{"id":6473,"date":"2022-10-18T11:59:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T01:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marianmcguinness.com\/?p=6473"},"modified":"2022-10-18T11:59:38","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T01:59:38","slug":"a-performers-guide-to-renaissance-florence-as-enlightened-by-professor-emerita-nerida-newbigin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marianmcguinness.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/18\/a-performers-guide-to-renaissance-florence-as-enlightened-by-professor-emerita-nerida-newbigin\/","title":{"rendered":"A Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Florence as enlightened by Professor Emerita Nerida Newbigin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The second lecture in the limelight-arts-travel<\/a> series is a time-travel through Nerida Newbigin\u2019s expertise into the Renaissance world of Florence where mystery and miracle plays, and processions, were de rigueur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my first acquaintances with Florence came so many years ago when reading one of my now favourite books, E.M. Forster\u2019s\u00a0A Room with a View.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Set in England\u2019s Edwardian era in the wake of The Grand Tour, Miss Lucy Honeychurch travels to Florence for cultural enlightenment where she meets the gorgeous, but lower-class George Emerson, who is searching for life\u2019s hope and meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point George says, \u2018… you are NOT to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me … we shall simply drift.\u2019 And further into their drifting exploration, \u2018The well-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded in 59BC as a settlement for Julius Caesar\u2019s former soldiers, the city name was\u00a0Colonia Florentia,\u00a0<\/em>meaning\u00a0flowering colony.\u00a0<\/em>How apt was that to become when during the Renaissance creative experimentation was flourishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of my own hand-painted cards bought while in Florence<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even after my own explorations of Florence and the nearby hill town of Fiesole, where during the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci used its slopes as a launching pad for his flying machines, I was enriched by the layering of Nerida Newbigin\u2019s lecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florence at the time was the city of creatives: the Medici family, Petrarch, Giotto, Dante, da Vinci, Brunelleschi and Machiavelli et al. It was the centre of drama where performance spaces included barges on the river Arno, churches, piazzas and cloisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nerida Newbigin enlightening us about Machiavelli<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Public and private performances were everywhere. Many of the paintings and frescoes seen today reflect these experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florence was the epicentre of the Renaissance: the blossoming of the arts, humanism, technology and scientific discoveries. All of which melded into the performance space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weddings were celebrated with liveried musicians where trumpeters were hired or poached from visiting princes. Professional poets \u2013\u00a0canterini \u2013<\/em>\u00a0accompanying themselves on violas would sing of saints and battles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Feast days (like today in Italy) were scenes of great entertainment for the people. Churches had extensive \u2018stage\u2019 equipment built into their domes where Christ or the Virgin Mary would ascend into the heavens. Children from the orphanages dressed as angels and boy sopranos were given red stockings as payment for singing.\u00a0\u00a0They can be seen in many of the church\u2019s paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Nerida Newbigin’s slide show showing the hoist used for the Feast of the Annunciation<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Haloes on the performers were packed with gunpowder \u2013 a dove was attached to a line with a light that would fly along the row of halos igniting them to represent the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. What a spectacle! That is until a fire in Santo Spirito burnt it to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a time of processions and horse racing and betting as part of the celebrations, as were processions of drummers and flag throwers \u2013 much like I saw recently in Siena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flag throwers and drummers in Siena<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Art and pageantry evolved into performing troupes travelling from city to city in the form of the Commedia dell\u2019arte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My own collected postcards of Commedia dell’arte performers<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This and so much more was gleaned through Nerida Newbigin\u2019s extensive and richly-sourced lecture; a renaissance of its own in offering an awakening to those on the other side of the zoom screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to once again look at Florence through the eyes of George Emerson in\u00a0A Room with a View …\u00a0<\/em>\u2018Italy … it gave her light, and \u2013 which he held more precious \u2013 it gave her shadow.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n