Another day at the Biblioteca Estense, perhaps not quite so exciting, but a bit of consolidation nonetheless. It’s just so exhilarating to walk into the Palazzo dei Musei, a truly beautiful building, that it would be hard to be disappointed even if the research was a bust.

I found out more about the murder, which was distressing in the detail, but (if I’m honest) had a touch of A Fish Called Wanda about it, in that they tried three or four times to do the poor girl in before they were successful. They being a Ferrarese nobleman and his servant, apparently acting under the influence of the nobleman’s “femina” (I suppose, mistress?) who is reported to have been Very Old, i.e. 45 years. It also has a touch of Bones in there, too, as it looks like the Princess Lucrezia ordered a clandestine post mortem and had the body exhumed in the dead of night from its tomb in the cathedral to establish cause of death. How cool is that?

Plus I found a list of the ducal support for Corpus Domini, and blimey, they got through a lot of food. 200 eggs at a time, pounds and pounds of fish and veal (although not during lent), figs, eels, pears, you name it – or not, there is stuff I’ve never heard of. They were seriously, seriously rich for a mendicant order. And I now know that everyone hated the Bishop Fontana of Ferrara. But I’m a bit bored of endless chronicles, so I might get started at the Archivio di Stato tomorrow, which will stand me in good stead for when I come back next month. That way I know I will hit the ground running in the second stint.

I am really looking forward to staying in Modena, for once. The train is easy and relatively cheap, but it would be nice just to roll out of bed and into the sala di consultazione. It seems like such a cool town. When I was in San Severo, much further down south, a couple of years ago for a conference on nuns, everywhere – and I mean everywhere – had pictures of Padre Pio, on the wall, in windows, on banners, posters, whatever. In Modena, however, they have different priorities. OK, Padre Pio does look a lot like the legendary bass, Feodor Chaliapin, but Luciano is the real deal. The poster says, “Grazie, maestro.” Aw.

But here I am, back in Parma for another meal, this time at the Trattoria Corrieri. Time for tris di tortelli, which is a triple combination of spinach, mushroom and pumpkin pasta parcels. The pumpkin tortelli have more citrus to them here than those in Ferrara and Mantua, which is great, but I miss the sage on top, ubiquitous in those cities further east. The insalata mista was right on the money, though, with only winter leaves – lambs lettuce, baby radicchio, rocket. Their sharpness was perfect to cut through the pint of butter on the pasta.

One more whole day, then an extra half day before I start the long trek back. I almost feel like I’m on information overload, but at least I know that I have now have my own story to tell about these wonderful ladies.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Musica Secreta, Musicology, Sacred Hearts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.