Knights of Malta
Art Neuendorffer
http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Pandosto/pandosto.html
The Epistle Dedicatorie.
To the Right Honovrable George Clifford Earle of Cumberland,
They which feare the biting of vipers do carry in their hands the
plumes of a Phoenix. Phydias drewe Vulcan sitting in a chaire of
Iuorie. Caesars CROW durst nEVER cry, Aue, but when she was pearked on
the Capitoll. And I seeke to shrowd this imperfect Pamphlet vnder your
honours patronage, doubting the dint of such inuenomed vipers, as seeke
with their slaunderous reproches to carpe at all, beeing oftentimes,
most vnlearned of all: and assure my selfe, that your honours renowmend
valour, and vertuous disposition shall be a sufficient defence to
protect me from the poysoned tongues of such scorning Sycophants,
hoping that as Iupiter vouchsafed to lodge in Philemons thatched
cottage: and Philip of Macedon, to take a bunch of grapes of a countrey
pesant: so I hope your honour, measuring my worke by my will, &
waighing more the minde than the matter, will, when you haue cast a
glaunce at this toy, with Minerua, vnder your golden Target cover a
deformed Owle. And in this hope I rest, wishing vnto you, and the
vertuous Countesse your wife: such happie successe as your honours can
desire, or imagine.
Your Lordships most dutifully to command:
Robert Greene.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Greene's _Pandosto The Triumph of Time_ (1588)
http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/pandosto1.htm
Pandosto. the Triumph of Time.
Wherein is discovered by a pleasant Historie,
that although by the meanes of sinister fortune,
Truth may be concealed yet by Time in spight of fortune
it is most manifestly revealed.
Pleasant for age to avoyde drowsie thoughtes,
profitable for youth to eschue other wanton pastimes,
and bringing to both a desired content.
Temporis filia veritas.
By Robert Greene, Maister of Artes in Cambridge.
Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.
Imprinted at London by Thomas Orwin
for Thomas Cadman, dwelling at the Signe of the Bible,
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The sixth rule of the Rosicrucians, as laid down in the
Fama Fraternitatis of 1614, was that members should
remain anonymous for one hundred years":
http://www.sirbacon.org/gallery/secrecy.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
The one hundred & first year after Oxford's birth: 1651
--------------------------------------------------------------
_Truth Brought to Light and Discovered by Time_ (1651)
"A discourse & Historical Narration
of the first XIIII years of King James reign"
to be sold at the Blew Bible at GREEN aRBOR.
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~williame/pages/images.html
The frontispiece (by JOHN Droeshout [Martin's son?]) shows:
'Time' standing upon a skelton with the initials 'WS' on the pelvis
and 'Truth' standing beneath clouds forming the initials 'WS'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
When the Holy Roman Empire broke up in 1564 (Shaksper's birth):
1) Catholic Philip II (Inquisition/Armada) of Spain [Boo! Hiss!]
was in charge of Sicily; while . . .
2) H.R. Emperor Maxmilian II (1564-1576) was in charge of Bohemia.
Maxilian was a humanist, closet-Lutheran & patron of the arts.
[Applause! Applause!]
Bohemia had a long history of defying the authority of Rome (e.g., John
Hus and Jerome of Prague were burnt for heresy in 1417). And although
Bohemia came under the rule of Catholic Habsburgs in 1526 by the late
16th century this had produced a string of tolerant (if not outright
Protestant) leaders for Bohemia.
Maxmilian II was followed by his son Rudolph II:
Rudolph II of Bohemia (1576-1612) demonstrated less religious
tolerance than his father but he did made his imperial capital Prague
the intellectual hub of Europe. Tycho Brahe, Kepler and the English
astrologer and mystic John Dee were all enticed to Rudolph's eccentric
court of dwarfs and giants. [Tycho even burst his blatter waiting to be
excused from the royal banquet table.]
Perhaps, _The Winter's Tale_(c.1610) was modified/reversed
Specifically for the benefit of Rudy's court.
------------------------------------------------------------
Besides sucking up to Rudy there was possibly
a useful allusion to Dionysius of Syracuse:
<<In 405 BC, just ten years after the ill-fated Sicilian expedition of
Athens, a general, DIONYSIUS seized control over Syracuse. DIONYSIUS is
best known for the manner in which he kept himself in power for 38
years. He did so by unending suspicion and eternal vigilance. There is
a story that he had a bell shaped chamber ["the ear of DIONYSIUS"]
opening into the state prison with the narrow end connecting to his
room. In this way, he could secretly listen to conversations in the
prison and learn if any conspiracies were brewing.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------
1607/8 Caravaggio is in Malta where, he paints two portraits of the
Grand Master, Alof de Wignacourt, as well as _the Sleeping Cupid_
and _The beheading of John the Baptist_
1608, 14 July, Caravaggio is received into
the Order of the Knights of Malta as a 'Cavaliere di Grazia'
1608, October, At the instance of the Head of the Treasury of The Order
of the Knight of Malta a criminal commission summons Caravaggio to
appear on December 1. Caravaggio escapes from the castle of S. Angelo
and lands in Syracuse where he names the well known cave near
the city 'DIONYSIUS's Ear' and paints _The Burial of St. Lucy_.
1609, 20 October, Caravaggio returns to Naples where he is attacked and
so grievously wounded at the door of the German inn of the Cerriglio
that news of his possible death reaches Rome. Efforts are being made by
Cardinal GONZAGA to obtain the remission of Caravaggio's sentience.
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312274742/absolutsearch05/103...0-0025402
<<Recognized now as a peer of 17th-century masters Rembrandt & Vermeer,
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) painted notoriously
provocative religious and classical tableaux, yet left few traces ("no
letters, no table talk, no notebook or treatise") of his life beyond
his art. Australian -born Robb, whose ex-pat tour-de-force Midnight in
Sicily: On Art, Food, History, Travel, & La Cosa Nostra took readers
through that fascinating island, has created an idiosyncratic but
dazzling biography of Caravaggio by exploiting almost every extant
fragment, including a handful of sightings by friends and enemies, and
the scanty Italian police files. More audaciously, Robb spreads through
the life many pages on every known canvas, leaving appropriately
theatrical description in his wake. Robb's Caravaggio--or "M," as he
insists on calling the multimonikered and aliased painter--was a
violent man of "hairtrigger touchiness," who fueled the passionate
intensity of his painting with his professional and emotional
frustrations, managing to register raw life in a religious culture that
demanded, according to Robb, vapid holiness. Bisexual, he painted &
loved pubescent boys, and patronized the female prostitutes he used as
models.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------
Yogi Buchon wrote:
<<The The statue scene in WT is a strange deviation from Greene's
*Pandosto*. During this scene the author includes a reference
to Giulio Romano, a rather obscure Italian artist who would not
have been known to very many people in an English audience.
Why mention Romano?
Is this some sort of a puzzle for readers to solve?
If it's a puzzle, here's one possible solution:
WT was written about 1610, and the statue scene, a scene of
resurrection, is set in Sicily. Was there a famous Italian artist
painting in Sicily in a very realistic way, as opposed to Mannerist,
who painted a resurrection scene? Why, lo and behold, Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio had painted *The Raising of Lazarus* in
Sicily near the time WT was written. What a coincidence!!
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/c/caravagg/10/65lazar.html
<<Most of Caravaggio's religious subjects emphasize sadness, suffering
and death. In 1609 he dealt with the triumph of life and in doing so
created the most visionary picture of his career.
Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, was the patron of Giovanni
Battista de' Lazzari, to whom Caravaggio was contracted to paint an
altarpiece in the church of the Padri Crociferi. The Gospel of St John
tells how Lazarus fell sick, died, was buried and then miraculously
raised from the dead by Christ.
Once again, the scene is set against blank walls that overwhelm the
actors, who once more are laid out like figures on a frieze. Some of
them, says Susinno, were modelled on members of the community,
but at this stage Caravaggio did not have time to base himself wholly
on models and relied on his memory - the whole design is based on
an engraving after Giulio Romano and his Jesus is a reversed image
of the Christ who called Matthew to join him.
There is a remarkable contrast between the flexible bodies of the
grieving sisters and the near-rigid corpse of their brother. In the
gospel Martha reminds Jesus that, as her brother had been dead four
days, he would stink, but here nobody detracts from the dignity of
the moment by holding his nose. Jesus is the resurrection and the
life and in the darkness through him the truth is revealed.>>
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio24.html
Yogi Buchon wrote:
<<Well, how about another coincidence?
Caravaggio copied Giulio Romano's pose of Patroclus
in his painting of Lazarus. This copied pose has been
well noted in art literature. And another coincidence? Both
Romano & Caravaggio did artistic work for the Knights of Malta.>>
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio56.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio20.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio11.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio8.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
Michelangelo. Crucifixion of Saint Peter. 1546-1550.
Frescoes. Pauline Chapel, Vatican.
http://www.abcgallery.com/M/michelangelo/michelangelo70.JPG
http://www.bethelks.edu/services/mla/images/martyrsmirror/mm%20bk1%20...
Crucifixion of apostle Peter, Rome, AD 69 (Eeghen 663)
http://www.wga.hu/html/c/caravagg/05/28ceras.html
http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/caravaggio/CAM010.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio26.html
Disputation with Simon Magus and Crucifixion of Peter 1481-82
Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
http://keptar.demasz.hu/arthp/art/l/lippi/flippino/brancacc/cruc_pet.jpg
The Crucifixion of St Peter - The Beheading of St John the Baptist
(predella panel from the Pisa Altar) Masaccio 1426
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/masaccio/masaccio_peter.jpg.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio32.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio37.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio47.html
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio7.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
1603, 31 August, Karel van Mander writes about Caravaggio
in _Het Schilderboek_ (1604):
<<There is also a certain Michelangelo da Caravaggio who paints
wonderful things in Rome. He has laboriously emerged from poverty by
means of hard work, tackling and accepting everything with foresight
and daring, as is done by some who do not wish to remain inferior
through timidity and cowardice. He is one who cares little for the
works of others without at the same time overtly praising his own. He
holds that all works are nothing but childish trifles, whatever their
subject and by whomever they are painted unless they are made and
painted from life and that there can be no good or better way of
painting than to follow nature. He is a mixture of grain and chaff:
indeed he does not continuously devote himself to this study but when
he has worked for a couple of weeks he swaggers about for a month or
two, his sword at his side and a servant behind him and goes from one
ball game to another ever ready for a duel or a scuffle so that it is
almost impossible to get to know him.>>
1604, 24 April, Caravaggio is charged
with throwing a plate of artichokes in the face of
Fusaccia, a waiter in the 'Inn of the Moor' in Rome.
1605, 1 September, Caravaggio hurls stones at the windows
of Prudenzia Bona, his forme landlady.
1606, 29 May, A brawl takes place, four men on each side
after a ball game in the playing field of the Muro Torto.
Caravaggio is wounded but he kills Ranuccio Tommasoni of Terni.
1607, 7 April, _The Death of the Virgin_ (purchased by the
Duke of Mantua on the advice of Rubens) is exhibited in Rome.
1607/8 Caravaggio is in Malta where, he paints two portraits of the
Grand Master, Alof de Wignacourt, as well as _the Sleeping Cupid_
and _The beheading of John the Baptist_
1608, 14 July, Caravaggio is received into
the Order of the Knights of Malta as a 'Cavaliere di Grazia'
1608, October, At the instance of the Head of the Treasury of The Order
of the Knight of Malta a criminal commission summons Caravaggio to
appear on December 1. Caravaggio escapes from the castle of S. Angelo
and lands in Syracuse where he names the well known cave near
the city 'DIONYSIUS's Ear' and paints _The Burial of St. Lucy_.
1609, 20 October, Caravaggio returns to Naples where he is attacked and
so grievously wounded at the door of the German inn of the Cerriglio
that news of his possible death reaches Rome. Efforts are being made by
Cardinal GONZAGA to obtain the remission of Caravaggio's sentience.
1610, July, The painter boards a felucca for Porto Ercole, and is
arrested and imprisoned by mistake. <<Once released he could no longer
find the felucca, so that raging and almost demented he strode along
that shore under the merciless rays of the burning sun to try and catch
sight of the ship that bore his belongings.>>
Caravaggio dies within a few days:
MICH.ANGEL.MERISIUS DE. CARAVAGIO
EQUES HIEROSOLIMITANUS
NATURAE AEMULATOR EXIMIUS
VIX. ANN. XXXVI. M. IX. D. XX
MORITUR XVIII JULY MDCX
Michel Angelo Merisi for Caravaggio
Knight of Jerusalem (i.e., Malta)
excellent imitator of nature
lived 36 years 9 months 20 days
died 18 July 1610.
(73 days short of his 37th birthday.)
--------------------------------------------------------
April 6, 1520, RAPHAEL dies on his 37th birthday.
April 6, 1528, DURER dies in Nürnberg
----------------------------------------------------------
Measure for Measure Act 3, Scene 2
LUCIO: Does BRIDGET paint still, Pompey, ha?
April 6, 1584, BRIDGET VERE is born.
April 6, 1584, CARAVAGGIO apprenticed to painter
SIMONe PETERzano
--------------------------------------------------------------
SIMON PETER Bar-Jona
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/c/caravagg/05/28ceras.html
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/c/caravagg/11/72denial.html
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/caravaggio/st_peter.jpg.html
(John 1:42) "You are SIMON, the son of Jona: from now on
you will be called CEPHAS (which is interpreted being a stone)"
----------------------------------------------------------------
Cephas Burns: the Stone Layer
http://ecosystems.wcp.muohio.edu/studentresearch/rivers02/westernpond...s.htm
<<Cephas (meaning stone) was born in Oxford in 1871, a grandson of
freed slaves. He learned the trade of masonry from his father, who had
also worked in stone. One of the things that makes the stonework on
Western Campus unique is the particular "cannonball" stones that were
used for many of the constructions. These were spherical stones of
varying colors that Cephas personally collected from the local Four
Mile Creek, Harker's Run and Collin's Run. A truly caring worker,
Cephas washed the stones by hand as he worked with them and allowed his
mortar to set for thirty days, when the State building code only
required ten! The Stonemason not only built the bridges on Western
Campus, but engineered them as well. >>
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Rock / The Cornerstone http://www.mgr.org/rock.html
<<In Matthew 16: 16-18 we read: Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God...And so I say to you,
you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,...
In 1 Corinthians 10:4 we read:
...and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from
a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ.
In Romans 9:33 we read:
...as it is written: "Behold I am laying a stone in Zion that will
make people stumble and a rock that will make them fall,
and whoEVER believes in him shall not be put to shame."
In Ephesians 2:20 we read:
...built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Jesus Christ himself as the corner stone.
In 1 Peter 2:8 we read:
...and "A stone that will make people stumble, and a rock
that will make them fall." ...by disobeying the word...
The "Head" [Cephas] is one thing;
the "Foundation Rock" [Kephas] is another.
In John 1:42 we read:
Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said,
"You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Kephas (or Cephas)."
"Kephas" & "Cephas" do not have the same meaning but their
spelling has allowed much latitude for confusion or outright deceit.
"CEPHAS" = head
"KEPHAS" = stone/rock>>
----------------------------------------------
SHAKESPEARE
ERASE KEPHAS
KEPHAS: A SEER
----------------------------------------------
King Richard III Act 5, Scene 1
BUCKINGHAM
THAT high All-Seer that I dallied with
Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head
And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
to turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:
----------------------------------------------------------------
April 6, 1588, CARAVAGGIO ends apprenticeship to SIMONe PETERzano
April 7, 1614, EL GRECO dies.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer