Friday, July 01, 2011

THE FLORENTINE GONFALONE

Florence's Gonfalonieri who carry her great lilied banner, the 'Gonfalone' of Justice, and trumpet fanfares at civic celebrations in Florence.

JBH, Signor Gerardo Kraft, Pastore Mario Marziale

Professoressa Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti, Professor Leopoldo Stefanutti

Gabriella, JBH, Scott Lewis, Katerine Gaja, Elena Capolino

It was a magnificent day, thanks to everyone, the Comune of Florence, our special visitors, Eugenio Giani, President of the Consigilio of Florence, Mary Ellen Countryman, the American Consul, Scott Lewis, President of the Browning Society and of the Friends of Casa Guidi, Michael Meredith of Eton, former President of the Browning Society, Gerardo Kraft, President of the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church, Edgar Kraft, the Swiss Consul, Sara Milne, Director of the British Institute, Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu, President of the Asociatia 'Agrustic Somnacuni'. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was accorded the same honours as is Dante Alighieri by the City of Florence!

Scott Lewis, President of the Browning Society, Dr. and Mrs. Bill (Kay) Turney from Waco, Andrew Sinclair from London, and others, at the tomb of EBB

EBB's tomb by Lord Leighton, newly cleaned by Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu

Gonfalonieri

JBH, Eugenio Giani, Presidente of Florence's Consigilio, and Gonfalonieri

The great wreath of the City of Florence was laid at her tomb to the fanfare of trumpets by the Gonfalonieri, two smaller wreaths by the Browning Society with white roses, by the Friends of Casa Guidi with white lilies, all of which replicated the wreaths at her funeral 150 years ago. The many guests could browse the offerings of the Book Fair to raise funds for the restoration of Odoardo Fantacchiotti's statue of 'La Speranza', enjoy the refreshments offered by the Swiss Church, and view the exhibition of books associated with EBB and her circle of friends, particularly of those who attended her funeral, the Hiram Powers family, the William Wetmore Story family, Kate Field, Isa Blagden, Robert Lytton, the Cottrells, etc.

Gonfalonieri

Gonfalonieri

Katerine Gaja

Mark Roberts, Katerine Gaja

JBH and Eugenio Giani, Presidente del Consiglio di Firenze

I gave two guided tours, the first in English, the second in Italian, in which I spoke of our anti-slavery Abolitionists, how Frances Trollope wrote the first anti-slavery novel, Richard Hildreth, the second, both buried with us, Harriet Beecher Stowe copying them with Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was immediately translated into Romanian and that this freed the Roma from their slavery which lasted from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, longer than were Blacks enslaved in the Americas, and how it is the Romanian Roma who have restored this Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery, where English, Swiss, Americans, Russians, Romanians, Poles, Hungarians, Scandinavians and many others, Protestant, Orthodox and now Catholic, lie peacefully side by side. A vision of the future.

Gonfalonieri at EBB's Tomb. In the background to the left top one can see how filthy the beautiful statue by Odoardo Fantacchiotti of 'Hope', 'Speranza', now is. Click on photo to enlarge. CNR came that very afternoon to start work on her restoration and cleaning.

JBH, Eugenio Giani

Eugenio Giani, JBH

Silence at the Tomb, Scott Lewis, JBH, Gerardo Kraft, Dott. Giulio Todescan, Mario Marziale, Leopoldo Stefanutti

Gonfalonieri

Gonfalonieri with Aurelia Bartholini, Katerine Gaja to the left.

Marziale, JBH, Giani, Kraft


I also spoke of the need to raise funds for the restoration of Odoardo Fantacchiotti's very beautiful but now very dirty 'La Speranza', as an allegory for Florence, for Europe, for the world. For this purpose I gave my publications and limited edition productions for the 'Book Fair', which raised €300 of the needed €10,000. Other donations we seek, roses, especially standard roses as there once had been an avenue of these on both sides of the main path, and other plants with non-invasive roots that do well in Florentine sunlight and soil.

Gonfalonieri, Tomb of Thomas Southwood Smith.

Book Fair, Grazia Gobbi Sica, Giovanna Innocenti

We shared Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Casa Guidi Windows in English and Italian, for I found on the Web in a Roman bookshop an 1851 translation into Italian which we have now republished it with facing page, English and Italian, in the same way we publish her Sonnets from the Portuguese, William Morris type, handbound with our marbled paper.

Gonfalonieri have gone off for a cooling drink, leaving their gear behind them

Mark Roberts, Scott Lewis

Marchesa Antonia Lanza D'Ajeta, right

Michael Meredith of Eton College, right

Michael Meredith, Dr. and Mrs. Bill (Kay) Turney, Elena Capolino between them, Andrew Sinclair, Scott Lewis

Photographs, courtesy of Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu, President, Asociatia 'Agrustic Somnacuni - Inel de Aur'

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery and its gardening you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the PayPal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Custodian, 'English' Cemetery
President, Aureo Anello








Sunday, June 05, 2011

AND ANOTHER CELEBRATION

On June 29, 2011, the 150th anniversary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's death on 29 June 1861, we shall gather together in Florence's 'English' Cemetery to celebrate her poetry and her use of her art against injustice, against slavery, and against the oppression of nations, of women, of children. At the same time it is the 150th anniversary of the Unity of Italy, of Italy's rebirth as a nation, formerly ground under the heels of Austria, Spain, France, and the Pope. EBB wrote to her friend Isa Blagden in a letter found by Thomas Adolphus Trollope of her 'passion for essential truth (as apprehended) and a necessity for speaking it out at all risks, inconvenient to personal peace'.
EBB died at Casa Guidi while mourning the 6 June 1861 death of Camillo Benso Cavour, the architect of Italy's Unity, and, Robert tells us, speaking of the red, white and green colours of the Italian and Hungarian flags. The portraits of both EBB and Cavour had been painted by Michele Gordigiani in his studio across the street from EBB's tomb, designed by Frederic Lord Leighton with the broken slave shackle on the harp of Exodus.
First at 10.00 a.m., there will be a laying of laurel wreaths at the tomb, then at 11.00 a.m. a gathering of women poets from across Italy will pay tribute to her.
Present will be members of the British Institute, the Browning Society, the Friends of Casa Guidi, and the Armstrong-Browning Library of Baylor University, Texas. All are welcome to this event celebrating Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her friends past, present and future, and her love of Italy which forged a golden ring, an 'Aureo Anello' between Italy and the English-speaking world.
It was actually on 1 July 2011 that she was buried here, Robert, their son Pen, Isa Blagden, the Storys, the Powers, the Trollopes, Kate Field and Robert Lytton (the poet Owen Meredith who became Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India and who wrote Lucile about Isa, while Isa wrote Agnes Tremorne about him), being present. They forgot to send a carriage for Walter Savage Landor. The Anglican funeral service she did not want (she had Pen baptized in the Swiss church which still owns the so-called 'English' Cemetery) was described as being very badly done. Lord Leighton then designed the tomb but it was much altered by the Italian sculptor Francesco Giovanozzi to Leighton's fury,
We shall share Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Casa Guidi Windows in English and Italian, for I found on the Web in a Roman bookshop an 1851 translation into Italian which we have now republished it with facing page, English and Italian, in the same way we publish her Sonnets from the Portuguese, William Morris type, handbound with our marbled paper.
If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery and its gardening you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the PayPal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Custodian, 'English' Cemetery
President, Aureo Anello








Friday, April 15, 2011

YOU ARE INVITED TO A CELEBRATION

OF FLORENCE'S ENGLISH CEMETERY, SATURDAY 23 APRIL, AT 4:00 P.M.
We shall share the beauty of the irises, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Casa Guidi Windows in English and Italian, and cucumber sandwiches. We are inviting all the Consuls and all the Assessors.
For CGW I found on the Web in a Roman bookshop an 1851 translation into Italian which shall be arriving here next week, and plan to republish it with facing page, English and Italian, in the same way we already publish her Sonnets from the Portuguese, William Morris type, handbound with our marbled paper.
In this way we shall be celebrating the Resurrection, the Renaissance, the Risorgimento, and also the splendid work restoring the garden and the tombs carried out by Romanian Roma families whom we teach the Alphabet.
This Spring is particularly lovely with the newly cleaned tombs and first the daffodils
then the irises
If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery and its gardening you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the PayPal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Custodian, 'English' Cemetery
President, Aureo Anello