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Artwork of the Month: July. The Phaistos Disc

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On 3rd July 1908, the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier, working in the so-called ‘House 101’, northeast of the palace of Phaistos, found an object with symbols on both sides, next to a Linear A tablet. The object became known as the Phaistos Disc—and it remains as intriguing and mysterious now, over a hundred years later, as it was then. Physically it is round, hand-made, about 1.5cm thick and approx. 16.2cm in diameter, with an incised spiral decoration. The spiral is filled with little symbols, 241 or so of them (most of the motifs occurring more than once), stamped on the fresh clay. They represent the earliest evidence of the use of movable type. The clay is free from impurities and the object, unlike the tablets, was fired deliberately.

The excavator assumed it had fallen from the upper storey and that it was of Cretan manufacture. Not much progress has been made since then, though not for want of trying. Nothing else remotely similar has ever been found—and that is the main problem. Accusations of foul play were made as early as 1913. The villain of the piece was said to be Pernier who, jealous of his fellow archaeologist Halbherr’s success at Gortyn (also in Crete), where he found the famous Law Code, and of Evans’s discoveries at Knossos, deliberately planted a forged object with an invented script in order to raise the profile of his excavations. However, while it is true that Phaistos could not rival Knossos as to finds, at Aghia Triada nearby, also excavated by the Italians, the quality and quantity of material was truly amazing. Pernier and the Italian School had their hands full. He seems an unlikely accomplice in a forgery of this magnitude.

Interpretations of the object’s function and meaning are extremely diverse, ranging from an astronomical or astrological calendar to a hymn to victory, a nursery rhyme or a sacred text. Current thought assumes it is a piece of writing though the direction of it, from the centre to the periphery or the other way round, has yet to be established. The small number of characters, 45 in total, suggests it is a syllabic script and close to Linear A, which has not yet been deciphered. There has been no shortage of proposed translations, based on languages as diverse as Chinese, Dravidian, Georgian, Hittite, Luwian, Semitic, Slavic and Sumerian. Indeed it was this abundance that prompted the late John Chadwick, who decoded Linear B with Michael Ventris, to appeal to those producing their own solutions ‘not to send them to him’.

With appropriate testing, it would be possible to put this case to rest one way or another. Modern techniques such as thermoluminescence are not invasive and would ascertain the date of the firing, thereby deciding once and for all the question of authenticity, while the analysis of a minimal quantity of the clay could assist in determining provenance. So far the authorities involved have resisted all calls for such tests. But the case should not be allowed to linger.

Blue Guide Crete, which combs the island in loving detail, will be available in digital format later this month.

Budapest to Vienna and Salzburg by Railjet

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“The journey is its own reward” trumpets the on-train information screen on the Austrian Railways (OeBB) Railjet train, but certainly this journey did not get off to an auspicious start. The train was packed. No space to sit … hardly any space to stand, even. Then it transpired that a group of German schoolchildren – about thirty of them – had mixed up their reservation, and were not supposed to be on this train at all. A very flustered teacher finally decided they had better get off the train, two minutes before it was due to leave. General chaos ensued, and the children scrambled around to retrieve luggage and get off the train.

Following this commotion, the train pulls out of Budapest’s Keleti (Eastern) station and things begin to settle down. At this point the train is heading east, in the “wrong” direction for Austria – but it almost immediately swings round to the south, and then to the west, before crossing the Danube and stopping at the suburban station of Kelenfold.

After leaving Budapest proper, the train journeys through rather unremarkable scenery before stopping at the provincial industrial town of Tatabánya. Soon it follows the Danube for a while – the river here forms the border between Hungary and Slovakia – and passes through the town of Komárom, opposite which, on the other side of the river, lies the Slovakian town of Komárno. About 90 minutes after leaving Budapest, the train stops at the regional capital of Győr (Raab in German) – roughly half-way between Budapest and Vienna – and then speeds through the flat north-west Hungarian countryside before arriving at the border station of Hegyeshalom. Years ago Hegyeshalom meant a stop of up to thirty minutes for a change of locomotive and a passport and customs check, but nowadays the stop barely takes a couple of minutes. The Hungarian driver is replaced by his Austrian colleague, who flicks a switch to allow the locomotive to “convert” to the different Austrian power supply, and soon the train is on its way again.

The scenery remains flat through Austria, although hills appear on the horizon both to the north and west. Massive wind turbines loom up on both sides of the line. In the distance, to the right, high-rise apartment buildings reveal the Slovakian capital, Bratislava. Soon the suburbs of Vienna appear, and only a few minutes later the train passes through the new Wien Hauptbahnhof (Central station), which is currently only partly in use and will open to international trains in December 2014. The Railjet instead stops at the suburban station of Meidling, before travelling a further 10 kilometres and turning through 180 degrees to arrive from the west at Vienna’s (current) principal station, the Westbahnhof.

Railjetswere first introduced at the end of 2008 to gradually replace OeBB’s ageing but comfortable Inter-City rolling-stock. The sets are formed of a locomotive plus seven coaches, and they travel in fixed formation, the last coach having a driving cab so the train can be operated in either direction. There are three classes: second class (called “economy”), first class and business class. Business class trumps first class, which may confuse frequent fliers somewhat. A seat in business class costs an extra €15 for any first-class ticket or pass holder, irrespective of the distance travelled. This can be paid on board if there are seats available. Paying extra for the comfortable armchair-style seating in the clubby mini-compartments is well worth it, especially for longer journeys. The supplement includes a welcome drink, although you may have to ask for it if not offered by the attendant.

The Railjets all operate so that the business class and first class sections are nearest the buffers and station entrance at Vienna’s Westbahnhof. This terminus station has only recently been completely renovated with a new shopping centre added, but it will lose its status as Vienna’s principal railway station when the Hauptbahnhof opens fully, since most long-distance trains will stop there instead. This will also allow for an improvement in journey time between Budapest and Salzburg or Munich of about thirty minutes (from December 2015).

On leaving Vienna, the route westwards to Salzburg soon escapes the conurbation; previously it would amble through the attractive hills and woods of the Wienerwald. However, the opening of a new section of high-speed line in 2012 means that, sadly, this is no longer the case – the train now accelerates rapidly and passes through a sequence of tunnels and cuttings; the 15-minute time-saving between Vienna and St Pölten being paltry compensation, some would say, for the loss of the scenic views.

The line from St Pölten onward to Linz has been upgraded in stages in the past few years, but it still mostly follows the route of the old Westbahn, originally opened in 1858 as the “Empress Elisabeth Railway”. There are only a few tunnels to spoil the view as you travel up to a brisk but smooth 230 km/h or so.

Time for a visit to the restaurant car, which is operated by Henry am Zug – an offshoot of Do & Co, the renowned Austrian caterer and restaurateur. The choice of foods is modest, but sandwiches are fresh and other dishes tasty. Pricing is reasonable for a train – a glass of very-drinkable wine with a sandwich costs just over €6, for example – and service, by the mostly Hungarian staff, is prompt and cheerful. Soon the industrial city of Linz is reached, then after passing through Wels the high-speed line ends and on the last stretch of the journey, the 45 minute ride from Attnang-Puchheim to Salzburg, the train meanders pleasantly along river valleys, and briefly passes by the northern shore of the Wallersee as the foothills of the Alps approach.

And so to Austria’s “second” city of Salzburg – in reputation, at least (it is actually fourth in size after Vienna, Graz and Linz). Recently, the station has been extensively rebuilt, but thankfully the grand arched roof has been retained and restored. While the train continues across the border (just outside Salzburg) to Germany, many people alight here, both to visit the city of Mozart and also to connect to trains southbound towards the High Tauern, and westwards towards Innsbruck and beyond.

Travelwise
Railjets ply the Budapest – Vienna – Salzburg – Munich route every two hours during the day. Fares from Budapest to Vienna are reasonably priced if bought from MAV (Hungarian railways): a one-way journey Budapest to Vienna (about 250 km) can be booked in advance for €13 second class, or €29 in first class. These tickets are valid for a specific train, including seat reservation, and are available until the quota for each train runs out.

Otherwise, there is a useful four-day round-trip excursion fare starting from Budapest to Vienna (second class only) for €29. (If you make the outward journey on day one of the ticket’s validity, the return trip has to be made on or before day four). This ticket does not have to be purchased in advance. However, this fare does not include seat reservations – which are not compulsory, and may be purchased separately. For an extra €9, your ticket will include unlimited travel on Vienna’s public transport for the first two days only of the ticket’s validity.

From Budapest to Salzburg there is also a very reasonable four-day round-trip excursion fare (again, second class only) for €39. Since break of journey is allowed with this ticket, it could be used to visit both Vienna and Salzburg within the four days of its validity. Again, seat reservations are not included in the fare.

Buying tickets on the Hungarian railways (MAV) website can be a challenge – there is no proper English version (use an online translator) – and no self-printing facility for international tickets. Tickets have to be collected from internet ticket terminals at main stations in Hungary. Alternatively, Blue Guides recommends buying rail tickets at MAV’s city ticketing office in Budapest on József Attila utca (near the Deák ter metro interchange). Queues are rare and the procedure is generally stress-free; the international ticket office at Keleti station can be crowded.

Note that the same range of tickets is not available in the reverse direction (when starting your journey in Austria) either booked on the OeBB website, or purchased locally in Austria. There are no equivalent excursion tickets, unfortunately, and one-way advance tickets from Vienna to Budapest start from €19 in second class (€29 in first class).

Railjets are often very full – especially on the Hungarian stretch of the journey where they also function as domestic inter-city trains. Booking is always advisable on these services. If you are leaving Budapest without a reservation, get to the station early to bag unreserved places – there is always a certain number of free seats. Otherwise, make your way to the restaurant car, where for roughly the price of a seat reservation, you can enjoy a coffee, beer or glass of wine.

June 2014

Marvellous and Macabre: the art of Jacopo Ligozzi

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An exhibition devoted to Jacopo Ligozzi (c. 1549–1627) is open until 28th September in Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

Ligozzi’s drawing of a gerbil

But who was Ligozzi? Born around 1549 in Verona, he spent most of his life in Florence and is especially known for his scientific drawings from nature. But as the exhibition also illustrates, he had great success at the Medici court as he could turn his hand to designing all kinds of things for them: from decorative harnesses for their horses to pietre dure table tops and embroidered head-dresses for the duchesses. But in order not to depend on the favours of the ruling family at any one time, and to ensure he could always earn his bread and butter, he also produced numerous paintings. This exhibition illustrates the diversity of his talents as well as his eccentricities.

It opens in the magnificent Sala Bianca, the Pitti’s 18th-century ballroom, with a small selection of watercolours of fish, plants, birds, mice and moles, commissioned over a period of some ten years at the end of the 16th century by Francesco I, who was famous for his interest in the natural sciences. The second half of the room has drawings made by Ligozzi for the apparatus used on ceremonial occasions, and two paintings by him of ladies of the court proudly wearing the paraphernalia designed him (that of Margherita Gonzaga is on loan from Lisbon). The designs for bizarre goblets, including an entire album of them, become so intricate that some of them begin to resemble the crazy inventions of Heath Robinson. In contrast, the exquisite pen-and-ink wash drawing of Portoferraio shows what a great talent Ligozzi had for landscape.

Ligozzi’s Pietre dure portrait of Pope Clement VIII

There are some magnificent examples of  pietre dure work on show. Tabletops closely covered with inlays of precious stones portraying all manner of flowers and birds are displayed without their pedestals and can be seen to full advantage.

A small room contains some very macabre works, two of them on the verso of painted portraits of a lady and of a boy, both from the private collection of Lord Aberconway in Bodnant, Wales. These memento mori fully deserve the description of them given in situ as ‘repugnant’ and ‘savage’. Also here are four drawings of the Cardinal Sins, reunited from Paris (the Louvre) and Hanover. A small allegory of the Redemption from a private collection in Madrid is similarly disturbing. The dark atmosphere is only alleviated by the music provided in this room (and close by, one can go out into the little loggetta, which has a charming ceiling frescoed in 1588 by Alessandro Allori of wash day in the palace).

The last four rooms display Ligozzi’s oil paintings, which vary greatly in interest and quality. Those painted in the 1590s for the little-visited Florentine church of San Giovannino degli Scolopi (in Via Martelli, two steps from the Baptistery) are among the best: Jacob’s Dream and The Fall of Lucifer, which form a pair, and St Jerome Comforted by an Angel, with exquisite details of his piles of books and the angel in a beautiful dress. Ligozzi is known to have been a deeply religious man and his son became a Dominican friar, but his best paintings are those with an element of eccentricity, either in the composition or the details. His Madonna of the Rosary has a rather mundane Mother but a delightful Child, and they are set in a garland of roses of varieties which go from cream to deep red. Next to it hangs a Transport of St Catherine which shows the Saint stretched out comfortably (the pose has faint echoes of Mary Poppins) as she floats aloft with the help of angels. There are also some much larger altarpieces, one of the best of which is Mary Magdalen in Adoration of the Crucifix set in a wood, which is over 3 by 2 metres, painted in 1607 for the church of San Martino in Pisa. Also displayed here is a guide book to the convent of La Verna, written and illustrated by Ligozzi and complete with keyed plans: it seems that he wanted to turn his hand to everything!

The small last room has arguably his best oil paintings: four Passion scenes. They show Ligozzi’s imaginative creativity in their composition and use of colour, as well as fascinating details in the hats, armour, bejewelled costumes, and landscapes.

This is the first time that due attention has been paid to all aspects of Ligozzi’s work. It is an exhibition well worth seeing.

by Alta Macadam, author of Blue Guide Florence.

David Esterly – The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making

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In March 1986, a disastrous fire swept through the royal palace of Hampton Court. Started by an overturned candle in the grace and favour apartments on the top floor, it did enormous damage to the apartments below that had been built for King William III at the end of the 17th century. Among the decorations of these apartments was a superb set of carvings by Grinling Gibbons, the greatest of the English sculptors in wood.

Detail from Grinling Gibbons’ limewood reredos in St James’s Piccadilly. Photo © Blue Guides

Across the Atlantic the news filtered through to David Esterly, also a carver in wood, but rare among his contemporaries in that he specialised in the same type of flamboyant and intricate carving that was the hallmark of Gibbons’ work. He feared the worst, the total destruction of the carvings, and was relieved to hear that, despite much damage, only one seven-foot drop that had graced the side of a door had been totally lost. The others could be repaired but this one had to be recreated from new.

Esterly won the commission to create the new work and this is his finely written and meditative account of the journey to its completion. He had come to carving late, after years of academic study of literature that had focused on the relationship between the poet Yeats and the 3rd-century mystic philosopher Plotinus. A chance visit, when he was thirty, to the wonderful altar carving by Gibbons in St James’s Piccadilly (image above) transported him to the ‘still centre of the universe’ and a new course for his life was set.

A carver needs wood, from the linden tree, or limewood as it is normally known, a set of tools and his or her own skills. The relationship between the three is constantly changing as the wood, at first so vulnerable to direct attack, tries to craft its own patterns against the power of the tools and their master. So carving is never dull and Esterly works longer and longer hours in the room designated to him and his co-workers in the palace. His studies of Plotinus alerted him to the possibilities of a perfection that transcended what his own efforts were shaping and so this is indeed a meditation into the core of creativity. One mark of perfection is to carve what cannot be seen to the same quality as what can be seen as if the invisible permeates the visible and so leads to a yet higher excellence. Esterly ridicules the conceptualism of Jeff Koons, who can imagine an idea in wood and then commission inept carvers (Esterly wonders whether they carved so badly as a deliberate prank) to shape it before an undiscriminating buyer parts with nearly six million dollars to own the finished article.

There are other stories running alongside the patient work of recreation: the inevitable bureaucratic conflicts, the decision whether to leave the new work as it would have been created by Gibbons or whether to match the colour to the remaining carvings. Had Gibbons used any form of sandpaper to finally smooth his work? The conventional view had been that he had not—but then what were those parallel striations which could be seen close up? The combined expertise of the Victoria & Albert and Natural History Museums finally brings up ‘Dutch rush’, a plant that incorporates silica on its stems and which once dried can indeed be used as sandpaper. An experiment shows that the striations match perfectly and a new understanding of Gibbons’ methods has emerged.

The Lost Carving reminded me of Orhan Parmuk’s My Name is Red, where his 16th-century miniaturists debate whether the end of their art is to achieve the perfection of their forbears or to risk evolving new forms. A phrase from an ancient Egyptian text also returned to me: ‘Take counsel with the ignorant as with the wise, for the limits of excellence cannot be reached and no artist fully possesses, his skill’. Esterly, sensitive as he is to the mystery of beauty, would certainly drink (a pint of Adnams Mild at the King’s Arms by the Lion Gate of Hampton Court) to that.

Reviewed by Charles Freeman, historical consultant to the Blue Guides. To read more about Hampton Court (as well as Charles Freeman’s own account of Eton College), see Blue Guide London.

The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making published by Duckworth is the UK, Viking / Penguin in the US is now out in paperback.

Artwork of the month: June, Pordenone’s Noli me Tangere

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“NOLI ME TANGERE”

The painter Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis (1484–1539) is always known as Il Pordenone, after his birthplace in Friuli, in northeast Italy. According to Vasari, Pordenone taught himself to paint. Certainly his early works are fairly unsophisticated. As he matured, he learned to paint in the Venetian style, with all that that implies in terms of colour and dreamy romanticism. His manner shows a particular closeness to that of Giorgione and Titian. This Noli me Tangere, which hangs in the cathedral museum of Cividale del Friuli, is a good example. It was painted in 1524. Christ appears in a Venetian-pink tunic. Behind Mary Magdalene’s flowing hair we see the angel at the empty tomb. Behind are the alpine peaks that Venetian painters so often included as backdrops in their altarpieces. Christ gestures skywards. We are to imagine him uttering the words put into his mouth by St John: “Touch me not; for I amnot yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17).

When Pordenone left northern Italy in the late 1520s, he fell under the spell of Michelangelo, and his style altered forever, becoming much less spatial, much more sculptural, with highly mannered gesture and with an unsettling, barely suppressed violence. His writhing figures seem to invade the viewer’s space and intimidate him/her. There is something almost Gothic in his dwelling on the more tortured and gruesome aspects of martyrdom. All in all, Pordenone is a fascinating hybrid of Gothic and German elements forced through the Michelangelo mangle.

Important examples of his frescoes and paintings can still be seen in his native town, a pleasant provincial capital with a lively atmosphere and lots of places to eat. Some of Pordenone’s modern buildings are by the Brutalist architect Gino Valle (1923–2003), born in nearby Udine, who worked for many years for Zanussi, producing office and factory buildings for them as well as designs for a number of domestic appliances (including their first washing machine). The Zanussi company was founded in Pordenone in 1916 by the son of a local blacksmith. (It was taken over by Electrolux in the 1980s.)

Pordenone, Udine and Cividale are covered in Blue Guides’ e-guide to Friuli-Venezia Giulia.