Paula's Tour Talk

Carnival Dreams

It's carnival time in Venice. I spent several hours viewing carnival videos so I could find the best to share with you. My favorite is here in the previous post Carnival 2009 video (click on the square button on the bottom right of the player for a full screen view).

It's a visually stunning video with haunting music by Enya in the background. At first this struck me as rather odd, but the dreamy magical quality of the music fits beautifully.

Although I'd love to see the costumes and pageantry of carnival, the thought of the crowds, noise, jacked-up prices, and general mayhem puts me off. Perhaps if I was lucky enough to get an invitation to one of the private balls...

In the meantime, I love to watch the splendor and video from afar. I hope you enjoy it too.

If you'd like to read more about the history of carnival, check out last year's Carnevale in Venice.

Carnival in Venice 2009

An Overlooked Masterpiece

This touching scene painted in gorgeously glowing colors is one of my favorite paintings. Mariotto Albertinelli's Visitation hangs in Room 25 of the Uffizi where Michelangelo's famous Doni Tondo captures the full attention of most visitors.

But this masterpiece of the early 16th century is certainly worth a few moments contemplation, and knowing the story from the Gospel of Luke will add to your enjoyment.

After the Angel Gabriel had given the Virgin Mary the shock of her life with the news that she was to bear the Son of God, he mentioned that her aged cousin Elizabeth was pregnant.

This pregnancy was also miraculous. Long past the age for childbearing, Elizabeth and her even more elderly husband Zachariah had accepted that theirs was a barren marriage. Then one day Gabriel appeared and told the astonished old man that his wife would soon become pregnant and that they should name the baby boy John.

This baby would grow up to be John the Baptist.

Perhaps because Joseph wasn't initially thrilled with the idea of his wife's holy pregnancy, Mary set off on an 80 mile journey to visit her cousin for a few months when she heard this happy and amazing news.

This painting depicts the moment of their meeting. Elizabeth rushes forward, grasps Mary's hand and embraces the younger woman tenderly. It is a moment of affection and deep connection between the two cousins. But it's also a moment of profound religious significance.

The Gospel says that when Elizabeth first beheld Mary, the babe in her womb "leapt for joy" in recognition, and Elizabeth understood that Mary's child would be her Lord. The words Elizabeth utters in greeting are those of the familiar prayer: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee..."

Mary replies with another prayer, called the Magnificat: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour..."

These prayers were as well known in the Renaissance as they are to devout Catholics today. The scene also had a special relevance to the Florentines. John the Baptist was the city's patron saint, and all aspects of his story would have been instantly recognizable.

I always spend a few minutes with this painting when I am in the Uffizi and tell the story when we visit the museum with our tours. I hope you will seek it out--it's extraordinarily beautiful beyond what can be seen in reproduction.

Venice's Miracoli

Santa Maria dei Miracoli is surely one of the world's most beautiful churches. It's a perfectly proportioned Renaissance jewel box, covered in white, gray, and pink marble inside and out,  and it's one of my favorite places in Venice.

The church was built in the late 15th century to provide a suitable place of honor for a lovely image of the Virgin and Child that had hung in a nearby courtyard. The wealthy often displayed such paintings of Mary in dark courtyards and alleys surrounding their homes and offices for practical as well as religious reasons.

The hope was that no one would dare commit robbery (or answer nature's call) under the gaze of the Virgin. You can still see many of these images on buildings and tucked away in niches on street corners in Venice and other cities in Italy.

This particular image of the Virgin was considered miraculous--one of the miracles was the revival of an unfortunate man who had been submerged in the murky waters of the Grand Canal for some 30 minutes. Anyway, the faithful began to leave offerings beginning around 1470, and eventually there was more than enough money to build a church for the holy painting.

Santa Maria dei Miracoli is located in the Cannaregio neighborhood, a short walk from the Rialto. I always stop in when I am in Venice, and I love to show it on our tours (see Living La Dolce Vita for information on the next trip to Milan, Lake Como, and Venice).

For now, you might enjoy this virtual tour on the Save Venice website: Santa Maria dei Miracoli. The Save Venice Foundation raised money for a complete restoration of this church that took ten years and was completed in 1998.

Precious Salt

Since earliest times, salt has been used not only as a preservative, but also as a condiment at the table. It was expensive and usually heavily taxed, and so was treated with great respect. At the tables of the wealthy, salt was kept in ornate salt cellars.

It was customary for there to be two salt cellars at aristocratic dining tables: a large and highly decorated one, to the right of the hostess, and a smaller one at the other end of the table. Those who were seated beyond the small one were "below the salt," and therefore unworthy of notice by their betters.

Very beautiful and very large salt cellars were important table ornaments for the wealthy and the noble in Medieval and Renaissance times. This was particularly true in Italy, where many goldsmiths and artists created these unusual works of art.  Some salt came from mines, but most came from the sea, and many salt cellars were shaped like seashells, or even made from real Nautilus shells, and were often crafted in gold, silver, and crystal.

The fear of poison--salt could be laced with arsenic powder--even led to a fashion for enclosed salt cellars in the Renaissance.

You will often see large salt cellars in paintings depicting feasts, and you can see actual examples in many museums, like the lovely Museo degli Argenti in the Boboil Garden complex in Florence.

Of course, the most famous salt cellar, is Benvenuto Cellini's masterpiece shown here. In his autobiography Cellini says that it represents the Terra e Mare (the Earth and Sea), with Neptune, the god of the sea, and Ceres, goddess of the earth, joining together the two sources for salt.

(This most famous piece was stolen from a museum ion Vienna in 2003 and recovered in 2006. You can read an amusing piece about the theft here: Cellini's Stellar Cellar).

Kalon Women

I am so pleased that Kalon Women, an online site for women over 40, is featuring an article I wrote called Five Keys to Turning an Idea into Your Dream Business in the February issue of their magazine.

(Find my article fast by clicking on the Kalon Woman of the Month button on the left on the site's opening page.)

The article tells how I started Time of Your Life Tours with Teresa, and I hope you will check it out and leave a comment for the editor (click the blue Feedback button on the left).

The Kalon Women site is great too, and you can subscribe to the online magazine for free.

I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks, Paula