stands to midcalf in the river, his legs visible through clear water. Two other splendid male specimens are on view in the background. Signorelli’s Christs and saints are physical, manly, and never sentimentalized. God, in a burst of glory, looks down from above as John in his signature animal skins performs the baptism. “The babies of this town get baptized with this to fix their eyes on,” Ed says.
Over the altar the church’s own Madonna and Bambino preside in the original splendid frame, with all the panels of saints and scenes intact. There’s the mysterious Medardo, given top billing along with Saints Sebastian (human dart-board), John, Paul, and several others. One is Roch, and what is he doing down there on the lower right? Spinning? Cutting open his leg? In the pilasters, fourteen smaller portraits frame the magnificent whole. On the steps of the Madonna’s throne, the polyptych is signed Lucas Signorellus Pingebat . I suppose Pingebat must be Latin for “painter,” but somehow the word strikes me as funny and, as I try not to laugh, my concentration on the episodes painted on the predellas stops. The faithful of Arcevia have gazed at this polyptych as they made their way to the altar for communion for five hundred years. This thought stops me as I realize I’m one of millions on a long timeline to gaze up at the stories portrayed, to turn and walk back up the aisle and out into the blue day.
Maybe at that moment I was subliminally connected with Medardo. Back at Bramasole, I look him up in a guide to saints and find that he is often portrayed “laughing insanely,” or being sheltered from rain by the outspread wings of an eagle. This childhood event gives him the patronage over bad weather. I’ll have to remember to watch his feast day, June 8. If it rains, there will be forty wet days to follow. He’s a French saint—Medard, who somehow came to be venerated in remote Arcevia. I like his mythic attributes: His horse could leave footprints in stone. The other mysterious saint, Roch (in Italian, Rocco), turns out to be French also. He traveled to Italy, miraculously curing plague victims everywhere he went, including Rimini on the Adriatic. The disease claimed him eventually and he went into the woods to die. He survived because a dog began to bring him bread. I’ll guess that the image in Arcevia shows him displaying a plague sore on his thigh, though what the little spindle-looking thing he holds might be, I still don’t know. When I read that he’s the patron saint of dogs, I’m purely amazed. When my grandson Willie received a dog for Christmas, out of nowhere he named him Rocco. Ed thinks “roch” is onomatopoeic barking— roch, roch .
W E’RE HAVING OUR forty wet days right now. Ed makes his warm-the-cockles winter soup of kale, white beans, and sausage. I float bruschette , toasted with October’s oil, on top—and that’s dinner.
When I am a hundred, propped in the piazza with a bracing glass of grappa, and think back on the happiest times of my life, these evenings in front of the fire, with our tin trays balanced on our knees, the winter soup’s aroma mixing with the fragrant olive wood, the candles lighted, the decanter half full of black wine, with another day to talk about, wind leaking under the door, and the roasted chestnuts after, Ed shaking them over the embers, peeling fast, and handing me one—these nights to recall are paradigms. I eventually pick up a book and go up to bed, leaving Ed by the fire to stare and think what he thinks, take notes on the back of the electric bill, perhaps to doze long enough that eventually I call down the stairs, “It’s late. Wake up. Come to bed …”
T HE GOOD FRIDAY procession has to be canceled because of the rain. The participants carry a heavy cross and a statue of Mary to many churches, stopping at each for a blessing. In good weather, the journey is duro , hard enough, but on slippery stones with an icy wind—best repair
Over the altar the church’s own Madonna and Bambino preside in the original splendid frame, with all the panels of saints and scenes intact. There’s the mysterious Medardo, given top billing along with Saints Sebastian (human dart-board), John, Paul, and several others. One is Roch, and what is he doing down there on the lower right? Spinning? Cutting open his leg? In the pilasters, fourteen smaller portraits frame the magnificent whole. On the steps of the Madonna’s throne, the polyptych is signed Lucas Signorellus Pingebat . I suppose Pingebat must be Latin for “painter,” but somehow the word strikes me as funny and, as I try not to laugh, my concentration on the episodes painted on the predellas stops. The faithful of Arcevia have gazed at this polyptych as they made their way to the altar for communion for five hundred years. This thought stops me as I realize I’m one of millions on a long timeline to gaze up at the stories portrayed, to turn and walk back up the aisle and out into the blue day.
Maybe at that moment I was subliminally connected with Medardo. Back at Bramasole, I look him up in a guide to saints and find that he is often portrayed “laughing insanely,” or being sheltered from rain by the outspread wings of an eagle. This childhood event gives him the patronage over bad weather. I’ll have to remember to watch his feast day, June 8. If it rains, there will be forty wet days to follow. He’s a French saint—Medard, who somehow came to be venerated in remote Arcevia. I like his mythic attributes: His horse could leave footprints in stone. The other mysterious saint, Roch (in Italian, Rocco), turns out to be French also. He traveled to Italy, miraculously curing plague victims everywhere he went, including Rimini on the Adriatic. The disease claimed him eventually and he went into the woods to die. He survived because a dog began to bring him bread. I’ll guess that the image in Arcevia shows him displaying a plague sore on his thigh, though what the little spindle-looking thing he holds might be, I still don’t know. When I read that he’s the patron saint of dogs, I’m purely amazed. When my grandson Willie received a dog for Christmas, out of nowhere he named him Rocco. Ed thinks “roch” is onomatopoeic barking— roch, roch .
W E’RE HAVING OUR forty wet days right now. Ed makes his warm-the-cockles winter soup of kale, white beans, and sausage. I float bruschette , toasted with October’s oil, on top—and that’s dinner.
When I am a hundred, propped in the piazza with a bracing glass of grappa, and think back on the happiest times of my life, these evenings in front of the fire, with our tin trays balanced on our knees, the winter soup’s aroma mixing with the fragrant olive wood, the candles lighted, the decanter half full of black wine, with another day to talk about, wind leaking under the door, and the roasted chestnuts after, Ed shaking them over the embers, peeling fast, and handing me one—these nights to recall are paradigms. I eventually pick up a book and go up to bed, leaving Ed by the fire to stare and think what he thinks, take notes on the back of the electric bill, perhaps to doze long enough that eventually I call down the stairs, “It’s late. Wake up. Come to bed …”
T HE GOOD FRIDAY procession has to be canceled because of the rain. The participants carry a heavy cross and a statue of Mary to many churches, stopping at each for a blessing. In good weather, the journey is duro , hard enough, but on slippery stones with an icy wind—best repair
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