Siena Quotes

Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.

Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.

All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way.

We've had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues - I see the world is rotten because of silence.

Speak the truth in a million voices. It is silence that kills.

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!

The love of Christ embraces all without exception. Fire of love, crazy over what You have made. Oh, divine Madman. (Prayer of Catherine Siena) Simply do the next thing in love. I have no sense of myself apart from you. Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem. (In loving me, you made me lovable.)

Every step of the way to heaven is heaven.

They shall never believe that a young lord of Siena would march directly into their camp." "And if they do?" He gave me another small smile. "Then my beloved lady shall have to come and rescue me." "Us," Luca corrected him, slurring his words now. "Have to rescue us." He adjusted Luca across his shoulders. "Stay with me, Luca," he said sternly. "Can't get much closer m'lord," Luca mumbled.

You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.” Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

the soul always fears until she arrives at true love.

The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.

Love follows knowledge.

Turn over the rudder in God's name, and sail with the wind heaven sends us.

These tiny ants have proceeded from His thought just as much as I, it caused Him just as much trouble to create the angels as these animals and the flowers on the trees.

Be who you were created to be, and you will set the world on fire.

It is surely justice to share our natural gifts with those who share our nature.

Memory is like a cat. It comes and wraps itself around you when you least desire it, and the moment you seek it out, it disappears.

Be strong and kill yourself with the sword of hate and love, then you will not hear the insults and abuse which the enemies of the Church throw at you. Your eyes will not see anything which seems impossible, or the sufferings which may follow, but only the light of faith, and in that light everything is possible; and remember God never lays greater burdens on us than we can bear.

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.

You know that every evil is founded in self-love, and that self-love is a cloud that takes away the light of reason, which reason holds in itself the light of faith, and one is not lost without the other.

Otherwise you fall into contempt of your neighbor, if you judge his evil will towards you, instead of My will acting in him.

The sign that you have this virtue is patience, and impatience the sign that you have it not, and you will find that this is indeed so, when I speak to you further concerning this virtue.

I was hedging. I had no idea about what would happen if I told him something about the future. Like that Siena would face a plague within a few years. And that Florence would eventually rule them. What would happen if I let such things slip? All sorts of time/space continuum stuff might come crashing down. Or maybe it wouldn’t. I should’ve watched more Star Trek as a kid.

I had not been able to show, by finite things, because My love was infinite, how much more love I had, I wished you to see the secret of the Heart,

Mums visiems patinka žiūrėti pro rakto skylutę. Net jeigu tik į save.

Be glad. Celebrate! Lose your mindless fear, and take courage today. No, don’t ever be afraid, no matter what’s happened to you before. That’s right, don’t be afraid, no matter what you may see coming. Take courage because Christ was crucified for you.”2 Catherine of Siena, Letters

Take my heart and squeeze it out over the face of Your Bride, the Church.

Oh, let us lose our milk teeth and cut instead the strong teeth of hate and love.

Catherine [of Siena] compares justice combined with mercy with a precious pearl. Justice without mercy would be dark, cruel, more like injustice than justice. But mercy without justice would be like salve on a sore which should be cleansed with the red-hot iron; if the salve is applied before the wound is cleansed it only makes it smart, and does not heal it

believe no happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of a soul in Purgatory except that of the saints in Paradise. And day by day this happiness grows as God flows into these souls, more and more as the hindrance to His entrance is consumed. Sin's rust is the hindrance, and the fire burns the rust away so that more and more the soul opens itself up to the divine inflowing.

Catherine [of Siena] sent the Pope five oranges which she had candied and covered with gold leaf... She develops the theme of the difference between the bitter and the sweet pain, and gives the Pope a recipe for making candied oranges.

You made friends with a prickler?" Hawk says, standing just inside the secret opening, apparently having come inside during my story, "I'm confused," Adele says. "At first I thought pricklers were some kind of plant, but are they an animal? Or some weird kind of person?" "We ate your friend" Tristan says, his handsome face screwed up even more.

Vienatvėje gali šimtą kartų įveikti savo kompleksus, bet reikia, kad rezultatą patvirtintų auditorija.

So you see that the eye of the intellect has received supernatural light, infused by grace, by which the doctors and saints knew light in darkness, and of darkness made light.

Penance should be but the means to increase virtue according to the needs of the individual, and according to what the soul sees she can do in the measure of her own possibility.

Our Lord hates above all things three abominable sins: covetousness, unchastity and pride.

Even as you seek a virtuous, fair, and good spouse,... it is fitting that you should be the same. —Saint Bernardino of Siena

She [Catherine of Siena] compares Christ, too, with a knight who has ridden out to fight for us; for our sake He came down from Heaven to fight and triumph over the devil. The crown of thorns is His helmet, his flayed flesh His mail, the nails in His Hands and Feet, His gauntlet and spurs. So we should follow our Knight and take new courage in our trials and difficulties.

Siena DePiero...will you do me the honour of becoming my wife? Because you’re in my head and my heart and my soul, and you have been for five years—ever since I first saw you. First you were a fascination, then you became an obsession, and now...I love you. The thought of you being in this world but not with me is more terrifying than anything I’ve ever known. So, please...will you marry me?

Oh, Most Holy Father, this is the sword which I beg you to take into your hand. Now is the time to draw it from its sheath, and to hate vice in yourself, in your children, and in the Holy Church. I say 'yourself', because in this life none dare say that he is free from sin, and love should begin with oneself.

say, you are all obliged to help one another by word and doctrine, and the example of good works, and in every other respect in which your neighbor may be seen to be in need; counseling him exactly as you would yourselves,

We are all bound to work in the vineyard where God is the husbandman. We have all been given our little vineyard, but the way in which we cultivate it is of great importance for the prosperity of our neighbour's vineyard... In fact all our vineyards are a part of the Lord's great vineyard, the Holy Church, and we are all bound to work here too.

Tėvai visada prievartauja vaikus vien dėl to, kad jie suaugę ir mano turį teisę kišti vaikui į galvą visokį šlamštą, vadinamą "gyvenimo samprata".

knoweth things as they are and not as they are said or seem to be, he truly is wise, and is taught of God more than of men. He who knoweth

His life was cheap to him. Perhaps that's why he rode faster than any other, perhaps that was why he had walked into the house of Aquila without the quickening of a heartbeat: because at the heart of his courage was the fact that he really did not care if he died. Such courage is not true courage. True courage is when a man quakes with fear in the face of death, yet still risks his life for something he cares about. Ricardo Bruni did not know this yet, but he was to learn it soon.

To say that Siena and Florence have always been competitive is an understatement. In medieval times, a statue of Venus stood on Il Campo. After the plague hit Siena, the monks blamed the pagan statue. The people cut it to pieces and buried it along the walls of Florence.

Have you ever sailed across an ocean...on a sailboat, surrounded by sea with no land in sight, without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come? To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. To feel the surge as 10 racehorses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie, at the Place des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a woman and a cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on the summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the Wall again. Climb the Tower. Ride the River. Stare at the Frescos. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that, just one time.

In Siena, where more than half the inhabitants died of the plague, work was abandoned on the great cathedral, planned to be the largest in the world, and never resumed, owing to loss of workers and master masons and “the melancholy and grief” of the survivors. The cathedral’s truncated transept still stands in permanent witness to the sweep of death’s scythe. Agnolo di Tura, a chronicler of Siena, recorded the fear of contagion that froze every other instinct. 'Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another,' he wrote, 'for this plague seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And no one could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship.… And I, Angolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands, and so did many others likewise.

Perhaps the immobility of the things that surround us is forced upon them by our conviction that they are themselves, and not anything else, and by the immobility of our conceptions of them. For it always happened that when I awoke like this, and my mind struggled in an unsuccessful attempt to discover where I was, everything would be moving round me through the darkness: things, places, years. My body, still too heavy with sleep to move, would make an effort to construe the form which its tiredness took as an orientation of its various members, so as to induce from that where the wall lay and the furniture stood, to piece together and to give a name to the house in which it must be living. Its memory, the composite memory of its ribs, knees, and shoulder-blades offered it a whole series of rooms in which it had at one time or another slept; while the unseen walls kept changing, adapting themselves to the shape of each successive room that it remembered, whirling madly through the darkness. And even before my brain, lingering in consideration of when things had happened and of what they had looked like, had collected sufficient impressions to enable it to identify the room, it, my body, would recall from each room in succession what the bed was like, where the doors were, how daylight came in at the windows, whether there was a passage outside, what I had had in my mind when I went to sleep, and had found there when I awoke. The stiffened side underneath my body would, for instance, in trying to fix its position, imagine itself to be lying, face to the wall, in a big bed with a canopy; and at once I would say to myself, "Why, I must have gone to sleep after all, and Mamma never came to say good night!" for I was in the country with my grandfather, who died years ago; and my body, the side upon which I was lying, loyally preserving from the past an impression which my mind should never have forgotten, brought back before my eyes the glimmering flame of the night-light in its bowl of Bohemian glass, shaped like an urn and hung by chains from the ceiling, and the chimney-piece of Siena marble in my bedroom at Combray, in my great-aunt's house, in those far distant days which, at the moment of waking, seemed present without being clearly denned, but would become plainer in a little while when I was properly awake.

She [Catherine of Siena] found a place of refuge in a lonely wood, where some hermits lived. It is generally thought that this brotherhood was the community of hermits in Vallombrosa, founded by St. John Gualbert, the man who had spared the life of his deadly enemy because it was Good Friday, and later rushed into the nearest church and fell before the feet of the crucified Christ, as though drunk with this adventure - the adventure of forgiveness. And the Saviour leaned down from the cross and kissed the boy.

Siena’s claim to caloric fame is its panforte, a rich, chewy concoction of nuts, honey, and candied fruits that impresses even fruitcake haters. There are a few varieties: Margherita, dusted in powdered sugar, is more fruity, while panpepato has a spicy, peppery crust. Locals prefer a chewy, white macaroon-and-almond cookie called ricciarelli.

When he played that violin for us, I thought about his stories and the history he talked of, about paintings I had seen and books I had read. His violin made a smoky, mysterious sound. I heard it in the explosions of chestnuts cooking on a brazier at the edge of a river, and horses clopping across cobblestones in Siena and Florence, and also the rustle of leaves that fell on Garibaldi's troops as they marched. The violin sang 'Roma o morte,' and it wailed for the mountains of dead in an American Civil War across the sea, and for Paris glittering with the Second Empire. It rose and fell with voices reading Victor Hugo aloud by whale oil, and it sang about dynamite, about Ottomans and Englishmen falling under their horses in the Crimea, and the feet of crowds shuffling through international expositions. Above all, Stoyan's violin sang about places - places its maker had been, places the teacher of its maker had been, places its current owner would someday see, and the many, many places where he would someday perform on it.

If you are what you should be, you will set the world a blaze.

When the plane took off with me in it, I felt strangely light—as if the strings mooring me to the life I’d made had stretched too far, and had finally broken.   *

Love follows knowledge.

Suffering and sorrow increase in proportion to love: When love grows, so does sorrow.

My dear father said there was no tragedy that could not be made better by a good gallop in the hills,

For all the women who have had to weather the storm.

The world’s first bank was born here—Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in 1472. Before Columbus even set sail!

Read the books which they [the ancients] have written, read those which you prefer, they will speak to you and you will speak to them” - St Bernardino of Siena (d. 1444)

Fucking hell. Bossy Jenner had always been my favorite, and with desire gripping me in a chokehold, I was close to exploding from his words alone.

Veselīgu pašapziņu un neveselīgu lepnību šķir plāna siena.

Skutimasis - nuolatinis žmogaus būties trapumo įrodymas.

The Fountain of Joy still reminds locals that life in Siena is good.

He reached up without thinking to assist Siena with hands on her waist. He did not realize until she hesitated that she might interpret the gesture as somewhat demeaning to her undoubtedly excellent ability to take care of herself. But she reached for his shoulders a moment later, moving into his hands as he lowered her to the floor easily. “Do not worry,” she assured him softly as she linked her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. “I sometimes forget that you were born when men were gentlemen. However, I think it could grow on me.” “I am glad to hear that,” he said with a grin. “However, I am wholeheartedly willing to forgo gentlemanly manners and let the door hit you in the ass at your immediate request.” “You are too kind,” she laughed.

It seems to her [Saint Catherine of Siena] that the devil has this world in his power, not by his own will, for he is powerless, but through our help because we obey him. The evil aroma rising from the ... wars which are waged by Christians against Christians, are the same as war against God. ... Peace, peace, for the sake of the love of the crucified Christ, and not war; that is the only solution.

I also wish you to look at the Bridge of My only-begotten Son, and see the greatness thereof, for it reaches from Heaven to earth, that is, that the earth of your humanity is joined to the greatness of the Deity thereby.

Only love and art can do this: only inside a book or in front of a painting can one truly be let into another's perspective. It has always struck me as a paradox how in the solitary arts there is something intimately communal.

The Devil, dearest daughter, is the instrument of My Justice to torment the souls who have miserably offended Me. And I have set him in this life to tempt and molest My creatures, not for My creatures to be conquered, but that they may conquer, proving their virtue, and receive from Me the glory of victory. And no one should fear any battle or temptation of the Devil that may come to him, because I have made My creatures strong, and have given them strength of will, fortified in the Blood of my Son, which will, neither Devil nor creature can move, because it is yours, given by Me.

- E quem é o tio dela? - Como eu disse, não posso vos informar. Romeo deu um passo em direção ao maestro, retorcendo os dedos: - Estais me dizendo que terei de fazer serenatas sob todas as sacadas de Siena até que a mulher certa apareça?

It was too much for weak men, of more or less good will, who knew in their hearts that the Pope was right ad that they ought to cooperate with him, when the Pope demanded, with harsh and angry words, that they should immediately change their way of life and give up all small comforts they had grown accustomed to, in order to live in a state of self-denial suitable for the strictest ascetic. They were agreed that it was time for a reform within the Church. But if this were reform... And the language he used when he broke into a rage! "Shut up!" he said to the cardinals. He shouted "Pazzo!" -Idiot- to Cardinal Orsini, and "Ribaldo!" -Bandit- to the Cardinal of Geneva. His electors began to regret their choice bitterly.

Siena.” He repeated her name on a sigh as he swept her tightly against himself. Elijah had never known such elation as he had felt when she had said her words of love. All of the rest, the recriminations and sorrow, could not penetrate that feeling. He nearly squeezed the breath out of her as he tried to pull her deeply into his body. “I would think you would realize that I am too stubborn and far too egotistical to die without the satisfaction of hearing you tell me these things.

When we were together, I became this demanding possessive man—a sharp departure from the playful, caring one I was on a daily basis. But I loved that she knew me like no one else. These moments were for us, and she craved this dynamic as much as I did.

See then how He returns, not in actual flesh and blood, but, as I have said, building the road of His doctrine, with His power, which road cannot be destroyed or taken away from him who wishes to follow it, because it is firm and stable, and proceeds from Me, who am immovable.

Peruzzi, secured on expected revenue from the wool tax. When this brought in too little and Edward could not repay, the drain on the Italian companies bankrupted them. The Peruzzi failed in 1343, the Bardi suspended a year later, and their crash brought down a third firm, the Acciaiuioli. Capital vanished, stores and workshops closed, wages and purchases stopped. When, by the malignant chance that seemed to hound the 14th century, economic devastation in Florence and Siena was followed first by famine in 1347 and then by plague, it could not but seem to

There are many whose salvation depends on you. The life you have led up to now will be altered: for the sake of the salvation of souls you will be required to leave your native town, but I shall always be with you—I shall lead you away, and I will lead you back again. You shall proclaim the honour of My name to rich and poor, to clerks and laymen, for I shall give you words and wisdom which no one can resist. I shall send you to the popes and the leaders of My Church and to all Christians, for I choose to put the pride of the mighty to shame by the use of fragile tools.

Žmogus dažniausiai palūžta ne gąsdinamas kokių nors konkrečių priešų, ne dėl išorinių aplinkybių. Dažniausiai jį pribaigia atmintis - kokia nors rakštis iš praeities, kuri apnuodija visą organizmą ir virsta nenugalimu košmaru, vėliau įsikūnijančiu į kokį nors populiarų kaip pagyvenęs šlagerių atlikėjas auglį ir keletą nekrologo eilučių.

Tell enough of the truth and the lies sound honest.

humility proceeds from self-knowledge.

Oh, is that what you want, Evie? You want Daddy to come in here and fuck you until you’re screaming the house down?

Fuck you,” she spat. “Oh, baby, you know it only turns me on more when you get fired up like this.

The sun still beats down warmly over the Sienese countryside in September, and the stubble left by harvest covers the fields with a sort of animal fur. It is one of the most beautiful countrysides in the world: God has drawn the curve of its hills with an exquisite freedom, and has given it a rich and varied vegetation among which the cypresses stand out like lords. Man has worked this earth to advantage and has spread his dwellings over it; but from the most princely villa to the humbles cottage they all have a similar grace and harmony with their ochre walls and curved tiles. The road is never monotonous; it winds and rises, only to descend into another valley between terraced fields and age-old olive groves. Both God and man have shown their genius at Siena.

Whenever the divine favour chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfil the task at hand.

Tradition now dictated that anyone could try and pull the couple apart. Whoever succeeded in separating them at their ribbons would be able to sit beside the couple as they feasted in celebration. The field became a tumble of laughing mates and contestants as males tried to remove males and females tried to remove females. Jacob grabbed his newly healed bride and floated out of the reach of the would-be renders, a cry of protest rising from below them. Gideon and Legna were left unmolested, Gideon’s imposing reputation having a quelling effect on the nerves of any who might have approached. He was kissing his bride when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw Damien arching a challenging brow at him. Legna laughed, delighted as Gideon gave the Prince a dirty look. Her humor lasted about two seconds. That was when Damien’s partner in crime tapped Legna’s shoulder. Siena gave the bride a feline grin. “Oh, you bitch,” Legna choked out, laughing in her shock at the excellent maneuver on the Queen’s part. “Uh-uh,” the Queen scolded, her collar winking in the firelight. “That’s not very diplomatic of you, Ambassador.” “You realize this means war,” Legna said archly. “As if I would settle for anything less,” Siena returned. Legna and Gideon sighed, looking at each other and rolling their eyes. Husband grabbed hold of wife by their joined arms and then they braced their feet. Legna felt slim, strong arms around her waist and shoulders, and Gideon was seized in a similar hold by the determined Damien. “Darling?” Legna said. “Yes, love.” “Yes?” “Definitely yes.” The Vampire and Lycanthrope pulled, and immediately found themselves holding nothing but air. They both fell over hard into the dirt, dazedly watching a pair of ribbons floating down to the ground. “Oh look, they won,” Legna remarked from her and Gideon’s new position a few feet away. “How about that,” Gideon mused. “See you both at dinner. Congratulations on your victory.” The couple popped off to who knows where, leaving indignant but dubiously victorious royalty behind.

Italy still has a provincial sophistication that comes from its long history as a collection of city states. That, combined with a hot climate, means that the Italians occupy their streets and squares with much greater ease than the English. The resultant street life is very rich, even in small towns like Arezzo and Gaiole, fertile ground for the peeping Tom aspect of an actor’s preparation. I took many trips to Siena, and was struck by its beauty, but also by the beauty of the Siennese themselves. They are dark, fierce, and aristocratic, very different to the much paler Venetians or Florentines. They have always looked like this, as the paintings of their ancestors testify. I observed the groups of young people, the lounging grace with which they wore their clothes, their sense of always being on show. I walked the streets, they paraded them. It did not matter that I do not speak a word of Italian; I made up stories about them, and took surreptitious photographs. I was in Siena on the final day of the Palio, a lengthy festival ending in a horse race around the main square. Each district is represented by a horse and jockey and a pair of flag-bearers. The day is spent by teams of supporters with drums, banners, and ceremonial horse and rider processing round the town singing a strange chanting song. Outside the Cathedral, watched from a high window by a smiling Cardinal and a group of nuns, with a huge crowd in the Cathedral Square itself, the supporters passed, and to drum rolls the two flag-bearers hurled their flags high into the air and caught them, the crowd roaring in approval. The winner of the extremely dangerous horse race is presented with a palio, a standard bearing the effigy of the Virgin. In the last few years the jockeys have had to be professional by law, as when they were amateurs, corruption and bribery were rife. The teams wear a curious fancy dress encompassing styles from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. They are followed by gangs of young men, supporters, who create an atmosphere or intense rivalry and barely suppressed violence as they run through the narrow streets in the heat of the day. It was perfect. I took many more photographs. At the farmhouse that evening, after far too much Chianti, I and my friends played a bizarre game. In the dark, some of us moved lighted candles from one room to another, whilst others watched the effect of the light on faces and on the rooms from outside. It was like a strange living film of the paintings we had seen. Maybe Derek Jarman was spying on us.

Okay, okay . . . where do you hear it coming from?” “Around here somewhere.” “Always in this spot?” “No. Not always. You are going to think I am even more insane, but I swear it is following me around.” “Maybe it is my new powers. The power to drive you mad.” She wriggled her fingers at him theatrically as if she were casting a curse on him. “You already drive me mad,” he teased, dragging her up against him and nibbling her neck with a playful growling. “Ah hell,” he broke off. “I really am going mad. I cannot believe you cannot hear that. It is like a metronome set to some ridiculously fast speed.” He turned and walked into the living room, looking around at every shelf. “The last person to own this place probably had a thing for music and left it running. Listen. Can you hear that?” “No,” she said thoughtfully, “but I can hear you hearing it if I concentrate on your thoughts. What in the world . . . ?” Gideon turned, then turned again, concentrating on the rapid sound, following it until it led him right up to his wife. “It is you!” he said. “No wonder it is following me around. Are you wearing a watch?” He grabbed her wrist and she rolled her eyes. “A Demon wearing a watch? Now I have heard everything.” Suddenly Gideon went very, very still, the cold wash of chills that flooded through him so strong that she shivered with the overflow of sensation. He abruptly dropped to his knees and framed her hips with his hands. “Oh, Legna,” he whispered, “I am such an idiot. It is a baby. It is our baby. I am hearing it’s heartbeat!” “What?” she asked, her shock so powerful she could barely speak. “I am with child?” “Yes. Yes, sweet, you most certainly are. A little over a month. Legna, you conceived, probably the first time we made love. My beautiful, fertile, gorgeous wife.” Gideon kissed her belly through her dress, stood up, and caught her up against him until she squeaked with the force of his hug. Legna went past shock and entered unbelievable joy. She laughed, not caring how tight he held her, feeling his joy on a thousand different levels. “I never thought I would know this feeling,” he said hoarsely. “Even when we were getting married, I never thought . . . It did not even enter my mind!” Gideon set her down on her feet, putting her at arm’s length as he scanned her thoroughly from head to toe. “I cannot understand why I did not become aware of this sooner. The chemical changes, the hormone levels alone . . .” “Never mind. We know now,” she said, throwing herself back up against him and hugging him tightly. “Come, we have to tell Noah . . . and Hannah! Oh, and Bella! And Jacob, of course. And Elijah. And we should inform Siena—” She was still rattling off names as she teleported them to the King’s castle.

Remember that a little learning can be a pleasant thing. Italy gives much, in beauty, gaiety, diversity of arts and landscapes, good humor and energy—willingly, without having to be coaxed or courted. Paradoxically, she requires (as do other countries, probably more so) and deserves some preparation as background to enhance her pleasures. It is almost impossible to read a total history of Italy; there was no united country until a hundred years ago, no single line of power, no concerted developments. It is useful, however, to know something about what made Siena run and stop, to become acquainted with the Estes and the Gonzagas, the Medicis and the Borgias, the names that were the local history. It helps to know something about the conflicts of the medieval church with the Holy Roman Empire, of the French, Spanish and early German kings who marked out large chunks of Italy for themselves or were invited to invade by a nervous Italian power. Above all, it helps to turn the pages of a few art and architecture books to become reacquainted with names other those of the luminous giants. The informed visitors will not allow himself to be cowed by the deluge of art. See what interests or attracts you; there is no Italian Secret Service that reports on whether you have seen everything. If you try to see it all except as a possible professional task, you may come to resist it all. Relax, know what you like and don’t like—not the worst of measures—and let the rest go.

Words are philosophies. We have to assume that each is purposeful about its contradictions, that each word means what it says. The English word “demonstration” has at least two meanings: one refers to the public act of protest—to march, rally, declare or express an opinion—and the other is to do with showing, with making something manifest or apparent in order to instruct or display. The Arabic muthahara, the Persian tathaharat, the French manifestation, the Italian manifestazione and the Spanish manifestación—all, regardless of their variant linguistic roots, agree that in a demonstration there are at least these two sides: one concerned with making something apparent and the other with objection. Several other languages have come to the same conclusion. This seems to make perfect sense: one could argue that in order to protest one needs to make something clear. By the same token the need to exhibit is an act against oblivion, a resistance to emptiness; that art and death exist at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Kids or no kids, you are my life. That has never changed. Not when you struggled to get pregnant, not when you left me, and not when we lost the adoption. The thought of living in a world without you in it? It’s unimaginable. You are irreplaceable to me, Evie.

St. Catherine of Genoa's life combined the noblest forms of Christian service with the highest levels of contemplative prayer. May her life and her doctrine help us, too, to live out our Christian discipleship, inspired by the love of God she taught and exemplified.

Tau nepatinka, kad jie [filosofai] per daug nekonkretūs? Norėtum, kad aiškiau formuluotų mintį, kad būtų mažiau metaforų, palyginimų ir parabolių, o daugiau tiesos, grynumo, nepagražinto, atviro, skambaus, iki skausmo teisingo žodžio? Jie negali taip kalbėti. Jie negali kalbėti konkrečiai. Jeigu jie kalbėtų kaip fizikai ar matematikai, tai jau būtų ne pranašystės, ne biblinės ar filosofinės amžinosios tiesos, tai būtų instrukcijos. Tai būtų saugumiečių instrukcijos kaip žudyt žmones. Visi diktatoriai griebdavosi tokių instrukcijų, bet jų esmė - kulka į pakaušį.

The programme of the previous year was repeated in 1860. Returning from Rome to Florence at the beginning of June, the Brownings in July went to Siena to avoid the extreme heat of the summer at Florence, staying as before at the Villa Alberti. Their visit to Siena was, however, rather shorter than the previous one, lasting only till September. There is no doubt that Mrs. Browning, during all this time, was losing ground in point of health; and she now received another severe blow in the news of the serious illness of her sister Henrietta (Mrs. Surtees Cook). The anxiety lasted for several months, and ended with the death of Mrs. Cook in the following winter.

The journey from Rome to Siena is harder than its distance warrants. Once outside the great walls of the city the route becomes as treacherous for humans as for animals. Before the coming of Our Lord, when men knew no better than to worship an army of badly behaved gods, the countryside around Rome was legendary for its fertility, with well-kept roads filled with carts and produce pouring into the city’s markets. But over centuries of the true faith, it has degenerated into wilderness and brigandry, divvied up between the families of the great Roman barons; men hidden inside castles and fortresses who would prefer to carry on slaughtering each other than to create stability together.

A woman has never been able to become a priest—she cannot even be a deacon, nor yet a chorister—but a woman can with the authority of the spirit reprove a priest who falls short of the dignity of his office, even if his office be that of the Vicar of Christ on earth. A widow from an outpost of the Europe of her day—St. Bridget of Sweden—or dyer’s daughter from Siena, St. Catherine—they bow humbly before the dignity with which the man is invested, while at the same time speaking their minds mercilessly and unafraid to the human side of him who has proved himself unworthy of his vicarship; and they do this by virtue of the spiritual authority they possess as favored souls and as courageous souls.

Also in America, the Redemptorist priest and founder of the Paulist order, Fr. Isaac Hecker, was a great admirer of St. Catherine, seeing in her the perfect foil to those who claimed that Catholicism promotes a mechanical piety or fosters a sanctity unconcerned with the real needs of suffering humanity in society. To the latter charge he replied forcefully: "Read the life of St. Catherine, and in imagination fancy her in the city hospital of Genoa, charged not only with the supervision and responsibility of its finances, but also overseeing the care of its sick inmates, taking an active, personal part in its duties as one of its nurses, and conducting the whole establishment with strict economy, perfect order, and the tenderest care and love!

I read a heap of books to prepare to write my own. Valuable works about art crime include The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick, Master Thieves by Stephen Kurkjian, The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser, Possession by Erin Thompson, Crimes of the Art World by Thomas D. Bazley, Stealing Rembrandts by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg, Crime and the Art Market by Riah Pryor, The Art Stealers by Milton Esterow, Rogues in the Gallery by Hugh McLeave, Art Crime by John E. Conklin, The Art Crisis by Bonnie Burnham, Museum of the Missing by Simon Houpt, The History of Loot and Stolen Art from Antiquity Until the Present Day by Ivan Lindsay, Vanished Smile by R. A. Scotti, Priceless by Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman, and Hot Art by Joshua Knelman. Books on aesthetic theory that were most helpful to me include The Power of Images by David Freedberg, Art as Experience by John Dewey, The Aesthetic Brain by Anjan Chatterjee, Pictures & Tears by James Elkins, Experiencing Art by Arthur P. Shimamura, How Art Works by Ellen Winner, The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton, and Collecting: An Unruly Passion by Werner Muensterberger. Other fascinating art-related reads include So Much Longing in So Little Space by Karl Ove Knausgaard, What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy, History of Beauty edited by Umberto Eco, On Ugliness also edited by Umberto Eco, A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar, Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong, Art by Clive Bell, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke, Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton, The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, and Intentions by Oscar Wilde—which includes the essay “The Critic as Artist,” written in 1891, from which this book’s epigraph was lifted.

I think it’s really important that we get you in to see someone who can be your sounding board when life seems unmanageable. We both know I’m not enough.” “You’re enough for me, Jenner. I love you.” “And while I realize I might not be enough for you, you will always be enough for me. Kids or no kids, you are my life. That has never changed. Not when you struggled to get pregnant, not when you left me, and not when we lost the adoption. The thought of living in a world without you in it? It’s unimaginable. You are irreplaceable to me, Evie.

This is not to say that he was not qualified, though he concealed his beginnings as a scullion, to lend a hand like anyone else. It required some exceptional circumstance nevertheless to induce him one day to carve the turkeys himself. I was out, but I heard afterwards that he carved them with a sacerdotal majesty, surrounded, at a respectful distance from the service-table, by a ring of waiters who, endeavouring thereby not so much to learn the art as to curry favour with him, stood gaping in open-mouthed admiration. The manager, however, as he plunged his knife with solemn deliberation into the flanks of his victims, from which he no more deflected his eyes, filled with a sense of his high function, than if he were expecting to read some augury therein, was totally oblivious of their presence. The hierophant was not even conscious of my absence. When he heard of it, he was distressed: “What, you didn’t see me carving the turkeys myself?” I replied that having failed, so far, to see Rome, Venice, Siena, the Prado, the Dresden gallery, the Indies, Sarah in Phèdre, I had learned to resign myself, and that I would add his carving of turkeys to my list. The comparison with the dramatic art (Sarah in Phèdre) was the only one that he seemed to understand, for he had learned through me that on days of gala performances the elder Coquelin had accepted beginners’ roles, even those of characters who had only a single line or none at all. “All the same, I’m sorry for your sake. When shall I be carving again? It will need some great event, it will need a war.” (It needed the armistice, in fact.) From that day onwards, the calendar was changed, and time was reckoned thus: “That was the day after the day I carved the turkeys myself.” “It was exactly a week after the manager carved the turkeys himself.” And so this prosectomy furnished, like the Nativity of Christ or the Hegira, the starting point for a calendar different from the rest, but neither so extensively adopted nor so long observed.