Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence

I had taken my mother on a trip to Florence to cheer her up after my father’s death. Since she had seen most of the important sites, we decided to concentrate on those that were not as popular and populated. This would mean the Palazzo Davanzati, the Bargello, the Brancacci Chapel, and the San Marco.

The Davanzati houses a museum on Florentine home life. Its star attraction is a Renaissance period toilet. For some reason, bathroom facilities from earlier historical periods always manage to draw crowds. The Bargello is the city’s sculpture museum. Among its most famous pieces are the statues of David which predate Michelangelo’s own celebrity creation. The Brancacci Chapel is in the Church of the Carmelites. Noteworthy here is Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve. A wonderful bonus is an animated film being shown in a small auditorium which brings to life the figures in the church’s murals.

After taking in the sights, we were so exhausted that we couldn’t resist a cool drink at a museum café. Since beverages are so expensive in tourist spots in Europe, I found myself asking if I could keep the gorgeous deep blue bottle. Happily, it now reposes in my banggerahan in Baclayon, Bohol, a world away from its genteel Florentine origins.

Of all the places that we had seen during this trip, what was certainly the most memorable was the Dominican church of San Marco. The thing not to miss is the second floor of the cloister. Here the monks’ quarters have been decorated with paintings by that most beatific of artists: Fra Angelico.

Negotiating the steps at a fast clip, I was not prepared for what awaited me at the head of the stairs. On the opposite wall was one of the acknowledged masterpieces of European art: Fra Angelico’s Annunciation. I could not help but pause and stare in silence. It is not often that one is in the presence of such perfection.

I am not sure if it was the way the light seemed to spread around the work, lingering to caress the face of the Virgin. Perhaps it was the subtle power of the many symbols employed: the soft round tondo at the apex of the fresco proclaiming the perfection of the Lord; the trees growing vigorously behind a fence alluding to the Paradise that humanity had lost with the fall of Adam and Eve. Perhaps it was the inscrutable meanings of an inner room lit only by the light from a single window. Was this an allegory of the soul, pierced by the Divine light? Then too, there was the lawn with its luxuriant carpet of flowers - a reference to Mary being the “enclosed garden” indicative of her supposed perpetual virginity.

One cell held a crucifixion with a witness dressed in the robes of the Dominicans. Another was festooned with a fresco depicting the Mocking of Christ. Surrounding the blindfolded Messiah are disembodied hands and heads. One of the heads is spitting at the Nazarene. It seems the painter wanted to do away with the cumbersome distractions of torsos and limbs, paring down the scene just to its essentials.

This urge to pare down is seen even in the colors. Surfaces are economically covered with washed out hues. Instead of royal blue and crimson there are lime greens and pinks. Evidently even vibrant tones can create further distractions. Since they titillated the eyes and drained the purse, there really was no place for them in a sanctuary for ascetic contemplation. The art historian Georges Didi-Huberman even suggests that Fra Angelico may have painted some walls to resemble marble not because he wanted to evoke luxury. What was being conveyed was that all this richness was really illusory and fleeting.

Interestingly, such a frugal environment had actually been home to a person who embodied the wealth and grandeur of the age. Beginning around 1437, no less than Cosimo of the fabulous Medici clan decided to commission artists like Michelozzo to expand and embellish San Marco. Cosimo had a room in the cloister reserved for himself and it was here that he would retire when he needed to rest from the affairs of Florence. Here he could pretend to be a monk devoted to nothing else but meditating on the sins of the Earth.

Sins were definitely not alien to Florence. As the capital of the Renaissance it had its fleshpots. Wealth could breed debauchery. It was from all this decadence that another of San Marco’s fabled occupants arose. The Dominican monk Savonarola would capture the imagination of the city with his bombastic sermons which predicted punishments if the Florentines did not repent. He was so convincing that he managed to urge the citizens to burn their luxuries, provocative works of art, and books in what came to be known as the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Today Savonarola’s cell is dominated by his portrait. His was surely the epitome of a face that was grim and determined. Unfortunately for the little monk, the citizenry could be fickle. There was a backlash against all this spectacular piety and the moralistic Dominican found himself in the midst of his own bonfire. The scene of his execution is commemorated in a painting that also hangs in his room at San Marco.

In the end though what really captured my imagination was a painting of the encounter between Mary Magdalene and Jesus on Easter Morning. We see that the setting is a beautiful garden just like the one in the Annunciation. This makes sense because Mary is after all the garden from which Christ derived. Yet, there is a difference: the large palm trees are now on our side of the fence. After all, Christians believe that with the Resurrection, Paradise had been regained. A closer look as suggested by Didi-Huberman will reveal that the flowers are speckled with blood. There are even drops in the shape of crosses, reminders that it was the Passion that made the Earth bloom again.

This moving scene had been the subject of many works of art through the centuries. I was reminded by the label outside the cell where the fresco was located, that this scene is universally referred to as the Noli Me Tangere. This Latin phrase which means “Do not cling to me” or “Do not touch me” are the words that Christ uttered as Mary Magdalene tried to embrace him. Imagine after having seen Jesus being tortured and then dying on the cross, Mary is asked not to give in to her instincts to wrap the Messiah in her arms! It must be this painful irony which inspired artists from Titian to Durer to portray this dramatic moment.

Of course, for Filipinos, Noli Me Tangere can only mean Jose Rizal’s immortal novel. Which is why, as I contemplated the beautiful painting in the silence of San Marco, a question inevitably formed in my mind: could our hero have been inspired by this very same fresco that I was beholding? Later on, I would learn that though he did visit Florence, this was after the Noli had already been completed. But there is still one last tantalizing clue. In a book about Rizal’s great friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt, Harry Sichrovsky notes that our hero was inspired by the Noli Me Tangere painting of Correggio in the Prado.

Was there a connection between the novel and the many art works whose title it shares? Can readings of the biblical passage be the basis for new interpretations of Rizal’s novels? These would be the subjects of future essays. In the meantime, I take comfort in the knowledge that even in the middle of the Renaissance glory of San Marco there is a delicate thread that goes all the way back to the heart of our nation.

Hue

For all they project of being eternal and monumental, cities are malleable like clay. Their edifices and districts are easily molded in accordance with the desires of their builders.

Spanish Manila reflected the conquistadores’ fear of insurrection and contagion. The massive city walls were supposed to preserve Hispanic security as well as an illusory purity of blood. In contrast, America’s draconian military might established broad boulevards and Neo Classical government palaces outside the original Spanish enclave. Intramuros as fortress was made obsolete and unglamorous by developments in the technology of warfare and of hygiene. Much later, vast swaths of lands would rise from the sea to accommodate the visions of the New Society.

So it is with Hue, the former royal capital of Vietnam. I could sense that though much of the city was destroyed during the war with the Americans, there was a certain dignity that one did not immediately detect in Saigon and Hanoi. Were the residents of Hue just more aware that theirs was a place carefully fashioned as the stage for the official pageantry needed to rule a nation?

When the Nguyen dynasty consolidated the country at the dawn of the 19^th century, the city was re-engineered to reflect the concerns and whims of its rulers. Foremost was the need to create an illusion of power. In the early 1800s, it appears that, for the Vietnamese, being powerful meant being in harmony with and therefore able to harness nature. One also had to have the support of China or was at least capable of emulating the Celestial Empire.

According to an essay by Nguyen Van Vinh, Hue was laid out in accordance with the principles of geomancy as practiced all over East Asia. The capital’s site was chosen because it was protected by mountains known as the Emperor’s Shield. The Hen and Va Dien Islets were seen as a Blue Dragon and a White Tiger guarding the metropolis’ flanks.

In another display of dynastic strength, the Pearl River was rerouted to flow in front of the Imperial compound forming an umbilical cord that brought vitality and sustenance. This, together with the mountain backdrop, mirrors the arrangements of China’s Forbidden City as dictated by the requirements of feng shui. In fact, the edifice that marks the entrance to the palace complex in Hue is practically a replica of the Meridian Gate in Beijing.

Under the French colonial regime, the capital underwent more changes as dictated by the predilections of its new masters. The spires of Roman Catholic cathedrals would puncture the skies. Administrative structures were erected in novel styles representing global movements such as Art Deco.

When the Communist liberated their country, they too would place their mark on the city. A huge post from which unfurled an enormous flag of the reunited Vietnam was placed on Hue’s fortress, the Citadel. The flag’s colors signaled to all that the People’s Revolution had triumphed at long last.

There were more subtle changes. Working out in a neighborhood gym, I was fascinated by the curving modernist lines of the structure in which it was housed. Outside, there was a strange tower with even stranger round holes in the center of the ceiling. It suddenly hit me that this was actually a belfy. The holes would have been for ropes attached to bells, now long gone, rung in the past to call the congregation. Yes, my gym had once been a church. In a space now dominated by home-made weight machines and large posters of Ho Chi Minh, masses had been said. Clearly, the current regime believed that arms pumping iron superseded knees bent in prayer!

Aside from the more obvious meanings, Hue harbored other narratives. I was taken to see the Temple of the Mandarins, a compound which celebrated those who passed the examinations for civil servants. Hurdling these tests meant the assurance of a life of financial rewards and eminence. The carved stone tablets extolling the virtues of the bureaucrats surrounded us. These were monuments to the patriarchy, celebrating male dominance of the establishment.

Providing a fascinating counterpoint to all this smug and strident masculinity was a different temple which housed the burial places of the palace eunuchs. Entering the grounds, one is greeted by a large pond in the shape of a half moon. Its limpid waters signal that this is protean enclave of shifting, negotiated meanings. In contrast to the straight lines and vertical shapes of the Mandarins’ shrine, the gravemarkers here were rounded, with contours softened by moss.

What count among the city’s top attractions are the Royal Tombs nestled in the surrounding hills. Evidently the Nguyen rulers wanted to show that their power continued even in death. Their burial complexes were grand affairs, proclaiming that the cult of memory and ancestor worship was a way for the deceased to manipulate those left behind.

The oldest tomb I visited was that of Minh Mang who ruled for only three years in the middle of the 19^th century. His reign marked the last period when Nguyen power was pretty much unchallenged. After his death, the colonial encroachments of the French would eventually render future kings prisoners in their own realm.

What I found so interesting was the fact that once more the projection of state strength did not necessitate that the landscape would be transformed into a monolith of cement. As illustrated by the configuration of the rest of the city, power arose from one’s unity with nature. So it was that the Vietnamese kings’ final resting places were lush gardens, tropical sanctuaries filled with forest and lakes. Minh Mang himself reposed for eternity in the heart of a hill that was perfectly round, verdant with trees.

Tu Doc’s tomb is perhaps the most beautiful of all. Every corner is resplendent with the vibrancy of life. There was even a ceremonial pavilion which housed a theater. It turns out that Tu Doc spent a lot of time here. This was his pleasure palace, his retreat from the pressures of the capital. Ironically, one can read into the sylvan surroundings the need to escape from the reality that the forces of France were now beginning to dominate Vietnam.

Finally, I toured the tomb of Kai Dinh. This is the most ostentatiously decorated. Every surface bustled with porcelain mosaics of twisting branches and agitated blossoms that obscured the gold statue of the king. By Kai Dinh’s reign, the French campaign to annex the country had succeeded. The Nguyens were now mere puppets and all the splendor of their courts and mausoleums merely masked their impotence.

Beyond the boulevards and buildings that testify to the presence of a great metropolis, cities are also marked by absences. To this day it is the remembrance of the destruction of Intramuros which defines the personality of Manila as a community that had lost a part of its soul.

Decades ago, what catapulted Hue into the consciousness of the world was not the grandeur of its palaces and shrines. It was the image of one its citizens, a quiet monk. He had traveled to Saigon to set himself on fire – a magnificent act of protest against the oppressive government that the Americans had helped foist upon his country. Sadly, his martyrdom did not stop the forces that lead to the senseless war which would ravage his beloved Vietnam, resulting in the devastation of many parts of Hue itself.

Yet the monk’s selfless offering was not in vain. The image of him sitting so serenely as his body is engulfed by flames would be burned into the memory of the planet. It was a picture of his self-immolation which captured my attention as a boy, assuring that I would always remember the city of Hue.

The body of the little man from Hue is gone now, his ashes blown away by the wind. Though his death could not hold back the Vietnam War, the image of his passing would always be a symbol of the senselessness of dictatorships, a banner of hope in the face of oppression. His incomparable act of courage will, like his city, remain forever, a reminder that what is erased momentarily in sacrifice will be restored, eternally, in honor.

Was Prussia’s Frederick the Great the original “Happy Prince”?

text and photos by Ino Manalo

My favorite among Oscar Wilde’s works is his 1888 tale about a Happy Prince who lived in a palace called Sans Souci. The palace’s name indicated that it was a place where sorrow was not allowed to enter. A statue of the Prince was fashioned upon his death. Gilded with gold, decorated with jewels, and fitted out with a heart of lead, it was installed on a pedestal that commanded a view of the city. Finally made aware of the sadness that burdened the lives of his fellow citizens, the Happy Prince wept. His tears fell on a swallow which was resting before flying off to Egypt for the winter.

The Prince persuaded the bird to be his messenger, distributing his gold covering and jewels to all those in need. Eventually the swallow died, unable to withstand the intensifying cold. It had stayed too long to do the bidding of the Prince that it had learned to love. When the Prince realized what had happened his heart broke in two.

Upon seeing how plain the statue had become, the town officials melted it down. All that was left was the heart which resisted the flames. This ended up being thrown on a dust heap along with the frozen body of the swallow.

It turns out that this haunting tale has a terrestrial connection. There is actually a royal residence called Sans Souci in the town of Potsdam just outside of Berlin. It was built in the 1740s by Frederick the Great as his Summer Palace.

Since I had never thought of this celebrated German monarch as being particularly jovial, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I had the good fortune to visit his retreat. Could Frederick possibly be the model for the Happy Prince?

I must admit that, to begin with, I have not been too clear about the concept of a Summer Palace. As a creature of the tropics, I have always thought of summer as an unbearably torrid period. The greatest luxury then would be to have a house in the mountains were one could find respite in the cooler surroundings. This is, obviously, the idea behind so called “hill stations” like Simla in India and our very own Baguio.

Only recently I came to understand that, in cooler latitudes, summer was cherished as the only time when one could comfortably enjoy the outdoors. One is able to swim and take boat rides, to spend a night on the beach beneath the stars. Too soon, winter would be advancing with its freezing embrace. Summer palaces were built so that kings could revel in the warmth of the season.

Potsdam is known the world over for being the site of the Conference which set the terms of surrender for Japan thereby ending the Second World War. As we neared the town, our guide proudly pointed out a famous school for bodyguards. Driving past, we were treated to the vista of dozens of burly men engaged in exercises. I was tempted to inquire if songs by Whitney Houston were played as inspiration!

At the gates of Sans Souci is a latticed gazebo adorned with a sunburst motif. This invariably elicited a comparison with the Sun King’s ostentatious pile: Versailles. Alongside its French counterpart, the German palace is surprisingly simple. Frederick built ten rooms arranged on just one level. The only reason why the edifice, despite its size, manages to project a commanding presence is the fact that it is situated on a ridge which dominates its surroundings.

The magnificent gardens represent the real link with Versailles. Palace parks of the 18^th century display the perspectives of the Baroque style. Lawns were laid out in endless corridors to emphasize receding vistas and distant vanishing points. This reflects the era’s longing for faraway utopias. I guess the West was quite devastated by Copernicus’s revelation that humanity was no longer the center of the universe. Anxieties engendered in the Europeans’ self-image by the reordering of the solar system fueled a desire to escape a suddenly diminished existence.

The yearning for the exotic manifested itself in a fondness for foreign settings. All over Europe the royal and the wealthy tried to outdo each other in the setting up of orientalist fantasies. Sans Souci was no exception. On its grounds is a lovely Chinese pavilion which served as a venue for dinner parties. Crowning the roof is a statue holding up that ubiquitous symbol of tropical torpidity: a parasol.

What then of the man who had built all these? What was his connection to the protagonist in Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale?

There is little that can be described as felicitous in the biography of Frederick the Great who was also known to his people by the affectionate nickname “Old Fritz”. An absolute monarch, he was, during much of his reign, engaged in wars fought to consolidate his realm. At the time of his death, he had immensely expanded the territorial holdings of his kingdom.

Interestingly, while still a young man, Frederick attempted to run off to England, perhaps to elude the clutches of his disciplinarian father. The escape was unsuccessful and the prince was forced to watch as one of his companions was executed for the crime of desertion.

One bright spot in an otherwise stolid life was Frederick’s friendship with Voltaire. Apparently, the monarch’s main form of relaxation was to spend hours surrounded by intelligent male company discussing philosophy and other cerebral concerns. Our guide had explained that Frederick did not like women and that, though married, he sired no offspring. This, of course, could be a coded revelation of the king’s sexual preferences but I could not find any reliable reference to confirm this.

Frederick evidently meant San Souci to be his sanctuary away from the affairs of state. His own drawing of this dream house showed the true authorship of the palace’s design. One can discern Old Fritz’s notions while walking around his beloved home. The rooms are of modest proportions and not too many. Only a few were ever invited to share these tranquil quarters with the king. The music room is elaborately decorated, an indication of Frederick’s passions as an accomplished flutist.

The oval Marble Hall is the central reception area of the palace. Unlike spaces with similar functions in other royal residences, it is small. This is the setting not for extravagant balls but for intimate dinners. Sparkle was provided by ideas and conversation and not by jewels . The oculus in the ceiling is a metaphor for the bright light of Reason which was to pervade the lives of all.

The Trianons and Marie Antoinette’s Farm were meant to provide relief from the stupefying grandeur of Versailles. But Sans Souci had, from its inception, been erected as a sanctuary. Here its builder hoped to find the peace and fulfillment that he so craved.

What emerges is that Frederick’s own biography was, overall, too grim to have been the model for the Happy Prince. But certainly the idea that happiness is not earned through pomp and splendor is a common theme in both Wilde’s story and the monarch’s life.

Sadly, Old Fritz, despite the vast powers he had wielded while he walked this earth, was denied his dying wish of being buried at San Souci beside his dogs. It would take more than a century before his remains were finally laid to rest on the palace grounds.

Looking at the modest grave marker I was surprised to find it festooned with potatoes. I was later told that these tubers are left as offerings to the German king. One theory holds that this was because he had done much to promote agricultural production.

At the end of Oscar Wilde’s fable, God asks for the two most beautiful things in the city. He is very pleased when an angel fetches the cracked lead heart of the Happy Prince and the cold body of the little swallow.

One has to wonder, after the radiant interiors and verdant parks, after the conquests and the victories, what will the Almighty say about a couple of potatoes?