The Forge Beneath Etna

The Forge of Vulcan, ca. 1660, Luca Giordano

Beneath Etna’s ancient slopes
Burned the hidden forge of
    Hephaestus,
Divine smith of gods and
    heroes,
Where bronze-skinned
    Cyclopes
Toiled without end.

Amid rivers of living fire
And showers of blazing sparks,
The weapons of heaven were
    wrought
Upon anvils older than time.

Each trembling of the
    mountain,
The ringing of immortal
    hammers;
Each torrent of flame,
The breath of the eternal
    furnace
Breaking forth into the
    world of men.

Upcoming Art Exhibitions in New York City (2026–2027)

The Temptation and Fall of Eve, 1808, William Blake

For readers planning a visit to New York City, the following exhibitions promise an exceptional opportunity to experience some of the finest works of European art, history, and culture.

The Morgan Library & Museum

• Rembrandt’s Lions: Art and Exile in the Dutch Republic
  October 23, 2026 – January 31, 2027
• Fantasy and Reality: The Art of Johan Tobias Sergel
  October 30, 2026 – January 31, 2027
• Graphic Devotions: Late Medieval European Blockbooks
  November 6, 2026 – May 16, 2027
• William Blake: Paradise Lost
  February 26 – May 23, 2027

Madonna and Child, ca. 1470-75, Andrea della Robbia

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Rediscovering Della Robbia at The Met
  August 10, 2026 – January 17, 2028
• A King’s Carpet: Louis XIV and the Savonnerie
  September 8, 2026 – March 5, 2028

Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross,
ca. 1475, Francesco di Giorgio

The Frick Collection

• Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500
  October 15, 2026 – January 18, 2027

Institute For the Study of the Ancient World

• Cursed! The Power of Magic in the Ancient World
  September 17, 2026 – December 13, 2026

The Discipline of Joy

El Jaleo, 1882, John Singer Sargent

Last week I found myself at a small tapas bar. A carafe of sangría roja rested on the table while the sound of a Spanish guitar filled the room. Before long, a gracile flamenco dancer, arrayed in traditional Andalusian dress, emerged, her movements alternating between quiet restraint and fiery intensity, accompanied by rhythmic clapping and song.

As I watched, I found myself unexpectedly transported back to high school, when I was dating a young Valencian señorita named Gavi. It was she who first introduced me to flamenco, a tradition that I came to admire for its passion, elegance, and tragic beauty. Hearing those familiar rhythms again brought back more than memories of youth. They reminded me that certain places, sounds, and customs remain with us long after the years have passed.

The evening also reminded me that there is nothing contradictory about enjoying such moments while believing that life demands discipline, sacrifice, and courage. Too often we are presented with a false choice. Either we surrender ourselves to comfort, entertainment, and endless pleasure, or we become dour ascetics who regard every earthly delight with suspicion. Neither vision strikes me as complete.

A man should be capable of delighting in beauty without becoming enslaved to it. He should appreciate good wine, fine music, lively conversation, and the company of friends, not because they are life’s highest purpose, but because they are among its genuine goods. To enjoy them gratefully while remaining inwardly free is a mark of maturity rather than indulgence.

The older Mediterranean ideal understood this well. It expected a man to cultivate both fortitude and refinement, to bear hardship without complaint while never losing his appreciation for art, hospitality, and the simple pleasures that make civilization worth preserving. Such a man does not flee the tragic dimension of life, nor does he allow it to extinguish his joy. He accepts both.

Perhaps that is why flamenco seemed so fitting. It is passionate without affectation, exuberant without frivolity. Beneath its beauty lies struggle, longing, pride, and endurance. It does not pretend suffering does not exist; it transforms it into something noble.

I left with no grand revelation, only a gentle reminder that strength need not be joyless, and that gratitude for life’s fleeting beauties is entirely compatible with an awareness of its hardships. Indeed, it may be one of the surest signs that a man has learned not merely to endure life, but to live it well.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 29th, Feast of San Lupo di Troyes

Excerpt from The Monarchy and its Attributes by Juan Vázquez de Mella

Juan Vásquez de Mella y Fanjul
(8 June 1861—26 February 1928)

Revolutionary fever may indeed seize the soul and the social body, stirring up deceptive hallucinations in the mind and rebellious appetites in the subjugated will; yet, floating triumphantly above this deluge of error, the holy ark of the Church will bear safely all the great principles of civilization—and, consequently, the Christian Monarchy, through whose ministry that civilization was established in Europe and spread throughout the world. Let sophistries and theories arise in anger, inverting the terms of pagan Caesarism—placing within the collective, as an inalienable right, what the latter fixed as a power inherent in the person of Caesar—and the result will always be the same: under the sovereignty of the people no less than under the sovereignty of Caesar, tyranny merely changes its name and its seat. Yet even if its nature changes—whether through corrupt courtiers who bind the sovereign’s will to their own whims or through representatives who substitute their own will for the supposed will of the people—despotism, whether descending from above or ascending from below, will always cause justice to groan beneath its iron heel.

Thus, when the fever breaks and the waters recede to their original channel, the Christian Monarchy re-emerges from the revolutionary sands like a green oasis; beneath its luxuriant foliage, those who have survived the simoom and the storm may renew their shattered strength and withered health.

Translation by the editor. Excerpt from "La Monarquía y Sus Atributos—Cristiana, Personal," El Correo Español, 6 de enero de 1894; published in Juan Vásquez de Mella, Textos de Doctrina Política, Preliminary Study, Selections and Notes by Rafael Gambra, Madrid, 1953, p.42.

Feast of St. Dominic at St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey

The Timeless Rhythms of the Heavens

A European (skull) mount of a buck,
 recalling the Buck Moon and the
ancient symbolism of renewal

Udremo a notte le sue lunghe muggia, udremo la voce sua di toro;
sorgerà il grido della sua lussuria
udremo nei silenzi della luna.

At night we will hear his long bellows, we will hear his voice like a bull’s;
the cry of his lust will rise;
we will hear it in the silences of the moon.
~ Gabriele D’Annunzio, Il Cervo

July has always seemed to me the most haunted month of summer. The sun still reigns over the earth by day, but the nights grow deeper and more mysterious, as though the heavens themselves were preparing for autumn’s long descent into darkness.

The month has already offered several quiet spectacles. On July 11th, Mars appeared beside the waning Moon and the ancient stars of the Pleiades in the predawn sky, an austere conjunction that recalled the firmament's timeless order. A few evenings later, on July 16th and 17th, brilliant Venus drew close to the slender crescent Moon in the western sky, creating one of the month’s most beautiful pairings before slipping back into the gathering darkness.

Yet some of July’s greatest mysteries still lie ahead.

Between the nights of July 28th and 30th, the Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower will send ghostly streaks of light across the southern sky. Less brilliant than the famous Perseids, these meteors possess a gentler beauty, appearing like silent embers cast from some unseen celestial fire.

Then, on the night of July 29th, the full Buck Moon will rise.

Named for the season when the stag regrows his antlers, the Buck Moon has long been associated with strength, renewal, and the untamed wilderness. Other traditions know it as the Thunder Moon, the Hay Moon, or the Mead Moon, preserving memories of storms, harvests, and ancient midsummer feasts.

For Christians, the symbolism runs even deeper. The moon has long represented the Blessed Virgin Mary, reflecting not her own light but that of her Divine Son. The stag likewise recalls Christ, who tramples the serpent beneath His feet and leads the faithful toward the sacred waters of eternal life. The annual shedding and renewal of the stag’s antlers has long served as an allegory of resurrection and new life.

As the month draws toward its close, keep watch upon the night sky. Watch for the silent fall of meteors, and when the Buck Moon rises above the horizon, remember the poets who found voices in its silence.

Luna d’argiento, lass’ ’o sunnà,
vaselo ’nfronte, nun ’o sceta…

Silver moon, let him dream,
kiss his brow, do not wake him…
~ Salvatore Di Giacomo, Luna Nova

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 27th, Feast of San Pantaleone

Remembering Her Imperial and Royal Highness Luisa Maria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Archduchess of Austria

Photo courtesy of the Grand
Ducal House of Tuscany

Today, we commemorate the birthday of Her Imperial and Royal Highness Luisa Maria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Archduchess of Austria. Born a Princess of Naples and Sicily on 27 July 1773, she was the daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily (later Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies) and Queen Maria Carolina of Austria. Through her marriage to Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, she became Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Archduchess of Austria. As consort during the upheavals of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, and as the mother of the future Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, she holds an enduring place in the history of the Grand Ducal House of Tuscany.

On this anniversary of her birth, let us remember Her Imperial and Royal Highness with gratitude and pray for the repose of her soul.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Photo of the Week: Terpsichore, Muse of Dance, Playing a Lyre, Vatican Museums

Marble sculpture of Terpsichore, Muse of Dance, playing a lyre,
1st century A.D., Vatican Museums. Photo by New York Scugnizzo

New Book — The Neapolitan Enlightenment: Science, Medicine, and the Exchange of Knowledge

A forthcoming title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at Amazon.com

• The Neapolitan Enlightenment: Science, Medicine, and the Exchange of Knowledge by Donato Verardi

Publisher: Anthem Press
Pub. Date: November 3, 2026
Hardcover: $110.00
Language: English
Pages: 250

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New Kindle Edition — The Two Sicilies in the Americas

A new title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at Amazon.com

• The Two Sicilies in the Americas by Lucio Militano

Publisher: Editoriale il Giglio
Pub. Date: July 14, 2026
Kindle: $6.00
Language: English
File size: 5.2 MB

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Requiem Mass at the Pontifical Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in East Harlem, New York

Andrés Segovia and the Mediterranean Soul

Andrés Segovia (1893-1987)

A recent conversation about classical guitar led me back to Andrés Segovia. The discussion began with music, but it soon wandered elsewhere. The more I thought about Segovia, the more he seemed to embody something larger than Spain alone.

Born in Andalusia, Andrés Segovia was formed by a Mediterranean civilization shaped over millennia—a world forged by Rome, Catholicism, regional memory, and the enduring belief that beauty possesses moral and civilizing power. Southern Spain and Southern Italy shared centuries of intertwined history. Even their musical traditions developed with striking similarities: lyrical melancholy, devotional piety, folk memory, and a profound attachment to locality.

Segovia understood the guitar not as a fashionable instrument, but as something noble and worthy of the highest artistic tradition. Before him, the guitar was still widely regarded as popular or folkloric. Through discipline and mastery, he elevated the guitar to unprecedented prominence in the concert hall and transformed it into a vehicle for serious art. In this sense, his work recalls the older southern Italian efforts to preserve inherited forms against the flattening pressures of modernity.

Southern Italy possessed its own rich tradition of plucked-string music: the mandolins of Naples, the chitarra battente of Calabria, and the legacy of great composers such as Mauro Giuliani and Ferdinando Carulli. Like Giuliani and Carulli, Segovia treated the instrument with reverence rather than novelty, seeking depth, restraint, and spiritual seriousness over spectacle.

Listening to Segovia today, one hears more than technical mastery. One hears the lingering voice of an older Mediterranean world, whose ideals of beauty, discipline, and reverence have not entirely vanished. For that reason, Segovia belongs not only to Spain, but to the enduring Mediterranean soul.

~ By Giovanni Di Napoli, July 24th, Feasts of the Blessed Martyrs of Daimiel, the Blessed Carmelite Martyrs of Guadalajara, Blessed Maria Mercedes, and Blessed Xavier Bordas

Graziella

Graziella, 1879, Jules-Joseph Lefebvre

Graziella gave her heart to a young stranger from a distant land.
While mending her grandfather’s net beneath the shadow of Vesuvius,
Their love blossomed beside the sea.
Yet fate proved stronger than youthful devotion,
And the day came when her beloved was compelled to depart.
Left alone upon the shore, she waited in hope and sorrow,
Her gaze fixed upon the horizon that would never return him.
At last, hope yielded to grief,
And she withered like a flower upon the Siren’s Bay

New Book — Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: When the Sicilies Were Two

A new title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at Amazon.com

• Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: When the Sicilies Were Two by Antonio Garrisi

Publisher: Independently published
Pub. Date: February 21, 2025
Hardcover: $28.00
Softcover: $18.00
Kindle: $3.00
Language: English
Pages: 118

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Celebrating the Feast of Santa Maria Maddalena

Santa Maria Maddalena, ora pro nobis

On Wednesday evening, a few close friends and I celebrated the Feast of Santa Maria Maddalena. We began, as every Christian feast should, at Holy Mass before gathering afterward for dinner at a small Spanish restaurant.

For many, Santa Maria Maddalena is best remembered for her conversion and unwavering devotion to Christ. For me, she is one of my personal patrons, reminding me that no past is beyond God’s mercy and that even the most wayward soul may be transformed through prayer, penance, and grace.

The evening itself was simple, filled with good food, good wine, and the company of dear friends. While far removed from her ascetic life, it was nevertheless an opportunity to honor our glorious patroness, to reflect upon her example, and to give thanks for the grace that continually calls each of us to conversion. Evviva Santa Maria Maddalena!

~ BY Giovanni di Napoli, July 23rd, Feasts of St. Apollinaris and St. Liborius

Pulpo a Féira

Chorizos Al Infierno

Arroz Caldoso

The Ghosts That Remain

Pessoa drinking wine in a tavern, 1929

“What we see is not what we see, but what we are.” ~ Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Fernando Pessoa once viewed the world from the western edge of Europe through the lens of saudade, the uniquely Portuguese longing for what has been lost or can never fully be regained. Although his reflections were deeply personal rather than historical, they resonate in lands where successive civilizations have left their mark.

In this, I find an unexpected kinship with Southern Italy.

The Mezzogiorno is a land where history is never entirely past. The temples of Magna Graecia, Roman roads, Byzantine churches, Norman towers, Aragonese castles, and Bourbon palaces remind us that political power fades, while civilizations leave behind something more enduring than kingdoms. One does not merely study history there; one walks through it.

Perhaps this is why I find Pessoa’s reflections so compelling. Both Portugal and Southern Italy know what it means to inherit greatness. Their storied landscapes are inhabited not only by monuments, but by the ghosts of the civilizations that created them. Those ghosts still speak to anyone willing to listen.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 23rd, Feasts of Saints Apollinaris and Liborius

Why I Won’t Be Reviewing The Odyssey (2026)

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, 1829, J.M.W. Turner

Several friends were genuinely surprised when I told them I had absolutely no interest in seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026). Given my lifelong love of mythology, fantasy, and science fiction, they assumed it would be at the top of my list. In a saner age, they would probably be right.

Unfortunately, we no longer live in that world. We live in a cultural landscape that gave us The Rings of Power, where beloved myths are routinely stripped of their spirit and rebuilt according to modern ideological fashions. I have too much love and respect for Homer to spend my time or money on what appears to be another exercise in the same destructive impulse.

The casting choices and costume design were enough to make me skeptical from the beginning. However, reports that the film embraces modern dialogue and contemporary political framing removed any lingering curiosity. I do not need to see it to know it is not the Odyssey I want.

What surprised me most is how much faith people place in Christopher Nolan. Apparently, his name alone is enough to draw audiences into theaters. I confess I do not understand the reverence. Of his thirteen feature films, I have only seen Dunkirk (2017) and the Dark Knight trilogy. None left much of an impression on me. I considered watching Oppenheimer (2023), but never got around to it, and I remain in no hurry.

I also have no interest in participating in the endless online culture war surrounding this film.

I’d rather revisit films that still understand wonder without apology: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), Clash of the Titans (1981), Excalibur (1981), and Conan the Barbarian (1982). Those films remain magical because they approached myth with reverence, imagination, and sincerity. They invited audiences into legendary worlds rather than dragging those worlds into the fashions and preoccupations of the present.

As for new releases, the only films I am genuinely looking forward to this year are I Play Rocky (2026), Godzilla Minus Zero (2026), and Robert Eggers’ Werwulf (2026).

There will be no review of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey here. Some films are simply not worth three hours of my life.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 22nd, Feast Day of Santa Maria Maddalena

Greetings from the Gates of Hell

A friend recently sent me a photograph of Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell at the Musée Rodin in Paris. While celebrating her birthday abroad, knowing how much I admire Rodin, she paused and sent it to me with the simple message, “Wish you were here.”

For a brief moment, I wondered whether she meant Paris or the Gates of Hell.

The Wilderness Within

The Penitent Magdalen, ca. 1640,
by Georges de la Tour (1593-1652)

Beáta Maríæ Magdaléna, quǽsumus, Dómine, suffrágiis adjuvémur: cujus précibus exorátus, quatriduánum fratrem Lázarum vivum ab inferis resuscitásti: Qui vivis et regnas, cum Deo Patre in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum.*

Since my reversion, few saints have remained as constant a companion as Santa Maria Maddalena. Whenever I think of her, I am reminded that every Christian must one day pass through a wilderness of his own.

It is not only her unwavering love for Christ that draws me to her, but what she has come to symbolize: the quiet work of God’s grace in the soul. In her, we are reminded that true transformation is born not of noise, distraction, or ceaseless activity, but of silence, prayer, and fidelity to God.

Her wilderness was more than a refuge; it was an inner desert. There, stripped of vanity and distraction, we encounter ourselves as we truly are. The interior life is not an escape from the world, but a place where we are quietly prepared to return to it rightly ordered.

Ernst Jünger wrote of the “forest passage” as an inward withdrawal from the pressures to conform in modern society. Christianity has long known a far older passage. There, freedom is found not merely in resisting the spirit of the age, but in surrendering oneself to the transforming power of God’s grace.

In a world that prizes constant motion and endless distraction, the Maddalena remains a quiet rebuke. She reminds us that the deepest battles are fought in the hidden places of the heart, and that the wilderness within is where the soul is gradually conformed to Christ.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 21st, Feast Day of San Lorenzo of Brindisi

* May we be assisted, O Lord, we beseech Thee, by the intercession of blessed Mary Magdalen, for whom, moved by her prayers, Thou didst bring back her brother Lazarus, then dead for four days, alive from the grave. Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.

The Southern Italian Origins of the Vita Eremitica

The Ascension of Mary Magdalene, by
Tilman Riemenschneider (1460–1531)

Among the many traditions surrounding St. Mary Magdalene, few are as intriguing as her vita eremitica, the belief that she spent the final years of her life as a hermit devoted to prayer, fasting, and contemplation.

Although the New Testament says nothing about her life after the Resurrection, an anonymous medieval work known as the Vita eremitica Beatae Mariae Magdalenae profoundly shaped the image of the Magdalene as one of Christianity’s great contemplatives. Modern scholars believe this text was composed in the early ninth century in the monasteries of Southern Italy, where Greek and Latin monastic traditions converged in a remarkable synthesis that left an enduring mark on medieval Christian culture. Drawing heavily upon the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, it presents Mary Magdalene not simply as the first witness of the Resurrection, but as a woman transformed through solitude, asceticism, and union with the Godhead.

Its influence was immense. Many of its themes were later reflected in Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, while its portrayal of Mary Magdalene as the long-haired penitent who retreated to the wilds of Provence inspired generations of medieval and Renaissance artists.

As the legend spread across medieval Europe, it took on new forms. In Provence, Mary Magdalene came to be associated with the cave of Sainte-Baume, where she was believed to have lived as a hermit. In the Italian Alps, she appears in folklore as the Magdalena Selvadega, the “Wild Magdalene.” Naked, clothed only by her long hair, and living apart from society, she became a mysterious figure of forests and mountains, preserving echoes of the vita eremitica while absorbing elements of local folklore.

Devotion to Mary Magdalene found renewed favor in Southern Italy under the Angevin dynasty, whose close ties to Provence, one of the principal centers of her medieval cult, helped foster devotion to the saint throughout the Kingdom of Naples. Thus, a tradition first shaped in the monasteries of the Mezzogiorno continued to flourish under Angevin patronage, reinforcing the dynasty’s prestige and legitimacy.

Though far removed from the biblical narrative, these traditions testify to the enduring fascination with Mary Magdalene as the saint who left the world behind in search of God. They also illustrate that one of the most influential chapters in her medieval legend was first written in Southern Italy, long a crossroads of the Byzantine East and Latin West.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 15th, Feast of Santa Rosalia

Happy Birthday S.A.R. Don Sixto Enrique de Borbon

July 22, Birthday of S.A.R. Don Sixto Enrique de Borbon and Bourbon Busset (Pau, 1940), Duke of Aranjuez, Standard Bearer of Tradition.

Born on his mother's name day, Doña Magdalena de Borbón Busset (+1984), Duchess of Parma, last legitimate Queen of Spain.

Depicted in the image next to his august father and predecessor, S.M.C. Don Javier I (+1977).

In Memoriam: Burro

 A chess set, brought back from Naples by my dear friend Burro. More than
a souvenir, it remains a cherished reminder of a friendship that helped
shape my life. Every game recalls a brother now greatly missed

Today I remember my dear friend, Burro, who was more like a brother than a friend. Though fifteen years have passed, I still find myself recalling the countless adventures, misadventures, and unforgettable moments we shared. We laughed often, explored widely, and accumulated enough stories for several lifetimes.

Above all, Burro was a devoted husband and loving father to a son and a daughter, whom he cherished beyond measure. That is the legacy that mattered most to him.

In many ways, this blog exists because of the conversations we had, the places we went, and the memories we made together. His friendship helped shape the person I became, and his absence has never truly left me.

Requiescat in pace, my brother. Every time I set those chess pieces upon the board, I think of you. You are remembered, deeply missed, and never forgotten.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 20th, Feasts of Santa Margherita di Antiochia and Sant’Elia

New Music — Alessandro Scarlatti: Cantate Da Camera Vol. 2

New music that may be of interest to our readers.

• Alessandro Scarlatti: Cantate Da Camera Vol. 2, performed by Emmanuelle De Negri and Philippe Grisvard

Label: Audax
Release Date: June 2, 2026
Audio CD: $22.01
Number of Discs: 1

Available at Amazon.com

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Ninth Sunday After Pentecost at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Jersey City, New Jersey

La Furia Roja: A Worthy Champion

Congratulations to Spain on a well-deserved 1-0 victory over Argentina in the World Cup Final.

As a Napoli club-over-country supporter, and with Italy shamefully absent from the tournament anyway, I came into this match as a genuine neutral. With a soft spot for both teams, I had no preference as to who lifted the trophy. More than anything, I simply hoped for a final befitting the occasion and decided by quality rather than controversy.

After a tournament in which officiating decisions and needless drama too often overshadowed the football itself, it was refreshing to see the world’s greatest prize settled on the pitch. Spain proved the stronger side on the day, defending with discipline and taking their chance when it mattered most. Argentina, for their part, fought until the final whistle and can leave the tournament with their heads held high after another remarkable campaign.

In the end, football was the real winner. Spain are worthy world champions.