#Vincenzo Giovanni

[m-blackwell-and-associates]

Following Up pt 2

Nicky’s people had cleaned the grave well enough, now that the original mission, both true and false, was over.  Nicky had the manners to police his own.  Now it was left to her to gather what dust had fallen out of her cousin’s reach and how she could make it pay.  It would be more satisfying to have someone else pay the costs now resting in her ledger.  

“Any reason you chose…”  Angelina turned back a page to see the list of operatives that Nicky had sent. “Diana Rosselini, alias Anna Betancourt?”  

“I felt she was the best of the four.”

“What made her stand out?”  At first glance, all four seemed to be of similar quality.  Military training of one flavor or another.  Specific skills earned in vague unnamed places.  Confirmed kill lists.  All from distant branches of breeder families, probably only accidentally aware of the family business, if aware of it at all.  No one with any strong ties to any Kindred family that she could recall at this moment.  Perfect operatives for those hopefuls with nothing left to lose and willing to work for a family pariah.

Family pariahs.  

Angelina frowned slightly, perturbed at the unnecessary self-reminder, tucking that thought away for later contemplation.  Now was not the time for meditating on old injustices. 

“I feel that a Rosselini was more suitable,” Pietro gave an easy shrug, as if such an important choice was merely an afterthought.  Normally a temperate guide, she found his lack of care or worry to be irritating this evening. 

“More suitable than what, Pietro?  Do not dissemble.”

He capitulated immediately.  “The Rosselini was the only choice, donna.  I wouldn’t dare Proxy Jara without approval of the Pisnob.  I didn’t feel that you’d want the della Passaglia here, all things considered, so Durant was also not an option.”

“Your consideration of my feelings is commendable, but if he was the better candidate, I would have accepted him.  Chances are he wasn’t involved with the…current politics.”  Angelina clicked her teeth shut on the words, biting them where she couldn’t bite those that had risen against her.

Again that nonchalant shrug and easy grin, tacitly ignoring the tempest she held under thin glass  “I would not risk it and besides, the Rosselini was equally qualified and the fourth did not survive the mission.”

“Karl Koeing, alias of Gerhart Auer,” Angelina mused, putting the papers back in order and finding the small work of neatness to be soothing.  There would be very little this evening that would be considered soothing.  “Nicky removed him from the operation himself?”

“Compromised,” Pietro agreed.  “At least that was what my Rosselini has told me, though I find it all a little extreme.  The Butcher didn’t like the fact he was passing information.  I understand his reasoning, but it wasn’t as if the Koeing was speaking out of house.”

A flash of annoyance cut through her precarious calm, jaw tightening against what she wished to say.  Vincenzo. They had been contemporaries once, equal in status as one of the North American padroni.  Their cousin’s unexpected murder had given him the job and she found the timing of it suspect, as well as Vincenzo’s lack of proper familial mourning.   “And Ms. Rosselini was the one that made sure the grave was clean?”

[turangalila]

Giovanni de Macque (1548-1614) — Seconda Stravaganza [Ms. 1617, British Library, London]

The Seconda Stravaganza of Giovanni De Macque, a Flemish composer transplanted to Naples and another member of Gesualdo’s circle, is an impressionistic, chromatic and tonally unstable piece; it introduces the Baroque concept of ‘stravaganza’ which eventually led to Vivaldi’s collection of violin concertos bearing the same name.

Vincenzo Ruffo (1508-1587) — Dormendo un giorno [Capricci in musica a tre voci. (Milan: Francesco Moscheni, 1564)]

Vincenzo Ruffo’s dreamlike Dormendo un giorno brings us back to a metaphysical and abstract atmosphere. It comes from his collection of Capricci, one of the first works to use this musical term, and is built on the bass part of Philippe Verdelot’s madrigal of the same name. The capriccio was a loosely defined form in which the composer followed his own whim without generally observing strict rules.

_ La morte della ragione. (Viaggio Musicale Tra XV E XVII Secolo Da Desprez A Gesualdo Da Venosa) Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini. (2018, Amadeus – AM 346-2)

[gregor-samsung]

" La prima volta che ti ho visto, d'istinto ho pensato e mo' questo che vuole? È stato un pensiero irrefrenabile, un getto d'acqua nell'arida pianura di quella stagione estiva. Eri una presenza stonata, perché non c'era bisogno di uno come te. Poi ti sei girato, hai sorriso - un sorriso aperto, bonario, anche un po' distratto dalle cose terrene - e hai detto «Ah! Tu sei Nicoletta». Non hai detto «Devi essere» hai detto «Tu sei» come se mi stessi creando in quell'istante, senza esitazione, con la magia delle parole. Succede nella Bibbia, succede nel Corano, succede nei momenti sacri e profani, succede a chi di mestiere crea mondi con le parole. Perché, come recita un proverbio Hopi: "Chi racconta le storie governa il mondo". Sinceramente, quell'estate in cui ci siamo conosciuti, non ero capace di raccontare niente, non sapevo più chi ero: la vita mi scuoiava, mi privava bruscamente degli appoggi, vivevo in un soffio pronto a spegnersi o a infuriare. Come i personaggi di un racconto di Horacio Quiroga avevo perso i venti e l'età, la schiuma dei giorni, la luccicanza. "

---------

Brano tratto dal racconto di Clara Nubile Luce che tutto tocca, testo raccolto in:

AA. VV., 27 racconti raminghi, a cura di Emanuela Chiriacò, FLU.O/Libri dell'Arco, Rimini, 2024¹, p. 48.

[dance-world]

Giovanni Visone, Alexandre Démont, Thomas van der Linden, and Vincenzo Minervini - Delattre Dance Com[any

[toscanoirriverente]

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Giovanni Folo, after Vincenzo Camuccini - The death of Virginia, 1870.

[opera-ghosts]

January 24. 1835 the last Opera from Vincenzo Bellini „I Puritani“ premiered in Paris. Here we see a very rare original castlist from The Metropolitan Opera. Only one performance was given for the opening of the MET at October 29. 1883 and then the next performance was 35 years later at February 2. 1918. Very curios.

[giuseppelaporta]

Porte minori della chiesa di San Gregorio a Pietracupa

Nella prima fotografia, la porta minore di destra, ricostruita durante i restauri del 1900, come si legge dall'iscrizione smaltata: MCMI, ossia 1901, opera dei muraratori Domenico Giovanni e Vincenzo Macchione, forse costruito con il riuso di alcuni pezzi di un portale pre-barocco del tardo '500 o '600.

Nella seconda invece, come da iscrizione incisa in caratteri gotici, il portale gotico eseguito dal Magister Riccardo Symone, o meglio di Symone (figlio di Simone), ultimato nel 1360, forse la prima porta maggiore della chiesa, con le insegne della signoria che ne avrebbe commissionato la realizzazione.

[pietroalviti]

Ceccano, apertura straordinaria della cripta alto medievale per il martirio di S. Giovanni, visita guidata con l'arch. Angeletti, giovedì 29 agosto, ore 19

Ci sono dei tesori nascosti a Ceccano che andrebbero valorizzati: molti ne vela la Collegiata di san Giovanni Battista. La Festa del martirio del Precursore, la decollazione, come si diceva una volta, è un’occasione preziosa per chi voglia conoscere meglio il complesso di culto dedicato a S. Giovanni Battista: sono 5 le chiese che si sono sovrapposte l’una sull’altra nello stesso sito ad iniziare…

[m-blackwell-and-associates]

Where you start. pt. 3

Sunday nights were not the normal time for a baptism, but Vincenzo was a busy man. They all knew that business kept him from dawn to dusk. He always agreed to be a godfather when asked and always saw them well provided for, given a helping hand through the doors he opened for them. It was a small matter to accommodate his schedule in exchange for that generosity. Family took care of each other this way.

Vincenzo's mortal cousin shifted again along side of him, the baby fussing in her arms. He tried to remember what her name was, something ridiculous. Bethany? That might be it. He patted her upper back slightly, in a gesture of support, whispering in her ear, "You're doing fine, babies always cry at baptisms."

Her cheeks flushed a bit in pleasure and she relaxed a bit. This was clearly her first time at standing as godmother. Vincenzo couldn't remember if she was married - you lost track of the heartbeats so quickly after a few generations, but if she wasn't, he'd have to introduce her to Joey. Nana Catena's ghost wouldn't fucking shut up about getting little Joey decently married and giving her some great-great grandchildren finally. Oh, Joey had done exactly that, many times over. Joey couldn't keep it in his pants if they were stapled to him. He wasn't careful, he was going to be known as Quick Draw Joey. But Nana Catena wanted legitimate grandchildren. She was old fashioned like that and Vincenzo made a mental note to explain that Joey could still play guns with whatever tramp he wanted to, he'd just have to make sure he played family man at home. 

[primepaginequotidiani]

PRIMA PAGINA La Sicilia di Oggi lunedì, 12 agosto 2024

[a-modernmajorgeneral]

The nine Muses were originally seen as the divine inspiration for poetry, song and dance, but gradually became the emblems for all the liberal arts. With Apollo (represented as the sun) they also symbolised the ‘harmony of the spheres’. Here Tintoretto’s sweeping strokes have created powerfully articulated nudes who fly and turn with extraordinary freedom.

This painting and another by Tintoretto, Esther before Ahasuerus, also in the Royal Collection are of a similar size and, by 1627, were hanging together in the same passage in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua. Although there is no record of the commissions, we know that Guglielmo Gonzaga, the 3rd Duke of Mantua, purchased other paintings directly from Tintoretto and visited the artist in Venice. The subject of the Muses is clearly appropriate for a court with a strong tradition of music and for a Duke with a personal interest in liturgical music. The painting is generally dated to the period when Tintoretto was producing a large number of paintings for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and for the Doge’s Palace, as well as other private commissions. The word IN in the inscription has been thought to be an abbreviation of ‘invenit’ (meaning ‘invented’ by the artist, as opposed to the more usually ‘fecit’, ‘made’). This may imply that Tintoretto designed but did not execute the painting, as in the similar inscription on the Raising of Lazarus (St Catherine’s Church, Lübeck).

There are several versions and adaptations of this composition: in Indianapolis Museum of Art, Clowes collection, possibly by Domenico Tintoretto, and a fragment in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, including the lower left seated figure only. A variant showing Apollo, the Muses and Three Graces in Dresden was destroyed in the Second World War. The quality of the Royal Collection picture suggests that it is the prime version, as do its many pentiments.

The Muses were the nine daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory) and companions of Apollo (here represented as the sun rather than a bodily presence). Like Apollo, they were regarded as incorporating supreme outward beauty and intellectual grace. They were originally seen as the divine inspiration for poetry, song and dance, but gradually became the emblems of all the liberal arts. Hesiod and the literature of the later Roman Empire gave each muse a specific literary form and musical instrument, but the associations were always flexible. By the sixteenth century Apollo and the Muses had become associated with the idea of the harmony of the spheres, with Apollo as the Sun. It is not surprising, given this range of associations, that the individual Muses are hard to identify here. Calliope, representing epic poetry, is their chief and plays a stringed instrument; she may therefore be the Muse in the central position, playing the harpsichord or clavicembalo. Clio, the Muse of history, holds a book and may be the figure below Apollo in the painting. Urania, associated with astronomy, is here given a globe and tablet, but her compasses are held by the muse reclining at the lower edge of the painting. Among the sources that Tintoretto must have consulted is the manual of mythology by Vincenzo Cartari, Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi, published in Venice in 1556 and enlarged and reprinted in subsequent years. This source does not distinguish the Muses but does include the detail of the garlands of flowers, laurel and palm leaves.

The range of musical instruments normally associated with the muses is here reduced to the harpsichord, bass viol, lute and lira da braccio, all attentively depicted by Tintoretto, who was himself an accomplished musician. The harpsichord can be compared to contemporary instruments made by Giovanni Baffo in Venice, but its long end, which is clear in the Indianopolis copy, is omitted. The near Muse on the right tunes and plays her lira da braccio at the same time: Tintoretto’s priority would seem to have been the dynamic of the turning figure rather than the accuracy in recording a performance.

The large, strongly modelled figures, boldly executed with sweeping strokes, strongly lit from the right, and freed from a landscape setting, weave a coherent design of dynamic diagonal lines across the picture plane and into the picture space. The execution and composition has been likened to the four large Allegories of 1577-8 painted for an ante-room in the Palazzo Ducale, the Atrio Quadrato, for which Tintoretto was paid in 1577-8.

Borghini records that even in his sixties, Tintoretto continued to collect and study models of famous statues, such as those by Giambologna (1529-1608), and never tired of copying them. The effect of such studies has been traced in paintings dating from the 1570s, including The Muses. The pose of the back view of the Muse on the right has been related to the so-called Groticella Venus of c.1570 (Boboli Grotto, Palazzo Pitti, Florence), but is closer to the smaller bronzes such as Venus Drying Herself of c.1565 or Astrology of c.1575 (both Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). The pose is never exact, and the similarity lies in Tintoretto’s interest in Giambologna’s type of slender, elegant women in contraposto poses. It has been suggested that the Muse flying in from the left derives from a Giambologna model of Lichas from Hercules and Lichas (one version now in the Art Institute of Chicago). According to Carlo Ridolfi, Tintoretto made models out of wax or clay, dressed them in cloth, studied the folds of the cloth on the limbs, and placed them in wood and cardboard constructions resembling miniature houses with small lamps alongside to introduce the effects of light and shade. Models were hung from roof beams so that they could be studied when seen from below. Such procedures enabled Tintoretto to create these powerfully articulated, flying nudes with such extraordinary freedom.

Catalogue entry adapted from The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: Renaissance and Baroque, London, 2007

The Muses by Jacopo Robusti, called Il Tintoretto

Italian, 1578

oil on canvas

Royal Collection Trust (acquired by King Charles I)

[bigarella]

Ragazzi di stadio

Da La Gazzetta dello Sport dell’8 novembre 1979, la pubblicazione della lettera inviata da Giovanni Fiorillo. Fonte: Umberto Resta, Op. cit. infra Il tifo organizzato a Roma negli anni Ottanta e l’Estate romana: due mondi lontani.Affrontare il capitolo della storia del tifo romanista negli anni Ottanta (e quindi di conseguenza anche di quello laziale, giacché, come ebbe a dirmi qualche tempo fa…

[adrianomaini]

Ragazzi di stadio

Da La Gazzetta dello Sport dell’8 novembre 1979, la pubblicazione della lettera inviata da Giovanni Fiorillo. Fonte: Umberto Resta, Op. cit. infra Il tifo organizzato a Roma negli anni Ottanta e l’Estate romana: due mondi lontani.Affrontare il capitolo della storia del tifo romanista negli anni Ottanta (e quindi di conseguenza anche di quello laziale, giacché, come ebbe a dirmi qualche tempo fa…

[bagnabraghe]

Ragazzi di stadio

Da La Gazzetta dello Sport dell’8 novembre 1979, la pubblicazione della lettera inviata da Giovanni Fiorillo. Fonte: Umberto Resta, Op. cit. infra Il tifo organizzato a Roma negli anni Ottanta e l’Estate romana: due mondi lontani.Affrontare il capitolo della storia del tifo romanista negli anni Ottanta (e quindi di conseguenza anche di quello laziale, giacché, come ebbe a dirmi qualche tempo fa…

[collasgarba]

Ragazzi di stadio

Da La Gazzetta dello Sport dell’8 novembre 1979, la pubblicazione della lettera inviata da Giovanni Fiorillo. Fonte: Umberto Resta, Op. cit. infra Il tifo organizzato a Roma negli anni Ottanta e l’Estate romana: due mondi lontani.Affrontare il capitolo della storia del tifo romanista negli anni Ottanta (e quindi di conseguenza anche di quello laziale, giacché, come ebbe a dirmi qualche tempo fa…