Tweets of this week - August 23-29

Monday
According to tradition 2day Vesuvium destroyed Pompei in 79AD. Learn how Roman delicacy garum helps to confirm this date http://tr.im/wYkB

Tuesday
The tomatoes "a' piennolo" (pendulum) are the secret to cook the real Neapolitan Pizza http://tr.im/l0M8

Wednesday
The fascinating biography of one of the most controversial XVIII century men: the Count of Cagliostro http://tr.im/x8aR

Visiting the earthquake area in Abruzzo: this is S. Demetrio ne' Vestini http://twitpic.com/fbcdh

Thursday
Want to speak Latin? Try the easier Latino sine flexione invented in 1903 by the Italian prominent mathematician G. Peano http://tr.im/xeAe

Friday
The chilly wind Tramontana owes its name to the small town of Tramonti on the Amalfi Coast. It's "the wind from Tramonti".

Saturday
Cortona, #Italy spotlights historic books outlawed during their day for their radical ideas http://tr.im/xp3R

Dante's mentor Guido Cavalcanti is widely regarded as the first major italian poet. Look at his original "anatomy of love" http://tr.im/xp9G

Tweets of this week- August 17-22

Monday
Big project to show all the 1,119 sheets of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus in Milan, #Italy starting Sep 10th http://tr.im/wwpy

Thursday
Maybe not everybody knows that Roman religion is still alive around the world. Look at Nova Roma, for example: http://tr.im/wACS

Wednesday
There are claims that Parmigiano has been used as collateral for loans since Middle Age. It is now for sure: http://tr.im/wFAq

Tuesday
Do you need a comprehensive library of original Latin texts? The Latin Library is THE solution: http://tr.im/wKcG

You can drink Mulsum while you read masterpieces from the Latin Library. It's a drink made of wine and honey. Recipe here http://tr.im/wKdF

Friday
Hippies did not invent Free Love: in 1346 Meco del Sacco's followers fled to Furore (Amalfi Coast) because accused of such heresy

Saturday
Stilico http://tr.im/wSsP stopped barbaric invasions for 30 years. Killed by his Emperor out of fear, Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410

Allegory is not always so allegoric

Allegory is a very common theme in Renaissance paintings, but sometimes it has very strong ties with everyday reality instead.

Take the"Pallas and the Centaur painting of Sandro Botticell (circa 1482), which is housed at the Uffizi in Florence now.

This is what wikipedia writes about it:

Pallas and the Centaur is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, circa 1482. It is housed in the Uffizi of Florence. The painting was discovered in 1895,[1]
An inventory dating from 1499, which was not discovered until 1975, lists the property of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother Giovanni and states that in the 15th century the Primavera had been displayed in Florence's city palace, and that the painting of "Pallas and the Centaur" (though the title is conventional) was hung above a door in the same room as the former. The Medici commission is showed by the presence of three rings interwoven on the dress of Pallas.
The painting's bare landscape focuses one's gaze on the two figures. A centaur has trespassed on forbidden territory. This lusty being, half horse and half man, is being brought under control by a guard-nymph armed with a shield and halberd, and she has grabbed him by the hair. The woman has been identified both as the goddess Pallas Athena and the Amazon Camilla, chaste heroine of Virgil's Aeneid. What is undisputed is the moral content of the painting, in which virtue is victorious over sensuality through the use of reason. The two parts of the human soul, reason and instinct fighting one another, are represented by the double nature of the centaur. The latter, whose classical epithet is Chiron was maybe inspired by some classic relief, though the pathetic expression is wholly by Botticelli.
This painting marks the end of Botticelli's Medicean period, from this point onwards the subject-matter of his paintings changes and becomes increasingly religious. (Cited from Wikipedia).

Very educative.

But... if you read also Lorenzo The Peasant's biography on Wikipedia, you may discover a different, and very common, reality:

He was also supposedly the metaphorical subject of Botticelli's Pallas Athene Taming a Centaur, which was a gift to him from his distant cousin Lorenzo de' Medici (il Magnifico), on the occasion of his marriage to Semiramide d'Appiani. Il Magnifico apparently knew Lorenzo to be of brutal and debauched character, and it is supposed that in this painting he was trying to indicate that she should bring Lorenzo under control.