The Woman in Room 101

Eskişehir, Türkiye

Thursday 18 April 2024 (continued)

“At each stage of his imprisonment Winston had known or seemed to know whereabouts he was in the windowless building.

Possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure.

This place was many metres underground, as deep down as it was possible to go.

“You asked me once what was in Room 101.”, O’Brien said.

“I told you that you knew the answer already.

Everyone knows it.

The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.

The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual.

It may be buried alive or death by fire or death by drowning or by impalement or fifty other deaths.

There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.

Do you remember the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams?

There was a wall of blackness in front of you and a roaring sound in your ears.

There was something terrible on the other side of the wall.

You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open.”

(Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell)

There are some people you can immediately identify with and others….

Not so much.

Kathy Acker (18 April 1947(?) – 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality and rebellion.

Above: Kathy Acker, 1996

“If you ask me what I want, I’ll tell you.

I want everything.”

(Kathy Acker)

Above: The Spice Girls (“Wannabe / Tell Me What You Want“)

Experimental literature is a genre of literature that is generally “difficult to define with any sort of precision“. 

“Experimental” defines both Acker and her literature.

It experiments with the conventions of literature, including boundaries of genres and styles.

For example, it can be written in the form of prose narratives or poetry, but the text may be set on the page in differing configurations than that of normal prose paragraphs or in the classical stanza form of verse.

The question is:

“Why bother?” 

It may also incorporate art or photography.

(Kind of like social media posts?)

Furthermore, while experimental literature was traditionally handwritten, the digital age has seen an exponential use of writing experimental works with word processors.

“Dreams are manifestations of identities.”
(Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates)

Her writing incorporates pastiche and the cut-up technique, involving cutting-up and scrambling passages and sentences.

Above: Kathy Acker

A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. 

Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it.

Above: A pastiche combining elements of paintings by Pollaiuolo and Botticelli (Portrait of a Woman and Portrait of a Young Woman) using Photoshop

The cut-up technique (or découpé in French) is an a literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text.

Above: A text created from lines of a newspaper tourism article

The concept can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed and popularized in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially by writer William S. Burroughs.

Above: Cover of the first edition of the publication Dada, Tristan Tzara, Zürich, 1917

It has since been used in a wide variety of contexts.

The cut-up and the closely associated fold-in are the two main techniques:

Cut-up is performed by taking a finished and fully linear text and cutting it in pieces with a few or single words on each piece.

The resulting pieces are then rearranged into a new text, such as in poems by Tristan Tzara as described in his short text, TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM.

TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM
Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are – an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

Above: Portrait of Tristan Tzara (1896 – 1963)

Fold-in is the technique of taking two sheets of linear text (with the same linespacing), folding each sheet in half vertically and combining with the other, then reading across the resulting page, such as in The Third Mind.

It is a joint development between Burroughs and Brion Gysin.

For example, if I read across two pages of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four:

“The voice from the telescreen paused.

A trumpet call creature now living was on his side?

And what way, of clear and beautiful, floated into the stagnant air?

The voice, knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure, continued raspingly.

Forever?

Like an answer on the white face:

“Attention!

Your attention, please!”

A news flash of the Ministry of Truth came back at him.”

She also defined her writing as existing in the post-nouveau roman European tradition. 

In her texts, she combines biographical elements, power, sex and violence.

Above: Kathy Acker

“I’m no longer a child and I still want to be, to live with the pirates.

Because I want to live forever in wonder.

The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this and only this:

When I was a child, I longed to travel into, to live in wonder.

Now, I know, as much as I can know anything, that to travel into wonder is to be wonder.

So it matters little whether I travel by plane, by rowboat, or by book.

Or, by dream.

I do not see, for there is no I to see.

That is what the pirates know.

There is only seeing and, in order to go to see, one must be a pirate.”

(Kathy Acker)

The Nouveau Roman (“new novel“) is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. 

Émile Henriot (1889 – 1961) coined the term in an article in the popular French newspaper Le Monde on 22 May 1957 to describe certain writers who experimented with style in each novel, creating an essentially new style each time. 

Above: Emile Henriot (1889 – 1961)

“There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.”
(Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates)

Reading Acker is akin to being the Clampetts in Beverly Hills.

I am with you, but I cannot understand where you are from nor where you are going.

The only child of Donald and Claire (née Weill) Lehman, Acker was born Karen Lehman in New York City in 1947, although the Library of Congress gives her birth year as 1948, while the editors of Encyclopædia Britannica gave her birth year as 18 April 1948, New York.

She died on 30 November 1997, in Tijuana, Mexico. 

Most obituaries, including The New York Times, cited her birth year as 1944.

“Everytime you read, you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies.”

(Kathy Acker, Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia)

The Library of Congress, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the New York Times are all trusted sources of information, albeit in three geographically separate cities (Washington DC, London and NYC), so why the discrepancy in birthdates.

Don’t know.

Does it even matter?

Perhaps to Kathy.

Did Kathy know?

Did Kathy care?

Her family was from a wealthy, assimilated German-Jewish background that was culturally but not religiously Jewish.

“Religious Judaism means nothing to me.

I don’t run away from it, it just means nothing to me.” 

(Kathy Acker)

Exactly what does that mean?

“Culturally but not religiously?“

Jewish in name only?

Or had Kathy been Catholic she would have been described as a “half-ass Catholic” by the local priest of the town where I went to high school – attend the “big” events but are regularly absent otherwise.

Acker was raised in her mother and stepfather’s home in the Sutton Place neighborhood of Manhattan’s prosperous Upper East Side.

Her father, Donald Lehman, abandoned the family before Acker’s birth.

Her relationship with her domineering mother, even into adulthood, was fraught with hostility and anxiety because Acker felt unloved and unwanted.

Above: York Avenue / Sutton Place

“Love goes away when your mind goes away and then you’re someone else.”

(Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School)

“Domineering” is a word I understand.

I have often described my late foster mother “as less a female as she was a force“, but where Kathy felt hostility and anxiety I instead felt exasperation and sought solace and sanctuary by escaping into books.

“Pain is the world.

I don’t have anywhere to run.”

(Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School)

“Unloved and unwanted” also creates an internal conflict within me in regards to the controversial issue of abortion.

I firmly believe that all children should be loved and wanted and that an aborted fetus can be spared a lifetime of anguish and abandonment should the unborn be unwanted and unwelcome.

That being said, to abort a life is to deny the possibility of that unborn person of finding, of making a life that could be potentially fulfilling should fortune and determination set their course.

To abort a fetus is to deny the unborn to become all that they could have been.

I sympathize with women in regards to their outcry of “my body, my choice“, but unless she was raped, if the decision to be intimate was consensual, then it was also her choice that put her body into a state of pregnancy.

Every choice has consequences.

I disagree with the statement of “no uterus, no opinion” – a line used by Rachel Karen Green (Jennifer Aniston) in an episode of the sitcom Friends.

If the father wants the child her abortion denies him this opportunity.

Granted pregnancy and labour are not easy on a woman’s body, but if the father is psychologically, physically and financially stable, then she could be supported by him until the baby has arrived and is given to his care returning to the lifestyle she enjoyed before.

I am not suggesting that single parenthood is necessarily desirable.

I believe a child needs a balanced environment of two parents.

I have no objection against same sex parents if the child is loved.

And as far as I can tell, same sex parentage is, more often than not, an environment of love and compassion as much as (or perhaps even more) than a differently gendered couple who simply remained together for the sake of the child(ren).

Certainly she can cry out “my body, my choice” but I counter with “their baby, their mutual consent“.

The opposite scenario holds true as well.

Should she want to keep her baby but he does not wish to be a father, he should not be held legally and financially responsible for the next 20 years for the passion of 20 minutes.

Their intimacy, if mutually consensual, was a choice of two adults.

Parenthood and the responsibilities this entails should also be mutually consensual.

She made the choice to be intimate with him.

Keeping the baby, she chose to be a mother, but gave him no choice about his becoming a father.

Being a father (or a mother) is not always the same as being a good parent.

Sometimes we make poor choices in regards to whom we are intimate with.

In their desire for intimacy perhaps there was no thought about the possibility of pregnancy nor did chemistry allow reason to analyze the suitability of their partner’s character as a parent.

I am not anti-promiscuity, but I do advocate knowing your intimate partner’s character (and potential as a parent) before the bedroom fun.

Her mother soon remarried, to Albert Alexander, whose surname Kathy, née Karen, was given, although the writer later described her mother’s union with Alexander “as a passionless marriage to an ineffectual man“.

Above: Kathy Acker

“For the poet, the world is word.

Words.

Not that precisely.

Precisely:

The world and words f*** each other.”

(Kathy Acker)

Above: Kathy Acker

If her marriage was truly “passionless“, why did Claire remain?

For the sake of the children?

Perhaps a different era, different judgment calls?

“I want to get out of here means I want to be innocent.”

(Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology)

Above: Kathy Acker

What exactly is “an ineffectual man“?

Is there also such a thing as “an ineffectual woman“?

“But :

We’re still human.

Human because we keep on battling against all these horrors, the horrors caused and not caused by us.

We battle not in order to stay alive, that would be too materalistic, for we are body and spirit, but in order to love each other.”

(Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless)

Kathy had a half-sister, Wendy, by her mother’s second marriage, but the two women were never close and long estranged.

By the time of Acker’s death, she had requested that her friends not contact Wendy, as some had suggested. 

Above: Kathy Acker

“It’s possible to name everything and to destroy the world.”

(Kathy Acker, In Memoriam to Identity)

Above: Kathy Acker

Being related by blood does not necessarily mean being connected emotionally.

Kathy may indeed have loved Wendy, but simultaneously could not like her.

Paradoxical?

Yes.

But we humans are complex creatures, even to ourselves.

“What other knowledge will my solitude and muteness bring?

What other worlds?”

(Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology)

In 1978, her mother Claire Alexander, committed suicide. 

“Death is another bar which lies several steps below the normal world.

I’m at its threshold, but not yet in it.

Its doorway is doorless.”

(Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates)

There is a moment in the sitcom Friends where Rachel tells Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) that she cannot keep using her mother’s suicide to continually get what she wants.

Let me tread carefully here.

When someone we love commits suicide it is truly devastating for those who are left behind.

We cannot truly comprehend what drives someone to that extreme.

Did we not love the deceased enough while they were alive?

Were we a contributing factor in the pain they sought release from?

And I think that the show writers of the Friends‘ screenplay made the suicide of Phoebe‘s mother too light-hearted.

Granted that, according to the show’s lore, her mother killed herself when Phoebe was in her teens, but whether the 20- / 30-something woman that evolved since then could be merely offbeat and ditzy feels hollow to me somehow.

Above: Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay

“Writing is one method of dealing with being human or wanting to suicide cause in order to write you kill yourself at the same time while remaining alive.”

(Kathy Acker, In Memoriam to Identity)

As an adult, Acker tried to track down her father, but abandoned her search after she discovered that her father had disappeared after killing a trespasser on his yacht and spending six months in a psychiatric asylum until the state excused him of murder charges.

“Because humans, above all, fear intelligence.

How humans, scared out of their minds, gather whatever intelligence they can put their hands on and put it all in a central penitentiary named ‘facts’.”

(Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates)

Above: Kathy Acker

I know something about the compulsion to try and understand one’s past, for after my foster parents became merely a memory to me I sought out my own biological roots in a journey that would find me hitching my way from Ontario to Florida to California to British Colombia and back again.

Raised as an only child, I found I had six siblings and a father still kicking.

I learned where my mother was born and where she died.

I learned that family is more than blood, that without shared experience there can be no true bond.

That journey of discovery was an adventure and an experience that, God willing, I shall write about one day, though probably in a fictional format.

“I walked along a highway.

I was looking for a place to sit down, for some grass I could walk in, for a wood I could explore.

I walked for hours.

All land on both sides of the highway, cultivated and wild, was private.

I had to keep walking on the highway.

I thought that people today when they move move only by car, train, boat or plane and so move only on roads.

They perceive only the roads, the map, the prison.

I think it’s becoming harder to get off the roads.”

(Kathy Acker)

I think that there are people who invent themselves.

I think that Kathy fits that category.

“I found out and lost the only place I ever sort of regarded as home.

Oh well.

Best to stay in one’s garden but Voltaire (1694 – 1778) was a boring writer and sex is one of the greatest things there is.”

(Kathy Acker, I’m Very into You: Correspondence 1995-1996)

Above: Kathy Acker

“Life is bristling with thorns.

I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.”

(Voltaire)

Above: French writer / philosopher Voltaire (né François-Marie Arouet (1694 – 1778)

Acker attended the Lenox School, a private school for girls on the Upper East Side.

As an undergraduate at Brandeis University, she studied Classics and “took advantage of loosened mores, attending orgies thrown by theatre kids“. 

Above: Seal of Brandeis University, Waltam, Massachusetts

“If we keep on f***ing, I’m not gonna die.”
― Kathy Acker, Eurydice in the Underworld

Above: Kathy Aker

I don’t know why Friends dominates my thoughts today, but I am reminded of the actresses in the show who played the role of actresses and love interests of both Joey Tribbani (Matt LeBlanc) and Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry).

Above: The Friends

In Season 3, Kate Miller (Dina Meyer) is Joey’s co-star in the play Boxing Day. 

Joey falls for her and she sleeps with him, but she is already dating the director, Marshall Townsend, and sees Joey as a one-night stand.

The director dumps her when the play performs poorly with critics, and she gets together with Joey.

Joey is distraught when she leaves for a soap opera role in Los Angeles.

She excuses her behaviour with the words:

“Haven’t you ever dated an actress before?“

Above: Joey and Kate

“It was only when we were in that bed, high above the world – then I thought the birds could have been circling around our bodies circled around each other – that we made our world totally separated from everything else.

It was the only way we could be together.”

(Kathy Acker, Eurydice in the Underworld)

Above: Kathy Acker

In Season 4, Kathy (Paget Brewster), an actress, is Joey’s girlfriend.

A mutual attraction soon develops between Kathy and Chandler, which manifests in a kiss.

Kathy then breaks up with Joey, without telling him why. 

After Chandler reveals the truth, Joey is outraged and decides to move out, but has a change of heart after hearing Kathy‘s feelings for Chandler, and she and Chandler get together.

Although Chandler is initially uncomfortable about the possibility of their relationship becoming sexual as he would be directly compared to Joey, Monica and Rachel are able to give Chandler some pointers.

Sometime later, Chandler goes to see Kathy in a play and becomes jealous of her steamy onstage sex scenes with her co-star, Nick.

Chandler starts to suspect that she is cheating on him.

When he confronts her about it, she leaves, offended, and Chandler assumes the worst.

Realizing that he has come to the wrong conclusion, Chandler arrives at Kathy‘s apartment the next morning to apologize to her, only to find Nick’s pants, and they break up.

Again, there is the suggestion that performers are naturally promiscous.

Above: Kathy and Chandler

“Perhaps if human desire is said out loud, the urban planes, the prisons, the architectual mirrors will take off, as airplanes do.

The black planes will take off into the night air and the night winds, sliding past and behind each other, zooming, turning and turning in the redness of the winds, living, never to return.”

(Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless)

Above: Kathy Acker

I do recall once visiting the dressing room after a drama production – a long storage room in the college gymnasium – of a former friend and was startled to find both genders of actors, in various states of undress, calmly changing clothes.

There was nothing indecent occurring between the performers during that briefest of glimpses before my friend slammed the door closed barring my entry, but it was the casualness of their derobing that made me wonder how promiscous the performers might have been.

“Meanwhile the temperature is getting hotter and hotter so no one can think clearly.

No one perceives.

No one cares.

Insane madness comes out like life is a terrific party.”

(Kathy Acker, Eurydice in the Underworld)

Above: “Fergie“, Black Eyed Peas video, I Gotta Feeling

I am reminded of the scene in the 1992 bio film Chaplin where Charlie (Robert Downey, Jr.), hired as a comedian in a theatre in the East End of London, casually strolls about the dressing room of the theatre dancers in various stages of dress.

For them – save for a new arrival Hetty Kelly (Moira Kelly) – it was neither awkward nor immoral for Charlie to be there.

Above: Hetty and Charlie, Chaplin

I will not categorize the acting community as being promiscious, for I am certain that for all of those we hear about behaving badly there are just as many (and probably more) who are content in their monogamous situations.

But stable relationships don’t sell news copy.

I do not know whether Acker experiencing “loosened morals, attending orgies thrown by theatre kids” is truth or invention.

But the suggestive nature of this titillation makes for tantalyzing text.

Above: Kathy Acker

In 1966, she married Robert Acker and took his surname.

Robert Acker was the son of lower-middle-class Polish-Jewish immigrants.

Her mother and stepfather had hoped she would marry a wealthy man and did not expect the marriage to Acker to last long.

Above: Edmund Blair Leighton, The Wedding (1920)

“One of the most destructive forces in the world is love.

For the following reason:

The world is a conglomeration of objects, no, of events and the approaching of events towards objects, therefore of becoming stases static stagnant, of all that is unreal.

You get in the world, you get your daily life, your routine doesn’t matter, if you’re rich, poor, legal, illegal, you begin to believe what doesn’t change is real, and love comes along and shows all these unchangeable for ever fixtures to be flimsy paper bits.

Love can tear anything to shreds.”

(Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School)

Why was it unthinkable that Acker might make her own fortune? 

“I’m sick of this society.

“Earn a living” as if I’m not yet living.

Lobotomized and robotized from birth, they tell me I can’t do anything I want to do in the subtlest and sneakiest ways possible.

They want to erase all possible hints that I’ve been born.

I have two centers:

Love and my desire to sleep.”

(Kathy Acker, Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels)

I cannot ever imagine that a man would write those words.

A man is a human being who works, who must work.

How he feels about it is immaterial.

A woman is a human being who works only if she has no other option.

Given the opportunity, some women wouldn’t.

“Glory be to those humans that are absolutely NOTHING for the opinions of other humans:

They are the true owners of illusions, transformations and themselves.”

(Kathy Acker, New York City in 1979)

She became interested in writing novels and, with Robert, moved to California to attend University of California, San Diego, where American poet David Antin (1932 – 2016), his spouse artist Eleanor Antin, and American poet Jerome Rothenberg (1931 – 2024) were among her teachers.

She received her bachelor’s degree in 1968.

After moving to New York, she attended two years of graduate school at the City College of New York in Classics, specializing in Greek.

She did not earn a graduate degree.

Above: City College of New York seal

“Education, or the repetition and internalization of set models, and the childhood seen through the lens of this education are false.

Not just the models taught in class, but all perceptual models made and turned absolute.

For instance, when I was a child, I didn’t actually know either St. Pierre or Burpface, yet I defined myself, predicated my identity on how they saw me and how I perceived how they saw me.

The above dream has shown me that, since the identity I was taught was fake, childhood is a fake.”

(Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology)

Above: Kathy Acker

During her time in New York, she was employed as a file clerk, secretary, stripper and porn performer.

“Having any sex in the world is having to have sex with capitalism.”

(Kathy Acker)

Her latter two choices of employment in NYC confuse me.

Were these decisions made intelligently or desperately?

Again, we return to the argument of “her body, her choice” and the question of sexuality.

To achieve financial independence as a woman, a woman can manipulate men’s basic male need for physical contact with a woman’s body.

“We live on every edge conceivable.”

(Kathy Acker)

(I speak of heterosexuality not to dismiss other sexual proclivities but for the simplest of reasons:

I know very little about other options.

Not that I will claim to understand a vast amount more about my accustomed preferences either.)

“There’s a world right in front of our eyes.

The world of alienated action.

Everyone can do absolutely anything they want.”

(Kathy Acker)

Above: George Michael, single cover art, “Freedom“

What depth of emotion (or lack thereof) or what sexual appetite (or lack thereof) a stripper or an adult entertainer has is beyond my scope of experience.

Do I enjoy the appearance of women in the world?

Yes.

Have I seen films and magazines of an adult nature?

Yes.

But the problem is that venues or media of a titillating nature create the idea that a person’s sexual yearnings are by their very nature something to be considered sleazy, animalistic and immoral.

When bodies are used (and when people allow their bodies to be used) for profit, then everyone is misused.

Sexual information and access creates a happier, more sane and honest world.

But voyeurism denies the voyeur the experience of what is really going on inside two people in love.

Physical mechanics has killed the passion and poetry in its profitable display of the plumbing.

We should not be ashamed of our sexuality, but we should not let it dominate and decide our destiny.

Sex isn’t a separate part of you.

Your heart, spirit, mind and body need to be along for the ride.

It should transform you and refresh your sense of glory in being alive.

And this, though hard to attain, only occurs in a relationship with great emotional trust.

Pornography and prostitution deny both the voyeur and the viewed the possibility of real love beyond the VIP booth and the computer screen.

To see the beauty of and beyond the body.

There is vastly greater pleasure in love than merely the mechanics of sex.

Our bodies, our choices.

And this applies to both genders.

(All genders?

These are confusing times we live in.)

I will not go so far as to suggest that pornography and prostitution should be eradicated, for truth be told I don’t believe they can be, regardless of how theocratic a government is.

I am only saying that we should not become prisoners of our need for sexual release.

“All my emotions, fantasies, imaginings, desires are reality because I must have a life that matters, that is emotional.

I don’t want to speak anymore about anything that’s serious.

I just want to speak.”

(Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology)

Acker’s first work appeared in print as part of the burgeoning New York City literary underground of the mid-1970s.

During the 1970s, Acker often moved back and forth between San Diego, San Francisco and New York, becoming a fixture of the downtown scene in the East Village.

Above: East Village Second Avenue, New York City

In February 1978, she married the composer and experimental musician Peter Gordon due to a cancer scare.

(Is the fear of death the right reason for a relationship?)

Above: Peter Gordon

“Don’t get into the writer’s personal life thinking if you like the books you’ll like the writer.

A writer’s personal life is horrible and lonely.

Writers are queer so keep away from them.”

(Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel)

Above: Kathy Acker

The pair ended their seven-year relationship shortly afterward. 

(No more cancer scare = no more relationship?)

“Writers create what they do out of their own frightful agony and blood and mushed-up guts and horrible mixed-up insides.

The more they are in touch with their insides the better they create.”

(Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School)

Later, she had relationships with the theorist, publisher, and critic Sylvère Lotringer (1938 – 2021) and then with the filmmaker and film theorist Peter Wollen (1938 – 2019), as well as a brief affair with media theorist and scholar McKenzie Wark.  

Above: French literary critic Sylvère Lotringer

Above: Peter Wollen

Above: Mackenzie Wark

In 1996, Acker left San Francisco and moved to London to live with the writer and music critic Charles Shaar Murray. 

Above: Charles Shaar Murray

She married twice.

She was openly bisexual.

Above: Peter Lafleur (Vince Vaughn)(center) learns Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor) (left) is bisexual after she kisses her friend Joyce (Scarlett Chorvat) (right), Dodgeball.

“Come alive, dead heart, and sing.”

(Kathy Acker, In Memoriam to Identity)

Above: Kathy Acker

Come into these arms again
And lay your body down
The rhythm of this trembling heart
Is beating like a drum

It beats for you – It bleeds for you
It knows not how it sounds
For it is the drum of drums
It is the song of songs.

Once I had the rarest rose
That ever deigned to bloom.
Cruel winter chilled the bud
And stole my flower too soon.

Oh loneliness – oh hopelessness
To search the ends of time
For there is in all the world
No greater love than mine.

Love, oh love, oh love…
Still falls the rain… (still falls the rain)
Love, oh love, oh, love…
Still falls the night…
Love, oh love, oh love…
Be mine forever…. (be mine forever)
Love, oh love, oh love….

Let me be the only one
To keep you from the cold
Now the floor of Heaven’s lain
With stars of brightest gold

They shine for you – they shine for you
They burn for all to see
Come into these arms again
And set this spirit free

(“Love Song for a Vampire“, Annie Lennox)

I confess to comprehending heterosexuality and homosexuality a wee bit more than bisexuality.

With the first two you found a gender you are most comfortable with and you make your choice to be with that gender.

Bisexuality seems to me to be more of a question of varying degrees of what a person seeks in one gender as opposed to its opposite, combined with the emotional and sexual attraction that is felt in a moment between two people.

I wonder if I am complicating or oversimplifying bisexuality.

Again, I return to “her body, her choice“.

“After Hatuey, a 15th-century Indian insurrectionist, had been fixed to the stake, his Spanish captors extended him the choice of converting to Christianity and ascending to Heaven or going unrepentantly to Hell.

Gathering that his executioners expected to go to Heaven, Hatuey chose the other.”

(Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology)

Above: Taino Chief Hatuey (d. 2 February 1512) monument, Baracoa, Cuba

Acker was associated with the New York punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The punk aesthetic influenced her literary style. 

Above: Kathy Acker

“Let me put it another way.

Most people are what they sense and if all you see day after day is a mat on a floor that belongs to the rats and four walls with tiny piles of plaster at the bottom, and all you eat is starch, and all you hear is continuous music, you smell garbage and piss which drips through the walls continually, and all the people you know live like you, it’s not horrible, it’s just… 

Who they are.”

(Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School)

Above: Kathy Acker

(The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature and film.

Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom, and the DIY ethics, the culture originated from punk rock.

The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action, and not “selling out“.

There is a wide range of punk fashion, including T-shirts, leather jackets, Dr. Martens boots, hairstyles such as brightly coloured hair and spiked mohawks, cosmetics, tattoos, jewellery, and body modification.

Women in the hardcore scene typically wore clothing categorized as masculine.

Punk aesthetics determine the type of art punks enjoy, which typically has underground, minimalist, iconoclastic and satirical sensibilities.

Punk has generated a considerable amount of poetry and prose.

It has its own underground press in the form of zines.

Many punk-themed films have been made.

Punk political ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include individual liberty, anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, anti-corporatism, anti-government, direct action, and not “selling out“.

Some groups and individuals that try to self-identify as being a part of the punk subculture hold pro-Nazi or Fascist views, however, these Nazi / Fascist groups are rejected by almost all of the punk subculture.

The belief that such views are opposed to the original ethos of the punk subculture, and its history, has led to internal conflicts and an active push against such views being considered part of punk subculture at all.

Two examples of this are an incident during the 2016 American Music Awards, where the band Green Day chanted anti-racist and anti-fascist messages… 

…. and an incident at a show by the Dropkick Murphys, when bassist and singer Ken Casey tackled an individual for giving a Nazi-style salute and later stated that Nazis are not welcome at a Dropkick Murphys show.

Band member Tim Brennan later reaffirmed this sentiment.

The song “Nazi Punks F*** Off” by hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys is a standout example.

Above: The Dead Kennedys

Early British punks expressed nihilistic and anarchist views with the slogan No Future, which came from the Sex Pistols song “God Save the Queen“.

Above: The Sex Pistols

God save the Queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
A potential H bomb

God save the Queen
She’s not a human being
and there’s no future
And England’s dreaming

Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future
No future
No future for you

God save the Queen
We mean it, man
We love our Queen
God saves

God save the Queen
‘Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid

Oh when there’s no future
How can there be sin
We’re the flowers
In the dustbin
We’re the poison
In your human machine
We’re the future
Your future

God save the Queen
We mean it, man
We love our Queen
God saves

God save the Queen
We mean it, man
There’s no future
In England’s dreaming

God save the Queen

No future
No future
No future for you

No future
No future
No future for me

No future
No future
No future for you

(“God Save the Queen“, The Sex Pistols)

In the US, punks had a different approach to nihilism which was less anarchistic than the British punks.

Punk nihilism was expressed in the use of “harder, more self-destructive, consciousness-obliterating substances like heroin, or methamphetamine“.

Punk has generated a considerable amount of poetry and prose.

Punk has its own underground press in the form of punk zines, which feature news, gossip, cultural criticism, and interviews.

Important punk zines include Maximum RocknRoll, Punk Planet, No Cure, Cometbus, Flipside and Search & Destroy.

Several novels, biographies, autobiographies and comic books have been written about punk. 

Love and Rockets is a comic with a plot involving the Los Angeles punk scene.

Just as zines played an important role in spreading information in the punk era (e.g. British fanzines like Mark Perry’s Sniffin Glue and Shane MacGowan’s Bondage), zines also played an important role in the hardcore scene.

In the pre-Internet era, zines enabled readers to learn about bands, shows, clubs, and record labels.

Zines typically included reviews of shows and records, interviews with bands, letters to the editor, and advertisements for records and labels.

Zines were DIY products, “proudly amateur, usually handmade and always independent“, and during the “‘90s, zines were the primary way to stay up on punk and hardcore“. 

They were the “blogs, comment sections and social networks of their day“.

In the American Midwest, the zine Touch and Go described the regional hardcore scene from 1979 to 1983. 

We Got Power described the LA scene from 1981 to 1984 and included show reviews of and interviews with such bands as Vancouver’s D.O.A., the Misfits, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and the Circle Jerks. 

My Rules was a photo zine that included photos of hardcore shows from across the US. 

In Effect, which began in 1988, described the New York City scene.

Punk poets include: Richard Hell, Jim Carroll (1949 – 2009), Patti Smith, John Cooper Clarke, Seething Wells (1960 – 2009), Raegan Butcher, and Attila the Stockbroker. 

Above: Jim Carroll

The Medway Poets performance group included punk musician Billy Childish and had an influence on Tracey Emin.

Above: The Medway Poets (Sexton Ming, Tracey Emin, Charles Thomson, Billy Childish and musician Russell Wilkinson) at the Rochester Adult Education Centre (11 December 1987) to record the Medway Poets LP

Jim Carroll’s autobiographical works are among the first known examples of punk literature.

The punk subculture has inspired the cyberpunk and steampunk literature genres, and has even contributed (through Iggy Pop) to classical scholarship.)

Above: Iggy Pop

In the 1970s, before the term “postmodernism” was popular, Acker began writing her books.

These books contain features that would eventually be considered postmodernist work. 

(See definition of postmodernism above.)

Above: Kathy Acker

Acker’s controversial body of work borrows heavily from the experimental styles of American writer / vısual artist William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997)(Naked Lunch) and French writer / filmmaker Marguerite Duras (1914 – 1996), with critics often comparing her writing to that of French writer / filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922 – 2008) and French writer / activist Jean Genet (1910 – 1986).

Above: William S. Burroughs

Above: Marguerite Duras

Above: Alain Robbe – Grillet

Above: Jean Genet

Critics have noticed links to American writer / art collector Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) and photographers Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine.

Above: Gertrude Stein

Above: Cindy Sherman

She was influenced by the Black Mountain School poets, William S. Burroughs (above), David Antin (above), American visual / performance artist Carolee Schneeman (1939 – 2019), Eleanor Antin (above), French critical theory, mysticism, and pornography, as well as classic literature.

Above: Carolee Schneemann

Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice (1888 – 1968), Theodore Dreier, and several others.

The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey’s (1859 – 1952) educational philosophy, which emphasized holistic learning and the study of art as central to a liberal arts education.

Many of the college’s faculty and students were or would go on to become highly influential in the arts.

The institution was established to “avoid the pitfalls of autocratic chancellors and trustees and allow for a more flexible curriculum” and “with the holistic aim ‘to educate a student as a person and a citizen.'”

Black Mountain was experimental in nature and committed to an interdisciplinary approach, prioritizing art-making as a necessary component of education and attracting a faculty and lecturers that included many of America’s leading visual artists, composers, poets, and designers.

During the 1930s and 1940s the school flourished, becoming well known as an incubator for artistic talent.

Notable events at the school were common.

In the 1950s, the focus of the school shifted to the literary arts under the rectorship of Charles Olson. Olson founded The Black Mountain Review in 1954 and, together with his colleague and student Robert Creeley, developed the poetic school of Black Mountain poets.

The school operated using non-hierarchical methodologies that placed students and educators on the same plane.

Revolving around 20th-century ideals about the value and importance of balancing education, art, and cooperative labor, students were required to participate in farm work, construction projects, and kitchen duty as part of their holistic education.

Above: Black Mountain College

The students were involved at all levels of institutional decision-making.

They were also left in charge of deciding when they were ready to graduate, which notoriously few ever did.

There were no course requirements, official grades (except for transfer purposes), or accredited degrees.

Graduates were presented with handcrafted diplomas as purely ceremonial symbols of their achievement.

The liberal arts program offered at Black Mountain was broad, and supplemented by art making as a means of cultivating creative thinking within all fields.

The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Although it lasted only 23 years (1933–1956) and enrolled fewer than 1,200 students, Black Mountain College was one of the most fabled experimental institutions in art education and practice.

It launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in the America of the 1960s.

It boasted an extraordinary curriculum in the visual, literary and performing arts.

The literary movement traditionally described as the “Black Mountain Poets” centered around Charles Olson (1910 – 1970), who became a teacher at the college in 1948. 

Above: Charles Olson

Robert Creeley (1926 – 2005), who worked as a teacher and editor of the Black Mountain Review for two years, is considered to be another major figure. 

Creeley moved to San Francisco in 1957.

Above: Robert Creeley

Members of the Black Mountain Poets include students and teachers at Black Mountain, together with their friends and correspondents.

The Black Mountain poets were largely free of literary convention, a feature which defined contemporary American poets. 

Their work became characterized by open form. 

Olson’s pedagogical approach to poetry emphasized the importance of personal experience and direct observation, something which greatly influenced the Black Mountain poets. 

Many of the Black Mountain poets, including Levertov, Duncan, and Dorn, explored individual agency’s potential to affect collective change through their political poetry.

In 1950, Charles Olson published his seminal essay, Projective Verse.

In this, he called for a poetry of “open field” composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem.

This form was to be based on the line.

Each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance.

Olson felt that English poetry had become restricted by meter, syntax and rhyme instead of embracing the more natural constraints of breath and syllables which he felt would define true American poetics.

The content was to consist of “one perception immediately and directly leading to a further perception“.

This essay was to become a kind of de facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets.

One of the effects of narrowing the unit of structure in the poem down to what could fit within an utterance was that the Black Mountain poets developed a distinctive style of poetic diction (e.g. “yr” for “your“).

A critical theory is any approach to humanities and social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures. 

With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions rather than from individuals.

Some hold it to be an ideology, others argue that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.

A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy.

What makes a book “classic” is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino (1923 – 1985) to Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) and the related questions of “Why Read the Classics?” and “What Is a Classic?” have been essayed by authors from different genres and eras (including Calvino, T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) and Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804 – 1869). )

Above: Italian writer Italo Calvino

Above: American writer Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)

Above: English poet Thomas Stearns Eliot

Above: French literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

The ability of a classic book to be reinterpreted, to seemingly be renewed in the interests of generations of readers succeeding its creation, is a theme that is seen in the writings of literary critics including Michael Dirda, Ezra Pound (1885 – 1972) and Sainte-Beuve.

Above: American book critic Michael Dirda

Above: American poet Ezra Pound

These books can be published as a collection (such as Great Books of the Western World, Modern Library or Penguin Classics) or presented as a list, such as Harold Bloom’s (1930 – 2019) list of books that constitute the Western canon. 

Above: American literary critic / Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom

Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature from all traditions, such as the Chinese classics or the Indian Vedas.

Above: Chinese scholar Liu Xiang (77 – 6 BC)

Above: The Vedas are scriptures of Hinduism.

Acker’s novels exhibit a fascination with, and an indebtedness to, tattoos. 

She dedicated Empire of the Senseless to her tattooist.

Above: Kathy Acker

“The only reaction against an unbearable society is equally unbearable nonsense.”

(Kathy Acker)

Above: Kathy Acker

(A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and / or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. 

Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes and techniques, including hand-tapped traditional tattoos and modern tattoo machines.

The history of tattooing goes back to Neolithic times, practiced across the globe by many cultures, and the symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures.

Tattoos may be decorative (with no specific meaning), symbolic (with a specific meaning to the wearer), pictorial (a depiction of a specific person or item), or textual (words or pictographs from written languages).

Many tattoos serve as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, marks of fertility, pledges of love, amulets and talismans, protection, and as punishment, like the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts.

Extensive decorative tattooing has also been part of the work of performance artists such as tattooed ladies.

Although tattoo art has existed at least since the first known tattooed person, Ötzi, lived around the year 3330 BC, the way society perceives tattoos has varied immensely throughout history.

In the 20th century, tattoo art throughout most of the world was associated with a limited selection of specific “rugged” lifestyles, notably sailors and prisoners.

Today, people choose to be tattooed for artistic, cosmetic, sentimental / memorial, religious and spiritual reasons, or to symbolize their belonging to or identification with particular groups, including criminal gangs or a particular ethnic group or law-abiding subculture.

Tattoos may show how a person feels about a relative (commonly a parent or child) or about an unrelated person.

Tattoos can also be used for functional purposes, such as identification, permanent makeup and medical purposes.

Among Austronesian societies, tattoos had various functions.

Among men, they were strongly linked to the widespread practice of head-hunting raids.

In head-hunting societies, like the Ifugao and Dayak people, tattoos were records of how many heads the warriors had taken in battle, and were part of the initiation rites into adulthood.

The number, design, and location of tattoos, therefore, were indicative of a warrior’s status and prowess.

They were also regarded as magical wards against various dangers like evil spirits and illnesses. 

Among the Visayans of the pre-colonial Philippines, tattoos were worn by the tumao nobility and the timawa warrior class as permanent records of their participation and conduct in maritime raids known as mangayaw. 

In Austronesian women, like the facial tattoos among the women of the Tayal and Māori people, they were indicators of status, skill and beauty.

Tattoos were part of the ancient Wu culture of the Yangtze River Delta but had negative connotations in traditional Han culture in China.

The Zhou refugees Wu Taibo and his brother Zhongyong were recorded cutting their hair and tattooing themselves to gain acceptance before founding the state of Wu, but Zhou and imperial Chinese culture tended to restrict tattooing as a punishment for marking criminals. 

The association of tattoos with criminals was transmitted from China to influence Japan. 

Today, tattoos remain generally disfavored in Chinese society.

Tattooing of criminals and slaves was commonplace in the Roman Empire. 

In the 19th century, released convicts from the US and Australia, as well as British military deserters were identified by tattoos. 

Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps were tattooed with an identification number.

Today, many prison inmates still tattoo themselves as an indication of time spent in prison.

The Government of Meiji Japan had outlawed tattoos in the 19th century, a prohibition that stood for 70 years before being repealed in 1948. 

As of 6 June 2012, all new tattoos are forbidden for employees of the city of Osaka.

Existing tattoos are required to be covered with proper clothing.

The regulations were added to Osaka’s ethical codes and employees with tattoos were encouraged to have them removed.

This was done because of the strong connection of tattoos with the yakuza, or Japanese organized crime, after an Osaka official in February 2012 threatened a schoolchild by showing his tattoo.

Above: Osaka, Japan

Native Americans also used tattoos to represent their tribe.

Catholic Croats of Bosnia used religious Christian tattooing, especially of children and women, for protection against conversion to Islam during the Ottoman rule in the Balkans.

Tattoos are strongly empirically associated with deviance, personality disorders and criminality. 

Although the general acceptance of tattoos is on the rise in Western society, they still carry a heavy stigma among certain social groups. 

Tattoos are generally considered an important part of the culture of the Russian mafia.

Current cultural understandings of tattoos in Europe and North America have been greatly influenced by long-standing stereotypes based on deviant social groups in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Particularly in North America, tattoos have been associated with stereotypes, folklore and racism. 

Not until the 1960s and 1970s did people associate tattoos with such societal outcasts as bikers and prisoners. 

Today, in the US many prisoners and criminal gangs use distinctive tattoos to indicate facts about their criminal behavior, prison sentences and organizational affiliation. 

A teardrop tattoo, for example, can be symbolic of murder, or each tear represents the death of a friend.

At the same time, members of the US military have an equally well-established and longstanding history of tattooing to indicate military units, battles, kills, etc., an association that remains widespread among older Americans.

In Japan, tattoos are associated with yakuza criminal groups, but there are non-yakuza groups such as Fukushi Masaichi’s tattoo association that sought to preserve the skins of dead Japanese who have extensive tattoos.

Tattooing is also common in the British Armed Forces.

Depending on vocation, tattoos are accepted in a number of professions in America.

Companies across many fields are increasingly focused on diversity and inclusion. 

Mainstream art galleries hold exhibitions of both conventional and custom tattoo designs, such as Beyond Skin, at the Museum of Croydon.

In Britain, there is evidence of women with tattoos, concealed by their clothing, throughout the 20th century, and records of women tattooists such as Jessie Knight from the 1920s. 

Above: Jessie Knight, tattoo artist

A study of “at-risk” (as defined by school absenteeism and truancy) adolescent girls showed a positive correlation between body modification and negative feelings towards the body and low self-esteem.

However, the study also demonstrated that a strong motive for body modification is the search for “self and attempts to attain mastery and control over the body in an age of increasing alienation“. 

The prevalence of women in the tattoo industry in the 21st century, along with larger numbers of women bearing tattoos, appears to be changing negative perceptions.

In Covered in Ink by Beverly Yuen Thompson, she interviews heavily tattooed women in Washington, Miami, Orlando, Houston, Long Beach and Seattle from 2007 to 2010 using participant observation and in-depth interviews of 70 women.

Younger generations are typically more unbothered by heavily tattooed women, while older generation including the participants parents are more likely to look down on them, some even go to the extreme of disowning their children for getting tattoos. 

Typically how the family reacts is an indicator of their relationship in general.

Reports were given that family members who were not accepting of tattoos wanted to scrub the images off, pour holy water on them or have them surgically removed.

Families who were emotionally accepting of their family members were able to maintain close bonds after tattooing.)

Beautiful tats
All over my back
Makes me so proud
I’m gonna shout it out loud
I got another tattoo, baby
Yeah, another tattoo, baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)
(‘Noth ‘nother tattoo)

No part of me is blank, I’m really ink obsessed
It’s like an art show the moment that I get undressed
At every job interview, they’re just so impressed
‘Cause I got all my ex-wives’ on my chest

Over here is Clay Aiken
There’s a side of bacon
And a Minotaur pillow fighting with Satan
Next to hello kitty and a zombie ice skating wait
It’s Ronald Reagan

I’ve got these dragons
I’ve got these dolphins
All inscribed on me indelibly (indelibly)
I’ve had bad reactions
Bad infections
Even Hepatitis C (Hepatitis C)

My friends think that I need therapy (therapy)
Maybe some laser surgery (surgery)
For the flaming goat skull on my knee (knee)
Knee (knee) knee (knee) knee hey

Beautiful tats (yeah) all over my back (all over)
And I’ve got some space here
On the side of my face here
For another tattoo baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)
Another tattoo baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)

No, I’m not high (high)
I’m really OK (OK)
I just love these scribbles (haha) that won’t go away
I got another tattoo baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother-‘nother tattoo)
Another tattoo baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)

Yeah
Yes there were a few
I got from a losing a bet
I misspelled a word or two
Still, there’s nothing I regret
My shopping trips are no sweat
There’s never stuff I forget
Check out this rad Boba Fett
He’s playing clarinet

Beautiful tats (yeah) all over my back (all over)
And what the heck (haha)
There’s still room on my neck (waa)
I’ll get another tattoo baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)
Another tattoo babe
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)

I don’t know why (why)
But every day (day)
Whenever folks see me
They just back away (wo)
I got another tattoo
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)
Another tattoo baby
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo babe)
(‘Noth-‘noth-‘nother tattoo)
Yeah

D’ow
Deh, okay right there by my elbow, see
Yeah, I got a couple of square inches left
So maybe a squid or a tarantula or something
I dunno surprise me
D’ow
Mother

(“Another Tattoo“, “Weird” Al Yankovic)

I do not possess any tattoos.

I do not condemn those who do.

I have enough accident injury and surgery scars to make my body less of a wonderland than it is a battlefield.

I get the symbolism inherent in a tattoo.

For example, my colleague Paul has a tattoo in memorium of his deceased dad.

I choose to remember the dead in my way and he in his.

Neither of us is wrong.

My reluctance to tattooing my body has been simple:

I don’t wish to pay a small fortune to painfully and permanently mark my body.

I respect those who have chosen differently but this has never appealed to me.

Our bodies, our choices.

“American writer Kathy Acker has been called post-feminist and post-punk.

In her texts, she combines biographical elements, power, sex and violence in a intoxicating cocktail.

Acker visited Helsinki last week as her first book ‘The Empire of the Senseless’ became available in Finnish (‘Tunnottomien valtakunta’).

Above: Helsinki, Finland

Two years ago Acker taught literature in a small town in Idaho.

From time to time, Acker once happened to use the word `lesbo’ in her lecture, causing the head of the department to suffer a nervous breakdown.

A battle ensued between Acker opponents and defenders in Idaho, gradually reaching the national papers.

”It was a terrifying experience.

Hunting season had just opened in Idaho (it is a big deal there) and I got all kinds of sick threats.

I was forced to spend my last night under police protection,” explains Acker.

Now Acker has relocated to London, bringing her two `lovers’:

Her 400 and 1100 cc motorcycles with her.

Acker, who is most inspired by writers William S. Burroughs and Jack Keroauc (1922 – 1969), also likes piercing and tattoos.

Above: American writer Jack Kerouac

”Everything I do reflects back to me clearly.

It helps me develop as a writer.” “

(Kathy Acker)

Above: Kathy Acker

“There must be a secret hidden in this book or else you wouldn’t bother to read it.”

(Kathy Acker)

Acker published her first book, Politics, in 1972.

Although the collection of poems and essays did not garner much critical or public attention, it did establish her reputation within the New York punk scene.

Acker’s first book was created during her return to San Diego with Len Neufeld (July and August 1972) where she spent time with David and Eleanor Antin and Mel Freilicher.

She extracted writings from her New York notebooks, mostly those that describe her experiences with Neufeld as a sex worker at Fun City in Times Square.

“She describes the look and smell of the club and the people she met: pimps, junkies, whores, and gay party boys, with their stories about busts, jail, and prison.”

The text ends with “a strident, declarative statement, a manifesto of what it’s like to be 23:

I’m sick of f***ing not knowing who I am.”

Above: Kathy Acker

In 1973, she published her first novel (under the pseudonym Black Tarantula), The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula: Some Lives of Murderesses.

She is shockingly frank in her first novel, sexually explicit, raw honesty.

It is said that a man’s greatest enemies are loneliness, compulsive competition and lifelong emotional timidity.

Acker does not come across as compulsively competitıve nor emotionally timid, but her first novel and the tales therein show women burdened by loneliness so palable that even an oblivious man such as I can feel the intensity of their isolation.

“I move to San Francisco.

I begin to copy my favorite pornography books and become the main person in each of them.“

“I change my woman’s clothes to man’s clothes, roam through the streets of New York. My parents, my husband and I have locked me in a prison. Despite my two children I leave my husband. I decide. I get out. I go back home to America. My parents hate me. They drive me out of their house in Québec. I have left my husband. I have no right to leave a man especially a man who loves me. I’m weird. I’m not a robot. Get the hell out. Get the hell out of here. Do what I want. I have no money. I’m on the street. I’m dying. No one’s going to help me. They step on me.“

Above: Images of Québec City, Québec, Canada

“In Albany: I’m 23 years old. My lover tells me I’m beautiful and intelligent. I can’t speak to anyone else but him. After skulking the streets of Troy, I force myself to move to Albany where I will be freer. The cop finds me with my new lover. My lover gets me out of jail. No matter where I move in Albany, everyone talks about me. I force myself to move back to Troy. Seclusion.”

Above: Images of Albany, New York

“I become more closely imprisoned. I don’t want anyone to tell me what I should do. In Troy I learn not to talk to anyone. I make my lifelong plans in secret. As the sun comes up each morning, I wander around the streets of Troy in disguise. I can appear to be sane. A robot. My only friends are the poor unwanted people of Troy. I am too close to myself to think about my degradation, my unhappiness. I feel angry. I have forgotten how to feel.“

Above: Troy, New York

“I’m born poor. St. Helen’s, Isle of Wight, 1790. As a child I have hardly any food to eat. I am still a child when I see my father and mother dragged to the poorhouse. I walk alone on the city streets. I have to be tough. I learn fast. I know I have to get myself what I want. They tell me I can’t do what I want. If I don’t do what I want, humble, respectful, I’ll lead a happy life. I vanish.”

Above: The ruin of the old church tower at St Helen’s, Isle of Wight, England

“I walk through a black world, If I want something I have to get it. I almost starve. I hawk oranges in the gallery of Covent Garden Theatre. I become the mistress of a wealthy army officer. I’m still almost a slave. I’m not yet fully planning every step of my future life, but grasping onto this man who can feed me and clothes and hold me warm.“

“I make my first mistake: I become too calm. I identify too much with this man who stops me from starving. I become confused. I forget my ambition and the ambition becomes misplaced. I have clothes, so I want more clothes. I think I can do what I want without fear of starvation so I order my lover around. I act too much like a man. I seem too forceful. Despite my beauty my lover leaves me.“

“The second step of my success begins in Hell. No one notices me despite my beauty and intelligence. I try to teach myself politics and philosophical theory, but I begin again to starve. No one can get me down. I’ll show the creeps. I’m wandering in Hell. The streets stink of shit. I want to be able to keep doing new and different actions. I can’t find how. I decide to become a servant to a madam of a brothel patronized especially by foreign royalties and noblemen forced to flee the enmity of the revolutionary governments in their own countries. I go straight for the information, the knowledge. I’m too curious. I hide my ambition then my knowledge behind this new front. I don’t have to pretend to be humble and sweet.”

“The Duc de Bourbon one night tells his valet that all beautiful women are stupid. He protests, mentions me. Does His Royal Highness want to meet me? This time luck favors me. I meet the Duc and become his mistress. My life I devote to His Royal Highness, who I do not love, but use. I don’t know if I can love anyone. I have to force His Royal Highness to respect me and need my advice about his personal and political affairs. My goal: To enslave the Duc de Bourbon, so I’ll be safe, be part of the court aristocracy, so noble men and women will ask me for my opinions. No one will look down on me and starve me again. The Duc de Bourbon laughs at my charming desire to study. I learn French, Greek, Latin, with the expertise of a university don. I have to learn to use my defeats, so I never again become defeated.“

Above: Coat of arms of the Dukes of Bourbon

“A reversal in the politics of France restores to him his vast ancestral possessions and political powers. By this time I am the only member of the royal set who can influence him, who can please him, who has his trust. He returns home to Chantilly, his palace. He tries to explain to me that recent upsets in the French government force him to live quietly with his wife and to abandon me, his mistress. He is frightened of being alone and being disliked. I become again scared of starving and of being without him. I show him he’s blind. He will never again feel my touch. He will live alone, not even knowing if his abandonment of me helped his political career and the affairs of the Country. I love him more than I ever have or will. How can I tell? Remember, I’m scared.“

Above: Château de Chantilly

“What happens? I enter the palace. I make a major mistake. I stop trying to gain more power, for me, respectability. The King informs me I am no longer allowed in Court. I spend almost all my money trying to reobtain my right of entry to the Court. I can find no way to do what I want. This is the first time anyone has absolutely denied me. I can’t understand or deal with the situation.”

Above: Château de Versailles

The following year, she published her second novel, I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining.

In 1979, she won the Pushcart Prize for her short story “New York City in 1979.”

During the early 1980s, she lived in London, where she wrote several of her most critically acclaimed works.

She did not receive critical attention, however, until publishing Great Expectations in 1982.

The opening of Great Expectations is an obvious re-writing of Charles Dickens’s work of the same name.

It features her usual subject matter, including a semi-autobiographical account of her mother’s suicide and the appropriation of several other texts, including Pierre Guyotat’s (1940 – 2020) violent and sexually explicit “Eden Eden Eden“.

That same year, Acker published a chapbook (a small publication of up to about 40 pages), entitled Hello, I’m Erica Jong. 

She appropriated from a number of influential writers.

These writers include Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 – 1864), John Keats (1795 – 1821), William Faulkner (1897 – 1962), T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965), the Brontë sisters: Anne (1820 – 1849), Charlotte (1816 – 1855), Emily (1818 – 1848), the Marquis de Sade (1740 – 1814), Georges Bataille (1897 – 1962) and Arthur Rimbaud (1854 – 1891).

Above: English writer Charles Dickens

Above: American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne

Above: English poet John Keats

Above: American writer William Faulkner

Above: English writers Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, by their brother Branwell (c. 1834). He painted himself among his sisters, but later removed his image so as not to clutter the picture. National Portrait Gallery, London

Above: French writer Marquis de Sade

Above: French philosopher Georges Bataille

Above: French poet Arthur Rimbaud

Acker wrote the script for the 1983 film Variety. 

The film follows a young woman who takes a job at a New York City pornographic theater and becomes increasingly obsessed with a wealthy patron who may or may not be involved with the mafia.

Christine, an aspiring author, desperately needs a job.

Her friend Nan gives her a tip that the Variety, a pornographic theater in Times Square, is looking for a ticket-taker.

Christine takes the job and becomes interested in the movies that are playing.

Her boyfriend Mark, an investigative journalist, is concerned and confused about her interest in her new job.

At the Variety, Christine meets a rich patron, Louie, with whom she spontaneously decides to go on a date.

After he abruptly leaves, she follows him in a cab, watching while he meets a mysterious man.

Later, she shares her suspicions with Mark that he is involved in some kind of mafia operation.

Increasingly obsessed, she follows Louie to Asbury Park, New Jersey, sneaking into his hotel room, from which she steals a pornographic magazine.

Her obsession with Louie and her own awakened sexuality ultimately leads her to call and threaten him unless he meets her.

The final, mysterious shot is of an empty intersection at Fulton and South Street, where Christine has told Louie to meet her.

Acker wrote a text on the Canadian photographer Marcus Leatherdale (1952 – 2022) that was published in 1983, in an art catalogue for the Molotov Gallery in Vienna.

Above: Marcus Leatherdale

After a series of failed contracts to publish Blood and Guts in High School, Acker made her British literary debut in 1984 when Picador published the novel, followed by publication in New York by Grove Press.

Blood and Guts in High School, while having a frequently disrupted and heavily surreal narrative, is the story of Janey Smith, a ten-year-old American girl living in Mérida, Mexico, who departs to the US to live on her own.

She has an incestuous sexual relationship with her father, whom she treats as “boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement and father“.

Above: Images of Mérida, Mexico

They live together in Mexico until another woman begins to interest Janey’s father, leading Janey to realize he hates her because she limits him by dominating his life, and he wants to have his own life.

Her father agrees to let her go and puts her into a school in New York City.

For a period of time her father sends her money, but later she begins to work at a hippie bakery and is appalled by the customers, whose behavior gradually spirals out of control.

She has many sexual partners.

She ends up pregnant twice and has two abortions.

She seems to be furiously addicted to sex and does not care whom she sleeps with.

In New York City she joins a gang, the Scorpions.

One day, while the gang is driving frantically in a stolen car from the police, they are involved in a car crash:

Janey is the only one who survives.

Afterwards, she begins to live in the New York slums.

Two thieves break into her apartment, kidnap her, and sell her into prostitution.

She becomes the property of a Persian slave trader who keeps her locked up, trying to turn her out as a prostitute.

We see Janey’s dreams and visions, and read her journal entries and poems as the lines between reality and fiction begin to become blurred.

Shortly before the kidnapper is to release her to become a prostitute for him, she discovers she has cancer.

The slave trader lets her go and she illegally goes to Tangier, Morocco.

Above: Tangier, Morocco

There she meets Jean Genet, the iconic French writer, and they develop a relationship while Janey vulgarly and intensely discusses but later becomes attracted to President Jimmy Carter.

Above: Former US President Jimmy Carter

Janey and Genet travel through North Africa and stop in Alexandria.

Genet treats Janey badly and thinks little of her, but the worse he treats her the more she loves him.

He decides to leave her.

Janey gets arrested for stealing Genet’s property, and shortly afterwards, by her luck, he joins her in prison.

A rebellion breaks out as the narrative continues to deteriorate while particular figures, collectively named the Capitalists, meet to discuss how their society is collapsing.

As it peaks, Janey and Genet are both thrown out of Alexandria.

Above: Alexandria, Egypt

After travelling together across North Africa for some time, Genet gives Janey some money and leaves.

However, soon after they part company, Janey dies suddenly, leaving time to pass endlessly as the narrative breaks into a final set of dream maps.

Here, the novel concludes.

In Blood and Guts in High School, Acker uses the technique of collage.

She inserts letters, poems, drama scenes, dream visions and drawings.

Acker also freely admitted to using plagiarism in her work.

Blood and Guts in High School incorporates the text from one of Acker’s previous works, “Hello, I’m Erica Jong“, a chapbook written passive-aggressively and vulgarly towards novelist and feminist satirist Erica Jong.

“While writing it, I never considered that Blood and Guts in High School is especially anti-male, but people have been very upset about it on that ground.

When I wrote it I think it was in my mind to do a traditional narrative. I thought it was kind of sweet at the time, but of course it’s not.“

(Kathy Acker)

Above: Kathy Grove

That same year, she was signed by Grove Press, one of the legendary independent publishers committed to controversial and avant-garde writing.

She was one of the last writers taken on by Barney Rosset before the end of his tenure there.

Most of her work was published by them, including re-issues of important earlier work.

Above: Logo of Grove Press

She wrote for several magazines and anthologies, including the periodicals RE / Search, Angel Exhaust, monochrom and Rapid Eye.

As she neared the end of her life, her work was more well-received by the conventional press.

For example, The Guardian published a number of her essays, interviews, and articles, among them was an interview with the Spice Girls. 

In Memoriam to Identity draws attention to popular analyses of Rimbaud’s life and The Sound and the Fury, constructing or revealing social and literary identity.

Although known in the literary world for creating a whole new style of feminist prose and for her transgressive fiction, she was also a punk and feminist icon for her devoted portrayals of subcultures, strong-willed women, and violence.

Notwithstanding the increased recognition she garnered for Great Expectations, Blood and Guts in High School is often considered Acker’s breakthrough work.

She first began composing the book in 1973 while living in Solana Beach, writing and drawing fragments in notebooks before compiling the manuscript in 1979. 

Published in 1984, it is one of her most extreme explorations of sexuality and violence.

Borrowing from, among other texts, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Blood and Guts details the experiences of Janey Smith, a sex-addicted and pelvic inflammatory disease-ridden urbanite who is in love with a father who sells her into slavery.

Above: Kathy Acker

Many critics criticized the book for being demeaning toward women.

Germany banned it completely.

Acker published the German court judgment against Blood and Guts in High School in Hannibal Lecter, My Father.

Hannibal Lecter, My Father gathers together Acker’s raw, brilliant, emotional and cerebral texts from 1970s, including the self-published ‘zines written under the nom-de-plume, The Black Tarantula.

This volume features, among others, the full text of Acker’s opera, The Birth of the Poet, produced at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1985 and fragments of Politics, written at the age of 21.

Also included is the longest and definitive interview Acker ever gave over two years:

A chatty, intriguing and delightfully self-deprecating conversation with Semiotext editor Sylvere Lotringer— which is trippy enough in itself as Lotringer, besides being a real person, has appeared as a character in Acker’s fiction.

And last, but not least, is the full transcript of the decision reached by West Germany’s Federal Inspection Office for Publications Harmful to Minors in which Acker’s work was judged to be “not only youth-threatening but also dangerous to adults” and subsequently banned.

Above: Kathy Acker

Acker is the sort of the writer that should be read, so that you can spend the rest of your life trying to figure her out.

She confuses, infuriates, perplexes, and then all of a sudden the writing seems to be in your bloodstream, like some kind of benign virus.

She’s definitely not for the easily offended — but then, there are worse things in life than being offended.

Such as the things that Acker writes about.

Above: Kathy Acker

After returning to the US in the late 1980s, she worked as an adjunct professor at the San Francisco Art Institute for about six years and as a visiting professor at several universities, including the University of Idaho, the University of California, San Diego (UC-San Diego), University of California, Santa Barbara (UC-Santa Barbara), the California Institute of Arts and Roanoke College.

From exotic dancer to adult performer to professor – certainly a different kind of résumé.

Acker published Empire of the Senseless in 1988 and considered it a turning point in her writing.

While she still borrows from other texts, including Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the appropriation is less obvious.

However, one of Acker’s more controversial appropriations is from William Gibson’s 1984 text, Neuromancer, in which Acker equates code with the female body and its militaristic implications.

In 1988, she published Literal Madness: Three Novels, which included three previously-published works: Florida deconstructs and reduces John Huston’s (1906 – 1987) 1948 film noir Key Largo into its base sexual politics, Kathy Goes to Haiti details a young woman’s relationship and sexual exploits while on vacation, and My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922 – 1975) provides a fictional autobiography of the Italian filmmaker in which he solves his own murder.

Above: Flag of Haiti

Above: Italian artist Pier Paolo Pasolini

Between 1990 and 1993, she published four more books: In Memoriam to Identity (1990); Hannibal Lecter, My Father (1991); Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels (1992), also composed of already-published works; and My Mother: Demonology (1992).

Her collection, Portrait of an Eye, was championed by publisher Fred Jordan, who had discovered her work at Grove Press before moving to Pantheon and sent an early copy of the book to William Burroughs in 1991. 

Her last novel, Pussy, King of the Pirates, was published in 1996, which she, Rico Bell, and the rest of rock band the Mekons also reworked into an operetta, which they performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in 1997.

In April 1996, Acker was diagnosed with breast cancer and she elected to have a double mastectomy.

In January 1997, she wrote about her loss of faith in conventional medicine in a Guardian article, “The Gift of Disease“.

In the article, she explains that after unsuccessful surgery, which left her feeling physically mutilated and emotionally debilitated, she rejected the passivity of the patient in the medical mainstream and began to seek out the advice of nutritionists, acupuncturists, psychic healers and Chinese herbalists.

She found appealing the claim that instead of being an object of knowledge, as in Western medicine, the patient becomes a seer, a seeker of wisdom, that illness becomes the teacher and the patient the student.

After pursuing several forms of alternative medicine in England and the US, Acker died a year and a half later, on 30 November 1997, aged 50, from complications of cancer in a Tijuana alternative cancer clinic, the only alternative-treatment facility that accepted her with her advanced stage of cancer. 

Above: Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

She died in what was called “Room 101“, to which her friend Alan Moore quipped:

“There’s nothing that woman can’t turn into a literary reference.”

(Room 101, in the climax of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, turns out to be the torture chamber in which the Inner Party subjects its political prisoners to their own worst fears.)

Above: Julia (Suzanna Hamilton) and Winston (John Hurt), Nineteen Eighty-Four

Acker is obsessed with the language of the body.

She does not merely describe herself, she creates herself, perhaps getting away from her true self, for the sake of entertainment.

She regards herself constantly.

In a sense she worships at her own feet.

She is preoccupied with herself and sometimes I find reading Acker for a long extended time tires me.

She has been accused as being anti-male, but in reality I feel she has reduced herself and her gender to being merely vessels of beauty and booty.

Her words diminish her and deny the exercise of her full intelligence because she is so focused on sex and the female libido.

She has reduced her sexuality to physical sensation rather than spiritual completion.

I think her greatest fear in Room 101 was dying without having truly felt loved.

Above: Kathy Acker

Sometimes when I am feeling very cynical I ask:

“What is love?”

Man has been manipulated by Woman to the point where he cannot live without her and therefore will do anything she asks of him.

He fights for his life and calls it love.

Woman, nevertheless, is incapable of living without men.

Like a queen bee, she cannot survive on her own.

She too is fighting for her life and she too calls it love.

They each need one another, in fact, and it seems therefore that they share at least one sentiment.

The cause, nature and consequences of this sentiment, however, differ as much as do the sexes.

To a woman love means power.

To a man love means enslavement.

Love provides woman with an excuse for financial exploitation, man with an emotionally charged excuse.

But as I said, this opinion is felt only in moments of extreme cynicism.

And then I think of one of my favourite writers Leo Buscaglia (1924 – 1998):

“I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death.

They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make.

Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories.

We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.”

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

“Don’t spend your precious time asking “Why isn’t the world a better place?”

It will only be time wasted.

To question to ask is “How can I make it better?”

To that there is an answer.”

“No one gets out of this world alive, so the time to live, learn, care, share, celebrate, and love is now.”

“There are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along:

People who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents.

Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give.”

“A life without love, no matter how many other things we have, is an empty meaningless one.“

Acker may have had a lot of physical interaction, but whether she truly felt joy, felt love, is a question I ponder.

We are our bodies, but we are also something more than this.

As she lay dying in Room 101, I hope she realized this.

“The Chestnut Tree Café was almost empty.

A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell yellow on dusty tabletops.

It was the lonely hour of fifteen.

Tinny music trickled from the telescreens.

Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass.

Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall.

“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”, the caption said.

Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork.

It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the Café.

He picked up his glass and drained it at at a gulp.

As always, it made him shudder and even retch slightly.

The stuff was horrible.

“I betrayed you.”, she said baldly.

“I betrayed you.”, he said.

She gave him another quick look of dislike.

“Sometimes they threaten you with something – something you can’t stand up to, can’t even think about.

And then you say:

“Don’t do it to me.

Do it to somebody else.

Do it to so-and-so.

And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it.

But that isn’t true.

At the time when it happens you do mean it.

You think there is no other way of saving yourself and you are quite ready to save yourself that way.

You want it to happen to the other person.

You don’t give a damn what they suffer.

All you care about is yourself.

And after that, you don’t feel the same towards the other person any longer.”

There did not seem to be anything left to say.

Above: Winston (John Hurt) at the Chestnut Tree Café, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Sources

Wikipedia

Google Photos

Kathy Acker, Politics / Blood and Guts in High School / Portrait of a Eye

Peter Biddulph, Manhood

Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man

Canada Slim and the Last Battle

Eskisehir, Switzerland, Sunday 19 September 2021

As the dates below will show, this blog (The Chronicles of Canada Slim) (one of two) has suffered from neglect.

I offer only one explanation:

I have been….distracted.

Above: Flag of Canada

The purpose of The Chronicles of Canada Slim is to capture in writing my adventures prior to the calendar year.

Generally, the Chronicles tells the tales of travels in Alsace, Italy, Lanzarote, London, Porto, Serbia and Switzerland.

Above: Flag of Alsace

Above: Flag of Italy

Above: Lanzarote (red) of the Spanish Canary Islands

Above: London, England

Above: Flag of Porto, Portugal

Above: Flag of Serbia

Above: Flag of Switzerland

But much has been happening since the finale of my Zwingli Way Walk (recorded here): an accident which broke both my arms, work commitments, a visit to Canada, the Corona virus, and the decision to work here in Turkey.

Please see Canada Slim and…..

• the City of Spirits (3 January 2016)
• the Push for Reformation (5 January 2016)
• the Genius of Glarus (14 August 2016)
• the Road to Reformation (12 November 2017)
• the Wild Child of Toggenburg (20 November 2017)
• the Thundering Hollows (27 November 2017)
• the Basel Butterfly Effect (3 December 2017)
• the Vienna Waltz (9 December 2017)
• the Battle for Switzerland’s Soul (18 December 2017)
• the Last Walk of Robert Walser (25 December 2017)
• the Monks of the Dark Forest (8 January 2018)
• the Privileged Place (26 January 2018)
• the Lakeside Pilgrimage (24 April 2018)
• the Battlefield Brotherhood (8 July 2018)
• the Family of Mann (12 August 2018)
• the Anachronic Man (8 October 2018)
• the Chocolate Factory of Unhappiness (30 January 2019)
• the Third Man (26 June 2019)
• the Humanitarian Adventure (10 December 2019)
• the Succulent Collection (14 November 2020)
• the Zürich Zealots (19 November 2020)

I have tried to contribute regularly to my other blog Building Everest, which tries to relate events of this calendar year along with ongoing accounts of Swiss Miss‘s world wanderings and recollections of my 2020 travels in Canada just prior to Covid-19’s impact being felt globally.

As well, other writing projects have also suffered, but as long as I breathe I will still believe that these too will eventually be accomplished.

Above: Mount Everest

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Thursday 3 December 2020

All things end.

One day these fingers will stop typing and my mind will go silent.

One day one breath will be my last.

Death is the one commonality we all share, regardless of whether pauper or prince, peasant or president, saint or sinner.

And it is accepting this inevitability that all of us must come to grips with, in our own way, in our own time.

Save for the suicidal or the sick, few of us wake up in the morning and think to ourselves:

Perhaps today is a good day to die.

Perhaps an exception to this rule of the suicidal or the painfully sick are the lives of those in risky professions, such as health care, the police force, the military.

Above: St. Leonhard Chapel, Landschlacht, Switzerland

As death is part of, and the end of, life, the question we all ask and the answer we all fear is what, if anything, follows death.

The afterlife (also referred to as life after death or the world to come) is an existence in which the essential part of an individual’s identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body.

According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary nirvana.

Belief in an afterlife is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.

In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, and in other popular views, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld.

Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics.

Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific plane of existence after death, as determined by God, or other divine judgment, based on their actions or beliefs during life.

In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those in the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in the ended life.

Above: Danube cemetery, Cernavoda, Romania

The Abrahamic religions, also collectively referred to as the world of Abrahamism, are a group of religions that claim descent from the worship of the God of Abraham, an ancient Semitic religion of the Bronze Age Israelites and the Ishmaelites, the direct predecessor of various ancient Israelite sects, including the remaining two extant Israelite religions of Judaism and Samaritanism, with all other Abrahamic religions descending from Judaism.

The Abrahamic religions are monotheistic, with the term deriving from the patriarch Abraham (a major figure described in the Torah, Tanakh, Bible, and Qu’ran, variously recognized by Jews, Samaritans, Christians, Muslims, and others).

Above: Portrait of Abraham, by Guercino, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy

The three major Abrahamic religions trace their origins to the first two sons of Abraham: for Jews and Christians it is his second son Isaac, and for Muslims his elder son Ishmael.

Above: The Angel Hinders the Offering of Isaac, by Rembrandt, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Abrahamic religions spread globally through Christianity being adopted by the Roman Empire in the 4th century and Islam by the Umayyad Empire from the 7th century.

Today the Abrahamic religions are one of the major divisions in comparative religion (along with Indian, Iranian and East Asian religions).

The major Abrahamic religions in chronological order of founding are Judaism (the source of the other two religions) in the 6th century BCE, Christianity in the 1st century CE, and Islam in the 7th century CE.

Christianity, Islam and Judaism are the Abrahamic religions with the greatest numbers of adherents.

Above: The Star of David, symbol of Judaism

Above: The cross of Christ, symbol of Christianity

Above: The word “Allah” in Arabic calligraphy, symbol of Islam

Christians are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

The words Christ and Christian derive from the Koine Greek title Christós (Χριστός), a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ) (usually rendered as messiah in English).

While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance.

The term “Christian” used as an adjective is descriptive of anything associated with Christianity or Christian churches, or in a proverbial sense “all that is noble, and good, and Christlike.”

It does not have a meaning of ‘of Christ’ or ‘related or pertaining to Christ‘.

Above: Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator), a 6th-century icon, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt

According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, up from about 600 million in 1910.

Today, about 37% of all Christians live in the Americas, about 26% live in Europe, 24% live in sub-Saharan Africa, about 13% live in Asia and the Pacific, and 1% live in the Middle East and North Africa.

Christians make up the majority of the population in 158 countries and territories.

280 million Christians live as a minority.

About half of all Christians worldwide are Catholic, while more than a third are Protestant (37%).

Orthodox communions comprise 12% of the world’s Christians. 

Other Christian groups make up the remainder.

By 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion. 

According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, Christianity will remain the world’s largest religion in 2050, if current trends continue.

Christians are the one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world, especially in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is the world’s largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.

Its adherents, known as Christians, make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.

Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination and Christology.

The creeds of various Christian denominations generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God who ministered, suffered and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind, referred to as the Gospel, meaning the “good news“.

Describing Jesus’ life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with the Old Testament as the Gospel‘s respected background.

Above: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, by Carl Bloch (1877)

Christianity began as a Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea.

Jesus’ apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution.

Above: The eastern Mediterranean region in the time of Paul the Apostle (5 – 64 CE)

It soon attracted Gentile (non-Jewish) God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem (70 CE), which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism.

Above: Siege and destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

Emperor Constantine the Great (272 – 337) decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the state church of the Roman Empire (380).

Above: Bust of Constantine, Capitoline Museum, Rome

The early history of Christianity’s united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the “Great Church” (though divergent sects existed at the same time, including Gnostics and Jewish Christians).

The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology, while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East-West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the Bishop of Rome. 

Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.

Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Following the Age of Discovery (15th – 17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.

Above: Various depictions of Jesus

The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion / 50.1%), Protestantism (920 million / 36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million), and the Oriental Orthodox churches (62 million) (Orthodox churches combined at 11.9%), though thousands of smaller church communities exist despite efforts toward unity (ecumenism).

Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian. 

Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world’s most populous continents.

Protestantism is a form of Christianity that originated with the 16th-century Reformation, a movement against what its followers perceived to be errors in the Catholic Church.

Protestants originating in the Reformation reject the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy, but disagree among themselves regarding the number of sacraments, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and matters of ecclesiastical polity and apostolic succession.

They emphasize:

• the priesthood of all believers 
• justification by faith (sola fide) rather than by good works
• the teaching that salvation comes by divine grace or “unmerited favour” only, not as something merited (sola gratia)
• affirm the Bible as being the sole highest authority (sola scriptura / “scripture alone“) or primary authority (prima scriptura / “scripture first“) for Christian doctrine, rather than being on parity with sacred tradition.

The five solae of Lutheran and Reformed Christianity summarize basic theological differences in opposition to the Catholic Church.

Protestantism began in Germany in 1517, when Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the temporal punishment of sins to their purchasers.

Above: Door displaying the Ninety-five Theses, All Saints’ Church, Wittenberg, Germany

The term, however, derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in March 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical.

Above: German reformer Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

Although there were earlier breaks and attempts to reform the Catholic Church — notably by Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus — only Luther succeeded in sparking a wider, lasting and modern movement.

Above: Statue of French reformer Pierre Vaudès (aka Peter Waldo) (1140 – 1205), Worms, Germany

Above: English reformer John Wycliffe (1328 – 1384)

Above: Portrait of Jan Hus (aka John Hus) (1372 – 1415)

In the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Iceland.

Above: Lutheranism in the world, 2013 – The darker the region, the more Lutherans therein.

Calvinist churches spread in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by Protestant Reformers, such as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and John Knox.

Above: French reformer Jehan Cauvin (aka John Calvin) (1509 – 1564)

Above: Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484 – 1531)

Above: Scottish reformer John Knox (1514 – 1572)

The political separation of the Church of England from the Pope under King Henry VIII began Anglicanism, bringing England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement.

Above: English King Henry VIII (1491 – 1547)

Today, Protestantism constitutes the second-largest form of Christianity (after Catholicism), with a total of 800 million to 1 billion adherents worldwide or about 37% of all Christians. 

Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts and many other fields.

Protestantism is diverse, being more divided theologically and ecclesiastically than the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church or Oriental Orthodoxy.

Without structural unity or central human authority, Protestants developed the concept of an invisible church, in contrast to the Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which all understand themselves as the one and only original church — the “one true church” — founded by Jesus Christ.

Some denominations do have a worldwide scope and distribution of membership, while others are confined to a single country.

A majority of Protestants are members of a handful of Protestant denominational families: 

• Adventists
• Anabaptists
• Anglicans / Episcopalians 
• Baptists  
• Calvinist / Reformed
• Lutherans
• Methodists
• Pentecostals  

Charismatic, Evangelical, Independent and other churches are on the rise and constitute a significant part of Protestantism.

Above: Key figures of the Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther and John Calvin depicted on a church pulpit, Mikolow, Poland. These reformers emphasized preaching and made it a centerpiece of worship.

As regular followers of my blogs know, I have, for quite some time, been writing about my following in the footsteps of Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli.

By “following in the footsteps” I do not refer to following the example of Zwingli’s life as a model for my own.

But rather I mean that I have been tracing on foot the life path of Zwingli by walking from his place of birth in Wildhaus in the Toggenburg region to his final resting place in Kappel am Albis – a five-hour / 19 km walk south of Uetliberg overlooking Zürich.

Above: Marcel and Yvonne Steiner

Huldrych Zwingli or Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system.

Above: Birthplace of Huldrych Zwingli, Wildhaus, Canton St. Gallen, Switzerland

He attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly center of Renaissance humanism.

Above: Seal of the University of Vienna (Austria)

Above: Logo of the University of Basel (Switzerland)

He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in Glarus and later in Einsiedeln, where he was influenced by the writings of Erasmus.

Above: Glarus Cathedral, Glarus, Switzerland

Above: Einsiedeln Abbey, Einsiedeln, Switzerland

Above: Dutch reformer Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466 – 1536)

In 1519, Zwingli became the Leutpriester (people’s priest) of the Grossmünster in Zürich where he began to preach ideas on reform of the Catholic Church.

In his first public controversy in 1522, he attacked the custom of fasting during Lent.

In his publications, he noted corruption in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, promoted clerical marriage, and attacked the use of images in places of worship.

Among his most notable contributions to the Reformation was his expository preaching, starting in 1519, through the Gospel of Matthew, before eventually using biblical exegesis to go through the entire New Testament, a radical departure from the Catholic mass.

In 1525, he introduced a new communion liturgy to replace the Mass.

He also clashed with the Anabaptists, which resulted in their persecution.

Historians have debated whether or not he turned Zürich into a theocracy.

Above: Grossmünster (large cathedral), Zürich, Switzerland

The Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation, but several cantons resisted, preferring to remain Catholic.

Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Confederation along religious lines.

In 1529, a war was averted at the last moment between the two sides.

Above: Religious map of Switzerland, 1536

Meanwhile, Zwingli’s ideas came to the attention of Martin Luther and other reformers.

They met at the Marburg Colloquy and agreed on many points of doctrine, but they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Above: Woodcut illustration of the Marburg Colloquy (1 – 4 October 1529)

In 1531, Zwingli’s alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons.

The cantons responded with an attack at a moment when Zürich was unprepared….

Above: Battle of Kappel, 11 October 1531

Zwingli wanted to enforce the Reformed sermon in the entire area of the Swiss Confederation.

He tried to break the resistance of central Switzerland by force of arms.

This was his undoing.

The Reformation in Switzerland was unstoppable.

It prevailed in church and state and gave the authorities more power.

But there were also opponents of the Reformation.

Zwingli and his innovations were sharply criticized, but that didn’t detract from its popularity.

The people flocked to the Grossmünster for its services.

Zwingli commented on theological, ecclesiastical and political questions in the pulpit.

He tried to renew the Church from the inside and to abolish the excesses and abuses with the consent of the Bishop and Pope.

His mission was to lead the entire Swiss Confederation to true Christianity.

He could not accept that the five places involved in the pension system continued to withhold the Reformed sermon from the central Swiss.

Above: Switzerland, 1530

The struggle for the right belief, in his opinion, required courageous action.

Zwingli wrote:

“I believe that just as the Church came to life through blood, it can also be renewed through blood, not otherwise.”

The open break with the Pope and the Church became evident on 29 January 1523, when the Zürich Council obliged the pastors to preach the “pure gospel” based on Zwingli’s example.

At Easter 1525, the Evangelical Last Supper formulated by Zwingli was celebrated instead of Mass for the first time.

Above: Zürich, Switzerland

There were similar developments in other parts of the Swiss Confederation.

Zwingli was in contact with like-minded people.

Well-known exponents of the Reformation in the Swiss Confederation were:

• Johannes Dörig (1499 – 1526)
• Walter Klarer (1500 – 1567)
• Johannes Hess (1486 – 1537)
• Valentin Tschudi (1499 – 1555)
• Fridolin Brunner (1498 – 1570)
• Sebastian Hofmeister (1494 – 1533)

Above: Swiss reformer Sebastian Hofmeister

• Berchtold Haller (1492 – 1536)

Above: German reformer Berchtold Haller

• Niklaus Manuel (1484 – 1530)

Above: Swiss reformer Niklaus Manuel

• Konrad Pellikan (1478 – 1556)

Above: German reformer Konrad Pellikan

• Wilhelm Reublin (1484 – 1549)
• Johannes Oekolampad (1482 – 1531)

Above: German reformer Johannes Oekolampad

• Johannes Comander (1484 – 1557)
• Jakob Salzmann (1484 – 1526)
• Dr. Joachim von Watt (aka Vadian) (1483 – 1551)

Above: Swiss reformer Joachim Vadian

The disputes about what it meant to be a good Christian led to internal political tensions in the Swiss Confederation.

The 1524 Diet did not lead to an audible solution in dealing that the true gospel should be preached to all confederates.

The Swiss Confederation was weakened.

Above: Flag of the Swiss Confederation

The Pope and the French tried to influence.

Johannes Eck (1486 – 1543), who fought on behalf of the Pope, and Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), took part in the 1526 Baden Disputation.

Above: German counter-reformer Johannes Eck

Eck needed nine places in the Confederation to ostracize and ban Zwingli as Emperor Charles V (1500 – 1558) had done with Luther in 1521.

Above: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

However, the decision was never implemented.

Tensions continued.

Zwingli thought armed conflicts were possible.

He wanted to prevent the Reformed places from being reintegrated into the Catholic Church by military force.

He consulted with Zürich officers and at the beginning of 1526 he drafted a war plan for the attention of the Zürich authorities.

Above: Zwingli preaching, Grossmünster pulpit, Zürich

In February 1528, Bern officially converted to the Reformation.

Zwingli took note of this pleasure and satisfaction.

Above: Bern, Switzerland

On Zwingli’s advice, Zürich concluded so-called “Christian castle rights” with the Reformed cities of Bern, Konstanz, St. Gallen, Biel-Bienne, Mühlhausen, Basel and Schaffhausen.

Above: Konstanz, Germany

Above: St. Gallen, Switzerland

Above: Old town, Biel, Switzerland

Above: Mühlhausen, Germany

Above: Basel, Switzerland

Above: Schaffhausen, Switzerland

The cities pledged to help each other should they be attacked because of their beliefs.

As a reaction to this, the Catholic towns of Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Zug and Unterwalden allied themselves with Ferdinand von Habsburg-Austria (1503 – 1564) in the “Christian Association“.

Above: Images of Luzern, Switzerland

Above: Flag of the Canton of Uri

Above: Schwyz, Switzerland

Above: Zug, Switzerland

Above: Flag of the Canton of Unterwalden

In the early summer of 1529 the situation came to a head:

Both parties committed attacks, the Unterwaldner in the Bernese Oberland, the Zürichers in St. Gallen, and the Schwyzers by executing Reformed pastor Jakob Kaiser (1485 – 1529).

The Zürich government decided to go to war on 4 June 1529.

On 9 June, 4,000 people in armor and guns were standing in Kappel am Albis on the border with the canton of Zug.

Zwingli and several like-minded pasters were there.

Zwingli wanted to ride of his own accord, but the army commanders would have preferred because of the hospitality against Zwingli that he would have stayed at home.

They appointed another pastor to be the field chaplain.

Above: Kappel am Albis, Switzerland

The troops of the Reformed towns numbered 30.000 men, the central Swiss had an army of 9,000 men.

In view of the great overwhelming power, the people of Zürich saw themselves marching into Zug and Luzern without much bloodshed, thus enforcing the free preaching of the Gospel and the prohibition of mercenaries and pensions throughout the entire Confederation.

Above: Coat of arms of Zug

Above: Coat of arms of Luzern

But shortly before the attack, the Glarner Landammann Hans Aebli suddenly wanted to parley.

The central Swiss troops were not yet fully armed and one should refrain from a brotherly fight.

So a break was agreed and the Zürich authorities informed of the Glarus request.

Above: Flag of Canton Glarus

Zwingli wanted to use the numerical superioriry of the Reformers at all costs.

He wrote from the field to the Zürich Council:

“Be steadfast and do not fear war.

We do not thirst for someone’s blood.

We are only concerned with one thing:

That the nerve of the oligarchs’ policy must be cut.

If that does not happen, neither the truth of the Gospel nor the servants of the Gospel safe with us.

We do not contemplate the cruel, but the good and patriotic.

We want to save people who otherwise perish from ignorance.

We thirst for freedom to be preserved.

So do not be afraid of our plans.“

Above: Flag of Zürich

As a condition for peace he suggested to the Council:

The Gospel should be able to be preached unhindered throughout the Confederation.

No more pensions should be accepted.

Those who brokered pensions in the five towns were to be punished while the Zürich troops were still in Kappel.

The Zürichers were to receive war compensation.

Schwyz had to make amends for the children of Pastor Kaiser of 1,000 guilders.

Zwingli’s admonitions and warnings to the Zürich authorities were not heard.

Above: Flag of Canton Schwyz

In the meantime, the central Swiss were ready to fight, but the fighting spirit waned on both sides.

The federal spirit gained the upper hand.

In addition, the men suffered from shortages on both sides.

The central Swiss lacked bread.

The Zürichers lacked milk.

A couple of people from central Switzerland put a bucket of milk on the border.

The people of Zürich got the hint:

They brought the chunks of bread for the soup, which went down in history as “Kappel milk soup“.

But the wait and the negotiations continued.

Above: Kappel Milk Soup

Since the assembly of 14 June in Aarau did not bring an agreement, the negotiations were conducted at Zwingli’s suggestion in front of the assembled troops in the vicinity of Kappel.

Above: Aarau, Switzerland

The ambassadors of the central Switzerland, Zürich and Zwingli expressed themselves.

Zwingli wrote to the Zürich authorities:

“For God’s sake, do something brave!“

The formulation of a peace agreement progressed resinously and after more than two weeks of negotiations the First Kappeler Landfrieden was finally proclaimed on 26 June 1529:

The Reformed sermon was allowed everywhere and the central Swiss cancelled with the Habsburgs.

This strengthened the “Christian castle rights” of the Reformers who felt themselves to be victorious.

Zwingli was on the one hand satisfied with the bloodless peace.

On the other hand, he did not trust the central Swiss.

Above: Huldrych Zwingli

The wording of the peace treaty left a lot of room for interpretation, which just two months later led to violent disputes at a parliamentary meeting.

In particular, there was a dispute over the sovereignty over belief in the individual areas.

Both sides demanded that the minority bow to the majority.

So it was allowed in Zürich to stick to the old faith and attend Catholic mass.

In central Switzerland, Reformers were not allowed to hold their own church services in communities that remained mostly Catholic.

There was also a quarrel about war compensation.

Instead of the 80,000 guilders demanded by Zürich and Bern, they awarded only 2,500 guilders from both places, which the central Swiss did not want to pay either.

The mutual trust was gone.

The Reformers were suspicious of the central Swiss, despite the contractual ban they were again in contact with the Habsburgs.

Zwingli and Zürich feared that Emperor Charles V and the Habsburgers could attack the Reformed areas in the Confederation and Germany with the support of central Switzerland.

Above: Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy

Zwingli wanted to defend the Reformed areas of the Confederation and tried to forge an alliance with Hesse and other Reformed states in Germany, as well as with Venice and Milan.

His attempts were unsuccessful.

Above: Coat of arms of the German state of Hesse

Above: Images of Venice, Italy

Above: Images of Milan (Milano), Italy (Italia)

At the beginning of 1531, Zürich again asked the central Swiss to allow the Reformer sermon.

They felt their autonomy was threatened and rejected the request.

Zwingli urged the Zürich Council to force the people of central Switzerland to make this concession.

Above: Zürich, Switzerland

They were not convinced by the food boycott either.

At a meeting on 14 June 1531, the two parties – Zürich and Bern on one side, the five central Swiss towns on the other – sat opposite one another.

No agreement could be reached, negotiations were held on 20 June and 11 July with no results.

Zwingli could not stand the hesitation of the people of Zürich and decided on 26 July to leave the city immediately.

The influential lords of the city did not want to allow that to happen.

They literally begged him to stay.

After a period of reflection, Zwingli withdrew his resignation.

Above: Zürich in the time of Zwingli

Since the negotiations between Zürich, Bern and central Switzerland were still going on, Zwingli arranged to meet the Bern representative before the meeting on 11 August and tried to win them over a war against the five central Swiss towns.

Shortly afterwards, Zwingli wrote in a letter:

“I am prepared for more than just one disaster.“

He felt himself at a loss.

“The retirees don’t want to be punished.”

They had too much popular support.

Instead of going to war, Bern advised in September 1531 to lift the supply block against central Switzerland.

Above: The Bern negotiations, 1531

The people of Zürich were informed of the preparations for war by the central Swiss from various quarters, but they remained inactive.

When, on 9 October 1531, a runner from Luzern demanded the delivery of the federal letters, Zürichers did not expect an attack.

Even after the central Swiss had already mobilized their troops, the people of Zürich still did not call their soldiers to arms.

Only when reports came in on 10 October that the central Swiss were at Baar did the Zürich-based vanguard send an advance guard to the border with Zug.

Above: City Hall, Baar, Switzerland

The central Swiss invaded and plundered Freiamt.

Above: Coat of arms of Freiamt, Switzerland

The Grand Council of Zürich now sent its main force to support the vanguard.

Instead of the expected 4,000 men, only 1,000 arrived.

Zwingli rode at their head as field preacher together with the captains.

More troops arrived.

Finally on 11 October 1531, 7,000 central Swiss troops faced 3,500 soldiers in Kappel.

The people of Zürich who hurried up in forced marches were exhausted even before the fight.

When the central Swiss attacked at 4 pm, they fled after a brief resistance.

Zwingli fell in the front ranks.

More than 500 people from Zürich died with him in this second battle of Kappel.

The central Swiss had fewer than a 100 deaths to mourn.

Above: The Battle of Kappel, 11 October 1531

Zwingli did not immediately die, as the Menzinger Jahrezeitenbuch reported:

The central Swiss recognized the wounded man and offered him a confessor.

Zwingli refused.

Then a captain killed him with a halberd.

Above: The murder of Zwingli, by Karl Jauslin

The following day, “martial law was held over the dead body of this dishonourable God and the unfaithful, perjured, vow-breaking arch heretics and seducers of the people“.

As a result, Zwingli was “first cut off as a traitor to the entire Confederation by the Luzern executioner and then burned to ashes as an arch heretic“.

As a resulr, Zwingli was “first cut off as a traitor to the entire Confederation by the Luzern executioner and then burned to ashes as an arch heretic“.

Above: Zwingli memorial, Kappel am Albis, Switzerland

Zwingli’s death triggered a fall in friends and followers in Zürich and raised hope among his opponents, but the majority of the population wanted to hold on to the Reformation.

As a result of Zwingli’s interference in urban and federal politics, a clear separation of religions and politics was sought.

Pastors were instructed not to interfere in politics, but to concentrate on the preaching of God’s word and to work for peace and tranquility.

Anyone who did not comply was dismissed by the Zürich Council.

The Council appointed Heinrich Bullinger (1504 – 1575) as the new pastor at the Grossmünster on 9 December 1531.

In doing so, he fulfilled Zwingli’s wish:

He had recommended Bullinger as his successor if he did not return from Kappel.

Above: Heinrich Bullinger

The Second Kappel War was not ended by Zwingli’s death.

More defeats for the people of Zürich and Bern followed on the battlefield.

After the defeat, the forces of Zürich regrouped and attempted to occupy the Zugerberg, and some of them camped on the Gubel hill near Menzingen.

Above: Zug Mountain (Zugerberg)

Above: Menzingen today

Following the defeat at Kappel, Bern and other Reformed Cantons marched to rescue Zürich.

Between 15 and 21 October, a large Reformed army marched up the Reuss Valley to outside of Baar.

Above: Reuss River, Luzern, Switzerland

Above: Baar today

At the same time, the Catholic army was now encamped on the slopes of the Zugerberg.

Above: Zugerberg and the city of Zug

The combined Zürich-Bern army attempted to send 5,000 men over Sihlbrugg and Menzingen to encircle the army on the Zugerberg.

Above: Babenwaag bridge in Sihlbrugg

However, the Reformed army marched slowly due to poor discipline and looting.

By the night of 23–24 October, they had only reached Gubel at Menzingen.

Above: Coat of arms of Menzingen

That night they were attacked by a small Catholic force from Aegeri and driven off.

Above: Oberaegeri (formerly Aegeri), Switzerland

About 600 Protestant soldiers died in the attack and the panicked retreat that followed.

This defeat destroyed much of the combined Zürich – Bern army and, faced with increasing desertion, it had to retreat on 3 November back down the Reuss to Bremgarten.

Above: Bremgarten, Switzerland

The retreat left much of Lake Zürich (Zürichsee) and Zürich itself unprotected.

Zürich now pushed for a rapid peace settlement.

Above: Map of Lake Zürich

On 20 November 1531, the Second Treaty of Kappel was concluded on the mediation of the federal states that had remained neutral.

It was stipulated that each canton could determine its own denomination.

The Abbey of St. Gallen was taken from Zürich and restored.

Above: Abbey of St. Gall, St. Gallen, Switzerland

The “Christian castle law” of the Reformed cantons repeatedly led to tensions and disputes.

After a long domination of the Catholic towns, the Reformed towns of Bern and Zürich gained the upper hand in the Swiss Confederation in 1712 in the Second Villmerger War (or Toggenburg War) (12 April – 11 August 1712).

Above: (green) Protestant cantons / (yellow) Catholic cantons / (grey) neutral cantons, 1712

Until the French Revolution, there were always new denominational disputes.

Above: The Helvetic Republic (1798 – 1803)

They also played a role in the Sonderbund War (3 – 29 November 1847), which led to the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848.

Above: Switzerland, 1847

Zürich to Kappel am Albis, Switzerland, Friday 13 March 2018

I am not a religious man, though I do respect the morality and traditions that religion tries to maintain.

I am considered by statistics as a man without religion, though I do consider myself a fairly moral man who was raised in the tenets of Christianity – my foster mother was a non-practising Baptist, my foster father was a non-practising Catholic, my foster sister and her family are fundamentalist Christians – I do not adhere to the notion that there is only one faith to follow to salvation – if there is indeed salvation at all.

My following in the footsteps of Huldrych Zwingli was far less a pilgrimage of faith as it was a pedestrian project of walking a path divided into many stages and accomplished in separate stages when time and money permitted.

I was not searching for God or holy illumination but rather I simply wished to get a sense of a historical period before my own and I felt that there was no better way to get a sense of Zwingli than to march along with his memory.

I have always preferred walking to any other method of transportation as the slowest of journeys generates the deepest experiences.

I have always held that the moment one puts wheels beneath them the journey loses its significance and the destination becomes the primary goal.

I wanted to imagine what the places I saw now appeared back then.

How did it come to this?

What did the people of yesterday think?

How did they feel?

How different were they from us?

How similar to us were they?

The Steiner book had led me in eight stages since 11 October 2017 from Wildhaus to Wollishofen in downtown Zürich.

Above: Wildhaus

Above: Wollishofen with the Uetliberg in the background

Today would be the final march that would take me from Zürich to Uetliberg, Hotel Uto Kulm, Balderen, Felsenegg, Buchenegg, Näfenhüser, Albispass, the Albis Hochwacht, Schnabellücken and Kappel am Albis.

Above: Limmat River, Zürich

Above: Uetliberg, seen from Lake Zürich

Above: Hotel Uto Kulm, Uetliberg

Above: Balderen house

Above: Felsenegg

Above: Restaurant Chusperhüsli, Buchenegg

Above: Näfenhüser

Above: Rüschlikon and Albispass

Above: Albis Hochwacht (lookout)

Above: Schnabellücken

Above: Kappel Monastery, Kappel am Albis

From the Haus zur Sul, at Kirchgasse 22, Zwingli’s official residence from 1522 to 1525, the last three years of his life, I walk from there to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Grand Central Station), to catch the Uetliberg train and the official start of this last leg of the Steiner trail.

Above: Haus zur Sul, Zürich

Above: Zürich Hauptbahnhof

The Uetliberg railway line (Uetlibergbahn) is a passenger railway line which runs from the central station in Zürich through the city’s western outskirts to the summit of the Uetliberg.

The route serves as line S10 of the Zürich S-Bahn (street railway/trams) with the Zürcher Verkehrsverband (Zürich Transport Commission)’s (ZVV) standards zonal fares applying.

The line was opened in 1875 and electrified in 1923.

In 1990 it was extended to its current terminus at Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Central Station).

Above: Zürich Hauptbahnhof

Today it is owned by the Sihltal Zürich Uetliberg Bahn, a company that also owns the Sihltal line and operates other transport services.

The line has a maximum gradient of 7.9% and is the steepest standard gauge adhesion railway in Europe.

It carries both leisure and local commuter traffic.

Above: Sihltal Zürich Uetliberg Bahn

The Uetliberg line shares a common terminus with the Sihltal line, utilising a dedicated underground island platform (tracks 21 and 22) at Zürich Hauptbahnhof.

There is no rail connection to the rest of the station, but the platform is served by the same complex of pedestrian subways and subterranean shopping malls that link the station’s other platforms.

From the Hauptbahnhof to Zürich Giesshübel station the two lines share a common twin-track line, initially in tunnel, partly running along and under the Sihl River.

Above: Giesshübel Station

Above: Sihl River near Sihlbrugg

The current Selnau station is located in this under-river tunnel section.

Above: Selnau Station

Although the two lines diverge at Giesshübel station, and the depot for Uetliberg trains is located there, Uetliberg line trains do not stop.

Just beyond Giesshübel, the line serves Zürich Binz station.

Above: Binz Station

The line then commences a long, steep but relatively straight climb through the Zurich suburbs, serving the stations of Zürich Friesenberg, Zürich Schweighof and Zürich Triemli.

Above: Friesenberg Station

Above: Schweighof Station

Above: Triemli Station

This section of line is single track, with a double track section between Binz and Friesenberg.

Triemli station is adjacent to the Triemli Hospital , one of Zürich’s main hospitals, and is the terminus for some trains on the line.

Above: Triemli Hospital

The station has two tracks and two platforms.

Beyond Triemli the line enters a more wooded and hilly environment, and executes a broad U-shaped route to the summit of Uetliberg, which is 5.9 km (3.7 mi) from Triemli by rail, but only 1.5 km (0.93 mi) away in a direct line.

Above: Uetliberg, seen from Felsenegg

This section of line serves Uitikon Waldegg and Ringlikon stations, and is single track, with double track sections between Triemli and Uitikon Waldegg, and at Ringlikon.

Above: Waldegg Station

Above: Ringlikon Station

Uetliberg station lies some 650 m (2,130 ft) from, and 56 m (184 ft) below, the summit of the Uetiberg.

The station has two terminal tracks, and a substantial station building, including a restaurant.

Above: Uetliberg Station

A refuge castle existed on the Uetliberg as early as the Bronze Age or an oppidum in Celtic times.

Various archaeological finds such as ramparts and the Prince’s grave mound Sonnenbühl can still be visited today. 

From 1644 it was the location of a high watch.

Above: Sonnenbühl

The Uetliberg and the nearby Albiskamm were the location of six castles in the Middle Ages, of which only remnants are left today: Uetliburg, Sellenbüren, Frisenberg, Baldern, Schnabelburg and Manegg.

Above: Uetliberg Castle

Above: Sellenbüren Castle ruins

Above: Old mill, Friesenberg Castle

Above: Original location of Baldern Castle

Above: Schnabelburg Castle ruins

Above: Manegg Castle

Uotelenburg was first mentioned in a document in 1210. 

In 1267 the people of Zürich allegedly destroyed the Uetliburg under Rudolf von Habsburg (1218 – 1291) in the course of the Regensberg feud (1268 – 1269), but this is not considered historically certain. 

Above: Grave slab of Rudolf von Habsburg, Speyer Cathedral, Germany

Twice (perhaps) Zwingli ascended Uetliberg in 1531 en route to battle.

That a man of the church sought bloodshed leaves me disappointed, but lives had already been lost in Zürich in the name of his religious reforms.

Above: Zwingli Monument, Wasserkirche, Zürich

In 1750 the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724 – 1803) climbed the mountain.

He too would cause others to doubt his religious convictions.

Above: Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock grew up as the eldest of 17 children in a pietistic family. 

His father, Gottlieb Heinrich, the son of a lawyer, was a commissioner and had leased the estate of Friedeburg, so that Friedrich Gottlieb spent his childhood here from 1732 until the lease was given up in 1736. 

Above: Klopstock birthplace, Quedlinburg, Germany

His mother Anna Maria had the Bad Langensalza council chamberlain and merchant Johann Christoph Schmidt (1659 – 1711) as a father.

Above: Anna Maria Klopstock (née Schmidt)

After attending the Quedlinburg grammar school, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock came to the Fürstenschule in Schulpforte at the age of 15 , where he received a thorough humanistic education. 

Above: Pforta State School (Fürstenschule), Schulpforte, Germany

Above: Klopstock Memorial Stone, Pforta School

Klopstock read the Greek and Latin classics: Homer, Pindar, Virgil and Horace. 

Above: Bust of Homer, Glyptothek, Munich, Germany

Above: Replica of Pindar (522 – 446 BCE), Capitoline Museum, Rome, Italy

Above: Representation of Virgil (70 – 19 BCE), Monnus Mosaic, Trier, Germany

Here he also made his first own poetic attempts and wrote a first plan for the Messiah, a religious epic.

In 1745 he began studying Protestant theology in Jena, where he also wrote the first three chants of the Messiah, which he initially laid out in prose. 

After moving to Leipzig, the work was reworked in hexameters the following year. 

The appearance of the first parts in the articles in Bremen in 1748 caused a sensation and became the model for the Messiad literature of its era. 

In Leipzig, Klopstock also created the first odes. 

Above: Messiah, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

After completing his theology studies, he took a private tutor in Langensalza (according to the custom of all theology candidates). 

During the two years of his stay in Bad Langensalza, Klopstock experienced the passionate love for the girl Maria-Sophia Schmidt, the intoxication of hope, the despair of disappointment, and finally the elegy of renunciation. 

Above: Old quarter, Bad Langensalza, Germany

This led to, during these two years, his composing the most beautiful of his earlier odes for the unapproachable lover.

The publication of the odes sparked a storm of enthusiasm among opponents of the “reasonable” poetics of Johann Christoph Gottsched, which had prevailed up until then. 

Above: German writer, “the literary pope“, Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700 – 1776)

It was the hour of birth of pure poetry.

Above: Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Contacts were made with Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698 – 1783), who invited Klopstock to Zürich in 1750.

Above: Swiss philologist Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698 – 1783)

Klostock gladly accepted the invitation from Bodmer, the Swiss translator of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Klopstock was initially treated with every kindness and respect and rapidly recovered his spirits.

Above: English writer John Milton (1608 – 1674)

Bodmer, however, was disappointed to find in the young poet of the Messiah a man of strong worldly interests, and a coolness sprang up between the two men.

After eight months, Klopstock went at the invitation of King Frederick V of Denmark (1723 – 1766). 

With Friedrich’s support he was able to complete his work. 

This granted him a life pension of 400 (later 800) thalers a year. 

He spent three years of his life in Denmark.

Above: King Frederick V of Denmark and Norway (1723 – 1766)

On 10 June 1754, Klopstock married Margreta (Meta) Moller (1728 – 1758), whom he met in Hamburg in 1751 while traveling to Copenhagen. 

She died of a stillbirth on 28 November 1758. 

For thirty years Klopstock could not forget her and sang about her in his elegies. 

Above: Margareta “Meta” Klopstock (née Moller) (1728 – 1758)

It was not until old age (1791) that he married Johanna Elisabeth Dimpfel von Winthem (1747-1821), a niece of Meta Moller.

Above: Johanna Elisabeth von Winthem

From 1759 to 1762 Klopstock lived in Quedlinburg, Braunschweig and Halberstadt, then travelled to Copenhagen, where he stayed until 1771 and exerted a great influence on the cultural life in Denmark. 

Above: Quedlinburg, Germany

Above: Braunschweig, Germany

Above: Halberstadt Cathedral, Halberstadt, Germany

Above: Images of Copenhagen, Denmark

In addition to the Messiah, which finally appeared in full in 1773, he wrote dramas, including Hermanns Schlacht (Herman’s Battle) (1769). 

He then returned to Hamburg. 

Above: St. Michaelis Church, Hamburg, Germany

In 1776, he moved temporarily to Karlsruhe at the invitation of Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden (1728 – 1811). 

Above: The statue of Karl Friedrich von Baden, Karlsruhe Castle, Karlsruhe, Germany

Above: Karl Friedrich von Baden

After his death on 14 March 1803 at the age of 78, Klopstock was buried on 22 March 1803 with great public sympathy in the church cemetery in Ottensen.

Above: Klopstock Grave, Ottensen, Hamburg, Germany

Above: Klopstock’s grave under the linden tree, Ottensen bei Altona

In Quedlinburg, the Klopstockhaus provides information about the poet. 

Above: Klopstockhaus, Quedlinburg, Germany

Above: Klopstock Memorial, Brühl Park, Quedlinburg, Germany

In 1831, a memorial was inaugurated in the local park in Brühl.

Above: Brühl Park, south of Quedlinburg

As a father of the German nation-state idea, Klopstock was a proponent of the French Revolution, which he described in the 1789 poem Know Yourself as the “noblest deed of the century”. 

Klopstock also called on the Germans for a revolution. 

In 1792, the French National Assembly accepted him as an honorary citizen.

Later, however, he castigated the excesses of the revolution in the 1793 poem The Jacobins.

Here he criticized the Jacobin regime, which had emerged from the French Revolution, as a snake that winds through all of France.

Above: Jacobin hat, Army History Museum, Vienna, Austria

Above: Jacobin Club session, January 1792

Klopstock’s enlightened utopia The German Republic of Scholars (1774) is a concept that installs an educated elite in power for the princely rule, which is regarded as incapable of governing. 

The republic is to be ruled by “aldermen“, “guilds” and “the people“, whereby the former – as the most learned – should have the greatest powers, and guilds and people accordingly less. 

The “rabble”, on the other hand, would only get a “shouter” in the state parliament, because Klopstock did not trust the people to have popular sovereignty. 

Education is the highest good in this republic and qualifies its bearer for higher offices. 

This republic would do extremely well in accordance with the learned approach and would be pacifistic too:

Klopstock estimates sniffing, scornful laughter and frowning as punishments between the scholars. 

This made special demands on the executors:

“Whoever wants to become one of them must have two main characteristics, namely a great skill in being very expressive, and then a very special larval face, whereby the size and shape of the nose come into consideration. 

In addition to this, the scornful laugher must have a very strong and at the same time rough voice. 

It is customary to release Schreyer from being expelled from the country and to raise him to a sneer if his nose has the necessary properties for this task.” 

Klopstock’s conception of Heaven, shaped by the scientific achievements of NIcolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) and Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), is not that of an ancient sky at rest in itself, whose stars are gods and heroes. 

Its celestial sphere is rather a world harmony, a rhythm and symmetry of the spheres. 

Above: Polish scientist Nikolaus Kopernikus (1473 – 1543)

Above: German mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630)

So it says in the first song of the Messiah:

In the middle of this gathering of the suns the sky rises,
round, immeasurable, the archetype of the worlds, the abundance of
all visible beauty, which, like fleeting brooks,
pours out, imitating it through the infinite space.
So, under the Eternal, it revolves around itself.

While he is walking,
the spherical harmonies resound from him, on the wings of the wind, to the shores of the suns
high. The songs of the divine harpists
resound with power, as if animating. These agreed tones lead the
immortal hearer past many a high praise song.

Above: Kepler’s Platonic model of the Solar System

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) will take up this picture again in Faust. 

The “Prologue in Heaven” begins like this:

The sun resounds in the old fashion
in the fraternal song of contests,
And its prescribed journey
completes it with a thunderous walk.

Above: German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Above: Faust in his study, by Georg Friedrich Kersting

Klopstock gave the German language new impulses and can be seen as a trailblazer for the generation that followed him. 

He was the first to use hexameter in German poetry with his Messiah, and his examination of the “German hexameter“, as he called it, led him to his doctrine of the word foot (the smallest rhythmic unit. 

This paved the way for free rhythms such as those used by Goethe and Friedrich Hölderlin (1770 – 1843) for example. 

Above: German poet Friedrich Hölderlin

Klopstock also fought against the strict use of rhyme according to the Martin Opitz (1597 – 1639) school. 

Opitz’s aim was to elevate German poetry on the basis of humanism and ancient forms to an art object of the highest order, and he succeeded in creating a new kind of poetics. 

In his commemorative speech on the 100th anniversary of Opitz’s death in 1739, Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700 – 1766) called him the first who had succeeded in bringing the German language to a level that met all the demands of sophisticated diction and eliminated everyday language, which allowed him to advance of the French. 

With his reflections on language, style and verse art, Opitz gave German poetry a formal basis. In doing so, he drew up various laws that served as guidelines and standards for all German poetry for over a century:

• He demanded strict observance of the meter, taking into account the natural word accent.
• He rejected impure rhymes. (Probably rejected dirty limericks, too!)
• He forbade word abbreviations and contractions.
• He also excluded foreign words.

Opitz’s aesthetic principles included the Horace (65 – 8 BCE) Principle:

“Poetry, while it is pleasurable, must be useful and instructive at the same time.” 

Above: German poet Martin Opitz

Klopstock gave the poet’s profession a new dignity by exemplifying the artistic autonomy of the poet, and thus freed poetry from didactic poems. 

Klopstock is considered to be the founder of experiential poetry and German irrationalism. 

His work extended over large parts of the age of the Enlightenment. 

Unlike most Enlighteners, however, he was not committed to reason, but to sensitivity. 

In 1779 he coined the term inwardness, which he called one of nine elements of poetic representation:

“Inwardness, or highlighting the actual innermost nature of the thing.” 

Furthermore, he is considered an important pioneer for the movement of Sturm und Drang – literally “storm and desire”, though usually translated as “storm and stress“, where individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression.

Above: Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, an example of “Sturm und Drang“

In The Sorrows of Young Werther, Klopstock’s effect is felt in the writing of Goethe:

“We went to the window, it thundered to the side and the wonderful rain rustled on the land, and the most refreshing fragrance rose to us in the fullness of warm air. 

She stood on her elbow and her eyes penetrated the area, she looked up at the sky and at me, I saw her eyes full of tears, she put her hand on mine and said – “Klopstock!” 

I sank into the stream of sensations which she poured out on me in this loosing. 

I could not stand, leaned on her hand and kissed it with the most delightful tears. 

And looked at her eye again –

Noble! 

You would have seen your admiration in this look, and now I would never hear your name, which has so often been desecrated, mentioned again.“

In spite of all this, the young Lessing registers:

“Who will not praise a Klopstock?
But will everyone read it? – No!
We want to be less exalted
and read more diligently.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

Above: Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther

Klopstock reminds me of Zwingli.

Both strong men, both well-educated, both advocating radical change.

In 1812 the Uetliberg watch was erected.

Above: Lookout Tower, Uetliberg

Above: The view from Uetliberg

The Alt Uetliberg is a small farm west below the former Annaburg. 

Mentioned in a document 400 years ago and probably much older, the mountain home is a witness of old farming culture on the Uetliberg. 

In 1984 the canton of Zürich wanted to demolish the building. 

A petition successfully opposed this. 

Today the buildings serve as a scout home. 

Above: Alt Üetliberg

A wooden ski jump was built in 1954 south of the Alt Uetliberg farmhouse . 

A hill record of 41.5 meters was achieved in the 1970s. 

Due to the frequent lack of snow and decreasing public interest, the ski jump was demolished in 1994.

Above: Ski jump, Uetliberg

During the Second World War, the Uetliberg and Waldegg area was fortified with over 100 bunkered shelters as part of the first army position.

Above: Waldegg tank trench

In 1815 an inn opened in the former Hochwacht.

In 1838 Friedlich Bluntschli acquired the summit area from his cousin Gerber Bluntschli

The Zürich architect Johann Caspar Breitinger built the first spa house for Friedlich Bluntschli. 

In 1840 Friedrich Beyel opened the Uetliberg guest house and spa. 

Above: Hotel Uto Kulm, Uetliberg

Friedrich von Dürler was the son of Xaver von Dürler, a businessman from Lucerne, and Barbara Gossweiler from Zurich. 

Above: Friedrich von Dürler (1804 – 1840)

After the early death of his father, he trained as a businessman, but soon gave up the profession to devote himself to archeology and gymnastics. 

He was close friends with Ferdinand Keller, the founder of the Antiquarian Society of Zürich, and as treasurer of the association took part in excavations on the Lindenhof in Zurich and the Uetliberg. 

Above: Swiss archaeologist Ferdinand Keller (1800 – 1881)

Together with the theologian Alexander Schweizer, Dürler was one of the early promoters of gymnastics based on the ideas of the father of German gymnastics Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. 

Above: German educator Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778 – 1852)

From 1836 the bachelor served as secretary for the Zurich poor relief. 

In September 1838 Dürler became a member of the Swiss Society for Natural Research.

On 19 August 1837, he had the chamois hunters and mountain farmers Bernhard and Gabriel Vögeli and Thomas Thut from Linthal take him up to the Glarner Tödi to prove their first ascent of the peak from the north on 11 August 1837.

Dürler is still honored today with a plaque in Linthal.

Above: Tödi Mountain, Canton Glarus, Switzerland

Dürler and friends climbed the Uetliberg, where the first restaurant had just opened. 

On 8 March 1840, this mountaineer, naturalist and Zürich secretary for the poor, Friedrich von Dürler (1804 – 1840) fell to his death after visiting the inn while descending. 

On the basis of a bet, he slipped down a steep gully on his alpine stick, fell over a rock and died. 

The friends erected a memorial stone with a plaque on the ridge east of today’s Uto Staffel Restaurant, the Dürlerstein.

Inscription:

Here
Friedrich von Dürler fell down and died on
March 8th MDCCCXL
Mourning friends
set this stone for him

Above: The Dürler Stone, Uetliberg

In 1873 the hotelier Caspar Fürst bought the mountain inn.

The existing house was enlarged and a hotel was built to the north of it. 

In 1927 the Uetliberg Hotel was taken over by the City of Zürich and the ETH Zürich-Lehrwald (teaching forest) was established. 

Above: Logo of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

In 1935 the Niedermann brothers, both major butchers in Zürich, bought the hotel. 

In 1943 it was closed. 

In 1973 the hotel came into the possession of the general contractor Karl Steiner. 

In 1983 the Swiss Bank Corporation bought the Uto Kulm mountain inn.

In 1999 Giusep Fry bought the hotel with a lookout tower. 

He subsequently carried out various modifications that were declared illegal by the Federal Supreme Court.

Tourist development began in the 19th century with the Uetlibergbahn (opened in 1875) and the construction of various hotels and guest houses on the Uetliberg and the Albis chain. 

Today the traditional Hotel Uto Kulm and the Uetliberg observation tower, open to the public all year round, stand on the summit of the Uetliberg.

Above: Hotel Uto Kulm and observation tower, Uetliberg

Car-free Üetliberg is accessed by the S10 line of the Sihital-Zürich-Uetliberg Bahn, which is part of the Zurich S-Bahn network, is Europe’s steepest standard-gauge adhesion railway, running from Zürich Main Station to the Uetliberg station – a ten-minute walk below the summit. 

Above: Uetliberg, by Hans Leu the Elder

From the train station, the Uetliberg – Felsenegg Planet Path leads to Felsenegg, where the Adliswil – Felsenegg aerial cableway leads down to Adliswil.

Various hiking trails lead from the city of Zurich to the summit in around an hour:

• The varied Denzlerweg leads from Albisguetli (tram line 13 terminus) in a fairly straight direction to the summit. It is named after a baker Denzler who is said to have brought his rolls to the Hotel on the summit every morning on this route and is said to have made this route about 4,000 times.

Above: The Denzler Path

• Also from Albisgüetli, the Laternenweg leads a little further west onto the ridge. It takes its name from its earlier gas lantern lighting, which has been electrified since 2003.

Above: Lantern Path in winter

• From Triemli (tram line 14 terminus) the Hohensteinweg leads up a mountain shoulder, which is particularly popular as a toboggan run in winter.

Above: The High Stone Path

• A forest road leads from Uitikon-Waldegg (parking lot) to the summit. This path has the least incline.

The Uetliberg is particularly popular in winter, as its summit is often above the Zürich fog. 

In the past, in such inversion weather conditions, the tram lines that go to the foot of the Uetliberg carried the sign “Uetliberg hell”. 

In winter, some of the hiking trails are used as toboggan runs.

Swisscom operates an important telecommunications system on the Uetliberg (the Uetliberg television tower) for the transmission of radio and television programs.

The Uetliberg offers – especially from the Uetliberg observation tower on the mountain top – a view of the entire city and Lake Zürich. 

When the weather is good, the view extends to the north as far as Hohentwiel, and from east to south to Glarus, Graubünden and the Bernese Alps. 

Other mountain ranges in Germany (the Black Forest / Schwarzwald), France (Vosges) and Austria can also be seen.

Above: Uetliberg

The Felsenegg (810m) is a lookout point on the Albis chain and the mountain station of the Adliswil – Felsenegg aerial cableway southwest of Zürich.

The Albis is one of the most important local recreation and hiking areas in the greater Zürich area. 

Via the Felsenegg, the hiking trail from Uetliberg leads along the Albis ridge in an easterly direction to the Albis Pass, starting with the Uetliberg – Felsenegg Planet Trail. 

Above: Felsenegg

The Uetliberg – Felsenegg Planet Trail is a hiking trail in the canton of Zürich on the Albis. 

The path leads from the Uetliberg railway station of the Uetlibergbahn to Staffel, Annaburg, above the Fallätsche via Mädikon to the Felsenegg station of the Adliswil – Felsenegg aerial cableway, via Felsenegg to Buchenegg. 

The duration of the hike is around two hours.

The trail was designed by Arnold von Rotz and opened on 26 April 1979. 

The patronage was taken over by the Astronomical Society Urania Zürich.

Above: Urania Observatory, Zürich

The path is laid out on a scale of 1:1 billion and thus offers a clear representation of the sizes and distances in the solar system. 

One meter of the model corresponds to one million kilometers in reality. 

The planetary path includes not only the Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, planets Mercury, but also the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto.

Above: Representation of the Solar System – We are the third rock from the Sun.

The planet models are attached to boulders on the Linth or Reuss glacier along the way. 

Above: Reuss glacier boulder with model of Jupiter

The smaller planet models were poured into glass and set into a niche in the boulder, the larger ones attached to the top of the boulder. 

Above: Venus model in a Malmkalk boulder

A board on each planet provides information about its position in the solar system and additional information, such as equatorial diameter, rotational speed, orbital speed, orbit circumference, and the like. 

As a model of the sun, a yellow sphere with a diameter of 1.39 meters was attached to a pole, which can be seen clearly from the first planetary models .

Above: Sun model with two Reuss glacier boulders

Dwarf planet Pluto is represented with three stations because of its strongly elliptical orbit:

Above: Pluto

The first position corresponds to the perihelion, while it lies ahead of Neptune. 

Above: Model of Neptune with view of Uetliberg

The second position at Felsenegg corresponds to the mean distance and the third station near Buchenegg corresponds to the aphelion.

The next star, Proxima Centauri, would be around 40,113 kilometers away on the same scale.

Above: Proxima Centauri, as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope

(For comparison: the circumference of the Earth is around 40,030 kilometers).

Above: Earth

A steep forest path built between 1908 and 1912 leads from Adliswil up to Felsenegg.

Above: Uetliberg

Adliswil is located in the lower Sihl valley between Albis and Zimmerberg on the border with the city of Zürich. 

The forest covers a third of the municipal area, the settlement area and traffic almost half, 20% are still used for agriculture.

The graves from the early Middle Ages, which were found in the Grüt near the border with the city of Zurich, give evidence of settlements. 

The slopes of Zimmerberg and Albis were settled first, as the valley floor along the Sihl was repeatedly endangered by floods.

Above: Adliswil and the Sihl Valley

A bridge over the Sihl has been documented since 1475. 

The first mill with a weir (dam) is also mentioned in the 15th century. 

The manorial power lay with the Grossmünster and Frauminister of Zürich, as well as the monasteries of Muri and Rüti, and passed to the city of Zürich in 1406.

Above: Grossmünster, Zürich

Above: Fraumünster, Zürich

Above: Müri Monastery

Above: Rüti Monastery before the fire of 1706

From 1942 to 1945, the second largest internment camp in Switzerland, which was set up as a result of the German occupation of southern France, was located in Adliswil. 

It was housed in the rooms of a disused mechanical silk weaving mill. 

In particular, German Jews who had previously found refuge in southern France tried to escape to Switzerland afterwards. 

The transit camp, which, despite its size, was little known among the population because it was shielded by the military, offered space for around 500 people. 

Above: Adliswil Internment Camp buildings

Above: Refugees, Adliswil Internment Camp, 1945

Above: Refugees, Adliswil Internment Camp, 1945

Above: Refugees, Adliswil Internment Camp, 1945

Above: Dorm quarters, Adliswil Internment Camp, 1945

Above: Refugees, Adliswil Internment Camp, 1945

The community experienced a strong growth spurt in the 19th century through industrialization, during which a large spinning company, the Mechanische Seidenweberei Adliswil (MSA), was built. 

Above: The Mechanical Silk Manufacturing Company, Adliswil

The village was also home to the chocolate manufacturer Norma, which later became part of the Cima – Norma SA company in Dangio – Torre.

Above: Buildings of Cima-Norma SA, Dangio-Torre, Canton Ticino, Switzerland

Today many of the residents work in Zürich. 

The majority of the resident companies operate in the tertiary sector. 

In particular, insurance companies (Generali, Swiss Reinsurance Company) have located part of their administration in Adliswil. 

The Liechtenstein tool manufacturer Hilti has its Swiss headquarters in Adliswil. 

A total of around 5,000 people in all sectors work in Adliswil.

Above: Coat of arms of Adliswil

Some personalities of Adliswil:

• Stefan Bachmann is a Swiss-American author of novels and short stories.

Above: Stefan Bachmann

His debut novel The Peculiar was published in 2012.

Bachmann was born in Colorado, but soon moved with his family to Adliswil. 

He was home schooled by his American mother and four siblings through high school. 

Above: Adliswil

He attended the Zürich Conservatory since he was 11, and then the Zürich University of the Arts, where he studied organ and composition. 

His first novel was published when he was 19 years old. 

He writes his books in English.

The Peculiar is about the opening of a portal to the fairy world, as a result of which a multitude of magical creatures come into the human world. 

Since the portal closed, the fairies and elves have been prevented from returning and have to live side by side with the humans. 

Children of a human and a fairy are called “the Peculiar” and are especially outlawed as crossbreeds on both sides.

Bartholomew and his little sister Henrietta “Hettie” Kettle are mixed race whose fairy father has left the family. 

They live with their mother on Krähengasse in Bath and are almost never allowed to leave the house, as very few people shy away from killing “mixed race children”. 

One day Bartholomew observes a lady in a plum-colored dress from the window of a secret attic room who is picking up another mongrel boy from the neighbors. 

When Bartholomew follows her, he is magically wrapped in feathers and taken into a distant, noble room, which he leaves shortly afterwards in the same way.

Arthur Jelliby is a parliamentarian and member of the Council of State in London, which also includes a fairy elite. 

For some time now, mongrels have been mysteriously disappearing and then found dead, which most of the Members of Parliament don’t care much. 

When Jelliby is invited to the fairy attorney general Lickerish, he gets lost in his house in a corridor and is tracked down by Lickerish’s fairy butler, who suspects him to have spied. 

By chance, Jelliby overhears Lickerish in an office and comes across a diabolical plan to open the portal to the fairy world in order to deliver England to the fairies. 

To do this, Lickerish needs a certain mixed-race child that the lady in the plum-colored dress named Melusine is supposed to get for him. 

In the meantime, Bartholomew has tried to conjure up a house ghost and instead leads Lickerish’s henchmen to him, who kidnap Hettie. 

At the same time, Jelliby arrives in Crow Alley and comes across Bartholomew, who is desperately looking for his sister. 

Together they make their way to the fairy market to get weapons for defense, and then to a lonely place in the forest where an old fairy lives in a trailer and tells them about Lickerish’s plans. 

He wants to invade all magical beings from the fairy world to England in order to subdue people and to rule over them.

Bartholomew and Jelliby travel back to London, where they locate an old warehouse with access to an airship over the city. 

That is where Lickerish is holding Hettie. 

He is responsible for the disappearance and death of the other mixed race children because he was looking for the right one. 

Hettie is the portal to the fairy world and is supposed to open it that night. 

When it happens, Bartholomew and Jelliby join them. 

They want to prevent the portal from opening, but fail, and Hettie disappears into the fairy world together with the fairy butler. 

The story ends with Bartholomew’s decision to bring Hettie home at all costs.

Bachmann wrote The Peculiar in English at the age of 16, inspired by The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, among others. 

Above: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

According to his own information, he needed six months for the first version with 400 pages, plus another six months for the revision. 

Above: Bachmann at the time of the publishing of The Peculiar

An agent sent the manuscript to US publisher Harper Collins, who published it on 18 September 2012. 

According to some media reports, the novel quickly became a bestseller in the US, which also led to the film industry’s interest in film rights. 

Along with the publication, a book trailer was produced, the musical accompaniment of which was composed by Bachmann himself. 

A reading tour through the USA and a blog tour through Asia followed in 2013 and brought the author an income in the six-figure range. 

The book has been translated into seven languages, including Czech, Polish, and Spanish. 

The German translation was published on 26 February 2014 by the Swiss Diogenes Verlag.

Both the press, as well as representatives of fantasy literature judged The Peculiar mainly positive. 

The New York Times wrote in September 2012 that The Peculiar was “a story young fantasy buffs are sure to enjoy”.

The Los Angeles Times wrote “Bachmann’s prose is so elegantly witty.”

Publishers Weekly described the novel as “limitless reading pleasure for readers of all ages.” 

Christopher Paolini, author of the fantasy series Eragon, praised the book as “swift, strong and entertaining, highly recommanded”.

Above: Christopher Paolini

Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan said:

“Stefan Bachmann breathes fresh life into ancient magic.”

Above: Rick Riordan

• Margrit Baur (1937 – 2017) was a Swiss writer and secretary.

She was born and raised in Adliswil.

After teachers’ college, she attended a drama school in Vienna, where she also appeared in small theatres for a few years after completing her training.

Back in Switzerland, she worked in various “bread and butter” jobs in order to be able to devote herself freely to writing.

She brought up this juxtaposition of professional life and “real” life above all in Survival (1981) and Downtime(1983)

Baur lived in Gattikon near Zürich until 2017.

Above: Margrit Baur

• Franz Fassbind (1919 – 2003) was a Swiss writer, playwright and journalist.

Franz Fassbind was the son of photographer and small publisher Bernardin Fassbind (1887 – 1954) and Lina Fassbind-Marty (1884 – 1931) in Unteriberg in the canton of Schwyz. 

Above: Unteriberg

He grew up in poor conditions, first in the Engadine, then in Zürich’s industrial district and in Wipkingen. 

Above: The course of the Inn River – Within Swiss territory the Inn (En) River Valley is called the Engadine.

Above: Zürich’s Industrial Quarter

Above: Wipkingen

Later he attended the collegiate school of Einsiedeln Monastery and the Jesuit college in Feldkirch. 

Above: Einsiedeln Monastery

Above: The former Jesuit college, Stella Matutina (today: the Vorarlberg State Conservatory), Feldkirch, Austria

During these years Franz Fassbind wrote his first poems and small compositions. 

After dropping out of high school, he studied music at the Zürich Conservatory from 1936 and German studies at the University of Zürich. 

Above: The Zürich Conservatory (today: Zürich University of the Arts)

Without ever finishing a degree, he worked as a freelance journalist, writer and composer. 

His first poems were published in 1936, Radio Beromünster broadcast his first radio play at Christmas 1938, and his first novel was published three years later.

Above: Landesender Beromünster, home of Radio Beromünster, Gunzwil, Canton Luzern, Switzerland

Franz Fassbind became known primarily for his work for Swiss Radio. 

His radio plays and features had a formative effect on the medium from 1938 to 1974. 

Just as important was the series of programs he initiated, “The International Forum”, in which he allowed well-known scientists to have their say. 

His radio reviews in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung found a wide readership. 

His journalistic work is also an expression of the spiritual defense movement.

Above: Logo for Swiss Radio

(The spiritual defense movement is the cross-party strengthening of values ​​and customs perceived as “Swiss” in order to ward off totalitarian ideologies. 

At first it was directed primarily against National Socialism (Nazism) and Facism, later during the Cold War against Communism. 

Even when intellectual national defense was no longer actively pursued by the authorities, the cultural, anti-totalitarian values ​​remained in effect.

Swiss politicians still use the terms and metaphors of intellectual national defense today.) 

Above: Marble sculpture Readiness for military service, Ramisstrasse, Zürich

In the Dramaturgy of the Radio Play published in 1943 , he also reflected on his radio work theoretically.

In 1956 he turned to the medium of film. 

For The Art of the Etruscans he provided both the script and the music. 

The work earned him the 1st Film Prize of the City of Zürich. 

From 1948 Fassbind’s main poetic work, Die Hohe Messe (The High Mass), was published in demanding terzins – an Italian rhyming scheme wherein each stanza consists of three verses – based on Dante. 

There, as in his novels from the post war period, the focus is on dealing with Catholicism in today’s world.

Above: Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321)

Fassbind married Gertrud Schmucki in 1941. 

Their only child, a daughter, Ursula was born in 1943. 

The family lived in Adliswil near Zürich, where Franz Fassbind died on 9 July 2003 at the age of 84.

Peter Wild published an edition of his work at Walter Verlag in Olten.

Above: Fassbind’s Zeitloses Leben (Timeless Life)

• Hannes Gruber (1928 – 2016) was a Swiss painter.

Above: Hannes Gruber

Hannes Gruber was the second son of Paul and Erna Gruber-Hartmann. 

He spent his youth and school days in Oberrieden on Lake Zürich. 

Above: Oberrieden

In 1943 – 1944 he attended the Zürich School of Applied Arts (1883 – 2007). 

From 1944 to 1948 he did an apprenticeship with Swiss bookseller Orell Füssli in Zürich, at the same time he attended courses in the painting at the Zürich School of Applied Arts. 

After moving to Grevasalvas in the Upper Engadine (1948) he worked there as a freelance painter. 

In 1953 his son Stefan (now known as filmmaker Steff Gruber) was born. 

Above: Grevasalvas, Upper Engadine

After returning to Zürich (1954), Hannes Gruber opened his own graphic studio. 

In 1957 his daughter Ursina was born. 

In 1968 his daughter Sandrina was born. 

Above: Hannes Gruber painting

The next year Gruber opened a studio on the Hirzel, a Swiss pass in the foothills of cantons Zürich and Zug, between Wadenswil and Sihlbrugg. 

Above: Hirzelpass

In 1972 he moved to the Engadin again, this time to Sils Baselgia. 

Above: The towns of Sils Maria (left) and Sils Baselgia (right)

He moved into a studio in Bondo. 

Above: Bondo

Gruber made his first painting trip to Northern Italy in 1949. 

Above: Flag of Italy

A study trip took him to the Netherlands in 1950 and another painting trip to Denmark in 1952. 

Above: Flag of the Netherlands

Above: Flag of Denmark

He made further trips to Italy (1958) to Bergamo and Verona, then to Sicily (1966) and Tuscany (1967). 

Above: Bergamo, Italy

Above: Images of Verona, Italy

Above: Flag of Sicily

Above: Flag of Tuscany (Toscana)

A summer stay in Spain (1969) earned him a commission for several wall paintings on a building on Ibiza. 

Above: Mediterranean Spanish island of Ibiza

He travelled to New York in 1974.

Above: Images of New York City

 

Another summer stay in Italy took place in 1977..

Above: Emblem of Italy

His first watercolours of landscapes from the area around Oberrieden were created in 1940.

He painted in oil for the first time in 1942.

Above: Oberrieden 

Above: Oberrieden, by Hannes Gruber

In 1950 he received an order for large murals for the Olma – the annual agricultural fair in St. Gallen. 

Above: OLMA (Swiss Fair for Agriculture and Food) halls, St. Gallen

In 1966 he illustrated an edition of Tristan by Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955). 

In 1971 he was commissioned with a three-dimensional wall design in the Fuhr schoolhouse in Wädenswil.

Above: Fuhr Schulhaus, Wadenswil

• Peter Holenstein (1946 – 2019) was a Swiss journalist and author.

Above: Peter Holenstein

In his journalistic work, for example in the Swiss weekly magazine Weltwoche, Peter Holenstein dealt in particular with topics relating to criminal justice and crime, the perpetrator-victim problem and the causes of violent crimes. 

His book The Incredible: The Murderous Life of Werner Ferrari in 2007 led to a review of the child murder case of Ruth Steinmann at the Baden District Court, which ended in Ferrari’s acquittal. 

Werner Ferrari is a Swiss serial killer. 

As a five-time child murderer, he is one of the most famous prison inmates in Switzerland. 

For example, he kidnapped or lured children away from public festivals, abused some of the victims and strangled them.

Ferrari grew up in various children’s and youth homes and was considered an introvert. 

He performed various jobs as an unskilled worker.

In 1971 Ferrari committed his first infanticide:

In Reinach (BL), he murdered 10-year-old Daniel Schwan. 

Above: Daniel Schwan (1961 – 1971)

Ferrari was sentenced to ten years in prison and released early after eight years in prison from the Zürich prison in Regensdorf.

Above: Regensdorf Prison

Between 1980 and 1989, 21 children disappeared in Switzerland, 14 of whom were found abused and murdered. 

Seven children, including Peter Roth (8) from Mogelsberg (SG), Sarah Oberson (5) from Saxon (VS), and Edith Trittenbass (9) from Gass-Wetzikon (TG), are still missing today despite intensive searches. 

Above: Peter Roth

Above: Edith Trittenbass

On 30 August 1989, four days after Fabienne Imhof’s murder, Werner Ferrari called the police – and stated that he had nothing to do with her death. 

Above: Fabienne Imhof

Shortly afterwards he was arrested in his apartment in Olten, and he made confessions in four cases. 

Above: Olten

Ferrari vehemently denied the murder of 12-year-old Ruth Steinmann, who was found on 16 May 1980 in a wooded area near Würenlos (AG).

In 1995 Ferrari was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Baden District Court for fivefold murder, including for the crime committed against Ruth Steinmann. 

Seven years later, research by journalist and book author Peter Holenstein discovered evidence that Ferrari could not be responsible for the murder of Ruth Steinmann. 

Among other things, a DNA analysis initiated by the journalist revealed that a pubic hair that could be secured on Ruth Steinmann’s corpse did not come from Ferrari.

On the basis of Holenstein’s research, the higher court of the canton of Aargau overturned the judgment against Ferrari in the Ruth Steinmann case in 2004 and referred it back to the Baden District Court for reassessment. 

As a result, a suspect on Ruth Steinmann was exhumed in March 1983 in Wolfhalden (AG) who had committed suicide. 

A dental report from the Scientific Service of the Zürich City Police showed that the bite marks on the girl’s body were definitely not from Ferrari, but from the man who died in 1983 and who looked very similar to Ferrari. 

In a national appeal, Werner Ferrari was found innocent on 10 April 2007 by the Baden District Court for the murder of Ruth Steinmann and acquitted of this crime. 

However, he remains detained for the other four cases.

Above: Ruth Steinmann (1968 – 1980)

As early as 1979, Holenstein succeeded in resolving a murder case in Italy with his research:

After he was able to convict the right perpetrator and he made a confession, the 46-year-old Swiss Werner Rudolf Meier was declared innocent in Elba Prison after 24 years served and was pardoned by Italy’s President Sandro Pertini. 

Above: Sandro Pertini (1896 – 1990), 7th Italian President (1978 – 1985)

From Dominique Strebel and  Christoph Schilling, Beobachter, 28 December 2006

The fortnightly Swiss magazine Beobachter (The Observer) reveals grievances where state arbitrariness is worst: in educational, reformatory or penal institutions. 

Everywhere where the individual is exposed to state power without protection. 

And this is most glaringly shown in the case of errors of justice, to which the Beobachter repeatedly points out.

Take the case of the Zürich furniture maker Werner Rudolf Meier, who was imprisoned in Italy for 24 years – for a murder that he demonstrably did not commit. 

Only when the journalist Peter Holenstein researched meticulously did the matter move. 

Holenstein convicted the real murderer, who made a full confession. 

A revision procedure failed, because the court declared the confessing perpetrator to be insane. 

Holenstein continued to write about the case until Federal Councilors Willi Ritschard and Pierre Aubert spoke directly to the Italian President Sandro Pertini on behalf of Meier. 

He was finally released in 1979. 

“Without the Beobachter, this would not have been possible,” said Holenstein.

“It played a decisive role in putting pressure on us.” 

Meier was not acquitted, but pardoned. 

Therefore, he did not receive any compensation for unlawful detention. 

Even now, the Beobachter does not let Meier fall and “participates in the necessary health, professional and human integration efforts with advice and action”.

Above: Logo of the Beobachter (Observer)

In 2001, Holenstein was awarded the German Regino Prize for the best judicial report of the year for Der Verdacht (The Suspicion), published in the magazine Tages-Anzeiger (Daily Indicator). 

Above: Logo of Das Magazin (formerly Tages-Anzeiger)

Peter Holenstein was a member of the Swiss Working Group for Criminology (SAK) and the Swiss Criminological Society (SKG / SSDP). 

At the age of 72, he died in Zürich in January 2019 as a result of a heart attack.

• Pjotr ​​Kraska, actually Peter Johannes Kraska, also known as Kraska rex (1946 – 2016) was a Swiss action artist, writer, visual artist, critic of the authorities and a Zürich original.

Above: Pjotr Kraska

In the late 60s he appeared, sometimes together with Dieter Meier, in experimental theatre and in avant-garde shows that startled the bourgeoisie at the time. 

Above: Dieter Meier

His book, The Big Throw, reflects on speaking and writing. 

One poem (1978/79) was partly enthusiastically discussed. 

In 1980 he declared himself “King of Zürich and Bilbao, ruler of the Zen and A-centric empires” and from then on fought a bitter but unsuccessful dispute over free travel on the Zürich public transport network (ZVV).

Above: Kraska’s “Triumphal Arch Card” for the entire transport network in the canton of Zürich

Above: ZVV logo

Kraska, the son of East Prussian parents, grew up as the third of four children in Oberleimbach (Adliswil). 

Above: Adliswil

After leaving school, he attended the Appenzell-Ausserrhoden (AR) cantonal school in Trogen, but took off before completion, deciding that he was an actor. 

Above: The Kantonsschule Trogen

He later lived in Zürich’s old town in Niederdorf. 

Above: HIrschenplatz (Deer Square), Niederdorf (Lower Town), Zürich

In 1966, Kraska began writing and performing experimental plays. 

He made his first public appearance on the occasion of the performance of Ladislav Kupkovic’s Písmená by the Zürich Chamber Choir in Fred Barth’s piece Forum Concert . 

Above: Slovak musician Ladislav Kupkovic (1936 – 2016)

In 1968 the 22-year-old Kraska founded the Wath-Tholl-Theater, where he performed the Darkroom play the same year:

“What can be admired in the non-stop, two and a half hour Darkroom piece is the concentration of the actors, the consistency with which the audience is alluded to that openly expressing incomprehension, and above all the virtuoso leadership of a – if one may say so – musical perceived arc to which the text is subordinated. 

Kraska’s problem is – and in this piece, in this nightmare, in any case in an annoying way, he chokes it out of himself – the lack of relationships, the groping in the pitch dark. 

Must this artistically inadequate examination of what may afflict a sensitive young man today take place in public and on a stage? “

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16 June 1968

Above: The King of Zürich’s 1968 passport

In 1969 Kraska took part with the Wath-Tholl-Theater in the avant-garde show Underground Explosions, which was performed in Munich (München), Zürich and Cologne (Köln), among others, together with the rock groups Amon Düül and Guru Guru Groove, the Bavarians Paul and Limpe Fuchs (aka Anima) with experimental primal scream music, as well the Viennese performance artists Valie Export and Peter Weibel. 

Above: Austrian artist Waltraud Stockinger (née Lehner) (aka Valie Export)

Above: Austrian artist Peter Weibel

The Zürich concept artist Dieter Meier and Munich film activist Karl Heinz organized the shows, which culminated in student revolts, pop revolts and avant-garde culture, which grew into tangible scandal. 

Der Spiegel (The Mirror) devoted a whole page to the occasion after the performance in the Munich Circus Krone (which claims to be the biggest circus in the world) and in the Zürich Volkshaus, led to panic and chaos. 

Above: Circus Krone, Munich, Germany

Above: Zürich Volkshaus

Der Spiegel wrote about Kraska:

The Wath Tholl theatre of Zürich actor Pjotr ​​Kraska (22):

The group of twelve, aged between 16 and 24, spent the winter at an Andalusian farm honing their style.

The Kraska clan entered the Krone Circus with animal screams, attacked each other in combat ballets and ecstatic Blocksberg hugs. 

Kraska, who uses his pants as a notepad, wants to achieve “unity between mind and body”.

When a spectator kissed a Kraska girl, she fell to the ground as if touched by lightning.

Der Spiegel, 21 April 1969

Above: Pjotr Kraska

Even later, Kraska appeared as an action artist. 

For example, in 1982 he invited to a “simple monarchical-clerical celebration” on the Pestalozziwiese in Zürich , where Kristin T. Schnider was supposed to “let go“, as was announced – apparently with little public success:

Above: Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Monument, Pestalozziwiese (park), Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich

“Now Kristin T. Schnider is no longer black-haired and no longer a poet, but rather bald and, as one hears, the first court poet to Kraska’s spiritual monarchy. 

And the actors pull away. 

The honoured audience sinks back into the grass and into boredom.“

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 – 25 July 1982

Above: Swiss writer Kristin T. Schnider

From the 1970s, Kraska shifted increasingly to writing and worked as a publicist. 

In 1979 his first book, The Big Throw, was published. 

A poem was enthusiastically reviewed by some of the critics and reprinted in 2000:

“The Big Throw is a ‘narrative‘ (246 pages) about writing, about language itself, which is rare in the linguistic landscape of Switzerland and which has so far hardly been heard of reflexive density, biblical form of language and metalinguistic stubbornness.

Stubbornness repeatedly brought back the litter before it could still hit. 

Sounds fall silent in meaning, profundity evaporates in letters:

In every way language is driven out of language, but hollowness and fullness now fall back all the more into the words.

Here there is no commitment to this or that, here is total commitment to the language. 

There is an intelligent and at the same time eloquent talent at work.”

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2 May 1978

Above: Kraska’s Der Grosse Wurf (The Big Throw)

In 1981 the novella Death in Naples was followed in 1982 by the novel The Hand in the Clong, and Buddha smiles forever. 

Above: Images of Naples (Napoli), Italy (Italia)

Above: Buddha statue, Sarnath Museum, India

Kraska also published several articles in the Neue Zürcher Zeitiung on bullfighting and flamenco. 

Above: Matador and bull, Cancun, Mexico

Above: Flamenco dancers, Cordoba, Spain

He had an ambivalent relationship with the Kunsthaus Zürich. 

Above: Kunsthaus Zürich (Zürich Arthouse)

For the exhibition Dada Global (1994) he was allowed to design a showcase as a “contemporary representative of Dadaism.” 

In 2013 the Kunsthaus acquired two Swiss banknotes painted by Kraska, and the museum library owns a complete collection of Court News. 

Conversely, the latter refused to include the “royal coat of arms” designed by Peter Fischli in the Fischli / Weiss retrospective, whereupon Kraska burned it in a public staging in front of the Kunsthaus. 

Above: Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946 – 2012)

Most recently, Kraska bequeathed his urn with the ashes to the Kunsthaus – a gift that was not accepted.

Above: Kraska burns the coat of arms, Kunsthaus Zürich

During the Zürich youth riots of 1980, Kraska declared himself “His Majesty King Kraska of Zurich and Bilbao, ruler of the Central and A-Central Empire“. 

Above: Images of Bilboa, Spain

During this time, he published the Crown’s Official Court News every nine months. 

In this glossy magazine he printed, among other things, excerpts from his numerous disputes in court, wrote instructions for the production of blank stamp cards, glorified the Spanish bullfight and rounded off everything with numerous photographs of himself and his followers. 

In 2015 he laid down the “crown”.

In the 80s and 90s he quarreled with the Zürich transport company (ZVV) and the responsible city councilor, Jürg Kaufmann:

Above: Jürg Kaufmann

The “King” took the right to travel without a ticket and declared himself a “green driver” (“in the service of the environment”) and fought a bitter dispute through all court instances until the Federal Court upheld a sentence of 30 days in prison in 1987.

Above: Federal Courthouse, Lausanne, Switzerland

In another trial, the Zürich District Council sentenced Kraska to three months’ imprisonment for “continued fraudulent activity“.

Above: District Courthouse, Zürich

Kraska unsuccessfully sued the Zürich city councilman Jürg Kaufmann for “insulting”, as he had described him in the magazine Bonus 24 as a “total weirdo”. 

Kraska’s defense attorney was temporarily the politically committed lawyer Barbara Hug, who had also represented the “escape king” Walter Stürm , the “sprayer of Zürich” Harald Naegeli and the alleged terrorist Giorgio Bellini in court. 

Above: Walter Stürm (1942 – 1999)

Above: Harald Naegeli

Above: Giorgio Bellini

As the quotations interspersed here show, Kraska’s work was controversial. 

In a résumé, the Tages Anzeiger wrote:

“In fact, King Kraska, together with Dieter Meier and other Dadaists, took up what had moved the 1960s: the liberation from authority and bourgeois morals. 

Today, the 67-year-old’s art and subjects are outdated. 

The civil fright has degenerated into a civil servant fright.“

Tages-Anzeiger, 26 June 2014

Above: Pjotr Kraska

His work as an artist faded increasingly into the background in the public perception, and from the 1980s his persistent fight for free use of public transport was at the center (“Schwarzfahrer-König“), which occupied all court instances. 

For the Beobachter, Kraska was therefore “a prominent example of the type of the modern resister“. 

In the obituaries published in 2016, Kraska was drawn primarily as a city original.

Above: Pjotr Kraska (right), Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich, 2007

• Kamil Krejčí is a Czech-Swiss actor, director and author who has lived in Switzerland since 1968.

Above: Kamil Krejčí

Kamil Krejčí attended the Zürich Acting Academy, where he trained as an actor and director. 

Since 1987 he has been active on the stage and in film. 

After a permanent engagement at the Stadttheater St. Gallen and the Stadt Bühnen Münster, he was a freelance actor and director. 

Above: Stadt Theater, St. Gallen

Above: Theater Münster, Germany

Krejčí worked on many stages in Switzerland and Germany, for example, the B. Fritz Rémond Theater, comedy in the Bayerischer Hof (Bavarian Court), Stadttheater Bern, Luzern and Solothurn. 

Above: The B. Fritz Rémond Theater, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Above: The Bavarian Court, Munich, Germany

Above: Stadt Theater, Bern, Switzerland

Above: Stadt Theater, Bern, Switzerland

Above: Stadt Theater Solothurn, Switzerland

He also played Erwin Imhof in Mannezimmer (Swiss television) in 65 episodes.

He was the founder of various theater companies, such as BIM Stage, Artsi Fartsi or Take Theater.

Above: Bühne Imst Mitte (BIM)(Stage in the middle), Zürich

Kamil Krejčí was responsible for the text editing of Der kleine Horrorladen (Little Shop of Horrors), as well as the Swiss-German version of the musical Elternabend (Parents’ Night) for the Theater am Hechtplatz or s’Dschungelbuech (The Jungle Book) for the Bernhardtheater. 

Above: Virginia Theater, Broadway, New York City

Above: Theater am Hechtplatz, Zürich

Above: Bernhard Theater, Zürich

The family musicals Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), De chli Isbär (The Little Polar Bear), s’Dschungelbuech (The Jungle Book) and D’Schatzinsle (Treasure Island) toured Switzerland for several years. 

Krejci wrote the scripts for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Little Polar Bear and Treasure Island.

For Dschungelbuch he was responsible for the direction and the text version.

Above: First page of Der Zauberling by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Kamil Krejčí is the “inventor” of the “Adliswil Christmas Calendar”. 

From 2001 to 2018 he organized and hosted his living Christmas calendar in Adliswil. 

Together with Brigitte Schmidlin and Beat Gärtner (Stadt Theater) he told his own and adapted Christmas stories every day of Advent. 

Krejci now has a “story pool” of more than 200 Christmas fairy tales written in Swiss German.

Above: The Adliswil Christmas Calendar

From 2005 he wrote columns for the Zürcher Tages Anzeiger, then until 2016 in the newspaper “Züri 2”. 

In addition, a number of radio plays were created both under his direction and under his pen, for example, various Schreckmümpfeli (horror stories), but also several CDs with Papa Moll stories produced by SRF. 

In many other radio plays he acts as a speaker.

Above: Papa Moll and son

• Felix Mettler (1945 – 2019) was a Swiss writer.

Above: Felix Mettler

Mettler studied veterinary medicine and worked for several years as a senior assistant at the Institute for Veterinary Pathology at the University of Zürich. 

His first work, The Wild Boar, was translated into English and Italian. 

The novel also served as the basis for the film Death of a Boar (2006) with Joachim Król. 

The 73-metre high transmission tower Felsenegg – Girstel transmission tower of Swisscom is visible from afar and is around 300 metres from the mountain station of the Felseneggbahn cable car. 

The tower was built in 1959 to broadcast radio and television programs in the region. 

With the completion of the directional tower in 1963, radio and television broadcasting began in Switzerland.

 

The Felsenegg station was the most important national technical center for television broadcasting. 

It was the control centre for many private Swiss television stations and allowed national and international distribution.

Above: Felsenegg transmission tower, 1963

 

With the introduction of the REAL system, several transmission systems were distributed to 27 other Swisscom towers. 

As a result, the tower lost its originally outstanding central importance. 

The Felsenegg transmission tower is now integrated in the general network of transmission towers. 

Since fiber optics became popular, conventional broadcasting of radio programs has also declined. 

The tower shone until 10 December 200 as VHF radio from Radio Zürisee before it was switched to the Üetliberg.  

In 2020 the Felsenegg Tower was released from the canton’s inventory of historical monuments. 

In 2021 the dilapidated Felsenegg tower will be replaced by a 73-meter high lattice mast tower. 

The old concrete tower is to be dismantled by the end of 2022.

Above: Felsenegg transmission tower seen from Adliswil

Skyguide – the air traffic control company that monitors Swiss airspace and adjacent airspace – has been operating a radio receiving station there since 2005.

The directional beam tower was built by Zürich architect Edwin Schoch. 

It is 51 meters high and was made of reinforced concrete and clad with aluminum. 

This cladding not only has significant technical advantages, but also has a special play of light that adapts the tower’s color to the changing moods of the day and the weather.

By choosing a consistently slim tower shape, it was possible to avoid a forest fall on the narrow ridge of the Felsenegg. 

A triangular floor plan with cut corners makes the tower light and at the same time allows the large antennas mounted on special platforms outside the tower to be placed in the desired main beam directions without difficulty. 

At the top there is a 22-meter high dipole antenna made of steel. 

The tower has 16 floors and one underground floor in which the operating rooms are located. 

The antennas are mounted on the top five platforms and the roof. 

This includes parabolic and directional antennas. 

The maximum radiated power to the Nods Chasseral transmitter 111.3 kilometers away, as the crow flies, is 10 watts.

Above: Felsenegg transmission tower

The Türlersee (Türler Lake) is located in the Säuliamt in the canton of Zürich, on the border of the communities Aeugst and Hausen am Albis at 643 metres above sea level.

Above: Türler Lake

The Türlersee lies for the most part in the municipality of Aeugst. 

The lake is around 1.4 kilometers long and around 500 meters wide. 

On the southeastern bank there is a campsite and the Türlen Lido. 

Above: Türler Lake, Türlen

Türlen is a hamlet that belongs to the municipality of Hausen am Albis and is located on the Türlersee, west of the Albis in the canton of Zürich.

Türlen has a bus stop where regional buses run to and from Wiedikon, Hausen am Albis, Ebertswil and Affoltern am Albis, a restaurant and the outdoor pool on the Türlersee. 

The only campsite on the Türlersee is near Türlen, where on 26 May 2009, 17 caravans burned out due to a gas explosion and fire.

Sixteen people were injured.

In the north the River Reppisch leaves the lake.

Above: Reppisch River at Dönibach

A landslide on the Aeugsterberg changed the landscape at the end of the last ice age around 10,000 years ago. 

The Aeugsterberg, made up of molasse (sedimentary rock), rose like an island out of the ice masses formed by the Reuss and Linth glaciers. 

Above: Molasse rock

After the glacier melted, the pressure on the mountain flank eased, and at the same time the meltwater streams increased the erosion at the foot of the mountain. 

The slope lost its stability and 60 million cubic meters of rock slid into the valley and dammed the Reppisch to the Türlersee. 

Above: Aeugsterberg and Türlersee

First the Türlersee flowed over the Hexengraben (witches’ pit) towards the Reuss, only later over the Reppisch into the Limmat.

Above: The Hexengraben

With a path around the lake and through the surrounding forests, the lake is a popular local recreation area. 

A lido, as well as other beaches and jetties, offers bathing opportunities. 

First and foremost, the landscape at the Türlersee is a diverse nature and landscape protection area with natural banks, species-rich flat and sloping moors and dry meadows. 

The lake is of cantonal importance as a spawning area for common frogs and toads.

Above: Türlersee

Above: Common frog

Above: Common toad

In 1786 a coal seam was discovered north of the Aeugsterberg near Gottert, which led to the construction of the Riedhof Mine, in which coal was mined during the periods of 1786–1814, 1917–1921 and 1942–1947.

In 1944 the first ordinance for the protection of the Türlersee was issued, which was adjusted due to the steadily increasing influx of visitors in 1998 and 2001 (Protection Ordinance of December 17, 2001). 

For this reason, intensive recreational use is only possible in the demarcated areas:

In the area of ​​the campsite, near the cantonal road at the northern end of the Lake and at the Hexengraben.

Above: Türlersee

 

The Türlersee was frozen over in January 2009 and January 2012, with an accessible layer of ice.

Because of its sheltered location between Albis and Aeugsterberg, the water of the Türlersee is hardly circulated. 

Therefore, the water circulation in winter is supported by a circulation system.

The Türlersee is easy to reach by public transport:

From the city of Zürich, take tram 14 to Triemli and Postbus 235 or take the S5 Zürich S-Bahn to Affoltern am Albis, then Bus 223 via Hausen am Albis to Türlersee. 

Above: Zürich tram symbol

Above: Logo of the Zürich Transportation Authority

The Türlersee is on the regional cycling route 51 Säuliamt – Schwyz – Zurich – Schwyz. 

There is a legend about the origin of the water:

Where the Türlersee now spreads, there used to be a beautiful farm with fertile fields. 

The owner had an only child, a graceful, dear daughter. 

She caught the eye of the young lord of Schnabel Castle, and he pursued her passionately. 

But the honorable child persistently refused all his promises.

Then the lord of the castle persuaded the father to bring the girl to the Castle at midnight under all sorts of pretenses. 

He opened the gate himself and pulled the reluctant daughter in. 

As he was about to close the gate, she noticed what was being played and uttered a cry of curse on her traitorous father. 

At that moment lightning flashed from the sky and struck her parents’ house. 

She saw how a fiery chasm opened and the neat and once so blessed courtyard with all its fields disappeared into it. 

In the morning, however, there was a lake in its place.

Above: Türlersee

The Affoltern district is a district in the southwest of Canton Zürich. 

It lies between the Albis chain and the Reuss with borders in the west and northwest with Canton Aargau, in the south with Canton Zug.

The district is identical to the Knonaueramt region (or Knonauer Amt) and is popularly called Säuliamt . 

The name Zürcher Freiamt , which was also used in earlier centuries, is virtually unknown today.

Above: Coat of arms of Affoltern

From the beginning of the 15th century until the Reformation, the city of Zürich gradually gained control over the areas between Albis and Reuss. 

Already in 1406 the heirs of John of Hallwyl sold Langnau, Kappel, Rifferswil, Maschwanden, Ottenbach, and portions of today’s Obfeldens to Switzerland’s largest city. 

In the course of the Swiss conquest of Aargau in 1415, Zürich then annexed the Freiamt Affoltern and jurisdiction over Steinhausen, the Maschwanderamt and the Kelleramt. 

During the Old Zürich War (1440 – 1446), the entire region was severely affected by acts of war and was administered by Schwyz, Glarus, Lucerne and Zug between 1443 and 1450. 

Above: Knonau Castle

One of the traditional autonomy rights of the Freiamt was its own jurisdiction. 

The courts handed down from the Habsburg era (1173 – 1415) were Rifferswil, Affoltern am Albis and Berikon. 

Above: Old courthouse, Affoltern am Albis

The Freiamtsgemeinde met in the Mettmenstein church. 

It met for the last time on 26 March 1795, but had to be moved to Rüteli near today’s train station because the church was too small for the large number of visitors. 

Above: Reformed Church, Mettmenstetten

From 1507 to 1512, the Zürich government combined the abovementioned areas to form the Knonau bailiff and standardized the legal system. 

The centralization efforts of the city of Zürich’s guild regime provoked the resistance of the Ämtler population, for example in the Waldmann trade in 1489, in the Wädenswil uprising in 1646 (a tax revolt in Wädenswil and in the Knonaueramt, which Zürich condemned with military actions, executions and heavy fines), in Ämtlerhandel (1794 – 1795), and in the Bock War (1804). 

Above: Wädenswil and the Zürichsee

This last uprising ended the Knonaueramt with the disarmament and military occupation of the villages, imprisonment and fines as well as the execution under martial law of two revolutionaries, Jakob Schneebeli from Affltern am Albis and Heinrich Häberling from Knonau.

Their names (together with those of the also executed Hans Jakob Willi from Horgen and Jakob Kleinert from Schönenberg) are immortalized on a memorial stone at Affoltern train station.

Above: Affoltern Station

Hans Jakob Willi was born in Horgen as the son of the shoemaker Johann Jakob Willi and his wife Anna Maria Leuthold.

After completing his apprenticeship as a shoemaker in his father’s workshop, Willi started working as a mercenary in Spain and France at the age of 15. 

After escaping from British captivity, he returned to Horgen in 1801. 

On 28 March 1803 he married Anna Anton von Horgen.

Above: Horgen

The Mediation Constitution of 1803 shifted the balance of power in favor of the city of Zürich. 

Above: The Mediation Constitution

Willi, with his war experience, became the leader of the rebels in the countryside. 

The battles were named Bockenkrieg (Bock War) after the Bocken inn in Arn bei Horgen. 

Above: Bocken Inn, Arn bei Horgen

Three warships were used to bombard Horgen from Lake Zürich. 

The insurgents won the battle, but Willi had to retire injured. 

The uprising now collapsed very quickly.

After the battle at the Bocken, Hans Jakob Willi stayed in hiding until he was caught in Stäfa after seven days. 

An unconstitutional court martial condemned him despite the intervention of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Above: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821)

On 25 April 1804 at 2 p.m. Willi was executed in Zürich along with two co-defendants.

Above: Old city, Zürich

“We are free Swiss, citizens with equal rights throughout. 

If our government does not want to hear the voice of the people, it is tyrannical.“

Hans Jakob Willi

Above: Willi memorial plaque, Horgen

In 1798 the authorities of the Helvetic Republic created the district of Mettmenstetten, which included the core area of ​​the Landvogtei Knonau, as well as Aesch, Birmensdorf, Oberurdorf, Wettswil, Stallikon and Bonstetten. 

Langnau was assigned to the Hirgen district on this occasion. 

Steinhausen came to Canton Zug and Canton Baden, which in turn became part of the new Aaargau in 1803. 

In its current boundaries, the district emerged as the Knonau Oberamt after the end of the Mediation Constitution in 1814. 

The district capital was relocated in 1837 from the former bailiff’s seat of Knonau to the more centrally located Affoltern am Albis. 

This gave the district its current name.

Above: Coat of arms of Affoltern am Albis

After the turmoil and crises of the beginning of the century, a strong industrialization set in around the middle of the 19th century, which also found its expression in transport technology with the opening of the Zürich – Zug railway in 1864. 

The opening of National Highway 4 in 2009 marked another important turning point, as Affoltern am Albis could now be reached from Zürich and Zug in less than 15 minutes. 

In the 1980s a regional protest movement postponed the construction of the motorway for more than twenty years with growth-critical and ecological arguments, but ultimately could not stop the suburbanization of large parts of the district.

In 2012 almost 50,000 people lived in the Affoltern district and there were 16,000 jobs. 

In the last ten years, the district has recorded a population growth of 16.1% (compared to 14%, the cantonal average). 

Above: Affoltern train and bus station

Hausen am Albis is located in the south of the canton of Zürich in the Affoltern district, on the south side of the Albis. 

The community, located in the upper Jonental Valley, consists of the villages of Hausen am Albis and Ebertswil and the hamlets of Türlen, Vollenweid, Tüfenbach, Hinter-, Mittel- and Oberalbis, Husertal, Hirzwangen and Schweikhof. 

The municipality extends from Sihlbrugg to the Türlersee. 

This makes Hausen am Albis the largest municipality in the district with a total of 13.64 km². 

The highest point in the municipality is 916 metres above sea level. 

Bürglen is the lowest point at 532 metres above sea level. 

Hausen am Albis is located between the cities of Zürich and Zug.

Above: Hausen am Albis

Hausen am Albis was first mentioned in a document in 869 as Huson, today’s district of Heisch in 1184 as Heinsche. 

During this time the lords of Hausen were the Barons of Eschenbach. 

It was they who built the Schnabelburg on the Albis ridge in 1150 and founded the Cistercian Abbey of Kappel in 1185 . 

Above: Kappel Monastery

The Schnabelburg is the ruin of a hilltop castle on the beak-like elevation north of the Schnabellücke near the village of Hausen am Albis.

In 1185 Walter I, Baron von Eschenbach, named himself after the newly built castle. 

Above: Eschenbach coat of arms

However, it is not known for sure whether it was really the same castle, the ruin of which is known today. 

Archaeological investigations of the castle complex have shown that the castle was probably built in the 13th century, and that it was built very hastily. 

However, no traces have been found in the vicinity of the ruins that are visible today, which would suggest that another castle was built first.

In 1218 the last Duke of the Zähringen family, with whom the castle owners were connected, died, and the economic decline of the family of the Lords of Eschenbach-Schnabelburg began with Berchtold II.

Above: Zähringen coat of arms, New City Hall, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

In 1270 von Eschenbach became a friend of Rudolf I von Habsburg, the new lord of the castle of Schnabelburg. 

Berchtold II fought with the Habsburg in the decisive battle – one of the largest knight battles in Europe – on the Marchfeld (26 August) against Ottokar von Böhmen in 1278. 

Above: The iron and gold king of Bohemia, Ottokar II Přemysl (1232 – 1278)

Above: Memorial stone of the battle, Dürnkrutfeld, Austria

It can be assumed that the Eschenbach knight fell in the decisive battle near Göllheim in 1298, as he disappeared from documents at that time.

Above: Göllheim, Germany

A son of Berchtold, Walter von Eschenbach, helped murder King Albrecht I of Habsburg in 1308. 

After that, he was given the imperial ban. 

Above: Equestrian seal of Albrecht I (1255 – 1308)

In August 1309, the Habsburgs then besieged and conquered the Schnabelburg in revenge for the regicide. 

According to archaeological findings, the castle was either not destroyed during the siege or was later rebuilt.

In 1955, Hugo Schneider carried out excavation work and conservation measures at the ruins.

Above: Ruins of Schnabel Castle

In 1309 Eschenbach rule was ended by the destruction of the Schnabelburg, because Walther von Eschenbach was involved in the murder of King Albrecht. 

Albrecht I was the first legitimate son of the Roman – German King Rudolf I of Habsburg, born in wedlock, from his first marriage to Gertrud Anna von Hohenberg (died 1281). 

His older half-brother Albrecht von Schenkenberg, who received the Grafschaft Löwenstein from his father, was born out of wedlock. 

His motto were “Fugam victoria nescit” (“The victory knows no flight.”) and “Quod optimum idem jucundissimum” (“The best is the most pleasant.”)

From 1273 he officiated as Landgrave in the Landgraviate of Upper Alsace. 

After the 1278 victory in the Battle of Marchfeld over King Ottokar Premysl of Bohemia, he was appointed by his father in May 1281, when he left the conquered Vienna again, as imperial administrator over the imperial fiefs of the Duchy of Austria and the Duchy of Styria. 

The office had been vacant in the turmoil of the Austrian Interregnum since June 1278 because the Wittelsbach Heinrich XIII, had defected from Bavaria to the enemy.

On 17 December 1282, at the Reichstag of Augsburg, he was appointed Duke of Austria and Styria together with his brother Rudolf.

One year later on 1 June 1283 in the Treaty of Rheinfelden, he ruled alone in these rights. 

Above: King Albrecht I sends a messenger to Pope Boniface

Rudolf was to be compensated for this with other territories in southwest Germany, but this did not happen until his death in 1290. 

Albrecht quickly made himself unpopular with his policy of pushing back the natives through his Swabian clientele, especially the Lords of Walsee. 

Above: Coat of arms of the Lords of Walsee

In 1291 – 1292, the Landsberger Bund revolted in Styria, against whom Albrecht was able to quickly assert himself. 

Above: Deutschlandsberg Castle (1681), Styria, Austria, from whence the Landsperger Bund (conspiracy of nobles) was derived

In 1295 the Austrian nobility rose up as well. 

In Vienna, too, Ottokar Přemysl remained much more popular for a long time – not least because of economic relations with the Bohemian region. 

After all, Vienna got a new city charter in 1296.

Above: Coat of arms of Vienna (Wien), Austria (Österreich)

Rudolf I tried to make Albrecht co-king during his own lifetime in order to make the royal dignity in the House of Habsburg hereditary. 

Above: Habsburg Castle, Habsburg, Canton Aargau, Switzerland

However, the Electors, especially the Count Palatine (officials and representatives of the King or Emperor) and the clerical Electors, did not allow this to happen. 

An elector was one of the originally seven, later nine and finally ten highest-ranking princes of the Holy Roman Empire (modern Germany), who had had the sole right to elect the Roman (German) King since the 13th century. 

This royal title was traditionally associated with the right to be crowned Emperor by the Pope.

Above: The Codex Balduineus (1340) contains the first known pictorial representation of the college of electors: Here the electors elect Heinrich of Luxembourg (1278 – 1313) as King. 
The Electors are, recognizable by their coats of arms (from left to right), the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the King of Bohemia, who was actually not present when Heinrich was elected.

In 1290 Rudolf wanted to put his son on the throne of Hungary, which after the assassination of Ladislaus IV was regarded as a reverted fiefdom, but his death in 1291 thwarted this plan.

Above: King of Hungary and Croatia Ladislaus IV (1262 – 1290)

As Rudolf’s successor, Adolf von Nassau was elected the new Roman (German) king in 1292. 

Above: King Adolf von Nassau (1250 – 1298)

In the following years Albrecht hardly intervened in imperial politics, as he was bound by revolts by various nobles in his Austrian lands. 

In 1295 he was seriously poisoned, the reason for which remained unclear. 

Maybe the kitchen had processed slightly spoiled food or an assassin had mixed poison in the food. 

In any case, Albrecht collapsed from convulsions. 

His doctors gave him laxatives. 

After the colic, when he got angry, he lost consciousness and, faced with the fear of death, was hung upside down on both legs so that the poison could flow out of his body. 

The patient survived this procedure, but one eye was destroyed.

Above: Statue of Albrecht I, Army History Museum, Vienna, Austria

When Adolf was deposed again in 1298, Albrecht was elected as his successor as King on 23 June 1298. 

In the Knight’s Battle of Göllheim (Battle of the Hasenbühel) on 2 July 1298, Adolf fell while fighting the Habsburgs. 

On 27 July, Albrecht was elected a second time and then crowned King in Aachen on 24 August 1298. 

Above: Modern Aachen, Germany

On his first court day in Nuremberg in the same year he enfeoffed (gave) his sons – Rudolf, Fredrich the Beautiful and Leopold the Glorious – Austria and Styria. 

Above: Stained glass depiction of Rudolf I (1282 – 1307), St. Stephan’s Church, Vienna

Above: Seal of Frederick the Beautiful and his wife Isabella, Duke (#1) and King’s seal of Frederick (#5), Queen’s seal of Isabella (#9). Friedrich is shown enthroned frontally on the king’s seal with a crown and scepter. His feet rest on a lion.

Above: Stained glass depiction of Leopold I (1290 – 1326), Königsfelden Monastery

Through a marriage connection with France, Albrecht I achieved peace with Philip IV the Fair, with whom he had previously been in dispute over the course of the border. 

Above: French King Philippe IV (1268 – 1314)

Albrecht also reached an agreement with Wenceslaus II (Vaclav) of Bohemia in the dispute over rule over Poland:

The Bohemian king added the most important parts of the recently re-established kingdom to a new collapse into his territory, but recognized Albrecht’s suzerainty onwards. 

Above: Wenceslas II (1271 1305) with the Bohemian and Polish crowns, illustration from the Chronicon Aulae Regiae

Opponents of Habsburg power, however, remained the Rhenish Electors, including Pope Boniface VIII.

The papal approbation was only obtained in 1303 in return for far-reaching concessions which severely restricted the King’s power, especially in Italy, and which could have been understood as an oath of subjection towards the papacy. 

However, Albrecht refused the coronation offered by Boniface. 

Above: Pope Boniface VIII (né Benedetto Caetani) (1235 – 1303)

In 1304 Albrecht and his son Rudolf moved together against Wenceslaus II, who, after the death of Andreas III the Venetian, his son Wenceslaus III became the Hungarian king. 

Above: King of Hungary and Croatia Andreas III the Venetian (1265 – 1301)

Above: King of Hungary, Bohemia and Poland Wenceslaus III (1289 – 1306)

Since the Pope would have liked to see another Italian on the Hungarian throne in the form of the Neapolitan Prince Karl Robert, he asked Albrecht for help. 

Albrecht made the strangest demands on Wenceslaus II. 

When this did not fulfill them, the imperial ban was imposed on him. 

Wenceslaus then transferred the Hungarian crown jewels from Ofen to Prague. 

Above: King of Hungary and Croatia Karl I (1288 – 1342)

Above: The Hungarian Crown Jewels

On the following campaign Albrecht and Rudolf Kuttenberg besieged Kutná Hora, the silver mine in Bohemia. 

Their Cuman auxiliaries committed terrible atrocities in the country. 

At the beginning of winter, hunger broke out in their army and they withdrew.

Above: modern Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

A political unification of Central Europe under the leadership of the Habsburgs seemed within reach. 

Albrecht succeeded after the death of the childless King Wenceslaus III on 4 August 1306, who himself became king in Bohemia after the death of his father in 1305, installed his son Rudolf as King of Bohemia. 

But then the Bohemian estates rebelled and decided to depose the king. 

Albrecht quickly forced them to recognize his sovereignty.

However, 1307 brought a serious setback for the Habsburg hegemonic plans. 

After Rudolf’s early death, Heinrich von Carinthia from Meinhardingen became the new King of Bohemia. 

Above: Seal of Heinrich von Carinthia (1265 – 1335)

In connection with a controversial reverted fiefdom in Thuringia and Meißen, Albrecht also lost the Battle of Lucka against the sons of Albrecht the Degenerate from the House of Wettin. 

Above: Coinage of Albrecht the Degenerate (1288–1307), Margrave of Meißen and Landgrave of Thuringia

When King Albrecht invaded with a large army, the Margraves Dietrich IV of Lausitz and Friedrich I of Meißen fought him, at the head of armed citizens and peasants as well as Braunschweig cavalry bands, Albrecht suffered a complete defeat on 31 May 1307.

Above: Friedrich I the Bitten (1257 – 1323) and Dietrich IV (1260 – 1307)

Above: Wettinger Fountain commemorating the Battle, Lucka, Germany

In the dispute over the customs posts of German princes, Albrecht soon cracked down on them until the archbishops and Rudolf, the Count Palatine near the Rhine, surrendered. 

However, Pope Boniface stood in the way of breaking up the Kurkollegium. 

Unrest in Swabia, Baden, Alsace and Switzerland also increased again during this period. 

Peace remained elusive.

Above: The Electors in the royal election in 1308:
From left – Peter von Mainz (1245 – 1320), Balduin von Trier (1285 – 1354) and Rudolf I (1274 – 1319)

Albrecht was murdered in 1308 near Windisch, now in Switzerland, not far from his ancestral castle. 

The murderers were his nephew Johann von Schwaben – who was nicknamed Parricida (relative murderer) because of his deed – Baron Rudolf von Wart (1274 – 1309), Baron Rudolf von Balm, Baron Walter von Eschenbach and Baron Konrad von Tegerfelden. 

Above: Johann Parricuda (1290 – 1313)

Above: Baron Rudolf von Wart’s wife Gertrud von Balm (1286 – 1322) pleads with Albrecht’s daughter Agnes of Hungary (1281 – 1364) for her husband’s life, by August Weckesser

The exact course of the murder is presented differently by the chroniclers. 

Albrecht was probably on the way from Baden to his wife in Rheinfelden. 

In the morning, Duke Johann had claimed his inheritance at Stein Castle – as he had often done before – which led to a scandal. 

Above: Johann Parricida and his accomplices murder Albrecht after crossing the Reuss River.
In the background are the cities of Brugg and Königsfelden as well as Habsburg Castle. 
Coloured pen drawing, The Chronicle of 95 Dominions (1480), City Library, Bern

Above: Stein Castle, Aargau Canton, Switzerland

According to the chronicler Matthias von Neuenburg (1295 – 1364) the first sword cut that pierced Albrecht’s neck was received from his nephew Johann, then Rudolf von Wart pierced him with his sword, while Rudolf von Balm split the King’s skull in two. 

Johann was the son of Albrecht’s early deceased brother Rudolf II, who had renounced the regency in Austria in the Treaty of Rheinfelden and had become Duke of Swabia, Alsace and Aargau. 

Above: The murder of Albrecht in Königsfelden, Windisch, Switzerland, 1308

According to Chronicle reports, the failure to pay Johann in compensation was the main motive. 

Depending on the sources, Johann’s blood lust is also given as the motive for murder.

The successor as Duke was Albrecht’s son Friedrich the Fair, but he did not succeed as King. 

The royal dignity went to the House of Luxembourg with Henrich VII (1278 – 1313), where it remained until 1437 – interrupted by the governments of Ludwig of Bavaria (1282 – 1347) and Ruprecht of the Palatinate.

Above: Statue of Heinrich VII, Pisa Cathedral, Pisa, Italy

Above: Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, Frauenkirche, Munich, Germany

Above: Ruprecht (1352 – 1410) with his wife Elisabeth von Hohenzollern-Nürnberg (1358 – 1411) in a miniature copy of a now-lost mural in Heidelberg Castle, Germany

King Albrecht was first buried in the Wettingen monastery (in today’s Switzerland). 

Above: Wettingen Monastery

In 1309, at the instigation of Henrich VII, his body was transferred to Speyer, where he was buried side by side with his former rival Adolf von Nassau in the Speyer Cathedral.

Above: Speyer Cathedral, Speyer, Germany

As a result of Eschenbach’s treachery Hausen am Albis was subordinated to the Hallwylers, who ceded it to the city of Zürich in 1406.

Above: Coat of arms of Hausen am Albis

It is said that the storyline of The Game of Thrones franchise was inspired by England’s Wars of the Roses, but I submit that the story of Albrecht I and his assassination is also worthy of dramatic accounts.

Kappel am Albis is first mentioned in 1185 as de Capella.

The settlement was founded in 1185 as a Cistercian monastery which today houses a seminar centre, hotel, cafe and a restaurant.

Above: Kappel am Albis

It was the location of the Wars of Kappel in 1529 and 1531, during the turmoil that accompanied the Reformation of Huldrych Zwingli.

Above: Huldrych Zwingli

A monument to Zwingli is located nearby at the hamlet of Näfenhäuser, marking the spot where he met his fatal end.

Above: Zwingli Monument, Näfenhäuser

In 1185 the Monastery was founded by the Barons of Eschenbach – Scnabelburg and confirmed by the Bishop of Konstanz Hermann II. 

Above: Coat of arms of the Diocese of Konstanz

A chapel was available to the first abbot Wilhelm and his monks to build a Cistercian monastery. 

The mother monastery of Kappel was Altenryf (Hauterive) Abbey (Freiburg Canton). 

Above: Hauterive Abbey, Posieux, Canton Freiburg, Switzerland

Through Pope Innocent III, the monastery received the Privilegium commune Cisterciense and it was placed under the protection of the Papacy in 1211.

Above: Pope Innocent III (né Lotario dei Conti di Segni) (1161 – 1216), San Benedetto Monastery, Subiaco, Italy

Until the end of the 14th century, the Monastery received donations from the founding family and other noble families, especially in the Knouauer Amt, in Zugerland (today’s Aargau), in Luzern Canton, on Lake Zürich (Zürichsee) and in the Zürich Lowlands (Zürich Unterland). 

There were also isolated lands in central Switzerland. 

The Monastery got into financial difficulties through the social development, especially the emerging money economy, the upswing of the cities and through the competition of the mendicant orders. 

In addition, the Monastery came more and more under the influence of secular lords, especially after the assassination of King Albrecht in 1308.

Above: Kappel Monastery

In 1344 the Monastery concluded a permanent alliance with the city of Zug in 1344 and a similar one with Zürich in 1403.

Through these alliances, the Monastery got between the fronts in the Old Zürich War (1440 – 1446) and was plundered by the Confederates in 1443. 

On 15 January 1493, a fire devastated the convent building, which the then Abbot Ulrich had rebuilt. 

Due to his dissolute lifestyle, Abbot Ulrich was forced to resign in 1508.

Above: Kappel Monastery

A new spirit arrived under Abbot Ulrich’s successor, Wolfgang Joner. 

In 1523 he summoned Heinrich Bullinger, who was only nineteen, to Kappel, where he taught the monks and young men from the area as a private tutor. 

Through Bullinger, the teachings of the Reformation found their way to Kappel, and so pictures (icons) were removed from the Monastery Church on 9 March 1525. 

Holy Mass was abolished on 4 September of the same year. 

A year later, on 29 March 1526, the monks celebrated the Lord’s Supper for the first time according to the Reformed order and took off their robes. 

Many left the Monastery and turned to a trade or became preachers. 

The convent finally handed the Monastery over to the city of Zürich in 1527. 

Wolfgang Joner, Heinrich Bullinger and four other men stayed in Kappel and continued to run the school as a boarding school for boys. 

The previous monastery church became the parish church of Kappel. 

Above: Statue of Heinrich Bullinger, Grossmünster, Zürich

During the First Kappel War in 1529, Kappel became the scene of the June deployment of the Reformed and Catholic troops, which came to a peaceful end with the legendary Kappel milk soup.

Above: The Milk Soup Stone Memorial, Kappel am Albis

At the end of June 1529, the Zürich troops marched against the central Swiss cantons. 

In this First Kappel War, thanks to the mediation of the neutral towns, a fratricidal war among the Confederates was prevented.

According to the reports, the common footmen of the two armies used the time while the leaders were negotiating to fraternize and put a large saucepan on a fire near Kappel am Albis, exactly on the border between the two cantons. 

The people of Zug are said to have contributed the milk and the people of Zurich the bread for a milk soup, which was then eaten by both armies together.

Today the “Milchsuppenstein” (milk soup stone) is located on a hill southwest of Ebertswil.

The large pot from which everyone ate together was of great symbolic value for the later historiography and identification of Switzerland.

Above: Kappel milk soup

In memory of this event, Kappeler milk soup is still served today when a dispute can be settled through negotiation, for example by Federal Councilor Pascal Couchpin at the conclusion of the St. Gallen cultural property dispute in 2006. 

Above: Pascal Couchepin

It was entirely different on 11 October 1531, when the Zurich reformer Zwingli was killed in the second battle near Kappel.

Above: The death of Zwingli

Above: Zwingli’s helmet

After the Reformation, the Monastery remained Zürich’s domain. 

Above: Kappel Monastery, 1741

From 1834 the buildings were used for social purposes, and since 1983 by the Zürcher Landeskirche (Zürich Canton Church) as a seminar hotel and educational center called the House of Silence and Encounter. 

Since 2008 it has been called Kloster Kappel again. 

The Monastery has been renovated since 2009. 

The Monastery Church shows a glass painting work by the Swiss graphic artist and painter Max Hunziker in the choir .

The Kappel Monastery Association (formerly the Kappelerhof Association) is the owner of the Kappel Monastery domain (real estate, land, forest). 

The 14 association members are the 13 parishes of the Affoltern district and the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich. 

The church and rectory belong to the Canton of Zürich.

Above: Kappel Monastery

As personalities go, Zwingli is not the sole person to get recognized when one speaks of Kappel am Albis.

Above: Coat of arms of Kappel am Albis

Josias Simler (1530 – 1576), Swiss Reformed theologian and historian, known among other things for his works on Swiss regional studies and history, was born in Kappel am Albis.

In 1544 Josias Simler went to Zürich to study under his godfather and sponsor Heinrich Bullinger. 

In 1546 he continued his studies in theology, languages ​​and natural sciences in Basel, and from 1547 to 1549 in arithmetic and geometry in Strasbourg. 

He then completed his theology studies in Zürich, worked as a pastor and occasionally as a mathematics teacher for Swiss physician/polymath/encyclopedist Conrad Gessner (1516 – 1565). 

Above: Conrad Gesner

In 1552 he became professor at the Carolinum for instruction in the New Testament in Zürich and in 1560 for theology. 

In that year he temporarily took over the chair of the dismissed Theodor Bibliander (1505 – 1564), who represented the views of Erasmus of Rotterdam and not those of the Reformed Church.

Above: Theodor Bibliander

Above: Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536)

From 1555 he began to re-publish Conrad Gessner’s Bibliotheca universalis. 

Above: Bibliotheca Universalis

In his work De Alpibus Commentarius (Commentary of the Alps)(1574), the first work that dealt extensively with the Alps, he collected all information about the mountains from the works of various other authors with comments from his own experience. 

In the process, he developed new insights into the nature of avalanches, the difference between firn and ice, the low temperature at high altitudes and the plant endism in the Alps, in this the oldest description of the Alps in Latin.

In his childhood and youth in Kappel am Albis, Simler had the panorama of the Glarus, Uri and Bernese Alps on his doorstep. 

Above: Kappel Monastery and the Alps

Later he was unable to travel because of his gout. 

He had to draw his information from literary sources.

The “Commentary of the Alps” is a first attempt to give an overview of the natural and cultural history of the Alps and their individual mountain ranges. 

It is a collection of experiences from Swiss scientists that they personally gained in the Alps. 

An abundance of quotes from the classical tradition underlines the humanistic orientation of the text.

Above: De Alpibus Commentarius (1574)

Simler also wrote other works on Swiss cultural studies, such as De Republica Helvetiorum (1548) (abstract of the Chronicle by Johannes Stumpf: 1500 – 1578) or Vallesiae Descriptio. 

Above: Swiss historian Johannes Stumpf

He also advised Ulrich Campell (1510 – 1582) in formulating his Raetiae alpestris descriptio Topographica (Topographical Description of Alpine Raetia) (1573). 

The Simler Snowfield in Antarctica is named in his honour. 

Above: Location of the Simler Snowfield, Antarctica

I tour the Monastery of Kappel am Albis, sit in its cafeteria and dine on soup and salad and cola, and I make notes as I try to assess my feelings at this, the final end of this unreligious pilgrim’s progress.

Above: Descent into the cloister cafeteria

I have followed the life of one man, from his birthplace to the spot where he fell, and now I feel I must take stock of this man and decide for myself what is my opinion of this man who has garnered so much respect for his role in the Reformation in Switzerland.

Above: Zwingli statue, Zwinglikirche, Berlin, Germany

I cannot claim to be wise in the understanding of Christianity, for it seems to be too often that they who profess to be Christian fail too often to act in a manner which Christ would have.

Above: Crucifixion of Christ, by Diego Velázquez 

In fairness, I suspect that there are Buddhists who do not live in the way Buddha intended or Muslims who do not practice the teachings of Muhammad.

Above: The Buddha teaching the Four Noble Truths, Sanskrit manuscript, Nalanda, Bihar, India

Above: The Kaaba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia – the direction of prayer and destination of pilgrimage for Muslims

Religious affiliation checked on a census poll does not mean religious practice.

If that were so then Trump would not have been the candidate of choice for American evangelical Christians.

Above: Donald Trump

Trump went to Sunday school and was confirmed in 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, New York City.

In the 1970s, his parents joined the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan.

In 2015, the Church stated Trump “is not an active member“.

Above: Marble Collegiate Church, Manhattan, New York City

In 2019, he appointed his personal pastor, televangelist Paula White, to the White House Office of Public Liaison.

Above: Paula White

In 2020, he said he identified as a non-denominational Christian.

Above: The cross symbol of Christianity

On 1 June 2020, federal law enforcement officials used batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray projectiles, stun grenades, and smoke to remove a largely peaceful crowd of protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House.

Trump then walked to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where protesters had set a small fire the night before.

Above: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC

He posed for photographs holding a Bible upside down, with senior administration officials later joining him in photos.

Above: The “Christian” Donald Trump

Trump said on 3 June that the protesters were cleared because “they tried to burn down the church on 31 May and almost succeeded“, describing the Church as “badly hurt“.

Above: George Floyd protest, Washington DC, 31 May 2020

Religious leaders condemned the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself.

Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned Trump’s proposal to use the US military against anti-police brutality protesters.

Above: George Floyd protest, Washington DC, 1 June 2020

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, later apologized for accompanying Trump on the walk and thereby “creating the perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

Above: The walk from the White House to St. John’s, 1 June 2020 – Milley is in military uniform

As a candidate and as President, Trump frequently made false statements in public speeches and remarks to an extent unprecedented in American politics.

His falsehoods became a distinctive part of his political identity.

Trump’s false and misleading statements were documented by fact checkers, including at the Washington Post, which tallied a total of 30,573 false or misleading statements made by Trump over his four-year term.

Trump’s falsehoods increased in frequency over time, rising from about 6 false or misleading claims per day in his first year as president to 16 per day in his second year to 22 per day in his third year to 39 per day in his final year.

He reached 10,000 false or misleading claims 27 months into his term, 20,000 false or misleading claims 14 months later, and 30,000 false or misleading claims five months later.

Many of Trump’s comments and actions have been considered racist.

He has repeatedly denied this, asserting:

“I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.“

In national polling, about half of respondents say that Trump is racist.

A greater proportion believe that he has emboldened racists.

Several studies and surveys have found that racist attitudes fueled Trump’s political ascent and have been more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters. 

Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are a strong indicator of support for Trump.

Trump’s comment on the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — that there were “very fine people on both sides” — was widely criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist demonstrators and the counter-protesters at the rally.

Above: Donald Trump

In a January 2018 Oval Office meeting to discuss immigration legislation, Trump reportedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African nations as “shithole countries“.

His remarks were condemned as racist.

Above: Flag of El Salvador

Above: Flag of Haiti

Above: Flag of Honduras

Above: Africa (in green)

In July 2019, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen — all minorities, three of whom are native-born Americans — should “go back” to the countries they “came from“.

He was referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

This group is known collectively as “the Squad“.

Above: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Above: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley

Above: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar

Above: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth, how our government is to be run.

Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?

Then come back and show us how it is done.

These places need your help badly.

You can’t leave fast enough.

I’m sure that (Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump on Twitter, 14 July 2019)

Above: Logo for Twitter

Two days later the House of Representatives voted 240–187, mostly along party lines, to condemn his “racist comments“.

Above: House of Representatives Speaker Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi

White nationalist publications and social media sites praised his remarks, which continued over the following days.

Trump continued to make similar remarks during his 2020 campaign.

Trump has a history of insulting and belittling women when speaking to media and on social media.

He made lewd comments, demeaned women’s looks, and called them names like ‘dog‘, ‘crazed‘, ‘crying lowlife‘, ‘face of a pig‘, or ‘horseface‘.

In October 2016, two days before the second presidential debate, a 2005 “hot mike” Access Hollywood recording surfaced in which Trump was heard bragging about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying:

“When you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything… grab ’em by the pussy.”

The incident’s widespread media exposure led to Trump’s first public apology during the campaign and caused outrage across the political spectrum.

At least 26 women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct as of September 2020, including his then-wife Ivana.

Above: Ivana Marie Trump (née Zelníčková)

Above: Jill Harth

Above: E. Jean Carroll

Above: Summer Zervos

Above: Alva Johnson

Above: Jessica Leeds

Above: Kristin Anderson

Above: Lisa Boyne

Above: Cathy Heller

Above: Temple Taggart McDowell

Above: Amy Dorris

Above: Karena Virginia

Above: Karen Johnson

Above: Mindy McGillivray

Above: Rachel Crooks

Above: Natasha Stoynoff

Above: Juliet Huddy

Above: Jessica Drake

Above: Ninni Laaksonen

Above: Cassandra Searles

Above: Faith Daniels

There were allegations of rape, violence, being kissed and groped without consent, looking under women’s skirts, and walking in on naked women.

Above: Logo of the Miss Universe beauty pagents

In 2016, he denied all accusations, calling them “false smears” and alleged there was a conspiracy against him.

There is very little that is Christ-like about this so-called “Christian”.

I am in no way suggesting that Zwingli resembled in any way the former US President, save in one respect.

Acting in a very un-Christ-like manner unbecoming to a Christian…..

Certainly Zwingli was an educated man and scholarship is something I deeply respect.

His studies led him to see the need for reform in the Catholic Church and this impulse to improve current systems is a wise and necessary impulse anywhere at all times.

Above: St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City –  the largest church in the world and a symbol of the Catholic Church

There is room for improvement in all things, though that being said I do not believe in simply progress for the sake of progress.

Changes should be considered not just for their potential profit but as well soberly assessed as to the cost of their consequences.

And it is here that the Reformation erred.

Certainly the Church was at this time truly a corrupt institution that the faithful found difficult to swear fealty towards.

But in freeing themselves from the rule of Rome they allowed the powerful within their groups to dominate them with the same sort of abuse from which they had fought to free themselves.

Voltaire wrote about Calvin, Luther and Zwingli:

“If they condemned celibacy in the priests and opened the gates of the convents, it was only to turn all society into a convent.

Shows and entertainments were expressly forbidden by their religion, and for more than two hundred years there was not a single musical instrument allowed in the city of Geneva.

They condemned auricular confession, but they enjoined a public one.

And in Switzerland, Scotland and Geneva, it was performed the same as penance.“

Above: French writer François-Marie Arouet (aka Voltaire) (1694 – 1778)

The Church dictated when a man should eat and when he should restrain himself from eating.

Ulrich Zwingli was a pastor in Zurich and was dedicated to the Reformation ideology of Martin Luther.

His first rift with the established religious authorities in Switzerland occurred during the Lenten fast of 1522, when he was present during the eating of sausages at the house of Christoph Froschauer, a printer in the city who later published Zwingli’s translation of the Bible.

Above: Christoph Froschauer (1490 – 1564)

Above: The Zwingli Bible

According to William Roscoe Estep, Zwingli already held Reformation-oriented convictions for some time before the incident now known as the Affair of the Sausages.

In March 1522, he was invited to partake in a sausage supper that Froschauer served to his workers – who, Froschauer later claimed, were exhausted from putting out the new edition of The Epistles of St. Paul – and to various dignitaries and priests. 

Leo Jud, Klaus Hottinger and Lorenz Hochrütiner were present at the supper and later gained notoriety for their part in the Swiss Reformation.

Above: Klaus Hottinger (d. 1524)

The meal involved Swiss Fasnachtskiechli and some slices of sharp smoked hard sausage, which had been stored for more than a year.

Because the eating of meat during Lent was prohibited, the event caused public outcry and led to Froschauer being arrested.

Though he himself did not eat the sausages, Zwingli was quick to defend Froschauer from allegations of heresy.

In a sermon titled Von Erkiesen und Freiheit der Speisen (Regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods), Zwingli argued that fasting should be entirely voluntary, not mandatory.

According to Michael Reeves, Zwingli was advancing the Reformation position that Lent was subject to individual rule, rather than the discipline which was upheld at the time by the Catholic Church.

The Zürich Sausage Affair was interpreted as a demonstration of Christian liberty and is considered to be of similar importance for Switzerland as Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in Wittenberg for the German Reformation.

Above: Smoked sausages

The Catholic Church historically observes the disciplines of fasting and abstinence at various times each year.

For Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one’s intake of food, while abstinence refers to refraining from something that is good, and not inherently sinful, such as meat.

The Catholic Church teaches that all people are obliged by God to perform some penance for their sins, and that these acts of penance are both personal and corporeal.

Bodily fasting is meaningless unless it is joined with a spiritual avoidance of sin. 

Basil of Caesarea gives the following exhortation regarding fasting:

Let us fast an acceptable and very pleasing fast to the Lord.

True fasting is the estrangement from evil, temperance of tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, slander, falsehood and perjury.

Privation of these is true fasting.

Above: Basil of Caesarea (330 – 379)

As a man who struggles with self discipline when it comes to his diet I can see a certain wisdom in dietary directives while I simultaneously differ with the notion of someone telling me when and what I should eat.

The Church demanded that the clergy remain single and celibate, which is not natural for all men despite their religious inclinations.

Certainly women and sex distract a man from his devotion to God, but wasn’t the point of Christ that we live our lives to the fullest if we do no harm to others?

In the Old Testament it is suggested that God is a jealous god insisting on total allegiance to Him, but I doubt that the intention of allegiance was the total denial of our biological imperatives.

Certainly there is a kind of freedom for a man to remove himself from the imperatives of woman.

Certainly sex is often not practiced in the life-affirming and mutually satisfactory and freely consented manner in which I believe it was intended.

But whether Zwingli was as chaste a man as he should have been and whether he acted responsibly towards women has come into question when his life prior to Zürich is examined.

On the topic of religious imagery I find myself ambivalent.

Images are representations of reality, but they were never meant to replace reality.

Though faith is, to a certain degree, an abandonment of reason to religion, I think the confusion of image with the intended recipient of devotion is a phenomenon too rare to be relatable a worry.

I think an image of the divine makes it easier to believe in the existence of that which is intangible and invisible to the human senses.

Imagery makes the voyeur more easily accept the existence of God whose sole proof of existence is our inability to prove His non-existence.

Imagery makes the unexplainable more palatable and acceptable to the incredulous.

Above: Destruction of icons in Zürich, 1524

As much as I respect the Islamic prohibition of images being made of Muhammad, I sincerely doubt whether viewing Muhammad as a man could ever possibly detract the Islamic faithful from fealty to his teachings.

Above: Logo of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo – The magazine has been the target of three terrorist attacks: in 2011, 2015, and 2020. All of them were presumed to be in response to a number of cartoons that it published controversially depicting Muhammad. On 7 January 2015, in the second of these attacks, 12 people were killed.

Let me repeat myself:

Murderers and terrorists are not true followers of faith.

Above: Commemorative plaque, Paris

Someone once said:

“Don’t try to be a ‘great’ man.

Just be a man and let history make its own judgments.”

Letting our moral leaders be visible human beings, does this diminish the value of what it is they had to teach?

I am uncertain.

Above: The Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci (1490)

Zwingli’s notion of Bible study as opposed to simply a routine of rituals is a practice I approve of.

Our faith should be examined, should be questioned.

If a faith is true it can stand up to examination and questioning.

We are not only impulse and emotion.

We are also capable of reason and rationale.

An infallible and all-powerful God need never fear the legitimate desire for understanding that makes worship more possible.

Where I truly find myself at odds with the man who was Zwingli was in his persecution of those who disagreed with him.

Many in the radical wing of the Reformation became convinced that Zwingli was making too many concessions to the Zürich Council.

They rejected the role of civil government and demanded the immediate establishment of a congregation of the faithful. 

Above: Coat of arms, Zürich City Hall

Konrad Grebel (1498 – 1526), the leader of the radicals and the emerging Anabaptist movement, spoke disparagingly of Zwingli in private.

On 15 August 1524 the Council insisted on the obligation to baptise all newborn infants.

Zwingli secretly conferred with Grebel’s group and late in 1524, the Council called for official discussions.

When talks were broken off, Zwingli published Wer Ursache gebe zu Aufruhr (Whoever Causes Unrest) clarifying the opposing points-of-view.

On 17 January 1525 a public debate was held and the Council decided in favour of Zwingli.

Anyone refusing to have their children baptised was required to leave Zürich.

Above: Commemoration of Konrad Grebel’s home, Zürich

The radicals ignored these measures and on 21 January, they met at the house of the mother of another radical leader, Felix Manz (1498 – 1527).

Above: Felix Manz

Grebel and a third leader, George Blaurock (1491 – 1529), performed the first recorded Anabaptist adult baptisms.

On 2 February, the Council repeated the requirement on the baptism of all babies and some who failed to comply were arrested and fined, Manz and Blaurock among them.

Zwingli and Jud interviewed them and more debates were held before the Zürich council.

Meanwhile, the new teachings continued to spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation as well as a number of Swabian towns in southwestern Germany.

On 6 – 8 November, the last debate on the subject of baptism took place in the Grossmünster.

Grebel, Manz, and Blaurock defended their cause before Zwingli, Leo Jud and other reformers.

Above: Swiss reformer Leo Jud (1482 – 1542)

There was no serious exchange of views as each side would not move from their positions and the debates degenerated into an uproar, each side shouting abuse at the other.

The Zürich council decided that no compromise was possible.

On 7 March 1526 it released the notorious mandate that no one shall re-baptise another under the penalty of death.

Although Zwingli, technically, had nothing to do with the mandate, there is no indication that he disapproved.

Felix Manz, who had sworn to leave Zürich and not to baptise any more, had deliberately returned and continued the practice.

After he was arrested and tried, he was executed on 5 January 1527 by being drowned in the Limmat River.

He was the first Anabaptist martyr.

Three more were to follow, after which all others either fled or were expelled from Zürich.

Above: Memorial plate on the river wall opposite 43 Schipfe, Zürich, in remembrance of Manz and other Anabaptists executed in the early 16th century by the Zürich city government

Historians have debated whether or not Zwingli turned Zürich into a theocracy.

Certainly it seems that he did not discourage the tendency.

Above: Zwingli statue, Wasserkirche, Zürich

The problem I have with religion is not with the faith itself but with the so-called practitioners of religion, for they divide the world into Us and Them camps, then turn upon their own to dispute the details of that faith causing further division amongst themselves.

The Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation, but several cantons resisted, preferring to remain Catholic.

Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Swiss Confederation along religious lines.

In 1529, a war was averted at the last moment between the two sides.

Above: The Swiss Confederation, 1530

Meanwhile, Zwingli’s ideas came to the attention of Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) and other reformers.

They met at the Marburg Colloquy (1 – 4 October 1529) and agreed on many points of doctrine, but they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (holy communion wherein wine and bread are symbolically consumed to represent the body and blood of Christ).

Above: Woodcut illustration of the Marburg Colloquy

The leading Protestant reformers of the time attended at the behest of Philip I of Hesse (1504 – 1567).

Philip’s primary motivation for this conference was political.

He wished to unite the Protestant states in political alliance, and to this end, religious harmony was an important consideration.

Philip I felt the need to reconcile the diverging views of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli in order to develop a unified Protestant theology.

If Philip wanted the meeting to be a symbol of Protestant unity he was disappointed.

Above: Philip I of Hesse

Both Luther and Zwingli fell out over the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Above: Stained glass illustration of the Eucharist, St. Michael the Archangel Church, Findlay, Ohio

Luther believed that the human body of Christ was ubiquitous (present in all places) and so present in the bread and wine.

This was possible because the attributes of God infused Christ’s human nature.

Luther emphasized the oneness of Christ’s person.

Above: Martin Luther

Zwingli, who emphasized the distinction of the natures, believed that while Christ in his deity was omnipresent, Christ’s human body could only be present in one place, that is, at the right hand of the Father.

Above: Huldrych Zwingli

The executive editor for Christianity Today magazine carefully detailed the two views that would forever divide the Lutheran and Reformed view of the Last Supper:

“Luther claimed that the Body of Christ was not eaten in a gross, material way but rather in some mysterious way, which is beyond human understanding.

Yet, Zwingli replied, if the words were taken in their literal sense, the Body had to be eaten in the most grossly material way.

“For this is the meaning they carry:

This bread is that Body of Mine which is given for you.

It was given for us in grossly material form, subject to wounds, blows and death.

As such, therefore, it must be the material of the Last Supper.”

Indeed, to press the literal meaning of the text even farther, it follows that Christ would have again to suffer pain, as his Body was broken again — this time by the teeth of communicants.

Even more absurdly, Christ’s Body would have to be swallowed, digested, even eliminated through the bowels!

Such thoughts were repulsive to Zwingli.

They smacked of cannibalism on the one hand and of the pagan mystery religions on the other.

The main issue for Zwingli, however, was not the irrationality or exegetical fallacy of Luther’s views.

It was rather that Luther put “the chief point of salvation in physically eating the body of Christ,” for he connected it with the forgiveness of sins.

The same motive that had moved Zwingli so strongly to oppose images, the invocation of saints, and baptismal regeneration was present also in the struggle over the Supper: the fear of idolatry.

Salvation was by Christ alone, through faith alone, not through faith and bread.

The object of faith was that which is not seen (Hebrews 11:1) and which therefore cannot be eaten except, again, in a nonliteral, figurative sense.

“Credere est edere,” said Zwingli:

“To believe is to eat.”

To eat the Body and to drink the Blood of Christ in the Supper, then, simply meant to have the Body and Blood of Christ present in the mind.

Near the end of the Colloquy when it was clear an agreement would not be reached, Philipp asked Luther to draft a list of doctrines all that both sides agreed upon.

The Marburg Articles had 15 points and every person at the Colloquy could agree on the first fourteen. 

The 15th article of the Marburg Articles reads:

Fifteenth, regarding the Last Supper of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, we believe and hold that one should practice the use of both species as Christ Himself did, and that the Sacrament at the Altar is a Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and the spiritual enjoyment of this very Body and Blood is proper and necessary for every Christian.

Furthermore, that the practice of the Sacrament is given and ordered by God the Almighty like the Word, so that our weak conscience might be moved to faith through the Holy Spirit.

And although we have not been able to agree at this time, whether the true Body and Blood of Christ are corporally present in the bread and wine of Communion, each party should display towards the other Christian love, as far as each respective conscience allows, and both should persistently ask God the Almighty for guidance so that through His Spirit He might bring us to a proper understanding.

The failure to find agreement resulted in strong emotions on both sides.

Above: Marburg Castle, Marburg, Germany

When the two sides departed, Zwingli cried out in tears:

“There are no people on Earth with whom I would rather be at one than the Lutheran Wittenbergers.”

Because of the differences, Luther initially refused to acknowledge Zwingli and his followers as Christians, though following the Colloquy the two Reformers showed relatively more mutual respect in their writings.

Luther and Zwingli were more concerned with being “right” than being united in a common cause.

Above: Coat of arms of Marburg

In 1531, Zwingli’s alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Catholic cantons.

Starve or comply.

On 9 October 1531, in a surprise move, the Five States declared war on Zürich.

Zürich’s mobilisation was slow due to internal squabbling.

On 11 October, 3,500 poorly deployed men encountered a Five States force nearly double their size near Kappel.

Many pastors, including Zwingli, were among the soldiers.

The battle lasted less than one hour and Zwingli was among the 500 casualties in the Zürich army.

Zwingli had considered himself first and foremost a soldier of Christ, second a defender of his country, the Swiss Confederation, and third a leader of his city, Zürich, where he had lived for the previous twelve years.

Ironically, he died at the age of 47, not for Christ nor for the Confederation, but for Zürich.

Above: The death of Zwingli, Kappel am Albis, Switzerland, 11 October 1531

In Table Talk, Luther is recorded saying:

“They say that Zwingli recently died thus.

If his error had prevailed, we would have perished, and our church with us.

It was a judgment of God.

That was always a proud people.

The others, the Papists, will probably also be dealt with by our Lord God.”

Above: Martin Luther’s grave, Schlosskirche, Wittenberg, Germany

Erasmus (1466 – 1536) wrote:

“We are freed from great fear by the death of the two preachers, Zwingli and Oecolampadius, whose fate has wrought an incredible change in the mind of many.

This is the wonderful hand of God on high.”

Johannes Oecolampadius (1482 – 1531) had died on 24 November.

Erasmus also wrote:

“If Bellona (Roman goddess of war) had favoured them, it would have been all over with us.“

Above: Basel Minster, Basel, Switzerland, where Erasmus is buried

Such arrogance!

Such lack of sympathy!

Religious division seems to me as pointless as two bald men fighting over a comb.

If there is indeed a God and each of us has been given an individual mind then I believe that faith must be individual choice.

I believe that religion has its place in teaching us morality and in giving significance through rituals to the various stages of our lives.

It is here where I draw the distinction between individual faith and communal religion.

Above: Praying Hands, by Albrecht Dürer (1508)

I desire in no way, shape or form for anyone to follow my example on faith or lack thereof.

That being said, I equally resist anyone trying to force me to follow the rules of a religion which I myself do not practice.

Simply put, I live and let live.

I presently live in a predominantly Muslim nation.

Above: Reşadiye Camii (mosque), Eskişehir, Turkey

I was raised in a predominantly Christian country.

Above: Église de St-Philippe, Brownsburg-Chatham, Québec, Canada

I would never presume to tell others how to live nor will I willingly submit to others telling me how to live (except where my actions cause harm to others).

In all humility I mourn the loss of anyone past or present, whether I would have agreed with them or not.

Every death diminishes us even if we are unaware of their passing.

I will never celebrate the death of anyone no matter what evils they may have perpetuated, even men as reprehensible as terrorists or tyrants.

That said I will not celebrate the lives of everyone to whom life was given, for we do judge people by the acts that they do.

That a man of religious principle died in battle at the mere age of 47 is cause for sadness.

That a man of religious principle accepted the executions of Anabaptists and a food blockade against Catholic cantons is not cause for commemoration.

My journey, my walk, sought to understand Zwingli and what he represents to the Swiss celebrating his legacy.

I respect his legacy that lives on in the confessions, liturgy, and church orders of the Swiss Reformed churches of today, but I sincerely doubt that had we met that I would have liked him.

In my own way I did get a sense of what his life was like by visiting the places where he once lived.

I do not know in absolute certainty whether I would have acted as he, had my life experience been his.

I do know that Zwingli’s life was remarkable enough to relate it to my readers in the hopes that they might better understand his significance to the Swiss people with whom I lived with for a decade.

I believe that every person is my superior in that I may learn from them.

And the Zwingli walk was certainly…..

Educational.

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Yvonne and Marcel Steiner, Zwingli-Wege: Zu Füss von Wildhaus nach Kappel am Albis – Ein Wander- und Lesebuch

Canada Slim and the Succulent Collection

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Friday 13 November 2020

I have, since 12 November 2017, written a series of posts about my adventures and discoveries following a book’s walking itinerary that traces the “footsteps” and life of Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, from his birthplace in the village of Wildhaus to his final resting place in Kappel am Albis.

Yvonne and Marcel Steiner, in their book Zwingli-Wege: Zu Fuss von Wildhaus nach Kappel am Albis – Ein Wander- und Lesebuch, break Zwingli’s life progression within Switzerland into nine separate walks.

I have translated sections of the Steiners’ book and have quietly and slowly explored their Zwingli walks, discovering places filled with heritage and surprisingly interesting.

What I want to make clear is that I am not a man of faith.

I am not a follower of any religion.

It is not my life’s purpose to steady the Ark.

It is not my desire to question someone’s faith in the idea of Noah’s salvationary floating zoo or in virgin births or in any manner of religious imagery.

I won’t question someone’s faith, but I do question someone’s insistence that I share that faith.

I seek neither to defend or attack faith.

I seek rather only to (somewhat, somehow) understand belief and why so many are compelled to follow its tenets.

I respect the notion of faith’s attempts to provide humanity with a moral compass, but I do wonder how many believers actually heed the bearings of the compass they profess to follow.

I am fascinated (and often repulsed) at both the moral and immoral acts that are committed in the name of a God whose existence is proven only by the argument that this existence cannot be disproven either.

I am surrounded by mankind’s monuments to faith but I am unconvinced that mankind practices what it professes.

There seems to be few places that mankind dubs “civilized” where monuments to faith are not present.

I am undecided as to whether this is a good or a bad thing.

I am not suggesting that all those of faith are bad individuals, but I do question whether one needs faith to act morally or whether faith can be justified when immorality is committed.

I have followed Zwingli’s life and footsteps not as a disciple following a chosen leader but rather as a simple man trying to comprehend the religious impulse that drove him (and drives others) to justify the things that are done in the name of faith.

Above: Huldrych Zwingli (1484 – 1531)

Between posts alternating between:

• Alsace (France)
• Italy
• Lanzarote (Canary Island)
• London (England)
• Porto (Portugal)
• Serbia (Belgrade and Nis)
• Switzerland

….I have written of my explorations, of Zwingli’s life and the lands through which he travelled and sojourned, from Wildhaus to Kilchberg.

Above: Lake Zürich (Zürichsee)

Please see Canada Slim and…..

• the Road to Reformation (12 November 2017)
• the Wild Child of Toggenburg (20 November 2017)
• the Thundering Hollows (27 November 2017)
• the Basel Butterfly Effect (3 December 2017)
• the Vienna Waltz (9 December 2017)
• the Battle for Switzerland’s Soul (18 December 2017)
• the Monks of the Dark Forest (8 January 2018)
• the Privileged Place (26 January 2018)
• the Lakeside Pilgrimage (24 April 2018)

Today, I want to start writing of the discoveries the walker can make following the shore of Lake Zürich from Kilchberg into downtown Zürich itself.

Above: Kilchberg

Above: Lake Zürich and the Limmat River as seen from Zürich’s Grossmünster

The Steiners recommend walking from Kilchberg via Nidelbad and Wollishofen, following in parallel fashion the route of the Lake Zürich railway line.

And certainly the Steiners’ idea has merit, for their path meanders through forest and offers wonderful glimpses of the beautiful panaroma of the entire Lake below.

Above: Lake Zürich in winter as seen from Uetliberg

There were two reasons I opted against this idea:

First, I wanted to walk beside the Lake despite the urbanization and traffic a stroll here meant.

Second, the Steiners’ book was not the only book I carried.

Duncan J.D. Smith’s Only in Zürich: A Guide to Unique Locations, Hidden Corners and Unusual Objects, based on the author’s personal experiences walking through the city on the Limmat, offers new and innovative perspectives on this region.

Smith reveals the Zürich of Roman ruins and medieval walls, of hidden gardens and little-known museums, of unusual shops and converted factories.

So it was Smith’s guide rather than the Steiner book that I followed from Kilchberg to the Grossmünster in downtown Zürich, even though the sites seen in this walk were not as focused on Huldrych Zwingli as Zwingli Wege.

What follows below is a description of that walk.

It is my hope that you will enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoyed walking and describing it.

Kilchberg to Zürich, Saturday 19 August 2018

I descended from Kilchberg down to the water’s edge and eventually my feet found their way along Seestrasse (Lake Street) heading ever northward to the Big City, where all roads in Switzerland seem to lead.

Above: Images of Zürich

When Zürich was “zu reich“

Fear.

Anxiety.

Anger.

Desperation.

These are the moods of the moment.

Moods that drive people to the streets, bounded into a movement, draped in hopelessness and yet driven by hope.

Protesters protest in the belief, however modest, that their voices on the street will be heard.

On 30 May 1980, a protest staged by youth activists outside Zürich’s Opera House (Opernhaus Zürich) turned violent.

A three-day celebration of the Zürich Opernhaus and the opening of a festival was celebrated on 30 May 1980.

Uninvited, about 200 protesters crashed the festival opening and demanded an autonomous youth center.

The communal Stadtpolizei Zürich (Zürich city police) and state Kantonspolizei (Zürich canton police) police corps were informed beforehand and were stationed in the foyer of the opera house as a precautionary measure.

As the youths occupied the exterior stairs of the Opera House, the demonstration degenerated into a street battle between demonstrators and the police, who were equipped with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.

The youth protests culminated on 30/31 May 1980, at the present Sechseläutenplatz square in Zürich, but later spread throughout the whole city.

A public referendum also contributed to the riots, as the city of Zurich planned to grant CHF 61 million for a renovation and an extension of the Opera House, but nothing for the planned Rote Fabrik cultural center in Zürich-Wollishofen, by the Zürichsee lakeshore.

The protestors felt that the demands of the young people for their own cultural center had been ignored for years and that the astronomical grant for the Opera House demonstrated this lack of commitment to youth by Zürich’s conservative government.

Their reaction was a “long pent-up anger” as seen on a newspaper headline.

“Züri brännt” has since become a household word, and is the title of a punk song by the band TNT.

Andreas Homoki, director of the Opera House, described the situation in the “hot summer of 1980” as explosive, and that “there was not enough room for a youth culture” because of a lack of alternative governmental cultural programs for the youth in Zürich.

Above: Opernhaus Zürich

Months of rioting between police and protesters ensued and the orderliness for which the City was renowned was turned upside down.

By the time peace was restored, shops were wrecked, cars burned, thousands arrested, many injured, and one woman had died after setting herself on fire in protest.

Zürich was like a war zone and the outside world was stunned.

Most surprising of all the cause was less about political ideology and more about the lack of government support for the city’s alternative arts scene.

Above: The Opernhauskrawalle (opera house protest)(or Züri brannt – Zürich burns), 30 May 1980

The Zürich riots were played out against a backdrop of a society in flux.

A rebellious European youth counterculture was manifesting itself in punk music, anarchistic art movements, and squatting protests.

The conservative authorities in straight-laced Zürich struggled to accommodate it – and little wonder that the city was ripe for rebellion as at the time there was an 2300 hours curfew and dancing was forbidden on religious holidays.

One of several watering holes that defied the curfew was the Helvti Bar in the basement of the Hotel Helvetia at Stauffacherquai 1 in the district of Werd.

Students, artists, musicians and journalists from the leftist newspaper Tages Anzeiger regularly discussed the countercultural revolution here well in the wee hours of the morning.

They also assembled here to take part in the great street marches that defined the era.

Since the early 1970s Zürich’s youth movement had been growing steadily more frustrated at the lack of public funding and work space for a new generation of artists.

Pleas for the establishment of youth centres were repeatedly turned down and so instead the counterculture focused itself on two big community squats.

(The film is in German – worse yet, Swiss German – but I think the images need no translating.)

The first took place in 1980 inside a former silk mill at Seestrasse 395 (Wollishofen district) on the shore of the Zürichsee.

Constructed in 1892, the building had been set for demolition before the Council earmarked it for use by the Opera, which was about to be renovated at taxpayers’ expense.

It was this decision that triggered the protest in May 1980 by those who felt ignored in favour of “elitist” venues.

Whereas squats in municipal premises elsewhere in Switzerland have remained illegal it is indicative of Zürcher pragmatism that in 1987 the Rote Fabrik (red factory) collective voted to apply for permanent legal status and an arts subsidy from the City Council.

They were successful.

Above: The Rote Fabrik (red factory)

Today the alternative heart of the Rote Fabrik still beats loudly by providing studio and performance space for artists thanks to public funding.

Indeed, even Zürich’s most conservative newspaper the New Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) has been known to review the avant-garde dance and drama performed at the venue!

The second great squat occurred in 1991 when a group of artists moved into the newly empty Wohlgroth gas meter factory on Zollstrasse (Gewerbeschule district) alongside the city’s main railway line.

The squatters quickly erected a sign on the building to greet arriving trains that imitated an official Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) sign.

Instead of “ZÜRICH” it read “ZUREICH” (too rich) and guaranteed fury from the Establishment.

The Wohlgroth squat became a cause célèbre and quickly developed into a thriving alternative arts centre.

Concerned at not being able to generate income from the building the owner eventually offered to relocate the squat elsewhere but his offer was rejected.

Shortly afterwards in 1993 the building was cleared by police using tear gas and water cannons.

It might have pleased the squatters to know that the Industrie Quartier (industrial quarter)(District 5) to the west of Zollstrasse would later be transformed into Zürich West, the pulsating heart of the city’s new subculture.

(The Rote Fabrik is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 1100 to 0000 and on Fridays and Sundays from 1100 to 0100.)

The Kaiser’s paddle steamer

It is a little-known fact that Europe’s first iron-hulled ship was the steam ferry Minerva, which made its inaugural cruise across the Zürichsee on 19 July 1835.

Above: The Minerva

Many vessels have worked the Lake since then and the ferries of the Lake Zürich Shipping Company (Zürichsee Schifffahrtsgesellschaft).

In amongst the modern ferries, however, there is one especially historic vessel.

Built a little over a century ago the Stadt Zürich (city of Zürich) is the oldest paddle steamer (Raddampfer) on the Lake and a piece of floating history.

When not racing from port to port the Stadt Zürich can be found moored at the shipping company’s harbour on Mythenquai in Wollishofen (Wollishofen Schiffstation).

A visit to the dock around 0700 hours or 1900 hours provides the opportunity of having the vessal to one’s self (albeit viewed from the path overlooking the harbour) as opposed to sharing it with the 750 passengers it can hold when in service.

The Stadt Zürich was built for the Lake Zürich Shipping Company by the Zürich engineering firm Escher, Wyss & Cie.

Launched on 8 May 1909 she was the 32nd commercial ferry on the Zürichsee after the Minerva.

Her maiden voyage took place on 12 June and immediately it was clear she was something special.

Like her sister vessel the Stadt Rapperswil (1914), also built to satisfy the increasing popularity of lake steamers, the Stadt Zürich had several novel features, including a spacious Art Nouveau-style First Class saloon on the upper deck and short smoke stacks.

In her first year of service the Stadt Zürich sailed over 12,000 kilometres and burned over 250,000 kilos of coal.

Although many cantonal and municipal dignitaries sailed on the maiden voyage of the Stadt Zürich, undoubtedly the vessel’s most famous passenger was German Kaiser (emperor) Wilhelm II (1859 – 1941).

Above: Kaiser Wilhelm II

On the evening of 4 September 1912, Wilhelm boarded the steamer with his retinue and made a tour of the Lake.

The vessel was adorned with flowers, strict dress regulations were applied, tea and German beer were served.

Fireworks were let off along the shoreline as the vessel steamed by.

It is interesting to note that ship’s stoker Jakob Stampfer was replaced for the evening because of his anti-imperial and Social Democratic political views.

During the First World War ferry services on Lake Zürich were reduced and in December 1918 stopped altogether by the Swiss Federal Council because the country had to import coal.

Service resumed in 1919.

Between 1922 and 1939 the Stadt Zürich was overhauled on several occasions, receiving new boiler tubes and new paddle wheels.

In 1938 the vessel was fitted for the first time with electric heating.

During the Second World War the boilers of the Stadt Zürich were kept filled around the clock and her engines in perfect running condition in readiness for possible military activity.

Her services were not required and instead she was upgraded from coal to oil in 1951, at which point her original crew of eight was reduced.

It was also during the 1950s that the sun awning on the upper deck was replaced by a solid roof and the original Art Nouveau salon fittings stripped out.

By the 1980s the two paddle steamers were the last of their type and had been replaced for daily ferry services by modern diesel powered vessels.

The old steamers were not to be abandoned though and instead the Lake Zürich Shipping Company decided to preserve and restore them and use them for special services.

It was at this time that the interior of the Stadt Zürich was lovingly restored to its original appearance.

Further upgrades occurred in 2003 with the result that today both vessels offer the thrill of travel by paddle steamer combined with all the comforts of a modern ferry.

Still going strong a century after her launch the Stadt Zürich has now travelled well over 700,000 kilometres.

(For more information, including prices and timetables, please see http://www.zsg.ch.)

(Another relic of the steam age is the little locomotive Schnaagi Schnaagi built in 1899.

It runs on the last Sunday of the month between April and October along the Sihl Valley between Bahnhof Wiedikon and Sihlwald. )(http://www.museumbahn.ch)

Above: The Schnaagi Schnaagi

The Island of Women

Themiscyra (Greek: Θεμίσκυρα Themiskyra) was an ancient Greek town in northeastern Anatolia.

It was situated on the southern coast of the Black Sea, near the mouth of the Thermodo.

According to Greek mythology, it was the capital city of the Amazons, a tribe of warrior women.

Themyscira is a fictional unitary sovereign city-state island appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.

Themyscira is a segregated nation of women — regarded as a feminist Utopia — governed by Aphrodite’s Law, which declared that the Amazons would be immortal as long as no man set foot on their island.

Subsequently, any man attempting to set foot on Themyscira, does so under penalty of death.

Themyscira is the theocracy and capital city that serves as the Amazonian government and the place of origin for Wonder Woman.

Just north of the Wollishofen shipyard, where the ferries of the Lake Zürich Shipping Company are docked, lies the tiny island of Saffa.

Connected to the shore by a bridge, and with little to distinguish it beyond a clump of trees, Saffa ain’t much to look at.

The island’s unusual name, however, recalls a very interesting story.

Above: Saffa Island

Saffa today is an island for all seasons.

In summer it is popular with bathers.

It autumn it doubles as a theatre stage.

In winter, when the Lake is frozen, Saffa provides a welcome feeding ground for swans and ducks.

It is hard to imagine that barely more than 50 years ago the island did not exist at all.

So what does Saffa mean?

Is it perhaps Greek?

Does it have some connection to saffron?

Above: Saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, with its vivid crimson stigmas and styles

SAFFA is an acronym for the Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit (Swiss Exhibition for Women’s Work), which took place on the shoreline here between 17 July and 15 September 1958.

Material excavated for the construction of the exhibition buildings was not taken away but rather dumped offshore, together with material from the excavation of the Enge road tunnel, creating SAFFA Island in the process.

The exhibition’s landmark was a 35-metre high, eight-storey tower erected immediately north of the island on the Landiwiese.

Visible for miles around the tower acted as an advertisement for the exhibition, which the locals dubbed Frauenland (women’s land).

Above: SAFFA Tower

Above: SAFFA exhibition, Zürich, 1958

The exhibition, the 2nd of its type after an earlier one staged in Bern in 1928, was organized by numerous women’s groups and was a major national event.

Above: SAFFA exhibition, Bern, 1928

Its purpose was to illustrate the position and importance of Swiss women in the family, the workplace and in Swiss society as a whole.

With a daily programme of concerts, congresses and other events, it proved a great success, attracting two million visitors.

Inside the tower were constructed a series of rooms in which the many and varied roles of Swiss women in the 1950s were represented, from the young apprentice in her rented room and the well-to-do homemaker in her detached family home to the retired lady in an old people’s home.

SAFFA presented women who were wanted in the booming economy as consumers and workers, their possibilities in the areas of education, employment, shopping and leisure.

Emphasizing that women had to absorb negative impacts of the rapidly changing world, nevertheless, by spreading harmony inside and outside of their families.

Men should be made aware of women in the service of the general public, of their indispensability and so be motivated to fix the social discrimination against women.

With the profits from the two exhibitions, solidarity works were established for women.

Tradition dictates that the place of Swiss women is in the home in charge of housework and child care.

Being in a society with strong patriarchal roots, Swiss tradition also places women under the authority of their fathers and their husbands.

Such adherence to tradition changed and improved when the women of Switzerland gained the right to vote on the federal level on 7 February 1971.

However, despite gaining status of having equal rights with men, some Swiss women are still unable to attain education beyond the post-secondary level, thus they earn less money than men and occupy lower-level job positions.

According to swissinfo.ch in 2011, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) were encouraging business companies to “appoint more women to top-level positions“.

Those who are already working in business companies, according to same report, mentions that “women earn on average 20% less than men” in Switzerland, and the ratio was six out of ten women were working part-time.

The novel idea for the SAFFA tower came from the exhibition’s chief architect, Annemarie Hubacher.

Her celebration of womanhood was an early stab at Swiss feminism, although it may now appear tame to some.

Notably it still clung to the traditional three-phase model laid out for women – training for a career, motherhood, and the return to gainful employment.

Hubacher typified the situation for some women at the time in that she was 37 years of age, a mother of two and expecting a third, and a partner in her husband’s architectural practice.

Above: Annemarie Hubacher

Men were also represented in the exhibition – and again in a stereotypical manner.

Alongside the nearby railway a cable car was erected for male visitors, as well as an artificial petrol station, a punching bag and a rifle range.

One must remember that women were still in the thrall of men and that prior to the exhibition an attempt at granting Swiss women the right to vote had been rejected.

The first federal vote in which women were able to participate was the 31 October 1971 election of the Federal Assembly.

Above: Chamber of the Swiss National Council

In 1991 following a decision by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, Appenzell Innerrhoden (AI) became the last Swiss canton to grant women the vote on local issues.

Above: Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, Lausanne

AI is the smallest Swiss canton with 14,100 inhabitants in 1990.

Above: Flag of Canton Appenzell Innerrhoden

Hubacher was no political activist though and it seems unfair she was criticized for not pushing female emanicipation farther with her exhibition.

Her son, however, was incisive about her lot as a Swiss woman:

“She was always both: a family and a career person, but above all with love and soul an architect.“

On a personal level he was referring to the fact that architecture ran in the family’s blood, one of their ancestors being Zürich city architect Gustav Gull (1858 – 1942) responsible for building the Landesmuseum Zürich (Swiss National Museum) at Museumstrasse 2 and the Amtshaus (administrative building) at Bahnhofquai 3.

(The Landesmuseum is open year-round Tuesday to Sunday 1000 – 1700, on Thursdays until 1900.

Above: Landesmuseum

The Amtshaus, with its glorious Giacometti Hall at its entrance, is open daily (0900 – 1100 / 1400 – 1600).

Identification must be shown upon entry.)

Above: Amtshaus

Above: Giacometti Hall

On a broader level, Annemarie’s son was speaking for many Swiss women who juggled with varying degrees of success their roles as wife, mother and professional woman.

Swiss women eventually gained the right to vote in 1971 (despite it being one of the demands of a general strike as far back as 1918) and a triumphant bronze statue by Swiss sculptor Hermann Haller (1880 – 1950) entitled Girl with Raised Hands still reminds the passer-by of the part Saffa Island played in the process.

Above: Hermann Haller’s Mädchen mit erhobenen Händen (Girl with Raised Hands)

(Haller’s studio is a highlight of Zürich’s Museum Bellerive at Höschgasse 3, open March to October, Tuesday / Wednesday / Friday / Sunday (1000 – 1700) / Thursday (1000 – 2000), and November to February, Tuesday to Sunday (1000 – 1700)

Above: Museum Bellerive (design museum)

Quite by coincidence, an equally triumphant but far smaller work called Girl in the Wind by German artist Otto Münch (1885 – 1965) has graced the nearby main road since 1936, when it was placed there by the City of Zürich.

Münch’s work is one of the most charming but little-known public sculptures in Zürich.

Above: Otto Münch, Mädchen im Wind (Girl in the wind)

Against the odds several Swiss women have left an important impression on their country during the 20th century, especially in Zürich.

They include Paulette Brupbacher (1880 – 1967), who promoted the rights of mothers and wives despite a ban of her speaking publically.

Above: Paulette Brupbacher

Brupbacher is recalled together with her husband in a monument in the church cemetery in Höngg.

(The small Höngg church with its cemetery at Am Wettingertobel 38 is accessible Sunday to Friday (0800 – 1800). )

Above: Kirche Höngg (Höngg Church)

Another woman who encountered problems in her work was Emilie Kempin-Spyri (1853 – 1901), niece of the Heidi author Johanna Spyri.

Emelie was the first Swiss woman to graduate in law but was denied access to the bar because of her gender.

Above: Emelie Kempin-Spyri

Artwork in her memory by the artist Piplotti Rist (famous for St. Gallen’s City Lounge) can be found in the courtyard of the University of Zürich.

Above: The Spyri chair, Pipilotti Rist

Despite these events being a long time ago, women are still not allowed to join Zürich’s guilds.

(It was the brave women of Zürich who defended the Lindenhof against attack by the Habsburg Duke Albrecht I (1282 – 1308) as far back as 1292.

Above: Duke Albrecht I

At the time the men of Zürich were away waging a battle in Winterthur.

This episode is recalled by the Hedwig Fountain on the Lindenhof, which includes the helmeted figure of a female warrior.)

The Succulent Collection

The suburban quarter of Enge lies on the western shores of Zürichsee.

For the most part a residential area, Enge numbers among its attractions the Museum Rietberg (a museum dedicated to non-European art) and the Seebad Enge Lido (an open-air public bathing area).

On the same road as the Lido, however, there is something quite unique for Switzerland:

One of the largest and most important collections of succulent plants in the world.

Zürich’s Succulent Collection (Sukkulentensammlung) at Mythenquai 88 is easy to find since the nearby bus stop is named after it.

The Collection was inaugurated in September 1931 after Jules Brann, a local department store owner, donated an already renowned collection of succulents to the City of Zürich, which still maintains it to this day.

Above: Interior at visitors’ entry

The statistics of the current collection are impressive:

50,000 individual plants representing 6,500 species from more than 80 botanical families, displayed across an area of 4,750 square metres, including six show houses, 700 square metres of glasshouses (for acclimatization, breeding, over-wintering and protection), 550 square metres of heated bedding frames, as well as open-air rockeries for frost-hardy plants.

There is also an extensive seed collection and a herbarium containing 14,000 dried plant specimens for botanical reference and research.

Little wonder that the Collection is the official repository for the International Organization for Succulent Plant Study (IOS).

Today there are basically two large international organizations conducting research and conservation on succulent plants:

• International Organization for Succulent Plant Study (IOS)
• Sociedad Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Cactáceas y otras Suculentas (SLCCS)
  (Latin American and Caribbean Society of Cactaceae and Other Succulents)

Above: Austrocylindropuntia shaferi, San Lucas, Chuquisaca, Bolivia 

The IOS

In 1947 the Swiss gardener and cactus expert Hans Krainz (1906–1980) dealt with the idea of uniting existing national cacti organizations (for example, the German Cactus Society, the Austrian Cactus Society, and the Swiss Cactus Society) under a single umbrella organization, the European Cactus Society, while maintaining their independence.

However, a first call, which had been sent by him at the end of 1947, found no resonance, just after the end of World War II.

Above: Hans Krainz

In spring of 1950, a letter signed by Hans Krainz, Franz Buxbaum (A) and H. Michael Roan (GB) was sent by the Board of Trustees of the Scientific Fund of the Swiss Cactus Society to about 50 well-known succulent researchers and other botanists, which invited to the 1st International Congress of Succulent Researchers for 27 September 1950.

The participants in this congress agreed in just a few days on a statute on which basis the IOS was founded on 30 September 1950 with the aim “to promote the study and conservation of succulent and allied plants and to encourage international co-operation amongst those interested in them“.

Above: IOS logo

The Organization reached significant international status at the 3rd IOS Congress 1955 in London with the accession of 15 members from non-European countries.

From 1984 until 1998, the members met annually with the introduction of Inter-Congresses.

In these years the reports in the IOS Bulletins show high productivity, an active participation, and a challenging academic program.

In 1994, the number of members reached an all time high of 239.

Around the turn of the century, IOS seems to have lost its drive and drifted into a ‘crisis of meaning’.

The membership began began to decrease considerably.

Above: Lobivia bertraminiana, Iscayachi, Tarija, Bolivia

In a somewhat unfriendly takeover of the IOS Board in 2006, the new Secretary, Dr David Hunt, attempted a revival of IOS.

For some time the membership increased slightly again to about 160 – on paper.

However, Hunt’s endeavour for gaining, maintaining, extending and securing his exclusive control over the IOS and its financial resources, his refusal to unclose financial documents even to members of the IOS Executive Board, and the oppression of a free election for the Executive Board 2014-2016, eventually led to the demand of a worried group of members to immediately exclude Dr Hunt from the IOS for his continued acts against the interest of IOS, the IOS Statutes and the IOS Code of Conduct.

With the support of the President of the IOS, Hunt remained in the position of Secretary, which resulted in great loss of (mainly continental European) members.

Above: Dr. David Hunt

The time-honored IOS continues to exist in elitist seclusion at the brink of irrelevance.

Many see the survival of the IOS in a move “back to the roots“.

Above: Espostoa guentheri, Nuevo Mundo, Santa Cruz, Bolivia 

As an European Organization for Succulent Plant Research (EOS), as originally envisaged by Hans Krainz.

This way, today’s IOS could become a valuable partner on an equal footing, for example, with the modern-run Latin American and Caribbean Society of Cactaceae and Other Succulents, which has similar goals.

A division of tasks between researchers in the homelands of succulent plants and researchers in Europe, focussing more on conservation and well-maintained and documented living collections, could be of benefit for both sides and lead to significant synergy effects and cost savings in joint projects.

Considering that mainly European plant collectors have explored the habitats of cacti and other succulents over a long period of time (not seldom causing damage), a repatriation program of species in vitro could be considered to areas where populations have been lost.

The SLCCS

The Latin American and Caribbean Society of Cactus and Other Succulents was founded in 1989 and the official statutes were approved in Havana, Cuba, on the V. Latin American Congress of Botany in 1990.

The mission of the SLCCS is to encourage and stimulate scientific research on cacti and other succulents in Latin America and the Caribbean, support initiatives for the conservation of these plants, disseminate the information generated from the studies carried out and contribute to the professional training of people interested in acquiring basic and applied knowledge about cacti and other succulents.

To fulfill this mission, SLCCS sets the following objectives:

• Involve people interested in the study and conservation of cacti and other succulents in Latin America in the activities of the Society, through the membership program.
• Encourage the creation of national representations of the Society in each Latin American country.
• Conduct periodic organizational meetings of the members of the Society.
• Disseminate scientific information and general interest about these plants throughout Latin America.
• Support local initiatives focused on the study and conservation of these plants.
• Encourage the creation of botanical gardens and protected areas dedicated to the care and propagation of these plants.

Since September 2004, SLCCS has been offering a public electronic newsletter (Boletín), which is a very practical mass communication channel among people interested in the study and cultivation of cacti and other succulents in Latin America and elsewhere.

Regrettably, this excellent service had to be temporarily suspended in 2013 due to staff shortages.

Above: Echinopsis schickendantzii, Chuquisaca, Bolivia 

Some very basic botanical knowledge would certainly enhance a visit to the Succulent Collection.

Most importantly it should be borne in mind that while cacti are classified as succulents, not all succulents are cacti.

The word “succulent” is a descriptive term for plants living in dry areas of the tropics and subtropics, such as steppes, deserts, sea coasts and dry lakes.

They have adpated to high temperatures and low precipation by storing water in their leaves or stems, enabling them to survive long periods of drought.

Cacti form a distinct group of succulents known as Cactaceae, but it is not their spines that create the distinction, since some cacti are smooth (like most Lophophoras) and there are some prickly succulents (such as Agaves and Euphorbias).

Classification is made not on external characteristics such as the presence of spines or leaf shape but rather on the basis of their reproductive systems.

All cacti have spine cushions known as areoles, which usually appear like small, fluffy cotton-like protusions.

The spines, hairs, branches and flowers of a cactus will only grow out of these cushions, whereas the prickly parts of other succulents exhibit an entirely random growth pattern.

The taxonomy of the plants on display can be complex, but need not concern most visitors, who will be more than happy just to marvel at some of the most curiously shaped plants in the world.

Representing every arid region on Earth they include towering prickly cacti, lethally spiked Agaves, rosette-shaped Aloes, Euphorbias exuding bitter milky juice and tropical Epiphytes suspended from the glasshouse ceilings.

Above: Agave Americana

Above: Aloe africana

Above: Euphorbia baylissii

Above: Epiphyte Tillandia bourgaei growing on an oak tree in Mexico

Probably the most curiously shaped is the blue candle cactus (Myrtillocactus geometrizans) from Central America, which because it is prone to abnormal growth patterns at its tips is nicknamed “dinosaur back“.

Above: Myrtillocactus geometrizans, UNAM Botanical Garden, Mexico City

20% of the Collection’s plant holdings come from a variety of horticultural origins, with 45% hailing from the wild, mainly in the form of seeds.

The rest come predominantly from seed obtained through controlled pollination and the propagation of plant cuttings.

Flowering time for many of the plants in the Collection is between May and June, although some are still blooming in September.

Most unusual of all is the night-blooming Selenicereus grandiflorus from Central America.

Known also as the Queen of the Night, it starts its annual bloom at dusk and is finished by dawn.

It is considered so unusual that that the blooming is announced on local radio and the Collection opens all night for visitors.

(For blooming times, visit http://www.foerderverein.ch.)

(The Succulent Collection is open from 0900 to 1630.)

(https://stadt-zuerich.ch/sukkulenten)

Where Wagner met his muse

One of Zürich’s loveliest public green spaces is the Rieter Park at Seestrasse 110 (Enge district) on the west bank of Zürichsee.

Within this leafy parkland stand no less than three grand villas.

Once private they are owned today by the City of Zürich, which uses them to house one of Switzerland’s few museums dedicated to non-European art.

Fortunately for visitors the internationally-renowned collection is usually referred to by the easier-to.remember name of Museum Rietberg!

Above: Villa Wesendonck / Museum Rietberg

The magnificent neo-classical Villa Wesendonck at Gablerstrasse 15 was erected in 1857 for the wealthy silk merchant Otto von Wesendonck and his poetess wife Mathilde.

Above: Bas relief of Otto von Wesendonck (1815 – 1896)

Above: Mathilde von Wesendonck (née Luckemeyer) (1828 – 1902)

In 1852 the pair encountered the composer Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883) and his wife Minna, who had fled to Zürich following the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden.

Above: Wilhelmine “Minna” Wagner, née Planer (1809 – 1866)

Above: Prussian and Saxon troops assault revolutionary barricades in the Dresden Neumarkt

Above: Warrant for the arrest of Richard Wagner, 16 May 1849

Otto was a great admirer of Wagner and in 1856 offered him the use of a cottage on the Wesendonck estate.

Above: Richard Wagner

During this time Wagner became well acquainted with Mathilde Wesendonck and used her poems in his Wesendonck Lieder, a five-song cycle composed while working simultaneously on Die Walküre.

Some commentators claim that Wagner and Mathilde had an affair.

Above: Wagner Stele, Rieter Park

Above: Wagner Stele in Rieter Park

Whatever the truth their mutual infatuation contributed to the intensity of the first act of Die Walküre, as well as having a discernible effect on Mathilde’s poems during this period.

Incidentally, Wagner once sang the first act of his Die Walküre in Zürich’s luxurious Baur au Lac Hotel, accompanied by Franz Liszt on piano!

Above: Baur au Lac Hotel, Zürich

Above: Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886)

In 1872 the Wesendoncks sold their mansion and gardens to the family of cotton manufacturer Adolf Rieter.

Above: Logo of Rieter AG, Winterthur-based manufacturer of textile machinery

It was during this period that the German Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888 – 1918) stayed for several nights as a guest.

Above: Potrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II

At the end of the Second World War, the City of Zürich acquired the Villa and Park, and renovated both.

Around the same time the City was bequeathed the private non-European sculptural collection of Baron Eduard von der Heydt (1882 – 1964) and it was decided to house it in the Villa, as a result of which the Museum Rietberg opened in 1952.

The collection is today spread across four different buildings.

The Villa Wesendonck is used to display religious and ceremonial objects from America, India, Oceania and Southwest Asia (as well as some unsettling Shrovetide masks from Switzerland).

In Room 28 amongst the wonderful Buddhist art from India and Pakistan is the bronze of a four-armed dancing Shiva, surrounded by a ring of fire.

An underground extension to the Museum was opened alongside the Villa in 2007, more than doubling the exhibition space.

Designed by Alfred Grazioli and Adolf Krischanitz, the extension is called the Smaragd (an allusion to a poem by Mathilde Wesendonck used in Wagner’s third song) and is entered by means of a green glass pavilion.

Above: The Smargd, Museum Rietberg

Of particular note amongst the African, Japanese and Chinese holdings is the Han Dynasty bronze horse in Room 2, the colourful glazed Tan Dynasty figurines in Room 4, the 17th century Noh theatre masks in Room 11 and the large cloisonné Ming jar in Room 7.

On the two floors of the nearby Park Villa Rieter are displayed exquisite examples of Islamic, Persian and Indian paintings, prints and calligraphy.

The collection of North Indian miniatures is one of the world’s finest.

Above: Park Villa Rieter, Museum Rietberg

In the northern part of the Park at Gablerstrasse 14 stands the 4th and final element in the Museum complex.

The red brick Villa Schönberg was built in the late 19th century by the Rieter family and remained in private hands until the 1970s.

Narrowly escaping demolition it too was acquired by the City of Zürich and is used today as a specialist non-leading library.

Above: Villa Schönberg

Worth noting are the orangery, grotto and turret-shaped pavilion in the garden.

As well, look for the bust of Wagner lurking amongst the shrubbery.

(The Museum Rietberg – including Villa Wesendonck, Smaragd and Park Villa Rieter – is open Tuesday / Friday / Sunday (1000 – 1700) and Wednesday / Thursday (1000 – 2000). ) (https://rietberg.ch)

(Another charming former private estate lies between Rieter Park and Lake Zürich, Belvoir Park at Seestrasse 125 was purchased in 1826 by Heinrich Escher, who erected a neo-classical Villa there.

His railway-building son Alfred Escher (1819 – 1882), whose memorial fountain stands in front of Zürich Main Station (Hauptbahnhof Zürich), later occupied the Villa, which like those in Rieter Park was eventually acquired by the City of Zürich.

Above: Alfred Escher statue above fountain, Bahnhofplatz, Zürich

The Park is today open to the public and the Villa serves as a restaurant and school of catering.)

Above: Villa Escher, Belvoir Park, Zürich

The Island of Tranquillity

Zürichsee stretches from the City of Zürich and the Limmat River as far south as the Seedamm at Rapperswil, beyond which point it is known as the Obersee (Upper Lake).

Within Zürich’s city boundaries the shores of the glacial lake contain many popular attractions, most notably Zürichhorn Park in Seefeld, where one can find the Johann Jacobs Museum (a shrine to coffee), the Centre Le Corbusier (the only structure of its kind in the world, a total work of art), the aforementioned Museum Bellerive, and the Chinese Garden.

Above: Zürichhorn

Above: Jean Tinguely’s Heureka, Zürichhorn

Above: Johann Jacabs Museum

Above: Centre Le Corbusier

Above: Chinese Garden

Budding Robinson Crusoes, however, might prefer to escape the crowds – and indeed the city – by boarding a ferry at Bürkliplatz and sailing down into the Canton of Schwyz to visit the historic island of Ufenau.

Above: Bürkliplatz

An hour and a half sailing time brings ferries to the south side of the island and it quickly becomes apparent that Ufenau offers an intimate experience, since it measures only 470 by 220 metres.

(Despite this, it is the largest island in Switzerland!)

A designated Insel der Stille (Island of Tranquillity), Ufenau has been a protected nature reserve since 1927, where swimming and camping are strictly forbidden.

Above: Ufenau Island, Zürichsee, Canton Schwyz

At the end of the jetty a wheelchair-friendly track signposted “Inselweg” makes an anticlockwise circuit of the Island.

Above: Inselweg

The most prominent structure other than the popular restaurant Zu den Zwei Raben is the Church St. Peter and St. Paul, which was erected in the 1140s.

Above: Restaurant Zu den Zwei Raben (of the two ravens), Ufenau Island

Documentary evidence points to an earlier church on the same site around 970, although worship here dates back farther than that.

Archaeologists have uncovered walls beneath the church that belonged to a Gallo-Roman temple from the 1st or 2nd century.

The temple was connected with the Roman trading centre of Centum Prata (today the modern village of Kempraten), which acted as a commercial centre on the alpine trade route out of Rome.

The route also included the Roman trading post of Turicum where modern Zürich now stands.

Even older Stone Age remains on the Island from around 4000 BC may also have had some religious significance.

Above: Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Ufenau Island

The temple was destroyed sometime after the Roman withdrawl from the area in the early 400s.

Thereafter the first Christian church was probably erected on the former site of the temple during the 5th century.

The Island is first mentioned by name in 741, when it is referred to as the Island of Huphan.

After the first church was destroyed by the Huns around 900, Burchard II Duke of Swabia (917 – 926) appears on the scene.

In 919 he defeated King Randolph II of Upper Burgundy (912 – 937) and seized the area around Zürich.

Above: Rudolph of Burgundy

Burchard’s son Adalrich died on Ufenau in 973 (he was canonized in 1659) and his wife was buried at Einsiedeln Abbey, to whom Ufenau was given in 965 by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (962 – 973).

The Island is still in the hands of the Abbey’s Benedictine monks and the wooden bridge straddling the Lake between nearby Rapperswil and Hurden is used by the Abbey’s pilgrims walking the Way of St. James (Jakobsweg).

The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul served for many years as parish church for the villagers of Lake Zürich’s upper shores, a task it shared with the more modest Chapel of St. Martin a few metres away from it.

Above: St. Martin’s Chapel, Ufenau Island

In 1523 the pastor of Ufenau advised the leader of the Swiss Reformation Hildrych Zwingli (1484 – 1531) to offer sanctuary on Ufenau to the outspoken Lutheran reformer Ulrich von Hutten (1488 – 1523).

Above: Relief of Ulrich von Hutten on door of Zürich’s Grossmünster

Hutten died on Ufenau two years later and is buried alongside the church, which since the 1980s has been flanked by a vineyard.

Both church and chapel were damaged during the Second Villmergen War (Toggenburg War), waged between Reformed and Catholic Swiss cantons in 1712 from 12 April to 11 August.

Above: Switzerland during the Toggenburg War: Protestants (green) / Catholics (yellow)

The Protestant side was successful, bringing to an end Catholic hegemony in the Old Swiss Confederacy, and staving off further conflict until civil war broke out again in 1847 (3 – 29 November), the Sonderbundskrieg (Sonderbund War) that led to the formation of Switzerland as a federal state in 1848.

Since then peace and tranquillity has returned to the Island of Ufenau.

Above: Ufenau Island

From Ufenau Island I take a boat back to Burkliplatz.

I am in Zürich proper now and soon I shall, soberly as I can, consider the value of a man’s life and whether faith followed fanatically is wise in emulating….

Above: Grossmünster, Zürich

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / YouTube / Duncan J.D. Smith, Only in Zurich / Yvonne and Marcel Steiner, Zwingli Wege / http://www.iosweb.org

Canada Slim and the Invention of the Clear Day

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Monday 6 July 2020

Let there be no doubt:

My souvenir book loves Porto.

 

Above from the top left corner clockwise: Clérigos Church and Tower; Avenida dos Aliados; Casa da Música concert hall; Ribeira district; Avenida da Boavista business hub; Luiz I bridge and Porto from Vila Nova de Gaia

 

“The facades of the colourful houses line the streets, displaying their elegance in full sight of the sweet and beloved River Douro.

 

 

It is the tale of a platonic love with no end in sight and so each house adopts its own adornment with clothes on the balcony or flowerpots in the windows, impressing those who pass.

 

 

These facades, accompanied by their beloved River, the narrow lanes bearing the marks of time, the majestic Clérigos Tower and the rabelo boats are part of this unique place, captured by the lenses of tourists.

 

 

I know of what I speak, for I have often witnessed admiring glances being exchanged and heard flattering phrases in many languages of the world.

I myself feel special to be part of this space, belonging to mankind.

I know also that one day it will be my turn to leave and by then my duty will be done, for I will take with me a piece of this city, made of mists and smiles.

Ever since I was brought here, every single morning I am placed outside, within view of visitors.

 

 

During the night I rest in a dark shop surrounded by objects that show the city photographed, illustrated, magnetized, embroidered, carved and even spiritualized.

Whilst I repose, I think how much I will miss the authentic warmth of the population, who welcome people with smiles of gold and gruff voices.

Even so, I am prepared to be removed quite soon from the postcard display and be sent, with a message, to a distant place, where I will continue to display the facades of my colourful and aligned houses, eternally in love with a golden river.”

(Susana Fonseca)

 

 

It is true.

It is hard to hate Porto.

Yes, it is a large city, but it is also a beguiling one, with a lengthy history and a constant Catholicism, but where Coimbra is Saint Augustine, Braga the Virgin Mary and Lisbon Mary Magdelene, Porto is Martha.

 

 

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus visits the home of two sisters named Mary and Martha.

The two sisters are contrasted:

Martha was “encumbered about many things” while Jesus was their guest, while Mary had chosen “the better part“, that of listening to the master’s discourse.

 

Above: Jesus at the house of Mary and Martha, Harold Copping, 1927

 

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

She came to Him and asked,

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?

Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.

Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.”

 

Above: Christ with Martha and Maria, by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1886

 

Perhaps it is my manual labour background, but I find myself more sympathetic towards Martha than I do towards Mary, and, by extension in this city-to-Biblical-personality analogy, more sympathetic towards Porto than Lisbon.

For me, this wee Biblical passage sums up Porto’s attitude towards the rest of Portugal.

 

Above: Flag of Portugal

 

Porto may never feel it is properly rewarded for all the hard work it provides, because Porto is more than just another prettified tourist destination, it is a busy commercial city whose fascination lies in its riverside setting and day-to-day life.

 

 

Porto is cramped streets and ancient alleys and antiquated shops.

During our week’s sojourn in this northern Portuguese metropolis, my wife and I did all the touristy things that tourists are advised to do.

 

 

And of Porto I have described much already in this blog:

• Canada Slim and the War of the Oranges (6 August 2018)
• Canada Slim and the Station Sanctuary (19 January 2019)
• Canada Slim and the Voices without Echo (3 June 2019)
• Canada Slim and the Harry Potter Fado (11 October 2019)

 

 

As well, there is much more to be said about Porto in the months and years to come.

 

(My wife and I have already spent time on the Algarve and in Lisboa, but as these visits occurred prior to the commencement of this blog I have not described my two previous visits to Portugal – a land I love with a passion fierce.)

 

Above: Coat of arms of Portugal

 

In my last Porto post I described the sites within the city that Harry Potter fans flock to and some to where we followed the flock of Potterheads.

 

 

I mention this Potter post, for the sole reason that the bookshop (Livraria Lello) that Ms. Rowling once haunted and wherein her books are perpetually offered for sale, therein I discovered a Portuguese poet’s work.

 

 

And as French author Jacques Salomé so wisely wrote:

“Un livre à toujours deux auteurs: celui dui l’écrit et celui qui le lit.”

(A book always has two authors: he who writes it and he who reads it.)

 

Above: Jacques Salomé

 

Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935) was a Portuguese poet and writer born in Lisbon, but whom I did not discover until this trip to Porto.

Pessoa is considered one of the greatest poets to have ever written in the Portuguese language and a giant of world literature.

 

Above: Fernando Pessoa, 1914

 

At the age of six, Pessoa moved to Durban, South Africa where for nine years he learned to read and write English perfectly.

Of the four books he published in his lifetime, three were written in English.

 

Above: Modern Durban, South Africa

 

On leaving South Africa Pessoa returned to Lisbon, wherein he spent much of the rest of his life.

 

Above: Images of Lisbon

 

During his life, Pessoa worked in various places as an English and French language correspondent.

He also worked as a businessman, editor, literary critic, journalist, political commentator, translator, inventor, astrologer and advertiser while producing his works in verse and prose.

 

 

And yet, despite this, during his life, Pessoa was virtually unknown, avoiding society and the literary world.

As a poet, Pessoa was known for his multiple pseudonyms, what came to be known as “heteronyms“, which were and still are today the subject of many of the studies produced on his life and work.

 

 

On 29 November 1935, Pessoa was taken to Lisbon’s Hospital de Sao Luis, suffering from abdominal pain and a high fever.

There he wrote, in English, his last words:

“I know not what tomorrow will bring.”

 

 

He died the next day, 30 November 1935, around 8 pm, aged 47.

 

Above: Pessoa’s tomb in Lisbon, at the cloister of the Hieronymites Monastery since 1985.

 

In his lifetime, he published four books in English and one in Portuguese.

However, he left a lifetime of unpublished, unfinished or simply sketchy work in a domed, wooden truck (25,574 manuscript and typed pages, which have been housed in the Portuguese National Library since 1988).

 

 

To get a grasp on this unusual man, one diary entry stands out:

“8 March 1914

I found myself standing before a tall chest of drawers, took up a piece of paper, began to write, remaining upright all the while since I always stand when I can.

I wrote some 30 poems in a row, all in a kind of ecstasy, the nature of which I shall never fathom.

It was the triumphant day of my life and I shall never have another like it.

I began with a title, “The Keeper of Sheep”, and what followed was the appearance of someone within me to whom I promptly assigned the name of Alberto Caeiro.

Please excuse the absurdity of what I am about to say, but there had appeared within me, then and there, my own master.

It was my immediate sensation.

So much so that, with those 30 odd poems written, I immediately took up another sheet of paper and wrote as well, in a row, the six poems that make up “Oblique Rain” by Fernando Pessoa.

Immediately and totally….

It was the return from Fernando Pessoa / Alberto Caeiro to Fernando Pessoa alone.

Or better still, it was Fernando Pessoa’s reaction to his own inexistence as Alberto Caeiro.”

 

 

In a sense this duality – (or in Pessoa’s case, multiplicity) – is something I can identify with.

Sometimes I write as purely and simply myself.

Within these blogposts I am both Canada Slim and myself, for the censor and critic that is the latter persona, the pseudonym persona liberates from myself the self-expression I need.

 

 

Just six hours from the moment I began this post (4 July 2020) I posted this on Facebook:

 

In preparation to write my much-interrupted, long-intervalled “Chronicles of Canada Slim”, I found again, like the passion one possesses for someone who is loved, some collected works purchased the last time I was in Portugal.

A Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, speaks to me in sonnets that sing and poems that praise and persuade a person of the majesty of existence.

He writes:

“I have in me all the dreams of the world.”

And to dream seems to be lacking within the soul of too many in Deutschschweiz and Deutschland.

“Sad is he who dwells in pleasure,

Content with his abode,

Without a dream, as it ruffles a feather,

Fanning the glow of the embers

In the fire as it doth erode.

Sad is he who lives contented!

He lives because life doth endure.

Nothing in his soul ever suggested,

More than the basic truth imparted,

That of only one’s grave can one be sure.“

And this it seems to be the be-all and end-all of those I have known in the lands where German (or variations thereof) is spoken.

Make one’s fortune, secure one’s comfort, do the practical and know one’s limits.

But I say with Pessoa, that I am misjudged and misunderstood in these lands (where I followed my passion for a woman far wiser in the ways of her language-linked companions than I could ever be)….

“Because I am the size of what I see and not the size of my height“.

I am as I see, not as I am seen.

It saddens me that we judge one another by standards that mean so little: the size of a bank account, the coziness of one’s castle, the reputation that precedes and follows a fellow far beyond his reach, the illusion of beauty, the prejudices of one’s age.

We see only the green of our sofas not the blue of jazz in the ether.

We hear only chaos from without and fear the calm from within, for the former we comprehend, the latter is a land too quiet and thus disquieting.

The wisdom and power of words are the worlds I see and they fill a universe that defines me far beyond how I am seen.“

Such is how Pessoa inspires me.

This maverick, this undefinable, undeniable spirit wrapped up in a carapace of conformity has been described by Mexican poet Octavio Paz (1914 – 1998) as a “solemn investigator of futile things“, the epitome of an empty man who, in his helplessness, creates a world in order to discover his true identity.

Above: Octavio Paz

In a sense I see myself as a funhouse mirror of Pessoa, not so much an echo of his disquiet about life and the world we occupy, but rather I see the world as an echo of myself.

The world I see in the places I describe is less a reality of what is, but rather is more a reflection of who I am.

A regular follower of my writing responded almost immediately to the aforementioned Facebook post:

“If I may be allowed to offer an uninvited opinion as a sincere reader, writing teacher, professional editor and translator, your secret mentor, and increasingly your appreciative, possibly infatuated fan girl.

You have really found your voice and your writing has become effortless, more honest and less contrived and therefore so much more relatable.

There are fewer experimental verbal arabesques and palpably more consolidated content and purified emotion.“

High praise indeed, from a woman for whom I have nothing but a universe’s worth of respect.

But praise I am uncertain of whether I am worthy to be given.

There is still so much I have to learn.

There is still so much I have yet to say without the expertise and experience so critical for expression.

How I long to be able to capture the beating of a heart, the symphony of a soul that Pessoa so eloquently elucidates!

Oh, to write as Anthony Trollope, whom Henry James describes as:

“He felt all daily and immediate things as well as saw them.

He felt them in a simple, direct salubrious way, with their sadness, their gladness, their charm, their comedy, all their obvious and measureable meanings.“

Above: Anthony Trollope (1815 – 1882)

I am reminded of another writing hero of mine, Hermann Hesse (1877 – 1962) and the manner in which he describes himself and how he is described:

“He does not want to follow the path trodden by many, but to resolutely plow his own furrow. 

He is not made for the collective life.“

“I have been, and still am, a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books. 

I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. 

My story is not a pleasant one. 

It is neither sweet nor harmonious as invented stories are. 

It has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams, like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.“

“What torments Hesse is the difficulty of being authentic – of staying true to who you really are, despite the enormous pressures of alienation and conformity.“

“If I search retrospectively for a common thread of meaning, then I can indeed find one.

A defense of (sometimes even a desperate plea on behalf of) human personality, the individual.“

“Hesse was forced to confront the entire weight of the institutions ranged against him – family, church, school, society – and to do battle with them in the name of defending his individuality.“

“The only way I can conceive of writing is an act of confession.“

When I describe a place I am not describing what it is, but rather how I see it.

I am not describing a place, as much as I am describing how that place makes me feel.

Of who I am rather than where I am.

I am, in some ways, very Portuguese, at least when I try to write.

I am reserved.

I leave gesticulating exuberance to others.

I am mild-mannered, gentle and homely, and yet my vision seeks to encompass the world.

I seem placid and harmless and it takes much to provoke me, but much lies beneath the surface, where there is a temperament one would expect from a land of mist and bogs.

I am not one for golden descriptions of sandy beaches, but instead I possess like my Portuguese brethren an eternal saudade, a feeling of longing for what could have been, a nostalgia for what has gone, when I sit at my keyboard and try to inadequately capture a sense of what a place really is (or at least my reality through which I see it).

Above: Saudade (1899), by Almeida Júnior

Oh, to write as one born Portuguese!

To write in a manner akin to how a Portuguese farmer farms, with a knack of conjuring a harvest even from the most barren of ground.

And so I stare at my screen seeking seeds of expression from the blank face of an unsympathetic computer.

Sometimes I think I will never leave Schulstrasse here in Landschlacht, that my mind like my body remains a prisoner of the choices I have made.

Once written down, words captured for eternity, are forever frozen in paralytic prose.

Above: Landschlacht, Switzerland, as seen on a clear day from the German shore of Lake Constance

When I consider much that is travel writing….

When I consider how Pessoa viewed life….

When I consider how I have on occasion viewed life….

Above: Saudades de Nápoles (Missing Naples), 1895, by Bertha Worms

I think about “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty“.

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939) is a short story by James Thurber.

The most famous of Thurber’s stories, it first appeared in The New Yorker on 18 March 1939, and was first collected in his book My World and Welcome to It (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942).

It has since been reprinted in James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (The Library of America, 1996, ISBN 1-883011-22-1), is available on-line on the New Yorker website and is one of the most anthologized short stories in American literature.

The story is considered one of Thurber’s “acknowledged masterpieces“.

 

 

 

Above: James Thurber (1894 – 1961)

 

 

 

 

It was made into a 1947 movie of the same name, with Danny Kaye in the title role, though the movie is very different from the original story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was also adapted into a 2013 film, which is again very different from the original.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The name Walter Mitty and the derivative word “Mittyesque“have entered the English language, denoting an ineffectual person who spends more time in heroic daydreams than paying attention to the real world, or more seriously, one who intentionally attempts to mislead or convince others that he is something that he is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The short story deals with a vague and mild-mannered man who drives into Waterbury, Connecticut, with his wife for their regular weekly shopping and his wife’s visit to the beauty parlor.

During this time he has five heroic daydream episodes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first is as a pilot of a US Navy flying boat in a storm, then he is a magnificent surgeon performing a one-of-a-kind surgery, then as a deadly assassin testifying in a courtroom, and then as a Royal Air Force pilot volunteering for a daring, secret suicide mission to bomb an ammunition dump.

As the story ends, Mitty imagines himself facing a firing squad, “inscrutable to the last.”

Each of the fantasies is inspired by some detail of Mitty’s mundane surroundings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a way, it is like inventing a clear day from a dark reality, a hero out of an ordinary human, a Paradise out of Purgatory.

 

 

 

 

Above: Expulsion from Paradise, painting by James Tissot (1902)

 

 

From Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet:

“The journey in my head

In the plausible intimacy of approaching evening, as I stand waiting for the stars to begin at the window of this 4th floor room that looks out on the infinite, my dreams move to the rhythm required by long journeys to countries as yet unknown, or to countries that are simply hypothetical or impossible.

 

 

Above: Pessoa’s birthplace: a large flat at São Carlos Square, just in front of Lisbon’s opera

 

 

Today, during one of those periods of daydreaming which, though devoid of either purpose or dignity, still constitute the greater part of the spiritual substance of my life, I imagined myself free forever of Rua dos Douradores, of my boss Vasques, of Moreira the bookkeeper, of all the other employees, the errand boy, the post boy, even the cat.

 

 

Above: Pessoa’s last home, from 1920 till his death, in 1935, currently the Fernando Pessoa Museum

 

 

In dreams, that freedom felt to me as if the South Seas had proferred up a gift of marvellous islands as yet undiscovered.

Freedom would mean rest, artistic achievement, the intellectual fulfillment of my being.

 

 

 

But suddenly, even as I imagined this (during the brief holiday afforded by my lunch break), a feeling of displeasure erupted into the dream:

I would be sad.

Yes, I say it quite seriously:

I would be sad.

For my boss Vasques, Moreira the bookkeeper, Borges the cashier, all the lads, the cheery boy who takes the letters to the post office, the errand boy, the friendly cat….

They have all become part of my life.

I could never leave all that behind without weeping, without realizing, however displeasing the thought, that part of me would remain with them and that losing them would be akin to death.

 

 

 

 

Moreover, if I left them all tomorrow and discarded this Rua dos Douradores suit of clothes I wear, what else would I do?

Because I would have to do something.

And what suit would I wear?

Because I would have to wear another suit.

 

 

 

 

We all have a Senhor Vasques.

Sometimes he is a tangible human being, sometimes not.

In my case he really is called Vasques and he is a pleasant, healthy chap, a bit brusque at times but he is no doubledealer.

He is selfish but basically fair, much fairer than many of the great geniuses and many of the human marvels of civilization on both left and right.

For many people Vasques takes the form of vanity, a desire for greater wealth, for glory or immortality….

Personally I prefer to have Vasques as my real life boss since, in times of difficulty, he is easier to deal with than any abstraction the world has to offer….

 

 

Above: Actor Steve Carell, Emmy Awards 2010, for his role as boss Michael Scott, in US series The Office

 

 

And I return to an other’s house, to the spacious office in the Rua dos Douradores, the way some return to their homes.

I approach my desk as if it were a bulwark against life.

I feel such an overwhelming sense of tenderness that my eyes fill with tears for my books that are in reality the books of other people whose accounts I keep, for the inkwell I use, for Sergio’s stooped shoulders as, not far from me, he sits writing out bills of lading.

I feel love for all of this, perhaps because I have nothing else to love or perhaps too, because even though nothing truly merits the love of any soul, if, out of sentiment, we must give it, I might just as well lavish it on the smallness of an inkwell as on the grand indifference of the stars….

 

 

 

 

With the soul’s equivalent of a wry smile, I calmly confront the prospect that my life will consist of nothing more than being shut up for ever in Rua dos Douradores, in this office, surrounded by these people.

I have enough money tp buy food and drink, I have somewhere to live and enough free time in which to dream, write – and sleep – what more can I ask of the gods or hope for from Fate?

 

 

 

 

I had great ambitions and extravagant dreams, but so did the errand boy and the seamstress, for everyone has dreams.

The only thing that distinguishes me from them is that I can write.

Yes, that is an activity, a real fact about myseof that distinguishes me from them.

But in my soul I am just the same.

 

 

 

 

I know that there are islands in the South and grand cosmopolitan passions and….

I am sure that even if I held the world in my hand, I would exchange it all for a tram ticket back to Rua dos Douradores.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps it is my destiny to remain a bookkeeper forever and for poetry and literature to remain simply butterflies that alight on my head and merely underline my own ridiculousness by their very beauty.”

 

 

Above: Crimson Assurance, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

 

 

Porto, Portugal, Wednesday 25 July 2018

The morning has begun, poorly.

Somehow, in all our running around the day previously, our one city-specific, Porto-focused guidebook, specially ordered for this trip, the book has vanished.

We stumble across a bookshop (Leya) that sells English language materials and we fortuitously find a copy of the lost travel guide.

The Swabian soul of my wife, as thrifty as a Scot, is displeased with this development and thus the tone of the day is set, with much of the morning lost.

 

 

 

 

After a visit to the Sé (Cathedral) we discover that though not quite all roads lead to the city centre’s Avenida dos Aliados, ours do.

 

 

 

 

At the foot of the Avenida – in the area known as Praca da Liberdade – are a couple of sidewalk cafés and an equestrian statue of Dom Pedro IV.

 

 

 

 

Dom Pedro I (1798 – 1834), nicknamed “the Liberator“, was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil.

As King Dom Pedro IV, he reigned briefly over Portugal, where he also became known as “the Liberator” as well as “the Soldier King“.

 

 

 

 

Born in Lisbon, Pedro I was the fourth child of King Dom João VI of Portugal and Queen Carlota Joaquina, and thus a member of the House of Braganza.

When the country was invaded by French troops in 1807, he and his family fled to Portugal’s largest and wealthiest colony, Brazil.

The outbreak of the Liberal Revolution of 1820 in Lisbon compelled Pedro I’s father to return to Portugal in April 1821, leaving him to rule Brazil as regent.

He had to deal with threats from revolutionaries and insubordination by Portuguese troops, all of which he subdued.

The Portuguese government’s threat to revoke the political autonomy that Brazil had enjoyed since 1808 was met with widespread discontent in Brazil.

 

 

 

 

Pedro I chose the Brazilian side and declared Brazil’s independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.

On 12 October, he was acclaimed Brazilian Emperor and by March 1824 had defeated all armies loyal to Portugal.

 

 

 

 

A few months later, Pedro I crushed the short-lived Confederation of the Equator, a failed secession attempt by provincial rebels in Brazil’s northeast.

A secessionist rebellion in the southern province of Cisplatina in early 1825, and the subsequent attempt by the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata to annex it, led the Empire into the Cisplatine War.

 

 

 

 

In March 1826, Pedro I briefly became king of Portugal before abdicating in favor of his eldest daughter, Dona Maria II (1819 – 1853).

 

 

 

 

The situation worsened in 1828 when the war in the south resulted in Brazil’s loss of Cisplatina.

During the same year in Lisbon, Maria II’s throne was usurped by Prince Dom Miguel (1802 – 1866), Pedro I’s younger brother.

 

 

 

 

The Emperor’s concurrent and scandalous sexual affair with a female courtier tarnished his reputation.

Other difficulties arose in the Brazilian parliament, where a struggle over whether the government would be chosen by the monarch or by the legislature dominated political debates from 1826 to 1831.

Unable to deal with problems in both Brazil and Portugal simultaneously, on 7 April 1831 Pedro I abdicated in favor of his son Dom Pedro II, and sailed for Europe.

Pedro I invaded Portugal at the head of an army in July 1832.

Faced at first with what seemed a national civil war, he soon became involved in a wider conflict that enveloped the Iberian Peninsula in a struggle between proponents of liberalism and those seeking a return to absolutism.

Pedro I died of tuberculosis on 24 September 1834, just a few months after he and the liberals had emerged victorious.

 

 

 

 

He was hailed by both contemporaries and posterity as a key figure who helped spread the liberal ideals that allowed Brazil and Portugal to move from absolutist regimes to representative forms of government.

 

 

Above. Monument to the Independence of Brazil where Pedro I and his two wives are buried

 

I am told, by the sheer fact that a statue stands here to honour him, that we should regard Pedro as a hero, but I find myself wondering….

 

How much blood was spilled to realize his goals?

 

At the head of the Avenida dos Aliados stands another statue of another man we are meant to honour and this one is of less difficulty.

 

 

 

João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, 1st Viscount of Almeida Garrett (1799 – 1854) was a Portuguese poet, orator, playwright, novelist, journalist, politician and a peer of the realm.

A major promoter of theatre in Portugal he is considered the greatest figure of Portuguese Romanticism and a true revolutionary and humanist.

He proposed the construction of the Dona Maria II National Theatre and the creation of the Conservatory of Dramatic Art.

 

 

 

 

Garrett was born in Porto, the son of António Bernardo da Silva Garrett (1739–1834), a fidalgo of the Royal Household and Knight of the Order of Christ, and his wife (they were married in 1796) Ana Augusta de Almeida Leitão (b. 1770), the daughter of an Irish father born in exile in France and an Italian mother born in Spain.

At an early age, Garrett changed his name to João Baptista da Silva Leitão, adding a name from his godfather and altering the order of his surnames.

In 1809, his family fled the second French invasion carried out by Soult’s troops, seeking refuge in Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira Island, Azores.

 

 

 

While in the Azores, Garrett was taught by his uncle, Dom Frei Alexandre da Sagrada Família (1737 – 1818), the Bishop of Angra.

 

 

 

 

In childhood, his mulatto Brazilian nanny Rosa de Lima taught him some traditional stories that later influenced his work.

 

In 1818, Garrett moved to Coimbra to study at the University law school.

In 1818, he published O Retrato de Vénus, a work for which was soon to be prosecuted, as it was considered “materialist, atheist and immoral“.

It was during this period that he adopted his pen name Almeida Garrett, seen as more aristocratic.

 

 

 

 

Although Garrett did not take active part in the Liberal Revolution that broke out in Porto in 1820, he contributed with two patriotic verses, the Hymno Constitucional and the Hymno Patriótico, which his friends copied and distributed in the streets of Porto.

After the “Vilafrancada“, a reactionary coup d’état led by the Infante Dom Miguel in 1823, he was forced to seek exile in England.

 

 

Above: Prince Miguel saluting soldiers on arrival at Vila Franca

 

 

Garrett had just married the beautiful Luísa Cândida Midosi who was only 12 or 13 years old at the time and was the sister of his friend Luís Frederico Midosi.

While in England, in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, he began his association with Romanticism, being subject to the first-hand influences of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) and Walter Scott (1771 – 1832), as well as to that of Gothic aesthetics.

 

 

Above: House on Farquhar Road, typical of the Edgbaston area, demonstrating the affluence

 

 

In the beginning of 1825, Garrett left for France where he wrote Camões (1825) and Dona Branca (1826), poems that are usually considered the first Romantic works in Portuguese literature.

 

 

 

 

In 1826, he returned to Portugal, where he settled for two years and founded the newspapers O Portuguez and O Chronista.

In 1828, under the rule of King Miguel of Portugal, he was again forced to settle in England, publishing Adozinda and performing his tragedy Catão at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth.

 

 

 

 

Together with Alexandre Herculano (1810 – 1877) and Joaquim António de Aguiar (1792 – 1884), Garrett took part in the Landing of Mindelo, carried out during the Liberal Wars (1828 – 1834).

 

 

Above: Landing of the liberal forces in Porto on 8 July 1832

 

 

When a constitutional monarchy was established, he briefly served as its Consul General to Brussels.

Upon his return, he was acclaimed as one of the major orators of Liberalism, and took the initiative in the creation of a new Portuguese theatre (during the period, he wrote his historical plays Gil Vicente, Dona Filipa de Vilhena, and O Alfageme de Santarém).

 

 

 

 

In 1843, Garrett published Romanceiro e Cancioneiro Geral, a collection of folklore.

 

 

 

 

Two years later, he wrote the first volume of his historical novel O Arco de Santana (fully published in 1850, it took inspiration from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

 

 

 

 

O Arco de Santana signified a change in Garrett’s style, leading to a more complex and subjective prose with which he experimented at length in Viagens na Minha Terra (Travels in My Homeland, 1846).

 

 

 

 

His innovative manner was also felt in his poem collections Flores sem Fruto (Flowers without Fruit, 1844) and Folhas Caídas (Fallen Leaves, 1853).

 

 

 

 

Nobled by Dona Maria II of Portugal in 1852 with the title of 1st Viscount of Almeida Garrett, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs for only a few days in the same year (in the cabinet of the Duke of Saldanha).

 

 

 

 

Almeida Garrett ended his relationship with Luísa Midosi and divorced in 1835 to join 17-year-old Adelaide Deville Pastor in 1836.

She was to remain his partner until her early death in 1839, leaving a daughter named Maria Adelaide, whose early life tragedy and illegitimacy inspired her father to write the play Frei Luís de Sousa.

 

 

 

 

Later in his life he became the lover of Rosa de Montúfar y Infante, whom he celebrated at his last and probably best poetry book Folhas Caídas.

 

Garrett died of cancer in Lisbon at 6:30 in the afternoon of 9 December 1854.

He was buried at the Cemetery of Prazeres and, on 3 May 1903, his remains were transferred to the national pantheon in Lisbon’s Jerónimos Monastery.

 

 

 

 

I find myself more forgiving of those that write over those that rule.

 

 

Behind Garrett stands Porto’s city hall, the Câmara Municipal.

 

 

 

 

(The metropolitan area is governed by the Junta Metropolitana do Porto (JMP), headquartered in Avenida dos Aliados, in downtown Porto under the presidency of Hermínio Loureiro, also the mayor of Oliveira de Azeméis municipality, since the Municipal Elections held in 2013, when he succeeded Rui Rio, mayor of Porto.

The Assembleia Metropolitana do Porto (Porto Metropolitan Assembly) is composed of 43 MPs, the PSD (Social Democratic Party) party has 20 seats, the PS (Socialist Party) 16, the CDS (the People’s Party) three, CDU (Unitarian Democratic Coalition) three, and the BE (Left Bloc), one.

Although the government has halted the intention of creating new metropolitan areas and urban communities, it is keen to ensure greater autonomy to Porto and Lisbon metropolitan areas.

 

 

 

 

Greater Porto is the second largest metropolitan area of Portugal, with about 1.7 million people.

It groups the larger Porto Urban Area, the second largest in the country, assembled by the municipalities of Porto, Matosinhos, Vila Nova de Gaia, Gondomar, Valongo and Maia.

A smaller urban area of Póvoa de Varzim and Vila do Conde, which ranks as the six largest in continental Portugal.

The new regional spatial planning program (PROT-Norte) recognizes both urban areas and engages in their development.

 

 

 

 

There are some intentions to merge the municipalities of Porto with Gaia and Matosinhos into a single and greater municipality, and there is an ongoing civil requisition for that objective.

The government also started to discuss the merging of some municipalities due to conurbations, but gave up.

There is a similar idea for the conurbation of Póvoa de Varzim and Vila do Conde, and both municipalities have decided to work as if both are the same city, cooperating in health, education, transports and other areas.

Several municipalities of the metropolitan area also moved closer, thus becoming a cohesive group.

 

 

 

 

The urban-metropolitan agglomeration known as the Northwestern Urban-Metropolitan Agglomeration or Porto Metropolitan Arch is a regional urban system of polycentric nature that stretches far beyond the metropolitan borders, and includes circa 3 million people, which takes in other main urban areas such as Braga and Guimarães, the 3rd and 8th largest cities (as defined by urban areas) of Portugal.

One should also note that the entire region of Northwestern Portugal is, in fact, a single agglomeration, linking Porto and Braga to Vigo in Galicia, Spain.)

 

 

 

“I went up towards the Town Hall.

The sky rumbled and opened onto Porto, unleashing laments that included steady rainfall.

One could barely distinguish the white pedestrian crossings under the downpour that shook my poor umbrella, already twisted by other storms.

 

 

 

 

As soon as I reached the door of Guarany Café, I walked in on an impulse, leaving trails of water wherever I passed.

Thus I remained for a few moments, drenched and momentarily wretched.

As if by magic a cup of hot coffee eased my discomfort.

I watched the storm and the dark morning.

 

 

 

 

I remembered the story a friend had told me about an Englishman (John Whitehead: 1726 – 1802) who had lived at Porto (1756 – 1802) in the 18th century.

He is believed to have been responsible for supervising and executing several urban works in the city, but people also considered that he had made a pact with the devil, for he was able to attract the grey lightning-bearing clouds to his gardens.

 

 

 

 

No doubt, today would have been a perfect day for his experiments with the lightning conductor, which certainly involved science rather than witchcraft.

 

 

 

 

What would he think of this avenue he never knew?

This avenue which welcomes the rain and the sun with the same generosity?

 

 

 

All these cars, which pass by taking people to their destinations, or these buses which carry tourists to the Palácio da Bolsa, to the Church of Sao Francisco and to the Torre dos Clérigos?

 

 

 

 

All these imposing buildings which stretch granitically upwards to the sky?

This set paving?

Would he call us witches?

Eccentrics?

 

 

 

 

I looked at my watch and I let out a scream that crashed against its face.

I was late!

Outside, the sky calmed its fury, making the pedestrian crossings visible….”

(Susana Fonseca)

 

 

 

 

It seems on every street corner, the defeated, but undaunted, People-Animals-Nature Party (one sole MP) has young people standing with clipboard petitions that seek support to continue their battle against bullfighting, a bid beaten in Parliament on 6 July.

 

 

 

 

From the Câmara to the Mercado to the Torre dos Clérigos to the Café Majestic, the morning and much of the afternoon pass quickly.

 

 

 

 

West of the Torre we find ourselves threading our way between the faculty Buildings of the Universidade do Porto.

 

 

 

 

Below the main University building spreads the Jardim da Cordoaria  (garden of the ropemakers), also known as the Jardim de Joao Chagas, sheltering impromptu card and chess schools beneath giant plane trees.

It is a small, historic urban park with a serene vibe featuring a variety of trees, plants & sculptures.

 

 

 

 

The garden was founded by the Viscount of Vilar d’Allen in 1865 and was designed by the German landscaper Émile David (1839 – 1873).

In 1941, a cyclone altered the appearance of this romantic garden.

In preparation for the celebrations of Porto as the 2001 European Capital of Culture, the garden was the target of an intervention by the architect Camilo Cortesao.

His work was highly contested by some celebrities and associations in Porto, because it implied a major change in the space in question.

 

 

 

 

In the garden space are the sculptures:

• Rapto de Ganimedes (the rapture of Ganimedes)(1898) by Fernandes de Sá (1874 – 1959)

 

 

• Flora (1904) by Antonio Teixeria Lopes (1866 – 1942)

 

 

• Ramalho Ortigao (1909) by Leopoldo Almeida (1898 – 1975)

 

 

• Antonio Nobre (1926) by Tómas Costa

 

 

• Thirteen to laugh at each other (2001) by Juan Munoz (1953 – 2001)

 

 

The garden’s namesake João Pinheiro Chagas (1863 – 1925) was a Portuguese journalist and politician.

 

 

 

He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of Portuguese parents who soon moved back to Portugal.

He was an editor at the newspapers O Primeiro de Janeiro, Correio do Norte, O Tempo and O Dia.

After becoming a republican, he also founded the República Portuguesa and was the director of O País (1898).

The monarchist government’s reaction to the British Ultimatum of January 1890 (that forced Portugal to renounce its extravagant claims to the territories that lay between Portuguese Angola and Portuguese Mozambique), made him a fierce republican and one of Portugal’s most fervent anti-monarchy journalists and propagandists.

After the proclamation of the republic, on 5 October 1910, he was appointed minister in Paris, and, the following year, after the end of the term of the provisional government, he was chosen to lead the first constitutional government of the Portuguese First Republic.

It was in power for only two months, from 4 September to 13 November 1911.

This was a sad prelude to the political instability of the First Republic.

On 17 May 1915, he was again appointed President of the Ministry (Prime Minister), but he didn’t take office.

He remained a diplomat until his retirement in 1923.

He died in Estoril, aged 60.

 

 

Above: Joao Chagas

 

 

Two of the garden’s statues are of Portuguese literature, the writer Ortigao and the poet Nobre….

 

 

If there is one art form the Portuguese are proud of, it is literature.

You cannot be Portuguese unless you have read The Lusiads, Luis de Camoes‘ (1524 – 1580) epic poem narrating Vasco da Gama’s sea voyage to India, complete with tales of sea monsters.

 

 

 

 

Portugal’s Jane Austin is Eca de Queirós (1845 – 1900), whose studied portraits of life in 19th century Lisbon are every bit as witty.

 

 

 

 

Then came Fernando Pessoa, despite a multiple personality disorder, who with his musings on the meaning of life is remembered as a Modernist genius.

 

 

 

 

José Saramago (1922 – 2010) carried the torch of experimentalism, writing whole books without punctuation, and one, Blindness, without naming a single character.

 

 

 

 

The current golden boy of Portuguese literature is José Luís Peixoto who writes fractured mosaics of books that are like assembling a jigsaw puzzle.

 

 

 

 

Portugal’s greatest writers are glorified wherever you go in the country.

Statues commemorate their places of birth and death.

Even the town of Barcelos’ football team is named after a writer, Gil Vicente (1465 – 1536).

 

 

 

 

 

The garden’s Ramalho Ortigão (1836 – 1915) spent his early years with his maternal grandmother in Porto.

 

 

 

He studied law in the University of Coimbra, but he did not complete his studies.

 

 

After returning to his home town, he taught French at a college run by his father.

Among his students was Eça de Queiros.

 

In 1862 he dedicated himself to journalism and became a literary critic at the Diário do Porto and contributed to several literary magazines.

At this period, romanticism was the dominant trend in Portuguese literature, led by several major writers, including Camilo Castelo Branco (1825 – 1890) and António Augusto Soares de Passos (1826 – 1860), who influenced Ortigão.

 

 

Above: Camilo Castelo Branco

 

 

Above: António Augusto Soares de Passos

 

 

In the 1870s, a group of students from Coimbra began to promote new ideas in a reaction against romanticism.

This group, eventually called the 70s Generation, was to have a major influence on Portuguese literature.

 

As a supporter of romanticism, Ortigão became involved in a struggle against them and even fought a duel with Antero de Quental (1842 – 1891).

 

 

Above: Antero de Quental

 

 

In spite of this early opposition, Ortigão afterwards became friendly with some members of the group.

 

It was at this period that he wrote The Mystery of the Sintra Road and created the satirical journal As Farpas, both in collaboration with Eça de Queiros.

 

 

 

 

When Queiros became a diplomat, initially in Cuba, Ortigão continued As Farpas alone.

Ortigão also worked as a translator.

In 1874 he produced a Portuguese translation of the English satirical novel Ginx’s Baby by Edward Jenkins (1838 – 1910).

 

 

Above: “Ginx’s Baby” Jenkins as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, August 1878

 

 

Ramalho Ortigão died in Lisbon on 27 September 1915.

 

 

 

 

 

The second literary person honoured by a statue in the garden, António Nobre (1867 – 1900) was a member of a wealthy family.

 

 

 

 

He was born in Porto, and spent his childhood in Trás-os-Montes and in Póvoa de Varzim.

 

 

Above: Images of modern Póvoa de Varzim

 

 

He studied law unsuccessfully at the University of Coimbra from 1888 to 1890 when he dropped out.

As a student in Coimbra, and according to his own words, he only felt at ease in his “tower” (referring to the Torre de Anto – Anto Tower, in upper Coimbra, where he lived) during the “sinister period” he spent studying law at the University of Coimbra.

An unknown fiancée more fictitious than concrete, his friend Alberto de Oliveira, and a brief intervention in the literary life, through some magazines, did not conciliate him with the academic city of Coimbra where this predestined poet flunked twice.

 

 

 

 

He went to Paris where he earned a degree in political science at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques.

 

 

 

 

There, he came in contact with the French coeval poetry, where he met Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896) and Jean Moréas (1856 – 1910), among others.

 

 

Above: Paul Verlaine

 

 

Above: Jean Moréas

 

 

 

He also met the famous Portuguese writer Eça de Queiros in Paris, who was a Portuguese diplomat in the city.

 

 

 

 

It was from 1890 to 1895, that Nobre studied political science in Paris, where he was influenced by the French Symbolist poets and it was there that he wrote the greater part of the only book he published.

 

 

 

 

The Paris exile, sad by his own words (poor Lusitanian, the wretched, lost in the crowd that does not know him), was not a time for happiness.

The aristocratic shutting up caused nausea or indifference.

Frustrated and always marginal experiences made him bitter.

He was far from the sweat and from all sorts of fraternity, from desire and hate, and from the wailing of the breed, a childlike, lost, instinctive and princely life, a souvenir of the sweet old landscape that memory seems to encourage.

 

 

 

 

In his tender but never rhetorical mourning Nobre manifests himself and mourns over himself as a doomed poet, with a hard soul and a maiden’s heart, which carried the sponge of gall in former processions.

His verse marked a departure from objective realism and social commitment to subjective lyricism and an aesthetic point of view, walking more towards symbolism – one of the various modernist literary currents.

 

 

 

 

The lack of means, aggravated by his father’s death, made him morbidly reject the present and the future, following a pessimistic romantic attitude that led him to denounce his tedium.

However excessive, this is a controlled attitude, due to a clear aesthetic mind and a real sense of ridicule.

 

 

He learned the colloquial tone from Almeida Garrett and Júlio Dinis (1839 – 1871), and also from Jules Laforgue (1860 – 1887), but he exceeded them all in the peculiar compromise between irony and a refined puerility, a fountain of happiness because it represents a return to his happiest of times — a kingdom of his own from where he resuscitates characters and enchanted places, manipulating, as a virtuoso of nostalgia, the picturesque of popular festivals and of fishermen, the simple magic of toponyms and the language of the people.

 

 

 

Above: Jules Laforgue

 

 

In his prescience of pain, in his spiritual anticipation of disease and of agony, in his taste for sadness, in his unmeasured pride of isolation, António (from Torre de Anto, at the centre of old Coimbra where the poet lived an enchanted life, everywhere writing his mythical and literary name: Anto) keeps an artist’s composure, always expressing the cult of the aesthetic life and of the elegant personality.

 

 

 

 

In his courtship of death (to whose imminent threat he would later answer with dignity), he takes his spiritual dandyism to extremes, like in the “Balada do Caixão” (The Coffin Ballad).

 

 

 

 

His poetry translates the lack of a total maturation, an adolescent “angelism” present in fabulous confirmations:

He is “the moon”, “the saint”, “the snake”, “the sorcerer”, “the afflicted”, “the inspired”, “the unprecedented”, “the medium”, “the bizarre”, “the fool”, “the nauseated”, “the tortured”, “D. Enguiço”, “a supernatural poet.”

 

 

Above: The Divine Comedy, Paradise, illustration by Gustave Doré

 

 

Narcissus in permanent soliloquy, whether he writes nostalgic verses to Manuel or speaks to his own pipe….

 

 

Above: “La Trahison des Images” (“The Treachery of Images”) (1928-9) or “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”) by René Magritte, 1898-1967.

 

 

António Nobre (A. N.) makes poetry out of the real.

He covers what is prosaic with a soft mantle of legend (“My neighbour is a carpenter/he is a second-hand trader of Mrs. Death”) and creates, with a rare balance between intuition and critique, his familiar “fantastic” (“When the Moon, a beautiful milkmaid / goes deliver milk at the houses of Infinity”).

 

 

 

 

His catholic imaginary world is the same as in a fairy tale, a crib of simple words, but with an imaginative audacity in the scheming of those words that separate him from the consecrated lyrical language.

His power of “invention” comes forth in the inspired, yet conscious, use of the verbal material (“Moons of Summer! Black moons of velvet!” or “The Abbey of my past”).

 

 

 

 

Between the Garrettian and the symbolic aesthetic, the most personal and revealing feature of his vocabulary is naturally — even for his longing for the childhood aesthetical retrieval – the diminutive.

A man of sensibility rather than of reflection, he took from French symbolism, whose mystery and deep sense he could never penetrate, the repelling of oratory and of formal procedures, original imagery (“Trás-os-Montes of water”, “slaughter house of the planets”), the cult of synaesthesia, rhythmic freedom and musical research.

 

 

Above: In the slaughterhouse, Lovis Corinth, 1893

 

 

A. N. had a very thick ear.

All his poetry is rigorously written to be heard, full of parallelisms, melodic repetitions, and onomatopoeias, and is extremely malleable.

Its syllabic division depends on the rhythm that obeys feeling.

 

 

 

 

However, the images or the words of his sentences rarely have the precious touch of symbolic jewelry.

Evidently, in “Poentes de França”, the planets drink in silver chalices in the “tavern of sunset”.

 

 

 

 

However, his transfiguration of reality almost always obeys not a purpose of sumptuous embellishment, like in Eugénio de Castro, but an essentially affectionate eager desire of an intimism of things (“the skinny and hunchbacked poplars”).

 

 

 

 

António Nobre died of tuberculosis in Foz do Douro, Porto, on 18 March 1900, after trying to recover from the disease in Switzerland, Madeira and New York City.

 

 

 

 

Other than Só (Paris, 1892), two other posthumous works were published: Despedidas (1st edition, 1902), with a fragment from O Desejado, and Primeiros Versos (1st edition, 1921).

António Nobre’s correspondence is compiled in several volumes:

• Cartas Inéditas a A.N., with an introduction and notes by A. Casais Monteiro
• Cartas e Bilhetes-Postais a Justino de Montalvão with a foreword and notes by Alberto de Serpa, Porto, 1956
• Correspondência, with an introduction and notes by Guilherme de Castilho, Lisbon, 1967 (a compilation of 244 letters, 56 of which were unpublished).

 

 

 

 

“When he (Nobre) was born, we all were born.

The sadness that each one of us brings with him, even in the sense of his joy, still is him, and his life, never perfectly real and certainly not lived, is, after all, the summary of the life we live – fatherless and motherless, lost from God, in the middle of the forest, and weeping, weeping uselessly, with no other consolation than this, childish, knowing that it is uselessly weeping. ”

Fernando Pessoa, February 1915

 

 

 

 

The artist that made Nobre’s garden statue has been called “the most significant of the first generation of artists to achieve maturity in post-Franco Spain, and one of the most complex and individual artists working today.”

Juan Muñoz (1953– 2001) was a Spanish sculptor, working primarily in paper maché, resin and bronze.

He was also interested in the auditory arts and created compositions for the radio.

He was a self-described “storyteller“.

In 2000, Muñoz was awarded Spain’s major Premio Nacional de Bellas Artes in recognition of his work.

He died shortly after, in 2001.

 

 

 

 

His works are displayed in such galleries as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tate Modern in London.

 

 

 

 

In one unpublished radio program (Third Ear, 1992), Juan Muñoz proposed that there are two things which are impossible to represent:

The present and death.

The only way to arrive at them was by their absence.

 

 

Above: Created by Juan Munoz in 1999, this work celebrates the Tyne Salmon. The 2008 Tyne Bluetooth Salmon Trail Cubes are seen with the 22 bronze life-size figures that command a view of South Shields Harbour and the Tyne Piers.

 

 

 

The ropemakers’ garden, this garden in memory of Joao Chagas, is close to the Torre dos Clérigos, the General Hospital of Santo António and the Portuguese Centre of Photography.

 

 

 

 

The Portuguese Centre of Photography was founded in 1997.

The first exhibitions were held in December of that same year on the ground floor of the building until 2000.

The building was temporarily closed for renovation and reopened in 2001.

Following the advice of the working group established by the Minister Manuel Maria Carrilho, in 1996, the then Ministry of Culture created the Portuguese Centre of Photography.

The photographic culture began then to revive by the appearance of photography schools, festivals and galleries attracting photographers that were exiled during the Salazar regime, publishing internationally relevant work.

The exhibition rooms of the ground floor were used that year, starting in December, but the building would only be occupied entirely by the CPF in 2001.

 

 

 

 

I do not know why the Centre in 2018 (6 July – 4 November) decided to focus on her photographs, but I do know why my wife needed to visit the Centre:

My wife has always been a huge fan of Mexican artiste Frida Kahlo.

The attraction for me, besides keeping my significant other happy, is Kahlo’s ability to invent herself.

 

 

 

Frida Kahlo (née Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón) (1907 – 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico.

Inspired by the country’s popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.

Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy.

In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.

 

 

 

 

Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán—now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo Museum.

 

 

 

 

Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until she suffered a bus accident at the age of eighteen, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems.

During her recovery she returned to her childhood hobby of art with the idea of becoming an artist.

 

 

 

Kahlo’s interests in politics and art led her to join the Mexican Communist Party in 1927, through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957).

 

 

 

 

The couple married in 1929, and spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling in Mexico and the United States together.

 

 

 

During this time, she developed her artistic style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture, and painted mostly small self-portraits which mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs.

 

 

 

 

Her paintings raised the interest of Surrealist artist André Breton, who arranged for Kahlo’s first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938.

 

 

Above: André Breton (1896 – 1966)

 

 

The exhibition was a success and was followed by another in Paris in 1939.

 

 

 

While the French exhibition was less successful, the Louvre (pictured above) purchased a painting from Kahlo, The Frame, making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection.

 

 

 

Throughout the 1940s, Kahlo participated in exhibitions in Mexico and the United States and worked as an art teacher.

She taught at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda” and was a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana.

 

 

 

 

Kahlo’s always-fragile health began to decline in the same decade.

She had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death in 1954 at the age of 47.

 

 

Above: Kahlo’s death mask on her bed in La Casa Azul

 

 

Kahlo’s work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists.

By the early 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history, but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement and the LGBTQ+ movement.

Kahlo’s work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

 

 

Above: Frieda and Diego Rivera by Frieda Khalo (1931)

 

Frida is a 2002 American biographical drama film, directed by Julie Taymor, which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

 

 

 

 

(In an interview, Taynor said this about Kahlo:

“She painted what she painted because she had to, because she was passionate about it.

She didn’t care at all if people bought her paintings.

As she said, she painted her reality.“)

 

 

Above: Julie Taymor

 

Frida begins just before the traumatic accident Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) suffered at the age of 18 when the wooden-bodied bus she was riding in collided with a streetcar.

 

 

 

 

She is impaled by a metal pole and the injuries she sustains plague her for the rest of her life.

To help her through convalescence, her father brings her a canvas upon which to start painting.

 

 

 

 

Throughout the film, a scene starts as a painting, then slowly dissolves into a live action scene with actors.

 

 

 

 

Frida also details the artist’s dysfunctional relationship with the muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina).

When Rivera proposes to Kahlo, she tells him she expects from him loyalty if not fidelity.

Diego’s appraisal of her painting ability is one of the reasons that she continues to paint.

 

 

 

 

Throughout the marriage, Rivera has affairs with a wide array of women, while the bisexual Kahlo takes on male and female lovers, including in one case having an affair with the same woman as Rivera.

 

 

 

 

The two travel to New York City so that he may paint the mural Man at the Crossroads at the Rockefeller Center.

 

 

 

 

While in the United States, Kahlo suffers a miscarriage, and her mother dies in Mexico.

Rivera refuses to compromise his communist vision of the work to the needs of the patron, Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norton).

 

 

 

 

As a result, the mural is destroyed.

The pair return to Mexico, with Rivera the more reluctant of the two.

 

 

Kahlo’s sister Cristina (Mia Maestro) moves in with the two at their San Ángel studio home to work as Rivera’s assistant.

 

 

 

 

Soon afterward, Kahlo discovers that Rivera and Cristina are having an affair.

She leaves him and subsequently sinks into alcoholism.

 

 

 

 

The couple reunite when he asks her to welcome and house Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush), who has been granted political asylum in Mexico.

She and Trotsky begin an affair, which forces the married Trotsky to leave the safety of his Coyoacán home.

 

 

 

 

Kahlo leaves for Paris after Diego realizes she was unfaithful to him with Trotsky.

Although Rivera had little problem with Kahlo’s other affairs, Trotsky was too important to Rivera to be intimately involved with his wife.

When she returns to Mexico, he asks for a divorce.

Soon afterwards, Trotsky is murdered in Mexico City.

Rivera is temporarily a suspect and Kahlo is incarcerated in his place when he is not found.

Rivera helps get her released.

 

 

 

 

Kahlo has her toes removed when they become gangrenous.

Rivera asks her to remarry him and she agrees.

Her health continues to worsen, including the amputation of a leg, and she ultimately dies after finally having a solo exhibition of her paintings in Mexico.

 

 

 

Being a photography museum, the focus of the Kahlo exhibition was not so much upon her paintings as it was on photos she took or were taken of her.

(Later, across the Douro River, we would stumble across a small gallery where her art was displayed and duplicated.)

 

 

 

 

And, though Kahlo wasn’t Portuguese and possibly never set foot on Portuguese soil, her life story somehow fits into our Porto experience seamlessly.

 

 

 

 

Art is open to individual perception, but words offer individual definition in far starker forms.

 

 

Some of what Kahlo wrote in preserved letters and diaries strikes me closer to the core of who she was far more powerfully than the visual impact of her vibrant paintings or expressive photographs.

 

 

 

 

“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t.

I never painted dreams.

I painted my own reality.”

 

 

 

 

“I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.”

 

 

 

 

“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

 

 

 

 

“His (Diego Rivera’s) supposed mythomania is in direct relation to his tremendous imagination.

That is to say, he is as much of a liar as the poets or as the children who have not yet been turned into idiots by school or mothers.

I have heard him tell all kinds of lies: from the most innocent, to the most complicated stories about people whom his imagination combined in a fantastic situation or actions, always with a great sense of humour and a marvelous critical sense.

But I have never heard him say a single stupid thing or banal lie.

Lying, or playing at lying, he unmasks many people.

He learns the interior mechanism of others who are much more ingenuously liars than he.

And the most curious thing about the supposed lies of Diego is that in the long and short of it, those who are involved in the imaginary combination become angry, not because of the lie, but because of the truth contained in the lie that always comes to the surface.”

 

 

 

 

The overall message that this day taught me is the solitude of individuality.

We may be within the crowd of a famous bookstore (Livraria Lello) or walking together in the intimacy of a married couple’s strolling through a park.

And yet each of us is alone.

 

 

Above: René and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war

 

 

We live alone and we die alone, for we are prisoners within our bodies and exiles within our minds.

 

 

Above: Thomas Wolfe (1900 – 1938) who in an often quoted passage stated: “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”

 

 

I may know my wife better than any other person in my life, and yet is there any man who can truly say that a woman cannot still continually surprise him?

My wife is convinced to her core that she knows exactly who I am, but how can she, when I am continually discovering myself as I evolve within the passages of life and time?

 

 

 

 

Perception is the expression of that solitude of individuality.

 

 

The Porto I see and feel is a universe removed from the Porto that my wife sees and feels.

 

 

 

 

Though we share the same experience, we see and feel that experience through the prism of our own individual selves.

 

 

 

 

As we wind our way through some of Porto’s oldest and most atmospheric streets, ascending from the Baixa (lower town) to the Sé (cathedral) that looms high above the city like a guardian god, then down to the Ribiera (riverside) where we are magnetically drawn to the historic heart of the harbour hub….

 

 

 

 

We are together, hand-in-hand.

We are apart, mind from mind, emotions unspoken as words fail miserably to adequately express the thoughts that flood our souls unbidden.

 

 

 

 

We descend with the setting sun, down to the chaos of hotch-potch houses that breathe in the vibrancy of cafés and restaurants replete with tired tourists and working waiters, bustling buskers and enthusiastic entertainers.

We dine beside the river on a shore between bridges.

 

 

 

 

We share a bottle of port wine, for this is what is done in the birthplace of this beverage.

The waiter defines what we are drinking as one would explain electricity to an infant.

Words like ruby and reserve, LBV and colheita fill the air and cross our consciousness, all to no avail.

We are no gourmets, no vintners nor clever connaisseurs.

 

 

 

 

We have seen so much and learned so much and felt so much, in this our first full day in Porto, and yet have understood so little.

 

 

 

 

Husband and wife share a meal and a bottle, unable or unwilling to share souls.

How can she politely express her annoyance with some of her husband’s boorish bumbling behaviours without causing a beastly reaction by expressing this?

How can I lovingly criticize her impatience while simultaneously admiring her imagination in the usurped planning of our days, without a contradiction that confuses more than it cooperates?

 

 

 

 

We are together.

We are apart.

How very human.

How ironic it is that the individuality of Each binds the Every together.

We are united by our separateness.

 

 

 

 

The Douro defines the night.

A river shared by two shores, binding and blessing while dividing and differentiating.

The river rushes beside us and through us.

There is wisdom in wine and knowledge at night.

 

 

 

 

(Update: Sunday 5 July 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

 

 

Above: Corona Virus cases in Portugal (the darker the area, the more cases therein)

 

 

On 2 March 2020, the virus was confirmed to have reached Portugal, when it was reported that two men, a 60 year-old doctor who travelled to the north of Italy on vacation and a 33 year-old man working in Spain, tested positive for COVID-19.

 

 

 

 

• March 12: The Portuguese government declared the highest level of alert because of COVID-19 and said it would be maintained until 9 April.

Portugal entered a mitigation phase as community transmission was detected.

 

Above: São Bento Palace, Lisbon, is the seat of the Portuguese Legislature.

 

 

• March 18: The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, declared the entirety of the Portuguese territory in a State of Emergency for the following 15 days, with the possibility of renewal, the first since the Carnation Revolution in 1974.

 

 

 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa declares that a national state of emergency will take effect from the next day, with Finance Minister Mário Centeno unveiling €9.2 billion in economic assistance to households and companies.

 

 

As of this day there have been 642 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with two deaths.

 

• March 24: The Portuguese government admitted that the country could not contain the virus any longer.
• March 26: The country entered the “mitigation stage”.

The health care sites dedicated to fighting the disease started.

The Bank of Portugal estimates that the economy will contract by between 3.7% and 5.7% of GDP in 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, with unemployment rising to between 10.1% and 11.7%.

 

 

 

 

• April 2: Parliament approved the extension of the State of Emergency, as requested by the President.

The State of Emergency will remain until 17 April, subject to further extensions of similar duration.

Under the new regulations, for the Easter celebrations, from 9 April (Maundy Thursday) to 13 April (Easter Monday) the Portuguese government decreed special measures in restricting people movements between municipalities with very few exceptions, closing all airports to civil transportation and increased control in the national borders.

 

Above: Letter from the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, to the Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, requesting Parliament for authorisation under the terms of the Constitution, for a declaration of the state of emergency in the context of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

 

 

• 4 April – Government figures indicate that more than 500,000 workers are in danger of temporarily losing their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after almost 32,000 businesses apply to the government to furlough employees.

The day also sees the total number of COVID-19 cases surpass 10,000, with 10,524 cases and 266 deaths reported.

 

 

 

 

• 12 April – Reuters reports that one in eight of Portugal’s 504 deaths from COVID-19 to date have occurred in care homes, with officials concerned about the spread of the corona virus among the elderly residents.

As of this day there have been 16,585 recorded cases in the country.

 

 

 

 

• 14 April – The International Monetary Fund forecasts an 8.0% drop in Portuguese GDP for 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, with unemployment predicted to rise to 13.9%.

The economy is forecast to recover in 2021 with unemployment falling to 8.7%.

 

 

 

 

• 16 April – MPs vote to further extend the national state of emergency until the beginning of May.

The vote comes amid a declining growth in infections, prompting the Health Secretary Antonio Sales to praise the “excellent behaviour and civic-mindedness of the Portuguese people“.

 

 

 

 

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 to date stands at 18,841 with 629 deaths.

 

• 28 April – President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa announces that the national state of emergency in place since 18 March will begin to be lifted from 3 May.
• April 30: The Portuguese Ministers’ Council approved a plan to start releasing the country from the COVID-19 container measures and cancelling the State of Emergency.

 

The Automóvel Club de Portugal confirms the cancellation of the 2020 Rally de Portugal due to the COVID-19 pandemic, abandoning plans to reschedule the event’s planned 21–24 May date to October.

 

 

 

 

• 1 May – The Directorate-General of Health confirms that the number of fatalities from COVID-19 in Portugal has surpassed 1,000, with eighteen deaths in the preceding 24 hours bringing the country’s total to 1,007.

As of this date there have been 25,531 recorded cases and 1,647 recoveries.

 

 

 

 

• 2 May – The State of Emergency was cancelled.
• 3 May – The national state of emergency is lifted after six weeks, with the country downgraded to the lesser state of “calamity“.
• 4 May – A three-phase re-opening plan for the country begins, with small retail businesses allowed to open and the Lisbon and Porto Metro systems resuming at a reduced capacity.

 

 

 

 

The use of face masks is made compulsory for those using public transport and visiting enclosed public premises such as supermarkets.

 

 

 

 

• 9 May – Organisers of the Vuelta a Espana announce that the two stages of the 2020 bicycle race set to take place in Portugal will not go ahead.

 

 

 

• May 18: Portugal entered the second phase in easing restrictions.

Nurseries and the last two years of the secondary school reopened, along with restaurants, cafés, medium-sized street stores and some museums, all with mandatory usage of mask and distance rules.

 

 

 

 

• 20 May – Data from the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training reveals that the number of people registering as unemployed across the country increased by 48,500 in April, a rise of 22% compared to April 2019.

The total number of people out of work now stands at approximately 392,000.

 

 

 

 

• 1 June – The government reveals a four-fold increase to €108 million to the total funds made available to companies shifting production towards tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

 

Above: Portuguese €1.00 coin

 

 

As of this date there have been 32,700 cases and 1,424 deaths from COVID-19 recorded in the country.

 

• 3 June – The Primeira Liga resumes competition with all remaining matches of the 2019–20 season set to take place without spectators.

 

 

 

 

• 6 June – Thousands attend anti-racism protests in Lisbon and Porto in response to the death of George Floyd in the United States on 25 May.

 

 

 

 

As of 6 June 2020, there have been:

• 43,156 confirmed Covid-19 cases
• 20,475 active cases
• 386,926 suspected cases
• 6,500 critical cases
• 39,500 hospitalized cases
• 28,424 recovered cases
• 1,598 deaths

 

 

 

 

• 9 June – Finance Minister Mario Centeno announces his resignation from the government for reasons undisclosed.

Joao Leao, the current Budget Minister, is confirmed by Prime Minister António Costa as Centeno’s replacement beginning on 15 June.

 

 

 

 

The Assembly officially recognises diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885 – 1954), who in his capacity as consul to France in June 1940 issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees in Bordeaux, allowing them to escape the advancing German army by crossing south into neutral Spain.

In recognition of his actions, a monument dedicated to him within the National Pantheon is also planned.

 

 

Above: Aristides de Sousa Mendes

 

 

• 10 June – The European Commission approves a €1.2 billion loan from the government to TAP Air, the nation’s flag carrier airline, whose debt at the end of 2019 amounted to €800 million.

 

 

 

 

• 25 June – A rise in the recorded number of cases of COVID-19 in Lisbon prompts the government to re-impose certain restrictions in 19 of the capital’s parishes to stem transmissions.

From 1 July, measures such as restrictions on travel, an 8 pm curfew for businesses, and limiting the size of social gatherings to five people will be enforced.

 

 

 

• 1 July – After being shut for more than three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Spanish-Portuguese border is formally re-opened in a ceremony attended by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister António Costa, King Felipe VI, and the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.)

 

 

 

 

I find myself wondering if I will ever return to Portugal, ever return to Porto.

Perhaps I don’t need to, for in the attempt to capture what they mean to me, within me they live.

 

 

 

 

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then I contradict myself.

I am large.

I contain multitudes.” (Walt Whitman)

 

 

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Susana Fonseca, Porto and Northern Portugal: Journeys and Stories / Matthew Hancock and Amanda Tomlin, Pocket Rough Guide Porto / Lonely Planet Portugal / Rough Guide Portugal / Jürgen Strohmeyer, Nordportugal (Müller Verlag) / Matthew Hancock, Xenophobe’s Guide to the Portuguese / Fernando Pessoa, Message / Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Slim and the Lemon Mutants

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Saturday 14 March 2020

From Brescia Today, Friday 6 March 2020

There are 268 cases of corona virus infections confirmed in Italy’s Brescia Province, while deaths there have risen to 18.

Fifteen new municipalities have been added to the epidemic network, which previously had not presented any infection: Acquafredda, Borgosatollo, Castenedolo, Darfo Boario Terme, Gambara, Gottolengo, Isorella, Ospitaletto, Paratico, Pompiano, Provaglio d’Iseo, Roncadelle, San Gervasio Bresciano and Seniga.

 

Above: Province of Brescia (in red), Italy

 

As of 13 March, over 145,000 cases have been confirmed in around 140 countries and territories, with major outbreaks in mainland China, Italy, South Korea and Iran.

More than 5,400 people have died from the disease and over 72,000 have recovered.

 

Above: Electron microscope view of the corona virus

 

The virus primarily spreads between people in a way similar to influenza, via respiratory droplets from coughing.

The time between exposure and symptom onset is typically five days, but may range from two to fourteen days.

Symptoms are most often fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath.

Complications may include pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

There is currently no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment, but research is ongoing.

Efforts are aimed at managing symptoms and supportive therapy.

Recommended preventive measures include handwashing, maintaining distance from other people (particularly those who are unwell), and monitoring and self-isolation for fourteen days for people who suspect they are infected.

Public health responses around the world have included travel restrictions, quarantines, curfews, event cancellations, and facility closures.

 

Above: Map of the COVID-19 outbreak as of 12 March 2020.

Be aware that since this is a rapidly evolving situation, new cases may not be immediately represented visually. 

The darker the country, the more cases of the corona virus there are therein.

Countries with cases of the corona virus:

• Afghanistan
• Algeria
• Andorra
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Australia
• Austria 
• Azerbaijan
• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• Belarus 
• Belgium 
• Bhutan
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Brazil 
• Brunei
• Bulgaria
• Burkina Faso
• Cambodia 
• Canada
• Chile 
• China
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Croatia 
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic 
• Denmark
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• Egypt 
• Estonia 
• Finland 
• France 
• Georgia
• Germany 
• Greece 
• Hungary
• Iceland 
• India 
• Indonesia 
• Iran 
• Iraq 
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy 
• Japan 
• Jordan
• Kazakhstan
• Kuwait
• Latvia 
• Lebanon
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg   
• Malaysia
• Maldives
• Malta
• Mexico 
• Moldova
• Monaco 
• Mongolia
• Nepal 
• the Netherlands 
• New Zealand 
• Nigeria 
• North Macedonia 
• Norway
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Palestine
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• the Philippines 
• Poland
• Portugal 
• Qatar
• Romania 
• Russia 
• San Marino 
• Saudi Arabia
• Senegal
• Serbia
• Singapore 
• Slovakia 
• Slovenia
• South Africa 
• South Korea 
• Spain 
• Sri Lanka
• Sweden 
• Switzerland 
• Taiwan 
• Thailand 
• Togo
• Tunisia
• Turkey 
• Ukraine 
• the United Arab Emirates 
• the United Kingdom 
• the United States 
• Vietnam 

 

These include the nationwide quarantine of Italy.

 

Above: (in red) Corona virus outbreak cases in Italy

 

On 9 March 2020, the government of Italy under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte imposed a national quarantine, restricting the movement of the population except for necessity, work, and health circumstances, in response to the growing outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.

 

Above: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

 

Additional lockdown restrictions mandated the temporary closure of non-essential shops and businesses.

 

 

This followed an earlier restriction announced on the previous day which affected 16 million people and included the region of Lombardy and fourteen provinces in Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Piedmont and Marche, and further back a smaller-scale lockdown of 11 municipalities in the province of Lodi that had begun in late February.

 

 

The first lockdowns began around 21 February 2020, covering 11 municipalities of the province of Lodi and affecting around 50,000 people.

 

 

Above: Piazza Duomo, Lodi

 

The epicentre was the town of Codogno (pop. 16,000), with police cars blocking roads leading to the quarantined areas and barriers erected on the roads.

Above: Ospedale Soave, Codogno

 

The quarantined “red zone” (zona rossa) was initially enforced by police and carabinieri, and by 27 February it was reported that 400 policemen were enforcing it with 35 checkpoints.

The lockdown was initially meant to last until 6 March.

While residents were permitted to leave their homes and supplies such as food and medicine were allowed to enter, they were not to go to school or their workplaces, and public gatherings were prohibited.

Train services also bypassed the region.

 

Above: The front page of Italian newspaper La Repubblica, reading “Tutti in casa” (“Everybody stay at home“), hung in a Bologna street on 10 March 2020, the first day of the nationwide lockdown in Italy

 

Early on Sunday, 8 March 2020, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the expansion of the quarantine zone to cover much of Northern Italy, affecting over 16 million people, restricting travel from, to or within the affected areas, banning funerals and cultural events, and requiring people to keep at least one metre of distance from one another in public locations such as restaurants, churches and supermarkets.

Conte later clarified in a press conference that the decree was not an “absolute ban“, and that people would still be able to use trains and planes to and from the region for “proven work needs, emergencies, or health reasons“.

Additionally, tourists from outside were still permitted to leave the area.

 

Above: Areas quarantined on 8 March 2020

 

Restaurants and cafes were permitted to open, but operations were limited to between 06:00 and 18:00, while many other public locations such as gyms, nightclubs, museums and swimming pools were closed altogether.

Businesses were ordered to implement “smart working processes” to permit their employees to work from home.

 

 

The decree, in effect until 3 April, additionally cancelled any leave for medical workers, and allowed the government to impose fines or up to three months’ jail for people caught leaving or entering the affected zone without permission.

The decree also implemented restrictions on public gatherings elsewhere across Italy.

With this decree, the initial “Red Zone” was also abolished (though the municipalities were still within the quarantined area).

The lockdown measures implemented by Italy was considered the most radical measure implemented against the outbreak, outside of the lockdown measures implemented in China.

At the time of the decree, over 5,800 cases of coronavirus had been confirmed in Italy, with 233 dead.

 

 

A draft of the decree had been leaked to the media late on Saturday night before it went into effect and was published by Corriere della Sera, resulting in panic within the to-be-quarantined areas and prompting reactions from politicians in the region.

 

 

La Repubblica reported that hundreds of people in Milan rushed out to leave the city on the last trains on Saturday night, as a part of a rush in general to leave the red zone.

 

 

However, within hours of the decree being signed, media outlets reported that relatively little had changed, with trains and planes still operating to and from the region, and restaurants and cafes operating normally.

The BBC reported that some flights to Milan continued on 8 March, though several were cancelled.

New guidelines for the corona virus had assigned the responsibility of deciding whether to suspend flights to local judiciaries.

 

 

On the evening of 9 March, the quarantine measures were expanded to the entire country, coming into effect the next day.

In a televised address, Conte explained that the moves would restrict travel to that necessary for work and family emergencies, and all sporting events would be cancelled.

Italy was the first country to implement a national quarantine as a result of the 2020 coronavirus outbreak.

 

Above: Flag of Italy

 

On 11 March, Conte announced the lockdown would be tightened, with all commercial and retail businesses, except those providing essential services, like grocery stores and pharmacies, closed down.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio has said that the lockdown has been necessary for Italy.

 

Above: Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Malo

 

The Italian authorities established sanctions for those who do not obey the orders, even those who, having symptoms of the virus, expose themselves in public places, being considered a threat of intentional contagion.

 

 

Responding to the thousands of people who evacuated from Lombardy just before the 8 March quarantine was put in place, police officers and medics met passengers from Lombardy in Salerno, Campania, and the passengers were required to self-quarantine.

 

 

Michele Emiliano, President of Apulia, required all arrivals from northern Italy to self-quarantine.

 

Above: Michele Emiliano

 

Similarly, Jole Santelli, President of Calabria, called for Calabrians living in northern Italy not to return home during the outbreak, and for the government to “block an exodus to Calabria“.

 

Above: Jole Santelli

 

Conte, alongside other leaders, called for Italians not to engage in “furbizia“—i.e. craftiness to circumvent rules and bureaucracy—when it comes to the lockdown.

Conte also told la Repubblica that Italy was facing its “darkest hour“.

In the initial quarantine, a special radio station (Radio Zona Rossa, or “Radio Red Zone“) was set up for residents of the Codogno quarantine area, broadcasting updates on the quarantine situation, interviews with authorities, and government information.

 

 

Catholic sermons were also broadcast through the radio.

 

Following the quarantine’s expansion, the hashtag #IoRestoACasa (“I stay at home“) was shared by thousands of social media users.

 

 

In compliance with regulations on keeping one metre of distance between each other in public locations, bars and restaurants placed duct tape on floors for their customers to follow.

Rushes to supermarkets in cities such as Roma and Palermo were reported as residents engaged in panic buying following the nationwide quarantine announcement.

 

 

After the national lockdown was announced, the Vatican closed the Vatican Museums and suspended Mass liturgies.

While St. Peter’s Basilica remained open, its catacombs were closed and visitors were required to follow the Italian regulations on the one-metre separation.

Catholic Mass in Rome and the Vatican were also suspended until 3 April, and Pope Francis opted to instead live stream daily Mass.

 

 

Dismayed by the Vicar General’s complete closure of all churches in the Diocese of Rome, Pope Francis partially reversed the closures, but tourists are still barred from visiting the churches.

 

Above: Pope Francis

 

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom, praised Italy’s decision to implement the lockdown, stating that the Italian people and government were “making genuine sacrifices” with these “bold, courageous steps“.

 

Above: WHO Director General Tedros Adhamon

 

Among Brescian municipalities, Limone sul Garda is not listed among those with corona virus cases.

For now.

Though the virus is on Limone’s doorstep – in Gardone Riviera, Lonata del Garda and Moniga del Garda – one case in each town – it has yet to make its dark appearance felt within Limone itself.

Perhaps, miraculously, Covina-19 will avoid Limone, for Limone is a place of miracles….

 

 

Limone sul Garda, Italy, Tuesday 6 August 2018

Imagine a place where majestic mountains act as a backdrop for the infinite blue of Lake Garda.

Forget the impatience of the world for a moment and serenely choose a moment of tranquillity, to share with your loved ones.

The blue has never been as beautiful as it is now, in this natural backdrop of colours, tastes and perfumes.

 

 

Olives, lemons, oleanders, palms and bougainvilleas flourish in an enchanting inlet, where the mountains suddenly open up, mirrored in the intense blue of the water, like in a dream.

Limone, once a small fishing village, is today one of the most highly appreciated tourist centres, with a splendid lakeside promenade and camping grounds, hotels and modern residences, equipped with every comfort.

It has well-equipped beaches, street swarming with shops, bars and restaurants for every taste.

Limone, the home of tranquillity and courtesy, is the ideal place for a vacation on the Lake, year round.

 

 

The vestiges of the past are splendidly blended into the backdrop, conferring even greater harmony.

Thus, we can see the pillars of the ancient lemon houses rising from the shores exposed to the sun, which sweetly slope down towards the Lake.

In the surrounding area, the silvery foliage of centuries old olive trees ripple in the wind.

The old part of the village, set between the earth and water, opens up to reveal an infinite number of characteristic, peaceful corners.

The deep ties with the territory are still alive in the daily life that marches on: simplicity, hospitality and untiring work are the peculiarities of Limone entrepreneurs who make every effort, every day, to ensure that guests feel at home.

Nature alone generously offers considerable opportunities to enjoy leisure time, even for the less sporty: the Lake and its beaches, the itineraries that wind their way up to the ancient citrus fruit gardens, in the shade of the houses, the trails that branch out around the village, climbing up to the summits of the mountains that surround the village, providing uniquely beautiful views – an ideal habitat for mountain lovers and experts.

The multifunctional sports centre, the sports complex and the many tennis courts complete the array of proposals capable of meeting the requirements of both professional and amateur sportsmen.

 

 

Despite the presence of famous cultivations of lemons (the meaning of the city’s name in Italian), the town’s name is probably derived from the ancient lemos (elm) or limes (Latin: boundary, referring to the communes of Brescia and the Bishopric of Trento).

From 1863 to 1905 the denomination was Limone San Giovanni.

 

 

The first settlements found in the surrounding area of Benaco (the ancient name of the Lake) date back to the Neolithic period.

In fact, in the nearby Valley of Ledro you can visit a museum dedicated to the pile work houses from the Bronze Age found in that area.

 

 

In 600 BC, the Celtic tribes that inhabited the area were conquered by the Romans.

After this, the Lake’s historical development follows that of the rest of northern Italy: from the Longobards, to the arrival of Charlemagne, the Venetian Republic, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Italian Renaissance, the World Wars, up to the birth of the present Italian Republic.

 

 

However, the most important period of the social, economic and cultural development of Limone was the domination of the Venetian Republic or “Serenissima” (the Splendid) as it was called during the first half of the 15th century.

Due to the administration of the Serenissima, Limone developed from a typical rural village based on fishing and the growing of olives to the most northerly centre for the cultivation of citrus fruits, such as lemons, oranges and citrons.

 

Above: Flag of the Republic of Venice

 

They built the world famous lemon groves called Limonaia with high walls to protect the trees from the cold northeastern winds.

The huge columns in these groves were used to support wooden rafters which during winter covered the grove transforming it into a greenhouse.

 

 

However, things were not as easy as they may have seemed.

Soil had to be imported for the lemon trees from the southern part of the Lake, because the original soil was very poor as it consisted only of gravel.

The water supply for the lemon groves was a masterpiece of an irrigation system.

 

 

At the beginning of September 1786, when the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had just turned 37, he “slipped away“, in his words, from his duties as Privy Councillor in the Duchy of Weimar, from a long platonic affair with a court lady, and from his immense fame as the author of the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and the stormy play Götz von Berlichingen, and took what became a licensed leave of absence.

By May 1788, he had travelled to Italy via Innsbruck and the Brenner Pass and visited Lake Garda, Verona, Vicenza, Venezia, Bologna, Roma, the Alban Hills, Napoli and Sicily.

He wrote many letters to a number of friends in Germany, which he later used as the basis for Italian Journey.

 

Above: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)

 

Italian Journey initially takes the form of a diary, with events and descriptions written up apparently quite soon after they were experienced.

The impression is in one sense true, since Goethe was clearly working from journals and letters he composed at the time — and by the end of the book he is openly distinguishing between his old correspondence and what he calls reporting.

But there is also a strong and indeed elegant sense of fiction about the whole, a sort of composed immediacy.

Goethe said in a letter that the work was “both entirely truthful and a graceful fairy tale“.

It had to be something of a fairy tale, since it was written between 30 and more than 40 years after the journey, from 1816 to 1828-29.

 

Above: Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s Goethe in the Roman Campagna

 

The work begins with a famous Latin tag, Et in Arcadia ego.

This Latin phrase is usually imagined as spoken by Death — this is its sense, for example, in W. H. Auden’s poem called “Et in Arcadia ego” — suggesting that every paradise is afflicted by mortality.

 

Above: Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 – 1973)

 

What Goethe says is “Even I managed to get to Paradise“, with the implication that we could all get there if we chose.

If death is universal, the possibility of paradise might be universal too.

This possibility wouldn’t preclude its loss, and might even require it, or at least require that some of us should lose it.

The book ends with a quotation from Ovid’s Tristia, regretting his expulsion from Rome.

Above: Statue of Publius Ovidius Naso (aka Ovid) (43 BC – AD 18) commemorating his exile in Tomis (present-day Constanța, Romania)

 

Cum repeto noctem, Goethe writes in the middle of his own German, as well as citing a whole passage:

“When I remember the night…“

He is already storing up not only plentiful nostalgia and regret, but also a more complicated treasure:

The certainty that he didn’t merely imagine the land where others live happily ever after.

 

 

“We are all pilgrims who seek Italy“, Goethe wrote in a poem two years after his return to Germany from his almost two-year spell in the land he had long dreamed of.

For Goethe, Italy was the warm passionate south as opposed to the dank cautious North.

The place where the classical past was still alive, although in ruins.

A sequence of landscapes, colours, trees, manners, cities, monuments he had so far seen only in his writing.

He described himself as “the mortal enemy of mere words” or what he also called “empty names“.

He needed to fill the names with meaning and, as he rather strangely put it, “to discover myself in the objects I see“, literally “to learn to know myself by or through the objects“.

He also writes of his old habit of “clinging to the objects“, which pays off in the new location.

He wanted to know that what he thought might be Paradise actually existed, even if it wasn’t entirely Paradise, and even if he didn’t in the end want to stay there.

Some journeys – Goethe’s was one – really are quests.

Italian Journey is not only a description of places, persons and things, but also a psychological document of the first importance.

— W. H. Auden, Epigraph on Italian Journey

 

On 13 September 1786, Goethe passed by the village of Limone by boat and described with this words its lemon gardens:

“The morning was magnificent: a bit cloudy, but calm as the sun rose.

We passed Limone, the mountain-gardens of which, laid out terrace-fashion, and planted with citron-trees, have a neat and rich appearance.

The whole garden consists of rows of square white pillars placed at some distance from each other, and rising up the mountain in steps.

On these pillars strong beams are laid, that the trees planted between them may be sheltered in the winter.

The view of these pleasant objects was favored by a slow passage, and we had already passed Malcesine when the wind suddenly changed, took the direction usual in the day-time, and blew towards the north.“

(Italian Journey, Johann Wolfgang Goethe)

 

 

Apart from the cultivation of citrus fruits in the 19th century during the reign of the Habsburg family, Limone also offered other products such as magnesium, paper, quicklime and silkworms due to the mild climate.

Unfortunately, during World War I all these prosperous businesses came to a sudden end because of the geopolitical and strategic location of Limone.

The whole area, which was situated on the immediate border with Austria and which was in the active combat zone between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Italian Reign was completely evacuated.

When people returned to their homes after the war there was nothing left from the former activities and they had to start again by fishing and growing olives.

Throughout this whole period the only way to reach Limone was by water or through difficult mountain paths.

Until the 1940s the city was reachable only by lake or through the mountains, with the road to Riva del Garda being built only 1932, but today Limone is one of the most renowned tourist resorts in the area.

 

 

Limone’s hotel tradition has developed simultaneously with realization of the most important traffic artery of the Lake: the Gardesana Road.

Activities related to fishing and agriculture were gradually abandoned over the years, while increasing numbers of accommodation and commercial facilities have been created.

In the Seventies, many camping grounds grounds were transformed into hotels in order to meet the changing demands of the market and allowing entrepreneurs to extend the tourist season.

The expansion of the tourist season continued in the Eighties as well, as the village developed an accommodation capacity very similiar to the present day situation.

Over the last decade, collective efforts have privileged development of the quality of the offer:

This has led to important public and private works to requalify many areas, making Limone one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in the European market.

 

 

In order to document the socio-economic changes in Limone after the opening of the Gardesana Road the local council established a Museum of Tourism.

It was set up in the former local council building and inaugurated in 2011.

Inside the exhibition spaces display posters, calendars, holiday guides, souvenirs, etc.

 

 

A large area has also been dedicated to Limone’s citizen St. Daniele Comboni and the discovery of apoli protein A1, a good gene that helps to minimize the hardening of arteries and reduce heart disease.

 

Daniele Comboni, the founder of the Institutes for Comboni Missionaries, was born in Limone.

In the neighbourhood quarter Tesöl, Comboni’s life and work can be understood at the Tesöl Centre of the Comboni Missionaries.

Comboni (1831 – 1881) was an Italian Roman Catholic bishop who served in the missions in Africa and was the founder of both the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus and the Comboni Missionary Sisters.

 

 

Comboni was born on 15 March 1831 at Limone sul Garda in Brescia to the poor gardeners (working for a local proprietor) Luigi Comboni and Domenica Pace as the fourth of eight children.

He was the sole child to survive into adulthood.

At that time Limone was under the jurisdiction of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

 

Above: Austrian-Hungarian Empire before World War I

 

At the age of twelve, he was sent to school in Verona on 20 February 1843 at the Religious Institute of Verona, founded by Nicola Mazza.

It was there that he completed his studies in medicine and languages (he learnt French, English and Arabic) and prepared to become a priest.

 

Above: Images of Verona

 

On 6 January 1849 he vowed that he would join the African missions, a desire he had held since 1846 after reading about the Japanese martyrs.

 

(The Martyrs of Japan were Christian missionaries and followers who were persecuted and executed, mostly during the Tokugawa shogunate period in the 17th century.

More than 400 martyrs of Japan have been recognized with beatification by the Catholic Church, and 42 have been canonized as saints.

Martyrs of Japan can be seen within the context of Christian colonialism and Christianization.)

 

Above: The 26 Martyrs of Japan at Nagasaki. (1628 engraving)

 

On 31 December 1854 in Trento he received his ordination to the priesthood from the Bishop of Trent Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim.

 

Above: Bishop of Trent Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim (1777- 1860)

 

Comboni made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from 29 September to 14 October 1855.

 

(The Holy Land (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ הַקּוֹדֶשׁ Eretz HaKodesh, Latin: Terra Sancta; Arabic: الأرض المقدسة Al-Arḍ Al-Muqaddasah or الديار المقدسة Ad-Diyar Al-Muqaddasah) is an area roughly located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that also includes the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River.

Traditionally, it is synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine.

The term “Holy Land” usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan, and parts of southern Lebanon and of southwestern Syria.

Jews, Christians and Muslims all regard it as holy.

Part of the significance of the land stems from the religious significance of Jerusalem (the holiest city to Judaism), as the historical region of Jesus’ ministry, and as the site of the Isra and Mi’raj event of 621 in Islam.

The holiness of the land as a destination of Christian pilgrimage contributed to launching the Crusades, as European Christians sought to win back the Holy Land from the Muslims, who had conquered it from the Christian Eastern Roman Empire in the 630s.

In the 19th century, the Holy Land became the subject of diplomatic wrangling as the Holy Places played a role in the Eastern Question which led to the Crimean War in the 1850s.

Many sites in the Holy Land have long been pilgrimage destinations for adherents of the Abrahamic religions, including Jews, Christians, Muslims and Bahá’ís.

Pilgrims visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their faith, to confirm their beliefs in the holy context with collective excitation, and to connect personally to the Holy Land.)

 

Above: The map of the Holy Land by Marino Sanudo (drawn in 1320)

Map orientation: north pointing left.

 

In 1857 – with the blessing of his mother – Comboni left for Africa along with five other missionaries, also former students of Mazza.

His mother gave him her blessing and said to him:

“Go, Daniele, and may the Lord bless you“.

 

Comboni departed on 8 September 1857 with Giovanni Beltrame, Alessandro dal Bosco, Francesco Oliboni, Angelo Melotto and Isidoro Zilli who hailed from Udine.

 

Above: Piazza San Giacomo, Udine

 

Four months later, on 8 January 1858, Comboni reached Khartoum in Sudan.

His assignment was the liberation of enslaved boys and girls.

There were difficulties including an unbearable climate and sickness as well as the deaths of several of his fellow missionaries.

This, added with the poor and derelict conditions that the population faced, made the situation all the more difficult.

 

Above: Modern Khartoum

 

Comboni had written to his parents of the conditions and the difficulties that the group faced but remained resolved.

He witnessed the death of one of his companions and instead of deterring him he remained determined to continue and wrote:

“O Nigrizia o morte!” (translation: “Either Africa or death“)

 

 

By the end of 1859 three of the five had died and two were in Cairo as Comboni himself grew ill.

 

Above: Modern Cairo

 

Comboni was in his new surroundings from 1858 until 15 January 1859 when he was forced to return to Verona due to a bout of malaria.

He taught at Mazza’s institute from 1861 until 1864.

He soon worked out fresh strategies for the missions while back in his native land in 1864.

 

Above: Portrait of Nicola Mazza (1790 – 1865)

 

He visited St Peter’s Tomb in Rome on 15 September 1864 and it was while reflecting before the Tomb that he came upon the idea of a “Plan for the Rebirth of Africa” which was a project with the slogan “Save Africa through Africa“.

 

Above: St. Peter’s Tomb

 

Four days later, on 19 September, he met with Pope Pius IX to discuss his project.

 

Above: Pope Pius IX (1792 – 1878)

 

Comboni wanted the European continent and the Universal Church to be more concerned with the African continent.

He carried out appeals throughout Europe from December 1864 to June 1865 for spiritual and material aid for the African missions from people including monarchical families as well as bishops and nobles.

Travelling under an Austrian consular visa, he went to France and Spain before heading north to England and then setting off to Germany and Austria.

The humanitarian “Society of Cologne” became a main supporter of his work.

It was around this time that he launched a magazine – the first in his homeland to delve into the missions for it was designed to be an exclusive magazine for those in the missions.

 

Above: Cologne Cathedral (Köln Dom)

 

He established a male institute on 1 June 1867 and one for women in 1872 both in Verona: the Istituto delle Missioni per la Nigrizia (since 1894 the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus) and the Istituto delle Pie Madri (later the Comboni Missionary Sisters) on 1 January 1872.

On 7 May 1867, he had an audience with Pope Pius IX and brought with him twelve African girls to meet the Pope.

In late 1867 Comboni opened two branches of the order in Cairo.

 

Comboni was the first to bring women into this form of work in Africa and he founded new missions in El Obeid and Delen amongst other Sudanese cities.

Comboni was well-versed in the Arabic language and also spoke in several African dialects (Dinka, Bari and Nubia) as well as six European languages.

 

 

On 2 April 1868, he was decorated with the Order of the Knight of Italy but he refused this in fidelity to Pius IX.

On 7 July 1968, he left for France where he visited the shrine of La Salette on 26 July before heading to Germany and Austria.

 

Above: La Salette

 

On 20 February 1869 he left Marseilles for Cairo where he opened a third house on 15 March.

 

Among Comboni’s early companions during his early years in Africa was Catarina Zenab, a Dinka who would go on to serve as a missionary in Khartoum later in her life.

 

Above: Catarina Zenab (1848–1921)

 

On 9 March 1870, he left Cairo for Rome and arrived there on 15 March, where he took part in the First Vatican Council as the theologian of the Bishop of Verona Luigi di Canossa.

He formulated the “Postulatum pro Nigris Africæ Centralis” on 24 June which was a petition for the evangelization of Africa.

This received the signature of 70 bishops.

The First Vatican Council was terminated due to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and the dissolution of the Papal States before the document could be discussed.

 

Above: First Vatican Council (1869 – 1870)

 

In mid-1877 he was named as the Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa and received his episcopal consecration as a bishop on 12 August 1877 from Cardinal Alessandro Franchi (1819 – 1878).

 

 

Comboni’s episcopal appointment was seen as a confirmation that his ideas and his activities – which some deemed to be foolish – were recognised as an effective means for the proclamation of the Gospel.

 

Above: St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Khartoum

 

In 1877, and again in 1878, there was a drought in the region of the mission while mass starvation ensued soon after.

The local population was halved and the religious personnel and their activities reduced almost to nothing.

 

 

On 27 November 1880, Comboni traveled to the missions in Sudan from Napoli (Naples) for the eighth and final time to act against the slave trade and, though ill, he managed to arrive in Khartoum on 9 August in summer and made a trip to the Nubia mountains.

 

Above: Images of Napoli

 

Above: The Nuba Mountains

 

On 10 October 1881, he died in Khartoum during the cholera epidemic at 10:00 pm in the evening.

He had suffered a high fever since 5 October.

His final words were reported to be:

“I am dying, but my work will not die.”

 

Pope Leo XIII mourned the loss of the bishop as a “great loss“.

 

Above: Pope Leo XIII (1810 – 1903)

 

Bishop Antonio Maria Roveggio (1850–1902) served as the order’s superior sometime after Comboni died.

 

Above: Bishop Antonio Maria Roveggio

 

The male order received the papal decree of praise on 7 June 1895 and full papal approval from Pope Pius X on 19 February 1910.

 

Above: Pope Pius X (1835 – 1914)

 

As of 2018, the men’s order operates in about 28 countries, including Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Brazil, Colombia and the Philippines.

The female order received the decree of praise on 22 February 1897 and papal approval on 10 June 1912, while in 2008 there were 1,529 religious in 192 houses.

That order operates in Europe – in countries such as the United Kingdom, in Africa – in nations such as Cameroon and Mozambique, in the Americas – in countries such as Costa Rica and Ecuador, and in Asia – in countries such as Israel and Jordan.

 

Above: Countries where the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus are active.

 

Above: St. Daniel Comboni Kindergarten in Eritrea

 

On 26 March 1994 the confirmation of Comboni’s life of heroic virtue enabled Pope John Paul II to title him as Venerable.

 

Above: Pope John Paul II (1920 – 2005)

 

The miracle required for Comboni to be beatified was investigated on a diocesan level in São Mateus from 10 December 1990 until 29 June 1992 before it received validation on 30 April 1993.

The miracle was the 25 December 1970 healing of the Afro-Brazilian child Maria Giuseppa Oliveira Paixão who underwent a stomach surgical procedure for an infection that grew worse over time.

But their attention turned to Comboni’s intercession and she was healed the next morning in a case that surprised the doctor.

The seven medical experts approved that science could not explain this cure on 9 June 1994, while six theologians agreed likewise on 22 November 1994, as did the C.C.S. members on 24 January 1995.

 

Above: Sao Mateus, Brazil

 

Pope John Paul II confirmed on 6 April 1995 that this healing was indeed a miracle and beatified Comboni in Saint Peter’s Basilica on 17 March 1996.

John Paul II confirmed this miracle on 20 December 2002 and scheduled the date for Comboni’s canonization in a papal consistory held on 20 February 2003.

The pope canonized Comboni in Saint Peter’s Square on 5 October 2003.

 

Above: St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City

 

The miracle in question was the healing of the Muslim mother Lubana Abdel Aziz (b. 1965) who – on 11 November 1997 – was admitted into a Khartoum hospital for a caesarean section.

The hospital was one that the Comboni Missionary Sisters managed.

The infant was born but the mother suffered from repeated bleeding and other serious problems and was on the point of death despite a blood transfusion.

The doctors were pessimistic about her chances but the nuns began a novena to Comboni.

The woman healed, despite the odds, on 13 November and was discharged from the hospital on 18 November.

 

Above: Panorama of Khartoum

 

At the Tesöl Centre in Limone, you can visit Comboni’s birth house, the Chapel (which was later built under the birth house) and the small but interesting Museum of Curiosities.

If you want to deepen your knowledge of Comboni, there is the possibility of visiting the multimedia exhibition and a thematic exhibition.

Or you can simply relax in the special and calm atmosphere present in the park that surrounds the Centre with a marvelous view over Limone and Lake Garda.

 

Above: Centro Comboniano Il Tesöl

 

In 1979, researchers discovered that people in Limone possess a mutant form of apolipo protein (called Apo A-1 Milano) in their blood, that induced a healthy form of high-density cholesterol, which resulted in a lowered risk of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases.

The protein appears to have given residents of the village extreme longevity – a dozen of those living here are over the age of 100 (for c. 1,000 total inhabitants).

The origin of the mutation has been traced back to a couple who lived in Limone in the 17th century.

Research has been ongoing to develop pharmaceutical treatments against heart disease based on mimicking the beneficial effects of the Apolipo A-1 mutation.

Above: Cartoon representation of the molecular structure of protein registered with 1nfn Code.

 

Apolipo proteins are proteins that bind lipids (oil-soluble substances, such as fat and cholesterol) to form lipoproteins.

They transport lipids (and fat soluble vitamins) in blood, cerebrospinal fluid and lymph.

The lipid components of lipoproteins are insoluble in water.

However, because of their detergent-like (amphipathic) properties, apolipo proteins and other amphipathic molecules (such as phospholipids) can surround the lipids, creating a lipoprotein particle that is itself water-soluble, and can thus be carried through water-based circulation (i.e., blood, lymph).

In addition to stabilizing lipoprotein structure and solubilizing the lipid component, apolipo proteins interact with lipoprotein receptors and lipid transport proteins, thereby participating in lipoprotein uptake and clearance.

They also serve as enzyme cofactors for specific enzymes involved in the metabolism of lipoproteins.

Apolipo proteins are also exploited by hepatitis C virus (HCV) to enable virus entry, assembly, and transmission.

They play a role in viral pathogenesis and viral evasion from neutralizing antibodies.

 

Apolipo protein A-1 Milano (also ETC-216 or MDCO-216) is a naturally occurring mutated variant of the apolipo protein A1 found in human HDL, the lipoprotein particle that carries cholesterol from tissues to the liver and is associated with protection against cardiovascular disease.

Apo A1 Milano was first identified by Dr. Cesare Sirtori in Milano (Milan), who also demonstrated that its presence significantly reduced cardiovascular disease, even though it caused a reduction in HDL levels and an increase in triglyceride levels.

 

Above: Logo of the University of Milano

 

The Apo A-1 Milano mutation was found by University of Milan researchers after their 1974 investigation of a low HDL / high triglyceride phenotype exhibited by Valerio Dagnoli of Limone.

Limone had only 1,000 inhabitants at the time and when blood tests were run on the entire population of the village, the mutation was found to be present in about 3.5% of the local population.

The mutation was traced to one man, Giovanni Pomarelli, who was born in the village in 1780 and passed it on to his offspring.

 

Above: Cartoon representation of Apo A-1

 

In the 1990s, researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center showed that injection of a synthetic version of the mutant Apo A-1 into rabbits and mice could reverse vascular plaque buildup.

 

Above: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

 

Apo A-I Milano has been shown to reduce atherosclerosis in animal models and in a small phase 2 human trial.

Recombinant adeno-associated virus 8 (AAV8) mediated Apo A-I Milano gene therapy in combination with low-cholesterol diet induces rapid and significant regression of atherosclerosis in mice.

 

The first examination of using the mutant Apo A-1 in humans was conducted through a three way collaboration between the University of Milan and the companies Pharmacia and Upjohn in 1996, focusing on treatment of atherosclerosis.

 

 

The Apo A-1 Milano Trial, published in JAMA in 2003, was the first published placebo-controlled, two-dose level trial in humans.

This was a secondary prevention trial in that those included were individuals who presented to a participating hospital with unstable angina and agreed to consent to a rigorous trial, well beyond usual clinical practice testing and treatment, testing whether this HDL protein variant, which was so effective in animals, would also work in humans.

This trial was initiated by Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic after prompting by Roger Newton of Esperion to examine the effects of the mutant protein using intravascular ultrasound imaging.

 

 

Esperion provided the protein, code named ETC-216, for the duration of the trial.

 

 

Due to its potential efficacy, it was speculated that development of synthetic ApoA-1 Milano might be a key factor in eradicating coronary heart disease.

Esperion Therapeutics, a high tech venture capital start-up, demonstrated efficacy in both animals and humans, spending many millions of dollars over several years to conduct a single human trial which showed impressive and rapid efficacy by IVUS of coronary arteries.

However, over the course of the project they produced only enough Apo A-1 Milano to partially treat 30 out of the 45 people in the randomized trial, giving them one weekly dose each for five weeks.

The results of the trial were published in JAMA (5 November 2003).

 

 

Hoping to develop a more effective treatment than their current product Lipitor, Pfizer purchased and internalized Esperion shortly before JAMA published the results of the Apo A-1 Milano trial.

Currently, no drugs based on Apo A-1 Milano are commercially available.

 

 

Rights to Apo A-1 Milano were acquired in 2003 by Pfizer.

Clinically known as ETC-216, Pfizer did not move trials forward, probably because the complex protein is very expensive to produce and must be administered intravenously, limiting its application compared to oral medications.

 

Pfizer, after the CETP agent torcetrapib failed in a large human safety trial, decided to exit the cardiovascular market in 2008, though they continue to market Lipitor aggressively.

Esperion, divested by Pfizer in 2008, is back in business and continue to work on HDL mimetic therapies.

The company established an agreement with Trans Gen Rx as a protein source.

Calgary-based SemBioSys Genetics Inc. was a biotechnology company that was using safflower to develop commercial quantities of Apo A-1 Milano.

On 11 October 2011, SemBioSys Genetics signed a multi-product commercialization and platform collaboration agreement with Tasly Pharmaceuticals of Tianjin (China).

In May 2012, SemBioSys terminated its operations and announced that Tasly had terminated their agreement.

On 22 December 2009, the Medicines Company announced it had entered into an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Pfizer Inc. for Apo A-I Milano which it then renamed MDCO-216.

On 12 July 2010, the Medicines Company signed a pharmaceutical development and manufacturing contract with OctoPlus (a Netherlands-based drug delivery and drug development company) to perform process development and clinical manufacturing of MDCO-216.

After a trial study failed to produce significant enough results compared to other drugs being tested, in 2016 the Medicines Company discontinued development of MDCO-216.

 

 

Cardigant Medical is a Los Angeles-based biotech company currently working to commercialize Apo A-1 Milano to treat various vascular diseases.

Above: Logo of Cardigant Medical

 

One man of Limone (Daniele Comboni) spread the word of God to the continent of Africa.

Another man of Limone (Giovanni Pomarelli) left a heritage of health for the entire world to benefit from.

 

 

Never underestimate the power of one person to make a difference in the world.

 

The wife and I were on vacation.

She was Bond, James Bond.

 

Above: Ian Fleming’s original sketch impression of James Bond

 

I felt as helpless as Mr. White, though not tossed into the boot (trunk) of an Aston Martin I was a front seat passenger in a Capri careening through the tunnels of the Strada della Forra, the prisoner of a wife driven by purpose, bound for Limone sul Garda.

 

Above: Jesper Christensen as Mr. White

 

Quantum of Solace is a 2008 spy film and the 22nd in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions.

 

 

Directed by Marc Forster and written by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, it is a direct sequel to Casino Royale, and the 2nd film to star Daniel Craig as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond.

 

 

Moments after the end of Casino Royale, James Bond is driving from Lake Como to Siena, Italy, with the captured Mr. White in the boot of his Aston Martin DBS V12.

 

 

Quantum of Solace was shot in six countries.

Malcesine, Limone sul Garda and Tremosine in Italy during March 2008.

Four weeks were scheduled for filming the car chase at Lake Garda and Carrara.

 

 

On 19 April, an Aston Martin employee driving a DBS to the set crashed into the lake.

He survived, and was fined £400 for reckless driving.

 

 

Another accident occurred on 21 April, and two days later, two stuntmen were seriously injured, with one, Greek stuntman Aris Comninos, having to be put in intensive care.

Filming of the scenes was temporarily halted so that Italian police could investigate the causes of the accidents.

 

Above: Aris Comninos

 

Stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell said the accidents were a testament to the realism of the action.

Rumours of a “curse” spread among tabloid media, something which deeply offended Craig, who disliked that they compared Comninos’ accident to something like his minor finger injury later on the shoot (also part of the “curse“).

Comninos recovered safely from his injury.

 

Above: Gary Powell

 

Considering the speed with which my wife likes to drive I wondered whether I would recover from mine.

 

 

Where Goethe headed south from Limone to start a new life, we headed north from Limone to soon resume our old lives.

It was summer and it was hot, unbearably hot.

But on this day everything changed.

 

We arrived during a storm.

Though the winds were violent and the sky threatened I was jubliant.

I had found the days insufferable and the nights intolerable.

Being August and high season, everywhere seemed overflowing with everyone.

Even though Limone is a popular tourist destination there were fewer tourists on the streets and in the shops on this day.

 

 

In a sense, the present lockdown of Limone (and the rest of Italy) is somewhat reflected in my memories of the town.

Folks huddled indoors, afraid to face the current situation.

 

 

We shopped and ate outside during breaks in the weather.

 

 

Our feet found the way to the Museum of Tourism and the Castèl Lemon Grove.

 

 

My memory sees white tiles in the pavement and cobblestone leading to the white pillars and walls of the limonaie facing the sun so as to catch life-sustaining, life-affirming rays of the distant star.

 

 

The lemon groves stand proudly above the lake shore.

There may have been no more than 100 citrus plants lovingly assembled between stone pillars and beneath wooden frame roofs that could be covered during a storm and left bare during days of sunshine and warmth, but the visitor feels dwarfed and insignificant in an orchard that feels larger than its reality.

 

 

I have no memory of whether we visited the town’s fishing museum or olive oil exhibition.

Where the former contains a typical boat with the tools used everyday for fishing by Limone’s forefathers, the latter holds an olive grove with silver leaves upon timeless trees and an ancient mill that coldly presses olives that produce an oil of very high quality.

 

 

Our path following led us to the Parish Church of the Holy Benedict built in 1691 on the ruins of a former Roman basilica mentioned in Pope Urbano III’s Papal Bull in 1186.

In the past it was the duty of the church to keep records up to date and so the parish church contains the oldest known record of Limone’s social events.

Holy Services are held daily “where the three men I admire the most, the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost” smile upon this citrus coast amongst masterpieces of ecclesiastical art dating back to the 16th century.

It was here that Carboni was baptized as a boy.

We light a candle in memory of my wife’s beloved grandfather, a prayer for his eternal salvation.

 

Above: The Parish Church of St. Benedict

 

We stumble upon the Church of St. Peter, the oldest church in Limone, dating back to the 9th century.

On the road to Tremosine on via San Pietro among olive trees, St. Peter is a simple church with a single nave and a white marble stoop.

The eyes and the spirit are drawn to the Church’s beautiful frescoes of the Last Supper and portraits of Saints Peter, Lucia and Zeno.

The simplicity of this small church evokes the essential inspiration of a community once deeply inspired by deep religious sentiment.

Until post-war years the population of Limone used St. Peter’s for penitentiary processions to implore the success of sowing and harvesting their crops, as well as to occasionally beseech immunity from natural disasters, illnesses and epidemics.

I wonder if the present lockdown allows the faithful of Limone to beseech God for deliverance from Covina-19.

The outside of the Church is powerful in its simplicity.

A small portico is inscribed with phrases bearing witness to important events that affected the town deeply, such as the plague of 1630, the defeat of Napoleon, bad olive harvests and seasons of sorrow.

Until the First World War, the portico was attached to a bell tower which was intentionally demolished because it was considered a dangerous landmark for the nearby artillery installations in Crocette.

What remains of this miniature House of God is therefore extremely precious.

St. Peter’s is an artistic, historical and religious relic, bearing truth to the town’s legacy of longevity, that Limone will endure while that which tests the resolve of the town will eventually pass.

 

Above: The Church of St. Peter

 

Another church, the Church of St. Rocco, situated at the northern end of the town centre, was built during the 16th century by those who survived the Plague and is dedicated to the patron saint believed to have saved the settlement from extinction.

Sadly time has not been gentle to St. Rocco as the Church’s frescoes and tiny tower were seriously damaged during World War I.

Stone steps lead up to the Chapel where faith has not faltered though the Church crumbles.

 

Above: The Church of San Rocco

 

In the historical town centre stands the former Chapel of St. Charles, built in 1905 by a Limone citizen in memory of her husband.

During WWI, the Chapel was used as a food stuffs cache for the town’s troops.

In 1930, the Chapel’s alter and sacred furnishings were removed and the premises used for civil events.

During the Second World War, the Chapel was again requisitioned for military use.

It now sits in silence, neither sacred or sublime, neither religious or secular.

 

Above: the former Chapel of San Carlo

 

Limone believes in miracles, in the divine.

In addition to churches and chapels, frescoes and crucifixes, niches, commonly referred to as “capitèi“, testify to the profound faith that endures.

Symbols of faith, icons of hope, images of gratitude, are triumphiantly displayed upon the facades of houses, at crossroads, along the road that connects the village to the countryside and on the paths that climb up towards the mountains that scratch the heavens.

Via Capitelli is typical of this ecclesiastical expression as the population was particularly devoted to the capitèi of the Madonna del Bis on this road, St. Louis on Via Fasse, St. Marcus on Nanzéi and St. John Nepomuceno on the bridge of Via Tamas.

 

 

Limone was a town in which I wish we had lingered longer, for days rather than hours.

We strolled between stalls selling nuts and candy, handbags and backpacks, lemons the size of melons on display amongst bottles of limoncello, packages of pasta and flasks of olive oil.

Our kitchen still contains a butter dish, a brightly painted memento of Limone sul Garda.

Temptations were many: caffes and gelaterias and ristorantes offering cucina italiana.

 

 

From here the world feels small and I wonder, as I often do, what it would be like to be in Limone walking the early morning streets in an off-season month.

 

 

When I consider Limone I think of a place that abides.

A place that awaits my return.

I only need to believe that the virus that despoils Italy will pass.

I only need to believe in miracles.

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Lonely Planet Italy / Rough Guide Italy / http://www.visitlimonesulgarda.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Slim and the Humanitarian Adventure

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Tuesday 10 December 2019

There are things in Switzerland (and in our existence) that we simply take for granted:

And the thing about Swiss stereotypes is that some of them are true.

Diplomatic?

Yes.

Efficient?

Absolutely.

Boring?

Only at first glance.

Despite being one of the most visited countries in Europe, Switzerland remains one of the least understood.

It is more than simply the well-ordered land of cheese, chocolate, banks and watches.

It is more than a warm summer mountain holiday upon a cobalt blue lake, more than skiing down the slopes of some vertiginous Alp, more than postcard pristine beauty.

It is easy for the tourist to remain blissfully unaware of Swiss community spirit, that it speaks four official languages, that it possesses stark regional differences from canton to canton, that it has exubrant carnivals, culinary traditions and sophisticated urban centres.

 

 

With its beautiful lakeside setting, Geneva (Genève) is a cosmopolitan city whose modest size belies its wealth and importance on the world stage.

French-speaking and Calvinistic it is a dynamic centre of business with an outward-looking character tempered by a certain reserve.

Geneva’s major sights are split by the Rhône River that flows into Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) and through the city’s several distinct neighbourhoods.

On the south bank (rive gauche), mainstream shopping districts Rive and Eaux-Vives climb from the water’s edge to Plainpalais and Vieille Ville, while the north bank (rive droite) holds grungy bars and hot clubbing Pâquis, the train station area and some world organizations.

 

 

A little over 1 km north of the train station is the international area, home to dozens of international organizations that are based in Geneva –  everything from the World Council of Churches to Eurovision.

Trains and buses roll up to the Place des Nations.

Gates on the Place des Nations open to the Palais des Nations, now occupied by UNOG, the United Nations Office at Geneva, the European headquarters of the United Nations, accessible only to visitors who sign up for a tour.

The huge monolith just off the square to the west, that looks like a bent playing card on its edge, is WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), the highrise to the south is ITU (the International Telecommunications Union), just to the east is UNHCR (the United Nations High Commission for Refugees), and so on, and so on, and so on, an infinite combination of letters of the alphabet in an infinite variety of abbreviations and acronyms.

The giant Broken Chair which looms over the square was installed in 1997 for the international conference in Ottawa (Canada’s capital) banning the use of land mines, a graphic symbol of the victims of such weapons.

 

 

Geneva is also the birthplace of the International Red Cross / Crescent / Crystal Movement.

And it was the latter, along with the International Museum of the Reformation, that compelled me to visit Geneva.

 

 

(For details about the Musée Internationale de la Réforme, please see Canada Slim and the Third Man in my other blog, The Chronicles of Canada Slim.)

 

Genevè, Suisse, mardi le 23 janvier 2018

Housed within the HQ of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Musée International de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant Rouge chronicles the history of modern conflict and the role the Red Cross has played in providing aid to combatants and civilians caught up in war and natural disasters.

Enter through a trench in the hillside opposite the public entrance of UNOG and emerge into an enclosed glass courtyard beside a group of bound and blindfolded stone figures.

The stone gathering represents the continual worldwide violation of human rights.

 

 

Inside, above the ticket desk, is a quotation in French from Dostoevsky:

“Everyone is responsible to everyone else for everything.”

 

Above: Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881)

 

A free audioguide takes you through the Museum.

 

Twenty-five years ago, Laurent Marti, a former ICRC delegate, had the idea of creating the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.

 

Above: Laurent Marti

 

Marti won the wives of US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev over to his cause in a bid to obtain the support of their respective countries, together with that of local and international societies and personages and of various multinational companies representing a full range of human activities.

 

Above: Nancy Reagan (née Davis) (1921 – 2016)

 

Above: Raisa Gorbacheva (née Titarenko) (1932 – 1999)

 

The goal of the Museum is to emanate a very powerful atmosphere where no one leaves without having been shaken and deeply moved by what they had seen.

Suffering, death, wounds and mutiliations can be followed by a time of healing, restoration, reunification and an opportunity to be happy again, a right that seemed to have been withdrawn.

Of course, the scars remain deep within the human soul, but the hope of restoration and of a return to normalcy is the message of the Museum.

 

 

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is dedicated to preventing and alleviating human suffering in warfare and in emergencies, such as earthquakes, epidemics and floods.

The Movement is composed of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the 188 individual national societies.

Each has its own legal identity and role, but they are all united by seven fundamental principles:

•  humanity
•  impartiality
•  neutrality
•  independence
•  voluntary service
•  unity
•  universality

The interactive chronology covers one and a half centuries of history, starting with the creation of the Red Cross.

For each year, the events listed include:

•  armed conflicts which caused the death of more than 10,000 people and/or affected more than one million people
•  epidemics and disasters that caused the deaths of more than 1,000 people and/or affected more than one million people
•  significant events in the history of the Movement
•  cultural and scientific milestones

 

 

In 1859 Henri Dunant was travelling on business through northern Italy.

 

Above: Henri Dunant (1828 – 1910)

 

He found himself close to the Solferino battlefield just after the fighting.

The battle of Solferino was a key episode in the Italian Wars.

 

 

With the support of France under Napoleon III, Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, King of Piedmont, endeavoured to unite the different Italian states.

In spring 1859 the Piedmont forces clashed with the Austrian Empire, which had control over Lombardy and Venetia.

On 24 June 1859, the Franco-Piedmontese troops defeated the Austrians at Solferino, in a battle that left more than 40,000 dead and wounded.

Overwhelmed by the sight of thousands of wounded soldiers left without medical care, Dunant organized basic relief with the assistance of the local people.

 

 

“On that memorable 24th of June 1859, more than 300,000 men stood facing each other.

The fighting continued for more than 15 hours.

No quarter is given.

It is a sheer butchery, a struggle between savage beasts.

The poor wounded men that were picked up all day long were ghastly pale and exhausted.

Some, who had been the most badly hurt, had a stupified look.

How many brave soldiers, undettered by their first wounds, kept pressing on until a fresh shot brought them to earth.

Men of all nations lay side by side on the flagstone floors of the churches of Castiglione.

The shortage of assistants, orderlies and helpers was cruelly felt.

I sought to organize as best I could relief.

The women of Castiglione, seeing that I made no distinction between nationalities, followed my example.

“Siamo tutti fratelli” (we are all brothers), they repeated feelingly.

 

Above: Ossuary of Solferino

 

But why have I told of all these scenes of pain and distress?

Is it not a matter of urgency to press forward to prevent or at least alleviate the horrors of war?

Would it not be possible, in time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies given to the wounded in wartime?

Societies of this kind, once formed and their permanent existence assured, would be always organized and ready for the possibility of war.

Would it not be desirable to formulate some international principle, sanctioned by a Convention inviolate in character, which, once agreed upon and ratified, might constitute the basis for societies for the relief of the wounded?”

 

Above: Ossuary of Solferino

 

Back home in Geneva, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino.

The book was published in 1862 and was an immediate success.

 

 

In it, Dunant made two proposals:

• the formation of relief societies which would care for wounded soldiers
• the establishment of an international convention to guarantee their safety

Those ideas led, the following year, to the foundation of the Red Cross, and ten months later to the first Geneva Convention.

 

 

In 1863, in response to Dunant’s appeal, Gustave Moynier persuaded the Geneva Public Welfare Society to consider the possibility of training groups of volunteer nurses to provide relief for the wounded.

A committee was set up, the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, the future ICRC, was born.

 

Above: Gustave Moynier (1826 – 1910)

 

The need to defend human dignity has been a constant concern throughout history.

From the Code of Hammurabi (1750 BC) to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), texts from all periods and cultures exist to testify to that.

Those texts were frequently written in response to incidents in which human dignity was shown no consideration – slavery, chemical weapons, civilian bombing, concentration camps, atomic bombing, sexual violence, landmines, child soldiers, prisoners with no legal status.

Throughout time mankind has determined:

• that the strong should not suppress the weak (Code of Hammurabi – Mwaopotamia 1750 BC)

Above: Stele of the Code of Hammurabi

 

• that peace is possible between warring nations (Treaty of Kadesh, the oldest peace treaty known to man and the first written international treaty –  Egypt 1279 BC)

Above: Treaty of Kadesh

 

• that we should be free to practice our own religions (Cyrus Cylinder – Persia 539 BC)

Above: Cyrus Cylinder

 

• that we should not do unto others what we don’t wish done to ourselves (The Analects of Confucius – China 480 BC)

Above: The Analects

• that we should live lives of non-violence with respect towards all (The Edicts of Ashoka – India 260 BC)

Above: The Edicts of Ashoka

 

• that power should not be used arbitrarily nor imprisonment without just cause (The Magna Carta – England 1215)

Above: Magna Carta

 

• that all persons are free and that no one is a slave to another (The Manden Charter – Mali 1222)

Above: The Manden Charter

 

• that women and children and the insane have dignity and rights that must be respected (The Viqayet – Muslim Spain 1280)

 

• that mankind has natural and inalienable rights (freedom, equality, justice, community) (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen – France 1789)

 

• that the wounded need to be treated regardless of nationality, that all human beings are free and equal in dignity and in rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights – United Nations 1948)

 

The original title of the initial Geneva Convention was the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field.

It had only ten articles and one sole objective:

To limit the suffering caused by war.

Article 7 provided for the creation of the protective emblem of the red cross.

This document laid the foundations of international humanitarian law, marks the start of the humanitarian adventure.

By 2013, 194 nations are party to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.

(See http://www.icrc.org for the complete list.)

 

The Museum explains how the Geneva Conventions developed from one man’s battlefield encounter.

After Dunant’s publication of A Memory of Solferino in November 1862, Gustave Moynier (1826 – 1910), chairman of the Geneva Public Welfare Society, in response to Dunant’s appeal, persuaded Society members the following February to consider the possibility of training groups of volunteer nurses to provide relief for the war wounded.

An ad hoc committee was set up – the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded.

The future ICRC was born.

 

Above: ICRC Headquarters, Geneva

 

“Ambulances and military hospitals shall be recognized as neutral and as such protected and respected by the belligerants as long as they accommodate wounded and sick.” (Article 1)

“Inhabitants of the country who bring help to the wounded shall be respected and shall remain free.” (Article 5)

“Wounded or sick combatants, to whatever nation they may belong, shall be collected and cared for.” (Article 6)

“A distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for hospitals, ambulances and evacuation parties.” (Article 7)

A red cross on a white background was adopted in 1863, followed by a red crescent, a red lion and red sun (1929) and a red crystal (2005).

 

To protect the victims of conflict, the ICRC has at its disposal several instruments defined by international humanitarian law.

“At all times, parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the wounded and sick.”

“The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack.”

“The parties to the conflict shall endeavour to conclude local agreements for the passage of medical personnel and medical equipment.”

“Civilian hospitals may in no circumstances be the object of attack.”

“It is prohibited to commit any acts of hostility directed against historic monuments, works of art or places of worship.”

“Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear stations shall not be made the object of attack.”

“It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensible to the survival of the civilian population.”

 

Above: The Red Cross in action, 1864

 

The Second World War (1939 – 1945) involved 61 countries in war and caused the death of around 60 million people, more than half of whom were civilians.

In 1945 more than 20 million people had been displaced.

In 1995 the ICRC publicly described its attitude to the Second World War Holocaust as a “moral failure“.

 

Above: Images of World War II (1939 – 1945)

 

The persecution of the Jews by the Nazis began shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933 and subsequently continued to intensify, culminating in systematic extermination from 1942 onwards.

 

Above: Auschwitz, Poland, May 1944

 

At the time, the ICRC had no legal instrument to protect civilians.

The 1929 Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War applied only to members of the armed forces.

The organization thus considered itself powerless in the face of the anti-Semitic fury of the Nazi dictatorship.

 

 

Thus in October 1942 the Committee refused, in particular, to launch a public appeal on behalf of civilians affected by the conflict.

Although the International Red Cross endeavoured to provide aid for Jewish civilians, it erred on the side of caution.

 

Above: Jewish women, occupied Paris, June 1942

 

It was not until the spring of 1944 that a change of strategy took shape.

As Germany’s war efforts collapsed, ICRC delegates belatedly managed to enter some concentration camps, becoming voluntary hostages in order to prevent the further massacre or forced evacution of the prisoners.

 

Above: Auschwitz, May 1944

 

The harsh lesson of the Second World War had been learned.

In 1949 the Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted:

It provides protection for civilians during armed conflict.

It was complemented in 1977 by additional protocols which reinforce the protection given to victims of armed conflicts, international or domestic.

In particular, the additional protocols established the distinction between civilians and combatants.

 

In an armed conflict, the ICRC’s mandate is to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions.

When the ICRC observes serious violations of the Conventions, it points them out to the countries concerned in confidential reports.

However, on occasion, that information has been published in the press:

• Le Monde during the Algerian War

Above: Images of the Algerian War (1954 – 1962)

 

• The Wall Street Journal about Abu Ghraib Prison

Above: Lynndie England with “Gus“, Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq

 

• The New York Review of Books / Wikileaks about Guantanamo Prison

Above: Guantanamo “Gitmo” Prison, Cuba

 

Such leaks put the ICRC in a difficult position as discretion is a necessary part of its work and its discussions with the authorities.

Its confidentialiy policy actually facilitates access to detainees, wounded people and groups of civilians.

When humanitarian diplomacy fails, the ICRC then resorts to a more open form of communication.

It then issues press releases publicly condemning serious violations of the Conventions.

In the 1980s the United Nations Security Council set up ad hoc tribunals to judge the crimes committed in former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

In 1998 the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established.

It was a permanent institution with the power to open investigations, to prosecute and to try people accused of committing war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity.

The ICC began its work in 2005 by opening three investigations into crimes:

• in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• in Uganda
• in the Sudan

The existence of a permanent international court gives the world the means of determining facts and of punishing those responsible for the crimes.

It gives victims an opportunity to have their voice heard.

 

Above: Logo of the International Criminal Court

 

Poverty, migration, urban violence….

All of them are present-day threats to human dignity.

All over the world, large sections of the population are living in extremely precarious hygenic conditions.

 

Economic changes are forcing more and more people to emigrate.

Those migrants, who frequently have no identity documents, are exploited and ostracized.

In some megacities, whole districts are at the mercy of armed groups which terrorize the inhabitants.

Each of those situations presents a challenge to which a response must be found.

 

Above: Syrian refugees, Ramtha, Jordan, August 2013

 

Since the First World War, the ICRC has had the right to visit prisoners of war and civilian detainees during an international armed conflict.

In other situations, the right to meet prisoners must be negotiated with the authorities.

Visiting prisons, talking to the detainees and making lists of their names are ways of preventing disappearances and ill treatment.

After each prison visit, ICRC delegates write a report.

They must have access to all places of detention and be allowed to repeat their visits as often as necessary.

The visits always follow the same procedure.

Following a meeting with those in charge of the prison, the delegates inspect the premises: cells, dormitories, toilets, the exercise yard, the kitchen and any workshops.

They draw up a list of prisoners and interview them in private without witnesses.

At the end of the visit, the delegates inform those in charge of the prison of their observations.

They then prepare a confidential report for the authorities.

 

 

The visitor sees many photographs of prison visits, including those to a German POW camp in Morocco, to French POWs in a German Stalag, political detainees in Chile, detainees in Djibouti….

But it is items from these visits given by prisoners to the ICRC delegates that tell far more emotional stories.

Some examples:

• a model village showing ICRC activities in Rwanda
• a doll figure of a female delegate made in an Argentinian prison
• a pearl snake made by Ottoman prisoners
• a necklace with a Red Cross pendant made by a lady prisoner in Lebanon
• a ciborium (a container for Catholic mass hosts – symbols of the body of Christ) made of bread by Polish prisoners of conscience
• a bar of soap carved into the shape of a detainee in a cell made by a Burmese artist imprisoned for suspected ties to the opposition party

 

An installation in the Museum that followed seemed somewhat incongruous….

Therein the visitor can change and produce large flows of different colours by touching a wall.

The idea is that the larger the number of visitors, the richer the flow of colours, so as to provide an interactive experience that appeals to people’s senses, emotions and feelings, thus all visitors become part of a colourful celebration of human dignity.

Honestly….

This felt more like a gimmick to capture children’s hyperactive attention than an exhibit that strengthens human unity, designed more to entertain than educate.

 

 

Human beings are social beings who are defined by their links with others.

When those links are broken, we lose part of our identity and our bearings.

Of the many activities the ICRC performs, the giving and receiving of news and finding one’s loved ones again are understood to be elements of stability that are critical during crisis situations.

 

 

This Museum has, like the Reformation Museum in this city, as other museums in other cities and countries I have visited, its own Chamber of Witnesses – video testimonials whose lifelike likenesses are meant to invoke within the voyeur a sense of how we are not unlike those speaking with us electronically.

We see Toshihiko Suzuki, a dentist and specialist in craniofacial anatomy, tell us how he identified victims of the 2011 tsunami.

We learn of the experience of Sami El Haj, an Al Jazeera journalist held in Guantanamo from 2002 to 2008.

We consider the life of Liliose Iraguha, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

We marvel at the resilience of human beings by listening to Boris Cyrulnik, a French neuropsychiatrist and ethologist.

 

 

During a conflict or a natural disaster, many people are cut off from their families – by capitivity, separation or disappearance.

Tracing one’s loved ones and passing on one’s news become basic needs.

 

 

Originally intended for victims of war, the ICRC tracing services subsequently expanded to include persecuted civilians.

More recently, tracing activities have been extended to families who have become separated as a result of natural disasters or migration.

The International Prisoners of War Agency (1914 – 1923) was established by the ICRC, shortly after the start of the First World War – which involved 44 states and their colonies and caused the death of more than 8 million people, 20 million wounded and in the immediate post-war period of epidemics, famine and destitution another 30 million deaths.

Organised in national sections, its archives contain six million index cards that document what happened to two million people: prisoners of war, civilian internees and missing civilians from occupied areas.

The cards contain information about individual detainees. when they were taken captive, where they were held and, if relevant, when they died.

People who were without news of a loved one could present a request to the Agency, which would then send them what information it had.

Today the Agency’s documents are still used to reply to requests from families as well as to enquiries from historians.

And, as far as I could tell, the Agency is now in the Museum.

It contains:

• 5,119 boxes with 6 million index cards
• 2,413 files containing information provided by the belligerents
• 600,000 pages filling 20 linear metres of general files

This location is fitting for it was in the Rath Museum in Geneva where the Agency once was.

In all, more than 3,000 volunteers, most of them women, worked there during the conflict.

During the War, the Agency dispatched 20 million messages between detainees and their families and forwarded nearly 2 million individual parcels as well as several tonnes of collective relief.

The Agency’s role was also to obtain the repatriation of prisoners who had been taken captive in breach of the Geneva Conventions: doctors, nurses, stretcher bearers and military chaplains.

It helped to ensure that the wounded were returned home or interned in neutral countries.

 

 

The pacifist writer Romain Rolland was one of the Agency’s first volunteers:

“Its peaceful work, its impartial knowledge of the actual facts in the belligerent countries, contribute to modify the hatred which wild stories have exasperated and to reveal what remains of humanity in the most envenomed enemy.”

 

Above: Romain Rolland (1866 – 1944)

 

It was not until the end of the Second World War that Europe realized the extent of the tragedy affecting civilians.

The International Tracing Service (ITS) was then established.

The ITS has files on more than 17 million people: civilians persecuted by the Nazis, displaced persons, children under the age of 18 who had become separated from their families, forced labourers and people held in concentration camps or labour camps.

The ITS was set up in Bad Arolsen, Germany, and has helped millions of people to trace their loved ones.

 

Above: International Tracing Services, Bad Arolsen, Germany

 

Nowadays, the need to trace missing people also extends to the victims of natural disasters and to migrants, using not only index cards, but photo tracing (used to find nearly 20,000 children missing during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda), distributions of name lists (for example, the Angola Gazette – a list of people who went missing during the Angolan Civil War from 1975 to 2002) and the Internet (for example, http://www.familylinks.icrc.org).

 

Despite all tracing efforts, sometimes missing people do not get found, do not go home.

In that case, receiving confirmation of death puts an end to uncertainty and enables families to begin the process of mourning and to start to rebuild their lives.

The erection of memorials is one way of honouring the dead and of giving them a place of dignity in the collective memory.

 

 

For example, in 1995 the city of Srebrenica was attacked by forces under the command of General Radko Mladic.

 

 

Mladic had the women and children of this refuge of hounded Muslim civilians separated from the men and forced to leave Srebrenica.

The men were hunted down and killed.

More than 8,000 people went missing.

By 2010 only 4,500 victims had been identified and buried.

 

 

When faced with a collective tragedy and without a dead body, families are completely at a loss.

A memorial is sometimes their only means of paying tribute to the dead, of giving them a place in the collective consciousness and of recalling the events that led to those disappearances.

Examples include victims from:

• the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Above: Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbuko Dome)

 

• the deportation of Jews from France

 

• the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia

 

• the Soviet gulags

 

• the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine

 

• the civil war in Peru

 

• the earthquake in Sichuan, China

 

• the 9/11 attack in New York City

 

Communication is often disrupted during a conflict or a natural disaster.

In circumstances like that, receiving news from one’s family is a source of joy and relief.

There are different ways of sending news:

• Red Cross messages (in use for more than a century)
• Radio messages
• Videoconferencing
• Satellite telephones

 

A Red Cross message is a short personal missive that was first used in the Franco-Prussian War (1870 – 1871).

It is still in use today.

Each year, thousands of messages are distributed in more than 65 countries with the help of the ICRC.

To make sure that they reach the addressees, messengers sometimes travel long distances to extremely remote areas.

The messages themselves are generally very simple.

The main thing is to enable people to pass brief news on to their loved ones – their state of health, their place of shelter or detention.

 

 

For example, the Museum shows messages:

• sent by a French POW to his godmother in Switzerland
• exchanged by a French POW in Morocco and Algeria and his family in France
• written by aircraft passengers taken hostage in Jordan in 1970
• illustrated by children during the Yugoslav conflict in 1994
• by a Sudanese detainee in Guantanamo
• from a Greek child refugee following the Cyprus conflict of 1974
• from a mother to her son in Liberia
• from a little girl writing to her parents in the Congo
• written by a woman to her brother in prison in Kirghizstan

 

In Columbia, the radio programme Las voces del secuestro broadcasts family messages to people held hostage in the jungle, enabling more than 18,000 people to send news to their loved ones.

 

 

In Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, no family visits are allowed, so in 2008 the ICRC and the American authorities developed a videoconferencing system to enable the detainees to communicate with their loved ones.

In the space of just a few months, 70% of the detainees were able to contact their families.

 

Above: Parwan Detention Facility, Bagram, Afghanistan

 

And finally the Restoring Family Links exhibition concludes with works by Congolese artist Chuck Ledy and Benin artist Romuald Hazouma.

 

 

Humanity has progressed by refusing to accept the inevitability of the phenomena that endanger it.

In the face of natural disasters and epidemics, communities take action to prevent the worst, to save lives and to preserve resources.

Another Chamber of Witnesses:

• Benter Aoko Odhiambo, the head of a Kenyan orphanage and the initiator of a market gardening programme
• Abul Hasnat, a Bangladeshi school teacher and a Red Crescent volunteer
• Madeleen Helmer, the Dutch head of the ICRC Climate Centre
• Jiaqi Kang, a Chinese student in Switzerland

 

After all, prevention concerns us all.

Blast Theory, a group of British artists, designed the game Hurricane to test the effectiveness of natural disaster preparedness activities.

Planting mangroves, constructing high-level shelters, building up reserve stocks of food and organizing evacuation exercises are all part of the game and involve actors such as ICRC delegates, village leaders, experts and volunteers.

As the hurricane strikes, the players have to evacuate the villagers.

At the end of the game tells us how many lives were saved.

 

 

Posters are key communication instruments in prevention initiatives.

The link between pictures and text makes the messages easy for everyone to understand.

The Museum’s collection of some 12,000 posters from more than 120 countries tells of the many different activities developed by the ICRC.

Nowadays, as the impact of global warming becomes clearer, the ICRC is increasingly involved in natural disaster preparedness.

 

 

The ICRC was very quick to perceive the role that the cinema could play in promoting its activities.

Some films focused on prevention – hygiene, epidemics and accidents.

Others on training volunteers in first aid or life saving.

While preventing illnesses and accidents is ancient history, the management of risks associated with natural disasters is a more recent development.

A workshop at the Haute école d’art et de design (Gèneve) was given a free hand to create new montages using more than 1,000 films from the Museum’s collection.

 

Above: Haute école d’art et de design, Genève

 

Prevention is first and foremost about saving lives.

A number of different measures can be taken to provide protection: building shelters, installing early warning systems, carrying out evacuation exercises and providing hygiene education.

All these activities mobilize the local communities and the humanitarian organizations.

They sometimes call for substantial investment.

It is easy to raise funds during disasters when emotions are running high.

It is more difficult to raise funds for longer-term work.

Nonetheless, one dollar invested in prevention is two to ten dollars saved in emergency relief and reconstruction work.

 

 

All of this is brought into sharp focus by the three “théâtres optiques” (Cyclone, Tsunami and Latrines), created for the Museum by the French artist Pierrick Sorin.

 

Above: Pierrick Sorin

 

Let’s take, for example, Bangladesh.

 

Above: Flag of Bangladesh

 

In 1970, Cyclone Bhola caused one of the worst natural disasters in history.

A 10-metre high wave and winds of 220 km/hour caused the death of 500,000 people here.

A cyclone preparedness programme was then launched, which included an early warning system, the construction of shelters and the training of evacuation volunteers.

 

 

In November 2007, Cyclone Sidr, one of the most powerful ever recorded, hit parts of Bengal and Bangladesh, affecting nearly 9 million people and causing vast economic damage.

1.5 million people were evacuated before the Cyclone struck.

Although 3,500 people died, this number of deaths was far below the 1970 disaster.

 

 

Or let’s consider Brazil.

 

Above: Flag of Brazil

 

Infectious diarrhoea can affect people throughout the world.

It is most frequently caused by water that has been contaminated by faeces.

Around 2 million people die from diarrhoea every year, most of them children in developing countries.

In 2008 more than 2 billion individuals were without suitable latrines.

Almost half of them defecated in the open air.

In 1997, the authorities in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil launched a water purification programme in the city.

A university team monitored 2,000 children under the age of 3, most of whome were living in impoverished urban districts.

The results showed that water purification had a direct impact on health:

The overall number of cases of diarrhoea fell by 22% in the city and by 43% in the poorest areas.

 

Above: Images of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil

 

The Museum was never designed with the intention of casting blame or lavishing praise upon particular countries or particular individuals, but rather it shows the situations, both general and particular, in which the ICRC functions and to further a better understanding of what they do.

The ICRC aids victims, not on account of their particular nationality or their particular cause, but purely and simply because they are human beings who are suffering and are in need of help.

It strives to assuage all human distress which has no hope of effective aid from other sources.

The ICRC desires to relieve above all that suffering which is brought about by man, brought about by man’s inhumanity to man, and is more painful on that account and more difficult to relieve.

 

The most terrible form of man’s inhumanity to man is war and that is why the idea of the Red Cross was born in the field of battle.

The Red Cross is a third front above and across two belligerent fronts, a third front directed against neither of them but for the benefit of both.

The combatants in this third front are interested only in the suffering of the defenceless human being, irrespective of his nationality, his convictions or his past.

The ICRC fights wherever they can against all inhumanity, against every degradation of the human personality, against all injustice directed against the defenceless.

These neutrals on this humanitarian front are free of the prejudice and hostility which is so natural to men engaged in warfare.

The dominant idea and the essence of the Geneva Convention is equality of treatment for all sick and wounded persons whether they are friends or enemies.

 

It is the fulfilment of the cry of Solferine:

Siamo tutti fratelli.

We are all brothers.

 

 

The Museum is a living embodiment of that humanitarian adventure.

It is an edifice of humanity working for humanity.

And it is good.

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Lonely Planet Switzerland / Rough Guide to Switzerland / Red Cross Museum, The Humanitarian Adventure / The International Committee of the Red Cross, Basic Rules of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols / Dr. Marcel Junod, Warrior without Weapons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Slim and the Road to Utopia

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Tuesday 27 August 2019

Sometimes a place defines a person.

Sometimes a person defines a place.

 

 

Take the eminent Canarian author Alberto Vásquez-Figueroa as an example of the first.

 

 

Alberto’s grandfather was an architect.

Alberto’s father was born in Guadalajara while Alberto’s grandmother was there.

Alberto’s mother, the daughter of a local farmer, was born on Isla de Lobos, one of the Canary Islands.

 

 

Alberto himself was born on 11 October 1936 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, although he had not yet reached one year old when his family was exiled for political reasons to Spanish Africa, since his father was a Socialist Republican during the Spanish Civil War.

There Alberto spent his childhood.

His father was released, but he was admitted to hospital for several years because of tuberculosis.

While Alberto was in Africa, his mother died.

 

 

Alberto’s care was picked up by his uncle, the civil administrator of the military fort in the Spanish Sahara where they lived.

His uncle provided Alberto books to read, especially beloved adventure novels, by authors such as Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness), Herman Melville (Moby Dick) and Jules Verne (Around the World in 80 Days), which would later become Alberto’s preferred genre.

Since his youth, Alberto visited the Sahara and would later describe the culture of the desert region in his writing.

 

 

At 16 Alberto returned to Tenerife to study, working as a scuba instructor in the Cruz del Sur Diving School, along with Jacques Cousteau, where he would remain for two years.

Alberto worked on the rescue of bodies in Lake Sanabria after the Vega de Tera Dam burst, destroying the town of Ribadelago.

 

Above: Monument to the victims of Ribadelago

 

He attended the studios of the Escuela Oficial de Periodismo de Madrid in a 1962 and worked in the Destino specials.

He was a war correspondent in La Vanguardia, for TVE (Televisión Española) and for the program A toda plana with de la Cuadra Salcedo and Silva.

As a correspondent, he documented revolutionary wars in countries such as Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala.

 

 

He later wrote his first novel, Arena y viento (Sand and Wind) and in 1975, he published as many as 14 to 15 novellas such as Ébano.

His other works include Tuareg and El perro as well as the sagas Cienfuegos, Bora Bora, Manaos and Piratas.

 

 

Ébano was cinematized in 1979 by director Richard Fleischer and renamed Ashanti.

Ashanti (also called Ashanti, Land of No Mercy) is a 1979 action adventure film.

Despite its impressive cast and setting (on location in the Sahara and in Kenya, Israel and Sicily), it was widely panned by critics upon release.

Michael Caine was reportedly very disappointed with the project and claims it was his third worst film.

Ashanti is an action adventure film, set against the background of modern-day slave trading, with a man who determinedly takes on a perilous journey in order to find his beautiful wife, who has been kidnapped by brutal slave traders.

David and Anansa Linderby (Caine and supermodel Beverley Johnson respectively) are doctors with the World Health Organization (WHO).

On a medical mission carrying out an inoculation programme, they visit a West African village.

While David takes photographs of tribal dancers, Anansa goes swimming alone.

She is attacked and abducted by slave traders led by Suleiman (Peter Ustinov), who mistake her for an Ashanti tribeswoman.

The police can do nothing to find her and David has almost given up hope when he hears rumours that Anansa has been kidnapped by Suleiman to be sold to Arab Prince Hassan (Omar Sharif).

The African authorities deny that the slave trade even exists.

So David must find help in a shadowy world where the rescuers of slaves are just as ruthless as the traders themselves.

As David tracks her across Africa and the Sahara desert, he is helped by a member of the Anti-Slavery League (Rex Harrison), a mercenary helicopter pilot (William Holden) and Malik (Kabir Bedi) a tribesman who is seeking revenge on Suleiman.

 

 

Alberto’s novel Tuareg was cinematized in 1984 by director Enzo G. Castellari.

Tuareg is a thriller novel that was his most critically and commercially successful, with global sales in excess of 5,000,000 copies.

It was adapted into a 1984 movie starring Mark Harmon, Tuareg – The Desert Warrior.

This is the first book in the Tuareg trilogy, followed by Los Ojos del Tuareg and El Último Tuareg.

 

 

One day, two old men and a boy appear in Gacel Shayah’s camp in the Sahara.

He, a noble inmouchar observing the millennial tradition of the desert, shelters travelers.

But he fails to protect them.

People in dusty military uniforms violate the ancient hospitality law.

They kill the boy and take one old man away.

Gasel Shayah remembers the great commandment of the Tuareg people:

Your guest is under your protection.

Therefore, he must seek vengeance.

 

 

Alberto’s novel Iguana was cinematized in 1988 by Monte Hellman.

Iguana is a 1988 American adventure drama/thriller film starring Everett McGill in the main role.

The movie is based on the life of a real Irish sailor called Patrick Watkins.

The movie was mainly shot on location in Lanzarote.

 

 

The film takes place at the beginning of the 19th century.

Oberlus (Everett McGill), a harpooner on a whaling ship, is regularly subjected to ridicule and abuse by other sailors.

The right half of his face is bizarrely disfigured and covered with hummocky outgrowths, which leads him to being nicknamed Iguana.

One night, after a brutal beating, Oberlus escapes to the uninhabited Hood Island.

He is soon discovered by a team led by Captain Gamboa (Fabio Testi).

Gamboa brutally tortures Oberlus and ties him up for further punishment, but Iguana manages to escape and hides himself in a cave.

The ship leaves the island and Gamboa orders that sailor Sebastian (Michael Madsen) be tied to a post on the coast as punishment for letting Iguana escape.

Oberlus finds Sebastian and proclaims himself “King of Hood Island” and Sebastian his first slave, forcing him to cook his food.

Declaring revenge upon the world, Oberlus enslaves two other sailors thrown ashore after the shipwreck.

He keeps his captives in a cave with a disguised entrance.

After some time, a ship holding Carmen (Maru Valdivieso) and her fiancé Diego (Fernando De Huang), is moored near the island.

Oberlus takes them prisoner.

Oberlus kills Diego and makes Carmen his concubine.

The captain of the ship, assuming Carmen and Diego to have died in the storm, does not look for them, but sails away.

One day, Oberlus notices the arrival of his former whaling ship.

At night, he climbs on board, kills two sailors on the deck, takes Gamboa prisoner, and sets the ship alight, having previously locked the hull.

Gamboa fights Oberlus, but is killed by him.

Resigned to her fate, Carmen tells Oberlus that she is pregnant with his child.

Months later, the captain of the ship Carmen and Diego arrived on, returns with a group of armed sailors.

They begin their search and Oberlus has to flee to the other end of the island with pregnant Carmen and his surviving prisoners.

Oberlus plans to sail away with Carmen on the boat.

Carmen gives birth, but Oberlus takes the child, claiming that he will allow him to suffer.

With the child in his arms, he enters the sea, intending to drown himself and the child.

 

 

Alberto’s novel Garoé (the name of a sacred tree in the Canary Islands) won the 2010 Historical Novel Prize Alfonso X El Sabio, valued at €100,000.

He has also published an autobiography entitled Anaconda.

He is also a screenwriter and film director and has made such films as Oro rojo (Red Gold).

 

 

Alberto currently resides between an attic apartment in the Madrid neighbourhood of Argüelles and a home on Lanzarote.

I am not sure if that home is in the village of Haría in the north of the island of Lanzarote, but I suspect it might be, for Alberto once described Haría as the most beautiful village in the world.

Although this description is a tad exaggerated, Haría really does have a pretty bucolic setting, in a palm-filled valley punctuated by splashes of brilliant colour from bougainvillea and poinsetta plants.

 

 

But we were not searching for Alberto and had we passed him on the streets we would not have recognized him.

Instead we were looking for a local legend, Lanzarote’s favourite son, César Manrique.

My wife and I spent our mini-vacation tracking down buildings across the Island of Lanzarote that César designed.

We hoped to understand why this place and this man remain inseparably intertwined in the hearts and minds of those who come here and those who knew him.

César Manrique defined Lanzarote.

To understand César Manrique is to understand Lanzarote.

We came to learn.

We began in Haría where his story ends.

 

 

Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain,  Monday 3 December 2018

Much like César, our first discovery of Lanzarote was Arrecife.

For us it was the international airport north of Arrecife the day previously.

 

 

On this day we drove our rented car, from our hotel in Costa Teguise (See Canada Slim and the Royal Retreat of this blog.), past an aquapark and golf grounds, through the town of Tahiche (more on this town in a future post), through Nazaret and Teguise (See Canada Slim and the Pirates of Teguise of this blog.), through Los Valles and past a windpark to arrive at Haría.

 

 

(Los Valles, a quiet agricultural hamlet between Teguise and Haría, is situated in a valley at the foot of the Famara Massif.

Los Valles was founded by refugees from the village of Santa Catalina, which has been destroyed during the eruptions of 1730 – 1736 of Mount Timanfaya.

 

 

The pretty, white village church of Ermita de Santa Cantalina stands at the bottom of the valley on the side of the highway.

 

 

Immediately after you pass the restored Casa de los Perazas, one of the oldest buildings on Lanzarote.

 

 

The road begins to climb steeply passing the Mirador Los Valles.)

 

César Manrique Cabrera was born in Arrecife on 24 April 1919, the son of Francisca and Gumersindo Manrique.

César’s father was a food merchant and his grandfather a notary public.

César preceded his twin sister Ampara by just a few minutes.

He had another sister and a brother.

Gumersindo came from Fuerteventura and emigrated to Lanzarote.

The Manriques were a typical middle class family, without financial burdens.

In 1934, Gumersindo bought property in Caleta de Famara and built a house next to the ocean.

This house left a visible impression on César that lasted his lifetime.

 

 

Ute and I on our first day spent a few hours on Famara Beach and like César did we remember it with joy:

“My greatest happiness is to recall a happy childhood, five-month summer vacations in Caleta and Famara Beach with its eight kilometres of clean and fine sand framed by cliffs of more than 400 metres high that reflected on the beach like a mirror.

That image has been engraved in my soul as something of extraordinary beauty that I will never forget in all of my life.”

 

 

César would fight in the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer on dictator Franco’s side.

His experience of the War was atrocious and he refused to talk about it.

In the summer of 1939, once the War was over, César returned to Arrecife, still wearing his military uniform.

After greeting his family, he went up on the flat roof, took off his clothes, angrily stepped over them, sprayed them with petroleum and burned them.

 

 

César attended the University of La Laguna to study technical architecture, which he would abandon after two years.

In 1945 he moved to Madrid and studied art at the Academia de Bellas Artas de San Fernando where he graduated as a teacher of art.

 

 

In 1953, César began painting abstracts, which in Franco’s Spain was tantamount to treason, and one year later he exhibited his works alongside those of his friends Manuel Manpaso and Luis Féito.

By the late fifties César had made a name for himself in Madrid.

There followed exhibitions in major cities of Europe, Japan and America, which gave him international renown.

 

 

In the fall of 1964, following the advice of his cousin Manuel Manrique, a New York psychoanalyst and writer, César lived in New York City until 1966.

He was the guest of Waldo Diaz-Balart, a Cuban painter, who lived in the Lower East Side, at a time when this was a neighbourhood of artists, journalists and bohemians.

Through César’s cousin Manuel’s friendship with the Director of the Institute of International Education, which was sponsored by Nelson Rockefeller, a generous grant allowed César to rent his own studio and produce a number of paintings which he exhibited with success in the prestigious New York gallery of Catherine Viviano.

 

 

While in New York, he wrote his friend Pepe Dámaso:

“More than ever I feel true nostalgia for the real meaning of things.

For the pureness of the people.

For the bareness of my landscape and for my friends.

My last conclusion is that Man in New York is like a rat.

Man was not created for this artificiality.

There is an imperative need to go back to the soil.

Feel it.

Smell it.

That’s what I feel.”

 

 

In his unpublished diary, César wrote of his homesickness for Lanzarote.

At the time he was still undecided as to where to set up his permanent studio.

In 1968, César travelled straight from New York City to Lanzarote, which he found exactly as he had left it in 1945.

He felt Lanzarote needed him.

He made himself the Island’s champion.

 

 

“When I returned from New York, I came with the intention of turning my native island into one of the most beautiful places on the planet, due to the endless possibilities that Lanzarote had to offer.”

 

 

The Canarian Island was then just beginning to develop a tourism industry, but César promoted a model of sustainability in an attempt to protect Lanzarote’s natural and cultural heritage.

This Manrique model was a determining factor in Lanzarote being declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1993.

 

 

In parallel with his commitment to the Island, César opened his creative work up to other forms of artistic expression.

He developed a new aesthetic ideology, dominated by art-nature / nature-art.

He began a dialogue of respect for the natural surroundings in which  values of local traditions blended harmoniously with modern designs.

Well versed in many forms of creative expression, a very real desire for integration with the surrounding natural landscape underlies César’s body of artistic work as a whole.

 

 

“One of the fundamental preoccupations which has guided my artistic work has been to try to achieve harmonious integration of the forms and ideas of painting, sculpture and spaces into nature.

I believe that this way, of integrating the greatest possible number of artistic elements – colour, texture, dimension, ambience, proportion – leads to a greater aesthetic enjoyment and quality of life.

It is necessary to create and act in freedom, to break with formulae and extend the concept of art to everyday human life, to create non-hostile spaces modelled on the integration of art into nature and nature into art.“

 

 

That César’s ideas were carried out on Lanzarote is all thanks to the man’s tireless energy, persistence, immense abilities and international fame.

Without César Manrique, Lanzarote would scarcely be what it is today.

It is his influence and his work that have shaped the Island.

César shaped planning policy on the whole island and his influence can be seen everywhere.

He began with a campaign to preserve traditional building methods and a ban on roadside hoardings.

He convinced the authorities to impose a universal ban on advertising and ensure that telephone and high voltage cables were laid underground.

A multifaceted artist, César turned his flair and vision to a broad range of projects, with the whole of Lanzarote becoming his canvas.

César was a painter, sculptor, architect, ecologist, monument preserver, construction advisor, urban development planner, landscape and garden designer.

 

 

César’s work is full of vitality, colour and light.

There is nothing gloomy in either his paintings or sculptures or in the buildings he designed.

 

 

Together with his friend from his youth, José Ramirez Cerdá, who was president of the Cabildo Insular (island government), César skillfully put his architectural projects into operation.

Luis Morales, an employee of the Cabildo, was a sympathetic partner in all this.

As a practical builder, Morales had the skills to execute Manrique’s plans.

 

Above: Flag of Lanzarote

 

César encouraged the traditional cubic form of architecture.

A house is capable of growth.

The Lanzarotenos start with one or two rooms.

As a family grows, they add cubes of one or two storeys, arranged around a central courtyard and the water tank.

 

 

César’s idea was harmony with nature and the continuation of natural processes.

He wanted to preserve Lanzarote tradition and achieve a landscape-related architecture in proportion to the natural surroundings.

He believed in a humane architecture where nature should be spared and not choked with buildings.

Tourism threatened to sweep away everything before it, but César’s ceaseless opposition to such unchecked urban sprawl touched a nerve with Lanzarote locals and led to the creation of an environmental group known as El Guincho, which has had some success in revealing – and at times reversing – abuses by developers.

 

 

As we drove through villages across the Island, we could see how traditional stylistic features still remain.

The standard whitewashed houses are adorned with green-painted doors, window shutters and strange onion-shaped chimney pots.

The entire Island is a testimony to César’s influence and ever-enduring spirit.

 

 

“The awareness of the miracle of life and its brevity have made me see clearly that we are impoverished by the tragic sentiment of our existence.

The only important reality is the great mystery of life and of man with his inexhaustible imagination and his infinite ways of acting.

We must observe and learn from the energies of life.“

 

 

Those who knew César only superficially ignored the streak of puritanism that ruled his conduct.

He was a frugal man.

He didn’t drink or smoke or allow others to smoke next to him.

He regularly went to bed very early and got up at dawn and began work in his studio very early.

 

 

In all César carried out seven major projects on the Island and numerous others elsewhere in the archipelago and beyond.

At the time of his death, he had several more in the works.

It was the buildings that my wife and I were determined to visit on our five-day sojourn on Lanzarote.

We wanted to see how César’s life-affirming architecture relates to the Lanzarote landscape.

We were confused by descriptions that suggested that César’s buildings were generous but at the same time deeply modest.

Guidebooks wrote that César, with great aesthetic powers and unerring taste, had created places for the muses, of contemplation, of meditation, which radiate joy and tranquillity, places endowed with humanity.

It was written that César had striven to discover the beautiful and make it visible to everyone, but not simply beauty for beauty’s sake, but a unity of truth and intrinsic originality.

We wanted to see this for ourselves.

 

 

To speak of harmony with nature we need to speak of the landscape of Lanzarote.

On arriving in Lanzarote one feels transported in time, whisked back to the beginnings of the world, a fresh, clean world, in which the Traveller himself is the hero of discovery.

Here are seas of lava, enchanted grottos, columns of steam seeping from the bowels of the planet, magnificent multicoloured stone walls, threatening volcanoes, waves that furiously smash upon tortured cliffs that loom like giants frozen for all time in their march to the sea and eternally punished for such audacity, lurking lagoons that appear suddenly among the rocks, pockets scooped from deadly lava where livelihood-sustaining vines thrive to produce unsurpassable wine, golden beaches of skin-caressing sands, transparent blue waters….

Another world, another time, a unique place.

Here are peaceful, flower-bedecked whitewashed villages and a heritage of hardy people who overcame, will always overcome, the desolation that civilization commits and the fury of nature defied.

From lava and ash, drops of dew defiantly defended have been clawed from nature’s clutches and cultivated.

Yet these sturdy island warriors are kind, hospitable people who shelter guests in comfort and compassion.

Civilization’s constants are also found on Lanzarote, but they blend rather than blind the visitor to the natural delights of the Island.

 

 

By far the most beautiful place in the archipelago, Haíra lies within a sea of palm trees and has the charm of a small sheltered oasis.

Haría is a place to relax, a Utopia where the locals set the tone.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, locals traditionally planted a palm tree to celebrate a birth (two for a boy, one for a girl), thus resulting in today’s tourist viewing a palm-filled valley upon a barren Island.

 

 

Haría has many positive qualities: magnificent flora, an abundance of trees.

The mind can manage this place so peaceful, so tranquil, as the body sits comfortably under wide spreading canopies of leaves.

No one, except children in haste, runs in Haría.

One strolls here.

The soul quietly smiles at the serenity.

 

 

The central pedestrian avenue, Plaza León y Castillo, is shaded by lush leafy laurel and eucalyptus trees and cast-iron lanterns above benches where children play and seniors meet watching tourists gorge themselves at the Plaza’s open-air restaurant.

This is also the site of a superb Satuday morning craft and produce market.

 

 

From the town hall up the street about 100 metres, the Traveller comes to the municipal arts and crafts centre, the Taller de Artesania Municipal.

Handicrafts are available throughout the week at the Taller de Artesania Reinaldo Dorta Déniz (to give its full name) on Calle Barranco de Tenesia, a town hall-backed craft workshop where local artists produce macramé, silverware, ceramics, dollmaking, embroidery and some charming pieces made of palm leaves and reeds, where one can watch the crafters at work before buying.

It is open Tuesday to Sunday 1000 – 1330 and 1600 – 1900, Monday only 1000 to 1330.

 

 

The Mercado Municipal de Abastos, adjacent to the arts and crafts centre, is a small market here with a health-conscious attitude, with fruit, vegetable, meat and fish counters.

There is also a food stall here where the locals are tempted with tapas.

It is open Monday to Saturday 0900 – 1400.

 

 

Haría does not boast any monuments of particular historical or architectural importance, for the history of this municipality is of little relevance.

Theirs is a past marked by poverty, foreign invasions and mass emigrations.

A 1587 account of the neighbourhood mentions a fountain and 100 people, a time when it was the only village on the Island besides the capital of Teguise.

In 1590, there were no more than 1,000 people on the Island, of which 250 were military, as well as 40 horses.

Population scarcity was due to three raids carried out for 16 years by Moorish and Turkish pirates.

One of the most devasting pirate attacks was that of the troops of Morato Arráez, who, in August 1586, burned down all the palm trees.

Fortunately they grew back again.

 

 

What is immediately outstanding is the good taste of the town’s buildings and the way they blend into the landscape.

Some stately Andalusian-style houses date back to the 19th century when Haría at times played an important role in island politics.

 

 

At the far end of the Plaza Leon y Castillo stands the modern parish church of Our Lady of the Incarnation.

The church was built in 1619 although it has suffered numerous setbacks over time.

The most significant was the storm of 1956, which left only the tower standing.

Inside the church five fine lovingly-carved arches support the ceiling.

 

 

In front of the church is the La Tegala Cultural Centre, a more than 100-year-old house which has already served as a barracks, a shop and a workshop.

 

 

A visit to the Diocese of the Canaries’ Museum of Popular Sacred Art in Plaza León y Castillo is recommended for the abundance of wonderful works springing from the imagination of the people of Lanzarote.

 

 

At the Plaza de la Constitución, the small square next to the Plaza Leon y Castillo, stands the classical town hall also containing the local police station.

 

 

Around the corner is the beautiful city library with its rich selection of Canarian historical and cultural materials.

 

 

On the square there is a small rest area with benches, above the large cistern Aljibe which has been converted into a meeting and exhibition hall.

 

 

Since the advent of tourism in the early 1980s Haría has flourished, but the tourists come not  only for the celebrated beauty of the town or for the Sacred Art Museum or for the handicraft workshops, but they come to see the Casa Museo César Manrique on Calle Elvira Sanchez.

 

 

But before we remember the dead, let us honour the living while we can.

 

Behind the Museum one can, if lucky, witness an artist at work in a garage.

That craftsman is Don Eulogio Concepción Perdomo, signposted as “Cesteria“.

This man, the only and last basket weaver on the Island, is now over 80.

In patient manual labour Perdomo makes, from the strong fronds of Canarian date palms, stable baskets of various sizes and the famous Lanzarote conical-shaped hats.

We witness him making a small fruit basket, which takes more than an hour to produce, costs about €20.

I call his name and shake his hand.

Does he know of his fame?

Does he understand just how important he is?

 

 

A palm-fringed property was the final home of Lanzarote’s favourite son and has been opened as a shrine to his memory.

This is a house frozen in time, complete with César’s clothes in the closet and personal art collection adorning the walls.

It is an intimate and personal view of César in his domestic surroundings.

It is a strikingly beautiful home situated in a lush palm grove in a charming village that is itself a showcase of Lanzarote’s traditional lifestyle.

This relatively new attraction of Haría, César’s last home, was opened in the summer of 2013.

 

 

Surrounded by date palms and tucked away and back from the street, César’s home is a pleasure to stroll through.

The entrance fee is steep but the Museum is well laid out.

Rarely does one experience such harmonious living space with such a feel-good factor.

Within this spacious property, within the context of the comfortable and tasteful decor are many personal items, including painting items and incomplete works.

 

 

The living room with a large fireplace and heavy wooden ceiling, the light-flooded dining room, the bedroom with high panelled ceiling, and, as always with César, an extravagant bathroom that opens with glass fronts to the outside, César designed his home with much love, a house that was far from completion when he died.

The Casa Museo César Manrique is open every day from 1030 to 1800 (last entry 1730).

 

 

It is in Haría where César was lain to rest, when at the age of 73, still in good health and full of vitality and the joy of living, he was killed in an automobile accident on 25 September 1992, next to the present site of his Fundacion.

The irony of fate that he would meet his death in a car accident is rich as he loathed the massive amount of vehicles.

 

Above: Painted BMW from 1990 Art Basel exhibition, Casa Museo César Manrique, Haría, Lanzarote

 

César’s final resting place in Haría’s cemetery is located at the exit to Arrieta atop a low hill.

His simple grave is located on the left in front of the small chapel.

César’s differs fundamentally from the other graves which are made of stone slabs and crosses.

His is a flat oval bordered by lava stones under a palm tree and adorned with succulents and cacti.

The carving “C. Manrique 1919 – 92” testifies that here lies Lanzarote’s loyal son.

From the forecourt of the cemetery there is a beautiful view of the valley below.

 

 

In retracing his life in reverse chronology, I am reminded of a text he wrote to describe himself and his view of life:

“I have never followed the signs indicating the road to Utopia.

Utopia, I do presently believe, is an inner path.

My enthusiasm, in any case, is the sole force that can guide me approximately.“

 

 

Starting from César’s endpoint is appropriate.

For it is in Haría we view not the celebrity César, not the artist César, but the man César, a man as common as we all are, mortal and preoccupied with all the minutae that comprise a life lived daily.

 

 

To fully appreciate César’s impact on the Island one must journey out of Haría, away from a traditional Lanzarote, to a Lanzarote of the future built upon five volcanic bubbles of a lava flow 6km north of Arrecife, César’s birthplace.

The Taro de Tahíche is a dormant remnant of the 1730 eruption of the volcano Timanfaya on the northwest corner of the Island, and it is upon this that the Fundación César Manrique sits.

 

 

From the Fundación and the overview of all that César Manrique was and did, the Traveller is encouraged to explore Lanzarote through César’s eyes and creations:

• the Jameos del Agua

• the Monumento al Campesino

• the Restaurante El Diablo

• the Mirador del Río

• the Castillo San José

• the Jardín de Cactus

 

It is at the Fundación and at the aforementioned half-dozen Manrique creations that the Traveller senses how César’s life-affirming architecture relates to the Lanzarote landscape:

Generous and yet deeply modest.

With great aesthic imagination and impeccable taste César created monuments for muses, cathedrals of contemplation, monoliths of meditation, jubilees of joy, temples of tranquillity, havens of humanity.

He sought what was beautiful and brought to this beauty his strength of purpose and crystalline originality.

In Lanzarote posts to come his creations and the Island that inspired them will be patiently revealed.

I hope that you will enjoy learning of them as I shall enjoy the experience of sharing them with you.

 

Above: Undiscovered Planets, César Manrique

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Fernando Gómez Aguilera, César Manrique in His Own Words / Wolfgang Borsich, Lanzarote and César Manrique: Seven Buildings / Lucy Corne and Josephine Quintero, Lonely Planet Canary Islands / Jorge Echenique and Andrés Murillo, Lanzarote / Eberhard Fohrer, Müller Lanzarote / Raimundo Rodriguez, Lanzarote

 

 

Canada Slim and the Italian Twilight

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Tuesday 23 July 2019

There are advantages and disadvantages to everything.

 

In less than a fortnight I shall board a train to Romanshorn, followed by a ferry across the Lake of Constance (Bodensee) to Friedrichshafen then a train to Lindau, another to Kaufbeuren, another to Füssen and finally a bus to Schwangau to join my wife for a long weekend break.

 

Above: Schwangau

 

This entails taking the second earliest departing train at 05:55 from our local station and a journey of five and a half hours to be reunited with the wife on holiday for her birthday at a spa resort in the Allgäu region of Bavaria.

I do not enjoy spas, wellness centres, health farms, but I do enjoy my wife’s companionship.

 

 

The things we do for love.

 

It is this romantic compulsion, this sweet surrender of one’s will for the beautiful harmony found with another person that makes me recall some compromises I have made for my better half on some journeys we have made together.

Unlike my wife whose ambition is fixed once she has determined to do something, I rarely kick when her female perogative decides that what I planned will now not happen.

I have wanted to climb the Tour Eiffel in Paris, drive to Roscommon in Ireland, and stop more often en route from Freiburg im Breisgau to Bretagne, but her jaw was set, her foot was put down, her nerve defiant.

Ultimately life somehow went on without the tower ascent, the Irish detour or the frequent French stops, but my childish petulence of wishes denied is still remembered.

Such pettiness a husband can harbour!

 

 

There was another such moment last year on our northern Italian vacation….

 

Highway 45 between Gardone Riviera and Limone sul Garda, 6 August 2018

Barely 3 km east of Gardone, the road passes through the twin comune of Toscolano-Maderno, which straddles the delta of the Toscolano River.

Toscolano is predominantly an industrial centre while Maderno is exclusively a tourist centre, stretching in a picturesque gulf with a wonderful promenade among villas and gardens and a decent beach.

 

Above: Toscolano – Maderno

 

According to a legend, the ancient, mysterious town of Benaco, sunk into Lake Garda owing to an earthquake in 243, was built near Toscolano.

A memorial tablet on the bell tower of Chiesa San Andrea (St. Andrew’s Church) in Maderno bears a dedication of the Benacensi to Marcus Aurelius.

 

 

The Orto Botanico “G.E. Ghirardi” is a botanical garden operated by the University of Milan, and located on via Religione, Toscolano-Maderno.

The garden was established in 1964 as the Stazione Agricola Sperimentale Mimosa under the direction of Professor Giordano Emilio Ghirardi.

In 1991 it became part of the University of Milan, and today primarily cultivates plants of interest for medicine and pharmaceutics, but also supports research in transgenic plants, rice, etc.

Collections include Camptotheca acuminata, Eschscholzia, Nicotiana, Nigella, Scutellaria, and Solanaceae.

 

 

A car ferry crosses from here to Torri del Benaco on the eastern shore of Lake Garda.

 

 

The valley behind the comune has a tradition of paper-making dating from the 4th century.

Following the riverside road up into this beautiful, wooded valley brings the traveller past many disused paper mills to the Fondazione Valle delle Cartierie, with a well-presented museum offering an insight into the processes and importance of the industry.

 

 

Toscolano-Maderno is a Shangri-la for shady walks or sumptious picnics, but this day we have no time for a stroll nor food in the car for a sit-down meal.

We are on the way to Riva del Garda, our next night’s stop, the weather is sweltering and all we dream about is the AC promised at the Hotel ahead.

We left this morning after two nights in Sirmione, spent much of the day exploring Gardone Riviera and still had some distance to travel.

I was complacent, quiet and uncomplaining.

 

 

We arrived at Gargnano, said to be the prettiest village on Lake Garda.

Traffic ran above and inland from the town, leaving old Gargnano mostly noise-free.

The narrow difficult road north of town means tour buses don’t bother trying to reach Gargnano.

It is more workman’s base than tourist resort.

 

Above: Gargnano

 

Nonetheless Gargnano has a few claims to fame:

 

The naval operations on Lake Garda in 1866 during the Third Italian War of Independence (20 June – 12 August 1866) consisted of a series of clashes between flotillas of the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire between 25 June and 25 July that year, as they attempted to secure dominance of the lake.

The Austrian fleet, based on the eastern bank of the lake, was larger, more modern and better-armed than their Italian counterpart, and successfully maintained control of the waters, hindering the movement of Italian troops.

 

Above: The Austrian Steamer Hess

 

At the outset of the war, the border between Austria and Italy ran down the middle of the lake.

The Brescia region to the west lay within Italy while Verona and the lands east of the lake were Austrian.

 

 

Austria controlled Riva del Garda at the northern tip of the lake, as well as the important fortress of Peschiera del Garda on the west bank of the River Mincio at its southern end.

Peschiera was part of the so-called ‘Quadrilateral‘ of strong core Austrian defences, leaving the exposed eastern shore of Lake Garda an area of potential weakness, vulnerable to Italian infiltration.

This might have involved a strike from the north end of the Lake up the valley of the Chiese River to threaten Trento and cut off the supply lines of the Austrian forces in the Veneto.

It might also have involved a landing of forces behind Peschiera to threaten Verona.

 

Above: Peschiera

 

On the Italian side, the buildup of Austrian naval strength caused concerns about a possible Austrian attack across the lake towards Brescia.

At the start of hostilities of 25 June, the Austrians immediately sailed out to threaten Salò and prevent any movement of Italian troops.

On 30 June, the Austrian ships bombarded the railway station at Desenzano, a supply and communications point for the Italian Volunteer Corps of Giuseppe Garibaldi, but caused only minor damage.

 

Above: Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807 – 1882)

 

More substantial action took place on 2 July, at 5 am, when four Austrian gunboats, including the Hess and Franz Joseph, bombarded the centre of Gargnano, where there was a strong concentration of Garibaldi’s forces.

The bombardment caused extensive damage to homes, one dead and eight wounded among the defending volunteers of the 2nd Regiment.

 

 

The Austrian flotilla was eventually compelled to withdraw under fire from an Italian battery commanded by Captain Achille Afan de Rivera.

 

Above: Captain Rivera (1842 – 1904)

 

Other skirmishes took place on the lake every few days.

On 6 July, Italian volunteers forces, equipped with nine long-range guns borrowed from a coastal battery at Maderno, ambushed the Austrian gunboat Wildfang at Gargagno.

The gunboat was hit twice, for no losses for Garibaldi’s army.

 

At the same time, the Italian flotilla sailed out from Salo to chase the armoured gunboat Wespe, on patrol off Maderno.

The Austrian vessel managed to disangage after receiving support from Speiteufel and Scharfschütze.

Italian sources claim that the Wespe was forced to seek shelter at Malcesine.

 

Above: Malcesine

 

The next significant combat occurred on 19 July when the Italian paddle steamer Benaco head out from Salo for Gargnano towing the sailboat Poeta, both ships carrying reinforcement troops and loaded with supplies for the volunteers in the mountains of Valvestino and Tremosine.

The Benaco was suddenly attacked by two Austrian gunboats, the Wildfang and Schwarzschűtze, which forced it in to shore near Gargnano, where most of the crew, troops and supplies were landed during the night.

 

The next morning Austrian whalerboats were able to capture the abandoned Benaco, still with a small gun and some rifle ammunition in her holds, and tow it away as a prize to Peschiera.

One of the whalerboats capsized under Italian fire, but was eventually recovered by the Austrian flotilla.

Three Austrian sailors were wounded, while heavy shelling on Gargnano killed two Italian volunteers.

The Poeta managed to sail away, only to sink shortly after off San Carlo.

 

A second convoy from Salo, consisting in another sailboat escorted by the Italian flotilla, was forced back two days later by the Austrian gunboats Speiteufel, Uskoke and Wespe.

The Benaco was handed back to the Italian government at the end of the hostilities.

 

Above: Flag of the Kingdom of Italy (1861 – 1946)

 

The final action of the war took place at the north end of the Lake.

After skirmishes on the Lake on 24 July, Manfroni learned that the Austrian army had abandoned Riva del Garda, which was one of his key supply points.

To prevent the town falling to Garibaldi, he steamed north and occupied the fortifications in the town with his marines, and on 25 July his forces were able to hold off Garibaldi’s volunteers until nightfall.

 

Above: Moritz Manfroni von Montfort (1832 – 1889)

 

At 10 p.m. the Hess arrived with a telegram confirming that a ceasefire had been declared between Austria and Italy.

 

Above: Flag of the Austrian (Habsburg) Empire (1804 – 1867)

 

Giovanni Beatrice known as Zanzanù (1576 – 1617) was an Italian bandit of the Republic of Venice .

He was one of the most heinous bandits of the Serenissima responsible, with his band, between 1602 and 1617, of about 200 murders, according to the testimony of the bandit and assassin Alessandro Remer of Malcesine , who was hired in 1609 by a group of merchants from Desenzano del Garda to exterminate the Zannoni band.

From the 22 sentences of bans pronounced by the Venetian magistrates against Beatrice, from 1605 to 1616, the murders clearly attributed to him did not reach 10 and those that were committed in the years 1605 – 1609 were against those who had killed his father.

This is the image that emerges from the judicial sources that testify both the numerous sentences imposed against him, and the activity of the ruthless bounty hunters aiming to obtain prizes and benefits offered by the Republic of Venice in exchange for his killing.

 

Above: Giovanni Beatrice (aka Zanzanù)

 

In fact, a more accurate examination of the same sources allows us to outline the figure of a man who became an outlaw to defend his honor and that of his family.

A bandit who soon became legendary for the abuses and injustices that were committed against him.

The vicissitudes of the life of this man and the extreme complexity of the social relations within which they took place are emblematic of the transformations that affected Europe, determining the figure of the traditional bandit and of the conflicting dynamics that animated it, in that the outlaw was considered a dangerous enemy of social tranquility.

 

Giovanni Beatrice (or Beatrici), nicknamed by the locals “Zanzanù” or “Zuan Zanone” (Giovanni Zanone), was born in Gargnano in 1576, to Giovanni Maria Beatrice of the “Zanon” family and his wife, Anastasia.

His wife Caterina had numerous children: Anastasia born in 1598, Margherita in 1599, Pietro Antonio in 1601, Anastasia in 1602, Elisabetta Antonia in 1604, Giovan Maria in 1608.

 

He acted with a band of accomplices, known as the “degli Zannoni“, and a dense network of connivances, even high positions, in the Riviera di Salò, territory of the Republic of Venice , and in the Upper Garda of the episcopal principality of Trento, killing, stealing and extorting anyone.

In a short time with his criminal enterprises Zanzanù became the terror of the population and the concern of the Veneto supervisors.

 

Above: Flag of the Republic of Venice (697 – 1797)

 

The first news of Beatrice dates back to 24 March 1602, when in Bogliaco, during a military parade of the “cernide“, the Venetian popular militia, of which he was a part, wounded by stabbing – with the complicity of his uncle Giovanni Francesco Beatrice called “Lima” – Francesco Sette of Maderno, the son of Riccobono, a bitter rival of his family and killed a friend of the Seven who had intervened in defense.

The two fugitive assassins were subsequently banished from all the territories of the Serenissima, but despite this they enjoyed high protection as guests of Giovanni Gaudenzio Madruzzo, captain of the Rocca of Riva del Garda and related to the prince bishop of Trento, Carlo Gaudenzio Madruzzo.

 

Above: Bogliaco

 

This first and convulsive period was marked by the killing of his father Giovan Maria, which took place in 1605 by some of his enemies.

A period that he would remember for the rest of his life:

“The father of I, Giovanni Zannoni of the Riviera of Salò, the ordinary son of those who descend to the lake, and from whom he derived the food of all his poor family, while he lived quietly, founded a solemn peace with a signed oath, over the sacrament of the altar, was wickedly slain by someone of the Riviera.

For this so inhumane and barbarous act, being sure of the cruelty of men, induced by desperation, I resolved to avenge such a serious offense and to secure my own life, having taken the path of arms, I avenged with the deaths of the enemy the loss of the father and the privation of the way of supporting my family, for which operations I was banished and persecution continued, I  responded with new vendettas.”

 

The whole affair, which had as its decisive and ruthless protagonist the young Zanzanù, is in fact understandable only in the light of a harsh conflict in the years 1602 – 1605 between the Beatrice di Gargnano and the Sette families of Monte Maderno.

A conflict that most likely originated from a rivalry, for reasons of honor, between the sons of Giovan Maria Beatrice and those of Riccobon Sette, a wealthy landowner of Vigole in Monte Maderno.

However the wounding of Francesco Sette by Giovanni Beatrice did not constitute itself as the triggering element of the struggle without quarter which in the following years would see the two families facing each other.

 

In 1603 both Riccobon and Francesco Sette suffered the repercussions carried out by the administrator of Salò and the Venetian magistrates against their respective son and brother Giacomo.

For the protection and aid granted to Giacomo, Riccobon Sette ended up in prison in Salò, while his brother Francesco was in turn forced to leave the State.

 

Above: Salò

 

The situation precipitated at the beginning of the spring of 1603, when Giacomo Sette was killed in Armo on 14 April by his accomplice, Eliseo Baruffaldo di Val Vestino, who took his head to Salò for the ritual recognition.

These were perhaps the events that led Riccobon Sette to restore peace with the Beatrice of Gargnano.

The peace act was stipulated in August 1603 in the monastery of San Francesco di Gargnano, by Fra Tiziano Degli Antoni, a common friend of both parties.

The Beatrice were represented by Giovan Maria himself, while the archpriest of Gargnano, Bernardino Bardelli, brother-in-law of Riccobon Sette, was engaged for the opposing faction.

Riccobon Sette, in fact, was still in prison, while his son Francesco was banished.

However, the killing of the latter by some bounty hunters precipitated the situation.

 

Above: Monastery of San Francesco di Gargnano

 

On 16 June 1604 Riccobon Sette, still in prison in Salò , addressed the representatives of the Magnifica Patria, lamenting the loss of his two children and the difficult situation in which he found himself.

Upon leaving prison the opposition between the two families was rekindled.

The murder of Giovan Maria Beatrice by assassins sent by the archpriest of Gargnano pushed the conflict to extremes.

 

In the years 1605 – 1607 Beatrice in fact carried out several coups against his adversaries and enemies, always managing to escape the numerous ambushes by the bounty hunters on his trail.

It was not so for two of his companions, Eliseo Baruffaldo and Giovan Pietro Sette. known as Pellizzaro, who in November 1606 were killed by some bounty hunters and some enemies of the Beatrice whom the Provveditore General in the Mainland, in all secrecy, had sent on their trail.

The two were killed on 11 November 1606 in a night ambush stretched over the mountains of Gargnano, and their severed heads displayed in the square of Salò.

 

The spiral of violence that followed the feud between the two families helped to define the image of Zanzanù, especially starting from the years 1608 -09, when he was now unable to defend himself by resorting to the ordinary ways of justice.

He was thus credited with many crimes of which he was certainly not responsible (such as robberies and thefts).

 

 

He remembered, in 1616 in a plea directed to the Council of Ten:

“I confess to being guilty of many notices, but all for private crimes and none for the slightest of public and state affairs, nor with conditions excluded from the present I am not even entitled to compensate anyone, but let me be quite right in saying that, since many excesses have been committed by others under my name, of those who are out of hope of being able to free me, I have never cared to get rid of them.”

 

On 13 February 1609 in Tremosine, Zanzanù attacked, robbed and injured the doctor Oliviero, killed Gabriele Leonesio and stole an arquebus in a house.

Escaping to Limone sul Garda, on the night of February 13, he fell in an ambush at the port of Riva del Garda, where the band led by his uncle Giovanni Francesco “Lima” was targeted by the bandit Alessandro Remer of Malcesine who intended to claim the bounty.

Giovanni Beatrice was saved by jumping into the lake and swimming, while his brother Michele Zanon, Bernardo and Giovanni Battista Pace, known as “Parolotto“, of Salò were killed.

Giovanni Francesco “Lima“, although wounded in the thigh, managed to take refuge in Limone sul Garda, where he was, the next day, shot and then barbarously beheaded.

 

Above: Limone sul Garda

 

The most striking action of Giovanni Beatrice took place on 29 May 1610, when he was involved, according to the accusations of the Venetian magistracy, in the murder in the Cathedral of Salò of the Brescia magistrate Bernardino Ganassoni, podestà of the place, who was attending the solemn mass in honor of Saint Herculaneum.

The murder was carried out by Antonio Bonfadino who shot point-blank, and despite the presence of the escort soldiers he managed to escape.

 

Above: Salò Cathedral

 

In the following days Beatrice tried to approach the Brescian representatives who came to Salò during the process.

To them the bandit reported that, in exchange for a pardon, he would reveal the main culprits of the killing of Ganassoni.

 

 

Giovanni Beatrice’s involvement in the murder of the podestà Bernardino Ganassoni was in reality the work of the convergence of interests of administrator Giovan Battista Loredan, merchant Alberghino Alberghini and inquisitor Oltre Mincio Leonardo Mocenigo.

Loredan was worried that the motives that led to the murder of the podestà would emerge, so the involvement of the feared bandit would in fact make the procedural position of Martin Previdale and the other defendants definitively unrecoverable with him and with the same mayor.

The merchant Alberghino Alberghini, present in Salò in early June 1610 , together with the band of bounty hunters led by Alessandro Remer, pursued the same goal, aiming in turn to involve the two brothers Bonifacio and Ambrogio Ceruti.

 

Arriving on the Riviera in the first days of October 1610, Leonardo Mocenigo promptly endorsed the work of Loredan condemning to the scaffold one of the false witnesses involved in the trial.

 

 

Among the mountain shelters, in the cave called “Cùel Zanzanù“, in the locality of Martelletto, near Droane, in Val Vestino, they killed and plundered, according to the report by administrator Lunardo Valier of 15 April 1606 and sent to the Senate of Venice, on 29 September 1611, the wealthy Stefano Protasio of Toscolano with ten accomplices.

 

 

Despite the harsh repression carried out by Antonio Mocenigo, captain of Brescia, against banditry prevailing in the Riviera of Salò, through executions, the confiscation of property and banning from the Serenissima, Beatrice continued undaunted in his criminal exploits.

Between 1602 and 1609 the band “Zanoni” robbed the “cavallari” (travellers on the public road), assaulted boats on Lake Garda laden with goods, tyrannized the rural population, robbed the “mountains of mercy” of Manerba del Garda and Portese taking away 6,000 scudi and killed, according to estimates by bandit Alessandro Remer of Malcesine, about 200 people.

 

Above: Manerba del Garda

 

Hunted by the administrator Giovanni Barbaro, Zanzanù contacted the duchy of Parma, offering himself as a mercenary for Ranuccio I Farnese with the rank of lieutenant of infantry, then moved to the Cremonese until 1614 .

Returning to the Riviera in 1615, Zanzanù resumed his criminal activities.

 

Above: Duchy of Parma flag (1545 – 1731)

 

On 24 June 1615 the administrator and Captain of Salò, Marco Barbarigo, informed the Senate that Zanzanù was sheltered in Val Vestino, the jurisdiction of the lords of Lodrone, with two priests of that valley who he had made his prisoners.

 

On 27 June, in the municipality of Capovalle, the Beatrice gang clashed with a department of cappelletti.

After furious gunplay they wounded the governor’s lieutenant Vucocrutt.

 

Above: Capovalle

 

The repressive activity carried out against Beatrice in this period is attested by the sentences pronounced by, the Provveditore and Capitano of the Riviera, Marco Barbarigo, in June and July 1615.

The administrator turned to the numerous supporters of the bandit, who did not disdain to help him and to host him, despite the severe penalties, threatening them on several occasions.

In particular, two women of Gargnano were condemned who, regardless of the grave consequences, were banished because, as the sentence said, they were “so bold and fearless as to leave their homes and rejoice with said Zanone, touching their hands and making them different welcome.”

 

The following year, Beatrice proposed the payment of a substantial sum of ducats to the municipalities of Tremosine and Maderno in exchange for his enlistment in the service of the Republic of Venice engaged in the Gradisca war against Austria.

The community of Gargnano, in June 1616, presented a petition from Beatrice to have it forwarded to the Heads of the Council of Ten.

In it the famous bandit, seizing the opportunity of the ongoing war with the Archdukes, offered himself, together with some of his companions, “to come and serve where your Serenity will appeal to me .“

Even if the proposal was not accepted it however reveals the desire of the feared bandit to return to the places where he had lived serenely his youth.

 

Above: Greatest extent of the Venetian Empire

 

On 17 August 1617, following the attempted kidnapping of the wealthy Giovanni Cavalieri di Tignale, Zanzanù was chased by armed youths from the village to the Valle del Gianech, and after a furious gunfight that caused four deaths among the bandits and six among the Tignalese, Beatrice fell at last.

His body was taken to Salò on the 19th.

Hanging from the gallows his body was exposed to the public until consummation, while the head was delivered to the authorities in Brescia.

 

Above: Brescia Castle

 

A large part of the adult population of the six villages that made up the Tignale community took part in the battle.

Among the five who fell during the bloody battle there were also some of the older and wealthy men of the community, who were more motivated to settle accounts with the famous outlaw.

Zanzanù was almost certainly killed by Antonio Bertolaso ​​of Aer who, along with Maderno’s cousin Girolamo Gasperini and the group of soldiers who accompanied them, joined the bandits who were attempting their last escape.

Zanzanù and his two companions, survivors of the previous clashes, faced with the arrival of Gargnano’s men, had in fact been forced to retreat and find a last and improvised refuge in the valley of the Monible.

 

 

In reality the provincial of Salò was not satisfied.

Suspicious of the number of deaths among the six villages that made up the Tignale community, he ordered an investigation to see if there had been any complicity or aid from some sectors of the local population towards the killed bandit.

Even if this suspicion was not ascertained, the investigation reveals the inherent mistrust of the authorities towards the obvious support and aid that a small part of the most humble people of the Riviera del Garda had for some time offered to Beatrice.

 

The controversial and legendary figure of Giovanni Beatrice is still remembered today by the people of the area of Alto Garda and Val Vestino.

Here, in fact, children born out of wedlock are still called fiöi del Zanzanù (sons of Zanzanù).

If some people have no hesitation in pointing it out the terrible bandit was the author of many murders and heinous actions, others believe that his figure enjoyed a certain sympathy and consensus among the people.

The latter believe that it was not the common people who hunted the brigand, but were instigated or hired by those lords (nobles, landowners, wealthy merchants) against whom Zanzanù was raging.

 

 

Pietro Bellotti (1625–1700) was an Italian painter active in the Baroque period.

 

Above: Self portrait of Pietro Bellotti

 

Born in Volciano di Salò in 1625, he gained fame as a painter of portraits and heads of characters.

He worked for Cardinal Mazzarino, Cardinal Ottoboni (the future Pope Alexander VIII), the Elector of Bavaria and others.

He was patronized by Pope Alexander VIII and by the Duke of Uceda.

In Mantova he was “superintendent of the city and villa galleries” for Gorizaga.

After wandering from court to court he returned to Lake Garda and died in poverty in Gargnano in 1700.

His principal works are:

• La Parca Lachesi (1654) at the Museum of Stuttgart
• The Parcae Lachesis, private collection, Brescia
• Self-Portrait (1658) at the Uffizi Gallery, where he is depicted with a cup in his hand and a scroll with the inscription: “Hinc Hilaritas“
• Two Peasants’ Heads at the Pinacoteca di Bologna;
• Philosopher in the Pinacoteca di Feltre;
• Old Head at the Correr Museum;
• Medea at the Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo;
• Maiden with a Turban in the Braunschweig Museum

 

Above: The Old Pilgrim, Pietro Bellotti

 

Enrica Bianchi Colombatto is an Italian actress, usually known by her stagename of Erika Blanc.

Her most notable role was as the first fictional character Emmanuelle in Io, Emmanuelle (A Man for Emmanuelle)(1969).

 

 

Blanc starred in several cult European horror films, including:

• The Third Eye (Il Terzo Occhio)(1966)
• Kill, Baby, Kill (Operazione Paura)(1966)

• So Sweet… So Perverse (Cosi’ Dolce… Cosi’ Perversa)(1969)
• The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (La Notte Che Evelyn Usci’ Dalla Tomba)(1971)
• The Devil’s Nightmare (La terrificante notte del demonico)(1971)

• The Red Headed Corpse (La rossa dalla pelle che scotta)(1972)

• Mark of the Devil, Part II (1973).

Her other film credits include roles in:

• Django Shoots First (Django spara per primo)(1966)
• Target Goldseven (Tecnica di una spia)(1966)
• Blood at Sundown (La più grande capina del West)(1966)
• Halleluja for Django (1967)
• The Longest Hunt (Spara, Gringo, spara)(1968)
• Seven Times Seven (7 volte 7)(1968)
• Hell in Normandy (Brigada suicida)(1968)
• Long Arm of the Godfather (La mano lunga del padrino)(1972)

• Tony Arzenta (1973)

• The Stranger and the Gunfighter (La dove non batte il sole)(1974)
• Il domestico (The Domestic)(1974)
• I figli di nessuno (Nobody’s Children)(1974)
• Eye of the Cat (Attenti al buffone)(1976)
• La portiera nuda (The Naked Doorwoman)(1976)
• Dream of a Summer Night (Sogno di una notte d’estate)(1983)

 

She recently returned to films with small but intense roles under the direction of Turkish-born director Ferzan Özpetek, acting as Antonia’s mother in Le fate ignoranti (The Ignorant Fairies)(2001) and as the sensitive, alcohol-addicted Maria Clara in Cuore Sacro (Sacred Heart)(2005).

In 2003 she starred as the grandmother in Adored (Poco più di un anno), directed by Marco Filiberti.

 

In 1943 Gargnano hosted Mussolini who arrived there on 10 October, where he occupied, in the San Giacomo area, Villa Feltrinelli (now a luxury hotel).

The Duce, who had recently established the Italian Social Republic, lived in the villa with his wife, Donna Rachele, and children Romano and Anna Maria.

 

Above: Benito Mussolini (1883 – 1945)

 

Diodato “Uto” Ughi is an Italian violinist and conductor.

He is considered one of Italy’s greatest living violinists and is also active in the promotion of classical music in today’s culture.

When he was young he started to play the violin and he made his debut at 7 years old, at the Teatro Lirico di Milano.

At 12 years he was considered a mature artist.

Ughi involves himself in many activities to promote music culture.

He is the founder of several music festivals, namely “Omaggio a Venezia“, “Omaggio a Roma” and “Uto Ughi per Roma“.

In tandem with Bruno Tosi, Uto Ughi instituted the musical prize “Una vita per la Musica“. (“A life for music“)

On 4 September 1997, Ughi was commissioned Cavaliere della Gran Croce by the Italian President and in 2002 he received a degree honoris causa in Communication studies.

He has won various awards, the most prestigious “Una vita per la musica – Leonard Bernstein” (23/6/1997), “Galileo 2000” prize (5/7/2003) and the international prize “Ostia Mare” (8/8/2003).

 

Above: Uto Ughi

 

Oscar Alberto Ghiglia (born 13 August 1938) is an Italian classical guitarist.

Born in Livorno to an artistic family – his father and grandfather were both famed painters, his mother an accomplished pianist – Oscar Ghiglia had to choose between a path strewn with brushes and colours and a world cut into harmony and melody.

Though his early choice produced a few hundred water colours and a number of oil paintings, he soon realized music was his way.

For this decision he thanks his father, who one day made him pose for a painting showing a guitarist.

For this he had to hold his father’s guitar, a companion to his artistic musings in front of his forming works.

This painting was the start to a lifetime of disciplined dedication to music.

Oscar Ghiglia graduated from the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and soon began study with Andrés Segovia, who was his major influence and inspiration during his formative years.

Later Oscar Ghiglia “inherited” Segovia’s class in Siena’s Accademia Chigiana and spread his own teaching around the five continents in a sister vocation to his concerts.

Oscar Ghiglia founded the Guitar Department at the Aspen Music Festival, as well as the Festival de Musique des Arcs and the “Incontri Chitarristici di Gargnano“, was artist in residence or visiting professor in such centres as the Cincinnati and San Francisco conservatories, the Juilliard School, the Hartt School and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

In all these centres and elsewhere Ghiglia has been nurturing talents and forming or perfecting young artists’ musical outlook and interpretation.

He has been teaching at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana since 1976.

Besides touring as a solo performer, Oscar Ghiglia has played and recorded with such names as:

• Victoria de Los Angeles
• Jan de Gaetani
• Gerald English
• John McCollum
• Jean-Pierre Rampal
• Julius Baker
• the Juilliard String Quartet
• the Emerson String Quartet
• the Cleveland String Quartet
• the Quartetto d’archi di Venezia
• the Tokyo String Quartet
• Giuliano Carmignola
• Franco Gulli
• Salvatore Accardo
• Régis Pasquier
• Adam Krzeszowiec
• Albert Roman
• Laszlo Varga
• Eliot Fisk
• Shin-Ichi Fukuda
• Letizia Guerra
• Antigoni Goni
• Elena Papandreou.

Oscar Ghiglia was a founding member of the International Classic Guitar Quartet.

After his CD Manuel Ponce Guitar music, a new set of recording projects was under way and his teaching continued, year long, in Basel, where he held the professorship in guitar at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel from 1983 to 2004.

Founder of the International Guitar Competition of Gargnano, Ghiglia boasts a very high number of first prize winners among his students, in competitions around the world.

In 2006, after retiring from the Basel Musik-Akademie, he moved to Greece, following his marriage to colleague and former pupil Elena Papandreou, now guitar professor in the University of Makedonia in Thessaloniki.

 

Above: Basel Music Academy

 

Following his CD  J.S. Bach Lute Works, and a DVD of his favourite repertoire, he continued giving concerts across the oceans, has residencies at the universities of Cincinnati and Evanston, Illinois, and does as well summer teaching at the Accademia Chigiana of Siena and his “Incontri Chitarristici di Gargnano“.

 

 

Certainly Gargnano as home to a bandit, a painter, an actress, a dictator and two world-class musicians is extremely interesting.

But it was the presence of a famous English writer in Gargnano that left me feeling frustrated at our failing to stop there in our haste to reach Riva del Garda before nightfall.

For there is much in his story that fascinates me, much that I can relate to.

 

Above: Gargnano

 

When someone visits a place for a day and decides to stay for six months you know they must have discovered something quite special.

 

It was 1912 and David Herbert (D.H.) Lawrence (1885 – 1930) was having an affair with Frieda von Richthofen (1879 – 1956), the wife of his university professor.

 

Above: D. H. Lawrence

 

Wanting to escape from both her husband and the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution in full swing in England, the pair decided to set off on their travels to discover new people, cultures and a more relaxing lifestyle.

Their first destination was Frieda’s homeland of Germany, but soon they wanted to travel further south, so, after a short stay in the Tyrol, they set off, with their knapsacks on their backs, on a long trek over the Dolomites, via Bolzano and Trento.

 

 

By September 1912 they reached the northern end of Lake Garda and the town of Riva del Garda.

Like so many authors, Lawrence fell in love with the Lake and the endless inspiration it could provide a creative mind, but Riva proved too expensive for them to set up a permanent residence.

 

Above: Riva del Garda

 

On Wednesday 18 September 1912, David and Frieda left Villa Leonardi di Riva del Garda and decided to go on a boat trip to the smaller town of Gargnano and heard by chance about a flat that was available to rent within their budget.

It became their home from 18 September 1912 until 30 March 1913.

 

Above: David and Frieda

 

Even though a century has passed since Lawrence and Frieda arrived in Gargnano, little has changed in the town, apart from a few essential roads now winding their way through the centre and more houses popping up to extend the town’s boundaries.

Gargnano has essentially escaped the tourist trappings of many of the Lake’s most popular locations, and so it is still possible to walk around the area and follow Lawrence’s footsteps to recreate a few of his experiences.

Lawrence and Frieda’s Lake Garda flat was located on the second floor of a large yellow-painted building at via Colletta 44 called Villa Igea, which now wears a discreet white marble plaque revealing its most famous resident.

 

Above: Villa Igea, Villa, Gargnano

 

“VILLA IGEA

DIMORA DI D.H. LAWRENCE

DAL SETTEMBRE 1912 ALL’ APRILE 1913”

 

 

No explanation of Lawrence’s identity is given.

 

Situated in San Gaudenzio di Muslone (known today as simply Villa), a small village on the outskirts of Gargnano, the rent was cheap but the flat still benefited from stunning views of the Lake.

The house became, for the two lovers, a refuge from which to observe the daily life of the country, the changes of nature with the arrival of spring, the spectacular scenery and local traditions.

Lawrence transcribed all of his impressions of this long exploration in numerous letters sent to England to family, friends, fellow writers and editors.

Lawrence often commented on how he would lie in bed of a morning and watch the sun rise over the mountains, eventually filling the room with light.

To him, this was paradise.

 

 

Gargnano was an escape from the culture of money and machinery that he so deeply detested, and the people of Gargnano the keepers of an ancient and impassive world that remains unruffled by and resistant to the upheaval of tumultuous modernity.

Lawrence used the most beautiful and fascinating words to capture daily moments and images of a landscape and nature that managed to soothe the pains of the young writer.

 

 

Though not everything Lawrence wrote was so pleasant:

“When at night the moon shines full on this pale facade, the theatre is far outdone in staginess.

Now everything is theatrical.”

 

 

Like living on a set where everything demanded literary criticism.

 

He wrote that the theatrical performances that he witnessed in Castellani Hall did not leave a very positive impression and he did not write an overly complimentary account of the teacher Feltrelline from whom they received lessons in French, German and Italian.

 

 

The sunshine and climate were actually the main motivations for Lawrence and Frieda to stay on Lake Garda.

Lawrence was suffering from tuberculosis and the sun was thought to offer a vital source of energy to help battle the disease.

 

 

But it provided him with inspiration too, and far from being a holiday or time for convalescence, Lawrence wrote many of his best works while staying in Villa Igea.

He finished Sons and Lovers, started work on The Lost Girl which would later be called The Rainbow and The Sisters which became Women In Love, plus penned his first travel book Twilight In Italy.

 

 

(Catherine Brown attended the 13th International D.H. Lawrence Conference held in Gargnano in 2014:

“One evening we saw a performance, by local actors (plus John Worthen) of The Fight for Barbara.

Written by Lawrence during his stay in Gargnano, this play thought through the difficulties and possibilities (including disastrous ones) of his elopement with Frieda.

Yet the play is of questionable comprehensibility to Italians.

The husband threatens Barbara with his own suicide.

An Italian husband of Lawrence’s period would have killed her or her lover, or abducted her, or at least threatened some such thing.

Certainly not talked about suicide.

Barbara’s father reminds the lover that married women are out of bounds.

An Italian man of Lawrence’s period would have seen a married woman as a particular prize, and certainly not have lectured another man to the contrary.”)

 

 

It was not an easy time for the two young lovers.

They lived in a precarious position, with Lawrence trying to support them both with his writing, hoping not to be forced to look for a job as a teacher, a profession he hated.

Frieda lived with the hope of seeing her children as soon as possible, having left them to escape with Lawrence, pending the conclusion of her divorce from her husband Ernest Weekley.

 

Above: Frieda and D.H.

 

It is in Twilight In Italy that we discover most about Lawrence’s time on Lake Garda, as he takes us with him on his day-to-day encounters with the locals and explores his surroundings.

One such encounter involved visiting his landlord, who he refers to as the padrone.

The padrone lived in a grand house called Villa De Paoli set just behind Lawrence’s flat.

It has now been transformed into offices and a car park, but next to the building you will find a garden shaded by beautiful olive trees and featuring a pergola under which Lawrence liked to sit and watch the daily comings and goings of the boats on the Lake.

 

 

It was in the grounds of Villa De Paoli that Lawrence had his first experience of Lake Garda’s iconic lemon houses.

Unlike anything he had ever seen before, in Twilight in Italy he described them as looking like naked pillars, rising out of the green foliage like ruins of temples.

While the fruit was growing and the sun shining on the leaves Lawrence thought the houses were beautiful, but as soon as winter arrived he regarded them as sordid and ugly because of the big wooden shutters that were put up to protect the trees from the inclement weather.

Before he knew the purpose of the wooden greenhouses he was confused by the sight of men climbing up ladders and leaping from one small ledge to the next, in order to lay the large wooden panels across the pillars and hammering loudly as they did so.

Having just left behind an industrial England, it was also odd for him to see everything being done by hand.

Despite hating the machines, Lawrence saw the Italian way of doing things as backwards, as if they were living in the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today the only sign of Villa De Paoli’s lemon house is the presence of a few pillars hidden behind the car park.

A sad reminder of a once majestic past.

As you walk along the main road from Villa to Gargnano you will however come across La Molora, a private lemon house that the owner is working hard to restore to its prime.

Here you can see for yourself the imposing pillars and lemon trees working their way up the hill, in the way that Lawrence was so intrigued and perplexed.

 

 

From his flat, Lawrence could see a church set on a slight hill overlooking the village, that he often glanced at but never thought to visit.

One day when he heard the gentle ringing of the church bells he decided to try and find out more about it.

There was no obvious path to the church, so Lawrence went out the back door of his house and made his way through the narrow side streets,  unsure of quite where he was going.

It was while walking these side streets of Villa that Lawrence felt the most alien and alone during his time on Lake Garda.

 

Above: San Tommaso, Villa, Gargnano

 

In Twilight in Italy he describes how odd it was walking through the narrow passageways, which were dark and shady compared to the brightly-lit paths by the lakeside.

He could see the town’s inhabitants staring at him suspiciously through their windows, wondering who this stranger was.

Gargnano wasn’t often visited by tourists and so Lawrence felt that his pale skin shone out even more here, and feared that it turned him into something of a spectacle.

 

 

Lawrence writes about the church and cloister of San Francesco on via Roma in Gargnano.

He put the simple Romanesque church of San Francesco (built in 1289) in the category of churches of the dove, which he defined as “shy and hidden“.

“They nestle among trees or they are gathered into silence of their own, in the very midst of the town so that one passes them by without observing them.”

He says of San Francisco:

“I passed it several times in the dark, silent little square, without knowing it was a church.”

(The road has since been widened so the square is no longer discernible.)

 

 

Lawrence was captivated by the cloister, which became a citrus fruit warehouse at the end of the 19th century, with “its beautiful and original carvings of leaves and fruits upon the pillars“.

 

 

After several unsuccessful attempts to reach the San Tomasso church, Lawrence eventually discovered a long broken stairway that led him to the courtyard of San Tommaso, or one of the churches of the eagles – which “stand high, with their heads to the skies, as if they challenged the world below” –  which still provides access to the building today.

 

 

He “came out suddenly, as by a miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the tremendous sunshine.

It was another world, a world of fierce abstraction.

The thin old church standing above the light, as if perched on the house roofs.

Its thin grey neck was held up stiffly.

Beyond was a vision of dark foliage and high hillside.”

 

 

When you reach the summit you will be greeted by a similar sight as Lawrence’s.

Countless red-slated roofs spread out beneath you, giving way to the seemingly never-ending water of the lake.

It’s hardly surprising that Lawrence described this platform as suspended above the village like the lowest step of heaven or Jacob’s ladder.

The terrace of San Tommaso is let down from heaven and does not touch the Earth.

 

 

Everywhere Lawrence went in Villa and Gargnano seemed to provide him with the new experiences and inspiration he had been searching for when he first embarked on his travels.

San Tommaso certainly found a special place in his heart.

 

 

As you wander the streets of Villa and Gargnano,  stopping briefly at the pretty little harbour where Lawrence first arrived in the town and passing by the theatre which remains as it would have looked to Lawrence on the outside, you can see why he chose to stay here so long.

Italy and Lake Garda are familiar destinations for us today, but for Lawrence there was still so much to explore and understand, so much that was alien and intimidating and yet at the same time captivating and exciting.

He couldn’t help but be drawn to the unique character of the town, the intriguing local people and the beauty of the lake itself.

 

 

The Hotel Gardenia al Lago is a hotel in Villa, a romantic little village administered by Gargnano, the largest and most distinctive municipality on the “lemon Riviera”.

It stands, proud and elegant, with its Mitteleuropean architecture, right on the shores of Lake Garda, with the mountain peaks of the Parco Alto Garda Bresciano nature reserve as its backdrop.

The waters of the Lake lap the edges of the magnificent garden and surround the panoramic lookout point in the dining room, and on the opposite shore stands the majestic Monte Baldo mountain range, which generously lays on the most unforgettable displays of light and colour at both sunrise and sunset.

Hotel Gardenia al Lago has a particular charm and aura, not due to the opulence and richness of its décor, but to its harmonious setting, the elegance of its rooms, furnished with pieces from the old house dating back to 1925, and to the warm welcome given by the Arosio family, who have owned and run the hotel personally for three generations.

 

 

Inside the Hotel, on the 4th floor, guests will find an exhibition dedicated to Lawrence, organized in 2012 by the Historic Gargnano Committee, on the centennial of the writer’s residence.

Through the descriptive panels and photographs, you can trace the life of the writer, famous for having written Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Sons and Lovers.

 

 

I longed to visit Villa.

I longed to relax in a waterfront café by the port of Gargnano.

 

 

I wished to wander around the abandoned olive factory, the lakefront villas with their boathouses, the Palazzo Comunale with the two cannonballs wedged in the walls from the aforementioned naval bombings.

 

 

I longed to stroll along the road which leads out of Gargnano from the harbour for 3 km past the beach and through olive and lemon groves, past the Villa Feltrinelli – the grand lakeside house / world-class hotel with tastefully furnished rooms (€1,380 per night) where Mussolini once ruled….

 

 

To the tiny 11th century Chapel of San Giacomo di Calino.

I wanted to look, on the side facing the lake, under the portico where fishermen keep their equipment, at the 13th century fresco of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travellers.

 

 

But we were not travellers.

 

 

We were tourists, and tourists by their very nature value the destination far more than the journey.

We do not linger in Toscolano-Maderno.

We do not stroll through Gargnano.

We do not detour down the road to Lake Idro through the hills of Valvestino.

 

 

We are on a mission.

We will not procrastinate.

We do not see the green of olive trees or the blue of the sky and the Lake.

 

 

I love my wife, so practical and pragmatic.

A better wife than I will ever deserve.

 

 

But a quiet voice within me weeps.

It longs to one day find a place and on that day spontaneously decide to linger there for six months or for a lifetime.

 

I say nothing as we zoom past Toscolano-Maderno.

I am silent as we speed past Gargnano.

 

 

My mind’s eye sees sailboats afloat on turquoise waters, orchards of olives and groves of lemons, huge stone walls and tall pillars, testaments of memory.

 

 

The Buddha is rumoured to have said that the greatest folly of men is that we believe that we have more time to live than we are actually granted.

 

 

Nonetheless I find myself thinking about retracing the routes followed and described in Lawrence’s Twilight in Italy.

To walk from Innsbruck to Riva del Garda or from Schaffhausen to Milan, time and money be damned….

That would be amazing.

 

 

But as the years zoom by at breathtaking speed I find myself entering a state of obscurity, of ambiguity, a general decline.

 

It is twilight when we reach Riva.

 

The soft gleaming glow of the sky is light clinging to a descending sun disappearing below the horizon, a semi-darkness, the gloom of a dying day.

So much to see, so much to do, so little time before night falls.

 

Such is twilight in Italy.

And everywhere else.

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Sally Fitzgerald, “D.H. Lawrence’s Lake Garda”, http://www.travelandlife.com / http://www.lakefrontboutiquehotels.com / http://www.gargnanosulgarda.com  / Gaby Logan, “Gargnano Celebrates D.H. Lawrence Centennial“, http://www.italymagazine.com / D.H. Lawrence, Twilight in Italy

 

Canada Slim and the Pirates of Teguise

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Sunday 5 May 2019

Imagine the perfect holiday.

Perhaps it is an active one spent hiking and windsurfing.

Perhaps you are a culture vulture mesmerized by museums and attracted to artefacts of days gone by.

Or perhaps you long for a lengthy siesta where your hardest decision is how much sunscreen to wear today.

 

 

The Canary Islands have what you want, however you want it, but being all things to all people means this is a place of contradictions.

 

The Islands lie off the coast of Africa yet they are European.

 

The Canary Islands form a Spanish archipelago and the southernmost autonomous community of Spain located in the Atlantic Ocean, 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Morocco at the closest point.

The Canary Islands, which are also known informally as the Canaries, are among the outermost regions (OMR) of the European Union proper.

It is also one of the eight regions with special consideration of historical nationality recognized as such by the Spanish Government.

The Canary Islands belong to the African Plate, like the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the African mainland.

 

 

The seven main islands are (from largest to smallest in area) Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro.

The archipelago includes much smaller islands and islets: La Graciosa, Alegranza, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Oeste and Roque del Este.

It also includes a series of adjacent roques (those of Salmor, Fasnia, Bonanza, Garachico and Anaga).

 

In ancient times, the island chain was often referred to as “the Fortunate Isles“.

But delving into Canarian history the casual observer has to ponder the question:

Fortunate for whom?

 

Historically, the Canary Islands have been considered a bridge between four continents: Africa, North America, South America and Europe.

And it has been their strategic location that has been both a blessing and a curse to those who have chosen to make the Islands their home.

 

Above: Flag of the Canary Islands

 

The archipelago’s beaches, climate and important natural attractions, especially Maspalomas in Gran Canaria and Teide National Park and Mount Teide (a World Heritage Site) in Tenerife (the third tallest volcano in the world measured from its base on the ocean floor), make it a major tourist destination with over 12 million visitors per year, especially Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.

 

 

Imagine living on an island where more people around you are tourists than residents.

 

Tourists are, by their very nature, selfish in that the pleasure principle dominates their every thought.

Most care nothing about those who reside there except in how the locals cater to their needs.

 

There is nothing new under the sun.

 

 

The islands have a subtropical climate, with long hot summers and moderately warm winters.

The precipitation levels and the level of maritime moderation vary depending on location and elevation.

Green areas as well as desert exist on the archipelago.

Rain seems rare and snow something never seen.

 

Due to their location above the temperature inversion layer, the high mountains of these islands are ideal for astronomical observation.

For this reason, two professional observatories, Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife and Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, have been built on the islands.

 

The day sky is cloudless.

The night sky stretches to infinity and beyond.

The horizon beckons with promise.

 

 

So it may be reasonable to assume that piracy has existed for as long as the oceans were plied for commerce.

 

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable items or properties.

Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates.

Privateering uses similar methods to piracy, but the captain acts under orders of the state authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation, making it a legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors.

 

 

Due to the strategic situation of this Spanish archipelago as a crossroads of maritime routes and commercial bridge between Europe, Africa and America, this was one of the places on the planet with the greatest pirate presence.

In the Canary Islands, the following stand out:

• The attacks and continuous looting of Berber, English, French and Dutch corsairs
• The presence of pirates from this archipelago who made their incursions into the Caribbean.
• Pirates and corsairs, such as François Le Clerc, Jacques de Sores, Francis Drake, Pieter van der Does, Murat Reis and Horacio Nelson, attacked the islands.
• Among those born in the archipelago who stands out above all is Amaro Pargo, whom the monarch Felipe V of Spain frequently benefited from his commercial incursions.

 

During the time of the Spanish Empire, the Canaries were the main stopover for Spanish galleons – galleons seeking to be laiden with treasure – on their way to the Americas, which came south to catch the prevailing northeasterly trade winds.

 

 

Sailing off the coast of Africa the closest of the Canaries to be reached is the Island of Lanzerote and thus it became the first Canary Island to be settled.

 

Lanzerote is the northernmost and easternmost of the autonomous Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

It is located approximately only 125 kilometres (78 miles) off the north coast of Africa and 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) from the Iberian Peninsula.

Covering 845.94 square kilometres (326.62 square miles), Lanzarote is the fourth largest of the islands in the archipelago.

With 149,183 inhabitants, it is the third most populous Canary Island, after Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

Located in the centre-west of the island is Timanfaya National Park, one of its main attractions.

The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1993.

The island’s capital is Arrecife.

 

 

The Phoenicians may have visited or settled there, though no material evidence survives.

The first known record came from Roman author Pliny the Elder in the encyclopaedia Naturalis Historia on an expedition to the Canary Islands.

The names of the islands (then called Insulae Fortunatae or the “Fortunate Isles“) were recorded as Junonia (Fuerteventura), Canaria (Gran Canaria), Ninguaria (Tenerife), Junonia Major (La Palma), Pluvialia (El Hierro), and Capraria (La Gomera).

Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the two easternmost Canary Islands, were only mentioned as the archipelago of the “purple islands“.

The Roman poet Lucan and the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy gave their precise locations.

 

 

Several archaeological expeditions have uncovered the prehistoric settlement at the archaeologic site of El Bebedero in the village of Teguise.

In one of those expeditions, by a team from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and a team from the University of Zaragoza, yielded about 100 Roman potsherds, nine pieces of metal, and one piece of glass.

The artefacts were found in strata dated between the 1st and 4th centuries.

They show that Romans did trade with the Canarians, though there is no evidence of settlements.

Lanzarote was previously settled by the Majos tribe of the Guanches, though the Romans did not mention them.

 

 

Guanches were the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands.

In 2017, the first genome-wide data from the Guanches confirmed a North African origin and that they were genetically most similar to modern North African Berber peoples of the nearby North African mainland.

It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago around 1000 BC or perhaps earlier.

The Guanches were the only native people known to have lived in the  region before the arrival of Europeans, as there is no evidence that the other archipelagos (Azores, Cape Verde, Madeira) were inhabited before Europeans arrived.

After the Spanish conquest of the Canaries they were ethnically and culturally absorbed by Spanish settlers, although elements of their culture survive to this day, intermixed within Canarian customs and traditions such as Silbo (the whistled language of La Gomera Island).

 

 

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Canary Islands were ignored until 999, when the Arabs arrived at the island which they dubbed al-Djezir al-Khalida (among other names).

An account of the Guanche population may have been made around AD 1150 by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in the Nuzhatul Mushtaq, a book he wrote for King Roger II of Sicily, in which al-Idrisi reports a journey in the Atlantic Ocean made by the Mugharrarin (“the adventurers“), a family of Andalusian seafarers from Lisbon.

The only surviving version of this book, kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and first translated by Pierre Amédée Jaubert, reports that, after having reached an area of “sticky and stinking waters“, the Mugharrarin moved back and first reached an uninhabited island (Madeira or Hierro), where they found “a huge quantity of sheep, which its meat was bitter and inedible” and, then, “continued southward” and reached another island where they were soon surrounded by barks and brought to “a village whose inhabitants were often fair haired with long and flaxen hair and the women of a rare beauty“.

Among the villagers, one did speak Arabic and asked them where they came from.

Then the king of the village ordered them to bring them back to the continent where they were surprised to be welcomed by Berbers.

Apart from the marvelous and fanciful content of this history, this account would suggest that Guanches had sporadic contacts with populations from the mainland.

Al-Idrisi also described the Guanche men as tall and of a reddish-brown complexion.

During the 14th century, the Guanches are presumed to have had other contacts with Balearic seafarers from Spain, suggested by the presence of Balearic artifacts found on several of the Canary Islands.

 

Above: (in red) The Balearic Islands

 

In 1336, a ship arrived from Lisbon under the guidance of Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, who used the alias “Lanzarote da Framqua“.

A fort was later built in the area of Montaña de Guanapay near today’s Teguise.

 

 

Castilian slaving expeditions in 1385 and 1393 seized hundreds of Guanches and sold them in Spain, initiating the slave trade in the islands.

 

Where there is profit to be found on the open seas there will be those who will seek to claim it.

Slavery and piracy differ only in that the plunder of the former is the lives of human beings.

The violence used by both is indistinguishable from the other.

 

French explorer Jean de Béthencourt arrived in 1402, heading a private expedition under Castilian auspices.

Bethencourt first visited the south of Lanzarote at Playa de Papagayo, and the French overran the island within a matter of months.

 

Above: Jean de Béthencourt (1362 – 1425)

 

The island lacked mountains and gorges to serve as hideouts for the remaining Guanche population and so many Guanches were taken away as slaves.

Only 300 Guanche men were said to have remained.

 

The Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands began in 1402, with the expedition of Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle (1340 – 1415) to the island of Lanzarote.

Gadifer would invade Lanzarote and Fuerteventura with ease since many of the aboriginals, faced with issues of starvation and poor agriculture, would surrender to Spanish rule.

 

 

At the southern end of the Yaiza municipality, the first European settlement in the Canary Islands appeared in 1402 in the area known as El Rubicón, where the conquest of the Archipelago began.

In this place, the Cathedral of Saint Martial of Limoges was built.

The cathedral was destroyed by English pirates in the 16th century.

The diocese was moved in 1483 to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Roman Catholic Diocese of Canarias).

 

 

In 1404, the Castilians (with the support of the King of Castile) came and fought the local Guanches who were further decimated.

The islands of Fuerteventura and El Hierro were later similarly conquered.

 

In 1477, a decision by the royal council of Castile confirmed a grant of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, with the smaller islands of Ferro and Gomera to the Castilian nobles Herrera, who held their fief until the end of the 18th century.

In 1585, the Ottoman admiral Murat Reis temporarily seized Lanzarote.

In the 17th century, pirates raided the island and took 1,000 inhabitants into slavery in Cueva de los Verdes.

 

From 1730 to 1736, the island was hit by a series of volcanic eruptions, producing 32 new volcanoes in a stretch of 18 kilometres (11 miles).

The priest of Yaiza, Don Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo, documented the eruption in detail until 1731.

Lava covered a quarter of the island’s surface, including the most fertile soil and 11 villages.

100 smaller volcanoes were located in the area called Montañas del Fuego, the “Mountains of Fire“.

 

 

In 1768, drought affected the deforested island and winter rains did not fall.

Much of the population was forced to emigrate to Cuba and the Americas, including a group which formed a significant addition to the Spanish settlers in Texas at San Antonio de Bexar in 1731.

 

 

Another volcanic eruption occurred within the range of Tiagua in 1824, which was less violent than the major eruption between 1730 and 1736.

Thus the island has become a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protected site.

 

According to a report in the Financial Times, this status was endangered by a local corruption scandal.

Since May 2009, police have arrested the former president of Lanzarote, the former mayor of Arrecife and more than 20 politicians and businessmen in connection with illegal building permits along Lanzarote’s coastline.

UNESCO has threatened to revoke Lanzarote’s Biosphere Reserve status, “if the developments are not respecting local needs and are impacting on the environment“.

The President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote denied “any threat to Lanzarote’s UNESCO status“.

 

Piracy upon the open sea beside the shores of Lanzarote may be a thing of the past but greed remains eternal.

 

 

Teguise, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Sunday 2 December 2018

As described in a previous post of this blog, my wife and I arrived on the island and drove from the airport near the island capital of Arrecife to the resort town of Costa Teguise where we overnighted for the entirety of our stay on Lanzarote.

(Please see Canada Slim and the Royal Retreat of this blog.)

 

Above: Lanzarote Airport

 

Our previous research gleaned that Sunday was market day in Teguise so soon after we checked into our hotel we quickly headed here.

 

Teguise, also known as La Villa de Teguise, is a village in the Municipality of Teguise in the north central part of the Island, 12 km north of Arrecife.

Here North Africa meets Spanish pueblo.

Like no other place on Lanzarote, it has preserved its historic appearance to this day.

It is an intriguing mini-oasis of low buildings set around a central plaza and surrounded by the bare plains of central Lanzarote.

The small old town forms a compact whole that impresses in its uniformity.

The Andalusian style of southern Spain sets the tone.

 

 

The outwardly simple, white houses have high, carved wooden portals and large shutters in front of the windows.

The former capital was built in the 15th century for fear of pirate raids in the middle of the island, right at the foot of the striking Montana de Guanapay.

Built in the Spanish colonial style, it presents a magnificent ensemble of stylish churches and monasteries, harmonious squares, magnificent old houses and quiet streets.

Old town Teguise has been a listed heritage site for over twenty years and is the jewel of Lanzarote.

It is considered one of the best preserved settlement centers of the Canaries.

As of 1 January 2018 the village’s population was 1,776.

 

The town was founded in 1418 and served as the capital of the Kingdom of the Canary Islands from 1425 to 1448 and as capital of Lanzarote until the capital was moved to Arrecife in 1852.

Teguise is said to have been founded by Maciot – the successor of the aforementioned Jean de Béthencourt – who is rumoured to have lived here with Princess Teguise, the daughter of the Guanche King Guadarfia.

 

 

Various convents were founded and the town prospered.

But with prosperity came other problems, including pirates who plundered the town several times.

 

Although the strategic location of the city was favorable – protected to the north by the Famara reef, in addition to the Castillo de Santa Bárbara enthroned above the city, a broad overview in all directions, the following centuries were marked by numerous bloody pirate attacks, undoubtedly reactions to the brutal raids of Teguise’s feudal lords, who had previously deported thousands of Berbers to slavery on the African coasts.

Teguise went through hard times and was said to be no more than a miserable village with thatched huts.

 

In 1586, Algerian pirates stormed the city under their infamous leader Morato Arráez and put down everything that stood in their way.

The Callejon de Sangre (Blood Alley) behind the parish church recalls this terrible tragedy.

 

 

In 1618, plundering Berber hordes burnt down the city completely, enslaving much of the island’s population.

As a result, Teguise’s historic buildings were increasingly economically unattractive for most of the late 17th and 18th centuries.

 

And this is why, in 1852, the up-and-coming port city of Arrecife was named the new capital of the island, while Teguise evolved into the open-air museum that it still represents today.

 

 

 

Firmly on the tourist trail, there are several shops here selling flowing garments and handmade jewellery, plus restaurants, bars and a handful of monuments testifying to the fact that the town once was the capital.

This is a town of spacious squares and well-kept cobblestone streets lined with beautifully restored houses that testify to Teguise’s former glory.

For a stroll, however, you should choose a really sunny day, because Teguise is located in a relatively uncomfortable island corner, namely on a cold and draughty plateau.

During the week, Teguise is a quiet place, ideal for a leisurely stroll through the streets.

 

Sunday is all about the huge folksy market that takes place here every week.

It is a day of flourishing handicrafts in the market with throngs of tourists shopping and gorging themselves into a satiated stupor and locals lounging beneath a gentle breeze and a warm sun.

Throughout the entire old town, stands are close to one other, in between streams of visitors from the whole island crowded here for this one moment in time, the bars and restaurants bursting in an exuberant mood.

A day for dancing, if being leisurely was not so tempting.

 

 

What strikes the visitor to Teguise Market the most is the foreign feel of the artists, the arts and crafts, the ecological and esoteric scene.

Various shops around the two central squares offer natural products, jewelery, antiques and so on – certainly not only because Teguise is so “beautiful“, but above all for tangible commercial reasons, because during the big Sunday market, the city is always very well attended.

 

But as well Canarian culture has a focus in Teguise.

Thus, the former capital of the island is considered the place of origin of the timples, the traditional guitar-like string instruments of Canarios, of which an exhibition in the Palacio Spinola proudly praises in the central square of Teguise.

 

 

The timple is a traditional 5-string plucked string instrument of the Canary Islands.

On La Palma Island and in the north of the island of Tenerife, many timple players omit the fifth (D) string, in order to play the timple as a four-string ukulele, though this is considered less traditional by players and advocates of the five-string version.

The players of the four-string style, in return, say that they are simply playing the timple in the old-fashioned way from before the time when a fifth string was introduced in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Timple players (timplistas) of note are Benito Cabrera from Lanzarote, José Antonio Ramos, Totoyo Millares, and Germán López from Gran Canaria, and Pedro Izquierdo from Tenerife.

 

Antonio Lemes Hernández, at Calle Flores 8, is one of the last to build the famous Canarian guitars.

He also supplies many music groups in other Canary Islands.

Various sizes are produced, from the mini-model to the contratimple.

The Cabildo de Lanzarote, through its Departments of Culture and Industry, has recognized Antonio Lemes Hernández for his involvement of more than half a century in the production of timples.

Lemes, a craftsman from Teguise, has been building timples since he was very small.

He himself recognizes that:

“I have not done anything else, all my life making timples.

I made them out of cardboard as a child.

We brushed them and made them from that material, but of course, I made them and broke them, I did not have a teacher.” 

So he perfected his technique.

And to transform the wood….

” I used to make them from polisandro, moral, mahogany, and the lid, which is always made of pine.

The important thing is that it is good wood so that they can tune well.

 

 

Sixty years after his first contact with the timple, Antonio’s hands continue to mold, giving life to the sound camel .

To play what is the treasure of Lanzerote music.

 

Antonio Lemes Hernández, popularly known as Lolo, was born in the stately Villa de Teguise.

As a child he learned the technique of woodworking in the School of Crafts of Teguise, although it was his carpenter companion, Antonio de León Bonilla, who had some knowledge of the timple, who taught him to shape the sound camel.

Little by little, Antonio became fond of this instrument, so today his works are highly valued and requested, some to make sound alone or at parties and others are conservative and wish to possess a timble like a real jewel in private storage.

 

 

Antonio Lemes has always been linked to the world of music.

In his youth he was part of the famous orchestra of Teguise known as Lira and Lido and he was also a part of cultural institutions such as Rancho de Pascuas de Teguise.

 

At present, Antonio Lemes enjoys his retirement, although as he can not stand idly by, so every day he goes to his workshop located on Flores Street, where he continues to practice the work that made him fall in love as a child, the construction of the timple.

 

In 2016, the Guagime Folkloric Association of Tahíche showed him public recognition by giving him their highest award, the ‘Silver Insignia‘, for his dedication to the development of the timple.

 

 

The eclectic church, the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe skulks in the town square.

Constructed in the mid-15th century, it has been rebuilt many times that it feels like the divine is in a perpetual state of confusion

Inside neo-Gothic furnishings surround a statue of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe, but it was afternoon when we arrived in Teguise, so we were forced to imagine the scene rather than witness it for ourselves.

 

 

On the opposite side of the square stands the Palacio Spinola.

The light of God facing the darkness of man.

 

The Palacio, completed after half a century in 1780, is beautiful with a small patio and a well.

It now doubles as both a museum and the official residence of the Canary Islands government.

It too was closed by the time we decided we wanted to visit it.

 

 

This impressive edifice is host to the Casa del Timple – a museum dedicated to the small guitar like instrument which plays a big role in local folklore and tradtional music.

 

The building was renovated during the 1970´s by the ubiquitous César Manrique- and provides the perfect opportunity to step back in time and sample the lifestyle of an affluent nobleman in 18th century Lanzarote, whilst also learning more about the role of the timple in island life.

 

Above: César Manrique (1919 – 1992)

(“For me, Lanzarote was the most beautiful place on Earth, so I made it a point to show Lanzarote to the world.“)

(More on this amazing man in a future post….)

 

Today, echoes of the glorious past still resonate through Teguise´s cobbled streets – which are home to some fantastic old buildings and a wealth of colonial architecture that cannot be found anywhere else on Lanzarote.

Making La Villa, as it is known locally, one of the best-preserved historic centers in the whole of the Canary Islands.

Many of these buildings are now private residences and are therefore hidden away from public gaze behind green wooden shutters.

But the house-museum at the Palacio Spinola is open to the public.

 

The Palacio Spinola is located in the heart of Teguise in the Plaza de San Miguel – also known locally as the Plaza de Leones because of the two statues of lions that stand guard opposite the entrance to the Palace.

Construction on the building started in 1730 – the same year that the south of the island was subjected to a six-year volcanic eruption that forged the national park at Timanfaya.

These eruptions obviously disrupted life on Lanzarote and the building of the Palacio took another fifty years to complete.

The Palacio was originally known as the Inquisitors House – as it was once the HQ of the Holy Inquisition.

From the middle of the 18th Century it became home to the Feo Peraza family, the best known of whom was the policitican Jose Feo Armas.

But by 1895 the Palacio had passed into the hands of the wealthy Spinola family.

The impressive frontage of the building with its six huge windows enclosed by intricately carved wooden shutters is a clear indication of the prosperity of the original owners.

 

 

You needed serious money to afford this sort of opulence in the early 18th century.

 

Visitors walk through a formal entrance way, tiled with volcanic stone – where a small admission charge of €3 is made (free for children under 12 years) – and they are then free to explore the passageways and patios of the Palacio with the help of a basic printed guide which outlines the function of each room.

Amongst the most fascinating of these are the kitchens, with a chimney arrangement that is open to the elements in order to carry away cooking smoke, a latticed viewing gallery that overlooks the two main salons, or living rooms, a massive dining room with seating for thirty two guests and a small private family chapel, featuring an intricately carved wooden altar.

Throughout the Palacio, modern paintings by local artists, such as Aguilar, are juxtaposed with antique and reproduction furniture.

The exterior of the building is equally impressive, as long passageways lead visitors out into a delightful courtyard area that houses two stately old Canarian palm trees as well as a variety of flowering plants such as hibiscus and strelitza as well as an array of colourful succulents.

Here, visitors can observe the giant wooden door guarding the entranceway – built to a height that would allow both a horse and rider to enter unhindered.

 

 

The Palacio Spinola isn’t huge – comprising eleven rooms in total, so it will probably only occupy an hour or so of your time at best, but it is an extremely well preserved example of 18th century architecture.

And who knows – you might even bump into a modern day grandee.

As the Palacio Spinola is also now the official residence of the President of the Canary Islands when he is visiting Lanzarote.

 

Above: Fernando Clavijo Batlle, current President of the Canary Islands

 

 

Towering over the town is the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, built in the early 16th century on top of the 452-metre (1,480 foot) high Guanapay Peak and provides a view almost over the entire island.

Visible from afar, the fortress Santa Bárbara perches on a bare crater ridge above Teguise.

A real mini “knight’s castle” with massive masonry, drawbridge and small round towers awaits the visitor.

Inside, a pirate museum has been housed here for several years.

 

 

The Museo de la Pirateria (Pirate Museum) has an exhibition that deals with an almost existential theme for Teguise and is also good for children.

With cartoon figures, picture stories, dioramas, historical signs and museum relics, the city’s hard times come to life again.

Excerpts from pirate films with six galleys from 1586 under Morato Arráez who conquers the castle and leaves Teguise with 200 prisoners, including the wife and daughter of the city commander Marquis Agustin Herrera y Rojas, for which Arráez finally receives 20,000 ducats for their ransom.

 

For me, Teguise, and most especially the Pirate Museum of Castle Bárbara, struck me as incongruous and felt somehow wrong.

 

 

Teguise had made a fortune from the slave trade until it was punished by Africans from whose populations these slaves had come.

The mercantile nature of the town, exhibited on a Christian day that is supposed to be free of commerce and labour, though less barbaric than former times, still resonates in the overpriced restaurants with substandard food and at the overvalued merchandise stalls where the buyer need be aware of deals done deceptively.

 

The Pirate Museum bothers me intensely, for it seems inherently callous to make profit from all the pain and violence committed by these bandits of the sea, celebrated and packaged glamourously for children’s consumption.

Pirates have always been and shall always be bloodthirsty bastards unable and unwilling to earn a honest day’s labour for the bread on the table.

How many hardworking families lost all that they had, including their lives, at the gory bloody hands of murderous, torturing and raping pirates?

And yet we have given pirates a mythical mystique of free men thirsting for liberty outside the confines of society.

We have made legends out of murderers, rapists and thievies and have given them colourful sobriquets like Blackbeard and Calico Jack.

 

Above: Pirate Cemetery, Île Sainte Marie, Madagascar

 

Beginning with Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, piracy has become a celebrated cause since 1724.

 

 

Since then we have had Long John Silver of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Captain Hook as Peter Pan‘s aristocratic villain of J.M. Barrie’s play, and the sea stories of Rafael Sabatini.

These have led to films like Captain Blood, The Black Swan, and, of course, the immensely popular Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

 

 

Somehow we have brainwashed ourselves with glamourous images of men walking the plank, being marooned, buried treasure, wooden legs and black eye patches, Jolly Roger flags and parrots squawking “pieces of eight, pieces of eight“.

Somehow we have come to warmly embrace and bring to life a seagoing world, befuddled twixt fact and fantasy, favouring felons of murderous, greedy, untrustworthy character, addicted to violence, crime committed casually, consciousness lacking conscience.

Somehow we don’t see unarmed fathers and sons viciously attacked, but instead we see elegant choreographed duels and sword fights, and not the bloody encounters where merciless men hack innocents down with axe and cutlass.

Real pirates bore little resemblance to Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp.

 

Above: Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

 

And women aboard ship were rarer than chocolate truffles at a homeless shelter despite what Hollywood would have you believe with their lovely heroines playing a key role in the outcomes of their films.

 

 

Pirates are a frequent topic in fiction and, in their Caribbean incarnation, are associated with certain stereotypical manners of speaking and dress, most of them wholly fictional:

Nearly all our notions of their behavior come from the golden age of fictional piracy, which reached its zenith in 1881 with the appearance of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

 

 

Hugely influential in shaping the popular conception of pirates, Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pirates, published in London in 1724, is the prime source for the biographies of many well known pirates of the Golden Age.

The book gives a mythical status to pirates, with naval historian David Cordingly writing:

“It has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates.“

Such as a person costumed like the character of Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp’s lead role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.

 

 

Some inventions of pirate culture such as “walking the plank“–in which a bound captive is forced to walk off a board extending over the sea–were popularized by J. M. Barrie’s novel, Peter Pan, where the fictional pirate Captain Hook and his crew helped define the fictional pirate archetype.

 

 

English actor Robert Newton’s portrayal of Long John Silver in Disney’s 1950 film adaptation of Treasure Island also helped define the modern rendition of a pirate, including the stereotypical West Country “pirate accent“.

 

 

Other influences include Sinbad the Sailor and the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films have helped rekindle modern interest in piracy and have performed well at the box office.

 

 

The video game Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag also revolves around pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy.

 

 

The classic Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance focuses on The Pirate King and his hapless band of pirates.

 

 

Many sports teams use “pirate” or a related term such as “raider” or “buccaneer” as their nickname, based on these popular stereotypes of pirates.

 

Such teams include the Pittsburgh Pirates, who acquired their nickname in 1891 after “pirating” a player from another team.

 

 

The Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, both in the National Football League, also use pirate-related nicknames.

 

 

In the early 21st century, seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$16 billion per year in 2004), particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore.

 

Today, pirates armed with automatic weapons, such as assault rifles, and machine guns, grenades and rocket propelled grenades use small motorboats to attack and board ships, a tactic that takes advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels and transport ships.

They also use larger vessels, known as “mother ships“, to supply the smaller motorboats.

 

Above: Somalian pirates

 

The international community is facing many challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice, as these attacks often occur in international waters.

Some nations have used their naval forces to protect private ships from pirate attacks and to pursue pirates, and some private vessels use armed security guards, high-pressure water cannons, or sound cannons to repel boarders, and use radar to avoid potential threats.

 

Piracy in the 21st century has taken place in a number of waters around the world, including the Gulf of Guinea, Strait of Malacca, Indian Ocean, and Falcon Lake.

 

Due to the crisis in Venezuela, issues of piracy returned to the Caribbean in the 2010s, with the increase of pirates being compared to piracy off the coast of Somalia due to the similar socioeconomic origins.

In 2016, former fishermen became pirates, appearing in the state of Sucre, with attacks happening almost daily and multiple killings occurring.

By 2018 as Venezuelans became more desperate, fears arose that Venezuelan pirates would spread throughout Caribbean waters.

 

Above: Gasoline smugglers, Limon River, Zulia State, Venezuela

 

Piracy on Falcon Lake involves crime at the border between the United States and Mexico on Falcon Lake.

The lake is a 100-kilometre-long (60 mi) reservoir constructed in 1954 and is a known drug smuggling route.

A turf war between rival drug cartels for control of the lake began in March 2010 and has led to a series of armed robberies and shooting incidents.

All of the attacks were credited to the Los Zetas cartel and occurred primarily on the Mexican side of the reservoir but within sight of the Texas coast.

The so-called pirates operate “fleets” of small boats designed to seize fishermen and smuggle drugs.

While the events have been referred to colloquially as piracy, all the waters of Falcon Lake are considered either US or Mexican territorial waters and therefore are not technically piracy under Article 101 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

 

 

Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea affects a number of countries in West Africa as well as the wider international community.

By 2011, it had become an issue of global concern.

Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea are often part of heavily armed criminal enterprises, who employ violent methods to steal oil cargo.

In 2012, the International Maritime Bureau, Oceans Beyond Piracy and the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Program reported that the number of vessels attacks by West African pirates had reached a world high, with 966 seafarers attacked during the year.

 

Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has evolved over the first decade of the century.

For some time, smaller ships shuttling employees and materials belonging to the oil companies with any involvement in oil exploration had been at risk in Nigeria.

Over time, pirates became more aggressive and better armed.

 

Above: The Gulf of Guinea

 

As of 2014, pirate attacks in West Africa mainly occur in territorial waters, terminals and harbours rather than in the high seas.

This incident pattern has hindered intervention by international naval forces.

 

Pirates in the region operate a well-funded criminal industry, which includes established supply networks.

They are often part of heavily armed and sophisticated criminal enterprises, who increasingly use motherships to launch their attacks.

The local pirates’ overall aim is to steal oil cargo.

As such, they do not attach much importance to holding crew members and non-oil cargo and vessels for ransom.

 

Additionally, pirates in the Gulf of Guinea are especially noted for their violent modus operandi, which frequently involves the kidnapping, torture and shooting of crewmen.

The increasingly violent methods used by these groups is believed to be part of a conscious “business model” adopted by them, in which violence and intimidation plays a major role.

 

By 2010, 45, and, by 2011, 64 incidents were reported to the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (UN – IMO).

 

However, many events go unreported.

 

 

Piracy acts interfere with the legitimate trading interests of the affected countries that include Benin, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As an example, trade of Benin’s major port, the Port of Cotonou, was reported in 2012 to have dropped by 70%.

The cost of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea due to stolen goods, security, and insurance has been estimated to be about $2 billion.

According to the Control Risks Group, pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea had by mid-November 2013 maintained a steady level of around 100 attempted hijackings in the year, a close second behind Southeast Asia.

 

Piracy in the Indian Ocean has been a threat to international shipping since the second phase of the civil war in Somalia in the early 21st century.

Since 2005, many international organizations have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy.

Piracy impeded the delivery of shipments and increased shipping expenses, costing an estimated $6.6 to $6.9 billion a year in global trade according to Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP).

 

 

According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), a veritable industry of profiteers also arose around the piracy.

Insurance companies significantly increased their profits from the pirate attacks as insurance companies hiked rate premiums in response.

 

Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, took on the role of fighting the piracy by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel.

By September 2012, the heyday of piracy in the Indian Ocean was reportedly over.

 

 

According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks had by October 2012 dropped to a six-year low, with only one ship attacked in the third quarter compared to thirty-six during the same period in 2011

 

By December 2013, the US Office of Naval Intelligence reported that only 9 vessels had been attacked during the year by the pirates, with zero successful hijackings.

 

 

Control Risks attributed this 90% decline in pirate activity from the corresponding period in 2012 to the adoption of best management practices by vessel owners and crews, armed private security onboard ships, a significant naval presence and the development of onshore security forces.

 

Pirates in the Strait of Malacca near Indonesia are normally armed with guns, knives, or machetes.

Many reports on attacks could have gone unreported because the companies are scared of the pirates attacking them more often because the company told the authorities.

The pirates in this area also attack ships during the night.

If vessels sound an alarm, the pirates usually leave without confronting the crew.

Pirates in the Singapore Straits attack at night, while ships are underway or anchored.

 

 

According to the Control Risks Group, pirate attacks in the Strait of Malacca had by mid-November 2013 reached a world high, surpassing those in the Gulf of Guinea.

 

 

I am all for generating income to feed a family and I realize that Teguise is highly dependent on tourism to feed theirs.

But a community that claims to be Christian should not be making a market day out of a day of rest and religious reflection.

 

I am all for having a museum that portrays reality historically accurate, but I find it objectionable to package criminal barbarity as a fun day out with the kids.

Piracy in all of its horror is not something that should be forgotten, but neither should it be glamorized nor sanitizied as entertainment for children.

 

Perhaps being a tourist is all about ignoring the realities of life, escaping from life.

But nothing is learned from life or travel if all we choose to see is only pleasureable.

 

 

Teguise is a beautiful town worth visiting but it has forgotten what value truly is.

Heritage is not a commodity to be sold at the expense of faith.

Heritage is not a commodity to be sold at the expense of truth.

 

When houses of worship are ignored on a day of faith to increase a merchant’s profits….

When violent crime is packaged to sell tickets to children….

Then a community has sold its soul for filthy lucre.

 

I liked the streets of the town and the warm sunshine after the cold and damp of Switzerland, but I longed for real people uninterested in garnering money or attention from visitors.

Real folks content with living life on their own terms rather than that dictated by others.

 

 

The aforementioned timple maker Antonio Lemes Hernandez is one.

Don Pillimpo is another.

 

On the access road from Mozaga, diagonally across from the petrol station, there is a house with a garden full of original sculptures, everyday and art objects, children’s toys, teddy bears and dolls.

 

 

Pillimpo, who is actually known as José Garcia Martin, is constantly expanding and changing his unusual collection, the children of Teguise bring him their discarded toys, new color paintings enliven the large sculptures, unusual compositions call out for the viewer to notice.

 

 

This strange collection of statues frequently stops passers by in their tracks.

Cars pause in the road whilst their passengers stare.

Pedestrians stop to browse the chaotic display of figurines.

The colour of the statues change frequently, shades of grey, green and pale pink.

 

 

The house is referred to as the Casa Museo Mara Mao after the statue holding this name up.

The front door is generally open, although it is said the artist is shy about being photographed and doesn’t like people entering his garden.

Rogue dolls’ heads daubed with paint and teddy bears chained to the tree  have been embraced into this artist’s eclectic display.

In his 60’s Don Pillimpo is free to use his quirky imagination for everyone to wonder at.

Thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, pass the Pillimpo figurine park every year, but few people know the name of this artist.

 

Speechlessness, astonishment, amusement and helplessness is felt by those who pass by Pillimpos’s garden, as well as rejection, a sad shaking of the head, indifference, even fear.

But if you ask someone about these characters, who makes them, if they have any meaning, why Pillimpo dresses them in new colors over and over again, you only hear shrugs.

Maybe because it is not easy to approach the creator of this chaotic world?

 

 

Because the God of this Garden, of these saint sculptures, dolls, teddy bears, plush moose, Santa Clauses and action toy monsters with names like “Cloverfield” or “Zombie Spawn” does not show his world to the audience?

Pillimpo does not want to explain his world.

This world is dominated by larger than life figures of sand and cement, and the iconography reminds all those who grew up in the Christian context of saints that in the midst of society children have become disposable victims.

 

 

“I never saw a greater balance between order and chaos, kitsch and authenticity.“, wrote a Spanish admirer of Pillimpos art on his blog.

“Horrible.  I do not like it.  It’s just too heavy for me.“, an island-renowned German artist described his feelings about Pillimpo’s work.

Another artist looks at Pillimpos’s work from his own perspective of usual order and harmony:

“So if my garden should look like this then you can instruct me!”

 

So, is this art?

 

 

“Art is a human cultural product, the result of a creative process.

The artwork is usually at the end of this process, but can also be the process itself.

Admiration, as such, is essential to art, but this does not have to be immediate in time and can only be the result of gaining knowledge.” is one definition of art according to Wikipedia.

 

Perception, imagination and intuition are some of the requirements for the artistic process.

Pillimpo’s creativity and imagination are innate to him, he says.

A gift from God that he believes in, for which he is grateful.

He emphasizes this again and again.

He knows his art is not universally loved.

“In their opinion, I disturb the cityscape.“, says Pillimpo.

 

 

But they can not easily get rid of the man.

Thank God.

 

The land is his property.

The house in which he lives, and which is also inhabited by his creatures inside him, belongs to him.

He built it with his own hands.

No problem for the skilled bricklayer, who was born over half a century ago in his grandfather’s house near Teguise.

 

A hard time was the time of his youth, he recalls, and speaks of his mother, who gave birth to five more children, three girls and two boys.

Even as a young boy, Pillimpo had a thriving imagination.

Every morning, as he gazed at the sunbeams that filtered through the holes and cracks in the meagerly plastered walls, he was fascinated by the play of light and shadow and the forms his imagination accepted.

Too high reaching dreams for a boy from poverty, on Lanzarote, where at times, water was valuable, food scarce and schooling almost impossible.

Although little José could go to school, it was not fun for him.

“When you come into the world, God has already given you all the skills you should have.

He gave me imagination.“

 

 

Pillimpo leaves the subject quickly behind, almost as fast as the questions – about the meaning of his characters, whether he gives them names, why he always wraps them in new colors and how often he does that, where do the toys come from and why does his art matter – come flying at him.

It’s as if he does not hear these questions right.

He mentions that he gets the toys from local children.

He is happy when they look into his garden as they hold their parents’ hands and proudly point to their old teddy bear.

A special meaning?

Do his characters have names?

“Names?  What names ?  No, they have no names.

As for the colours, I change, because I just enjoy it.

I love colors and I love all these things.“, says Pillimpo.

 

 

And, with that, the explanation is done for him.

Pillimpo goes into the house.

When he comes back, he has a magazine in his hand.

He leafs a bit until he finds what he’s looking for and then proudly shows an article about himself with many photos of his sculpture park and a poem.

He reads it aloud.

The interviewers are silent.

They go home but their thoughts remain in this other world for a long time.

In Pillimpos’s world.

 

In Pillimpos’s world, toys cast out of children’s rooms find a new home, new appreciation and attention.

A new place where they are admired or pitied.

Here, childlike feelings return to the adult.

No viewer can escape the power of this mixture of chaos and order, kitsch and originality.

 

 

Who is this man and why does he do what he does?

It is futile to ask others.

Nobody really knows anything about him.

There are only stories, rumours, now and then a grin.

 

Pillimpo began to scrape drawings in the sand with a stick and form figures out of loam, sand and water.

He often sits for hours, giving free rein to his imagination.

 

Not everyone likes that, but his mother had understood.

She had protected him, even defended his “quirks” from others, and did not laugh when he started to make music and dreamed of becoming an actor.

 

 

Pillimpo speaks of his dreams only to those able to exchange views with a true philosopher.

“I would like to speak with a great thinker, so maybe I can know if I’m right in my views or if I’m a bit of a fool.“, he says seriously.

 

I cannot help but compare and contrast the Pirate Museum with the garden of Don Pillimpo.

 

The former forms the fantastic from facts best forgotten in the frentic thirst for profits.

The latter at no cost leaves a legacy of nostalgia for the children we once were.

 

The Museum claims to be history but it is not.

The garden makes no claims about being art but it is.

 

Teguise, for me, will never be about El Mercadillo (the name of this Sunday market) or the Castillo Santa Bárbara, despite how both dominate the attention.

Teguise is instead quiet humble pride whispered from a timple workshop and an eclectic sculpture garden.

 

And this is something no pirate could ever take from me.

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Lonely Planet Canary Islands / DK Eyewitness Canary Islands / Eberhard Fohrer, Lanzarote / http://www.lanzarote37.net / https://lanzaroteinfomration.co.uk

Canada Slim and the Legacy of Left Boy

Landschlacht, Switzerland (Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera)

Thursday 24 April 2019

 

She is susceptible.
He is impossible.
They have their cross to share.
Three of a perfect pair.
He has his contradicting views.
She has her cyclothymic moods.
They make a study in despair.
Three of a perfect pair.

One, one too many
Schizophrenic tendencies
Keeps it complicated
Keeps it aggravated
And full of this hopelessness.
What a perfect mess.

 

It has been said that there are two true tests of a relationship:

• Assembling IKEA furniture together
• Travelling together

Though we are not much good at the former, we are not too bad at the latter.

 

I have previously written about our visit to Gardone Riviera by the Lago di Garda in northern Italy.

 

 

I described with much detail the life of Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio and the Il Vittoriale degli Italiani where he spent his last days in this town.

 

Above: Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863 – 1938)

 

Above: Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, Gardone Riviera

 

(Please see Canada Slim and the Shrine of Italian Victories of this blog.)

 

We discovered that there is more in this town of 3,000 than just a Fascist rabblerouser’s monument to ego.

 

Gardone Riviera, Italy, Sunday 6 August 2018

In the sweltering summer heat we discover that the town has two other claims to fame….

 

On 21 June 2000, the English band King Crimson recorded in its auditorium the songs “Three of a Perfect Pair” and “Blastic Rhino” for the album Heavy ConstruKction.

Above: L’Ampiteatro, Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, Gardone Riviera

 

King Crimson are an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968.

They have been influential both on the early 1970s progressive rock movement and numerous contemporary artists.

The band has undergone numerous formations throughout its history, in the course of which 22 musicians have been members.

Since October 2017 it has consisted of Robert Fripp, Jakko Jakszyk, Tony Levin, Mel Collins, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison, Jeremy Stacey and Bill Rieflin.

Fripp is the only consistent member of the group and is considered the band’s leader and driving force.

The band has earned a large cult following.

They were ranked No. 87 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

Although considered to be a seminal progressive rock band (a genre characterised by extended instrumental sections and complex song structures), they have often distanced themselves from the genre.

As well as influencing several generations of progressive and psychedelic rock bands, they have also been an influence on subsequent alternative metal, hardcore and experimental/noise musicians.

 

Heavy ConstruKction is a live album (3-CD set), incorporating video footage, by the band King Crimson, released by Discipline Global Mobile records in 2000.

The album features recordings from King Crimson’s European tour of May to July 2000, taken from DAT recordings of the front-of-house mixing desk.

King Crimson’s 2000 European tour was conducted to promote the Studio album The Construkction of Light.

 

 

The band members at the time of the tour were Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto.

Bill Bruford had previously left the group, and Tony Levin was not included in this particular King Crimson project due to prior commitments.

The third disc features band improvisations from different shows, which are often spliced together in the same track.

The liner notes describe the disc as “a cohesive presentation out of a series of incoherent events“.

Which also accurates describes the band itself.

 

“We’re so different from each other that one night someone in the band will play something that the rest of us have never heard before and you just have to listen for a second.

Then you react to his statement, usually in a different way than they would expect.

It’s the improvisation that makes the group amazing for me.

You know, taking chances.

There is no format really in which we fall into.

We discover things while improvising and if they’re really basically good ideas we try and work them in as new numbers, all the while keeping the improvisation thing alive and continually expanding.“

(King Crimson violinist David Cross on the band’s approach to improvisation)

 

Above: David Cross

 

Gardone Riviera’s second claim to fame….

 

The Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller (2 acres), also known as the Giardino Botanico Arturo Hruska, is a botanical garden located on the grounds of the André Heller Foundation above Lake Garda, in via Roma, Gardone Riviera.

It is open daily in the warmer months.

 

 

The Garden was established c. 1901 by Arturo Hruska (1889 – 1971), who, from 1910-1971, collected many species on the grounds of his villa, organized as a dense forest of bamboo, Japanese ponds, streams, and waterfalls, as well as alpine plants in ravines.

 

 

The Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller is a few minutes below the Vittoriale.

Gardone’s heyday was due in part to its mild climate, something which benefits the exotic blooms that fill the Austrian artist’s sculpture garden.

Designed by the Austrian dentist and botanist Arturo Hruska at the beginning of the 20th century, thousands of tropical, subtropical and alpine plants grow here, between streams and wild limestone, is where one meets orchids and a whole bamboo forest.

 

 

Laid out in 1912, the Garden is divided into pocket-sized climate zones, with tiny paths winding from central American plains to African savannah, via swathes of tulips and bamboo.

There are more than 500 species, including cactus, edelweiss, ferns including Osmunda regalis, magnolias, orchids, water lilies and trees.

Within 10,000 square metres there are botanical species from all over the world, from the Alps to the Himalayas, from Mato Grosso to New Zealand, from Japan to Australia, from Canada to Africa.

 

 

Around 1901, Arturo Hruska, originally from Czechoslovakia, graduated in Monaco, dentist to the Czar, the Italian Royal Family, Popes Pius XII and Johannes XXIII, and King Albert of Belgium, naturalist and botanist, moved from Austria to Gardone Riviera.

The moment the beauty and the light of the Lake struck the dentist he was spurred to acquire land on the slopes of Mount Lavino.

Lake Garda with its typical Mediterranean greenery, the brilliant and magnificent peacock-blue of its waters, is numbered along with the most beautiful landscapes of Central Europe.

 

 

The garden town of Gardone Riviera extends from the foothills of the Alps down to the Po Valley.

Gardone Riviera is made of two parts: the group of houses by the water and the other located on the slope by the church.

The locals call them Gardone Sopra (Upper Gardone) and Gardone Sotto (Lower Gardone).

Gardone Sotto is the elegant part:

• The Grand Hotel, immortalized in the literary novel “Untergang eines Herzens“(Beware of Pity) by Stefan Zweig
• the cocktail bar where Winston Churchill rested after painting

 

Above: Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942)

 

 

Above: Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)

 

• the park of the Savoy Hotel, that in the early 1900s would offer every night a great ball with an orchestra to the noble guests from Russia, Sweden and other cold lands.

 

Gardone Sopra is more rustic, scents of olives and dry grappa, and occasionally, within the tortuous alleys, pious women still carry the Virgin Mary in procession.

 

Probably their grandfathers worked as errand boys for the devious Gabriele D’Annunzio, whose luxurious residence, extending for nine hectares and located next to Gardone, is a token of magnificent outlandishness, celebrating war victims and cruel sacrifices that were so important for Mussolini but are repugnant to me.

 

Above: Benito Mussolini (1883 – 1945)

 

Gardone Sotto and Gardone Sopra combine to create a place of magic and sensuality.

 

The Botanical Garden, a collection of Continental stature, where Africa, South America, Asia, Europe and Australia are interwoven.

Edelweiss among orchid meadows, meter tall ferns next to splendid pomegranates.

Creeks and falls, ponds with koi carps, trouts and reflections of flying dragonflies, stone hills next to cacti and ivy towers.

Indian and Moroccan sculptures in harmony with art works from Roy Lichtenstein, Susanne Schmoegner and Keith Haring.

 

 

I am among this paradise, that never stops amazing me and filling me with joy, since 1988.

The dentist to the last Tsar, Dr. Arturo Hruska, funded this fortune, which also hosts a Venetian villa, that is now my beautiful home.

When I watch from one of the balconies the majesty of Lake Garda or one of my bamboo woods, it is always difficult for me to believe that this park wanted me as its custodian and ally, and I thank it, as much as I can, with love.

André Heller

 

 

With a panoramic view over the Gulf of Salò and the wide, soft hilly landscape of the southern shores of Lago Garda, Gardone Sotto and Gardone Sopra reconcile between themselves a highland landscape covered in woods and dominated by cypresses, palms and evergreen magnolias.

 

The owner of this Garden of Eden since 1988 has been the Viennese artist André Heller.

The playful touches Heller has hidden among the greenery include 30 pieces of contemporary sculpture.

Look out for the jagged red figure by Keith Haring near the entrance, Rudolf Hirt’s Gandi-esque Ioanes, God of Water and Roy Lichtenstein’s polka-dot take on the Pyramids.

 

 

The botanical garden acquired by André Heller, to be transformed into a centre for environmental awareness, hosts several works of art either donated or commissioned by the Austrian artist.

From the enigmatic snakes and symbols of day and night welcoming us at the entry gate, the whole environment indicates that this is not a common botanical garden.

The ticket office is decorated by Susanne Smoegner, displaying colours and shapes that connect adult world with memories of childhood, like Ferdinand’s House built and decorated by Edgar Tezak, water plays and distant sounds.

 

 

Several elements connect with multiple traditions and spiritualties: Buddhist and Tibetan symbols, Hindu statues such as the Great Ganesh by Rudolph Hirt, elephant-god of luck and wisdom, protector of education, coexist with symbols of metropolitan culture and modernity.

 

 

 

Monstrous elements recur by the Bridge of Monsters, where the intolerance of contemporary man transfigures into two monstrous heads on pikes that spit at each other.

 

 

Then through a Chinese red door, Torii, you reach a purifying and cathartic path, which includes the water play Shishi-Odoshi: a sort of water clock that marks the fleeting time.

 

 

Beside a walkway several large bamboo canes invite you to tickle them: striking one against the other they play like a xylophone. 

 

The link with this modern and cosmopolitan humanity is underlined by the works of Keith Haring, metropolitan artist, friend of Heller, founder of the Pop Shop.

His characters walk, hug, dance, like the Red Man next to the tree/umbrella.

Another important work by Haring is the Stele which recalls a cross, but the characters moving on it carry sexual references.

 

 

Haring gifted us with his peculiar and precious interpretation of the garden with a drawing that is represented on the tickets.

 

 

Other artists employed the tools that Nature and the Garden offer:

Novak built boardwalks, walls and pavements, with the 28 different species of bamboo present in the garden that provide colors and effect that no other material can grant and used a large stone suspended by rope to deviate the water flow.

 

 

These interventions blend harmoniously in the surrounding environment like the great wooden Praying Mantis that crops up between tufts of grass: so well hidden that is almost unseen:

“Of all arts, seeing is the hardest to learn“.

 

 

 

The union of Art and Nature is fully celebrated within the great figure of the Genius Loci, created by André Heller.

The great anthropomorphic bust with open arms, emerges from the grass and erects himself as protector and spirit guide. 

The structure completely covered by ivy encloses the constant change of nature,

Every day leaves grow and are blown by the wind, but the great blue eyes, the nose and mouth are human interventions, added value that comes from the artist.

 

 

Arturo Hruska was a student of his father Josef and was already engaged in his youth with dental alloys and metal prostheses.

He completed his training in Belgium, Ireland, Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA.

He received his doctorate in 1906 in Munich and completed his studies in 1913 in Padua.

He was a surgeon and traumatologist, as well as a biologist, anthropologist and essayist.

 

 

Hruska dealt with the aetiology and therapy of periodontal disease.

He described it as “a disease that leads to tissue and enzyme changes through environmental influences and mutations” describing it as a characteristic disease of the civilized and consumerist world.

He was also the first to describe the therapy.

 

 

In 1901 he was called to the court in Petersburg.

The Czar allowed him to practice his profession throughout Russia.

 

Above: Czar Nicholas II of Russia (1868 – 1918)

 

Hruska, however, preferred to return to Italy.

In 1903 he bought some property in Gardone Riviera and started to transform the abandoned vineyard into a garden with streams, ponds and paths.

Hruska built various small lakes with water from the nearby springs which he created as naturally as possible.

The water kept the Garden damp and cool while the trees protected it from wind and cold.

 

 

On 30 September 1903, Hruska married Dutchwoman Cornelia (Corry) Anna Lelsz (1874 – 1917).

They had four children.

Like all Austrians, the Hruska family suddenly had to leave Italy during the First World War.

They hid their valuables in the caves and under the waterfall in the garden and fled with a boat.

They later settled in Bressanone (Brixen).

The Hruska family received Italian citizenship.

 

 

Arthur Hruska continued his medical work in plastic surgery and operated on maxillofacial injuries.

After the end of the First World War, the house and garden in Gardone Riviera were restored.

 

 

Hruska traveled the world, including the Pyrenees, Himalayas, Tenerife and China.

He studied mountain formations, collected plants and crossed Lapland on foot.

He then built an alpinum, a rock massif, to allow the plants to thrive in their natural environment.

His children called the Garden “Elephant Cemetery“.

The Garden is lush and green, shaded by tall exotic trees: conifers, palm trees, camphor trees, banana trees, bamboo grass, ferns, agaves, lilies and shrubs in the landscaped jungle, water plants blooming along the streams and around the ponds.

 

 

Franz André Heller is an Austrian artist, author, poet, singer, songwriter and actor.

 

 

Heller was born in Vienna into a wealthy Jewish family of sweets manufacturers, Gustav & Wilhelm Heller.

He visited Café Hawelka almost daily.

It was in this coffeehouse that he met many men of letters including Friedrich Torberg, H. C. Artmann, and occasionally Elias Canetti, as well as Hans Weigel, and Helmut Qualtinger, with whom he later on collaborated and performed.

 

 

Heller took acting classes from Hans Weigel and his cohabitee Elfriede Ott.

Heller has been writing prose, poetry and songs since 1964.

He left school shortly before obtaining the Matura.

He went to a Jesuit boarding school.

From 1965 to 1967, he was a moderately successful actor at various Viennese avant-garde theatres.

In 1967, Heller co-founded Hitradio Ö3, the ORF’s then progressive pop music station, where he was one of the hosts of the daily Musicbox programme.

 

 

That same year, he recorded his first LP record with the title Nr1 that was released in 1970.

His second LP Platte was released in 1971, and, subsequently, his first play premiered entitled, King-Kong-King-Mayer-Mayer-Ling at the Vienna Festival in 1972.

As a poet-songwriter, his work spans across a period of more than 15 years selecting diverse topics and writing for a German-speaking audience.

He has worked with not only international names, such as Ástor Piazzolla, Dino Saluzzi and Freddie Hubbard, but also with Austrian artists, such as Toni Stricker, Wolfgang Ambros and Helmut Qualtinger.

Heller’s own poetry has been set to music.

He has also sung texts by other authors.

For instance, “Catherine“, from 1970, was set to one of the first hits of Heller.

The text came from the then still largely unknown Reinhard Mey, and the music from the Austro-Canadian Jack Grunsky.

With Werner Schneyder, he created Viennese German songs that are translated from Jacques Brel, such as “Franz” (after the Brel title “Jef“).

Using intimate memories of traumatic childhood experiences, and insights into his life, as well as his Catholic-Jewish origin, he created songs with the title “Angstlied” (Verwunschen, 1980).

Titles like “Miruna, die Riesin von Göteborg” (Verwunschen, 1980) are, in turn, influenced by the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.

“Das Lied vom idealen Park” (Narrenlieder 1985), or, as a duet with Wolfgang Ambros, he also introduced the Bob Dylan cover, “Für immer jung” (Stimmenhören, 1983) are now titles that are part of the Austro-pop cannon.

In 1983, he appeared on Stimmenhören with the song “Erhebet euch Geliebte“, a song at the time of the peace movement in the early 1980s.

Since the early 1980s, he turned increasingly to large public productions, installations and performances, until 1982, where his concert career came to a close.

In 1985, the album, Narrenlieder, was released.

Between 1967 and 1985, he published a total of fourteen LPs, twelve of those were gold records, and earned him seven times platinum.

In 1991, he wrote, looking back on this period:

“I started in 1967, to put my poems together using my voice on record and in recitals before millions of people.

This was following the example of Bob Dylan’s first meaningful and self-published poetry.

1982 was certainly the zenith of that career, where I had to stop my concerts. I realized at this point, it was spoiled for me, because at 8pm, I had to act gifted in front of a few thousand listeners, just because they had paid for admission.”

(Heller in the liner notes of Kritische Gesamtausgabe, published in 1991)

However, on his 60th birthday, Heller gave a concert in April 2007 at the Viennese Radiokulturhaus, after twenty-five years of absence from the stage in a recital entitled, Konzert für mich (Concert for me).

Between 1968 and 1983, Heller recorded 15 albums as a singer of his own texts, and in part of his own compositions.

He was on the road with 9 international concert tours and was the host and entertainer in 12 evening TV shows.

In 2006, thanks to the initiative of Chris Gelbmann, he released his last album called, Ruf und Echo.

The 3-CD compendium is the first release in the past 20 years, containing new songs, and interpretations of old hits by artists like Brian Eno, Xavier Naidoo, Thomas D, and The Walkabouts.

 

 

Heller was appointed as an Artistic Director of the Artistic and Cultural Programme that ran parallel to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

His company, Artevent, was also responsible for the presentation of the Germany bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup project.

He designed the final presentation in 2000 for the successful German application, and, in 2003, designed a “Fußball-Globus“, an architectural project consisting of a huge lit-up football globe that toured through Germany standing in public places such as Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Heller invented the motto for the football World Cup, Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden (A time to make friends).

For the World Cup, Heller planned an opening gala in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, where Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel would be involved.

On 13 January 2006, it was cancelled by FIFA.

The reason cited was that the turf, which would have been re-installed after the end of the gala, would not be in perfect condition for the first game there.

 

 

Since 2003, Robert Hofferer is his manager and leads the firm Artevent, with headquarters in Vienna.

From 1976 until 1981, Heller played major roles in various international movies.

In the late 1960s, Heller joined as a financier in the film, Moos auf den Steinen (Moss on the Stones), with Erika Pluhar in one of the main roles, for which he claims to have used up his inheritance.

It was not long before he was in front the camera as an actor:

Heller played the leading roles in Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s Hitler: A Film from Germany, in Fürchte dich nicht, Jakob! by Radu Gabrea, in Doktor Faustus by Franz Seitz, and in Peter Schamoni’s Frühlingssinfonie (Spring Symphony), a supporting role in Maximilian Schell’s 1979 film, Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), which is based on Ödön von Horváth’s play.

In 1969, Heller participated in a televised version of Arthur Schnitzler’s tragicomedy, Das weite Land (The Wide Land), directed by Peter Beauvais.

 

 

In 1989, he also worked as a stamp artist.

On behalf of the United Nations Postal Administration, he designed a stamp to commemorate UN Vienna’s tenth anniversary.

 

 

Heller has received numerous international awards.

He has to date written 14 printed publications, among them are collections of stories Die Ernte der Schlaflosigkeit in Wien, Auf und Davon, Schlamassel, and Als ich ein Hund war, the novel Schattentaucher, and the collection of poems Sitzt ana und glaubt, er is zwa(with Helmut Qualtinger), as well as two picture books Jagmandir – Traum und Wirklichkeit, and Die Zaubergärten des André Heller.

 

21 TV documentaries have been produced about Heller’s projects, productions, and plans.

These were done by the likes of Werner Herzog, H. J. Syberberg, and Elsa Klensch, among others.

Heller was married from 1970 to 1984 to the actress, singer, and author Erika Pluhar.

 

Above: Erika Pluhar, 2018

 

For some years, he lived in the 1970s with the actress Gertraud Jesserer, and much later, with the actress Andrea Eckert.

 

Above: Andrea Eckert, 2016

 

Heller was romantically involved for short periods in the mid-1980s with Anke Kesselaar, Rudi Carrell′s former wife.

 

 

The artist lives in an apartment in the Palais Windisch-Graetz in Vienna’s Innere Stadt quarter that is owned by the Augustinian monastery of Klosterneuburg.

 

In 2000, Heller received there German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

 

Above: Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor (1988 – 2005)

 

Among Heller’s works is “Blind Spot – Hitler’s Secretary” (2001): a documentary interview presented at the 52nd Berlin Film Show.

 

 

Heller also became a famous visionary artist, displaying fantastic ideas, artistic creations, multimedia shows and later realized several shows with active participation from the public, managing to create a world in opposition to the daily rational one based on technology.

In 1987 he opened the avant-garde fun fair “Luna Luna” in Hamburg – a travelling territory of modern art – in 1992 the monumental sculpture “Bambus Man” in Hong Kong.

 

 

Heller’s works include art for gardens, Wunderkammern, parades, millions of LPs sold as a singer-songwriter, concerts and conferences across Europe, Asia and North America, large flying and floating sculptures, movies, fireworks and labyrinths, renewal of circuses and variety shows, as well as theatrical plays and shows for the public from Broadway to the Burgtheatre in Vienna, in India and in China, in South America and in Africa, designer of museums among which the Swarovski Crystal World, Meteorit, the art direction of the Germany World Cup in 2006, and the fantastic AFRIKA-AFRIKA circus. 

 

 

Heller lives part-time in the Giardino Botanico Hruska in Gardone Riviera.

He currently lives with the former model Albina Schmid in Vienna and travels the world.

 

 

Heller has one son, Ferdinand, who goes under the stage name “Left Boy” for his music.

 

 

Ferdinand Sarnitz, known by his stage name Left Boy, is an Austrian DJ, singer and producer from Vienna.

Sarnitz was born in Vienna in 1988 to Austrian musician André Heller and Sabina Sarnitz.

He attended the American International School of Vienna and graduated in 2007.

In his free time at school Sarnitz spent most of his time rapping.

At the age of 18, Sarnitz went to New York City to study audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research for a year.

After living in his hometown Vienna for a short while, he decided to move to Brooklyn to live in a shared apartment with two directors, a producer and a photographer.

In December 2010, Sarnitz released his first mixtape The Second Coming for free download.

In mid-2011, he started making music videos for all of the songs.

Sarnitz often uses samples for his English songs, which haven’t been released for usability, which is why an official sound carrier couldn’t be released.

Even though he hadn’t been signed to a record label, he was able to perform at festivals in 2012, including “Sea of Love” and “HipHop Open“.

Live, he is accompanied by the dance group “Urban Movement“.

Ruan Roets is a big fan, describing the Left Boy sound as “poes goed“.

Sarnitz has a son, Yves-Louis.

He cites Wu-Tang Clan, Oxmo Puccino, De La Soul, Atmosphere, Ugly Duckling, Daft Punk, Édith Piaf, Nina Simone, Oumou Sangaré and Gipsy Kings as his inspirations.

In 2015, he rapped in the official theme tune “Building Bridges” for the Eurovision Song Contest.

 

I wonder if Left Boy truly appreciates his father’s garden.

I wonder if anyone truly appreciates what came before to make what is possible today.

 

I think of Austria – Italy relations.

 

 

Austria (Österreich) has an embassy in Roma (Rome / Rom), a general consulate in Milano (Milan / Mailand) and 10 honorary consulates in Bari, Bologna, Firenze (Florence / Florenz), Genoa, Napoli (Naples), Palermo, Trieste, Torino (Turin), Venezia (Venice / Venedig) and Verona.

 

Above: Austrian Consulate, Milan

 

Italy (Italia) has an embassy in Wien (Vienna), a consulate in Innsbruck (Isprucco) and four honorary consulates in Graz, Klagenfurt (Clanforte), Linz and Salzburg (Salisburgo).

 

Above: Italian Embassy, Vienna

 

Since the Middle Ages, Austria has had a great influence over the Italian states, especially in the north of the country, but as well Italy has also influenced Austrian culture, architecture and cuisine.

 

Above: Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825), Italian composer who worked mainly in Austria

 

Above: Nicolò Pacassi (1716 – 1790), Austrian architect of Italian descent

 

Many Italian artists and architects, like Santino Solari, Martino Altomonte, Giovanni Zucalli, Vincenzo Scamozzi, worked and contributed to the Baroque in Austria, most notably in Salzburg.

 

After the Congress of Vienna, Austrian control of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, with its key cities of Venice and Milan, created the conditions in which Italian nationalism and Austrian interests clashed in the three Wars of Italian Independence between 1848 and 1866 ultimately leading to Italian victory.

Tensions remained throughout the 1870s as continued Austrian rule over Italian inhabited lands such as in Trentino and Istria, inflamed Italian nationalism which in turn threatened Austrian integrity.

As a result the Austrians built further fortifications along the Italian border.

 

In 1876, the Austrian Archduke Albrecht advocated a preventive war against Italy.

Above: Archduke Albrecht (1817 – 1895)

 

Despite entering into the Triple Alliance of 1882 (along with Germany), areas of clashing interest remained.

Italy’s improving relations with France, Italian interests in the Balkans, and continuing nationalism amongst Italians within Austria-Hungary concerned leaders in Vienna.

Italy’s adherence to the Triple Alliance in the event of war was doubted and from 1903 plans for a possible war against Rome were again maintained by the Austrian general staff.

Mutual suspicions led to reinforcement of the frontier and speculation in the press about a war between the two countries in the first decade of the 20th century.

 

As late as 1911 Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of the Austrian general staff, was advocating a military strike against Austria’s supposed Italian allies.

 

Above: Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852 – 1925)

 

During World War I, Italy fought against Austria–Hungary despite their defensive alliance signed some decades earlier.

By World War I’s end, Italy emerged victorious and gained new territories from Austria and border agreements were secured.

 

Today both countries are full members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and of the European Union.

The countries share 430 km of common borders.

 

 

Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl said on 5 June 2018 that Italy is a strong ally of Austria.

 

And here’s the point….

 

Old enemies can lay down their swords and beat them into ploughshares.

And the result, such as a botanical garden and sculpture park, can be remarkably beautiful.

 

 

This is the legacy bequeathed to Left Boy, bequeathed to those of us who reside in Europe.

 

Certainly individuals and nations have their unique talents and opportunities, but when we sacrifice unity in pursuit of selfish gain that beauty, so difficultly obtained, so delicately fragile, can be lost.

We live in an age where popularism and nationalism has nations in nervous anxiety and dangerous xenophobic paranoia with all those who are different than we are.

 

But Italian baroque in Vienna and Austrian artistry by the shores of Lago di Garda show that, rather than divide nations, differences can enhance them.

 

A world-renowned dentist, a multi-media multi-talented superstar, and a rising musical phenomenon, Hruska, Heller and Left Boy have shown Austrians that one can find purpose outside Austria and have shown Italians that the acceptance within Italy of strangers whose ancestors had once been mortal enemies can make Italy flourish.

Father Heller and son Left Boy have travelled and will continue to travel the world, but they were never kicked out of their Garden of Eden that their fortunes nestled and nurtured in Gardone Riviera.

 

Their Garden is waiting for them, and us, to return to.

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / King Crimson, "Three of a Pair" /Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller, www.hellergarden.com