The Continence of Scipio
Neuendorffer
<< and more strange return. hamlet >>
contains the letters necessary for:
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KATHERINE HAMLETT (died Feastday of EPONA: December 18, 1579):
Englishwoman whose death may be reflected in that
of Ophelia in _HAMLET_. A resident of Tippinton, a village
near Stratford, Mistress Hamlett was DROWNED in the AVON RIVER
while fetching water, and a coroner's jury hesitated over the
possibility of suicide before declaring, two months later, that she
had died a natural death. It has been speculated that the coincidental
similarity between a family name he once knew and the name of his
protagonist might have recalled Katherine Hamlett's death to the
playwright -- who was 15 when it occurred -- as he described Ophelia's
death by drowning, declared 'doubtful' by the Priest, although the
coroner 'finds it Christian burial.'>> - _SHAKESPEARE A TO Z_
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KATHERINE MANNERS & the Duke of Buckingham (1623)
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http://www.npg.org.uk/711.htm
<<The handsome but unscrupulous George Villiers was the most notorious
of all James I's favourites. The King adored him, promoting him with
astonishing rapidity through the ranks of the aristocracy. Knighted in
1615, Villiers was made a viscount, an earl and then a marquess
successively over the course of three years from 1616 to 1618. Finally
James made him Duke of Buckingham in 1623. He wielded enormous power
over the King, and subsequently over his son Charles I, but was
generally regarded with suspicion and dislike. In 1628 he was
assassinated at Portsmouth. Buckingham used much of the wealth he
amassed to build up a very important art collection. He patronised the
most successful and fashionable foreign artists, and, along with Charles
I, was responsible for bringing the Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst
(15901656) to England in 1628. Honthorst was one of the few Dutch
artists of this period to gain an international reputation; he had
worked in Rome and his paintings, with their dramatic lighting and
smooth modelling, reflect something of the style of the much-admired
Roman artist Caravaggio. This painting is a good, early copy of a
portrait of the Duke and his family by Honthorst which belonged to
Charles I and is still in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court. It
shows Buckingham with his wife, Katherine Manners (died 1649), their
daughter Mary, later Duchess of Richmond (162285) and their son George
(162887), later the second Duke. It was painted very shortly before
Buckingham was murdered. A second son was born posthumously.>>
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http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/gallery/painters/vandyck.html
The Continence of Scipio
Oil on canvas
<<One of Van Dyck's most important "history paintings", it was probably
commissioned in 1620-21 by George Villiers, Ist Duke of Buckingham and
favourite of James I. Although it ostensibly represents a classical
subject it is thought to be an allegory of the difficult circumstances
surrounding the marriage of Buckingham to Lady Katherine Manners, and
the figures holding hands are likely to be portraits of the couple. Like
his master Rubens, Van Dyck had a keen interest in antiquity, and he
invokes the world of ancient Carthage with the inclusion of a Roman
frieze copied from a piece known to have been in the Earl of Arundel's
celebrated collection of antiquities.>>
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,3884385,00.html
Monday July 19, 1999 The Guardian
<<A painting in the Van Dyck exhibition due to open at London's Royal
Academy in September has been misidentified and may not be by the
Flemish master at all, according to an Italian collector who claims to
own the real thing. According to Angiolo Magnelli, a retired Florentine
auctioneer, the painting to be exhibited could well be by Rubens rather
than Van Dyck, and shows a historical scene completely different from
the one its title gives. The work that visitors to the Royal Academy
will see is The Continence of Scipio, which is owned by Christ Church
college, Oxford. Renaissance and baroque artists liked the romantic
theme of the self-restraint exercised by the young Roman general Scipio.
After capturing part of Spain from Carthage in 209BC, he is supposed to
have won local allegiance by returning a beautiful captive unharmed to
her betrothed, Allucius.
"They have made a huge mistake and I absolutely contest this
identification of the subject," Mr Magnelli said.
What the work from Christ Church actually depicts, he argues, is a
scene, possibly painted by Rubens, from the previous century, in which
Alexander the Great receives peace envoys from the Persian king he
defeated, Darius III. The former auctioneer bought his own Continence of
Scipio at a London art gallery 29 years ago and has spent much of the
time since then studying the two pictures. He is angry that Christ
Church has consistently refused to discuss the matter with him.
"By refusing to recognise the true nature of this work the art experts
are depriving British culture of an extraordinary painting," Mr Magnelli
said. "I challenge them to a public debate and to put the two paintings
on display side by side, so the public can judge."
He has become increasingly fascinated by the Oxford work, which he
concedes is greater and more complex than his own: "My interpretation
makes the Christ Church painting much more interesting and valuable.
It's a work that contains an important cultural message that has lain
dormant for the last four centuries."
Mr Magnelli's painting shows Scipio on the right as he offers the bride
to her betrothed with a gesture of his open hand. Allucius, on the left,
cups his hand to receive that of the bride, while a lictor - a kind of
court runner - looks on from the right, indicating that the action had
the approval of the Roman magistrature.
A similar scene unfolds in the Oxford painting, but according to Mr
Magnelli, the figure on the left is Alexander the Great, and he is not
offering but rejecting the hand of the woman on the right - a daughter
whom Darius is offering, along with territory, in exchange for peace.
Far from being in Carthaginian Spain, says Mr Magnelli, we are in a
ruined Greek temple in the eastern Mediterranean. Next to Alexander's
feet is a marble frieze showing the heads of two Gorgons, and on a large
metal urn opposite is embossed an image of their sister, Medusa - a
symbol of death that would hardly make an appropriate wedding gift.
"The Gorgons are creatures of Greek mythology, while there isn't a trace
of Roman culture in the entire composition," Mr Magnelli said.
The exhibition catalogue says the picture dates from Anthony Van Dyck's
time in England in 1620-21 and was probably commissioned by George
Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. The subject could refer to his
marriage to Lady Katherine Manners, according to this reading.
For Mr Magnelli, nothing could be further from the truth. The work, he
believes, was almost certainly commissioned by Thomas Howard, Earl of
Arundel, a political rival of Buckingham's, and could not have been
painted in 1620-21 because the marble frieze showing the Gorgon heads
did not arrive in England to join the Arundel collection until about
1627.
The supposed Allucius could not possibly have the features of the Duke
of Buckingham, unless the painting was commissioned by one of his
enemies. As the deceitful ambassador of Darius he is represented with
deformed feet and his tongue is sticking out as though blowing a
raspberry.
The painting "contains a message that is still topical today: that you
cannot destroy other people's culture", Mr Magnelli said. "Alexander
waged war on the Persians because they had destroyed the temples of the
Greeks, but he incorporated the customs of conquered peoples into those
of his army and forbade any damage to the temples when he conquered
Thebes."
Peter Paul Rubens, he argued, "painted it for Arundel in 1629-30,
probably in secret because of the diabolical theme. It constitutes the
political, spiritual and cultural testament of the two men."
British art experts are sceptical. Christopher Brown, curator of the
Ashmolean museum in Oxford and author of the catalogue entry describing
the Christ Church painting, said there was no question of the painting
being by Rubens.
The attribution of the Oxford painting has been questioned over the
years. One of the doubting critics, Anchise Tempestini, noted in 1995 in
the Italian magazine Critica d'Arte that a sketch of the subject by Van
Dyck - formerly held in the Bremen art gallery - closely resembles the
Magnelli painting but is "light years away from the Rubensian Oxford
painting".>>
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http://ultrago.com/dilettante/ehgv.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0809306.html
<<Buckingham, George Villiers, 1st duke of , 1592–1628, English courtier
and royal favorite. He arrived (1614) at the English court as James I
was tiring of his favorite, Robert Carr, earl of Somerset. Villiers was
made a gentleman of the bedchamber (1615) and, after Somerset's
disgrace, rose rapidly, becoming earl of Buckingham (1617), marquess
(1618), and lord high admiral (1619). In 1620 he married Lady Katherine
Manners, daughter of the Roman Catholic earl of Rutland. By this time
Buckingham controlled dispensation of the king's patronage, which
enabled him to grant lucrative monopolies to his relatives. In 1621,
Parliament began to investigate abuses of these monopolies, but
Buckingham prevented action against himself (though not against his
friend Sir Francis Bacon) by joining in the condemnation of his
relatives. Buckingham favored the proposed marriage of Prince Charles
(later Charles I) with the Infanta Maria of Spain and in 1623 went with
Charles to Madrid. There his arrogance contributed to the final
breakdown of the long deadlocked marriage negotiations. Buckingham, now
a duke, returned to England, advocating war with Spain, which made him
the hero of Parliament. He lost that popularity rapidly by negotiating
(1624) the marriage of Charles with another Catholic princess, Henrietta
Maria, sister of Louis XIII of France. He was also blamed for the
disastrous failure (Feb.–Mar., 1625) of an English expedition, under
Graf von Mansfeld, to recover the Palatinate for Frederick the Winter
King; Buckingham failed to supply it adequately. By this time Charles
had become king, and Buckingham was more powerful than ever, a fact that
enraged Parliament. After the embarrassing failure (Oct., 1625) of an
expedition against Cádiz, Buckingham was impeached (1626), and Charles
dissolved Parliament to prevent his trial. The following year Buckingham
led an expedition (another disaster) to relieve the Huguenots of La
Rochelle, and Parliament delivered another remonstrance against him. The
duke was at Portsmouth preparing yet another expedition for La Rochelle
when he was killed by John Felton, a disgruntled naval officer. The
romantic aspects of the duke's career figure largely in Alexander
Dumas's historical novel, The Three Musketeers.>>
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7 cooks went [into the sea] but a cobbler survived
in a corner of the [kitchen].
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http://www.northantrim.com/dunlucehistory1.htm
<<Dunluce Castle is mentioned in the fourteenth century as one of the
properties of de Burgo or de Burgh in he Earldom of Ulster, it is
believed to have been built by Richard de Burgh or one of his chief
followers in the thirteenth century. The castle was taken by force from
the McQuillen's by Sorley Boy McDonnell after the Battle of Orla in
1565. In one account we read of the McDonnell army covering a boggy
area with rushes and positioning men on a few clumps of firm ground
with the effect that the McQuillen's charged straight into the bog and
got caught, becoming easy victims to the McDonnell soldiers on the
firmer ground. A traditional local saying goes - 'There's been nobody
fooled by a rush bush but a McQuillen'. There are references to Sorley
Boy McDonnell's flying, much to the displeasure of the Queen Elizabeth
1st, a battle standard captured after a skirmish with the English, he
is also reputed to have mounted four cannons salvaged from the Girona
along the
castle walls. The Girona was a Galleass of the Spanish Armada which
foundered on Lacada Point at the Giant's Causeway in 1588, local
folklore tell of victims being buried in St. Cuthbert's graveyard
nearby Dunluce Castle. The McDonnell's also held a 'St Columcille
Cross' named after the Irish saint, this was taken along with other
valuables after Sir John Perrott took the castle on instructions from
Queen Elizabeth in 1584. The castle has seen lots of sieges and battles
in its years, Sorley Boy eventually went to live in Dunaneenie and the
castle came into the possession of his son Randal McDonnell. Randall set
about restoring the castle and built a lavish manor house within the
castle walls. He married the widow Lady Katherine Manners, daughter of
the Earl of Rutland, her husband George Villiers, the Marquess of
Buckingham was shot in Portsmouth by a disgruntled naval officer called
John Fenton.
In the late Dunluce Castle became their residence, an inventory
dating from this period shows that the castle was indeed a fine
residence. The Earl and Countess of Antrim frequented the royal court in
London and acquired many of their possessions there. There were said to
have been tapestries and exquisite curtains including a set which had
belonged to Cardinal Wolsley at Hampton Court. The inventory lists six
sets of chairs of state, which would have been placed under an
elaborate canopy. Sixty other elaborately upholstered chairs and stools
were at the castle including a library of books. There were saddles
worked with gold and silver, finely inlaid cabinets and valuable objects
such as telescopes, celestial and terrestrial globes. The most valuable
listings are the priests vestments - the Countess is credited with
establishing St. Cuthbert's Church (nearby to the castle) it was
originally thatched and is recorded as having a lavish interior which
included the signs of the zodiac painted in the ceiling plaster. A
village grew up around the castle had its own customs house at
Portballintrae, merchants settled there and it became a thriving focus
of commerce - evidence to this can be found in the many headstones
within the old church graveyard. In 1639, while the second Earl and his
Countess were here, part of the castle including the kitchens fell into
the sea; seven cooks went with the kitchens but an itinerant cobbler was
said to have survived in a corner of the vanished room. The 1641
rebellion saw the castle sieiged by an Irish army and the surrounding
village burnt, the castle held out under the command of a Captain Digsby
and was relieved by the Earl. Most of the Scottish settlers and
merchants escaped to Scotland before the village was destroyed. General
Munro arrived here in 1642 with a large army, some thousand foot
soldiers, two troops of cavalry and field guns - he is said to have
arrested and imprisoned the Earl in Carrickfergus, ransacked Dunluce and
other castle belonging to the Earl as well as burning Glenarm.. The Earl
re-occupied Dunluce Castle after 1666 and lived there until his death
in 1683. Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh who had at the time
been recently canonized, was a visitor during this period and described
it as a 'palace washed on all sides by the sea'.
After the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which led to the impoverishment
of the McDonnell because they had adhered to the cause of James II,
Dunluce Castle was abandoned and Ballymagarry House nearby became the
Earls of Antrim's main residence, part of its structure and garden
walls are still standing. A barn survives with a massive oak roof said
to have come from Dunluce Castle after it was deserted. Ballymagarry
was destroyed by a fire in 1745 after which Glenarm Castle became the
principal seat of the Earl of Antrim.>>
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Art Neuendorffer