Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Jacob Burckhardt's THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY


                                    Cover page of Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,                                                translated by S. G. C. Middlemore in 1878. [i]

For those who love to read and are interested in the development of knowledge and ideas in general, and in Renaissance culture in particular, a copy of the second edition of Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), translated by S. G. C. Middlemore in 1878, is avaible through the Gutenberg Project here

The second edition is of special interest for, as the redactor's note states, although there are many print runs after the latter, this one is the last edition that contains material, ideas or data entered by Burckhardt. 

There is another 'copy' of the same edition available on the Web which has an interesting and accurate introduction by Melissa Snell; it can be found here. As Sneel proposes,[iii] although many of the ideas presented by Burckhardt have been fittingly challenged, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy remains a very valuable source for those who want to explore Renaissance and Italian culture.

[i] Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Die_Kultur_der_Renaissance_in_Italien_.jpg                             (Captured: 01/21/2014) According its source, "This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its                    copyright has expired."
[ii] Source: Adobe Digital Editions: Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, translated by S. G. C.         Middlemore in 1878, p. 5. at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2074 (Consulted: 01/16/2014)
[iii] Source: http://historymedren.about.com/od/burckhardt/a/cri_main.htm (Consulted: 01/21/2014)

Monday, January 6, 2014

Beauty in Nature: the 2013 Ice Storm

Butternut tree.

It's been a difficult, and busy, few weeks. Not because I get caught in the consumerist Christmas craze, or because we have an intensive social life during the Holidays, but because this year we are having a particularly hard winter.  This means clearing huge amounts of snow, taking longer to get to and fro anywhere, being housebound at times because the roads are treacherous  and, occasionally, spending sometime in the dark. No electricity: no heat and, oh no! no Internet. 

For some, specially for my South-American friends and family, this may be hard to believe but, in Southern Ontario, these extreme circumstances are rare. However, this year, the wintry time has proven to be a challenging one.

A street in Port Hope, ON.

So far, the event of the season in Ontario has been the Ice Storm of 2013.

An ice storm occurs when the atmospheric pressure is low and two slow moving and drastically different, temperature wise, systems collide. In North America the phenomenon takes place when the warm Gulf air meets the frigid Arctic air. This could happen anywhere in a territorial stretch from Northern Texas to Newfoundland.[i]

Just a couple of days before Christmas, temperatures verged around the freezing mark when  the storm began. By now, it is well known that hundreds of thousands of people were affected by the storm in some way. Some had a very hard time with no electricity for as long as two weeks. I cannot fathom the consequences for all the animals and the environment around us.

I do not mean to make light of what was true hardship for so many people and all sorts of creatures,  but, as with  many things in life, there was a dichotomy here: this very difficult event was also one that produced some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. I leave you with some images I captured in Port Hope and Mitchell's Corner on Christmas Eve. 

Mulberry bush

Wisteria.

Taking stock of the magnificent view.

The view.

Grass row.

Idem, detail.

Bushes.

Lonesome little tree.

Branch detail.