Sicilia, Napoli Roma: two months in Italy: The Ides of March

martedì 15 marzo 2011

The Ides of March

Today being the Ides of March...

...we will proceed to the bus stop outside the Senate, 100 metres from the site of Pompey's theatre (ironically sort of under the present parliament's lower house which is desperately seeking new leadership) where Caesar was murdered on this day, take the bus to the station and the train to Tivoli.

Here, another historical note, is a photo panorama from the Janiculine Hill, where the Roman Republic of 1849 held out for months against French forces invited by the Pope to reclaim the city. Yesterday someone was holding a press conference at Garibaldi's feet to claim some political mileage.

Big things tomorrow to celebrate 150 years from the completion of Savoy's occupation of Italy and beginning of the Italian kingdom.

Glorious statue of Anita Garibaldi (dark weather yesterday)

'Conferenza Stampa' - press conference - at the feet of Garibaldi yesterday

and panorama - St Peters out of sight to the left, this view first over Trastevere (trans-Tiber) then the Tiber (Tevere) - a line of wintering trees, then largely of the Field of Mars - Campo Marzo, where we have our apartment, with Rome's original seven hills beyond (not as far away as this stitched image from iPhone pictures suggests)

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TOP PHOTO

A seat on the cliff road at Positano just off the Amalfi Drive, south of Naples.

Just out there in the blue, the Sirens lived and tempted Ulysses. Ulysses' men, according to Homer's Odyssey, had their ears filled with wax, rowing furiously, deaf to the lure of the Sirens. Ulysses had lashed himself to the mast to avoid the Sirens' temptation. According to myth, Parthenope, one of the Sirens, fell in love with Ulysses but he ignored here. She came ashore and died of a broken heart near what is now Naples, a city founded as 'Neapolis' by the Greeks — and still Greek, luxurious and epicurean, through Roman imperial times. Parthenope and Neapolitan culture are synonymous.

Also, according to Greek myth, Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of fertility and harvest, was abducted by Pluto and taken to Hades via the entrance to the underworld in the crater of the volcano at Avernus, near Naples. Not knowing of Pluto's action, Demeter charged three of the sirens, including Parthenope, to find her daughter, lighting the sea with the great volcanoes between Vesuvius which broods over Naples to Etna which occupies southeast Sicily. Demeter was angered when the Sirens could not find Persephone, changing them into birds with female faces or in later rendering creature more like mermaids. Demeter eventually came to terms with Pluto for sharing Persephone, each for half a year.(Gosh, how modern!) Persephone, from the Hades of death and sleeping plants, ascended to Demeter, near Naples, with its rich soils, as the bringer of harvests each year.

To travel in Italy from the south to the centre, from Sicily (occupied by Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish and Americans in twists and turns) northwards to Rome, is to follow the heart a special way, through depths of culture and complexity of character very different from the better known worship from abroad of the world of Tuscany and Florence.