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| Anonymous Lombard Artist Virgin and Child with Saints (detail of St Sebastian) ca. 1510 oil on panel Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
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| Girolamo Tessari (Girolamo dal Santo) Virgin and Child enthroned in a Landscape with Angels and Saints ca. 1521 oil on panel Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan |
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| Simone Peterzano The Deposition 1584 oil on canvas Chiesa di San Fedele, Milan |
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| Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano) St Michael Archangel (detail) ca. 1605-10 oil on canvas Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
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| Giovanni Stefano Danedi (il Montalto) Apollo and Marsyas ca. 1665 oil on panel Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
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| Giacomo Ceruti (il Pitocchetto) Portrait of a Nun ca. 1730 oil on canvas Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan |
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| Johann Heinrich Schmidt Portrait of singer Isabella Angela Colbran ca. 1800-1815 oil on canvas Museo Teatrale alla Scala, Milan |
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| Giovanni Migliara Venetian Capriccio ca. 1812-15 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
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| Federico Faruffini The Gondola of Titian ca. 1861 oil on canvas Villa Reale, Milan |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio The Awakening (detail) ca. 1908 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio The Awakening (detail) ca. 1908 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio The Awakening (detail) ca. 1908 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio The Awakening (detail) ca. 1908 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio The Awakening (detail) ca. 1908 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio The Awakening (detail) ca. 1908 oil on canvas Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan |
Reading Celan in a Subway Station
I can't say whether the other commuters stand arrested
by this music – the accordion player
near the vendor's hutch – but it comes toward me, world-
sorrow drafting through the hyaline
shell of myself in thought. Reconstruction-delays,
the stench of piss and nothing
weather shaped, nothing ocean spun. Steam hammers
and dynamite tunneled out
a labyrinth, this inner ear where eros doesn't linger.
Unbeautiful in its volts and watt-hours,
its generations of mice. The wall is dinged and saccharine-
glazed where he plays in a suit.
I follow his fingers' miniscule work over a column of keys,
drawing out and in the melody
of that pleated lung. It lifts away from us climbing the stairs
past horse patrols and jewelry hawks,
past scaffolding, and saplings blown like tonophants,
past fruit stands, placards and idle
Greyhounds, the corridors of silver buildings, the thunder
with silver veins – it lifts away
because it seeks the high, lone sun. Admit his music,
Cause of All, it is handmade.
– Carolina Ebeid (2006)