I.iii. A Hundred Three-Hundred

“You may have the Universe if I may have Italy”
- Giuseppe Verdi

My landlord, Dr. Caramori, was wearing an expensive suit when I met him in front of the entrance to via Centotrecento 12 on a balmy Tuesday afternoon.
   “Nicholas,” he said, “I am happy to see you.” His English had improved.
   “Likewise, Dottore. Sorry I am so late. The train was delayed.”
   “You took the Eurostar? Ah yes. Usually it is on time, but sometimes there is a delay. Not a problem.” He shook my hand, smiling, both a great deal more friendly and stylish than when I first met him in May.
   Inside, the apartment had undergone the same changes as the Dottore, and I was amazed and delighted at the new paint, appliances, Ikea furniture. All white, with the only colour being in the buildings visible outside the windows, the familiar rich red of Bologna rossa, a city red on the exterior and, like the rest of Italy, more complex on the inside. The Italians will always paint inside walls white (barring the occasional fresco, of course), leaving them blank for greater things. You’d be hard pressed to find an Italian art museum that doesn’t have white walls, while elsewhere it is just the opposite. Exterior, or public walls are quite another story however, and Bologna is a prime example of it. The city is festooned not only with brightly coloured stucco (in the rare event that a building has not been built entirely of brick or marble), but there are whole multitudes of faded folk-baroque Madonnas that peer out at you with their saints from lunettes and niches, just good enough to warrant looking at a second time, just naïve enough to not solicit too much concern about their exposed state. An amateur looks at pictures, picks up a brush, and paints in the grande manière, nothing too special, but worth a glance anyways. In fact, there is even a Madonna, dusty and decrepit, in the hallway bellow my apartment. Not a painting but a bas relief actually, some second rate reproduction of a Della Robbia, with a plastic rose someone left for it, encrusted with dirt. I remembered that I had promised to do something about her, at some point.
   “Thank you again, and, welcome to Bologna,” said Dr. Caramori as he left through half of the double wooden door that is the entrance to my apartment, number 11. I was alone with my suitcases and my green Mountain Equipment Co-op knapsack. Well, not quite alone, because just down the street lived an old friend, and I went to pay her a quick visit before unpacking.



A view of my street, which was a red light district in the sixteenth century


My building has a certain amount of rustic charm


All my worldly possesions!


An Ikea showroom (My Apartment)


My Kitchen


My Bathroom


My bed/sofa

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   “Hi Cecilia,” I whispered softly as I looked up at her. She was tall for her age.
   “Hello Nicholas, I see that you have come to visit me rather quickly.”
   “Yes. I just wanted to say hello. Actually, I had a question. My Italian teacher back in Toronto said that in Italian people address saints informally, using the second person rather than the third. Is that true?”
   “Well, I suppose so, but you don’t talk to me in Italian, you talk to me in English. And furthermore you’re not even Catholic, so you shouldn’t be talking to saints altogether. At any rate, I’m rather busy right now, young man. As you can see they’re marrying me off to Valentinus, that handsome future martyr. Anyways, come back when you’re more settled. Not here, but at the Pinacoteca, where no one ever goes. It is much more quiet and we can have a frank discussion”
   “Yes, right. Good idea. Well, I’d best be going. Lots of things to do, you know. Goodbye.” I gently touched her foot (that was all I could reach from where I was standing) and the custodian gave me a strange look, but said nothing. Considering I had just pawed at one of the great treasures of the Emilian renaissance, I thought that the response was rather weak, but he was a friendly man, and he urged me to sign the guestbook before I left. I politely refused, telling him that I visited often and I would doubtless return soon.



Cecilia was busy, getting married and all

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   I should explain myself before going any further. I have a tendency to talk to art whenever I’m alone. Who knows what childhood yearnings or Freudian tendencies lurk below; all I know is that the pull of these things is to great to just admire from afar with the cold scientific eyes of an Art Historian. I have to get close to things, get attached to them. I’ll talk to the artist or I’ll talk to the saint, but I won’t go silent in front of a picture (nor will I hesitate from touching it, but that is another story altogether). Just then, for example, I had a conversation with the lead actress in the Marriage of Saint Cecilia, by Francesco Francia, a beautiful if not well enough known fresco in a little chapel called the Oratorio di Santa Cecilia, not two hundred metres from my apartment on Via Centotrecento. When I first visited Bologna, back in May, I wandered in there compulsively (as I am wont to do) on the first morning, putting off finding accommodation or familiarizing myself with the University until later. I found, on that glorious morning, a treasure that seemed all my own in the midst of a bustling, hectic university that was anything but familiar. Saint Cecilia and her elegant tribulations were the first of Bologna I ever saw, so I figured I owed her a visit upon my return. I’ll admit that saint Cecilia isn’t the most fitting of all: she’s the patron saint of music, not art; Bologna’s saint is someone else (boring old Petronius); and if the University of Bologna has a patron saint, which I’m quite sure it does, it is definitely not her. Catherine, Lucy, or Rose would have been more beautiful, certainly. But Cecilia is my host, and I would have a conversation with her any day.



Entrance to the Oratorio di Santa Cecilia


The Burial of Saint Cecilia


The interior of the Oratorio

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   Upon returning to my apartment, I was unpacked and settled in no time, with everything organized in a most Scandinavian manner. By then, I was getting hungry again. The last I had had to eat was a pre-packaged cheese sandwich halfway over the Alps courtesy of Lufthansa. Dr. Caramori had mentioned a low cost supermarket not fifty metres away and so I decided to investigate. To my delight, he was referring to Plenty Market, a no-frills type concern that had just opened up shop on Via Irnerio not five days earlier. It wasn’t quite as low cost as LIDL, the pan-European chain I had quite some experience with, but it seemed to be at least as cheap as the more notorious Canadian equivalents. The Common Agricultural Policy has its problems, but milk for forty five centissimi a litre is about as good as it gets. I bought myself the makings of what I consider a handsome meal for a newly installed “bachelor”: spaghetti, Genovese pesto, a bottle of table wine priced under Euro 1.50, and some fresh pears. Not too adventurous, but I was tired and I figured I had best start off with the basics, then work my way up. I had planned for this. In fact, I came to Italy armed with Simply Italian, a cookbook (not a grammar, though I have lots of those) given to me by a friend. By the end of my stay, though, I promise that my kitchen will be serving up the best of Bolognese cuisine, either by my hands or those of one of the many visitors I have scheduled in to my ten months, some of whom are decidedly gourmet.
   After eating my quiet meal I ventured out to find a payphone, just to call home and let everyone know that everything was alright. Bologna is frenetic at any hour of the day but on this Tuesday night it seemed more so than usual (though who am I to say, really). The opera had just gotten out and in Piazza Verdi the tuxedoed regulars were mixing with the more bohemian students, the full-time and rightful tenants of the square who can be distinguished by their dreadlocked hair, jeans repaired with eighties rock band patches, and large dogs roaming around them in packs. Luckily, the local police (as opposed to their federal or national colleagues) were wise enough to have opened a station right on the square, so the ruffians and the elites never fight. Such is Italy.



Centotrecento means "A Hundred Three-Hundred"


The entrance to "Plenty Market"


Piazza Verdi during the day, the heart of the University