Feed the Crows and Stop the Monstrosity - Michelle Lovric

A close friend had come with me to the Battersea Decorative Antique Fair. She was just a few stands ahead when I heard her calling my name urgently. She was standing with one of my favourite antique dealers, Nikki Page, who sources beautiful and unusual things.

‘Look!’ said my friend, pointing to what was undoubtedly the most exquisite and interesting item for sale at that particular fair. In a nanosecond, I already knew where I would put it. I'd already decided what colour to paint the wall behind it. But, even as I hurried towards it, Nikki was putting a red ‘sold’ spot underneath it.

Then my friend, seeing the catastrophe that was my face, laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I told her it was going home with you. The red dot is yours.’ 

Here below is the item in closer focus: a huge metal coat-of-arms painted in lovely colours.

 

I justified buying it because, little as I know about heraldry, I knew the Salmon of Wisdom when I saw it. That was a gift of research on my Irish novel, The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters. As for the seal, I have written about one seen in Venice in recent years, even proposing it as a mascot for the city. Seals feature also in my children’s novel, The Mourning Emporium.

I knew that there was a lot more to learn about this coat of arms, but there was also a lot of life to be lived that summer, including finishing another book, launching a second one, scripting a play about the London Bridge terror attack and moving into a new apartment (well, new to me - dating to 1609) in Venice, where this ‘stemma’ was now going to live. I had to put researching my crest on the back-burner for a while. 

Instead, the research came to me – in the form of two apothecaries, that is, members of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in London. Drs Roy and Celia Palmer are also close friends and neighbours in London. Knowing my interest in medical history, they’d asked me to lead a cohort from the Society on a tour of Venice with a focus on the role of apothecaries and barber-surgeons through the centuries.

As members of one of London’s historic livery companies, Roy and Celia took a great interest in my fish-and-seal crest. Shamefaced, I explained that the necessary research had not yet been done. With a twinkle, Roy said, ‘Leave that to me’. He took some photographs.

And, in a remarkably short time, I learned more about my crest than I could ever hope to discover on my own. My source: Andrew Wallington-Smith, who's enjoyed  a distinguished career in the Royal Navy. He is also a dedicated and knowledgeable Liveryman in the City of London and an expert on heraldry and stained glass. Andrew told me that he was ‘brought up on the Scottish historical fiction of Nigel Tranter and history very much motivates me.’

Thanks to Andrew, I can tell you that my Venetian crest bears the arms of the Lords Rowallan. And the motto, missing from my crest, is 'DEUS PASCIT CORVOS', which I translate as 'Feed the Crows'.

Source: 1939 edition of Burke’s Peerage (also features in the 2001 version)

The line has been:

Archibald Corbett, Lord Rowallan (1911); died 1933

(s) Thomas Corbett, Second Lord Rowallan; served as Chief Scout and later as Governor of Tasmania

(s) Arthur Corbett, 3rd Lord Rowallan; whose marriage to April Ashley annulled on the grounds that she was a man

(s) John Corbett, Fourth Lord Rowallan

Andrew wrote to me: ‘Archibald Cameron Corbett was the son of a Glasgow (hence the salmon & ring) merchant & philanthropist; he was a politician (MP for Glasgow Tradeston) and philanthropist; born 1856, he matriculated his arms in 1882; he married Alice Polson an only daughter; In Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families of 1905 he is shown as follows:'

excerpt from The Armorial Families: a Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-Armour 

by A.C. Fox-Davies; Edinburgh, 1905

Alice Polson was an heraldic heiress herself, so the original crest bore an 'escutcheon of pretence' - a smaller shield placed on top of a larger one. But then Archibald Corbett was made a Baron in 1911 - as Baron Rowallan of Rowallan (having bought Rowallan Castle in 1901) - he acquired the coronet. On his son succeeding in 1933, the escutcheon of pretence became a quartering. That is the way my crest is designed, so it must date from that year or afterwards. Ancient as it looks, the object is less than a hundred years old. 

To understand Andrew’s forensics on the crest design – and to share it usefully, I had to learn that heraldry uses its own special colours, each with its own meaning:

Sable: black, signifying constancy or sometimes grief.

Argent: light metallic in either gold or silver, meaning sincerity and peace.

Azure: bright blue - loyalty and truth.

Gules: red - magnanimity and military strength.

So, here is a translation of my crest. First the central, quartered part:

The keys fessways (horizontal) downwards between two ravens in Sable: the keys indicate guardianship and dominion. In Scots ‘corbie’ means ‘crow/raven. In heraldry, crows and ravens tend to be used interchangeably. Crows signify watchfulness, talent for strategy in battle, divine providence and insight into other worlds. 

The blue quarters show a chevron between two bear’s heads in Argent, muzzled in Gules (red) The  bears symbolize cunning, strength and ferocity in the protection of one's kin. A bear can also indicated health or healing. 

The base of each blue quarter show a 'Cross Moline' (as in the cross of metal that holds a mill wheel).

The Moline is said to represent the mutual converse of human society. 

Above the central section, we see a crown, a branch of oak, and a raven: the crown is of course a symbol of seigneurial authority. In this case the orbs indicate the type known as the 'Ducal 1 Variation'.

 A sheaf or branch of oak leaves asserts that the harvest of one's hopes has been secured. 

The two creatures who hold up the crest are called 'supporters': dexter (at left) a Salmon Proper bearing in its mouth a jewelled ring; sinister (left) a Seal Proper. (Very proper, in my opinion - though the word 'Proper' in heraldry refers to a 'charge' in its natural colours and form.)

The salmon symbolizes eternity by its return to its birthplace to breed. In Celtic mythology, the 'Salmon of Wisdom' was said to be able to pass on its knowledge to those who eat its flesh. The salmon themselves acquired their cleverness from eating the red Hazelnuts of Wisdom that fell into sacred waters: the red spots on their bellies refer to this. In the case of the Lords Rowallan, it is likely that salmon could be found on their estate. A salmon is also part of the insignia of Archibald Cameron Corbett's native town of Glasgow. Further, a fish indicates selfless virtue, spiritual nourishment and unity with Christ.    

In the bosom of my own rude family, this crest is known as 'The Salmon of Wisdom and the Seal of WTF'.  That's because it's not really obvious what a seal is doing on the coat of arms. The seal (or sea-calf, sea-wolf or sea-bear) is an uncommon image in heraldry. Usually just the paws and head are shown, so the Rowallan seal is exceptional. In general animal symbolism, a seal can signify dauntless courage at sea. A pair of seals are the supporters of the crests of Madeira. Seals can also symbolise humour, good fortune and graceful, easy movement.  

So here are my Rowallans ... wise as salmon, supple as seals, protective as bears, watchful as ravens, endowed with good humour and good fortune. Their colours offer me constancy, sincerity, loyalty and truth.

The Rowallans are presently in Venice, but I could really do with their help in London. For, on a sadder note, I must report that the Thames is once more under threat from the Oceandiva, Europe's biggest party boat. That is the 'monstrosity' of the blog's title: 'monstrosity' is the word most often used to describe the Oceandiva in letters, petitions and online comments. At time of writing, this vessel appears to exist only in computer-generated images, which are the copyright of the consortium, but you can see them here.

The Oceandiva first tried to come to the Thames in 2019. That didn't work out for them. Thames campaigners were successful in stopping this Dutch boat, which takes up to 1500 partygoers, from setting up a bespoke pier at historic Swan Lane by London Bridge. In October 2020, the City of London's Planning and Transportation Committee unanimously voted to reject the proposal. 

But in March 2022, without notice to or consultation with those who opposed them before, the Oceandiva relaunched itself, this time as a 'yacht' (?) that will host parties, corporate jamborees and brand 'activation' events. The Oceandiva now claims that it can use a number of piers on the Thames. 

Even though the Oceandiva is bigger than many buildings and will impede World Heritage views, the Mayor of London's office recently told us that 'the Greater London Authority (GLA) does not have the power to grant or forbid access to the river for specific ships or boats'. That decision rests with the Marine Coastguard Agency (MCA) and the Port of London Authority (PLA). The PLA's 1909 charter gives it absolute power despite its limited accountability when it comes to its client-boats' impacts on river dwellers, both human and animal. 

Neither the MCA, which certifies vessels for British waters, nor the PLA take responsibility for party-boat noise or light pollution, for riotous behaviour by disembarking passengers in the early hours or for the effects of floating parties upon the Thames's many residential clusters, which include social housing, or upon the cultural institutions like the Globe and the Tower, both of which objected strongly to the Oceandiva the first time round. Nor do the the MCA and PLA appear to find any problem with the Thames being reduced to an advertising backdrop for luxury cars.

Loud noise and blue or flashing lights, as favoured by party boats, are injurious and unpleasant not just to us overdeveloped bipeds but also to fish, insects and birds. My Thames neighbours and I are delighted to spot seals near London Bridge these days. Seals on the metropolitan Thames, you ask? Really? Oh yes, indeed. Here are some beautiful pictures of them in Patricia Stoughton's excellent Ebb & Flow blog. 

But it is hard to imagine a seal surviving an encounter with the Oceandiva. 

About this latest manifestation, there are still many questions to be answered, including about what piers the mega-boat can actually use without disrupting public transport, about its much-vaunted green credentials, about the danger to bridges and other vessels, about emergency provisions: an Oceandiva-sized accident would be on a scale never before seen on the Thames. Last week's fire on a mega-yacht in Torquay closed down beaches and roads, left the Environmental Agency dealing with a fuel slick and unknown numbers of people affected by the billowing black smoke. The boat's ropes were burnt - it drifted off its mooring and lurched into a pier wall. That yacht was 25.9 metres long. The Oceandiva 'yacht' is 86 metres long, far wider and much, much taller. The Torquay yacht could host 8 guests; the Oceandiva 1500.

Please have a look at this website, and sign the petition. The historic Thames deserves better than to be commodified in this way. Imagine what imprecations Dickens or Shakespeare would have uttered if this mega-boat invaded their Thames with loud parties and brand launches of opulent carriages that most Londoners could never afford?  On the rare occasions when they've been given a chance, today's river denizens have had plenty to say about it. You can read their words on the website, on the petition and even here, one of the few publications where candid comments on the Oceandiva were briefly allowed. 

I've just published a short blog entitled 'Liquid Iniquity'  on Writers Rebel.

I'll finish with some of the aforementioned candid comments by Londoners ...

It’s disgusting that in the 21st century, with all our concerns for the environment, natural habitat and housing, that some company’s greed is allowed to supersede respect for nature - particularly the river wildlife including seals and for the thousands of residents who live along the river. It will gradually take business away from small river cruise companies and put more cash into the greedy hands of large companies who care more about wealth and status than they do the quality of life of residents and nature.

For the thousands who live along the Thames, we’ve all been woken late at night to the blaring horns, way over-amplified disco music, and DJs shouting on top of that for the entertainment of drunk party goers retching up their blue daiquiris into the Thames ... Now they want to build the river’s largest earsore.

This giant gaudy Dubai style monster ship has no place on the Thames. It would only ever be a noisy, unenvironmental, dominating, damaging money making machine. Leave the Thames alone!

The peace of the Thames is what’s got me through lockdown as unlike wealthy people I don’t have a car to drive out to the countryside. The Thames is our inner city sanctuary. The foreshore is covered in history, and seals swim up the Thames. This monstrosity doesn’t belong here.

This is absolutely horrifying, how could they even think of ruining this lovely historic part (or any part) of the Thames with such a monster. An absurd eyesore which will also be a string of accidents waiting to happen...a non-eco-friendly aberration which would completely ruin the historic setting and ambience of this part of London’s ancient river. Absolutely wrong, astonished the idea even got this far.

Please do add your own eloquence to the petition. It may not be too late. Our views are of demonstrably little interest to the PLA or the MCA. However, we're doing our best to make sure that our voices are heard in every other place where it could  possibly make a difference ... in the Highways and Environmental Health departments of the riparian communities threated by the Oceandiva, with Transport for London, with the River Thames All Party Parliamentary Group, with the authority that will licence the vessel to sell alcohol, but most of all in the court of public opinion, which must count for something, even on the Thames. 

We haven't given up on the Mayor's office, either. When it came to the Oceandiva's designs on Swan Lane Pier, the GLA's Stage One conclusion was that the project failed to comply with the London Plan, which seeks to promote sustainable, biodiverse and considerate development, while safeguarding the public realm for Londoners.

Surely the Mayor of London has some sway over the future of his city's largest and most historic public realm, the river. Doesn't he?

www.michellelovric.com

How to read a painting of the plague - Michelle Lovric

Today I should be flying from London to Venice. But obviously I won't be. And even if I could get there, I would be confined to my home, required to fill out a form if I wanted to cross the city to see my friends. I could not go to the library or to see an exhibition. I could not go to my local bar for a cappuccino. A Venetian friend told me yesterday morning, 'It's as if we've all been sent to jail.' 

I wish I was on my way, though. I'd love to see Venice without the crowds and most of all without the cruise ships: restored thereby to the beauty of a Canaletto painting. Without the cruise ships, the air of Venice must be safer to breathe, paradoxically, than it has been ever since the cruise ship blight fell on the city.

So, yes, beauty, but at what cost? 

Northern Italy is now paralysed not just by the corona virus but by fear of the corona virus.

This is not a new condition for la Serenissima. She is a city to some extent shaped by epidemics. As the crossroads and crucible of trade for centuries, Venice was also the place to which all major diseases eventually made a pilgrimage.

Plague, of course, was the sickness that terrified Venice above all others. When the disease struck in April 1464, the senate decreed that prayers should be said continuously in all the convents, monasteries and churches – for the plague was seen as a divine scourge. Two major plague outbreaks, in 1575 and 1630, killed off between a quarter and a third of the population each time. In 1575, one in two Venetians fell sick.

Historically, Venetians liked to portray their city as healthy in body and spirit. So it was a matter of scrupulous record that plague always arrived from the outside. The 1630 plague was said to have been imported via an ambassador of the Duke of Mantua when he was staying on the island of San Clemente. The ambassador seems to have contaminated a carpenter from Dorsoduro who happened to be working on San Clemente. That carpenter’s family were the first Venetian victims of this incarnation of the disease, one of the worst visitations on the city. (I noted this week that a Veneto politician has been keeping up the xenophobe blame tradition by asserting that corona virus was caused by Chinese people eating live mice. He himself is eating humble pie now, fortunately, and perhaps choking on it.)

Apart from plague, Venice was also subject to typhus, smallpox and cholera epidemics. Every ten years or so, sickness crippled the city. Sometimes, cruelly, two diseases arrived at once. Typhus and the plague were often twinned in the winter months. So it’s hard to write historical novels set in Venice without having your plots being contaminated by one illness or the other. Thus far, I’ve kept the plague fairly peripheral in my books, partly because it’s been done before and partly because the mechanics of the Venetian health measures were so detailed that they are laborious to explain and therefore somewhat fatal to novelistic pace. (Some things, like pageantry, are almost impossible to keep alive in words). However, I’ve needed to get closer to Venetian plague over the last couple of years when devising medical history tours of Venice for London’s Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, founded by Royal Charter in 1617 to promote the healing arts. (To this day, 85 percent of members are professionals in medical fields).

During last year’s visit, the Apothecaries were lucky enough to catch the end of Tintoretto’s 500th birthday party, magnificently celebrated in the Palazzo Ducale, the Accademia, various churches. The Scuola Medica at SS Giovanni e Paolo – always on our itineraries – hosted an excellent exhibition entitled Art, Faith and Medicine in Tintoretto’s Venice, which was also recorded in a superb book of essays by the same name (see left).

I saw the exhibition several times. From the first, I was captivated by a painting I’d never seen before. It’s by Domenico, son of the more famous Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto. Although Domenico’s work is generally decried as more workmanlike and of less combustible genius than his father’s, I think that this particular painting touches on greatness because of the simple pathos of its storytelling. You can read it like a book. And that's what I propose to do in this post.

Below is the painting, reproduced courtesy of the Web Gallery of Art (https://www.wga.hu).

The emotional message and story arc are very clear. Yet there is also so much going on here in the detail. Even its title is a short story in itself: Venice supplicating the Virgin Mary to intercede with Christ for the Cessation of the Plague, 1630–31.

This painting was commissioned for the congregation members at San Francesco della Vigna in Castello. Incidentally, at this church, the apothecary-priests made Four Thieves Vinegar, which they promoted as a cure for the plague. The apothecary shop there was so popular that the priests had to construct a separate entrance so that the customers did not disturb the prayers of the religious order. 

The striking central banner (above) reads: “Pray for me, I pray to your son for health, with the highest pity give aid to us against this cruel wound that devours us – placate His wrath, ceasing our sighs.” This banner separates the composition into two parts. Below, we see Venice personified, as usual, in a blonde, beautiful woman. She holds her arms open, showing both her considerable bosom (another Venetian trope) and her utter vulnerability. 

At her side is the lion of Venice’s patron saint, the healer Mark. The lion’s darkened face is contorted with grief. 

Above, in the heavens, the figure of Venezia finds her counterpoint in that of the Madonna, who in turn begs God to intercede on Venice’s behalf to close the ‘cruel wound’ of the plague. The city’s wound is of course spiritual and physical – she is haemorrhaging citizens; moreover, the plague manifests in the wounds known as buboes.

This painting shows also the practical side of mass death. Venice was supremely organised during episodes of plagues. Rules were laid down by the Magistrato alla Sanità and they worked all the way to street level. When it came to carrying away the dead, only licensed bearers, known as pizzegamorti, were allowed to handle the corpses. And so the painting fades to a miserable brown in the background behind the feminine personification of Venezia. Here you see the pizzegamorti at work, wearing their distinctive tunics marked with long red crosses. 

One of the essays in the exhibition's book explains how this painting developed. The modello or sketch (above) portrayed sprawled and splayed corpses piled up in the foreground. The final version replaced that grim sight with images of two female donors, whose beautiful faces (one of which is seen at left) show signs of graceful grief, echoing that of their patron saint. The essay theorizes that perhaps the donors had something to do with the sanitizing of the art.

Indeed other painters did not scruple to or were not prevented from showing the harrowing details of Venice in the grip of plague, as in this painting by Antonio Zanchi from the Scuola di San Rocco (courtesy of the Web Gallery of Art (https://www.wga.hu). It shows bodies being unloaded into boats and scenes of graphic distress and chaos that echo contemporary written accounts of the disaster.

The exhibition revealed that the words on the central banner of the Tintoretto painting were also adopted in litanies composed by Claudio Monteverdi who was the musical director of the Basilica San Marco in 1630, the time of this plague.

Paintings invoking Christ and the Madonna to intercede against disease were thought to have health-giving qualities. They were carried around the plague-plagued streets to sanitize them while such litanies were chanted by the priests. A miracle-working painting, the Madonna Nicopeia (looted from Constantinople in 1204), was borne around the piazza of San Marco in times of severe plague. It’s likely that Domenico Tintoretto’s painting was also paraded around the parish of San Francesco della Vigna. The shape and size of the painting makes this easy to imagine.

At that same time, the year of Domenico Tintoretto’s important painting, the city promised to build a votive church and establish a procession if the Madonna would intervene to save them from the plague.

The church of Santa Maria della Salute (Our Lady of Good Health) was the result. And in 1575, a similar prayer, this time to Christ the Redeemer, had already led to the construction of the church of the Redentore, or Redeemer on Giudecca. The festival of the Redentore is still celebrated today every July with a votive bridge for processions built in front of the church and massive fireworks at night.

When planning for the Apothecary tour last year, I was very excited at the prospect of showing them both the exhibition and the Domenico Tintoretto painting. So imagine my despair when I discovered that the Londoners would arrive in Venice one day after the closing of the exhibition. I couldn’t quite bear to deprive them of this painting. So I began to speak to people I know, working my way through a series of Venetian ‘no’s’ until I was directed by the eminent art historian Patricia Fortini Brown to Melissa Conn, the on-the-ground director of Save Venice, where she has thirty years’ experience overseeing the works of this American charity devoted to the restoration of buildings, monuments, manuscripts and more in the city. You can see Melissa here, talking about the restoration of Carpaccio’s Saint Ursula Cycle, also explaining modern philosophies and techniques of art conservation.

Save Venice had funded the Art, Faith and Medicine exhibition and the scholarship that was put into the book of essays, as well as restoring sixteen Tintoretto works in Venice. To my enormous relief, Melissa agreed to open the exhibition privately, two days after its official closure so that the London Apothecaries could witness the plague painting for themselves, the day before we set off in a boat to see for ourselves the mist-shrouded lazzaretto islands in the lagoon that once housed those afflicted with the plague or suspected of it.

Melissa not only arranged for us to see the painting, but accompanied us. As Managing Curator of the exhibition, not to mention a noted art historian, she was a font of wonderful insights into this picture, some of which I have recorded above.

So did this votive painting have effect? The 1630/1 plague did indeed dwindle. The sighs of the city ceased. Life returned to normal, for a while. 

In our current difficulties, it does not appear that anyone is commissioning any art, votive or otherwise, to represent a hope of redemption from the corona virus. If someone did so, I wonder what it would look like? A collage of selfies? An internet meme? So far I have seen a photo of a cake cooked in the shape of the virus and a few not-very-funny cartoons to do with a brand of beer.

And even if there were a meme that caught this moment and the world’s anxiety with any accuracy, would it have the staying power, profundity and beauty of Domenico Tintoretto’s painting? 

And is this because we no longer join faith, art and medicine as Venetians did in Tintoretto's day?

Perhaps.

The churches of the Veneto are now closed by corona virus, along with the bars and shops. However, there's one parish priest on the Venetian mainland who has found a way to revive the trinity of faith, art and medicine.

Don Andrea Vena with his 'furgoncino dai fideli'

A video here shows Don Andrea Vena travelling around Bibione with a statue of the Madonna in a van, broadcasting prayers for all those affected by the virus, including the worried tourists. A modern priest, Don Andrea posts his itineraries on Facebook and keeps in touch with his parishioners that way too. Father Andrea pauses in front of cross-roads, shops and also the homes of the elderly, so they may be brought out to hear his comforting corona virus invocation to the Madonna, patron saint of Bibione. (Picture courtesy of Veneto Vox).

'Forte!' observes a man in the video, as Father Andrea finishes his prayer. 'Just great!'

Michelle Lovric’s website

Save Venice’s website