This was the best time ever. Rome is so perfect. I loved meeting everyone, new friends and old, at the GTG; what a perfect way to spend a birthday/first night in Rome! Thanks everyone for making it so much fun: Steph, for the planning and dessert consultations, due out in book form soon; Shannon for sending the group the excellent wine (still trying to figure out how you did that); Pauline and Steve for so generously supplying the desserts. What a treat; we did miss you, though. And Diva, for the excellent gifts. Dorothy gave me a wonderful piece of aged pecorino which I shaved over everything except my corn flakes. And everybody for being there. I got to see my apartment for next year, courtesy of Helen and the SlowTrav contest. Can't wait. And I had a wonderful tour of the Vatican with Tony Polzer. I saw lots and ate well. Naples was like nowhere I have ever been before. Big thanks to Jonathan for recommending the b-n-b Atri 3, a very nice place in one of the most amazing neighborhoods I have ever seen. The opera was perfection. I had the greatest pizza in the history of mankind and the perfect cup of coffee, as well as lots of yummy pastries. Saw tons of great art as well. A trip report will be produced as soon as I unwind and get organized. The only thing wrong is that I am back so soon. Yrs, Robert
Welcome back Robert-glad to hear you had such a great time. Will be looking forward to more details when you have time especially about Naples. Is there a website for the B&B you liked so much in Naples?
Welcome back, Robert! It seemed as though you were going to be there forever after I left... And since our comings and goings overlapped so nicely, I will still think of you there if you don't mind.
After the GTG I got somewhat deliberately lost, and at 11:45 on my last night I was walking across the Ponte Sant'Angelo with the full moon shining over all Rome and reflected in the Tiber. You must have seen it too. What a dumb thing for a lone woman to be doing, I thought, and have regretted it even less ever since than I did then. On those nights I wish they would turn the illuminations off the way they turn off the traffic one Sunday a month and just let us gasp at the wonder of it all.
Glad you enjoyed the pecorino. I'll be working on my trip report one of these days, too. It is lovely to have met you and some of our other virtual friends in person.
Collen, the web site is www.bbatri3.it My big room was 50 euro a night for one, with a balconeyette overlooking the narrowest street in the world. The nicest people imaginable, Gennaro and Alessandra, own the place. It's a great treat to stay there, but, boy, is it in the belly of the beast. More details in my trip report (and I'll do a review,) but that part of Naples reminds me a little of the walled city in Kowloon, but full of Italians who have painted the churches in lovely gelato colors. Dean, the opera was fantistic. Well, not the opera itself, a typical dumb opera buffo, nicely sung, a good provincial performance; no artistic heights were climbed. But the opera house! Intimate, perfect acoustics, just lavish enough, six or seven tiers of boxes rising straight up from the small orchestra seating area. Every box has an old mirror against one wall so the nosy can see who is sitting in the back of the boxes across from them. I shared my box with 5 lovely Neapolitan women of a certain age, dressed so well that I didn't feel like an idiot in my dinner jacket. Dorothy, your stroll sounds perfect; the moon was amazing. I saw it over the Tiber at the Ponte Milvio. I wish I were still there. Yrs, Robert
Caro Roberto, I am so sorry I missed your birthday. It conflicted with a long-awaited visit from my baby sister who needed to be in Rome right after your gtg. I would otherwise have loved to wish you buon compleanno. Maybe next time?
Welcome back Robert - I'm delighted that you liked B&B Atri3. As I said back in April, if I'm going to be in Naples, then that's the area I want to be in! But I know it wouldn't suit everybody...
So, what did you think of the Veiled Christ?
Jonathan
Posts: 2977 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
Robert - Welcome back! I'm looking forward to reading more about your trip. Glad to hear you had a marvelous time. One of these days I'll get to Naples ...
Posts: 14515 | Location: The Beautiful San Francisco Bay Area | Registered: 06 August 2001
quote:So, what did you think of the Veiled Christ? Jonathan
Oh Jonathan! You burst my bubble about that statue! I thought it was this masterpiece of sculpting, only to find out that the vieling was actually sprayed over the statue....what a let down! (But thanks for the education!)
Robert - glad you had such a great time. Only sorry I was in Tuscany when you were in Rome. So, here is the key to the wine mystery. I left the wine for Shannon at the restaurant (it was her Slow Trav prize)and when she didn't come she was so wonderful to give it to you. Didn't you notice my card to Shannon attached to the bag? I think we are both just glad that it was enjoyed by so many people on such a wonderful evening!
quote:Originally posted by Barb (and Art): Oh Jonathan! You burst my bubble about that statue!
I'm sorry, Barb! It's all Philippa's fault, really... the first time we visited Naples, she bought a marvellous little book, Napoli Segreta, published by the utterly wonderful cafe/bar/arts centre Intra Moenia (Piazza Bellini: did you get there, Robert?), which is full of the inside story of lots of Neapolitan 'secrets', this included.
Jonathan
Posts: 2977 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
Jonathan, I am puzzled: where exactly did you "burst Barb's bubble" about the Veiled Christ? I can't find it on the message board. Is there a secret baroque-kitsch forum I am missing out on? I'd love to read any reference you have to that statue, which haunts my nightmares, I mean dreams. So spill, please. I did see the art center/caffe you mentioned, and I had read about it, but I was sprinting past to something else, I neglected to go back. Next time. I have a fascination with Naples, and I am reading lots of books about the place, which I will talk about in my trip report, but only if you tell me the unvarnished truth about the Veiled Christ. Yrs, Robert
After reading this thread I sooo want to go back to Naples. I really enjoyed it as well. That hotel looks like it is right up my alley. Thanks Jonathan!
I have been haunted by Naples since myvisit in '65. I had just read a book about a priest that pretended to be one of the 'street boys' (scugnizzi?), thereby gaining their trust. He then convinced them to use an old abandoned church to bed down in. This true story, also wrtten up in the Reader's Digest, spoke to my young romantic heart - when the ship my family was taking back to the US stopped in Naples for one day, I got off and wandered the back streets looking for the Naples I had read about. Today I look back at amazement that I was so fearless - and grateful that nothing untoward happened. I will again be in Naples for a short time in October - but with my husband at my side,I will probably once again attempt to venture out!
I didn't know the "cloth thing" about the Cristo velato. The only reference in Italian I can find, now in the web, about the veil being a real cloth[, is here [in italian]look for the paragraph starting with: La leggenda vuole che[...] ; the linked article is about a supposed [It's me, paolo, here supposing] recipe (of which the site also provides a short excerpt)by Sansevero, uncovered in the Archivio notarile di Napoli,describing the way he achieved this surprising result. Jonathan, do you have better sources for that? I'm uncomfortable with 'La leggenda'
Posts: 899 | Location: italy | Registered: 18 July 2002
Now this is getting fascinating. I looked carefully at the Veiled Christ, and it sure looks as if it is indeed carved by a very talented craftsman; I will pass over its artistic merits in silence. There is a railing around it and very vigilant guards who do not let you even touch the rails, so maybe they don't want to let you get too close for a proper examination which would (perhaps) reveal the secrets of its material composition. But what about the other (equally awful) statues in the same chapel? The immodestly veiled Modesty and the figure wrapped in what appears to be a fish-net carved of marble? Are they too sleight-of-hand productions? I do know that the custom of carving veiled statuary continued in Italy up to at least the end of the 19th century; by luck, I have examined a particularly horrible example close-up, and it was indeed carved, not fudged. Yrs, Robert
Thanks for that link, Paolo. I'll post again later today: got to go out now - but I do have another reference. Robert - Paolo's link suggests that Pudenza (modesty) uses the same technique (different sculptor, bui Il Principe still there behind it all. I can't remember if the fishnet one is Disinganno, though.
Jonathan
Posts: 2977 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
The book I mentioned, which gives much the same account of the legend as Paolo's link, is Napoli Segreta, Antonio Emanuele Piedimonte, Edizioni Intra Moenia, Naples, 1997. Chapter 7, on the city in the settecento, has lots on Raimondo de Sangro and his inventions/investigations. But the bit which quotes the contract from the Archivio Notarile is taken fom an article: 'Il linguaggio dell'alchimia', by Maurizio Calvesi and Mino Gabriele, published in Art e Dossier, agosto 1986.
On the other hand, Grove Art Online, in its article on Giuseppe Sanmartino, doesn't mention the legend at all - it describes the Veiled Christ as 'a work of skilful realism, displaying great virtuosity in the execution of a transparent veil that covers the whole body of the reclining Christ.'
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