17 July 2007

Ma Cosa e?!

Last Summer When I was in Firenze, I decided to buy a painting. I love street paintings and I have several from Paris. I love many of the statues that are in firenze, so when I saw a very unique painter who painted pictures of the statues--i thought it would be great to buy one of those! This artist does a very unique style too where he writes backwards on the painting in italian. I was having a hard time decididing between the 2 of them. I loved the medusa but I thought it was a bit much so I opted to buy a painting of this statue:

I wasn't really sure what it was but I thought it looked nice. Later on I turned over the painting and it said Rape of the Serpetines in Italian. Great! I bought a fabulous painting of a rape for my bedroom! I will post a finished product of the framed painting as I am getting it framed this week... I just hope no one asks what it is ! ciAO
baci & abbracci,
Lisa

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

che bello? credo?
haha... its pretty funny.. read closer la prossima volta...
are you still going to post it on la tua parete?

funny storia...

bacioni

July 17, 2007 3:16 PM

Paul Daniel Ash said...

It's called Rape of the Sabine Women in English- it's actually kind of an amusing story, to me anyway.

Remember that English meanings have changed over time: The word rape in this context means "abduction." If you prefer, use the Italian title: Ratto delle sabine and no one will be the wiser. ;-)

It refers to an event that was supposed to have occurred just as Romolo and a group of mostly male followers created the little village that became Roma. They were looking for wives so that they could start new families, so they went to negotiate with the Sabini, who were a tribe who lived up the Tevere in Lazio (also in parts of Umbria and Abruzzo). The Sabini refused to let their women marry Romolo's men, so the guys, being prototype macho Romans, decided to kidnap the women.

Romolo invited a bunch of Sabini families to a festival of the god Nettuno (Neptune). During dinner, his men waited for Romolo to give the go-ahead, and then grabbed the women and fought off the Sabini men.

Romolo came to the kidnapped women and asked them to accept his men as their husbands. They (understandably) demurred. He offered each of them their choice and promised them rights under his law. The great Roman historian Livio told the tale of how Romolo spoke to them each in person "and pointed out to them that it was all owing to the pride of their parents in denying right of intermarriage to their neighbours. They would live in honourable wedlock, and share all their property and civil rights, and — dearest of all to human nature — would be the mothers of free men." Eventually Romolo - the greatest of all sweet-talking Roman men, won them over and the Sabine women married his men.

The Sabine men, of course, went to war with the Romans. The conflict was eventually resolved when the women, who now had children by their Roman husbands, intervened in a battle to reconcile the warring parties, and the descendants of the Sabine women became great Roman gentes or clans such as Curtia, Pompilia, Marcia, and Claudia, among others.

No rape was involved. Really. You're all good.

Italiana Americana said...

ahahah thanks paolo! I feel much better about the painting now! Thats great that you know the whole history behind it to, so that way it has a much deeper meaning now! grazie mille!