A rose forever

Giuseppe Bolognese

• Publisher: Armando Editore
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9791259842824
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

Arose forever is the story of a journey into conjecture and self-knowledge. The occasion is a working holiday in Provence by the author and his family. The wandering scholar stumbles upon a loosely bound collection of reports offered to him by a pedlar in the small village of Velleron. The reader is invited to discover the contents of the diary, whilst joining the author in learning about royal weddings arranged for the sake of power, the tradition of wandering minstrels, spirituality, the visual arts, and authentic hospitality. Close ties between such distant courts as Henry III's in London and Frederick II's in Palermo reveal a surprisingly modern European stage.

1. The pedlar of Veleron

The Jubilee Year of 2000 offered Jonas Felsinetti the opportunity to visit Provence. As a committed student of Petrarch, he couldn’t forfeit the chance of a journey to Provence, in Petrarch’s steps. He had never pledged a specific frequency for his visits, but he made the pilgrimage whenever the occasion presented itself. Travel, in general, appeared in his yearly agenda, and he had lived in three continents by his thirtieth birthday. By then, he had offered courses on the poetry of Petrarch at four different academic institutions.

Anyone who is endowed with a smattering of Petrarch’s poetry is aware of the importance of Provence, both as the natural habitat of a good many of his poems and as the venue for his relentless self-analysis stoked by inner tension, this latter aspect being an absolute ‘first’ in western poetry; many have a hazy notion of Petrarch, possibly as a leader in pre-Renaissance literature; most people, however, are blissfully unaware of Petrarch, but they know about Provence as a tourist destination in southern France: country-style living, cuisine, rich folklore, glamorous beaches. There are, of course, the very few - including Jonas - who cannot survive without their daily dose of Petrarch’s verse, albeit only in the guise of a mnemonic exercise; who see Petrarch reflected in every significant occurrence of daily life; who name their daughter Laura in homage to the poet’s muse, or seek their daughter’s commitment to read Petrarch’s compelling invocation to the Virgin Mary at their own final rite, when they give up the ghost: they are the exceptions, no doubt, but this is an exceptional story.

Jonas and his family visited St Martin’s Cathedral in Lucca and, late that summer, spent two weeks in Provence, based in the village of Velleron. Besides complying with the religious requirement of visiting at least one designated Jubilee temple, Jonas wanted to introduce his children to the austere beauty of Ilaria del Carretto, whose serene gaze was fixed forever on the marble sarcophagus by Jacopo della Quercia. Ilaria died in 1405 - she was only twenty-six - as she was giving birth to her second child, a girl who took her name, and her monument has been at St Martin’s since 1406. Her reclining figure seems weightless and ready to levitate, defiant of death, in contrast with the massive slab and sides of the sarcophagus. When Jonas saw the monument for the first time as a budding university student he was convinced that Jacopo della Quercia had modeled Ilaria in accordance with Petrarch’s description of Laura in his Triumph of Death. Given Petrarch’s strong influence on the visual arts, especially during the Renaissance, and considering the contiguity of Jacopo’s works, the possibility cannot be dismissed; in Jonas’ mind, however, the sculptor’s debt to Petrarch was and remains self-evident:

Pallida no ma più che neve bianca

che senza venti in un bel colle fiocchi,

parea posar come persona stanca:

quasi un dolce dormir ne’ suo’ belli occhi,

sendo lo spirto già da lei diviso,

era quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi:

morte bella parea nel suo bel viso. (I, 166=72)

[Not pale, but whiter than snow/that calmly flakes on a beautiful hill,/she seemed to rest as one who is tired./That which fools call death,/her ghost having already parted,/was like sweet sleep in her beautiful eyes:/death seemed beautiful in her beautiful face.]

En route to Provence, whilst driving along the flower-studded Ligurian coastline, Jonas felt that the visit to St Martin’s had been a fitting preparation for the forthcoming holiday in Avignon and its region, another proper pilgrimage from his own point of view, which he would naturally try to impress on his children. He had rented a spacious two-storey house, a short walk from the centre of Velleron, about a quarter of an hour east of Avignon, by car, on the comfortable and scenic route flanked by lush vineyards. It would take them approximately four hours to get there, driving due west once they crossed the border into France, at cruising speed with their comfortable six seater car.

Being a fortified village, Velleron was known in the Middle Ages as Castrum Avellaronis, but its fortification dates back to Gallo-Roman history; its name evolved into Veleroun in Languedoc, the language of Provence.

The best-kept secret seldom lasts longer than three days in Velleron. With generous approximation, 2,500 people reside in the village, and two or three of them are thoroughly familiar with everyone else’s business; they make their knowledge freely available to anyone who can convince them that they have a vested, legitimate interest in seeking information: real estate, pre- and post- matrimonial, financial well-being; weather and crop forecasts, pricing estimates for the new vintage; they also provide tips on the best buys at the daily produce market, arguably the one feature that assures a place for Velleron on the tourist map of Provence.

One of the pundits-in-residence was l’Oncle Aimé; he was ninety-seven when the Good Lord withdrew his commission and decided the time was ripe for him to push up daisies. Jonas met him less than a year before Aimé joined the very silent majority; the coffee shop owner in the square had suggested that he look up the old man. The very first encounter, in hindsight, was nothing short of revelation, as Aimé in turn suggested another useful contact:

- Welcome to Veleroun, sir. You have good taste, for this place brings you luck. I hear you are a scholar of Petrarch; I know he was a very important character, but I can’t tell you much about him because he passed away well before my time. However, I have Sicilian ancestors, so Petrarch and I have something in common.

- I am so pleased to know this, Oncle Aimé. This is our first meeting, but you already know that I have a special interest in Petrarch. One day I may discover some of his unknown poetry while snooping about in Provence.

- But of course, my dear friend; that should be quite simple. You need to ask Henri-the-Pedlar. He doesn’t live in Veleroun, but he comes through every second Wednesday with his old books, chinaware, ladies’ hair-pins, and God-knows-what. You’ll see him walk past St Michel’s church around noon. Ask him: he should have something for you.

- That sounds fabulous; I’ll certainly be there on Wednesday, and I’ll mention you to him, with your permission.

- But of course, my dear friend. Henri’s father worked for my grandfather in the vineyard before the first World War. Unfortunately, he was conscripted and came home in a coffin, so my grandfather helped Henri’s mother to make ends meet, with her four children. Henri was the youngest, still in his mother’s lap when this happened, and I remember well because I was a young man working with my father in the small farm just outside Veleroun. Henri gets around a fair bit, and picks up the strangest things. He knows all the bric-a-brac dealers from Avignon to Carpentras, and he is a real expert when it comes to goat cheese; he brings me tastings every now and then, and I can assure you he manages to find the very best. A glass of my red wine chases that cheese straight down to the soul, and suddenly it’s Paradise. You know, I’m a little worried about my age; I’m not afraid of dying, I just hope that I’ll find Henri’s goat cheese and my red wine in Paradise, or at least something similar...

- Of course you will, Oncle Aimé. The Good Lord maintains a special reserve for those on a special diet: count on it. Now I must go. We’ve promised the children a ride on the merry-go-round, and there will be a major rebellion if my wife and I don’t take them today; we’re going to Avignon. I’ll let you know about my meeting with Henri when I drop by again. Keep well.

- But of course, my dear friend. Enjoy the trip, and be on the alert for mosquitoes: those in Avignon are vicious at dusk, when the flies go to sleep, and the humidity makes things worse, specially this year. Let me give you a bottle of my wine, so you can drink it with your wife to my health at dinner, possibly without the company of mosquitoes.

That first encounter could hardly have been more pleasant. No one, in their right mind, could place any bets on Aimé’s familiarity with Petrarch, but his vast knowledge of trivia, his venerable age and, above all, his generous and quite positive disposition sorted well with Jonas’ willingness to accept pot luck as a fair reward for any quest in earnest. Jonas walked brusquely towards the holiday residence, four blocks away from l’Oncle Aimé’s. The bottle of wine took the place of the newspaper that he was accustomed to clench under his left arm as he walked home from the newsagent before breakfast. “It must be good - he thought - or l’Oncle Aimé wouldn’t have given it to me, in any case it’s very good news, unlike the newspaper I read every morning.”

The trip to Avignon that afternoon was every bit as rewarding and challenging as had been foreseen both by the children and l’Oncle Aimé. Impressive as the Popes’ Castle had been presented to them, and surely is, fascinating as the old bridge appears even to those who wouldn’t support the cause of Medieval History if it were in the same boat with a threatened species of birds, the children took to the merry-go-round as the ...

Table of contents

• Book title page
• Jorge luis borges
• Dedication
• 1. The pedlar of Veleron
• 2. Charon, mental travel, friendship
• 3. Beatrice’s dowry
• 4. The wisdom of Romeo the pilgrim
• 5. Charles bignose
• 6. When it rains…
• 7. The pope, the kings, the count, and the emperor
• 8. Poetic embassies
• 9. Sordello’s legacy
• 10. The queens’ quartet
• Postscript
• Last but not least…
• Rights