Assis

Basílica superior

No cimo de uma montanha dos Apeninos, no centro da região italiana da Úmbria, situa-se a pequena cidade de Assis. 

Mantém a sua traça medieval e das muralhas contempla-se uma magnifica paisagem.

Gravura antiga da Basília de Assis (1837)

Contudo a principal beleza da cidade é a sobreposição das duas basílicas erguidas em memória de S. Francisco de Assis, no interior das quais se pode apreciar frescos de alguns dos maiores pintores italianos dos séculos XIII e XIV, como Cimbabue e Giotto.

Presépio em Assis. Natal 2013

Durante a minha recente visita tive o grande prazer de assistir ali a um concerto. Tanto o maestro como o tenor, de voz magnifica, eram monges franciscanos. Impossível ficar indiferente ao ouvir Adeste Fidestes, Noël e outros cânticos natalícios acompanhados por coro e orquestra, rodeada por obras de arte tão belas como aquelas reproduzidas nos tetos e paredes da Basílica.

Cimbabue. S. Francisco de Assis.
Basílica inferior

Naquele ambiente, a comemoraçao do natal ganha ainda mais relevo. Encontram-se ali talvez as primeiras representações do presépio, cujo criador foi precisamente S. Francisco de Assis, há cerca de setecentos anos.

Giotto. A natividade. Basílica Inferior.

Giotto. A natividade. Basílica superior.

 Assis

Piero della Francesca in Arezzo

The Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo is home to one of the Renaissance masterpieces painted presumably between 1433 and 1466 by Piero della Francesca.

The cycle of frescoes divided into three registers narrates the Legend of the True Cross: Adam on his deathbed sends his son, Seth, to the Archangel Michael who gives him some seeds from the tree of Original Sin that are to be placed in Adam's mouth at the moment of his death- a healthy tree would grow, which would be used for making Christ's Cross. Centuries later, Solomon, the King of Israel had the tree cut down. However, nothing could be made of it and so it was thrown to the river in order to make a bridge. Later, when the Queen of Sheba visited the king she revealed her premonition that the wood would be used for the crucification of Christ.

 (in this scene we can admire a self-portrait of Piero della Francesca).





Solomon orders the bridge to be removed and for the wood to be buried. However, it was later found and used as the instrument for the Passion.

Three centuries after, just before a battle against Maxentius, Constantine allegedly dreamt that he would be victorious in battle in the name of the Cross (in this fresco, Piero della Francesca painted a night scene, very uncommon at the time, which would be later imitated by other artists).






Afterwards, his mother Helena travelled to Jerusalem in order to recover the miraculous wood and build the Basilica of the Holy Cross. Then, according to legend, to distinguish the Cross of Christ from those of the crucified thieves, the body of a dead youth was used. When it touched the True Cross he miraculously came back to life.

In 615 AD, the Persian king Chosroes stole the Cross and placed it next to his own throne. The Eastern Emperor Heraclius faced him in battle and carried the Cross back to Jerusalem in great humility following Christ's example.

The battle scene

According to Vasari's (1511-1574) "The Lives of the Artists", Piero studied mathematics. Although by the age of 15 he was becoming a painter, he never abandoned his studies, writing on geometry and perspective.

My colleague F. Silva, who teaches Maths, tod me how Arezzo was well worth a visit and I thank him for it.

In the Cathedral of Arezzo we can also admire Magdalene by Piero della Francesca and other Renaissance works by famous artists like La Robia and Vasari.

 Arezzo, January 2, 2014

fare il portoghese

Esta expressão idiomática italiana, conforme dicionários italianos, data do século XVIII. 

Resulta da organização de um espetáculo promovido pela embaixada de Portugal em Roma: os cidadãos portugueses não necessitavam de pagar entrada.

A noticia correu e muitas pessoas procuraram aproveitar a ocasião para ver um espetáculo grátis, pelo que tentaram passar por portugueses. A partir daí e até aos nossos dias vulgarizou-se aquela expressão fare il portoghese com um sentido jocoso e pejorativo. Os portugueses nao têm culpa nenhuma, mas a expressão, de facto, nao é nada abonatória, porque significa ser-se aldrabão ou caloteiro.

Durante muito tempo julguei que a origem da expressão fosse mais remota, do século XVI, quando o Rei de Portugal D. Manuel I enviou uma magnifica embaixada de tesouros e animais exóticos ao Papa Leão X. Este, reconhecido, teria ordenado que todos os portugueses membros dessa embaixada não pagassem despesa alguma, enquanto estivessem em Roma. Claro, nessa altura como mais tarde, no século XVIII, muitos oportunistas diziam-se portugueses para não pagarem as contas.

Rafaello. Retrato de Leão X com dois cardeais. Cerca de 1518
Florença. Uffizi

Boas Festas

A todos os leitores deste blog desejo

BOAS FESTAS e FELIZ  2014

Foto: Reid´s Palace Hotel, Funchal, Madeira

100 years of crosswords

A crossword puzzle is a game of words where the player is given a hint and the number of letters. The player then fills in a grid of boxes by finding the right words. 

The first crossword puzzle ran in The New York World on 21 December, 1913, 100 years ago. It was invented by Arthur Wynne. 

Arthur Wynne was born on June 22, 1871 in Liverpool, England. He immigrated to the United States at the age of nineteen. He first lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked both as a journalist and a musician. Wynne played violin in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra before he moved to Cedar Grove, New Jersey and started working for  a newspaper called The New York World, whose editor asked him to invent a new game for the paper's Sunday entertainment section.

How do cows pollute?

Arthur Moniz. São Miguel, Azores

My students in year 10 have started studying food. For some reason, they found strange the link between cows and pollution. That was my motivation to write about this topic, although I am certainly not an expert and far from being vegetarian!

Cows emit a huge amount of methane (a colourless, odourless gas that affects the degradation of the ozone layer) through belching, and also a bit through flatulence. Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels, but it is an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day.

To understand why cows produce methane, it's important to know they have a stomach with four compartments and digest their food in their stomachs instead of in their intestines, as humans do: they swallow their food and bring the cud back to their mouth to chew and eat it again, as they belong to a class of animals called ruminants. Their stomachs are filled with bacteria that aid in digestion, but also produce methane.

Some people justify their vegetarianism on the basis of meat being wasteful, such as using up a lot of water and creating a lot of greenhouse gases.

The romantic image people have of green pastures filled with fat happy cows as we can find in the Azores is actually a distortion of the reality.

 Most meat we eat comes from cows living in large feedlots without enough space to move. The main objective of meat production under those conditions is to make cows grow faster, by feeding them with hormones as well as antibiotics so that they can survive the unsanitary living conditions. The cows live there for only a few months before they are moved for slaughter.

So, before we taste beef, it is perhaps important to reflect upon what we are eating, such as its impact on global warming, as well as the conditions with which cows live. 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/methane-cow.htm

http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/26/palm-oil-initiative-carbon-emissions

Checkpoint Charlie

The Berlin Wall was a symbol of the Cold War and separation of Germany and Berlin. After World War II the city of Berlin was divided into four sectors: The American, British and French sectors were part of the west, while the Soviet was part of the communist sector in the East.

Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse was the only allowed point to enter East Berlin. 

I visited Berlin in 1983 and that was the place where I saw my East German friends for the last time. It was very shocking to see only very old people crossing the border. They were the only East Germans allowed to visit their families, from whom they were separated in 1961. Only tourists with a visa, diplomats and military personnel could cross the border.

Today Checkpoint Charlie is only a tourist attraction. 

People will be disappointed about the Berlin Wall because only a few sections of it still exist. 

The first time I saw a part of it, after the wall was dismantled, was in the USA, in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

The border between East and West Berlin has been opened since 1989 and many people go daily from one part of the city into the other. However the best paces for shopping and entertainment are still in the former West Berlin.

   

During the last Christmas holidays it was my first opportunity to say: Hooray for the Unification!

The Brandenburg Gate

It´s beginning to....

...look a lot like Christmas

The Nativity Scene

Victorian Christmas Trees

Welcome Winter

The Christmas Broadcast

A Árvore de Natal

O Primeiro Postal de Natal

O Pai Natal

Curiosidades de Natal

Deacon Brodie

"William Brodie was one of the inspirations for Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde. Born in 1741 Brodie was a deacon of the Guild of Wrights. By day, he was a respectable citizen, a member of the town council but by night, he consorted with lowlife; gambling and drinking. His dark side meant he had to take to burglary to pay his gambling debts, leading to his hanging in 1788."

In the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, you can find a pub named after Deacon Brodie.

Edinburgh, December 2013

Pope Francis: Person of the Year 2013

Pope Francis was selected as Time Magazine's 2013 Person of the Year, the third pontiff to win the American magazine's yearly honour since its start in 1927 (Pope John XXIII, in 1962, and Pope John Paul II, in 1994, were also named Person of the Year).

World figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr and more recently Barack Obama won the title, too.

I think Time magazine got it right. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was largely unknown to the world before his election as Pope, but since he first appeared on the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica on March 13, he has captivated the world. Pope Francis is a man who in the last year has been transforming the Catholic church by focusing on the inequalities brought about by poverty.

In one of his many touching quotes, he asks:

“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

Pope Francis continues to make headlines for statements that seem more tolerant and accepting than those of his predecessors. Recently he opened the door of the Church to gays:

"If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?"

He is humble and committed to cut the frivolous spending of the Church and the Vatican Bank - rather than living in a sumptuous apartment Pope Francis resides in a modest Vatican guest house.

Pope Francis

POPE FRANCIS THROUGH THE YEARS



WHO AM I TO JUDGE?

Nadir Afonso has died at 93

" The artist does not produce any work while work does not produce fulfilment in the artist."

Nadir Afonso
in Colecção Arte Contemporânea. Nadir Afonso. Bertrand 1986

Portuguese painter, architect and philosopher, Nadir Afonso (Chaves, December 4, 1920 - Cascais, December 11, 2013) has died at the age of 93.

After completing secondary school in Chaves, Nadir Afonso moved to Porto, in 1938, to enrol in the Painting course at the Porto School of Fine Arts, but was then convinced to forget about Painting and choose Architecture instead, as it was more prestigious. However, he never lost his love for painting. Nadir continued to paint and in 1965 he abandoned architecture to dedicate himself fully to Painting.

Nadir's works are part of important museums in Portugal and abroad, namely in Lisbon, Porto, Amarante, Rio de Janeiro, S. Paulo, Budapest, Paris (Centre Georges Pompidou), Berlin and Wurzburg.

http://sigarra.up.pt/up/en/WEB_BASE.GERA_PAGINA?P_pagina=1005955

Bullying não é brincadeira

Uma professora quis ensinar à sua turma os efeitos do bullying.

Deu a todos os alunos uma folha de papel e disse-lhes para a amachucarem, a deitarem para o chão e a pisarem.

Resumindo, podiam estragar a folha o mais possível, mas não rasgá-la.

As crianças entusiasmadas fizeram o melhor para amachucarem a folha, tanto quanto possível.

A seguir, a professora pediu-lhes para apanharem a folha e abri-la, novamente, com cuidado sem a rasgar. Deviam endireitá-la com muito cuidado. Chamou-lhes a atenção para observarem como as folhas estavam sujas e cheias de marcas. Depois, disse-lhes para pedirem desculpa ao papel, enquanto o endireitavam. Os alunos passaram e voltaram a passar as mãos para alisarem o papel, porém a folha mostrava-se incapaz de regressar ao seu estado original - os vincos estavam bem marcados.

A professora pediu então para que olhassem bem para os vincos e as marcas no papel. E lembrou-lhes: aquelas marcas NUNCA mais iriam desaparecer, mesmo que tentassem repará-las.

É isto o que acontece com as crianças diferentes ou as mais tímidas ou ainda as mais fracas, que são humilhadas, assediadas e constantemente gozadas por outras crianças, afirmou a professora.

Podes pedir desculpa, podes tentar mostrar o teu arrependimento, contudo, as marcas, essas… ficam para sempre.

O bullying não é brincadeira. Estraga mais do que nós podemos imaginar!

8 dezembro: Dia da Imaculada Conceição

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). A Imaculada Conceição. Museu do Prado.

Read. Immaculate Conception Day

Morreu Nelson Mandela

A morte de Mandela foi anunciada esta noite pelo presidente da África do Sul, Jacob Zuma, em conferência de imprensa.

Lê: Nelson Mandela

Becoming a doctor in St Andrews

Saturday 30 November 2013

A very happy and proud mother of a Ph.D. Doctor







Read about Saint Andrew.