Unless you’ve had beeswax stuffed in your ears (à la Odysseus with the Sirens) over the past months, then you’ll no doubt be aware that the release of Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is close upon us. From fresh translations by Emily Wilson and Daniel Mendelsohn to Uberto Pasolini’s adaptation of the poem’s second half in The Return, Homer’s Odyssey must be blushing at all its renewed attention. The Hollywood hype of Christopher Nolan’s name is surely set to make his adaptation of The Odyssey the culmination of this oh-so modish endeavour of revisiting the ancient Greek epic. But we at The Florentine can’t have all the limelight be stolen by this GREEK poem. In fact, it is fair to say that Florence has in its own way shaped the history of The Odyssey, the very idea of it, with the result that today’s city bears traces of their interaction. So, here are some Odyssean amuse-bouches Florence has to offer that may whet the appetite before the release of Nolan’s film later this week.
Bust at the Uffizi
To begin with the man himself: Homer. Go to the Uffizi, stand face-to-face with him, and behold his shaggy yet seraphic bust. It is absolutely fitting that this should be passed down to us with no idea who the sculptor might be or whether it is actually Homer at all. It bespeaks rather nicely that debate in classical scholarship called the Homeric Question. Are The Iliad and The Odyssey the oeuvre of a single man named Homer or are they some palimpsestic product of countless renditions by different bards from an oral and preliterate culture? While the latter view represents something close to a scholarly consensus, there’s no denying the nebulous mystique of the figure of Homer in today’s culture, something of which you get just a little flavour when looking at this grey marble portrait.
Manuscript at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
Illustrations of episodes from The Odyssey are the bread and butter in this relationship between Florence and the poem. Of these, the Ulysses on the Isle of Phaeacians of Paul Peter Rubens in the Palazzo Pitti is the most signal. It feels like Odysseus and Nausicaa just happen to be in the foreground as the opening of Odyssey Book VI is dwarfed by Rubens’ own pretensions. Indeed, so lightly does this painting wear its source text that it was catalogued merely as a landscape of the city of Cadiz in the 1677 inventory of the Duc de Richelieu’s collection.
Painting at Palazzo Pitti + cassoni at Museo Stibbert
Illustrations of episodes from The Odyssey are the bread and butter in this relationship between Florence and the poem. Of these, the Ulysses on the Isle of Phaeacians of Paul Peter Rubens in the Palazzo Pitti is the most signal. It feels like Odysseus and Nausicaa just happen to be in the foreground as the opening of Odyssey Book VI is dwarfed by Rubens’ own pretensions. Indeed, so lightly does this painting wear its source text that it was catalogued merely as a landscape of the city of Cadiz in the 1677 inventory of the Duc de Richelieu’s collection.
But if Rubenesque grandeur and the mainstream Palazzo Pitti are not to your tastes, then take yourself up north of the city centre to the leafy Montughi hill and to the oft-overlooked Museo Stibbert. From its collections through to the architecture, this place is a veritable hodgepodge; the villa itself is in the neo-Gothic style, while the gardens are in the fashion of an English-style park in which stand mocks of both a Hellenistic and an Egyptian temple. The collection inside is just as diverse. Who would have thought that in one place you could get Japanese samurai armour mixed in with your more traditional (or should I say Florentine) Botticellis or a Brueghel the Youngers? In any case, if you can shut out the noise from these cultural clashes, find the two cassoni on which there are painted scenes from The Odyssey. The first is a replica by a, let’s say, not so gifted admirer of the Florentine painter Apollonio di Giovanni. Nonetheless, clear to see are the events of Books IX and X from the poem as you can make out from the inscriptions of the dramatis personae ‘VLISE’ and ‘POLYPHEMO’ as well as the array of exotic animals in the right foreground, a telltale sign that this Renaissance painter is depicting the hall of Circe in the Roman tradition that has Odysseus’ companions transformed into lions, wolves and asses. In the second we have Bernardo di Stefano Roselli’s thoroughly contemporary take on the Trojan Horse (yes, this is a tale from The Odyssey and NOT The Iliad). Just as Roselli has dragged his Odyssey kicking and screaming into his 15th-century Florence, shunning the all’antica style by dressing his Greek soldiers in pantaloons and bonnet hats, so do we await how Nolan is going to receive this timeless epic and embellish it with his own filmic flourishes.
And there it is: a small odyssey of your own to wander on through Florence. It is no surprise that this city, this jewel of the Renaissance, enjoys such a dialogue with Homer’s poem. Indeed, I am certain that in some roundabout way we have it to thank for The Odyssey craze we have on our hands today. The Renaissance’s restitution of this text to its worthy place of cultural primacy, and the synonymity of that period with the city of Florence are dots that are not so hard to connect. And so, whether it is in anticipation of the film or not, it is worth taking the time to visit just one of these pieces to witness how Florence pays homage to this great text of western literature.
Cinemas + showing times for The Odyssey in Florence this weekend
Giunti Odeon: Friday 21:00; Saturday 21:00; Sunday 21:00 (all English with Italian subtitles)
Cinema Principe: Friday 16:30, 17:30, 20:00, 21:00; Saturday 16:30, 17:30, 20:00, 21:00; Sunday 16:30, 17:30, 20:00, 21:00 (all Italian)
Cinema Il Portico: Friday 17:00 (Italian), 19:00 (English), 20:10 (Italian); Saturday 17:00 (Italian), 19:30 (English), 20:10 (Italian); Sunday 17:00 (Italian), 19:30 (Italian), 20:10 (English)
Cinema Multisala Fiamma: Friday 16:30, 20:00, 21:00; Saturday 16:30, 20:00, 21:00; Sunday 16:30, 20:00, 21:00 (all Italian)
Cinema Fiorella: Friday 16:00, 18:00, 21:15; Saturday 16:00, 18:00, 21:15; Sunday 16:00, 18:00, 21:15 (all Italian)
Cinema Marconi: Friday 16:30, 17:30, 20:00, 21:00; Saturday 16:30, 17:30, 20:00, 21:00; Sunday 16:30, 17:30, 20:00, 21:00 (all Italian)
