The Grimani Breviary

The publishing house Salerno Editrice, based in Rome, has just announced the publication of a splendid facsimile of Venice, Bibl. Nazionale Marciana, MS Lat. I 99 (2138), the so-called Breviario Grimani, named after its owner Cardinal Domenico Grimani. The manuscript comprises 832 folios, 28 x 19.5 cm (11 x 7 ¹¹/16); justification: 15.5 X 11.5 cm (6⅛ X 4½ in.); 31 lines of gotica rotunda in two columns; 50 full-page miniatures, 18 large miniatures, 18 small miniatures, 12 bas-de-page calendar miniatures.

The Grimani Breviary is the most elaborate and arguably the greatest work in the history of Flemish manuscript illumination. Purchased by Cardinal Domenico Grimani by 1520 for the enormous sum of five hundred ducats, it brought together the leading illuminators of the time, including the Master of James IV of Scotland (probably Gerard Horenbout), Alexander Bening (the Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian?), the Master of the David Scenes in the Grimani Breviary, Simon Bening, and Gerard David. More important, each of these artists created for this manuscript some of his most exquisite and original miniatures.

Thus Thomas Kren, Maryan W. Ainsworth and Elizabeth Morrison in their catalogue entry, No. 126 in Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), pp. 420-424. One can hear the frustration in their tone when they wrote about the massive amount of work still to be done on this manuscript: 'Indeed, the two-day examination of the manuscript by Maryan W. Ainsworth and Thomas Kren proved woefully inadequate to the task of sorting out all of the stylistic and technical issues that the book raises' (p. 420), a frustration all more acute since the manuscript was not actually displayed in this exhibition.


After you finish drooling, read Michael Camille, 'The Très Riches Heures: An Illuminated Manuscript in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Critical Inquiry, 17 (1990), 72-107; and see too Sandra Hindman and Nina Rowe, (eds), Manuscript Illumination in The Modern Age: Recovery and Reconstruction (Evanston, Il: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2001).

If anyone would like to buy me this facsimile for a birthday or Christmas, or Easter, or really, any other day of the week, please feel free. It is selling, apparently, for €22,000.

Getting Medieval on the BBC

Great long silence lately on my part: apologies. I've been busy, writing like crazy, travelling, and teaching. Was in Oxford yesterday for a school's dinner with my old second years. Lovely to see them again. Lovely. They'll do well.

Picked up a couple of lovely things in Oxfam books:, but most happy with J. B. Whiting's Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings mainly before 1500 (Cambridge, MA & London: Belknap Press & Oxford University Press, 1968) for a cool seven squids. Also picked up a copy of Anne Carson's Decreation and have been making my way v e r y v e r y s l o w l y t h r o u g h i t. I've been lucky to pick up a number of other things lately. For example, the second edition of Barbi's edition of the Vita Nuova (Bemporad, 1932), in super condition, from the library of an Irish priest! I also found a copy of Gombrich's Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography, 2nd ed. (Phaidon, 1986), which I cannot wait to get into.

Over the past while the BBC has been broadcasting lots of stuff on poetry, including medieval poetry. Michael Wood has a programme on Beowulf, and Simon Armitage has one on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While the first on Beowulf is quite good, though there's a bit too much lunatic fringe about it and looking meaningfully into meres and the like. But generally it was ok.

I was quite looking forward to Armitage on Gawain, thinking that he would talk about translating the text, how he went about it, what poetic challenges he faced. And there are glimmers here and there of this. But mainly it is not very good. Not very good at all in fact. He makes just a few references to the Middle English, including testing out words on local northern farmers to see if any of it sounds familiar (admitting he was disappointed he didn't find them speaking in fluent Middle English NW Midland dialect...). The rest is filmed 'on location', but based speculatively on where that location might be. There isn't a trace of a medievalist to be found. Michael Wood discussed Heaney's translation of Beowulf with the man himself. Why didn't Armitage talk to Bernard O'Donoghue about translating the poem, as a poet and a medievalist. (I'm tempted to wonder why O'Donoghue did not do the documentary himself). It was a real missed opportunity.

One worrying thing was his reference, twice, to the Green Knight picking up his head and putting it back on his shoulders. This first happens when Armitage opens the film, and then while talking to someone who'd been healed at the well of St Winefride (in Holywell), he repeats it while comparing the gesture to the miracle of the said saint, whose severed head is reattached by Saint Beuno and restored to life.

The Green Knight never replaces his head on his shoulders. What happens is far more interesting and a poet of Armitage's creativity and imagination should not be so deaf to this. The Green Knight's head is kicked about the court for a bit as his torso remains. This torso reaches down and picks up the head and opens his eyelids and speaks. When he gets back on his horse he does so continuing to hold his head in his hand. The scene is one of an extraordinarily careful management of the horror. Putting his head back on his shoulders would have been positively banal by comparison.

For þe hede in his honde he haldez vp euen,
Toward þe derrest on þe dece he dressez þe face,
And hit lyfte vp þe yȝe-lyddez and loked ful brode,
And meled þus much with his muthe, as ȝe may now here:
'Loke, Gawan, þou hatz hette in þis halle, herande þise knyȝtes;
To þe grene chapel þou chose, I charge þe, to fotte
Such a dunt as þou hatz dalt—disserued þou habbez
To be ȝederly ȝolden on Nw Ȝeres morn.
Þe knyȝt of þe grene chapel men knowen me mony;
Forþi me for to fynde if þou fraystez, faylez þou neuer.
Þerfore com, oþer recreaunt be calde þe behoues.'
With a runisch rout þe raynez he tornez,
Halled out at þe hal dor, his hed in his hande,
Þat þe fyr of þe flynt flaȝe from fole houes.
To quat kyth he becom knwe non þere,
Neuer more þen þay wyste from queþen he watz wonnen.
What þenne?
Þe kyng and Gawan þare
At þat grene þay laȝe and grenne,
Ȝet breued watz hit ful bare
A meruayl among þo menne.

(SGGK, ll. 444-466, ed. Tolkien & Gordon, rev. Davis, [1967], p. 13)

He held the head up straight with his hand,
and turned the face towards the king who sat on the throne.
He raised his eyelids and stared at him open-eyed;
then with his mouth said the words you will hear.
'Be sure, Gawain, you're ready, as you have sworn
to seek conscientiously until you find me,
as you've said in this hall, in these knights' hearing.
Seek out the Green Chapel, I urge you, to get
such as blow as you have struckf. You've earned the right
to be promptly repain on New Year's morning.
Most people call me the Green Chapel Knight;
so, if you ask, you won't fail to find me.
Therefore come, or be called a defaulter.'
With a violent tug he pulled the reins round,
and galloped out the hall door, his head in his hand,
so that fire from the flint sparked off the hooves.
To what country he went no one there knew,
any more than they knew where he'd come from at first.
What next?
The king and Gawain then
laughed at this green man.
But they had to face the truth
that this was unnatural.

(trans. Bernard O'Donoghue [Penguin, 2006], p. 16).

I should say that his translation does not make this mistake; it seems to be a kind of misremembering. I know I'm being a bit snippy about this as a mistake, and it is a mistake. But it is also interesting. It is as if Armitage wishes to make the Green Knight whole, to restore him to a fully human form as soon as possible after Gawain decapitates him. This is in such contrast with the Green Knight himself, who might be said to accentuate his non/in-human form. And this is a very important part of his character and of the story. It also feels like a kind of injustice to the violence of Gawain's act. He performs an act of great violence, described in detail: the blade shatters the bone, and goes through his neck with such force that the edge of the blade bites into the ground. This too is important.

Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel at the Old Vic (dir. Anna Mackmin), until May 9th 2009

Now in the last week of its run at the Old Vic in London, this production of Brian Friel's beautiful play Dancing at Lughnasa (pronouced Loooo-Na-Saa, for the non-pagans) can only be described as a remarkable triumph. The play is told in flash-back sequences by the young Michael Evans, who remembers his childhood in a rural Donegal house of five women. The women have just welcomed back Uncle Jack, a missionary priest for a lifetime in Uganda, who has returned in a state of confusion. His gradual recuperation, and the realization that Jack has been sent back from his parish for becoming more native than the natives themselves, is traced out against the backdrop of the annual Lughnasa festivals, especially the harvest dance. The women desperately want to go, and in a carefree moment of delight resolve to go, dancing around the kitchen in ecstatic excitement. Kate (Michelle Fairley), the eldest sister, the only one with a steady income as the local schoolteacher, has a change of heart and insists it would be improper for women of their age to be seen at such an event. And the chance of something fun and wonderful evaporates. And all that is wonderful (in the sense of being full of wonder) evaporates throughout the rest of the play.

The women desperately want to get away, and this yearning is palpable throughout. But responsibility is important too, and Christina, who has had Michael out of wedlock, takes a job in the local factory to earn an income and hates every day of it for the rest of her life. Rose and Agnes go off to England and die there, destitute. This is recounted in a truly heartbreaking moment by Michael, in what is a masterpiece of understated acting by Peter McDonald. The rest of the cast are extremely strong. Niamh Cusack plays Maggie with wonderful sensitivity, and Andrea Corr, playing Chris, is really excellent. There are moments in the play where it was clear that her tears were not acted. (I say this as I was blubbering myself!). The set design is super too, as it is part of the Old Vic's experiment with theatre in the round. The result allows for all sorts of interesting things, such as Michael's continual circling of the kitchen space, watching the sisters and what's happening to them. It adds to the poignancy of his memories as an adult.

Dancing at Lughnasa is a great great modern play, and this is a great production. GO TO SEE IT if you can.

McKeon on Toibin

Read Belinda McKeon's Irish Times article on the Irish writer Colm Tóibín here.
His new novel, Brooklyn has just been published by Penguin Viking.

Roberto Benigni, Tuttodante (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London)

Over the past number of years the Italian actor Roberto Benigni has been performing the work of Dante Alighieri to delighted and enthusiastic audiences around Italy and now, around the world. He is known for his exuberance and energy, and these were much in evidence last evening at Tuttodante in his single London date on his world tour. Every Italian in London seems to have turned out for the show and were in festive mood when he appeared on stage. He decided to do the show in English, and this became a recurring gag throughout the performance, an assurance that he was, in fact, speaking in English. His English was, in fact, a lot better than he let on, as he often used idioms and slang words that would not be characteristic of a beginner. The audience were clearly delighted when he did turn to Italian and would sometimes shout out ‘in italiano!’ I imagine that the decision to do the show in Italian was one of consideration for the audience in London, but I do rather wonder if it was entirely successful. But there was something moving about him trying to find the right word, using a language that was a mixture of Italian and English, a plurilinguismo worthy of its subject-matter.

I remember when Benigni devised this show and came to Bologna with it: tickets were impossible to get hold of and I did not get to see it. When this opportunity arose, I was more than ready to seize it, with both hands. (I was invited to the show by my generous benefactor at Pembroke.)

Benigni is a man of extraordinary energy and passion and his love of Dante is clear, sincere, and profound. But most of the show was taken up with what might be called a preamble, a funny and at times excoriating set of observations on the absurdity of contemporary Italy. A key figure in this comedy is Silvio Berlusconi, and Benigni often referred to Berlusconi as a highly sexual man, a man who likes to be photographed with pretty girls, in various states of undress, etc. Andreotti, too, made an appearance, characterised as a man who has been granted eternal life in Italian politics. Benigni then proceeded to a long introduction to Inferno 5, the canto of the lustful in the first circle of Hell, interspersed with explications and close readings. Particularly powerful was the way in which he deployed a profoundly affective reading of the New Testament, especially the woman touching the hem of Christ’s garment, in his reading of Francesca’s Amor ch’a nullo amato amar perdona (Inf 5. 103). It was much appreciated by the audience who burst into applause, and it was, for me, an indication of a brilliance that I was not quite expecting. The performance culminated in a recitation of the full canto, beginning to end. It was a fitting way to end the evening.

What I enjoyed about this was the strong sense that it was explaining itself; the poetry took centre-stage and was given room to breathe. What was clear too was Benigni’s sense of the poem’s searing relevance to contemporary society, that it is as much an indictment of our time as it is of Dante’s own time. This is the performance of a committed, engaged, and public intellectual, a man trying to make sense of his world, with a certain knowledge of the injustice that marks it, and deep sense of indignation at the continuance of those wrongs. What is striking is that I could be talking as much about Dante there as I am about Benigni.

Michael Symmons Roberts, The Half Healed (Cape, 2008)

This is Michael Symmons Roberts's fifth collection of poetry and I'm really enjoying making my way through it. He returns to the theme of the body, but this time in the context of violence and destruction. Much of the collection is set in war torn cities, with the image of the hotel, abandoned, gutted, destroyed, as a recurring motif. These hotel rooms can be the site of a couple making love in 'Armistice', or there's the beautiful deserted room in 'Room 260', with its pristine abandoned perfection that is touched only once a year, in mid-July: by 'a perfect | coin of gold light prints onto the wall: | a gift of imperfection, | blemish in the blackout seal.' It is a kind of Newgrange soltice scene. The imagery is complex and enjoyably so. The name 'Intercontinental' recurs, which is meant to resonate the way it does. Symmons Roberts has a great sense of how some of these words and names can be completely transformed by some action, by events. There is a series of poems call 'Last Words', commissioned by the BBC to commemorate 9/11 and which takes as its theme the text messages sent by those in the planes that flew into the Twin Towers. There is anger in these poems, but it is controlled, never allowed to take over. The poems have, too, a great melancholy, a great sense of loss, of what we have lost. There's a lot at stake. The religious language, used by the poet so often and so effectively, and the way that language is transformed or carried out of meaningfulness is another powerful theme that resonates throughout the collection (and his work more generally).

I print in full a poem entitled 'Hooded'.

Six men, hooded, face a wall on knees,
hands bound behind their backs.
How did it come to this?

Ancentral, printed deep, a lineage
through hangman, ku klux klan,
back through the polar pioneers

to foxglove, bluebell, capuchin,
robin and red riding back
to killers, cobras, kings in hiding,

anoraks and duffels, pac-a-macs,
a lizard's ruff on burning sand,
a harebell, snail shell, cadillacs

with soft tops, trout tucked in weed,
shelter, uniform, ashes and sack,
a fashion choice, a rule, a creed,

back to blind, wink, skin-shade
to protect the blue, brown, green,
so yes, the first hood was an eyelid.

And now we hood our enemies
to blind them. Keep an eye on that irony.

This work is strong, important and beautiful.

April: National Poetry Month

April is the cruellest month, but it is also National Poetry Month in the United States.

The wonderful poster was designed by Paul Sahre.

Bodies

Yesterday I saw Bodies: The Exhibition at the Ambassador in Dublin. So bodies have been on my mind lately. The specimens on display are real, and the way the exhibition is marketed it is considered to be a teaching aid. In the words of the organizers: "This method of preservation creates a specimen that will not decay. This offers thousands of unique teaching possibilities for educators at all levels, including medical professionals, archeologists and other scientists."

With current technology, I do rather wonder whether they needed real bodies, other than for the sensational aspect. And they way that they have prepared some of the specimens, such as the arteries, is with a process called 'corrosive casting', which means that they fill the vessels with a liquid that sets and they then corrode the arteries around them, leaving the polymer in the shape of the vessels. So what you're seeing is a polymer specimen in the shape of an original, rather like what they did to reveal the bodies under the ash at Pompei. Other specimens are actual bodies treated in a special preservation process.

Very few of the bodies were female, all of the others were male; it is interesting that the male bodies were represented in active poses, playing tennis, volleyball, conducting an orchestra. The female specimens were used to illustrate adipose tissue (i.e. fat) and the female reproductive system (and another raising her arms in praise of the heavens). In other words, I found an interesting gender discourse at work in the exhibition.

I did find the message of the exhibition a bit uncertain. For example, they displayed specimens of a smoker's lungs and then placed a perspex box beside it for the cigarette boxes of visitors who have decided to give up. Then other points urged visitors to appreciate the complexity of the body and to begin to treat their own body better. But I'm not sure at all that this is how and why the individual items were displayed. As an account of the body, each component individually works, but I feel that holistically a convenient message was imposed that feels a tad preachy.

What I really wanted to know was who they were; who were they playing tennis and volleyball with? And most important of all, what piece of music was the man with the baton in hand conducting? Surely, no matter how complex your body is, it's what you do with it that really compels.

* * *

To this end, I think that the really marvellous exhibition 'Assembling Bodies' at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge is a good deal more successful. It runs until November 2010 and I intend to return. It covers an extremely wide range of issues. Organized around seven thematic headings, it comprises both artifacts and art objects; the whole exhibition fits into one room on the second floor, so it is easy to take in at a visit but provides enough to keep one ruminating. The thematic headings include: Assembly of Bodies; Measuring and Classifying; Art and Anatomy; The Body Multiple; Extending and Distributing; Genealogies and Genomes; Body and Landscape. A very good catalogue has been prepared for the exhibition. Well worth a visit if you're in Cambridge.

* * *

And as if the gods were conspiring to keep me thinking bodies, I have just picked up a copy of this new collection of essays on the theme of Dante and the human body, which comes out of the UCD annual Lectura Dantis (in this case, held between 2003-2004). It comprises: Simon A. Gilson, 'The Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body in the Commedia'; Vivian Nutton, 'Dante, Medicine and the Invisible Body'; Joseph Ziegler, 'The Scientific Context of Dante's Embryology'; Simone de Angelis, 'Sanatio and Salvatio: "Body" and Soul in the Experience of Dante's Afterlife'; Manuele Gragnolati, 'Nostalgia in Heaven: Embraces, Affection and Identity in the Commedia'; Elizabeth Mozzillo-Howell, 'Divina Anatomia: Laying Bare Body and Soul in the Commedia'; Vittorio Montemaggi, ' "La rosa in che il verbo divino carne si fece": Human Bodies and Truth in the Poetic Narrative of the Commedia'; Oliver Davies, 'World and Body: A Study in Dante's Cosmological Hermeneutics'. Have already looked at Mozillo-Howell's very interesting essay (thoroughly resonant for the Bodies exhibition), and of course Montemaggi's very excellent essay.