Astounding Ravenna
San Vitale Basilica, Ravenna
Ravenna, in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy and roughly a two-hour drive from Florence, continues to have an impact months after having spent a day in the city. Now 12 kilometres inland, it once was an important seaport and as such was: the capital of the Western Roman Empire under Honorius, the capital of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths under Theodoric, and part of the Byzantine empire under Justinian. Special points of interest for me included: Dante’s tomb, the poet having died there in 1321; the quality of the light streaming in through alabaster windows; the idea of a besotted Lord Byron roaming its streets, writing parts of Don Juan, and of course, the Ravenna Diary, from which I attach a favourite fragment, which recounts, after a chance encounter on a bridge, his second meeting with an old woman – 95, feisty and faintly bearded – much like what I aspire to be one day:
January 29th, 1821.
Yesterday, the woman of ninety-five years of age was with me. She said her eldest son (if now alive) would have been seventy. She is thin – short, but active – hears, and sees, and talks incessantly. Several teeth left – all in the lower jaw, and single front teeth. She is very deeply wrinkled, and has a sort of scattered grey beard over her chin, at least as long as my mustachios. Her head, in fact, resembles the drawing in crayons of Pope the poet’s mother, which is in some editions of his works. [---] Gave her a louis – ordered her a new suit of clothes, and put her upon a weekly pension. Till now, she had worked at gathering wood and pine-nuts in the forest – pretty work at ninety-five years old! She had a dozen children, of whom some are alive. Her name is Maria Montanari.
The mosaics aren’t bad either.
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- San Vitale Basilica
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- Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
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- Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
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- Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
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- San Apollinare Nuovo
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- San Apollinare Nuovo
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- San Apollinare Nuovo
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- San Apollinare Nuovo
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- San Apollinare Nuovo
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- Dante’s Tomb
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- Arian Baptistery
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- The Mausoleum of Theodoric
Inconceivable to my mind…
Text from ‘The Sixth Day’, Primo Levi – Fragment 1
It is inconceivable to my mind that in this room no mention had yet been made of an aquatic solution.
A desperately dry room…
Text from ‘The Sixth Day’, Primo Levi – Fragment 2
But of course, it is a desperately dry room: stone, cement, wood, not a puddle, what am I saying? not even a faucet. Enough to make you feel you’re coagulating!
Whereas the ocean…
Text from ‘The Sixth Day’, Primo Levi – Fragment 3
And yet everyone knows that water covers three quarters of the terrestrial surface; and besides, emerged earth is a surface, it has but two dimensions, four cardinal points; whereas the ocean, gentlemen, the ocean…
Ligurian blue
Ligurian beach
Yet another thing to do on the beach. But first stop: an iced coffee and a long glance at the sea in Alassio… The following day, coastline, coloured umbrellas, shades of Ligurian blue, and steep cliffs best viewed floating lazily in the warm sea – warm for this Australian, not quite for my Italian friends.
A field of sunflowers, narrow roads winding up and down the sides of mountains, cliffs and rocky outcrops receding into the haze, up into cloudline, and tiny villages catching last light in Garlenda – which was overrun with Fiats incidentally, for the Fiat 500 annual meet. Somewhere, as a churchbell rings in 6.00: a narrow and deserted mountain street lined with cars, cypresses and a tiny graveyard studded with vivid flowers, and the murmur of a local fair in the distance – patches of music and song, whiffs of garlic in the wind. A quiet little hotel in Castelbianco: late breakfast in the garden gave me the cool crisp tang of green grapes, the familiar fragrance of jasmine, magnolia trees, rosemary and sage, the rush of the river below, and moments to contemplate dew sparkling on the grass, and this view.
Castelbianco, Liguria
With 40 kilometres of congestion on the freeway we opted for the winding coastal road from Alassio to Genova, jumping in and out of the traffic as we tried to find the quickest route home. As it was we didn’t arrive in Florence until 3.30 in the morning – a good three hours after the expected time, but that includes an hour in Genova for a reinvigorating coffee and gelato among friends at 12 am. And along the coastline between 10 and 12 o’clock? A sultry 24-degree evening, light and form flying past against the backdrop of the dark dark water – outdoor markets, puppet shows and variety shows, concert after concert in the piazzas, and fireworks over the sea in Genova, the streets milling with people: families, groups of teens, lovers clasped together on benches, silhouetted against neon. Then brief roadside stops for coffee, and the long deserted freeway, trance-inducing tunnels and yellow half-moon that floated us home.
