#4: Being a series of reports, observations, reflections, that supplement the journals kept on-the-spot during a 3-week sojourn on the Amalfi coast southeast of Naples, Italy.
NOURISHING THE WORLD
SQUIRTY-TITTED MADONNAS AND NYMPHS: Whilst touring some major museums in and around Napoli we saw more than one painting of the Madonna breast-feeding her Infante, and others where Mary is offering a breast (sometimes squirting) to the viewer. Our guide Alessandra explained that a tradition exists in Southern Italy (apparently rare in the rest of Christendom) for depicting Mary thusly, showing that the Mother of God was vital enough to nourish the entire world. Being a tit admirer, I heartily approve.
(Upon being told about this art and explanation, our Italian-Irish neighbor Victoria snorted, "Nourish the world?!? Yeah, right!! That sounds just like something some Dago guy would think up! Anything to get more tits out in the open! Whatta crock!")
As we toured the eastern Amalfi Coast we saw many more such depictions, in churches, private shrines, even decals on cars and trucks. And in Amalfi across Duomo Plaza from the Cathedral is a famous and prominent fountain where a nymph offers both breasts, from which streams of water jet out.
I must admit to developing an obsession: I want to return to Campagnia and from there southward search out every church, chapel, shrine with such Madonna images and take snapshots of same, to build a gallery of public holy Christian breast art.
(There's a powerful substrate of eroticism in Christian passion, which others have probably documented [a bit more websurfing may reveal such], which the flesh-deniers among believers have been unable to stamp out. Good thing too, or people would stop reproducing, and THEN where would the religious demagogues be? Ask any Shaker...)
Anyway, on the Amalfi trip I videotaped as many exposed Madonnas and nymphs as possible, and when I get some technical problems worked out (like, my computer doesn't like the video interface anymore) I'll start that online gallery. I promise. Meanwhile, here are a few examples of such iconography available on the Web. Learn and enjoy.
- UNKNOWN: Lactation Of St. Bernard (+text)
- UNKNOWN: Madonna Nursing
- DA VINCI: The Madonna of the Carnation
- DURER: Nursing Madonna (+text)
- FOUQUET: Virgin & Child Surrounded by Angels (+text)
- GENTILESCHI: Madonna Nursing the Christ Child (+text)
- LORENZETTI: Nursing Madonna
- MAINARDI: Madonna & Child & Angels
- MICHELANGELO: Madonna of the Stairs (+text)
- SCHONGAUER: Madonna on a Grassy Bench
- (+more) (+more) (+more) (+more)
(from Marian Art page): The oldest-known image of the Mother of God, in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome, depicts her nursing the Infant Jesus.
- ALBUM: Images of Motherhood
- ANON: Madonna & Infant
- IULIANELLA: Jesu's First Sip
- SLINGER: Afrowak Madonna
- TBD: Tori Amos
- TSUKAHARA: Madonna Nursing the Child (+text)
THE SOUNDS STUCK IN MY HEAD
An important part of the Packaged Experience for Neapolitan-area tourists is the proper application of Famous Nobblydawn Melodies. Some of these aren't necessarily local — all entertainers have been instructed by the Government to perform VOLARE VOLARE VOLARE at least once every hour, regardless of venue or musical style, and that song is associated more with Roma than Napoli — and of course, SANTA LUCIA is Swedish — but everywhere in the tourist zones, O SOLO MIO and TORNA A SORRENTO and FUNICULI, FUNICULA waft thru the air. The aesthetic atmospherics turn positively red-white-and-green (the colors of the national flag and a Margherita pizza, tomatoes and mozarella and basil) within hailing distance of any loudspeaker, as do the ears and necks and cheeks of those who have heard too much of this...
Whether the melodic impact is as the presenters intend is more problematic. As O SOLO MIO and RETURN TO SORRENTO waft through the air the Elvis versions impinge upon my psyche; I hear The King singing "it's now or never" or "so my darling please surrender" with the Jordanaires humming along in the background. With VOLARE, I'm beset by memories of Las Vegas hipsters belting it out with big-band-blaring and rat-a-tat drums complementing the inelegant American-English translation. As for FUNICULI, FUNICULA, written to celebrate the construction of the now-destroyed funicular railway climbing Vesuvio around 1880, well, I usually sing it with different lyrics.
But the damn stuff sticks like a hot flung pizza. Funkier, folksier establishments may have some traditional musics like the tarantella or ndrezzate or villanelle or massicce playing; but it's those Big Hits, often on mandolin and/or accordian, that dominate, that fill the doorways of those hoping to relieve visitors of excess cash, and that bounce around inside my head. Helplessly I keep hearing the lyric line of SORRENTO / SURRENDER. But it timeshares my head with DISCO DUCK. DISCO DUCK — Why?
DAMN MISCELLENIA
Vaffanculo! (swearing in Italian)La Parolece! (about Italian slang)
English-Italian-English Online Dictionary
