I was surprised on Tuesday night to discover that the washroom facilities aboard the Montreal to Toronto 6:20 train smelled of iced tea - the peach kind.

Sitting in Dessert Trends at the corner of Harbord and Brunswick, i was pouring over my Golden Book of 555 Latin Verbs (totally worth the nine dollars even if i can’t read the classical examples on the bottom of each page. Nothing destroys classical latin like medieval Latin) and the waitress asked if i wanted anything to drink while waiting for Isabelle and Emily to arrive. I asked if she had gravol because “i think i’m going to be sick” - that was when i realized that despite all my studying i couldn’t respond to her question of how you say “i am going to vomit” in Latin. It’s vomam.

I may have passed. It’s possible. Weirder things have happened.

As you find yourself putting off writing a final draft of your dissertation by doing an unnecessarily detailed edit in red ink, you are excited by the idea that your use of the term “world view” merits a footnote on Habermas… and you’re going to have to look up that citation.

Recently, in Kaftal’s Iconography of the Saints (i don’t remember which one), a picture of a family being roasted in a hollow bull got my attention.

St. Eustace and his family were roasted in a metal bull by Diocletian. His martyrdom is apparently a frequent object of stained glass in French cathedrals. Even more interesting…

Why is he a martyr and not his family? His conversion was brought about by a vision of a stag.

Does anyone else find the echoes of the Trojan horse sort of perplexing? The echoes to the golden calf in the Hebrew Bible? It is a very weird sort of punishment. I have heard the reasons that Peter was crucified upside down (because he didn not want to be confused with the crucifixion of Christ), but the reasons for roasting a man and his family alive in a brazen beast of burden sort of perplex me. When people try to rewrite some of these arch-tyrants are more “understandable” people, it’s atrocities like this that make me wonder as to the merit of such attempts.

As i am finishing up a stage in my life, the graduate student stage, i find myself asking “how the hell did i get here?” Now, i know how i got here, i’m just not sure that i want to be here. I love the people and the intellectual stimulation and i can’t imagine anything that would make me happier - but i feel dissatisfied. This is quickly becoming one of those “i miss him” posts.

i’ve been wondering lately what my life would be like if i had not moved to Toronto. I know i would not have met some great people and not re-established my friendship with Veronica that is one of my most prized possessions (and perhaps the one factor that makes me not say i outright regret moving to Toronto), but things would be very different if i had decided to take a year off last year instead of next year. I know this is a futile exercise, but one can’t help it.

So, the question is… if you could go back in time and change only one decision - what would it be? I don’t think i would change my decision to move to Toronto, but i am pretty sure the act i would undo might prevent me from moving here as an opportunity cost.

God i am whiny today. Anything to avoid dissertating. The deadline approaches. I need to get my act together. A paragraph is not a chapter.

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I’ve been a poor blogger this past week. My apologies. Latin, dissertating and working has been a bit overwhelming. I have recently started re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and, this too, has become a time vortex.

Rather than recap episodes of great dinners with friends, dirty escapades and boring Latin complaining i will zoom forward to Sunday evening when i FINALLY sit down (well, lie on my bed to be exact) and start working on the chapter of my dissertation due this Thursday.

It has been a glorious week-end and i spent some of the afternoon sitting outside in the sun, working on my homework. When i came back in, i set-up ye old laptop to charge and STUPIDLY left the adaptor box under a pillow i had thrown on the bed. Zoom forward to 9pm when i realize, to my complete and utter horror, that somehow, i only have 50% power. My adaptor had died. It was so hot i thought my skin would burn.

Panic ensues. The only productive thing i have managed to write (because the first couple of sentences of anything is the hardest) is a working title: “Fiddling while Rome burns: Nero as Tyrant in mid-fourteenth century Florence” and an opening sentence i have re-written eight times. Wow.

Because i am brilliant, i threw the adaptor into my fridge and proceeded to panic. Sending myself all my files since my last online back-up, searching for the nearest Apple store… but disaster was averted. Within ten minutes the charger was functional again. Collective sigh of relief.

I need to be more productive, procrastinate less and sleep more. This close-call hits home. So i promptly blogged about it. An addict is an addict.

“You’re the first person i’ve shared this with… but… because Old English poetry is alliterative there is a high chance, when looking up words in the dictionary for a given line, that they will all be on the same page.”

I feel special. Now another twenty-something people know this about Old English poetry. I am thrilled to be a hub of the information age.

This from the same person who told me last week that the Woody Allen line in Annie Hall about not signing up for a course that requires you reading Beowulf is true.

I met with my advisor this afternoon after some time well spent (but unfruitful) in the Rare Books Room. The first section of my dissertation is due in ONE WEEK. Gulp. Ok… no gulp… I’m sick and my throat hurts.

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It may not be Nero… but i learnt a lot about anti-heros yesterday when i attended a lecture my advisor was giving for the Spring Renaissance Program at U of T.

Yesterday i had picked up an extra three hour lunch shift at work. It went well, but i REALLY could have used the time to work on my dissertation which is advancing much too slowly for my tastes.

After work and in newly-soled boots (because i am good at multi-tasking i had them repaired while i was at the restaurant), a VERY short pleated skirt and black fishnets, i headed over to a lecture given by my advisor entitled “Massacre of the Innocents: The Meaning of a Tragedy.” It was really interesting how just two verses from one of the gospels has had such an effect on art history. The male children murdered on Herod’s orders in Bethlehem could not have totaled more than twenty, but the historical sources always claim that thousands were killed. They pose quite a theological problem, which both Augustine and Aquinas contributed to resolving so that they would end up in heaven (they can’t actually be martyrs because Christ has not died yet, but Augustine says that because they die FOR Christ they won’t be stuck in limbo while Aquinas says their shed blood can be equated with the eucharist).

The early and high medieval depictions focus on the martyrdom aspects of the tale. The mothers are usually mournful but unactive… in much the same way Christian families were depicted as being when one of their own was persecuted for the faith.

By the late Middle Ages, much more of a depiction of the sociopathic nature of Herod emerges and he, as anti-hero, gets directly linked to the social problems of the given society. For example, a Florentine play has the wet nurses bring the babies to the massacre and return with no compunction for what they have done. Wet nursing was a big philosophical issue in late medieval Florence.

As the early modern era begins, Herod recedes out of the depictions which now are mostly exercises in human anatomy and facial emotion. My advisor feels this has to do with the fact that the rising absolutist governments are using a rhetoric akin to Herod’s and, hence, cannot demonize him without demonizing themselves.

We then looked at some more modern and even a contemporary depiction. Apparently the anti-abortion movement has adopted the aethestic troupe - which is interesting considering that in the biblical story the mothers are more than a little upset by the massacre.

I have a back-pack full of books to read and another shift at work today. When will i get it all done? i need to stop learning interesting things and start learning dissertation-related things. Eep. However, i am very happy i went AND it was nice to be addressed directly by my advisor who was at pains to point out the links to my own project while lecturing - an odd sensation to say the least.

In 1304, after a failed arbitration attempt between competing aristocratic factions by the Cardinal of Prato, Florence was ravaged by a fire. Contemporary witnesses later estimated between 1700 and 1900 buildings burned. The gruesome details are recounted in two contemporary chronicles, Giovanni Villani’s Nuova Cronica and Dino Compagni’s Cronica, and two subsequent histories, Leonardo Bruni’s Historiae Florentini populi and Machiavelli’s Florentine History.

The last years of the thirteenth and the first years of the fourteenth century witnessed a resurgence of the elite factional division and violence which characterized much of the history of Florence. There were three distinct groups of citizens in medieval Florence: the Grandi (often translated as Elite), the Popolo and the workers. Other than in the brief aftermath of the Ciompi Revolt in 1378, the latter were completely disenfranchised from the political sphere – not even members of the guilds. The lines between the Grandi and the Popolo are more difficult to distinguish. Before the tumultous thirteenth century, the Grandi had been comprised mainly of a military elite, however, in the aftermath of the Guelf-Ghibelline hostilities, these families largely petered out. By the opening years of the fourteenth century, both Grandi and Popolo owned substantial portions of land in the countryside and participated in international trade (John M. Najemy, “The Dialogue of Power in Florentine Politics,” in City-States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy ed. Molho, Ranflaub & Emlen (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 276-8). To further complicate matters, within the Popolo were both rich merchants and bankers, Popolo Grasso, and artisans and shopkeepers, Popolo Minuto. While these two governing groups contended for political power, the Grandi were further afflicted by conflict among themselves which often led to the rise of a Popolo government that sought to contain their violence (see John M. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200-1575 (Malden, Oxford & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), especially 1-88).

In 1293, a Popolo government had gained the upper-hand in this ongoing conflict and enacted the Ordinances of Justice, among other measures, in order to control the Grandi families known for being particularly unruly and violent. A list of powerful and prominent families was published and those whose names were included on the list were excluding from the highest of executive offices, forced to pay a bond for good behaviour, held responsible for the transgressions of their relatives and often faced a higher penalty for breaking the law. Although modified in later years, these statutes stayed on the books and profoundly affected the Florentine political sphere (Gene A. Brucker, Renaissance Florence (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969), 133).

However, in 1295 the powerful magnate Corso Donati succeeded in discrediting Giano della Bella and his Popolo government that had enacted the Ordinances of Justice. When he was officially banished in March, the exile of their charismatic leader substantially weakened the Popolo government and the Grandi gradually regained the upper-hand in the power struggle (Najemy, A History of Florence, 89). During the same time period, the Grandi split into two distinct groups, Black and White Guelfs, vying for power, prestige and Popolo supporters. It appears almost as impossible to determine why a family joined one or the other of the factions as it does to identify the reasons for allying to the Guelf and Ghibelline parties of the early thirteenth century. However, the conflict between the Black and White Guelfs and the Popolo quickly escalated to violence and the May Day celebrations in 1300 brought open confrontation in the street.

The Popolo government, still nominally in charge, exiled leaders from both magnate groups, yet from exile they continued their challenge. Cardinal Nicholas of Prato undertook negotiations which resulted in the return of the banished to the city (For a discussion of Papal involvement in the Florentine conflicts, see George Holmes, Florence, Rome and the Origins of the Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), especially 182-5). On June 8, 1304, the White Guelf leaders left the city fearful of Black Guelf violence. The Cardinal followed suit the next day after he too was threatened. It had become clear that the White and Black Guelfs could not be reconciled. Violence broke out again the very next day, June 10, – as did the devestating fire chronicled by both Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani.

Najemy describes Compagni’s account of the years from 1301 to 1304 as having an “air of ineluctable disaster” (Najemy, A History of Florence, 92). A successful merchant repeatedly elected as consul for the Por Santa Maria guild and a key participant in many of the events he recounts, such as the establishment of the priorate, application of the Ordinances of Justice and revision of the statutes, Compagni “knew at first hand the failure of the commune to restrain the fomenters of factional violence and the futility of all efforts at reconciliation…. through bitter experience” (Daniel E. Bornstein, “Introduction,” Dino Compagni’s Chronicle of Florence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), xx-xxi). An important member of the Popolo, it is not surprising that Compagni is condemnatory of the factionalism rampant among the Grandi who challenged the guilds’ attempts to govern Florence.

The Cronica’s account of the Fire is explicit with respect to the cause of the devestation. In the opening section, Compagni tells his readers that fighting broke out amongst “gente che avea più animo a vendetta che a pace” (Dino Compagni, Cronica ed. Davide Cappi (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano, 2000), 3:8, 39). Men more concerned with factional divisions than the prosperity of the city are responsible for the disaster. After recounting the horrors of the fire and the claims that “più che 1900 magioni” were consumed by the flames, Compagni again returns to his accusations towards the Grandi families. To counter any claims that the fire might have been accidental, he writes:

Acciò che di tal malificio si sappi il vero e per che cagione fu fatto detto fuoco e dove, i capi di parte nera, a fine di cacciare i Cavalcanti de quel luogo, i quali temeano perché erano ricchi e potenti, ordinarono il detto fuoco a Ognissanti; e era composto per modo che, quando ne cadea in terra, lasciava uno colore azurro (3:8, 42).

The description of the blue flames argues forcefully that the destruction of the city was not an inadvertent mishap, but arson.

Compagni tells his readers, without doubt, who set the first of the fire. Neri Abati, the prior of San Piero Scheraggio was bought by the leaders of the Black Guelfs and turned enemy against his own kinsmen setting fire to a house in Or San Michele. The arsonist is described in undeniably negative terms: “uomo reo e dissoluto” (3:8, 46). However, the destruction was not the work of but one man. Compagni also describes Corso Donati, the leading magnate of the Black Guelf Party, walking through the streets with a torch in hand in order to set fire to the Cavalcanti homes (3:8, 47). Others quickly followed suite and, although the Cavalcanti are portrayed as unwilling to reciprocate in face of such devestation, they are not unresponsible for their own tragic demise and the fire that ravaged the city. The reader would remember from the preceding chapter that the Calvalcanti rejected the Cardinal’s suggestion of reconciliation (3:7, 36). These Grandi, more concerned with honour and vengeance, bring about misery both through their deliberate actions and their unwillingness to negotiate.

The fire of 1304 was accompanied by substantial looting of people’s homes and stores. Compagni describes the horror of losing one’s possessions in two manners. Firstly, he recounts how fear of the thieves and disorder was so great that people were unwilling to defend their goods: “I ladri publicamente si metteano nel fuoco a rubare e portarsene ciò che poteano avere: e niente era lo detto. E chi vedea portarne il suo, non osava domandarlo, perché la terra in ogni cosa era maldisposta” (3:8, 43). But even those citizens with the good chance and foresight to remove their possessions to another area of the city were afflicted. The fire spread so far it appears to have been escapable (3:8, 45). Compagni recounts estimates of roughly 1900 destroyed buildings (3:8, 42). Both the fire itself and the accompanying loss of order were responsible for propagating the devestation.

To make matters worse, as if the looting and large-scale destruction were not enough, those in a position to alleviate the misery stood idly by. The podestà, the one government official supposedly outside of the factional strife as a foreigner, took a contingent of armed men and his family beyond the fire’s path to the Mercato Nuovo and not only refused help and protection to the fleeing, but also furthered the overall chaos by his presence: “Guardavano il fuoco, e stavansi a cavallo, e davano impedimento per lo imbrogìo faceano, ché impedivano i fanti e gli andatori” (3:8, 49). The violence of factionalism overcame even those measures designed explicitly to prevent it.

Compagni’s chronicle did not receive the fame within his lifetime that his contemporary’s, Giovanni Villani, did. Relatively unknown and unpublished because of its harsh criticism of the ruling groups of Florence in the fourteenth-century, it nonetheless demonstrates how one member of the Popolo interpreted the fire of 1304 as the direct result of factionalism among the Grandi (Bornstein, xxii. For a summary of the reception of Compagni’s work see Girolamo Arnaldi, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 27 (1982), 646-7). Like Compagni, Giovanni Villani, a member of the Calimala (wool-finishers) guild from 1300 and born into a well-respected family of the Popolo Grassi, also had considerable domestic and diplomatic political experience. He was appointed by the Florentine government to help relieve the Great Famine from 1329 to 1330 and was a prior in 1316 and 1317 (Christopher Kleinhenz, Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2004), 1144-7). His condemnation of the Grandi involved in the outbreak of the fire of 1304 echoes Compagni’s in many ways.

The Nuova Cronica provides substantially more detail with respect to the political maneuverings which resulted in a renewed fighting in the streets between the Black and White Guelfs. Unlike Compagni, Villani attributes the outbreak of fire to divine justice: “Come piacque a Dio, o per fuggire maggiore male, o permise per pulire i peccati de’Fiorentini” (Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica Vol. 2. Ed. Giuseppe Porta (Parma: Ugo Guanda Editore: 1991), 9:71, 42-3). Nevertheless, the blaze was intentional as Neri Abati, again described as a dissolute man turned traitor against his kinsmen, set the first fires in Or San Michele (9:71, 44-8). Although not indicting the passion for vengeance among the Grandi as responsible for the devestation, it is nonetheless the factional strife which permitted Neri Abati to light the flames which destroyed the city.

Villani describes substantially less of the details of the events during the actual fire than Compagni, but his account of the ruined aftermath is both more graphic and more poignant. Villani lists for just under twenty lines of text the many family palaces destroyed (9:71, 52-71). He bemoans that the best of Florence was consumed for the affected areas were filled with stores, merchandise, treasure and other precious things employing a particularly compelling metaphor: “Arse tutto il modollo, e tuorlo, e cari luoghi della città di Firenze” (9:71, 61-62). Villani is at pains to inform his reader not just that 1700 buildings burned, but what type of buildings they were – palaces, towers and homes. As with Compagni’s account, there is no escaping the misery even if one escaped the flames for “quella che non ardea, isgombrandosi, era rubata da’malandrini” (9:71, 64-5) Although less political than the Cronica, the Nuova Cronica paints a more vivid, emotional portayal of events which affected all Florentines. Although fifty years had passed since the fire ravaged the city, its memory is still present in even later works by Leonardo Bruni and Niccolo Machiavelli.

Completed by 1442 when it was presented to the city fathers, Bruni’s Historiae Florentini populi retells the events leading up to and during the fire of 1304. Neri degli Abati is again a malicious creature directly quoted as saying: “Fax et malleoli afferantur….Iam ego hos cum domibus propriis extorres agam” (Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People Vol. 1 ed. trans. James Hankins (London & Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001), 4:87). Bruni compares the fire’s spread to an invading army’s advance and informs the reader that he, like many others at the time, believes the conflagration was encouraged by the citizens hoping to drive out the other faction:

Medicatum fuisse ignem vulgo creditum est. Nec equidem ab re susceptam credulitatem existamarim, cernens etiam nunc admirabilem ac prope stupendam illius vim in parietes etiam ipsos ac lapides, quod reliquiae monstrant, saeventiem (4:87).

The force of the inferno was still present over a hundred fifty years later on the walls for Bruni to point out to all of Florence. Machiavelli’s Florentine History describes the fire in similar terms. While the readers are informed that many believed that fire was accidental, Machiavelli provides a detailed account of the motivations for Neri Abati to light the first flames. Furthermore, it was not a desire for peace that ended the simultaneous fighting, but a satiety of evil-doing (Niccolo Machiavelli, The Florentine History Vol. 1 trans. Ninian Hill Thomson (London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1906) 2:3, 21). A disaster still present in the collective memory over two hundred years later through both its physical remains and historical literature, could serve as a powerful literary troupe, particularly for an author, like Boccaccio, concerned with condemning immorality and tyranny in the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.

The coverage of the fire of 1304 in more current historiography does not reflect its apparent importance for those who wrote its first accounts. For example, Ferdinand Schevill’s once canonical History of Florence : from the founding of the city through the Renaissance provides no mention at all of the events. Both the chronical accounts and the Renaissance histories of the city emphasize how the fire was a direct result of factionalism and violence among the Grandi class. A better understanding of the political and social history of late medieval Florence both informs and is informed by the literature produced within that same society.

(The above is a much abridged version of a paper i submitted for my medieval social history class entitled “The Great Fire of 1304 and Collective Memory in Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium).

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Having come highly recommended to me by more than one person, i sat down last night around 2am to watch Lars and the Real Girl genuinely worried that my laughing might wake my landlords whose baby has been sick recently.

Alas, i was disappointed. Touching and well-put-together, the movie was very good. There were scenes that had me laughing, but usually in that uncomfortable, tense, awkward kind of way that i don’t like actually to laugh for. I think part of the problem i was having was that i felt preached to - like the movie was supposed to be demonstrating to me that the mentally unsound are people too. I know this to be the case, but i don’t particularly like movies with such an overt agenda.

I don’t know why, but after watching this movie about someone needing some to love them, i couldn’t fall asleep. Ended emailing people i probably shouldn’t have and pouring out tears over little things. There was a cigarette consumed hastily on my stoop with a peppermint tea in hand while mumbling “stop… just stop… it’s ok… stop…” Apparently the film hit a chord, i am just not sure it was the chord it intended to. I’m finding it difficult adjusting to this idea of making decisions about me.

Funny thing is that i had what on all accounts should have been a great day yesterday. I attended a picnic with my fellow history graduate students, met Veronica for cake, shopped without buying anything too extravagant, had a great dinner and a nice chat about sex, men and possible screenplays. I think not being a student may cause me more trouble than i originally realized. My self-medication is going to be getting a part-time job while i am finishing up this last paper.

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The paper, entitled “The Great Florentine Fire of 1304 and Collective Memory in Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium” was successfully submitted via staircase three hours ago. Although it is too short and skimpy on the references, it is completed. This after a disaster i have been telling people about quickly on MSN but not fully explained - so i will detail my huge mishap once and for all.

I WAS researching, until last Thursday, mumming (the wearing of masks) in carnivals and other public festivities in 14th century Florence because i thought that Boccaccio’s inclusion of Nero’s wearing of masks when he would traipse out into the city with his imperial guard in tow in order to molest citizens on all fours was an indictment of working class behaviour.

I have read the work by Boccaccio five or six times. Unfortunately, i have also read the same account by Suetonius two or three. It is Suetonius, a Roman author, not Boccaccio who talks about Nero wearing masks to molest the populace. I only realized my mistake when i sat down to do my own translation from the Latin text last Wednesday night.

Since then, i have done an abrupt turn of face and had to familiarize myself with three new primary sources: Villani’s Nuova Cronica, Compagni’s Cronica and Bruni’s History of the Florentine People. My paper turned out to be about how the collective memory of the horrible fire in 1304 would have affected how Boccaccio’s readers interpreted his account of Nero setting Rome aflame in 64 CE because it wasn’t pretty enough for him.

And i pulled it off in a week. It isn’t fantastic… but as my prof just said to me: there are two types of papers: perfect papers and completed papers. There is no “uncompleted” paper. It isn’t a paper at all!

However, the good news about being up until 5:30 am is that you catch people on skype whose time-zone difference usually ensures you NEVER get to hear the sound of their voices. I was regaled with a story about the stereotypical Quebecois showing his balls to the entire world at a beach by Arieh in Israel. Then i was told all about my apparent plans for visiting Australia in January - there will be a van, a mattress and mushroom-picking. I don’t know whether to get my hopes up or not, but i do like the idea of crazy, ridiculous antics to celebrate the end of my second dozen years on the planet.