uncomelyandbroken

I have begun to work on a project about Pontius Pilate, that classical character plopped suddenly down into the Passion narrative, and the only human individual (besides Mary) singled out in the Creed. The scope of the project is still up in the air, but during my recent trip to Italy, I thought I would look for vestiges of the old Roman governor. You just never know what will turn up.  I had limited success with this half-hearted search, but still there was value to what I was able to see with my own eyes, and feel with my own knees.

In Rome, I made my way out to the Latern, which I had never seen before– it’s a large, impressive baroque church, fitting for the genuine cathedral of Rome, but given the city’s other glories, something of an afterthought on the tourist itinerry.  To me, the classicist, the most important thing at the Lateran are the large bronze doors that once graced the entrance to the Curia.

   
    
 Across the street, in a separate building that was once the old Lateran palace (San Lorenzo in Palatio), were the spolia I had in fact come to see, the Scala Sancta– the staircase of white marble from Lebanon that reputedly lead up to the praetorium in Jerusalem, and from the top of which Pilate would have addressed the crowds. Christ is said to have walked down this stairscase, dripping blood on the top step, the eleventh, and second.

   
   
Brought to Rome in the fourth century AD by St. Helena, when they were known as the Scala Pilati, the stairs have been the subject of devout veneration since. For centuries now, worshippers on their knees have ascended the 28 stairs, now covered in wood (what kind? I don’t know), and are granted a plenary indulgence for doing so. Even Luther climbed these tairs on his knees, as have countless others, past and present. Charles Dickens visited in the mid-nineteenth century, and condemned the practice in no uncertain terms: 

I never, in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so unpleasant, as this sight – ridiculous in the absurd incidents inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaning degradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a rather broad landing. The more rigid climbers went along this landing on their knees, as well as up the stairs; and the figures they cut, in their shuffling progress over the level surface, no description can paint. Then, to see them watch their opportunity from the porch, and cut in where there was a place next the wall! And to see one man with an umbrella (brought on purpose, for it was a fine day) hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair to stair! And to observe a demure lady of fifty-five or so, looking back, every now and then, to assure herself that her legs were properly disposed!

There were such odd differences in the speed of different people, too. Some got on as if they were doing a match against time; others stopped to say a prayer on every step. This man touched every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratched his head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and down again before the old lady had accomplished her half-dozen stairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly and fresh, as having done a real substantial deed which it would take a good deal of sin to counterbalance

This hot summer day, I stood before the holy stairs and watched thr throngs making their way up. Indeed, you have to pay to go in the building, and the young woman behind the counter looks alternately bored and annoyed with the crowds before her–occasionally she emits a loud SSHHH! 

Others like me are standing at the bottom of the stairs, wondering what to do. What does it mean if I get on my knees and start to go up? Will I be a believer at the end of it? A believer of what? The likelihood of these being the very stairs of Pilate is remote.  To kneel on them–is this not rank superstition, a willing suspension of reason for the sake of some hoped-for sweeping holy feeling? Or is this nothing more than a tourist activity, like kissing the Blarney Stone or taking a selfie in front of the Grand Canyon?

  
In the end, I climbed the stairs on my knees, and was surprised by the comfortable grooves in the wood. I listened to the murmering prayers of the others around me, most of them not speaking English. I tried not to race up, but to stay more or less on par with the nice Filipino man beside me–when he reached the top, there were tears in his eyes and, while I did not feel the need to weep myself, I was glad to witness the sincerity of his devotion. A Spanish family reached the top shortly afterward, and the mother whipped out her phone to take a picture of the four of them, all still on their knees. I got out of the way, not wanting to ruin their picture.

 From the parking lot and ticket office, it’s a long, gradual hike up into Hadrian’s Villa, which is not actually in Tivoli but just outside it. Driving is really the best way to get here, although I did see one of the public buses, nearly empty, pull up to the entrance. 

The young French child in front of me lets his parents know that he does not care for the walk, and throughout the day, I will come across his parents jollying him along with far greater success than I could imagine having. At one point, the father sneaks behind a column and makes ghost sounds that reverberate through the cavernous edifice. The little boy laughs and laughs, never more so than when Daddy emerges and pretends to be terrified.  

We arrive first to Plastico, the enormous plaster model of that the villa looked like in its prime. A sprawling complex of buildings, now all in ruins, it is hard to get your head around. It is also very, very hot, and the shade in the building together with the whirring fans are small comfort. By the door, a cat lounges. I ask the guard what is il nome del gatto? She doesn’t know, but it is a girl, she says. She thinks. “Sabina,” she decides, the name of Hadrian’s wife.

Leaving Plastico and the shade, into the site I go, struck by the scale of the place and simply unable to forget the goddamned heat, which the pools of inaccessible water does nothing to alleviate.

 
At the the Canopus, the long cylindrical pool surrounded by statues that was meant to conjure up a Roman version of the Nile, the shade and water bring relief. Unsurprisingly, many visitors are gathered here, not just to get their breath but also to feed the fish. A turtle’s head emerges now and again by the crocodile statue on the far side.

   
    
   
I’m sure it was just as hot in Hadrian’s day, and in my search for shade I begin to really look at the trees throughout the Villa– the umbrella pines, the long rows of cypresses, and most impressively, the twisted ancient olives, that have seen far worse weather and far more of it than I ever will. They say there’s an oliver here over a thousand years old, and I believe it. Some of them will be here a thousand years hence, as will be the carp, the cats, and the turtles, no doubt, and perhaps even the children led along by doting parents.

In the town hall of Sutri, one sees many an ancient inscription cemented into the walls. Somewhere, sometime, somebody on the world-wide web will care about these, and so, my friend, this is for you.

As everyone knows, Italians have a lively language of gesture. A few I observed, in context, during this recent trip:

1. Get Lost Hand Chop. I was on a train when a woman got on and systematically handed out pieces of paper to everyone except me. In Italian it said something slong the lines of I am poor, please give me money so i can feed my children, etc. After she covered a few train-cas, she came by to collect them and beg. One older guy let the piece of paper drop to the floor, and when he asked him for a contibution, he looked off into the middle distance, and did the “hand chop.” While articles on gestures describe this as an up-and-down motion of the right hand, his hand was cupped and it seemed more like he was rubbing a melon. She went away.

2. Eye Pull. I was in Milan buying a ticket to get into the Cathedral. When I got to the front of the line, inasked, “Do you take a card?” To which she replied, “Why wouldn’t we?” I told her I’d recently been in Naples, where plaves often didn’t take cards. “Ah, well they’re pooerer there–good people though, generous people. Still …” And she pulled down her lower right eyelid with her index finger to indicate, “but foxy, watch out for them.” I think she was ironically imitating a Southern mannerism with the gesture.

3. Chin Inquiry & Mezza Mezza. At a restaurant in Tivoli that specialized in grilling over a great big fire, the chef- owner had been sitting with some friends and letting the sous- chef do most of the work. Whenit came time to cook for this table, he went over to the grill himself, held up the steak with tongs for the male friend to see, and lifted his chin quickly. The friend made the mezza- mezza hand sign. I take it this exchange was, How do you want this cooked? With the reply, Medium.

4. Fist Push. On the train between Florence and Milan, I got into a conversation with a very nice guy and his Chinese wife and their adorable daughter. He’s from Milan, but works overseas, and was describing the work ethic of different countries. In the first class compartment, you’re supposed to get a free beverage, but the women pushing the cart breezed right past us. He looked at them leaving, then at me, and curled his hand into a fist which he then pushed away from his chest. “Fucking Italians, eh?” he said.

5. Patient Hand Clasp. I was at a trattoria in Rome and was asking the waitress to explain a few items. She leaned down slightly and clasped her hands in front of her, as if to say, You are vexatious with your many questions but I have infinite reserves of Stoic resolve.

Im sure others will occur to me.

Finding myself with a few hours in Milan between trains, I made a bee-line for the famous cathedral. Out of the subway I came and… Ecce Duomo! 

 It’s an astounding place, it’s white marble exterior covered with sculpture, and its interior blazing with color from the enormous stained glass windows. 

  Love the guards’ cockaded hats, by the way.

  
 One of the the main sights inside is Marco d’Agrate’s gruesome statue of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed in his martyrdom. 

  
Mark Twain had seen this statue in Innocents Abroad, and wrote,

The guide showed us a coffee-colored piece of sculpture which he said was considered to have come from the hand of Phidias, since it was not possible that any other artist, of any epoch, could have copied nature with such faultless accuracy. The figure was that of a man without a skin; with every vein, artery, muscle, every fiber and tendon and tissue of the human frame represented in minute detail. It looked natural, because somehow it looked as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely to look that way unless his attention were occupied with some other matter. It was a hideous thing, and yet there was a fascination about it some where. I am very sorry I saw it, because I shall always see it now. I shall dream of it sometimes. I shall dream that it is resting its corded arms on the bed’s head and looking down on me with its dead eyes; I shall dream that it is stretched between the sheets with me and touching me with its exposed muscles and its stringy cold legs.

It is hard to forget repulsive things.

Twain is being a little over dramatic here, of course, for the real point of this St. Bartholomew is to call into question worldly things. Still, it is repulsive. The best I can do to express that is to show you his foot.  

The Duomo used to be the tallest building in Milan until it was outdone by the Pirelli skyscraper in the 50s and more recently the Unicredit Tower.  Banking, after Fashion, is Milan’s biggest business, and its home is the Borsa a few blocks away.

Having done due diligence in seeing the Dupmo, I rushed on over to the Borsa to see Maurizio Cattelan’s L.O.V.E. (Liberté, Ofio, Vendetta, Eternità).I had written a post on this before, but had not seen it in the flesh, so to speak. An enormous hand recalls Constantine’s hand in Rome, of course–so an indictment of power–but also Adam Smith’s invisible hand–an indictment of the free market. People complain about the difficulty of modern art, but as a commentary of la crise in 2008, it could not be more clear. In its own way, it’s a caution against the things of this world.

Me and Doctor Freud know what you’re up to with the position of that harpe, Benvenuto! 

    This sight of Medusa’s head makes the spectator stiff with terror, turns him to stone. Observe that we have here once again the same origin from the castration complex and the same transformation of affect! For becoming stiff means an erection. Thus in the original situation it offers consolation to the spectator: he is still in possession of a penis, and the stiffening reassures him of the fact. 

And it doesn’t improve from different angles, you Mannerist old pervert.