TESSERAE - 11 - The Province of Ravenna

Piadine Romagnole.....

We stay at Il Palazzo, just outside Brisighella, surrounded by peach and cherry blossom and roads that crumble into ravines of gypsum. Brisighella is a medieval village, in the Province of Ravenna, half way between that city and Florence. Adriana and Ettore, who have run this azienda agrituristica biologica for almost thirty years, provide us with delicious local and home-produced food, and excellent sangiovese, trebbiano and chardonnay to go with it.

As the President of the Local Council, Elena Bianchi, says: Travelling to Brisighella you will discover a village and its land, lost in a natural and still untouched scenery, a delight for the eyes, a place to love, forever.  High from above a Fortress, a Church and a Tower like watchmen look after her. She appears in the glitter of the surfacing chalk, shows herself through the soft hues of the old houses and lives it up in her festivals, captivating you, our guest, with and unforgettable experience.....

Il Palazzo is in the middle, part hidden by trees

Brisighella dominates the valley of the river Lamone, and lies at the eastern end of a vein of gypsum that stretches twenty-five kilometres toward Bologna, and which now is largely protected by the Parco Regionale Vena del Gesso Romagnolo.  The area has spectacular cliffs, is riddled with over two hundred caves, and is home to rare species of plants, animals and birds such as the Cheilanthes persica (felcetta persiana) fern, mediterranean horsehoe bats, cave salamanders, yellow-bellied toads and Eagle Owls.  Natural woodlands of downy, Turkey and holm oaks, field maples and manna ash  mix with hornbeam and service trees, and in the undergrowth and on the grassy slopes there are helleborine orchids,  wood anemones, larkspur, cyclamen and snowdrops.

In times past, gypsum was mined here, as it had many uses, including as a mortar or plaster in building, as a constituent of agricultural fertilisers, and, when mixed with powdered white lead, as gesso - then gilded with gold - for medieval illuminated manuscripts.  In Brisighella there is a raised street, unique in the world, known as Via del Borgo, or Via degli Asini (Donkey Street), along which miners brought their beasts into the first storey rooms of the houses which rose steeply out of the rock .....

The town is served by the Treno di Dante, which winds from Florence to Ravenna, which also calls at the ceramic capital of Italy, Faenza.

Looking down on Brisighella from the Clock Tower, the houses of the Via degli Asini at the bottom

If that service had been available in 1300, Dante himself might have taken it, as he was exiled from his beloved Florence, and never returned, eventually dying, at the age of 56, in Ravenna, in 1321.

Alabaster - another use of gypsum - windows in the Mausoleum of Galla Placida, Ravenna

Of course, we visit Ravenna too..... Once capital of the Western Roman Empire (402 - 476 AD), then the Ostrogoth capital (until 540), then Byzantine capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Exarchate of Ravenna, then (from 751) principal city of the Lombard Kingdom, until it came under papal rule..... under which it remained, apart from occupation by the Venetians and the French, until the unification of Italy in 1861.

All of which is to say that Ravenna has had a chequered history!

Emperor Augustus, founder of the Port of Classe

Ravenna's glory lies in the eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites that are found here.... which include, the octagonal Basilica di S Vitale, which was consecrated in the year 548:

Ravenna's fame rests largely on the skills of unknown artists who created a series of stunning mosaics, and the mosaics in S Vitale date from the second quarter of the sixth century. They portray the Evangelists and Prophets, scenes from the old Testament:

And show S Vitale himself (on the left) alongside his Redeemer, with Bishop Ecclesio (on the right) in the Apse:

Next to this monumental brick basilica is the tiny Mausoleo di Galla Placida:

which was constructed in the middle of the fifth century and which is decorated with mosaics which are probably the oldest in the city (and which would already have been over eight hundred years old when Dante saw them....)

Almost contemporary with this is the Battistero Neoniano, which takes its name from Bishop Neone in the mid fifth century.....  The mosaics here show Jesus being baptised in the Jordan, surrounded by the Apostles.

Some fifty years after these two buildings, Theodoric (Patriarch of the Eastern Roman Empire, and Regent of the Visigoths from 511 - 526) built the Basilica of S Apollinare Nuovo.  The mosaics here are almost a century younger than those of the Mausoleum and the Baptistery, and with their golds and greens seem almost new.....

And the figures seem to step right off the walls with their grace and energy:

But for me, at least, the jewel in Ravenna's crown lies outside the city walls, in peaceful isolation nearer the sea.  

This is the Basilica di S Apollinare in Classe, which was consecrated in 549. The mosaics, however, date from various periods in the sixth and seventh centuries and, with their natural scenes and allegorical images, they startle you with their freshness..... 

In 1873 Henry James visited Ravenna, and recorded these impressions in Italian Hours: Between the city and the forest, in the midst of malarious rice-swamps, stands the finest of the Ravennese churches, the stately temple of San Apollinare in Classe. The Emperor Augustus constructed hereabouts a harbour for fleets, which the ages have choked up, and which survives only in the title of this ancient church. Its extreme loneliness makes it doubly impressive. They opened the great doors for me, and let a shaft of heated air go wander up the beautiful nave between the twenty-four lustrous, pearly columns of cipollino marble, and mount the wide staircase of the choir and spend itself beneath the mosaics of the vault. I passed a memorable half-hour sitting in this wave of tempered light, looking down the cool grey avenue of the nave, out of the open door, at the vivid green swamps, and listening to the melancholy stillness.

Ravenna is a treasure chest full of rich delight.  But it is also a lively and thriving city.  The Piazza del Popolo, with its Venetian Columns (1483) and the medieval Palazzo del Comune, is the centre of the action, and here you can while away the time sampling the local speciality - the Piada (or Piadina), which is a round flatbread filled with cheese and ham, or virtually anything you fancy (which is really what this Province is like itself!)  So, under a bright blue sky, with a glass of Albana (bianco) or Sangiovese (rosso DOC) di Romagna, this is how you should appreciate La Provincia di Ravenna.....

And then, of course, there is gelato to follow......

L'ombra sua torna, ch'era dipartite.....

http://www.ilpalazzo.net/

Sicily 4 - A Mosaic

The Colours of a Mediterranean Spring

Christ Pantocrator, Cefalù,1148

In February 1989 I made a trip to Sicily, sailing from Naples at night.  In my diary I noted: the Jolly Hotel tower and the Martini sign, bright crimson, yellow and white over the Magazzini Generali silos and frigoriferi building.  Extraordinary fascist art; decals of stone and work-ethic mosaics in and on the Tirrenia reception hall.....the motor-nave Torres, built by SEBM in 1988, leaves the port, the dome of San Carlo singing goodbye.....

Up at sixish, still dark, but the lights of the Conca d'Oro readily visible.  No dawn, a dark smudge of cloud instead.....  In the market the stalls are being laid out, full of octopus and strange fish, and freshly slaughtered kids hang outside the butchers.  A man SINGS about cabbages.....  I rest in the church of the Gesu, if rest is the right word in this astonishing monument of Sicilian baroque, coloured marble and crazy motifs of babies, dolphins, angels, ducks and flowers from the floor to the garish frescoes of the ceiling.....

Orchis italica - Naked Man Orchid

Yellow oxalis; almond blossom; hazy clouds; rising cliffs of limestone in the mist.  Bougainvilleas in flower, lemons in abundance, oranges.....  Arabic the language around me on the train; concrete shells up the barren hillside, then, the sea.  Citrus groves, olives, eucalyptus, tamarisks, pines - a few carobs.  Marigolds and borage in flower, palms, oleanders, agave, brambles.

The Greek Temple at Segesta - built by the Elymian people in the 5th Century BC but never finished

Segesta warmly honey/rosy in the weak sun; daisies and yellow vetch, golden wild marigolds, white dead nettles, pink-tinged asphodels, the bright green of wild carrot and sunny yellow of giant fennel.  On the hill opposite the bleats and clonks of sheep at graze.  In front of the peristyle a steep drop to a stream in a limestone ravine; pines up the slope above the vineyard opposite and a clump of little firs by the temple. 

The Greco-Roman Theatre, Segesta - built before 409BC

I walk up the hill through marigold-thick air.  Theatre in magnificent position, looking north over the sea at Castellamare del Golfo: plenty of signs of modern life - autostrada, railway, farms, fields, pylons etc - but it is not impossible to think it all away, to reforest it.....  I scramble periculously down the mountain through wild countryside and floral vineyards to the station at Calatafimi - no one at all about, though a dog yelps, and magpies cackle, and the wind cools my neck and the sum warms my back and I sit on the desolate platform waiting for the 15.23 for Trapani.....

Calendula Officinalis - Pot Marigold - and Viper's Bugloss (Echium Vulgare)

Segesta in 2014 the landscape is still a mosaic of flowers, but it is not the same.  The car park is full and the visitor centre is busy.  A shuttle bus ferries culture-hungry tourists up the tarmac road to the theatre and the sense of isolation, and of peace, has gone.

St Bernard's Lily

But the colours of Sicily still catch the sun, and everywhere we go there are examples of the shimmering mosaics of nature and art that amaze, from the exotic floors of the Roman Villa at Piazza Armerina to the Christs Pantocrator in the apses of Cefalù and Monreale.

Fishing nets drying - Cefalù

In some ways the art of the mosaic is like impressionism, in others it is like the pixellation of digital photography.  The artist takes a selection of small uniform pieces of tile, in a range of colours, and arranges them to build an image, subtly setting the tesserae at different angles to catch and reflect light at differing angles.  The Romans did not pursue this effect so much in pavements, but the breathtaking gleams and glints of the curved surfaces in churches, where candles and oil lamps play on the walls, show just how alive these designs can become. 

Fresh from the groves of Palermo (what's left of them)

In 1989 I went out from Trapani on the motornave Canaletto, out on the shining sea: Trapani, Erice and the coast down to Marsala fading into the blue, the windmills of the salt pans curiously more prominent as we became more distant.  Now on the starboard bow is Levanzo, a limestone rock, a small port, field systems, squares of walls set out up the dry flanks of the hills.  Favignano on the port bow.....  The boat has half a dozen passengers, and carries various merchandise - fruit and vegetables, a second-hand deep freeze and ice-cream cabinet, a lorry carrying old furniture. The people are short, dark, with black, or grey, hair, weathered faces, dark jackets or jackets, jeans or dark trousers, and smart shoes.....  It's clouded over, and the sea is dark; we're coming into harbour, a low African-looking spread of square white buildings, a yellow church with ceramic dome....

Ferula communis - Giant Fennel (though not fennel at all!)

A recurrent theme in the diary is flowers everywhere, beautiful carpets of them, and the blue sky, the blue sea....  Visiting again this year (and last) the floral display is still breath-taking, with a mixture of yellow and orange, blue and green that would make Matisse dance from his wheelchair. It is no wonder that the artists of the great cathedrals were inspired to such greatness.  The gold and blue edged with red, inlaid with turquoise and outlined with dark streaks could be sunsets on the mountains, or the beach at dawn.

It is not all bright sunlight, however, and in 1989 I visited Erice - soughing pines and the fog rolls in, obscuring all, making it quite likely that the Normans might return.....  haloed in the clouds the church and tower, silent save for the occasional 'ctang' of a bell, loom out of, or back into, the mists, the white stone and orange lamps vaguely luminous, the winds the breath of ages.....

Darkness gathers; damp, rotten, grey, thick, cloying darkness.....  Earlier I had a chat with the Custodian of the Norman castle, an old, friendly man, a strange encounter among the castle ruins and the TV signal boosters and telephone antennae, the wind humming in the guys, and the custodian's block entirely laced in by rusting lightning conductors.  We talk of the weather, and of the difficult times, how everything is upside down.....  He tells me of the tourists in the summer, when it can be 45º in the shade, with the brilliant harsh colours of the tourists' summer clothes, and the noise..... 

The Madonie Mountains, from Polizzi Generosa

This year we stay for a while in the wild mountains of the Madonie, and lie on the beach at Cefalù, 

Cefalù - dominated by the fortress of its Cathedral

then we edge our way past the squalor of Palermo's outskirts, through the impossible traffic, then over the hill at Monreale, pausing to see again the glories of the cathedral 

Christ Pantocrator, Monreale, 1185

and its cloisters, 

The Cloisters, Monreale

looking down on the Conca d'Oro from three hundred metres above the sea, bemused by the concrete sprawl that just was not there when I first saw the view in 1977.  Then we cruise past Partinico and Mary Taylor Simeti's Álcamo, and past Castellammare del Golfo to stay on a hill near Scopello, where in the 1950s Gavin Maxwell spent some time living by the old Tonnara (Tuna factory). 

The rocky coast of the Zingaro Nature Reserve

The Riserva Naturale Orientata Zingaro is one reason to be here, and it is worth the trip.  If Castellammare del Golfo is best seen from a distance, the Zingaro Nature Reserve is best seen close up, with an abundance of wildlife, from the Italian Gladiolus (common sword lily) 

Gladiolus Italicus

to the Sardinian Warbler, 

Sardinian Warbler

all around you blooming and chattering.  But it is more than even this, with small museums of local nature and history housed in traditional buildings, and tiny coves, with caves in the dolomitic limestone, reached only by steep footpaths.  

Cistus - I think this is Creticus

Here there is still a tradition of weaving palm fronds from the Chamaerops Humilis (European Fan Palm) into artefacts and one museum is dedicated to the once lucrative business of extracting manna (used as a mild laxative) from ash trees (Fraxinus Ornus).   All this and, if you are sharp you could see a Bonelli's Eagle.

Ceiling, Catania

On our return we stop, again, at Enna.  In 1989 I noted that the best thing about Enna is the station and its bar and restaurant; run by Mrs Jolly Fat Lady and Son.  And I noted that there was a fantastic exhibition of a national competition for ideas for a public car park......  Not quite sure what happened to that?

The Nave - Enna Cathedral

In 1989 I wandered up the main street, finding the Cathedral in disorder, dusty, seats piled in one corner, planks in another and behind that some gilt palanquin.  The black columns of the nave stand on elaborate carved plinths, and then, above, there is wedding cake sugar icing decoration.  The ceiling is heavily carved wood, the apse ornate stucco - Christ being crowned against a yellow background: the light filters in through dirty glass and garish stains..... An interesting marble pulpit is supported by angels, their protruding breasts well worn....  Pleasingly the angels are still there, and the interior has been spruced up, with the floors, some marble and some ceramic, gleaming clean and fine where the light falls through clean windows.

The Sacristy - Enna Cathedral

Further up the hill, in 1989, I came to Enna castle, a real state of disrepair - rabbit cages and opera house - cages for baritones and mezzo-soprani, cages for maestri del coro and so on.  The stage in ruins, half up and half down, the rows of metal chairs waiting for never, the backdrop a flaking bright blue wall.  As I leave, the only visitor, I see the guardian at his desk, his capped head down on his crossed arms....

Calascibetta (from Enna)

This time we are greeted at the castle entrance by an enthusiastic guide, employed by the city and keen to tell all.  He shows us, and a couple from Florence, what there is to see, explaining that once there was a theatre here, but now there is no money for it.....  His warm disposition and pride in his post smooth away the centuries of Sicilian wars and changes of ownership.  It becomes his castle to share, and he communicates an underlying love for his island that informs us more than detail, and confuses the Florentines, who, having just provided Italy with their ex-mayor for Prime Minister, thought they had all the answers.  

Our Guide to Enna Castle

The extensive castle is both ruined and still standing, and where marigolds touch the stones, sunning themselves against the hard wearing ancient rock, I am reminded of how the tesserae of mosaics build glorious pictures.....

My 1989 diary ended with sunrise over Vesuvius, a few shining clouds and that threatening shape, lowering, jagged, naked.  Our 2014 trip ended as we dipped our wings over Etna; snow melting down into green valleys, a plume of smoke drifting into the clouds above.  From the air, the villages and fields, a mosaic.....

From my 1989 diary:   wandering these eerie streets I say hello to all those, few that they are, that I come across.  Without fail my greeting is civilly, if not even warmly, returned......