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| Inlaid Tiles-Cathedral in Reggio |
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| Katani Palace Hotel Dining Room |
April 6, 2014
Accidents
Jon Lucca met us for our trip to the main museum in Reggio Calabria. It's an
old building redone with stark white walls & soaring ceilings. We were
there to see the Riace Bronzes. These treasures are so well protected that we
had to wait in an anteroom until the air in that room equalized in temperature
& pressure with the room where the bronzes were displayed.
In 1992, a man was scuba diving 600 feet off the coast of Riace, Calabria. He saw what he thought was an arm sticking out of the sand at only three feet deep. I don't know if his first thought was he'd found a Mafia "hit," but he notified the police. He had stumbled upon 5th century BC Greek bronze statues that are the only intact bronzes of any size in existence.
The theory is that the bronzes were on a ship going to Rome when the ship sank. Either the ship broke up close to shore & remnants went out to sea with the statues sinking in the sand, or the statues were thrown overboard to lighten the load in an attempt to save the ship. Rome appropriated Greek bronzes & transported them home to use the bronze for weapons. Fortunately smaller copies were made for display in homes because that's how we know what the originals looked like. In the 1400's, many more bronze statues were melted to be made into cannons.
The statues are about seven feet tall, hollow & have a very thin delicate bronze skin although they look massive. Statues of regular people were cast in life-sized proportions, but heroes & gods were bigger than life. These two warriors must have been some kind of heroes. Their eyes, teeth, & even lips were original. Ivory & onyx was used for the glaring eyes while the teeth were made of silver. The soft rose hued lips were copper. The musculature was incredible & veins were prominent as if each soldier was engaged in a strenuous act. Judi observed that the Greek bronzes had Roman noses.
We reluctantly left the bronzes to take a look at equally old marble figures, Castor & Pollux, found in Loci. The twins, gods who served Zeus, were cavorting on a wingless horse supported by a sphinx. Although wingless, the horse portrays Pegasus. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that wings were added. I guess the limited imaginations of medieval men couldn't conceive of something flying without wings.
Further along there were more statues of the twins & a central female figure found at a Temple. The female was not identified as any specific goddess, but Loci was a matriarchal society. I asked Jon Lucca if it was possible the goddess was Hera, Zeus' wife, since she was with Castor & Pollux, his gofers. He thought it was as good a theory as any.
A huge tapestry hung adjacent to the statues & portrayed a scene of Castor meeting up with some unidentified person. It was hand woven silk. We learned that before olive groves were so plentiful there were countless mulberry trees & the silkworm industry flourished in Calabria. Marco Polo? When machine loomed tapestries began to be manufactured, oil was needed to run the factories. That's when mulberry trees were replaced with olive trees. Olive oil lubricated the Industrial Revolution.
Other small statues were around & Jon Lucca explained that as with the deities in the Tarxien Temples in Malta, images of nobles & rulers were made so their heads could be removed when a new dynasty took power. Very practical. The mileposts for the Roman roads were also designed with one end carved with the name of the emperor & the other blank. When a new regime took power, they flipped the stone embedding the old end into the road & carving the name of the new leader on the blank side.
In 1992, a man was scuba diving 600 feet off the coast of Riace, Calabria. He saw what he thought was an arm sticking out of the sand at only three feet deep. I don't know if his first thought was he'd found a Mafia "hit," but he notified the police. He had stumbled upon 5th century BC Greek bronze statues that are the only intact bronzes of any size in existence.
The theory is that the bronzes were on a ship going to Rome when the ship sank. Either the ship broke up close to shore & remnants went out to sea with the statues sinking in the sand, or the statues were thrown overboard to lighten the load in an attempt to save the ship. Rome appropriated Greek bronzes & transported them home to use the bronze for weapons. Fortunately smaller copies were made for display in homes because that's how we know what the originals looked like. In the 1400's, many more bronze statues were melted to be made into cannons.
The statues are about seven feet tall, hollow & have a very thin delicate bronze skin although they look massive. Statues of regular people were cast in life-sized proportions, but heroes & gods were bigger than life. These two warriors must have been some kind of heroes. Their eyes, teeth, & even lips were original. Ivory & onyx was used for the glaring eyes while the teeth were made of silver. The soft rose hued lips were copper. The musculature was incredible & veins were prominent as if each soldier was engaged in a strenuous act. Judi observed that the Greek bronzes had Roman noses.
We reluctantly left the bronzes to take a look at equally old marble figures, Castor & Pollux, found in Loci. The twins, gods who served Zeus, were cavorting on a wingless horse supported by a sphinx. Although wingless, the horse portrays Pegasus. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that wings were added. I guess the limited imaginations of medieval men couldn't conceive of something flying without wings.
Further along there were more statues of the twins & a central female figure found at a Temple. The female was not identified as any specific goddess, but Loci was a matriarchal society. I asked Jon Lucca if it was possible the goddess was Hera, Zeus' wife, since she was with Castor & Pollux, his gofers. He thought it was as good a theory as any.
A huge tapestry hung adjacent to the statues & portrayed a scene of Castor meeting up with some unidentified person. It was hand woven silk. We learned that before olive groves were so plentiful there were countless mulberry trees & the silkworm industry flourished in Calabria. Marco Polo? When machine loomed tapestries began to be manufactured, oil was needed to run the factories. That's when mulberry trees were replaced with olive trees. Olive oil lubricated the Industrial Revolution.
Other small statues were around & Jon Lucca explained that as with the deities in the Tarxien Temples in Malta, images of nobles & rulers were made so their heads could be removed when a new dynasty took power. Very practical. The mileposts for the Roman roads were also designed with one end carved with the name of the emperor & the other blank. When a new regime took power, they flipped the stone embedding the old end into the road & carving the name of the new leader on the blank side.
Forging Ahead
In 1908, there was a devastating earthquake & tsunami here. Twenty-five thousand died in Reggio Calabria & seventy thousand in Messina. During the clean up, Roman baths were discovered in downtown Reggio. Why not? We strolled past them on the way to the cathedral rebuilt in 1928. Only the altar & one chapel survived the earthquake. The story goes that St. Paul was shipwrecked in Malta, as we all now know. After preaching there, he was enslaved by the Romans. While being transported to Rome, they stopped for a short time in Reggio Calabria. Paul managed to convert St. Stephen of Nicea & made him a bishop. That established Reggio Calabria as the first diocese of the Western church. Statues of both saints stand in front of the scaffolding behind which the church facade is being restored.
The restored cathedral was built to reflect the architectural influences from its past. The surviving original chapel walls are done up with multi-colored marble geometric inlays of blue, brown, & white swirls. It's a busy design but works to create a calming atmosphere. Above & to the sides of the altar in the chapel are our old friends, white stucco menorahs.
Our time with Jon Lucca had ended. He took us to the ferry boarding area near our hotel (it's maybe two blocks away) & made sure we were set to board in the afternoon. Our driver, Angelo, called from Messina, Sicily, to double & triple check our arrival time.
We killed the afternoon walking through a flea market that didn't have any sox for sale. We had lunch & joinied Sunday window shoppers. Soon it was time to get our luggage & board the ferry. It was downhill all the way to the dock. The ferry was on time. We had no steps to climb or escalators to deal with. There were no railway tracks blocking our path. Easy peasy.
We caught a glimpse of Etna as we crossed the water back to "Sitaly," as I've been calling it. Angelo was waiting & we headed south through many tunnels to Catania. Etna grew bigger as we approached. It was like seeing an old friend. Steam was pouring from the caldera creating a thick halo overhead.
We got to the Katani Palace Hotel & surprised the desk clerk who wasn't expecting us until June. The mistake was straightened out shortly when we realized there was a transposition in dates. Americans write today as 04-06-2014 & Europeans write 06-04-2014. That solved, he looked for the reservation under "Horowitz." Somehow it was listed under "Ritz." Our rooms are lovely & we even have a double vanity sink. But it was hot so we asked about the air conditioning. We were told that it's centralized & the owner has it programmed to go on periodically. We can keep the setting on "auto" but it will only control the flow of air, not the temperature. We ended up opening a window.
The man at the desk recommended Taverna dei Tre Conti for dinner. It was a short walk through what looked like scuzzy streets, but it's Sunday & the place is closed down. We read the menu before gong in & I noticed they had a bistechi dish they translated as "horse meat." I teased Judi that the tough "bistechi Marsala" she had in Palermo might have been "neigh" not “moo.” She said I'd never convince her of that. She ordered grilled swordfish tonight, David had veal, & I had an interesting tasty penne with fennel, raisins, sardines, & breadcrumbs.
Tomorrow we'll explore Catania on our own. My guidebook describes this city as, "by any measure, Europe's most degraded city, & the Catanese have no one to blame but themselves. Unlike Palermo or Naples, this city does not have the Mafia ...to suck its blood... Neither can it claim poverty as an excuse: Sicily's second city & main business center makes quite a good living from trade & industry."
Toby
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