Tag Archives: Italy

Architecture, Arts & Literature, Reviews

Top Museum Exhibits: “Buried by Vesuvius – Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri” At Getty Villa

August 29, 2019 boomersdaily Leave a comment

From a Wall Street Journal article:

…the Getty Villa, despite some anomalies and insertions, is considered a strong likeness, which makes it a powerful locale for “Buried by Vesuvius: Treasures From the Villa dei Papiri,” the first major exhibition of works discovered in the Roman residence. The show includes Weber’s 1758 architectural map—used to build the Getty Villa—along with some of the approximately 90 sculptures pulled from the site, showing athletes, philosophers, rulers, poets and mythological figures. The exhibition also displays findings from the recent excavations.

The idea was half-mad: building a museum to look like an ancient Roman villa that was buried under 75 feet of debris when Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and had never really been seen since. But J. Paul Getty made his immense fortune by bringing ancient subterranean material (i.e. oil) to the surface, so he must have felt similar excitement in exhuming this villa, in concept if not reality. It opened as the home for his eponymous museum in 1974; now called the Getty Villa, and located in Los Angeles, it holds the institution’s Classical collections.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/buried-by-vesuvius-treasures-from-the-villa-dei-papiri-review-a-homecoming-of-sorts-11566941174

Travel

European Travels: Monastery Of San Nicolò l’Arena In Sicily Is A “Baroque Splendor”

August 2, 2019 boomersdaily Leave a comment

From an Italy Magazine article by Silvia Donati:

If the nuns of Catania’s Benedictine Convent devoted all their time to praying, the monks of the adjacent Benedictine Monastery were said to be a bit more lax about their spiritual duties. In southern Italian author Federico De Roberto’s most famous novel, I Viceré, which is very accurate in describing the social and political background of Catania in the years that followed Italy’s unification, the monks are described as carrying out the “art of Michelasso,” an Italian saying used to describe someone who, well, is idle, avoids hard work and responsibilities.

Their monastery, known as Monastero di San Nicolò l’Arena, resembled a sumptuous noble residence rather than a place where to retreat and pray to God. It was also very big, almost a city within a city, located in a panoramic position with views of the sea and the Etna volcano on what was once the acropolis of the Greek colony of Katane.

The Benedictine Monastery’s wealth was an indicator of the power the religious order had acquired, in Catania and beyond. This is still clear when you visit the complex, a maze of rooms, basements, stairs, courtyards, colonnades and very long hallways, where architectural styles from different eras superimpose on one another.