, and linen. I've not found ships from Methoni.

In 1441 Nikolaos of Patras brought wheat and salted meat. There are a number of entries which identify merchants as "Greek" without the name of a port. If I can assume as does the editor that all the Greeks are from the Morea, that gives me a few more merchants. Yannis arrived with merchandise on his ship in 1446. In 1428 Greeks brought saindoux, a high-quality rendering from pork fat. in July 1436 Dino imported 600 steres of millet for which he was to be paid 300 hyperpera. That was 600 cubic metres of grain, perhaps not requiring a large ship, but one larger than the two boats in the picture above. In 1421 so much grain was offered for sale by a Greek that it was necessary for the grain commissioners to set the prices.

So this is about all I have on Moreote merchants and ships, but it begins to suggest a picture of Greek trade. I would be delighted if readers could contribute more.



The Ragusan sources are from B. Krekić, Dubrovnik et le Levant au moyen âge. Paris. 1961.






12 September 2014

Crow Summer 2014: Part Two


Crows in moult: the view from my desk.


Watching the crows this summer, we have learned to distinguish several of them by a combination of size, curve of the beak, amount of feathers hanging down under the neck, bushiness of leg feathers, and so on. We have lost track of Wow, Tak, and Futhark: there are about eight young the same size. They have lost the red in their mouths, and they no longer scream to be fed. I suspect it is Futhark who dive-bombs a sibling and yanks on his tail. The moult is nearly completed, but so many crows replacing all their feathers has made tremendous demands on supplies of protein.

Korax continues to visit. Washcrow and Her continue their late afternoon quiet time. Her is quite shy and continues to be skittish about our presence, but Washcrow visits, making a quiet rattle which I try to imitate, and then we will exchange assorted clicks and rattles for a bit. At least two other crows have followed his lead, and sometimes from the feeder there will be a wonderful, brief, flourish of crow sounds. One makes a series of small sneezy sounds when he sees me, while one makes small coughs. Washcrow will also, when the feeder is inadequately supplied, come near and let out a blast of two caws, demanding food which I immediately provide.

Watching the crows this summer, we have also gained information we would prefer not to know. Crows get sick. They have crippled feet. They have deformities. They have avian pox with white spots and tumors. One has a blind eye. The unwell crows are cranky, snap at other crows on the feeder. The healthy crows don't seem to discriminate against the unwell when we are watching. There is ultimately nothing we can do about the unwell. The number of them is distressing -- do we have an accurate view of the ratio of well to unwell, or do we see more of the unwell because we provide a reliable food supply?

Sometimes we can help them a little. Pierre constructed a feeder so the crows have three different possibilities for standing – on a rounded perch, on the narrower edge of the pan, on a flat plank. The crow with the crippled foot will land on the plank, foot curled, and then press it down on the plank until it opens up to support him. I discovered that the two crows with poxy faces liked soft bread – the pox makes sores in the mouth. After a week they rejected it, and I saw that one was getting better: the other has disappeared.

The unwell crows are more difficult to photograph. They stay at the feeder a shorter time, their movements are jerkier, and I have wondered if they see the lens of the camera as the eye of a predator.

Skin problems on the chin. These seem to be much improved.
This is the crow who makes sneezy noises at me.



Crippled foot.


Avian pox and damaged beak.


Avian pox.


Tumors of avian pox. The one on the left foot has become
much larger, and the one on the right began since we
started noticing.


This crow, a relative of Hork, has the pox tumors
on one foot, and is blind in his left eye.




To end on a more pleasing note, the young
squirrels of late summer have discovered
the crow feeder.



04 September 2014

Pavane for a Dead Princess: Part Eleven


Possibly Guillaume Dufay.

Cleofe probably never had a pavane –it was a slightly later development of a dance form she knew -- but at least two pieces of music were written for her wedding by two composers whom her father, Malatesta “di Sonnetti” Malatesta employed at his court. Guillaume Dufay, just beginning his career, wrote a motet. Hugo de Lantins wrote a ballata. These were written in 1419 or 1420, before Cleofe left in August for the Morea.

Listen to Vasilissa ergo gaude here or here or here. The performances differ greatly. My own recording, and the performance I heard of Vasilissa one week ago, is by Capella Romana, but I cannot find this one on the internet. However, you can hear it in person with Capella Romana in their extraordinary program of music around the Fall of Constantinople, if you can get to Utrecht for the afternoon of Sunday, 7 September. Here is my translation of Dufay's motet for Cleofe, and then his Latin.:

Vasilissa, therefore rejoice,
worthy are you of all praise,
Cleofé, glorious from the deeds
of your family Malatesta
princes in Italy,
great and noble.

More glorious from your husband,
for he is nobler than all;
Despot of the Rhômaioi,
whom the whole world reveres;
born in the purple,
sent by God from heaven.

Radiant in youthful bloom
and in beauty,
fecund in your wits,
eloquent in both languages,
more glorious for your virtues
before other human beings.

The ruler has desired your beauty;
now that he is your Lord.
* * * * * *

Vasilissa, ergo gaude,
quia es digna omni laude,
Cleophe, clara gestis
a tuis de Malatestis,
in Italia principibus
magnis et nobilibus

Ex tuo viro clarior,
quia cunctis est nobilior:
Romeorum est despotus,
quem colit mundus totus;
in porphyro est genitus,
a deo missus celitus.

Junvenili estate
polles et formositate
ingenio multum fecunda
et utraque lingua facunda
ac clarior es virtutibus
prae aliis hominibus.

Concupivit rex decorem tuum
quoniam ipse est dominus tuus.


Text from Capella Romana:
The Fall of Constantinople

I find the use of vasilissa fascinating – it suggests that the marriage arrangements included information as to her title. In the four letters that survive in Cleofe's hand, she uses the title only once, after the birth of her daughter Helen, when she is desperately depressed. I like the motet's suggestion that she knew Greek, and I particularly like the comment about her fertile wits. (Compositions in honor of brides never make a point of intelligence.) Her family and friends commented on her cleverness, as did Bessarion. The last lines are ironic, given what we know about her husband's six-year refusal of a sexual relationship.

Hugo de Lantins' ballata for Cleofe seems not to have ever been recorded. I would appreciate being corrected on this. Here is my translation of Hugo, and then his version. Hugo was Franco-Flemish, working in a Pesaro where they used a variant of the Venetian dialect. Spelling was quite flexible in 1419 or so.

Across how many regions, does the sun so moving
turn and view with absolute confidence,
and see, O Sparta, none so happy as you.

You were the home of Queen Helen,
who through everything she did
drained the strength of all who ever wrote.

Now you possess something more divine,
Madonna Cleofe,
born of the Malatesta, as you well know.

These are the glories and powers
you have added to the empire of Constantinople
with its many lords, so great and noble
************

Tra quante regione el sol si mobele
Gira e reguarda cum intiera fede
Quanti ti, Sparta, beata non vede.

To fosti albergo di Elena regina,
Che per tanto che fe
Stancho le force de che scripse may

Ora possedi cosa piu divina
Madona Cleophe
De Malatesti, mata come say.
Quest'en le lode e le possance c'hay
Gionto a l'impero de Constantinopele
Cum tanta baronia si grande e nobele.

Text from Wikipedia.

It is not, I think, as interesting as the first, but it does show that he knows of Helen of Sparta, and he knows that Mistra is at Sparta. Both songs suggest that her family line is more than adequate to be matched with the imperial family of Constantinople.

Dufay also wrote a short composition for Cleofe's brother, Pandolfo, to celebrate his restoration of the cathedral of St. Andrew when he was Archbishop of Patras. You can hear Apostolo glorioso here. It is called an “isorhythmic motet” and is written for five voices. This will also be in the Utrecht concert.
Glorious Apostle, chosen by God
to preach to the Greek people
His incarnation, for it was blind to it,
and (who) did so without any blame,
and chosest Patras for thy resting-place
and for thy tomb this holy cave;
I pray thee, pray that I may find myself with thee,
by thy mercies, in the sight of God.

With thy teaching thou didn't convert to Christ the
whole country, and with the passion and death that
thou borest here on the cross above the olive tree.
Now it hath slipped into error and is made evil;
wherefore win grace for it again by prayer so strong
that they may recognize the true and living God.
****************

Apostoloso glorioso, da Dio electo
A evangelegiare al populo greco
La sua incarnacion, ché v'era ceco,
Et cusí festi senza alcu suspecto,
Et elegisti Patrasso per tuo lecto,
Et per sepulcro questo sancto specco:
Prego te, preghi me retrove teco,
Per li tuoi merci, nel devin conspecto.

Cum tua doctrina convertisti a Cristo
Tuto el paese, et cum la passione et morte
Che qui portasti in croce in su lo olivo,
Mo' è prolasso in errore et facto tristo,
Si che rempetraglie gracia sí forte
Che recognoscano Dio vero et vivo.

Andrea Christi famulus.

Text and translation, Capella Romana. The second


The second section is not politically correct, but Pandolfo's appointment, and Cleofe's marriage, had been arranged by Pope Martin V as part of his effort to bring about Church Union. This piece was certainly heard in Patras, and was probably written in Venetian-Italian rather than Latin as that would have been the main language heard in Patras other than Greek.


A page of Dufay's music. The West had not yet agreed
on the number of lines to a staff.






28 August 2014

Another missing woman - the second wife of Theodoros I


Picture from unidentified source. Help requested.


This entry is based on a fascinating article by Angeliki Tzavara and Thierry Ganchou which can be downloaded and read here . Although it was published in 1999-2000, I have only just seen it through the magic of the Academia website, and as far as I can tell from 6 years of Morea research, it has been quite thoroughly ignored. Tzavara and Ganchou found a document in the Venetian archives which clearly identifies a second wife for Theodoros I of Mistra. That the sole source is Venetian is another reminder of Byzantine misogyny in the imperial family. It may be remembered that Manuel's daughters have gone completely missing, as has his wife's mother, some of his grandchildren and others .

Theodoros is known to have been married to Bartolomea Acciaiuoli, daughter of Nerio Acciaiuoli of Corinth and Athens. It will be recalled that Chalkokondyles said she was one of the most beautiful women of the age. She may have been, but there is no reason to rely completely on Chalkokondyles, as he also said that Nerio left Corinth to Theodoros. Nerio did not. At Nerio's death in 1394 he forgave the 5000 ducats Theodoros owed him, but left essentially everything to his other daughter Francesca who was married to Carlo Tocco. Carlo Tocco took possession of Corinth. Theodoros went to war for Corinth, and eventually gained possession. Nothing is known of what happened to Bartolomea, but she probably died after 1396.

Theodoros died of gout in June 1407. Manuel II went to Mistra immediately and created his young son Theodoros Despot. Manuel and his brother had him in Mistra already, so there would be no doubt about the inheritance. Manuel's long funeral hagiography for Theodoros never mentions any marriages or children.

The second wife appears in a Venetian document of 1412, five years after Theodoros died. In it, a judge on Rhodes appoints a procurator to act on her behalf to collect money owed her there. This is how she is described: "illustrissima principissa et domina domina Caterina Palaiologina, relicta bone memorie serenissimi principis et domini domini Th. despotis Amoree . . . (by the) most illustrious princess and lady, Lady Caterina Palaiologina, widow of the prince and lord, Lord Theodoros, Despot of the Morea of good memory." That is all we have, but the combined Rhodian and Venetian legal systems were not likely to have invented an imperial wife.






21 August 2014

On vacation: Oedipus




Myth

by Muriel Rukeyser


"Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask you one question. Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said. "When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered, Man. You didn't say anything about woman." "When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That’s what you think.""








15 August 2014

On vacation: August 15



Domenikos Theotokopoulos, Coronation of the Virgin. ca. 1605.
Athens, Alexander S. Onassis Foundation Collection.

07 August 2014

The Τατα


These are souls in Abraham's bosom, but it is the closest image I can find for τατα.


Τατα is so variously and inconsistently accented in the sources that I will not attempt any accents. There are comparatively few sources for the word, and once you eliminate those where
-τατα might be part of a missing word, I have only found six incidents in the TLG that seem to be what I want.

What I wanted originally was the sense of τατα intended when Sphrantzes says his father was τατα to young Thomas Palaiologos and his uncle was τατα to Constantine.

Doukas tells a story in which Mehmed calls for Halil Pasha in the middle of the night. Halil thought this could only be fatal, and made his farewells to his wife and children. He went to Mehmed. "Lala," Mehmed says, and Doukas explains that this means the same as τατα, which he over-glosses as παιδαγωγέ. "Lala," says Mehmed, "I want you to give me The City." It is not often you catch Mehmed making a joke, but here he is acting the child, asking for a present.

It makes me think -- with no justification -- of the time when Sphrantzes asked Manuel II for a present. When Sphrantzes' father died, Manuel put Sphranzes in charge of his wardrobe. Sphrantzes once asked Manuel for a particular antique chest. (And this is where I imagine him impulsively calling Manuel, "Τατα.") Manuel's first response was that he had the chest from his father, the emperor John, and he planned to give it to his son, the emperor John. But he gave it to Sphrantzes. Nothing in Sphrantzes' narrative allows me to insert Τατα into the story.

In Characters, 7, Theophrastos speaks of older children teasing their father, a compulsive talker, who, when they want to sleep, say, "Babble something at us, τατα, to make us feel sleepy."

I've seen τατα translated as "tutor" and "child-minder" and "Dada," but neither of the first quite gets to my understanding, while "Dada" seems about right. Τατα was a term of affection, and while tutoring may have been part of an imperial assignment, it primarily suggests an intimate relationship more like a foster-father. Dokeianos compared Constantine’s education to that of Achilles by Chiron and Phoenix, and Phoenix's account in Iliad 9 of caring for Achilles includes cutting his meat into bites and dealing with his spit-ups:
. . . for you would not go with another out to any feast, nor taste any food in your own halls until I had set you on my knees and cut little pieces from the meat, and given you all you wished, and held the wine for you.And many times you soaked the shirt that was on my body with wine you would spit up in the troublesomeness of your childhood."
In the Liddell & Scott lexicon, τατα is referred to τέττα in Homer and explained as a term of affection towards an older male. Homer's sole use is for Diomedes in Iliad 4 speaking to Sthenelos (Sthenelos?) who is an older male. Aristophanes collects these and other similar words into a list, "ἄππα, πάππα, μάμμα, μάμμη, μαμμία, τέττα / ἄττα."

Ἄττα is essentially the same word as τατα. Achilles uses ἄττα for Phoinix, and Telemachos uses ἄττα for Eumaios, even after he knows who Odysseus actually is. Odysseus had left home by the time he was able to say the word. The Vita of S. Marina speaks of a hungry child crying "Τατα, and other such things the way children do." Similarly, Tzetzes, writing about how he always uses the appropriate language for the person to whom he is speaking, says that he uses μάμμα and τατα with small children.

Τατα does not always get the result one might hope. Ioannes Antiochenos tells a story of Phokas saying, "Bring me my τατα." The τατα was brought, and Phokas cut off his head. We will not speculate as to the reason.

One of the loveliest of all saints' lives, that of Philaretos, tells of the dream of his small grandson Niketas, after his death. Niketas saw his grandfather in the place of Abraham in a world of great joy and light, and woke up crying because he had to leave "the sweet light." "I wanted," he said, to be with my τατα and my πάππου -- my daddy and my grandfather."





30 July 2014

The Cretan bowman


Archer. Detail from Mantegna, St. Sebastian. Louvre. ca. 1475.



From Cyriaco of Ancona, 5 July 1445, Cydonia, Crete.


To Niccolò Zancarolo, son of A., the outstanding Cydonian archer and excellent victor over bowmen. Today, the fifth of July, the favorable, fair and celebrated day of quiver-bearing Delian Diana, he defeated, by his vogorous courage and worth, not only the outstanding Parthian, Scythian and Hyrcanian archers as well as others from foreign parts, but also proved superior to the expert Cydonian bowmen in an athletic contest held on the sand before the city walls, here in Cydonia, once the noblest of the Cretan coastal cities, now the illustrious Venetian colony of Khania . . . under the gaze of the distinguished citizens and colonists. A unique prize was proposed for the contestant who would be victorious with the flying arrow. Bending the mighty bow with his arms set apart, propelling the arrow through the pierced air from the string drawn to his ear, he aimed at the center of the target, which was the long distance of a stade* away, and struck it. To him Cyriac of Ancona, lover of antiquity, gave a silver coin engraved with the image of the sacred head of Pythian Apollo, the quiver-and-bow-bearing god [one one side] and the Rhodian prince Anthaeus [on the other]. He did this to commemorate and honor him.

 [Cyriaco gives quotations from Isidore, Pindar, Lucan, Vergil, Ovid, Apuleius on Cretan archers.]

 Cyriac of Ancona, lover of Hermes, chose all these brilliant and famous sayings of the ancinet writers and poets to record here as a proof of the ancient worth of all the Cydonian and Cretan archers. Done this day, the seventh of July, the glorious and venerable day of my protecting deity, Mercury, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Pope Eugene, one thousand and twenty-four years after the foundation of Venice.


From Edward W. Bodnar, Cyriac of Ancona: Later Travels, Letter 23. (2003).
* Stade = 184+ metres, or 605 ft.
Archery distances, Wikipedia.
For a 1440 round, known until 2014 as 'FITA Round', standard indoor distances are 18m and 25m. Outdoor distances range from 30m to 90m for senior Gentlemen archers, and 30m to 70m for Ladies. The juniors have shorter targets to shoot at. In Olympic archery, 70m is the standard range.




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