“In the morning paper I come across two small events that together seem significant.
The black singer Paul Robeson was supposed to give a recital in Peoria.
At the last minute, the concert was cancelled on the pretext that Robeson is a Communist.
The authorities insist that they didn’t refuse to give him access to the hall because he is Black, but because he is a Communist.
Above: American actor / athlete / bass-baritone concert singer / writer / civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976)
Elsewhere, an amusing episode just reached its conclusion.
Several weeks ago, a bus driver with a bus full of passengers travelling along some avenue got the bright idea to bypass all the stations and the terminal and to head out onto the highway amid his passengers’ panicked protests.
He let them out in the end, then calmly continued on his way to Florida.
When stopped and questioned, he cheerfully declared:
“That route was too monotonous.
I have always wanted to see Florida.
One fine morning, I said to myself:
‘Why not go to Florida?’
So I went.”
The driver has become a popular hero.
Although he had been fired, he went back to work yesterday amid ovations.
He was interviewed as well as photographed a hundred times.
In all the papers he is seen laughing through the windshield of the new bus he has just been given.
Perhaps such a fantasy is conceivable only in New York.
Friends have told me that nothing similar could happen, for example, in Chicago.
But even if they are incapable of doing it themselves, all Americans adore these uninhabited actions in which they see ready proof of their love of freedom.
The driver is a “character”, an original who has openly demonstrated that individualism America is so proud of.
And certainly in France he would never have been reinstated in his job.
Above: Bus driver William Cimillo (1909 – 1975)
It is true that America is much more indulgent of sudden whims and impulses that do not seriously challenge its authority.
I knew a pious and capable mother whose children were envied by all their little friends because they were allowed to climb trees, fight with one another and stick their tongues at their old teachers.
When they grew up, all the daughters docilely married the husbands chosen for them and the sons entered careers approved by their parents.
The pleasure and pride they found in their independence had made them even more submissive prey in their parents’ hands.
The bus driver would certainly laugh in the face of anyone who might doubt the freedom of American citizens.
Above: William Cimillo
Paul Robeson, however, didn’t want to do anything eccentric.
He just wanted to sing.“
(Simone de Beauvoir, diary entry of 19 April 1947)
Above: French philosopher / writer / activist Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986)
William Cimillo was a New York City bus driver back in the 1940s.
He was a hard-working guy, never complained, and was even recognized for his exemplary work ethic.
Above: Empire State Building, New York City
But eventually, the daily grind was just a little too much for Cimillo, and in 1947, he left his route and drove south, heading straight for Florida in his bus.
He stopped in New Jersey for a bite to eat.
Above: State flag of New Jersey
He parked in front of the White House and took a look around DC.
He even picked up a hitchhiking sailor along the way.
He was arrested for the theft of the bus, but amid public acclaim for Cimillo the charges were dropped.
He resumed his job, unventfully driving New York City buses until his retirement sixteen years later.
Collect fares, hand out transfers, navigate traffic — like most jobs, driving a city bus is pretty routine.
That’s why William Cimillo, 37, a married father of two from the Bronx who had been driving a bus for 16 years, became fed up.
“Day in and day out it was the same old grind.
He was a slave to a watch and a schedule,” reported the Brooklyn Eagle.
Boredom led to daydreaming.
Cimillo wondered what it would be like if he “disobeyed the rules and forgot to look at his watch and did not get to that street corner at the right time,” wrote the Eagle.
One morning in March 1947, something came over him as he pulled away from the garage to start his shift on the BX15 route along Gun Hill Road.
“‘All of a sudden I was telling myself, baby, this is it.
I left that town in a hurry.
Somehow, I didn’t care where I went.
I just turned the wheel to the left, and soon I was on Highway 1, bound for Florida.’”
He was a hard-working guy, never complained, and was even recognized for his exemplary work ethic.
But eventually, the daily grind was just a little too much for Cimillo, and in 1947, he left his route and drove south, heading straight for Florida in his bus.
William Cimillo had been picking up passengers in the Bronx for 17 years.
Cimillo was a family man who worked for the NYC Surface Transportation System, and every day was the same.
“Up and down, every day,” he once told a TV interviewer, “the same people, the same stops, nickels, dimes, transfers, and — well, this morning, I thought I’d try something different.”
Tired of the same old routine, fed up with New York traffic, and probably feeling pressure to pay off some gambling debts, Cimillo decided he’d had enough.
Instead of sticking with his daily routine, he headed his bus south, going nowhere in particular.
Above: William Cimillo
For two weeks no one heard from Cimillo, not his company nor his wife and two children.
Speculation that his bus was hijacked (by someone other than Cimillo) or he had an unreported accident was in the minds of his employers and family.
After two weeks, the SFC finally got word from Cimillo in the form of a Western Union telegram requesting $50.
The request came from Hollywood, Florida.
Above: Hollywood, Florida
The STC decided to send a pair of police officers instead of the $50 and a mechanic to Florida to apprehend Cimillo and bring him back to New York City.
Cimillo never notified his family.
Instead his oldest son Richard saw his father on-screen in a matinee newsreel in the movie theater.
Three days later, he was in Hollywood, Florida, where he stopped for a night-time swim.
Cimillo was totally free and strapped for cash.
Hoping to make a few bucks, he wandered into a nearby racetrack, but when that didn’t pan out, he telegrammed his boss in New York, asking for $50.
And that’s when the cops showed up.
William Cimillo was under arrest for stealing a bus.
Two New York detectives and a mechanic were sent to fetch the runaway driver and his bright red bus, but according to Cimillo, the mechanic couldn’t really drive the darn thing.
Worried they’d end up in a ditch, the officers decided Cimillo should drive them back to New York.
And when they arrived, William Cimillo discovered he’d become a legend.
People across the country sent him fan mail, newspapers portrayed him as a working-class hero, and his bus-driving buddies raised enough cash to cover his legal expenses.
Realizing they were the bad guys here, the Surface Transportation System decided not to prosecute.
In fact, they gave Cimillo his job back, and when he showed up for work, everybody in the Bronx wanted to ride his route.
On one occasion, over 300 high school girls mobbed his bus, demanding an autograph.
And Hollywood (California) almost turned his story into a movie, starring Elizabeth Taylor as a totally fictional beauty queen who joined Cimillo on his wacky roadtrip.
For some reason, the movie was never made.
Above: English actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932 – 2011)
For the rest of his life, Cimillo was something of a superstar, but he never pulled any more wild stunts.
Instead, he kept on driving that bus for 16 more years before finally passing away in 1975.
Those three crazy days in 1947 were more than enough adventure for William Cimillo.
William Cimillo is buried in the grand Old St. Raymond Cemetery, noted for its large, elegant entry gateway.
There, William shares a granite tombstone bearing the carved names of a host of his family members, all nestled nearby in the family plot.
He had a son, Richard Cimillo, who became a firefighter and does not hesitate to tell of his Dad’s adventure.
No matter what a particular man does or how he spends his day, he has one thing in common with all other men:
He spends it in a degrading manner.
And he himself does not gain by it.
It is not his own livelihood that matters.
He would have to struggle far less, since luxuries do not mean anything to him anyway.
It is the fact that he does it for others that makes him so tremendously proud.
He will undoubtedly have a photograph of his wife and children on his desk and will miss no opportunity to hand it around.
It’s a big job gettin’ by with nine kids and a wife Even I’ve been workin’ man, dang near all my life but I’ll keep workin’ As long as my two hands are fit to use I’ll drink my beer in a tavern And sing a little bit of these working man blues
But I keep my nose on the grindstone, I work hard every day Get tired on the weekend, after I draw my pay But I’ll go back workin’, come Monday morning I’m right back with the crew I’ll drink a little beer that evening Sing a little bit of these working man blues
Sometimes I think about leaving, do a little bummin’ around Throw my bills out the window, catch me a train to another town But I go back working, I gotta buy my kids a brand new pair of shoes I’ll drink a little beer that evening Cry a little bit of these working man blues, here comes workin’ man
Well, hey, hey, the working man, the working man like me Never been on welfare, and that’s one place I will not be Keep me working, you have long two hands are fit to use My little beer in a tavern Sing a little bit of these working man blues, this song for the workin’ man
No matter what a man’s job may be – bookkeeper, doctor, bus driver or managing director – every moment of his life will be spent as a cog in a huge and pitiless system – a system designed to exploit him to the utmost, to his dying day.
Above: Charlie Chaplin (1889 – 1977), Modern Times (1936)
It may be interesting to add up figures and make them tally – but surely not year in, year out?
How exciting it must be to drive a bus through a busy town!
But always the same route, at the same time, in the same town, day after day, year after year?
What a magnificent feeling of power to know that countless workers move at one’s command!
But how would you feel if one suddenly realized one was their prisoner and not their master?
“G’day, my name’s Tony On behalf of myself and the coachline I’d like to thank you for choosing to drive with us today I’m a local, I hope I can impart some local knowledge If you’ve got any questions don’t hesitate, just sing out For those who are interested, there’s the Old Bridge, swaying away Replaced by the New Bridge in 1972 Funny thing, the Old Bridge used to be called the New Bridge Yeah, bit of a funny thing Up ahead there’s the bronze of Bluey A local sheepdog, who became a member of Regional Council It was a bloody great day for dogs, not just here But everywhere in the North Island Here’s the town’s oldest street That’s the Museum of Meat There’s the town’s largest industry That’s the sock factory, hence the giant sock”
The town hall Note the mosaic wall Well, there are 5, 600 tiles on that wall I know, I counted them all The local school, the local swimming pool Which was opened by the Governor General Back in 1952 Where I was caught with a friend aged 11, sniffing tractor fuel We thought we were pretty cool, breaking them changing shed rules
But do you see up there? The banner hanging in the air? The Presbyterian Fair Well, I never go, there’s too many Presbyterians there But if you’re interested, the fair’s in the third weekend of August every year But don’t bother entering the raffle It’s always won by some kid of the Mayor
Do you hear that sound? The town clock, heard from anywhere in town Until 1960, it was a little place in Norway We bought it for a hundred pounds Rumor has it they sold it cheap because the chimes were too loud But every time I hear that sound it makes me so proud
Look to your left, what a beautiful sight It’s Paula, Paula Thompson, nee Paula Wright Look at her hair, it’s still gorgeous, even now Flowing like the Womahonga River Which incidently, is to your right And it’s the largest, in the area In terms of volume Everybody, look at Paula, look at Paula Thompson I always thought I’d marry Paula But some things just don’t work out that way Well, that’s the most important thing you’ll learn on the tour today That, and the fact there’ll be a toilet break At the information center near the manmade lake
“Yeah, I’ll just ask you one favor If you do see Paula in town later on That you don’t mention the details of the tour I’d appreciate that Same goes for my wife, Gloria You’ll recognize her She looks a hell of a lot like Paula, actually She often gets mistaken for Paula But, um, well, she’s not Paula, that’s for sure, no”
Paula Thompson, born in ’54 To a family of four To the family next door Take me back next door Paula Thompson, nee Paula Wright That’s her old house, number 39 Number 41 was mine If this old coach could go back in time I’d drive to 1979 Take me back Take me back, take me back (Take, take, take, take me back) Take me back, take me back (Take, take, take, take me back) Take me back, take me back, take me back, take me back, take me back, take me back
“Yeah, sorry about that I always get a little bit emotional On the corner of Rutherford and Brown Streets But, um, that is truly the end of the tour So mind your step, yeah, good on you“
We have long ceased to play the games of childhood.
As children, we become bored quickly and changed from one game to another.
A man is like a child who is condemned to play the same game for the rest of his life.
The reason is obvious:
As soon as he is discovered to have a gift for one thing, he is made to specialize.
Then, because he can earn more money in that field than other, he is forced to do it forever.
If he was good at arithmetic in school, if he had a “head for figures“, he will be sentenced to a lifetime of figure work as bookkeeper, mathematician or computer operator, for there lies his maximum work potential.
Therefore, he will add up figures, press buttons and add up more figures, but he will never be able to say: “I’m bored. I want to do something else!”
He will never be permitted to look for something else.
Driven, he may engage in a desperate struggle agaınst competitors, to improve his position and perhaps even become head clerk or managing director of a bank.
But isn’t the price he is paying for his improved salary rather too high?
A man who changes his way of life or rather his profession – for life and profession are synonymous to him – is considered unreliable.
If he does it more than once, he becomes a social outcast and remains alone.
I was a rebel from the day I left school Grew my hair long and broke all the rules I’d sit and listen to my records all day With big ambitions of when I could play
My parents taught me what life was about So I grew up the type they’d warn me about They said my friends were just an unruly mob And I should, get a haircut and get a real job
Get a haircut and get a real job Clean your act up and don’t be a slob Get it together like your big brother Bob Why don’t you, get a haircut and get a real job?
I even tried that nine to five scene I told myself that it was all a bad dream I found a band and some good songs to play Now I party all night, I sleep all day I met this chick, she was my number one fan She took me home to meet her mommy and dad They took one look at me and said, “Oh, my God! Get a haircut and get a real job!”
Get a haircut and get a real job Clean your act up and don’t be a slob Get it together like your big brother Bob Why don’t you, get a haircut and get a real job?
I hit the big-time with my rock and roll band The future’s brighter now than I’d ever plan I’m ten times richer than my big brother Bob But, he’s got a haircut, and he’s got a real job
Get a haircut and get a real job Clean your act up and don’t be a slob Get it together like your big brother Bob Why don’t you, get a haircut and get a real job?
The fear of being rejected by society must be considerable.
Why else will a doctor (who as a child liked to observe tadpoles in jam jars) spend his life opening up nauseating growths, examining and pronouncing on human excretions?
Why else does he busy himself nıght and day with people of such repulsiveness that everyone else is driven away?
We praise the colo-rectal surgeon Misunderstood and much maligned Slaving away in the heart of darkness Working where the sun don’t shine
Respect the colo-rectal surgeon It’s a calling few would crave Lift up your hands and join us Let’s all do the finger wave
When it comes to spreading joy There are many techniques Some spread joy to the world And others just spread cheeks Some may think the cardiologist Is their best friend But the colo-rectal surgeon knows… He’ll get you in the end!
Why become a colo-rectal surgeon? It’s one of those mysterious things. Is it because in that profession There are always openings?
When I first met a colo-rectal surgeon He did not quite understand; I said, “Hey nice to meet you But do you mind? We don’t shake hands.”
He sailed right through medical school Because he was a whiz Oh but he never thought of psychology Though he read “Passages“ A doctor he wanted to be For golf he loved to play But this is not quite what he meant… By eighteen holes a day!
Praise the colo-rectal surgeon Misunderstood and much maligned Slaving away in the heart of darkness Working where the sun don’t shine!
Does a pianist who, as a child, liked to tinkle on the piano really enjoy playing the same Chopin nocturne over and over again all his life?
Above: Polish composer / pianist Frederic Chopin (né Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin) (1810 – 1849)
It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday The regular crowd shuffles in There’s an old man sitting next to me Makin’ love to his tonic and gin
He says, “Son, can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes, But it’s sad and it’s sweet, and I knew it complete When I wore a younger man’s clothes.”
La, la, la, de, de, da La, la, de, de, da, da, da
Sing us a song, you’re the piano man Sing us a song tonight We’re all in the mood for a melody And you’ve got us feelin’ alright
Now, John at the bar is a friend of mine He gets me my drinks for free And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke But there’s someplace that he’d rather be
He says, “Bill, I believe this is killing me.” As a smile ran away from his face “Well, I’m sure that I could be a movie star If I could get out of this place.”
Oh, la, la, la, de, de, da La, la, de, de, da, da, da
Now Paul is a real estate novelist Who never had time for a wife And he’s talkin’ with Davy, who’s still in the Navy And probably will be for life
And the waitress is practicing politics As the businessmen slowly get stoned Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness But it’s better than drinkin’ alone
Sing us a song, you’re the piano man Sing us a song tonight Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody And you’ve got us feelin’ alright
It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday And the manager gives me a smile ‘Cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been comin’ to see To forget about Life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival And the microphone smells like a beer And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar And say, “Man, what are you doin’ here?“
Oh, la, la, la, de, de, da La, la, de, de, da, da, da
Sing us a song, you’re the piano man Sing us a song tonight Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody And you’ve got us feelin’ alright
Why else does a politician who as a schoolboy discovered the techniques of manipulating people successfully continue as an adult, mouthing words and phrases as a minor government functionary?
Does he actually enjoy contorting his face and playing the fool and listening to the idiotic chatter of other politicians?
Surely he must once have dreamed of a different kind of life.
Even if he became the President of the United States, wouldn’t the price be too high?
No, one can hardly assume men do all this for pleasure and without feeling a desire for change.
They do it because they have been manipulated into doing it.
Their whole life is nothing but a series of conditioned reflexes, a series of animal acts.
A man who is no longer able to perform these acts, whose earning capacity is lessened, is considered a failure.
He stands to lose everything – wife, family, home, his whole purpose in life – all the things, in fact, which gave him security.
A man who has lost his capacity for earning money is freed from his burden.
He should be glad about this happy ending.
But freedom is the last thing he wants.
Man is always searching for someone or something to serve, for only then does he feel secure.
Comfortably numb, living a life of quiet desperation.
Hello? (Hello? Hello? Hello?)
Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me Is there anyone home? Come on now I hear you’re feeling down Well I can ease your pain Get you on your feet again Relax I’ll need some information first Just the basic facts Can you show me where it hurts?
There is no pain, you are receding A distant ship smoke on the horizon You are only coming through in waves Your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying When I was a child I had a fever My hands felt just like two balloons Now I’ve got that feeling once again I can’t explain you would not understand This is not how I am I have become comfortably numb
I have become comfortably numb
Okay (okay, okay, okay) Just a little pinprick There’ll be no more, ah But you may feel a little sick Can you stand up? I do believe it’s working, good That’ll keep you going through the show Come on it’s time to go
There is no pain, you are receding A distant ship, smoke on the horizon You are only coming through in waves Your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown The dream is gone I have become comfortably numb
“Like the waters of the sea, tears have their level!“
(José Echegaray)
Above: Spanish mathematican / dramatist José Echegaray (1832 – 1916)
Men love to work.
Late in the evening if you drive through working men’s suburbs, you will always see garage lights on.
Inside, groups of men labour over old cars, lovingly modifying, repairing and maintaining late into the night.
Others are busy building furniture in their workshops or working in metal and wood.
These are mostly men who have worked hard all day in uninteresting jobs but who, with passion and intelligence, apply themselves at night to their real interests.
Among the middle classes, the focus shifts to “renovating” – that endless fixing-up of our dwellings that seems to fill the whole of the years from 25 to 50.
In other countries, a plethora of exotic and weird hobbies – from electric trains to rose breeding, guinea pigs to Shakespeare acting – seem to draw men out from the stifling ordinariness of their daytime lives.
Well, I get up at seven, yeah And I go to work at nine I got no time for livin’ Yes, I’m workin’ all the time
It seems to me I could live my life A lot better than I think I am I guess that’s why they call me They call me the workin’ man
They call me the workin’ man I guess that’s what I am
‘Cause I get home at five o’clock And I take myself out an ice cold beer Always seem to be wonderin’ Why there’s nothin’ goin’ down here
It seems to me I could live my life A lot better than I think I am I guess that’s why they call me The workin’ man
Well, they call me the workin’ man I guess that’s what I am
Well, they call me the workin’ man I guess that’s what I am
Well, I get up at seven, yeah And I’ll go to work at nine I got no time for livin’ Yes, I’m workin’ all the time
It seems to me I could live my life A lot better than I think I am I guess that’s why they call me They call me the workin’ man
Well, they call me the workin’ man I guess that’s what I am
They call me the workin’ man I guess that’s what I am
“I have always made a respectable living, but I have not been willing to give up my life to getting the kind of money with which you can buy the best things in life.
I am stuck in business and routine and tedium.
I must live as I can, but I give up only as much as I must.
For the rest, I have lived and always will live my life as it can be lived at its best with art, music, poetry, literature, science, philosophy and thought.
I shall know the keener people of this world, think the keener thoughts and taste the keener pleasures as long as I can and as much as I can.
That is the real practical use of self-eduction and self-culture.
It converts a world which is only a good world for those who can win at its ruthless game into a world good for all of us.
Your education is the only thing that nothing can take from you in this life.
You can lose your money, your wife, your children, your pride, your honour and your life, but while you live you cannot lose your culture, such as it is.“
(Cornelius Hirschberg, quoted by Ronald Gross, The Independent Scholar’s Handbook)
If old age did not bring with it the placidity of living, what reward would be enough to console us for youth and life spent in struggles and sleepless nights?
The greatest heartbreak is to contemplate how the years fly away without peace arriving.
I was a mathematician by vocation, I did not see my death as likely, since in the demographic statistics, grief shows a much more intimate figure than colic, and I never feared to these, although I always ate very well.
(José Echegaray)
Above: José Echegaray
We know that for hundreds of thousands of years, men have admired each other and have been admired by women in particular, for their activity.
Men were called on to pierce the dangerous places, carry handfuls of courage to the waterfalls, dust the tails of the wild boars.
Men have been loved for their astonishing initiative, embarking on wide oceans, starting a farm in rocky country, imagining a new business, doing it skillfully, working with beginnings, doing what has never been done, boldly going where no one has gone before.
Working hard and enjoying it comes naturally to men.
Yet it has been somewhat debased.
“What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties!
In form and moving, how express and admirable!
In action, how like an angel!
In apprehension, how like a God.”
William Shakespeare put these words in Hamlet’s mouth, but he was definitely on to something.
Above: William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
Men have had the courage to fight and die for the causes they believe in.
Men have been picking up weapons and fighting tyranny and oppression for millennia.
And they continue to do so.
The fight over what is a “just war” and which class of men actually started the battle in the first place, continues to rage.
Yet, more often and more numerously it is men who must screw their courage to the sticking post and fire the bullets before any discussion is even had.
A man provides.
And he does it even when he’s not appreciated or respected or even loved.
He simply bears up and he does it.
Because he’s a man.
Men may collect the straws that break their own backs, but they do so with a lot of love and duty.
Men try their best to provide for the people they love even when the task is nigh on impossible and it breaks them or their spirit.
It makes men vulnerable to systems they may not have had a hand in.
Two years before he became the 26th president of the US, Theodore Roosevelt said:
“We do not admire the man of timid peace.
We admire the man who embodies victorious effort, the man who never wrongs his neighbour, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.“
Above: Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919)
D.H. Lawrence described how in industrial England, the men working in the coal mines took satisfaction and found comradeship in their work and were proud of being good providers.
Then schooling was introduced and rather than working with their fathers, boys began going to school.
There they were taught by white-collared teachers that their fathers’ world – the sweaty difficult world of physical labour was demeaning and that by applying themselves the young boys could aspire to a clean, educated, “higher” world.
The fact that this “advancement” meant an adult life spent stoopedd at desks doing dreary clerical tasks was not really questioned.
One was “bettering oneself“.
There was something virtuous in being clean, in never exerting one’s body.
Above: English writer David Herbert “D. H.” Lawrence (1885 – 1930)
Powerful symbols soon divided men.
One of these was the necktie.
A tie symbolizes something very profound – a willingness to fit in or to submit.
It says:
“See, I am willing to go through the motions. I will be a good boy.”
At work a tie says: “I am willing to put up with this discomfort.” and therefore “I am willing to put up with other indignities and constraints to get and keep this job.”.
It is important to see a tie for what it is.
It is a slave collar.
Class is a funny thing.
Many men have long discovered too late that rising in the class hierarchy does not make you freer:
In fact, the reverse.
If you are a blue collar worker, the company wants your body but your soul is your own.
A white collar worker is supposed to hand over his spirit as well.
It is not just the tie – a whole uniform goes with it.
“Look out the window.
Tell me what you see….
Look at the people.
Tell me which ones are free.
Free from debt, anxiety, stress, fear, failure, indignity, betrayal?
How many wish they were born knowing what know now?
Ask yourself:
How many would do things the same way all over again?“
Above: Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) and Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), Jack Reacher (2012)
There is a beautıful scene in the film, The Fringe Dwellers, where the Aboriginal men sit together making jokes about the poor white man spending his weekends mowing the lawn and washing the car.
In the US there is a slang term for the men who do the paperwork, attend to the boring details of the business world.
These men are called “suits“.
The millionaire in Pretty Woman strikes a deal and leaves the details to “the suits” to tidy up.
Suits (and the men who wear them) are characterized by their lack of colour, their lack of individuality.
Ride the commuter planes between cities any morning at 0700 or late in the evening and you will be amazed at the vast numbers of look-alike grey-faced men, moving endlessly to and fro across the country in the dreadful lifestyle of the “executive“.
They might be flying First or Business class.
They are first off the plane, into the Club Lounges, but no one in their right mind would envy them.
They are privileged eunuchs, leading a dry and joyless life.
“He moved over to the window:
A smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the Party.
His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended.
Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold.
Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere.“
(George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Above: Winston Smith (John Hurt), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
It isn’t the fact of working that does harm.
Work is good – it is what men love to do.
It is the nature of the work that is the problem.
If you do a job that lacks heart, it will kill you.
The strongest predictor of life expectancy in a man is whether he likes his job.
Two elements – the lack of real purpose and the lack of personal control – are the main problems.
Our ancestors laughed as they worked and sang.
They enjoyed the rush of the hunt, the steady teamwork of digging for yams or the discovery of a honey-filled tree.
What any documentary or archival footage of preliterate people, you will see the same thing.
Life was often hard but it was rarely without laughter.
In time, though, cultures evolved away from the forest and the coast and into the village and the town.
We did the work that others commanded and it became a grind – increasingly repetitive.
It was a numbing of the human senses and a subjugation of ourselves beneath the need just to survive.
Work has become more comfortable but not more fulfilling.
It is still a separate compartment in life – something you tolerate in exchange for “real” living in the time left over from doing your job, getting to your job and recovering from your job.
Work today drives an unhealthy wedge into the very core of our life.
The time has come to heal it.
Most people today, men and women, do work they do not much like – jobs that are beneath them.
Since you have to work to purchase the good life, the aim is to find the best paying job you can tolerate.
That is what jobs are.
Why else would you do them?
With unemployment rates today, to have any job is seen as a privilege and being choosy is a sin.
We have to fight this selling-short of human potential.
The purpose of life is to find what you really love to do.
Have work that your heart is in.
Work that makes you jump out of bed in the morning, keen to get started.
I think of José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (1832 – 1916), a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and one of the leading Spanish dramatists of the last quarter of the 19th century.
He made important contributions to mathematics and physics.
He introduced Chasles geometry, Galois theory and elliptic functions to Spain.
He is considered the greatest Spanish mathematician of the 19th century.
Julio Rey Pastor stated:
“For Spanish mathematics, the 19th century begins in 1865 with Echegaray.”
In 1911, he founded the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society.
Above: José Echegaray
He was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of the numerous and brilliant compositions which, in an individual and original manner, have revived the great traditions of the Spanish drama“.
He was born in Madrid on 19 April 1832.
His father, a doctor and institute professor of Greek, was from Aragon and his mother was from Navarra.
Above: Madrid, Spain
When he was 5 years old, his family moved to Murcia, due to his father’s work.
He spent his childhood in Murcia, where he finished his elementary school education.
It was there, at the Murcia Institute, where he first gained his love for mathematics.
Above: Murcia, Spain
“Mathematics forms a sauce that goes well with all the stews of the spirit.
They harmonize with music and art in general.
As if they are all harmonies, varieties in one form or another, which resolve into a high and beautiful unity.“
(José Echegaray)
Above: The Babylonian mathematical tablet Plimpton 322 (1800 BC)
While still a child he read Goethe, Homer and Balzac, readings that alternated with those of mathematicians like Gauss, Legendre, and Lagrange.
Above: German polymath / writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
Above: Bust of Greek poet Homer (8th century BC)
Above: French writer Honoré de Balzac (1799 – 1850)
Above: German mathematician Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777 – 1855)
Above: Caricature of French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752 – 1833)
Above: Italian mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange (né Giuseppe Ludovico Lagrangia) (1736 – 1813)
In order to earn enough money to attend the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Caminos, Canales y Puertos (Engineering School of Roads, Channels and Ports), he moved at the age of 14 to Madrid.
At the age of 20, he left the Madrid school with a Civil Engineering degree, which he had obtained as first in his class.
Above: Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales_y_Puertos (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
He moved to Almeria and Granada to begin working at his first job.
Together with Gabriel Rodríguez he founded El Economista, a magazine in which he wrote numerous articles, thus beginning a journalistic activity that he would not abandon throughout his life.
In 1854 he began teaching a class at the engineering school, working as a secretary there also.
He taught mathematics, stereotomy, hydraulics, descriptive geometry, differential and physical calculus from that year until 1868.
From 1858 to 1860 he was also a professor at the Assistants’ School of Public Works.
In his career as a scientist and teacher he published many works on physics and mathematics.
His Problemas de geometría analítica (1865) and Teorías modernas de la física, Unidad de las fuerzas materiales(1867) were held in some regard.
Above: José Echegaray
He became a member of the Society of Political Economy, helped to found the magazine La Revista and took a prominent part in propagating free trade doctrines in the press and on the platform.
He was clearly marked out for office.
When the Glorious Revolution of 1868 overthrew the monarchy, he resigned his post for a place in the revolutionary cabinet.
Echegaray also entered politics later in his life.
As a founding member of the republican Radical Democratic Party, he enjoyed a career in the government sector, being appointed Minister of Education, of Public Works and Finance Minister successively between 1867 and 1874.
He retired from politics after the Bourbon restoration in 1874.
Above: Spanish Parliament, Madrid
Theatre had always been the love of José Echegaray’s life.
Although he had written earlier plays (La Hija natural (“The Natural Daughter“) and La Última Noche, both in 1867), he truly became a dramatist in 1874.
His plays reflected his sense of duty, which had made him famous during his time in the governmental offices.
Dilemmas centered on duty and morality are the motif of his plays.
He replicated the achievements of his predecessors of the Spanish Golden Age, remaining a prolific playwright.
He premiered 67 plays, 34 of them in verse, with great success among the public of the time, although devoid of literary value for later criticism.
He himself always maintained a distant attitude towards his works.
Echegaray had great prestige in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century, a prestige that reached the fields of literature, science and politics and a well-established fame in the Europe of his time.
His works were successful in cities such as London, Paris, Berlin and Stockholm.
Above: José Echegaray
His most famous play is El gran Galeoto (“The great galley slave“), a drama written in the grand 19th century manner of melodrama.
It is about the poisonous effect that unfounded gossip has on a middle-aged man’s happiness.
Echegaray filled it with elaborate stage instructions that illuminate what we would now consider a hammy style of acting popular in the 19th century.
Paramount Pictures filmed it as a silent with the title changed to The World and His Wife.
It was the basis for a later film The Great Galeoto.
His most remarkable plays are O locura o santidad (“Saint or Madman?“)(1877), Mariana (1892), El estigma(1895), La duda (1898) and El loco Dios (“God the fool“)(1900).
Above: José Echegaray
(Mariana is a woman tormented by her past:
Her mother abandoned the family out of passion for a man named Alvarado who later made her the object of abuse until she died.
That is why Mariana has developed a neurotic impulse of revenge and humiliation towards the entire male gender.
She includes poor Daniel, whom she deep down loves.)
Among his other famous plays are La esposa del vengador (1874) (“The Avenger’s Wife“), En el puño de la espada (1875) (“In the Sword’s Handle”), En el pilar y en la cruz (1878) (“On the Stake and on the Cross“) and Conflicto entre dos deberes (1882) (“Conflict of Two Duties“).
Above: José Echegaray
El hijo de Don Juan (“Don Juan’s son“) (1892):
The young Lázaro loses his mind as a result of a strange illness transmitted to him by his father Don Juan, a man who led a totally dissolute life.
Mancha que limpia (“The stain that cleans“) (1895):
Matilde is a woman driven mad by jealousy over her beloved Fernando’s marriage to Enriquita, a perfidious woman who is unfaithful to him.
Matilde murders the woman and her husband pleads guilty to the crime in defense of her honour.
La calumnia por castigo (“Slander for punishment“) (1897) focuses on the diatribe of whether absolute rehabilitation exists in the criminal order.
Along with the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904, after having been nominated that year by a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, making him the first Spaniard to win the prize.
Above: French writer Frédéric Mistral (1830 – 1914)
“I choose a passion, I take an idea, a problem, a character and I infuse it, like dense dynamite, deep into a character that my mind creates.
The plot, the character is surrounded by a few dolls that in the world either wallow in the filthy mud or warm themselves in the Phoebean light.
The fuse lit.
The fire is prepared, the cartridge bursts without remedy, and the main star is the one who pays for it.
Although sometimes also in this siege that I put on art and that flatters instinct, the explosion catches me in the middle!“
Above: José Echegaray
José Echegaray maintained constant activity until his death on 14 September 1916 in Madrid.
His extensive work did not stop growing in his old age:
In the final stage of his life he wrote 25 or 30 mathematical physics volumes.
At the age of 83 he commented:
“I cannot die, because if I am going to write my mathematical physics encyclopedia, I need at least 25 more years.”
Above: José Echegaray
Known as a university town, Eskişehir Technical University, Eskişehir Osmangazi University and Anadolu University are based in Eskişehir.
The vast majority of my Wall Street English classes are either students presently enrolled in one of these univerisities or are alumni of these institutions.
Of these three universities and their combined 35 faculties, all have produced 80% of Wall Street English Eskişehir’s student body:
Engineers.
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost.
The word engineer (Latin ingeniator) is derived from the Latin words ingeniare (“to contrive, devise“) and ingenium (“cleverness“).
The work of engineers forms the link between scientific discoveries and their subsequent applications to human and business needs and quality of life.
A professional engineer is competent by virtue of his/her fundamental education and training to apply the scientific method and outlook to the analysis and solution of engineering problems.
He/she is able to assume personal responsibility for the development and application of engineering science and knowledge, notably in research, design, construction, manufacturing, superintending, managing, and in the education of the engineer.
His/her work is predominantly intellectual and varied and not of a routine mental or physical character.
It requires the exercise of original thought and judgment and the ability to supervise the technical and administrative work of others.
His/her education will have been such as to make him/her capable of closely and continuously following progress in his/her branch of engineering science by consulting newly published works on a worldwide basis, assimilating such information, and applying it independently.
He/she is thus placed in a position to make contributions to the development of engineering science or its applications.
His/her education and training will have been such that he/she will have acquired a broad and general appreciation of the engineering sciences as well as thorough insight into the special features of his/her own branch.
In due time he/she will be able to give authoritative technical advice and assume responsibility for the direction of important tasks in his/her branch.
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.
But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.“
(Dead Poets Society)
I am not anti-engineering.
As much I respect engineers and all that they do, as students I have found them to be more in love with and more comfortable with machines than they are with people.
The engineers I have mingled with have, with rare exception, been resistant to reading, to writing, to homework or conversation beyond what is unavoidably necessary.
Certainly, the history of literature has seen engineers quite capable of producing poetry, prose and plays, but they seem to me to be the exception rather than the rule.
This is what compels my curiosity regarding Echegaray, for he possessed a certain quality that I believe is crucial for everyone:
Passion for all that a person does.
I am reminded of the Wim Wenders film Perfect Days.
Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo’s upscale Shibuya ward, across town from his modest home in an ungentrified neighborhood east of the Sumida River.
He repeats his structured, ritualized life every day, starting at dawn.
He dedicates his free time to his passion for music, which he listens to in his van to and from work, and to his books, which he reads every night before going to sleep.
He reads stories by William Faulkner and Patricia Highsmith and the essays of Aya Kōda.
Above: American writer William Faulkner (1897 – 1962)
Above: American writer Patricia Highsmith (née Mary Patricia Plangman) (1921 – 1995)
Above: Japanese writer Aya Kōda (1904 – 1990)
Hirayama chooses the music he listens to, Wenders said:
“Maybe he’s clinging to the past.
But he’s clinging a little bit also to his youth and he loves that music.
He chooses in the morning exactly what he’s going to listen to that day.
And it’s not random.“
Above: German filmmaker / playwright Wim Wenders
His dreams are shown in flickery impressionistic sequences at the end of every day.
Hirayama is also very fond of trees and spends time gardening and photographing them.
He has a sandwich every day in the shade under trees in the grounds of a shrine and takes photos of their branches and leaves.
His pride in his work is apparent by its thoroughness and precision.
Hirayama’s young assistant, Takashi (Tokio Emoto), is often late, loud and not as thorough.
One day, a young woman named Aya (Aoi Yamada) stops by the public toilet Takashi is cleaning, so he hurries to finish.
Takashi tries to leave with Aya, but his motorbike will not start, so he convinces Hirayama to let him use his van.
When Aya says Takashi can stay with her as she works at a girls bar, he complains loudly that he is broke.
Above: Signage for hostess bars in Kabukichō, Tokyo, Japan
Unbeknownst to Hirayama, Takashi slips Hirayama’s Patti Smith tape into Aya’s purse.
Takashi talks Hirayama into going into a shop to get some of his cassettes appraised.
When Takashi discovers how valuable they are, he urges Hirayama to sell, but Hirayama refuses, giving him some cash so he can take out Aya.
When Hirayama runs out of gas on the way home, he is forced to sell a cassette for gas money.
Above: American artist Patti Smith
Hirayama commences a tic-tac-toe game with a stranger after finding a piece of paper left hidden in a stall.
The game continues over the course of the film.
He exchanges furtive glances with a strange woman eating lunch one bench over.
Aya catches up with Hirayama to return the Patti Smith cassette.
She asks to play it in his van one last time and then gives him a thank-you kiss on the cheek, leaving him visibly startled.
On his free day, Hirayama does his laundry, takes the film with his tree photos to be developed, cleans his flat, buys a new book, and dines out at a restaurant where the female proprietor shares gossip with him.
Niko (Arisa Nakano), Hirayama’s niece, shows up unannounced, having run away from his wealthy estranged sister Keiko’s home.
He lets Niko accompany him to work during the next two days.
The two photograph the trees in the park and ride bikes together.
Eventually, Keiko (Yumi Asō) comes to pick up Niko in a chauffeured car.
Keiko tells him that their father’s dementia has worsened and asks whether Hirayama will visit him in the nursing home where he lives.
She says that he doesn’t recognize anything anymore and will not behave the way he did before.
Hirayama sorrowfully refuses but hugs his sister good-bye.
Before she leaves, she asks him whether he really cleans toilets for a living, and he says yes.
As they drive away, Hirayama begins to cry inconsolably.
The next day, Takashi quits without giving notice, leaving Hirayama to cover his shift.
Later, as Hirayama goes to his usual restaurant, he opens the door and sees the proprietor embracing a man (Min Tanaka).
Hirayama hurries off, buying cigarettes and three canned highballs to consume at a nearby riverbank.
The man Hirayama saw at the restaurant approaches and asks him for a cigarette.
The man tells him the restaurant proprietor is his ex-wife whom he had not seen in seven years and that she opened her restaurant the year after divorcing him.
He says he visited her to make peace before he dies from cancer, telling Hirayama to look after her.
Hirayma lightens the mood by offering him a drink and inviting him to play shadow tag, and they eventually part ways.
The following morning, Hirayama begins another workweek.
As he drives his van and listens to Nina Simone sing “Feeling Good“, a range of powerful emotions washes over his face.
Realistically, for many men, the trick is finding the heart in the work you already do.
It is possible to be an honest real estate salesman, lawyer, politician, doctor, and so on.
Think about your job.
How would you go about removing the facade that is traditionally built up in your line of work so that you can be more of the real you?
An architect gives up on the entire concept of deadlines, realizing that the word itself is sinister.
He tells his clients in advance that he uses “alive-lines” – realistic but flexible schedules that can be negotiated as they proceed – and the result will be a better building.
A bank manager places before all other priorities the considerate development of his staff’s careers.
A shop assistant, a young man 20-something, is so gentle and tender in his handling of a confused old lady that it brings tears to those that observe the scene.
These people are different from the norm.
They transform the banal into magic.
They have the confidence that comes from some inner sense of what matters.
We have recessions because there is no growth in the economy.
Yet we live in a finite world that cannot sustain growth anyhow.
So an economic boom is disastrous as well.
When mainstream men abandon their urge to compete and simply enjoy being and doing what is useful as opposed to profitable, then we will have the kind of stable economy the world needs.
Instead of more factories and office towers, we will build a spiritual, intellectual and social infrastructure that will make us healthy, secure and self-sufficient – qualities that even measured in Turkish liras, US dollars or EU euros will be impressive.
Love, fun and idealism have as much place at work as in any other aspect of life.
I am reminded of the Hermann Hesse classic Siddhartha:
The story takes place in ancient India and Nepal.
Siddhartha decides to leave his home in the hope of gaining spiritual illumination by becoming an ascetic wandering beggar of the Śamaṇa.
Joined by his best friend Govinda, Siddhartha fasts, becomes homeless, renounces all personal possessions, and intensely meditates, eventually seeking and personally speaking with Gautama, the famous Buddha, or Enlightened One.
Afterward, both Siddhartha and Govinda acknowledge the elegance of the Buddha’s teachings.
Although Govinda hastily joins the Buddha’s order, Siddhartha does not follow, claiming that the Buddha’s philosophy, though supremely wise, does not account for the necessarily distinct experiences of each person.
He argues that the individual seeks an absolutely unique, personal meaning that cannot be presented to him by a teacher.
He thus resolves to carry on his quest alone.
Siddhartha crosses a river and the generous ferryman, whom Siddhartha is unable to pay, merrily predicts that Siddhartha will return to the river later to compensate him in some way.
Venturing onward toward city life, Siddhartha discovers Kamala, the most beautiful woman he has yet seen.
Kamala, a courtesan, notes Siddhartha’s handsome appearance and fast wit, telling him that he must become wealthy to win her affections so that she may teach him the art of love.
Although Siddhartha despised materialistic pursuits as a Śamaṇa, he agrees now to Kamala’s suggestions.
She directs him to the employ of Kamaswami, a local businessman, and insists that he have Kamaswami treat him as an equal rather than an underling.
Siddhartha easily succeeds, providing a voice of patience and tranquility, which Siddhartha learned from his days as an ascetic, against Kamaswami’s fits of passion.
Thus Siddhartha becomes a rich man and Kamala’s lover, though in his middle years he realizes that the luxurious lifestyle he has chosen is merely a game that lacks spiritual fulfillment.
Leaving the fast-paced bustle of the city, Siddhartha returns to the river fed up with life and disillusioned, contemplating suicide before falling into a meditative sleep, and is saved only by an internal experience of the holy word, Om.
The very next morning, Siddhartha briefly reconnects with Govinda, who is passing through the area as a wandering Buddhist.
Siddhartha decides to live the rest of his life in the presence of the spiritually inspirational river.
Siddhartha thus reunites with the ferryman, named Vasudeva, with whom he begins a humbler way of life.
Although Vasudeva is a simple man, he understands and relates that the river has many voices and significant messages to divulge to any who might listen.
Some years later, Kamala, now a Buddhist convert, is travelling to see the Buddha at his deathbed, accompanied by her reluctant young son, when she is bitten by a venomous snake near Siddhartha’s river.
Siddhartha recognizes her and realizes that the boy is his own son.
After Kamala’s death, Siddhartha attempts to console and raise the furiously resistant boy, until one day the child flees altogether.
Although Siddhartha is desperate to find his runaway son, Vasudeva urges him to let the boy find his own path, much like Siddhartha did himself in his youth.
Listening to the river with Vasudeva, Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature.
After Siddhartha’s moment of illumination, Vasudeva claims that his work is done and he must depart into the woods, leaving Siddhartha peacefully fulfilled and alone once more.
Towards the end of his life, Govinda hears about an enlightened ferryman and travels to Siddhartha, not initially recognizing him as his old childhood friend.
Govinda asks the now-elderly Siddhartha to relate his wisdom and Siddhartha replies that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true, that language and the confines of time lead people to adhere to one fixed belief that does not account for the fullness of the truth.
Because nature works in a self-sustaining cycle, every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the world must always be considered complete.
Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness.
Siddhartha then requests that Govinda kiss his forehead and, when he does, Govinda experiences the visions of timelessness that Siddhartha himself saw with Vasudeva by the river.
Govinda bows to his wise friend and Siddhartha smiles radiantly, having found enlightenment.
Thus he experiences a whole circle of life.
He realizes his father’s importance and love when he himself becomes a father and his own son leaves him to explore the outside world.
Money pays the bills, but life should be more than just paying bills.
Echegaray, Hirayama and Siddhartha all had passion for what they did.
They did their share to contribute to the world in their own unique ways.
They were able to support themselves and in their individual ways improved the lives of others, enhancing their lives and futures.
They found the heart in the work they did.
Man has a thirst for knowledge.
He wants to know what the world around him looks like and how it functions.
Man thinks.
He draws conclusions from the data he collects.
Man is creative.
He makes something new out of the information acquired.
Man is sensitive.
As a result of his exceptionally wide, multidimensional emotional scale, he not only registers the commonplace in fine gradations but he creates and discovers new emotional values and makes them accessible to others through sensible descriptions or recreates them as an artist.
Man’s curiosity is universal.
There is almost nothing that does not interest him.
Men not only observe the world around them, it is in their nature to make comparisons and to apply the knowledge they have gained elsewhere with the ultimate aim to transform this newfound knowledge into something else, something new.
With his many gifts men would appear to be ideally suited, both mentally and physically, to lead a life both fulfilled and free.
If a young man gets married, starts a family and spends the rest of his life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility.
Another type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her, on equal terms and not as a servant somehow expected to serve woman simply by virtue of her sex, is rejected by society.
The free unshackled man has no place in society.
How depressing it is to see men betraying all that they were born to.
New worlds could be discovered, instead we focus on the preservation of the status quo.
Instead we forsake all our tremendous potential and permit our minds and bodies to be distracted by the need to appease the eternally-dissatisfied opposite gender.
I find myself thinking of the movie My Fair Lady.
In London, Professor Henry Higgins, a scholar of phonetics, believes that one’s accent determines a person’s prospects in society (“Why Can’t the English?“).
At the Covent Garden fruit-and-vegetable market one evening, he listens to Eliza Doolittle, a young flower seller with a strong Cockney accent, and makes notes.
This causes others to suspect he is a “tec” (detective).
When Eliza protests that she has done nothing wrong, she asks Colonel Hugh Pickering, himself a phonetics expert, to confirm this.
Pickering and Higgins are delighted to become acquainted.
In fact, Pickering had come from India just to meet Higgins.
Higgins boasts he could teach even someone like Eliza to speak so well he could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball.
Eliza wants to work in a flower shop, but her accent makes that impossible (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly“).
The following morning, Eliza shows up at Higgins’s home, seeking lessons.
Pickering is intrigued and offers to cover all the attendant expenses if Higgins succeeds.
Higgins agrees and describes how women ruin lives (“I’m an Ordinary Man“).
Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle, a dustman, learns of his daughter’s new residence (“With a Little Bit of Luck“).
He shows up at Higgins’s house three days later, ostensibly to protect his daughter’s virtue, but in reality to extract some money from Higgins, and is bought off with £5.
Higgins is impressed by the man’s honesty, his natural gift for language, and especially his brazen lack of morals.
Higgins recommends Alfred to a wealthy American who is interested in morality.
Eliza endures Higgins’s demanding teaching methods and harsh treatment (“Just You Wait“), while the servants feel both annoyed with the noise as well as pity for Higgins (“Servants’ Chorus“).
She makes no progress, but just as she, Higgins, and Pickering are about to give up, Eliza finally “gets it” (“The Rain in Spain“).
She instantly begins to speak with an impeccable upper-class accent, and is overjoyed at her breakthrough (“I Could Have Danced All Night“).
As a trial run, Higgins takes her to Ascot Racecourse (“Ascot Gavotte“), where she makes a good impression initially, only to shock everyone by a sudden lapse into vulgar Cockney while cheering on a horse.
Higgins is amused.
There, she meets Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a young upper-class man who becomes infatuated with her (“On the Street Where You Live“).
Higgins then takes Eliza to an embassy ball, where she dances with a foreign prince.
Zoltan Karpathy, a Hungarian trained by Higgins, watches and listens, and declares she is a Hungarian princess.
Afterward, Eliza’s hard work is ignored, with all the praise going to Higgins (“You Did It“).
This and his callous treatment of her, especially his indifference to her future, causes her to walk out on him, but not before she throws his slippers at him, leaving him mystified by her ingratitude (“Just You Wait [Reprise]“).
Outside, Freddy is waiting (“On the Street Where You Live [Reprise]“) and greets Eliza, who is irritated by him as all he does is talk (“Show Me“).
She tries to return to her old life, but finds that she no longer fits in.
She meets her father, who has been left a large fortune by the wealthy American to whom Higgins had recommended him, and is resigned to marrying Eliza’s stepmother.
Alfred feels that Higgins has ruined him, lamenting that he is now bound by “middle-class morality” (“Get Me to the Church On Time“).
Eliza eventually visits Higgins’s mother, who is outraged at her son’s behavior.
The next day, Higgins finds Eliza gone and searches for her (“A Hymn to Him“), eventually finding her at his mother’s house.
He attempts to talk her into coming back to him.
He becomes angered when she announces that she is going to marry Freddy and become Karpathy’s assistant (“Without You“).
He goes home, predicting that she will come crawling back.
However, he comes to the realization that she has become important to him (“I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face“).
He turns on his gramophone and listens to her voice.
When she shows up, Higgins nonchalantly asks:
“Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?“
Higgins, forgive the bluntness, but if I’m to be in this business, I shall be a responsible for the girl. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned? Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned? Well, I haven’t. I find the moment that a woman makes friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious and a damn nuisance. And I find that the moment I make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so. Well after all, Pickering:
I’m an ordinary man Who desires nothing more Than just an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes And do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric whim Who likes to live his life, free of strife Doing whatever he thinks is best, for him. Well, just an ordinary man
But, let a woman in your life And your serenity is through. She’ll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the dome Then go on to the enthralling fun of overhauling you.
Let a woman in your life And you’re up against a wall. Make a plan and you will find She has something else in mind And so rather than do either You do something else that neither likes at all.
You want to talk of Keats or Milton. She only wants to talk of love. You go to see a play or ballet And spend it searching for her glove.
Let a woman in your life And you invite eternal strife. Let them buy their wedding bands For those anxious little hands.
I’d be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling Than to ever let a woman in my life.
I’m a very gentle man, Even tempered and good natured Whom you never hear complain, Who has the milk of human kindness By the quart in every vein. A patient man am I, down to my fingertips, The sort who never could, ever would Let an insulting remark escape his lips. A very gentle man
But, let a woman in your life And patience hasn’t got a chance. She will beg you for advice, your reply will be concise And she’ll will listen very nicely Then go out and do precisely what she wants.
You are a man of grace and polish Who never spoke above a hush. Now all at once you’re using language That would make a sailor blush.
Let a woman in your life And you’re plunging in a knife. Let the others of my sex Tie the knot around their necks.
I prefer a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition Than to ever let a woman in my life.
I’m a quiet living man Who prefers to spend the evenings In the silence of his room, Who likes an atmosphere as restful As an undiscovered tomb. A pensive man am I, of philosophic joys Who likes to meditate, contemplate Free from humanity’s mad inhuman noise. A quiet-living man
But, let a woman in your life And your sabbatical is through. In a line that never ends come an army of her friends Come to jabber and to chatter And to tell her what the matter is with you.
She’ll have a booming boisterous family Who will descend on you en mass. She’ll have a large Wagnerian mother With a voice that shatters glass.
Let a woman in your life Let a woman in your life
I shall never let a woman in my life.
I am not suggesting that we all become MGTOW (men going their own way).
I will only remark that a woman is like a road in the rain where caution is advised when encountering dangerous curves.
I tell my younger charges to build themselves up first, physically, psychologically and financially, before yearning after women.
I have no doubt with the confidence a man carries when he is physically, psychologically and financially strong he need not chase women, they will find him.
Guys (and gals), find work deserving of your time and passion.
Do what you love.
Love what you do.
Whether you are a flower girl or a ferryman, a mathematician or a bus driver, a teacher or a toilet cleaner, be professional.
Put your passion into being the best you canbe, where you are, right now.
Refuse to accept those who will not love you for who you are and reject you for what you do.
Where you are does not necessarily mean that is where you must remain.
It is not the job that gives dignity to the man.
It is the man that gives dignity to the job.
Somehow, the world has become topsy-turvy.
The focus has been a woman can simply be – though they dare not be without their masks of femininity -and a man must become.
So often I hear of the impossible standards a woman insists a man must meet to be worthy of her and men reeling from rejection never realizing that it is men who are the true prize and that a woman needs to show him that they are worthy, not because they are women but in spite of this.
Let us be together not because we need one another, but because we simply want to be with one another.
Let us have an attitude of take-it-or-leave-it.
Rather than searching for happiness in a relationship, we should instead focus on making ourselves happy first.
Happiness is never found in the arms of another.
It is cultivated within ourselves and then shared with others.
Neither gender was meant to serve the other.
The Lord God said:
“It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a helper suitable for him.”
(Holy Bible, Genesis 2:18)
We are meant to help one another.
Talk a walk We can hardly breathe the air Look around It’s a hard life everywhere
People talk but they never really care On the street there’s a feeling of despair Everyday, there’s a brand new baby born Everyday, there’s a sun to keep you warm
When it’s alright Yeah, it’s alright I’m alive And I don’t care much for words of doom
If it’s love you need Well, I got the room It’s a simple thing changed in me When I found you
I’m alive I’m alive Every night on the streets of Hollywood Pretty girls come to give you something good
Love for sale It’s a lonely town at night Therapy for a heart misunderstood Look around, there’s a flower on every street Look around and it’s growing at your feet
Everyday you can hear me say That I’m alive I want to take all that life has got to give All I need is someone to share it with
I got love and love is all I really need to live I’m alive I’m alive Everyday, there’s a brand new baby born Everyday, there’s enough to keep you warm
It’s ok And I’m glad to say I’m alive And I don’t care much for words of doom
If it’s love you got, well, I’ve got the room It’s a simple thing that came to me when I found you I’m alive I’m alive
And I don’t care much for words of doom If it’s love you need, well, I got the room It’s a simple thing that came to me and I thank God I’m alive
I can take all that life has got to give If I’ve got someone to share it with
(“I’m Alive“, Neil Diamond)
Sources
Steve Biddulph, Manhood
Bowser and Blue, “The Colo-rectal Surgeon Song”
Lee Child, One Shot
Neil Diamond, “I’m Alive“
Flight of the Conchords, “Bus Driver“
Ronald Gross, The Independent Scholar’s Handbook
Merle Haggard, “Workin’ Man Blues“
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Billy Joel, “Piano Man“
Anthea McTerrnan, “In Praise of Men“, Irish Times, 29 September 2016
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 AlsaceAbove: Flag of ItalyAbove: Lanzarote (red) of the Spanish Canary IslandsAbove: London, EnglandAbove: Flag of Porto, PortugalAbove: Flag of SerbiaAbove: 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 JudaismAbove: The cross of Christ, symbol of ChristianityAbove: 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 (primascriptura / “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, GermanyAbove: 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 “onetrue 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.
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.
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.
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, GermanyAbove: St. Gallen, SwitzerlandAbove: Old town, Biel, SwitzerlandAbove: Mühlhausen, GermanyAbove: Basel, SwitzerlandAbove: 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, SwitzerlandAbove: Flag of the Canton of UriAbove: Schwyz, SwitzerlandAbove: Zug, SwitzerlandAbove: 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 ZugAbove: 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 HesseAbove: Images of Venice, ItalyAbove: 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.
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, SwitzerlandAbove: 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).
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: WildhausAbove: 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, ZürichAbove: Uetliberg, seen from Lake ZürichAbove: Hotel Uto Kulm, UetlibergAbove: Balderen houseAbove: FelseneggAbove: Restaurant Chusperhüsli, BucheneggAbove: NäfenhüserAbove: Rüschlikon and AlbispassAbove: Albis Hochwacht (lookout)Above: SchnabellückenAbove: 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, ZürichAbove: 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 StationAbove: 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 StationAbove: Schweighof StationAbove: 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 StationAbove: 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 ruinsAbove: Old mill, Friesenberg CastleAbove: Original location of Baldern CastleAbove: Schnabelburg Castle ruinsAbove: 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, GermanyAbove: Klopstock Memorial Stone, Pforta School
Klopstock read the Greek and Latin classics: Homer, Pindar, Virgil and Horace.
Above: Bust of Homer, Glyptothek, Munich, GermanyAbove: 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.
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.
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, GermanyAbove: 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, GermanyAbove: Klopstock’s grave under the linden tree, Ottensen bei Altona
In Quedlinburg, the Klopstockhaus provides information about the poet.
Above: Klopstockhaus, Quedlinburg, GermanyAbove: 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, AustriaAbove: 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 GoetheAbove: 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, UetlibergAbove: 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 PlanetTrail 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, ZürichAbove: Fraumünster, ZürichAbove: Müri MonasteryAbove: 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.
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 QuarterAbove: Wipkingen
Later he attended the collegiate school of Einsiedeln Monastery and the Jesuit college in Feldkirch.
Above: Einsiedeln MonasteryAbove: 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 Etruscanshe 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 NetherlandsAbove: Flag of Denmark
He made further trips to Italy (1958) to Bergamo and Verona, then to Sicily (1966) and Tuscany (1967).
Above: Bergamo, ItalyAbove: Images of Verona, ItalyAbove: Flag of SicilyAbove: 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 Lifeof 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 RothAbove: 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 (TheSuspicion), 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 CriminologicalSociety (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 ZürichAbove: 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.
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.
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 poemwas 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 Napleswas followedin 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, MexicoAbove: 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 representativeof 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 Kraskaof Zurich and Bilbao, ruler ofthe 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 theenvironment”) 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 fraudulentactivity“.
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 NaegeliAbove: 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. GallenAbove: 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, GermanyAbove: The Bavarian Court, Munich, GermanyAbove: Stadt Theater, Bern, SwitzerlandAbove: Stadt Theater, Bern, SwitzerlandAbove: 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 (TheJungle Book) for the Bernhardtheater.
Above: Virginia Theater, Broadway, New York CityAbove: Theater am Hechtplatz, ZürichAbove: Bernhard Theater, Zürich
The family musicals Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), De chli Isbär (The Little PolarBear), s’Dschungelbuech (The Jungle Book) and D’Schatzinsle (Treasure Island) toured Switzerland for several years.
Krejci wrote the scripts for TheSorcerer’s Apprentice, The LittlePolar 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: TürlerseeAbove: Common frogAbove: 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 symbolAbove: 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, ViennaAbove: 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: BaronRudolf 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, BernAbove: 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, ItalyAbove: Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, Frauenkirche, Munich, GermanyAbove: 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 ZwingliAbove: 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 Kappelagain.
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 BiblianderAbove: 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 theAlps” 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 descriptioTopographica (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.
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, IndiaAbove: 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 WashingtonPost, 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 “veryfine 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 SalvadorAbove: Flag of HaitiAbove: Flag of HondurasAbove: 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.
“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‘, ‘cryinglowlife‘, ‘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 HarthAbove: E. Jean CarrollAbove: Summer ZervosAbove: Alva JohnsonAbove: Jessica LeedsAbove: Kristin AndersonAbove: Lisa BoyneAbove: Cathy HellerAbove: Temple Taggart McDowellAbove: Amy DorrisAbove: Karena VirginiaAbove: Karen JohnsonAbove: Mindy McGillivrayAbove: Rachel CrooksAbove: Natasha StoynoffAbove: Juliet HuddyAbove: Jessica DrakeAbove: Ninni LaaksonenAbove: Cassandra SearlesAbove: 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
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.
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.
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.
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: 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
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 myreality 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, andO 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 Farpasalone.
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
Portugal’s most famous musical form, fado (Portuguese for “fate“) is urban music, of night and bars, of a yearning that is beautiful and melancholic, accompanied by guitarra and viola.
Above: Fado, José Malhoa (1910)
To the south, fado is feminine.
But in the north, fado is a man’s music, full of lusty lyrics and soaring vocals, and usually the most memorable fado of all is performed by the least advertised, the most anonymous, performer of all, where one’s identity is overwhelmed by one’s soul.
Fado is to the Portuguese soul as rich, deep and satisfying as a cup of Portuguese coffee or a glass of Porto port.
Fado is played on the radio, on buses, in taxis, cafés and restaurants, on TV and drifting down darkened streets from shadowy clubs.
Fado is fate and how fate has foiled the lover in love and in life.
Fado is the homeland that is missed or the longing for a lover that has left.
To sing fado, the singer must become fadista with an attitude that cries out:
“I am a pessimist, a nihilist and everything that fado demands from me is me.”
It is the mourning of a devil cast out of heaven, a broken heart beyond repair, a spirit beyond redemption….
What the hell was she thinking?
This is a question that American Catholic theologians are asking J.K. Rowling the creator of the Harry Potter franchise….
Above: Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC – the largest enclosed church building in the world
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling are based on claims that the novels contain occult or Satanic subtexts.
A number of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians have argued against the series, as have some Shia and Sunni Muslims.
Above: The Kaaba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia – the Muslim destination of pilgrimage
Supporters of the series have said that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to occultism, being more in the vein of fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White, or to the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, both of whom are known for writing fantasy novels with Christian subtexts.
Far from promoting a particular religion, some argue, the Harry Potter novels go out of their way to avoid discussing religion at all.
However, the author of the series, J. K. Rowling, describes herself as a practising Christian, and many have noted the Christian references which she includes in the final novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
In the United States, calls for the books to be banned from schools have led to legal challenges often on the grounds that witchcraft is a government-recognised religion and that to allow the books to be held in public schools violates the separation of church and state.
The Orthodox church of Bulgaria and a diocese of the Orthodox Church of Greece have also campaigned against the series, and some Catholic writers and officials have voiced a critical stance.
Above: Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George, Istanbul (Constantinople)
The books have been banned from all schools in the United Arab Emirates.
Above: Flag of the United Arab Emirates
Religious responses to Harry Potter have not all been negative.
Rowling notes:
“At least as much as they’ve been attacked from a theological point of view the books have been lauded and taken into pulpit, and most interesting and satisfying for me, it’s been by several different faiths.“
Above: J.K. Rowling, 2010
From The Times, 3 December 2018
The Harry Potter books gave birth to a global franchise, provided steady work to grateful British actors and created millions of new readers, convinced of the magical properties of a good book.
Above: Crowd outside a bookshop awaiting the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
They also created a generation of Americans who are more likely to believe that they are possessed by the Devil, with Catholic priests reporting that they are overwhelmed with requests to perform exorcisms.
“When I was appointed 13 years ago, I probably received maybe 100 inquiries a year.“, said Vincent Lampert, the official exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
“Now I receive about 1,700 inquiries a year.”
He thinks the Harry Potter books and films, which spurred a broad interest in magic, are partly to blame.
“Magic is the focus on the individual, rather than having to deal with God.“, he said.
It encouraged “the belief that somehow the power is within them.
Even within the world of exorcism, the premise would be that God is not a bystander.
God is the main actor.”
Priests who conduct exorcisms say occult practices and symbols can serve as doorways for a demon.
The Harry Potter books “disarmed Americans from thinking that all magic is darkness“, one unnamed exorcist recently told The Atlanticmagazine.
Above: St. Francis Borgia performing an exorcism, Goya
Adam Jortner, a historian of religion in American life at Auburn University, Alabama, said it was not the first time that members of the church had feared the influence of children’s books.
“The church had a go at C.S. Lewis for the Narnia books, a powerful allegory of Christianity itself.“, he said.
Jortner agreed that interest in the occult had grown.
“Harry Potter is responsible for mainstreaming magic.“, he said.
Exorcism had a clear history within the church and it sought to treat magic with respect.
He added:
“The Catholic church has some of the most stringent rules about exorcism in the world.
Most Catholic exorcists are required to go through this long list of things to ensure that it is not a neurological problem.”
Father Lampert said that all who sought his help were required to undergo an assessment by a medical professional, which ended most applications….
Above: St. Francis exorcising the demons of Arezzo, Giotto
When I read an article like this I am shocked to find that this sort of folly is taken seriously.
Putting aside for the moment the question of the existence of God, for which the largest defence is that God’s non-existence cannot be proven, and grasping with the notion that God possesses a team (angels) to battle another team (demons) led by His most bitter opponent (the Devil), then to further suggest that demons possess people….
This pushes rational credibility.
But then to blame the author of a series of children’s books for the rise in exorcism applications is utter poppycock in my opinion.
To play the Catholic advocate for a moment it can certainly be argued that children are gullible, easily influenced and misled.
But it insults the intelligence of our young people to suggest that they cannot discern the difference between a clever storyline and reality.
Could they believe in magic?
Sure, for there is much about existence that is difficult to explain.
But it stretches my incredulity that children, those poor deluded Muggles, would assume from a story that they too possess magical powers as the alumni and staff of Hogwarts do.
Above: Model of Hogwarts, Warner Bros. Studio, Leavesden, England
Nonetheless, let us humour these men of the cloth for a moment….
Let us imagine (if that is even possible) that Harry Potter leads to the need for exorcism.
Over the years, some religious people, particularly Christians, have decried Rowling’s books for supposedly promoting witchcraft.
Rowling identifies as a Christian.
She once said:
“I believe in God, not magic.”
Early on, she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs they would be able to predict plot lines of characters in her books.
In 2007, Rowling said she was the only one in her family who went regularly to church.
She was an adherent of the Church of England.
As a student she became annoyed at the “smugness of religious people” and attended less often.
Later, she started to attend a Church of Scotland congregation at the time she was writing Harry Potter.
Her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.
Above: Logo of the Church of Scotland
In a 2006 interview with Tatler magazine, Rowling noted:
“Like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return.
It’s important to me.”
Above: Graham Greene (1904 – 1991)
She has said that she has struggled with doubt, that she believes in an afterlife and that her faith plays a part in her books.
In a 2012 radio interview, she said that she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.
In 2015, following the referendum on same-sex marriage in Ireland, Rowling joked that if Ireland legalised same-sex marriage, Dumbledore (Headmaster of Hogwarts) and Gandalf (of the Lord of the Rings series) could get married there.
Above: Flag of the Republic of Ireland
The Westboro Baptist Church, in response, stated that if the two got married, they would picket.
Rowling responded:
“Alas, the sheer awesomeness of such a union in such a place would blow your tiny bigoted minds out of your thick sloping skulls.“
Above: Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas
Is Rowling then guilty of intellectual or spiritual manslaughter by unintentionally killing children’s beliefs in God?
Or taking the concept to its ultimate crazy extreme….
Was this death of the divine within our children pre-meditated by Ms. Rowling?
Is she guilty of spiritual murder?
To answer this question with any certainty we must ask ourselves how and why did Rowling write the Harry Potter series.
To answer this question, come with me, back in time, both in Rowling’s past and my own….
Joanne Rowling (born 31 July 1965), better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, film producer, television producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist.
Above: J.K. Rowling, 1999
She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history.
The books are the basis of a popular film series, over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and was a producer on the final films.
She also writes crime fiction under the name Robert Galbraith.
Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990.
The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published in 1997.
There were six sequels, of which the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released in 2007.
Since then, Rowling has written five books for adult readers: The Casual Vacancy (2012) and—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the crime fiction Cormoran Strike series, which consists of The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015), and Lethal White (2018).
Rowling has lived a “rags to riches” life in which she progressed from living on benefits to being the world’s first billionaire author.
She lost her billionaire status after giving away much of her earnings to charity but remains one of the wealthiest people in the world.
She is the UK’s best-selling living author, with sales in excess of £238 million.
The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling’s fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK.
Time named her a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral and political inspiration she has given her fans.
In October 2010, Rowling was named the “Most Influential Woman in Britain” by leading magazine editors.
She has supported multiple charities, including Comic Relief, One Parent Families, and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, as well as launching her own charity, Lumos.
Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, Gloucestershire, the daughter of science technician Anne (née Volant) and Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer Peter James Rowling.
Above: View of Yate, Gloucestershire, England
Her parents first met on a train departing from King’s Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964.
They married on 14 March 1965.
One of Rowling’s maternal great-grandfathers, Dugald Campbell, was a Scottish man from Lamlash.
Her mother’s French paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the War Cross for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during World War I.
Rowling originally believed Volant had won the Legion of Honour during the war, as she said when she received it herself in 2009.
She later discovered the truth when featured in an episode of the UK genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? in which she found out it was a different Louis Volant who won the Legion of Honour.
When she heard her grandfather’s story of bravery and discovered that the War Cross was for “ordinary” soldiers like her grandfather, who had been a waiter, she stated the War Cross was “better” to her than the Legion of Honour.
Rowling’s sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old.
The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories which she frequently read to her sister.
Above: Duck pond, Winterbourne, Gloucestershire
Aged nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales.
Above: Church Cottage, Tutshill, Gloucestershire
When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford’s autobiography, Hons and Rebels.
Mitford became Rowling’s heroine and Rowling read all of her books.
Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy.
Her home life was complicated by her mother’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms.
Rowling later said that she based the character of Hermione Granger on herself when she was eleven.
Above: Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, poster for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth, owned a turquoise Ford Anglia which she says inspired a flying version that appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Like many teenagers, she became interested in rock music, listening to the Clash, the Smiths and Siouxsie Sioux, adopting the look of the latter with back-combed hair and black eyeliner, a look that she would still sport when beginning university.
Above: Siouxsie Sioux, 1980
As a child, Rowling attended St Michael’s Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More.
Her headmaster at St Michael’s, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
Above: Richard Harris (1930 – 2002) as Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department.
Steve Eddy, her first secondary school English teacher, remembers her as “not exceptional” but “one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English“.
Rowling took A-levels in English, French and German, achieving two As and a B, and was Head Girl.
Above: Logo of Wyeburn School, Sedbury, Gloucestershire
In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not accepted and earned a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter.
Martin Sorrell, a French professor at Exeter, remembers “a quietly competent student, with a denim jacket and dark hair, who, in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary“.
Rowling recalls doing little work, preferring to read Dickens and Tolkien.
After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986.
In 1988, Rowling wrote a short essay about her time studying Classics titled “What was the Name of that Nymph Again? or Greek and Roman Studies Recalled“.
It was published by the University of Exeter’s journal Pegasus.
After working as a researcher and bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International, Rowling moved with her then boyfriend to Manchester, where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry “came fully formed” into her mind.
When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.
Above: Clapham Junction Railway Station
In December, Rowling’s mother, Anne, died after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis.
Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it.
Her mother’s death heavily affected Rowling’s writing and she channelled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry’s own feelings of loss in greater detail in the first book.
An advertisement in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language.
JK Rowling moved to Porto in 1991.
Above: Porto
This was a difficult time in her life, as her mother had recently passed away after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.
And to rub salt in the wound, her house in Manchester had been burgled, and everything her mother had left her was stolen.
Eager for a change of scenery, she accepted a job teaching English as a second language in Porto at a private language school on Avenida de Fernão de Magalhães called Encounter English.
Rowling spent her evenings teaching English to young teenagers, business people and housewives and spent her days working on the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
The time Rowling spent in Portugal was in many ways a dark and painful period of her life, and one that she rarely talks about.
For this reason, it’s hard to know for sure exactly which elements of the Harry Potter saga were inspired by her experiences in Porto.
Nevertheless, the influence is clearly there.
Many people have speculated that Rowling took inspiration from certain Porto landmarks, shops and cafés.
Some of these supposed inspiration locations almost certainly did inspire her, while others require a stretch of the imagination.
Rowling may have been subconsciously influenced by them, even if she didn’t recognize it at the time.
She taught English-as-a-foreign language at the Encounter English School at night and began writing in the day while listening to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
Above: Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)
After 18 months in Porto, she met Portuguese journalist Jorge Arantes at a café and found they shared an interest in Jane Austen.
Arantes would later tell London’s Daily Express newspaper the story of his whirlwind romance and doomed marriage to the then-unknown Joanne Rowling.
Above: Jorge Arrantes
It was a sexually passionate relationship that ended in violence and bitterness.
She was a 25-year-old teacher, he was a 23-year-old journalism student.
He spotted her drinking with some friends in a café, was drawn to her piercing, aquamarine eyes and tried to pick her up.
“Immediately there was a connection between us.“, Arrantes said.
“Joanne could not speak any Portuguese, but my English was good.
We both realized we had a great deal in common with our love of books.
I remember her saying she was re-reading Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which I had also read.”
Arrantes said she told him about an affair she had had with another Portuguese man and about a love affair with a man in England.
When the night ended, they exchanged telephone numbers – and a kiss.
Two days later, he said, they had their first date – and ended up in bed.
“Before we knew what was happening, she was back at my flat and we spent the night together.
There was nothing sordid about it.
We were simply two young, independent people enjoying life.
After that night, Joanne and I saw each other two or three times a week.
It was an intense and passionate relationship.”
It was also tempestous.
Their frenetic lovemaking was punctuated with furious arguments.
“We were always either in Heaven or in Hell.”
They moved into his mother’s apartment, a shabby two-bedroom flat with a tiny kitchen, on Rua do Duque de Saldanha.
Above: Entry to Arantes flat, Rua do Duque de Saldanha, Porto
Arantes later claimed he had helped her come up with ideas for the Harry Potter novels, though she denies this.
Among the belongings she brought to their home, according to Arantes, was a well-thumbed copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic The Lord of the Rings.
Several months later, Joanne discovered she was pregnant.
It was unplanned and both were afraid of the responsibilities parenthood might bring.
According to Arantes, Rowling began writing her first Harry Potter book during this pregnancy.
She kept her writing secret for a time, then showed her work in progress to Arantes.
“I am proud to say that I was the first person to read about Harry Potter.
It was obvious to me straight away that this was the work of a genius.
I can still remember telling Joanne:
‘Whoa! I am in love with a great, great writer.’
Even in those days, Joanne had a great talent for structure.
I never doubted it would be a success.”
Arantes says they discussed the stories, which Rowling found helpful.
“We studied each other’s work and made suggestions.
When I told Joanne to change something, she would usually make an alteration.”
He claims she had planned the full series of seven books, because she believed the number 7 has magical associations.
But just as they had begun to look forward to the birth of their child, tragedy struck.
Joanne miscarried.
They married on 16 October 1992 and their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal.
Above: Joanne and Jorge Arantes with baby Jessica
Two months after Jessica’s birth, Arantes admits, he ordered Joanne out of their apartment.
“She refused to go without Jessica and, despite my saying she could come back for her in the morning, there was a violent struggle.
I had to drag her out of the house at 5 in the morning and I admit I slapped her very hard in the street.”
The couple separated on 17 November 1993.
Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, although the extent is unknown.
In December 1993, Rowling and her then infant daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near Rowling’s sister with three chapters of what would become Harry Potter in her suitcase.
Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure.
Her marriage had failed and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating and allowing her to focus on writing.
During this period, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide.
Her illness inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.
Rowling signed up for welfare benefits, describing her economic status as being “poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless.”
Rowling was left in despair after her estranged husband arrived in Scotland, seeking both her and her daughter.
She obtained an Order of Restraint and Arantes returned to Portugal, with Rowling filing for divorce in August 1994.
She began a teacher training course in August 1995 at the Moray House School of Education, at Edinburgh University, after completing her first novel while living on state benefits.
She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson’s Café (owned by her brother-in-law) and the Elephant House, wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep.
Meanwhile Arantes’ life was falling apart.
He lost his job as a television journalist and descended into a nightmare of drug addiction.
His 70-year-old mother, Marilia Rodrigues, told the London Daily Mailthat Arantes stole family heirlooms and jewellery to feed his drug habit.
“He still loved her very much and was heartbroken when they parted.“, Rodrigues said.
“He still believes they could get together again and he would take her back at the drop of a hat.
He just wants her and his daughter.”
Arantes says he has recovered from his drug addiction and lives in a small apartment in the Paris suburb of Clichy with his brother Justino, a travel agent.
Rowling rarely talks about her first marriage, but once told the Times of London:
“I married on 16 October 1992.
I left on 17 November 1993.
So that was the duration of what I considered to be the marriage.
Obviously, you do not leave a marriage after that very short period of time unless there are serious problems.
I’m not the kind of person who bales out without there being serious problems.
My relationship before that lasted seven years.
I’m a long-term girl.
And I had a baby with this man.
But it didn’t work.
And it was clear to me that it was time to go, and so I went.
I never regretted it.”
In a 2001 BBC interview, Rowling denied the rumour that she wrote in local cafés to escape from her unheated flat, pointing out that it had heating.
One of the reasons she wrote in cafés was that taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stonewhich was typed on an old manual typewriter.
Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, a reader who had been asked to review the book’s first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher.
The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.
A year later she was finally given the green light by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London.
The decision to publish Rowling’s book owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books.
Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated US$15 billion and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history.
The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although it is reported that despite the huge uptake of the books, adolescent reading has continued to decline.
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Murray (born 1971), a Scottish doctor, in a private ceremony at her home, Killiechassie House in Scotland.
Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24 March 2003.
Above: Joanne and Neil Murray
Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she ceased working on the novel to care for David in his early infancy.
Rowling’s youngest child, daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was born on 23 January 2005.
Regarding Jessica’s career, she can best be described as an Instagram model who posts beautiful photos of herself as well as videos with her family and friends.
Jessica started her Instagram account in 2013 and instantly started sharing photos.
She has now managed to gather almost 7,000 followers.
Apart from that, Jessica owns a clothing line called Jc.closefit.
She also loves travelling and taking photos while on her exotic tours.
Above: Jessica Arantes
Rowling’s life in Portugal clearly influenced aspects of the books:
Many of Potter’s spells can be easily understood by Portuguese speakers:
aguamenti (bring out water)
duro (make things hard)
protego (protect people)
silencio (to silence people)
One of Hogwart’s founding professors was Salazar Slytherin.
Dr. António de Oliveira Salazar was Portugal’s notorious dictator for much of the 20th century.
Above: António de Oliveira Salazar (1889 – 1970)
There are also many similarities between Porto’s most colourful buildings and elements of Hogwarts, and as my wife (Ute) and I explored the city of Porto, I found myself trying to imagine Joanne Rowling’s life pre-Harry Potter fame and fortune.
I also found myself marvelling at her choice of a dictator’s name for one of the school’s founders.
Was her deciding to take the name of Salazar suggesting that despite his nature he was partially responsible for making the place possible?
Without a Salazar could it have become what it eventually became?
Rowling’s relationship with Arantes did not end well though their union resulted in Jessica’s birth.
Perhaps Arantes was Rowling’s Salazar?
Perhaps the rumours of domestic violence are true, but perhaps Arantes’s claims of inspiring Rowling’s ideas are also credible.
What would Porto, through a Rowling lens, tell me about writing and inspiration?
What would it tell me about myself?
Above: Images of Porto
Porto, Portugal, Thursday 26 July 2018
There are a number of sites in Porto frequently mentioned on Potterhead blogs that my mentioning will surprise no one.
The only difference I can offer is my perspective of them.
I shall briefly list them here and then offer my perspective:
Livraria Lello
Escovaria de Belomonte
Universidade do Porto
Café Majestic
Fonte dos Leones
Torre dos Clerigos
The Livraria Lello, Porto’s famous galleried Art Nouveau bookshop, with its neo-Gothic exterior and inner staircase just begging for a grand entrance, is a visual delight beyond words.
It was founded by the well-to-do Lello intellectual brothers in 1906 and specialized in limited edition books – many of which are still here.
The brothers now appear as bas-reliefs on the walls, alongside busts of great writers, including Eca de Queiroz and Miguel Cervantes.
The Lellos commissioned an engineer and fellow bibliophile Francisco Xavier Esteves to design the interior, which is simply stunning.
The ground level even has rails set into the floor for transporting book “carriages“.
The impressive double, freestanding staircase (actually made of concrete) lures people upstairs where you can admire the extraordinary plasterwork ceiling, which resembles ornately carved wood.
Columns and a stained glass roof light add to the air of something far grander than a bookshop, the whole design having an almost organic feel, as if the walls and ceiling are the ribs and bones of a living creature.
The first floor was the traditional meeting point of artists and intellectuals and was frequented by Rowling during her time in Porto in the 1990s.
It is this, and the similiarity of the shop’s decor to some of Hogwarts’ more outlandish design characteristics, that has put the bookshop firmly on the tourist circuit, with up to 4,000 people visiting daily.
There are often queues to get in, but if you come first thing in the morning or in the evening shortly before closing time, you may be able to experience the place more as a bookshop than a tourist site.
Porto’s famous galleried Art Nouveau shop has become a tourist site in its own right, but behind the crowds this still remains one of the city’s best bookshops.
There’s general fiction on the ground floor (including the Harry Potter stories in many languages), much of it in English, with reference and non-fiction (including travel) on the upper floor.
You can also find rare editions of Portuguese books.
Look out for the original till, made in 1881, the first in Portugal to issue paper receipts and with prices in reis (the currency before the escudo and the euro).
You get your €5.00 entry fee back on any purchase.
In 1869, the Livraria Internacional de Ernesto Chardron was founded, from a shop on Rua dos Clérigos by the Frenchman Ernesto Chardron.
Following its founder’s death, at the age of 45, the firm was sold to Lugan & Genelioux Sucessores.
Alternately, in 1881, José Lello along with his brother-in-law created the firm David Pereira & Lello.
But, the following year, after the death of David Lourenço Pereira, the establishment began to be operated as José Pinto de Sousa Lello & Irmão, when he partnered with his younger brother (António Lello).
The brothers both became prominent members of Porto’s intellectual bourgeoisie by the turn of the century.
The brothers hired engineer Francisco Xavier Esteves (1864-1944) to construct the new bookstore on Rua das Carmelitas.
In 1906, the Livraria Lello was inaugurated.
By 1919, the bookstore was simply designated as the Lello & Irmão, Lda.
With the 1930 addition of José Pereira da Costa, the bookstore began to be known simply as Livraria Lello.
But, between 1930 and 1940, it once again became designated Lello & Irmão.
Beginning in July 2015, the bookstore began requesting entrance fees for visitors.
On 21 April 2016, an artistic mural was erected to conceal the scaffolding placed on the facade of the building, during its restoration, by graffiti writer Dheo and colleague Pariz One.
Dheo painted the central area of the mural with a pile of old books, a lit candle and a bottle of Port wine, while the rest was painted by Pariz One with geometric shapes, referring to the stained glass inside the bookstore.
The work took two months to produce.
On 31 July, following the restoration, the main facade of the building was uncovered, showing the laboratory-tested recovered primitive gray.
There is no denying that the woodwork and the glass art and the red winding staircase do make the Livraria Lello a beautiful place to visit and certainly there is a good case to argue that Hogwarts’ moving staircases and the interior of the Diagon Alley bookstore Flourish and Blogs were inspired by the Livraria.
Above: Hogwarts’ moving staircases
But therein lies the problem.
It attracts too many tourists and it knows it.
As a passionate bibliophile I certainly admire the architecture, but for me a bookshop should in some ways resemble a library, a sanctuary of literature, a temple of tomes, rather than a marketplace for mobs.
A person cannot linger in any one spot too long before some impatient patron will jostle and push you about the place.
One could make a grand entrance if the store were a little less crowded, but one loses one’s regal bearing very quickly after enduring long queues to get in, for the indignity of paying an entrance fee just to view the shop, down each and every aisle, up and down the staircase, and at the cash register….
This is not the place for those who dislike crowds in enclosed spaces.
And though the Livraria does offer rare Portuguese books I am not so certain the Lello brothers would have liked the changes that time and fame have wrought, for as wonderful as it is to see people eagerly seeking books to read in this awkward age of automation and animation, a sense of intellectualism no longer pervades this establishment.
The place feels like a souvenir shop at one of Walt Disney’s magic kingdoms of artificiality than it does a sacred reminder of Portugal’s literary past.
Above: Disney World, Orlando, Florida
I doubt the American tourists who came to or left the Livraria had any conception of, or compassion for, the existence of a Portuguese literary history.
For the place is populated with Potterheads and nothing else seems to matter.
But suggesting such sacrilege to these Rowling fanatics is akin to being Cervantes’ Don Quixote tilting at thick stone windmills.
Pointlessly defending an honour long gone.
The Livrario made me think of St. Gallen’s Stiftbibliothek (Abbey Library) with its hefty admission fee and cramped interior when crowds congregate.
It is my hope that Rowling (or those of her ilk) never visit the Abbey Library and over-popularize the place with their writing, for the Library at least still maintains an aura of the sacred which the Livrario has long ago lost.
Above: The Abbey Library of St. Gallen
I was seeking a Porto version of Paris’ Shakespeare & Co., but got instead an amusement park souvenir shop.
It was worth a visit for the heart but at a cost to the mind and soul.
The Escovaria de Belomonte (Brushes of Belomonte), founded by Antonio da Silva on 29 January 1927, is not, at present, part of guidebook description, but it is most definitively part of Potter lore and appears on every blog where Rowling and Porto are mentioned in the same breath.
Though the Escovaria de Belomonte has only existed for 82 years, they excel in the manufacture and restoration of industrial brushes.
Why buy new brushes when you can have your old ones renewed?
The Escovaria de Belomonte replenishes and renews any type of brush.
They create brushes for every kind of customized applications for all types of industries, including industrial factories, textile production, footwear producers, jewelry stores, cast moulding manufacturers, grinding establishments, water treatment plants, car washes, typographical firms, gastronomy, and the list goes on….
They make any and every kind of brush and broom.
Whatever your needs, Escovaria de Belomonte will help you find a solution.
The handsome Belomonte brooms with their rustic luxurious look, many of them hanging from the store ceiling, handmade with high-quality wood and natural fibres, bear a striking resemblance to Harry Potter’s flying broom, the Nimbus 2000.
It has also been suggested that the name of Harry Potter that graces the front cover of every Potter novel bears a striking resemblance to the lettering and design of Escovaria de Belomonte‘s street sign.
Visually it is a great store to visit, but I wonder whether Potterheads actually make a purchase here.
There is no entrance fee and I am certain the place is much photographed by Potterheads, but whether the Escovaria is pleased with being a tourist attraction more than a serious business establishment is debatable.
It has been suggested by Potterhead blogs that the outfit worn by Universidade do Porto (University of Porto) students was the inspiration for the outfits that Hogwarts students were required to wear during academic hours.
The wife and I were not able to fit in a visit to the University, saw no one on the streets dressed in such attire and found very few photos of students dressed in this manner.
What can be said about the University:
Founded on 22 March 1911, it is the 2nd largest Portuguese university by enrolled students (after the University of Lisbon) and has one of the most noted research outputs in Portugal.
It is ranked among the best Portuguese universities, is among the 100 universities in Europe and ranked 328th of the best 400 universities in the world.
Today, about 28,000 students (11,000 postgraduates) attend the programmes and courses provided by the University of Porto’s 15 schools (13 faculties, a biomedical sciences institute and a business school) each with a considerable degree of autonomy.
It offers 63 graduate degree courses, over 160 master courses and several doctoral degree courses and other specialization courses, supported by 2,300 lecturers and a technical and administrative staff of over 1,600 people.
Of those who can call themselves alumni or staff of the University are:
Richard Zimler (journalist / writer / professor)
Julio Dinis (1839 – 1871)(writer)
Jorge de Sena (1919 – 1978)(doctor / writer)
José Neves (billionaire businessman / founder of Farfetch)
Marisa Ferreira (artist)
Camilo Castelo Bianco (1825 – 1890)(writer)
Agostinho da Silva (1906 – 1994)(writer)
(This last mentioned I find inspirational:
“What you need, above all, is to not remember what I said.
Never think for me.
Think always for yourself.
Be sure that all your mistakes that you commit are, according to your own thinking and deciding, all more valuable than all your correct actions made according to my thinking, not yours.
If the Creator wanted to put us together we perhaps couldn’t have two different bodies and two different heads.
My counselling should serve you to confront it.
It is possible that, after this confrontation, you come to think like me, but, at this time, your thought is yours.
My disciples, if I have any, are the ones who oppose me, because in their deep soul they guard what truly animates and what I most want to transmit to them.
The wish is to not conform.“)
Above: Agostinho da Silva
It is more likely that Rowling was inspired not by the University of Porto, but rather by the University of Coimbra – 1.5 hours south of Porto – whose students do indeed wear academic robes similiar to those of Hogwarts students.
We did not get to Coimbra.
We did not need to.
Above: University of Coimbra students in ceremonial robes
There are hundreds of places to eat and drink in Porto, from old town tascas and Art Nouveau cafés to riverfront designer restaurants.
Of these, the one place that attracts the Potterhead is the Café Majestic.
In 1916, Rua de Santa Catarina 12 was built on a paved shopping street.
Opened in 1921, the Café Elite was designed in Art Nouveau style.
The then Bohemian quarter of the city did not think the name “Elite” was appropriate as it was not part of the Zeitgeist that was the post-1910 revolutionary Portuguese Republic.
The coffee house was subsequently given the name it is still known by.
The Majestic became over time a place frequented by intellectuals and literary legends, including Gago Coutinho, Beatriz Costa, Júlio Resende, José Régio and Teixeira de Pascoaes.
(Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho, generally known simply as Gago Coutinho (1869 – 1959) was a Portuguese geographer, cartographer, naval officer, historian and aviator.
An aviation pioneer, Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral were the first to cross the South Atlantic Ocean by air, from March to June 1922, from Lisbon, Portugal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.)
Above: Coutinho (right) and Cabral (left) on the Lusitánia
(Beatriz Costa (born Beatriz da Conceição; 1907 – 1996) was a Portuguese actress, the best-known actress of the golden age of Portuguese cinema.)
Above: Beatriz Costa
(Júlio Resende is a Portuguese pianist and composer.
He is active as a jazz musician (both as a bandleader and as a sideman for other artists) and is also involved in the Fado scene, having recorded a solo piano tribute to Amália Rodrigues and collaborating with singers like António Zambujo, Ana Moura and Aldina Duarte.
He is also the leader of Alexander Search, a rock band fronted by Eurovision Song Contest 2017 winner Salvador Sobral and inspired by Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.)
(José Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Régio (1901 – 1969), was a Portuguese writer.
José Régio was the author of novels, plays, poetry and essays.
His works are strongly focused on the theme of conflict between man and God and between the individual and society, a critical analysis of solitude and human relations.)
Above: José Régio
(Joaquim Pereira Teixeira de Vasconcelos (1877 – 1952), better known by his pen name Teixeira de Pascoaes, was a Portuguese poet.
He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.)
Above: Painting of Teixeira de Pascoaes
In the 1960s, the Café experienced a decline, parallel to the increasingly repressive social situation of Portugal under the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveria Salazar’s Estado Novo (“New State“).
In 1992 the Barrias family decided to extensively restore the Majestic.
Using old photographs as their guide, the restoration was completed, a new floor laid and the Café reopened in 1994.
In the year prior to the commencement of the Majestic’s renovations, Rowling often visited the Café, writing her thoughts for her first Harry Potternovel on Majestic napkins.
The Majestic today is the best known of Porto’s belle époque cafés, with a perfectly preserved decor of celestial cherubs, bevelled mirrors, carved chairs and wood panelling.
Waiters float to the strains of The Blue Danube.
Come for coffee or afternoon tea as we did.
The Fountain of the Lions (Portuguese: Fonte dos Leões), is a 19th-century fountain built by French company Compagnie Générale des Eaux pour l’Etranger.
Cast by the Val d’Osne foundry in France, it is a copy, in most part, of the fountain in the Town Hall Square of Leicester, England.
The fountain is located in an urban, isolated location, within the gardened Praça de Gomes Teixeira.
The central fountain has a cruciform layout with a group of sculptures at the base supported by four seated lions on the extremes.
Between each lion, the axis of the source has a column with base, shaft and capital.
To top, two central, circular cups superimposed and staggered, with a pine cone surmounting all.
The octagonal shaped granite tank has rounded edges.
The outer profile of the tank walls is corrugated.
The edge of the lower plane bowl is outlined in relief by a frieze with plant elements interrupted only by four cornets from which water flows.
It is thought by Potterheads that this fountain inspired Rowling’s choice of logo for the House of Gryffindor at Hogwarts.
The Clérigos Church (Portuguese: Igreja dos Clérigos,”Church of the Clergymen“) is a Baroque church with its tall bell tower, the Torre dos Clérigos, seen from various points of the city and is one of Porto’s most characteristic symbols.
The main façade of the church is heavily decorated with baroque motifs (such as garlands and shells) and an indented broken pediment.
This was based on an early 17th-century Roman scheme.
The central frieze above the windows present symbols of worship and an incense boat.
The lateral façades reveal the almost elliptic floorplan of the church nave.
The Clérigos Church was one of the first baroque churches in Portugal to adopt a typical baroque elliptic floor plan.
The monumental tower of the church, located at the back of the building, was only built between 1754 and 1763.
The baroque decoration here also shows influence from the Roman Baroque, while the whole design was inspired by Tuscan campaniles.
The tower is 75.6 metres high, dominating the city.
There are 240 steps to be climbed to reach the top of its six floors.
This great structure has become the symbol of the city.
Did the Torre dos Clerigos inspire Hogwarts’ Astronomy Tower?
Potterheads like to think so.
At all of these sites, especially atop the Torre dos Clerigos, the visitor, headphones on, fado playing, can ponder how fado, Arantes, Rowling and yours truly all interconnect.
We have learned that Arantes probably abused Rowling as possibly did her father.
Fans who re-read Harry Potter as adults quickly realize that the behaviour of the Dursleys reads like child abuse: starvation, forced labour and confinement.
Starvation has been a stranger to me, but forced labour and confinement I did know.
In the Harry Potter series, more explicit abuse is described when Harry learns through a Pensieve memory that Severus Snape’s father beat his son and wife.
Porto is a Pensieve for me….
And then there is Rowling’s post-Potter writing….
In her novel The Casual Vacancy, Andrew is a restless teen who lives with his abusive, degrading father.
Rowling once told The New Yorker that Andrew represented her mindset as a teen, and although Andrew was not exactly based on her father, she said:
“I did not have an easy relationship with my father.”
Above: Andrew Price, The Casual Vacancy
Abuse also finds its way into Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Credence has an adopted mother who hits him with a belt.
That resentment from his mother’s frequent beatings turns him into an Obscurial, a repressed being that the evil Gellert Grindelwald wants to use for dark magic.
Often, but certainly not always, children who were abused by their parents often abuse their children when they become parents.
Perhaps this was the case in the behaviour of Arantes.
And, lest we forget, why Rowling chose António de Oliveira Salazar as the inspiration for the repressive Hogwarts co-founder Salazar Slitherin….
One overriding criticism of Salazar’s regime is that stability was bought and maintained at the expense of suppression of human rights and liberties.
Abuse on a national level.
Under Salazar’s authoritarian rule, he brought stability and prosperity to Portugal, but at enormous cost: censorship, imprisonment and torture.
Above: Salazar, 1939
Arantes was born in 1967.
Salazar’s Estado Nova lasted from 1932 to 1974.
Arantes’ father knew abuse and repression and so would Arantes.
It is hard to sympathize with those that abuse unless we realize that they were probably a product of abuse themselves.
Arantes lost the mother of his child and his daughter as well.
In the quiet of night as Arantes lies in his solitary bed in his brother’s Clichy apartment fado music plays inside his head.
Arantes is a pessimist, a nihilist, alone, and forever known for his greatest failure:
Losing the world’s most famous novelist as his lover and the child they made together.
We quietly walk through the wonders of Porto.
Fado fills the streets.
Sadness of memory fills my soul.
And sits upon my shoulders like an invisibility cloak.
Above: Porto, night
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Facebook / Pocket Rough Guide Porto / Lonely Planet Portugal / Rough Guide Portugal / Matthew Hancock, Xenophobe’s Guide to the Portuguese / A.H. de Oliveira Marques, A Very Short History of Portugal
Landschlacht, Switzerland, Tuesday 17 September 2019
Damn that man!
One man’s writings has had and continue to have a major effect on my life and this has been reflected in my travels and I have already spoken of the man previously in this blog.
Above: Charles Dickens, New York, 1867
(Please see Canada Slim and the Dickensian Moment – first published as “Goodbye, Charles” on 9 June 2015.)
(As one of the shortest and woefully inadequate posts I have ever written, expect to see an updated version of “Goodbye, Charles” as soon as possible and the addition of another post that continues the chronicle of my first travels in Europe last described in Canada Slim and the Promised Land – first published as “That which survives 3: The promised land“.)
It was he who made me decide to first enter Britain via Broadstairs.
Above: Dickens House Museum, Broadstairs
It was he who compelled me to convince my good friends Samantha and Iain to visit his birthplace in Portsmouth.
Above: Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum, Portsmouth
It was he who inspired me to first find the courage to write.
It was he whose footsteps I was determined to trace during my visit to London in the last week of October 2017.
My wife had purchased for us two London Passes, offering free entry to over 60 attractions, as well as free public transport on buses, on the Tube, and on trains.
She strongly suggested I use mine as much as possible during the time when she was attending her medical conference.
26 October was the first day that I would have a chance to view London on my own.
I had, following the Passbook alphabetically, already visited the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Manhir that morning, so my next goal was the Charles Dickens Museum in the Bloomsbury district.
Above: BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir
(For previous posts on London, please see….
Canada Slim….
and the Paddington Arrival
and the Street Walked Too Often
Underground
and the Outcast
and the Wonders on the Wall
and the Calculated Cathedral
and the Right Man
and the Queen’s Horsemen
and the Royal Peculiar
and the Lamp Ladies
and the Uncertainty Principle
and the Museum of Many
and the Breviary of Bartholew
and the Body Snatchers
and the Freudian Slippers
and the Mandir of Nose Hill )
London, England, 26 October 2017
Few cities are as closely associated with one writer as London is with Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870).
The recurrent motifs in his novels have become the clichés of Victorian London (though Dickens was active and successful before Queen Victoria came to the throne) – the fog, the slums and alleys, the prisons and workhouses and the stinking river.
Drawing on his own personal experience, Dickens was able to describe the workings of the law and the conditions of the poor with an unrivalled accuracy.
Above: Charles Dickens, 1850
Born in Portsmouth (Please see Canada Slim and the Dickensian Moment.), Dickens was the second of eight children.
His father, John Dickens, was a clerk who worked for the Navy and had set up home in Portsmouth with his wife Elizabeth.
Above: Old Portsmouth
In 1817 John was posted to the dockyard in Chatham.
John and his family took a full part in the life of the community.
They were friendly with neighbours and with the family of a local landlord.
Charles and his sister Fanny were frequently set up by their father atop a table in the Mitre Inn to entertain the tavern with songs and ballads of the day.
It was in Chatham that Charles began his education.
Above: Chatham Dockyard
His widowed aunt Mary Allen married for a second time while the Dickens family were in Chatham.
This was to a widowed doctor, Matthew Lambert, who had a son Matthew, a little older than Charles and became a great influence upon this early part of Charles’ life, for it was Matthew who introduced Charles to the wonders of the theatre.
This was the beginning of a lifelong passion.
“I tried to recollect whether I had ever been in any theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some pleasant association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, I could not remember even one.”
In fact, Charles always had a great relish for bad theatre.
“Allow me to introduce myself—first negatively.
No landlord is my friend and brother.
No chambermaid loves me.
No waiter worships me.
No boots admires and envies me.
No round of beef or tongue or ham is expressly cooked for me.
No pigeon pie is especially made for me.
No hotel advertisement is personally addressed to me.
No hotel room tapestried with great coats and railway wrappers is set apart for me.
No house of public entertainment in the United Kingdom greatly cares for my opinion of its brandy or sherry.
When I go upon my journeys, I am not usually rated at a low figure in the bill.
When I come home from my journeys, I never get any commission.
I know nothing about prices, and should have no idea, if I were put to it, how to wheedle a man into ordering something he doesn’t want.
As a town traveller, I am never to be seen driving a vehicle externally like a young and volatile pianoforte van, and internally like an oven in which a number of flat boxes are baking in layers.
As a country traveller, I am rarely to be found in a gig, and am never to be encountered by a pleasure train, waiting on the platform of a branch station, quite a Druid in the midst of a light Stonehenge of samples.
And yet—proceeding now, to introduce myself positively—I am both a town traveller and a country traveller, and am always on the road.
Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human Interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy goods way.
Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms in Covent Garden, London—now about the city streets: now, about the country by-roads—seeing many little things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, I think may interest others.
These are my chief credentials as the Uncommercial Traveller.”
In The Uncommercial Traveller, he revisited Rochester where he enjoyed the somewhat shaky productions he saw there.
He does not spare the company:
“Many wondrous secrets of Nature had I come to the knowledge of in that sanctuary:
Of which not the least terrific were, that the witches in Macbeth bore an awful resemblance to the Thanes and other proper inhabitants of Scotland, and that the good King Duncan could not rest in his grave, but was constantly coming out of it and calling himself somebody else.”
Above: High Street, Rochester
John Dickens’ job entitled him and his family to regard themselves as middle class, but the middle classes had little money behind them if things went wrong or if they couldn’t support their large families in seizing the opportunities they had anticipated.
Prosperity could unravel very quickly.
By the time John was recalled to London in 1822, the debts were considerable and his new post meant a drop in salary.
Above: John Dickens (1785 – 1851)
Such was the family situation in 1823 that the young Charles, age 11, had to go out to work, finding employment in a boot-blacking factory, Warren’s Blacking Warehouse, on the north bank of the Thames, near the site of the modern Charing Cross Station.
Charles and his colleagues had to cover pots of boot polish (blacking) and paste on to them paper labels.
He was paid six shillings a week.
Great numbers of children in early 19th century England would have done similar work – and many, much, much worse.
“It was a crazy, tumbledown old house, abutting, of course, on the river, and literally overrun with rats.
Its wainscotted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and the decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again.
The counting house was on the first floor, looking over the coal barges and the river.
There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work.”
This episode affected Charles profoundly.
He thought his parents had given up on him.
“It is amazing to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age.
It is amazing to me, that, even after my descent into the poor little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had compassion enough for me … to suggest that something might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at any common school ….
No one made any sign.
My father and mother were quite satisfied.
They could hardly have been more so, if I had been 20 years of age, distinguished at a Grammar School and going to Cambridge.”
Above: Cambridge University coat-of-arms
On 20 February 1824 John Dickens was arrested and imprisoned in Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison.
Above: Marshalsea Prison Gate
Charles was deeply ashamed of his family’s circumstances and hurt further when his mother forced him to keep his blacking job even after his father’s release.
Above: Elizabeth Dickens (1789 – 1863)
This influenced Dickens’s view that a father should rule the family, and a mother find her proper sphere inside the home:
“I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.”
His mother’s requesting his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women.
Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, David Copperfield:
“I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to Heaven!“
In the end, a number of circumstances brought an opportunity for change.
John inherited some money, began receiving a pension from the Navy and started working as a journalist, thus enabling the family to dispense with the few shillings Charles was adding to the family income.
Dickens got to school eventually.
He spent two years at Wellington House, which he remembered with little affection.
He did not consider it to be a good school:
“Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster’s sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr Creakle’s Establishment in David Copperfield.”
When he left, at age 15, he was ready for work.
An acquaintance of the family found Charles work as a lawyer’s clerk with the firm of Ellis and Blackmore, which lasted 18 months.
Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray’s Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828.
Above: Gray’s Inn Square, London
Charles was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers, and clerks.
He went to theatres obsessively—he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every single day.
His favourite actor was Charles Mathews and Dickens learnt his monopolylogues (farces in which Mathews played every character) by heart.
Above: Charles Matthews (1776 – 1835)
Then, having learned Gurney’s system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter.
Above: Example of Thomas Gurney (1705 – 1770) shorthand
A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors’ Commons and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years.
Above: Doctors’ Commons in the early 19th century
This education was to inform works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, and especially Bleak House—whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens’s own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to “go to law“.
Charles had family in journalism.
His father wrote occasional pieces, but Charles also had a maternal uncle, John Henry Barrow, who in 1828 launched The Mirror of Parliament.
It was not long before Charles was part of Barrow’s parliamentary reporting team and was soon striking out writing for other publications, including the radical newspaper The True Sun.
Sometime before 1830, Dickens fell in love with a young woman called Maria Beadnell, the daughter of a banker.
The relationship between them flashed on and off for around four years, despite hostility from her parents, interference from friends and Maria’s own capricious nature.
The letters that survive show how thoroughly Dickens was absorbed in pursuing her.
Maria’s parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.
When the end finally came, he wrote to her, claiming:
“I have never loved and I can never love any human creature breathing but yourself.”
Above: Maria Beadnell (1810 – 1886)
She is thought to be the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield.
Above: David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow
Many years later, Dickens got a letter from Maria out of the blue and a short correspondence between them began in which he proclaimed the intensity of his original feelings for her.
The tone of these letters soon changed after he arranged to see her and she turned out to be “toothless, fat, old and ugly” (her words).
Above: Miriam Margoyles as Maria Beadnell Winter
The Maria romance is interesting because of the marked contrast it makes with Dickens’ engagement and marriage.
Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of his boss at the Evening Chronicle, could hardly have been a more different young woman.
At least Dickens looked at her in a completely different way.
His letters to her are affectionate but occasionally overbearing, as if he was asserting himself to ensure that no more nonsense got in the way of his own ambition.
He was particularly careful to outline the primacy of his work and its demands.
His commitments at this time were extremely heavy.
Catherine and Charles married on 2 April 1836 and went for a week’s honeymoon to Chalk in Kent (during which, true to form, Dickens was busy with The Pickwick Papers).
Above: Catherine Hogarth Dickens (1816 – 1879)
In August 1834 Charles was given a permanent position on The Morning Chronicle, a liberal paper, to report on all parliamentary matters.
This included elections (there were two in 1835) and political meetings – all around the country, before there were railroads.
Deadlines were nevertheless overwhelmingly important and Dickens experienced many freezing, wet stagecoach journeys, bouncing about, writing on his knees, racing back to London to get his account in before the rival reporters on The Times.
Dickens’ first published piece of creative work appeared in the Monthly Magazine in 1833.
It was called “A Dinner at Poplar Walk“.
The publication had a circulation of 600 and the young author wasn’t paid, but he knew what it all meant.
Above: Monthly Magazine (1796 – 1843) issue, 1 February 1810
In the preface of the cheap edition of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens tells us that he practically smuggled the piece into the magazine’s offices:
“It was dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street.”
The piece’s emergence into print was an occasion of some emotion:
“I walked down to Westminster Hall and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street and were not fit to be seen there.”
More pieces for the Monthly Magazine followed.
These were comic stories, which owed a lot to the theatrical farces so common on the London stage.
It was at the end of one of these pieces, published in May 1834, that he signed his name as “Boz“, the nom de plume by which he first began to establish his reputation and indeed his brand.
Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years.
Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname “Moses“, which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield.
Above: Augustus Dickens (1827 – 1866)
When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, “Moses” became “Boses“—later shortened to Boz.
As “Boz“, Dickens began to collect readers.
He was given further opportunities to please them.
Dickens began to write occasional pieces for the Morning Chronicle in addition to his reporting.
These were his “sketches” – informal surveys of parts of London, London themes or observations of London people, held together by a conversational tone rather than a narrative: a Londoner talking to Londoners.
When an evening sister paper to the Morning Chronicle was launched, Dickens obtained a salary to continue his writing explorations in the same vein.
Above: London, 1886
The increasing exposure brought Dickens to the attention of Harrison Ainsworth, a writer not much read today, but a real star of the literary scene at this time.
Ainsworth admired Boz‘s work and introduced Dickens to his own publisher John Macrone.
Above: William Harrison Ainsworth (1805 – 1882)
Soon a collected volume of the newspaper and magazine pieces with drawings of George Cruikshank, the leading illustrator of the day, was published in February 1836.
Sketches by Boz sold so well that a second edition was needed that year and two more in 1837.
As the first edition of Sketches by Boz emerged in 1836, Dickens was approached by the publishers Chapman and Hall.
They came with an idea that had been proposed to them in turn by a well-known illustrator, Robert Seymour.
The plan went like this:
Seymour would produce a series of engravings depicting the amusing mishaps attending a club of Cockney sportsmen – men from the new middle classes, with money to spend on the aristocratic pursuits of previous generations: hunting, shooting and fishing.
These illustrations would be published as a monthly serial.
Would Dickens care to write some text to help string the images together?
Fourteen pounds a month might be possible.
No one really knows what or how much Dickens saw in this offer at the time.
He liked the money.
He was told that serials were a “low, cheap form of publication” that would ruin him.
The fact that he kept all his other irons in the fire suggests that he did not count too much on the new venture establishing his reputation.
But that is exactly what it did.
He claims, in the preface to The Pickwick Papers, that he recognized that the idea wouldn’t do:
“I objected, on consideration, that although born and partly bred in the country I was no great sportsman, that the idea was not novel, and had already been much used, that it would infinitely better for the plates to arise naturally out of the text, and that I should like to take my own way….”
At first sales were disappointing, but by the end of its run in November 1837, The Pickwick Papers was selling 40,000 copies per month, it had been adapted for the stage many times over and the words of its characters seemed to be on everyone’s lips – as was the name of its young author.
After their 1836 wedding, Charles took Catherine to a set of chambers he was renting in Furnival’s Inn, one of the inns of court, the traditional home of English law practice and accommodation for many non-lawyers too.
As The Pickwick Papers started bringing in a more secure income, Charles set his sights on more substantial living quarters.
These turned out to be at 48 Doughty Street, into which Catherine and Charles moved with their son Charley in March 1837.
Above: 48 Doughty Street, London
They took in Catherine’s younger sister Mary Hogarth, who had supported Catherine during her first pregnancy.
It was not unusual for a woman’s unwed sister to live with and help a married couple.
Dickens became very attached to Mary.
She inspired characters in many of his books.
Mary is seen as the inspiration for Rose Maylie in Oliver Twist.
She is also seen as the inspiration for Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop.
Nell had many traits that Dickens associated to Howarth, including describing Nell as “young, beautiful and good“.
Other characters believed to have been inspired by Mary include:
Kate Nickleby, the 17-year-old sister of the hero of the novel Nicholas Nickleby
Agnes Wickfield, the heroine in David Copperfield
Ruth Pinch from Martin Chuzzlewit
Lilian, the child who appears in Trotty Veck’s visions in The Chimes
Dot Peerybingle, the sister in The Cricket on the Hearth.
Above: Mary Hogarth (1819 – 1837)
Unlike Mary, Dickens’ wife Catherine does not appear to have been the inspiration for any of his characters.
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, famed as a fashionable residential area and as the home of numerous prestigious cultural, intellectual and educational institutions.
It is bounded by Fitzrovia to the west, Covent Garden to the south, Regent’s Park and St. Pancras to the north, and Clerkenwell to the east.
Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest museum in the United Kingdom, and numerous educational institutions, including the University College London, the University of London, the New College of the Humanities, the University of Law, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and many others.
Above: The British Museum, London
Bloomsbury is an intellectual and literary hub for London, as home of world-known Bloomsbury Publishing, publishers of the Harry Potter series, and namesake of the Bloomsbury Set, a group of famous British intellectuals, including author Virginia Woolf and economist John Maynard Keynes, among others.
Above: Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941)
Bloomsbury began to be developed in the 17th century under the Earls of Southampton, but it was primarily in the 19th century, under the Duke of Bedford, which the district was planned and built as an affluent Regency era residential area by famed developer James Burton.
The district is known for its numerous garden squares, including Bloomsbury Square, Russell Square and Tavistock Square, among others.
Notable residents of Bloomsbury have included J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan), Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Ricky Gervais, Vladimir Lenin, Bob Marley, Catherine Tate (Donna Noble, Doctor Who) and William Butler Yeats.
Above: Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924)
Despite a plethora of blue plaques, Bloomsbury boasts just one literary museum, the Charles Dickens Museum, the only one of the writer’s fifteen London addresses to survive intact.
Doughty Street was a well-to-do gated Georgian street when Dickens – flush with the success of his first two published works – moved here in 1837.
The family lived in this light and airy house for two years, during which he completed Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby and worked on Barnaby Rudge.
Catherine gave birth to two children in the bedroom here.
On Saturday, 6 May 1837, Charles took Catherine and Mary to the theatre.
They returned home in good spirits, enjoyed some supper and a drink together and went to bed at one in the morning.
A few moments later Charles heard a cry from Mary’s bedroom and hurried in to find her still in her day clothes and visibly ill.
Catherine came to see what was wrong.
Charles said afterwards that they had no idea there was anything seriously the matter with Mary, but that they sent for medical assistance to be on the safe side.
Whatever Dr. Pickthorn did had no effect, yet still there seemed no cause for alarm.
Mary was, after all, only 17 years old and until then had been in perfect health.
Fourteen hours went by before Mary sank under the attack and died – died in such a calm and gentle sleep, that although Charles had held her in his arms for some time before, when she was certainly living (for she swallowed a little brandy from his hand) Charles continued to support her lifeless form, long after her soul had fled to Heaven.
This was about 3 o’clock on Sunday afternoon.
“Thank God she died in my arms and the very last words she whispered were of me.“, Charles told fellow reporter and friend Tom Beard.
Before Charles laid Mary’s body down he was able to remove a ring from her finger and put it on one of his own.
And there it stayed for the rest of his life.
Above: Mary’s bedroom, Charles Dickens Museum
Mary’s death is fictionalized as the death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop.
The building at 48 Doughty Street was threatened with demolition in 1923, but was saved by the Dickens Fellowship, founded in 1902, who raised the mortgage and bought the property.
The house was renovated and the Dickens House Museum was opened in 1925, under the direction of an independent trust, now a registered charity.
Above: Study, Charles Dickens Museum
48 Doughty Street is presented as far as possible in its inhabited state, the idea being to give the impression that the Dickens family is still resident.
Much of the house’s furniture belonged, at one time or another, to Dickens, and the house also owns the earliest known portrait of the writer (a miniature painted by his aunt Mary Allen in 1830).
Above: Charles Dickens
Perhaps the best-known exhibit is the portrait of Dickens known as Dickens’s Dream by R. W. Buss, an original illustrator of The Pickwick Papers.
This unfinished portrait shows Dickens in his study at Gads Hill Place surrounded by many of the characters he had created.
The painting was begun in 1870 after Dickens’s death.
Above: Dickens’ Dream, Robert William Buss
(Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gad’s Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens.
Today the building is the independent Gad’s Hill School.
The house was built in 1780 for a former Mayor of Rochester, Thomas Stephens, opposite the present Sir John Falstaff Public House.
Gad’s Hill is where Falstaff commits the robbery that begins Shakespeare’s Henriad trilogy (Henry IV: Part 1, Henry IV: Part 2 and Henry V). )
Above: Gad’s Hill Place, Rochester
Other notable artefacts in the Museum include numerous first editions and original manuscripts as well as original letters by Dickens, and many personal items owned by Dickens and his family.
The only known item of clothing worn by Dickens still in existence is also displayed at the Museum.
This is his Court suit and sword, worn when Dickens was presented to the Prince of Wales in 1870.
The Charles Dickens Museum also owns the adjacent house, #49, where they stage special exhibitions, house the bookshop and have a lovely café with free Wifi.
There runs within both London and Rochester (where Charles spent the last years of his life) a Dickens Trail.
On London’s Dickens Trail, there is:
the Old Curiosity Shop (currently a shoe shop) on Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the inspiration of Dickens’ novel of the same name
the atmospheric Inns of Court (once the headquarters of the Knights Templar) which feature in several Dickens novels
Nancy’s Steps, where Nancy tells Rose Maylie Oliver’s story in Oliver Twist
the evocative dockland area east of Shad Thames where Bill Sykes (also of Oliver Twist) had his hide-out.
(This dockland area, known as China Wharf – today very photogenic with its stack of semicircular windows picked out in red – was once dubbed “the very capital of cholera“.
In 1849, the Morning Chronicle described it thus:
“Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the very raff and refuse of the river, the visitor makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights and sounds from the narrow alleys which branch off.”
This was the location of Dickens’ fictional Jacob’s Island, a place with “every imaginable sign of desolation and neglect“, where Bill Sykes met his end in Oliver Twist.)
Above: China Wharf, London
Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic.
He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.
His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.
His novels and short stories are still widely read today.
Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer and campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, education and other social reforms.
Above: Charles Dickens, 1842
Dickens’s literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers.
Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society.
His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.
Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense.
The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience’s reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback.
For example, when his wife’s chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features.
His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives.
Above: Charles Dickens, 1850
Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha’pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.
His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre.
Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London.
His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction.
The most famous celebrity of his era, public demand saw him undertake a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career.
Dickens has been praised by many of his fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell, G. K. Chesterton and Tom Wolfe—for hisrealism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations and social criticism.
However, Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing and a vein of sentimentalism.
Above: Dickens’ chair, Charles Dickens Museum
The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
There is much in Charles Dickens’ life before and up to his residency at 48 Doughty Street that I can relate with.
Charles came from a large family, as did I, but like the titular hero of Oliver Twist it was not until later in my life did I come to realize that I was neither an orphan (nor an only child) as far as my biological heritage went.
My first work during my school years was labour intensive like Charles’ was.
While his was labouring in a blacking factory, mine was summer employment as a farmhand.
(A position I occasionally returned to when financing my travels.)
Like Charles, I spent much of the early years of my life outdoors when I wasn’t reading voraciously.
The boy Charles read Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding and The Arabian Nights.
I read Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stephenson and the adventures of the Hardy Boys.
Charles was separated from his family by mounting debts and living beyond one’s means.
It is said that these were the cause of my biological parents’ break-up and it was the prevention of these to my foster parents that led to my being taken in for the provincial support the government provided for my care.
Unlike Charles, I was never small for my age and I would by the age of 14 surpass Charles’ adult height of 5’9″ to reach my current height of 6’4″, but, like Charles, I had felt that I was a “not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy“.
After my secondary and post-secondary studies, I, like Charles, worked as a clerk, but what for him would be a brief two years would be for me always a position to return to between my travels.
I have worked as a clerk for a customs broker, federal government departments and for a registered charity.
More akin to George Orwell, I would later work as a teacher and a restaurant worker, but in a Dickensian vein, I have written (sometimes for money, sometimes for exposure) for local newspapers and school publications.
I have never achieved great fame, but then neither have I greatly sought it to the extent that Dickens did.
What I have always admired about Dickens and his works are:
his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society.
his carefully constructed plots wherein he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives.
his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations and social criticism.
his walking which led to his descriptions of the neglected and forgotten corners of London.
“Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night.“, wrote the poet Rupert Brooke.
London’s own Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, William Blake and Thomas De Quincey were all night time perambulators, but of those who walk the streets at night the supreme nightwalker was Charles Dickens.
In Great Expectations (1861), Pip at one point visits Miss Haversham in her home in Kent in order to inform her and her ward Estella, with whom he is still madly in love, that he has finally discovered the identity of his benefactor, the convict Magwitch.
Pip confirms that, because he knows Miss Haversham was not responsible for his transformation into a gentleman, he realizes that she and Estella have all along treated him not as their protegé but “as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or whim“.
It is on this occasion, too, that Estella admits she is to be married, as Pip feared, to the odious and oafish aristocrat Bentley Drummle.
Thus discarded, and in a deeply disconsolate state of mind, Pip escapes from Satis House and, as the afternoon light thickens, hides himself for a time “among some lanes and bypaths“.
Then, in a moment of decision, he strikes off “to walk all the way to London“.
“I could do nothing half so good for myself as tire myself out.”, he decides.
It is “past midnight” when he eventually crosses London Bridge.
Four years later, Dickens made roughly the same journey on foot, in reverse.
One night in October 1857, when he was in his mid-forties, Dickens retired to bed in the family home in Bloomsbury, but found himself completely unable to get to sleep.
He had suffered from intermittent insomnia throughout his adult life, but on this occasion he felt particularly agitated.
He did not feel at home at home.
So at 0200 Dickens climbed out of bed, dressed in warm clothes and set off through the gaslit streets of the city.
Dickens had written more than two decades earlier:
“The streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky winter’s night.
When the heavy, lazy mist, which hangs over every object, makes the gas lamps look brighter.”
In the damp silence of the autumn night, beneath the scuffing sound of his boots on the stone pavements, Dickens would have heard the gas whispering its secrets in the softly rasping pipes.
Heading south in the direction of the Thames, Dickens walked through London directly to Gad’s Hill Place, his country residence in Kent.
Like Pip’s journey through the night, it was a distance of some 30 miles.
Catherine and Charles had been….prolific – ten children – “the largest family ever known with the smallest disposition to do anything for themselves” as Dickens later described them – and 15 novels, each published in monthly (or weekly) installments, which were awaited with baited breath by the public.
Then in 1857, at the peak of his career, Dickens fell in love with the actress, Ellen Ternan.
Charles was 45, Ellen just 18.
Above: Ellen Ternan (1839 – 1914)
On the evening of his nightwalk, Catherine and Charles quarrelled.
They were becoming inrcreasingly estranged, partly because of his relationship with Ellen.
For this reason, Charles visited Tavistock House, their home at this time, only rarely.
Above: Tavistock House, London
Charles spent most of the autumn of 1857 at Gad’s Hill Place.
When he needed to be in central London, he tended to stay in a bachelor flat at the offices of his periodical, Household Words.
It was shortly after Charles insisted on partitioning the bedroom he shared with Catherine so that they could sleep separately.
The nighttime journey on foot to Gad’s Hill Place, driven by an acute sense of anguish and guilt, took Dickens little more than seven hours.
(According to present day Google Maps, the same journey normally takes 9.5 hours.)
Above: Google Maps logo
Dickens was a fast walker, who took pride in the fact that he could sustain a pace of at least four miles an hour across long distances.
(In my walking days my average pace was 3 mph and on a descent 5 mph.)
Above: Canada Slim, The Dutton Advance, 6 March 1991
His friends frequently complained of the speed and impatience with which he walked.
Above: Charles Dickens
Edward Johnson, one of his biographers, wrote:
“Sometimes his perspiring companions gave way to blisters and breathlessness.”
Charles himself was boastful of his feats as a pedestrian.
He professed in 1860:
“So much of my travelling is done on foot that if I cherished betting propensities, I should probably be found registered in sporting newspapers as the Elastic Novice, challenging all 11-stone mankind to competition in walking.”
No doubt he secretly harboured dreams of bettering Captain Barclay, a celebrated athlete who, in 1809, when pedestrianism first became a sporting activity, walked a thousand miles in a thousand hours for a thousand guineas.
Above: Captain Robert Barclay-Allardyce (1779 – 1854), the celebrated pedestrian
In the late 1850s, Dickens remained a fit man precisely because he insisted on walking, both in London and in the countryside, whenever he could find the opportunity.
Even so, he was increasingly afflicted with ill health at this time.
His symptoms included neuralgic and rheumatic pains.
His feet also troubled him.
According to biographer Claire Tomalin:
“First his left foot, and then his right, took to swelling intermittedly, becoming so painful that during each attack he became unable to take himself on the great walks that were essential part and pleasure of his life.”
Dickens had gout, though he was reluctant to accept the idea, claiming instead that he contracted the pain because he had incautiously walked in snowy conditions.
This did not deter him from walking in all conditions, clement or inclement.
G.K. Chesterton, identifiying a “streak of sickness” in Dickens, which he detected in the novelist’s “fervid” intelligence, nonetheless confirmed that “he suffered from no formidable malady and could always through life endure a great deal of exertion, even if it was only the exertion of walking violently all night.”
Above: Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
For John Hollingshead, who had been apprenticed to Dickens on Household Words, and who therefore saw a good deal of him in the 1850s, this proclivity for “violent walking” was itself a malady.
Hollingshead recalled in retrospect that “when Dickens lived in Tavistock House he developed a mania for walking long distances, which almost assumed the form of a disease.”
“When he was restless, his brain excited by struggling with incidents or characters in the novel he was writing, he would frequently get up and walk through the night over Waterloo Bridge, along the London, New Kent and Old Kent Roads, past all the towns on the old Dover High Road, until he came to his roadside dwelling (Gad’s Hill Place).
His dogs barked when they heard his key in the wicket-gate.
His behaviour must have seemed madness to the ghost of Sir John Falstaff.”
(Gad’s Hill Place stood opposite the Falstaff Inn, formerly a notorious haunt of robbers and highwaymen.)
Above: John Hollingshead (1827 – 1904)
It is likely, then, that Dickens conducted his 30-mile nightwalk to Kent on more than one occasion.
But Dickens’ celebrated feat on that night in October 1857 was less about overcoming physical afflictions than capitulating to his psychological ones.
This was a flight both from his everyday life and from his self.
From an early age Charles had been running away from something, or walking “fast and far” from something.
“Going astray“, he called it.
In an article entitled “Going Astray“, printed in Household Words in 1853, Dickens described how he had “got lost one day in the City of London” as an 8-year-old child and roamed and strayed and strolled through London’s precincts all day and into the night, until he found a watchman.
“I have gone astray since, many times, and farther afield.“, Dickens concludes with a certain sad pride.
Chesterton argued that Dicken’s originality and genius resided in the fact that he possessed, “in the most sacred and serious sense of the term, the key of the street.”
“Few of us understand the street.
Even we step into it, as into a house or a room of strangers.
Few of us see through the shining riddle of the street, the strange folk that belong to the street only – the street-walker or the street Arab, the nomads, who generation after generation, have kept their ancient secrets in the full blaze of the sun.
Of the street at night many of us know even less.
The street at night is a great house locked up.
But Dickens had, if ever man had, the key of the street.
His stars were the lamps of the street.
His hero was the man in the street.
He could open the inmost door of his house – the door that leads into that secret passage which is lined with houses and roofed with stars.”
Night Walks, first published in All the Year Round in 1860 and then reprinted in The Uncommercial Traveller in 1861, was Dickens’ finest, most haunting piece of non-fictional prose.
At once impressionistic and replete with intensely related detail, it relates his experiences on the streets of the capital between half past midnight (0030) and the moment when “the conscious gas begins to grow pale with the knowledge that daylight is coming.”
A sense of solitude echoes through his sentences, empty and hollow as the midnight streets through which he walks.
“When a church clock strikes, on homeless ears in the dead of the night, it may be at first be mistaken for company, but as the spreading circles of vibration echo out into eternal space, the mistake is rectified and the sense of loneliness is profounder.”
Dickens confesses to have discovered a lonely sense of community in the cold depths of the London night, among men defined by “a tendency to lurk and lounge, to be at street corners without intelligible reason“.
“My principal object being to get through the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic relations with people who have no other object every night of the year.”
These are the everyday casualities of life in the capitalist metropolis – the victims of unemployment, addiction and other symptoms of social and spiritual alienation.
The homeless must conquer time and defend themselves against its blank emptiness, from minute to minute, moment by moment, the shame, desertion, wretchedness and exposure of the great capital, the wet, the cold, the slow hours and the swift clouds of the dismal night.
For the police, the proof of a home, a legal nocturnal place to stay, is the precondition for the recognition of existence.
So the situation of homelessness, roaming the night without aim, without rest, represents exclusion from society.
It is a form of non-existence, non-being, the outer limits of society’s psychological and sociological borderland, the hinterland of humanity, the dark hollow interior of human nature.
London is a city where 55% of people are not ethnically white British, nearly 40% were born abroad, and 5% are living illegally in the shadows.
Every week 2,000 migrants unload at Victoria Coach Station, tens of thousands of migrants arriving here every year.
But who can trust statistics?
You will never understand what it means to be a beggar until you have slept on the streets.
They sleep in front of the glare of shop windows, for the light lends a sense of safety.
Crackheads and Roma, street life, disorientation, a jumble of faces, an eternal rumble of traffic, where working girls sell their bodies and throw in their souls for free, the rhythm of the streets, a never sated drumbeat.
Ute (my wife) and I on London evenings are one of many after-dinner couples strolling along.
I hear others with their contempt and disgust regard the beggars who congregate upon the concrete like lost church mice, like mangy parasites, cosmopolitan cockroaches, best belittled than assisted.
They are the invisible, because we choose to ignore them.
They are painful reminders of our privileged life that they cannot imagine having or, if once had, reacquiring.
They are the old and the prematurely aged, shuffling and stumbling, snuffling and sniffing, pleading for pennies from those whose hearts are void of compassion.
Washed-up soiled souls marooned, listless and almost lifeless, easy prey to those who would use them for cruel sport, they lie beneath walls smeared in blood and feces upon flattened cardboard boxes that soften the sidewalk.
Human rubbish amidst human refuse, they are gaunt faces with sunken eyes, needing to beg to survive, to live, to exist, but to beg is to break the law.
What is earned is confiscated.
Law and order trumps love and outreach.
They see the beggar as an offense not as a fellow human being.
Those without homes are an invisible city deliberately unseen by the lucky with lodgings.
Charles Dickens’ home is remembered as I hold my wife’s hand tightly to lend ourselves courage to encounter what we do not comprehend.
Charles feared poverty, was obsessed with money, felt that unease that only those who have raised themselves out from poverty can truly understand.
But his talent, hard work, perseverance and good fortune never required a return to a hand-to-mouth, payment-to-payment survival.
He encountered the homeless and destitute during his night walks but was never reduced to joining their ranks.
Above: Charles Dickens
My wife and I have London lodgings during our sojourn here and a warm comfortable flat awaiting our return to Switzerland.
I too have known a poverty of sorts, though my begging was limited to government assistance and hitching rides and seeking emergency overnight shelter in the places where rides left me.
In my long-distance walking days I slept wherever I could and rarely needed the tent I carried upon my backpack.
Like those migrants of London for whom hope remains despite their desperate circumstances, I worked where and when I could, sometimes in the safety of the law, sometimes not.
Though I have never been much of an evening perambulator I have nonetheless encountered the homeless in more than a few cities I have visited.
I see it regularly amongst the Roma in Konstanz and I give as prudently as I can when I encounter the beggar Bruno in St. Gallen.
I remember the helpless and hapless of London and Paris, Seoul and Istanbul, Naples and New York.
Above: The Old Beggar of Bordeaux, Louis Dewis, 1916
I think of Oliver Twist.
“Advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:
“Please, sir, I want some more.” ”
Above: Mark Lester as Oliver Twist, Oliver!, 1968
Everyone’s hungry for something.
Sources: The Rough Guide to London / Matthew Beaumont, Night Walking: A Nocturnal History of London / Jeremy Clarke, The Charles Dickens Miscellany / Charles Dickens, Night Walks / Ben Judah, This Is London / Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens: A Life
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.
Thursday was Ascension Day, a holiday commemorated in both Thurgau Canton (where my wife works) and in St. Gallen Canton (where I work), and, to our mutual surprise, we found ourselves both free from the obligations of employment simultaneously.
A miracle almost as spectacular as someone rising to Heaven in a cloud!
We decided to visit the Hundertwasser Exhibition at the Kunstmuseum in Lindau, Germany, by taking a train to Romanshorn, then another to Rorschach Harbour and then finally a boat across the Lake of Constance to Bavaria’s only port.
This post is not that story, though it is this story that inspires this post.
In thinking about how my wife and I interacted on yesterday’s day trip I invariably compare it to other times we have travelled together.
(For previous posts about Porto, please see Canada Slim and the War of the Oranges as well as Canada Slim and the Station Sanctuary of this blog.)
The wife and I have been together for 23 years – she IS tough – and we always somehow muddle through.
We forgive one another.
She forgives me for being wrong and I forgive her for pointing out how truly wrong I can be!
Sadly, the amnesia of our conflicts is sometimes not as permanent as it should be….
Porto, Portugal, Wednesday 25 July 2018
It is a warm day in this the most western country of Continental Europe and happily we are in a city we both like.
Porto is more than a twee tourist trap of little more than pomp and ceremony, like Lisboa the Portuguese capital.
Porto is Portugal’s Chicago, a busy commercial centre, whose fascination lies in its riverside setting and day-to-day life.
Make no mistake there are sites in Porto worth seeing….
The riverside barrio of Ribeira with waterfront cafés and restuarants
The landmark Clérigos Tower
The Sé, Porto’s cathedral
The contemporary art gallery and park at the Fondacao de Serralves
The port wine lodges across the Douro River in Vila Nova de Gaia
A Douro River cruise
The bridges that span the Douro: the Ponte Dom Luis I, the Ponte Infante, the Ponte María Pia
The Salào Árabe of the Palácio da Bosa
Above: Images of Porto
We had walked through the cathedral square the day previously, but this morning we were determined to explore all the sites that surrounded it.
But the morning began badly.
A wardrobe malfunction made us return back to our B & B bedroom.
Then we discovered the English language guidebook we were dependent upon had somehow gone missing.
We returned once again to the room, didn’t find it, so we were forced to find a bookshop and buy the book anew.
We made our way back to the Sé and then she discovered her German-language guidebook was not to be found with us.
She rushed back to the room and left me in the bright sunshine waiting her return.
Set on a rocky outcrop, a couple of hundred metres from Sao Bento Station, Porto’s Cathedral, the Sé, commands fine views over the rooftops.
I look up at the Sé’s North Tower, the one with the bell, and my eyes trace the worn bas-relief depicting a 14th century ship – a reminder of the earlier days of Portugal’s maritime epic, when sailors inched nervously down the west Saharan coastline not knowing what dangers were ahead.
Perhaps my wife’s impatience with the morning was partially affected by our cathedral visit, for the Sé’s interior is a disquieting, disastrous doomsday design of Baroque blended with rough Romanesque and gargantuan Gothic architecture that has a spirit as gloomy as a bride and groom forced to wed whom they do not love.
The Sé is redeemed its ghastly first impressions once the senses escape into the cathedral cloisters, with walls lovingly draped with glowing azulejos and a grand staircase that ascends to the breathtaking chapterhouse for panoramic perspectives of the world from the windows.
The Sé is a holy seductress with a mask of beauty that barely conceals a darkness and depth that dares not expose itself to the light.
The Sé is not an intimate ingress of inspiration but rather a stern sorrow-laden scourge of sin and sacrifice designed to intimidate and threaten those unworthy of salvation.
The old dowager lacks teeth, her majesty missing, her glory gone, her gloom inescapable.
The wife returned to retrieve her German-language Müller Guide which I should have packed in my rucksack and didn’t.
Boys, or men who eternally and internally remain boys, are book-bearing beasts of burden meant to be present but unobtrusive, to be seen but not heard.
I sit in the sun with clear directives to accomplish as set by my bothered bride.
I must plan our progress for the rest of the day.
Planning is never a prospect I embrace, for invariably my plans falls short of her perception of what a perfect plan entails.
I soak the warmth of the sunbaked stone into my already weary bones and tired mind.
I am unmoving and unmoved, immensely immovable.
On the south side of the Sé stretches the grandiose facade of the Paco Episcopal, the medieval archbishop’s palace, where the first King of Portugal was crowned and spent his wedding night.
Like the Sé, the Paco is a mishmash of architectural elements: a Rococo stairway lined with carved granite flowers, Neoclassical doorways with Baroque decor, priceless furniture of luxurious lifestyle exposed to penny-pinching voyeuristic peasants, a lodging financed by a love of God with 17th century Indonesian cabinets hewed from blood and sweat, toil and tears hatefully demanded by harsh Portuguese taskmasters, religious paintings ironically produced in the secular scene of the first Portuguese Republic (1911 – 1956).
The Palace does not intice nor excite me.
But the notion of politics and history does, as I read A.H. de Oliveira Marques’ A Very Short History of Portugal and I wonder, as I often do, at what compels a man to demand better from those who would rule him.
The reckless courage that is required to speak truth to power and demand justice from the unjust has always fascinated me.
I am a foreigner living in Switzerland and though my lot as a Canadian is far more fortunate than that of other nationalities exiled here, there does exist inequalities and injustices enforced by the Swiss upon those who were not born in the Helvetian Republic.
Just to name a few: taxation without any or only minor representation, difficulty to find employment matching the expat’s experience and the unnecessary requirement that rejects qualifications not obtained within Switzerland, the blatant racial and religious profiling done at border crossings by unsympathetic customs pitbull police, the sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, xenophobia encouraged by the eternally re-elected party in power, the bureaucracy that is bathed with greed and complexity, the fortress mentality of a nation determined to remain neutral yet one that profits from the spoils of war, a people who confuse quality of life by quantity of franks in silent bank vaults and wonder why having it all isn’t so much fun….
I often want to climb the stairs to our apartment building’s roof and shout obscenities down upon the unsuspecting neighbourhood of Landschlacht.
But I lack the courage, for attention garnered may mean expulsion, and, for better or worse, Switzerland has been my home for nine years.
I am a whisper on the Internet, a voice without echo, in a world blind to everything but the square screen of the preset mobile device upon their palms.
I think about what we could tour next.
The house behind the Sé at Rua de Dom Hugo 32 was once the home of the poet and writer Guerra Junquiero whose works reflected the revolutionay turmoil of the Republican era.
Today the Casa Museu Guerra Junquiero exhibits the Iberian and Islamic art, the Seljuk pottery, glassware and glazed earthenwear that he had collected over his lifetime, in rooms that recapture the atmosphere of the poet’s last home.
My guidebooks speak of the Junquiero Museum but none lavishes praise upon it, primarily for the reason that all is written only in Portuguese.
Abílio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro (1850 – 1923) was a Portuguese top civil servant, a member of the Portuguese House of Representatives, a journalist, author and poet.
His work helped inspire the creation of the Portuguese First Republic.
Junqueiro wrote highly satirical poems criticizing conservatism, romanticism and the Church, leading up to the Portuguese Revolution of 1910.
He was one of Europe’s greatest poets.
Born in Freixo de Espada à Cinta, Trás-os-Montes, Portugal to José António Junqueiro Júnior, a supply trader and farmer, and wife Ana Maria Guerra.
His mother died when he was only three years old.
He completed his secondary studies in Bragança and at sixteen, he enrolled at the University of Coimbra to study theology.
Guerra Junqueiro began his literary career in a promising way in Coimbra in the literary journal A Folha, directed by the poet João Penha, of which later he was editor.
Above: Bust of Joao Penha (1838 – 1919), Braga, Portugal
Here Junquiero created friendly relations with some of the best writers and poets of his time, a group generally known as the Generation of 70.
Guerra Junqueiro from a very young age began to manifest remarkable poetic talent, and already by 1867 his name was included among the most hopeful of the new generation of Portuguese poets.
In the same year, in the book entitled The Portuguese Aristarchus, appreciating the book Vozes Sem Echo (Voices without Echo), published in Coimbra in 1867 by Guerra Junqueiro, an auspicious future was already foreseen for its author.
In Porto, on the same date, another work appeared, Baptismo de Amor (Baptism of Love), accompanied by a preamble written by Camilo Castelo Branco.
In Coimbra, Junqueiro published the Lira dos quatorze anos (The Book of Fourteen Years), a volume of poetry, and the poem Mysticae nuptiae.
In Porto, in 1870 the Vitória da Franca (Victory of France) was published, then later republished in Coimbra in 1873.
In 1873, when a republic was proclaimed in Spain, Junquiero wrote the vehement poem À Espanha livre (To free Spain).
Junqueiro concluded his study of law also in 1873.
He became secretary of the governors of Angra do Heroísmo, Azores, and later of Viana do Castelo.
In 1874 his poem A morte de D. Joao (The death of D. João) achieved great success.
Camilo Castelo Branco dedicated an article to him in the Nights of Insomnia, and Oliveira Martins, in the magazine Arts and Letters.
Above: Camilo Castelo Branco (1825 – 1890)
In Lisbon, Junquiero was a contributor of prose and verse, for political and artistic journals, such as The Magic Lantern and António Maria, with the collaboration of drawings by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro.
In 1875 Junquiero wrote OCrime, a poem on the murder of Ensign Palma de Brito, the poem Aos Veteranos da Liberdade (To the Veterans of Freedom) and the volume of Contos para a infancía (Tales for Childhood).
In Diário de Notícias (The Daily News) he also published the poem Fiel e Na Ferra da Ladra (Fiel and the Story of Feira da Ladra).
In 1878 he published in Lisbon the poem Tragédia infantil.
Junquiero collaborated to several periodical publications, namely: Atlantida (1915-1920), Branco e Negro (1896-1898), Brazil Portugal (1899-1914) (1884-1885), The Press, The Universal Illustration (1884-1885), The Portuguese Illustration (1885-1891), Sunday’s Newspaper (1881-1888), The Reading (1894-1896), Light and Life (1879), The West (1878-1915), Renaissance (1878-1879), The Pantheon (1880-1881), The Portuguese Republic (1901-1911), Azulejos (1907-1909), in the Tourism magazine, begun in 1916 and in the newspaper O Azeitonense (1919-1920).
A great part of the poetic compositions of Guerra Junqueiro is reunited in the volume A Musa Em Férias (The Muse on Vacation), published in 1879.
This year he also wrote the poem O Melro (O Blackbird), which was later included in A Velhice do Padre Eterno (The Old Age of the Eternal Father) of 1885.
Idílios e Sátrias (Idylls and Satires) was a translated and collected volume of short stories by Hans Christian Andersen and others.
Above: Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875)
After a stay in Paris, apparently for treatment of digestive disease contracted during his stay in the Azores, Junquiero published in 1885, in Porto, A Velhice do Padre Eterno (The Old Age of the Eternal Father), a work that provoked bitter retorts by the clerical opinion, represented in the press, among others, by the canon José Joaquim de Sena Freitas.
Above: José Joaquim de Sena Freitas (1840 – 1913)
Controversial with regard to religion, other writings of anticlerical nature by its author have been found in periodical publications like The Lucta and The Light (1919 -1921).
When the conflict with England over the “pink map“, which culminated in the British Ultimatum of 11 January 1890, Guerra Junqueiro became deeply interested in this national crisis and wrote Finis Patriae (The end of country) and A Cancao do Ódio (The Song of Hate), to which Miguel Ângelo Pereira wrote the music.
(The 1890 British Ultimatum was an ultimatum by the British government delivered on 11 January 1890 to Portugal.
The ultimatum forced the retreat of Portuguese military forces from areas which had been claimed by Portugal on the basis of historical discovery and recent exploration, but which the United Kingdom claimed on the basis of effective occupation.
Portugal had attempted to claim a large area of land between its colonies of Mozambique and Angola including most of present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia and a large part of Malawi, which had been included in Portugal’s “Rose-coloured Map“.
It has sometimes been claimed that the British government’s objections arose because the Portuguese claims clashed with its aspirations to create a Cape to Cairo Railway, linking its colonies from the south of Africa to those in the north.
Above: British colonies (pink), Portuguese colonies (purple)
This seems unlikely, as in 1890 Germany already controlled German East Africa, now Tanzania, and Sudan was independent under Muhammad Ahmad.
Rather, the British government was pressed into taking action by Cecil Rhodes, whose British South Africa Company was founded in 1888 south of the Zambezi and the African Lakes Company and British missionaries to the north.
Above: Cecil Rhodes (1853 – 1902)
When Portugal acquiesced to British demands, it was considered as a breach of the Treaty of Windsor (1386) and seen as a national humiliation by republicans in Portugal, who denounced the government and the King as responsible for it.
On 14 January, the progressive government fell and the leader of the Regenerador Party, António de Serpa Pimentel, was chosen to form the new government.
Above: António de Serpa Pimental (1825 – 1900)
The progressivists then began to attack the King, voting for republican candidates in the March election of that year, questioning the colonial agreement then signed with the British.
Feeding an atmosphere of near insurrection, on 23 March 1890, António José de Almeida, at the time a student in the University of Coimbra and, later on, President of the Republic, published an article entitled Bragança, o último, considered slanderous against the King and led to Almeida’s imprisonment.
Above: António José de Almeida (1866 – 1929)
On 1 April 1890, the explorer Silva Porto (1817 – 1890) immolated himself (set himself on fire), wrapped in a Portuguese flag in Kuito, Angola, after failed negotiations with the locals, attributed to the Ultimatum.
The death of the well-known explorer of the African continent generated a wave of national sentiment and his funeral was followed by a crowd in Porto.
On 11 April, Guerra Junqueiro’s poetic work Finis Patriae, a satire criticising the King, went on sale.
In the city of Porto, on 31 January 1891, a military uprising against the monarchy took place, constituted mainly by sergeants and enlisted ranks.
The rebels, who used the nationalist anthem A Portuguesa as their marching song, took the Paços do Concelho, from whose balcony, the republican journalist and politician Augusto Manuel Alves da Veiga proclaimed the establishment of the republic in Portugal and hoisted a red and green flag belonging to the Federal Democratic Centre.
The movement was, shortly afterwards, suppressed by a military detachment of the municipal guard that remained loyal to the government, resulting in 40 injured and 12 casualties.
The captured rebels were judged. 250 received sentences of between 18 months and 15 years of exile in Africa.
A Portuguesa was forbidden.
Despite its failure, the rebellion of 31 January 1891 was the first large threat felt by the monarchic regime and a sign of what would come almost two decades later.
The British Ultimatum was considered by Portuguese historians and politicians at that time to be the most outrageous and infamous action of the UK against its oldest ally.
The 1890 ultimatum was said to be one of the main causes for the Republican Revolution, which ended the monarchy in Portugal 20 years later (5 October 1910) and the Lisbon assassinations of the Portuguese king (Carlos I of Portugal) and the crown prince on 1 February 1908.
After the British Ultimatum and the political crisis associated, he was involved in the political debate in 1891, writing some best sellers that had huge impact on public opinion, contributing to the discredit of the Portuguese monarchy and the success of the Portuguese Republican Party in the 1910 Portuguese Revolution.
The 5 October 1910 revolution was the overthrow of the centuries-old Portuguese monarchy and its replacement by the Portuguese Republic.
It was the result of a coup d’état organized by the Portuguese Republican Party.
By 1910, the Kingdom of Portugal was in deep crisis: British pressure on Portugal’s colonies, the royal family’s expenses, the assassination of the King and his heir in 1908, changing religious and social views, instability of the two political parties (Progressive and Regenerador), the dictatorship of João Franco and the regime’s apparent inability to adapt to modern times all led to widespread resentment against the Monarchy.
The proponents of the republic, particularly the Republican Party, found ways to take advantage of the situation.
The Republican Party presented itself as the only one that had a programme that was capable of returning to the country its lost status and place Portugal on the way of progress.
(Why does this sound so familiar?)
(Make Portugal great again?)
After a reluctance of the military to combat the nearly two thousand soldiers and sailors that rebelled between 3 and 4 October 1910, the Republic was proclaimed at 9 o’clock of the next day from the balcony of the Paços do Concelho in Lisbon.
After the revolution, a provisional government led by Teófilo Braga directed the fate of the country until the approval of the Constitution in 1911 that marked the beginning of the First Republic.
Among other things, with the establishment of the republic, national symbols were changed: the national anthem and the flag.
The revolution produced some civil and religious liberties, although there were no advances in women’s rightsand in workers’ rights, unlike what had happened in other European countries.
The First Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: Primeira República Portuguesa; officially: República Portuguesa, Portuguese Republic) spans a complex 16-year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May 1926 coup d’état.
The sixteen years of the First Republic saw nine presidents and 44 ministries and has been described as consisting of “continual anarchy, government corruption, rioting and pillage, assassinations, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution“.
The latter movement instituted a military dictatorship known as Ditadura Nacional (national dictatorship) that would be followed by the corporatist Estado Novo (new state) regime of António de Oliveira Salazar.
Above: António de Oliveria Salazar (1889 – 1970)
Kidnapped and driven off into darkness after Salazar snatched power in 1928, Portugal was absent from the Second World War and through most of the 20th century was economically isolated and politically smothered.
Portugal is rich with potential and a certain backwardness adds to the charm.
It is easy to fall in love with this fair land on this final edge of the world, though it could use a bit more self-confidence and a lot more marketing of itself and its heritage.)
Junquiero married Filomena Augusta da Silva Neves on 10 February 1880.
The couple had two children: Maria Isabel Guerra Junqueiro on 11 November 1880 and Júlia Guerra Junqueiro in 1881.
He died in Lisbon at the age of 72.
In 1940 Junqueiro’s daughter donated his estate in Porto that became the Guerra Junqueiro Museum.
Chronology of Guerra Junquiero:
1850: Born in Ligares, Freixo de Espada a Cinta
1864: The Book of Fourteen Years
1866: Studies theology at the University of Coimbra;
1867: Voices Without Echo
1868: Baptism of Love. Enrolls in the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra.
1873: Free Spain. Collaboration to The Leaf of João Penha. He earns a bachelor’s degree in law.
1874: The Death of D. João
1875: First issue of The Magic Lantern to which he collaborates
1878: He is appointed Secretary General of the Civil Government in Angra do Heroísmo.
1879: The Muse on Vacation and The Blackbird. Joins the Progressive Party. He is transferred from Angra do Heroísmo to Viana do Castelo and elected to the Chamber of Deputies.
1880: Married on 10 February to Filomena Augusta da Silva Neves. 11 November, their daughter Maria Isabel is born.
1881: Daughter Julia is born. Diagnosed with dementia, hospitalized in Porto.
1885: The Old Age of the Eternal Father. Creation of the “New Life” movement of which Junqueiro is a sympathizer.
1887: Second trip to Paris
1888: The group “Losers of Life” is formed. The Legitimate.
1889: His wife, Filomena Augusta Neves, dies whom he will mourn until the end of his days.
1890: Finis Patriae. Guerra Junqueiro is elected deputy by the Quelimane circle.
1895: Sells most of the artistic collections he had accumulated;
1896: The Fatherland. Departs for Paris.
1902: Prayer for Bread
1903: Lives in Vila do Conde.
1904: Prayer to the Light
1905: A visit to the Polytechnic Academy of Porto prompts him to settle in this city.
1908: He is candidate of the Republican Party for Porto.
1910: He is appointed Extraordinary Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Portuguese Republic to the Swiss Confederation in Berne
1914: Exonerated from the functions of Minister Plenipotentiary
1920: Sparse Prose
1923: He died on 7 July in Lisbon.
1966: His body is solemnly transferred from the Jerónimos Monastery where it had been interred to the National Pantheon of the Church of Santa Engrácia, Lisbon, in a ceremony held to honor other illustrious Portuguese figures.
Those are the facts as drily given by Wikipedia and Google, but who was the man?
How should we categorize him?
Should we?
Can we?
Was he a mere bureaucratic drone who dabbled in poetry?
Or a poet who dabbled in government work?
Did his writing incite a revolution or did it merely capture the spirit of the times?
As I sit in the sun my mind should be planning our travel itinerary for the day so to placate my wife upon her return.
But instead I think of Junqueiro and his Museum I won’t mention to the wife, already unhappy with the start of our first full day in Porto.
I think instead of the power of the printed word and of the impossibility, even through the written expression of a writer’s thoughts, of truly knowing another person.
Though it may be acknowledged that it is surely difficult for us to know a Portuguese poet long dead from nearly a century ago, it must also be acknowledged that even those we presently love remain unsolved mysteries to us.
“We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.” (Michel de Montaigne, Essais)
Above: Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592)
“Each of us is several, is many, is a profusion of selves.
So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them.
In the vast colony of our being, there are many species of people who think and feel in different ways.” (Fernando Pessoa, Livro do Desassossego)
Above: Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935)
I think of the mix of contradictory emotions that fill me anticipating my wife’s return, both eagerly awaiting and decidedly dreading her return.
I think of how each of us carries around inside ourselves whole worlds.
I am more than a sweaty balding head.
I am also a tear-softened soul.
I think of how much life I might still have before me, how open my future might be, how much could still happen, how much there might still be experienced.
Can anyone see beneath my mask that I am a mix of modesty and immodesty, of conformity and eccentricity, that within me lies a silent rage aimed at a pompous world, an unbending defiance against the world of show-offs whose only real accomplishment is their accidental connectivity to realms of power and prestige denied the average man?
I sit in the sun, uncertain of what to suggest next, unwilling to face my wife’s disapproval at what she will perceive to be laziness instead of confusion.
Perhaps we travel not to experience another world, but to flee from our own experience, simultaneously running to and from life.
Portugal is a land always in the shadows, a land of foggy fishing villages and tiny hamlets set deep in cork forests.
It is a land of mournful fado wailing and legendary sightings of the Virgin Mary.
Critics, most of them Portuguese, call Portugal the graveyard of ambition, the kingdom of mediocrity, where the national pastime is complaining and the ambitious leave.
As late as 2005, Portugal still had 13% of women who couldn’t read, less than 50% of children who made it to high school and was the lowest earner of the EU.
Porto, historically the country’s wine distribution centre, is said to be the hardest working part of Portugal:
“Lisbon plays, Porto pays, Coimbra prays.”
I want to visit the archbishop’s palace and the poet’s place, for I take great comfort from the calm of everything past.
So often I am alone with my thoughts, even when surrounded by a cacophony of chaotic conversations convulsing from a crowd.
My mind is sealed and my tongue falters in failing to express the vaulted thought.
My wife speaks and my ears hear and my heart listens, but my mind is my own, adrift on its own adventure, lost in its own odyssey.
I am reminded of my reading on the flight the day before, of the writing of Amadeu Prado, as invented by Swiss writer Pascal Mercier in his book Night Train to Lisbon:
“Of the thousand experiences we have, we find language for one experience at most and even this one merely by chance and without the care it deserves.
Buried under all the mute experiences are those unseen ones that give our life its form, its colour and its melody.
Then, when we turn to these treasures, as archaeologists of the soul, we discover how confusing they are.
The object of contemplation refuses to stand still, the words bounce off the experience and in the end, pure contradictions stand on the paper.”
What benefit is there in being the archaeologist of one’s self, to dig for buried experience?
“Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us, what happens to the rest?”
The Wikipedia photo of Junquiero shows a man of intelligence and self-confidence and boldness.
Or is what I perceive only an observation of qualities I wish I possessed beneath the mask I wear?
Yet the contradiction that is a man’s character sometimes wonders could something be made different from my life, that there may be more to me than anyone knows.
In the centre of the city, in the centre of my life, I sit in the sun in the square of the cathedral.
I reflect how we live in an age rushing through a timeless universe only appreciated when contemplated quietly and calmly.
I think of the life of a man I never knew, a poet whose words I never read, who wrote in a language I never spoke.
Is Junqueiro only identifiable by what he did and the words he wrote?
Was there more to the man than anyone besides himself could ever possibly know?
“Is there a mystery under the surfaces of human action?
Or are human beings utterly what their obvious acts indicate?”
The words that Junquiero wrote, the words I have never read, are they expressions of eternally, essentially, the same things others have said before?
“Words are so horribly frayed and threadbare, worn out by being used millions of times.
Do they still have any meaning?
Naturally, the exchange of words functions.
People act on them.
They laugh and cry.
They go left or right.
The waiter brings the coffee or tea.
But that’s not what I want to ask.
The question is:
Are they still an expression of thoughts?
Or only effective sounds that drive people here and there because the worn grooves of babble incessantly flash?“
Perhaps I should follow the advice of Marcus Aurelius when he writes in his Meditations:
“Do wrong to thyself.
Do wrong to thyself, my soul, but later thou wilt no longer have the opportunity of respecting and honouring thyself.
For every man has but one life….
Those who do not observe the impulses of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.“
Above: Marble bust of Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180)
She returns to me still sitting in the sun, with little progress on the planning made.
I imagine her thinking:
“What is the point of having a husband if he does not do what he is told?”
I imagine that she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders having a man about who is so completely useless at times.
I smile foolishly and say pointless words to defend my pointlessness.
I don’t mention Junquiero’s house and she never asks.
I also know I would be frustrated being in a museum whose signage I couldn’t read, despite the unfair expectation that a Portuguese museum have any other language besides Portuguese for a poet unknown outside of Portugal.
With a heavy sigh, she plans for us.
The morning has been shot to hell, so lunch across the Douro River in Gaia might inspire us.
Like the animal I am, I respond greedily to the prospect of food.
I know there is no excuse for my behaviour and no words to justify it, so I don’t bother trying.
Above: Vila Nova de Gaia
As I rise to my feet, carefully – I am just recovering from an accident where I broke both my arms – I think of Prado who never existed and Junquiero who no longer exists, then I focus on matters at hand.
The universe may be timeless but our vacation time is not.
But reading Mercier’s novel and learning of Junquiero’s life has inspired me.
I will ask when I can at random bookshops for the poems of Junquiero available in English translation.
Above: Livraria Lello, Porto
I know that the rhythm and subtlity of his poetry will be inadequately conveyed in translation, but I also know the painfully slow process of translating the original Portuguese into English I understand will somehow destroy the passion with which I started to read.
Nonetheless there is too little poetry in my life and even the muse of love has her limits and I must make amends for this deficiency.
I will return from the vacation and do the things I must do.
Work where and when I can.
Meet my obligations to others as best as I can.
I will seek no evil to see, no evil to hear, no evil to speak.
I remain a true husband, a good friend and loyal employee.
But my mind is my own and my words, as imprecise as they can be, will seek to speak my mind.
Perhaps through reading poetry I shall find the means to express myself.
I am my own archaeologist of my own self.
So much generated from simply sitting in the sun.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Lonely Planet Portugal / Rough Guide Portugal/ Pocket Rough Guide Porto / Matthew Hancock, Xenophobe’s Guide to the Portuguese / A.H. de Oliveira Marques, A Very Short History of Portugal / Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon / Pedro Rodrigues, Porto and Northern Portugal: Journeys and Stories / Melissa Rossi, The Armchair Diplomat on Europe / Jürgen Strohmeier, Nordportugal
The Swedes look at the world through a square frame nailed together by Martin Luther, Gustav Vasa (the founder of the Swedish state), the Temperance Movement and 100 years of socialism.
Luther contributed the Swedish taste for simplicity.
Vasa gave the Swedes a national identity.
The Temperance Movement gave rise to the Swedish tendency to be sanctimonious.
Socialism gave the Swedes a mentality of work as necessary but not everything.
Foreigners living in Sweden find the natives socially impenetrable, as neighbours mind their own business and colleagues go straight home after work.
The Swedes themselves don’t actually dislike any nation in particular, because they are quietly confident in Swedish superiority.
Foreigners are good news, because with their funny faces and horrific habits they remind Swedes how wonderful it is to be Swedish and normal.
I have vacationed in Sweden with my wife and I have worked with a Swede in Switzerland and I find very little that is objectionable about the Swedes.
I find them less puffed up than Parisians, more party hardy than my fellow Canadians, as sexy as teenage voyeurism once suggested but not tempting enough to test my marriage vows, and I see in them more similarities with their Scandinavian neighbours than they would care to admit.
Simple?
Maybe the architecture and IKEA furniture is, but a Swedish woman is no less and no more complicated than her international counterparts.
Patriotic?
Certainly, they are not more patriotic than Canadians or Swiss.
Though they display their national flag everywhere as the Americans do theirs, the Swedish are far more secure in their superiority than the Americans are.
The Swedes don’t need to boast.
They simply and quietly know their own value.
Above: The coat of arms of Sweden
Sanctimonious?
Perhaps the women are, for the Swedes believe that they are the first in the world to achieve total equality between the sexes, thus a man who isn’t taciturn and submissive is a threat to that uneasy balance between the sexes.
I feel that in the quest to be emancipated the Swedish female feels threatened if the male requests the same.
Only a woman dares tell a man how wrong he is.
A man dares not do the same to her without serious conflict and consequence.
As for the work ethic, I can only say that the Sweet Suede that I once worked with was a hardy and competent and well-respected worker beloved by both staff and customers.
I never thought that I would even think about Sweden and Swedish women during my visit to the Alsace Wine Route.
I was wrong.
Alsace, France, 2 January 2019
Alsace is the smallest region in France as regards area, but the most highly populated as regards density.
Alsace has 1,734,000 inhabitants – 209 inhabitants per square kilometre, whereas the average number of inhabitants per square kilometre in Metropolitan France is 108.
This is by no means the only peculiarity of this region….
Officially the Alsace Wine Route is broken into two sections: the one most folks travel and the northern section most don’t.
The northern section begins in the town of Wissembourg.
I have written about Wissembourg before.
A monastery town and former garrison, Wissembourg offers numerous attractions such as the Abbey Church of St. Peter and St. Paul with its gigantic representation of St. Christopher, the Fritz House built in 1550, and the Bruch – the town’s old quarter.
Far away from the traditional half of the famous Alsatian wine route between Marlenheim and Thann, quite competitive wine is also being produced near Wissembourg at the base of the first foothills of the northern Vosges in heavy, fat clay soil.
Viticulture here has a long tradition.
Introduced by the roamin’ Romans, later promoted by the monks of Wissembourg, today 200 sideline wine makers cultivate some 175 hectares of all sorts of grape varieties like Graubünden, Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer, from the five villages of Rott, Oberhoffen, Steinseltz, Riedseltz and Cleebourg.
Private wine sales are not common as the wine makers deliver almost all of their grapes to the Cleebourg Wine Cooperative which wine lovers should not miss.
In the lovely hilly countryside around the five villages with their vineyards and numerous fruit trees you can also go for a walk and then stop in at the Ferme Auberge Moulin des 7 Fontaines (Mill of the Seven Fountains) in the area – a particularly beautiful place.
A 47 minute, 3.5 kilometre stroll south west of Wissembourg finds the pedestrian in the village of Rott (population: 473) where one finds a barrel that the enterprising Mayor Louis Andres Rott turned into a bar, engraved with the worthy maxim:
“If you drink, you die.
If you don’t drink you die, so….“
Above: Rott, Alsace, France
Rott is one of 50 Alsatian communities with a simultaneum (or shared church) with different Christian denominations meeting at different times and presided over by different clergy.
Above the village on the Col de Pigeonnier stands the electric tower, the Émetteur de l’Eselsberg.
The Cleebourg vineyard is at the northernmost point of the Alsatian winemaking area and covers all its communes as well as Wissembourg, the main town in the canton.
The vineyard stretches from Rott, with its belfry / clock tower overlooking the cemetery that doubled as a defensive hideout in the 18th century, to Riedseltz on the banks of the Rhine.
Planted mainly with hybrids or fallen into disuse until the end of the Second World War, the vines were uprooted and the vineyards replanted with the now-famous classic Alsace varieties since the 1950s.
The local wine producers belong to the Cleebourg cooperative, which has an excellent reputation for all things Pinot, including a blanc de blanc crémant, the Prince Casimir.
Follow the signs of the small rural routes to the village of Oberhoffen lès Wissembourg.
With about 300 inhabitants, Oberhoffen-lès-Wissembourg is one of the smallest communes in the community of communes whose main resource comes from the communal forest.
Orchards and vineyards surround the village.
The vines that contribute to the development of the Karschweg, the Pinot gris (formerly Tokay pinot gris) local vinified by the Cleebourg cooperative cellar.
The discovery of the village can also be done by taking the tree path that crosses the town.
Located at the foot of the Vosges hills, Oberhoffen-lès-Wissembourg was first attached to the bailiwick of Cleebourg, then passed under the influence of Puller de Hohenbourg to finish as the Duchy of Deux-Ponts where it will remain until the revolution.
It was not until 1927 that the town became known as Oberhoffen-lès-Wissembourg because of its geographical proximity to Wissembourg.
Close by is the equally small village of Steinseltz by the River Hausauerbach in the region known as Outre-Forêt (“beyond the forest“).
The origin of the history of Steinseltz is closely linked to that of the Abbey of Wissembourg, founded in the 8th century by the monk Dagobert of Speyer.
Locals still bear witness to this distant time like that of Auf der Hub.
A hub was a plot of land rented by the convent to private individuals against a well-defined tenancy.
In 1401, after the decline of the Abbey of Wissembourg, the lords of Hohenbourg, seized the village as well as those of Cleebourg, Oberhoffen-lès-Wissembourg and Rott.
His successor Wirich II built Castle Cleebourg in 1412.
In 1475, Wirich III allied with Duke Louis de Deux-Ponts against the Elector Palatine Frédéric.
Victorious, the latter annexed the village of Steinseltz.
In 1504, Maximilian of Habsburg attributed the village of Steinseltz to the Duchy of Zweibrücken, which thus exercised a right of collation.
They integrated Steinseltz to the Bailiwick of Cleebourg, which they held until the Revolution.
On 4 August 1870, the Imperial Prince Frederick William went to the locality of Schafbusch to bow before the remains of Abel Douay.
In Steinseltz, every August in odd years, there is a feast in honor of the geranium, a symbol of Alsace.
At the heart of the village, Ferme Burger welcomes, every first Wednesday of the month, a market of local and organic products.
There are food products (breads, vegetables, fruits, oils, chocolate, honey) as well as aesthetic products such as essential oils, soaps or herbs.
And Steinseltz produced Marie….
Marie (Trautmann) Jaëll (17 August 1846 – 4 February 1925) was a French pianist, composer and pedagogue.
Marie Jaëll composed pieces for piano, concertos, quartets, and others.
She dedicated her cello concerto to Jules Delsart and was the first pianist to perform all the piano sonatas of Beethoven in Paris.
She did scientific studies of hand techniques in piano playing and attempted to replace traditional drilling with systematic piano methods.
Her students included Albert Schweitzer, who studied with her while also studying organ with Charles-Marie Widor in 1898-99.
Her father was the mayor of Steinseltz in Alsace and her mother was a lover of the arts.
She began piano studies at the age of six and by seven, she was studying under piano pedagogues F.B. Hamma and Ignaz Moscheles in Stuttgart.
Marie’s mother served as her advocate and manager.
A year after she began lessons with Hamma and Moscheles, she gave concerts in Germany and Switzerland.
In 1856, the ten-year-old Marie was introduced to the piano teacher Heinrich Herz at the Paris Conservatory.
After just four months as an official student at the Conservatory, she won the First Prize of Piano.
Her performances were recognized by the public and local newspapers.
The Revue et gazette musicale printed a review on 27 July 1862 that read: “She marked the piece with the seal of her individual nature.
Her higher mechanism, her beautiful style, her play deliciously moderate, with an irreproachable purity, an exquisite taste, a lofty elegance, constantly filled the audience with wonder.”
On August 9, 1866, at twenty years of age, Marie married the Austrian concert pianist, Alfred Jaëll.
Above: Alfred Jaell (1832 – 1882)
She was then known variously as Marie Trautmann, Marie Jaëll, Marie Jaëll Trautmann or Marie Trautmann Jaëll.
Alfred was fifteen years older than Marie and had been a student of Chopin.
The husband and wife team performed popular pieces, duos, solos, and compositions of their own throughout Europe and Russia.
As a pianist, Marie specialized in the music of Schumann, Liszt, and Beethoven.
They transcribed Beethoven’s “Marcia alla Turca Athens Ruins” for piano.
The score was successfully published in 1872.
Alfred was able to use his success and fame to help Marie meet with various composers and performers throughout their travels.
In 1868, Marie met the composer and pianist Franz Liszt.
A record of Liszt’s comments about Marie survives in an article published in the American Record Guide:
“Marie Jaëll has the brains of a philosopher and the fingers of an artist.“
Liszt introduced Marie to other great composers and performers of the day—for example, Johannes Brahms and Anton Rubinstein.
By 1871, Marie’s compositions began to be published.
With the death of her husband in 1881, Marie had the opportunity to study with Liszt in Weimar and with Camille Saint-Saëns and César Franck in Paris.
She also had composition lessons with César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns, who dedicated his Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Étude en forme de valse to her.
Saint-Saëns thought highly enough of Marie to introduce her to the Society of Music Composers—a great honor for women in those days.
After struggling with tendonitis, Jaëll began to study neuroscience.
The strain on her playing and performing led her to research physiology.
Jaëll studied a wide variety of subjects pertaining to the functioning of the body and also ventured into psychology:
“She wanted to combine the emotional and spiritual act of creating beautiful music with the physiological aspects of tactile, additive, and visual sensory.“
Dr. Charles Féré assisted Jaëll in her research of physiology.
Her studies included how music affects the connection between mind and body, as well as how to apply this knowledge to intelligence and sensitivity in teaching music.
Liszt’s music had such a tremendous influence on Jaëll that she sought to gain as much insight into his methods and techniques as possible.
This research and study lead to Jaëll creating her own teaching method based on her findings.
Jaëll’s teaching method was known as the ‘Jaëll Method‘.
Her method was created through a process of trial and error with herself and her students.
Jaëll’s goal was for her students to feel a deep connection to the piano.
An eleven-book series on piano technique resulted from her research and experience.
Piano pedagogues have since drawn insight into teaching techniques of the hand from her method and books.
In fact, her method is still in use today.
As a result of her studies, Jaëll was able to compile her extensive research into a technique book entitled L’intelligence et le rythme dans les mouvements artistiques.
This text is used by pianists and piano pedagogues as a reference, specifically with hand position and playing techniques.
She died in Paris.
Walk out of Jaell’s Steinseltz and head west and then south following signposts to Cleebourg.
Cleebourg is a quiet village, with some half-timbered winemakers’ houses built on sandstone bedrock.
Cleebourg’s vineyards are the northernmost point of the Wine Route and though they are planted with the classic varieties, Pinot Gris is indisputably the most successful wine made here.
The grapes, grown on a rocky volcanic soil, produce crisp wine with a characteristically smoky aroma with lily undertones.
Cleebourg used to belong to the Palatin Zweibrückens, but a curious love story in the 17th century brought it under the Swedish crown….
John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg (1589 – 1652) was the son of John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken and his wife, Duchess Magdalene of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and was the founder of a branch of Wittelsbach Counts Palatine often called the Swedish line, because it gave rise to three subsequent kings of Sweden, but more commonly known as the Kleeburg (or Cleebourg) line.
In 1591 his father stipulated that, as the youngest son, John Casimir would receive as appanage the countship of Neukastell in the Palatinate.
Upon their father’s death in 1611, however, the eldest son, John II, Count Palatine of Zweibrucken, instead signed a compromise with John Casimir whereby the latter received only the castle at Neukastell coupled with an annuity of 3000 florins from the countship’s revenues (similarly, John Casimir’s elder brother, Frederick Casimir, received the castle at Landsberg with a small surrounding domain, instead of the entire Landsberg appanage bequeathed to him paternally).
On 11 June 1615, Casimir married his second cousin Catherine of Sweden, and their son eventually became King Charles X of Sweden.
Five of his children with Catherine survived infancy:
Christina Magdalena (1616–1662)
married Frederick VI, Margrave of Baden-Durlach.
King Adolf Frederick of Sweden was her great-grandson.
King Charles X Gustav of Sweden (1622–1660)
Maria Eufrosyne (1625–1687)
married Count Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie
Eleonora Catherine (1626–1692)
married Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Eschwege
Adolf John (1629–1689)
Catherine of Sweden (Swedish: Katarina) (1584 – 1638) was a Swedish princess and a Countess Palatine of Zweibrücken as the consort of her second cousin John Casimir of Palatinate-Zweibrücken.
She is known as the periodical foster mother of Queen Christina of Sweden.
Catherine was the daughter of King Charles IX of Sweden and his first spouse Maria of the Palatinate-Simmern.
Her personality was described as “a happy union of her father’s power and wisdom and her mother’s tender humility“.
Her mother died in 1589 and Catherine was placed in the care of the German Euphrosina Heldina von Dieffenau, whom she praised much later in life.
In 1592, her father remarried to Christina of Holstein-Gottorp.
She reportedly got along well with her stepmother and was close to her half siblings, especially her eldest brother, the future King Gustavus Adolphus, who is noted to have been very affectionate toward her.
In later letters to her consort, however, it seems that she was not always as much in agreement with her stepmother as she gave the impression to be.
Her father became regent in 1598 and was crowned king in 1607.
In 1611, her brother succeeded her father as King Gustavus Adolphus.
Her brother found Catherine sensible and wise and she is reported to have acted as his confidante and adviser on several occasions.
Catherine married late for a Princess of her period.
Although she was a great heiress, her status on the international royal marriage market was uncertain because of the political situation in Sweden after her father had conquered the throne from his nephew Sigismund.
Her parents’ marriage had been an alliance with the anti-Habsburg party in Germany, which in turn was allied with King Henry IV of France and the French Huguenots.
In 1599, there were plans to arrange a marriage between her and the Protestant French Prince Henri, Duke of Rohan, leader of the French Huguenots.
Henry married Marguerite de Béthune in 1603.
After the Treaty of Knäred in 1613, her status became more secure.
With the support of her stepmother Queen Dowager Christina, the queen dowager’s brother Archbishop John Frederik of Bremen arranged the marriage between Catherine and her relative (Count Palatine) John Casimir of Palatinate-Zweibrücken.
Though relatively poor, he had contacts which were deemed valuable to Sweden, though Count Axel Oxenstierna opposed the marriage.
The marriage took place on 11 June 1615 in Stockholm.
Above: Stockholm Royal Palace
Catherine was, by the will of both her parents as well as by the law regarding the dowry of Swedish Princesses, one of the wealthiest heirs in Sweden.
As the economic situation at the time was strained, she remained in Sweden the first years after her marriage to guard her interests.
In January 1618, she left for Alsace.
There, the couple was given the Kleeburg Castle as their residence.
The year after, John Casimir started to build a new residence, the Renaissance Palace Katharinenburg near Kleeburg.
In 1620, the Thirty Years’ War forced them to flee to Strasbourg.
In 1622, her brother King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden asked her to return to Sweden with her family.
The death of her younger brother in Sweden, as well as the lack of heirs to the Swedish throne was evidently the reason why the monarch wished to move her to safety away from the Thirty Years’ War.
Catherine accepted the invitation and arrived to Sweden with her family in June 1622.
At her arrival, the birth of her son Charles immediately strengthened her position.
In Sweden, she and her consort were granted Stegeborg Castle and a county in Östergötland as their fief and residence and as payment of her dowry:
Catherine was styled Countess of Stegeborg.
Catherine and John Casimir settled in well at Stegeborg, where they maintained a royal standard of living:
They kept a court with 60 formal ladies-in-waiting and courtiers and an official table.
Catherine actively engaged herself in the management of the estates, and was in 1626 given Skenas Royal Estate as her personal fief.
Catherine was on very good terms with her brother King Gustavus Adolphus, who is known to have asked her for advice.
During his trips, he often asked her to try to console and control his consort, Queen Maria Eleonora.
Catherine was exposed to certain intrigues at court with the purpose of blackening her name in the eyes of the royal couple, but she managed to avoid these plots.
She was on good terms with the dynasties of Pfalz and Brandenburg, with whom she corresponded and who considered her to be wise and to have good judgment.
In 1631, Catherine was given the custody of her niece, Princess Christina, the heir to the throne, when the queen was allowed to join the king in Germany, where he participated in the Thirty Years’ War.
Christina remained in her care until Maria Eleonora returned to Sweden upon the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632.
After the death of King Gustavus Adolphus, the couple came in conflict with the Guardian Government of Queen Christina over their position and rights to Stegeborg.
When John Casimir broke with the royal council in 1633, the couple retired from court to Stegeborg.
Catherine did not show any interest in participation in state affairs.
In 1636, however, Queen Dowager Maria Eleonora was deemed an unsuitable guardian and deprived of the custody of the young monarch, and Catherine was appointed official guardian and foster mother with the responsibility of the young queen’s upbringing.
The appointment was made upon the recommendation of Count Axel Oxenstierna and she reportedly accepted the task with reluctance.
This appointment destroyed her relationship with Maria Eleonora.
The years in Catherine’s care are described by Christina as happy ones.
Princess Catherine personally enjoyed great respect and popularity in Sweden as a member of the royal house and as the foster parent of the monarch:
However, this respect did not include her consort, who was given no task or position at court whatsoever.
John Casimir was himself careful to point out her rank as a Royal Princess, but he was himself exposed to some humiliation because of their difference in rank.
One example was at the opening of Parliament in 1633, when Catherine in accordance with the wish of the Royal Council followed Queen Christina in the procession, while John Casimir was given the choice to stand and watch the ceremony from a window or not be present at all.
Catherine died in Västerås, where the royal court had fled from an outbreak of plague in Stockholm.
At her death, Axel Oxenstierna said, that he would rather have buried his own mother twice, than once again see “the premature death of this noble Princess“.
After her death, the royal council appointed two foster mothers for the queen to replace her: Countess Ebba Leijonhufvud and Christina Natt och Dag.
The Katarina kyrka in Stockholm is named after her.
The marriage of John and Katarina reminds me of two other marriages: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and my own.
Victoria and Albert were, like John and Katarina, cousins.
The Princes Consort were considered less worthy of respect than their lady heiresses to major kingdoms’ thrones.
Both royal couples gave birth to children who would rise to great power.
My wife and I are not cousins nor nobility of any sort, but, like Katarina, my wife is considered sensible and wise.
She, like many women, could certainly have married a man far more appropriate for her and her ambitions, and yet we, like John and Katarina, like Victoria and Albert, have remained together despite our inequalities.
Like John and Katarina, my wife and I lived apart from one another for years despite our union.
I, like John, followed my bride to her home country.
(Less than 4 kilometres south of Cleebourg is the municipality of Drachenbronn-Birlenbach, where one can find both the original site of Katharienburg as well as the Musée Pierre Jost.
The Pierre Jost Museum is situated near the Ouvrage Hochwald, one of the major fortifications of the Maginot Line in France, which documents the story of the fortifications before, during and after World War II.
The Ouvrage Hochwald fortification was built in the Hochwald massif between 1929 and 1935 and was the strongest in Alsace.
It was capable of housing 1,200 men.
It had eleven blocks, with turrets, casemates to house the infantry, three entry blocks and an anti-tank ditch.
Construction of the Museum in honor of the builders and defenders of the Maginot Line began in 1972, led by Pierre Jost.
The Museum was set up in the old M1 magazine.
The original museum was closed in 2009 since it no longer met public safety standards.
On 12 September 2011 the museum was re-opened in building T4 at airbase 901 in Drachenbronn-Birlenbach.
The new premises, opened in time for Heritage Day on 18 September 2011, has more than 350 square metres (3,800 sq ft) of space.
The first room has some artillery pieces, in use until 1940, and press clippings of the early days of liberation towards the end of World War II.
The Museum has rooms for exhibits that cover each period in the life of the fortification:
Construction in 1930–1935
Occupation by the French in 1935–1940
Occupation by the Germans in 1940–1945
The Cold War, when the fortification was viewed as defense against Soviet tanks advancing towards Paris.
The room for the 1935–1940 period has the equipment, arms and personal effects of soldiers of that period.
The 1940–1945 room has German propaganda posters and relics from the liberation.
Part of the Museum also tells the story of the airbase.
There are many photographs showing the daily life of the soldiers during the different periods.
Sadly, the Musée Pierre Jost is open only during the Journées des Patrimoine, three days each September.)
Alsace is wine-growing country.
It has long been so and will probably long be so, but Sweden, on the other hand….
Sweden is well north of the area where the European vine, Vitis vinifera, occurs naturally.
There is no tradition of wine production from grapes in the country.
Some sources claim that some monastic vineyards were established when the Roman Catholic church established monasteries in Sweden in medieval times, when Sweden’s climate was milder, but traces of this supposed viticulture are much less evident than the corresponding activities in England, for example.
Small-scale growing of grapes in Swedish orangeries and other greenhouses have occurred for a long time, but the purpose of such plantations were either to provide fruit (grapes) or for decoration or exhibition purposes and not to provide grapes for wine production.
Towards the end of the 20th century, commercial viticulture slowly crept north, into areas than the well-established wine regions, as evidenced by Canadian wine, English wine and Danish wine.
This trend was partially made possible by the use of new hybrid grape varieties and partially by new viticultural techniques.
The idea of commercial freeland viticulture in Sweden appeared in the 1990s.
Some pioneers, especially in Skåne (Scania), took their inspiration from nearby Denmark, where viticulture started earlier than in Sweden, while others took their inspiration from experiences in other winemaking countries.
Perhaps surprisingly, the first two wineries of some size were not established in the far south of Sweden, but in Södermanland County close to Flen (in an area where orchards were common) and on the island of Gotland, which has the largest number of sunshine hours in Sweden.
Later expansions have mostly taken place in Scania, though.
There are also small-scale viticulturalists who grow their grapes in greenhouses rather than in the open.
Small quantities of a few commercial wines made their way into the market via Systembolaget from the early 2000s.
Only a handful of Swedish producers can be considered to be commercial operations, rather than hobby wine makers.
In 2006, the Swedish Board of Agriculture counted four Swedish companies that commercialized wine produced from their own vineyards.
The total production was 5,617 litres (1,236 imperial gallons; 1,484 US gallons), of which 3,632 litres (799 imperial gallons; 959 US gallons) were red and 1,985 litres (437 imperial gallons; 524 US gallons) white, and this amount was produced from around 10 hectares (25 acres) of vineyards.
The Association of Swedish winegrowers estimates 30-40 vinegrowing establishments in Scania, but this number includes hobby growers with a fraction of a hectare of vineyards.
And here’s the thing, the point I am trying to make….
Sometimes things, sometimes people, thrive where no one thinks they will.
Sometimes places, sometimes people, have a past never imagined by others.
There is absolutely no reason to imagine that this quiet obscure section of the Alsace Wine Route could produce anything or anyone worthy of attention.
And yet the wine is very fine and the region has fostered both talent and royalty.
There is absolutely no proof in my possession that John and Katarina ever inspired Swedish wine production through their Alsatian experiences, but nonetheless I am seduced by the possibility.
There was no reason why the Maginot Line should not have defended France for centuries to come.
Unless invading Germans simply go around this line of walled fortifications.
(Trump could learn from the Maginot Line that a border wall is useless if desperate folks use desperate tactics like simply flying over the thing.)
There is no just cause why Alsace should be considered either French or German despite centuries of struggle and bloodshed, for even the smallest of walks through the Alsatian countryside reveals that these people are neither French nor German but are instead indefatiguably, eternally, proudly and uniquely Alsatian.
Is life in this tiny corner of France simple?
It is no less fascinating, no less complicated, than anywhere else humanity has chosen to settle.
Are Alsatians proud French patriots?
In the sense of defending their homes against the destructiveness of invasion, Alsatians are patriotic, but this patriotism is reserved for Alsace alone.
For here the visitor hears both French and German spoken, and sees le francais and Deutsch written everywhere.
Alsace once upon a time was conquered by the French, was then conquered by the Germans, then liberated once more by the French.
But it is a long way, both geographically and philosophically, from Berlin and Paris.
Could one suggest that Alsatians are sanctimonious?
Perhaps.
But only because they quietly know their own value and sense their own superiority.
Today is Saturday and all of this conversing about wine has given me a craving for a fine glass of pinot.
I wonder whether the wine shop between Starbucks and the train station in St. Gallen will be still open after my shift ends.
I wonder whether I will buy a bottle of the Alsatian or the Swedish.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Peter Berlin, Xenophobe’s Guide to the Swedes / Marie-Christine Périllon, Alsace: A Tourist Guide to the Entire Region / Jacky Bind & Jean Claude Colin, Alsace: The Wine Route / Michèle-Caroline Heck, The Golden Book of Alsace / Antje & Gunther Schwab, Elsass / Rough Guide France / Lonely Planet France
Paul Theroux, in the first book of his I ever read, The Old Patagonian Express, once wrote that “travel is a vanishing act, a solitary trip down a pinched line of geography, the simplest sort of narrative, an explanation which is its own excuse for the gathering up and the going“.
That Theroux would say these things does not surprise me as it seems from a reading of his works (many of which I have tried to collect) that many, if not all, of his journeys were done alone on his own, without spouse or offspring to distract him from his observations of fellow travellers and the landscape around him.
Travelling with your spouse is not the same as travelling by your lonesome, for the necessity to communicate significantly with strangers is drastically diminished as your beloved is beside you.
She won’t casually allow me to vanish into the surroundings nor blend into a crowd anonymously, and simplicity in our narrative is rarely achieved, as marriages, blissful as they might be, are always accompanied with their own complexities of opinions and tangled desires.
To travel with another human being one must learn to negotiate and compromise in your travel decisions.
To suggest a destination one must be prepared to defend that choice of destination.
For example, in Porto during our last summer’s vacation, it was not sufficient to simply suggest walking the Ponte de Dom Luis I without waxing eloquently about the fantastic views yet to be seen over the Rio Douro.
Speak not of the Porto stock exchange unless you mention the wonderfully ornate palace it once was.
Don’t suggest the Livraria Lello without mentioning J.K. Rowling’s frequency within it.
Much like the advice I have given my Cambridge Certificate test-takers in regards to the oral (speaking) component of the examinations….
It is not enough to voice an opinion.
You must give a reason for that opinion.
We found ourselves in another far-from-home point on the map, as couples often do, based on the opinions of her friends.
And, as all husbands learn through trial and error, time and experience, if the ideas of your wife are always right then the brainstorm of possibilities suggested by her gaggle of girlfriends that gather around her must certainly be right by sheer weight of numbers.
In this blog I wrote of flying to and arriving in Porto and of our visit to the Sé, the city’s largest cathedral.
(Please see Canada Slim and the War of the Oranges.)
What is important for you to know before you read further is that we arrived at our B & B by taking a taxi from the Airport.
Though this little detail may seem innocuous and innocent at first glance it is vitally important to the tale that follows….
Porto, Portugal, Tuesday 24 July 2018
The signs on the Avenida Dom Afonso Henriques did not speak to me.
They were of local matters and were written in Portuguese so despite the size of the massive billboards that hugged the incline leading to Sao Bento I found myself inclined to ignore them.
Did I imagine our attending a concert here in two months’ time?
We had a week to spend in Porto and the region so there was no profit in pausing our progress in trying to decipher their messages.
As usual, in my rucksack I lugged a library with me: the Pocket Rough Guide to Porto, The Rough Guide to Portugal, Lonely Planet Portugal, A.H. de Oliveira Marques’ A Very Short History of Portugal, Matthew Hancock’s Xenophobe’s Guide to the Portuguese and Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon.
I would later purchase and add to my burden Fernando Pessoa’s Mensagem (Message) and Livro do desassossego por Bernardo Soares (The Book of Disquiet) and Luís de Camoes’ Sonetos Amorosos (Love Sonnets).
It is a rare moment that a train station concourse is a tourist attraction in its own right, but the one at Sao Bento is one of the most beautiful in the world.
But this was not always so.
Until the late 19th century there was the convent of the Benedictine nuns of Sao Bento de Ave Maria, built at the beginning of the 16th century, heavily destroyed in a fire in 1783 but fully restored by 1821.
In 1821 this convent was inhabited by 55 nuns, as well as by 105 members of staff (mostly personal maids).
The Catholic Church has long been the world’s largest Christian organization and has been Portugal’s largest religion since the Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Roman Empire.
In 1834, Joaquim António de Aguiar (1792 – 1884) terminated the state sanction of religious orders and nationalized their lands and possessions.
Later referred to as Mata-Frades (Killer of Brothers), Aguiar’s government took control of the convents, churches, manor homes and holdings of various institutes that had been sustained by donations of the religious faithful and placed them for sale.
Although they hoped to place land and goods in the hands of the more disadvantaged, most of the poor did not have the capital to purchase them.
In fact, total sales were ten times less than expected and most holdings were purchased by speculators or existing landowners.
Aguiar’s famous decree of 30 May 1834 ordered the immediate extinction of all male religious orders (and the confiscation of their property), the prohibition of new nuns to profess their vows and the extinction of the convents after the death of the last nun who lived there.
Female religious orders struggled a lot during those days, encapsulated in a time that no longer had space for them.
The convent of the Benedictine nuns of Sao Bento de Ave Maria was no exception.
It had to sell most of their precious silver service in the public square to face financial struggles.
The convent slowly fell apart.
The nuns were dying, one by one.
The last nun died in May 1892, more than 58 years after the dissolution decree.
When the first steam locomotive reached Porto on 7 November 1896, goods still had to be transported by oxcart from the Campanha train station, 4 km away, over the hills to the city centre.
After 15 years of construction, by way of the demolition of the railway tunnel through the eastern hills and an elaborate interior design with 20,000 tiles, the station was finally inaugerated in 1916.
Today Sao Bento is the main terminus of Porto’s suburban railway lines and the western terminus for the scenic Douro line between Porto and Pocinho.
The Station also serves the Minho, Braga, Guimaraes, Caíde / Marco de Canaveses and Aveiro lines.
All trains leaving Sao Bento call at Campanha as their next station.
The Station is near the vintage tramline 22 and is connected to Sao Bento Metro Station on Metro line D.
Porto has some of Portugal’s best azulejos – decorative ceramic tiles – and you can see a variety of styles decorating houses, shops, monuments and churches all over the city.
The craft was brought over by the Moors in the 8th century.
Portuguese azulejos developed their own style around the mid-16th century when a new Italian technique enable images to be painted directly onto the clay, thanks to a tin oxide coating which prevented runnage.
Above: Adoration of the Magi, Museum of Azulejos, Lisbon
Wealthy Portuguese began to commission large azulejo panels displaying Vasco da Gama’s voyages to the East.
Above: Vasco da Gama (1460 – 1524)
The early 18th century saw highly trained artists producing elaborate multicoloured ceramic mosaics, often with Rococo or Baroque themes as in the interior of the Sé.
Above: Sé, Porto
After the Great Earthquake of 1 November 1755, more prosaic tiled facades, often with neoclassical designs, were considered good insulation devices, as well as protecting buildings from fire and rain.
After the mid-19th century, azulejos were being mass-produced to decorate shops and religious buildings, such as the fantastic interior of the Igreja de Carmo.
Above: Igreja de Carmo, Luanda, Angola
By the 1900s Portugal had become the world’s leading producer of azulejos, with Art Deco designs taking hold in the 1920s.
Witness the facade of the Pérola do Bolhao shop.
Sao Bento station’s entrance hall represents a coming together of all the best the azulejos have to offer.
The Station was decorated by painter Jorge Colaco.
The first tiles were placed on 13 August 1905.
His tiles show various scenes from Portuguese history.
The towering, ornate ceilings, arched windows and impressive clock all give the appearance of a palace ballroom rather than a ticket hall.
The upper parts of the frieze are decorated with polychromatic azulejos depicting a chronology of the forms of transport used by man in Portugal.
The lower and upper frame of the frieze consists of a line of tile in blue, brown and yellow in a stylized geometric pattern.
Under this, on the top of the north wall, is a large composition that covers the entire wall, depicting the Battle of Valdevez (1140), with two groups of antagonists and other knights in the background.
This monochromatic composition is executed in blue on white tiles, similar to all the other main azulejo “paintings“.
Below the battle is another composition that represents the meeting between the Knight Egas Moniz and Alfonso VII of León in Toledo (12th century), offering his life, his wife and his sons during the siege of Guimaraes.
In the south is a painting of the entrance to Porto of King John I and Philippa of Lancaster, on horseback, to celebrate their wedding (1387).
Below that is the Conquest of Ceuta (1415) with the principal figure of Infante Dom Henrique who subjugated the Moors.
The wall into the Station is divided into multiple compositions.
To the left, a vision of the procession of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios in Lamego, an exhaustive description and detail showing the multitudes within an urban setting.
Under this composition are two panels that represent her “promise” on her knees and, the other, her actions at the “miraculous” fountain.
In the same detail is the pilgrimage of Sao Trocato to Guimaraes.
The lower panels show a picture of a cattle fair and pilgrim camp.
The central panels of the wall represent four work scenes: the vineyards, the harvest, the wine shipment down the Rio Douro and work in the watermill.
On the pilasters separating the vains with access to the street, below the polychromatic frieze, is a series of smaller compositions.
Above these are medallions depicting romantic scenes and, below, allegories associated with the railway referencing time and signalling, in an expression of Art Deco.
As the wife and I take photograph after photograph after photograph of the Station, I find myself thinking many things.
Legend says that, in a stubborn but serene way, the ghost of the last nun of the former convent still walks the corridors of Sao Bento, and in the silence in the time between midnight and daybreak, one can hear her prayers.
But only the attuned and the attentive can hear the nun, just as only in the space between spaces, the silence between breaths, the magic of moments does Porto reveal herself to those who truly seek her.
I find myself feeling contradictory.
I do not believe in ghosts yet I believe in the spirit of a place.
I may not believe in God and yet I can sense when a place is sacred.
The Station is no longer a consecrated convent and yet it has never lost its divine power to move strangers within these walls.
I recall reading what Paul Theroux once said about a nation’s railways.
“Years before, I had noticed how trains accurately represented the culture of a country:
The seedy distressed country has seedy distressed railway trains.
The proud efficient nation is similarly reflected in its rolling stock, as Japan is.
There is hope in India because the trains are considered vastly more important then the wagons some Indians drive.
Dining cars, I found, told the whole story (and if there were no dining cars the country was beneath consideration).
The noodle stall in the Malaysian Train, the borscht and bad manners in the Trans-Siberian, the kippers and fried bread on the Flying Scotsman.”
The Comboios de Portugal (CP)(Portuguese National Railways) operates all Portuguese trains, yet despite this journey being our third time in this country, I have no memory of taking a train when we visited the Algarve on our first adventure or when we remained in Lisbon on our second.
For the most part the CP is an efficient network with modern rolling stock, but, as is often the case in Europe, rural train stations can sometimes be a long way away from the town or village they serve.
A casual Google search suggests that the Bard of Train Travel, Paul Theroux once stood in Sao Bento Station as we did.
But whether he took the famous Linha do Douro I do not know, but if his travel accounts are anything to go by Theroux would have been more interested in taking train journeys that crossed national borders and spanned continents rather than taking a Portuguese train of which most are designated Regionals (R) or Interregionals (I).
In its heyday the Linha crossed the border to Spain bound for Salamanca and Madrid and sprouted some stunning valley branch lines but this is no longer so.
(The determined train traveller can cross into Spain via Valenca do Minho to the north, Vilar Formoso, Marvao-Beira or Caia to the east, or Vila Real de Santo António to the south.
Theroux’s travelogue The Pillars of Hercules, which is an account of his travels around the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Morocco travelling clockwise along the coasts, may have been prefaced by his travelling by train along the Portuguese coast through Porto and Lisbon, Tunes and Vila Real de Santo António to Seville then Ronda and Algeciras, then by bus to La Línea de la Concepción followed by a five-minute walk to the border of the British colony.
But this is simply conjecture on my part.)
Trains depart daily from Sao Bento along the Linha do Douro, reputed to be one of the most beautiful rail routes in Europe as it follows the course of the Rio Douro into the heart of the port wine-growing estates.
(We would that week take the train and ride the rails of the Linha do Douro to Pocinho and return by boat back to Porto, but that is a tale best told at another time.)
But what Sao Bento represents is what impressed me most.
A centuries-old convent transformed into an azulejo-covered train station.
The mystery of faith transformed into the mystique of travel.
Locals were astonishingly easy to distinguish from tourists, for the local does not look at the azulejos with any admiration for they are as much a part of Porto as a red fire hydrant is a normal fixture of a Manhattan street.
Almost invisible, inconsequential, something to be walked past as one shakes one’s head at the weird ones so fascinated by the mere commonplace.
For them Sao Bento is simply a station, a pit stop, a necessary go-through or starting point.
But to me, surrounded by tiled masterpieces of living history, Sao Bento is forbidden seduction.
You desire her but she is untouchable.
You want to linger but you know you cannot.
Beyond the doors the traffic never-ceasing reminds you of life beyond these walls.
From these platforms an escape from one’s cloistered existence beckons.
Photographs never capture the essence of a place just as words never fully describe the magic of women.
We cannot stay, for there is much yet to be seen, much life left to be lived.
A last lingering look in the dim hope of branding these images into one’s memory.
We know that we ourselves will leave no trace that we were here, for we are mere members of a multitude passing through.
For some reason Leonard Cohen croons his “Sisters of Mercy” song from the jukebox of my mind.
Somehow this feels appropriate.
“Oh, the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on. And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song. Oh, I hope you run into them, you who’ve been travelling so long.
Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control. It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul. Well, I’ve been where you’re hanging. I think I can see how you’re pinned. When you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.
Well, they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem. If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn, They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.
When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon. Don’t turn on the lights. You can read their address by the moon. And you won’t make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night. We weren’t lovers like that and besides, it would still be all right. We weren’t lovers like that and besides, it would still be all right.”
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Chronicles of Canada Slim 