The Chimera according to Janet Rasmussen

Janet Rasmussen, June 1, 2005

By kind permission of Janet Rasmussen

Introduction:

“For Romans at the time of Augustus, the memory of the Etruscan people was already hazy with the mists of legend.” (Pallotino, 1955). A renewed fascination with the Etruscan culture began in the Renaissance around the time of the discovery of the bronze image of the Chimaera of Arezzo. The statue is believed by many to be emblematic of Tuscan pride. It was discovered in 1553 during work on fortifications near Arezzo, Italy. Shaped by an unknown artist in the late fifth, or early fourth, century, the 80 cm. tall sculpture is in the likeness of a lion with serpent tail, with the head and neck of a goat protruding from its back (Spivey, 1997; Ramage and Ramage, 2005). The earliest known written record of this creature may be found in the Iliad, written in the mid eighth century BCE.

The original setting for the sculpture is unknown; but its inscription hints that it may have been a temple offering. It has been speculated that there was a companion sculpture of the Greek hero Bellerophon astride Pegasus, illustrating the story made famous by Homer. The Etruscans were known for their metal-working and for the popularity of mythological themes in their artwork (Herbert, 1949; Ramage and Ramage, 2005). The pictorial representations of the Chimaera changed over time, in Greece and in Etruria; as did its meaning as a mythological character. At the time of creation of this particular work of art, the Chimaera may well have been the appropriate symbol of classical Etruria.

Figure 1: The Chimaera of Arezzo (Ugo Bardi)

Figure 2: Location of Arezzo in Italy is in the northeastern part of ancient Etruria (www.pickatrail.com).

The Etruscans

The Etruscans thrived in west central Italy from around the beginning of the Bronze Age (about 1000 BCE) until their culture and autonomy was gradually subsumed by Rome by the early first century BCE. “Temperamentally the Etruscans were a people who devoted themselves to the outward aspects of life with almost childish enthusiasm…At one and the same time [art] combined ancient legacies from the past with Greek influences of its own day, together with an uncanny anticipation of the future; from this jumble of inspirations and intuitions it managed to derive its own quite novel and highly individual existence.” (Pallottino, 1955) This much could be surmised by careful observance of the surviving Etruscan art. The culture of the Etruscans was primitive, but the people evidently admired and adopted many foreign motifs and techniques in their art, while maintaining a distinctive flavor of their own. The popularity of heroic myths, of the manly pursuits of hunting, fishing, and wrestling, along with music, dancing, and unabashed displays of affection, all depicted in their art, together imply a culture in which strength, bravery, ancestry, and the pursuit of pleasure were highly esteemed. Politically, the Etruscans were not unified, but more a loose collection of city-states. “The Etruscan cities’ decline set in during the fifth century…”(Pallottino, 1955).”Some political unity was achieved as twelve Etruscan cities convened at a sanctuary at Velsna, but little other evidence of cohesiveness has been found (Spivey, 1997) The political climate was becoming grim for Etruscans at the time that the Chimaera of Arezzo was created. The fall of Etruria was beginning, and the statue seems to express the despair of a soon-to-be conquered people. Ancient artworks and ruins were later discovered that spoke of splendor and mystery, courage and strength; and many Romans then as now yearned for their Etruscan origins. The discovery of the Chimaera must have been a sensation at the time, though it was, according to Cellini, in rather poor condition (Cellini, 1931). Today it is proudly displayed, in original and replicas, throughout the region, and is a beloved symbol for the native people (Bardi, 2002).
The Myth of the Chimaera

In order to understand what the Chimaera meant to the Etruscans, it is helpful to review the origins of the myth. The myth has evolved since its first introduction known from literature in the 8th century BCE. The concept of a Chimaera no doubt predates Homer’s Iliad; and its original meaning, if any, is lost. In Homer, the story of the Chimaera and Bellerophon was told as an anecdotal aside, as two men, meeting in battle, hesitate for a brief introductory conversation. “I would not wish to fight against the gods. But if you are of men…come nearer…” one says to the other. His opponent, then tells his story of his ancestor Bellerophon. Bellerophon, he says, was favored by the gods, and was descended from Sisyphus. He goes on to tell the story of Bellerophon and the Chimaera. As he relates the tale, his opponent realizes that both their fathers had been friends, and they decide not to fight one another (Murray, 1999).

The story of Bellerophon, is this: the king Proetus, jealous of his wife’s affection for Bellerophon, sent Bellerophon to Lycia, “giving him fatal tokens, scratching in a folded tablet signs many and deadly”. (This, by the way, is the only passage in Homer which suggests knowledge of the art of writing.) (Murray, 1999). The king of Lycia, after showing Bellerophon hospitality for many days, eventually read the note from Proetus. Then, as now, murdering a houseguest was a breach of etiquette; therefore the king told Bellerophon to slay the Chimaera, believing this would serve the same purpose. The details of the battle we have from later writers. The goddess Athena enabled Bellerophon to subdue Pegasus; and with the help of that creature, he slew the Chimaera. He shot arrows into her from above, and finally dropped a lump of lead down her throat. Her fiery breath melted the lead, which killed her. This explains many of the figures of the Chimaera which include Bellerophon riding Pegasus. It also explains, on the Chimaera of Arezzo, the wound on the neck of the goat. The Chimaera, being of the gods and thus immortal, was relegated to the underworld (Small, 1959). Bellerophon attempted to ride Pegasus to visit the gods, and was punished for this presumptuousness when Pegasus threw him back to earth.

There have been plenty of unlikely conglomerate creatures in ancient folklore: the sphinx, centaur, Medusa, Pegasus, the hippocamp, griffin, and countless others; but none, I would venture to suggest, as awkwardly put together as the Chimaera, with a goat protruding from its spine. Hesiod states that the Chimaera is a descendent of Typhon, the god of volcanic eruptions, and Echidna, a chthonic serpent. Stephen Wilk, in his study of the Medusa, suggests that these images began as astronomical interpretations.

“It’s not hard to picture these figures as the constellations--substituting Bellerophon for Perseus…and, of course, the Chimera for Cetus. The Perseid meteor shower, emanating from the hand of the figure of Bellerophon, could represent the darts that he throws at the Chimera…The glowing red star Mira represents the chunk of lead that has been shoved into the mouth of the Chimera. For about half the year, when Mira is dim, the lead is still solid. But then it begins to melt, and the molten block of lead turns red, killing the Chimera. The constellation of Aries lies between Perseus and Cetus, and this may have something to do with the naming of the Chimera and the goat’s head that the monster bears in its middle. Finally, the fall of Bellerophon to earth might also have been inspired by the Perseid meteor shower.” Mira is a variable star, whose variability can be distinguished by the naked eye, and which becomes brighter and redder periodically over the course of several months (Wilk, 2000).

Some have believed that the Chimaera represented the seasons of the year. Inghirami, writing in the 19th century, states that the Chimaera represented a volcano with lions living near the top, goats in the middle elevations, and everywhere on the mountain there were snakes. He concluded that the Chimaera represented the summer (by the flames coming from the lion’s mouth), and the spring (by the goat), and the snake representing the coming autumn (Inghirami, 1824). The mane of the Chimaera of Arezzo certainly resembles flames. Robert Graves, says: “The Chimaera, …depicted on a Hittite building at Carchemish, was a symbol of the Great Goddess’s tripartite Sacred Year--lion for spring, goat for summer, serpent for winter.”(Graves, 1960).

Still others believe that the Chimaera originated as an explanation of volcanic activity. “Virgil must have been aware of the connection between the mythical Chimaera and the actual volcano of the same name” (Small, 1959).
The Chimaera in Greek Art

The appearance of the Chimaera is explained in Homer thus: “She was of divine stock, not of men, in front a lion, in back a serpent, and in the middle a goat, breathing out terribly the force of blazing fire.” (Homer, Iliad VI, 179-182). Anne Roes, states, “The only thing there is of goat about her is a head, that grows like a parasite out of the lion’s back, and, in most cases, looks piteous rather than terrific.” Roes speculates that the form of the Chimaera may have originated as an ancient ‘typographical error’: “Minoan seals sometimes showed two animals of which the one was partially hidden behind the other, so that only his head and his legs showed. If the artist out of carelessness omitted the legs, as may happen, we had something like the Chimaera.”(Roes, 1934). Could this, in Figure 1, have occurred?

Figure 3: A very unusual Chimaera from a proto-Corinthian vase in Boston (Roes, 1934).

The Chimaera, as a subject in Greek vase paintings, was popular from about 680 to 570 BCE. In early images, the heads face forward, and there is no snake on the tail. Around 660-650 BCE, the goat’s head is placed close to the curved spring of the lion’s neck. Corinthian vase painters concentrated more on the Chimaera as a decorative motif than the story of Bellerophon and the Chimaera. Between 630 and 600 BCE there are no examples of Chimaera in Corinthian painting, but the Attic painters used the motif from 600 to 530 BCE. They sometimes gave the Chimaera manes of straight or flame-like rays, and in the Attic figures, the lion’s and goat’s heads turn to the rear, and some show the goat’s forelegs. After the end of the Archaic period, the legend of Bellerophon and the Chimaera declined even further in Greek vase-painting, except for a popularization in Etruscan painting in the fourth century BCE, and a minor revival in Attic red-figure during the last third of the fifth century’ (Schmitt, 1966).

Many images of the Chimaera in Greek and Etruscan art can be found in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). The images are differentiated by country of origin, but the dates are not given, nor are other details of the images. There are 108 photos of the Chimaera in Greek art in the LIMC. Of those, 15 show the goat’s head facing the rear of the lion. The goat’s forelegs appear in.10 of the images. In three, the Chimaera is depicted with full teats like the Capitoline Wolf. There was apparently some belief that a human may gain divine power or regeneration by suckling an animal-god. In many of the representations of the Chimaera in Greece and Etruria, she is shown with a mane. Although a mane is a distinctive and grand feature on a lion, it is not present on a female. The Chimaera is always referred to as female in literature. It is clear from these images that the artists had little knowledge of the form of a lion, (and none of a Chimaera!) and therefore it took on some fantastic morphologies.

Figure 4: From an Athenian pot, c. 600 BCE, from the Louvre, Paris. Typical illustration with goat’s head facing rear.

Figure 5: Greek Chimaera with goat facing backwards and forelegs included (ILMC).

Figure 6: Greek Chimaera (ILMC). Again, the goat’s head faces backward.

In the Greek examples, some, by their simplicity of form, appear modern; others crude; but most are well-proportioned, and have the expected proportions of a lion, goat and snake. This is contrasted with the Etruscan images, as we shall see.

The Chimaera as Represented by the Etruscans

From the same source (LIMC,) there are 75 photos of Etruscan Chimaera. These as a group are very different. None show the goat’s head backward, only 3 include the legs of the goat. Three of the 75 show the lion with teats. Some individual images are quite bizarre. In one, the lion’s body is more like a horse. Several have elongate and distorted shapes. Some are very crudely drawn. In 15, the goat is shown as an extension of a winglike appendage on the lion’s side. This is unique to the Etruscan Chimaeras, and may be related to the Etruscan death demon symbology.

Figure 7: The goat's head seems to be an extension of wings on the lion's body (ILMC).

Figure 8: Elongate forms of the Chimaera from the neck of a pot. These depictions are oddly similar to prehistoric Native American petroglyphs. The curling line beneath the lions’ bodies is a puzzle, and the lions look somewhat like antelope. Only the goat head protruding from the back mark these as Chimaera (ILMC).

Figure 5: More primitive and elongate forms from Etruria, suggestive of the Chimaera (ILMC).

Figure 6: This unusual representation of a Chimaera is quite puzzling. There is a curl of tail or wing protruding upwards from the lion behind the goat. The lion is nearly unrecognizable as such. (ILMC).



Figure 7: The lion body of the Chimaera in this pair of images from the same pottery vessel is very like a horse. The beast on the left has dugs, and is nursing a grown male lion which is nevertheless smaller than the body of the goat. The Chimaera on the right has a long tongue or perhaps a breath of flame. (ILMC)

Figure 8: Etruscan Chimaera being pursued by horse. Note the very odd placement of forelegs beneath the neck of the goat. This Chimaera is also shown with teats. It’s uncertain whether the pursuing horse is Pegasus. That the horse resembles an extinct prehistoric North American species is surely an accident (ILMC).

The Context of Chimaera Images

In Greek art, Bellerophon and/or Pegasus are shown on the same piece with the Chimaera in 9 of the examples. These images adorn jugs, bowls, and plates; as well as coins and small emblems which may be jewelry. In the Etruscan images, 8 are associated with Bellerophon. We know that the Etruscans in the classical period begin to depict winged death demon figures. And according to Small, 1959, and others, the Chimaera is associated with the underworld. In the images of the Chimaera in Etruscan art, which for the most part do not include Bellerophon, the Chimaera may exemplify a death demon or beast of the underworld. In the Tomb of the Bulls, Tarquinia, 500 BCE, there is a pedimental painting above the scene of Troilus and Achilles, which is believed to be Troilus riding toward the Chimaera as a scene of his journey to the underworld after death (Holloway, 1986).The uniquely Etruscan suggestion of wings on many of the Chimaera images suggests that the Etruscans may indeed have associated this beast with the underworld. The unusual and varied artistic treatment of the Chimaera by Etruscan artists may not indicate any particular sentiment about this beast, but rather be an example of how Etruscan artists expressed these motifs, as something disproportionate, mysterious, perhaps not meant to be explained in the rational Greek fashion. Or it could be the essentially unpredictable artistic style known as Etruscan.

The Chimaera of Arezzo

If there were a Chimaera, the Chimaera of Arezzo would be a believable portrait of her. It does not so much resemble a lion but it improves on one: the magnificent spiky mane, the hackles extending to its haunches, the lean muscled physique, large expressive eyes and gaping mouth. The pitiful goat is convincing, with its beard and stylized mane, flattened ears, and sad eyes.

“The Etruscan origin of this splendid bronze has been object of long discussions; it has been attributed to a Sicilian workshop, or Peloponnesic, or, in any case, to the work of an immigrant Greek artist. Yet it differs from the characters of Greek works for some details, such as the position of the ears behind the mane, instead of in front of it”(Mandel, 1989). Our Chimaera, however, resembles no other Chimaera so much as it does this lion painted by a Greek artist on a vase which was found not far from Arezzo, which dates to about the same period. Its stance is the same. The treatment of the mane and placement of the ears are strikingly similar, though the sculptor improves upon the painting considerably.

Figure 9: Lion by the Berlin Painter, on a vase imported from Greece to Spina (near Arezzo), c.500-490 BCE (Ramage and Ramage, 2005).

Figure 9: A view of the Chimaera of Arezzo (Ugo Bardi).

Cellini mentions the discovery of the Chimaera of Arezzo while he was doing some work for the Duke of Cosimi in Florence; but although he talks about restoring some small bronze figures found along with the lion, he does not mention it again (Cellini, 1931) Sketches of the Chimaera without its tail have been dated to the 18th century. The tail was welded back on only in the 18th century, by the Florentine sculptor D. Carradori or perhaps by his master, I. Spinazzi (Bardi, 2005).

The inscription, TINSCVIL, written from right to left, has been interpreted to mean “gift to the god”. Tin, or Tinia, was the Etruscan supreme God, equivalent to Zeus or Jupiter. It is likely that the statue was made to serve as a temple offering (Ramage and Ramage, 2005). It may well have been accompanied with a figure of Bellerophon on Pegasus, since the wound and the stance of the Chimaera imply her part in the myth.

Figure 10: Inscription on foreleg of the Chimaera (Ugo Bardi)

Conclusion:

The statue is an artistically mature work, as opposed to the many primitive and poorly-conceived Chimaera images often seen in Etruscan work of the period; and it was meticulously crafted. Whether the work was done by a Greek immigrant sculptor or a native Etruscan is immaterial, and would be impossible to determine. It may have been a temple offering, or the adornment of a private home.

For the meaning of the Chimaera to contemporary Etruscans; and to natives of the same region today, I refer the reader to Ugo Bardi, a Florentine chemist with, perhaps, his own Etruscan origins, who has studied the Chimaera extensively:

“It is difficult for us to understand what exactly could have been the meaning of this sculpture for the Etruscans. For us, a religious votive offering is hardly meant to be a three-headed monster. In this, we see how our way of thinking has changed in the two millennia and a half that separate us from the people who cast and first admired this statue…But perhaps there is something more in the Chimaera of Arezzo…beyond the standard iconography of the many painted and sculpted Chimaeras that have arrived to us from classical times. Here the unknown artist seemed to have wanted to transmit a message. The fiery, fire breathing monster is shown as a lean, perhaps hungry, creature in a moment of suffering…it looks like a fighter, a fighter who has fought well but who is losing nevertheless. We may perhaps imagine that the artist wanted to show the destiny of his people, the Etruscans, who at the time were being invaded and submitted by the Romans.”(Bardi, 2002).

The creation of the Chimaera of Arezzo coincided with the beginning of the decline of Etruscan power. The expression of this Chimaera is one of a desperate creature in the throes of death, determined to fight on. One cannot help but sympathize with it and admire its courage. Its emaciated body evokes more pity than fear, though it retains an image of great strength. The Etruscans were fond of Greek mythical figures and adapted them to their own tastes. The mature style of the Chimaera sculpture has a universal beauty and undeniable skill, which is a source of pride to people of that region; yet it retains that flavor of mysterious irrationality so essential to Etruscan art. It speaks of strength and bravery, qualities still esteemed by Italians. As such, it is certainly an excellent emblem of Tuscan pride.




References Cited:

Anaxilas, c.525BCE, Hetairai, fragment translated by Ugo Bardi, see website below.

Bardi, Ugo, http://chimeramyth.blogspot.it/

Boardman, John, 1981, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Vol 3.2, Artemis Verlag, Zuricho
Cellini, Benvenuto, 1931, The Life of Benvenute Cellini, Liveright Publishing Corp., New York, 513 pages.

Graves, Robert, 1960, The Greek Myths, Penguin Books, Ltd., London, 782 pages.

Holloway, R. Ross, 1986, The Bulls in the “Tomb of the Bulls” at Tarquinia, American Journal of Archeology, 90, 447-452.

Inghirami, F., 1824, Monument Estruschi o di Etrusco Nome,Maryon, , Vol. 2, P. 379-384, fragment translated by Ugo Bardi, see website above.

Herbert, 1949, Metal Working in the Ancient World, American Journal of Archeology, 53, 93-125.

Mandel, M. Capire l’arte Etrusca, 1989, fragment translated by Ugo Bardi, see website above.

Murray, A.T., translation, 1999, Homer, The Iliad, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 591 pages.

Pallottino, Massimo, 1955, Art of the Etruscans, Vanguard Press, New York, 154 pages.

Ramage, Nancy and Ramage, Andrew, 2005, Roman Art, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

Roes, Anne, 1934, The Representation of the Chimaera, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 54, 21-25.

Schmitt, M.L., 1966, Bellerophon and the Chimaera in Archaic Greek Art: American Journal of Archeology, 70, 341-347.

Small, Stuart, 1959, The Arms of Turnus: Aeneid 7.783-92, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 90, 243-252.

Spivey, Nigel, 1997, Etruscan Art, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London

Wilk, Stephen R., 2000, Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, Oxford, New York, 277 pages

In a word, "lion"

This article by Jeremy Bernstein was published in the "Aspen Times Weekly" of July 11th, 2003 and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author and of the editor.


In a Word "lion"

By Jeremy Bernstein

The Etruscans, as everyone knows, were the people who occupied the middle of Italy in early Roman days and whom the Romans, in their usual neighbourly fashion, wiped out entirely to make room for Rome with a very big R. They couldn't have wiped them all out, there were too many of them. But they did wipe out the Etruscan existence as a nation and a people. However, this seems to be the inevitable result of expansion with a big E, which is the sole raison d'être for a people like the Romans.  D.H. Lawrence

For reasons that I will try to make plausible, I have recently been perusing Etruscan glossaries. The one I have in front of me is typical of the genre. It is given as an appendix to "The Etruscan Language; An Introduction," by Giuliano Bonfante and his daughter Larissa Bonfante.

The senior Bonfante, who is entering his 99th year, is an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Turin while Larissa Bonfante is a professor of classics at New York University. Both are well-known in the field of Etruscan studies.

The glossary is not very long, a few hundred words, many of which have question marks after them, indicating the proposed meanings are tentative. Most of the words look very strange. That is, they do not seem to correspond to any language one knows. For example ?fleres? apparently means ?statue? while ?nurthanatur? is a group that does ?nurth? ? whatever that is. The glossary gives a question mark after ?nurth.?

As I was looking down the columns I came across a word that stopped me cold ? ?leu,? which means ?lion.? Leu the lion ? where did that come from?

To put this in perspective, one must understand that Etruscan is in a certain sense an orphan language. Like Basque, it does not belong to any of the well-known linguistic families such as the Indo-European, the Semitic or the African. Some scholars claim to see similarities between it and the Raetic language which is found on some inscriptions in northern Italy or Lemnian ? a language found on artifacts from the island of Lemnos. Perhaps these three languages descended from a prehistoric proto-language, or maybe the Etruscans got around.

But "leu"?

The American Heritage dictionary is not much help. On the etymology it notes confusingly that our lion word comes from Middle English, from Old French, from Latin leo, leon, from Greek leon, of Semitic origin. It then goes on to say "Old French" lion is the source of English lion, and the Old French word comes from Latin leo, leonis. After that the etymology is less clear.

The Latin word is related somehow to Greek (leon, leontos, or the earlier lewon, lewontos), which appears in the name of the Spartan king Leonides, "Lion"s son, who perished at Thermopylae. The Greek word is somehow related to the Coptic labai, laboi, "lioness." In turn, the Coptic labai is borrowed from a Semitic source related to Hebrew labi and Arkkadian labbu. There is also a native ancient Egyptian word, rw (where r can stand for either r or l, and vowels were not indicated), which is surely related as well.

Since lions were native to Africa, Asia, and Europe in ancient times (Aristotle tells us there were lions in Macedon in his day), we have no way of ascertaining who borrowed which word from whom. This is all very well, but what has it got to do with Etruscan?

I will tell you what I know, but first we need an historical and linguistic detour.

It is not certain when the Etruscans first came to Italy, nor from where, but by the eighth century B.C. they had amalgamated small settlements into what became the Etruscan cities in what is now Tuscany. They called themselves Rassena or Rasna, but were called various things related to the word "tower" "Tursci" or people who build towers by their neighbors who had only lower structures.

Most of the cities in "Etruria" were close to what is now known as the Costa degli Etruschi, the Etruscan Coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Many of the cities such as Orvieto and Bologna will be familiar, while a place like Vetulonia may not be. I have a particular fondness for Vetulonia since on a recent bicycle trip I visited it, which accounts for this burst of interest in things Etruscan. Since Vetulonia is on top of a very steep hill, I must, in the interests of full disclosure, say that I did not pedal to the top, but managed to cop a ride in a van.

In Etruscan times, it seems the town stood on the shores of a lake that communicated with the sea so that it was a port. There are remains of the original town and some tombs of the kind that contained much of the statuary, gold work, coins and the like that tell us the little we know about the Etruscans. Some of this can be found in a charming small museum in the modern town.

A much better collection, of course, can be found in the Museo Archeologico in Florence. Among other things, it contains the magnificent Chimaera of Arezzo. It is in bronze, a specialty of Arezzo, and was made around 400 B.C. and apparently restored by Botticelli. It has the body of a lion with a snake for a tail. The snake is attacking the horn of a goat that is growing out of the lion's back. The lion figures large in Etruscan art, although there were surely none in Etruria at this time. There are also some examples of the engraved copper mirrors, some of the engravings are quite sexy, which occasionally have inscriptions on them that seem to identify the owner. One has the impression that the Etruscans were fond of eating and drinking and sex, like Italians.

The Etruscans apparently traded widely with their neighbors. One of their most important imports was the alphabet, which they got from the Greeks, who in turn had gotten it from the Phoenicians, who apparently invented it, and a magnificent invention it was. It meant that everything you could say in a language could be written down with a small number of symbols.

Think what it means to use ideograms like the Chinese, some fifty thousand of them, to render the written language. Phoenician writing, like the other Semitic languages, ran from right to left and did not express the vowels. The Greeks wrote from left to right and did express vowels. The Etruscans took this over with a few variants. But the symbols do not look like the modern Greek alphabet.

The numbers are also interesting. I bought a T-shirt in the museum in Vetulonia that has them. "C" stands for 100 and "X" for 10, like Roman numerals, except that the Etruscans used this notation first.

One might think that, knowing the alphabet, one would have no trouble deciphering the language. Alas, this is not so. When it comes to language decipherment, there are three cases one can consider. There is the case of a language like the Egyptian hieroglyphics, where both the symbols and the underlying language they represent are unknown. Then there is the case of a language like Linear B, found on tablets in Crete dating a few hundred years prior to Etruscan writing. In this case, the symbols, which stood for syllables and not letters in an alphabet, were unknown but the underlying language turned out to be an archaic form of Greek.

In the Etruscan situation, the alphabet is known but not the underlying language. Moreover, while thousands of fragments of Etruscan writing have been found, they are not that helpful. Most of them are proper names belonging to people in tombs or on vases or mirrors. There are a few notable exceptions. One is a bronze model of a sheep?s liver that has on it inscribed the names of a large number of gods. One supposes this was a tool used in teaching how to use sheep livers for prophecies. Even when Roman power was increasing, Romans were sent to Etruscan cities to learn the art of divination. There is also a mummy wrapping, which has a fairly extensive text involving religious ceremonies. But if the Etruscans had poets or historians, their work is still undiscovered. One is basically trying to decipher a language from what is written on tombstones.

This brings us back to where we started, the lion.

It was the Egyptians who introduced the scarab, a gem in which the top is in the form of a beetle and the bottom is a carved surface that can be in some cases used as a seal. These scarabs found their way into Greece and then into Etruria. Whether the Etruscan scarabs were carved by Etruscan artists or by Greeks working in Etruria is impossible to say. This has some bearing on our lion.

As I have mentioned, the lion plays a very important role in Etruscan art, including scarabs. There are scarabs that show individual lions or lions attacking various forms of prey. But among them one is quite unique. It depicts a lioness and a cub in the act of suckling. Above the lioness there are three symbols. They are "l", "e", "u" in the archaic Etruscan alphabet. This represents our entire knowledge of the Etruscan word for lion.

It is what linguists call a hapax legomenon, a word or form that occurs only once in the recorded corpus of a language. It presumably was taken from the Greek a loan word, but it is very strange. It is not the Greek word for lion, to say nothing of lioness ? which is "leaina." What does this mean?

I put the question to Dieter Steinbauer, one of the acknowledged experts in the Etruscan language. This is what he wrote:

"There are three observations to be made. As Etruscan was a language that didn't normally distinguish between masculine and feminine genders [male and female personal names did have markings in Etruscan], "leu" must have the meaning "lioness" too. The loss of the final "n" is embarrassing because Etruscan words with an ending "un" do occur. Perhaps the loan passed via an Italic language where n-stems had no "n" in the nominative. (e.g. Latin "homo"; Greek Platon, Plato) Normally nouns were rendered in the accusative of the source language. So perhaps the Etruscans thought the animal "animated." I know no further example.

That is what we know. But Etruscan studies are very active, so one can hope that another "lion" will be found.

Jeremy Bernstein is an aficionado of lost languages. He has written many pieces for The Aspen Times, including a two-part essay on deciphering the Linear B language, which was discovered on tablets in Crete .

Details of the Chimera of Arezzo

The Chimera of Arezzo is a well-known sculpture and images of it are easy to find more or less everywhere on the web. Images, of course, are not the same thing as seeing the original, presently kept at the museum of archeology in Florence, in Italy. As a vicarious experience to the real thing, I am presenting here a number of images of details of the sculpture taking from the reproduction owned by the "Galleria Frilli" in Florence, with their kind permission. This reproduction, as all reproduction, is not perfect, but it is of very good quality and it can be said to be as faithful to the original as possible.

In the images below, we see the Chimera of Arezzo from some unusual directions and showing details that are not always easy to appreciate.

The Chimera and the dragons

A chimeric story by  Krav Maga et Philosophie

La Chimère et les dragons

La Chimère était apparue en même temps que la Cité. C'était un animal prodigieux avec un immense corps de lion et trois têtes : une tête de serpent, une tête de lion et une tête de chèvre.

La Chimère crachait du feu, ce qui en faisait une créature terrifiante et redoutée. Mais en même temps qu'elle crachait du feu, elle exhalait aussi, par un processus alchimique mystérieux, un nuage de poudre d'or.

Les habitants de la cité redoutaient la Chimère qui dévastait la cité et dévorait les habitants. Mais en même temps, ils voulaient qu'elle reste à proximité pour récolter facilement l'or miroitant abandonné sur son passage.

Ainsi la Chimère rodait en permanence près de la cité suite à un accord tacite entre les habitants de la Cité : chacun espérant tirer le bénéfice de sa présence et laisser à autrui les problèmes...

Quelquefois, néanmoins, sa présence devenait tellement envahissante, qu'elle finissait par bloquer les activités de la cité. Alors, la Cité envoyait son armée pour l'affronter. Cette armée finissait toujours dévorée. Mais, pour un temps, la Chimère, repue, s'éloignait avant de revenir encore plus puissante. Le destin tragique de la Cité oppressait tous les habitants, mais personne ne voulait renoncer au souffle doré de la Chimère.

Un enfant cru avoir trouvé la solution. En effet, avec l'aide d'un notable de la cité, Il avait découvert, sur une montagne lointaine, un autre animal prodigieux : un pégase. L'enfant montât aussitôt sur le pégase pour aller combattre la Chimère. Malheureusement le pégase était rétif et trop lent pour pouvoir s'approcher de la Chimère en évitant le souffle enflammé : Monture et cavalier périrent carbonisés.

Un homme et une femme partirent alors en quête sur la montagne lointaine après avoir étudié la Chimère et les animaux prodigieux. Ils revinrent avec deux dragons. L'homme et la femme apprirent à évoluer sur leur dragon à pleine vitesse. En effet, les dragons, convenablement guidés, pouvaient devenir rapides et agiles jusqu'à pouvoir éviter les attaques de la Chimère. Et, tout en tournoyant habilement dans les airs, les dragons parvenaient également cracher un feu. Celui-ci, plus faible que celui de la Chimère, était néanmoins une menace pour elle.

A force d'affrontements, L'homme et la femme, chevauchant leur dragon, réussirent à faire fuir la Chimère. Elle partit vivre loin de la cité, dans un désert.
Dans ce désert, elle commença à s'affaiblir et à s'étioler. Mais, un jour, ses forces revinrent et sa croissance reprit .

L'homme et la femme réunirent les habitants de la cité dans l'Agora et parlèrent:
"La Chimère grandit à nouveau alors qu'elle est dans un désert. Nous en connaissons tous la cause : quelques citoyens la nourrissent pour profiter de l'or que l'on trouve autour d'elle. Si cela continue, la Cité est condamnée : La Chimère sera un jour tellement puissante que nous n'aurons plus la capacité d'empêcher son retour"

Les citoyens jurèrent que, dorénavant, plus personne ne nourrirait la Chimère et que les citoyens compteraient uniquement sur leur propre ressource et sur leur propre travail pour acquérir une quelconque richesse.

La Chimère s'arrêta de grandir durant un temps puis sa croissance reprit, à un rythme plus rapide que précédemment.

L'homme et la femme réunirent une nouvelle fois tous les habitants et réitérèrent leur mise en garde.

La population se mit en colère contre l'homme et la femme. Certains orateurs dans la foule rappelèrent qu'il y avait eu le serment collectif de ne pas nourrir la Chimère et qu'il n'y avaient donc plus nécessité de débattre de la question. Ces orateurs furent applaudis par beaucoup des habitants.

La Chimère continua de grandir à un rythme de plus en plus rapide. Ses hurlements de faim, de plus en plus puissants, étaient entendus de plus en plus distinctement et de plus en plus en plus souvent par les habitants de la Cité.

L'homme et la femme voulurent réunir une nouvelle fois tous les habitants de la cité. Mais seuls quelques uns vinrent à l'Agora. L'homme et la femme répétèrent leur mise en garde mais ajoutèrent qu'ils ne comptaient pas mourir dans un combat suicidaire ou laisser, après leur mort, leurs proches à la merci de la Chimère.

Rien ne vint limiter la croissance de la Chimère et son pouvoir de destruction se trouva décuplé au fil du temps. D'une taille gigantesque, affamée en permanence, elle décida un jour de s'approcher de la Cité.

Alertés, les habitants de la Cité coururent chercher l'homme et la femme pour qu'ils montent sur leur dragon afin de défendre la cité.
Ils découvrirent alors que ceux-ci, ainsi que leurs proches, avaient quitté la Cité.

La Cité fut détruite par la Chimère.

La Chimère mourut peu après.

Antonio Bardi, Florentine painter (1862-1924)

This page is dedicated to Antonio Bardi, Florentine painter (1862-1924). It was created in 1998 by his great-grandson Ugo Bardi. It is republished on the blog "Chimeras" in March 2016. The portrait above may be dated circa 1910.

Antonio Bardi worked as a painter for most of his life but after his death in 1924 his work and his story have been almost totally lost. Over his career, he must have painted hundreds of paintings. Of these, just a few are still kept by his heirs. Where the rest of his paintings have gone, it is impossible to say, but it appears likely that several were "re-signed" as the work of some more famous painter and sold as such. If you happen to have a painting that you imagine could be Antonio Bardi, please contact me, his great-grandson, with a comment on this blog

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About Antonio Bardi's life

Antonio Bardi was born in 1862, son of Ferdinando Bardi and Caterina Setti. Both Florentines, both of modest conditions and living in the "S. Frediano" quarter on the south side of the river Arno. Ferdinando's occupation is reported in the acts of the city hall to have been "torcitore di seta" (silk worker) and also "carbonaio" (coal delivery man). The main event of Ferdinando's life was to join Garibaldi's "thousand" volunteers in the Italian revolution of 1860. From that war, he returned with four silver medals of which the ribbons are still conserved by his heirs. The medals themselves were lost in the 1940s, when they were donated to "the country" in support of the war effort, but they can still be seen in Ferdinando's portrait made by his son. From the records still kept we also know that Ferdinando was born in Firenze on August 22nd 1822, that his father was Antonio Bardi, "pentolaio" (tinker) in S. Frediano and his mother Caterina (born Guidi), weaver.

How Antonio Bardi became a painter is told in an article (see below) published in a 19^th century newspaper. The clip is still conserved by Antonio's heirs, unfortunately the title, date and the name of the newspaper are missing. From what's left, the date should be the first half of March 1877. The author of these notes has searched for that article in the three newspapers published in Firenze around the right time in "Archivio di stato", but could not find it. Anyway, we can read that a famous Brazilian painter, one Pedro Americo, was taking a walk near the Uffizi gallery in Florence and he spotted a young boy drawing the head of a warrior on the street with a piece of chalk. Somehow, that Brazilian gentleman decided that the boy had talent, so he took him as his apprentice in his studio and helped him to get an education at the Art Academy in Firenze. He also helped the boy's family which, we are told, "versed in dire poverty". This story appears in the newspaper just before a report on the visit to Firenze of Pedro II, emperor of Brazil. The two stories may have been related, and the good deed of the Brazilian painter Pedro Americo may have had the main purpose of improving the public image of the emperor. Apparently even at that time the concept of "public relations" was not unknown in politics.

The boy, Antonio Bardi, finished his studies and became a full-time painter. He married Emma Ardinghi, a florentine woman, and had two sons, Bardo and Raffaello. Very little is known about Antonio's career: it seems that he remained based in Firenze for most of his life. However, it seems also that he visited Spain. For sure he maintained some contacts with his Brazilian benefactors and it is remembered that he was acquainted with the ambassador of Brazil since he made a portrait of him.

Antonio worked as a painter until an illness to the eyes (maybe he was 45?) forced him to reduce his artistic activities and take a job as a guardsman in the "Sant'Ambrogio" produce market in Firenze. He died at 62, (in 1924) of a throat cancer. Apparently he had been a convinced smoker all his life. His wife Emma survived him of a few years, dying one snowy day, on February 10th 1929. It is remembered that before dying she expressed the wish that nobody of the family should come to her funeral, so the priest had the funeral passing under the windows of the house, then in via Pisana. Her daughter in law (Rita), was at that time pregnant with her last son (Antonio).

Of Antonio Bardi's life, there remain the recollections of those who have known him personally, in particular his grand-daughter Renza, aunt of the author. At the time when these notes were written Renza was 81, but she still remembered her grandfather well. According to her, Antonio was a stern man. Renza remembers how once she met him on the stairs of their house in Via Pisana after she had just bought a chocolate sweet. Antonio took her back to the shop and ordered her to give back the sweet saying to the salesman "It is not right to sell things to children". This hardness of character is not so typical of the Bardi family as it appears nowadays, but those were harder times and Antonio Bardi's life was surely not easy.

Finding a benefactor in the person of the Brazilian painter Pedro Amerigo was a stroke of luck for Antonio Bardi that gave him a chance to escape the destiny of his father, a humble worker. Nevertheless, at his time just as today, life was not easy for someone who wanted to make a living out of painting. Antonio had to survive spending a lot of time in activities that today we would not think as very noble for a painter. He made and sold portraits, and the kind of realistic portraits that people would buy; not fancy "artistic" ones. In an age when photography was still something exotic and rare he owned a few cameras himself (still conserved), probably used for a quick snapshot of the subject; to be elaborated on canvas later on. Antonio also made, and sold, reproductions of the masterpieces conserved in the Florentine major galleries, from Raphael to Masaccio and Michelangelo. This activity, too, was something that could produce a modest revenue. As color photography did not exist yet, the visitors of the time (rather cultured ones in comparison to the present lot) would appreciate reproductions painted "from the original", as it would be stamped and sanctioned on the canvas by a museum officer. Finally, Antonio also painted and sold religious images: saints, madonnas, and so on. It is not clear today how he regarded these activities and if he would rather have liked to conduct a life more appropriate to an artist, painting only when and as inspiration dictated.

Over his career as a painter, Antonio must have painted hundreds of paintings. Of these, only a few remains in the hands of his heirs. We have two portraits of his wife Emma and one of his father Ferdinando with his medals. Two paintings showing the artist's father are kept by an old friend of the family who lives now in another town, but we lost contact with her and we have no idea of where those paintings could have ended up. We also have several sketches and unfinished paintings, and some copies of ancient masterpieces. One of these is a reproduction of the "Madonna della seggiola"" by Raffaello (the original is presently at the Uffizi museum in Firenze). Several of Antonio's drawings while he was in school also remain, as well as a fragment of the portrait of a Japanese woman wearing a kimono. He also made and restored a "tabernacolo" fresco in via Palazzo dei Diavoli which was recently (1984?) torn down in building the large avenue named viale Talenti. A Florentine antiquarian, Mr. Antonio Parronchi, told to the author that he has seen paintings signed A. Bardi, but it has been impossible to find them.

Artists are supposed to use their skills to express concepts and ideas, not just to reproduce reality. But for Antonio Bardi we can't say much in this respect. So few of his paintings are left, and these few are just those which, presumably, had no market value: portraits of members of Antonio's family and juvenile sketches. We can only say that, undoubtedly, he was skilled with his brush, and that he could paint fine portraits. His watercolor reproduction of Raffaello's "Madonna della Seggiola" is a small masterpiece of technical skills but, of course, it is not what we would call nowadays a "work of art". If Antonio had the inclination and the possibility to do more than that, it is difficult today to tell. We can only, maybe, try to give a meaning to some of the works he left. His portraits of his wife Emma are, no doubt, impressive, and not just from a technical viewpoint. The young Emma looks at us from the canvas with her large dark eyes. The warm red of the dress, the large black ribbon, the hint of hair collected in a bun, are al elements that give us an idea of a constrained vitality. As a mature woman, Emma looks stern and energetic, reminding to the author the figure of his grandmother Rita: the same stern expression, the same hair style. It is known that men tend to marry women who look like their mothers, that's maybe what Antonio's son Raffaello did when he chose Rita for his wife.

Also, the portraits of Antonio's father Ferdinando may tell us something. First, Antonio showed him as a vigorous bemedaled hero. Then, in a later painting we see again Ferdinando Bardi, this time as an aged man. Seated at a old and probably shaky table, with only a bowl of soup and some bread as dinner, Ferdinando's expression somehow conveys the idea of a life that was hard for everyone, and in particular for an old man who had lost all of his teeth and had to content himself with such a meager meal. Little consolation he had that he had been a glorious hero in his youth, now he had only three flasks of wine left. But decline is everyone's destiny, not just of heroes, and perhaps when Antonio Bardi painted his father in such way was also thinking to his own brief moment of notoriety, when he had met the Brazilian painter Pedro Americo.

Also for Antonio, life was to become harder in old age.

We don't know if Antonio thought that his life as a painter was a success or a failure. But the fact that eventually he had to stop painting, officially because of eyes problem, seems to tell us something. For painters, Antonio's time was one of experimentation and of novelty. It was the age of the French "impressionistes" and of other schools which aimed at bringing true colors and light to previously dull and dark canvases. It was the time of Renoir, of Van Gogh, of Monet, of Gauguin, a time when all the great painters of the world seemed to have congregated in Paris. Of all this movement, of all this excitation, there is little or no trace in Antonio Bardi's paintings. In all what we have of him, he was a "classic" painter, one of the old school, surely a heavy imprint of his academic studies. If he did experiment with the new techniques it is probable that he had no success in a sleepy provincial town as Firenze was at that time.

Far away from Paris, always in financial trouble, Antonio must have seen the world passing him by, with younger Italian painters gaining national and international renown. For example, Filadelfio Simi (1849-1922) was 13 years older than Antonio and had a remarkably similar story. Born in a poor family, he was noted by an older benefactor, this time an Italian painter named Vegni. Unlike Antonio, however, Filadelfio Simi is still well remembered, most likely because he had the luck that his master sent him to study in Paris, where he gained an international reputation even though his style always remained classic, without ever a hint of being influenced by the Parisian impressionists. Another still known Florentine painter of that period is Galileo Chini (1873 - 1956), about a decade younger than Antonio, he lived in another age of international contacts and "Art-Nouveau" influences. Among other things, Chini had the luck to be invited by the King of Siam and to spend 5 years in Bangkok in the fascination of the orient: glamor, exotism, bright colors, and lights.

We don't know if Antonio tried to gain an international reputation and to follow the glamorous careers of some of his contemporaries. His granddaughter Renza says that he visited Spain and that he made a portrait of the Spanish and the Brazilian ambassadors in Italy. But, eventually, Antonio remained an obscure painter in Firenze, painting saints and Madonnas and reproductions of ancient masterpieces. It is difficult to say how serious was Antonio's eye sickness, and if it really was what caused him to stop painting at 45. It may not have been actually an excuse but, maybe, after so much hope at the beginning, the old painter was tired and, in the end, he gave up. We may imagine him during the last years of his life, stern, dressed in his rather formal clothes that we see on on his black and white picture, sitting in his armchair, smoking his cigarette, and never saying much; a trait that the family seems to have maintained up to the present times.

Antonio Bardi's heirs
 
   As a last note about Antonio Bardi, it may be worth remarking that his life and personality had a profound impact over his heirs. His sons (Raffaello and Bardo) were not painters but they could enjoy a relatively well to do life. Of the two, Bardo died young of the Spanish flu, just after the end of the first world war, a few years after marrying. Raffaello, instead, led a long life (he died at 84) and for most of it he worked as an employee of a Swiss company which owned a factory of straw hats in Firenze. In comparison with the average worker of the time, Raffaello was a cultured man. He could read and write, and speak at least a few words of German and Spanish, something clearly useful for him to work in an international company.

The effect of Antonio's career as a painter was most evident with the second generation of children. Raffaello had two daughters (Anna and Renza) and two sons (Giuliano and Antonio). All of them pursued careers which had some artistic components. The sons became both architects, and both daughters dabbled in painting. Renza followed her grandfather in painting reproductions of masterpieces and became specialized in that (there are still many of these reproductions in the family house). Later, however, she moved to a non-artistic career with the straw hat company which also employed her father. Anna painted all of her life, following a path that we may imagine as somewhat similar to that of her grandfather, although temporally inverted. She started from very humble pursuit, selling portraits and painting trinkets for tourists. Only during the last years of her life (she died in 1987) she could finally become a full-time artist, painting what she liked and when she liked. The skill of painting seems to have disappeared from the subsequent generation of heirs of Antonio (which includes the author of the present notes). There is one more generation coming up, though, and time will tell if the genetic imprint of the old painter will resurface.

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Antonio Bardi: Gallery of paintings

Untitled, circa 1890: Antonio Bardi's father (Ferdinando) sitting at a table
 

Untitled, circa 1890. The man dressed in black is Antonio Bardi's father, Ferdinando.

Portrait of Ferdinando Bardi (Antonio's father) as a war hero. Circa 1880.




Portraits of Antonio Bardi's wife, Emma Ardinghi:

Emma as a young woman

Emma as a mature woman

Photographic portrait of Emma in late life.

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Text of the 1877 newspaper article about Antonio Bardi


Questo brano è tratto da un giornale fiorentino del Marzo 1877. La data è desunta da alcune notizie riportate in vari articoli, dovrebbe essere dell'inizio di Marzo, dato che si menziona la Gazzetta Ufficiale del 2 Marzo. Alcune parti sono mancanti, e non è stato possibile capire esattamente di quale dei tre quotidiani che si pubblicavano a quell'epoca a Firenze si tratti, e neppure il nome dell'autore. L'articolo immediatamente successivo a quello qui riportato descrive la visita dell'Imperatore Pedro II del Brasile a Firenze che avveniva in quei giorni a Firenze

Cronaca Cittadina

Antonio Bardi

Le mie gentili lettrici si ricorderanno certamente di aver veduto circa un anno fa un ragazzetto sui dieci anni di volto franco,ilare, vivace, vestito di logori panni che coraggiosamente scarabocchiava disegni di uomini e di donne sui marciapiedi delle strade con un pezzo di carbone o di gesso, non avendo mezzi per comperarsi......

..... [ la sorte ] si mostrava sorridente e gli inviava un generoso protettore nel Comm. Pedro Americo.
   
L'illustre artista straniero, passava un giorno sotto la Loggia degli Uffizi quando la sua attenzione fu rivolta a un gruppo di persone, che facevano cerchio al nostro piccolo artista, il quale stava ultimando la testa di un guerriero. Pedro Americo esaminò attentamente il disegnoe gli parve maraviglia per essere fatto da un povero ragazzetto, senza istruzione, senza alcun principio d'arte. Chiese alcune informazioni su di lui e seppe che si chiamava Antonio Bardi, che era privo di ogni mezzo di sussistenza, giacchè la sua famiglia lottava nella miseria. Il celebre artista brasiliano si interessò allora con cal;ore della sorte del fanciullo e provvedutolo di quanto poteva occorrergli, seco lo volle nel suo studio. Immaginatevi il giubilo che dovette provare il piccolo Antonio nel veder adempiuto il suo ardentissimo desiderio e la sua gratitudine verso il generoso protettore straniero.

      Pedro Americo, con quella pazienza e costanza, che è uno dei distintivi dei caratteri nobili, cercò in quell'intelligenza tuttora debole, tuttora incerta, il principio della vita, sforzandosi di dirigere l'attenzione del fanciullo ad un fine determinato con ordine e perseveranza, consultando e fecondando le inclinazioni della natura. Sotto la sua scorta, col suo aiuto generoso, l'ingegno di Antonio si sviluppò in modo veramente straordinario.

      Ben presto sotto i disegni corretti, disparvero gli scarabocchi; ed il fanciullo potè empire la sua cartella di schizzi perfetti.

      Io ho veduto per ben due volte i disegni eseguiti dal piccolo Artista; ossia teste copiate dal gesso, busti, ed alcuni ritratti tolti dalle litografie, fra i quali quello del commendator Peruzzi; e tutti questi disegni mi dimostrano il buon volere e il progresso del fanciullo e com'egli non deluda le aspettative del suo generoso maestro, ma coraggioso e fortunato proceda sulla via spinosa dell'arte.

      Però la beneficienza dell'illustre pittore brasiliano verso il suo piccolo scolare Fiorentino qui non si arresta. Volendo soccorrere altresì con lui la sua famiglia che, come già dissi, versa nella miseria, il dott. Americo pensò di santificare lo scopo di una festa artistica, con un'opera generosa.

     Durante alcuni giorni dell'esposizione.......