SITES
Ex Meucci's House, now Garibaldi Meucci Museum
Although Eleonora had told George that she and Mrs. Meucci were not personally acquainted, he still somehow expected all Italian political refugees, short of Garibaldi, to be familiar to each other; he was ingeniously ready to believe that there was a web of relations connecting them together like family. So he was not at all surprised at Ester Meucci’s warm, informal suggestion that they look for her husband in the courtyard at the rear of the house, where the candle factory was. “The General’s there,” she said, “and I think my husband is too, but you never know about Antonio.”
As they approached, they saw an enormous metal vat of boiling wax, steaming and popping and spitting. Thrown over the back of a chair, made from the gnarled, bent boughs of scrub pine, was a white poncho.
“Giuseppe!” Ester bellowed from the house.
Garibaldi in his red tunic shirt stepped into view. He began rotating a long pole in the wax and the steam rose into—and seemed to become one with—his grey beard.
“Giuseppe!”
Although Eleonora had told George that she and Mrs. Meucci were not personally acquainted, he still somehow expected all Italian political refugees, short of Garibaldi, to be familiar to each other; he was ingeniously ready to believe that there was a web of relations connecting them together like family. So he was not at all surprised at Ester Meucci’s warm, informal suggestion that they look for her husband in the courtyard at the rear of the house, where the candle factory was. “The General’s there,” she said, “and I think my husband is too, but you never know about Antonio.”
As they approached, they saw an enormous metal vat of boiling wax, steaming and popping and spitting. Thrown over the back of a chair, made from the gnarled, bent boughs of scrub pine, was a white poncho.
“Giuseppe!” Ester bellowed from the house.
Garibaldi in his red tunic shirt stepped into view. He began rotating a long pole in the wax and the steam rose into—and seemed to become one with—his grey beard.
“Giuseppe!”
|
|
|
...“A Frenchman’s
looking for you
two…and a girl.”
“What Frenchman?” “He’s contacting volunteers back from Rome with your and Sandor’s description. A spy probably. He’s been seen around Porta Vercellina on the edge of town. There’s an ancient ossuary with a small Baroque chapel in the cemetery that the Milanese call the Fopponino. It’s likely that the Frenchman is staying at the inn close by. Our people say that he’s paying to know anything about where you might be.” “If it is who I think it is, I will take care of him,” Goffredo swore. |
Cappella della Peste al Fopponino - Milano - Via San Michele del Carso. Photo by Paolo Pochettino
|
|
...Sandor cut him
off. “What is the
name of this church?”
“San Giovanni degli Eremiti. But before that, there were Arabs here.” “I can see that. I used to go to the baths in Budapest with a cupola like yours.” “Budapest?” The sound of renewed gunfire ended that line of conversation. Palermo - Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Eremiti - Photo by Paolo Pochettino.
|
|
...Castel del Monte came suddenly into view on top of its knoll. It began as a gleaming white wristband with vertical ribbing, then grew into a sturdy grey-white fortress with huge octagonal towers and a few mullioned windows of Arabesque design. It was so magnificent that they silently expected a welcome. Castel del Monte - Photo by Federico Pochettino.
Castel del Monte by bike - Francesco Nistler 
...Amilcare called from the adjacent room that he’d found a door which opened on a most marvelous courtyard. “It has eight sides!” he yelled.
“Frederick II was fascinated by the number eight,” Themistocles yelled back. “The number keeps repeating inside —in the towers, the rooms, the column capitals. And that’s not the end to it. The Emperor died in 1250, the sum of whose numbers makes eight, and he was buried in Palermo with an emerald ring on his finger in the form of eight petals.” |
|
...At the top, in fact, she
wasn’t able to talk for a good minute and her panting was such
that she could
hardly see the magnificent panorama of Utrecht
and the Dutch countryside. She supposed he was about to point
out to her some
place—what would it be, a farm building?—where Damien Brandeau
was hiding.
The Dom of Utrecht- Photo by Paolo Pochettino
On 47 Ad Emperor Claudius commissioned a line of fortresses along the Rhine river. one of these fortresses became the city of Utrecht. Here Paolo is on the border line of the Roman Empire!
The Dom of Utrecht- Photo by Paolo Pochettino
On 47 Ad Emperor Claudius commissioned a line of fortresses along the Rhine river. one of these fortresses became the city of Utrecht. Here Paolo is on the border line of the Roman Empire!
The Bard Fortress - Photo by Paolo Pochettino
...“Goffredo, we’ve known each other for too long to play such games. You are a point of reference for the other garibaldini prisoners in this fortress. They admire you for your silence. For your form of protest. Over a month without speaking is in a certain sense an accomplishment. We both know that. We’re old friends. I’m tempted to tell you that I’m here as just that—your old friend, but I know you
won’t believe that, so I’ll tell you the truth: I’m here because I need your men.”
Dream on. The garibaldini will have nothing to do with you.
...“Goffredo, we’ve known each other for too long to play such games. You are a point of reference for the other garibaldini prisoners in this fortress. They admire you for your silence. For your form of protest. Over a month without speaking is in a certain sense an accomplishment. We both know that. We’re old friends. I’m tempted to tell you that I’m here as just that—your old friend, but I know you
won’t believe that, so I’ll tell you the truth: I’m here because I need your men.”
Dream on. The garibaldini will have nothing to do with you.
|
|
The Battle of Millesimo and the Cherasco Armistice.
...She was struck by the disdain of those aristocratic Austrian officers for the ignorant ‘Little Corporal’ (as Napoleon was called)..... Growing more impatient now, she scanned through the list of battles won by Napoleon after his entry into Italy: Dego, Millesimo, Cairo Montenotte, Cosseria, and San Michele Mondovì. The elimination of a third of the enemy forces without their winning even a skirmish. The Piedmont generals were forced to ask for an armistice to prevent Piedmont from vanishing off the map entirely; in return they faced the extremely harsh conditions demanded by the French in the Cherasco Armistice.
Montiglio Monferrato - Photo by Paolo Pochettino
She had changed clothes in her rental Fiat in front of the small Montiglio rail station; out-of-the-way and abandoned-looking, it seemed a perfect spot. On the horizon an endless line of more hills dotted with castles, vineyards, and other perched villages awaited her. She loved running—her feet moving under her and a song flowing through her mind—and the ten kilometers that her GPS traced out was an easy distance, half what she usually ran.
She had changed clothes in her rental Fiat in front of the small Montiglio rail station; out-of-the-way and abandoned-looking, it seemed a perfect spot. On the horizon an endless line of more hills dotted with castles, vineyards, and other perched villages awaited her. She loved running—her feet moving under her and a song flowing through her mind—and the ten kilometers that her GPS traced out was an easy distance, half what she usually ran.
|
Their guide waved at
them to come closer, and unlocked the door. Arjan Gupta was the
first in, and
Dardanoni behind him. It was an extraordinary space. The
nave-length floor was
completely covered in black and white mosaics, as were the stone
benches flanking
the sidewalls: they showed warriors raising torches, a cock, a
sort of
cauldron, a bird, a snake, a lightning bolt, and curly-cued vines,
and as a
cornice, a row of Nautilus shells. There were no windows but the
far wall of
the sanctuary was still a bright red after centuries and its
niche, flaked with
blue and stars, depicted the constellations.
|
Ostia Antica - Mithraeum of the Seven Doors
|
“This
just in to our News Desk. The body of a man was found hanged
under the Verrua
Savoia Bridge over the Po early this morning by two cyclists on
a bike path.
The bridge with its eighteen arches is located between Chivasso
and Trino in
the point where the three provinces of Turin, Vercelli, and
Alessandria meet.
After making their discovery, the cyclists immediately called
police, who
arrived on the scene with a medical crew who removed the body
from the bridge.
The victim of what police say may or may not have been a suicide
is described
as a tall male of around thirty-five years of age". Verrua Savoia - photo by Paolo Pochettino
He watched her move the flashlight back and forth, the way a small child would his ‘reading finger.’ In his mind’s eye he read it with her. She noticed the date: March 9, 1796. She absorbed the fact that the 26-year-old Napoleon I had married Josephine only two days before leaving for Italy with his army of 38,000 poorly equipped soldiers, prepared to take on the 70,000 men of the Armies of Austria and Piedmont. She was struck by the disdain of those aristocratic Austrian officers for the ignorant ‘Little Corporal’ (as Napoleon was called), who thought that the artillery was decisive in a battle when all the military academies knew that it was the infantry. Growing more impatient now, she scanned through the list of battles won by Napoleon after his entry into Italy: Dego, Millesimo, Cairo Montenotte, Cosseria, and San Michele Mondovì. The elimination of a third of the enemy forces without their winning even a skirmish. The Piedmont generals were forced to ask for an armistice to prevent Piedmont from vanishing off the map entirely; in return they faced the extremely harsh conditions demanded by the French in the Cherasco Armistice.
Cherasco - Salmatoris Palace. Known as "of the Peace" for the historical treaty signed by Napoleon and the Savoy monarchy, it gave also hospitality to the Holy Schroud.
