 |
| Anonymous Italian gemcutter Head of Hercules ca, 1850 sardonyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Adolphe David Cameo - Fall of Phaeton ca. 1850-75 sardonyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
THE STORM
The storm that batters the magnolia's
impermeable leaves, the long-drawn drum roll
of Martian thunder with its hail
(crystal acoustics trembling in your night's lair
disturb you while the gold transfumed
from the mahoganies, the pages' rims
of the de luxe books, still burns, a sugar grain
under your eyelid's shell)
lightning that makes stark-white the trees,
the walls, suspending them –
interminable instant – marbled manna
borne now as condemnation: this binds you
closer to me, strange sister, than any love.
So, the harsh buskings, bashings of castanets
and tambourines around the spoilers' ditch,
fandango's foot-rap and over all
some gesture still to be defined . . .
As when
you turned away and casting with a hand
that cloudy mass of hair from off your forehead
gave me a sign and stepped into the dark.
– Eugenio Montale (1896-1981), translated by Geoffrey Hill
 |
| Giovanni Antonio Girardet Cameo - Amorino with Garland ca. 1860-70 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Giuseppe Girometti Cameo - Head of Hercules ca. 1825-50 sardonyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Giuseppe Girometti Cameo - Head of Cicero ca. 1815-25 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Giuseppe Girometti Cameo - Nessus abducting Dejanira ca. 1815-25 sardonyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Giuseppe Girometti Cameo - Bust of the Muse Thalia ca. 1825-50 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Niccolò Morelli Cameo - Bust of Bacchante ca. 1820-30 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Niccolò Morelli Cameo - Bust of Bacchante ca. 1820-38 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
MARCH WIND
I will know nothing of my life but its mysteries,
the dead cycles of the breath and sap.
I shall not know whom I loved, or love
now that in the random winds of March
I am nothing but my limbs. I fall
into myself, and the years numbered in me.
The thin blossom is already streaming from my boughs.
I watch the pure calm of its only flight.
– Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968), translated by Don Paterson
 |
| Benedetto Pistrucci Cameo - Marine Venus with Cupid ca. 1820-30 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Benedetto Pistrucci Cameo - Head of Medusa ca. 1840-50 jasper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Benedetto Pistrucci Cameo - Nymph and Swan ca. 1830-40 agate Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Elena Pistrucci Bust of Minerva (after the Giustiniani Minerva in the Vatican) ca. 1870-80 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Maria Elisa Pistrucci Head of Hercules ca. 1850 onyx Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Luigi Saulini Cameo - Cupid with Dog ca. 1860-70 shell Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |