Category Archives: History

Avignon History Travel

The tiles of the Palais des Papes

February 8, 2007 – 10:47 pm

Okay, you might say this is a bit of a specialist subject, and you might be right, but who could resist this hare?

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Unfortunately there’s only one room with the original 14th-century tiles surviving in situ, and you’re not allowed into that!, but there is a nice collection of original ones from around the palace in the consistory hall. As a visitor you’re directed to the surviving frescos, and there’s no doubt they are very fine, particularly those attributed to Matteo Giovanetti in Saint John’s chapel off the consistory.

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But somehow, I find more moving, more evocative, these products of certainly humble workmen, working fast, but showing real artistic skill. And the colours are marvelous – a real sign of the art of the workman who blended them without the aid of modern chemistry.
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Avignon History Travel

Ancient Avignon

February 8, 2007 – 10:33 pm

I started out my tour of Avignon at the logical chronological point, the archaeological annexe of the Musee Calvet, the grand collection officially founded in 1811 but owing quite a bit to an early 18th-century “cabinet”.

It is housed in a surprisingly attractive baroque church (no, I’m not generally a fan of the Baroque, but here at least the decoration overload is contained to a great cornice and the nave and chapels are attractively plain, a good setting for the collection). It did well to survive being a WWI storeroom, and then its use for a beekeeping trade fair (which must have been about the 20s. (It was dedicated for museum use in 1933.)

There’s a small ancient Egyptian collection, of no particular local relevance, but it then moves into Greek vases and Etruscan funerary sculptures reflecting early influences here, before moving into the Roman world.

woman (2)What’s striking about that last collection is how you have to read the labels to tell the origins of the piece – they might be from Rome itself, from the Balkans, from the east, but generally you can’t tell which – a reminder of how monocultural the Roman world was, in many respects. This is an unknown woman from the 3rd century AD, of Avignon – but really she could be of anywhere.

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The tombstones of children – which I commented on during my tour of Hadrian’s wall – here again are some of the little artistic masterpieces: this is that of Timakratea from Rhodes of the third or fourth century AD.

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Nearby is a curious piece, of Eros chasing a giant locust, which has fastened onto a head of wheat. The museum’s commentary (it is well-equipped for the serious visitor with lots of take-away commentary in French and English) says that at first glance this is just a child at play – then as now, children often adopted locusts as “pets”, and it was supposed to be a friendly insect. Yet of course it was also a pest, enemy of crops, and one of Apollo’s role was a parnopios (locust-killer). So on this reading, Eros is trying to protect the wheat, to chase away the locust, so expressing his desire for good.
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Women's history

The power behind the stage

February 6, 2007 – 9:57 pm

Thanks to an excellent new project at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, they are making more of their articles available through a monthly online magazine. This month the focus is on Hogarth and his sitters and circle (linking with the just-opening Tate exhibition that I hope to get to see soonish).

Somehow you don’t think of Hogarth as a painter of women – big bluff men who’ve imbibed just a little too much Madeira seem to fit more, but there are a couple of women featured, one of them being Eva Maria Garrick, who was, it seems, another of those power behind the throne women, after having a successful independent career of her own as a dancer.

The marriage settlement, when it was reached, was a virtual guarantee of prosperity … Not only did she receive £10,000 from Garrick, together with £70 per year, but also the annual interest on Lady Burlington’s estates in Lincolnshire. There followed thirty years of contented marriage and forty-three of dignified widowhood. Eva Maria was Garrick’s constant companion at home and abroad, his supporter and adviser in theatrical affairs, a gracious hostess on social occasions, and a welcome guest in the grand houses the couple visited. Garrick’s social aggrandizement is inconceivable without her. Her taste and intelligence are discernible in the books and paintings they bought, in the way they furnished their houses, and between the lines of Garrick’s voluminous correspondence.

(They don’t say if these are going to stay on open access permanently, so it might be a good idea to nab them now if you don’t have access – although of course if you are in England and Wales you can get that through your local library.)

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Feminism History

From the Inbox

February 6, 2007 – 1:26 am

* Join a course on Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science – no fees, no exams, you can just read along and join the discussion.

* Or you could take a short course in Byzantine history through 12 Rulers, by podcast … well there is one woman in there, Irene.

* A new online collection of Medieval and Early Modern legal documents – how’s your medieval Latin?

* With debates running hot about nationalism and identity on these isles, it is interesting to revisit the 16th-century version of these controversies among William Caxton, Polydore Vergil and John Leland.

* A little more anecdotal evidence of the medieval household as a joint economic enterprise: Yves and Marion, a bookselling couple in Paris in the 14th-century (French).

(Here’s Google’s attempt at translation, which might not leave you much the wiser… but the pictures on this site are always worth looking at.)

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History

A short lesson in Scottish culture

February 4, 2007 – 6:35 pm

I’ve been in Perth for the weekend for a wedding (not, as you might have guessed the Australian one), so have been enjoying a short course in traditional Scottish culture. Among the notable elements was the handfasting element in the ceremony – the physical binding of the couple’s hands together – the bride being piped in and out, and the full-on ceilidh (pronounced “kay-lee” I’m assured) afterwards.

The lesson I learnt from that one: next time wear flat shoes – traditional Scottish dancing and heels don’t go well together – although my ankles will recover eventually, however, I’m sure. But it did make the men in their kilts – by no means all Scots but a brave collection crossing from Canada to Latvia – look very good. And it made me think of those days a few centuries ago when fashion meant the men would have been the peacocks of any party.

Perth itself struck me as a city of boom and bust. There’s very little medieval surviving here, someone I was chatting to said that was the religious wars that did for that, and then along came Cromwell to do some further damage (a note on the high street explains he destroyed the ancient mercat (market) square). And then there were the Jacobite rebellions.

But there was obviously a huge building boom after that, with a great many surviving Georgian buildings in the town, followed by a Victorian boom in civic buildings and a 1960s boom in both flats and (some) public buildings. Well the Georgian ones, such as the James VI Hospital, are nice to look at…

The feel now is of a city with some people doing very nicely indeed – are were boutiques and restaurants with almost London prices, but Poundstretcher is also doing a roaring trade, and there are a surprising number of rough sleepers for a city of this size, plus some of the most aggressive beggars I have encountered anywhere in the UK.

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Women's history

Sitting proud: Elizabeth of Sevorc

February 2, 2007 – 3:09 am

Over on My London Your London I have a piece on an exhibition of medieval seals at the British Museum. Now can I find a feminist angle on that? Well of course I can. There are some lovely women’s seals, but my definitely favourite is that of Elizabeth of Sevorc, asserting her importance and independence (she’s no one’s father or husband in the inscription, just herself).

elizabethofsevorc

Look at that image and you think this is a woman who could look after herself. (I haven’t been able to find her anywhere else; has anyone come across her?)

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