Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Five Wounds


Venetian ladies washing & bleaching their hair on the rooftops of their palazzi while cherubs cavort high in the sky with a mystical representation of the Five Wounds (of the crucified Christ) under a Cardinal's hat. And the Five Wounds emblem-thingy (a Sacred Heart in gold, if truth be told, from which a chandelier-chain can be observed hanging) enabled the Cardinal who decorated this place in the 16th century to justify (or mollify) the sensuousness of his ceiling.