Those Feuding Pinckneys

Charles Pinckney doesn’t show emotion during this argument with the relatives, but he’s reaching for his dagger.

Back in the days when arguments were settled with duels, it’s remarkable that a bunch of guys named Charles Pinckney didn’t shoot each other.  They were all related and were all active in the political life of South Carolina, but somehow they didn’t see eye to eye.

Perhaps the best-known of the Charles Pinckneys is famous for being obscure.  He is sometimes referred to as “the forgotten founding father” because of his role in the Constitutional Convention.  Even though he doesn’t get the recognition of, say, George Washington or James Madison or Alexander Hamilton, it’s known that Charles Pinckney had a lot to say at the convention.  Among other things, he introduced the important clause in article VI that forbids a religious test for any public office.

In later years he claimed to have submitted a draft — the Pinckney Plan — that was the basis for the final Constitution.  Nowadays, most historians sort of roll their eyes when the Pinckney Plan gets mentioned.  No copy still exists, if one ever did.

As mentioned, he was active at the Convention, and deserves credit for being among the framers.  He wasn’t the only signer of the Constitution by that name, however.  An even more forgotten founding father was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; they were second cousins.

Cotesworth’s father was… yes, Charles Pinckney, a South Carolina chief justice.  That guy — let’s call him Justice Pinckney — was the uncle of Colonel Charles Pinckney, who was the father of Charles “Article VI” Pinckney.

Things must have been a little strained between the signer of the U.S. Constitution and his dad, because back during the Revolutionary War, the Colonel had switched sides.  Originally a leader of those fighting the British, he changed his tune to “God Save the King”, becoming a Loyalist.

Charles “Article VI” Pinckney supported a strong central government and, with his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was a leader in the Federalist party.  As such, Charles was elected governor of South Carolina several times.

Around 1795, though, he followed his father’s example and changed sides, abandoning the Federalists and getting cozy with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans.

Meanwhile, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney remained a staunch Federalist.  He was John Adams’ running mate in the election of 1800, and the Federalists’ presidential candidate in 1804 and 1808.  Charles “Governor” Pinckney worked to defeat his cousin, and the rift grew so bitter that they never spoke to each other again.

Governor (also senator and U.S. representative) Charles Pinckney died in 1824, but before that he must have quarreled with his son who was, thankfully, not named Charles.  He was Henry L. Pinckney, who became a prominent politician and newspaper editor.  Henry’s opinions, shared by others, ultimately led to South Carolina’s secession from the United States, of which his biological father had been a founding father.

There may be other explanations for the broken crockery being found at Snee Farm, the ancestral plantation of the Pinckneys — but I’m thinking food fights at the very least.

The Two Careers of Samuel Morse

Samuel F.B. Morse, Self-Portrait (1812 — he was 21)  National Portrait Gallery, Washington

We can only imagine what Jedidiah Morse thought when his son Samuel announced, “Dad, I’ve decided to become an artist.”  There is no historical record of how that conversation went, so we don’t know if the father snarled, “What!?  You have any idea what it cost to put you through Yale?  You were Phi Beta Kappa — and now you want to throw all that away?”

As an occupation, artist was not a common road to riches in early 19th-century America (still isn’t, for that matter).  Young Samuel Finley Breese Morse went off to study painting in England, though, and when he returned in 1815, he managed to support himself despite the widespread lack of interest in the kind of historical subjects he personally favored.

The only real market was portraits, and let’s give him credit — Morse cranked out good ones.  He painted former president John Adams and was commissioned to do a portrait of president James Monroe, as well as Revolutionary War hero, the Marquis de Lafayette.  By 1826, Morse had become the presiding officer of the National Academy of Design.

Jedidiah Morse died that same year, and he probably went out saying to anyone who would listen, “Didn’t I tell you my son had talent?  I always knew he’d make me proud.”  What dad never knew was that his son would gain far greater fame, but not as an artist.

Samuel went back to Europe in 1830 to sharpen his painting skills, but on the return voyage in 1832, Morse met a fellow passenger who was talking about electromagnetism.  Those conversations inspired Morse; he saw the possibility of using pulses of electric current to send messages over wires.

It isn’t quite accurate to say that Samuel F.B. Morse invented the telegraph, since crude versions of it had been around for almost a hundred hears.  In 1746, for example, a French scientist named Nollet got a couple hundred monks into a giant circle and wired them together.  When he discharged electricity from Leyden jars, those monks got the shocking message.

Anyway, Morse did come up with his single-wire telegraph in the mid-1830s, but the challenge was getting a signal to travel more than a few hundred yards.  He got help on that from New York University chemistry professor Leonard Gale; Morse was teaching art at NYU at the time.  Gale and Morse figured out how to put relays into the system, allowing telegraphic impulses to be sent over long distances.

Those signals were developed into a code so that their meaning could be interpreted.  Morse worked on this with a machinist named Alfred Vail.  Historians agree that Morse never, ever said, “I couldn’t have done it without you, Alfred.  Let’s call it ‘The Vail Code’ .”

The first public demonstration of Morse’s telegraph was on May 24, 1844, when a message was sent from the Supreme Court chamber in Washington, D.C., to a train station in Baltimore.  Morse tapped out “What hath God wrought?”, perhaps the only time he shared credit for the invention of the telegraph.

Ten years later there were 23,000 miles of telegraph wire in operation.  Samuel Morse’s second career secured his place in history.  His first career had ended in 1837; he never completed another painting in the remaining 35 years of his life.

The Hundred Years’ War: Greatest Hits, Part II

J.A.D. Ingres, “Joan of Arc at the Coronation of King Charles VII in Reims Cathedral” (1854) –
The Louvre, Paris

It looked like the long-running war was going to get capped at 85 years, but in 1422, Henry V of England and Charles VI of France both died.  That pushed the restart button.

Henry was succeeded as King of England by his nine-month-old son Henry VI, whose royal proclamations included things like “na-na-na-na” and “goo-goo”.  He was advised (if that’s the right word) by two uncles who happened to be scheming against each other.

The situation in France wasn’t much better.  You’ll recall that King Charles VI had disavowed his own heirs and, under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) acknowledged Henry V as his successor.  The rumor was that Charles’s legitimate heir was, well, illegitimate, the result of an affair the queen had with her brother-in-law.

That all seemed pretty harsh to the Dauphin (the title given to the heir-apparent of the French throne).  He aspired to become Charles VII, but got chased out of Paris while civil war raged in France.  The Dauphin, who was a teenager, set up his palace in a two-bedroom condo south of the Loire Valley; his “kingdom” extended approximately from his garage down to the liquor store at the corner.

Into this mess stepped the most remarkable figure of the entire Hundred Years’ War:  Joan of Arc.  A peasant girl, she talked her way into an audience with the Dauphin and informed him that through visions, God had instructed her to lead the French army to victory and get the Dauphin crowned king.

Joan must have been incredibly charismatic.  Think about it:  If you were in the Dauphin’s position and a 17-year-old girl tells you that fantastic story, would you be inclined to say, “Great!  Go for it!”  It could be argued that at that point, the Dauphin Charles didn’t have much left to lose, so why not give her a shot.

Anyway, he let Joan lead a small army; they headed off to Orléans, which had been besieged by the English for several months.  Within a few days of their arrival in April, 1429, Joan and her troops defeated the English, lifting the Siege of Orléans.  That victory got the French fired up again, and is now considered the turning point in the Hundred Years’ War.

Jeanne d’Arc, as she is known in France, then led her soldiers to victory in other battles and was present in Reims when the Dauphin was crowned Charles VII.  Thanks to “the Maid of Orléans”, the French army was energized and eager to win back territory held by the English.

Unfortunately for Joan, in May of 1430 she was captured by troops loyal to the Duke of Burgundy, who eventually sold her to the English.  When the subject of ransoming this unusual prisoner of war came up, Charles VII (who wouldn’t have been king without her help) was apparently hiding under the bed.  Joan was alone, on her own.  The English gave her a show trial before burning her at the stake on May 30, 1431.

The war went on for another couple of decades, basically ending after the Battle of Castillon on July 17, 1453.  This enabled the English to turn their full attention to fighting each other again, notably in the War of the Roses (1455-1485).  No official treaty between the French and the English was ever signed.

The English had their king; the French had theirs.  The English did continue to hold Calais until 1558 — which means that when it was finally over, things were left pretty much as they had been at the outset of the Hundred Years’ War.

The Hundred Years’ War: Greatest Hits, Part I

Edward III of England:
He started it.

When the Hundred Years’ War finally ended in 1453, the weary combatants looked at each other and said, “Where has the time gone? The Middle Ages are almost over.” Or, more likely, they said, “What was that about?”

Later generations of historians have examined the factors that contributed to all that combat, but then they pretend not to notice that the Hundred Years’ War actually lasted more than 100 years; it began in 1337.

Since we lack the space (and enthusiasm) to review the entire war, let’s just take a look at some colorful characters and events that made the highlight reel, so to speak.

In a nutshell, the Hundred Years’ War was really a series of wars fought between the English and the French. Mostly it was about who the rightful king was, and there were lots of applicants for that job. That’s why the long-running war between England and France was sometimes interrupted by wars between countrymen: Two English armies fighting each other, for instance, to win the chance for their leader to claim he was King of France.

Anyway, the guy who started it all was Edward III of England.  He had become the British monarch when his mother Isabella, sometimes known as “the she-wolf of France”, led an invasion against her own husband, Edward II of England — it was a troubled marriage, apparently.

Because of his mother’s French ancestry, Edward III thought he was entitled to be King of France, even though the French already had a guy with a crown.  His name was Philip VI, and naturally he took offense when Edward III sent armies into northwest France to stake his claim.

Edward began the offensive in 1337, capturing Brittany and Normandy.  His troops won a number of important battles, including one in 1346 at Crécy.  The English introduced longbows to the battlefield, sending a lethal rain of arrows at the French infantrymen, whose armor was fashionable but not particularly arrow-resistant.  Philip VI lost a lot of relatives and soldiers that day.

Pressing on, Edward III  had control of about 25% of France by the mid-1300s.  His holdings began to wane, however, when the so-called Black Death (Bubonic Plague) hit Europe.  It’s hard to imagine the devastation it caused — estimates of those who died in the years from 1347-1351 range from 30-50% of the population.  Obviously, that hindered army recruitment efforts.

Edward III made a strategic blunder by dying (not of plague) in 1377.  He left several heirs who all seemed to think they were qualifed to be King of England.  They fought with each other for the next few decades, until Henry V won the title.  Henry was the subject of one of Shakespeare’s historical plays, and either looked like Sir Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh, depending on which movie you saw.

The army of Henry V won a big one at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.  That resulted in the French king Charles VI (a.k.a. Charles the Mad) disinheriting his own kids and designating Henry V to be his successor.  That might have resolved the whole mess, except that in August of 1422, Henry died of dysentery at the age of 35.  Charles VI died that October.  So if Henry had lived two months longer, he would have been the king of France, fulfilling the dream that had begun with his great-grandfather Edward III.

Instead, the Hundred Years’ War continued… and in the next blog post, this topic will, too.

Meet the Foleys

Just a few tools of the Foley artist’s trade

When a movie ends, audience members either dab away their tears, try to get some feeling back in their legs, or rearrange their clothing.  Some wake up from the best sleep they’ve had in days.  Hardly any of them are paying attention to the names and titles that are rolling up the screen.

If you’re among the minority who stay through the end credits of a film, you probably can guess what the Costume Designer’s function was, or what the Production Accountant did, but you may have wondered — what the heck is a Foley Artist?

Well, it’s a person who specializes in performing sound effects to augment the audio track of a movie.  Strangely enough, the original production sound recorded in the studio or on location can sometimes seem artificial, or be missing altogether.

When there’s a scene involving a brawl, for instance, obviously the stuntmen aren’t really punching each other.  The noises you hear in the finished film were created by a Foley artist smacking a phonebook or a slab of meat.  During post production the original footage is played back, scene by scene, and the artist syncs up with it, adding a kiss here, a slap there, the rustle of a cape, or footsteps on creaky stairs.

Foley stages have an array of props and floor surfaces to generate those effects, and a technician at a sound board records them as the artist produces them.  With that sophisticated equipment, the pitch of a piece of wire swinging through air can be adjusted by an octave or two to create the illusion of, say, an alien spaceship.

It’s not a coincidence that the first Foley artist was named Jack Foley.  Born in 1891, he had found his way to Hollywood and in spite of the fact that he did not have a degree from a prestigious film school — there were no film schools then — he talked his way into the movie business.

Jack Foley worked as a stuntman, directed a couple of silent films and had writing credits on several others, including “The Perils of Pauline”.  He was employed at Universal Studios in the late 1920s, when Warner Bros. had changed the business by introducing sound to motion pictures.

Foley and some of his colleagues basically taught themselves how to use sound recording equipment, and he developed techniques that are still in use today.  He never received screen credit as a Foley artist, but he worked in that capacity until his death in 1967.

One of Jack Foley’s specialties was “walking”, matching the stride of the on-screen actor with his own footsteps.  The 250-pound Foley admitted that women were more difficult for him to imitate, since their steps tended to be quicker and closer together.

Around the same time that Jack Foley’s name became a job description, another Foley got a similar sort of anonymous fame.  Frederic Foley was born one week before Jack, but took a very different career path.

That Foley graduated from Yale and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.  Although he doesn’t seem to have been specifically trained as a urologist, his name is associated with his invention:  a device that is threaded through the urethra and into the bladder.  The Foley catheter (as the tube and its accessories are known) is often used on surgical patients.

It is also used for other medical procedures on that part of the anatomy.  Patients who are not under anesthesia when the Foley catheter is inserted usually supply sound effects that, thankfully, are not recorded.

Looking Glass

Hall of Mirrors, Versailles

There probably wouldn’t be as many New Year’s resolutions if there weren’t so many mirrors.  Hundreds of years ago, the average person did not frequently see his or her reflection, so had little motivation to lose 10 pounds by Valentine’s Day.

Oh, mirrors have existed for many millennia, but they were made of polished stone or metal, gave relatively dim reflections, weren’t widely available, and  were small.  A hand mirror didn’t give the whole picture, so to speak.  It didn’t obviate the need for a woman in Roman times to ask, “Be honest, Marcellus — does this toga make my pyga look big?”

It was sometime in the 1300s when someone figured out how to apply a metal backing to a piece of glass, which provided a better reflection.  Within a couple of centuries, Venice and Nuremberg had become the major manufacturing centers for mirrors.

Venetian mirrors — made on the island of Murano — were especially prized by the people who could afford them.  That pretty much meant kings and queens, because mirrors were ridiculously expensive.  They were almost literally worth their weight in gold back then, which may partly explain the superstition about breaking a mirror bringing seven years of bad luck.  Ha — like the king would even let you live that long if you accidentally broke one of his mirrors.

Europe’s greatest monument to royal extravagance is the palace of Versailles; it was the pet project of King Louis XIV, who ruled France from 1643 to 1715.  He seems to have had a high opinion of himself, since Louis encouraged his subjects to call him the Sun King.  The most notable feature of his palace is the Hall of Mirrors (see photo).

It’s something like 250 feet long and extravagantly decorated with mirrors that were made in France by artisans who had stolen the secrets of Venetian glassmaking.  There are hundreds of mirrors in the Galerie des Glaces, and the panels were the largest that could be manufactured at that time.  I have no doubt that Louis XIV’s visitors to Versailles were impressed, and that they were extremely careful about touching those mirrors.

It wasn’t until the 19th century — 1835, to be specific — that a German chemist named Justus von Liebig came up with the process called silvering.  It was a way of putting a thin metallic coat onto glass, and led to the production of mass-produced, high-quality mirrors that would fling the truth in your face at an affordable price.

By the 20th century, mirrors had become very popular in decorating the homes of people who were not of royal lineage.  They also became ubiquitous in hotels and restaurants and other public places.

The extensive use of mirrors in bars allowed patrons to sneak a look at themselves and wonder what the heck they were doing sitting here listening to this unattractive windbag.  That, in turn, led to a different, non-New Year’s kind of resolution:  “Bartender, I think I’ll have another.”

The Red Castle

Court of the Myrtles, The Alhambra — Granada, Spain

Most people who live in the Americas associate the year 1492 with Christopher Columbus sailing into the Bahamas and proclaiming, “Just like I told ya, fellas — here we are in Japan.”

His voyage of discovery was made possible because of a significant event in European history that also happened in 1492.  In January of that year, Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the last Moorish stronghold on the Iberian peninsula, the Alhambra.

The Moors, whose roots were in North Africa (as in Morocco), were Muslims who had ruled what is now southern and central Spain for many centuries.  At the height of their power in the 13th and 14th centuries, the sultans built a complex of castles and gardens on a hill overlooking Granada.  They called it Alhambra, which is Arabic for “Red Castle”; the walls of many of the buildings have a reddish hue.

After the Catholic monarchs took over, the Alhambra fell into gradual disrepair; by the early 19th century it was pretty much forgotten.

An American author named Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, “Rip Van Winkle”) wrote a book about Columbus that was published in 1828.  Irving knew that Columbus had audiences with Ferdinand and Isabella at the Alhambra when the explorer tried to persuade them to let him find new lands in which to establish Disney theme parks.  It was probably at the Alhambra when Isabella said to Columbus, “Yeah, fine, whatever.”

Anyway, Washington Irving was intrigued by the place.  He actually lived in the ruins of the Alhambra in 1829, and subsequently published a book called Tales of the Alhambra.  (I’ve got it on my shelf if you’d like to borrow it sometime.)  That book seems to have had a lot to do with reviving interest in the palace/fortress, and restoration began soon thereafter.

It is now a great place to see magnificent examples of Islamic art and architecture: intricate tile work, ceilings and walls that appear to be carved but are actually molded plaster, elaborate calligraphy.

Perhaps because water was relatively rare in many parts of the Muslim world and therefore precious, there is an abundance of it here.  Pools and fountains and streams are found throughout the complex, particularly in the Generalife (hen-ur-ah-LEAF-eh) Gardens.

What can also be found in abundance at the Alhambra are tourists.  According to some sources, it is the most-visited attraction in Spain.  The number of daily admissions is capped at something like 7,000, so if you’re planning a trip, reserve a ticket (currently €13) as soon as you know when you’ll be in Granada.

An alternative is to hire a guide in a package deal, but that will be considerably more expensive. It’s not really necessary, either, since audio guides are available for €4 at the entrance.  If you want to take a chance on getting in without a reservation, show up early and stand in line at the ticket window; a limited number of tickets are sold each day.

As best you can while you’re at the Alhambra, try to ignore all the other visitors around you so that you can marvel at the beauty of the place.  Oh, and while you’re wandering around, look for the room that has a plaque — in Spanish, of course — that basically says “Washington Irving slept here.”

Who Were the Founding Fathers?

John Trumbull, “Declaration of Independence” (painted 1817), U.S. Capitol

It was one of America’s least-admired presidents, Warren G. Harding, who coined the term “Founding Fathers”.  Speaking at the 1916 Republican convention, he used it in reference to the men who transformed America from a cluster of British colonies to an independent nation.

They are now spoken of with great respect, and deserve to be.  We tend to think of the Founding Fathers as demigods, though, or at least as men who always conducted themselves with the greatest decorum, as if they were posing for that picture on the back of the two-dollar bill (see above).

In fact, there were intense personal rivalries among the Founding Fathers.  According to historian David McCullough, animosity between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson “reached the point where they could hardly bear to be in the same room.”

A Jefferson ally, James Callender, attacked John Adams in print, calling him “that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness.”  Adams muttered about Benjamin Franklin, who had famously promoted the virtue of “a penny saved is a penny earned,” but in his personal life was a big spender.

Even George Washington was the target of insults.  Thomas Paine, a key figure in the American Revolution, slammed Washington as “treacherous in private friendship… and a hypocrite in public life.”

As author Ron Chernow noted in the Wall Street Journal, “After sharpening their verbal skills hurling polemics against the British Crown, the founding generation then directed those energies against each other.”

While some of the attacks were rooted in personality conflicts — this guy didn’t like that guy — much of it had to do with the clash of competing concerns as they groped their way toward a new form of government.

Jefferson didn’t want a president to have much power, worried that he would become a de facto king.  Adams wanted to safeguard against the proposed Senate becoming an aristocracy.  Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison wrote persuasively for the new federal government, while Patrick Henry and others were wary of it, citing concerns about states’ rights.

So who were the Founding Fathers?  How did one qualify for inclusion in this particular pantheon?  Sometimes they are narrowly defined as those who attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  But that would leave out John Adams, Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson, among others.  Besides, what do you do about Elbridge Gerry, George Mason and Edmund Randolph, who attended the convention but refused to sign the document?  Incidentally, only six men, Franklin among them, signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

It seems fair to say that the Founding Fathers should include those who had important roles in the fight for independence, the drafting of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and who actually steered the fragile new government that had resulted from their efforts.  Only a few have been named here.

There are many whose names you may not know, like Gouverneur Morris of New York, who had a wooden leg.  His official story was that he’d had a carriage accident, but some accounts attribute it to a leap from a window to escape a jealous husband.  Sadly, Gouverneur Morris never became governor, but he had a lot to do with the final wording of the Constitution.

They were a diverse group of men; stubborn and contentious at times, but cognizant of the need to negotiate and compromise, ultimately finding common ground.  They weren’t the titans we sometimes imagine them to be, but were hotheads and skeptics and windbags and risk-takers — in short, they were a lot like people we know.  That’s what makes their achievement so remarkable.

Off the Charts

Where Captain Cook died — Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii

“George Washington slept here.”  That claim is made by the owners of countless inns and houses (and their realtors) on the east coast of the United States.  Some of those claims might even be true; after all, General Washington had to sleep somewhere while he was on the move.

In London, a similar assertion is made about many pubs:  “Charles Dickens drank here.”  He probably did, too, since writing is an activity that can make one very thirsty.

Although he traveled far more extensively than Washington or Dickens, James Cook’s exploits didn’t spawn that kind of slogan, even though they are facts.  In an astonishing number of places in the world — particularly around the Pacific Ocean — it can be said, “Captain Cook was here.”

For instance, there is Cook’s Strait, the passage between New Zealand’s North and South Islands.  James Cook was there, 1769.  (He drew the first nautical charts of New Zealand, too.)

In 1770 he came upon Australia and charted its eastern side.  There’s a place called Cooktown where his ship, the Endeavour, was beached for repairs after a close encounter with the Great Barrier Reef.

There are the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.  As you probably guessed, they weren’t known as the Cook Islands before he arrived in the 1770s.

Much farther north is Cook Inlet.  It’s near present-day Anchorage, in the Gulf of Alaska.  The Captain charted that area in 1778.  Earlier in his naval career, young James Cook had drawn charts on the other side of the North American continent, surveying the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, and a little later, Newfoundland.

Basically, the Royal Navy dispatched Cook to places for which no navigational charts existed, and even to places that no one was sure were actual places.  He was sent off to the unknown, and came back with lots of useful knowledge.

Another of Captain Cook’s remarkable accomplishments was that when his ships returned to England after years-long voyages, none of his men had died of scurvy.  That just didn’t happen back then – that particular debilitating illness was an occupational hazard for seamen, more than drowning or cannonballs.  Consider this:  During the 18th century, more British sailors died from scurvy than from enemy action.

We now know that scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C, but fruit smoothies weren’t part of sailors’ diets back then; they mostly consumed some combination of biscuits, beer, beef and bugs.  Captain Cook didn’t impose doses of lime juice on his sailors, as the story sometimes goes, but he did insist on high standards of cleanliness aboard ship, and laid in fresh provisions as often as possible — which apparently included fruits and vegetables.

The Captain was occasionally annoyed by Tahitian and Hawaiian attitudes about sharing property.  Specifically, they tended to want some of his stuff and he didn’t always want to let them have it.  In a dispute over a small boat that technically belonged to the Royal Navy but had been appropriated by locals, Captain Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii’s Big Island in 1779.  He was fifty years old.

With that unfortunate exception, Cook had, as the Encyclopedia Britannica puts it, “peacefully changed the map of the world more than any other single man in history.” The down side, in terms of his reputation, is that he didn’t spend enough time in London for any pub owners to claim that Captain Cook was a regular.

Let’s Be Unreasonable

Siena was once a Ghibelline stronghold.

When I’m traveling, there’s something strangely amusing to me about the local news.  Maybe it’s because the hot-topic issues in Sydney or Seattle that are being so passionately debated by residents are irrelevant to me.  It doesn’t change my life if the town council votes to knock down the old water tower over by the high school, but there are people who are so vehement about it one way or another that they can be seen on news broadcasts snarling at each other and turning purple.

As soon as the Mayor taps his gavel and says, “The meeting will come to order,” both the Libertarians and the Anarchists consider that a violation of their rights and storm out, scattering furniture as they go.  Because these people aren’t my neighbors, I’m able to look at it as theater.  It is the longest-running play in human history, and might be titled “I Forget Why, But I Hate You.”

There is something about human nature that compels us to take sides, opposing on principle what the other side favors.  You can probably think of many examples — or maybe you can’t, just because I said you can.

For the moment, though, let’s consider the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.  They were two Italian factions that fought each other for centuries during the Middle Ages.  The Guelphs supported the Pope, and the Ghibellines favored the Holy Roman (that is, German) Emperor.

The issue was whether the Italian city-states wanted to be led by a spiritual power or a temporal power.  That philosophical debate lasted for, oh, a few minutes.  Then each side tried to demonstrate the moral superiority of their position by slaughtering their opponents.

Although not yet officially called Ghibellines, that faction began to coalesce around the charismatic Emperor Frederick I, known as Barbarossa (“red beard” in Italian).  While on the 3rd Crusade in 1190, Frederick Barbarossa ignored the old proverb “You can lead a horse to water, but it just might sink.”

In the process he created a new bit of folk wisdom:  “Don’t try to swim when you’re wearing sixty pounds of armor.”  Frederick and his horse both drowned in the swift current of the Saleph River.

Over the next hundred years or so, Italian cities aligned themselves with one faction or the other.  Florence, Bologna and Genoa were predominantly Guelph; Pisa, Siena, Arezzo and Modena were Ghibelline.  They fought incessantly, but the issue of spirtual versus temporal leadership was only one excuse for antagonism.

The rivalries between cities were also fueled by property-holding nobles vs. middle-class merchants.  In 1325, Guelph Bologna and Ghibelline Modena even battled over a bucket stolen from Bologna; 2,000 men died as a result of that provocation.

Eventually the Guelphs prevailed in Italy, but it was only a matter of time before they began fighting among themselves.  In Florence they split into factions known as Black Guelphs and White Guelphs.  The poet Dante was on the wrong side of that division — many other White Guelphs were killed; he was exiled.

It took a while, but cooler heads finally realized the injustice that had been done to Dante.  After a civilized discussion, the city council of Florence rescinded his sentence… in 2008, which was about 700 years after they kicked him out.  Thankfully, that decision did not start another war.