The Adriano Bernareggi Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art

Posted on 08/05/2014 by Michael

Saint Lucy

The Adriano Bernareggi Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art

The Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra Adriano Bernareggi (Adriano Bernareggi Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art) is only a short distance from the Cittá Alta. Based on the collection of a Bergamo Bishop (who gives his name to the museum) from the 1930s onwards it contains exhibits not really seen elsewhere in the city.

Located in one of the old palazzos it has a somewhat eccentric arrangement of rooms but if you try to visit the rooms in their numbered sequence you should see all there is. There was obviously no specialisation in the collecting process – basically if it was religious it was in. There are the normal objects and paintings that you might have seen in other Italian museums but there were a few objects that were either new to me or which I consider worthy of mention due to their unusual characteristics or a piece of information that made me think in a slightly different way.

Before mentioning them there’s one point I’d like to make. The collection is curated in a way so that it’s a theme that dominates a room, not the period or even the type of object. To the entrance of the room there’s an introduction to the theme then you’re left on your own. There’s no information about the exact period, if a known artist or any guidance of what the object might be depicting. To get a better understanding of the collection you need to call on your own knowledge or experience.

In the room of the Saints there are paintings from different epochs but what they all have in common, that is if the Saint had died a martyred death, is that they either appear holding the instrument of their demise, almost always with a serene look on their face, or else an almost surreal depiction of the ordeal they went through. Whenever I see them, or indeed Christ on the cross, I think of the comments on this idea of remembrance by the deceased American comedian Bill Hicks. He used to wonder what Christ think if, on the second coming, he was surrounded by people with images of his torture around their necks.

As neighbours on the wall were a small group of female saints. Saint Barbara (or it could be Saint Agatha – misogyny in the early – and not so early – Catholic Church meant that female saints suffered a litany of tortures before their end), during her ordeal, had her breasts cut off and she is depicted with a pair of breasts, looking more like the polenta e osei sold in the cake shops in Cittá Alta, defying gravity and sticking to a bloodied sword.

Saint Barbara

In the same group is Saint Lucy who had her eyes gouged out and they are depicted threaded onto a stiletto like knife which she herself holds. A third in the group, at least the ones I thought I recognised, was Saint Agatha (or Saint Apollonia) who was recorded as having her teeth pulled out. It really gets quite confusing and some indication of the intention of the painter, at least, would have helped.

One thing I learnt in my visit to this museum was the fact that the cross, and more especially the crucifixion, as a representation of Christ was something that developed in the 4th/5th centuries as the religion became more organised, more structured, more hierarchical. Before that the early Christians had used symbols such as a fish (which I knew about before as a Catalan friend had brought that to my attention), doves or loaves of bread to represent God/Son/Holy Ghost. As the religion was supposed to one of peace and the love of mankind these images make much more sense and even give an impression of caring. However, they lost out to the failing Roman Empire which hitched its horse to a rising movement and, effectively, took it over and slotted in an imperial structure and bureaucracy. It worked. It’s still there in Vatican City.

Something I’ve only seen in Bergamo (although I’m open to the fact that they appear elsewhere) is the so-called ‘macabre’ paintings. These are basically paintings of skeletons in various forms of dress as it they are, perhaps not living in the sense that’s generally accepted (before the banal vampire films and TV programmes became ubiquitous) but at least taking part in daily life. In Room 15 there are 8 large paintings covering all social classes, but with an emphasis on the rich and powerful, including kings and popes, presumably with the argument that death is the only true leveller but society would be a more civilised if we did the levelling prior to the appearance of the Grim Reaper. The only other place I’ve seen these ‘macabre’ paintings is in the church of Santa Grata Inter Vites, also in Bergamo, in Borgo Canale.

‘Macabre’ Pope

I must have now seen hundreds of Romanesque, painted, wooden statues of the Madonna and Child. They are charming and always interesting as their evolution from the early Romanesque period up to the Renaissance shows a re-learning of the skills lost with the too rapid destruction of the Roman Empire. The small group of wooden statues in Room 17 are unique as far as I’m concerned.

The information supplied by the museum stresses the fact that these statues were massed produced but most of them must have ended up as fire wood as I’ve never come across them before. They are incredibly modern. Although the Madonna is dressed in the fashion of the 18th/19th centuries they have aspects that wouldn’t look out of place today.

They are, roughly, two-thirds life-size, standing (which was very rare in the Romanesque period when these statues had their heyday) and very life-like. As well as the dress the hairstyles were of the period so it seems an attempt to place the Madonna in the ‘now’ and not making her something apart from ordinary women. In a way going back to the ideas of the early Christians before the religion was formalised.

And sexy – in the Jessica Rabbit sort of way. One, in particular, has a very slim waist and curves that were emphasised in fashion models – before ‘size zero’ and androgynous became the norm.

For people new to such a museum I’m sure they would find more of interest. By now I’ve seen a lot of this art and, perhaps, am becoming too blasé.

A smallish but nonetheless interesting and worthwhile place to visit if in Bergamo.

Practical Information

Address: Via Pignolo, 76

Opening hours:

Tuesday – Sunday 09.30 – 12.30 and 15.00 – 18.30

Closed Monday

Entrance:

General €5

65 plus (with ID) €3

Free entry with the Bergamo Card.

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Three days in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy

Posted on 06/05/2014 by Michael

The Bergamo Skyline

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Three days in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy

Three days in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy. What to do? Where to go? What do you need to know? How much will it cost? From the links below you will be able to find the information, practical hints, tips, suggestions of visits and food, etc., to make a full three day visit to the northern Italian city, in the foothills of the Orobie Alps and about 45 kilometres to east of Milan, an enjoyable experience.

Most of the principal tourist historical, cultural and artistic attractions are to be found in the Città Alta (the High City, also known as the Old Town – although there is evidence of ancient settlements where contemporary development is taking place)) the walled mediaeval city built on the top of one hills that commanded the trade routes in times past. The old city got its Venetian Walls during the 16^th century and they dominate any aspect from afar. As the politics of the country changed (especially after Italian Unification – Risorgimento – of the 1860s) more expansion took place below the hill and this is where you’ll find locations dominated by 19^th century architecture, including some of the most important art galleries such as the Accademia Carrara, the Museo Diosesano Adriano Bernareggi and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (GAMeC). Also in this area you’ll be able to see the Monument to the Partisan, by Giacomo Manzù, and the Teatro Donizetti, the local opera house.

In Città Alta you’ll find: the Duomo (Cathedral); the Colleoni Chapel – the mausoleum of the mercenary Bartolomeo Colleoni; the Campanone (The Big Bell) and The Gombito, two towers dating back to mediaeval times; the Contarini Fountain; the Baptistery, dating back to the 14th century – but not in the same place; the library; locations connected to the life of Gaetano Donizetti (the bel canto opera composer); the Palazzo della Regione; a number of interesting churches, including the Romanesque San Michele al Pozzo Bianco, with its frescoes, the church of Santa Grata Inter Vites, with its macabre paintings behind the main altar, the tiny church of Santa Croce and the huge Basilica de Santa Maria Maggiore – which challenges the Cathedral in its decoration and splendour; as well as a number of comic, interesting, sometimes bizarre and unusual examples of ‘street art’ – long before Banksie people were painting the outsides of buildings just for the sake of it and as a relief to the mundanity of their lives.

The old city is tiny and the only way to see it, and that’s because there’s no alternative transport to take you through the narrow streets and alleyways, is on foot. However, it’s not a logistical problem to get around the more dispersed attractions of the new town and guidance will be provided about how to do that in the most convenient and cheapest way possible. This will include the quaint funicular railway which takes some of the pain out of climbing the steep hills and allows you to get to the highest point in the old city at the Castello di San Vigillio.

Eateries exist in the Città Alta but they are almost exclusively directed towards the tourist trade and may not, for that reason, most may not be particularly good value for money. However, I went to one restaurant in the new town and one in the old town. One day I choose snack food and a picnic at San Vigilio.

Accommodation reports will be limited to one. I am staying at the Nuovo Ostello della Gioventu di Bergamo, part of Hostelling International to which the Youth Hostel Association (YHA) of the UK is affiliated. Although on the outskirts of the new town there’s a couple of very convenient bus routes (the 6 and the 3) that can get you to both the old and the new town without a lot of pain, the No 3 to the Citta Alta having its terminus at the bus stop immediately outside the hostel. If you don’t mind sharing dormitory accommodation for a few nights it provides all you really need, a clean, comfortable and convenient place to lay your head.

Bergamo easily has enough to keep someone with wide and catholic tastes busy for a full three days. More than that you might find yourself retracing your steps a bit too often. However, generally it’s a pleasant location and it’s not too bad a choice as a base to explore some of the surrounding historic towns such as Brescia or Carravaggio or even for a swift day trip to Milan.

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7th May 1954 – Vietnamese Liberation of Dien Bien Phu

Posted on 06/05/2014 by Michael

Vietnamese Liberation of Dien Bien Phu – 7th May 1954

7th May 1954 – Vietnamese Liberation of Dien Bien Phu

At 17.30 on the 7th May 1954 the flag of the Viet Minh, a yellow star on a red background, replaced that of the French imperialists over the command bunker of the Dien Bien Phu military base in the far north-western corner of the country. With that act, and the sacrifice of many thousands of patriots leading up to that event, the Vietnamese Communists had put an end to French colonialism in the part of the world then known as Indochina.

Although the Vietnamese, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communist Party had effectively defeated the Japanese invaders during the Second World War the French colonialists were allowed to crawl back with the aid of some of the ‘victorious allies’ in the war against fascism and militarism. Notable here is the involvement of the British (and the Labour Government in power at the time) who, amongst other things, re-armed the defeated Japanese army so they could hold the ground until significant French forces could arrive to re-claim their stolen legacy that had, in turn, been stolen from them by the Japanese.

The Vichy French forces and politicians, who for the majority of the 1939-45 war had been collaborators with Nazism, crawled out of their rat holes and tried to re-establish what remained of their ’empire’. In the same way that German fascists were allowed back into positions of power in Germany the French imperialists were encouraged and supported in the immediate post-war period to take up position against what was seen, especially by the British and the Americans, as the greatest threat of the time – communism and the assumption of state power by the workers and peasants.

Situation of the Fronts in winter 1953 and spring 1954

Whatever their aspirations the French were neither militarily or economically capable of independently maintaining their control of Vietnam and by the early 1950s the US was picking up almost 80% of the tab. By that time the French were effectively loosing, having control of only some of the major towns and cities whilst vast swathes of the countryside were no-go areas. It was during this period that the then US Vice-President, Richard Nixon, was forever visiting the country in an attempt to boost the morale of the failing European imperialists so that they would continued to pursue the interests of the new ‘superpower’.

The French arrived at the end of 1953 with the arrogance and stupidity characteristic of European (and later North American) colonialists and imperialists. They recognised that the very remote region close to the Laos border was important as a conduit for war materials arriving from the Soviet Union and attracting more material as it passed through the young People’s Republic of China. For some reason, that seems to lack any logic, the French commanders thought that by establishing a base, with huge resources in terms of manpower and war material, they would encourage the Vietnamese to take on an enemy it was ill-equipped to defeat.

There’s an adage in military analysis suggesting that ‘generals always fight the last war, especially if they have won it’. For this reason France had built the Maginot Line of fortifications in the 1930s which was considered a work of genius at the time but all the German Fascists needed to do to mitigate the effectiveness of such a ‘defensive line’ was to go around it. This arrogance of the French in 1940 led to the defeat of their armies and the occupation of the country and their capital within six weeks.

Dien Bien Phu Map

The French generals at Dien Bien Phu seemed to have assumed that to defeat the mobile peasant army of the Viet Mihn, an army led by ideology and steeped in guerilla tactics honed in the war against the Japanese and the experience of the Chinese in their war of liberation, could be defeated by establishing a heavily manned and armed enclave in a wide valley in the middle of the jungle.

We have the advantage of hindsight and know what eventually happened but didn’t anyone with influence (including their allies in Washington and London) express any doubts about this tactic at the time? The area is not that accessible by road today, it was much less so in 1953. Virtually everything had to be brought in by air but that created a weak point. Dien Bien Phu is about 500m above sea level, a long way from the sea and fresh sea breezes and is surrounded by higher mountains. Added to that apart from the cultivated areas and towns the area has a tropical climate. This, in the humid environment of a jungle, means episodes of low cloud are very high and in the 1950s that would have meant a possibility of days on end when no flights could take off or land.

VPA High Command working out plan of operations

Not only that the dependence upon air freight limited the amount of heavy artillery that could be brought in to defend the base. There are still a few derelict tanks that litter the site of the battle but they are relatively light and wouldn’t have been able to go too far into the jungle before sinking out of sight. And going into the jungle was what the French colonel, Christian de Castries (a descendent of the aristocratic family that, among other things, gave their name to the town of Castries in Saint Lucia) did, with disastrous consequences.

Putting a European aristocrat in charge of an army in a tropical country with an undeveloped infrastructure against an enemy of ideologically determined peasants was unlikely to lead to success for the European side. To give an indication of the dilettante, out of touch and arrogant approach of de Castries he named the hills and strong points established in the valley bottom after his past mistresses. All his actions showed a complete lack of understanding of guerrilla warfare, what it entailed, how that gave flexibility to his opponents, how by being in a static position he would be constantly reacting to events and how he would have little chance of taking the initiative.

The whole Dien Bien Phu operation took little more than six months from beginning to end and things moved very quickly. Getting intelligence of the build up of Viet Minh forces to the west of his position de Castries was reinforced by something like 800 ‘crack’ paratroops. It wasn’t long before the French realised that going any distance into the jungle just wasn’t a viable tactic given the nature of the terrain. The Americans, who were later to receive their bloody nose from the Vietnamese peasants in the next couple of decades, were only able to get troops into combat because they had access to thousands of Bell Huey helicopters, something the French didn’t have in 1954.

But what really defeated the French invaders was the determination and sheer hard work of the Vietnamese people. The logistical achievements of the Vietnamese in transporting: hundreds of artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns; the necessary ammunition to make them effective; the munitions for the fighting soldiers; the supplies to feed all the thousands of people involved in the construction of the bunkers for the artillery as well as the fighting soldiers is considered to be one of, if not the most, amazing feat of organisation and determination in the history of warfare.

Within a couple of months of the start of the operation the French realised they had drastically under-estimated the number of troops facing them. By March 1954 they were caught in the trap they thought they had set for the Viet Minh. Destruction of the airstrip and the increasing danger faced by any aircraft attempting to land meant that supplies could only arrive by parachute. That was bad enough but what was probably worse for morale was the fact that none of the injured could be evacuated.

One effect this had on the now beleaguered French was that they fought with even more desperation. They could depend upon no one but themselves. The situation was made worse when one of the last communication from the French High Command, in the safety of their luxury hotels in Hanoi, was basically an order for ‘no surrender’.

Thirty minutes after that conversation the red flag of the Viet Minh flew above de Castries’s command bunker.

Situation of the belligerent forces following the Dien Bien Phu Battle

General view of camp after surrender

In the years that followed it came out that there was even a plan, called Operation Vulture, to drop up 4 tactical nuclear bombs on the Vietnamese. Due to the close quarters in which all this fighting took place it is inconceivable that such weapons would not only have had a dramatic impact upon the guerrilla fighters but also the French soldiers in the valley bottom. The official reason why these bombs were not dropped is said to be the insistence of Eisenhower on support from his western allies, which was not forthcoming.

What’s interesting here, though, is the very fact that there was a proposal to use the most destructive weapon devised up to that time against a peasant army fighting for the independence of their country. There seems to have been no consideration on the impact the dropping of the bombs would have had on the thousands of people who would have died in a most unpleasant manner. The argument to support the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that it would shorten the war (a fallacious argument but I won’t go into that here) in Dien Bien Phu it would have been dropped just to pull the French colonialists out of the disaster they had created for themselves.

What’s also interesting is that in less than 20 years another General from another country was again proposing to drop (by that time even more powerful nuclear weapons) on the same country, whose population was still fighting for the liberation of their country, and for the same reason – this time it was the Americans who were losing their undeclared war.

Today, 7th May 2014, is the 60th anniversary of the Vietnamese victory but it will be forgotten or ignored in most of the world and will be celebrated in a muted and apolitical manner in Vietnam itself. To celebrate a battle of liberation when the country has been throwing itself at the feet of imperialism for more than 20 years means that what will be officially remembered will be the military victory and not the political. If you celebrate independence people might start to ask where that independence is today.

The Vietnamese Workers Party policy of Doi Moi preceded Perestroika of the Soviet Revisionists but had the same goals – the complete restoration of capitalism – and aims – the plundering of the wealth of the people by a few for the benefit of foreign interests. The sacrifice of those who lost their lives in the north-western mountains and those who died in the brutal undeclared war of the US in the years up to final liberation in 1975 has been squandered. Due to the lack of vigilance of the Vietnamese people those who had inherited a free country were not up to the difficult task of building socialism.

This notwithstanding it has to be remembered, and celebrated, for eternity that the victory over the French 60 years ago was only one of the crushing blows that Vietnamese peasant army and population dealt imperialism. Ten years before they defeated Japanese militarism; 20 years in the future they were to shame the most powerful imperialist state to have existed to date. Three empires humbled in the space of less than 40 years! The tragedy of the acquiescence of their children and grandchildren will never be able to wipe away that honour, which belongs to the Vietnamese people alone. It’s unlikely that any other nation will ever be able to claim such an accolade.

General Vo Nguyen Giap, the military commander of the Viet Minh at that time, and also at the time of the defeat of the Yankee imperialists and their lackeys 21 years later, wrote about his thoughts in the planning of the battle if you are interested in more of the military and political background.