Unknown Masters in Galatina

Finding the Unexpected

A TV show  brought us to Galatina in Puglia, Italy. We were home in Canada watching a show hosted by Anthony Bourdain on his travels in southern Italy. It featured a small bit of an old documentary that filmed incidents of  tarantism, a peculiar and local form of psychosocial malady affecting some women of the countryside. You can click here to see the original Italian documentary, La Taranta, 

La Taranta shows women seized by an apparently uncontrollable urge to move and keep moving. Witnessed by others in their community, they typically may end up at the local church, where a religious rit may relieve them of their spasms of movement. The dance, the Tarantella, reportedly derives from this malady. Quite different from the rawness of the movements shown in the documentary, the Tarantella dance is a festive celebration. You can read more the fascinating history of this dance in my related column on Taranto.

Galatina  

spider/Taranta motif at restaurant in Galatina

My focus now on Galatina will show you why this city needs special mention. The cult of the Tarante, with  its spider-dance, is only one reason -- though it is a prevalent one, as you can see by its motif adorning a local restaurant.

Galatina has been a focal spot for the preservation and reinvention of the Taranta cult. In late August, tourists may join The Night of the Tarantula (La Nottte della Taranta), an all-night music festival marking the importance of the Tarantella to this area. 

More traditionally in Galatina and surrounding villages, St Paul, patron saint of the tarantate, is celebrated to this day in an all-night event on June 28. It starts with a procession from Piazza San Pietro to the chapel of St Paul, followed by performances by drummers and other musicians lasting until dawn the following day, June 29 – the feast day of saints Peter and Paul. At early dawn the musicians, dancers, tarante and visitors gather at St Paul’s chapel to pay their respects before the crowds arrive for the official early morning Mass.

This Site Came as a Total Surprise: Church of Santa Catherina 

There is another, and for me, even more impressive reason to visit Galatina. And it came as a surprise. 

After a brief but rather dull drive from Lecce, Galatina surprises you as a  pretty city. We looked into its large and expectably-decorated Cathedral of Peter and Paul  (featured in the La Taranta documentary mentioned).  It was impressive outside, but rather grim inside. The real treasure was to come.

We took a moment to peek into the city's perhaps less-known church of Sta. Caterina. I was absolutely blown away by the stunning art I saw, and that I'd never previously known even existed. It was way beyond any expectations I had ...  and that's a real joy when travelling and just exploring for its own sake.

 Unfortunately, the outside of the church was wrapped up for renovation, and you could see nothing of its features. Nevertheless, we walked through the wooden scaffold to find that the interior was open. WOW!

part of ceiling (Janet Strayer photo)

frescoes in Sta. Catarina/Galentina (photos by Janet Strayer)

nave (natural light, Janet Strayer photo)

ornately painted pillars, Sta. Caterina (Janet Strayer photo)
 

The church of Santa Caterina in Galatina is a marvel to behold. Almost every inch of this large church is covered in beautifully intact frescoes. You can insert some coins for  lights come on, and then see almost everything covered in painted narratives. Ceilings, walls, even columns are painted. The style is consistent: a mix of Byzantine and early Renaissance influences that works to make a unique artistic and religious statement.

Gorgeous frescoes occur throughout Italy, with the Sistine Chapel being perhaps the most famous. But on a more intimate yet complete scale, the frescoes here hit home. Not since Fra Angelico's work in Florence or Giotto's in Padua, have I been so impressed by a single structure so completely filled with such interesting and original religious art.

Dating mostly from the early1 5th C, the frescoes are in remarkable shape. Not all were completed, and you can sometimes  see cartoons of the intended works on the prepared walls (an extra attraction for many artists). A few frescoes are in need of repair, but most are perfect. In general, they are just stunning in overall impact, plus they beckon you to come closer and see more.

wall and part ceiling of series of "Mary frescoes" (Janet Strayer photo)

We don't know the artists' names for sure, but they were stylistic masters (click for some suggestions and a good link for photos and text). They must have seen and been influenced in compositional motifs and stylistic concerns by early Renaissance work further north in Italy (Umbria, Tuscany). Yet, their work favours a different palette and the dramatic contrast of night-time settings.Talented in both stylistic and technical matters, the feast of frescoes beckons you to keep looking at them: the faces, the settings depicted, the flow of narrative, the use of space.

The Romanesque-Gothic church of Santa Caterina dates back to the late 1300's, and the frescoes are dated about 1420. Endowed by the wealth of the Count of Solento and his widow, the nave alone consists of a self-contained fresco composition that includes 140 picture compartments. The nave paintings extend across four bays. The largest group  presents the Apocalypse according to St John. It extends across three walls in the first bay of the nave and includes some fifty separate scenes. The Apocalypse is aways a show-stopper, in my opinion. But I'm also drawn to depictions Genesis and Adam and Eve. You can pick your own favourites, as I'm sure the parishioners did when "reading" this extensive pictorial narrative.

 

I took a mass of photos under the poor lighting conditions. I've given you just a taste from a few samples I liked for different reasons: their blend of Byzantine and early Renaissance styles, references to their time (knights' armour),  their refinement, expressive quality, linear emphasis, spatial sense, or composition.

Other fresco series are dedicated to Mary, and yet others to Sta. Caterina. You can find something remarkable in any of them, in the different depictions of John the Baptist, of the slaying of the Dragon, or even of the small touches in the little figures (perhaps patrons) only marginal to the main scene.

incidental figure (Janet Strayer photo)

One can tire of visiting so many notable churches and cathedrals in Italy. But truly, this is one not to miss. 

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click  https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Taranto, Italy and the Dance of the Spider

Taranto 

You've heard of the dance, the Tarantella? Its origins are an oddity, and  it is linked to Taranto, a small city in Puglia, on Italy's Ionian coast. It's an odd distinction for a town, but that is its fate and fame. Another nearby city in Puglia, Galatina, with similar links to the tarantella -- plus some incredible art worth seeing--  is featured in a separate column here.  

Title still-shot of documentary, credits and link

The Origins of the Tarantella 

The peculiarity of the tarantella is that its origins are associated with a psychic disorder, a form of hysteria, known as tarantism that was recognized in Italy as early as the 15th C.  Tarantism has lingered on in isolated rural areas through the 20th C. This has been recorded n a documentary clip from nearby Galatina the 1950's and aired on TV by another off-beat traveller, Anthony Bourdin. You can click here to see the original Italian documentary, La Taranta, which filmed incidents of tarantism occurring in the nearby countryside. Filmed in the 1950's, it looks much earlier in time and is quite different in its rawness from the holiday tarantellas celebrated in festivals now. 

Spider Bite or Hysteria? 

Said to be caused by the bite of a tarantula spider (a form of wolf-spider or black-widow), its victims  (mostly women) display distressed and feverish symptoms that include vomiting and sweating, fear and delirium, depression and paranoia. They are seemingly cured by a rite that involves feverish 'dancing' that can last for days. It's not so much dancing as it is impulsive, pulsing movement: jumping, hopping, gyrating upright or on the floor. The frenetic movements are accompanied by music played fast, in 6/8 time, with the pace of both music and movements reciprocally urging each other onward, all in  the company of  family and neighbors who attend the seized woman. The often delirious victim, with attendant crowd, eventually is guided to the local church where, still trance-like and tired-out, she is finally 'danced-out 'of her throes with religious help. 

A Fascinating History of a Malady and a Dance 

The tarantella has a fascinating history. It is thought that the town of Taranto, in particular, gave its name to the dance because a particular variety spider, popularly believed to be venomous, was common to this region.So, the dance was  named the tarantula.

Dancing Maenad on Vase by Python, 330 B.C. credits

The origins of the dance, however, may lie much deeper in history and cult. This dance is  speculated to be a surviving remnant from ancient rites of Diana or of Dionysius. 

We know that all of Puglia was originally more Greek than Latin/Roman. By early Roman times, Bacchanalian rites were suppressed, which may have driven them underground ... where they lingered and were transformed into another collective ritual in the cult of Tarantism. What is known for certain is that Tarantism dates back centuries in this region, appearing in early manuscripts. 

The music, originally played on  local  instruments  available  at the time (tambourine, drums, fiddle, accordion, guitar)  developed into folk dance forms. These dances became popular in several regions of southern Italy. In the Salento region, the dance is  also known as the pizzica. 

The tarantella also made its way to the more formal dance-floor for nimble-footed partners. And the stellar choreographer, George Balanchine, adapted it to ballet. Remarkable in its journey from dirt floors to concert halls, the tarantella also appears in the work of such dignified composers as Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin. But the original  forms of the dance, very obscurely caused by a spider's bite, were inspired by each individual's almost hypnotically frenzied, trance-like movements in response to the dancer's delirium, then set to music's beat.

Archaeology in Taranto: the MARTA

We visited Taranto, the city etymologically linked to this curious dance, We were unlikely to see the tarentella danced today. Our motivation for visiting was to see Taranto's well-recommended archaeological museum, the MARTA. 

 a navigation scene with figure carved on cup, 2,000 BC

We were not disappointed. The MARTA  (Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto) is  easy to navigate and fun to explore, with excellent staff to help, if needed. The access and lighting are modern, and the items just enough to give a sense of the particularity of each item and its context. The displays are very well presented (many in English and Italian), with computer-screens that let you look further into particular items and context. 

This is a museum you can appreciate, one that takes both its informative function and audience satisfaction into consideration. We left, feeling both intellectually and aesthetically satisfied. And maybe we even learned a thing or two. Especially notable is how much the language, artifacts, art, and customs derived from ancient Greece (magna-Graecia) and cross-cultural interactions influenced this southern region that is now Italy.

One of the reasons I love museums like MARTA, which focus upon what we call "prehistory" and "protohistory", is that they show as well as inspire a special blend of skillfully investigative research +

imagination in order to unearth, literally, what the displayed objects likely meant when they were fully alive. 

The museum is arranged chronologically as you walk through its levels. Here are some of the many intriguing and beautiful objects in the museum -- a random and non-chronological sampling from photos I took. They include 20,000 year-old figurines of a female/goddess, a polychromed head with its colours intact, anthropomorphic pots from the 6th century B.C., one of the most intricate gold earrings I've seen (4th century B.C.),  a nutcracker in the shape of black hands, representations of African faces ( 3rd-4th century B.C. cross-roads of many cultures), wonderfully designed functional pots from different epochs, and Medusa as she looked across ancient time.

 

Communication and Cross-Cultural Influences

It's a gift to us that a focus of  such museums is to illuminate the earliest forms communication within this region of multiple cultures. We come to appreciate the intents and meanings behind the many quotidian, functional, ceremonial, religious and just plain beautiful objects displayed. 

Given that there are no extant traces of the language that accompanied many of the objects  shown, we're left with marvellous clues to decipher: technological artifacts of the time, items relating to food production/consumption, houses and settlements, burial remains, ritual or ceremonial objects, human adornments, decorative motifs and representations (animal, human, gods), aesthetic styles, art. 

Almost any human act can have both functional and symbolic or ideological meaning, and meanings can change across generations and different communities. In this way, archaeology s remains a living story precisely because it remains open to be deciphered, by us  now... as it was then. 

Quite a time-travel adventure when we visited Taranto!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click  https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet 

 

Ever Want to Hug a House? You Will in Puglia

Unusual Houses in Puglia

I mean it. Really. Have you ever seen a house you wanted to hug? 

That's exactly what I wanted to do upon first seeing a trullo:  I wanted to hug it!

 

Trulli in Alberobello (photo Janet Strayer)

Structures Called Trulli

These unusual stone houses are called Trulli. Their conical stone structure is so distinct, diminutive and charming that it forms a category unto itself. I'd even say these houses are adorable, easily skipping into the world of fantasy hobbits and elves, except for the fact that they are quite real. And inhabited by real people. 

The name, trulo,  derives from the Greek word for dome. In contast to hobbitland, they are, and have been for centuries, functional houses serving the needs of their inhabitants ...  as well as bringing delight to visitors. They merit a whole area of Puglia devoted to them.

Alborobello is a World Heritage Site

Travelling  a bit more than hour from our home-base in Lecce (Puglia) is Alborobello, a UNESCO world heritage cite. It is a city put on the map by its trulli. All around this area, you can find trulli scattered throughout the countryside. In Alborobello, one finds their densest concentration.

a congregation of trulli  (photo by Janet Strayer)

The Scenic Drive

The route to Alborobello from Lecce is interesting, presenting a change from flat to hilly to steeper and greener terrain, with winding mountain passes that get snow (I saw road signs warning of its eventuality). The area is a distinct change of scenery from further south, and  it is home to many nature walks in the woods. It was taking this drive that I realised how much I missed large masses of green and trees. Seems the ancient Romans de-natured the once-forested south of Italy (and Sicily), uprooting the trees to build ships. Ah yes, the lessons of history...

streets of trulli, Arborobello (Janet Strayer photos)

It makes one smile to see a cluster of trulli from a distance. I imagined a whole village of small persons with pointed hats. Not so, of course. The trullo is a unique example of ancient architecture that survives and functions in today's world. Nowadays, several trulli can be seen joined into quite fantastic, castle-like residences with charmingly curved courtyards. There are trulli hotels, though you can also stay in a small trulli B&B. Their conical roofs are are made of horizonatal slabs of limestone, positioned in a series of diminishing concentric circles, and often mounted by a decorative feature.

trullo roof stones (Janet Strayer photo)

Inside a Trullo

I wanted to get a feeling for the more modest trullo, as it might have been in the past. One was open for vistors, allowing us to see  how remarkable it was inside as well as out. I was amazed by how compact and comfortable it was. The structure's interior is distributed around its central space without any additional elements of support -- like the modern concept of open-space interior, but with arched ceilings separating modular units in this space. The "rooms"  (without doors) are identified by changing curves in the wall, each one mounted by a high coned ceiling. Standing was comfortable and, though each room was tiny, each was sufficient to its purpose, explained to me as the central living area,  kitchen-dining-area, adult bedroom, children's bedroom. The walls' thickness and the scarcity of windows functions to promote thermal regulation: warm in winter, cool in summer.
 

History of Trulli Structures

Trulli have been recorded in archaeological finds as preshistoric burial sites, among other things, and their construction is not complex--- but building them to endure stably is a skill (link to read more). Made of limestone rocks built up concentrically into ever smaller circles, their bases are now grafted with limestone masonry.

But why should they have remained distinctly prominent in this region? Their historical origins as a settlement of houses in Alborobello date back to the 14th century. The story is that this form of construction, known from earliest times, was used because it is free-standing dry wall  (no mortar) that can be readily constructed (and dismantled). Those qualities, plus the abundance of white limestone in the area, could serve the needs of hasty settlers, eager to take advantage of land grants while evading building taxes. 

Locorotondo

Leaving Alborobello, we made a brief stop in nearly Locorotondo ("round place"), heralded as one of the most beautiful small cities in Italy... and one of the whitest. Some of Italy's fine wines can be found in this area.

Although trulli can also been seen here, my lasting impression of this city is of well cared-for, simple white houses, calmly positioned in a circular city plan. 

We stopped for a machiatto at an fine little coffee bar facing the little park atop the city, taking a look down at the scenic valley before continuing "home" to Lecce.

I'm eager to see what comes next. Until then...

 More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my  Creative Life News site here.

A River Runs Through It: How an Ordinary House in Puglia Became a Treasure Trove

The House a River Ran Through 

Walking within the walls of the old city of Lecce, we come to a house. From the outside it looks like the other old stone houses lining this street. Perhaps not as fancy on its exterior as some others we've seen on our walks in this gracious city, but a solidly constructed part of this ancient street. Its door is open... and we enter.

Wow!

terracota artifacts, found at Faggiano house

 The Faggiano Legacy

The house is named after the Faggiano family who own it. By accident, it was found to be a treasure trove of archaeological finds, all coming from beneath its floors and within in its walls. And it's true: a river runs through it!

Tuffa deposits underground, Faggiano house/museum

peek trough walls, Faggiano museum (Janet Strayer photos)

The story of this house and the remarkable findings under it was written about in the New Yorks Times in 2015.  Even more remarkable when the story is told to you, first-hand, from one of the boys (now an adult) who did the digging... seven years of it! 

Andrea Faggiano told us the story that brought history to light. He had worked with his father and brothers to fix the water problem, and ended up bringing this "museum" into being. His enthusiasm and respect for the archaeology and history of his house are infectious.

Andreas Faggiano (standing on one of the glass supports allowing you to see below (Janet Strayer photo

Is Dampness a Problem in Your Home?

The story begins with those who occupied the house repeatedly complaining of dampness. Some years ago, Luciano Faggiano (the father) decided to take a shovel to the situation and explore the piping and sewage system below the house. He had intended to make the house a trattoria when he started digging to repair the pipes.  He and his young sons encountered far more than wet dirt, (though there were masses of that). In fact, they discovered an underground river that runs eventually into the Adriatic. More than this: as they dug, successive layers of tunnels were found, each deeper than the next, with artifacts of different civilizations found at each levels.The finds go back at least to 2,000 B.C. The family just had to stop digging by this time!

looking down into cistern (Janet Strayer photos)

one level Faggiano museum, stone steps up

It was just Mr. Faggiano and his sons doing the work until the State archaeologists were called in. One archaeologist was sent to supervise, but the digging remained a family affair, with most of the artifacts carted off to museums to be analysed. I've included some photos that may give you a feeling for it, from my eyes, anyway.

reclining female, Faggiano Museum (Janet Strayer photo)

Museo Archaeologico

What is now called the Museo Archaeologico Faggiano is a wonderful tribute both to the Faggiano family's efforts and to the civilizations that lived here before them. Visit this website link and make it a unique  part of any visit to southern Italy. In this ordinary-from-the-outside house setting, you feel like an explorer, yourself. Spiral metal staircases lead down to the lowest chambers. You can walk on sturdy mirrored floor coverings to see historical excavations beneath the current floor and, in other places, walk the stone steps yourself.

jumble of terracotta remains found in Fabbiano house (Janet Strayer photo)

A World of Cultural History Beneath an Ordinary House

It is the surprise of this apparently "ordinary house" setting that makes everything unique. Within it, you walk through layers upon layers of history -- made very accessible through years of work. You are walking upon this region's earliest settlements, Greek Messapian culture, ancient Roman, Medieval to Byzantine cultures, and onward. Serving as places of worship, ancient burial rites, convents, hiding secrets within it. There is an underground system of caves clearly visible and partly open to exploration, which continues in different directions, including one ending at the ancient Roman amphitheatre in the center of Lecce.

The Knights Templar are a most active presence in the hidden tunnels and cisterns (now unearthed) that go down farther than I wished to. Templar  etchings are visible on the walls, and the tower they used to scan for trouble remains intact.The chambers unearthed and other discoveries are numbered, along with informative explanations. Climbing to the top of the tower of the house, you would once have spotted possible invaders from the east (Ottoman invasions occurred). Now the view it is surrounded by the rooftops of other houses.

Though it is now called a 'museum' (for all the museum-quality artifacts and architectural remains in it), the outstanding feature of the Faggiano is that is was, and remains, a living house. It just happens to be a house that goes down to reveal layers upon layers of human history. It is an extraordinary experience to wander within it and through time. It was a great afternoon's adventure to travel thousands of years within this one private house. The invitation remains open. Thank you for our visit!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my  Creative Life News site here.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com