Sunday, March 18, 2012

Ellie's Walk in Ancient Ortygia


Since men began to sail the Mediterranean thousands of years ago, ships have sheltered in the harbor of what is now Siracusa, on the eastern coast of Sicily, off the "toe" of Italy, bordering the Ionian Sea.  The western harbor is formed behind the island of Ortygia.  

The Island of Ortigia is slightly larger than a square kilometer / 0.39 square miles, but concentrated within it is an extraordinary density of monuments of historic and artistic importance.  Ortygia is now connected to Siracusa across a narrow channel by three bridges, but was always known as Città Vecchia (the “old city”), and is storied as the birthplace of Artemis, Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and young girls(!)  On the shore of Ortygia is Arethuse, a fresh-water spring recorded by the earliest travelers, thousands of years ago.  Nearby stands the imposing stone Porta Marina ("Sea Gate") which is the only surviving element of the medieval fortifications of the island.  The Porta Marina still separates the modern traffic in the adjacent piazza from the narrow stone-paved streets and alleys of the old city.

Ellie has a tale to tell of a walk, nay – an adventure, that took her from the Porta Marina through la Città Vecchia, and back to the 17th century. But I’ll let you read her email, interrupting to provide a little of the history of the place.


January 17 --



I've just had a little turn around the town with a procession for San Sebastian.  It began at a niche for Saint Sebastian, a sort of tiny baroque temple.  Slowly, over the course of an hour, the musicians showed up.  A police car came and four officers got out, in order to march in front and behind the group.
There was also a group of men wearing red velveteen caps with red trim who were milling around, too, with a matching banner.  The musicians were in winter marching band gear, navy blue.  People were greeting and milling around and as is usual down here, men mostly greeted each other with cheek-kissing.

Why here and why now, you may ask, and why Saint Sebastian?  Just inside the narrow gateway of the ancient Porta Marina stands the faux-Baroque Cappella Votiva della Fratellanza di San Sebastiano (or VotiveChapel of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian) -- the tiny temple she describes.   The Chapel was built a hundred years ago to honor the aforementioned brotherhood, which was and still is a business association that unites church workers of the port of Syracuse.  The Saint was a Roman soldier, martyred about 268, and is patron of archers, athletes, and soldiers, and is appealed to for protection against plagues. Saint Sebastian’s Day is January 20, and Ellie’s band of musicians were part of the warm up for his big day. 

Sicilia, in a17th Century British engraving of the travels of Aeneas

But I interrupt; pardon me.  Ellie continues:
Finally the group assembled, though it was much too loose to be called a formation.  First the men in velvet caps started roaring in a call and response fashion, no idea what they were saying; it might have been Latin for all I could tell.  They started off, not exactly marching, more ambling, through one of the gates of the city, Porta Marina, with people walking, ambling along behind and beside them.  The musicians walked behind them, and a few people including me walked behind the musicians.  While the first tuned was being played, and they had progressed about half a block, the saxophone section came trotting down the street and got more-or-less into place.

 When the first piece ended, something happened.  The tenor sax player and one of the drummers began to dispute something -- how I wish I knew what! -- I think it was about leadership, possibly, or chain of command issues.  Things got more and more heated, I actually thought it was headed for a brawl.  This was all happening about ten feet from me. 

I could see that the tenor sax was essentially ordering the drummer to quit the scene if he didn't agree to whatever was wanted.  The drummer was waving his sticks under the nose of the tenor sax in a threatening manner.  Pretty soon other men were trying to break up the fight.  The next thing we knew, the drummer and the cymbals -- presumably his wife -- were gesticulating and striding off.  Several people tried to run after them and coax them back, but nothing doing.  So now the band was missing cymbals and a drum.  With a rather strange feeling in the air, and me trying desperately not to laugh because it was absolutely out of a movie, it couldn't be in a movie because it would seem like a hopeless stereotype, the red-caps started up with the great call and response hollering, quite deafening.  

Back streets of Ortygia
So, you get the picture: the precision engineering and discipline that characterizes Italian society!!  Having read this much in the email, Ellie’s dad Bill chimed in with his own tale of cacophony, from a trip to Italy decades ago:

[Bill says:] How Italian. My first exposure was in Genoa when . . .I arrived on the ship. The baggage handlers yelling, hollering and I thought about to come to blows with their various ideas on how to handle our bags. Minutes later they were embracing us and each other!  And [later on, in the village] when Veccio Piero died in the olive tree and the family got him to the cubicula in the cemetery, there was a near brawl with male relatives yelling at each, waving hands in the air---should the coffin go in with the head first or feet first!!!! Then they went home and drank wine and laughed together. And I could go on but won’t. . . . What a wonderful people. The drummer and cymbal player will all be happily united for the next Saint's Day.

It seems as though the revelers and bandsmen (and Ellie trailing) are off for some of the High Holy sites in the old city, so let me fill you in just a bit. She resumes her narrative, and quickly refers to three sites of antiquity in Ortygia; the first is il Tempio di Apollo, on Piazza Pancalli. Whether originally dedicated to Apollo or to Artemis, it dates from the 6th century BC, and is the oldest Doric temple in western Europe(!) Like most such sites, it has had an ecumenical history: it was turned into a Byzantine church and then the Muslims took over and converted it into a mosque. Later, under Norman rule, it was turned back into a church.
Tempio di Apollo
Ellie continues. . . .

The procession headed down the street toward the center of town, where the ruins of the temple of Apollo lie. After another piece, the bass drum broke ranks, I think because he was the son of the drum and cymbals. He handed his enormous drum to a lady who then had to carry the thing for the rest of the procession. So now the group was down three percussion players. The rest of the players didn't seem much fazed, however, and the procession continued to the Piazza Duomo, and down the piazza to the church of Santa Lucia. 
        
How to describe Siracusa's magnificent cathedral?  It probably started out as a place of worship for the ancient Siculo tribes: you can see traces of their huts in Via Minerva and in the courtyard of the nearby Arcivescovado. On this spot the Greek settlers of the city erected a Doric temple in 480BC, to thank the goddess Athena for helping them defeat the Carthaginians at sea.
    
The Duomo has of course been plundered and pillaged by Romans, by Arabs, and by Normans, but through it all 10 of the original 36 Doric columns have been built right into the walls of the nave. It was christened Il Duomo: the cathedral of Siracusa in 640AD, by Bishop Zosimu, and when the Arab Saracens swept through in the mid 800s, they reputedly were able to cart off 5,000 pounds of gold and 10,000 pounds of silver.  Then a mosque, now (again) a cathedral, Il Duomo dominates the huge Piazza, site of royal pageants, cruel executions, and (now) touristic excesses.

Il Duomo
The church to which Ellie's procession was bound is the Basilica of Santa Lucia of the Holy Sepulchre, at the far end of the Piazza Duomo, at the site on which The Saint was martyred in 304 AD.  The present-day church can be dated back to the Normans who, in the 11th century, liberated Syracuse from Saracen nomination which had lasted for two centuries. The present Basilica retains the basic Norman plan of immense nave and with two side aisles.  Of this period remains the rose window on the façade, some re-cast arches, the portal with Cordovan-style arch, the three apses and the four large supporting pillars of the dome, which are believed to have been erected in the 12th century.

Ellie continues:


Basilica Santa Lucia al Sepolcro
Everyone went into the church while the band played on outside the open doors. Then there was more deafening hollering by the redcaps, arms raised toward a small painting of San Sebastian. The band finished and came inside, and then redcaps brought a small stepladder and a cardboard box and a bunch of keys. Two men used the stepladder to get up to two large closed doors, behind which, presumably, Sebastian was waiting.

Sure enough, after much fumbling with keys and always getting the wrong key, two locks were unlocked, and the doors opened. There was Sebastian, lifesize, with gilt hair and loincloth. The man on the stepladder then decked the statue, first with a red necklace with a cross, then a halo which was carefully screwed onto his head. Then a man below handed up gold arrow ends to the man on the stepladder, who then carefully screwed them into holes in his torso, leg, and arm, and even one in his groin! Then two enormous candles were lit and placed on either side. More hollering with arms raised, and that was the end.

The church itself is tall inside and white with gold trim, mildly baroque, with a tiled floor. At the altar there is a Caravaggio of Santa Lucia's burial.

I don't know the story of S. Sebastian, but I'm sure I can find out!

Love, EB

But you already know about St. Sebastian (from my commentary earlier in the blog.)  And yes, he is the patron saint of archers.

As Ellie says, above the gilt-haired, haloed Sebastian is an immense painting by Caravaggio depicting the Burial of Santa Lucia that hangs over the main altar. The painting is a masterpiece of bold contrast: light and dark, the composition dominated by two enormous figures – the sweating grave-diggers -- hovering over the body of the Saint.  Caravaggio was a brilliant and revolutionary painter in his day, and also quite a rogue – he had come to Syracuse, having mysteriously escaped a gruesome underground Maltese dungeon.  Right here in Syracuse, perhaps at this, the site of her tomb, the Milan artist painted this wonderful altar piece, probably handed over on 13th December 1608, on the anniversary of the festival of Santa Lucia, patron of the city.
'Seppellimento di Santa Lucia' e Caravaggio
How coincidental: a month after these events my sister Anne vistied Ellie in Puglia, and took in a few days in Rome.  So galvanized was she upon seeing another Caravaggio in a Roman church, she set out -- having known virtually nothing of his masterful work -- in pursuit of every one of his paintings that she could find in the Eternal City!  I hope to follow in her footsteps one day, and also return for more walks with Ellie in ancient Ortygia.
Moon rise in Ortygia