"Castel del Monte, whose original function is still unclear, was certainly modeled on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The work was a training ground for the greatest innovator of Italian Gothic sculpture: Nicola Pisano, whom the documents describe as “De Apulia”, a native of these parts. Between 1240 and 1245 Nicola Pisano began his career under Frederick II, perhaps as an architect and engraver of cameos as well as a sculptor. He absorbed a wide range of classical culture. After further elaborating it in the light of the finest Tuscan works and renewing it by the “truth of life” from Gothic from north of the Alps, it proved sufficient to fill the art of central Italy with references to antiquity."
More on the exhibit here.
5 comments:
Frederick II, the villain of De Wohl's The Quiet Light and the inspiration for Dante's plain of the heretics... the stupor mundi he was called.
and now I'm looking forward to the March Traces!
wait. I have March and this isn't listed in April...
Is that novel about one of the Crusades? If so, I read it some time ago. This article is probably a translation from the Italian Tracce. I found it on the national website.
Is that novel about one of the Crusades?
Not quite. It purports to be a novel of Thomas Aquinas, but Thomas's life sets the timeframe for the story and Thomas is not seen that much. What it really is is a novel of Dante's Commedia, featuring many of those characters from hell and elseafter.
Karen put it down because of its slowness (in fact it's not a modern novel but a medieval romance like the Lord of the Rings or Kristin Lavrandatter - in software we would say about the slowness that "it's not a bug - it's a feature").
Having scratched the surface of De Wohl's curious history of fleeing Nazi Germany and apparently working as a propogandist astrologer for the English government, it's also something of an anti-nazi story. And yes, there's a crusade going on also....
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