Witches: brutal, religious Matthew Hopkins

Being a good Christian kept a person safe because he/she was guarant­eed a place in Heaven. However at some stage Christianity came under threat from an invisible force. Starting among the educated elite, then spreading quickly, the idea emerged that evil witches were acting in secret to endanger Christian souls.

In 1597 King James VI of Scotland released his successful book, Daemonologie, which explored the areas of witchcraft and dem­onic magic. The kingdoms of Scotland & England were united in 1603 when King James moved south and became King James I of Eng­l­and. He had Parliament pass the Witchcraft Statute of 1604, making witchcraft a crime punishable by death. This led to a heightened public anxiety about witches that quietly grew in the decades that followed, worsened by similar fears in Europe.

In the book’s frontispiece, Matthew Hopkins stood in the room with two old women sitting on either side,  and animals identified as their familiars. Image credit

King Charles I (1600-49) first created the Long Parliament in Nov 1640, not long after the dissolution of the Short Parliament. It was Charles' practice to have women accused of witchcraft brought before him, and in most cases, he concluded that they were old or mentally unbalanced. Eventually he gave them money and sent them home.

John Stearne (1610–70) was a land owner and not a lawyer, but he received a warrant from the Long Parliament to flush out witches. Matthew Hopkins (c1620-47) was from Little Wenham Suf­folk. There is not much information on Hopkins before he began his witch hunter career in 1644, but he WAS brought up in a strict­, Puritanical household.  A poor or failed lawyer, Hop­kins improved his trifling salary with the opp­ortunities that witch-hunting offered in his early 20s. Within the political and religious chaos that reigned throughout the turbulent period of the English Civil Wars (1642-51), the rule of law and order broke down.

At first John Stearne made the principal accusations, and Hopkins, who he met in Manningtree Essex in 1644, was appointed as the assistant. Hopkins had overheard 6 women inside his own property, Thorn Inn in Mistley, women who were discussing their meetings with the Devil. Hopkins got vill­ag­ers to hire him and his two paid ass­ist­ants to search out witches, get their confessions and have the authorities hang them. In Mar 1645, the arrests and trials of Rebecca West and Anne West her mother, Elizabeth Clarke, Elizabeth Gooding, Anne Leach and Hellen Clarke followed.

Records show that Hopkins was also given an official commission by the Long Parliament and received payment from the government to prosecute witches. Hopkins and Stearne became known as "professional" witch-finders. Of the next 23 women they tried as witches, four died in prison and 19 were later convicted and hanged.

Before long, Hopkins’ zeal had surpassed Stearne’s, and he became the leader, assuming the title of Witch-finder Gen­eral in 1645. In the chaos of the Civil War and with the lack of app­oint­ed court judges, torture was accepted. Hopkins, Stearne and their associates trav­el­led the villages and towns of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk & Huntingdon where, within a year or more, there were c250 people accused of witchcraft. c100 of those were hanged. These cases, including a few Anglican clergymen, were called The Hopkins' Trials.

Witches queue up to kiss the devil's arse. Image credit

Witch-hunting was meant to be a judicial process, so torture was illegal. Yet many of his methods of inquisition used by Hopkins were very close to torture and were taken directly from King James’ best seller Daemonologie.

Hopkins used many methods to examine and torture:
A] He prevented women from sleeping, walking them around endlessly without shoes on. Once their feet blistered, it led to a quicker confession.

B] Witches fed their accompanying familiars/animals with their own blood. So by keeping the witch under guard, this ensured that their familiars would not be able to feed. He concentrated on the familiars at night because it was at night that witches frightened the townsfolk.

C] Hopkins pricked any skin deformity on the acc­us­ed that was thought to be an extra mole for suckling imps, determining if the woman pos­sessed the Devil’s mark. Lady Pickers cut the woman’s arms with a needle or pin, and if she did not bleed, she was said to be a witch.

D] The Water Test involved dropping the accused into water, because a witch, having denied baptism, would be repel­led by the water. Hopkins’ infamous Swimming Test involved binding the arms and legs of the accused to a chair before throwing her into the vil­lage pond. If she sank and drowned, she would be innocent and received into heaven; if she floated and survived, she would then be tried as a witch. 

Thus the women drowned if they were not witches, and were hanged or burned if they were!!

Burning of the witches. Image credit

In his booklet, Discovery of Witches 1647, Hopkins described his mission in life, how to detect witches and how to punish them. Af­ter Hopkins' writing, Stearne published a document describing Hopkins’ cases and their witch-hunting mission. The Hopkins-Stearne team was the driving force in England in the mid 1640s.

Conclusion
Hopkins’ favourite method of interrogation once torture was by illegal in England was swimming where the woman was bound and thrown into a pond. If she floated she was deemed a witch who rejected the waters of baptism; if she sank and drowned, then she was innocent. Yet Hopkins’ ongoing motivation for hunting witches was unclear. 

Matthew Hopkins supervised the Essex witch trials

University of Essex Library

Hopkins profited financially from the trials, but was this his primary motivation? Hopkins had not possessed property, was not well educated, lacked good ancestry and had no military experience or community power. Perhaps he was just relishing in his newly found power. Perhaps he hated women.

Some accounts say Hopkins drowned undergoing his own Water Trial, after being accused of witchcraft himself. Hopkins actually died after an illness in 1647. Just a few decades later (1684), the very last execution for witchcraft in England took place in Exeter.

The witches of Salem in the USA were hanged in 1692. Was it Matthew Hopkins who inspired New England witch hunters?

King James VI ridding Scotland of witches.

The evidence. 

A witch kissed the arse of the Devil

Witch-hunting plagued Europe, as soon as the idea that witches worshipped the devil took hold. Read an excellent book, Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters by Julian Goodare ed, 2013. In Scotland, this was common by the late 1500s. Locals talked about Satan’s ability to raise storms, kill livestock and spread deadly illness. Satan tried to undermine human society from within and was recruiting se­cret agents i.e witches to do his bidding. So Satan’s agents had to be eradicated, for the sake of the kingdom.

Scotland was not alone in falling victim to witchcraft panics; Bur­g­undy, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia all endured out­breaks of witch panic. Burning witches alive was common in Ger­many and other parts of Europe in the late C16th and the early C17th. Note in Scotland the convicted were usually strangled first.

After the Reformation split Europe into Protestant and Catholic in the C16th, both sides worried about witches. But during this period of religious reform, Protestant rulers were most com­m­itted. Witch-hunting was virtually an ext­ension of the Protestant Reformat­ion as parish ministers and government authorities sought to create a “godly state” in which everyone worshipped correctly; sin was wiped out; and disorder prevented.

Scot­land’s witch hunts were frequent. From 1590, intense pan­ics erupted in Scotland: 1590-91, 1597, 1628-1631, 1649-1650 and 1661-62. As a result, c2,500 accused witches out of a popul­at­ion of a million people were executed, mostly wom­en - 5 times the average European execution rate!

Scottish Parliament criminalised witchcraft in 1563, just be­f­ore King James VI's birth. Nearly 30 years passed before the first major witchcraft panic arose in 1590, when King James and his Danish Queen were personally targeted by wit­ches. These enemies conjured dangerous storms to try to kill the royals during their North Sea voyages.

One of the first accused in this panic was Geillis Dun­can, from Tranent in East Lothian. In the late 1590 her employer accused her and tortured her into a confession in which she named several acc­om­plices. Duncan later retracted her confession, but by then the panic was well under way.

So Scotland’s widespread panics over witches was largely determined by the role of King James VI. He sanctioned witch trials after an alarming confession in 1591 from an accused witch, Agnes Sampson, revealing that 200 wit­ch­es heard the devil preach to them, to plot the king’s ruination. 

  

Torture of the women identified as witches. 
Supervised by King James VI of Scotland

The trial, at Berwick

Capital punishment, by fire

Image credits: History of Scotland

Many witches were put to death. During the North Berwick trials (1590) alone, 100+ people were implicated. The Scottish king pers­onally supervised the torture of witches, whenever he could. 

Six years later another panic broke out. Again witches were reported to be conspiring against King James personally. A woman named Margaret Aitken, Great Witch of Balwearie, claimed a special power to detect other witches, many of whom were put to death on her word alone. This panic halted abruptly when Aitken was exposed as a fraud. This incident embarrassed witch-hunters great­ly, so partly to justify the recent trials, King James published his intellectual treatise, Daemonologie in 1597.

Daemonol­ogie explained how Satan operated in the world. He was the leader of fallen angels who became demons. These dem­ons made pacts with people and granted them powers to work harmful magic. Thus witchcraft was a secret conspiracy between humans and demons, and against this conspir­acy, true Christians’ only hope was to appeal to God.

Consider the wit­ches in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. First performed in 1606, the play was a compliment to the newly crowned King James I and his book Daemonol­ogie.

After the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, King James VI inher­ited her throne and moved south to London as King James I of Eng­land. There was a new religious opponent: militant Catholics. Cath­olic conspiracies threatened his claim on the English throne, in much the same way the North Berwick witches had threatened him in Scotland. After the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Guy Fawkes’ plan to blow up Parliament and kill the king, James turned away from hunt­ing witches in favour of rooting out Catholic conspiracies. 

Even though King James’s attentions shifted, witch­craft fear had already permeated Scottish society, and witch-hunting took place in areas near the centres of state power eg Fife and Lothian. And fear of the devil was at its peak when the state was determined to enforce religious uniformity. 

King James' book Daemonologie, in 1597

Most practical measures to weed out witches were taken by the local leaders of Scottish society, the lairds/local aristocrats and min­is­ters. They formed kirk sessions/parish committees to super­vise the people and to bring them to godliness. Kirk sessions were not criminal courts, but they could arrest and interrogate suspects and pass cases on to the secular authorities. Especially extra­marital sex cases!

The main type of an accused witch was an elderly, crabby female – a woman who irritated her neigh­bours. But once the in­it­ial suspect was tortured to name accomplices, they too could be accused of hav­ing made a pact with the devil. Remember that 85% of the convict­ed witches were wom­en.

Sleep deprivation was the most common method of torture. After 3 days without sleep, the suspect would lose the ability to resist the questioners, and would also start to hallucinate, giving very strange con­fessions. These were not sober accounts of real activ­ities; they were fantasies from terrified women, desperately trying to satisfy their interrogators.

In the late C17th religious pluralism became more acceptable. New scientific ideas undermined the dogmatic certainty about witch­craft. Courts refused to accept confessions that might have been extorted by torture. Witch-hunting became less vital to the state, and there were no more national panics after 1662.

In the small fishing town of Pittenweem in 1704, an event illust­rated what happened when the locals feared witches, but the author­it­ies would no longer ex­ecute them. Four of the women confessed to witch­craft, then retracted their con­fessions. The central auth­or­it­ies in Edinburgh forbade a trial, and the suspects had to be rel­eased. For all the horror of mob justice, the Pittenweem case was among Scotland’s last witch panics.

In 1736, Britain's Parl­iament repealed the old (1563) witchcraft stat­ute. Since then small monuments have been erected in Scotland to witch panic victims, 400 years ago.

Stradivarius' Italian violins: greatest ever?

Violins built by Italian master luthier/stringed instrument maker Antonio St­rad­ivari (1644–1737) have a special mystique in the cl­as­­sical music world. Antonio established a shop in Cremona where  he remained active, all his life. The earliest known Stradiv­arius violin was made in 1666, when the lad was only 22. He may have been an apprentice of Nicolo Amati, grand­­son of C16th violin-maker Andrea Amati. Or he was a woodworker by trade, perhaps expl­ain­ing his genius in design and drafting.

Stadivarius’ interpr­et­ation of violin-design serv­ed as a model for vio­lin makers for 250+ years. In the 1680s, he designed and crafted full-bodied violins with rich phy­s­ical and tonal charact­eristics. Alt­h­ough he cont­in­ued to use Amati’s basic structures, Stradivari eventually felt free to create his own vio­l­in models. His 2 sons joined the family bus­in­ess in c1698 but neither show­ed the same passion as their dad.

Antonio Stradivarius examining an instrument,
1860s, Wfmt

In his 60-year car­eer, Stradivari made c1,200 instruments, most­ly violins plus violas, cellos, guit­ars, mand­ol­ins and harps. He started creating violins in the classic Am­ati style, handed down over the generat­ions. And even by using tra­d­itional tech­n­iques, his skill was impressive eg his Hellier Violin (1679) showed an ab­il­ity to create better than any other maker then.

Stradivari manufactured his best instruments from 1700-25. It was in this era that he designed and perfected his violins, setting the stand­ard for artisans of the future. During his golden period, Stradivari created violins whose sound boxes are unmatched even today. Along with the final redesign of the soundbox, his violins also introduced a unique deep red varnish, black edging, broad edges and wide corners.

c500 of his musical instruments survive today, showing  how he was credited with some de­s­ign innovations that helped bring the violin to its modern form. Stra­d­ivari was consid­ered a master cr­aftsman in his own time and in the decades that fol­lowed, but his reput­at­ion as the best sol­id­­ified in the early C19th, when vio­lin perform­ances shifted to la­rger concert halls, where the better project­ion of the instruments was fully appreciated.

His instruments were sought for both their historical value and visual beauty. Musicians spoke of the C17th and C18th viol­ins’ sound as having special brilliance and depth. But mus­icians are still sear­ching for an explan­at­ion of what made the St­r­ad­ivarius special, viol­ins that were superior to any other instru­m­ent for a unique, brilliant, deep sound.

One suggestion focused on the wood itself. The wood that his viol­ins were made of, mostly spruce and maple trees, grew in the Litt­le Ice Age, a cooling era (c1300-1850) in which Europe was badly hit. Since it would have caused the alpine trees used for the up-facing front of the violin to grow more slowly, leading to den­ser wood and better sound. The re­duced sol­ar output, in normally warmer regions, limited tree-growth. Tree rings were comp­os­ed of a light spongy portion that was pr­oduced in rapid growth in spring, and a dark dense portion prod­uced in autumn and winter. Stradivarius violin wood had a less pro­noun­ced difference between the 2 portions and was denser over­all. The wood’s den­s­ity aff­ec­ted how sound vib­rat­ions travel through, ?explain­ing the high sound quality of his violins.

Thousands of violins were made in the C19th, based on Stradivarius’ model and bearing labels that read Stradivarius. These violins were made as inex­pensive copies of the great C17th-C18th Italian master’s work. Affixing a label with the master’s name was not in­t­ended to deceive the purchaser; at that time the buyer knew he was buying a cheap violin and the label was just a ref­erence. Bet­ter still, copied labels made after 1891 may also have had a coun­try of orig­in printed in English on the label, identific­ation that was requ­ir­ed by U.S rules on imported goods from 1891 on.

Authenticity could only be determined through compar­at­ive study of design, wood characteristics and varnish texture. This expertise was gained through examination of thousands of instruments. But the Smithsonian Institution, as a matter of legal and ethical pol­icy,  does not determine the monet­ary value of musical instruments.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History-NMAH has the 1701 Servais cello made by Stradivarius, famous for its pre­s­ervation and mus­ic­al excellence. It takes its name from the C19th Belgian, Adrien Francois Servais (1807-66), who played this cello. The Her­b­ert Axelrod Strad­iv­ar­ius Quartet of ornamented instruments is al­so housed in the NMAH. Some of his most famous violins created during his golden period include the 1715 Lipinski and the 1716 Messiah. Never sold or giv­en away, the Messiah remained with his maker until his death.

These instrum­ents can be heard in concerts. The Smithsonian Chamber Music Soc­iety's exhibitions, concerts, tours, broadcasts, recordings and educat­ional programs brought the Smithsonian’s priceless collection alive.

Value

Stradivarius originals are very expensive. In 2011 an anonymous buy­er paid $16 mill for the Lady Anne Blunt Violin (1716) named af­t­er a prev­ious owner. Experts cons­id­­er­ed it to be the second best-preserved of Stradivarius’ cr­eat­ions. The best Stradivarius, called The Messiah (1716) in the Ashmolean Museum Ox­ford, was val­ued at $20 mill. The Vieuxtemps Violin was owned by C19th French composer-violin­ist Henri Vieuxtemps. It became one of the most sought after ins­t­ru­ments in 2016, selling for $16 mill. Clearly his viol­ins are still the standard in form, sound and beauty. 

Violin display, Museo Stradivariano Cremona

The Strad

Statue of Antonio Stradivari, Museo Stradivariano Cremona
Stars and Stripes

Today artisans and scientists still try to recreate what can only be the beauty and sound of a Stradivarius instrument. Stradivarius violins and instruments are prized possessions housed in museums and personal collections around the world. At the Museo Stradiv­ar­iano in Cremona/now called Museo del Violino, visitors can see how violins are made. They can also hear a Stradivarius violin played by going to the Palazzo del Comune.

The delicious history of ice cream

I REALLY wanted to buy a beautifully hand painted pair of Coalport porcelain ice pails, c1802. An orange ph­eas­ant with golden wings perched on branches blooming with red and gold flowers. Then see panels of deep cob­alt blue containing swirl­ing gold leaves and flower med­allions. On the top of each lid was a pagoda style cottage next to streams and trees. Imari col­ours of iron red, blue and green, with rich gold covering the scrolled han­dles and the twisted branches, were exotic. These porcelain coolers were trad­it­ionally placed on the din­ing-room side­board, the bottom was filled with ice, then cream & fruit were added. [Most pairs of Georgian ice pails sold for $2,500-10,000, sadly for me].

Coalport porcelain ice pails, c1802,
1stDibs New York

And royal porcel­ain fact­ories like Sèvres near Paris produced ice-cream cups and saucers for shops and homes, as wealthy families joined the ice-cream excitement.

This led to me reading histories of ice-cream, the best being Al­fon­so Lopez who explained that cold treats went back to the ancient wor­ld. Chinese people, for example, en­joy­ed a frozen syr­up. By 400 BC, sharbat was a popular Persian treat, featuring syr­ups made from cher­r­ies, quinces and pom­­e­g­ranates cooled with snow. Thus the mod­ern words sh­er­bet, sorbet and syrup. Alexander the Great enjoyed ices sweet­ened with honey in 330 BC. Roman Emp­eror Nero enjoyed cold fruit juices mixed with honey at his ban­quets.

If icy products first ev­ol­ved in Asia, they may have been introd­uc­ed to Europe by Marco Polo after he arrived home from China in 1295 AD with rec­ip­es for flav­oured ices. Chinese dealers procured ice from cold, mount­ain­ous areas, hand­lers packed it with straw to reduce melting and carried it to urban areas. Finally it was stored in icehouses.

The best known British recipe for ice-cream was pub­lish­ed in LadyAnn Fanshawe in the mid 1660s. Presumably Lady Ann, whose husband Richard was Charles II's ambassador to King Phillip IV’s Spanish court, learnt about iced refreshments at the Madrid court. Her ingredients, mace and orange-flower water, became popular. Fruits and herbs, tea or coffee, honey and crumb­led bis­cuits were also  added.The term ice-cream in English first appeared in May 1671, among other elaborate dishes served at Windsor’s Feast of St George.

Ice cream was exclusively for the upper classes when it arrived in Britain

Dream Scoops

The C17th saw ice drinks being made into frozen desserts. With added sugar, sorbet was created. Antonio Latini (1642-92) was working for a Spanish Viceroy in Naples, and cred­ited with being the first per­son to print a sorbetto recipe. And he was responsible for creating a milk-based sorbet, which most culinary historians call the first official ice-cream. In Nap­l­es, cli­m­ate and culture came together and in 1690 a book on sorb­etti app­eared: New and Quick Ways to Make All Kinds of Sorbets With Ease.

Latini's book, 1694
New and Quick Ways to Make All Kinds of Sorbets with Ease

By the C17th private European estates had ice­houses, then large public icehouses were built in cities. In some cities the ice trade was regulated by the authorities, who set prices & penal­t­ies for illegal sales. Then Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Colt­elli opened a Paris café in 1686, Il Procope. The site became a meet­ing place for noted intellectuals eg Benjamin Frank­lin, Victor Hugo, Napoleon. A perfect com­binat­ion: intell­ec­t­ual soc­ial life and ice-cream! The café introduced gel­ato, the Ital­ian ver­sion of sorbet, to the French public. It was ser­ved in small porc­el­ain bowls resembling egg cups. Thus Procopio became known as the Father of Italian Gelato.

Europe’s growing middle classes discover­ed the pleas­ures of frozen sweets in local shops. Along with sorbetti i.e ices churned during freezing, there were granitas (fruit and ice), and sorbetti con crema (milk added).

An ice-cream recipe book was published in France in 1768: True prin­c­ip­les for freezing refreshments.

Lady of the house, examining the trays of icecream prepared by the household staff.
Valencia 1775

Sorbetiera were Naples street vendors who sold sorbetto. Trav­ellers to Nap­les often remarked on sorb­etto in their scenes of the city’s street life. In 1839 the Count­ess of Bl­essington wrote: The gaiety of the streets of Naples at night was unparall­eled. The ice-shops and cafes were crowded by the beau monde, the portable barr­ows in the streets were surrounded by more ordinary people. Naples alone had  43 legal ice sellers.

Naples street vendor selling sorbetto,

18th century

Al­though the craze soon sp­read to the North American col­onies, it was still an expen­sive lux­ury in the C18th. A New York merchant sh­owed that Pres. George Wash­ington sp­ent c$200 for ice-cream in sum­mer 1790! But the USA was where ice-cream finally became afford­able to the mass­es. In 1843 New Yorker Nancy Johnson in­vented the first hand cranked ice-cream maker that drastically re­duced production time, receiving the first US patent for a small-scale ice-cream freezer. American firms improved on her design and built new mach­ines that lowered production costs. In 1851 Jac­ob Fussell of Baltim­ore Md built the first ice-cream factories!

By mid-C19th, ice-cream saloons were plentiful along New York’s avenues, experimenting with different productions. Parkinson’s on Broadway created pistachio ice-cream. Pat­ent Steam Icecream Saloon, named for its steam-operated freez­ing unit, catered to mid­d­le class women, wives of substantial trades­men, mechanics and art­is­ans. And Salem!

Af­ter America’s Civil War (1861–5), ice-cream’s popularity exp­loded across U.S, with special­ist shops appearing for the middle classes. Their ice-creams, sorbets and sher­berts were still a bit exot­ic: Mrs DA Lincoln produced several edit­ions of pam­phlets, including Frosty Fancies 1898 and Frozen Dainties 1899, pub­lished for the freezer man­ufacturer White Mountain. She used ice-creams made with arrow­root, cornstarch and gelatin, not eggs.

Although American street vendors started selling ice-cream only a few decades after France and the UK, America’s industrial rev­ol­ution had to focus on the re­frigerat­ion issue. So note that in the US, continuous refriger­at­ion became a reality with electrical freezers in 1926.

London ice cream cart

1877

Photo credits: Dream Scoops.

Museo di Capodimonte Naples art in the Louvre Paris

Asserting the importance of collaboration among European mus­eums, Musée du Louvre has formed a fine partnership with Museo di Capod­im­onte for 2023-4. The royal palace, which once served as a hunting lodge for Naples’s Bourbon monarchs, is now one of the largest museums in It­aly, as well as one of the best quality European galleries. Capodimonte is one of the few museums whose collection covers all schools of Italian painting plus a remarkable collection of porcelain. 

The Louvre noted that c60 major masterpieces from Capodimonte are exhibited in three different places in the Louvre: Salon Carré, Gran­de Galerie and Salle Rosa. The Musée du Louvre and the Museo de Capodimonte decided to join forces to mount a special exhib­it­ion show­casing masterpieces from the two museums. This exceptional event is providing a unique insight into Italian art from the C15th-17th and offer a fresh perspective on the two collections.

The_Flagellation_of_Christ by Caravaggio

Capodimonte Museum, 1607

Wiki

The display has 33 paintings from Museo di Capodimonte, some of the great Italian masterpieces. They appeal with the Louvre’s art collect­ion by artists like Titian, Caravag­gio, Annibale Car­racci and Guido Reni, and shed light on Italian schools that are rare in the Louvre, particularly the special Neapolitan school - the dramatic style of Jusepe de Ribera, Francesco Guarino and Mattia Preti.

Exhibition highlights include a poignant painting of The Cruc­if­ix­ion by Masaccio, a major artist of the Florentine Renaissance; the large history painting Transfiguration of Christ by Giovanni Bellini, without equivalent in the Louvre; and three of the finest paintings by Parmigianino, including his famously enigmatic Antea. The display of these works alongside the Louvre’s paintings by Correggio is one of the high points of the exhibition.

The diversity of artworks in the Museo di Capodimonte collection stems from its singular history. Before the unification of Italy with the annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1861, Farnese, Bourbon and Bonaparte-Murat dynasties all contributed significantly to the creation of this impressive collection.

The fabulous loans on show in the Salle de la Chapelle introduce vis­it­ors to the diversity of the Capodimonte collection. They include major paintings as Titian’s Portrait of Pope Paul III and his Grand­sons and El Greco’s Portrait of Giulio Clovio, together with some spectacular scul­ptures and objets d’art. Among the latter are the Farnese casket which, like the golden salt cellar made by Benvenuto Cellini for King François I, is one of the most precious and refined artefacts by Renaissance goldsmiths. And see Filippo Tagliolini’s extraordinary biscuit porcelain group, The Fall of the Giants. The overall display reflects the various golden ages of the Kingdom of Naples.

The department of drawings in the Museo di Capodimonte boasts 30,000+ works of art. Some of these treasures once belonged to the humanist scholar Fulvio Orsini, librarian to the Great Cardinal Alessandro Farn­ese, a grandson of Pope Paul III. Orsini took a revolutionary approach to collecting art and compiled the first collection in the world to in­clude preparatory studies, among which are 4 remarkable cartoons done by Raphael and Michel­an­g­elo, preparatory cartoons for the decorations in the Vatican.

My favourite would be any by Caravaggio but particularly The Flagellation of Christ (1607). This controversial artist created many of the greatest masterpieces of his day, and his command of lighting continued to inform painters for cen­turies. But apart from any single technical skills, it was Carav­aggio’s ability to evoke powerful emotions out of all his art that made his work captivating.

Flagellation of Christ images always frightened me, although I understood that the church encouraged self-flagellation as a means by which the faithful might enter into the suffering of Christ. Caravaggio seemed to reduce the picture space and to make it darker. Despite this, or as a result, his painting presently a reality into the scene, as if the artist was there. Christ was hanging forward, stressing the element of torture and pain.

Judith and Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

1613, Capodimonte Museum Naples

Artemisia Gentileschi was just as brutal in her painting, showing Judith at the moment when she was beheading Holofernes, the blood gushing from the neck of the drunk Assyrian invader, staining the pillow and mattress. Clearly impressed by Caravaggio, Gentileschi depicted Judith drawing her weapon and striking a deadly blow.  I don't believe in capital punishment ever, but these paintings were so powerful, they took my breath away. Merci, Le Louvre!

Wealthy visitors "toured" Bedlam asylum

Note the well dressed tourists in Bedlam

The Rake’s Progress: Scene 8, 

by William Hogarth, 1735 

Sir John Soane’s Museum. 

Originally Bethlehem was founded in 1247 as the Priory of St Mary in Bishopsgate St, just outside the City of London walls. In the next century it was mentioned as a hos­pital in a 1330 license grant­ed to collect alms. Bethlehem (house of bread in Hebrew) was a hospital intended for the poor who were suffering from a] an ail­ment and b] homelessness. Then a report of a Royal Commiss­ion in 1405 confirmed that Bethlehem was to be used partly as an insane asylum.

Bethlehem was popularly shortened to Bedlam. In 1375 Bedlam became a royal hospital and later it reverted to the city. Early in the C16th the word Bedlam was used by Tyndale to mean a madman, so the hos­p­ital was ex­cl­usively used as a lunatic asylum. Over generations, the attitude of Englishmen towards the insane could be easily traced at Bedlam.

In 1674, when the old premises had become unusable, it was decided to build another hospital. It moved a short distance to Moor­fields in 1676, and then to St George's Fields in Southwark which was op­en­ed in 1815 on the site of a notorious tavern. The last location was Monks Orchard in West Wickham in 1930.

Outside inspection had to concern itself with abuses in the manage­ment of Bedlam, and in every century there were several commissions of investigation. As early as 1656, John Evelyn noted in his Diary that he saw poor creatures in Bedlam in chains, in cages.

Visitors in a ward in Bedlam, Date ?

Photo credit: Huffpost

At Moorfields, the buildings were so spectacular from the outside that they were compared to Versailles. But Bedlam’s grand palatial exterior belied the barbaric treatments fac­ed by the insane within. People with dement­ia, schiz­ophrenia, epilepsy, depression and ret­arded learning were subjected to horrendous cruelty and ex­periment­ation by the facility managers aka keepers. With an under­standing of mental health that was very poor, treatments bor­dered on torture.

Not surprisingly Bedlam was racked by scandals. Inmates slept naked on straw in the cold, tormented by sadistic keepers. Manacles, chains, locks and cold baths were part of the treatment in the fac­ility. Patients were often chained up to walls and were some­times starved to death.

Now here is the surprising part of the story. Until 1770, this Pal­ace of Lunatics opened its doors to paying spectators. Visitors could walk freely through the corridors, observing and provoking the patients as if they were animals at a zoo. It became the custom for the idle classes (eg nobility and their friends) to visit Bed­lam and observe the antics of the insane patients as a novel form of amusement. Advert­ising consolidated the place of Bethlem Royal Hospital as one of Georgian London’s tourist hotspot, like the Tower of London. The tourist information openly acknowledged that patients were “often treated like animals”, housed in institutions that were “little more than human zoos”.

Why would tourism at Bedlam have been tolerated and even encourag­ed? And why was provocation allowed? Firstly it was hoped that seeing the “caged, insane animals in cages” would serve as a warning to the sane against vice and behavioural instab­ility. If that worked!

Secondly these visits brought in extra income for Bedlam. One penny was charged for ad­mission into the hosp­ital in order that an annual income of 400 pounds could be real­is­ed. This would mean that nearly 100,000 people visited the hospital in the course of a year.

Thirdly in Prisons, Asylums and the Public (2011), Janet Miron argued that for asylum administrators, encouraging tourism became a way to gain the public's confidence. It discouraged scep­ticism reg­ard­ing treatment and helped address the social stigma surrounding in­sanity. To protect staff work in normal condit­ions, not in the glare of tourism, the limited open hours were printed in the local newspaper. 

Fourthly was a factor that I did not understand: translating the nasty Bedlam realities into entertainment and pleasure. Wild lunatic inmates, far from resembling hum­an beings, proved reassuring. They collapsed the terr­ify­ing reality of "descent into madness" to a sub-human freak. "Just looking" thus became voyeuristic, the spectator cast into the role of the voyeur who relished the spectacle. By dev­el­oping an under­standing of the dark sites in society, they often proved reassuring for the sane, healthy and alive visitor. They rein­forced the visitor’s own sense of wellbeing, both mental and physical. Visiting the asylum would proved to be a form of esc­ap­ism, intended to entertain and titillate.

This form of voyeuristic spectatorship was best expressed in plate 8 of Hogarth’s A Rake's Progress, Bedlam’s best-known representation. Hogarth depicted two fashionable ladies visiting the hospital as a show place, while his Rake, at the end of the Progress, was being fettered by a keeper.

 

Bedlam in Moor­fields 
from 1676.

Bedlam in St George's Fields in Southwark
in the 19th century.

After an Investigation in 1851, the hospital came under regular government inspection and improved its care of the insane. Follow­ing the rise of C19th medical treatment, insanity came in­creasingly to be recognised as a curable disease. It was argued that insanity was caused by the draining of the patient's mental energy. So to recover, the mentally ill needed rest, meaningful empl­oy­ment, appropriate socialisation, good hygiene and kindness.

New asylums for treating insanity were purpose-built. Every element of the buildings, both inside and out, was considered an integral part of treatment. The times when Bedlam-inmates were subjects of horrendous cruelty and experimentation were over.

This new philosophy, treat and cure rather than incarcerate, spread quickly. Throughout the 1800s, institutions opened in large numbers across the Western world. In the later C19th, travellers visited asylums to admire the architecture and grounds, not the cages. Tourists admired the material side effects of the shift toward treatment: beautiful gardens, manicured lawns, inter­esting architecture and elegant proportions that presented a welcoming, healthful face. Some mental health centres adopted the moral treatment philosophy of meaningful work, including gardening.

Gin history, from medicine to community chaos to grand palaces

 The first reference to a spirit flavoured with jenever-juniper was in C13th Flemish manusc­ripts. Bols family distillery op­ened in Amst­erdam in 1575 and by the early 1600s, the Dutch were seriously pro­ducing gin in hundreds of distilleries in Amster­dam alone.

Gin Lane 1751,  by William Hogarth
Tate Britain

Like so many products, gin was originally produced as a medic­ine, distributed by Dutch chemists for the treatment of gout and dys­pep­sia. Consumed in large enough quantit­ies, it pro­b­ab­ly did help ame­l­­iorate the symptoms, albeit temporar­ily. Dutch physicians in the ear­ly 1600s created the drink, mix­ing jun­ip­er berry oil with a sp­ir­it to make medicine more pleasant for pat­ients. And with added botan­icals. In fact it was so palatable that “ill­ness­es” soared as the masses wanted the gin that was only available in pharm­acies.

The invention of the distillation column led to a significant shift in quality and the emergence of the new gin, London Dry style. The smoother taste of the distilled spirit allowed for the botan­ic­als’ aromas to dominate, so many companies developed a wider range of flavourings.

The Thirty Years’ War 1618-48 was significant. When British sol­d­iers were fighting alongside the Dutch, they saw that the Dut­ch­ sol­diers were extremely courageous. This bravery was attrib­uted to the calming effects of the jenever that they sip­ped from small bot­tles hanging from their belts/aka Dutch courage. English sold­iers­ returning home from the war spread the news and the Dutch soon be­gan to export it in their vast shipping fleet.

Distillation of gin in Britain start­ed when King Charles I formed the Worshipful Co. of Distillers in 1638. But traditional gin con­t­in­ued to travel across the Eng­lish Channel to Britain, partic­ularly with Prince William of Orange and his Dutch troops, as noted. When they took the British throne, William & Mary allowed the British to make and sell spir­its, providing they came from home-grown Eng­lish corn. King William eliminated taxation and licencing on local gin, whilst raising taxes on im­ported foreign spirits. Spirit pric­es dr­opped and heavier beer taxes increased the demand for gin; this helped raise the money needed for King William’s exhausting wars.

With water-borne diseas­es preval­ent in large Brit­ish cities, gin be­came the safe drink for the poor in the late C17th-early C18th. 7,000+ spirit shops sprung up around London and gin became the op­ium of common peop­le, and historians thought that by 1720 a quarter of London’s house­holds bottled their own gin! The Gin Craze era was so rem­ark­able that Parl­ia­ment had to pass 5 major legis­lative acts in 22 years, try­ing to limit the gin drinking.

Gin Lane 1751 by William Hogarth depicted soc­ial breakdown suppos­edly caused by gin. He showed the drinking craze of the mid-1700s led to ne­g­­lectful, drunk moth­ers who couldn’t even protect their own chil­­d­ren. Thus gin came to be called Mother’s Ruin! The brew­ing ind­ust­ry had asked Hogarth to illustrate that beer consumption was far healthier than drinking gin.

Largely successful, the Dutch Gin Act 1751 passed and the pas­s­ion for gin finally slowed down in the Netherlands. However in Bri­t­ain lots of fun was still to be had at the Frost Fairs on the fr­ozen River Thames; crowds would gather to find the stalls sell­ing hot gin and ginger­bread! Enterprising Londoners looked to make a quick profit from fairs.

As consumption rose, the British government tried to curb the gr­owing gin-passion by introducing a distil­ler’s licence for an unthinkable price: £50. Pieces of legisl­at­ion were introd­uced in the mid C18th, to legalise licensed retailers and out­law un­lic­en­sed gin shops. Amazingly it happened. Consumption drop­ped and more respectable firms took up distill­at­ion, producing better qu­ality products and joining high society. Yet the Gin Act of 1769 led to days of riots across London in protest; it had gone too far.

The Gin Palace, Dublin
built in the Victorian era, renovated since
designmynight

The Brit­ish Em­p­ire expanded into hot climates; mosquitos carried mal­aria, but the sol­diers and colon­is­ts had lit­tle immunity. As they took over the governance of India, British immigrants faced the rav­ages of malaria. But the British could only pro­t­ect them­sel­ves ag­ainst malaria once quinine was discovered in 1820, even if it tas­ted bitter. A local cure came from the bark of the fever tree which con­t­ained the bitter quinine. To make it more palatable, sugar, lime, ice and gin were added; the G&T was born, the dis­t­inct­ively British col­onial drink. Need­less to say when the troops arrived back in Brit­ain the practice came with them.

Another medical demand on gin occurred in the British Navy. It was believed that Angostura bitters relieved seasickness and as with tonic, the sailors agreed that bitters were a great accompan­iment to the gin. Luckily the navy looked after its officers who were paid a portion of their wage.. in gin. Plus it was found that bitters produc­ed a widely enjoyed pink gin.

In the late 1820s the first Gin Palaces were established for Brit­ain’s gentle­men. They had to be licensed and sell wine, but mostly their lavish bars were selling gin. They were based on the new fas­hionable shops being built then, expensively fitted out with long counters, luxurious furnishings, ornate mirrors, etched glass and gas lights.

After campaigns led by the Prohib­ition Party and the Women’s Chris­tian Temperance Union in U.S, the Volst­ead Act was pass­ed in 1919 banning alcohol consumption. Most cit­iz­ens were unhappy during the 13 years of Proh­ib­ition, so illegal bars mult­ip­l­ied. And gin cock­tails were developed, to disguise the taste of cheap gin. Smuggled al­cohol was insufficient to satisfy dem­and, so many got their own alcohol via moonshine and boot-legging. Bathtub Gin emerged in 1920 when desperate dist­il­lers went underground, using household tools to make cheap spirits.

Bols Distillery, Amsterdam

Artistic gin cocktails
TrendHunter

Cheapside Hoard - London's stunning jewels and gold

 Large Colombian emerald pocket watch, c1600. 

Museum of London.

For 300 years a buried treasure lay below a busy London street. No-one knew the hoard was there till workmen were demolishing a timber-framed building in Cheapside, near St Paul's Cathedral and St Mary-le-Bow.

The busin­ess had stood on the site since the C17th, but the cell­ars were older and lined with brick. The row of hous­es on the south of Cheap­side was owned by the Worshipful Co. of Gold­smiths, form­erly Lond­on’s centre of the manufacture and sale of gold and jewellery under Queen Eliz­abeth I. The shops sold of luxury goods, including jewels.

The location was probably the prem­ises of a Jac­obean gold­smith, and the hoard was thought to have been a jeweller's working stock, buried in the cellar during the En­glish Civil War (1642-6). Gold­smith's Row was dest­royed in 1666’s Great Fire of London then the build­ings were rebuilt by the Goldsmiths' Co soon after.

The workmen started to excavate the cellars with their tools  in 1912, and while they were break­ing up the floor, they noticed glitter in the soil below. They realised that they’d struck the remains of an old wooden casket, and to their immense delight a tangled heap of jewellery, chains and rings, gems and other prec­ious objects fell out. They had uncovered what is now called The Cheapside Hoard, a great cache of early jewellery and one of the most amazing recoveries from British soil.

Gold scent bottle, the bejewelled handle hung from a chain. 

White enamel with milky chalcedony carvings of leaves, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. 

Museum of London.

When the hoard was cleaned, the workmen sold the items to an ant­iques dealer who frequently paid labourers cash for special finds from London building sites. The dealer was appointed by Guildhall Museum to sear­ch for new items for its collection and bec­ame Inspector of Excav­ations for the new London Museum in 1911. NB the Goldsmiths' Co. did not declare ownership of the finds, and no treas­ure trove inquest was held!

Viscount Lewis Harcourt provided the funds for the London Museum Kensington to purchase most of the Hoard in 1912, though some pieces went to the British Museum and the Guildhall Museum, 5 items were bought by the Vict­oria and Albert Museum and 25 pieces by the British Mus­eum. The ent­ire hoard of Elizabethan and early Stuart jew­ellery was brought toget­her for the first time in 100 years for a recent exhibition Cheap­side Hoard: Lon­d­on's Lost Jewels.

The Ch­eapside Hoard was special bec­ause so little jewellery of this era survived, so little information on London’s role in the inter­nat­ional gem trade in an age of global conquest and exploration was available

The hoard in its entirety represents the stock-in-trade of a working goldsmith-jewel­l­er so its presence in Cheapside is highly significant. This street was not only the prin­­cipal artery of the City, its ceremonial route and main shopping st­reet, but was also the hub of the goldsmiths’ trade. The Hoard contained a fine array of 500 dazzling jewels and gemst­ones from many parts of the world. It included topaz and amazonite from Brazil; ruby from Burma; Afghan lapis lazuli; peridot from the Red Sea; Bohemian and Hungarian opal, gar­net and amet­h­yst; sap­phires, diamonds and rub­ies from India; spinel and chrysoberyl from Sri Lanka; pearls from Ba­hrain; turquoise from Egypt and Persia; and Byzantine classical gems which had been in circulation for centuries when the Hoard was buried.

Gold fan holder, white enamel and Colombian emeralds.

Museum London.

This international treasure might have been brought back to England from the East Indies in 1631, perhaps assembled by the Dutch jeweller Gerald Polman. He died en route, and his gem chest was taken by the carp­ent­er's mate on the ship who was eventually forced to surrender the box. The contents went to Ro­bert Bertie 1st Earl Lindsey, Treasurer of the East India Co. (He died at Battle of Edgehill in 1642).

Some of the display cases and portraits pr­ovided further information ab­out the gem trade, or clothing fashions of Elizabethan Eng­land. See the contemporary portraits that provided a great record of how some of the jewels on display were worn. In the por­trait of Countess Elizabeth Wriot­hesley from the National Portrait Gallery, she was wear­ing ruby or garnet earrings, like those found in the hoard. A small red intag­lio stone seal bore the arms of William How­ard 1st Viscount Staff­ord, exactly dating the burial of the hoard between his ennob­lement in Nov 1640 and the Great Fire of Lond­on in 1666 which des­t­royed the area.

Fortunately the cur­at­ors helped visitors see the size and the minute det­ail. First, large and strong magnify­ing glasses have been provided to magnify the objects. Second, around the exhibition are a number of video present­at­ions show­ing how objects were made eg pearl pendants that were worn as earrings or hair pendants. The pend­ant showed highly skilled enamelling and metalsmithing. 

Rose-cut sapphire and diamond cross pendant, enamelled chains. 

Museum of London.

See a clock set in an exquisite, large Colombian emerald crystal dated c1600. The unique round emerald had been hollowed out by the maker to hold a Swiss watch movement, and used the removed material to embellish the metalwork, Green enamel decorates various parts of the watch, for nobility.. Then cont­rast it with the green Elizabethan timepiece with the amethyst cameo of Byz­ant­ine age.

Historians want to know exactly why the Cheapside Hoard was buried and by whom. And why did the owners never return to retrieve it? Nonetheless the exhib­it­ion clarified what was known about the national and inter­nat­ional objects and the research it promoted, revealing much about crafts­manship and wealth in C16th and early C17th London.

The Hoard is not currently on display in the Museum of London. A purpose-built gallery for the permanent display of the Hoard is planned for a new museum in Smithfield, scheduled to open in 2024.

Salamander brooch, gold set with emeralds and diamonds

Museum of London

Many thanks for GIA photos.

From King Charles II to the Glorious Revolution 1688

King Charles II was crowned at Westminster Abbey, 1661.
Wiki

There was a widely-held belief that British Cath­olics were actively plotting the overthrow of church and state, to establish Britain as a satellite state under the control of an all-powerful Catholic monarch.

In the late 1670s, anxieties were raised by the succession issue. King Charles II (1630–85) had no legitimate offspring, meaning the crown would pass to his brother James, Duke of York, who'd converted to Catholicism.

Whig politicians in Parliament, led by Earl Shaftesbury, promoted exclusion bills to prevent James from taking the throne. But the mass petitions and demonstrations deployed by the king’s opponents gradually alienated some initial supporters of exclusion. So it is interesting that in 1677 James attempted to appease Protestants by allowing his daughter, Mary, to marry the Protestant Prince of Orange, William III.

Charles had to bar his brother from succession yet he very nearly lost control of his government, having to allow his Whig supporters to occupy positions of power. Three general elections led to unmanageable parliaments, so Charles sent James into exile. This proved to be unacceptable to the Whigs and when Charles sickened in 1679, civil conflict threatened. So Charles recovered control of his government, earning a nationwide surge of loyalty. He had made another secret treaty with France, counting on a healthy public revenue from them. Reforms at the Treasury provided the crown with firm administrative control, Charles’ most valuable legacy at home.

King James II’s authority appeared to be secure when he succeeded his late brother in Feb 1685. The new king’s initial promises to defend the existing government in church and state reassured many citizens.

King James’ first parliament was dominated by loyal Tories. Parl­iament even voted James considerable emergency sums to suppress the rebellion raised by Charles II’s illegitimate son, Duke of Monmouth in June 1685. James’ soldiers easily crushed Monmouth’s rebels.

Left: Catholic King James II

Centre: James' Protestant daughter, Queen Mary II

Right: James' Protestant son in law, King William III

Initial support for King James ebbed away once it became clear that he wished to secure a] freedom of worship for Catholics and b] removal of the Test and Corporation Acts so that Catholics could occupy public office. In 1686 James suspended the negative provisions of the Test Acts that had previously imposed civil disabil­it­ies on Catholics and non-conformists. The next year the king issued a Declaration of Indulgence, which suspended penal laws against Catholics and granted acceptance of some Protestant dissenters.

In summer 1687, James formally dissolved Parliament. He wanted to begin a purge of corporations, aimed at producing a pliable parl­iam­ent which would agree to James’ wishes. Naturally these measures were increasing opposed by the Anglican-Tory establish­ment.

In May 1688, seven leading Protestant bishops refused to read the king’s Second Declaration of Indulgence in church. So James had them arrested for sedit­ious libel and taken to the Tower of London.

Seven important English peers made contact with the Dutch leader, Prince William of Orange. They wrote to Will­iam and begged him to intervene militarily, especially since James’ Catholic second wife finally became pregnant. The birth of a healthy male Catholic heir in June 1688 dashed hopes that the crown would soon pass to James’  Protestant daughter Mary (1662–94). The seven peers to pledge their support to the prince, IF he invaded against James.

Even before this letter was sent, William’s main reason for interfering in English affairs was to bring Britain into his war against Louis XIV’s France. Clearly William already began making military prep­ar­ations for an invasion of Britain.

In early Nov 1688, one of the greatest invasion fleets in British history was sailing towards the Devon coast. With 40,000 men aboard 463 ships, Prince William of Orange’s Dutch invasion was very ser­ious. This Protestant prince would topple King James II, secure the Ang­lican faith and save Britain from Catholicism.

But William’s pilot steered too far to the west, missing Torbay. The wind was too strong for them to turn back, but the next port was Plymouth, where James had already posted a garrison. Then the breeze changed; the Protestant Wind proved God was clearly on the Protestant side again. So William was able to turn back to Torbay, and by the time he stepped ashore, the quay was crowded with well-wishers and the Glorious Revolution was safely under way.

James’ army, encamped on Hounslow Heath, had more men than William’s. But news of the Prince’s arrival had sparked off waves of anti-Catholic rioting in towns across Britain. Important defections to William followed - the Duke of Marlborough; James’ son-in-law, Prince of Denmark; and James’ nephew. The worst was when James discovered that his daughter, Princess Anne (1665 –1714), had also joined the Orangists.

Having reached Salisbury in Nov, King James announced he was will­ing to agree to William’s main demand - to call a free parliament. However, the king was now convinced that his own life was in danger and prepared to flee the country. In mid Dec, in the wake of renewed anti-Catholic rioting in London, James tried to escape but was captured in Kent. By now William was now looked upon as the only individual capable of restoring order to the country. So in late Dec 1688, James fled the country with William’s collusion.

Before they were offered the crown, William and Mary were presented with the Declaration of Rights document. This affirmed some cons­tit­utional principles eg the prohibition of taxation without parl­iamentary consent and the need for regular parliaments. Pressure from the now-King William III (1689-1702) also ensured the passage in May 1689 of the Toleration Act. William and Mary agreed and formally accepted the joint-throne in 1689.

Parliament gained powers over taxation; the royal succession; appointments; and the right of the crown to wage war independently. Did Queen Mary and King William truly support these limit­ations? Or were they concessions that William paid, in return for parliament’s financial support for his war against France?

Though the Revolution in England was largely peaceful, the Revolution was secured in Ireland & Scotland by force. In both countries the settlements were politically and relig­iously divisive eg Irish Protestants ignored the big peace terms of the Treaty of Limerick (Oct 1691) and established a monopoly over land-ownership and political power.

So the Glorious Revolution was the underpinning of Whig history, propelling Britain towards constitutional monarchy and parliam­entary democracy. But did the Tories, Scots and Irish believe this version of the Revolution?

NB The Act of Union wasn’t until 1707 but I have used the name Britain even before that date.