exedra and historiated and grotesque and harangue

With each passing year Italy becomes more and more alluring for the American tourist. Italy represents the reverse of how the flow of money and people generally works in our world. Normally natives of poorer countries come to the US or other prosperous countries and remit some of their salaries to family members back in the home country. With Italy, however, things are different. Instead of Italians going abroad and sending back money to Italy, Americans go to Italy, leaving their money with the Italians themselves. Italy cashes in on the tourist trade because it, along with Greece, is the cradle of our civilization, and we would like to go back to that cradle to learn about ourselves, even as we enjoy the gastronomic and oenological fare of that country.

But what is often overlooked is that Italy has bequeathed us a series of artistic and cultural terms that enrich our language even as they help us understand the culture of that land. Six terms I would like to mention briefly in this essay are harangue, grotesque, transenna, exedra, ignudi and historiated. I hope you not only find some of these comments informative but that you will use these words with greater precision and appreciation as a result.

1. Harangue. We all know that a harangue is "a speech addressed to an assembly; a loud or vehement address, tirade; formerly, sometimes, a formal or pompous speech." But few of us know that the origin of the term goes back to medieval Florence. The Palazzo Vecchio was the civic center of Florence. Its thrusting tower is about the same height as Giotto's Campanile, though its plaza is bigger than the small plaza surrounding the giant Duomo. On the piazza before the Palazzo Vecchio was a platform from which the political orations were delivered and decrees read by the signory to the people. This platform was known as the aringhiera. Thus, as the political life of Florence, which was always vicious and vituperative, heated up still more, people would stand on the aringhiera and deliver speeches. These became the harangues of current usage. Thus, whenever you feel tempted to use this word, re-study something of Florence's history to see if you are justified in so using it.

2. Ignudi. Michelangelo coined this word, which doesn't appear in the OED, to describe the naked male figures (20 of them) which appear on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He "redid" the ceiling in the early 1500s, after the Pope decided to have the simple starry-night sky changed to a more complex series of frescoes. Michelangelo painted this remarkable series of 20 nude males sitting on plinths and covered with oak garlands, probably to honor the Pope, whose family crest included the oak tree. Michelangelo's free use of nudity sparked considerable protest both during his life and after he died. But to this day the naked men sit, flanking prophet and figures from Genesis.

3. Grotesque. I think I became aware of this term first through reading Edgar Allen Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque when I was in Junior High, but I didn't know until recently the probable derivation of the word grotesque. The earliest OED definition of the term is this: "a kind of decorative painting or sculpture, consisting of representations of portions of human and animal forms, fantastically combined and interwoven with foliage and flowers." But the term probably originated from Nero's Domus Aurea (Golden House), which only came to light when Romans of the 15th century began to unearth archaeological monuments of their classical history. Nero built his huge house in the wake of the fire at Rome in A.D. 64. This is not the place for describing the property in detail (see this site for that); suffice it to say that one of the most visible features of Nero's home was the "Colossus Neronis," a 120 foot high bronze statue of himself placed outside the home entrance. Apparently, Nero was trying to imitate the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Well, the house was originally destroyed and not unearthed until the 15th century. Because it was unearthed as an underground-type cave or dwelling, the Domus Aurea was called "le grotte." The word grotesque then emerged as a word to describe the kind of artwork found in this underground grotto. Since much of the artwork was of human and animal forms "fantastically combined," the word grotesque was coined to capture that reality. Thus, something grotesque is, literally speaking, something coming from Nero's buried house.

4. Historiated. We can move more quickly now. Something historiated is "decorated with figures of men or animals, as illuminated or ornamental initial letters, etc." If these original letters are decorated solely with flowers, the appropriate word would be floriated. I ran across this term in the Museum of the Duomo in Florence to describe the carvings of Ghiberti on his famed Baptistery doors (the bronze 1401 panels, which won the Florentine competition, are now in the museum rather than exposed to the elements on the Baptistery). The panels have raised animals and humans which portray several biblical stories.

5. Transenna. A transenna, which appears neither in the OED nor Century, is a metallic or iron divider, in the Sistine Chapel, between the section of the Chapel reserved for the Pope and that in which the cardinals and other priests must occupy. It functions as a rood screen. Thus, it forms a true boundary between the two parts of the Chapel, though it doesn't cut out light or sound between the two sections. I was going to post a picture of such a screen here, but you can easily find online a picture of this screen.

6. Exedra. Finally, I ran into this term when studying arches and recesses in one of the church walls in Florence. An exedra can mean several things (a room looking out onto the portico, where philosophical or political discussions take place; a niche in a wall, usually covered by a half-dome, in which objects of art are placed). The most cited monument from the Middle Ages with an exedra is the Trevi Fountain in downtown Rome. The most frequent example of such a shape is in the "half shells" of outside shells where orchestras will play. The root of the term comes from two words, the latter of which means "a sitting place;" hence, we can conclude that the original signification of the term had to do with the places where men would sit down to converse about various subjects. Its most frequent usage in our day is as a recess or large niche in a wall, in which statues or other religious objects are placed.

Conclusion

If one would just patiently study the art work of Rome and Florence in the 14th -16th centuries, one would not only have a dictionary of terms to describe these works, but one would have a workable vocabulary for almost any artistic expression subsequent to the 16th century. Once again the truism holds: learn the classical expression of something and you will understand far more than you originally set out to know.

1944