Ecurb
10-29-2013, 12:21 PM
Naples
In the Lampedusa novel "The Leopard" (set in Sicily, not Naples), the Prince attends a feast that embodies a hungry man's dreams. Roasted fowl, grilled fish, loins of meat, ornately displayed vegetables and gleaming fruit line the tables. The guests ooh and ah, while outside the palace the peasants go hungry.
The markets of Naples, Cantania and Siracusa remind me of the Prince's feast. The poorer the city, the more opulent the markets - filled with grapes, oranges, olives, fish of all shapes and sizes (some still swimming in little pools), lobsters and every variety of vegetables. Naples has the best of such markets, loud and boisterous. The city also boasts the best coffee, pizza, ice cream, and transexual prostitutes (rumor has it) in the world. Spicy and hot, cold and sweet, jolting and on the edge.
Heroin almost destroyed Naples when it was introduced in the late '70s. Prior to that, the Camorra (the Neopolitan equivalent of the Mafia) had made their living smuggling cigarettes (!). Heroin was more profitable, and the city that loved coffee, ice cream, pizza and cigarettes was seduced.
The heroin craze has subsided - but the hedonism and thrill-seeking remain. "Paradise and hellfire," Gibbon wrote of Naples, thinking of the glistening Bay, and the glowering Vesuvius. Paradise and hell fire it remains.
Capri
One day, we hydrofoiled out to Capri and walked up to the palace of Tiberius, perched high on the cliffs. Yes - this was the same Tiberius who banned kissing in Rome to combat a herpes epidemic. He became reclusive later in life, after divorcing his first wife to marry Augustus' daughter, with whom he was not compatible. To console his marital woes, Tiberius took to consorting with young boys. After using them for his sexual pleasure, he had them pitched off the 700 foot cliffs surrounding his palace, lest they publicize his perversions. Perhaps kissing was the lesser of two evils.
Sicily
We headed next to the Aeolian Islands, off the coast of Sicily. It was here that Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag of wind to speed him on his journeys. Nearby was the dwelling of Polyphemous, the Cyclops whom Odysseus blinded and whose father, Poseidon, delayed the hero's return to Ithaca for 20 years. The rocks the blind Cyclops hurled after Odysseus' ship are still visible, protruding from the wine-dark sea.
We are now in Siracusa, the greatest of Greek colonies. In the theater here, Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus' masterpiece about authority, responsibility and obedience was first performed. Should Prometheus have obeyed the Gods, condemning mankind to the cold and dark? What did Gelin, the tyrant of Siracusa who built the theater using slaves conquered in his wars with Carthage, think of the play?
Archimedes, the greatest of mathematicians and physicists, once ran naked through the strets of Siracusa crying "Eureka" because he had intuited that a floating object displaces its weight in water while taking a bath.
The warm, moist Mediterranean air here whispers of ancient pursuits (the spring of Arethusa, 50 yards from our hotel, was created when Artemis the huntress tried to save the young Nymph from the lecherous advances of the River God Alphes by transforming her into a spring).
Saint Lucy had her throat slit here, and her martyrdom is immortalized in a Caravaggio masterpiece depicting her burial. The painting is unique in Europe in that it can be viewed free of charge. The top 2/3 of the painting is dark, brown earth, like the inside of a crypt. In the foreground, framing the dead Saint, are two muscular grave diggers, opening the earth. They are huge, muscular figures, earthy and dark. The saint, pale and girlish, lies dead in the background, the gentle light on her face differentiating it from the dark earth tones surrounding her. It is a disturbing, secular vision. There are no clouds, no angels - just the dull, brown earth, and the peaceful, dead Saint. There is no theatrical staging -- the viewer must peer past the gigantic gravediggers to get a glimpse of the corpse.
Caravaggio lived only briefly in Siracusa, but if he had painted only this hastily completed canvas (the feet of the gravediggers look unfinished, as if the painter couldn't be bothered with such irrelevant details), he would rank with Archimedes and Aeschylus among the city's geniuses.
In the Lampedusa novel "The Leopard" (set in Sicily, not Naples), the Prince attends a feast that embodies a hungry man's dreams. Roasted fowl, grilled fish, loins of meat, ornately displayed vegetables and gleaming fruit line the tables. The guests ooh and ah, while outside the palace the peasants go hungry.
The markets of Naples, Cantania and Siracusa remind me of the Prince's feast. The poorer the city, the more opulent the markets - filled with grapes, oranges, olives, fish of all shapes and sizes (some still swimming in little pools), lobsters and every variety of vegetables. Naples has the best of such markets, loud and boisterous. The city also boasts the best coffee, pizza, ice cream, and transexual prostitutes (rumor has it) in the world. Spicy and hot, cold and sweet, jolting and on the edge.
Heroin almost destroyed Naples when it was introduced in the late '70s. Prior to that, the Camorra (the Neopolitan equivalent of the Mafia) had made their living smuggling cigarettes (!). Heroin was more profitable, and the city that loved coffee, ice cream, pizza and cigarettes was seduced.
The heroin craze has subsided - but the hedonism and thrill-seeking remain. "Paradise and hellfire," Gibbon wrote of Naples, thinking of the glistening Bay, and the glowering Vesuvius. Paradise and hell fire it remains.
Capri
One day, we hydrofoiled out to Capri and walked up to the palace of Tiberius, perched high on the cliffs. Yes - this was the same Tiberius who banned kissing in Rome to combat a herpes epidemic. He became reclusive later in life, after divorcing his first wife to marry Augustus' daughter, with whom he was not compatible. To console his marital woes, Tiberius took to consorting with young boys. After using them for his sexual pleasure, he had them pitched off the 700 foot cliffs surrounding his palace, lest they publicize his perversions. Perhaps kissing was the lesser of two evils.
Sicily
We headed next to the Aeolian Islands, off the coast of Sicily. It was here that Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag of wind to speed him on his journeys. Nearby was the dwelling of Polyphemous, the Cyclops whom Odysseus blinded and whose father, Poseidon, delayed the hero's return to Ithaca for 20 years. The rocks the blind Cyclops hurled after Odysseus' ship are still visible, protruding from the wine-dark sea.
We are now in Siracusa, the greatest of Greek colonies. In the theater here, Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus' masterpiece about authority, responsibility and obedience was first performed. Should Prometheus have obeyed the Gods, condemning mankind to the cold and dark? What did Gelin, the tyrant of Siracusa who built the theater using slaves conquered in his wars with Carthage, think of the play?
Archimedes, the greatest of mathematicians and physicists, once ran naked through the strets of Siracusa crying "Eureka" because he had intuited that a floating object displaces its weight in water while taking a bath.
The warm, moist Mediterranean air here whispers of ancient pursuits (the spring of Arethusa, 50 yards from our hotel, was created when Artemis the huntress tried to save the young Nymph from the lecherous advances of the River God Alphes by transforming her into a spring).
Saint Lucy had her throat slit here, and her martyrdom is immortalized in a Caravaggio masterpiece depicting her burial. The painting is unique in Europe in that it can be viewed free of charge. The top 2/3 of the painting is dark, brown earth, like the inside of a crypt. In the foreground, framing the dead Saint, are two muscular grave diggers, opening the earth. They are huge, muscular figures, earthy and dark. The saint, pale and girlish, lies dead in the background, the gentle light on her face differentiating it from the dark earth tones surrounding her. It is a disturbing, secular vision. There are no clouds, no angels - just the dull, brown earth, and the peaceful, dead Saint. There is no theatrical staging -- the viewer must peer past the gigantic gravediggers to get a glimpse of the corpse.
Caravaggio lived only briefly in Siracusa, but if he had painted only this hastily completed canvas (the feet of the gravediggers look unfinished, as if the painter couldn't be bothered with such irrelevant details), he would rank with Archimedes and Aeschylus among the city's geniuses.