A weekend in Norcia

We finished our paleography course this Friday. Our second course will focus on the manuscripts written in the 'Beneventan' script, produced in the Duchy of Benevento from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. The center of production was the Abbey of Montecassino, founded by St. Benedict in the sixth century. It lies on the main route from Naples to Rome and occupies a strategic position on a mountain overlooking the highway. It has been destroyed many times over the centuries, most recently in 1944, but it has always been rebuilt. It is the well spring of Western monasticism, so it is an important site for the history of farming, education, culture, and Western civilization generally. Northern Europe is European because of the work of the Benedictines. As historians like to say, what the Romans could not conquer with the sword, the Benedictines conquered with the book and the plough.

Partly to connect my upcoming trip to Montecassino to the wider context of Benedict's life and partly to fulfill my longstanding intention of visiting the monastic community at Norcia, I planned a short pilgrimage with Tom Santamaria, a friend from class. We left immediately after our final exam on Friday, walking across Rome at top speed in the heat of the day to arrive at Termini Station about seven minutes before the train left! We zoomed out of Rome, and within minutes were in the countryside of Latium. After about fifteen minutes, the foothills of the Apennines began to rise out of the farmland and continued to grow as we made our way to Spoleto. When we arrived at Spoleto, we had about an hour before our bus left, so we went in search of water and gelato, the two indispensable necessities of weary travelers. After three weeks in Rome, we had come to expect a gelateria on every corner, but Spoleto seemed only to have bars with prepackaged ice cream sandwiches in chest freezers, like one finds in a gas station. After some twenty minutes, we were successful, finding a gelateria with flavors we had never seen before. I had Rocher, nocciola (hazelnut) flavored gelato with bits of Ferrero Rocher candies mixed in. This flavor mixes two of my favorite things, putting hazelnut and chocolate together with more chocolate and hazelnut. I imagine that a bacon-crackling sandwich would be similar.

We finished out gelati and headed back to the train station. Our bus ride took a leisurely, meandering path through the mountains, with signs to places like Assisi and Cascia. I suppose St. Benedict is not the only saint to have come from Umbria. When I say 'mountains,' you may be imagining the Rockies or Sierra Nevadas, but these are more like the Ozarks; ever-present, but attaining to no great height. You can imagine hiking up in the morning to have a picnic lunch on the summit.

We arrived in Norcia after a 90 minute bus ride. The sky was blue and the hills green. It reminded me of southern Germany, but greener. Norcia is a postcard perfect medieval walled city, like Rothenburg, but with all the sharp edges rounded off due to the influence of the Italian spirit and the baroque impulse. The local economy revolves around truffles, cheese, lentils, and prosciutto. Probably due to their dual purpose as truffle hunters and sausage ingredient, there are depictions of pigs everywhere in the town. Every shop is decorated with boar's heads. The prosciutto comes from wild boars hunted in the mountains surrounding Norcia. Truffles are collected in season and preserved in myriad ways. I did not see any land flat enough to farm, but Umbria is famous for its dairy and legumes, so it must have been hiding between the mountains.

When we arrived, the monks had just finished vespers. Br. Ignatius, the guest master, welcomed us, gave us breviaries and missals, and told us the schedule. Since we had missed dinner, we went to a restaurant. I ate a sandwich on the way to the train station in Rome and was not particularly hungry, so I had 'antipasti al tartufo,' which consisted of bruschetta, a frittata, and some prosciutto, all covered in truffles. I finished off a long day of travel with panna cotta, which is a bit like flan but has more the texture of sour cream. We then headed back to our room.

Tom's father spent some time as a benedictine novice, and Tom grew up hearing about monastic life but had never been to a monastery before. He wanted the full experience, so we got up at 3:30 for Matins and followed the hours throughout the day straight through compline. Despite having visited Clear Creek many times, I had never before gone to Matins. I have often struggled to understand how it works by trying to read the breviary but never had much success. I think that may have scared me away from attending (and the fact that I usually sleep until 6). Now it all makes sense. Becky is right. There are some things you have to experience and can't just read about. This all makes me suspicious of historicism. I am comfortable with the history of ideas and the history of institutions, but I wonder about social history. I am reminded of the varied interpretations of the Minoans, whose language remains undeciphered and whose artifacts have been used to paint portraits of an enlightened, pacifist, matriarchy as well as a brutal, infanticidal and cannibalizing tyranny based of human sacrifice. But I digress. The family of St. Benedict is alive and well, and we can experience their life if person.

The monks' day centers on prayer and work, 'ora et labora' to use St. Benedict's injunction for his sons. Time is reckoned according to the ancient system of hours and watches, so that the first hour, prime, is at sunrise. Before prime, there are matins (morning prayer) and lauds (praises). Throughout the day, there are little hours, terce, sext, and none, which punctuate periods of work. Vespers comes in the evening, and compline finishes the day a few hours after sunset. The heart of this regimen of prayer, the Divine Office, is the chanting of the Psalms, arranged so that all 150 are recited in one week. This practice has roots in ancient Jewish practice; Christ and the Twelve sang the 'Hillel' Psalms before the Last Supper, and pious Jews still recite the Siddur on a model not far different from the Christian Divine Office.

The monks put me to work in the kitchen washing dishes. They have a commercial setup that reminded me of working for Linda Godwin long ago. I believe she will be happy to know that my speed and efficiency have improved since then. I also had the job of breaking down boxes and compacting plastic bottles. The cool mountain air was so dry that I ended my work with several nasty paper cuts. I suppose my skin had gotten used to the heat and humidity of Rome.

Monk food.

My labor was rewarded with a hearty lunch and a bottle of the monks' beer. The food reminded me of Clear Creek but with much more olive oil, garlic, and salt. The food was all vegetarian, but I was certainly not left hungry. Like Clear Creek, I can always recognize the ingredients, but I can never name what I am eating. For instance, you might say you are having hamburgers for dinner. This means that you will be eating ground beef patties on buns with assorted condiments, fresh vegetables, and cheese. If you didn't know what a hamburger was, you might have trouble putting it into words. My favorite thing I ate was zucchini stuffed with canned tuna and garlic served with sautéed carrots. Even though I can't name it, I hope to make it sometime in the future. Eating this way probably comes from the practice of cooking from the garden and using whatever ingredients are to hand. Before Becky reined in my culinary creativity, I often tried to do the same, and I made something delicious about a third of the time with the rest ranging from edible to compost. This is in no way to say that monastic food is bad. Their food is always more than edible, and it has always been great, wholesome food - I just don't know what it is!

After lunch, we went down into the house where Sts. Benedict and Scholastica were born. The building dates from the first century, and although you probably cannot tell from my picture, it has some nice opus reticulatum. St. Benedict was born in 480, a few years after 476, when historians date the fall of the Western Roman Empire. His family was well-off and sent him to Rome for his education. As far as I know, he never returned. He left Rome for the wilderness of central Italy, living for a time as a hermit in a cave near Subiaco. He realized the difficulty of hermitage and founded a community of coenobites (from the Greek for 'people-who-live-in-common.' Koine (coene) is the 'common' dialect of Greek, and -bites is related to the word 'bios' from which are derived 'biology' and 'biography.') His community became the model for monasticism in the West, while the East has preserved the primitive emphases on asceticism and withdrawal to the desert in imitation of Christ's forty days of single combat with Satan. The Rule is a gentler path, designed, as St. Benedict says, for beginners. It is characterized by stability, moderation, and sobriety. You can understand how Benedictine foundations, working slowly and steadily, tamed the wilds of Northern Europe and endured until the secularizing impulse of the nineteenth century.

The monks of Norcia are a relatively new community. The basilica and parts of the monastery are romanesque, but the community was suppressed by Napoleon in 1810. In 1999, Fr. Cassian Folsom began chanting the office in a garage with a few friends, and two years later, the Bishop of Spoleto-Norcia invited his small community to take over the basilica. The community now numbers just under twenty. They service a constant stream of pilgrims and visitors from all over the world, and in 2012, they began brewing beer. Br. Evagrius, who hails from Montana, said that a group from Norcia went to the Trappist abbeys in Belgium on a fact-finding mission and came back with recipes for their award-winning beer. They have been renovating the monastery bit by bit since they moved in, and they have recently commissioned Fabrizio Diomedi, an artist from Orvieto, to paint frescos in their refectory in the Umbrian style, which combines aspects of Byzantine, Gothic, and early Renaissance traditions. I have long wanted to learn to write icons, but I have been reluctant to work in the Byzantine tradition since I am a Western Christian. I remember reading an article by David Clayton wherein he discussed his own journey towards becoming an iconographer. He wrote that his true love was for the Gothic, but finding no master, he learned the Byzantine style. It seems that Fabrizio Diomedi is the master for whom Clayton was searching. Perhaps I need to find a way to finance several months in Orvieto...

Blue sky. Green mountain. Walled City. Prosciutto: Norcia

On food and regional culture.

Becky will be amused to know that I have won a reputation as an excellent cook from my flatmates. Their cooking skills seem to consist mostly of making coffee and sandwiches, with the occasional foray into boiling water for pasta and heating canned pasta sauce, so it is not surprising that they consider someone who can chop vegetables, sauté onion and garlic, and simmer patiently for 40 minutes to be far advanced in the culinary arts. I have so far prepared no recipes, letting my (often fallible) instincts guide me in the simple preparation of high quality ingredients. Thank you, Becky, for your tuition over the last decade!

For lunch today, I decided to make something patriotic.

The green pesto is from Genoa, the white cheese from Umbria, and the red 'nduja from Calabria. This makes for a fairly representative selection of regional specialties.

Most people are familiar with pesto and know that it consists of oil, basil, pine nuts, and cheese. I think that garlic is usually also present, but my jar proclaims 'senza aglio' on the label. The basil from Genoa is apparently sufficiently highly regarded to have won a DOP (denominazione di origine protetta). European regions are especially proud of their traditional agricultural produce, and there has arisen a somewhat complex system of controlling how and by whom terms like 'chianti,' 'parmeggiano reggiano,' and 'prosciutto di Parma' can be used. As Benjamin Oliver reminds us:

"... actually all champagne is French; it's named after the region. Otherwise it's sparkling white wine. Americans of course don't recognize the convention, so it becomes that thing of calling all of their sparkling white "champagne", even though by definition they're not."

The cheese is young pecorino from Norcia. We are familiar with pecorino romano as a hard, grating cheese with a tangy suggestion of caprine spoor.  What most people don't know is that 'pecorino' means that the cheese is made from sheep's milk, like manchego, which gives it a brilliant whiteness quite unlike the dull ivory yellow of cheese made from cow's milk. This is the same pecorino, just young, soft, and with a much more aggressive ovinity [Although I have not been able to find it in a dictionary, I apparently did not make this word up; ovinitas appears in book 2 of St. Thomas' De Ente et Essentia (at least according to google's book search). Ovinitas is the quidditas that sheep possess.]

And that brings us to 'nduja. I first became aware of 'nduja last Sunday, when I went out for neapolitan pizza with the Paideia folks. I saw it on the menu, had no idea what it was, and so necessarily had to order it. Here is a listing of the ingredients from the top of the jar:

It has become one of my favorite foods. The odd apostrophe at the beginning of 'nduja (pronounced ən-doo'-yuh) is apparently a marker of southern Italian dialect. In good Tuscan, the definite article la elides with a following vowel, so that the sequence la arancia becomes l'arancia. In the south they have things the other way around. If you want to use 'nduja in a sentence, you will usually say la'nduja. I propose that 'nduja was originally anduja. The initial a has disappeared from the word because the word boundary has shifted. Our ancestors when preparing bread would have asked for someone to hand them 'the napron,' and when reaching for a hoe to dispatch a garden snake, would have warned their friends to be wary of 'the nadder.' In situations where the indefinite article was used, 'a napron' and 'a nadder' became 'an apron' and 'an adder.' If 'nduja has followed this same path, then anduja is probably a sound reconstruction. Since 'nduja consists mainly of pig guts and chili pepper, and the south of Italy was ruled for nearly half a millennium by the Bourbons and their relatives, I don't think it's going too far to suggest that Louisiana's andouille sausage, at the extreme western extent of the Bourbon domain, is a cousin of Calabrese 'nduja.

I leave you with a picture of the dinner I had last night, gnocchi alla marinara. 'alla marinara' means 'with sea creatures,' and you can see that they have crowned the gnocchi with a comely selection. I recuse myself at present from speculating on how 'marinara' came to mean 'tomato sauce' in the United States. In Italy, tomato sauce is called 'salsa di pomodoro,' which means, oddly enough, 'tomato sauce.'

Second Week Winds Down

Tomorrow will mark the end of my second week of classes. We are already two thirds through the first course! So far, things have been mostly review. There is broad consensus over the development of Roman/Latin script from the first century to the year 1000, which roughly traces the changes from Roman capitals to Carolingian minuscule. (what you are reading right now is a combination of versions of "ROMAN CAPITALS" and "carolingian minuscule.") After 1000, things get rocky, and there seem to be as many different terminological and taxonomical schemes as there are paleographers (people who study old forms of writing.) The next week should be exciting, exhausting, and confusing, as I learn yet another scheme for analyzing that most complex family of scripts, Gothic.

On Tuesday, we visited the Biblioteca Angelica, a public library in Rome with a large collection of manuscripts. Prof. Mulchahey took us out for lunch at a nice trattoria after class. Filippo ordered carciofi alla romana (Roman-style artichokes), and I had saltimbocca (veal cutlet with prosciutto). I offered to trade him a cutlet for an artichoke, and both our meals were improved.

I don't know how they prepare it, but the artichoke is cooked in a way that makes the whole thing tender and delicious, so that you eat it with a fork and knife, and nothing goes to waste.

After Mass on Sunday, I had the strange luck to meet Patrick Owens, an extraordinary Latinist, and Jason Pedicone, one of the founders of the Paideia Institute, which runs Latin and Greek immersion programs throughout the year in Rome, Paris, Southern France, and Greece. I have known about them for several years and have worked with people who have worked with them, so it was nice to finally meet them. They got a good bit of publicity earlier this year when a Princeton classicist gave them a glowing review. The jury is out on whether Latin and the humanities will survive, but if they do, it will be because of the radical (in the good, etymological sense of that word) work being done by groups like Paideia.

Jason invited me out to lunch, where I met some of the other Paideia folks, and then asked if I would like to go on their 'Obelisk Odyssey' that evening. I did, and I got to see Matthew McGowan, a friend and mentor of mine who is now the Chair of Classics at Fordham, married, and the father of two! He introduced me to four or five people as '[his] good friend Erik, who should have come to Fordham, but studies at Notre Dame.' It was great to get to see him again.

The following evening, I went to Paideia's 'sessio sub arboribus,' a venerable tradition begun by Reginald Foster in his Roman days and continued by Paideia today. While there, I met Fr. Daniel Gallagher, the head of the Vatican's Latin Letters department and got to speak Latin and sing Gregorian chant. An excellent evening!

Today I went to St. Peter's on a whim with a friend from class for a quick visit. I will need to plan a bit better to do it justice, so I will wait to write more until then. When I move in the middle of July, it will be a five minute walk, so I plan on visiting frequently. While at the Vatican, I fulfilled the one commission that I had for my trip to Rome: I bought a book. Despite the fact that they are by no means rare and can be delivered with free shipping within mere days of placing an order, my friend Daniel asked that I buy him a Latin catechism in Rome. Daniel will be happy to know that I did not buy the book in Rome, but at the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, which is within the sovereign territory of the Holy See.

VOTVM SOLVIT LIBENS MERITO

If anyone else wants anything from Rome, let me know!

Bachelor Pad: Life in Rome

As I come to the end of my first week here, I thought that I would share some the more mundane details of my routine. I begin most days with a tiny cup of coffee and a pastry. Somehow, this sustains me without complaint to after 1 in the afternoon. It must be something in the air. I then read or go down into Rome. I have slowly been taking different routes down from the hill into Trastevere so that I can learn the neighborhood better. Below you can see the stairs on the Viale Glorioso that separate Trastevere from the Gianicolo. There are at least five sets and more than a hundred steps. I always say I am going to count, but I forget somewhere around two thirds of the way to the top as I try not to collapse.

There are other ways up and down the Gianicolo, but none of them are as quick or direct. But then again, quick and direct are not necessarily what it is about. The opposite of Viale Glorioso is Via Garibaldi, which winds back and forth up the hill in zigzags. On most days, I go down the Via San Pancrazio past the Spanish Academy and Embassy, which is neither too steep nor too crooked.

Today, I walked from the academy to the Gianferrari's apartment near San Pietro. My path took me along the Aurelian Walls, which were built in the 270s. As I went along, I thought about all of the invaders who had taken the same path: Goths in 410, Arabs in 846, Charles V's troops in 1527, Italians in 1870, Germans in 1944. And the Americans every summer since.

The food at the academy is excellent but not within my budget. Most days I cook for myself, but I have had a few excellent dinners at restaurants. So far I have been savoring the extra thick spaghetti (much thicker than the American variety) in Amatriciana and Carbonara. Always looking for offally good food, I could not resist 'trippa' when I saw it on the menu of a restaurant specializing in Roman cuisine. It was exactly what I thought it was. I am usually more in love with the idea of offal than the reality, but this may be one of the few that I will order again. It was tender and had the texture of mushrooms. I really enjoyed it.

I still can't get over how great the food is here and how little it costs. I leave you with pictures of lunch, dessert, and dinner.

A tartaruga (think tortuga) stuffed with bresaola, cheese, and butter.

The largest fig I have ever seen.

A minestrone of my own creation. As long as most of the 

ingredients come in cans, and I only need to use one pot, 

I can make delicious soup.

First (full) Day in Rome

After nearly two full days of travel, I arrived at Fiumicino around 2:45 in the afternoon. It took nearly an hour to get through passport control and then another twenty minutes or so to buy my train ticket and get on the train. After a short, pleasant ride into town, I emerged from the Trastevere station armed with a map and a general idea of the direction of the Gianicolo. I set out for the American Academy, flush with joyful memories of my first night in Rome, almost a decade ago, spent eating in Trastevere and climbing up to the Villa Bossi on top of the Gianicolo. I was a lot younger then, and I don't think I had to walk as far with my luggage. I accidentally went past the Viale Glorioso (the main walking path up the Gianicolo) and decided to stop for a gelato to collect my thoughts. By the time I made it up the stairs on Viale Glorioso, I thought that a taxi might have made more sense. The trip was beginning to remind me of our adventures on the Ringstrasse in Vienna (vide infra). I checked in, took a shower, and called home. By the time I had gotten dressed, it was time for a lecture and cocktails at the Academy. That done, the students went out to dinner. I had spaghetti amatriciana and pera e canella for birthday cake. I called home when I got back and then fell asleep.

The next day began with breakfast with Mark Thakkar, a friend from last year in Toronto. We went to a 'bar' (it's like a cafe that also has alcohol and snacks). I had a macchiato and a pizzeta alla caprese. All that for less than $4! Mark and I made it back just in time for orientation. The views from the roof of the academy reminded me of the Smiths' dining room. We got an extensive tour of the academy and then Prof. Mulchahey took us through the syllabus for paleography. We followed that with a buffet lunch. My favorite dish was some sort of pesto gazpacho. We then had our first session, on the Roman system of scripts.

By this time, it was about 2:30 in the afternoon. I wanted to visit Santa Trinità dei Pellegrini and go to the used bookstore that Daniel recommended. I got throughly lost on the way down to the river. It was too early for Mass but too late to try to find the bookstore, so I decided to go on into the church.

When I opened the door, I was greeted by a dimly lit narthex. The noise of the world immediately stopped when I entered the church, which had one priest inside and had only a few candles burning and a few beams of light filtering in through small windows in the dome. Incense was heavy in the air. I was transported. I pottered around the church for the next forty minutes, letting my eyes adjust. Unfortunately, I left the camera because it had been threatening to rain all day. I will go back soon and get some proper pictures if I can get permission.

A priest and server turned on the lights a few minutes before to get the altar ready. Their Latin was full-throated and delivered at a natural speed. I guess the Italians know that Latin is a language. This was the first time I was able to hear and understand everything. I also like their treatment of diphthongs: "lah-oos tibi Christe."

As I walked back across the Ponte Sisto, I was struck by the smallness and familiarity of Rome. From my spot on bridge, I could see the ruins on the Palatine overlooking the Forum, the dome of St. Peter's in the Vatican, the cupola of Santa Trinità, and the academies atop the Gianicolo. In London, New York, Chicago, Toronto, or Berlin, I have always felt small and anonymous. In Latin countries, despite being a rather conspicuous gringo, I have always felt at home. Rome is the biggest town I have been to. Each of its regions is distinct and compact, but you can nearly always see the important landmarks and you know where you are.

San Pietro 

Gianicolo

 Santa Trinità

Palatino

Back in Trastevere, I decided to do some reconnaissance.  Michele, our resident Milanese, said that we need to eat 'cacio e pepe' while we are in Rome. I found a restaurant called 'Osteria Cacio e Pepe.' I imagine they serve it. I think that we'll visit soon.

As I walked up the Gianicolo, I heard a polyphonic Gloria echoing down the Via di Porta San Pancrazio. I identified the source as a couple of open windows of a building on the south side of the street. I stopped to listen for a few minutes, and a man came out of the building and motioned for me to go inside and come upstairs. I spoke a little bit of Italian and said that I had to leave soon, but he insisted that I come up. I stayed for a Benedictus and something that sounded like 'El Camino del Rosario.' While I was there, I figured out that I was in the Real Academia de España en Roma. On my way out, I gathered my courage and gave the man who let me in my best '¡grathias, amigo!' He smiled and replied with a hearty '¡De nada!' Rome is a wonderful place.

Back at the Academy, we had a welcome dinner in the main courtyard. I sat next to Filippo. I think that my Italian has really improved since the last time I tried to speak with him, or maybe he has just grown more indulgent. The food was excellent, and so was the company.

Tonight, I have to make some transcriptions for tomorrow's class. I plan on going back to Santa Trinità in the morning and trying to get some cash and find Daniel's bookstore in the afternoon. Sono stanco!