The Scallop Shell Motif

Once you become aware of something, you see it everywhere.  Just that happened to RST recently, when a scholar/friend, specializing in Renaissance painting, mentioned that he had become interested in the recurring motif of the scallop SHELL.  For example, the scallop shell appears in Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation (1478)--it's featured on the small altar to the right of Mary.  In this work, the angel Gabriel is announcing to the Virgin Mary that she is to become the mother of God.  Here (above), the scallop shell functions as a fertility symbol.

Fertility is also the theme in what may be the best known pre-modern reference to the scallop shell: Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (1452).  In that work, the scallop shell is associated with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart, Venus; Venus is symbolically born out of a shell (an egg).

The Birth of Venus has also spawned a delightful, playful take-off from the original.  It stars Piggy, of Sesame Street fame.

Piero della Francesca, Montefeltro Altarpiece (also known as The Brera Madonna).  1472-1474

Other historical figures who employed the shell motif include Piero della Francesca, in his Montefeltro altarpiece (above); Benvenuto Cellini, in his Jewel Chalice; Michelangelo, with his rendition of St. Paul; Gianlorenzo Bernini, whose Triton Fountain (1644) graces Piazza Barberini.

Michelangelo's St. Paul.  

Bernini's Triton Fountain

Also Bernini.  But where?

In the modern period, the shell continues to be associated with fertility--and female sensuousness.  A good example is the July 1, 1937 cover of Vogue magazine, by the artist Covarrubias.

Perhaps the most famous use of the scallop shell in modern times is the Shell Oil Company logo.  The logo dates to 1904, when the company's business largely consisted of bringing antiques, curios, and Asian shells to consumers in western nations.  The Shell logo has been modernized over the years.  Less obvious is that the design of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York City was based on a shell--the Japanese miracle shell.

Wright's Guggenheim

In architecture, the scallop shell is most frequently found over doorways and/or in arches.  The Cathedral of the Archangel Michael (Moscow, 1505) has a number of large, splendid scallop shell decorations.  The scallop shell often referenced the Christian pilgrimage and, more generally, signified spirituality.

Cathedral of the Archangel Michael

According to some sources, Da Vinci based the first spiral staircase on the swirling features of the shell.

In our walks around Rome (and London) we often encountered scallop shells--now that we were looking for them.  Some were over doorways, a usage that reflects the idea of the shell as a representation of contentment, of a comfortable home--and of the shell as a shield, a protection.

Modest building, modest shell above doorway.  Trastevere.  

More modest yet.  Could be a shell motif on the door, or
a sunrise, or something else.

We would have thought that the Mussolini regime, with its strong interest in linking Rome with the sea and, symbolically, with the naval competence that established Rome as a Mediterranean power, would have favored sea motifs, among them the shell.  Perhaps it did, in ways that have escaped us.  What does seem clear is that the regime's interest in various forms of modernism, especially high rationalism, precluded the use of the shell in most buildings constructed under Fascism. Instead, one finds the scallop shell on older structures--those built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and decorated in the prevailing "Liberty" style.

Splendid use of the shell motif, beneath balconies, on
a c. 1900 building in the Re di Roma area.  

A scallop shell behind the boy's head.  Main square, Rocca di Papa, Colli Albani.

Bill

Poems for Everyone - A New Book Inspired by Piero della Francesca

The Rome connection here exists, but first we want to celebrate our long-time Italian friend, Dana Prescott’s new book, Feathers from the Angel’s Wing: Poems Inspired by the Paintings of Piero della Francesca. 

This gorgeous book was a labor of love for Dana, who lives at what must be the epicenter of the largest number of paintings in the world by this ever more-prized 15th-century, early Renaissance artist.  That location gave her the obsession (and yes, it is that) that led to the book.  As the New York Times complained a few years ago Piero ”took more commissions in Sansepolcro than anywhere else, and his greatest works remain in its vicinity — a source of great frustration for Piero obsessives outside of Europe, who must visit a series of small villages to see his frescoes and altarpieces.”  Though the Frick Museum in New York City now has acquired 4 Pieros and mounted a show in 2013 that the Times called “ravishing.”  The word applies equally to the emotion emanating from the poets Prescott has culled in this meaty book.

Madonna del Parto - is she opening her dress? pointing
to her rounded belly?  Are the angels opening or closing
the draperies?  Note the pomegranate design on the
curtain - a symbol of fertility.

The writers Prescott includes range from the established and revered (long after his death) Pier Paolo Pasolini to the American rock star/writer/poet Patti Smith.  But those two aren’t the alpha and the omega here.  Among the poems that touched me most are two that were read at a book launch in Rome in June.  Both of these poems were inspired by my favorite Piero, the Madonna del Parto (The Pregnant Madonna), which remains in Sansepolcro, where it is treasured as a good omen for pregnant women.  Moira Egan’s “Gravid,” composed of 2 9 line stanzas, each line of 9 syllables, includes the sentence:  “I said no to nature, then nature turned and said no to me.”  Contrasted with Egan’s “grief and guilt come in colors, dull red, queasy green,” is Mongolian poet G. Mend-Ooyo’s, “The Pregnant Madonna.” That poem takes us lyrically “Between the trees, grains thread their way across the fields….Each of the seeds is its own world.”  Mend-Ooyo, who grew up in a nomadic family, still has the nomad’s sense of the power of the earth. 

In her work as executive director of Civitella Ranieri, the international cultural center near Sansepolcro, Dana nurtures many translators.  Perhaps because of this background, she gives tribute to the many translators at work in her book as well, their bios given equal status with the poets.

I would be remiss in not pointing out the quality of this hardbound book – the paper, the colors, the reproductions.  It’s a beautiful gift to someone in your life. [At amazon.com, Powell’s and amazon.it.]

St. Luke, in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

And, finally, the Rome connection to Piero is fragmentary and lost, both literally.  There are a few heavily damaged fragments of an unfinished ceiling work in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore.  Piero also painted frescoes on the walls of Pope Pius II’s rooms in the Vatican.  By order of Pope Julius II, they were painted over – by Raphael.

Dianne