Friday Art & History Feature - Caterina Sforza in paintings

I'm utterly fascinated by Caterina Sforza, an amazing woman of the Italian Renaissance, a strong-willed, supremely intelligent noble lady, a valiant warrior in her own right, who lived in the same time period as the Borgias.

A post about Caterina Sforza's life will be coming to the Art & History Feature soon, but today enjoy the paintings of Italian Renaissance inspired by Caterina's face.

One of the most prolific artists to use Caterina as the subject in his many works was Sandro Botticelli. Here are some of those paintings.

A fragment of Purification of a Leper by Botticelli, a fresco in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican. Caterina is seeing here six months pregnant with her third child, daughter Bianca.

A fragment from Botticelli's La Primavera (1498) The Grace on the right is said to be Caterina Sforza.

A close-up of Caterina Sforza's face as one of the Graces in La Primavera by Botticelli

Caterina Sforza depicted here as St. Catherine of Alexandria by Botticelli

 

 

Caterina Sforza (1481-1483) by Lorenzo di Credi

I'm planning a post about Caterina within the next month.

Friday Art & History Feature - the Myth of Romulus and Remus

Capitoline Wolf - depiction of the She-wolf with Romulus and Remus

Rome - the eternal city. The city where history is layered so thick, figuratively and literally, that to this day archaeologists are uncovering new ancient sites every time the city digs to expand the subway. When I was there a couple of years ago with my husband, we were directed towards a church that was built in the middle ages. Under that church, was an archaeological excavation of a church that was built in the early first century. Under that was an archaeological excavation of an ancient Roman villa of a family that lived in the 2nd Century B.C. And that is quintessential Rome.

The history of Rome fascinates me, and one cannot talk about the history of this great city without talking about the myth of its creation - the story of brothers Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of the city Rome.

Romulus and Remus were twin brothers, born to Rhea Silvia by either the god Mars or by the demi-god Hercules. Once born, the twin are abandoned but are saved through a series of miraculous supernatural occurrences. They are put into a basket and set in the river Tiber, but the river carries them to safety. Once out of the river, they are found and suckled by a she-wolf, until a shepherd finds them and raises them with his wife.

The discovery of Romulus and Remus by Paul Rubens

When the brothers become adults, they decide to found a new city, but argue about the location of where it should be. Romulus wants it on the Palantine Hill, while Remus wants it on the Aventine Hill. Eventually Remus is killed and Romulus names a new city that he founds after himself. He also creates the first legions and a senate.

While the city grows fast, most of its population are unmarried men who are refugees. To keep populating the city, Romulus arranges the abduction of Sabine women from a neighboring land. Even though war follows, Sabines and Romans eventually unite and Romans become the dominant people in the area.

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Nicolas Poussin

 It is not clear what happens to Romulus following these events.

Modern historians are not proponents of the idea that Rome was named after Romulus, but the myth is nevertheless still a subject of fascination and study, especially as the source of ancient Roman ideologies, values and morality.

What is fascinating to me is that the she-wolf from this story became a symbol of Rome (and you know how I love everything that has to do with wolves :)) She is a symbol of fertility and strength.

Rome

Friday Art & History Feature - Artemis

Artemis by Kagaya

Artemis has always been one of my favorite goddesses of the Greek pantheon.  Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon is Diana.

Artemis was the patron goddess of wild animals, hunt, virginity and young girls. Interestingly, she was also the goddess of childbirth and women's healer. Her sacred animal is deer, and her sacred plant is the cypress tree. She has long been associated with the moon, and is often depicted with a half-moon on her forehead, even as she's depicted as a huntress with a bow. She's always surrounded by her faithful dogs.

The Versailles Artemis

Artemis was born, along with her twin brother Apollo, to the main god of the Green pantheon, Zeus, and to Leto. In one account of the birth, Artemis is born before Apollo and the assists her mother as a mid-wife to deliver her twin brother. Thus, she becomes the patroness of mid-wives and childbirth.

Diana by Boucher

 Artemis herself chooses to guard her virginity and surrounds herself with virgin companions. There are a number of accounts in which certain gods and men try to win Artemis over or, failing to do so, try to capture and rape her. In all of the accounts, the assailants are punished by her and are either killed or turned into other beings. Among these are the stories involving Actaeon, Adonis and Orion.

Artemis by Titian

 During the Trojan War, Artemis is said to have taken the side of the Trojans.

The worship of Artemis was strong across all of Greece, especially in Sparta and on the island of Delos, which is considered to be the place where she was born.

Artemis of Ephesus

 She was also worshiped in Ephesus, Turkey. Her ancient temple in that area became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Unfortunately, today almost nothing remains of the temple but it is still a place to visit on the tours of Ephesus. It is possible that as the Artemis of Ephesus, she had a lover and was a mother.

Artemis by Vasilis Zikos

Moon Goddess by Josephine Wall

Friday Art & History Feature - The Colosseum

This summer my husband took me on a magical trip of a lifetime (although hopefully not the only one). He took me to Rome and then on a Mediterranean cruise.
Rome is a heaven for lovers of ancient history and archeology, like me.
Today, in honor of Spartacus returning to Starz in a couple of weeks, I'd like to tell you a little about one of the most famous and amazing places in Rome - the Colosseum (Spartacus, gladiators, Colosseum, get it? :D)

Colosseum is not the original name of this monumental place, a theatre which is an example of ancient Roman thirst for entertainment and blood. The original name for it was  Flavian Amphitheatre in honor of the emperors of the Flavian Dynasty, during which rein it was built. Its building started around 70AD during the rule of the Emperor Vespasian. So how did it become known as the Colosseum? It took this name after a "colossal" statue of the mad Emperor Nero, named the Colossus of Rhodes, that stood right near it. *"This statue was later remodeled by Nero's successors into the likeness of Helios (Sol) or Apollo, the sun god, by adding the appropriate solar crown. Nero's head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors. Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the medieval era and was credited with magical powers. It came to be seen as an iconic symbol of the permanence of Rome."

It is known that during the opening games of the Amphitheatre, 9000 wild animals, including tigers and lions, as well as hundreds of gladiators and slaves. It is also interesting to note that originally, in the first three years of its opening, naval games were also held there. The bottom of the amphitheatre would be filled with water and fights between ships would take place. However, the Roman people got easily bored with these games, as they didn't provide much bloodshed. And so it was decided that the bottom would be built about to contain cages for the wild animals, rooms for slaves and trainers and equipment, and above it all a wooden floor was placed, called the arena. That is where the gladiator fights took place. The modern word "arena" comes from this floor.

With the rise of Christianity, all of the statues decorating the walls of the Colosseum were destroyed or melted to create other statues and jewelry. The bricks and marble was also re-used to build around Rome. Thus today Colosseum is only a shadow of what it used to be and it is hard to imagine it in all its splendor.

Despite the splendor and the history surrounding this ancient place, we cannot forget that this was also a place of death and horror. Thousands of gladiators - who were mostly slaves - and thousands of animals were murdered there. Pope Benedict XIV also declared it a sacred space were many early Christians were martyred. This happened in 1749, and in our times Pope John Paul II erected a cross inside the Colosseum. Popes have also being leading the stations of the cross since Benedict XIV's times.

Colosseum is spectacular in person even today. Walking among the ancient stones, touching the marble steps on which ancient Romans have sat and breathing in the air of antiquity is an unbelievable experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum

Trip to Rome and Mediterranean Cruise

Since I was a little girl, I couldn’t read enough about history – mostly ancient and Renaissance. In college, I was very close to majoring in archaeology (oh, why does the practical side of life often has to win over passion?). I blame this obsession in part on my grandfather (love you, granddaddy) whose own love of history was contagious when I was a little girl (and also whose best friend was a famous archaeologist back in Russia). The other part was my natural curiosity.

In any case, reading about ancient Greece and Rome, about the artists and nobles of the Renaissance and everything in between, fiction and non-fiction, has dominated much of my life.
But reading about it and seen the places are two different things. Having come from Ukraine originally, I have seen some spectacular art and architecture of old. Yet since coming to America over 20 years ago, I haven’t seen Europe. So it was the most amazing surprise imaginable to me that my husband planned our vacation to…Rome and the Mediterranean Cruise to Sicily, Athens in Greece, Ephesus in Turkey and Crete! And I found out about all that literally half an hour before leaving for the airport!

Needless to say, this was the best vacation of my life. I finally got to see the places I’ve been reading about all these years and dreamt about visiting.



First, there was the glory that is Rome…And it is glorious indeed. Anywhere I turned, there was something interesting to see. One of our tour guides told us that Rome is like a sandwich. There are so many layers of the city that no matter where you start digging you’re bound to find something ancient. When there was an earthquake or another calamity, the Romans would just build on top of the buried ruins. And we got to see a perfect example of this. Not far from the Coliseum, there’s the Basilica of Saint Clement. The top church was built around the year 1100 A.D. One level down, under this church, there’s an older basilica from the 4^th Century A.D. Yet one more level down, archaeologists uncovered the home of a Roman nobleman who built his home around 64 A. D. on the foundation of a home from the republican era!! We were able to visit all three levels and this is currently still an active archaeological excavation. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration if I said that I wanted to dance like a little girl from happiness that I got to see this.  It's the closest I've ever been to a live archaeological dig!





This, of course, was just the cherry on top of the sundae. Coliseum, the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel, many of the other beautiful churches we saw, the Trevi Fountain – nothing disappointed. Everything was as amazing as I imagined it. I even got to touch the work of Michaelangelo in one of the churches. Unfortunately, one of his most famous works, La Pieta, is now behind glass at St. Peter's. I also saw the tomb of Rafael, another one of my favorite artists of Renaissance. I was so surprised to see the tomb at the Pantheon (shame on me for not knowing that!) that I have to admit my eyes got moist at that special moment.



Then, of course, came the cruise on one of the ships of Royal Carribean.  Sicily was gorgeous with its mountains and sea landscapes (which reminded me a lot of the landscapes in Crimea), and quaint little towns. We went to one such town called Taormina, located not too far from the Etna Mountain, which is an active volcano. There were many souvenirs and jewelry made of lava rock in every store. People living in towns like this still take siesta in the middle of the day, closing the doors to their shops no matter who is around and going home for their meal and nap.



Athens, Greece was the next stop and I could hardly believe I was finally there as I stood in the middle of the Acropolis. The ruins of the ancient temples were as impressive as I always imagined them.

In Ephesus, Turkey we visited two very special sites. The first was the house of Mary, the place where Jesus’ mother Mary lived out the last years of her life. The second site was the ruins of an ancient church built around the tomb of St. John the Evangelist, who wrote the Revelations. The place was very peaceful and picturesque. We also visited the ruins of Ephesus, the 2nd biggest city of the Roman Empire and, supposedly, the best preserved ruins today.

On the way back to Rome, our ship went by an island called Stromboli, which has the most active volcano in Europe. This was definitely another first for us.

I have so many beautiful memories of this trip and lots and lots of material for writing, which I have to organize (in my head and on paper). I would like to say a big thank you to my wonderful hubby for this surprise vacation of a lifetime. And here’s to many more trips all over the world.