Happy on Malcontent Alley

The  Univerity of Bologna was founded in  A.D. 1088, which makes it the world’s first university. But it had been going for a long time before that (at least for two thousand years). It was a big center of the Renaissance, and its architecture is fascinating. The old Piazza Maggiore is dominated by the basilica of San Petronio, the 5th C. Bishop, who became its patron saint.

                                  

The Romanesque building, in the form of an early Christian basilica, would have been bigger, but Rome got wind that it would be bigger than San Pietro in Vaticano, so they made them stop.

One interesting feature [aside from the magnificent reliquary containing San Petronio’s head!] is the meridian line. Extending for about 25 meters, the line shows the meridian of Bologna cutting across the cathedral diagonally. It also shows all the signs of the zodiac. I believe this dates from the 

13^th C.

The rest of the piazza is lined with Renaissance palaces and medieval towers. On one side is the grand fountain of Neptune. 

It was extraordinary – on this sunny Christmas afternoon– to stand there listening to Incas from Ecuador playing their flutes. [It was sufficiently amplified to fill the whole piazza]. So let’s see: Medieval setting, pagan Roman god carved in the Renaissance, South American indigenos playing music just as old, and modern Italians standing around digging it! I think Bologna deserves to be called cosmopolitan. Even though it is now kind of provincial [it’s seventh in size in Italy].

Off the Piazza lead several main streets, lined with Bologna’s trademark long porticos, shielding the terrazzo  sidewalks. The ground floors of the palaces that stand on either side of the street have arcades  open to the street. Those are the sidewalks, and the shops are behind them. My street, the Via dell'  Indipendenza,  seems to be the Nicollet Mall of Bologna. It is crowded with fancy shops, bars, gelatariasand wood-fired pizza joints. [And the unavoidable McDonalds.]

The people are friendly and comic. Many of them delight in conversation and fooling around. Everyone is polite, in a sophisticated way. The city seems prosperous, despite The Crisis, and it makes a good impression.

I was too tired to go to midnight mass, so I went to the cathedral this morning, in time for the Gloria. The building is a glorious 17-18^th C. explosion of baroque joy. [You have to like that sort of thing: the baroque is an acquired taste, I think.] There are organs all over the place: a facing pair in the choir, and a beautiful new tracker down in the nave, where I sat near it. I had a good view of the operatic Italian bass-baritone crooner, who wore a black cape and served as cantor. His bel canto style, inflected with sentimental ornamentation and scooping attacks might have been a bit much for a snooty English-choral aficionado like myself, but he sang on pitch and the style seemed somehow appropriate to the setting. [Although I will say that is was less appropriate for Silent Night (offertory) than for Adeste Fidelis, which he sang at the Communion.] The church was pleasantly crowded,, including younger people, which I found reassuring. The whole place was decked out with lots of poinsettias, and the whole effect was joyful. [What follows is of interest mainly to lovers of liturgy.]

• A sign on the door informs the visitor that Holy Communion – by decree fo the cardinal – is received only per orem, l and not in the hand. This information typifies the approach here, which is as old-fashioned as Vatican II will allow. I rather liked it, actually. There were two canons assisting the presiding Dean. They all wore matching cloth-of-gold chasubles, of baroque “fiddle-back” style, and birettas with scarlet pom-poms, at the appropriate times (very Tridentine!). There were two deacons in the flaring, baroque dalmatics that go with the set, and lots of acolytes.
• The six candles stood on the floor on either side of the altar. [One sees this commonly now. In the Basiclica San Ambrogio, they were actually arranged on the choir railing behind the altar.]
• The celebrant confused half the congregation by coming down to cense the bambino that reposed in blessing in front of the ambo. Many thought they were supposed to stand, but he wasn’t coming to sense them. Then, when the subdeacon DID come to cense the congregation, he had to gesture to them to stand up.
• Here, as in Toledo, the peace is exchanged in its old place, after the Fraction.
• At Communion, I saw what I had never seen anywhere, except at St. Michael-and-All-Angels, Tucson, when Canon Fowler made everyone stick out their tongues for Communion: a long, linen cloth held between two acolytes so that it stretched under the ciborium, to avoid dropping the Sanctissimum on the floor. I had always thought this was an idiosyncrasy of the late Canon, but NO! He just copied it from Italy.
• When Communion had finished, after the priest handed off the ciborium to be returned to the Tabernacle, he genuflected quickly in the direction of the departing subdeacon. THIS I had never seen before anywhere.
• I went back to see the Cardinal's mass at 5:30, just to catch the splendor. There was plenty:

1. Eight assisting priests, another bishop, an MC thurifer and lots of acolytes.
2. Full mixed choir, singing beautifully.l Adeste fidelis again, only sung in Italian.
3. Gothic vestments this time - white - and a medieval/Anglican-style mitre and crosier 
4. a VIMPA! I had only read about these, but the acolyte who carries the mitre and the crosier for the MC uses it so that he doesn't get his lowly hands on the prelate's stuff.
5. The Cardinal wore his pallium and preached with his mitre on. (No copes, though. I guess copes are out.)
6. Best of all the place was packed. It was pretty full this morning, but for the Third Mass of the Nativity there was standing room only - about a thousand people, I would say.
7. One nice feature of this cathedral is that there is no Baldachino, alothough the great cealing over it rather looks like one, supported by six gilded columns.

Messa Maggiore op. 2 for five voices of  Giacomo Antonio Perti will be sung in the Cathedral for the first time in a couple hundred years, to celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr on December 26. I am going to stay an extra day to attend. Perti was the choirmaster at the Basilica for 60 years (!), beginning in 1696. That makes him a contemporary of Bach. He was the teacher of Torelli, and he wrote lots of masses, oratorios, and operas.

My accommodation is  a pensione, really. Styled a "B&B", the breakfast is provided by a bar around the corner, which was closed on Christmas Day. it was a small adventure to find it. I neglected to give the cabbie the address, and he took me to another hotel of the same name. Fortunately, iut didn't seem right, so I looked at twhich is how Europeans refer to the 2he address and he took me there. Only it wasn't there. the Via dell' Inipendenza went from 41 to 45, and the La Suite was supposed to be at 43. Luckily6, I had jtted down the phone number, so the driver called  and asccertained that the door was actually around the corner, acro9ss a little, aptly-named alley called the Via Malcontenti. There was a little brass plaque. I pushed the butto9nj and it turned out to be a telephone connection to the owner, who assured me he wo9uls be there in two minutes. A arrived, and carried my bag up the three flights, because "the elevator does not stop". It turns out that the little suite (three rooms) is on the mezzanine. But - remembering something like this from long ago - I reasoined that I co9uld just take the elevator to the 1st floor (we would call it the second) and walk DOWN instead of up. It works fine.

So, I decided to stay for an extra day. The rather excitable landlord came over this evening and we worked it out.

I found the only restaurant nearby that appears to be open on Christmas night. Right across the big street and down the block. Excellent place. Wood-fired pizza. [I think they wouldn't dare call it a pizzaria if it weren't]. What for an American would be  a small pizza coast about $10. I would have been better off with pizza, but I wanted to try some Italian restaurant food, so I ordered an appetizer that turned out to be mushrooms and cheese baked in a little dish. The some lasagna bolognese, which was quite good. Lots of thin, green pasta leaves with cheese and ground meat. Much more delicate than north American lasagna. And finally some panna cotta, which I had never tried. It is somewhere between cheese cake and custard, made in little rectangular loaves and sliced, served with caramel sauce. With coffee and a liter of water, the whole bill came to $40! Live and learn.

The mass was stunning. I was able only to stay for the Kyrie and Gloria, but that took forty-five minutes! What was so amazing was that they actually used the building. It is a baroque barrel-vault, about the size of our Basilica, but higher, I think. The nave has three high bays on each side, alternating with two smaller one, above which are galleries with high stone-lattice screens. (If you look carefully, you may be able to make one of them in the picture above.) Picture this: the new organ is in the smaller bay on the gospel side. Above it is a gallery, which they didn't use, presumably because the singers wouldn't be able to hear over the organ. In the gallery opposite (the one in the picture) were the soparanos (high up the wall, in other words.) The tenors and basses faced off in the two galleries nearer the door. The acoustic effects were marvelous.

I have to say, these Bolognese have guts! The conductor stood on a little podiumright in the middle of the center aisle, where it crosses the middle dividing aisle. I got there in time to sit right in front of the back section, not far from the podium. Over by the organ was the string quintet (bass in addition to ‘cello). But the organist had to face away, and his mirror didn’t help, so he had to keep looking over his shoulder for cues! In spite of all this, they didn’t get off at all, even in the fast, complicated fugue that ended the Gloria.

Then it dawned on me that this piece was WRITTEN for this space. Perti, it turns out, was the choirmaster of the cathedral as well as the Basilica. I suppose he intended his masses to be performed this way. With the barrel vault amplifying the voices, from where I sat it was 18^th C. surround-sound.

It began with a concerto, while we waited for the sacred ministers tro enter,, and during the procession itself. Then Adeste fidelis, again – in Latin this time by the full choir. By the way, the concentus is fine. They sound professional.

But this was not a mere performance. It was a solemn high mass – pontifical, again, complete with Cardinal (and vimpafer, although fewer assisting clergy. The canons got the day off.) The dean was there in casxsock and surplice and magenta mozetta. The color was red for Stephen the Martyr, but instead of a deacon the Cardinal had an assisting priest. Apparently they didn’t have an extra red chasuble, so the solution was for the assaiastant to wear it – fiddle-back again – and the cardinal wore the cloth-of-gold one OVER his scarlet mozetta, over the alb. Since the baroque chasuble doesn’t go beyond the shoulders, this produced the effect of red sleeves!

The Cardinal is, evidently, insufficiently old-fashioned to let the mass proceed during the Gloria (which was really glorious, in several movements, and plenty long enough to cover all the readings and responses, which would have been said “secretly” at the altar in Perti’s time, so that when it was finished it would be time for the Credo.) But instead, the Cardinal gestured to everyone to sit down. (they knew enough to get up when he did, so no hand-signals there.)


So, I feel lucky and I am glad I stayed over. The only cause for malcontent is a slight cold.


I went back to the same restraurant, the Pizzaria del Oro (named for the street), where the waiter recogfnizd me and gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. (It turns out he is a Sicilian from Messina. Small neck tattoo and pierced eyebrows.) nI wanted to try their pizza, which was bigger than it looked - almost a large size by American standards. The creust is as thin as a tortilla. I chose the !Quatro Stagioni, which has four different toppings, separated by quadrant: Mozarella, sausage, artichokes, and ham. It was great. Took about five minutes to arrive (it really is fast food, with those super-hot, wood-fired ovens.) And it cost only EUR 8 - which makes it CHEAPER than American pizza.