The Spirit of Yuletide

 

The Lion King (1994) is the most amazing, most touching, and most beautiful modern interpretation of the cycle of rebirth that we can imagine. Watch it, listen to it, it IS Christmas without the traditional shepherds, sheep, and the like, but Christmas nevertheless in its original form of "Yuletide," the rebirth of everything and, indeed, the great cycle of life that never dies and always returns. Merry Christmas! 

From "The Blogmire"

“But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth” (Luke 1:11-14).

Mary is told to overcome her fear, for she is the virgin foretold by the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 7:14), who would bear Immanuel — God With Us:

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus” (Luke 1:28-31).

Joseph is told not to fear marriage to Mary, for her conception is not the result of infidelity, as he assumes, but rather the divine creation in her womb of the long foretold Messiah:

“Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21-22).

The shepherds are told to overcome their fear, for the news they are about to receive is the culmination of the promises God gave long ago that he would destroy the kingdom of darkness, and set up a kingdom which would spread through the earth, slowly, inexorably, inevitably growing to cover the whole earth (see Genesis 22:17-18; Psalm 2:7-8; Daniel 2:35; Daniel 7:27):

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” (Luke 2:9-10)

Of Bad People and Bad Novels: "The Cardinal's Lover" -- by Benito Mussolini

 

At 26, Benito Mussolini wrote and published a novel titled "L'Amante del Cardinale" (The Cardinal's Lover). It was something that always intrigued me, but only recently I found the time to get a copy of that old book and read it. The story of Mussolini as a leader is fascinating, and I thought I could find some hints in the novel about why and how he behaved the way he did.  

I didn't know what to expect from this novel, nothing especially good, for sure. But I didn't expect it to be so bad. I mean, as a novel, it is written in a decently understandable style, and you can read it from the first to the last page without feeling too much of an urge to throw it out of the window. But it has all the hallmarks of a bad novel. The main problem is that, for a novel to be any good, the author must care for his characters -- if he doesn't, that's the cardinal sin (appropriately, in this case). The novel will not only be bad, but also hateful. And that's the basic problem with Mussolini's novel. It is not only bad, but also hateful.

Let me tell you a little more about this novel. Mussolini is clearly influenced by Manzoni's "The Betrothed" (I Promessi Sposi), and his novel takes place more or less in the same historical period, the 17th century in Italy. At the start, Mussolini apes Manzoni with a flourish of words that describe the area, mountains, lakes, and valleys, then he goes on, telling us a dark story of love, blood, and murders. Like Manzoni, Mussolini follows real historical events. The difference is that Manzoni dominates the plot: he doesn't need to bend the actions of historical characters to suit his purposes; he just maneuvers his fictional characters in an environment consistent with history. Mussolini, instead, is mainly following historical figures, including the protagonists, Carlo Emmanuele Madruzzo, a Cardinal, and Claudia Particella, a noblewoman who really was his lover. To make them fit the plot, he needs to take a lot of liberties toward history. For the rest, the historical setting of the novel offers Mussolini several occasions for anticlerical tirades and, occasionally, for showing off his erudition -- but the impression is that his knowledge of history is haphazard and shallow. Nothing comparable to Manzoni's in-depth understanding of the times he was describing.

The resulting novel is a disaster: a jumble of things, people, and events, some of which are quite depressing. Just to give you an example, midway through the novel, Mussolini inflicts on his readers a detailed description of the unearthing of the body of a girl who had died a few months before. The description includes the screams of horror of the gravediggers at the sight of the decaying body but not the screams of horror of the outraged readers. 

Even the main character, Cardinal Madruzzo, comes out shallow. The figure of Claudia Particella is a little better, and Mussolini shows at least a spark of interest in her. Unfortunately, even here, the results are not great. As described by Mussolini, Ms. Particella turns out to be not very smart, having pardoned the person who tried to kill her not once but twice (!!). In the end, Mussolini condemns her to the death scene of a bad actress in a B-movie, overlong and over-acted. After having been poisoned, the poor woman must repeat a total of seven times the words "I die" ("muoio"), together with other assorted and longish expressions of pain, before finally giving up the ghost. Except that the real Claudia Particella died at 70, in her bed, surviving her Cardinal of 9 years. And that's supposed to be a "historical novel." Imagine that, in "War and Peace," Tolstoy was to tell us that Napoleon died in a bayonet charge against the Russian artillery at Borodino. That kind of bending.  

You can pardon the author of a novel for bending reality a little, sometimes even a lot. But the main problem of the whole rigmarole is that Mussolini doesn't care about his characters. It is the opposite of Manzoni, who never misses a chance for a spark of humanity in his characters in the "Promessi Sposi." That's what makes the difference between a masterpiece and a worthless piece of slime. So it goes. 

As I said, the reason I read this story was that I was curious about the possibility of gathering some hints about Mussolini's personality. Maybe his dreams, his goals as a young man, his ideals, this kind of things. But there is nothing like that in the novel. The author comes out of it as shallow as his characters. Which I think is what Mussolini probably was. A shallow character, of modest culture, with no real ideals and with just a few ideas, but confused. His success as a leader was perhaps due to exactly this factor: he was a blank slate. Which, I think, is what most dictators are. They are no big thinkers or idealists, they are just empty shells on which people can project their dreams, their fears, and their worries. And that was what happened with Mussolini, whose destiny was perhaps written from the beginning in the great novel written in the sky, which has all of us as protagonists. 

Human Sacrifices: are they Coming Back for Giorgia Meloni?

 

The victory of Giorgia Meloni's party in the recent Italian election has generated a wave of hate on social media, with many people showing on their social accounts pictures of the dead body of Benito Mussolini hanged upside-down in a square. A clear message to Ms. Meloni, and a reminder for all of us of how nasty people can be. It is a characteristic of all human societies that, in periods of heavy stress, the removal of a high-rank leader may take the shape of a human sacrifice. The most common victims are men, but in the direst situations, women may take the role of sacrificial victims. Ms. Meloni is at risk of becoming a sacrificial victim, the scapegoat that Italians will search for when, this winter, they'll find themselves freezing in the dark.

In the Iliad, we read about the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter of King Agamemnon, performed to propitiate the travel of the Achaean fleet toward Troy. After having destroyed Troy, the Achaeans repeated the ritual, this time with a Trojan girl, Polixena, daughter of King Priam. Both were high-rank women for whom we could use the term "princesses."

In "The Golden Bough," (1890), James Frazer noted how a high-rank victim makes the sacrifice more valuable and more effective to appease the dark deities to which it is dedicated. So, the victim may be raised to the role of "king" just before being killed: groomed, exalted, showered with gifts, and made to access the best goods available. The typical victims are men, probably because young males can be considered expendable, whereas the reproductive value of a young woman cannot be replaced. oWhen things are truly dire, though, "queens" may be sacrificed, too, as especially valuable victims -- much more valuable than men. 

Human sacrifices are often not explicitly recognized as such by those who perform them. For instance, the ancient Romans strongly condemned human sacrifices but they performed them abundantly in the form of bloody and cruel executions. Think of the killing of the Jewish leader named Yeshua bin Yusuf by the Roman government in Palestine, ca. 30 AD. On the cross on which he was nailed, there were the words in Latin "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum." It was supposed to be a mockery, but it is also true that Yeshua was of a noble Jewish family, so he was a king or, at least, a prince. 

Moving to our times, we, like the Romans, strongly condemn human sacrifices. But, like the Romans, we may indulge in bloody sacrifices much more often than we are willing to admit. The Christian roots of our view of the world originate from the slaughter of the Christian martyrs, starting from the 1st century AD. In more modern times, we can see World War One as a ritual slaughter of millions of young men, sacrificed to obscure and malevolent deities called "States." The most difficult moments of WWI also implied the sacrifice of Queens. One of them was Mata Hari, a famous actress and dancer, ritually sacrificed in 1917 in France. The same destiny befell the wife and the daughters of the Czar of Russia in 1918. 

World War Two had similar threads of ritual killing. The Japanese "kamikaze" fighters are a good example of how a society under heavy stress may punish its young men in a ritual of death. On the other side of Eurasia, the German government embarked on an elaborate mass murder program that involved the elimination of people considered inferior ("Untenmeschen"), Jews, Gypsies, and even German citizens. Not for nothing, the term "holocaust" is used for these mass exterminations. 

Another ritual killing of WWII was that of the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, in 1945, together with his lover, Claretta Petacci (in the image). Their bodies were hung upside down in a public square after a cruel ritual of beating and mangling them. They were the sacrificial victims designated to atone for the defeat that had nearly destroyed Italy and killed hundreds of thousands of Italians. Claretta Petacci was not responsible for the disaster, but she was killed, too. As it often happens in history, a young woman may be the ideal victim for the atonement that the sacrifice is about. 

And now, let's take a look at our times. If there ever was a society under stress, it is ours. We passed all the limits of survival: destroyed the old-growth forests, killed off large numbers of species, poisoned the atmosphere, depleted our mineral resources, eroded the fertile soil, polluted water and the atmosphere, set the planet on a path to irreversible warming, and a few more little things, including having deployed a sufficient number of nuclear warheads to wreck the ecosystem and, most likely, kill everybody. And we haven't renounced our beloved habit of making war against each other. 

Would you be surprised if we were to indulge in large-scale human sacrifices? We are not yet there, but the path seems to be traced. Have you noted how popular are "Zombie" movies? Take a look at them in light of what I have been saying here: don't you see them as a blueprint for the mass extermination of suburbanites? Truly, the fascination with this idea casts much light on what our society has in mind for the near future. We are not yet to the point of seeing the elites booking zombie-killing safaris in the suburbs of our cities. But other possible large-scale sacrifices are possible. I already mentioned how, during WWII, the German government hired the country's doctors to cull the undesirables. They complied, happily. That could be easily done in our times, too.

Human sacrifices, though, are not so much about numbers, but about the visible high status of the victim. Now, after the electoral victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, many people commented by publishing on their social accounts the images of Mussolini's dead body and of his lover Claretta Petacci. A clear message to Ms. Meloni.  

For sure, Italy is going toward a difficult period. With the supplies of natural gas cut, this winter Italians are going to find themselves freezing in the dark, and without a job. Whoever will be leading the country at that moment, risks being deemed responsible for the disaster. And it is also true that people can be extremely nasty when they are in a dire situation. 

Look at this image with Giorgia Meloni's face upside down. It is reported to have been taken in Torino during the electoral campaign of 2022 in Italy. "Fasci Appesi" means "hang the fascists." Giorgia Meloni seriously risks becoming a new sacrificial victim to appease the dark Gods that humans have themselves created. I mentioned how the victims were exalted and turned into kings before killing them and we might even imagine that Meloni was chosen as "queen" for exactly this purpose by the subconscious societal mindsphere. 

Several commentators, in Italy, have expressed the same idea, although not in terms of human sacrifices, but simply in terms of political expedience. In this interpretation, the hastily organized election of September had exactly the purpose of placing at the top a figure that will act as target for the ire of the population, when Italians will actually realize what it means to be without electric power. The term "scapegoat" has been correctly used. It doesn't mean that Ms. Meloni will be shot and hanged by the feet. Simply, that her rapid demise as a leader will lead the way to an authoritarian government that will impose draconian (a word charged with meanings) measures on the Italian population. On the other hand, Meloni may also do better than expected and succeed in spite of everything. Who knows? Good luck, Giorgia, because you'll need a lot of it.  

 

Curiously, and independently, Jon Rappoport published an article mentioning human sacrifices on the same day as I was publishing this post

   

The Best Piece of Propaganda Ever Written

 

Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961) was Benito Mussolini's lover, confident, and mentor from when they met in Milano in 1911. Sarfatti was a Jewish intellectual, an artist, and a writer. But she was three years older than him and, with time, her influence on him started to fade. In 1933, Mussolini took another woman as mistress, Claretta Petacci, 28 years younger than him, and, in 1938, Sarfatti was forced into exile. 

Margherita Sarfatti is sometimes credited with having "created" Mussolini's public image. It may very well be: Sarfatti understood perfectly the mechanisms of political power and she was a master propagandist. As an example, here is a piece she wrote. I do not hesitate in classing it as one of the best pieces of propaganda ever written. Think how the story of the invasion of Ethiopia was a brutal attack against a poor country that had no way to match the forces that the more powerful Italian state could muster. Ethiopia had no capability of harming Italy, its inhabitants were innocent victims of a plot that saw the great powers maneuvering one against the other. But, here, Margherita Sarfatti manages to embellish and transform the story into a true saga. A larger-than-life Mussolini who acts with wisdom and intelligence against treacherous adversaries. Savor it in all its details: it is truly a masterpiece if you remember that propaganda is aimed at simple minds using simple concepts. 

A MAN AND AN EMPIRE

XIV

ACCOUNTS TO BE SETTLED

When the Abyssinians came upon us treacherously at Uol-Uol, the Duce curbed his anger and said: "in Geneva in Switzerland, there is the league of nations that we Italians also founded, so that justice and good agreement between the peoples may be created. Let's hear what they think to do in Geneva to give us satisfaction "

Instead, Geneva washed her hands in her lake: "I don't know anything, the rifles may have fired by themselves". "Oh yes?" said The Duce. "Is this your way of understanding justice? It is no longer the time to make fun of Italy, now we are in the 15th year of the Fascist era".

And he called all the generals of land and air, and the men of the sea, and said, "We must settle old and new accounts with that land of wild slaves. This is the coast of Africa, march down from the North and up from the South, and go and get me all of Ethiopia, with the capital Addis Abeba. I will take care to provide you with men, weapons, ships, orders, and food".

"All right," said the admirals and the land and air generals. "It will be done. Long Live The Duce! Long Live The King!" And all the young men of Italy ran under the tricolor flag with the insignia of the Fascio Littorio, to volunteer in Africa for Italy.

Margherita Sarfatti

UN UOMO E UN IMPERO

xiv

I CONTI DA REGOLARE

Quando gli abissini ci vennero addosso a tradimento a Uol-Uol, i Duce frenò la collera e disse: «A Ginevra nella Svizzera, vi è la Società delle Nazioni che abbiamo fondato anche noi italiani, perchè metta la giustizia e il buon accordo fra i popoli. Sentiamo cosa pensano di fare a Ginevra per darci soddisfazione »

Invece Ginevra si lavò le mani nel suo lago: «lo non so niente, i fucili avranno magari sparato da soli». «Ah si?» disse il Duce. «È questa la maniera vostra di intendere la giustizia? Non è più il tempo di prendere in giro l'ltalia, adesso siamo nell'anno XV dell'era fascista». 

E chiamò tutti i generali di terra e d'aria, e gli ammiragli del mare, e disse: «Bisogna regolare i conti vecchi e nuovi con quel paese di schiavi selvaggi. Questa è la costa dell'Africa, Marciate in giù dal nord e in su dal sud, e andate a prendermi tutta l'Etiopia, con la capitale Addis Abeba. A darvi gli uomini, le armi, le navi, gi ordini e i viveri penso io».

«Va bene», dissero gli ammiragli e i generali di terra e d'aria. «Sarà fatto. Viva il Duce! Viva il Re!» E tutta lo gioventù d'Italia correva sotto la bandiera tricolore con l'insegna del Fascio Littorio, a battersi volontaria in Africa per l'Italia.

Margherita Sarfatti

 

Face Masks, the War, and the Virgin Mary of Prato

 

This image can be found in the Church of St. Joseph in the city of Prato, near Florence, Italy. It was made in 1909 by an unknown author. Clearly inspired by Byzantine images, it doesn't attain the hieratic beauty of the ancient icons of the Virgin Mary, but it has a certain power that can't be missed. Amazingly, it has a cult of followers who write their thoughts on a notepad provided by the church. 

I was discussing with a friend a few days ago about face masks. We were commenting on the stunt of an Italian journalist who had himself photographed while swimming in the sea, fully masked. My friend said something like, "what's the point of even mentioning the subject? There is no evidence in the scientific literature that face masks have any effect in stopping virus transmission. That clinches it." I wasn't convinced. It is because, even in this scorching summer in Florence, some people still insist on wearing face masks in public. Mainly, they are children and old people. Just a few, but they do not disappear -- stubbornly sticking to their idea of safety. 

There came to my mind an anecdote about Niels Bohr, the famous scientist. Someone asked him, "how come that a serious scientist as you are keeps a horseshoe nailed above the entrance door of your home? Don't you think you should reject these old superstitions?" Bohr is said to have answered, "They say that it brings good luck even to those who don't believe in it."

I think that people who wear masks while walking in the open reason very much in similar terms: "you never know, it might help." It is the same philosophy of the people who say a prayer while being shelled in war. Unlikely to help but, you know, it might. 

So, about things you never know whether they could work, let me tell you a little story about myself. This Summer, I was walking in a former industrial area of the city of Prato, now mainly residential. Prato is not part of the standard tourist tours of Tuscany, but it is a city full of surprises, with its traditions, its monuments, its political history of workers' rebellions. 

I walked past a church. It didn't impress me with its "rationalist" style architecture, it looked like an industrial building.  But something made me retrace my steps and go inside. There, I found the image of the Virgin Mary that you see at the beginning of this post. Maybe not a masterpiece (and you won't find reproduced in the Web, anywhere), but touching in many senses. The Byzantines had found a way to depict the Virgin Mary in a way that no one who is not blind can miss. 

So, there was this remarkable image, but even more remarkable was the presence of a notebook where people were writing their supplications to the Virgin Mary. Sometimes written in uncertain calligraphy, normally very simple in their requests for health and happiness. Here is an example:

Not easy to decipher, but the first note asks for happiness for someone named (maybe) "Aurora." The third one is a single line saying, "please, holy Mary, make all of us be well." How could you criticize that?

Now, there is an obvious theological problem, here. Let's assume that the Madonna has the ear of the Almighty (her son, although just one third of it, or something like that). Then, why should she do or not do something depending on whether someone marks something on a notepad in a Church? If she is a good lady, as she is supposed to be, why does she need to be prodded in this way to bring health and happiness to people?

These are theological mysteries beyond my capability of answering. I can just tell you that, today, I took a decision. I went back to that church, opened up that notebook, and I wrote down my own supplication. It went like this, "please, holy Mary, could you stop the war in Ukraine? I understand that it is not easy, but maybe you could do something about that. And, by the way, if you have some spare time, you could keep the members of my family healthy. But stopping the war is more important. Thank you!"

Do I think it could work? Of course not. But you never know: the Holy Mary, mother of God, the Παναγία Θεοτόκος, may do things we can't even imagine. Could that depend on something that someone writes on a notepad? Who knows? The ways of the universe are mysterious, and the powers above us, the 𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾, annunaki, are even more mysterious. So be it. 

And that's why we shouldn't criticize too much those who wear a face mask while swimming in the sea in August. Faith moves so many things. With just one problem. Whereas praying the Holy Mary has no negative effects on the person who prays, a face mask worn for too long may give you plenty of health problems. And I don't think you need any special theological savvy to understand that you shouldn't ask the Virgin Mary to save you from the damage you do to yourself. 

But so are human beings. Always full of contradictions. Look at this face mask -- up to not long ago on sale on Amazon. Do you notice the contradiction?

 

A modern rendition of a Sumerian Myth. Enkidu defeated by Shamhat

 

Some myths, really, are universal (h/t Raul Ilargi)

One of Our Ancestors: Larthia Seianti

A realistic portrait of an Etruscan woman who lived maybe 2500 years ago. We can see her face, her eyes, her body: she looks like a robust woman, maybe a little overweight. She must have been in her forties when this image was sculpted, or maybe the sculptor chose to show her in that way. Because of that sarcophagus, we know her name: Larthia Seianti.

She is looking into a mirror while adjusting her hair. A natural gesture that makes her look like we might have met her, alive, just walking around. She lived and loved, she had her likes and dislikes, her habits, her preferences, her things that she carried around. Look at the details: the mirror, the embroidered belt, her armilla bracelets on her forearms, her elaborate earrings.

Larthia must have been a rich woman to afford that sarcophagus. It is hard to think that she could have imagined that her image would have been seen, reproduced, and discussed, more than two millennia after her last breath. Of her body, nothing is left but scattered all over. Yet, her legacy remains with us. She does look a lot like a friend of mine, living in Tuscany today. She and we are part of the same line of humans who lived and loved in Tuscany, the land of my ancestors.