Nero did not murder Britannicus

To Emperor Nero (37-68) several horrific crimes are attributed, but most of them are fabrications, part of the damnation of his memory put up by the Flavian dynasty which replaced the Julio-Claudians, extinguished at Nero’s death. Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudians and as such a true ‘living treasure’ having as ancestors the Gotha of classic Rome: Caesar, Augustus, Drusus, Marc Antony, Germanicus, Agrippa and so on. While the Flavian dynasty was founded by Nero’s general, Vespasian, who was not a true Roman, originating from a town in the Sabine region, known today as Rieti. The work of historical defamation against Nero was so successful that persists to our days, with his name still associated to the worst figures in human history.

The first writer attempting to salvage Nero’s reputation was Girolamo Cardano (1501-1577?) who in 1562 published in Basel the Neronis Encomium a work which was seen as a pure scholastic paradox, a sort of rhetoric exercise, while in reality constitutes revolutionary history.
Most history buffs know the list of Nero’s supposed crimes. Let us mention just a few: he played the fiddle while Rome was burning, but in reality he was not even in the city when the great fire destroyed the capital of the Roman Empire. Then he exterminated thousand of Christians, accusing them of having wilfully started the fire, while at that time there were few Christians in Rome and he even seemed to have liked them, because of his wife Poppea who was strangely well disposed towards all Jews.
Then he murdered his mother, Agrippina. Yes, this is true but she was a ‘serial killer’ who was plotting to have him assassinated. Then he stands accused of having murdered his beloved wife Poppea Sabina with a kick, while she was pregnant, because she complained about his getting home late for supper. It was possibly a case of haemorrhage caused by her pregnancy. A last one: he was a cheap artist who with his theatrical antics tarnished the dignity of his office, while in reality he was a gifted musician and poet, a fact that was even accepted by his worst detractor, the historian Suetonius.

Let us know examine what is normally considered one of his minor crimes: the death of his cousin and adoptive brother, Britannicus (41-55), the son of his grand-uncle and adoptive father, Claudius (10 a.C. – 54) and Messalina.
Messalina had been dispatched by Agrippina’s scheming to the executioner’s axe, then Agrippina was free to marry Claudius. Then she craftily plotted to exclude Britannicus from the dynastic line and put her son, Nero, in his position. It seems that Claudius  at a certain point was reconsidering his decision and was planning to give back to Britannicus the crown of the Empire. This plan to exclude Nero made Agrippina plot his murder, a plot carried out with a large mushroom laced with poison. Britannicus did fall dead soon after, in the year 54, during a banquet, while Nero and Agrippina were present. On noting Nero’s indifference when Britannicus collapsed, Agrippina played the part of mother who discover that her son is a monster. She played it so well that rumours begun to circulate that Nero was responsible for his killing. Why Agrippina had behaved like that? The reason of her behaviour may be found in the fact that soon after Nero’s sat on the throne he begun to show an independent mind, no longer accepting to be subject to his mother wishes and caprices. He had dismissed Pallas, the Secretary of the Treasury and Agrippina’s trusted man, it was then that in a fit of rage Agrippina had told Nero that he had regretted having given him the Empire.

The first sign of Nero’s rebellion was the abandonment of his wife, Octavia, sister of Britannicus, spending his time with his sweetheart Claudia Acté, a Greek freed slave. That was a difficult union but which endured until Nero’s death. So much so that when in the morning of the 9 June 68 Nero cut his throat with a sword, only Acté had the courage to come forward and claim his body to have it properly buried.

Was then Nero the murderer of Britannicus? Or that was just an accident or, again, was Agrippina who had him murdered? The last hypothesys seems the least probable because Britannicus at that time was useful to Agrippina as a pawn she could play to keep her son in check. If Nero misbehaved she could have had him murdered and then replaced with Britannicus.

Let us study what the historians said about the circumstances of his death. The first is Tacitus, who was born in the year following the death of Britannicus and he may have met people who knew Nero. I am translating from Tacitus’ Annals (Book XIII):

It was usual for the princes of blood to sit together with other nobles of the same age, under the watch of their parents, on a separate table, with ordinary cutlery and dishes. There Britannicus was having dinner. What he was eating was always first tasted by one of the servants, in order to alert the prince if the servant show problems. A cup with liquid already tasted but very hot was given to Britannicus; he refused it because was too hot and some cold water was added, there was the poison. Such poison worked his lethal effect so quickly that he lost the voice and the breath. Some took to run here and there, while some of the most alerted did not move with their eyes fixed on Nero, who said with great self-control, that it was one of his usual epylepsy attacks and sight and senses will gradually return. That was a disease who had afflicted him since his early childhood while Agrippina who looked terrorized tried to hide her horror, thus proving that she was not part of the plot, like Octavia, sister of Britannicus, who saw her sole refuge perish in front of her eyes, after the murder of her father. Also Octavia had since learned how to hide her emotions and her grief. Therefore, after this incident the dinner went on normally.

Then Tacitus adds that, after having realized that Britannicus was dead, they quickly arranged for his funeral and his body was burned on a pyre and then buried at the Campus Martius under strong rain and a terrible storm with lightenings and thunders, which was interpreted as a sign of the gods’ discontent. Tacitus find also time to gossip on the fact that several writers noted that Nero may have sodomized his younger brother, adding insult to injury.

Suetonius, speaking about the death of Britannicus in his Lives of the Caesars (33 II) makes himself ridiculous mentioning that Nero murdered him because he was envious of his beautiful voice. Then he adds that the poison he had used was supplied by Locusta, a famous lady expert in poisons, who had provided it to Agrippina to despatch her husband, Emperor Claudius.

Finally we have Dio Cassius in his Roman History (Book LXI) written nearly two centuries after the facts, who works even more with his brilliant fantasy, giving us an image worth of an horror movie, with the dead body of Britannicus enlightened by the lighting and made wet by the furious rain, adding:

Nero murdered Britannicus using poison and then when his skin became livid because of the poison, they covered it with chalk but while the body was taken to the forum a strong rain washed away the chalk, so that everybody could see the truth of what they had heard.

In antiquity there were no poisons, taken as drink or food, which could kill a man in a matter of seconds or even minutes and, in fact Agrippina dispatched her husband Claudius after several hours of agony, helped by her doctor in applying several doses of poison directly into the throat using a feather.

To get a scientific opinion basing on the scarce evidence available, we have asked to a friend, Professor Gavyn Joynt, President of the Centre for Anaesthesia and intensive Care at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Here is his reading of the historical facts:

“It seems that Nero noted, as Britannicus was still reclined in seeming unconsciousness, that this was a common occurrence from periodical epilepsy, with which Britannicus had been afflicted from his earliest infancy, and that his sight and senses would gradually return. Then we read that the skin became livid through the action of the poison. Well, I think there may be several possibilities here, but the likely natural one is a form of epilepsy, causing death either directly, or by the unconscious state causing him to obstruct his airway. The fact that he had been eating and drinking, would add the risk that his airway had become obstructed by food while he was unconscious. He could have suffered from many forms of epilepsy, but there is no mention of very obvious epileptic and “generalized tonic-clonic convulsions (GTC) on this occasion (the common jerky type of seizure). So it is possible he suffered from a form of “absence seizures” or “complex partial seizures” that manifest itself in more subtle ways. Claudius too may have suffered from epilepsy (especially when young) and then apparently had improved. Thus Britannicus would have been at a higher risk of inheriting a form of epilepsy  and is indeed possible that he suffered from a juvenile form of “absence epilepsy” or even “juvenile myoclonic epilepsy” (JME) causing intermittent seizures. These usually are short seizures (up to 20 seconds) which don’t provoke a collapse but may sometimes progress to cause more severe seizures. Death is uncommon just from the seizure itself, but it is possible that while eating, collapse and unconsciousness, followed by food obstructing the trachea (breathing pipe) with a bolus of food to block in the oesophagus may cause asphyxia. It would also likely contribute to the “livid” state of the skin post mortem.  During a simple absence seizure, a person usually stares into space for less than 10 seconds. Because they happen so quickly, it’s very easy not to notice simple absence seizures — or to confuse them with daydreaming and not pay attention. During complex absence seizures, a person will make some kind of movement in addition to staring into space with the ends eyes and mouth.”

Professor Joynt – a collector of ancient Roman coins and a classic scholar – adds that even Claudius, according to Suetonius, had been affected by similar attacks, and his mother though he was mentally retarded in his youth ‘the vigour of his mind and his body seemed obfuscated.’ A sign of juvenile  absence, which he passed down to his unfortunate son, Britannicus?

 

 

 

Galileo’s dream fulfilled today, 5 July 2016.

After a five-year voyage across 1.8bn miles (2.8bn km), Nasa’s Juno spacecraft has reached Jupiter and quietly positioned herself in its orbit at 03.18 GMT. The final manoeuvres were extremely complex, considering the distance and the time for the impulse to travel to Earth and back to the spacecraft, switching off its engines and then starting them again to enter at exactly the right moment. Juno did spin down from its current five rotations per minute, to two and then it will turn around to face the sun, so that it can recharge its batteries. After that it will switch on its main antenna, and start again communicating with Earth.

This is an extraordinary success for the United States’ space technology and for Jennifer Delavan of Lockheed Martin, who built Juno.

We can also imagine Galileo Galilei cheering with the scientists 404 years after he discovered, using his telescope, that some of the stars close to Jupiter weren’t moving as expected. In January 1610 he figured out that they were actually orbiting moons, just like our moon orbiting around our planet. He called them Medicean Moons to honour the family of rulers of Tuscany. The Galilean moons are the four largest moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Their names come from lovers of Zeus with Ganymede being the largest moon in the Solar System, even bigger than the planet Mercury.

There is also something Italian on Juno, besides Galileo’s spirit: a infrared spectrophotometer JIRAM (Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper) – produced by Leonardo-Finmeccanica under the supervision of the National institute of Astrophysics (INAF) – and the KaT instrument (Ka-Band
Translator), produced by Thales Alenia Space in collaboration with La Sapienza University of Rome. These instruments were conceived and built using the experience accumulated during the VenusExpress mission around Venus; the Cassini mission around Saturn and the Rosetta on the Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

 

Italian Prime Minister Renzi runs in Macao.

Summer is here and Matteo Renzi, 41, needs to reduce his pot belly before going to the see to sport his swimming pants. Remember, in Italy la bella figura is everything.
But don’t expect to see him running in the former Portuguese colony of Macao (or Macau) every morning. There is a place in Rome called Macao but few people know that it is indeed related to China.
Historian Gianni Criveller, in his historical essay contained in the book Five Centuries of Italians in Hong Kong and Macau. 1513-2013 published in 2013 by Società Dante Alighieri and the Italian Consulate of Hong Kong, writes: “Francesco Saverio Rondina, a learned Jesuit, was in Macau during the middle of the nineteenth-century. A booklet printed there, dated 1864, contains a public speech he gave to refute the then controversial ‘Life of Christ’ by Jules Renan. In another book, published in 1884 in Italy – a travelogue with his eastern travels – he explains why a central area in Rome is still known as the Macao (there is a road and a military barrack with this name): the money used to buy that land was sent by Jesuits living in Macau during the Seventeenth Century”.
Wonderful! A place of tiny Macao is surviving in the very center of Rome and our Prime Minister is there at sunrise, running around, perhaps oblivious of its Eastern history.

http://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-3/politica/se-non-puoi-abbattere-debito-abbatti-panza-prova-costume-127727.htm

Strane nubi e luci sopra al CERN di Ginevra.

Nel 2008 la Mursia di Milano pubblicò un mio romanzo fantascientifico che provocò un certo fermento sui media e, pur essendo fatto da loro uscire con fortissimo ritardo, arrivò alla seconda edizione.

In esso immaginavo che lo spingere il LHC del CERN ai massimi livelli di potenza avrebbe provocato una modifica irreversibile della materia, spalancando una seconda dimensione e che questo avrebbe portato alla creazione di un microbuco nero, il quale avrebbe poi inghiottito il nostro pianeta.

Riporto qui sotto una sinossi usata dall’editore:

La mattina in cui il professor Giuliano Sovramora tenne la sua conferenza sulla teoria dei nodi non aveva niente di speciale.
A parte il fatto che poteva essere una delle ultime mattine del mondo.
I fisici del CERN di Ginevra stavano per mettere in moto il gigantesco acceleratore di particelle, il Large Hadron Collider, nel tentativo di riprodurre in laboratorio la nascita dell’Universo e l’origine della materia.
Mentre alcuni scienziati giocano con la Creazione scatenando forze incontrollabili che potrebbero trascinare il mondo in un Black Hole, Sovramora e un gruppo di fisici «eretici» ingaggiano una corsa contro il tempo per salvare l’umanità dal delirio di onnipotenza di chi vorrebbe sfidare Dio.
Nelle asettiche cattedrali della scienza ancora una volta gli Angeli si battono contro i Demoni.
Tra fisica delle particelle, spettri, antiche profezie, intrighi internazionali, salti nel tempo e nello spazio un romanzo che prende le mosse da un esperimento davvero in corso. Ma non è detto che le conseguenze siano di pura fantasia.

Per fortuna questo non accadde. I romanzi fantascientifici sono, appunto, solo dei romanzi ma pare che passati 7 anni e con il LHC che è stato spinto verso nuove soglie di potenza di frantumazione sub-atomica l’inquietudine popolare non sia affatto sopita.

Il 24 giugno era stato inizato un nuovo esperimento, denominato Awake. E proprio quel giorno, pare sopra al CERN, sarebbero state riprese delle immagini e un video che sta girando in rete e pare proprio che non siano immagini ritoccate, come si pensava, ma sarebbero originali.

 

Questi sono alcuni dei link a giornali britannici nei quali se ne accenna:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/684219/What-is-CERN-doing-Bizarre-clouds-over-Large-Hadron-Collider-prove-portals-are-opening

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1358274/jaw-dropping-photos-taken-above-cerns-large-hadron-collider-lead-to-wild-new-conspiracy-theories-and-prove-portals-are-opening/–

http://allnewspipeline.com/Strange_Clouds_Switzerland_Be_ConCERNed.php

Virginia Raggi ha sangue blu?

Pubblicato sul Blog ‘La Nostra Storia’ di Dino Messina, Corriere della Sera.

Il sindaco di Roma, Virginia Raggi, non è certamente la ragazza della porta accanto, ma è piuttosto la ‘figlia di qualcuno’ come si suol dire. Suo padre, Carlo Raggi, è stato presidente della Corte d’ Appello di Roma, e pare che sia stato il candidato ideale di Giulio Andreotti per la presidenza della Consob. Il fratello di Virginia, Alessandro Raggi, è un importante avvocato romano. Queste cose sono note e se ne è scritto ad abundantiam. Ciò che forse il lettore ignora è il fatto che il cognome Raggi potrebbe denotare sangue blu, anche se si dovrebbero effettuare delle ricerche d’archivio o, più semplicemente chiedere all’interessata, prima di emettere giudizi. Molti ricorderanno la delusione di Peppino de Filippo in un suo film, dopo che scoprì, in seguito a lunghe ricerche araldiche che il suo cognome di Biancamano non era da collegarsi al fondatore della dinastia dei Savoia, bensì a un antenato che di professione faceva l’imbianchino.
La marchesa Camilla Salvago Raggi, vedova novantaduenne di Marcello Venturi e, lei stessa, saggista e memorialista di grande valore che abbiamo avuto l’onore di incontrare nella sua villa di Campale alcuni mesi or sono, ha scritto e documentato le nobili origini dei due rami di antenati: i Salvago e i Raggi. Questi due rami nobiliari hanno trovato una unione nella figura del suo formidabile nonno, il genovese Giuseppe Salvago Raggi (1866-1947). La madre di Giuseppe Salvago Raggi fu Violantina Raggi e suo padre, Paris Maria Salvago. Ne avevamo scritto su queste pagine, descrivendo le sue straordinarie memorie, nelle quali racconta i retroscena della sua presenza a Pechino nel 1900, durante i 55 giorni d’assedio da
parte dei Boxer, come ministro residente d’Italia; inoltre del suo governatorato in Eritrea e delle trattative di pace di Versailles nel 1919.
Tommaso Fieschi Raggi fu Ambasciatore del re Filippo II di Spagna presso la corte di Elisabetta I d’Inghilterra, oltre che tesoriere di Spagna e per i Paesi Bassi. Ottaviano Raggi fu nominato Cardinale nel 1641, ebbe alti incarichi presso alla corte papale di Paolo V, Gregorio XV e Urbano VIII. Anche suo nipote, Lorenzo Raggi, fu nominato Cardinale da papa
Innocenzo X nel 1648 e fu tesoriere della Camera Apostolica.
Il marchese Giovanni Antonio Raggi e suo fratello, Filippo, furono esiliati da Napoleone ma in seguito, alla restaurazione, accettarono di servire Carlo Alberto e il primo dei due fu nominato ministro delle Finanze. Nel diario di re Carlo Alberto si legge però che fu da lui licenziato per incapacità. Pare che il re avesse deliberato un prestito per ravvivare l’economia ma il suo troppo prudente ministro stabilì che chiunque accedeva a tale prestito doveva presentare un collaterale in case e terreni superiori alla somma che ricevevano. Il risultato fu che pochi fecero domanda per avere il denaro e questo infastidì il sovrano. Per non scontentare lanobiltà genovese e per via della sua onestà gli fu comunque concesso il cordone di SS. Maurizio e Lazzaro e un funerale di prima classe. Giovanni Antonio Raggi si lasciò dietro dieci figli, sei maschi che si sposarono bene, uno con una Spinola, l’altro con una Giustiniani e una Oneto.
Le idee politiche dei Raggi erano poco ortodosse: per metà reazionari, ossia contrari allo Statuto Albertino e per metà mazziniani, anche se pare avessero una poco chiara idea di cosa davvero Mazzini volesse: ciò che a loro importava era il nome Repubblica. Nel 1873 Giuseppe Salvago Raggi racconta di essersi trasferito a Roma dove abitavano i nonni materni,
a palazzo Raggi al Corso, oggi in Piazza San Marcello, fu edificato fra il 1730 e il 1740 e divenne poi la sede del Credito Marittimo. La nonna Raggi, da quando le truppe italiane avevano occupato l’Urbe, si vestiva a lutto e teneva le finestre del palazzo chiuse. Non solo, ma suo zio che serviva nell’esercito italiano si doveva togliere l’uniforme prima di presentarsi per cena.

Dunque è possibile che l’attuale sindaco di Roma sia legata alla nobile famiglia Raggi e se questo fosse vero, sarebbe certamente un fatto positivo, perché un po’ di sangue genovese potrà giovare alle salute delle finanze della capitale.

Il Blog di Dino Messina:

Raggi, divagazioni storiche su un cognome illustre

The Great Mystery of the Holy Thorns

A few days ago me and my wife Donatella had a dinner at the FCC with Fr. Gianni Criveller. Gianni had just returned from Italy where he had delivered several presentations of his researches on the Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Giuseppe Castiglione. Then our conversation veered on another PIME father, Giosuè Bonzi, originating from a small village near Bergamo in Northern Italy, San Giovanni Bianco.

Gianni told us that just before the 25th of March Giosuè had rushed back to his native village for a special occasion: the flowering of the Holy Thorn. Gianni joined him but that was too early to witness the miracle.

I asked Gianni more information about it, even if I remember vaguely of having read about it in Jacopo da Varagine’s Golden Legend, a Medieval text.

The next day, after doing some researches, I have found that there are many thorns spread around Italy, France and even Germany, known as thorns belonging to the crown which was put on Jesus Christ after his flogging.
But where such thorns came from?
According to legends, Jesus’s followers preserved the crown and it ended up in the year 320 in the hands of Saint Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. She took back to Rome some of those relicts of the Passion, like the Cross, a nail, and only one thorn – possibly the one found in the diadem which was part of Monza’s Iron Crown and found on the mummified body of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III at Aachen – but she left in Jerusalem the complete Crown of thorns. It was then removed to Costantinople in 1063 where it remained until 1237 when King Baudovine and other crusaders moved it to Paris and placed it in the Sainte Chapelle. It remained  there until the French Revolution, where everything was stupidly smashed or stolen., today they still have the crown but…without thorns.
It seems, anyway, that during the transportation to Paris, several people helped themselves with the holy relict detaching thorns from it.

The result is that there are several cities and villages around Europe where a thorn can be found, even if most of them are in Italy. Here is an highly incomplete list:

Pisa (Santa Maria della Spina), Rome (church of Santa Croce in Jerusalem; Palermo (Church of the Carmine Maggiore); Cremona; Pizzighettone; Padova; Vicenza; Rovigo; Voghera; Montechiaro d’Acqui; Sant’Elpidio al Mare; Petilia Policastro; Cortemilia; Andria; Pompei; Rosarno; Noto; Sciacca; Cassano Magnago and San Giovanni Bianco, this is the village of our Fr. Giosuè Bonzi.

Which is the mystery surrounding these thorns, apart from their origin? Well on a special day some of them bloom! In which day, you will now ask but let me explain.

It happens when the 25th of March – The day of Annunciation or ab incarnatione which did mark the beginning of the year in most states before the French Revolution  – coincides with the day of the Passion, a Friday. This indeed has happened on 25 March 2016, Holy Friday, and that’s why Fr. Giosuè Bonzi went back to his native village. The previous time which it had happened was in 2005, eleven years before.

It begun at about 5 PM, just minutes before the celebration of the Passion of our Lord, Jesus Christ and it seems that the thorn in San Giovanni Bianco changed colour with some white spots appearing on it, showing a kind of faint blooming. This year there was also a commission of scientists present to detect and register the strange phenomenon and they have indeed certified that something unesplicable had changed the structure of the thorn.

 

 

La Tragedia del Brexit

Ero e resto favorevole alla Brexit. Penso che dopo l’inevitabile shock iniziale la Gran Bretagna diventerà una nuova Svizzera d’Europa.
Il parlamento britannico, il loro sistema giudiziario, le loro università sono straordinariamente efficienti e non potranno che primeggiare negli anni venturi.
Davvero pensavano i burocrati di Bruxelles che avrebbero potuto continuare a scrivere leggi per una nazione che ha perduto la sua ultima guerra nel 1485 a Bosworth Field? Allorché un esercito francese, rinforzato da transfughi e traditori inglesi, sconfisse re Riccardo III e il potere passò ai Tudor.
Conosco delle persone contrarie al Brexit che però già dal giorno successivo al referendum hanno profittato della situazione, acquistando sterline e comprando appartamenti a Londra. Non hanno perso un minuto di tempo!
Del resto credo che i britannici abbiano solo anticipato i tempi, perché resto convinto del fatto che la comunità europea, così com’è oggi strutturata, non potrà durare a lungo. Risulta troppo sbilanciata nei confronti della Germania, che pare essere l’unica nazione ad aver profittato dell’unione. Le loro industrie e la loro finanza stanno conquistando il resto del continente e questo non può essere un fatto positivo, anzi questo dimostra che il sistema non funziona: come in una società commerciale composta da vari soci ma nella quale solo uno porta a casa dividendi e gli altri tirano la cinghia.
Dunque, quale è stato il peccato originale che ha provocato l’aborto di una Europa unita invece che la nascita di una nazione destinata a durare nei secoli?
Credo che l’errore più grande sia stato il puntare su una unione monetaria prima che militare. L’unione monetaria non è facile per nazioni con un diverso Pil, con diverse politiche e diverse strategie.
Sarebbe stato meglio puntare su una unione militare, per quanto la cosa possa apparire antiquata e bellicistica. Il problema però è che il mondo è com’è, non come vorremmo che fosse.
Si sarebbe dovuto formare un esercito, una marina, una aviazione comuni con divisioni distinte ma parallele, con simili armamenti e identiche uniformi, con una solo comando centrale. Questo esercito europeo sarebbe entrato nella NATO in sostituzione degli eserciti dei singoli stati.
Questo avrebbe contribuito alla creazione di uno spirito di corpo comune, e la creazione di intenti strategici comuni. Il comando d’una simile formazione bellica avrebbe obbligato i singoli governi a creare una gerarchia politica effettiva, contrariamente a quanto vediamo ora, avente per presidente quel mattacchione di Jean-Claude Juncker che conta poco ed è costretto a limitarsi a un semplice lavoro di mediazione e d’una ministra degli esteri, come la Mogherini, che ci fa tanta tenerezza.
Un esercito europeo armato e pronto a intervenire avrebbe forzato la mano ai politici nazionali per creare un presidente e un ministro degli esteri di prim’ordine capaci di dirigere quello strumento di difesa e di offesa formidabile. La crisi siriana nel bene e nel male avrebbe avuto esisti certamente diversi in presenza di una tale formazione bellica.

Leggi il resto sul blog di Dino Messina, La Nostra Storia:

Una voce a favore della Brexit

To read or not to read, and what?

Every year millions of books are published, but how many can we read, just going on full time? 1000 per year? That will be quite an achievement. Perhaps one day we’ll insert a chip in our brain containing billion of pages which we may peruse at will, even if this will lead us straight into madness.

Guido Morselli (1912-1973) an Italian writer rich enough not to work, locked himself up in his villa reading and writing full time, without getting out to have a social life. He sent his manuscripts to publishers and all of them were rejected, finally, after the last rejection, he shot himself. After his tragic end they agree to publish all his books, which are still in print even if they are never at the top of the pile.
How to select a good book to read, then, fishing in the bookish Ocean? A safe bet would be to read those which were written by dead people, as when you’re dead you normally don’t have a lot of agents, marketing people, publishing houses etc. trying to make you do signings , inflating your publicity in the social media, chasing reviewers, doing spreads in the Sunday papers glossy mags etc. Furthermore, if a writer’s dead, critics tend to be a lot more honest, as they won’t offend his or her sensitivity.

I recently try to read a fictional book written by an Americal lady – a work of fiction – and if she was dead then I would have had no qualms about speaking my true mind about her book. But being quite alive I found myself lying about it being good, interesting, and so on. I threw it away after the fifth page, as some will do with my books.

Whenever I want to read books from the living I use the 69 page rule of checking. Even if I personally add to it also page 1.
Why 69? I am not talking porno here but many things are tied to 69, like the Moon’s landing and a long list of people dyeing at 69.
The 69 theory was first put forward by Canadian academic and writer Marshall McLuhan. His theory of how to choose a book goes like this: first of all, read page 69. If you like it, then chances are high you’ll like the rest of it too.
Strange enough for reasons which I still cannot fathom it seems to work better with me than the blurbs – never innocents – put on the back cover, while on the contrary the 69 rule is completely innocent and honest.

If combined with the reading of page 1, it seldom fails to serve me well, but if you’re still unconvinced I suggest you carry out a similar experiment which was widely used with the Bible. Open a page at random, point the finger and see which page, or line, it is, invert the number (83 become 38) then try it.

 

Fu Nerone a uccidere Britannico?

Pubblicato sul Blog di Dino Messina, Corriere della Sera il 21 giugno 2016

A Nerone (37-68) vengono attribuiti crimini orrendi, la gran parte dei quali sono il frutto dell’opera di demolizione politica attuata dalla dinastia Flavia, che rimpiazzò quella Giulio-Claudia. Nerone fu l’ultimo dei Giulio-Claudi e, pertanto, fu da un punto di vista dinastico un ‘tesoro vivente’ possedendo come antenati il gotha di Roma: Cesare, Augusto, Druso, Marcantonio, Germanico, Agrippa e via dicendo.
L’opera di diffamazione storica dura sino ai giorni nostri. Infatti, il suo nome figura costantemente nella lista dei peggiori mostri appartenenti al genere umano.
Il primo a squarciare il velo sulle menzogne che hanno distrutto la sua reputazione fu il milanese Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1577?) che nel 1562 lo riabilitò pubblicando a Basilea il suo ‘Neronis Encomium’ un’opera che viene letta come puro paradosso o esercitazione retorica, quando invece si tratta di una nuova interpretazione storica rivoluzionaria.
Ciascuno di noi conosce la lista dei crimini attribuiti a Nerone. L’aver bruciato Roma, mentre suonava la lira, ma in realtà non si trovava a Roma quando scoppiò l’incendio e si diede da fare per alleviare le sofferenze del popolo. Sterminò migliaia di cristiani, ma in realtà i cristiani erano pochissimi a Roma e a Nerone stavano simpatici, grazie alla moglie, Poppea Sabina, stranamente filoebraica. Uccise la madre, questo è vero, ma sua madre, Agrippina minore, era una ‘killer seriale’ che stava per ucciderlo. Uccise la sua amata moglie Poppea Sabina con un calcio, incinta, perché l’aveva rimproverato per essere rincasato tardi, ma si trattò, verosimilmente, d’una semplice emorragia pre-parto. Fu un artista da strapazzo, che tolse dignità all’impero con le sue volgari esibizioni, ma pare che avesse molto talento e questo lo ammette anche un suo detrattore, Svetonio, a denti stretti.

Continua la lettura qui:

Fu davvero Nerone a uccidere il fratellastro Britannico?

First Dante Alighieri Award assigned to Dr. Herbert Adamczyk

The First Dante Alighieri Award for contribution to Italian Culture in Hong Kong & Macau was awarded on 11 June 2016 to Mr. Herbert Adamczyk. The award ceremony was staged prior to the first auction of Classic Cars in Hong Kong, organized by Dr. Richard Lee at the Repulse Bay Hotel. Dr. Lee is also the patron of the Dante Alighieri Society in Hong Kong.
Mr. Herbert Adamczyk, a German national with a past in car racing and a long-time resident of Hong Kong, was the Managing Director of Italian Motors (sales and services). In his position, as agent of Ferrari and Maserati, has contributed greatly to the good name of Italian industry, art and culture in Hong Kong and Macau.
Mr. Herbert Adamczyk is currently a member of the board of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Macau.
The award diploma together with a painting by Italian artist Francesco Lietti, were delivered by the Consul General of Italy in Hong Kong and Macau, Dr. Antonello de Riu, after a brief introduction delivered by the president of Dante Alighieri, Mr. Bruno Feltracco.

http://www.francescolietti.com

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