Moving along
August 29th, 2008
Alas, dear friends, Norumbega, having wandered off on its summer vacation, has decided not to makes its scheduled return in September. Nonetheless, I would by no means proclaim it dead, merely in abeyance. It may resurrect sometime in the shady mists of the future, sometime before the final judgement. Then again, it might not.
At any rate, the site will stay online for your viewing pleasure (I hope you’ve enjoyed it), and you can continue to follow my particular train of thought over at a new-and-improved andrewcusack.com, with all the contents of the blog portion of Norumbega added for your convenience. Take a look.
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Santa Maria della Pace
August 19th, 2008
One of my favourite churches in all of Rome is that of Santa Maria della Pace. The best approach is from the alley leading out of the northwest corner of the Piazza Navona, crossing the Via di Santa Maria dell’Anima and making sure to turn left into the smaller alleyway when the little street itself swerves north. Moving forward, the perambulator suddenly emerges into a tiny trapezoidal piazza and having continued for a few paces realizes, almost as an afterthought, that there is something over your right shoulder. There is the Church of Santa Maria della Pace.
Like so many Roman edifices the Church is the work of many centuries. A church dedicated to the Apostle Andrew once stood on the site, and it was on the foundations of that church in 1482 that work on Santa Maria della Pace commenced. Sixtus IV, praying for peace in the Italian peninsula, vowed to build a church dedicated to Our Lady of Peace, and hence the Apostle’s patronage was superseded. While Baccio Pontelli deserves the credit for the church proper, Pietro da Cortona’s splendidly theatrical façade and its enveloping piazza were commissioned Alexander VII in the 1650s.
Santa Maria della Pace has a number of connections to the Chigi dynasty. The first prominent member of the Chigi family was Agostino (1465–1520), a wealthy banker and builder of the Villa Farnesina in Trastevere. Here at Santa Maria della Pace, Agostino commissioned the Capella Chigi (not to be confused with the Capella Chigi in Santa Maria del Popolo). Alexander VII himself was a Chigi, and perhaps this explains his patronage of Cortona’s façade and piazza. Among the later Chigi clan, there were a number of cardinals, some of whom were even nuncios, and more recently Ludovico Chigi Albani della Rovere was Prince & Grand Master of the Order of Malta from 1931 to 1951. Anyhow, the Chigi chapel features a fresco initiated by Raphael (and completed by his school), while the adjacent chapel includes sculptural decoration by Michelangelo.
In addition to greats such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Cortona, the cloister of the church is by none other than Bramante, and indeed was his first work in the Eternal City. Somewhat exhaustively, it doesn’t end there. Santa Maria della Pace has a high altar by Carlo Maderno, a sculpture of the Deposition by Cosimo Fancelli, two small frescoes by il Rosso Fiorentino, and another fresco by Baldassarre Peruzzi who, shall we say in kindness, was a much better architect than painter. There are further works by Maratta and Gentileschi (Orazio, that is — not Artemisia).
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The Catholic Herald
August 19th, 2008
First Christian de Lisle, now Jennifer Roche: at this rate within a year everyone I know will have contributed to the Catholic Herald! (And, incidentally, I did have a brief chat in the Travellers Club once with the chap who wrote the piece on the Assumption).
I might just have to take out a subscription, though an electronic one — probably the most convenient for we across the seas — is still a hefty £38: at today’s exchange rate that’s seventy good ole American smackeroons! Probably worth it, though.
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Monocled Monarch is the King of Fashion
August 17th, 2008
Put Taft on a raft and forget Mr. Vorster: In terms of well-dressed heads of state, the King of Tonga is one of the last of his breed
It’s an easily observable fact that, in terms of public attire, the heads of state of today generally leave much to be desired, yet the newly crowned King of Tonga (seen right) keeps up the sartorial tradition, not only of his ancestors, but of ours. George Tupou V (or Siaosi Taufa’ahau Manumataongo Tuku’aho Tupou V to give his full name) was crowned just a few weeks ago in a splendid ceremony in Nuku’alofa, the capital of “the Friendly Islands”.
Though Tonga is certainly not the only monarchy in the Pacific — Japan, Australia, and New Zealand are the most prominent — it is one of the smallest and certainly one of the most traditional. So traditional, in fact, that it is on the naughty list of the CIA-linked “Freedom House” foundation. Tonga’s crime? That only a minority of the members of Tonga’s parliament, the Fale Alea, are directly elected. Of the 30 members, 9 are elected by a general electorate, 9 are elected by the nobility, 10 are members of the Privy Council, and 2 are governors appointed by the King. Curiously, Freedom House does not treat the United Kingdom the same as Tonga, despite the majority of parliamentarians being either directly appointed by the Crown or elected by hereditary lords — elected MPs consist of less than half of parliament.
His Majesty reigns over a kingdom that is predominantly Wesleyan in religion, but he was crowned by an Anglican archbishop from Fiji (itself a hybrid monarchy-republic) because Tongans are not allowed to touch the Royal Person. (Also, there are no Wesleyan archbishops, and it would hardly do for a King to be crowned by a mere minister!).
The King’s amicable nature ensures that the Tongan realm lives up to their sometime moniker of “the Friendly Islands”; above, His Majesty meets with one of his honorary consuls to Australia.
The King is seen here visiting his fellow monarch Elizabeth II on a visit to London. Tonga has long enjoyed friendly relations with Great Britain, having been a British-protected state from 1900 until 1970, and the Kingdom remains a Commonwealth nation today. His Majesty’s traditional sense of style frequently includes a monocle and top hat. While he does not look out of place at Buckingham Palace, his natural attire makes his audiences with less traditional heads of state (witness H.M. with President Shimon Peres of Israel, topmost, right) makes the boring leaders seem inappropriately dressed.
I am sure that all of our readers will join in wishing His Majesty a happy and blessed reign, that justice and order will flourish in Tonga, and that the Pacific seas will remain true to their name.
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La Rural 2008
August 14th, 2008
The 122nd Exhibition of the Sociedad Rural Argentina
One of the highlights of the Argentina calendar is the Rural Exposition or “La Rural” which takes place every year at the Buenos Aires showgrounds of the Sociedad Rural Argentina. La Rural is one of the few events which takes up the entirety of the Society’s thirty-acre home nudged between Palermo Viejo and Palermo Nuevo and facing onto the Plaza Italia. Lasting from July 24 to August 4, with admission just 13 pesos (about $4.25 or £2.30), the show usually attracts a million visitors over its thirteen days.
This year’s show was particularly timely as it began just as the months-long crisis between the agricultural sector and the Kirchner presidency came to an end with an apparent victory for the farmers. Despite the jubilant celebrations that erupted on the defeat of the Kirchners’ massive tax on farm exports, the farmers are worried they haven’t felt the last of the presidential couple’s wrath.
The show features all manner of livestock, most prominently cows, but also horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, and llamas. There are over six-hundred exhibitors at La Rural, which range from Barbour to the Banco de la Nacion, to the Catholic University of Argentina. Farm produce and agricultural machinery comprise the bulk of the exhibitors, but there are also hand-crafters and leatherworkers exhibiting their work. They even have Mass at La Rural each Sunday while the exhibition is on.
The main competitions and demonstrations take place on the central court of the showgrounds, which is flanked by beautiful art-nouveau pavilions built at the turn of the last century.
The blogger who took this photograph described the attendees as “50% gaucho, 50% Ralph Lauren”.
The nation’s gastronomic products are one of the main draws of the expo…
…and there’s even enough fun for the littlest Argentines.
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Propaganda Fide
August 14th, 2008
Cheers to the unknown wag who created this delightful poster, parodying the Obama “HOPE” posters.
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The Great Club Revolution
August 14th, 2008
What with all this democracy things will never be the same
 The Union Club |
By Cleveland Amory
American Heritage, December 1954, Vol. 6, Issue 1
In 1936 in New York City there occurred the 100th anniversary of the Union Club, oldest and most socially sacrosanct of New York’s gentlemen’s clubs. From all parts of this country and even from abroad there arrived, from lesser clubs, congratulatory messages, impressive gifts and particularly large offerings of floral tributes.
At the actual anniversary banquet, however, as so often happens in gentlemen’s clubs, there was, despite the dignity of the occasion, the severe speeches and the general sentimental atmosphere, a little over-drinking. And one member over-drank a little more than a little. Shortly before dessert he decided he had had enough, at least of the food, and he disappeared. Furthermore, he did not reappear.
Worried, some friends of his decided, after the banquet, to conduct a search. The faithful doorman in the hooded hallporter’s chair gave the news that no gentleman of that description had passed out, or rather by, him, and the friends redoubled their efforts. High and low they combed the missing member’s favorite haunts—the bar, the lounge, the card room, the billiard room, the locker room, the steam room, etc. One even tried, on an off-chance, the library. There, as usual, there was nothing but a seniority list of the Union’s ten oldest living members and a huge sign reading “SILENCE.”
Finally, in one of the upstairs bedrooms, they found the gentleman. He was lying on a bed, stretched out full length in his faultless white tie and tails, dead to this world.
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A Rundbogenstil Library in New York
August 8th, 2008
The handsome former Astor Library on Lafayette Street
One of my favorite buildings in all New York is the former Astor Library on Lafayette Street in Greenwich Village. Now the Public Theater, it is a superb example of the nineteenth-century German neo-romantic Rundbogenstil (”round-arch-style”) and one of the few remnants of that style in New York. The Astor Library was the legacy of John Jacob Astor, whose will provided for its establishment. Late in the nineteenth century, the Astor Library agreed to merge with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Trust to form the New York Public Library, one of the greatest libraries in the history of civilization. The building was bought by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society who tore out the book stacks and used it as a processing station for needy newcomers. In 1965, the HIAS sold it on to a developer who planned to demolish it, but, through a massive civic effort, Joseph Papp and his New York Shakespeare Festival purchased the building and turned it into the Public Theater.
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Rabbiting on…
August 8th, 2008
Readers might be interested in a new blog called Rabbiting On, by one V. Narayan Swami from Madras in the ancient land of India. Incidentally, the city council of Madras (known as the Chennai Corporation) is reputed to be the oldest municipal body in the Commonwealth of Nations outside the British Isles, its charter being granted by King James II (c.f. here & here) in 1687. The governor of Madras at that time was one Elihu Yale, who was subsequently removed in a corruption scandal and later became the patron of an academy in Connecticut which know proudly bears his name.
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Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918–2008
August 3rd, 2008
Russian traditionalist, Nobel laureate, feted in the West for criticism of Soviet Communism, then spurned for rejecting liberal materialism
Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the most famous Russian writer and historian of our age, has died at eighty-nine years of age. Solzhenitsyn was the earliest to bring first-hand knowledge of the Gulag, the Soviet system of prison colonies and labour camps, to wider Western attention. For this noble task, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and expelled from the Soviet Union four years later, returning in 1994. After the fall of the Soviet regime, he despised Boris Yeltsin’s incompetence, identifying 1998 as the low point of Russia’s recent history. “Yeltsin decreed I be honored the highest state order,” Solzhenitsyn explained. “I replied that I was unable to receive an award from a government that had led Russia into such dire straits.”
He gave cautious support to the presidency of Vladimir Putin, and was pleased that while, in his words, “Moscow is still communist”, there was a growing readiness under Putin to admit (and even broadcast on state television) the crimes and outrages of the Soviet regime.
“Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people. And he started to do what was possible — a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments.”
Influenced by his experience in exile in both Switzerland and New England, Solzhenitsyn insisted on the need for local self-government in Russia. “Today I continue to be extremely worried by the slow and inefficient development of local self-government. But it has finally started to take place. In Yeltsin’s time, local self-government was actually barred on the regulatory level, whereas the state’s ‘vertical of power’ (i.e. Putin’s centralized and top-down administration) is delegating more and more decisions to the local population. Unfortunately, this process is still not systematic in character.”
Solzhenitsyn expressed further disappointment with the new Western imperialism being waged against Russia, embodied in the 1999 War against Serbia which turned so many Russian minds against the Western powers they had previously been quite friendly to.
In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, Solzhenitsyn was asked whether he was afraid of death:
“No, I am not afraid of death any more. When I was young the early death of my father cast a shadow over me — he died at the age of 27 — and I was afraid to die before all my literary plans came true. But between 30 and 40 years of age my attitude to death became quite calm and balanced. I feel it is a natural, but no means the final, milestone of one’s existence.”
When the interviewer from Der Spiegel wished him many more years of “creative life”, Solzhenitsyn calmly responded “No, no. Don’t. It’s enough.”
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Le monde diplomatique
July 29th, 2008
The German edition of Le monde diplomatique underwent a complete overhaul not too long ago. Unlike the main French edition of Le monde diplo, which exhibits the exact style of a French newspaper of mediocre design circa 1996, the German edition now exudes a certain calm and composed modernity. The redesign is the work of the German typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann, whom the Royal Society have named a Royal Designer for Industry (entitling him to an HonRDI after his name; only “hon” because he is not a British subject). Mr. Spiekermann was responsible for the much-lauded redesign of The Economist, the magazine you read when the airport lounge doesn’t have a copy of The Spectator.
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Plumbing Cusackian Depths?
July 29th, 2008
Robert Harrington recently insisted on interviewing me, taking many of his questions from a previous interview years ago which had been available at andrewcusack.com but which has since inexplicably disappeared into the ether. (Such are the mysterious ways of the internet). Mr. Harrington unconvincingly insists that the previous interview provided an interesting insight into the mind of Cusack, and no doubt he hoped to gain further useless insights with this period of interrogation. We will leave it to the reader to judge. What follows is an only barely edited version.
You’re known as an architecture fan. What’s your favourite city?
Edinburgh. Finest city in the British Empire.
Finer than London?
Oh, I’d say so. London has a great deal going for it — better clubs, for example — but it’s become incredibly vulgar. And foreign. Edinburgh is ten times as beautiful. What is more beautiful than an Edinburgh sunset, with the waning light reflecting off the stone buildings and the various spires and towers? The topography of the city is its saving grace, but can also be an incredible hassle. If you want to walk along George Street or Princes Street or the Royal Mile, you’re fine. But any perpindicular perambulation becomes a matter of climbing hills and stairs and such. Yet it makes the city all the more worthwhile somehow. It’s very striking.
Your favourite building though, the old Irish Parliament (now the Bank of Ireland) is in Dublin.
Dublin also has a great number of brilliant edifices, great buildings. Not just the Bank of Ireland but Trinity College, the Castle, the Four Courts, the Custom House, the King’s Inns and Henrietta Street and all those Georgian buildings. And two medieval cathedrals! But no, Edinburgh is still finer, and unsullied by republicanism.
But the ugly Scottish Parliament building is in Edinburgh.
True, true. A recent goiter upon an old friend though. Surgery can remove such things, if the patient is willing and a surgeon can be found.
