The Mystical Nativity is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, dated around 1500 to 1501.
It is his only signed work and has unusual iconography for a painting of the Nativity.
The Virgin Mary is shown kneeling before the Christ Child in the center, in the presence of the shepherds and wise men who are visiting him.
At the bottom of the work, three angels embrace three men, seeming to raise them up from the ground, while seven devils behind them flee to the underworld.
In Renaissance times, paintings of the Last Judgement showed viewers the reckoning of the damned and the saved at the time of Christ's Second Coming.
According to art historian Jonathan Nelson, "in echoing this kind of painting the Mystical Nativity is asking us to think not only of Christ's birth but of his return".
The Greek inscription at the top of the work, referencing the Book of Revelation, translates as: 'This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I, Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the eleventh [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three and a half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth [chapter] and we shall see [him buried] as in this picture'.
It has been suggested that the work may be connected with the influence of the fanatical preacher Girolamo Savonarola, who was active in Florence at the time and whose influence appears in a number of late paintings by Botticelli. The painting is in the collection of the National Gallery in London.
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Commentary
Monday, June 3, 2019
Broken routine?
Return softly.
We spoke recently regarding routine.
Two trips in the last week have broken mine.
Despite intending to reenter slowly, am working like a son-of-a-gun now to get back.
But hard work doesn’t need to incorporate stress.
This morning I went lifting.
Nowhere is one more severely punished for deviating from routine than at the club.
But I’ve learned from decades long attendance to make my return soft and gentle.
Working out is demanding enough so I avoid attaching unneeded negatives.
Discouragement is a biggy.
At every machine I reduce lower my regular weights, reduce the reps, or reduce the sets.
I consider myself back in the routine not by immediately performing at my pre-break level, but by simply working each machine in my program.
At home, I block out time for the kitchen and my blog, all other important activities queuing up for attention.
Impossible to get to everything immediately.
Not stressing the omissions.
Broken routine?
Return softly.
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Announcements
Monday, June 3, 2019
Mail Chimp did not pick up.
We mailed the blog out manually.
Am meeting with them on Wednesday.
Oh, well.
Patience.
The blog is growing fast enough to warrant a request for volunteer help.
From writing to mailing list enrichment to research, something fun for someone looking for a hobby related to the written word.
If interested, contact Dom: domcapossela@hotmail.com
For the next week, the weather people promise temperatures mostly in the welcome seventies with an acceptable rainfall.
Spring at last?
Let’s make sure we enjoy each day coming.
The hours are ticking away and if we don’t make the most of our time another day will soon click past.
Unnoticed.
Unappreciated.
Tick Tock.
In clock language:
Enjoy today.
Enjoy the week.
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Postings Count, Weather Brief, and Dinner
Monday, June 3, 2019
Our 422nd consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
After 422 posts we’re at the 8.44 percentile of our commitment, the commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.
Time is 4.01am.
On Monday, Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 66* with a feels-like of 66* under sunny skies.
Dinner Sunday afternoon was Lobster Fra Diavolo with al dentissimo spaghetti in the company of my cousin and our friend Kali. Lovely.
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Question of the Day:
Monday, June 3, 2019
Who was Savonarola?
Swikee Kodok Oh
frog legs in tauco soup served with rice at a Chinese Indonesian restaurant in Jakarta
Gunawan Kartapranata - Own work
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Chuckle of the Day:
Monday, June 3, 2019
A beautiful princess comes upon a frog in a meadow near her castle.
The frog hops into the princess' lap.
"My lady, one kiss from you, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I once was.
“We’ll marry and set-up housekeeping in yon castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, wear pretty things, and bear my children.”
That night, the princess took dinner alone.
She picked the last morsel from the bone and asked her servant, “I don’t suppose the chef has any more Frog Legs Provencal?”
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Love your notes.
Contact me at domcapossela@hotmail.com
Monday, June 3, 2019
On Sat, Jun 1, 2019 at 6:04 AM dom capossela <domcapossela@hotmail.com> wrote:
Last weekend, my children and grandchildren met in Seattle for a family event. All thirteen of us attended granddaughter Grace Capossela’s dance performance, so brilliant it brought me to tears. I asked Grace to share with us some thoughts on her training, composing, and performance. http://www.existentialautotrip.com/posts-june-2019/2019/5/30/june-1
Kali L responded:
This was so beautiful and inspiring.
Thank you for writing and sharing.
Web Meister Responds: Thanks for your response, my dear. It’s important that people realize that their creativity and hard work reaches far outside themselves.
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Answer to the Question of the Day:
Monday, June 3, 2019
Girolamo Savonarola
Fra Bartolomeo - Florence, Museo di San Marco
Girolamo Savonarola (21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) was an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence.
He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal.
He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor.
He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church.
In September 1494, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, and threatened Florence, such prophecies seemed on the verge of fulfilment.
While Savonarola intervened with the French king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar's urging, established a "popular" republic.
Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world center of Christianity and "richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever", he instituted an extreme puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.
The execution of Fra Girolamo, Fra Domenico, and Fra Silvestro Maruffi
Unknown - From the book: Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the church, with a universal historie of the same : wherein is sot forth at large, the whole race and course of the church, from the primitive age to these later times of ours ... especially in this realme of England and Scotland : now again, as it was recognised, perused, and recommended to the studious reader,
By John Foxe
In 1495 when Florence refused to join Pope Alexander VI's Holy League against the French, the Vatican summoned Savonarola to Rome.
He disobeyed and further defied the pope by preaching under a ban, highlighting his campaign for reform with processions, bonfires of the vanities, and pious theatricals.
In retaliation, the pope excommunicated him in May 1497, and threatened to place Florence under an interdict.
A trial by fire proposed by a rival Florentine preacher in April 1498 to test Savonarola's divine mandate turned into a fiasco, and popular opinion turned against him.
Savonarola and two of his supporting friars were imprisoned.
On 23 May 1498, Church and civil authorities condemned, hanged, and burned the three friars in the main square of Florence.
Savonarola's devotees, the Piagnoni, kept his cause of republican freedom and religious reform alive well into the following century, although the Medici—restored to power in 1512 with the help of the papacy—eventually broke the movement.
Some Protestants consider Savonarola to be a vital precursor of the Reformation.
I still carry a paper I did for college on Savonarola.
My only A+ in that course.
Ended with an A-.
A bummer.
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Good Morning on this Monday, the third day of June, 2019
We posted a picture of a painting by Botticelli called The Mystical Virgin.
Our commentary dealt with getting back into routine.
We posted the weather report and calendar, and tracked the number of our postings.
Today we’re not using our new delivery system. One step forward, two steps back.
And we ask for volunteer help with working on the blog.
We posted another chuckle and a note from Kali L.
And we learned something about Savonarola.
And now? Gotta go.
Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?
See you soon.
Your love.