As if we were catapulted into Hogwarts castle, let’s imagine entering a dark room and, candelabra in hand, illuminate all the scenes of this year one by one. Perhaps for some we deserve a slap (not a slap, not even Boniface VIII). But for others, we couldn’t help but give ourselves a caress. There will … Read more
In “The Jungle Book” Mowgli is saved by Kaa the snake who frees him from a tribe of apes by hypnotising them. Some specialists trace our ancestral fear of this reptile back to that felt by primates from whom, non-coincidentally, we are said to descend. The fact is that snakes do hypnotise us: it happened … Read more
The jazz musician Gil Evans used to say that all art should be an experiment, and that masterpieces were successful experiments. In 1839 Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped some India rubber (compounded with sulphur) onto a hot stove and discovered that this caused the rubber to vulcanize. After that moment, transport would never be the same … Read more
Luigi Meneghello is one of the least-known Italian writers, yet also one of the most brilliant of his times. He was born in a rural town in the Venetia region but moved to England after the War. There, far from his homeland, he devoted himself to Italian Studies and the teaching of Italian. This was … Read more
In “Peter Pan” a crocodile has swallowed Captain Hook’s clock. That’s not going to happen to our clock, so let’s give ourselves five minutes to take a quick trip to “Neverland”… Time has certainly ticked by since J.M. Barrie’s play debuted at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London: a huge success that stretched way … Read more
Holidays often mean outings and so, should you go visiting churches and museums, you might well come across images of St Stephen: you’ll know it’s him because he’ll be holding a stone. He is venerated as the protomartyr of Christianity, and on the day when we often need to beef up the leftovers of yesterday’s … Read more
On any day of the year, anyone who looks into a cradle basks in reflected glory. Correggio and Jacopo Bassano knew this very well, having depicted exactly this state in all their nativity scenes. We could mention thousands of paintings where the shepherds’ faces are illuminated by a shining light that cannot quite be expressed … Read more
In our grandparents’ days, we Italians were used to observing a strict fast on Christmas Eve. Nowadays, instead, frugality has been left down in the cellar while upstairs in the kitchen everyone is waiting eagerly to tuck in to a Pantagruelian feast. “What’s so unpleasant about being drunk? Ask a glass of water!” writes Douglas … Read more
Had you been walking around Venice just a few decades ago, Peggy Guggenheim in a gondola would have been a familiar sight. Two distinctive signs would have given her away: her lap dogs and those butterfly-shaped glasses of hers which had been specially designed for the famous American ‘art addict’ by artist Edward Melcarth. It’s … Read more
December means Christmas and Christmas means lights; therefore, lights are Christmas. There’s nothing like a little syllogism to remind us of how consubstantial lights are to this time of the year. From a historical point of view, they arrived on the scene at exactly the right moment in time because wax and candles risked ruining … Read more
