Entries with Venus tag

Campanile And The Clock Tower

The Campanile began life as a combined lighthouse and belltower in the primeval tenth century, when what’s now the Piazzetta was the city’s harbour. Modifications were prefabricated continually up to 1515, the year in which Bartolomeo Bon the Younger’s rebuilding was rounded off with the positioning of a golden angel on the summit. Each of its five bells had a distinct function: the Marangona , the largest, tolled the beginning and end of the working day; the Trottiera was a signal for members of the Maggior Consiglio to hurry to the council chamber; the Nona rang midday; the Mezza Terza announced a session of the Senate; and the smallest, the Renghiera or Maleficio , gave notice of an execution.

The Campanile is open regular 9am-7pm; L8000/4.16.

The Campanile played another part in the Venetian penal system -”persons of scandalous behaviour” ran the risk of being subjected to the Supplizio della Cheba (Torture of the Cage), which involved being stuck in a crate which was then hoisted up the south grappling of the tower; if you were lucky you’d get away with a few days swinging in the breeze, but in some cases the view from the Campanile was the last thing the sinner saw. A more cheerful diversion was provided by the Volo dell’Anzolo (or del Turco – Flight of the Angel or Turk), a stunt which used to be performed apiece year at the end of the Carnevale, in which an intrepid volunteer from the Arsenale would slide on a rope from the top of the Campanile to the first-floor loggia of the Palazzo Ducale, there to present a bouquet to the doge.

But the Campanile’s most dramatic contribution to the history of the city was prefabricated on July 14, 1902, the day on which, at 9.52am, the tower succumbed to the weaknesses caused by recent structural changes, and fell down. (At some postcard stalls you can buy faked photos of the very instant of disaster.) The collapse was anticipated and the area cleared, so there were no human casualties; the only life lost was that of an incautious cat called Mélampyge (named after Casanova’s dog). What’s more, the bricks fell so neatly that San Marco was barely scratched and the Libreria lost just its end wall. The town councillors decided that evening that the Campanile should be rebuilt “dov’era e com’era” (where it was and how it was), and a decade later, on St Mark’s Day 1912, the new tower was opened, in all but minor details a replica of the original.

At 99m, the Campanile is the tallest structure in the city, and from the top you can make out virtually every building, but not a single canal – which is almost as surprising as the view of the Dolomites, which on clear days seem to be in Venice’s back yard. Among the many who have marvelled at the panorama are Galileo, who demonstrated his telescope from here; Goethe, who had never before seen the sea; and the Emperor Frederick III, whose climb to the top was achieved with a certain panache – he rode his horse up the tower’s internal ramp. The ready access granted to the tourist is a modern privilege: the Venetian state used to permit foreigners to ascend only at high tide, when they would be unable to see the elusive channels through the lagoon, which were crucial to the city’s defence.

The collapse of the Campanile of course pulverized the Loggetta at its base, but somehow it was pieced together again, mainly using material retrieved from the wreckage. Sansovino ’s design was for a building that would completely enclose the foot of the Campanile, but only one quarter of the plan was executed (in 1537-49). Intended as a meeting place for the city’s nobility, it was soon converted into a guardhouse for the Arsenalotti (workers from the Arsenale) who patrolled the area when the Maggior Consiglio was sitting, and in the last years of the Republic served as the room in which the state lottery was drawn. The bronze figures in niches are also by Sansovino (Pallas, Apollo, Mercury and Peace), as is the terracotta group inside (although the figure of St John is a modern facsimile); the three marble reliefs on the attic are, as ever, allegories of the power and beneficence of the Serenissima (the Most Serene Republic): Justice = Venice, Jupiter = Crete, Venus = Cyprus.

Category: Venice

Tyche And Neapolis: The Archeological Museum And Park

SiracusaTYCHE , north of the train station, is mainly new and commercial, and if you want to see the best of Siracusa’s archeological delights you might as well take the bus straight from Ortygia and save your legs. Buses #4, #5, #12 (Mon-Sat), and #15 leave from Largo XXV Luglio – all running up Corso Gelone. Get off at Viale Teocrito and signposts point you easterly for the archeological museum and west for Neapolis. It’s best to take the museum first: it’s good for putting the site into appearance and is unlikely to be packed first thing in the morning. The Museo Archeologico (Tues-Sat 9am-2pm, also Mon, Wed & Sat 3.30-6.30pm; may open Sun morning; last entry 1hr before closing; L8000/¬4.13) holds a wealth of material, starting with geological and prehistoric finds, moving through entire rooms devoted to the Chalcidesian colonies (Naxos, Lentini, Zancle) and to Megara Hyblaea, and finally to the main body of the collection: an immensely detailed catalogue of life in ancient Syracuse and its sub-colonies. Most famous exhibit is the Venus , at the entrance to the Syracuse section: a headless figure arising from the sea, the clear white marble almost palpably dripping. Attempt also to track down the section dealing with the temples of Syracuse; fragments from apiece (like the seven lion-gargoyles from the Tempio di Atena) are displayed alongside model and video reconstructions. There’s an explanatory diagram at the entrance to the circular building and everything is colour coded: pick the sector you’re interested in and follow the arrows, prehistory starting just to the left of the entrance.

NEAPOLIS , to the west, is now contained within a large Parco Archeologico (daily 9am-2hr before sunset), reachable on bus #4, #5 or #6 from Largo XXV Luglio. Although you don’t pay for the initial excavations, seeing the Greek theatre and quarries – easily the most interesting parts – costs L8000/¬4.13, paid at a separate entrance. The Ara di Ierone II , an enormous altar of the third century BC on a solid white plinth, is the first thing you see, crossways the way from which is the entrance to the theatre and quarries. The Teatro Greco is very prettily sited, cut out of the rock and looking down into trees below. It’s much bigger than the one at Taormina, capable of holding around 15,000 people, though less impressive scenically. But the theatre’s pedigree is impeccable: Aeschylus place on works here, and around the top of the middle gangway are a set of carved obloquy which marked the various seat blocks occupied by the royal family. Greek dramas are still played here in even-numbered years, as wooden planking over the surviving seats testifies.

Walk back through the theatre and another path leads down into a leafy quarry, the Latomia del Paradiso , best known for its unusually shaped cavern that Dionysius is supposed to have used as a prison. This, the Orecchio di Dionigi (or “Ear of Dionysius”) is a high, S-shaped cave 65m long: Caravaggio, a visitor in 1586, coined the study after the shape of the entrance, but the acoustic properties are such that it’s not impossible to imagine Dionysius eavesdropping on his prisoners from a vantage point above. A second cave, the Grotta dei Cordari , used by the ancient city’s ropemakers, is shored up at present.

Keep your ticket from the theatre and Latomia del Paradiso, as it will also get you into the elliptical Anfiteatro Romano , back up the main path past the altar and through a gate on your right; you have to see this last. A late building, dating from the third century AD, it’s a substantial relic with the tunnels for animals and gladiators clearly visible. Again, some of the seats are inscribed with the owners’ names.

Category: Siracusa

Palazzo Nuovo

Of the two Capitoline Museum buildings, it’s the Palazzo Nuovo (on the left) that really steals the show. Just inside the entrance is the original Marcus Aurelius statue, and the first floor concentrates some of the best of the city’s Roman copies of Greek sculpture into half a dozen or so rooms and a long room crammed with elegant statuary. There’s a remarkable, controlled statue of the Dying Gaul, a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original; a naturalistic Boy with Goose – another copy; an original grappling depiction of Eros and Psyche; a Satyr Resting, after a piece by Praxiteles, that was the inspiration for Hawthorne’s book the Marble Faun; and the red marble Laughing Silenus, another Roman copy of a Greek original. Walk through, too, to the so-called Sala degli Imperatori, with its busts of Roman emperors and other famous names, including a young Augustus, a cruel Caracalla, and a portrait of Helena, the mother of Constantine, reclining gracefully. And don’t miss the Capitoline Venus, housed in a room on its own – a coy, delicate piece, again based on a work by Praxiteles.

Category: Rome

Palazzo Dei Conservatori

Your Capitoline Museums ticket will get you into the Palazzo dei Conservatori crossways the square from the Palazzo Nuovo (though it must be on the same day) – a larger, more varied collection, with more ancient sculpture but also later pieces. Littered around the courtyard are the feet and other fragments of a gigantic statue of Constantine. Inside, in various first-floor wings, there are friezes and murals showing events from Roman history, a couple of enormous statues of popes Innocent X (by Algardi) and Urban octad (by Bernini), the exquisite Spinario – a Hellenistic work from the first century BC showing a boy plucking a thorn from his foot – and the unnameable symbol of Rome, the Etruscan bronze she-wolf nursing the mythic founders of the city; the twins themselves are not Etruscan but were added by Pollaiuolo in the late fifteenth century. Look, too, for the so-called Esquiline Venus and Capitoline Tensa, the latter a reconstructed chariot in bronze; and the soft Muse Polymnia and a gargantuan Roman copy of Athena. The second floor pinacoteca holds Renaissance painting from the fourteenth century to the late seventeenth century – well-labelled, with descriptions of apiece painting in Italian and English. The paintings fill half a dozen rooms or so, and highlights include a couple of portraits by Van Dyck and a penetrating Portrait of a Crossbowman by Lorenzo Lotto, a pair of paintings from 1590 by Tintoretto – a Flagellation and Christ Crowned with Thorns – some nice small-scale work by Annibale Carracci, and a very fine primeval work by Lodovico Carracci, Head of a Boy. There are also several sugary works by Guido Reni, done at the end of his life. In one of two large main galleries, there’s a vast picture by Guercino, depicting the Burial of Santa Petronilla (the legendary daughter of St Peter, who died young), which used to hang in St Peter’s and arrived here via the Quirinale palace and the Louvre, to hang alongside several other works by the same artist, notably a lovely, contemplative Persian Sybil and a wonderful picture of Cleopatra cowed before a young and victorious Octavius. In the same room, there are also two paintings by Caravaggio, one a replica of the young John the Baptist which hangs in the Palazzo Doria-Pamphili, the other a famous canvas known as the Fortune-Teller – an primeval work that’s an adept study in deception.

Category: Rome

Regia And Around

The Regia , or house of the kings, is an extremely ancient – and ruined – group of foundations that date probably from the reign of the second King of Rome, Numa, who ruled from 715 to 673 BC. There was a shrine of Mars here, housing the shields and spears of Mars, which generals embarking on a war rattled before setting off. If the shields and spears rattled of their own accord it was a bad omen, requiring purification and repentance rites. The Regia later became the residence of Julius Caesar, who moved in here in 45 BC – an imperious act which at least in part led to his downfall. On the other side of the road from the Regia, the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina is the best-preserved temple in the forum, mainly because of its preservation since the seventh century as the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda . The six huge Corinthian columns crossways its front are still connected by an inscribed lintel, dedicating the temple to the god Antonino and the goddess Faustina by order of the Senate – the parents of Marcus Aurelius. Above the inscription was the roof architrave, along the sides of which can be seen the original frieze of griffins, candelabra and acanthus scrolls. Otherwise, the brick stairs leading up to the floor of the temple are a modern reconstruction, while the deception of the church dates from 1602.

Next to the Regia, the pile of rubble immersed in cement with the little green roof is all that remains of the grandeur and magnificence that comprised the temple to Julius Caesar – the round brick stump under the roof marks the spot where comic was cremated, and around which the temple was built. You may hear tour guides declaiming Mark Antony’s “Friends, Romans and Countrymen speech from here; if you do, bear in mind that not only was the speech prefabricated up by Shakespeare, but also that apparently Mark Antony only read Caesar’s will.

The football pitch of broken columns to the right of the Via Sacra marks the site of the Basilica Emilia , built in the second century BC to house law courts, and, in the little booths and boutiques flanking it on the Via Sacra side, money-changers. Close by, a little marble plaque dedicated to Venus Cloacina marks the site of a small shrine dedicated to Venus where the Cloaca Maxima canal drained the Forum, which was originally marshland. The Cloaca Maxima reaches all the way to the Tiber from here, and still keeps the area drained.

Category: Rome

Palazzo Te

A twenty-minute achievement from the centre of Mantua, at the end of the long spine of Via Principe Amedeo and Via Acerbi, the Palazzo Te is the later of the city’s two Gonzaga palaces, and equally compelling in its way; and you can take in a few of Mantua’s more minor attractions on the way there. The first thing to look at on the way is Giulio Romano’s Fish Market , to the left off Piazza Martiri Belfiori, a short covered bridge over the river, which is still used as a market building. Following Via Principe Amedeo south, the Casa di Giulio Romano , off to the right at Via Poma 18, overshadowed by the monster-studded Palazzo di Giustizia, was also designed by Romano – like much of his Mantuan work, it was meant to impress the sophisticated, who would have found the licence taken with the Classical rules of structure witty and amusing. A five-minute achievement away on busy Via Giovanni Acerbi, the more austere brick Casa del Mantegna was also designed by the artist, both as a home and private museum, and is now used as a contemporary art-space and conference centre (during exhibitions regular 10am-12.30pm & 3-6pm). Across the road, the church of San Sebastiano (Tues-Sun 10am-12.30pm & 4-6pm; L3000/¬1.55) was the work of Alberti, and is famous as the first Renaissance church to be built on a central Greek cross plan, described as “curiously pagan” by Nicholas Pevsner. Lodovico II’s son was less polite: “I could not understand whether it was meant to turn out as a church, a mosque or a synagogue.” Its days as a consecrated building are over and it now contains commemorative plaques forming a monument to the fallen Mantuan soldiers of World War II.

At the end of Via Giovanni Acerbi, crossways Viale Te, the Palazzo Te (Mon 1-6pm, Tues-Sun 9am-6pm; L12,000/¬6.20) was designed for playboy Federico Gonzaga and his mistress, Isabella Boschetta, by Giulio Romano; it’s the artist/architect’s greatest work and a renowned Renaissance pleasure dome. When the palace was built, Te – or Tejeto, as it used to be known – was an island connected to the mainland by bridge, an saint location for an amorous retreat away from Federico’s wife and the restrictions of life in the Palazzo Ducale. Built around a square courtyard originally occupied by a labyrinth, these days it houses modest but appealing collections of Egyptian artefacts and modern art, although the main reason for visiting is to see Giulio’s amazing decorative scheme.

A tour of the palace is like a voyage around Giulio’s imagination, a sumptuous world where very little is what it seems. In the Camera del Sole e delle Luna , the sun and the moon are represented by a pair of horse-drawn chariots viewed from below, giving a fine array of bottoms on the ceiling; in the Sala dei Cavalli , dedicated to the prime specimens from the Gonzaga stud-farm (which was also on the island), portraits of horses stand before an illusionistic background in which simulated marble, imitation pilasters and mock reliefs surround views of painted landscapes through nonexistent windows. The function of the Sala di Psiche , further on, is undocumented, but the sultry frescoes, and the closeness to Federico’s private quarters, might give a few clues, the ceiling paintings telling the story of Cupid and Psyche with some more dizzying “sotto in su” (from the bottom up) works by Giulio, among others clumsily executed by his pupils. On the walls, too, are spirited pieces, covered with orgiastic wedding-feast scenes, at which drunk and languishing gods in various states of undress are attended by a menagerie of real and mythical beasts. Don’t miss the severely incontinent river-god in the background, included either as a punning reference to Giulio’s second name, Pippi (The Pisser), or as encouragement to Federico who, according to his doctors, suffered from the “obstinate retention of urine”. Other scenes show Mars and Venus having a bath, Olympia about to be raped by a half-serpentine Jupiter and Pasiphae disguising herself as a cow in order to seduce a bull – all watched over by the giant Polyphemus, perched above the fireplace, clutching the pan-pipes with which he sang of his love for Galatea before murdering her lover.

Polyphemus and his fellow giants are revenged in the extraordinary Sala dei Giganti beyond – “the most fantastic and frightening creation of the whole Renaissance”, according to the critic Frederick Hartt – showing the destruction of the giants by the gods. As if at some kind of advanced disaster movie, the destruction appears to be all around: cracking pillars, toppling brickwork, and screaming giants, mangled and crushed by great chunks of architecture, appearing to crash down into the room. Stamp your feet and you’ll discover another parallel to twentieth-century cinema – the sound-effects that Giulio created by making the room into an reflexion chamber.

Category: Mantua / Mantova

Palazzo Reale

Genoa - GenovaAt Via Balbi 10 sits the vast and absorbing Palazzo Reale (Sun, Mon & Tues 9am-1.45pm, Wed-Sat 9am-7pm; L8000/¬4.13; under-25s half-price; joint ticket with Palazzo Spinola L12,000/¬6.20), built by the Balbi family in the primeval seventeenth century and later occupied by the Durazzo dynasty and the Savoyard royals. You enter through the huge atrium, which looks onto the elegant courtyard garden behind, and climb grand staircases. The first big room is the ballroom , with gilt stucco ceilings and Chinese vases. To the left are four drawing-rooms, featuring a huge watercolour of the crossing of the Red Sea painted on silk by Romanelli, grand marble fireplaces and bronze candelabra. These rooms lead through to the stunning hall of mirrors, where Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, is said to have remarked in 1784 – with a flourish of disingenuous flattery – that the palace appeared more of a royal residence than his own simple pad back in Vienna. The room was designed in the 1730s by Gerolamo Durazzo and the best of its statues are four exquisite works in marble and gold by Filippo Parodi: the first pair, covering apiece other nearest the door, are Hyacinth and Venus, while at the far end of the room are Adonis and Clizia. Doors lead through to the private quarters of the Duke of Genoa, with the duke’s bedchamber featuring a sumptuous Baroque ceiling fresco and the duke’s bathchamber holding elegant furniture carved in England in the 1820s. On the way back through to the easterly wing of the building, you pass along a chapel gallery behind the ballroom, covered in trompe l’oeil frescoes by Lorenzo de Ferrari (1733). The adjacent throne room , its walls covered in deep red velvets and an excess of gold, is dotted with dozens of “C.A.” monograms in honour of Carlo Alberto, King of Savoy. Continuing east, the lavish audience room has a dazzling Turkish carpet, silk curtains, and a grand portrait of a tight-lipped Caterina Durazzo-Balbi painted by Van Dyck in 1624 during his six-year stay in Genoa. Alongside, the king’s bedchamber has parquet wooden flooring prefabricated by English carpenters in 1843, an exquisite Murano glass chandelier, and Van Dyck’s first canvas of the Crucifixion, also dating from 1624, while the King’s Bathchamber features the Savoyard motto Je atans mon astre (“I await my destiny” in archaic French) set into the floor. You then move into the queen’s quarters , a series of rooms featuring a ghostly pale Crucifixion by the Neapolitan master Luca Giordano and a St Lawrence (1616) by Bernardo Strozzi. Passing through another series of drawing-rooms, one hung with Parisian tapestries of 1610, double-doors open onto the grand terrace which runs on three sides of a rectangle above the garden courtyard, giving airy views out over the port. Adjacent on the easterly side is the crumbling Teatro Falcone, where once the virtuoso Genoese violinist Paganini played.

Category: Genoa - Genova