Another week that felt like will never end later, I'm sitting here trying to focus on the positive. It shouldn't be that way but it's been getting harder and harder to write about the good things in life. Music is one of them but you don't want me to write love letters to bands all the damn time, or whine about concerts I missed, records I can't find or whatever else band related that seems to bother me that week. Maybe that one Metallica shirt I can't find anywhere...
Art is one of those positives as well but I learned by now that people that don't share my passion hardly even understand it...
So how about a little bit about my weekend instead? If you're looking for a drunken story full of regrets you're in the wrong place. I spent the weekend in museums. Open night at the museums is one of my favorite summer events. I go every year, just to see the same things over again and sometimes new things. One of them being the ''a town beneath today's town''. It's amazing, in the cellar of a palace, it's called Princely palace, there's an exhibition, the largest presentation so far of the Roman Celeia *Celeia is the former Roman name of our town*. You can walk amongst the remains of Roman walls which are amazing to look at as is. This towns history is so vibrant and so rich. The earliest settlment here was actually from 9th to 6th century B.C. At the time it was Celtic tribes, we've got remains such as jewelry, coins, pots and dishes. It's always fascinating to see that in person. To know how old this town really is. To just imagine who all was walking here before you.
And then in the 15th century B.C. came the kingdom of Noricum and Celeia within it scope was annexed to the Roman state. At the time of the Emperor Claudius Celeia was one of the first in the province to acquire the status of an independent town, a ''municipium'' if you will. The next two centuries represented the time of the town's biggest flourishing and growth. There's records suggesting that in that time the town was big, largely populated, and secured with walls and towers which some remains you can actually see today. There were also multi storied marble palaces, wide streets and squares. The nickname for the city was ''little Troy'' or ''Troia secunda'' which means second Troy. Aparently we also had a temple of Mars which was known all over the Empire. These are the details even I didn't know and it's always interesting to learn new things. Specially when it's a part of your own history since it's been happening in your hometown. The once huge Roman province took a turn for the worse in the 6th century when the town became much smaller and it's hardly even mentioned any more.
There's one more thing left of the Roman Empire, my favorite and I hear it's one of a kind in the world. A Paved Roman street, a part of it closed a part of it open allowing you to actually walk on it. If you look close enough you can see different types of marks on the stone, wheels, horses, wear from people walking. It really is something special.
There is also a tiny bit of natural history displayed, with some animals, skulls, fossils, mostly bears, skin, paw molds, claws, skelleton. Must be because we have so many bears here. I made sure to ask how the bears died. I was asured they all died of natural causes. Thank god. I'd have a serious problem with the fact that those animals were slaughtered and displayed in a museum. If that was the case that is...
Then you've got 2 floors of nothing but the Counts of Celje who were the most influential late medieval noble dynasty on the territory of present day Slovenia. In simple words, big thugs. There was a time, a shorter period then we'd want, where the Counts owned more then 20 castles all over the country *as it is now anyways*. But not only here but beyond our borders too, with the marriages of their daughters. That's how they acquired large estates in Hungary, Croatia and Slavonia. As their influence rose they became the most powerful family in the area. Count Ulrich I was a leader to so called mercenary soldiers and he joined king Louis I of Hungary on his quest into Dalmatia and later Rex Romanorum Charles IV to his coronation in Rome. Ulrich's son married Anna of Poland. And all of the counts were related by marriage with the rulers of Bosnia and both Hungarian and Polish kings.
The rise of the family continiued when in a Battle of Nicopolis Count Hermann II saved king Sigismund of Hungary's life. As a reward the king donated many estates and an entire city and county in Croatia to the family. Then there was also an alliance with the imperial house of Luxembourg with the marriage of Barbara, Hermann's daughter. And later when the very same Sigismund was elected as king of the Romans he elevated the Counts of Cilli to the rank of Princes of the Holy Roman Empire though they kept their title ''grof'' meaning Count.
Unfortunally this is not a story with a happy ending. If it was then my town would be the capital of Slovenia today if not the capital of entire Europe. Maybe. With the death of John Hunyadi, Ulrich the second got his title as the Captain General of Hungary. But then he was killed by Hunyad's son in Belgrade. Legend goes that his high maiden saw a black raven before Ulrich went to battle. She begged him not to go because the raven means danger, tradgedy, death. He didn't listen and he left anyway, then aparently the very same raven was why he died, during the battle he saw a raven and while looking at it he got stabbed and killed. Unfortunally he had no children so the male line of the Counts died and after the war their estates and property were handed over to the Habsburgs based on the inheritance agreement. The rest was either ruined or stolen, unfortunally very little was left or recovered, most artifacts are replica's as well.
But what's a story about Counts without romance? The story about Friderik and Veronika. Honestly forget Romeo and Juliet because this...This is worse. They were married, she was his second wife but because the marriage was unwanted Veronika was hunted. She was actually the first woman on trial for being acused of being a witch in Slovenia. She was pardoned but still murdered. Her and Friderik married a year after his first wife died in ''misterious circumstances'' legend goes that he was the one that killed her because he was so madly in love with Veronika and this was the only way for them to be together. Which only helped with the cold relationship he had with his father at that point. Veronika was ''below him''. Lower class, unworthy if you will. Friderik's father was furious, he said he tarnished their reputation because he had other plans with his son.
As a punishment he built a tower on their castle grounds and locked him up inside that tower. And while he was locked away, his fathers people were hunting down Veronika, who was hiding in the woods for a while and then in a different castle. When she was finally brought back Herman acused her of trying to poison him and that she used witchcraft to make his son go crazy and marry her. She had a good spokesman that helped her prove that none of it was real, though she was still taken to yet another castle where she was killed, by being drowned in a bath tub.
Though Friderik was later released because of Ulrich's death that doesn't make this story any less tragic. To love so deeply and to lose so much. Devastating.
The second museum of the night is a few hundred meters away, located in the building also known as Old Count's mansion. Beautiful building. You can see both art and cultural history in the rooms of the first floor. And then on the second is something known as the ''Celje Ceiling''. It's an amazing painting from the 16th and 17th century, painted in simple tempera on canvas it's divided in 11 parts, the biggest in the center, is made with pillars, drawing perspective upwards, making it seem like it's rising up in the sky. The longer sides are showing the four seasons and the short ones are picturing the battle of the Romans and the Troyans while the corners have 4 giants. The author is sadly unknown but they do know that he used both sketches as well as models for this piece. Taking a proper picture is impossible, on my phone at least. But I tried...
There's a hall in this room with this ceiling, with a ton of chairs so you can sit down and stare as long as you please, there's also two insanely comfy couches in the center. There are very few things in this town that I love more then lying there and just getting lost in the painting. I said it before if we'd have Starbucks I'd be over twice a week, bribing the staff with coffee to let me lie there for 30 minutes before the museum opens op, and just relax.
The exhibition also includes private items of a Miss Alma Karlin. Now she was a badass lady. A writer, a poet, a world traveler. She studied languages in London, learning English, French, Latin, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Russian, and Spanish. Later on in life she also learned Persian, Chinese, and Japanese. She really was an amazing woman, she opened up a language school to make money for her travels, working up to ten hours a day and she was the only woman that traveled alone around the world before the 1920's. In 1928 she came home as per request of her dying mother, herself also battling with sickness and depression, she didn't travel again after that, she focused on her writing then, though a lot of her work is still stored in archives, unpublished, some in Slovenia and some in Berlin. What's really fascinating is that my aunt actually told me she remembers seeing her walking around in town. Amazing.
The exhibition also includes paintings by her best friend, plenty of works include Alma herself.
The exhibition ends with Renaissance room with furniture and paintings, which goes on to another room with a mix of Renaissance and Baroque, and later on just Baroque. Some pieces are really incredible, like a wooden wardrobe, lined with ivory and tortoise shell. The late Baroque and Rococo and later on even Biedermeier show in furniture and so many portraits one even of Sisi. There's also a ton of delicately crafted clocks, china, miniatures, religious statues, you know the works. And the very last room is dedicated to historicism.
There's that. I suppose I can't wait to museum night 2018, by then maybe the new permanent exhibition which is in the works for way too long now will be finished. They're planning on opening a couple more rooms in the Princely's palace where they'd put all the skulls and some more artifacts of the Counts on display. Which reminds me, completly unrelated but the room with the amazing ceiling also has another ''piece'' a human skin belt. Neatly rolled into a circle. I was always both amazed and disgusted by it.
So what's a museum night if it doesn't end with a drink? Obviously it was a rather good weekend. Here's to hoping that the week goes on in that spirit. It's looking bleak but hey it's only Monday.
Museums are located in the city of Celje, in Slovenia. These are all permanent exhibitions, so if y'all are around you can go check them out as well. If you made it this far, congrats, thank you, enjoy your weekend and stay safe out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment