IV.vi. Delicacies

"They eat the dainty food of famous chefs with the same pleasure with which they devour gross peasant dishes, mostly composed of garlic and tomatoes, or fisherman's octopus and shrimps, fried in heavily scented olive oil on a little deserted beach."
- Luigi Barzini

Today was a busy Saturday in Bologna. Christmas was approaching, and the streets were unusually lively. Of course, I am quite seldom in Bologna on the weekend, as I usually take the opportunity to travel, but the city did seem extraordinarily awake. In addition to the usual market that crowds the immense Piazza VIII Agosto every Friday and Saturday, Bologna was littered with seasonal markets selling everything from homemade woolen hats to nougat. The city's inhabitants were out in droves, and a bright Emilian sun warmed an otherwise crisp morning.
    We wanted to tie up some loose ends. The first project for the day was the visiting of a rather unique museum, one about which I had told Alex soon after he had arrived here. As we were both interested, we braved a rather restrictive opening schedule and visited early early in the day. The Museum of Modern and Ancient Tactile Painting, located on the top floor of an institute for the blind in the southern district of Bologna, was our first stop this Saturday morning. The museum consisted of one room filled with three-dimensional reproductions of the most famous paintings; Boticelli's Birth of Venus, Caravaggio's Burial of Saint Peter, David's Death of Marat. In front of these colourless, cast-like renderings were contorted clay models made by the blind in imitation of the things they were led to feel with their fingers. The museum's purpose was to let the blind see, or rather, to give them a fuller understanding of the world of painting, and the ideas of perspective as applied to art. An enthusiastic young woman greeted us and began to give us lengthy explanations. She offered to blindfold us and have us try our hand at identifying some of the works. We kindly refused and undertook to do this ourselves.

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    It gives a strange insight to feel and not to see, especially for an art historian. I have always held touch to be especially important, overlooked by bookish scholars who are content only to study from afar through a lifetime of faded slides. I remember the incredulous looks of a beautiful colleague as I showed her the Group of Seven paintings that hung at Saint Hilda's College in Toronto. Alone together in that room, always unlocked but never visited, I pawed at them as though they were cheap reproductions. "Nicholas, you really mustn't do that," she said. An admonishing Saint Cecilia, more interested with sound or sight than touch.
    "Of course you shouldn't from a conservator's point of view," I replied, "but for passion's sake… feel this!" I guided her hand across the mottled brushstrokes of an A.Y. Jackson.
    "But if everyone were to do that…"
    "We're not everyone," I said.

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    Then, from a deprivation of the senses to an overwhelming of them, Alex and I ventured into the main clothing market in Bologna. I had been here before many a time, but still remained stunned by the immensity and chaos of it all. Hundreds of stalls set out in front of vans form six orderly alleyways which are subsequently thronged by the thriftier Bolognese. We were among them that day, as we dove in with the purpose of buying cheap gloves, scarves, and perhaps even the odd pair of leather shoes being sold for fifteen euros. At length we found what we needed, though it took some time; the market is eighty percent women's clothing. The items for sale are nearly all imitations of the most sought-after styles, and negotiation is welcomed. This is one of the rare places in Italy where the market economy is allowed to blossom in its healthiest form.
    From here a quick tramezzino and a coffee at a bar on Via dell'Independenza, the main arcaded artery that leads from the railway station to Piazza Maggiore. The quick jolt of caffeine and the more enduring satisfaction of a sandwich stuffed with prociutto is becoming nearly a daily fixture in my life here. Even during the day, most bars and cafés in Bologna offer an assortment of local snack foods to supplement the thickly brewed elixir. Artichoke spread, pork sausage, and pistachios were today's offering.
    Hungry again, in mid-afternoon we reached a destination I had been meaning to arrive at for quite some time: the Nutelleria. Bologna, the birthplace of the thick, rich spread that is the staple of childhood breakfasts from Ibiza to Stockholm, is also home to a restaurant that exclusively serves dishes heightened with the magical ingredient. We ordered a Focaccia Invernale (warmed bread filled with ice cream and a generous dollop of the stuff), and, in a nod to Germanic culture, a stuffed Krapffen. We ate them under the heated canopy of a seating area that overlooks a triumphant Garibaldi, the sculptural fixture of every village, town, and city in Italy. It was delicious. Admittedly, the taste was better than that of Spamella, the cheap substitute I buy at the Plenty Market, despite the scoffing remarks it solicits from visitors to my apartment. "Just buy Nutella Nick, it really isn't that expensive."
    Finally, we rounded out the day with a visit to the University Museums, housed in the upper floor of Palazzo Poggi, directly above the art history library I so love to frequent. These museums, recently renovated in the latest Italian style, highlight the scientific discoveries of a nation and university that for hundreds of years were at the forefront of discovery. In addition to the usual permanent displays, the museums were hosting an exhibit on anatomy from Da Vinci to the Enlightenment. We entered, dazzled by the array of artifacts relating to this gory field. In one room, hundreds of true to life ceramic fetuses were displayed, all the work of an eighteenth century physician who devoted his life to educating midwives, until then very much steeped in folkloric tradition, far from the scientific advances of the age. In another small, mysteriously lit room were ten pages of sketches by Leonardo on loan from Windsor Castle. This was the real treasure of the day, the tiny pages displaying a variety of extraordinary observations on the human body glossed with the trademark mirrored writing of the ultimate Renaissance man.