A new incarnation of Linus

Orion loves his blankie. We'll see if these photos embarrass him when he's twelve.

Which would you rather hear about for 20 minutes?

Hi friends and family. Here's what I've been working on lately. Both of my abstracts were accepted for the Renaissance Society of America's conference this year! I can only present one paper, though, so I'll have to choose. Vote for your favorite in the comments!




A Violent Intellectual Allegory: Jacopo de' Barbari's Battle of Men and Satyrs

The ironies of Pollaiuolo’s seminal Battle of the Nudes—colorless violence on paper, bloodless despite exposed skin, mythological tone yet mysterious subject—were taken up in a woodcut by the Venetian painter and printmaker Jacopo de' Barbari. His Battle of Men and Satyrs (1495-7) stages a classicizing battle in monumental scale and showcases a complex, multi-figure composition with the nude male in dramatic action. Perhaps responding to Venice’s wars against mainland enemies in the 1490s, yet set in remotest antiquity, the Battle must have appealed to Jacopo’s humanist audience. Analysis of the Battle alongside Jacopo's subsequent woodcut, The Triumph of Men Over Satyrs (1495-7), the first three-block print, reveals the Battle to be a Renaissance humanist allegory of the struggle between Reason and Lust, Apollonian and Dionysian values, and civilization over barbarity. This fantastic battle, and its resolution in triumph, allegorizes the scholar’s Apollonian ideals verses baser instincts through violence.



ABSTRACT: A Printed Journey to Ottoman Rome: Pieter Coecke van Aelst's Manners and Customs of the Turk

While Western Europeans increasingly traveled to Istanbul during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566), Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s (1502-1550) ten-block woodcut The Manners and Customs of the Turk (1553) visually documents his own trip in a novel way that shows a sympathetic and multivalent understanding of the Ottoman peoples. Prepared for publication by his widow, the artist Mayken Verhulst, the seven scenes of the print stretch four and a half meters--leading the viewer on a parallel journey--from a rough, treacherous landscape to the civilized grandeur of Constantinople. Moreover, the print offers an early ethnographic study of the daily life of Ottoman peddlers and soldiers, women and children, musicians and dancers, even a triumph-like procession of Suleyman himself, by an artist who had traveled intimately among them. By depicting Constantinople as a new Rome, this work complicates any simplistic broadsheet-influenced view of the Turk as a monolithic barbaric threat.

Mom, don't you think Orion looks like I did when I was his age? At least in this pic?

We dug up the garden for planting today. My friend and next door neighbor will be my garden-partner this year--she has a shady yard and I am so glad to share. I should have had my camera out to take a picture of Orion covered with dirt. He was a good helper, too.

Fifteen Months, or 1 1/4 years

Orion likes exploring--he especially requests to touch things "touch, touch"--and he especially loves to touch dogs.
And spaghetti is a big hit. Note that the blueberry fetish continua. (It was hot, and spaghetti is messy.)

Some clues as to his activities recently--he can carry books, and wayward shoes...
..kitchen utensils and other toys...
...nesting pots inside each other tenderly...
...and other kitchen flotsam...
These are the tracks of the wondrous one-and-a-quarter-year-old! Happy 1/4 birthday, little O!
We celebrated with pizza, too exhausted at the end of the week to cook. Orion loved the olives of the pizza especially.

Yay! = Be a tree! This is my exuberant little boy!

Dinos and Dogwoods

Orion's first visit to the Peabody Museum--I thought he would be too young, but we read our dinosaur books (That's not my dinosaur/Questo non e' il mio dinosauro/Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs) before we went; and Orion loved it--he kept pointing and toddling away toward the huge skeletons, and squealing, Dinosaurs! (DAIH-zazas!!) Thanks Whit for the photos!
Ah, spring, when a young man's fancy turns to dinosaurs. (And when the weather lets us walk to the museum!! Finalmente!)
The dogwoods from Grandpa Joe are beginning to bloom! Orion looooooves dogs, so they are an appropriate choice.
He's been helping me water them...and drinks from the hose when we're done. If you think this is unsanitary, well, he's probably washing down the dirt he ate right before this. At least Dan rescued the earthworm from his terrible toddler mandibles.

Terremoto, L'Aquila

I can't let another week go by without bringing your thoughts to the earthquake in L'Aquila, the city where I researched my master's thesis, where Dan worked on an experiment as a post-doc, and where we effectively became engaged. This is a view of the fountain, begun in 1272, on which I wrote, and which had been destroyed several times by earthquakes and mudslides in its long history. Part of my thesis equated the many heads of the spouts with the solidarity of the citizens of L'Aquila coming together after the young city was ransacked by Manfred to rebuild it; thus, after this most recent destruction, I am confident that the city will see another resurrection. Nevertheless, the sight of tiny white coffins placed on top of the larger brown parent coffins, the cracking of church transepts and bell towers, and the rubble of collapsed buildings on the street on which I lived has brought me to tears several times as I watch the slideshows published online in American and Italian newspapers. I have yet to see whether "my" fountain survived.

(One good thing--it brought be back in touch with an old Italian friend.)

Our View in Trieste

In Trieste, Dan had meetings all day, so Orion and I were buddies as we explored the city. Thank goodness for the Ergo carrier, which ably held Orion for nearly 3 days straight walking around. Our hotel was about 4 miles outside of the city, near a lovely harbor and the gardens of the Castello Massimiliano. We (I, carrying him) always ended up walking much of this way because the bus didn't run often enough. Here's the view, from the park near our hotel, and a fountain in the formal gardens.


The castle, 19th-century and home to the Emperor Max that was shot in Mexico (think Goya). Part of it was redecorated in the 1930s, but much was heavily pre-Victorian. It had a lovely docking area with double staircases, to get down to the imperial rowboats.


Here's the view from and then of a little cafe in the garden. It was not as good as Viennese ones, since all they served were cream-filled croissants, but then one hardly enjoys cream-filled croissants with a view of the adriatic in a formal garden with one's little boy eating the gravel and wanting to dive into the fountain every day.

Each evening our tired selves were rewarded with clear, peaceful sunsets.
The next day I tried to dedicate to Orion's pleasure, as he had been such a good traveler. Unfortunately, the one baby swing was mobbed with Italian babies, and he got about 30 seconds on it. Luckily there were many dogs and other babies being walked on the cement-walk near the sea, which is how the Triestese seem to spend their time.

There was excellent, if dirty, architecture all over the city. I thought most of it went underappreciated, so I took a few photos.
It has some nice Roman as well as Hapsburgian ruins--this arena, surrounded by modern buildings, was discovered during construction.
A Roman basilica next to the old cathedral on the top of the hill.
The earliest signs of spring, and a painted house, near the castello.
The early Christians were always reusing Roman sculpture in their own construction.
A neoclassical church near the town center, which has about two gelaterie total. At least one gelato that I had was superlative--tiramisu (with real bits of ladyfinger cake) and amarena (with real cherries). Orion liked it too, but he could always be distracted by a passing cane (DAda! Dada!!)




And finally, a tribute to my friends, the Lloyds.