Just for the record...as I opened this page and was about to set up my Volume III posts, Jacqueline was watching Jeopardy!...and there was a question about Spalato! It's a small world after all, isn't it?
And awaaaaay we go.
Day Eighty-Two (DDRD 944): June 2, 2020
Read to page 10. More pirate stuff. I'm thinking about reading a little more today, since I just took a look at the After The Text pages, and there's a lot more stuff than I thought there would be...which means that it's unlikely that I'll be able to knock out Volume III in the 34 days I was previously thinking would take me. And I would like to finish this and one more book by the time I hit DDRD 1000. So we'll see how that all goes.
BTW, I checked out a video (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE-sAb48Q98), and apparently the proper pronunciation of Morisco is Moor-eeze-co.
AND FURTHERMOOR (nyuck nyuck): I am about 1/4th of the way through The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr--the novel about Moriscos. It's very interesting.
Day Eighty-Three (DDRD 945): June 3, 2020
Read to page 20. In the course of which I encountered a term--
meditatio mortis
--which I found very interesting. It's Latin for "contemplation of death." And I think it would be a fine title for my autobiography.
Just sayin', sir.
Also...about 1/3 of the way through The Devils of Cardona now, and I'm thinking that it is not only a very fine novel, but that it would make a fantastic movie. Anybody know where I can put my hands on $30 million?
Oh, wait a minute...I'm not publishing this post, am I? Not yet, anyway. Oh well. I retract the question. For now.
Read to page 30. Curious defect on page 26:
It's a hole that goes all the way through the page...with a little black marking at the top of it...but page 24 is untouched, and page 27 just has the slightest touch of black.
Hmpf.
Day Eighty-Five (DDRD 947): June 5, 2020
Read to page 40. Not the best day. Tired, hot (had to call the air conditioner repairman), frightened (pandemic, police brutality, protests, The Mad King), and today's reading was just more violence of rich people. Sigh.
On the other hand, I am at the halfway point of The Devils of Cardona, and it is quite a thrilling read. Which I'm doubly glad of, since I think I have settled on my next (and last of the first 1,000 Daily Devotional Readings Days) book being This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611...so I get to enjoy it now and it whets my appetite for later.
Day Eighty-Six (DDRD 948): June 6, 2020
Oops. Looks like I hit the wrong button and "published" this page yesterday. Well, here yesterday, gone today.
Meanwhile...here are a couple of lines from The Devils of Cardona that I liked:
"It was a good thing that this couple believed in salvation, he thought, because their lives on earth had clearly not gone well."
For obvious reasons. And for personal reasons, this one:
"At the age of sixty-two, he had already lived four years longer than his father...."
Because that's pretty close to home for me--62 years old, dad died at 59.
I'm 55% of the way through this novel now, and it is quite compelling.
Check it out if you can.
Meanwhile, back in The Mediterranean....
I thought that this--
--was a pretty apt way to sum up the plight of the powerless people (like me...and maybe you) in this world. Also, the news has been filled, pretty much non-stop, with the story of the most recent four black people who have been murdered by White people--most of them policemen--in America, and this quote seems to cry out in that direction as well.
Sigh.
On another depressing note, mention is made of one Cardinal Carlo Carafa, who was a wealthy fellow from an aristocratic family, and who rose to a position of great power, in part due to the aforementioned stuff, in part because he was a ruthless son of a bitch. And it struck me how you can attain all kinds of power and wealth in this world, but in the end you're just dead, and the best that you can hope for is to be an answer to a Jeopardy! question.
This bit form page 43 seems to sum up the state of the world quite aptly as well:
"The impending struggle would be one brought about by old men, still fighting battles of long ago and seeking fresh pretexts to inflame old passions."
And this bit--
--really made me want to read the sonnet alluded to, but all of my Googling was in vain on this one, alas. Though I did find this, which I thought was worth noting:
Sonnet by Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560)
Translation by Morgan Downs
If all our life is no more than a day
In the Eternal; if the years which turn
Chase off our days without hope of return,
So transient are all things, be what they may:
O captive soul, why do you dream today?
Why unto worldly shadows do you yearn,
Whereas, to fly in a more clear sojourn
Your back is feathered for the wingèd way?
There is the Good that every soul desires,
There is the rest to which the world aspires,
And there is love, and pleasure evermore.
There, o my soul! Shepherded to the skies,
The high ideal you shall realize
Of beauty, which in this world I adore.
https://classicalpoets.org/2017/09/21/translation-of-a-sonnet-by-joachim-du-bellay/
Read to page 50, btw.
P.S. Good old AbeBooks. Ordered May 28, 2020, arrived today.
I'm ready ready Teddy to rock n roll.
Day Eighty-Seven (DDRD 949): June 7, 2020
Read to page 60. Today's reading included several "crossovers" with This Happened in My Presence: mentions of a Licenciado, action occurring in the same geographical area (northeastern Spain, close to the border with France), and mention of the revolt of the Moriscos.
In other Morisco news...when I checked the library to see if they had anything else Morisco-ish in their system, I typed Morisco instead of Moriscos, and look what I found:
And check out this blurb I found on GoodReads:
"NOBILITY CAST HER INTO SLAVERY, BEAUTY RESCUED HER FROM SHAME, AND THE PIRATE LIFTED HER TO PASSION!"
Now you know I'm going to need to get me some of that.
P.S. Just discovered that that ↑ was the paperback cover, which I'd guessed...but what I didn't guess was that there was a hardback version, which had this lovely cover:
Mmm-hmm.
Day Eighty-Eight (DDRD 950): June 8, 2020
Read to page 70.
Meanwhile, in The Devils of Cardona...here are some things that I found noteworthy:
"...the inquisitor was sure that God loved and forgave him and that the creator of all things would give him the strength to resist the vile images and temptations through which Satan had tried so often to undermine his most faithful servant."
I thought this was a good explanation of Why We Need Satan: because without him, it's just our fault.
And this bit, about the death of a horrible man--
"To his astonishment Mercader realized that he was dying, and he wished that he could have lived a little longer, just long enough to ask Pachuca why he was killing him. But he did not even have the strength to cry out as Pachuca and one of his companions lifted him up by his hands and feet. The inquisitor caught a last glimpse of the blue Spanish sky and wondered what he had done to incur God’s wrath, and then he felt himself sinking down into the cold waters, and he knew that he would never make it to Rome."
--is a pretty perfect description of how horrible men probably don't think they're horrible at all...and, in fact, may even think that they are truly Good men.
Here are two bits about Women that came earlier on in the novel, but I'd written them down in a separate place and forgotten about them:
“Women can lead even good men to madness.”
“Without women, this world would be a desert. "
Do I contradict myself? Very well....
And lastly (for the nonce), this bit, which pretty much sums of Fox News and all Conservatives who think this way:
"...just because I didn’t see things happen doesn’t mean they didn’t happen."
Less than 100 pages to go in this novel now, and it is holding together quite well, thank you. This would make for a superb movie, by the way. But it would cost a lot of money to do it right, for sure. Hey, Peter Jackson! What are you up to these days? This would really be in good hands with you, man. (Coincidentally, I am watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) with Joe this morning.)
ADDENDUM:
7 pm, and I just finished The Devils of Cardona. A most excellent read indeed. Here are a few last things I want to remember:
"He wondered whether all countries were like Spain, where nothing was what it seemed to be on the surface and men and women hid who they really were and what they really felt or thought."
That one made me think about how many racist fuckheads have bubbled to the surface in the past four years...because Trump gave them permission to be brazen.
And speaking of Trump, this quote has nothing to do with him:
"...the only thing that matters in this life is that men behave with honor."
Here's another reminder that Matthew Carr knows something about women and love:
"...you know what love can do when it turns rancid."
This is apparently slang for a Lesbian, though I couldn't find confirmation of that anywhere online: bujarrona.
And this is the final paragraph of the book...and the only time I ever stopped and thought, "Well, that could have been handled better."
"Mendoza nodded gravely and said that he would he happy to make them sing again. He watched her leave and then moved lightly across the vast square, tapping his stick, with his black cloak trailing behind, scanning the arches and nooks and crannies in search of vice and crime as the cathedral bells rang out in celebration and the fragment of an old poem flashed through his head—“Do not be late, for I am dying, jailer / Do not be late, for I am dying”—and another voice answered back, in time with the bells, Not yet, not yet."
If I'd been the editor...or a friend of Matthew Carr's who read the novel pre-publication (and hey, Matthew, if you're listening...🤙), I'd have told him the cut those last lines...the ones I faded out here. They're just too heavy handed. Much better to end on a little sexy double entendre (the tuning of her strings) and trailing off.
But that's a very tiny gripe. This was a wonderful book, and I think lots of people should read it as soon as possible.
Day Eighty- Nine (DDRD 951): June 9, 2020
Read to page 80.
Day Ninety (DDRD 952): June 10, 2020
Read to page 90.
Day Ninety- One (DDRD 953): June 11, 2020
Read to page 100.
Day Ninety-Two (DDRD 954): June 12, 2020
Read to page 110.
Day Ninety-Three (DDRD 955): June 13, 2020
Read to page 120. The most interesting thing in today's reading was a reference to El Escorial, and the caption underneath an illustration of the palace:
It made me stop and think about the idea of a man pretty much never leaving a building for 40 years. It did look pretty big, though. So I had to look into that. And? Well. According to Wikipedia, El Escorial is about 735 feet by 502 feet...and according to another website, that put it at a total of 330,000 square feet. Yowza. That's like over two hundred copies of my house joined together. I can see why you might be okay with never leaving that. Shit, you could get your daily steps in just by waling the floor a few times.
Man, I wish I had been a King. Of course, Philip II also had a lot of problems, so he wasn't able to enjoy the fruits of his position as much as an able-bodied monarch would have.
Day Ninety-Four (DDRD 956): June 14, 2020
Read to page 130.
Day Ninety-Five (DDRD 957): June 15, 2020
Read to page 140.
Day Ninety-Six (DDRD 958): June 16, 2020
Read to page 150.
Day Ninety-Seven (DDRD 959): June 17, 2020
Read to page 160. The Moriscos are still popping up every once in awhile, which I still find fascinating. Some of the information in today's ten pages seemed to indicate that they presented a pretty real danger to Spain, and the implication was that their expulsion was not so much a matter of religious bigotry as it was fear of Spain being undermined from within and then conquered from without by Moslem forces. Which certainly is a different story. Funny, because if that had been clear from the get-go, I don't know that I'd have been as interested in their plight. But now I seem to have a hook in me, so my Morisco journey continues.
BTW, on the next page after this illustration - 157 - the Moriscos are described as "indefatigable walkers, travellers, and intermediaries." So there's that.
In other news, a few days ago there were several references to the young age of Philip II's third wife, Elisabeth of Valois, so I finally got around to checking out the specifics on that. And? Well, sir. I do not approve. She was born 2 April 1545, and married Philip II in 1559. So she was at most (depending on the day of the marriage, which I didn't find on Wikipedia) 14 years old. (There was a reference to the marriage being a result of The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, which occurred on April 3, 1559, so I guess she was just barely 14, then.) And the poor girl died when she was only 23. Sheesh. It's pretty rare for me to feel sorry for rich people and / or monarchs, but in this case it sure looks like she got the shitty end of the stick.
Day Ninety-Eight (DDRD 960): June 18, 2020
Read to page 170.
Day Ninety-Nine (DDRD 961): June 19, 2020
Read to page 180.
Day 🎆One Hundred🎆 (DDRD 962): June 20, 2020
Read to page 190. There was a caption on the picture facing page 184 which made reference to the Battle of Lepanto as "the most spectacular military event in the Mediterranean during the entire 16th century." Yowza. I'd never heard of it before I saw it in this book.
What else don't I know? Guess I'd better live another twenty or thirty years and find out.
Day One Hundred and One (DDRD 963): June 21, 2020
Read to page 200. A pretty exciting description of the aforementioned Battle of Lepanto. I can't help but think that it would make for a terrific movie if you had a big enough budget to do it right.
Day One Hundred and Two (DDRD 964): June 22, 2020
Read to page 210. Also, I have to say that I had no idea how much time Christians spent trying to destroy the Moslems. Which is pretty fucking ungrateful, since clearly the Moslem world made vast contributions to the evolution of the Western world.
Day One Hundred and Three (DDRD 965): June 23, 2020
So hey, get this: Miguel de Cervantes was not only at the Battle of Lepanto...he was seriously wounded in it. In fact, he lost the use of his left hand in the battle. Hmpf.
Read to page 220.
Day One Hundred and Four (DDRD 966): June 24, 2020
Read to page 230.
Day One Hundred and Five (DDRD 967): June 25, 2020
Speaking of...this Don John guy who keeps popping up seems pretty interesting. Check out this bit from page 231 referencing a letter from the king, I think:
"...he will give me news of what is already past history and instructions on how to prevent a disaster which has already taken place."
Read to page 240.
Day One Hundred and Six (DDRD 968): June 26, 2020
Read to page 250.
Oh, man. Only 32 days until 🎆💥DDRD 1000💥🎆!
Day One Hundred and Seven (DDRD 969): June 27, 2020
An Ode to Hari Seldon:
"...historians have persistently overestimated the power of individuals pages." (259-260)
Read to page 260.
Day One Hundred and Eight (DDRD 970): June 28, 2020
Read to page 270.
Day One Hundred and Nine (DDRD 971): June 29, 2020
Read to page 280.
Day One Hundred and Ten (DDRD 972): June 30, 2020
Read to page 290.
Day One Hundred and Eleven (DDRD 973): July 1, 2020
Read to page 300. There was an interesting painting of Philip II mounted on a cow...which was being fed by Queen Elizabeth. You can't make this shit up.
It's editing time.
So I took it from
(If you're so inclined, you can see my work...or see if it "took"...at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queen_Elizabeth_I_Feeds_the_Dutch_Cow.png.)
I wasn't sure about the Flemish school identification...couldn't find that term associated with Philip Moro in my quick look around. But I'm guessing that that wasn't up there haphazardly, so I'm not going to fuck with it.
But there you go.
No, no...thank you.
Day One Hundred and Twelve (DDRD 974): July 2, 2020
Read to page 310.
Day One Hundred and Thirteen (DDRD 975): July 3, 2020
Read to page 320. Realized I only had two pages of endnotes left, and it's kind of distracting to keep flipping back and forth--and, to be honest, most of them are not worth your time--so I went ahead and finished them off, too. Then I was checking to see what else I had left and started reading the Conclusion--pages 330 to 337, and ended up reading that. Which meant that all I had left was 321 to 329 and Sources and Index...which is a pretty big chunk, actually: 395 to 517...but the readable part of it pretty much ends on 415, and I'll probably just quick eyeball the rest of it. So with that it mind, I thought, maybe I'll just go back and finish the test today and then I'll have maybe two days' left for the other stuff?
Sounds like a plan. Now let's see if I have the energy to do that.
And? Yep, I did that. Finished text, notes, and figures. Just sources and index to go!
Day One Hundred and Fourteen (DDRD 976):
🎆🎆🎆🎆July 4, 2020🎆🎆🎆🎆
Read from page 395 to page 406. Only 10 more text-ish pages to go now. Speaking of, I was really blown away seeing how much work Fernand Braudel did to write this book--travelling to many different cities and reading thousands of letters, records, etc. Reading about that made you wonder how anyone could ever write a book like this. There was also a touch of that Braudel humor in one of the notes:
Pretty sure this wasn't actually meant as humor, but I thought it was high-larious.
So I think tomorrow is it, then. I am going to have a look at the listing of sources...and even the Index...but that's not exactly the kind of stuff you can read read. So that's the plan. We'll see if it works out that way.
But if it does...that leaves me 23 days until DRD 1000. So I'm wanting a book that weighs in around 230 pages. So This Happened in My Presence is just about perfect. And most everything else is too long. (And Ian D. Rotherham's Peat and Peat Cutting is too short...but thinking about that book makes me smile, so it might have to be the first book of the second millennium.)
Day One Hundred and Fifteen (DDRD 977): July 5, 2020
Did it. And there was actually some fun to be hand in those last ten pages. Such as this bit:
And this:
"...the famous letters of Buspecq, the Imperial ambassador to Suleiman's court, I read in the French edition...Paris, 1748, 3 volumes." And he goes on to recommend a good English translation.
Also, I often dictate my notes into my phone and put them up as Only Me posts on Facebook...saving myself the time of trying to copy the details. This gets a little tricky with foreign words, so this is how my dictation came out on the above: "The famous letters of b u s p e c q, the Imperial ambassador to suleyman's court, I read in the French Edition, let raise do about wrong gay bluespec, attitude of a day for Eeyore, Paris, 1748, three volumes." (I really didn't have the energy to go back and see what the underlined portion of that was supposed to say, but I don't think we really need to know, do we?)
Braudel also made reference to Per Olof von Törne's Don Juan d'Autriche et les projets de conquête de l'Angleterre as " a beautifully written work of remarkable erudition...." I spent at least 30 minutes making the rounds to try to find this book in English, but all for naught. In fact, I could barely find any reference to Per Olof von Törne at all. Yet another famous and intelligent person who has slipped through the hands of history, I guess.
And with that...my reading of the last volume of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II comes to an end, my friends. It was worth doing, for sure...and it was most certainly a beautiful book, so hats off to the Folio Society for that. I would definitely recommend it to you...so long as you're okay with being bored for a bit, because there were certainly long stretches wherein I was just slogging through the pages. I would (as I am pretty sure I've done before) recommend reading this before you read any other Fernand Braudel, however, because I think some of its deficits would be obscured by his charm. That was less true for me, because I'd already been charmed so much more by him in Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, which is, to be honest, a far superior work. It would be like watching Woody Allen's Annie Hall, then going back to watch Bananas. It'd be hard to appreciate the latter because the former was far, far superior. Oh...is it still okay to like Woody Allen's movies? If not, sorry about that.
As for me...onward to the next book for Daily Devotional Reading Day 978 tomorrow. Be there or be ▢.
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