ANDROMEDA GRAPHIKA

Is Isola della Piselli a real island?

Isola della Piselli, and the anatomatoria buried beneath it, are fictional. The subtle linguistic distinction between bìsi (with an accent, meaning peas) and bisi (without the accent, meaning snakes) is accurate, and both terms are specific to the Venetian dialect—neither of them would mean anything to a non-Venetian Italian, who understands peas to be piselli and snakes to be serpenti.

Poveglia is real, as is Isola di San Giorgio in Alga, including its history as a former lazaretto and lunatic asylum run by a sadistic physician who committed suicide by flinging himself from the tower. The Napoleonic ottagoni also exist, although none are named Ottagono Barberoni.

The reference to the papal bull De Sepulturis, issued by Boniface VIII in 1299 to prevent atrocities of the type that occurred in the anatomatoria, is historically accurate.

By the author, ago

Is it possible, as Margot claims, to attend first-class graduate lecture series for free in Paris?

Yes. The Collège de France, a five-hundred-year-old institution located right next to the Sorbonne, has offered free lectures open to all since it was founded by François première in 1530. “Free” normally infers mediocrity, but that is not the case here—just the opposite: the Collège de France is usually regarded as France’s foremost research institute, and a professorship there is highly prestigious. Nor are the lectures always in French; they are usually in English if the lecturer is not a fluent French speaker.

The accompanying photograph, taken when the author recently attended a lecture there, illustrates both of these points: the title (in English) is “The Higgs Mode and Quantum Criticality in Condensed Matter”—second in a series of ten lectures on a topic that is at the cutting edge of science, and the professor, Assa Auerbach (shown at left), is a leading theoretical physicist in the field.

Nor is the audience response unchallenging, such as guest lecturers normally receive—following this presentation, there was a vigorous but objective interchange of the type that characterizes good science.

By the author, ago

What was the inspiration for Rothermore Abbey?

As an abandoned abbey off the British coast, the fictional Rothermore is analogous to Lindisfarne, although the physical characteristics of Rothermore’s island—stark, steep, and hazardous to landing—are based not on Lindisfarne’s Holy Island but rugged Skellig Michael, located in the Atlantic off the southwestern tip of Ireland. Geographically, there are no islands that correspond to Rothermore’s position off Scottish Aberdeenshire; the closest would be the Orkneys.

As for the abbey itself, Normandy’s Mont Saint-Michel is an obvious source, but it is another monastery named for the same saint that was the primary basis for Rothermore: Sacra di San Michele—inspiration for the abbey in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose—located not on an island but atop a towering pinnacle in the Piedmontese Alps, isolating it as effectively as would the sea (see photo; Elio Pallard, via Wikimedia Commons).  

By the author, ago

What sort of car was Andromeda driving that wooed the gatekeeper?

The car that the Ritz’s concierge organized for Andromeda was a Ferrari California, one of the elegant originals, naturally aspirated and with the body designed by Pininfarina, as opposed to the later California Ts, whose engines were muted by turbochargers and uninspired coachwork was designed in-house at Maranello.

Andromeda is right in guessing that the transmission—dual-clutch automated manual—was derived from their race cars but is incorrect about the number of cylinders: it is eight rather than twelve, although the combination of a 90° V instead of the usual 60° and a flat plane crankshaft with low rotating mass means that the powerplant has none of the uneven rumble characteristic of American V-8s, instead spiraling toward the red line with the classic Calico-ripping sound that has been associated with high-performance eights since the days of Ettore Bugatti, and something that helped charm open the gates at Château Valaire.

By the author, ago

Are there precedents for a female Mephistopheles?

Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal (1857) lays the groundwork—especially when considered alongside the Symbolist art typically used to illustrate them—but there is no Mephistopheles in those poems. There is an 1889 novel Mephistophela, by Catulle Mendès, but the story is not Faustian. In a 1925 edition of Goethe’s Faust, the many drawings by the Irish illustrator and stained glass artist Harry Clarke suggest a feminine aspect (see accompanying image) and in those where Mephistopheles is specifically identifiable it is often not clear what the character’s sex is—they are quite androgynous. But—apart from the occasional provincial production where the character is played by an actress—in literature, art, and opera, Mephistopheles is male.

There are few enough precedents for a female Mephistopheles; there are none, as far as the author is aware, for a Mephistopheles who seeks to enlighten rather than inveigle Faust.

By the author, ago

Did Ch. Mouton Rothschild really have to relabel their 1993s?

In the American market, yes; in the rest of the world, no.

Château Mouton Rothschild has commissioned works for their labels since the 1945 vintage, and the list of artists reads like a Who’s Who of Twentieth-Century painters: Picasso (’73); Warhol (’75); Dalí (’58); Miró (’69); Cocteau (’47); Braque (’55); Kandinsky (’71); Bacon (’90); and even the then Prince of Wales and now King of England, Charles (’04). Balthus has always been a little provocative, but the label for the ’93 vintage (see photo) is hardly salacious. Nevertheless, under pressure from distributors, Mouton was forced to withdraw it and go through the expensive process of relabeling all their bottles bound for the US market with the artwork removed.

This is best understood as an artifact of the chronic Puritan-based wariness-of-women strain that has been an aspect of the American character since Cotton Mather and the Salem witch trials—something still evident in our own troubled times.

This prudishness does not extend to New York City: the Met successfully organized and hosted a major Balthus retrospective in 2013.

An interesting epilog: lithographic reproductions of the ’93 label now sell for many hundreds of dollars—that is, for far more than the original bottle with the wine did.

By the author, ago

Is Château Valaire based on a real château?

Many aspects of the fictional Château Valaire are based on the actual Château de Servigny, although not location, the former being situated “midway between Orléans and Tours on the Beuvron,” the latter outside the village of Yvetôt-Bocages on the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy.

Château de Servigny dates from the Sixteenth Century but had its moment of fame in the Twentieth, when following the landings at Utah Beach it was used as the headquarters for General “Lightning Joe” Lawton’s 7th Army Corps during the siege of Cherbourg. The German surrender was signed in a drawing room on the second floor, and the room remains preserved as it was that day.

It still serves as the private residence of the family whose ancestors built it and so is not open to the public but, like Château Valaire, arrangements can sometimes be made for special events, including D-Day celebrations, in which it often features.

By the author, ago

Do the Jeff Koons paintings exist?

The two fictional paintings that Andromeda encounters in the Vaughn villa are based on “Bracelet” and “Ribbon” (pictured: “Ribbon,” Jeff Koons, 1995–1997, © Jeff Koons; from www.jeffkoons.com). They may depict small things but are monumental works, each about 9 by 12 feet, something that Koons practices in other media, notably sculpture–monstrous candies and balloon dogs made of highly polished stainless steel–and even topiary. In New York City, there have been two major exhibitions in recent years: the Whitney put on a retrospective before moving downtown; prior to that there was a rooftop exhibition of the sculptures at the Met. Koons artworks can often be found at the auction houses or in Chelsea galleries.

Andromeda badly underestimates their market value, as indeed does her accoster on South Beach: “Bracelet” was sold in 2007 for $2.25 million.

By the author, ago

Was the Venice ball based on a real event?

The ball that Andromeda attends is based on two masquerade balls held annually in Venice during Carnival: the Gran Ballo Mascheranda and Il Ballo del Doge. Both of these take place in the Palazzo Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal, and much of the fictional Ca’ d’Inverno is adapted from this palace.

The accompanying photograph shows the palazzo’s facade on the evening of Il Ballo del Doge, lit by flame as Andromeda saw Ca’ d’Inverno, and with the dark shadows of boats carrying ballgoers in the foreground, waiting for their turn to land guests.

These balls are far from restrained but not to the level of indulgence in Andromeda’s affair. Her episode has more in common with certain private events organized for those fortunate few with sufficient prosperity and pulchritude to qualify—the bel mondo of the type depicted at Ca’ d’Inverno.

By the author, ago

Do the murals described in ANDROMEDA GRAPHIKA actually exist?

The frescoes in Pompeii’s Villa dei Misteri are, in both appearance and scholarly understanding, as Dr. Leatherwaite describes them in Chapter Thirteen. The villa’s name, meaning mysteries, refers not to puzzles but the paintings themselves, which depict a Dionysian “mystery”—that is, a secret rite in which a young woman is initiated into the cult of the half-Greek, half-Oriental god, Dionysus.

This is a photograph of the triclinium—the dining room where the aristocratic Romans feasted under the gaze of gods, unaware that Vesuvius was about to consume them. The far wall, the northeastern, depicts three incidents: scene four, the catoptromancy episode where the future is observed in a silver bowl (filled with mercury?); scene five, with the god Silenus lying back in ecstatic exhaustion (note the damage where the lava came flowing through); and scene six, with the initiate undergoing ritual flagellation by a winged goddess.

The frescoes are best viewed by arriving at Pompeii at opening time, turning left after entering and walking past the funerary monuments directly to the villa, situated a little out of town—you will likely have the place to yourself. Later, around noon, with Pompeii now crowded and sweltering, drive over the spine of the nearby Amalfi peninsula to Ravello and enjoy a leisurely lunch washed down with local wine in the cool of the hills while gazing out over the Gulf of Salerno glittering a thousand precipitous feet below.

By the author, ago