Midori Snyder's Blog, page 14

Weather, Beasts, and Flowers

It has been a beautiful and interesting week, with encounters of late heavy snows, winding our way through high mountains in Vail, a moment of Spring and Winter in one day, a beautiful young bull elk stopping to visit us on the path behind our house, and the first clematis in my garden after a wait of almost 15 years.

 

Notes, References From Janet Smarr's Italian Renaissance Tales

This is a terrific collection, short enough to read all of the stories which range from tragic ("The Duchess of Malta") to naughty, bawdy, and full of fools. These are selections taken from historical collections that span 1300s -- 1600s. Since my interest lies in the 1500s --most of these notes and references are from collections from those years. 

Luigi Da Porto(1485--1529) Sometimes the writer's introduction to the story is more interesting than the story itself. He writes of being a young man, a soldier at arms who rode with an archer named Peregrino, a man much older than him, and who chastised the soldier for his misery in love. "Do you want always to live you life in melancholy because a cruel beauty with feigned demonstrations cares little for you? And though I often speak contrary to what I do, yet because it is easier to give advice than to follow it, I will tell you, my captain, not only is it unbecoming for you who are in the army to spend a long time in the prison of Love, but also so wretched are almost all ends to which Love leads that it is perilous to follow him. And in witness of this, if it should please you, I could tell you a story that happened in my city (Verona) ... in which you will hear how two noble lovers were led to a wretched and pitiful death."   Peregrino then recounts one of the many popular versions of Romeo and Juliette. 

Giovan Francesco Straparola da Caravaggio (148-1558)  As part of his collection he establishes a frame story for the storytelling that goes on within it -- a very Italian conceit I think as so many collectors and re-tellers of popular folktales and romantic stories perhaps found it more engaging to a more literate class even though it is seen a divertente (a pleasant diversion) Here the a group of noble men and women gather at the Venetian Palace of Ottaviano over thirteen nights during Carnivale to entertain each other with stories. 

Father Scarpacifico Duped Only Once by Three Rogues, Dupes Them Back Three Times and Lives Happily Ever After With His Nina. One of the best trickster tales in the book, when a trio of rogues succeed in tricking Scapacifico, his revenge-tricks are outrageous and dangerous to the rogues. (Note to self -- What is the joke in trying to trick Scarpacifico into believing his mule is an ass? This must be a common ploy elsewhere but how is it funny? ) He in turns manages to convince them that a his goat understands when the priest tells it to take home the food his has purchased and tell Nina to cook a feats. He invites the rogues home for the meal, which Nina cooks (understanding the ruse.) The rogues pay a small fortune to buy the goat and of course it doesn't go as they thought and are mocked by their wives. The priest then pretends to "kill"  Nina (a bladder of blood under her petticoat) and "revives" her from death by placing a pipe between her buttocks and pretending to blow her back to life. Rogues purchase the pipe and then manage to kill their wives. Several more deceptions occur which pretty much winds up killing all of the rogues. The cleverness of the trickster, the set ups, the stupidity and usually greed of the dupes all make it darkly funny. 

The King's Son who is Born as a Pig, Marries Three Times and Eventually Puts Off His Pig Skin and is A Handsome Young Man pg 168 (cf Three Sisters -- Battista and Swine Herder transformed into a Boar.) A fascinating rights of passage tale for the prince. Three marriages each with a flaw: the two sister-brides are not interested in love or the prince, due to his hideous form as a pig (he shits the bed for one thing)  but they agree to the marriages for the prestige and wealth of aristocracy. The first two plot to kill him but he can hear their thoughts, so, he  kills them with his tusks. The third daughter is kind, loving and indulges all his piggishness -- he is testing her and eventually, shows his true self and removes the skin. The bride becomes pregnant and tells the curious Queen the truth. The Queen then arranges to spy on him and see this for herself and when she does, removes the skin (think monkey girl, et al,) and the young prince is ready to take his place as a man not a pig, as a husband and father.  The fairies play a role here too -- putting on the spell, helping take off the spell. They show up whenever there is a need for a change in the status quo -- alternating between creating conflict and assisting when the time is right to resolve it. 

A Conversation of Flowers

That moment when the old and the new seem to speak to each other. It is a wet and cool spring here in Boulder, keeping the blossoms on the trees longer than usual --much to my enjoyment.

The Challenge of Sharing an Office: Side by Side

My husband and I share an office -- a modest rectangular room in a small condo in Boulder -- noted for small apartments.  Here is how we each occupy our own space.

His side, so clean and zen. Martial arts certificates in a neat row, the surface of his desk, quiet, waiting. 

And this is my side -- and to be fair, made more mad by the 1970s mirror-closet doors! Even still, I am probably still hiding small birds unseen in nests made of the left-over thrums from weaving, or behind the pile of books I have yet to read....It is a mess, I know, but, I do enjoy it. 

 

The Menacing Virgins: The Commodification of Marriage and Birth II

Here is an interesting perspective on the complexities of transforming a virtuous maiden into a chaste, but sexually productive matron. "How does a maiden make the shift from bride to matron and"pay the marital debt?" Cristelle Baskins asks in her article "Il Trionfo della Pudicizia" (The Triumph of Modesty), a fascinating study of the economic exchanges negotiated before and after marriage. Baskins also examines the type pf goods provided in the exchange that sought to educate the couple on their marital proper roles and reinforce the marital bond through art.

"In those negotiations concerning marital chastity, Elizabeth Cohen reminds us, the language of debt, payment, and exchange makes virginity a commodity. Fifteenth and sixteenth wedding furniture, including elaborately painted and historiated lettucci (beds), cassoni (dowry chests), and spalliere (wains-coating), is a domestic commodity employed in conspicuous consumption; it also offers an opportunity to examine Renaissance marriage ideology through the visual imagery geared for the primary spectatorship of brides and grooms." (118)

Among the upper classes, it was expected that husbands would demonstrate their status and wealth through the purchase of elaborately painted wedding furniture, commission religious paintings and sculpture, and deschi da parto, (birthing trays) which were also painted and given as a gift for a new mother. It would also launch the future husband as a cultured man, purchasing expensive art. The subject matter of the art would have been carefully selected to reflect both the couples' status as well as "aimed to edify by means of example and perhaps even more concretely to inspire the conception of children and thus the expansion of the patriline. The most popular choice of art it seems was a reproduction of the Triumph of Modesty, a poem cycle written by Francesco Petrarca in the 1340s -- describing Cupid/Love being vanquished by Laura/Chastity and often appeared in horizontal panels on a cassoni.  

"A fifteenth century Florentine bride would have viewed Petrachan Trionfi on painted wedding furniture with a particular set of expectations and associations; her own temporary triumph in the form a bridal procession prefaced the conquest of her virginity and her transformation into a sexually active spouse...the Petrachan Trionfi trace a development from physical, sexual love to the renunciation of Cupid...For them (the brides) the state of chastity must be overcome but only by a chastened disciplined conjugal love, not by the irresponsible, unpredictable passion inspired by Cupid." The art on the furniture was meant to "conceal the lack of fit between occasion and subject and thus, to blur the distinction between compliment and coercion...the pictures must simultaneously encourage the bride to abandon her fiercely maintained chastity to the needs of the patriline and yet, renounce illicit, physical passion."

But, just to make sure the bride could be gently enticed, there was also an abundance of cassoni which while it showed marriage events on the outside (and sometimes martial battles,) under the lid were erotic paintings of men and women nude doing the things married couples generally do when trying to create the next generation. More on the cassoni coming up with the next post (along with more on the art of the battle between Cupid and Chastity, cassoni, and birthing trays. 

"Il Trionfo della Pudicizia: Menacing Virgins in the Italian Renaissance Domestic Painting" by Christelle L. Baskins in Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, by Marilyn Migiel (Editor), Juliana Schiesari (Editor)

The Menacing Virgins: Chastity Before and After Marriage, I

Menacing Virgins (ed. Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Marina Leslie) is a wonderful collection of essays on 16th century attitudes and traditions regarding female chastity and conjugal sex before and after marriage. These customs are inscribed by two other considerations: the honor of the household and virginity as a form of commodity that engenders an exchange of goods, debt, and payments. The bride should exhibit the virtues of her status vergine, onesta, casta, virginity, honesty, and social class.  When conjugal sex becomes a requirement of marriage, chastity should be expressed through public modesty and private sexual restraint. In this first half of the essay, Cristelle L. Baskins' examines (the mostly male) attitudes toward female sexuality in the Renaissance. (*note to self, compare these attitudes to the women writers of the period.)

Research Notes from "Il Trionfo della Pudicizia: Menacing Virgins in Italian Renaissance Paintings" by Cristelle L. Baskins: 

Quotes from the 14th to the 16th century, written by men on the proper behavior for women, revealing a concern should the wife fail to behave in the proscribed manner, she would in effect betray her husband's honor, and that of her children. And probably, financial concerns as marriages saw exchanges of money and goods prior to weddings; brides contributing dowries (paid out over time only if the marriage remained a moral activity) and husbands providing housing, and copious amounts of art and wedding furniture. (*note to self -- look up more information on the "Desco da Parto" birthing trays given as a wedding gift for the bride.)  

Paolo da Certaldo: compares a woman's chastity to a beautiful flower and a husband's crown." (14th C) Francesco da Barbaro tells wives to "at least seem to be chaste in that sort of temperance from which chastity is derived...lust and unseemly desire are harmful to their dignity and to their husbands even when they say nothing about it." ("On Wifely duties" 1416) (117).  Leon Battista Alberti: "nothing is so important for yourself, so acceptable to God, so pleasing to me, and precious in the sight of your children as your chastity. The woman's character is the jewel of her family...per purity has always far outweighed her beauty. (Delle Famiglia, 1440) (117) Baldassare Castiglione dialogue, "Il Cortegiano" (1528) ponders the construction of exemplary female chastity in the service of men. In the dialogues debating women's chastity, Giuliano de'Medici challenges a misogynist Gasparo: "But if you will acknowledge the truth, you surely know that of our own authority we men have arrogated to ourselves a license, whereby we insist that in us the same sins are most trivial and sometimes deserve praise which in women cannot be sufficiently punished unless by a shameful death or at least perpetual infamy." (117)

By the middle of the 16th century, the ambivalent attitude toward female sexuality intensifies as "every gesture towards purity of the text or the body risks further contamination and pollution. Virginity emerges in Renaissance discourse, then, as a site for the exercise of misogynistic assumptions about women's limited capacity for sexual restraint. "  Francesco da Barbaro echoes an ongoing need to contain his wife's sexuality by requiring that even in her thoughts "...see that you never want another man to share this bed but me." 118)

Dragons in the Mountains

I always see dragons in the fallen wood of the mountains. Recently came across this wonderful pair, a mama dragon and her baby. 

Maidens and Marriage: The Conservatorio of Santa Caterina della Rosa

The legal case against Alessio Lonrenziano (Thomas Cohen: Love and Death in Renaissance Italy) highlights some interesting aspects of how economically disadvantaged young girls and women navigated the complexities and dangers of life in the mid-1500s. There were numerous forms of protection offered to such females through the Church and the charity work of powerful aristocratic women. Santa Caterina della Rosa was founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1542 and set up to serve as a refuge for the daughters of prostitutes and other girls whose virtue might have been at risk. The "zitelle" (maidens) were housed in a conservatorio (an institution for protecting the girls' maidenheads and their reputations. ) The young girls would be fed, clothed, and educated in the domestics arts to prepare them for eventual marriage.

Men in the administration screened potential suitors, allocated dowries (between 50-100 scudi), policed marital morals and disbursed funds. Even after successful marital arrangements were made, the couple would continue to be assessed to ensure a continued moral and respectable marriage, which did serve to protect the young brides from being exploited by their husbands. The upper-class women of the organization and the nuns were important because they had access to the girls in clausura (seclusion) and could help in their character formation. (There were institutions organized for adult women as well, those who were reformed prostitutes with children, widows with no family to care for them, who needed a refuge but did not plan to become nuns.)

Before entering the conservatori the girl was to be appraised, her virginity vouched for, and her hymen inspected by two midwives. The girls usually stayed about seven or eight years, pretty much hidden from sight. Though once a year on November 25th, Saint Caterina's feast day, in a much-anticipated event, the girls, dressed in plain smocks and aprons, processed through the city as eager bachelors look over the potential brides to be. (In some cases, the conservatori kidnapped girls languishing in dangerous living conditions to protect them from being sexually exploited.)

There are conflicting schools of thought on the lives of cloistered girls. One argument suggests that the enclosure of girls restricted the girls' lives and acted as a forerunner to institutions like the poorhouse, the madhouse, and the penitentiary. I see these options more at work in Great Britain rather than Italy which originated many charitable institutions intended to help people, from the first hospitals, orphanages and women's' shelters in Europe. The other argument is that in a world that held real dangers for females of any age without family and kinsmen to protect them, the conservatori offered safety and a path to successful marriages that benefited young women. Families and the young women themselves took steps to secure their future, relying on the well-ordered institutional system within and without the conservatori. And those women who chose to resist, or flee at least had a minimal education that could provide them with work. 

The girls also ate well, according to modern archaeological digs and the bones of beef and lamb and porchetta (suckling pig). There were also found majolica ceramics -- bowls with each girl's name inscribed on it and brightly decorated with designs, flowers, and animals.

An interesting side-note: One of the more essential objects a young woman could hold in her hand was a handkerchief, especially one that she had hand-embroidered --like the girls in the conservatori. In this case, a young woman unable to make up her mind whether she wants to accept a marriage proposal or be a nun, drops her handkerchief for the prospective bridegroom, which he takes as a sign of her interest in him. But it is more than an invitation, Cohen argues, it is considered a form of a pledge. "When Shakespeare had Othello kill his wife for a dropped handkerchief, the playwright made good Renaissance sense because such a gift was not a symbol but a sign, a pledge, with all the solidity the culture invested in such things given."

I went searching through art images of the 16th century and was astonished to discover how many formal portraits of women from all classes included a handkerchief held in one hand -- like a calling card or an invitation, or an opportunity. 

To Write in the Air: Bakin and Toyohiro

Here's an image that surfaced today that I enjoy because it captures so many stories of flying ships -- whether sailed or feathered, and all the adventures written from such a fanciful vantage point. This magical novel "Musou Byoue Kocho Monogatari" written by Kyokutei Bakin and illustrated by Utagawa Toyohiro, in the late 19th century is about a poet's journey around Japan, perched on the back of bird kite. Would that not be the perfect place from which to write? And for another novel of magical flight I recommend Passarola Rising" by Azhar Abidi about two Brazilian brothers in the 18th century who create a flying ship, and travel throughout Europe and other places...it is a beautiful and haunting novel.

Recently, another image from the Bakin book surfaced (thank you internet) revealing the drama of the writer as he tumbles from the back of his hawk-flying kite. I so wish I had the book! I've seen it described now as a sort of Gulliver's travel, with the intrepid writer and fantastic bird kite (a red and white hawk) flying to new lands. 

 

Containing Violence in the Language of Honor

I have been reading Thomas V. Cohen's Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, a fascinating study of crime reports for the information they reveal about life and language in the 16th century (the setting of my WIP). Detailed handwritten depositions of criminal cases recorded the testimonies of everyone from the kitchen boy, the serving girls, maids-in-waiting, pages, the knights, and the aristocracy. These depositions offer a wealth of information not only on the crime but also the formulaic language used by all witnesses when speaking about the crimes. There were competing considerations for everyone involved. The serving women tried to be loyal to their Lady but recognized the higher authority of the Lord to which they were obliged. The criminal and the aggrieved party engaged in tense parleys to find a path to reconciliation. The law scribe transcribed the different voices into a legal process that would move toward appropriate compensation and resolution, thus, ending the potential for future retribution and violence.

To maintain a reasonable chance of peace after a heinous crime (especially among the aristocracy and on which the lower classes depended for their survival) a codified language was used to satisfy the requirements of the law and to distance all parties from the threat of additional violence. Arriving at proper justice required a lexicon of acceptable phrases to describe the drama in "words and ceremonies that could channel the pain and convert catastrophe into something that is, because encoded, bearable."

These are a few research note of mine -- and Italian vocabulary and phrases that are new to me. And as I am still reading through Cohen's work (so well written) there will probably more of these note as I gather ideas and thoughts about the new novel. 

"Scannare" : the ritual slaughter of cattle through the neck, though occasionally used against adulterous wives. Since adultery is a crime, a husband would have been obliged to murder his wife if caught indelicto to preserve the honor of the family and its position. 

"Ah traitoress, this is the honor you do the Savelli house, You have cut off the nose of the Savelli House!" A transcript of the Massara, the senior servant to the Lady of the House. Cohen explains it as "Nose cutting, in Renaissance Italy, was a gesture of extreme contempt, a permanent disfigurement penalized in codes of law and signaled in local speech and custom. As act, as notion, it often attached to adultery and cuckoldry... Victoria's (the wife) treason had afflicted her husband, her brother, (whom she was sleeping with) and the whole Savelli House. "

Once the killing is done, there begin's a dialogue on the propriety of events: honor lost and then restored by specific acts and words, which if done according to the ritual invites a legal restoration of honor, and the rights of those dishonored. From the deposition in the case files: 

"Signor Luovico (Albano family) turned to Signore Giovanni Battista, asking him who killed the signora. Signor Giovanni Battista answered, "I killed her with my own hands." Then Signor Ludovico answered, "If you had not killed her yourself, I would have killed all three of you (the wife, the brother and Stefano, the Albano cousin charged with looking after the sister.) At this point, Stefano who was present, said to Ludovico, "Signore, nobody laid a hand on the signora except Signor Giovanni Battista, but as Triano (the brother), I'm the one who killed him because I loved Your Lordship and because Signor Giovanni Battista commanded me to."

Cohen then takes apart how this script both exonerates the brutal murders and returns both families into an accord: honor restored to both houses rather vendetta or revenge: "In all this colloquy, probably only the husband spoke the single truth, Ludovico and the two servitors said what the situation demanded...Stefano's improbable declaration of love reached out to make Ludovico complicit, a putative advocate of killings done on his behalf. Here, Stefano's amore was of the instrumental variety, not expressive passion but social obligation, tagged in the language of affect...As for Ludovico's blood-curdling declaration, it at once sanctioned and hedged the double murder. The weight of his mock threat gave the killings gravitas and underlined its propriety."