A Village Where No One Lives

In the west-central part of France, the town of Oradour, where no one lives, has been preserved in its abandoned state since 1944. While doing research for my historical novel, The Tapestry Shop, I came upon this once-thriving village, now a solemn reminder of WWII and innocent lives lost.
There is disagreement as to the exact reason for what took place, but the events that unfolded there are unquestioned. On a sunny morning in June, members of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich entered this peaceful village. They ordered all the men to go to the fairgrounds, saying their mission was an identity check. The women and children were herded into the village church. After a bomb failed to detonate, the men were executed, to the last man, after which the women and children were massacred in the church. The few villagers who had not gone to the church or fairgrounds, for reasons of disability, were hunted down and killed. The houses were searched for anything of value, and the town was set on fire.
While the town burned, the Germans left the area and marched north to join the German forces in Normandy, where they hoped to fight off the invading armies.
Of all the memorials in France, this village may have made the most lasting impression on me. As you walk the empty streets, images of what was a community of people can be seen in the ruins—a rusted bicycle, an automobile that was never driven after that fateful day, the drooping telephone wires that lined the road where vacant homes now stand in ruin, the roofs gone, the walls crumbling. To this author, it remains a stark reminder of the horrors of war. At the entrance is a simple plaque. The words, written in both French and English, say simply,
To Remember.

The Orphans at Savonnerie

My current work-in-progress takes place in and around Paris, and concerns the orphans at the Savonnerie tapestry factory. Because I found the research so interesting, I thought I'd share a bit of it with my readers.
During the 15th century, Jean Gobelin founded a dye factory in Paris. Later, Henry IV took over the factory and turned it into a profitable tapestry factory. In 1601, the king brought two weavers from Flanders to Paris to manage the workshops, which were still known as the Gobelin factory.
Some sixty of the workers came from a Paris orphanage. They ranged in age from ten to twelve. The two weavers taught them the craft, and even brought in a tutor once a week to instruct in the art of drawing cartoons, the patterns weavers follow to make the tapestries.
After six years of apprenticeship, one of these orphans, supposedly the one who exhibited the most talent, was chosen as maître. The rest continued as journeymen.
The Gobelin factory tapestries were admired by royalty, and became so valuable only royals could afford them. Louis XIV’s Minister of Finance commissioned several for the king, which took years to produce. Some of the Gobelin tapestries, like the one pictured here, can be seen at Versailles.
The Gobelin name continues, and now the word Gobelin describes not only a weaving technique, but also a color, the best known of which is Gobelin Blue.

Tapestry and weaving has always held a fascination for me, even though I’ve never learned the craft. I’ve seen weavers at reenactments, and tapestries in museums, though. Many of them reflect the geographical location and time period in which they were created. If you google “tapestries” in Wikimedia Commons, you’ll see what I mean. Those by Spanish artists are different from the French, just as painting style and medium differ.
Today, though, I’m blogging about a different kind of tapestry—one created with flowers. Every two years, since 1971, the city of Brussels has an exhibition that draws tourists from miles around. The image above shows the completed floral masterpiece, made of 700,000 begonias. The flowers are arranged on a transparent piece of plastic, perforated to allow enough humidity to reach the blooms to keep them looking fresh longer.
This particular pattern was copied from a tapestry, one of the French Savonnerie. The Savonnerie workshop was founded in Paris in 1628, and produced lavish tapestries for royal palaces, as well as for state gifts and commissions. Now, almost all original Savonnerie tapestries of the 17th and 18th centuries are in museums.
The workshop apprenticed orphans to work in the factory. Where they came from and what they learned is the subject of my next blog.

Medieval Income Taxes

Papal taxes, begun in the 12th century, required Catholic clergy to pay one-fortieth of their income to support the crusaders. The practice was continued by later popes. Originally, the taxes went directly to the crusaders.
In the 13th century, the collection of taxes supported crusades outside the Holy Land, such as Pope Gregory IX’s war against Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The taxes went straight to the pope to distribute as he saw fit, or in some cases, to a nobleman who promised to go on crusade.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, papal taxes were used for wars against the Ottoman Turks and others. Next time you pay income taxes, remember that it’s not a new institution, and nothing much has changed. Working citizens still have to pay, and don’t have much to say about how the governing body spends it.

The image is of Mercury, god of Commerce, handing a bag of gold to the financier of the Revolutionary War.

A Stolen Stradivarius

There are several documented stories of stolen Stradivarius violins, but one of the most interesting was reported in the New York Times in 1996.
The violin thief, sitting in jail for having assaulted a child, told his wife to get his violin from a friend, and read the paper inside. She did, and it was an article about a Polish violinist whose Stradivarius violin had been taken from his Carnegie Hall dressing room while he performed on another instrument. The thief’s wife asked if that was the stolen violin. He said it was, but that he had bought it for $100. Later, he confessed to having stolen it himself. He had frequented the entrance doors of the concert hall, and made friends with the doormen by offering to take their place while they went for a smoke. He told his wife that his mother had taught him how to hide a violin in his coat, and that she had always wanted him to be a famous violinist.
When the thief died, his wife returned the violin to Lloyd’s of London and received a finder’s fee of $263,000 dollars.
The thief’s daughter, by his first marriage, was heir to her father’s estate. She sued the thief’s wife and won in court. The judge agreed that the finder’s fee should have been part of the estate.
By that time, the wife was living in a trailer and had spent all the money. She paid her attorney 10% for negotiating the finder’s fee. The rest was given to her family and the IRS.
Lloyd’s sold it for $1.2 million in 1988, and more recently, Joshua Bell, the violinist who made the soundtrack for The Red Violin, paid $4 million for the treasured Stradivarius violin that had seen so many owners.

Stradivarius Violins

Antonio Stradivari was born in Cremona, Italy, sometime around 1644, but the exact date of his birth is unknown. His life spanned two centuries, and he died in 1737.
Antonio was an Italian luthier, a craftsman of stringed instruments. He also made violas, cellos, and at least one harp. The Latin form of his name, Stradivarius, refers to his violins. Antonio had six children by his first wife, and five by his second. His sons worked in the shop, and some of the signed Stradivarius violins are probably signed by his sons.
Antonio Stradivari may have studied under Amati, whose violins were highly prized during that time, more so than Antonio’s. The Stradivari alterations to the Amati models were what brought fame to Stradivari. He changed the arch, varied the thickness of the wood, and used more highly colored varnish, as well as other modifications.
Over the years, as his violins became prized, they were hidden, stolen, and sold, increasing in value with each passing decade.

Tapestry in Medici Florence

It is difficult to think of Renaissance art in Italy without the d’Medici family name coming to mind. In 15th century Florence, Cosimo d’Medici’s patronage of the arts supported the work of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and others. Less celebrated are the Florentine tapestries. The Medici family supported tapestry workshops that thrived within the city. Tapestries were in demand to decorate the halls of new buildings as well as the palace itself.
The Florentine cartoonists (artists who designed the compositions that were translated into the tapestries) joined in the spirit of the times, leaving behind the sacred, and embracing all that was vibrant and alive in Florence. One of these men, Giovanni Stradano, a painter and engraver familiar with the methods used in the production of tapestries in Flanders, moved to Florence in 1545 and worked at the Medici court.
The picture illustrates the Giostra del Saracino, a type of jousting tournament which was once very popular among the citizens, being held in front of Palazzo Medici. Via Larga, in which the palazzo stands, is shown from the north looking towards Piazza Duomo. From the foreground, moving backwards we can see the Medici residence, with the houses annexed in the fifteenth century on the right, followed by the church of San Giovannino.