A MYSTICAL VISION IN VITERBO

in italiano una visione mistica a Viterbo

Today my fluxes of thought change location and go outside of Rome, into the beautiful Tuscia, because during my Christmas holidays I took the opportunity to enjoy a little of medieval-fantasy atmosphere: walking through the Via Francigena, along the alleys of magical neighborhood San Pellegrino in Viterbo, I came across a "vision".

Kept inside the Chiesa del Gonfalone indeed “La Natività Mistica” has still now exposed to view; a masterpiece of Ignazio Stern, an artist yet to be discovered, who worked in the late Seventeenth century and the first half of the Eighteenth century.

The most beautiful thing is that the canvas has generously offered to the eyes of anyone who wants to enter into this baroque church: no barrier, no glass prevent from enjoying the view of the brushstrokes that magically, for people like me who is unable to paint, have formed these figures.

And that's how they show themselves, towards the eyes of the diligent traveler who knows how to seize the right opportunities to elevate his spirit from the daily monotony, those "characters" that had made the history of the Western world, both for those who believe and for those who have no faith.

The skin looks suffused and the pores become the invisible passages from which intimate essences exhale.

The drawing, soft and warm, accentuates the sinuous figures, but it is mainly the chiaroscuro enraptures myself and catches my glance into a vortex where everything seems disjointed, wrapped in light.

In Rome together with Ignaz Stern a lineage of artists accompanied the transition from the Late Baroque to the Neo-Classicism and to the Romanticism; the latter, an era which will feature vivid colors,  gauzy atmospheres and delicate sentimentalism.

Contemplating “The Nativity” you can feel the vibration, the music, and the sensibility of the pictorial genius of Stern, sweet and intense at the same time.

Painted in 1724 “The Nativity” was depicted as a night where, by candlelight, the visions seen by St. Bridget of Sweden in the cave of Bethlehem became material.

The time portrayed is the one when Mary is holding the Child into her arms while she is thanking God, praying but not bowed but turning her eyes to the sky, still in the grip of the ecstasy’s effect she had had before childbirth.

Then the little cherub is very delightful portrayed while he is kissing the little feet of the Child Jesus and I consider marvelous the Nordic atmospheres that envelop the scene into misty and impalpable shades: “ which are covering shapes and colors of dewy powder, leaving the flashes of light running at the same time winning darkness and reverberating on meat” as Vittorio Sgarbi poetically describes the masterpiece, the canvas’s owner who made possible the temporary loan in Viterbo.

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L'inizio di una storia ... The beginning of a story ...

L'inizio di una storia ...

Tra i Pini di Roma, con le sue variazioni, è un nuovo spazio che apro per parlare di tutto quello che si trova nella città, per me, più bella del mondo: Roma.

Una città che, forse, chi ci abita prova un sentimento opposto di amore e odio, perché tanto è spesso il caos tra le sue vie, ma, per chi sa guardare oltre, infiniti sono i mondi che giacciono lì a testimoniare la nostra storia millenaria.

Il filo rosso delle mie storie sarà sempre, o quasi, l’archeologia, la scienza che ci dà la possibilità di viaggiare come attraverso una torta a strati, e ci dà gli strumenti per conoscere chi ha vissuto la sua vita, i momenti di gioia, di paura e di contemplazione di un dio superiore nei luoghi dove, ancora oggi, noi siamo lì a vivere, ridere o rilassarci all’ombra di un pino secolare.

Ma i miei pensieri nasceranno anche dalla visione dell’arte di cui Roma è imbevuta in ogni più piccolo anfratto, perché conoscere ed essere consapevoli dei tesori difronte ai quali ogni giorno distrattamente passiamo, ci permette anche di difenderli e di prendercene cura.

I miei flussi di pensiero scaturiranno dai tesori dell’arte e dell’archeologia che si trovano ovunque, dal centro alla periferia.

Ma non mancheranno anche “variazioni” perché a me piace gironzolare un po’ ovunque, dove mi porta la curiosità, per cui parlerò anche di altri mondi.

The beginning of a story ...

“Among the Pine Trees of Rome”, with its variations, is a new open space to talk about everything that is inside the city, for me, that is the most beautiful in the world: Rome.

Rome is a city where those living there feel an opposite feeling of love and hate toward it, because there is often much confusion and chaos among its streets but, for those who want look beyond, infinite worlds are there that lie to witness our ancient history.

The "fil rouge” of my stories will always, or nearly so, archeology, the science that gives us the opportunity to travel through history as if we are in a layer cake; the science that gives us tools to know who lived his life, his moments of joy, of fear and contemplation of a superior god in the places where, even today, we are still there to live, to laugh or in relax under the shade of an age-old pine tree.

But my thoughts will also arise from the vision of the Art, the impalpable substance of which Rome is soaked, in every little nook and cranny, because to know and be aware of the treasures in front of which we pass every day absently, allow us to defend them and care for them.

My streams of thought will emerge from the treasures of art and archeology that are everywhere, from the center to the periphery.

But there will be also "changes" because I like to wander around a bit everywhere, so I will speak also of other worlds.