CITY AND BOOK X, FLORENCE AND INDIA

FLORENCE, 15 APRIL, DELHI, 23 APRIL



PROGRAMME

Queen Victorian, India and Florence - Domenico Savini

La regina Vittoria imperatrice dell’India - Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti, Università di Firenze
Introduzione
Alla fine dell’Ottocento motivi economici, politici e religiosi mossero le nazioni europee a espandere la loro influenza su altre regioni, ciascuna nell’intento di accrescere il proprio potere sulla terra. L’impero britannico si estesero aldilà del mare perché la rivoluzione industriale dell’Ottocento aveva creato il bisogno di risorse naturali necessarie a far funzionare i macchinari e  i mezzi  di trasporto appena inventati. In questo periodo l’India, che era già sotto il controllo della corona  dal 1858, acquisì status imperiale nell’intento di collegarla più strettamente al suo centro metropolitano, Londra.
Un atto parlamentare riguardante i titoli reali (Royal Titles Bill) fu presentato in parlamento nel 1876, e nel 1877 Benjamin Disraeli, primo ministro conservatore, fece proclamare la regina Vittoria imperatrice dell’India. La regina Vittoria aprì il parlamento in persona per la prima volta dopo la morte del principe Alberto, per annunciare il cambio di titolo reale. A Dehli, in ciò che è conosciuto come il Dehli Dunbar (corte di Dehli), il 1 gennaio 1877 si tennero delle celebrazioni sotto la guida del viceré Lord Lytton.
Questo evento inaugurò il periodo del nuovo imperialismo in Gran Bretagna, ideologia che fu disseminata tramite un gran numero di agenzie propagandistiche imperiali fondate nel tardo Ottocento e ai primi del Novecento; queste diffondevano una visione del mondo in buona parte basata su un rinnovato militarismo, la devozione verso la regalità, e l’identificazione con e la venerazione di eroi nazionali, insieme al culto della personalità e idee razziali associate con il darwinismo sociale. Come osservato da MacKenzies (1990, pp. 2-3) l’influenza di queste idee sulla cultura popolare fu profonda in quanto penetrarono nel sistema educativo, nelle forze armate, nei movimenti giovanili in uniforme, nelle chiese e società missionarie, ed anche in forme di intrattenimento pubblico come il music hall e le esposizioni. Neanche l'intellighenzia fu immune dall’ imperialismo.  Forse il più famoso scrittore[1] che contribuì a diffondere l’idea della superiorità della civiltà bianca è Kipling che si fece interprete,  propagandista e principale apologeta dell'élite imperialista. Un punto di vista meno darwiniano è quello di Lytton Strachey, intellettuale membro del gruppo di Bloomsbury, il quale dopo il successo del suo Vittoriani Eminenti (Eminent Victorians,1918). pubblicò la biografia della regina Vittoria (Queen Victoria) nel 1921.
La regina Vittoriani
Come indicato da MacKenzies, la venerazione della monarchia si sviluppò dalla fine degli anni 70 dell'Ottocento e quando ciò avvenne  lo fu in stretta unione con il ruolo imperiale del monarca. La biografia  della regina Vittoria di Strachey contribuì a stabilizzare il ruolo del monarca come emblema imperiale; Stracey sottolinea presenta Vittoria come matriarca regale, dal momento che considerava i sudditi imperiali come la sua famiglia allargata, e mostra il suo particolare attaccamento all’India. La regina Vittoria era infatti affascinata dall’India. Come scrive Le Jeune (2017, p.1): «In tutta la sua vita la monarca fu molto attiva nello scoprire l’India.  Cercava di entrare in contatto con il suo “popolo indiano” del cui benessere si interessava regolarmente. Era curiosa di ascoltare e leggere le testimonianze e le storie personali di ufficiali inglesi o viaggiatori tornati di recente dall’India. Divenne appassionata degli Indiani, particolarmente di coloro che poteva incontrare in Inghilterra. Collezionava  oggetti, dipinti e schizzi che evocavano scene di vita del subcontinente indiano. Più anziana cercò di riprodurre  il mondo orientale  intorno a lei a Osborne House. Nel suo Raj (Territori della Corona in India) cercò di difendere i nativi dell’India dal duro dominio imperiale dei suoi ministri, per affezione materna.»[mia traduzione]
Vittoria prendeva i suoi doveri di imperatrice con molta serietà e quando arrivò il momento del suo giubileo d’oro  nel 1887 e fece ogni sforzo per mettere in risalto il “gioiello dell’Impero Britannico” come chiamava il Raj. Offrì banchetti sontuosi non solo alla nobiltà europea ma anche per ai principi indiani, e partecipò a complicate processioni a cavallo accompagnata dalla cavalleria coloniale indiana. Aggiunse anche inservienti indiani alla famiglia reale per aiutare nei festeggiamenti. Vittoria sviluppò una particolare simpatia per uno dei suoi nuovi servitori, Abdul Karim. Ben presto  ruolo di questi cambiò: dal  servire al tavolo all’insegnare alla regina a leggere, scrivere e parlare in Urdu, o ‘Industani’. La regina voleva conoscere tutto dell’India, un paese sul quale dominava ma che non poté mai visitare. Abdul le raccontò tutto di Agra, dai frutti e le spezie locali ai panorami e ai suoni della sua patria. In breve egli divenne il suo ‘Munshi’, o insegnante,  e si iniziò un’amicizia che sarebbe durata più di una decade.
La biografia della regina Vittoriani
Nella sua biografia della regina Vittoria Strachey si focalizza  solo su uno dei tre elementi della propaganda imperialista individuati da  MacKenzie. Dopo che Vittoria fu proclamata imperatrice dell’India, egli mostra come la monarchia sia collegata all’imperialismo, e come Vittoria incarni in modo  particolarmente appropriato l’impero.

Lytton Strachey, La regina Vittoria, p. 330:
Naturalmente tutto il misticismo della costituzione inglese si concentrava nella Corona, con la sua venerabile antichità, le sue sacre rimembranze, le sue cerimonie imponenti e spettacolose. Ma per quasi due secoli il buon senso aveva predominato nel grande edificio e il piccolo cantuccio inesplorato e inesplicabile aveva attratto ben poca attenzione [riferimento a una zona della costituzione inglese che sfugge al buon senso e ospita l’ elemento mistico]. Perché l’imperialismo non è soltanto una questione d’affari, ma è anche una questione di fede e col suo crescere crebbe anche il lato mistico della vita pubblica inglese, e simultaneamente una nuova importanza cominciò ad essere attribuita alla Corona.  Il bisogno di un simbolo della potenza inglese, del valore inglese,  dello straordinario e misterioso destino dell’Inghilterra, cominciò a essere sentito più forte che mai.  Quel simbolo era rappresentato dalla Corona, e la corona posava sul capo di Vittoria. Così avvenne che, mentre al termine del regno il potere della sovrana era sensibilmente diminuito, il prestigio della sovrana invece era  enormemente cresciuto.
I Britannici certamente concepivano il loro impero gerarchicamente, in termini razzisti di superiorità e inferiorità, centro e periferia, ma, come indicato da Cannadine (2001), oltre alla considerazione dell’India basata sulle differenze, la percepivano anche come un territorio coloniale dotato di somiglianze: vedevano le altre popolazioni composte di individui che si potevano comparare sulla base di una somiglianza di status; questo portò al riconoscimento di status sociali uguali — i principi sono principi ovunque — e formò la base dell’estremamente elaborato territorio coloniale dell’India. Questo aspetto è presente anche nella biografia di Strachey, nella quale Vittoria è presentata come un matriarca che governa il suo popolo, sia britannico sia coloniale. Ciò è solennemente ricordato da Strachey in occasione del giubileo, che legittimò lo status imperiale nella relazione che univa la corona ai principi governanti del subcontinente indiano, ora integrati nei principi aristocratici britannici.

Lytton Strachey, La regina Vittoria, p. 307:
L’anno seguente era il cinquantesimo del suo regno e nel giugno lo splendido anniversario fu celebrato con pompa solenne. Vittoria, circondata dai supremi dignitari del regno, scortata da uno scintillante corteo di re e di principi, passò attraverso la folla entusiasta della capitale per recarsi a ringraziare Dio nell’abbazia di Westminster. In quell’ora di trionfo le ultime tracce residue delle vecchie antipatie e della vecchie discordie furono interamente cancellate. La regina fu salutata a un tempo come la madre del suo popolo e come il simbolo incarnato della grandezza imperiale d’Inghilterra; ed ella corrispose a questo duplice sentimento con tutto l’ardore del suo spirito. Ella sapeva, ella sentiva che l’Inghilterra e il suo popolo erano, per un prodigio meraviglioso e tuttavia semplicissimo, cosa sua. Esultanza, affetto, gratitudine, un senso profondo di riconoscenza, un orgoglio senza limiti: tali erano i suoi sentimenti — ma sopra di essi  vi era qualche altra cosa, che dava colore e intensità a tutto il resto. Finalmente, dopo tanto tempo, la felicità, per quanto frammentaria e carica di gravità, ma tuttavia vera e indisconoscibile felicità, era ritornata a lei.  Questo insolito sentimento riempiva e accendeva tutta la sua coscienza. Quando, ritornata a Buckingham Palace dopo la fine della lunga cerimonia, le fu chiesto come si sentiva: «Sono molto stanca, ma anche molto felice», rispose.

Strachey mostra anche la crescita del ruolo cerimoniale dell’imperatrice. Con considerevole pompa si tennero esibizioni indiane e coloniali, inaugurate da Vittoria. La regina Vittoria divenne il perno del nuovo imperialismo, percepito in gran Bretagna come un periodo di sicurezza e prosperità. Per le celebrazioni del 1887 e 1897 vennero a Londra primi ministri coloniali e principi indiani, accompagnati da truppe e seguaci  esotici e pieni di colore. Così Strachey descrive  il giorno che segue il giubileo.

Lytton Strachey, La regina Vittoria, p. 308:
Così, dopo i travagli e le tempeste della giornata sopravvenne un lungo crepuscolo dolce e sereno e illuminato dai raggi dorati della gloria. Perché un’atmosfera senza esempio di trionfo e di adorazione avvolse l’ultimo periodo della vita di Vittoria. Il suo trionfo era la sintesi e l’emblema di un più grande trionfo, della culminante prosperità della nazione. Il consistente splendore del decennio [1887-1897] che trascorse tra i due giubilei di Vittoria trova a stento eguali negli annali dell’Inghilterra. I saggi consigli di Lord Salisbury  parvero portare con sé  non soltanto la ricchezza e la potenza, ma anche la sicurezza: e il paese si assise con sicura tranquillità al godimento di una grandezza ben stabilita. Come era naturale, anche Vittoria si assise. Perché ella era una parte dell’edificio: una parte che appariva essenziale; come un mobile, una magnifica e inamovibile vetrina, nel vasto salone dello Stato. Senza di lei il copioso festino del 1890 avrebbe perduto la sua qualità più singolare: la serie così ben ordinata di sostanziosi e semplici piatti, con il riflesso pesante, sulle pareti, dell’argenteria quasi nascosta agli sguardi.
Osservazioni conclusive
Il punto centrale della biografia della regina Vittoria di Strachey è la sua trasformazione da vedova petulante a matriarca imperiale. Il ruolo mondiale di imperatrice fu per lei fonte di eccitazione  nella sua vecchiaia e conferì nuovo significato al cerimoniale che la circondava.
Sebbene I toni più aspramente darwiniani dell’ideologia imperialista siano assenti in questo lavoro, la luce favorevole gettata sulla qualità mistica dell’impero britannico e su Vittoria, lei stessa una tory imperialista non da meno dei suoi ministri, mostra chiaramente che la biografia di Strachey è opera di propaganda a favore della mentalità coloniale così diffusa nella Gran Bretagna vittoriana ed edoardiana in tutte le classi sociali e che, dice MacKenzies (1990, p.4), inaugurò un periodo —che sarebbe durato fino all’ascesa al trono di Elisabetta II — nel quale tutti I grandi eventi reali sarebbero stati imperiali.

Bibliografia essenziale
Bearce George D. (1961). British Attitudes Towards India,1784-1858. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Cannadine David (2001). Ornamentalism. How the British saw their Empire. Penguin Books, London.
Le Jeune Françoise (2017). "Queen Victoria’s orientalism, inventing India in England". In Imaginaires, Féminisme et orientalisme,21, hal.archives-ouvertes.fr-03313493.
MacKenzie John M. (1990, 1984). Propaganda and Empire. The Manipulation of British public opinion, 1880-1960. Manchester University Press.
Metcalf Thomas R. (1995). Ideologies of the Raj,  Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Nünning, Ansgar and Rupp, Jan. "The Dissemination of Imperialist Values in Late Victorian Literature and Other Media". In Ethics in Culture: The Dissemination of Values through Literature and Other Media, edited by Astrid Erll, Herbert Grabes and Ansgar Nünning, Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2008, pp. 255-278.
Strachey, Lytton (1921). Queen Victoria. Release Date: August 21, 2011 [EBook #37153]. Project Gutenberg.
Strachey, Lytton  (1966). La regina Vittoria. Traduzione a cura di Santino Caramella. Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori editore.
[1]  Sul ruolo propagandistico della letteratura si veda  Nünning, Ansgar e Rupp, Jan 2008.

Isa Blagden and Robert Lytton - Elena Giannarelli

2,30-3,30 John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde Traveller in Florence; Admirer of India - Rita Severi

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is the author of poems, a tragedy, letters and various writings that are set, describe, or expound some of his ideas on Florence and its greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. He first visited Florence in 1875, when still a student
at Oxford, where he had attended Ruskin’s lectures. He returned to the city in 1894, when he visited Violet Paget/Vernon Lee and her step-brother Eugene Lee Hamilton. He saw much of Bernard Berenson, a little less of André Gide, toured Villa Stibbert and left his signature in the guest book. Throughout his life he was attracted to the subcontinent of India, to its spirituality and religion. As the editor of “The Woman’s World” (1887-1890) he chose to review books about Indian society and its women, and he solicited articles about India, written by English authors who had visited and studied that intriguing world. He was extremely keen in learning about its sacred poetry and its ancient rituals. In his home, in Tite Street, Chelsea, he surrounded himself with small Indian decorative objects, and had most of the floors in the house covered with Indian matting. In his tragedy, Salomé, in the metaphorical “dance of the seven veils”, Wilde surprisingly evokes one of the most complex and artistic Indian myths.

Ruskin and Mountains - Sir Nicholas Mander

Cityness

Alcune riflessioni sulla parola polis, civitas, città/Some reflections on the word polis, civitas, city - Francesca Ditifeci

Come diceva Aristotele l’essere umano è zoon politikon echon ton logon, animale politico dotato di parola, corpo abitato dalla parola. Ed è proprio nella sua identità di parlessere che diviene cittadino, abitante della polis. Quindi gli uomini sono esseri capaci di politica, perché sono esseri capaci di linguaggio. In questa prospettiva diviene chiaro che “in una città un posto ci deve essere per tutti: un posto per pregare (la chiesa), un posto per amare (la casa), un posto per lavorare (l’officina), un posto per pensare (la scuola), un posto per guarire (l’ospedale). In questo quadro cittadino, perciò, i problemi politici ed economici, sociali e tecnici, culturali e religiosi della nostra epoca prendono una impostazione elementare ed umana! Appaiono quali sono: cioè problemi che non possono più essere lasciati insoluti” (La Pira 1954).

E’ nella città che l’essere umano cerca la sua realizzazione perché “per ciascuna di esse è valida la definizione luminosa di Péguy: essere la città dell’uomo abbozzo e prefigurazione della città di Dio. Città arroccate attorno al tempio; irradiate dalla luce celeste che da esso deriva: città nelle quali la bellezza ha preso dimora, s’è trascritta nelle pietre: città collocate sulla montagna dei secoli e delle generazioni: destinate ancora oggi e domani a portare alla civiltà meccanica del nostro tempo e del tempo futuro una integrazione sempre più profonda ed essenziale di qualità e di valore! Ognuna di queste città non è un museo ove si accolgono le reliquie, anche preziose, del passato: è una luce ed una bellezza destinata ad illuminare le strutture essenziali della storia e della civiltà dell’avvenire.” (La Pira 1955).

As Aristotle said, the human being is zoon politikon echon ton logon, a political animal endowed with speech, a body inhabited by speech. And it is precisely in his identity as a parlessere that he becomes a citizen, an inhabitant of the polis. Thus men are beings capable of politics because they are beings capable of language. In this perspective, it becomes clear that "in a city there must be a place for everyone: a place to pray (the church), a place to love (the home), a place to work (the workshop), a place to think (the school), a place to heal (the hospital). In this city framework, therefore, the political and economic, social and technical, cultural and religious problems of our age take on an elementary and human approach! They appear as they are: that is, problems that can no longer be left unsolved” (La Pira 1954).
It is in the city that the human being seeks his fulfilment because "for each of them Péguy's luminous definition is valid: to be the city of man, a sketch and prefiguration of the city of God. Cities perched around the temple; irradiated by the celestial light that derives from it: cities in which beauty has taken up residence, has transcribed itself in the stones: cities placed on the mountain of centuries and generations: destined still today and tomorrow to bring to the mechanical civilisation of our time and of future times an ever deeper and more essential integration of quality and value! Each of these cities is not a museum where relics, even precious ones, of the past are housed: it is a light and a beauty destined to illuminate the essential structures of the history and civilisation of the future” (La Pira 1955).

Mornings in Delhi - Arjun Shivaji Jain

INTRODUCTION
Taking after John Ruskin's 1886 Mornings in Florence 1, I wish for the following to be what humble guidance I may offer to travellers in Delhi, both Indian and not, to where I was born and brought up, and returned to, to live and to love. As did Ruskin, I intend to deliver it no otherwise than I would to friends, who may’ve asked me for my views on it, not caring of how ‘wrong’, academically, they might perhaps turn out to be.
Over a course of a week, in spirit, I shall be walking with you around the city. Who knows how much of eras bygone we may encounter, how many of the numberless poets and painters – all lovers in fact – we may meet? We will see what we do, eyes unsullied by dogma. We will see like a child, full-breathed and bright eyed. And may we decide also to see – and it is indeed a decisions – to see happy-hearted? — Before we begin, you’ll be ‘well-advised’, I imagine, by doctors, to take your shots and everything – so you mayn’t catch anything particularly nasty while you’re here; ‘Delhi belly’ is what it’s usually called, I understand. Well, let me tell you that you will indeed catch ‘something’, and that no shot in the world will be able to prevent it really. You may indeed fall sick, and decide to leave on the very first morning, but you may decide to stay as well, forever and ever. A guest is akin to God, it’s believed here in these lands.

THE FIRST MORNING
LANDING
Ah! What a morning indeed! And what perfect weather! Can you feel it on your skin? It seems it rained last night. Well, don’t you open your eyes until I tell you to. — Now. See. Carefully as your eyes might react to all this suddenness. The air’s coloured quite differently, is it not? A bright orange, I would say, and vague, as though veiled with white. It smells different too, you know? Spicy and thick, of incense, heavy as though you could collect in a jar and take it back with you. I suggest you don’t speak for a while, at all - but listen. Take the city in, the country in, the subcontinent in – and perhaps the world. Most of today, let me tell you, you may not actively remember, but only as in a dream. So do seize the moment. Do dream the day away today. And no, you will not be sleeping; it is not that sort of a dream. There is no rest here to be found, at least not initially. Why, your senses are all awake, aren’t they? Have you seen as many colours before? Smelled as many scents? Heard as many sounds, or touched as many things? Felt as many feelings? All at once? Have you been inside an ocean, and lived to tell the tale? Well this is it. Notice your attention becoming sharper by the second. The weight of sensation upon you. Infinite sensation. Like lightning it is piercing through your consciousness. There no making sense of anything. This is what life – pure life, raw life – looks like.

THE SECOND MORNING
CHITTARANJAN PARK
Good morning! Did you have a good night’s sleep? You had something, didn’t you? You need not answer. I wouldn’t be surprised if your heart was still beating as fast as yesterday. It takes some time indeed. We are walking through Chittaranjan Park today, where I’ve been living for some years now. The Bengali part of the city it is, the part of town the poet Tagore would possibly be living in, were he there. Bengal in Delhi, you ask? Why yes! All of India’s in Delhi, really! And with time, you will see, all the rest of the world as well. The honks, yes, of the cars? Yes, well it is something we need constantly to contend with here. Depending upon where you think Delhi ends, somewhere between seventeen and forty-three million people call Delhi their home – somewhere between the whole of the Netherlands, and more than Ukraine. It’s funny though, overall, how everything seems still to be working. If anywhere there was chaos in the world, it is here, if anywhere anarchy, it too – and yet, everyone seems to remain calm, more or less, and everyone, more or less – more the poor than the rich – has a smile on their face. Even the constant honking – it’s more a ‘hey, I’m here’ than ‘get off!’ really. And oh, you noticed the animals as well? The stray cats and the stray dogs, and the stray cows? Yes, get used to it – as they have, the animals. Lions may well be the kings of the jungles here in India, but cows are the kings of the cities. And oh, however could we forget the monkeys? How dare we, really?

THE THIRD MORNING
GREEN PARK & DEER PARK
You know, in my childhood, we really did have snake charmers as well? Not joking at all. I lived in Yusaf Sarai as a child, once location of a medieval rest house, and now a proper Delhi colony, an urban village. For all its population and pollution, Delhi is, believe it or not, one of the greenest cities in the world, as you of course can see. Last month, the semal tree- red-cotton-silk was all in bloom, in celebration of Holi perhaps, the festival of colours. Oh yes, we have loads of them, festivals. Every couple of weeks, seriously! But yes, it was semal then, and soon it will all be amaltas everywhere, laburnum, and Gulmohar, the beautifully crimson Royal Poinciana – which you can in fact eat! It’s somewhat sour! Let me take you to Deer Park next, rather nearby, and my favourite park when young. Oh, look!  A peacock! And rabbits! And deer! And oh God, it smells so nice, doesn’t it? It smells of innocence. And oh, see the mulberry tree is all quite ripe now. Do you want to have a taste? Come on, don’t be so delicate! Pick one off right from the branch – the darker blackish ones are sweeter- and pop it into your mouth. Washing it takes most of the sugar away, it seems. Delicious, isn’t it? And hey, there’s a eucalyptus tree, see? Come, I’ll show you something. Here, rub these dry leaves in your palm – crush them, really – and have a whiff? Yeah? I see you’re distracted by all the names of lovers carved in the trees here.


THE FOURTH MORNING
CHANDNI CHOWK
Oh, how impertinent of me to not have asked you for food yet? It’s been three days already! Well, let me take you to Chandni Chowk then today, the Moonlit Square. Now, this is Old Delhi, the real Delhi if you will, before the British. It’s rather like the Gothic Quarters in Barcelona, isn’t it?! Ah, if only there were less people, or the government would pay more attention. Well anyway, if you thought you’d seen everything the day you landed, you are not prepared, I swear. All kinds of odd people you will see today, all kinds of odd things going on. The architecture, though crumbling, is beautiful though, isn’t it? God knows how many years these buildings have been here? All arched, and latticed, and filigreed, almost. Yet, no one to take care of them. Well, let us begin at the Red Fort today, stronghold of the Mughal Empire, the penultimate, or perhaps third to last, great city of Delhi, from seven, or nine, or eleven, who can tell? Every little lane here sells something completely different – spices, paper, jewellery, kites, the borders of saris for God’s sake! And oh, food! Now that is here on every corner. You know, the real art is always that of food? The artists all pretend, I feel sometimes, with their paintings. But beware, Delhi’s food is not for the faint-hearted. It is vegetarian, yes, almost all of it, but spiced to a degree you might feel yourself in hell – but give it time, and it’ll be a hell you will crave! Come, let’s have some chole-kulche, and kachori? What about some nagori? Naan-khataai? Topped off with glass of fizzy lemonade?

THE FIFTH MORNING
LODHI GARDENS
Did you notice, I wonder, all along your left yesterday, the sequence of buildings we were passing? I’m not sure if such a thing exists anywhere else in the world, but one-by-one, one after the other, neighbouring each other, we passed across a Jain temple, a Hindu temple, a Baptist church, A Sikh Gurudwara, and two medieval mosques! Unbelievable, isn’t it? But let us go the Lodhi Gardens now, yet another of the many Delhis of the past, now converted into a park. The sheer number of monuments Delhi has, really, is staggering. They’re just there. Here, there, everywhere, and often no one looks at them for a second time even, they are so ingrained in the Delhiite’s mind. Well, the Lodhi Gardens are lush, as you can see. Thriving with vegetation. The buildings are all what, a thousand years old? All built of quartzite, grey, with fire inside, quartzite from the ancient Aravalli range of mountains, all but a memory from the past now, mostly. This part of Delhi, as you can see, of New Delhi, is proper New Delhi. I do wish sometimes the rest of it could also look like it. Well, this is where the politicians live, these are ‘their’ gardens, it seems. This, and all around - you may forget you’re in India for a minute or two. My feelings for it are mixed. I do love it – it is beautiful! But so is so much more, if only it were taken care of better, or at all. The taxpayer’s money? Well, this is where it goes, I suppose, to the habitation of the tax-man.

THE SIXTH MORNING
RED HOUSE
And now that we come to the end of these six days in Delhi, I would like to take you somewhere new today, somewhere you can feel where the city might proceed towards, if tended to carefully. It is a sad fact of this country, as many in the region, that its citizens, if given the choice, will indeed flee it at once. The moral fibre of the nation, once famed, if you delve deep enough, you may not find it too easily today. The fickleness of certain peoples, really, Is unbelievable. And yet, places like these do also exist – like the Red House. May all of Delhi look someday like this? Built progressively of brick, naked brick, and lime, latticed in every pattern? And arched, wherever an arch can fit? There were no plans for this, you know, no architectural blueprints? It was worked upon like a sculpture, with love every day. Come, let us sit in the open courtyard for a while, and let us enjoy the all-embowered-ness of it. Say, would you like some tea perhaps? The smell of the Rangoon creeper is all about us, threatening to make us stay here forever. Ah, look, a band of youngsters have just come in. They’re here for a workshop it seems. They speak in English, though not affected, and are dressed quite fashionably, no? And how beautifully they feel a part of all this? Have they all known each before, do you reckon? Or has this place done something to them? Now this is precious. The sunlight’s so very beautiful. All of life feels so very beautiful. Let us not make haste for tomorrow. This is good!

THE SEVENTH MORNING
DILLI HAAT
CONCLUSION
Well, perhaps a week wasn’t at all sufficient for such a tour, was it? As did Ruskin, I’m afraid I couldn’t quite pick out any very particular works of art for you to consider, but it really is difficult here, this, you know? Art isn’t there anymore, in the obvious sense, anywhere, to look at here. Perhaps it’s everywhere? It’s not quite looked at the same way at all, you see. Things aren’t as classified, as conquered, and as made slaves here of the intellect. They are more to be felt, I feel. More to be sensed by an open heart, than mind. Still, the murmurs of the centuries do reside, as promises of the future. The city continues – God knows how, but it does!  — Say, would you like some mementoes from this trip of ours to keep with you, to take back with you? Let us go once to Dilli Haat before you leave, the bazaar in the heart of this metropolis. You can tell me whatever catches your fancy, alright? It’ll be my gift to you. Oh, how about this gold-embroidered skirt? This indigo scarf? Any of these infinite heavy rugs? Or mango? Oh, yes, mangoes - of hundreds of varieties – the king of the fruits! If you’ve never had them before, you will not perhaps believe how sweet they are, and how in the world such sweetness could ever have been sucked out of the ground? Well, there is something in the soil here, there is indeed. How else could Gandhi have been born here? How else Mahavira, and Buddha? And everything else in existence? But I’m afraid I may have trapped you! Who, in their right mind, could bear to leave these alleyways? These are not the ‘streets’ of Delhi, my friend, but the canvas of an artist. Delhi. The chosen city of the world. The city that the heavens have looted and laid waste, time and again. Delhi alone is the city of love. And I’m an inhabitant of this destroyed garden. — Farewell! We shall see each other again.

REFERENCES
1  The Complete Works of John Ruskin, Library Edition. Volume XXIII, pp. 293-436. Lancaster University. Available online at lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/ruskin/23ValdArno.pdf

Restoration

The Indian Memorial, Florence - Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones MBE

The Cascine Park in Florence contains an unusual funerary monument to an Indian ruler – Rajaram II of Kolhapur.  The rajah, only twenty years old, died on 30 November 1870 at the Hotel della Pace in Manin Square, Florence.  He was on his way home, travelling through Europe after spending nearly five months in England.   Kolhapur was a small, nominally independent state in the southern Mahratta country, now in Maharashtra.  It was not part of British India although the British government had appointed a Political Agent and the education of the young rajah was being carefully supervised.  If he proved to be an unsuitable ruler, in British eyes, he would have been quietly deposed and a more malleable successor appointed.  But Rajaram developed into a model prince, forward looking, interested in science and the arts, speaking fluent English, writing it fairly well and being generally amenable to Captain Edward West who was appointed as ‘special assistant’ to superintend his education and training.  A Parsi graduate from Bombay University acted as the rajah’s tutor.

Although a practising Hindu, and conscious of his distinguished Mahratta ancestry, Rajaram became anglicised and developed a taste for the society of Europeans.  He would visit the British quarter of Kolhapur and listen to the regimental band playing in the evenings while chatting to people in the audience.  He enjoyed attending dinner parties, and he learnt to dance quadrilles.  It was his meeting in Bombay with Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son, that first put the idea of a visit to England into the rajah’s mind.  But there were a number of problems that had to be solved first.  Many Hindus would not travel out of India because it meant crossing  the kala pani, the black water, and that meant they would lose caste. Then there was the problem of food – Rajaram would not have eaten at the British dinner parties in Kolhapur unless he brought his own food, prepared by Brahmin cooks.  He had to take a cook and an assistant with him to England and they had to take their cooking pots with them and all the necessary spices too.  The only things that could be purchased abroad were live fowls, eggs and vegetables.

Nevertheless, Rajaram sailed from Bombay in 1870 with Captain West, the unnamed Parsi tutor and 11 native attendants.  The party arrived at Folkestone, on the Kent coast on 14th  June, then took the train to Charing Cross station and from there drove to a rented house near Hyde Park.  The arrangements would have been made by staff from the India Office because this was an important event – the first time a reigning Hindu prince had visited England.  A busy programme was drawn up.  During the first week Rajaram visited Madame Tussauds the wax-works gallery, Trafalgar Square and the Tower of London.  He was greeted warmly at the India Office, the governmental department which had succeeded the old East India Company that had been abolished in 1858.  The Company had established its own museum and the rajah was surprised to see such a large collection of Indian antiquities in London.  Some of his visits were prompted by his own interest in new technology like the lecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic that used magic lantern slides and the electric telegraph office, where messages could be received from India and answered too, all within five minutes. Tourist attractions including the British Museum, the Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens and St Paul’s Cathedral which were all thoroughly enjoyed.  Other events were arranged specifically to show off Victorian England at her best, and by implication, the benefits that India could receive under benevolent British rule.  Rajaram was presented twice to the widowed Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle; he attended the Houses of Parliament, where he saw democracy in action and met the Prime Minister, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli.  He was invited to a graduation ceremony at Oxford University where the uproarious behaviour of the students astonished him.

It was not all formal visits – the rajah enjoyed the traditional cricket match between Eton and Harrow schools at Lord’s Cricket Ground; he took dancing lessons, played croquet on the lawn of a country house,  and attended the theatre several times to hear Adelina Patti, the celebrated Italian opera singer whom he greatly admired.  He met a number of fellow countrymen who had settled in England, including Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian MP and he visited the maharajah Duleep Singh, whose Sikh kingdom had been taken by the British, and who was now living as a country gentleman in Suffolk.  Rajaram also met the nawab nazim of Bengal, Mansur Ali Khan, who had come to England to appeal against the British government’s seizure of his former stipend, the nizamat fund.  The two men, both Indian rulers in their own right, and both seeking different things, conversed in English in the foreign country that governed their own.  Rajaram showed little insight into his own position and Captain West, who edited his diary after the rajah’s death says that it was simply a day-to-day account of visits and events, rather than an analysis of Indo-British relations or any deep-seated reflections on his own anomalous position.  Indians were still a rarity even in London at the time and when the rajah and his party took a carriage drive in Victoria Park, east London, he noted that ‘the people who were walking in the park were astonished to see us natives and used to make a great noise whenever they saw us’.

After brief visits to Scotland, the Midlands and Ireland, where he was greeted by the Viceroy in Dublin, the group left Dover on 1st November, travelling to Ostend, then through Belgium and into Germany.  The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war meant that France was to be avoided. On 11th November the rajah made the last hand-written entry in his diary – subsequent entries were dictated by him, probably to Captain West.  Two days later Rajaram reported that he ‘had an attack of fever and was very poorly’.  On the following day, 14th November, he could not walk ‘on account of a sight attack of rheumatism’ and had to be carried in a chair to his carriage at Innsbruck.  He seemed to rally as the group arrived in Venice and was carried in a sedan chair to the Doges’ Palace and the piazza St Marco.  In Florence the rajah reluctantly agreed to be examined by an English physician, Dr Fraser – he had brought his own Indian doctor with him – but there was a sudden deterioration in his condition and he died in his hotel suite on 30th November.  The cause of death, without a post-mortem, was given vaguely as ‘abdominal viscera, together with collapse of nervous power’ which doesn’t explain the rheumatic symptoms.  The sad news was telegraphed to the rajah’s family in Kolhapur.

In death rajah Rajaram presented far more problems than he had done in life.  His Hindu attendants insisted that his body be cremated but this was strictly forbidden by the municipality of Florence.  Imprisonment for two years was the penalty for not burying a corpse in a coffin.  Now, by a curious coincidence the question of cremation had been raised a year earlier in Florence, when the city hosted the second International Medical Conference in September 1869 attended by delegates from as far afield as India and America.  During the two-week conference a paper was read by Dr Pierre Castiglioni, who was himself a Florentine. ‘On the incineration of corpses’ was a well-argued if radical idea. Cemeteries had become insalubrious places he said, with the odour from poorly-buried bodies penetrating through urban areas.  Battlefields were also a problem when corpses could not be speedily buried. There were religious objections, Dr Castiglioni said, and technical difficulties too before crematoria had been developed.  But, he concluded, was it not better for mourners to have a ‘handful of dust’ (une poignée de poussière) that was purified, light and without odour, than the thought of a loved one decomposing on a couch of vermin and putrefaction.  This powerful and emotive speech was warmly applauded and the motion carried that cremation was to be preferred to inhumation.  Although it did not become fully legal for another eighteen years, a crematorium was built in Milan in 1876 and Italy was in the forefront of the technical developments with engineers visiting England to advise.  By 1885 the first crematorium had been established at Woking in southern England.

We do not know whether Dr Castiglioni was consulted after the rajah’s death when frantic discussions were held to resolve two opposing ideologies as time ran out. A Hindu cremation normally takes place within 24 hours, for obvious reasons.  The doctor would certainly have supported the cremation and it is possible that it set some kind of precedent as the debate continued in the 1870s.  Clearly it was possible to be both deeply religious and to practice cremation – it was just a different religion to the stern Catholic beliefs prevailing at the time.  Captain West outlined what happened after the rajah’s death had been certified by the local doctor, Enrico Passigli.  Signor Peruzzi, the Syndic of Florence (the chief municipal officer) went immediately to the British Legation to meet Sir Augustus Paget, the British Consul and to discuss the cremation.  Peruzzi, from an old Florentine family of considerable importance brushed aside the objections from ‘other parties’ and overcame them with his ‘well-known sentiments of religious tolerance’.  Arrangements for the funeral procession and the cremation were in place by 1.00 am and the Director of the Municipal Police and the Secretary of the Municipal Sanitary Commission were informed.

The place chosen for the cremation was at the far end of the Cascine Park, on the bank of the river Arno, in a deserted and open esplanade.  Normally the body would have been carried on a bier at shoulder height by four or six men but it was agreed this would attract too much attention,  so a horse-drawn omnibus belonging to the hotel was used.  The rajah’s servants seated themselves inside, facing one another, and supported the plank on which the body lay across their knees.  It was not exactly a dignified exit, but it avoided the body being placed on the floor.  In spite of the early hour and the bad weather a number of carriages and a large crowd had got wind of the event and followed the cortege to the place where the funeral pyre was already piled up. The body was reverently placed on top of the three foot high mound with its face turned towards the east at 1.30 am.  Eyewitness accounts differ on how the rajah was dressed for this final act – some reported large pearl necklaces, gold bracelets and jewels on a turban, although another description of a rich red shawl with borders embroidered in gold sounds more likely.  The head was anointed with ghee and sandalwood and branches of birch trees heaped up.  The whole scene was lit by small paper lanterns carried by the rajah’s servants.  Just before 2.00 am a torch was applied to the pyre and a strong north wind aided the flames.  The Indian servants sat crossed-legged on the ground, praying quietly and bowing towards the pyre.    By 10.00 am on the morning of 1st December, it was finished and the municipal guards helped to collect the fragments of bones and ash and deposit them in a porcelain vase which closed with a red cloth and sealing wax. The pyre site was cleaned and washed and grains of rice scattered on the grass as an offering to the dead man’s soul.

As news of the rajah’s decease spread in Kolhapur, a public meeting was arranged and on 18th  December 1870 a Rajaram Chhatrapati Memorial Committee was set up.  A subscription list was opened specifically to endow the Kolhapur High School with scholarships for the deserving poor.  The late rajah had laid the foundation stone for the school the year before and education for both boys and girls was one of his particular interests. The school was renamed in his honour. 

In Florence, near the site of the cremation, a handsome Indian-style canopy supported on four elaborate pillars covers a fine bust of Rajaram.  The sculptor, Charles Francis Fuller, was a sensitive choice.  Born in Britain, Fuller moved to Florence in the 1850s and was part of a small group of artistic ‘exiles’, happy in their adopted country.  The bust is based on photographs of the rajah taken while he was in London and shows him wearing the traditional Mahratta turban, with a peak on the right-hand side.  According to descriptions of those who met him in England, he was never seen without this turban for it would have been unspeakably rude of him to appear bare-headed in company.  The canopy, based on the Indian chhatri, was designed by Major Charles Mant of the Bombay Engineers.  Mant went on to have an profitable career as an architect in India and he designed a number of palaces for minor royal rulers.  In particular he was commissioned by Rajaram’s successor, Narain Rao, to design a new palace for Kolhapur, which was a fantastic mixture of Indo-Saracenic architecture, bristling with towers, turrets, domes and kiosks, and was completed in 1884.  It is not known who paid for the Florence chhatri and bust, although there is a suggestion it may have been the rajah’s family.   A bridge near the site, opened in 1978 is known simply as the Indian Bridge, a nice tribute to this modest prince who had hoped to introduce new ideas to Kolhapur after his visit to Europe, but who sadly never went home.

Restoration of the memorial, which had deteriorated, began in 2019 and was complicated due to the varied composition and exposure to the elements: crumbling of the marble and sandstone ornaments, disintegration of the face and bust, and losses in the decoration caused by reconstruction efforts using a variety of techniques over time. The monument also presented a worrying structural deficit on one of the cast iron columns supporting the canopy.   The project, now completed, was managed by the city’s fine arts department and cost 240,000 euros.

Captions to Rajaram article

The restored monument in the Cascine Park

  
Bust of Rajah Rajaram by Charles Francis Fuller     Rajah Rajaram, from a photograph, 1870

The New Palace, Kolhapur

Edinburgh – Historic Burial Grounds both as exemplar and at risk - Dr Peter Burman MBE FSA, architectural historian and conservator
Peter Burman began to be interested in historic burial grounds as a schoolboy exploring churches and churchyards in his native county of Warwickshire. This led him to study History of Art at the University of Cambridge. His first role was as Assistant, Deputy then Director of the Council for the Care of Churches and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England. In this role, which lasted for twenty-two years, he and his colleagues were constantly giving advice and grants for the conservation and repair of sculpturally important monuments both within churches and outside churches in the historic burial grounds which typically surround them. He began to work not only with conservators to conserve them but also with craftspeople to ensure that new monuments were beautiful and meaningful.
Later, as Director of Conservation & Property Services of the National Trust for Scotland, he found himself living within the City of Edinburgh World Heritage Site and this encouraged him to take an interest in the five historic burial grounds which are situated there. They are places of memory, but also social places, visited by many who are interested in their heritage and human values. He is fascinated by their artistic and historic interest but also by the role they can play in the contemporary community of a city. In Edinburgh (as in all other cities where historic burial grounds exist) there many aspects which have to be managed: keeping the frequently ambitious architecture of mausolea in good repair through regular maintenance (in Edinburgh they include temple-like mausolea designed by 18th century members of the famous Adam family of architects); walls, often extensive and impressive in character; conservation of sculpture, using materials compatible with the original; drainage; archaeology; wildlife; flowers and greensward. Ideally these historic burial grounds need to be quiet and dignified, and yet at the same time welcoming and safe. Architecture and artistic sculpture, allied with beautiful and characterful lettering, have their part to play, but there is also often a personal response to these landscapes of melancholy beauty.
The challenges of caring for these special landscapes of memory are many and varied but the Edinburgh burial grounds are probably typical of many urban situations: shortage of funds; lack of clarity about the ownership of monuments; neglect (leading to standard conservation problems of soiled stonework; open joints; poor repairs, using cement instead of lime-based mortars; vegetation); vandalism, even theft; legibility of inscriptions; anti-social behaviour; greed of developers on adjacent sites; and so on.
Peter Burman will speak from many years of rich experience of conserving architectural and artistic heritage, and of being joint author with Henry Stapleton of the Churchyards Handbook, which has been through many editions over the years. In his ‘churches role’ he frequently collaborated with experts on tress, mosses and lichen; lettering and sculpture; in the organisation of Churchyard Study Days to introduce local people to the beauties, interests and specialness of their historic burial ground.

In October 1882, on his last visit to Tuscany, Ruskin was introduced in Florence to Francesca Alexander, an American expatriate, daughter of a couple of Boston artists. With a passion for Tuscany and for its people, Francesca gathered folk songs orally transmitted among the contadini, and composed a beautiful manuscript with the poems she transcribed and translated into English, decorated with drawings of wild flowers, portraits of the people and scenes illustrating the songs. This work had philanthropic purposes as Francesca’s aim was not to publish it as such but to sell the sole manuscript for the financial benefit of the poor Italian peasantry that had provided them. When he saw the 108-page manuscript Ruskin immediately offered to buy it and acquire the copyright to publish the work as its editor with the aim of conveying to the English mind “some sympathetic conception of the reality of the sweet soul of Catholic Italy”. In my paper I shall outline the fascinating history of Ruskin’s editing of Francesca Alexander’s Roadside Songs of Tuscany, and his endeavour to compose a spiritual memorial of the Abetone peasants and the mysticism of their everyday life.

Masculinisation of the ‘Motherland’: Analyzing Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World through an Ecofeminist Lens - Pritha Chakraborty

The paper aims to deal with the concept of ‘Motherland’ as perceived in the text of Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World. It aims to scrutinise the concept of ‘home’ and the ‘world’ and how it directly impacts the women of the nation. It aims to bring out the hypocritical ideologies of the nationalist in the wake of India’s freedom struggle movement. It shows how nineteenth-century Bengal saw the emergence of fanatic nationalists who created an image of the nation as a Motherland and inscribed the name ‘Bharat Mata’ associated with the landmass. Ironically, it was this motherland that was systematically eroded on the basis of religious bigotry, communalism and a fanatic cry of the Nationalists who worked in the policy of inclusion and exclusion of the members of the nation. The criteria for belonging to a nation were based on cultural assimilation, common tradition, language, and so on. In India, the concept of nationalism was built on Vedic civilization which claimed that India is a nation for Hindus and by Hindus. It is this systematic exclusion of certain members of society from the nation-building process that is questioned and reinterrogated. On the one hand, women were given the status of Goddess and ‘Shakti’ and on the other hand, it was this ‘Shakti’ that was infringed and violated in the hands of masculine powers of the state who wanted the nation to be built as per their own ideologies. Using Vandana Shiva’s concept of ‘Masculinization of Motherland’, it aims to show how the nation was shifting to ‘fatherland’ from the so-called idolized mother-worship of the nation as all the powers of the nation-building process were laid in the hands of the fanatic men who attempted to defend mother lands’ honour.
The paper shows Bimala, the female protagonist of the novel torn between the ideologies of the nineteenth-century ‘Bhadra Mahila’ concept and the association of her womanhood with ‘Mother India’. Nineteenth-century Bengal was in the process of enlightening their women with western education and by the middle of the century, Indian nationalism began to feel a sense of superiority among their women and wanted them to withdraw from the world and bring their entire attention to their household. In a similar context, Kundamala Debi had advised women: “If you have acquired real knowledge, then give no place in your heart to memsahib-like behaviour. This is not becoming in a Bengali housewife. See how an educated woman can do housework thoughtfully and systematically in a way unknown to an ignorant, uneducated woman. And see how if God had not appointed us to this place in the home, how unhappy a place the world would be.” (qtd in Chatterjee 129). A similar idea was rooted in Bimala’s ideology. Her ideology of womanhood was associated with ‘female virtues’. She considered the duties towards her husband Nikhil as her sole motif of life and worshipped him. She comments that when she would take the dust of her husband’s feet without waking him, at such moments she could “feel the vermilion mark upon her (my) forehead shining out like morning star” (20). This shows her as directly attached to the concept of ‘homely’ women.
However, later in the novel, the emergence of Sandeep as a nationalist leader intrigues Bimala. His enthusiastic words on claiming the nation from the clutches of western power motivate Bimala to side with him. Further, his tagging of her as ‘Queen Bee’, and ‘Mother Goddess’ become problematised in the concept of nationhood. Bimala is easily awestruck at the charismatic voices of freedom that Sandip aims to achieve in the name of Swadeshi. He claims, “You are the Queen Bee of our hive, and we the workers shall rally around you. You shall be our centre, our inspiration” (47). Bimala gets enchanted by the notion of freedom which not only concerns the land but her own self. Her door to freedom was opened by his husband himself, who wanted her to open her mind and seek her own individuality.
Sandip with his poetical oration translates the politics of Swadeshi into her being and builds a pedestal of her linking her with the image of divine Shakti around whom the world would revolve. He symbolically relates the emerging land with the power of Shakti and hails the nation as ‘Bande Mataram’. However, ‘Hail Mother’ becomes a multi-layered phrase for him to entrap Bimala in the pseudo-freedom struggle of the nation. The nationalist struggle for freedom becomes a male endeavour where in the words of Vandana Shiva, “A politics of exclusion and violence is built in the name of nationalism. Masculinization of motherland thus involves the elimination of all associations of strength with the feminine and with diversity” (111). In the nationalist discourse, like the women of the times, the land is perceived as the ‘other’ which needed protection from her ‘virile sons. Such protection is provided by masculine figures through the medium of violence and armed conflicts. Tagore saw nationalism as the brainchild of the West which was organised by some self-interested agendas of fanatic people who wanted to exploit all other communities for their own selfish gains. Shiva notes, “Hindutva, it is being repeatedly stated, is the ideology of a modernising India. Yet, as they are unfolding, liberalization and modernization are based on breaking all links with the motherland. Musicalisation of the motherland results in the disappearance of the motherland from the hearts and minds of the people” (111).
The novel clearly seems to portray the nation as an object that needs to be looted and snatched and won by force. Sandeep is the embodiment of such violence where the nation becomes a mere thing to be plundered to attain its freedom, which is in sheer contrast to the ideology of his friend, Nikhil, who believes in an all-inclusive nation which is not divided or violated on the basis of aggressive nationalism, as he claims, “Use force? But for what? Can force prevail over Truth? (100) Nikhil’s honesty and idealism are contrasted with Sandip’s cunning, and flagrant narcissism. As per his Machiavellian ideologies, “There is no time for nice scruples…We must be unswervingly, unreasoningly, brutal. We must sin” (50). Nation, therefore, becomes an embodiment of a woman who is overpowered by masculinity and is snatched of her ideal womanhood by leading her towards the path of infidelity. As Paola Bachetta notes that for two of India’s spiritual leaders, Rama Krishna and Aurobindo, mother as a symbol of the country was charged with love for all their children, in all its diversity. However, Hindutva Bharat Mata had to be ‘rescued’ by her ‘virile sons’ who use means of deceit, and illegal means and further the concept of colonialism in achieving their end. Sandip is so atrocious and greedy in accumulating material wealth in the name of building up a nation that he does not hesitate to encourage his own friend’s wife to rob her own husband for the sake of the benefit of the nation. Tagore in this context termed nation-building as the biggest evil to the civilization since it is based on power dynamics and coercion that merely focuses on amassing wealth and manifesting terror on innocent individuals of the nation.
           Nineteenth-century India was based on hegemonic masculinity where men’s honour was significantly related to their proof of hegemonic masculinity. This includes maintaining their chivalry and honour by limiting the boundary between the women and the nation and enabling them to function as per the instruction manual of the men and the powerful politics revolving around them. Peterson notes, “Motherland is a woman’s body and as such is ever in danger of violation- by ‘foreign’ males. To defend her frontiers and her honour requires relentless vigilance and the sacrifice of countless citizen warriors…” (80). In this context, it can be noted that Sandip’s approach and his false oratory speeches in order to instigate Bimala towards violating her own ‘home’ stands in paradoxical contrast to the motive of freeing the country from the clutches of colonialism.
Benedict Anderson notes that a nation is an ‘imagined community’. It clearly advocates the fact that a nation subscribing entirely to dominant ideologies and beliefs and sustaining the system of inclusion and exclusion is bound to be an imaginary endeavour and nothing concrete is expected to be drawn out of it. Sandip’s cry of nationalism remains a void cry devoid of devotion and based solely on personal gains. His theory of boycott of foreign goods and forcing the innocent village people to give up their trade was a source of outrageous violence in the name of freeing the country from the foreign rule. His concept of nationalism was pretentious and became harmful to the Hindus and Muslims of the nation. He had provoked the youths of Nikhil’s village to impose violence against the poor, innocent neighbours so that they are terrorised into accepting his own concept of a nation. As noted by Leonard A. Gordon, “The Indian nationalist movement as it developed in Bengal during the last quarter of the nineteenth century was dominated by high-caste Hindus... but the Muslims in Bengal lagged behind the Hindus in education, the professions and the government services. Most of the Muslims were lower-class cultivators in the eastern districts of Bengal proper” (278). Whereas for Nikhilesh, the idea of Swadeshi involved the inclusion of all the communities of the nation, Sandeep’s religious-centric idea and further exclusion of a certain section of people from joining hands in freeing the motherland served as a failure of the nationalistic project. Anita Desai in this context points out that Sandip “resembles nothing so much as the conventional blackguard of the Indian stage or the Bombay cinema, stroking his handlebar moustache as he gloats over a bag of gold and a cowering maiden” (55).
           Bimala’s body thus stands as a site of war and a possession to be looted and plundered in the name of saving the nation. Claiming her through false oratory speeches acts as a means of exploitation of the gender. Representation of her as ‘Mother Goddess’ makes her think that it is her duty to protect the nation’s honour. The eroticisation of nation with regards to women’s body not only place them within the idea of national but also make them the bearers of cultures and therefore more vulnerable to violence. Their inclusion in the conflict serves as a means of influencing the future generation and involving them in the fanatic cry for the liberation of the nation. Mrinalini Sinha mentions that women are burdened to balance the “in-betweenness” (22) of precolonial tradition and postcolonial modernity. They are expected to seek modernity in the guile of tradition where she acts as the upholder and preserver of culture. Bimala is seen to be the keen upholder of this tradition where her preference for home is a paradigmatic presentation of the harmony that she seeks through the devotional aspect of womanhood. Her story starts with her dedication towards her home and ends in reversion to the ways of the home after she sees through Sandip’s evil motives.
The whole idea of belonging to a nation becomes gendered where men are expected to be masculine and show masochistic traits in saving the nation whereas women are supposed to be sacrificial, faithful and pure. In Burdens of Nationalism, Uma Chakravarti mentions how in Sri Lanka, men were the ones participating in armed conflicts whereas women were expected to attach sentimental values and grieve for the loss. The creation of the idea of women as Mothers has attached the concept of reproduction to them where they are bound into a heterosexual construct that only subordinates them. Though Bimala as a dutiful and responsible wife got attracted to the seduction of Sandeep and his comparison of her with the Mother Goddess, rises her to a pedestal where she is inspired to coax her own husband to adopt the violent means and support Sandeep in burning the foreign goods in favour of uplifting swadeshi goods, she is torn between the ‘home’ and the ‘world’ where it is her ‘zenana’ that she connects herself with and wants to return to until it is too late and Nikhilesh gets caught up amidst the turbulent violence in the nation. It therefore, signifies that in the name of nation and nationalism, women are caught in between the fervour of men’s politics where she remains a puppet in their hands just as the country is bound to suffer at the hands of violent politics as Maria Miles notes, “Since the beginning of modern nation-state (the fatherlands) women have been colonized. This means the modern nation-state necessarily controlled their sexuality, their fertility and their work capacity or labour-power. And it is this colonization that constitutes the foundation of what is now being called ‘civil society’. The militarization of men in the name of nation-building not only hits women of other communities but also the female of one’s own community” (27). 
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s cry for independent India through the national song of ‘Bande Mataram’ in his famous novel Anandamath (1882) where the Motherland is praised to its utmost for being the bearer of rich culture and heritage, systematically shifts to ‘father state’ through the turn of the century when ‘Motherland’ which initially referred to Bengal, shifted to India and the country got ‘raped’ in the name of nationalism. The rich cultural heritage of the nation got divided between different communities when seeds of communalism started to infringe on the nation with the division of Bengal in 1905 where the largely Muslim eastern areas were separated from the largely Hindu western areas. Nikhilesh as the spokesperson of Tagore in the novel, speaks about the union of Hindus and Muslims in the fight against colonialism as against Sandeep’s view of excluding the Muslims from the nationalistic endeavours, as according to him, Bengal stood only as the land of the Hindus. Such polarization of the nation in the name of bigotry and religion led to the further disintegration of a ‘motherland’ where warfare constituted the creation of a masculine country devoid of humanity and devotion. Tagore in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech notes, “We must discover the most profound unity, the spiritual unity between the different races. Man is not to fight with other human races, other human individuals, but his work is to bring about reconciliation and Peace and restore the bonds of friendship and love” (Arun).
In the name of nationalism comes the destruction of the land from where thousands are uprooted, the land witnesses communal violence, mass murder, death of innocent people and division of the nation in the name of religion. In a similar context, Shiva notes, “Maldevelopment is seen here as a process by which human society marginalises the play of the feminine principle in nature and in society. Ecological breakdown and social inequality are intrinsically related to the dominant development paradigm which puts man against nature and women” (46). The extremist mode of boycotting British goods resulted in great hardship for rural petty traders and peasants most of them who were Muslims and low-caste Hindus. Tagore’s construction of Chandranath Babu in the novel was based on the figure of Ashwini Kumar Dutta of Bengal whose support for rural development was strongly admired by him.
The eroticisation of the Nation with the lover becomes the most disturbing aspect of the novel. Sandeep pulls lover and motherland together; Bimala and the Country become one. As Tanika Sarkar in her work notes, “The emotion that animates both, and the emotion that they evoke, are clearly erotic…The mother protects, the mistress leads to destruction” (35).
Though the novel is about politics which is about the devotion to the Motherland and the call for ‘Bande Mataram’ which signifies a salutation to the Motherland, there is no single mother in the text nor is the real devotion towards any female character visible. It is this ironic promise of development of the nation through the means of loot, snatch, fake devotion and force that the novel critiques. In a similar context, Shiva comments, “…by the name of development, is a maldevelopment process, a source of violence to women and nature throughout the world. This violence does not arise from the misapplication of an otherwise benign and gender-neutral model but is rooted in the patriarchal assumptions of homogeneity, domination and centralisation that underlie dominant models of thought and development strategies” (44).
Therefore, by bringing the marginalised women to the forefront, it is an attempt on the part of the novelist to preserve the ‘Mother Land’ which requires love, care and humanity and bring it back from the clutches of masculine endeavours. Bimala’s return to her husband at the end of the novel symbolises in a way the rootedness of the feminine principle in the context of the nation and the development of the land that entails through the process as Vandana Shiva in her words notes, “Their voices are the voices of liberation and transformation which provide new categories of thought and new exploratory directions…experience shows that ecology and feminism can combine in the recovery of the feminine principle, and through this recovery, can intellectually and politically restructure and transform maldevelopment” (45).


Works Cited
Arun, “The Noble Prize Acceptance Speech”. Literature Worms, https://www.literatureworms.com/2012/06/nobel-prize-acceptance-speech-by-tagore.html#, Accessed on 20 March 2023.
Basu, Sanjukta. “Gender, Sexuality and Nation- Tagore’s Ghaire Baire (Home and the World). This is My Truth, 18 May 2020, https://sanjukta.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/gender-sexuality-and-nation-rabindranath-tagore-ghare-baire-home-and-the-world-ignou-assignments-mawgs/
Chakravarti, Uma. “Wifehood, widowhood and adultery: Female sexuality, surveillance and the state in eighteenth century Maharashtra”. Of Property and Propriety: The Role of Gender and Class in Imperialism and Nationalism, The University of Toronto Press, 2001.
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial History. Princeton UP, 1993.
D, Dipanshi. “Tagore on Freedom and Critique of Nationalism”. Academia, n.d.
https://www.academia.edu/35372378/Tagore_on_Freedom_and_Critique_of_Nationalism.
Gordon, Leonard. “Divided Bengal: Problems of Nationalism and Identity in the 1947 Partition”. India’s Partition : Process, Strategy and Mobilization, edited by Mushirul Hasan, Oxford UP, 1993.
Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. Zed Books, 1993.
Peterson, V. Spike. “Gendered Nationalism: Reproducing Us versus Them”. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, vol. 9, no.1, pp. 77-83.
Sarkar, Tanika. “Many Faces of Love, Country, Women and God in The Home and the World”, The Home and the World: A Critical Companion, edited by P.K. Dutta, Permanent Black, 2003, pp. 27-44.
Shiva, Vandana. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India. Indraprastha Press, 1988.
Sinha, Mrinalini. Colonial Masculinity: The ‘manly’ Englishman and the ‘effeminate Bengali’ in the late nineteenth century. Manchester UP, 1995.
Tagore, Rabindranath. The Home and the World. Penguin Classics, 2005.

Il leone Marzocco fiorentino nella poesia politica e civile trecentesca minore di area toscana, similitudini con il contesto indiano - Marialaura Pancini

Il leone fin dall’antichità ha esercitato un certo fascino nell’immaginario umano divenendo oggetto di una serie innumerevole di similitudini, metafore e immagini simboliche che attraversano le culture, le aree geografiche e le epoche. Se si osserva il panorama della poesia politica e civile trecentesca minore di area toscana si può vedere che il leone come simbolo della città di Firenze è molto presente nel repertorio tematico dei rimatori toscani, in particolare fiorentini. Lo scopo di questa presentazione è quello, in primo luogo, grazie all’utilizzo di testi concreti afferenti al genere della poesia politica e civile trecentesca minore di area toscana, di delineare quella che è la considerazione che si ha del leone e la simbologia che è legata a questo animale in questo contesto storico e geografico. In secondo luogo, si evidenzieranno quelle che sono le similitudini tra l’immagine del leone nel contesto toscano medievale fiorentino e la simbologia che il contesto indiano attribuisce.
Appare a questo punto necessario premettere che si tratta di una selezione di testi arbitraria, fatta sulla base del criterio di eterogeneità, rappresentatività e ampiezza dell’argomento, si è scelto, infatti, di dare maggiore importanza ai testi nei quali si fa ampiamente riferimento al leone Marzocco fiorentino. Per non essere troppo prolissi e non allontanarsi troppo dal focus fiorentino della presentazione e del convegno, si eviterà di citare tutti i casi – anche se questi sono numerosi- di riferimenti brevi e poco significativi al leone come metafore, frasi gnomiche etc. che non hanno una vera e propria tematizzazione nel testo, ma sono solamente costrutti fissi popolari.
Si esamineranno, quindi, una serie di casi concreti nei quali si fa riferimento al leone come simbolo della città di Firenze rappresentato attraverso il leone Marzocco.
Il sonetto Il lion di Firenze è migliorato  viene scritto in occasione dell’acquisto da parte di Firenze di Arezzo. Il sonetto anonimo gioca con gli animali araldici presenti nei gonfaloni delle città toscane e nasconde, dietro riferimenti a prima vista zoologici, la narrazione delle vicende politiche di quegli ultimi anni. La prima quartina, attraverso l’animale simbolo di Firenze, il leone marzocco, ora «migliorato» v.1 dopo che «lungo tempo è stato in malattia» v.2, descrive i trascorsi della città di Firenze. La città, dopo le sconfitte subite dalla ghibellina Pisa di Uguccione della Faggiola (1315) e dopo il periodo dell’infruttuosa signoria di Carlo, Duca di Calabria (1325), a questa altezza cronologica riprende la sua politica di espansione verso le zone limitrofe, Arezzo è proprio una di queste . La quartina in questione esalta la conquista della città di Arezzo, rappresentata attraverso il «Cavallo sfrenato» elemento caratteristico del gonfalone aretino , attraverso tale azione la città di Firenze vede compiersi la sua signoria, il suo potere su Arezzo. Si allude anche al compimento di una profezia «che Daniello aveva profetizzato» v. 8 e che ora è «tutta adempiuta» v. 7.  I versi potrebbero riferirsi al libro di Daniele, nel quale viene descritto un sogno, dove sono protagoniste quattro bestie, la prima bestia ha figura leonina con ali d’aquila, la seconda bestia figura di orsa, la terza di leopardo, la quarta è una bestia senza un preciso referente reale, ha molte corna e distrugge tutto ciò che trova. La quarta bestia viene «uccisa e il suo corpo distrutto e gettato a bruciare sul fuoco. Alle altre bestie fu tolto il potere e fu loro concesso di prolungare la vita fino a un termine stabilito di tempo.» . Secondo l’interpretazione, che segue nel libro, le quattro bestie rappresentano quattro re che si succedono nel tempo, nonostante le prime bestie rappresentate nel libro di Daniele, il leone e l’orsa trovino corrispondenza con i versi resta però piuttosto oscuro il collegamento tematico, non è quindi certo il riferimento. Nella terzina che segue si fa riferimento, attraverso i loro animali araldici, alle città toscane rimaste a guardare il crescere della potenza fiorentina. Siena viene rappresentata come una lupa ferita «scorticata» v. 9  e Pistoia come un’«Orsa» v. 9, entrambe colpite dalla «branca»  v. 10 del leone fiorentino, che si è appropriato della città di Arezzo, e ha inoltre con questo gesto messo in fuga le altre bestie  ovvero ha fatto arretrare le altre città toscane dalle loro posizioni espansionistiche e di potere nella zona, dimostrando la propria forza leonina. Nell’ultima quartina torna il tema della profezia di Daniello del v. 8, questa si avvererà se il leone fiorentino continuerà a fare «borsa» delle pelli «cuoi» v. 13 degli animali che rappresentano le città toscane, se quindi la città di Firenze affermerà la propria egemonia sulla Toscana. La cauda è un avvertimento, posto in forma proverbiale, che suggerisce di stare attenti alle persone alle quali si è avuto fretta di commettere torti, perché in breve tempo queste presenteranno la loro vendetta . Questa conclusione gnomica potrebbe essere indirizzata o alla stessa città di Firenze, invitandola a rimanere vigile su una possibile vendetta della città toscane, oppure potrebbe anche essere riferita alla vendetta che i fiorentini hanno attuato, dopo le sconfitte subite nei primi anni del secolo ad opera dei baluardi ghibellini Uguccione della Faggiola e Castruccio Castracani.
Proprio in seguito alla compera di Arezzo da parte di Firenze del 1385 Antonio Pucci e Franco Sacchetti, autori fiorentini molto attivi nella scena politica della loro città, si scambiano una tenzone in commento alla vicenda. Il primo a dare avvio alla corrispondenza è Antonio Pucci, che scrive e indirizza a Franco Sacchetti il sonetto Il veltro e l’orsa e ‘l cavallo sfrenato . Il sonetto ricorda molto il testo analizzato in precedenza Il lion di Firenze, dove i riferimenti alle città toscane sono tutti espressi mediante gli animali simbolo di queste. Nella prima quartina, Pucci descrive la situazione di alleanza «parentado» v. 2 tra Volterra: il veltro , l’orsa: Pistoia e il cavallo sfrenato, ovvero Arezzo, e Firenze: il leone. Anche Il lion di Firenze utilizza gli stessi riferimenti per Pistoia e Arezzo «l’Orsa» v. 9 e «il Cavallo sfrenato» v. 4. Pucci conclude la quartina ricordando Pisa: la volpe; il toro: Lucca; Siena: la lupa e il grifone perugino  alcune di queste città che menziona sono poco turbate per l’accrescimento del potere fiorentino, altre, invece, lo sono «molto» v. 4. La seconda quartina, si incentra tutta su un riferimento ai tempi passati della guerra tra Firenze e Pisa per la presa di Lucca del 1342. C’è infatti un discorso diretto pronunciato dalla stessa volpe pisana che rammenta la «tencione» v. 6 avuta con il leone fiorentino perché «contra ragione» v. 7 Pisa «volea pigliar […] / il toro» vv. 7-8. Il riferimento all’intrusione senza averne diritto di Pisa nella compravendita di Lucca torna anche negli altri testi di Pucci dove è trattata la vicenda. Seguono poi i discorsi degli altri animali menzionati che rappresentano le città: la lupa Siena, che esprime il suo dubbio per quanto riguarda l’origine del suo cattivo rapporto con il leone fiorentino. Il grifone di Perugia esprime invece la sua gioia per essere da sempre «amico» v. 13 del leone fiorentino, il rimando, come sottolinea anche Ageno , potrebbe verosimilmente essere alla Guerra degli Otto Santi durante la quale Perugia si ribella all’abate Géraud Dupuy, vicario papale nell’amministrazione della città sottoposta al dominio pontificio. Lo stesso Pucci descrive infatti dettagliatamente la ribellione della città e la cacciata di Dupuy nel suo Cantare della guerra degli Otto Santi, anche Franco Sacchetti fa riferimento a Dupuy come il «porco monacese» v. 127 nella sua canzone Hercole già di Libia ancor risplende. In conclusione, Pucci si rivolge all’altro poeta e chiede il suo parere sulla questione appena trattata.
Franco Sacchetti risponde per le rime alla sollecitazione dell’amico ed esprime il proprio parere con Se quella leonina ov’io son nato , riprendendo il sonetto di Pucci fa riferimento a Firenze come «quella leonina» v. 1 dove lo stesso autore è nato. La sua risposta è però molto critica nei confronti dell’atteggiamento fiorentino. Sacchetti accusa, infatti, Firenze di non essere governata in maniera tale da poter garantire il benessere per i suoi cittadini, che dall’altro lato si sono sempre dimostrati a lei fedeli. Sacchetti accusa direttamente la città di non contraccambiare i suoi concittadini dello stesso amore che questi le hanno riversato in passato. Secondo l’autore è questa la ragione per cui le altre città «ogni animale che hai narrato» v. 5 si astengono dal sottomettersi alla città del giglio «verebbe sotto al florido pennone» v. 6, per quanto riguarda l’utilizzo dell’aggettivo florido, al di là del riferimento alla prosperità ci potrebbe essere un rimando etimologico con il nome di Firenze, questo aggettivo è utilizzato da Sacchetti anche in altri contesti sempre riferendosi a Firenze . Nella seconda quartina Sacchetti chiarisce ulteriormente il motivo del suo risentimento nei confronti di Firenze: delle persone disoneste e incivili «rei villani» v. 7 attraverso menzogne «con falso sermone» v. 7 si stanno allontanando sempre più dall’esempio morale dei celebri «Bruto, Scipïone e Cato» v. 8, non è un caso che vengano citati tre autori romani, in questo periodo cronologico è infatti diffusa l’esaltazione della romanitas fiorentina, che trae base dalle origini fiesolane della città e vede Firenze come nuova Roma . Le terzine mostrano un crescendo della disperazione del poeta che rimanda nella prima terzina al credo cattolico, «nessun conosce grazia da Colui / ch’ognora in essa tiene la mente pia» vv. 10-11. Questa coppia di versi appare speculare nella struttura ai vv. 1-4, in questa prima quartina Sacchetti accusa Firenze di ingratitudine verso i cittadini che per lei si dimostrano fedeli, allo stesso modo nei vv. 10-11 Sacchetti accusa con un generico «nessun» v. 10 di non mostrare gratitudine verso colui che costantemente «ognora» v. 11 tiene conto della città: Dio. In questo caso è presente un rovesciamento con la narrazione che lo stesso Sacchetti fa, circa un decennio prima, (1375-1378) della città durante la guerra degli Otto Santi, dove Firenze è sempre fedele al divino e ai suoi precetti e assume il ruolo, intriso di senso biblico, di pastore e guida delle città ribelli in fuga dagli ecclesiastici erranti rispetto ai valori divini paragonati ai Faraoni. Nell’ultima terzina torna, come nell’ultima quartina, il riferimento al tradimento della romanitas fiorentina. Sono infatti silenti e assenti personaggi come Cicerone, Curio e Silla, citati per antonomasia, chi governa adesso, infatti non vanta un’ascendenza nota. Ageno in proposito segnala un possibile riferimento al tumulto dei Ciompi del 1378 e alle nuove arti dei farsettai e dei tintori proclamate in quell’occasione, ma dopo poco abolite . Il riferimento al tradimento dei valori della romanitas è tematica centrale della canzone di Bindo di Cione del Frate Quella virtù, che ‘l terzo cielo infonde dove attraverso un sogno appare Roma nei panni di donna anziana che si lamenta per lo stato nel quale riversa adesso la sua discendenza. Oltre al riferimento tematico nella canzone ricorrono, insieme a molti altri exempla di virtù, anche i nomi di Bruto, Scipione e Catone, menzionati da Sacchetti.   
I versi conclusivi di Fiorenza mïa, poi che disfatt’hai , dello stesso Franco Sacchetti, fanno riferimento allo stesso modo a Firenze attraverso il suo animale simbolo che ricorre frequentemente nei testi presi in esame: il leone marzocco, al quale la famiglia degli Ubaldini aveva per anni creato problemi «dispettando» v. 47. Sacchetti gioca inoltre sul significato figurato del verbo sommergere e sull’accostamento del marzocco al golfo del Leone, per precisare la fine che invece ha poi fatto la famiglia «dispettando il leone, / che gli ha sommersi, e non nel mar Leone» vv. 47-48. La stanza successiva prosegue, sulla scia dei versi precedenti, questo gioco sulla parola leone riferendosi a «Castel Leone» v. 49 nome con il quale si identificava l’attuale Lévane , occupato dagli Ubaldini dal dicembre 1372 al giugno 1373, che avevano con disonestà «di furto avendol preso» v. 50 ai fiorentini. Riprendendo il tema del v. 3 «superba» si giustifica tale irriverenza come mossa dalla stessa superbia «tant'era su montata lor superba» v. 51 della famiglia. I vv. 52-54 tornano sul leone fiorentino, elogiandone la superiorità «mag[g]ior leone» v. 52 e le azioni di conquista.
Altri casi, significativi, nei quali si fa riferimento a Firenze tramite il leone sono il v. 39 di Deh, angeli ed arcangeli con truoni  di Antonio Pucci, dove il riferimento alle città viene espresso attraverso gli animali simbolici che li rappresentano il leone per Firenze, e la volpe per Pisa.
Anche in O Signor mio ch’agli apostoli tuoi , Pucci conclude fornendo le coordinate temporali della vicenda ai lettori «Contato v’ho di fino a mezzo luglio / de l’anno sopradetto» v. IV.32.1-2 e descrivendo - attraverso una metafora zoologica che vede protagonisti gli animali simboli delle città toscane: il leone per Firenze e la volpe per Pisa - la situazione attuale, lasciando trapelare qualche anticipazione di quello che seguirà. Il leone fiorentino e la volpe pisana si trovano ora uno di fronte all’altro a trattare per una pace, i pisani sono però come di consueto inclini all’inganno, i fiorentini dal lato loro non sono per nulla sciocchi, verranno ingannati solo a causa della loro lealtà.
Allo stesso modo anche il cantare O indivisa etterna Ternitade  dello stesso Pucci anticipa in chiusura quello che seguirà nel cantare successivo della serie dei cantari della Guerra di Pisa, Pucci alimenta le aspettative del pubblico annunciando quello che avverrà «Or vi dirò s’ come di ragione / seppe la volpe qui più che [‘l] leone» v. V.17. 7-8. Il cantare successivo, di conseguenza, fa riferimento al tradimento del leone fiorentino «la volpe a∙leon diè mala strenna / ch’avendol’ quasi a la pace promosso / e leopardi gli mandòne adosso» v. VI.12.6. 
Interessante a proposito è anche il sonetto O Pisa, vituperio delle genti  di Filippo dei Bardi. L’autore si rivolge alla stessa Pisa ricordandole che nemmeno Dio la salverà dalle grinfie del leone fiorentino «E non ti val chiamar quell’alto Teta» v. 4. Il leone viene rappresentato in tutta la sua rabbia e maestosità che con i suoi attributi «denti» v. 5; «artigli possenti» v. 7 è intento senza freno a spargere il sangue pisano «che no si cheta / Perché abbia rossi gli artigli possenti / Del sangue de’ tuoi fi’ con tanta pieta» vv. 6-8.
La tenzone  che vede coinvolti il lucchese Pietro de’ Faitinelli e un anonimo rimatore pisano è molto interessante perché vede il confronto diretto tra due autori divisi in quel momento dall’assedio. Lo scambio di sonetti risale infatti al periodo che va dal 25 settembre 1341 e il 2 ottobre dello stesso anno, periodo nel quale Firenze occupa la città di Lucca non avendo ancora subìto la sconfitta di Monte san Quirino e non avendo ancora lasciato Lucca in mano pisana . Come nota Aldinucci , il sonetto di mano di Faitinelli, Mugghiando va il Leon pel la foresta , ricorda il sonetto analizzato Il lion di Firenze è migliorato, e si basa come quest’ultimo sugli animali simbolo delle città toscane. La città di Firenze, il leone , gioisce per la recente conquista di Arezzo, il Cavallo disfrenato ,  e ha sotto di sé anche Pistoia, l’orsa . Firenze aveva ottenuto, infatti Arezzo nel 1336 come testimonia il sonetto Il lion di Firenze è migliorato, anche la città di Pistoia è parte dal 1331 della sfera di influenza fiorentina . Nei versi successivi, vv. 5-8, entra in scena Lucca, la Pantera, dotata di un alito ammaliatore  che «presta» v. 5 questa sua peculiarità al leone fiorentino permettendogli così di attrarre a sé i comuni toscani . L’appoggio lucchese dei fiorentini si dimostra vantaggioso anche in termini geopolitici, l’aver ottenuto Lucca da Mastino della Scala permette a Firenze di «accerchiare il territorio di Pisa da ogni parte» . Dopo l’allusione al vantaggio che ottiene Firenze sui pisani ecco che nei versi successivi anche la Lepre pisana fa la sua comparsa nel testo, Pisa farà bene a stare attenta dal momento che oltre alle città sopra citate anche Siena, la Lupa, si è alleata con Firenze in prospettiva anti-pisana . La metafora «il Leon e la Lupa odi ch’han fatto: / tes’han le reti e vogliolla pigliare» vv. 10-11, usata per rappresentare le trame che Firenze e Siena stanno mettendo in atto contro Pisa, si allaccia alla rappresentazione delle città come animali e tare origine dalla sfera della caccia , una metafora inerente allo stesso ambito si trova anche nei sonetti Ceneda e Feltro e ancor Monte Belluni e San Marco e ’l Doge. Per la Lepre pisana non ci sarà scampo inutile fuggire come è solita fare oppure riporre le speranze nella sorte, come viene espresso attraverso l’utilizzo della metafora dei dadi , Firenze, il Leone, e Siena, la Lupa, sono prossimi a distruggerla. Per quanto riguarda il riferimento alla lepre come animale erbivoro di scarso valore bellico, ma piuttosto incline alla fuga e al rintanarsi si veda il sonetto Più lichisati siete ch’ermellini di Folgore da San Gimignano uno tra gli innumerevoli riferimenti alla Lepre pisana presenti nella letteratura medievale .
A questo sonetto Faitinelli riceve risposta da un anonimo rimatore pisano che gli indirizza Amico, guarda non sia mal di testa . Il sonetto si configura come una risposta diretta al lucchese e si basa sulla stessa cerchia lessicale . La prima quartina riprende specularmente il tema del sonetto di Faitinelli «ribaltandone ironicamente il significato»  sotto un’ottica pisana. Se il sonetto lucchese narrava di un leone a testa alta per la felicità, qui si invita l’«amico» v. 1 ad assicurarsi che il leone non sia molestato dal mal di testa, che gli fa alzare la testa, piuttosto che la felicità, oppure che non sia uno dei consueti dolori, con una possibile allusione alle divisioni interne alla città di Firenze . Il pisano continua con la reinterpretazione del sonetto del lucchese, non c’è motivo di essere allegri «come tu di’» v. 6, dal momento che Lucca, la Pantera, si è dovuta sottomettere alla città di Firenze non per sua volontà ma perché sottoposta al volere del suo signore Mastino della Scala, perché costretta ad ubbidire: «per mostrarsi ne l’ubidir presta» v. 8. La prima terzina approfondisce ulteriormente il tema dell’acquisto di Lucca definito spregiativamente come «baratto» v. 10, che si rivelerà come un dolore più che una felicità per la Pantera lucchese. Per quanto riguarda il Cavallo aretino, si invita l’amico a stare attento che questo non si rivolti contro chi lo sprona arditamente, il pericolo che rappresenta il cavallo sfrenato di schiena è identificabile con quello che potrebbe essere il pericolo di una rivolta contro i fiorentini ad Arezzo, circostanza che effettivamente si verifica nel luglio 1341 ; in quegli anni avviene proprio il tradimento di «quel da Pietramala», l’aretino Tarlato Tarlati, menzionato nella canzone di Antonio Pucci O lucchesi v. XI.6, Arezzo dopo essersi dapprima alleata con Firenze ordisce una congiura contro la stessa città del giglio .  Il v. 14 «talor di schiena» potrebbe alludere, tra l’altro, alla posizione geografica di Arezzo nei confronti di Firenze, che vista da Pisa appare in posizione posteriore rispetto alla città gigliata. Gli ultimi versi elogiano la Lepre pisana, questa volta è lei ad essere allegra, questa non teme infatti le trame che stanno tessendo contro di lei «quei falsi» v. 16 di Firenze il Leone, e Siena la Lupa. Anzi in vigore delle sue qualità: l’arguzia, la forza e il senno «non teme» v. 18 né Firenze, né le città che questa ha posto sotto la sua ala: Siena e Pistoia.
Se si osserva il contesto indiano, il capitello di Sarnath, emblema della Repubblica Indiana, rappresenta sull’abaco quattro leoni addossati, la maestosità di questi leoni ricorda da vicino il Marzocco fiorentino. In particolare, il pilastro di Ashokan eretto a Sarnath è quello più iconico e celebrato dei pilastri di Ashokan , esso è infatti raffigurato anche nella banconota da una rupia indiana e sulla moneta da due rupie e inoltre è divenuto l’emblema nazionale indiano. L’aspetto che in questa sede ci interessa del pilastro è il capitello nel quale sono raffigurati quattro leoni ognuno posizionato in direzione dei quattro punti cardinali. I leoni hanno la bocca aperta e ruggiscono, il leone nel contesto indiano, oltre ad essere simbolo di regalità e potere, come nel contesto occidentale e fiorentino, è anche simbolo di Buddha stesso. Nella base del capitello sono scolpiti altri animali: un cavallo, un toro, un leone e un elefante .
Come nel caso di Firenze, anche nel caso indiano del capitello di Ashokan il leone diviene simbolo di fierezza e possenza nel comando, ma allo stesso tempo viene associato ad altri animali, sia nel caso del capitello che nei casi dei sonetti presi in esame, come se sia nel contesto indiano, che in quello fiorentino si volesse far riferimento al leone sì simbolizzandolo e rendendolo un emblema di una città ma allo stesso tempo senza estrapolarlo del tutto dal suo contesto naturale nel quale si trova circondato da altri animali e dalla natura.

Riferimenti bibliografici
Studi:
Gatti Luca, Il mito di Marte a Firenze e la «pietra scema». Memorie riti, e ascendenze, in «Rinascimento», XXXV (1995), pp. 201-230. 
Shelby Karen, "Lion Capital, Ashokan Pillar at Sarnath", in Smarthistory, 9 agosto 2015, accesso 3 aprile 2023, https://smarthistory.org/lion-capital-ashokan-pillar-at-sarnath/.
Morpurgo Salomone, Dieci sonetti storici fiorentini, Firenze, Carnesecchi, 1893.
Edizioni critiche di autori:
ANTONIO PUCCI, Cantari della Guerra di Pisa = ANTONIO PUCCI, Cantari della Guerra di Pisa, edizione critica, a cura di, M. Bendinelli Predelli, Firenze, Società Editrice Fiorentina, 2017. 
FRANCO SACCHETTI = FRANCO SACCHETTI, Il libro delle rime, a cura di F. Brambilla Ageno, Firenze-Melbourne, Olschki-University of Australia Press, 1989 (A.); FRANCO SACCHETTI, Il libro delle rime con le lettere; La battaglia delle belle donne, a cura di D. Puccini, Torino, UTET, 2007, (P.). 
PIETRO DE’ FAITINELLI = PIETRO DE’ FAITINELLI, Rime, a cura di B. Aldinucci, Firenze, Accademia della Crusca, 2016.
Strumenti di consultazione: 
DBI = Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960-. 
Libro di Daniele = Testo a cura della Conferenza Episcopale Italiana, https://www.vatican.va/archive/index_it.htm
TLIO = Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini, fondato da Pietro G. Beltrami e diretto da P. Squillacioti presso CNR-Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, http://tlio.ovi.cnr.it/TLIO/
Toscana Giunta Regionale, 1995 = Toscana Giunta Regionale, La Toscana e i suoi comuni, storia, territorio, popolazione, stemmi e gonfaloni delle libere comunità toscane, Venezia, Marsilio, 1995. 

Website
http://www.sarnathmuseumasi.org/gallery/Gallery3%20Acc%20No%20355.html

Paper read at the Annual Conference of the Collegium Mediterraneanistrarum, 12 June 2022

Feminist Gandhi - Julia Bolton Holloway
 

Mahatma Gandhi brought a new dimension into our lives. When he spoke of nonviolence, he meant not merely the avoidance of violent action but cleansing our hearts of hatred and bittereness. He unveiled the spiritual political power of illiterate and humble have-nots and pointed out that the only programmes worth preaching were those which could be translated into action. He said that every decision and programme should be judged from the viewpoint of the poorest and the weakest.

                                                                                                                   Indira Gandhi

The reader might well rebel at this paper's title. Gandhi is seen as a 'male chauvinist'. However, there are aspects to Gandhi's life and thought that can be related to feminism. This paper discusses three aspects of Gandhi - Gandhi and Patriarchy, Gandhi and Women, Gandhi and the Bomb, all of which are related to each other. It will not be academic but instead, to a large extent, in Gandhi's own manner, an experiment with truth.

Gandhi and Patriarchy

My best avenue to this topic is to discuss the relationship of a father, a daughter and Gandhi. My father was an Englishman in India and a friend of Gandhi. My father and Gandhi were both journalists, so once they both wrote up interviews of each other, my father's serious one on Gandhi in The Times of India, Gandhi's joking one in Young India about blue-eyed, fair-haired Glorney Bolton. My father was with Gandhi on the Salt March to Dandi in March 1930. There was a British Broadcasting Corporation recording of many voices, 'Talking of Gandhiji', my father's voice being one of these, now lost. Though the book made from it exists. This is what my father said on that broadcast of the event where Gandhi illegally and very simply gathered salt from the sea:
 

And there was Gandhi, walking along, with his friends round him, it was a sort of terrific anticlimax. There was no cheering, no great shouts of delight, and no sort of stately procession at all, it was all . . . in a sense rather farcical. However this great march had begun . . . here he was, quite happy, with people round him, on the whole very quiet, but now and again you heard Gandhi . . . break out with that wonderful boyish laughter of his. He didn't know how the march was going to end, but nonetheless, there I was, seeing history happen in a strange sort of . . . way; something completely un-European and yet very, very moving.

That act was to end Britain's dominion of India. Such a simple act - yet far more powerful than any act of violent terrorism, than any use of any bomb. But it needs an explanation. Britain imposed a monopoly upon salt in India. She did so because Rome had likewise imposed such a monopoly upon all the lands that lay under the yoke of her vast Empire. From it comes the word 'salary' that we use today. Salt was made into a currency, the state controlling a substance essential to life. However, such a monopoly was not the practice in Britain. Its imposition upon India was an unjust, patriarchal, imperial act and Gandhi, who had studied law in England, knew this. Our American version of this simple gathering of salt from the sea was Rosa Parks, because of her tired feet, refusing her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus - an act which changed us from a racist nation to one with a dream of equality partly realized, though we have further to go.

I grew up with the knowledge of Gandhi all about me as a girl in England, knowing my father was his friend and had written his biography, The Tragedy of Gandhi, published in 1934 when it seemed that Gandhi had failed. I remember listening with great intensity to the Declaration of India's Independence by Earl Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru on the radio when I was ten years old. But now, when I read my father's biography of Gandhi, two things make me rebel against that Englishman's perspective. My father wrote that he despised Gandhi's 'feminine masochism' (partly alluding to his use of 'anorexia') and he also criticized Gandhi's espousal of poverty. My father was a widow's son, had known comparative poverty, and had struggled against it to acquire an education at Oxford, failing to obtain his degree. He desperately wanted to succeed in journalism and politics. However, Gandhi really did succeed - but by insisting on getting rid of status and rank and caste - knowing that there was only so much to go round and that it must be shared, that one man's wealth causes another's poverty. Willy Brandt in the report North/South, likewise voices this in connection with war.

While hunger rules, peace cannot prevail. He who wants to ban war must also ban poverty. It makes no difference whether a human being is killed in war or starves to death because of the indifference of others.

My father was then ambitious for wealth and fame and therefore Gandhi's ideas clashed with his own. But many years later he was to write a biography of Pope John XXIII, Living Peter, a biography which praises rather than blames a similar man. Gandhi, it can be seen, successfully educated his adversaries.

A colonial power must lie to itself. Gandhi stripped those lies away, using justice to unveil injustice, using law to demonstrate the lawlessness of British dominion. And to do so he turned to women.

Gandhi and Women

Margaret Bourke-White who photographed this immediately before Gandhi was assassinated

India had once been a great textile-producing nation. Our America calico cloth's name means that it once was produced at Calicut, in Madras, in India, and then exported to England and her colonies. But the English in the nineteenth century, to protect their own textile industries, forbade India to continue hers. Indians who had once exported textiles now had to import them from Lancashire. Gandhi saw one way of breaking British dominion over India as becoming self-sufficient in textile production. So he turned to village and cottage crafts, his womenfolk and he himself spinning and weaving khaddar cloth, homespun cloth. Santha Rama Rau, in her autobiography, Home to India, discussed the boycott and women's central participation in it. It is difficult for western, male culture to realize the full political importance of cloth. We are more involved with text than with textile. Yet to look at classical literature is to find that weaving by women was as important as tale-telling, history writing, by men, the two becoming interwoven in each other. In Guatemala today, the women express the tale of their oppression through embroidered pictures, which cannot be censored in the same way as can the written word.

It seems that every liberation movement needs the feminine as well as the masculine, the women far more clearly symbolizing the transition from bondage to freedom than does the man. Gandhi wilfully took on that woman's role, using that symbolism. His revolution against the mother country was not with male weapons of destruction but with female tools of production. His male sword was a female spinning wheel, the charka, the wheel of life, the emblem today upon the flag of India - and upon that of the Rom.

I find the spinning wheel admirable, not despicable. Here I and my father would part ways.

Gandhi and the Bomb

Margaret Bourke-White, the American Time/Life photographer who was with Gandhi just before he was shot, disagreed with his feminine principles. Paradoxically she wanted masculine solutions. As did my father, she saw the answer to India's poverty in westernization, industrialization, and high technology. Gandhi countered her by quietly spinning cloth as she photographed him. In her autobiography, Portrait of Myself, she reported Gandhi's final conversation. It was about the nuclear bomb.
 

As we sat there in the thin winter sunlight, he spinning and I jotting down his words, neither of us could know that this was to be perhaps his very last message to the world . . . Gandhi began to probe at the dreadful problem which has overwhelmed us all. I asked Gandhi how he would meet the atom bomb. Would he meet it with nonviolence? 'Ah', he said. 'How should I answer that? I would meet it by prayerful action.' I asked what form that action would take. 'I will not go underground. I will not go into shelters. I will go out and face the pilot so he will see I have not the face of evil against him.' He turned back to his spinning . . . I rose to leave, and folded my hands together in the gesture of farewell which Hindus use. But Gandhiji held out his hand to me and shook hands cordially in Western fashion.

That gesture, incidentally, shows that one does not hold a sword. Gandhi then went to prayer and was shot. The man had given the woman's response, to spin, to provide clothing for future generations. The woman has been led to the ultimate technological development, the masculine weapon that could annihilate the future.

I do not know why this conversation was left out of the film, Gandhi, except to say that three years ago it was still not fashionable to fear the bomb. It was taboo, something deeply repressed. Today we are openly, consciously examining that issue. Gandhi can help us toward a solution. He would have us disarm. He would feminize the world. There are more tons of explosive power per child, woman and man in the world than there is food. Gandhi would say that preparation for war in order to prevent war is folly. Einstein did say that. It is time for a revolution for peace. Gandhi taught us how to have a revolution with tools that build a future, rather than with weapons that annihilate the past, the present and the future. To learn how to use these tools, Gandhi himself was willing to be taught by women. Weapons exist to enforce the power of one nation, race, sex, creed or caste over another's. Theirs is only a negative, destructive power. But in a world where the primary concerns are shelter, food, and clothing for all, regardless of these superficial distinctions, weapons become unnecessary. Gandhi, in turning to the untouchables and the women, turned Hinduism upside-down and he turned the world the right way round.

Originally given as a paper, then published, in 1984, was awarded the 'Art of Peace' prize. The BBC broadcast is now lost, but the book published from it survives.

Gandhi's possessions at his death, his glasses, his sandals, etc.

Prega, rifletti e poi fai:

questa regola (di Gandhi) ottenne l'independenza dell'India/

Pray, reflect, and then act:

This rule (from Gandhi) won India's indepedence

Fioretta Mazzei
    

PARTICIPANTS

Arch. Amina Anelli is the restorer of the monument of the Indian Prince in the Cascine and architect for the Comune of Florence. Dal 2015 lavora presso la Direzione Servizi Tecnici del Comune di Firenze nell’ambito del Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica di
Palazzo Vecchio fino al mese di dicembre 2022 e dopo nell’ambito del Servizio Supporto Tecnico Quartieri e Impianti Sportivi (P.O. Scuole, Biblioteche, Ludoteche, Centri civici ed altri immobili del Quartiere 1), occupandosi di progettazione, direzione
lavori, coordinamento della sicurezza e verifica progetti e in qualità di membro di commissioni giudicatrici per appalti di lavori pubblici e di relatrice in conferenze illustrative di progetti/lavori.
 
Dr Peter Burman studied History of Art at the University of Cambridge. His first role was as Assistant, Deputy then Director of the Council for the Care of Churches and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England. Later, as Director of Conservation & Property Services of the National Trust for Scotland, he found himself living within the City of Edinburgh World Heritage Site. Companion of the Guild of St George of John Ruskin.

Pritha Chakraborty  has completed her B.A in English from University of Calcutta and is currently pursuing her M.A in English Literature and Language in Department of English, University of Delhi. Her areas of interest include Gender Studies, Victorian Age, Feminist Criticism, Masculinity Studies, American Literature, Modern Age etc. She blogs, writes poetry, has worked with Stirring Minds, based in Bangalore, and Teevro Private Limited based in Jaipur as a content writer. She wishes to continue her career in academia and has published articles while also taking part and presenting papers in various national and international conferences. You can reach her at prithabarac@gmail.com.

Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti was Professor of English, University of Florence, publishing on Margery Kempe and other women contemplatives.

Francesca Ditifeci is Ricercatore of English Language and Translation of the University of Florence's Dipartimento di Formazione, Lingue, intercultura, Letterature e Psicologia.

Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu is from Romania, the restorer of the English Cemetery, who inherited his grandfather's copper-smithing tools. He has also worked on the restoration of Donatello's pulpit in Prato, has created two facsimiles of the Libro del Chiodo, and chisels the memorial plaques to Frederick Douglass, Sarah Parker Remond, etc. The Roma from India by way of Persia and Turkey a thousand years ago, their language still Sanskrit.

Mi chiamo Elena Giannarelli: sono fiorentina, filologa classica e docente universitaria in pensione. Ho vissuto otto bellissimi anni postlaurea alla Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Ho viaggiato molto per lavoro, in Europa, negli Stati Uniti, in Australia, finendo per tornare in Italia e a Firenze. Ho pubblicato volumi e saggi di storia delle donne nel mondo antico, ho tradotto e commentato testi greci e latini, soprattutto biografie. Ho scritto libri di storia di Firenze, materia che insegno all’Università dell’Età Libera della mia città, dove sono presidente del Centro di Studi Patristici e professore invitato alla Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Centrale.

Nick Havely is Emeritus Professor at the University of York, where he taught courses on English literature and Dante. His recent books include: Dante’s British Public (2014); Dante Beyond Borders: Contexts and Reception (2021); and After Dante (2021), a new translation of the Purgatorio by sixteen contemporary poets. He has held Leverhulme and Bogliasco Fellowships, and has been elected an Honorary Member of the Dante Society of America. His current project is Apennine Crossings: Travellers on the Edge of Tuscany, to be published by Oxford University Press.

Julia Bolton Holloway is Professor Emerita of the University of Colorado at Boulder, her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley where she taught, also at Princeton University. She has published books and articles on Dante Alighieri, his teacher, Brunetto Latino, editing his writings, those of Julian of Norwich and Birgitta of Sweden, and of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry for Penguin and in Italian for Le Lettere. She is Custodian of Florence's English Cemetery, organizes the City and Book international conferences and the Academia Bessarion encounters, and is a Companion of the Guild of St George of John Ruskin. The websites for Florence's English Cemetery are at florin.ms

Arjun Shivaji Jain received a Master of Science in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, Uttarakhand in 2014, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Art and Science from Central Saint Martins of the University of the Arts in London in 2016. Recipient of multiple scholarships and fellowships instituted by the Department of Science, Govt. of India, and having worked at the Indian Institute of Technology and National Science Academy in Delhi, and the National University of Singapore, he has assumed various disparate roles over the years (including, but not limited to, waiting tables, invigilating galleries, housekeeping, gardening, felling trees, & teaching). Self-published and well-travelled, he is serving at present as the first Young Companions' Representative of the Guild of St George, UK, whilst working, in a personal capacity, as a visual artist. He is proprietor of the John Ruskin Manufactory, and director at Red House, here in Delhi where he currently resides.

Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones MBE is an Executive Committee member of BACSA (British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia) and the editor of its Journal, Chowkidar. She is a specialist on colonial India and her most recent book, published in January 2023 by Hurst is Empire Building: the Construction of British India. BACSA’s website is: https://www.bacsa.org.uk.


Sir Nicholas Mander, restored Owlpen Manor and is a Companion of the Guild of St George of John Ruskin.

Marialaura Pancini is a Ph.D. student at the University for Foreigners of Siena, where she studies fourteenth-century Political and Civil Minor Poetry in the Tuscan area.

Nic Peeters is an independent art historian, lecturer and writer in Antwerp, Belgium, who specialises in British nineteenth-century art particularly that of women artists. His doctoral thesis for Brussels University (VUB) was on the work of Evelyn De Morgan focusing on a combination of spiritualism and feminism

Sriram Rajasekaran, a medical doctor by profession, with all his heart in the Arts, often found reading Proust and Joyce, currently pursuing his postgraduation in Preventive and Social Medicine.
 
Domenico Savini is a scholar of the nobility of Florence and the royalty of England

Emma Sdegno. Professor of English, Dipartimento di Studi Europei e Postcoloniali della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.

Rita Severi, Professor of English, University of Verona, Victorianist and co-editor of  'Oh Bella Libertà!': Le Poesie di Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Florence: Le Lettere, 2022.


Because both Florence and India/Pakistan have been major textile producers these materials will be available for a donation at the conference.

         

           

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