Rome’s publicity often leaves a lot to be desired. So when friends invited me to the Ara Pacis on Saturday night, I had no idea there was anything special going on. As we shuffled forward in the line (one person on duty to sell tickets for a special occasion) you could see something rather special. “Scholars believe it would have been enhanced with color.” In the middle of one of the whitest buildings in Rome. Amazing.

Projectors, finely aligned, made the altar glow as if lit from within. Words simply don’t work.




Thank you, Jane and Mark.

I can’t actually be sure that today is the day, because the Curio Maximus hasn’t actually announced it. But today is the last day it could possibly be. So I’m celebrating in the simplest possible way, by baking bread with only three ingredients: flour, water and salt. Oh, and the squillions of things that bestir my 100% hydration natural leaven.

It would be nice to know more about the Fornacalia than the little I gleaned from Wikipedia in English. Still, better than the Italian. And then there are the supremely puzzling links between Fornax, Goddess of the Oven, fornices, where one could hire a hot babe, fornices cerebral and otherwise, and fornication. Not to mention buns in ovens. The modern constellation Fornax is clearly of little relevance. One could, however, clearly spend a lifetime exploring these particular rabbit holes.

We took the Eurostar (40 minutes late leaving Rome; what a cheek) to Florence for a very civilized day trip. Three items were on the agenda, and we managed all three. First stop, Santa Felicità and the Capponi Chapel for a good look at the frescoes and painting by Jacopo Pontormo et al. There’s nothing sensible I can say about them, ‘cept it was worth the journey.

Then to the Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia, opposite Santa Maria Novella. This was the meat in the sandwich, and very good it was too. The current exhibition is about the female breast. Funnily enough, it’s invisible on the English version of the site, but prominent enough on the Italian. And though the heart slightly sank — oh no, titillation — the show was actually excellent, with some wonderful images. The permanent collection is something else though. There are some wonderful images there too, but the lighting is so low it is hard to be sure. Well, that’s bit facetious, I admit, but especially in the case of photographs the whole question of “the thing itself” is thrown into sharp relief.

Given the possibility of endless reproduction, and the fact that, especially in the case of photographs, reproduction is in the nature of the art, what would be wrong with displaying the best possible “copies” under good lighting? Then, when they fade or degenerate in other ways, they could easily be replaced. Of course the museum would still hold the originals for study and stuff, under conditions suited to immortality, and visitors would be able to see the image properly, knowing that the thing itself is being properly taken care of. I for one would prefer that.

And part three? The Green Cloister, off to the left of Santa Maria Novella. Again, cracking pictures, this time by Paolo Uccello and his followers. Again, nothing I can say except what a treat this time to see both the real things and, later, the excellent reproductions available elsewhere.

And then the train home, on time, and a Thanksgiving Dinner with friends. I’m thankful for all this.

We spent a lovely weekend in Florence a few days ago, including some quality time with friends we don’t often see. But there’s nothing I can say about Florence that hasn’t been said better elsewhere, so I won’t even try. Instead, I’ll share this.

In case you can’t quite make it out, it is a pet shop window. With a rack of coats. For dogs. There’s a mannequin dog too.

Further proof that Italy is not a land of unadulterated good taste and that some people have more money than brains. As for the poor dogs, my heart goes out to them. And does my dog’s.

It’s been an exciting week. Monday night, the frangipani blossoms first opened, and I almost pitched myself over the parapet trying to photograph them. When the leaves first stirred I remarked that they were early and how wonderful it would be if the flowers were early too, so The Squeeze could experience them. Six weeks later I noted that the single growing shoot had split into four — bushiness! yay! — but still no flower buds. And then, in the heat of summer, I noticed that one of the new shoots had flower buds, and they opened, and the summer had been and gone and so The Squeeze has now experienced them. I think she liked that.

The “tree” looks a bit silly, and it may be too much to hope that next year each shoot has flowers.

Then there’s the wisteria.

I planted about ten seedlings last winter, and mostly they germinated. Potted them on, secure in the knowledge that this was a total waste of time, because any fule kno that Wisteria takes forever to bloom, and I’d be long gone e’er they flowered. When The Squeeze casually pointed out flower buds on one of those tendrilly buggers, not knowing that of course there shouldn’t have been any, not for another five years at least, I was stunned. But there they were, and a couple of days later, they bloomed. Not bad for a seedling. I’m eager to see whether any of the others are early developers too.

The hibiscus? Not much to say about that. Bought by The Squeeze just before her departure, I managed not to kill it over the summer and it is still going strong.

And finally, little baby Zampifolia.

This is testimony to the don’t-be-too-hasty-to-throw-empty-pots-away philosophy. A friend gave me a monstrous Zampifolia before her departure a couple of years ago, and it did OK for me, growing ever more monstrous and sprawling all over the place. I split it (an event not considered worth blogging) and so had two sprawling monsters. Last summer they went out on the terrace, but as winter drew on the thought of bringing them in filled me with horror. So I left them out there in the cold and wet, and by the time I realized they were rotting away it was too late. I brought them in, tried to dry them out, but to no avail. I removed slimy stems from time to time until nothing but an ichor-encrusted mess remained. Later this spring, I finally had to get them out of my room and out of the house. But as I tipped the mess out into an empty compost bag, I noticed that not everything had degenerated. There were a couple of nubbins that seemed sound. Well, what the heck, into a little pot one of them went, and under a drip, and I forgot about it. Till it put up a shoot. Then another. Now a third.

It will definitely be coming inside at the first hint of cold and wet. How long before it is a monster sprawling around the house again?