Laurel

Laurel (pronounced lawruhl or lor-uhl)

(1) A small European evergreen tree, Laurus nobilis, of the laurel family, having dark, glossy green leaves (Known also as the bay tree or sweet bay).

(2) Any tree of the genus Laurus.

(3) In general use, any of various similar trees or shrubs, as the mountain laurel or the great rhododendron.

(4) The foliage of the laurel as an emblem of victory or distinction.

(5) A branch or wreath of laurel foliage.

(6) In the plural (laurels or victory laurels), an award conferred (literally or figuratively) as an honor for achievement in some field or activity.

(7) An English gold coin minted in 1619, so called because the king's head was crowned with laurel.

(8) In many color charts, a green of a darker hue.

(9) To adorn or enwreathe with laurel.

(10) To honor with marks of distinction.

1250–1300: A dissimilated variant of the Middle English laurer (laurel), from the Anglo-Norman, from the twelfth century Old French laurier & lorier (bay tree; laurel tree), the construct being lor (bay) + -ier, from the Medieval Latin laurārius, from the Latin laurus (laurel tree), thought related to the Greek daphne (laurel), probably from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language.  The French suffix -ier was from the Middle French -ier & -er, from the Old French, from the Latin -ārium, the accusative of -ārius.  It was used to form the names of trees, ships, jobs etc.  The second -r- in the Middle English laurer changed to -l- by process of dissimilation.  Laurel is a noun, a proper noun & verb and laureled (also laurelled) & laureling (also laurelling) are verbs; the noun plural is laurels.

Lindsay Lohan fridge magnet by Alexanton.

The use to describe an emblem of victory or of distinction (hence the phrase “to rest on one’s laurels” (the original form was “repose upon”)) which dates from 1831.  The phrase is now mostly used in the cautionary sense “don’t rest on your laurels”, a warning not to rely on a reputation gained through past successes but instead continue to strive and improve.  The companion phrase “look to your laurels” is an idiomatic expression known in Antiquity meaning one need to be vigilant and attentive to your accomplishments, skills or position because there will be those eager to surpass or outshine you.  Like “don’t rest on your laurels”, it stresses the importance of maintaining one’s competitive edge.

Sirens and the Night (1865) by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

Although most associated with women, Laurel is a unisex given name and the feminine variants include Laura, Lauren, Lori, and Lorraine.  It was related also to the German Lorelie.  In several tales from Germanic mythology in which the maiden Lorelei (luring rock), who lives upon a rock in Rhine River, lures fishermen to their deaths by singing songs of such beauty they can’t resist, a variation of the story of Odysseus and the Sirens.  In Greek mythology, Sirens were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, they’d sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the Siren’s island and be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the tales from antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Roman said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae (all places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs).  It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus then ordered them to tie him to the mast.  Sailing past, when he heard their lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and died.

#metoo: Apolo persiguiendo a Dafne (Apollo chasing Daphne (circa 1637)), oil on canvas by Theodoor van Thulden (1606–1669) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The feminine proper name Daphne was from the Greek daphne (laurel, bay tree) and in mythology was the name of a nymph.  Etymologists conclude the word is related to the Latin laurus (laurel) although the mechanism has been lost in time.  In Greek mythology, Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, was a nymph with whom the God Apollo fell in love; he was provoked by Cupid, having disputed with him the power of his darts which Apollo, the recent conqueror of the Python, belittled.  When he pursued her to the banks of the Peneus, she was saved from being ravished by the god who transformed her into a Laurel tree, the origin of Apollo being so often depicted crowned with laurel leaves.  None of the writers from Antiquity seem ever to have pondered whether the nymph, had she been offered the choice between being ravished by a Greek god or being eternally arboreous, might have preferred to permit a slice to be cut from the loaf.  Still, being a sentimental chap, Apollo adopted the laurel as his favorite tree so there’s that.  The site of temples and a stadium, the Grove of Daphne was a pleasure resort of renowned natural beauty, dedicated to Apollo and located near Antioch.

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) in a “laurel leaves” hat designed by Hubert de Givenchy (1927–2018), photograph by Howell Conant (1916–1999), Switzerland, February 1962.

As an adjective, laureate (crowned with laurels as a mark of distinction) dates from the late fourteenth century and the earliest reference was to poets of particular distinction, from the Latin laureatus (crowned with laurel), from laurea (laurel crown; emblematic of victory or distinction in poetry), from the feminine laureus (of laurel).  The first known use of Laureat poete is in Geoffrey Chaucer’s (circa 1344-1400) Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) in reference to Scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), and it was used in Middle English of Greek fabulist Aesop (circa 620–564 BC) and, by the early fifteenth century of Chaucer himself.  In English the inverted form “poet laureate” was in imitation of Latin word order and although used informally since the early 1400s, the evidence suggests the first to be appointed by the state was probably (and perhaps posthumously) Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572–circa 1637) (1638) in 1638 although the first from whom the letters patent remain extant was John Dryden (1631–1700).  In the UK, the position of Poet Laureate is an honorary office in the gift of the monarch but these days, appointed on the advice of the prime minister.  Because many prime-ministers know nothing of poetry, they take advice on the matter.  There was a time when the Poet Laureate was an exalted character but these days there’s less interest and the best remembered is probably still Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) and then less for his verse than the calls by feminists to boycott his works because he had Sylvia Path’s (1932-1963) “blood on his quill”. The noun came into existence in the 1520s, either an evolution from the adjective or through a mistaken reading of poet laureate and laureateship has been in use since 1732.  Laureate is most frequently used of Nobel prize winners, a use that began in 1947.

Blackwing

Blackwing (pronounced blak-wing)

(1) In zoology (mostly ornithology, entomology & ichthyology), a widely used descriptor of birds, insects, certain water-dwellers and the odd bat.

(2) As Blackwing 602, a pencil with a cult following, manufactured by the Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell 1988 to 1994 and by Sanford 1994-1998.  A visually (though not technically) similar pencil has since 2012 been produced by Palomino.

(3) A high-performance V8 engine manufactured by the Cadillac division of General Motors (GM) between 2018-2020.  Cadillac continues to use Blackwing name for the some of its sedans.

1100s (originally of birds, first informally, later in formal taxonomy): The construct was black + wing.  Black (In the sense of the “color”) was from the Middle English blak, black & blake, from the Old English blæc (black, dark (also "ink”)), from the Proto-West Germanic blak, from the Proto-Germanic blakaz (burnt (and related to the Dutch blaken (to burn)), from the Low German blak & black (blackness, black paint, (black) ink), from the Old High German blah (black), which may be from the primitive Indo-European bhleg- (to burn, shine).  The forms may be compared with the Latin flagrāre (to burn), the Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx) (flame) and Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga) (radiance).  Black in this context was “a color” lacking hue and brightness, one which absorbs light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.  In the narrow technical sense, black is an absolute (absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it) but in general use, as a descriptor or color, expressions of graduation or tincture are used, thus the comparative is blacker and the superlative blackest.  The usual synonyms are ebony, sable, inky, sooty, dusky & dark while the antonym is white.  Wing (in the sense used in “flight”) was from the twelfth century Middle English winge & wenge, from the Old Norse vængr (wing of a flying animal, wing of a building), from the Proto-Germanic wēingijaz, from the primitive Indo-European hweh- (to blow (thus the link with “wind”)).  It was cognate with the Old Danish wingæ (wing), the Norwegian & Swedish vinge (wing), the Old Norse vǣngr and the Icelandic vængur (wing).  It replaced the native Middle English fither, from the Old English fiþre, from the Proto-Germanic fiþriją (which merged with the Middle English fether (from the Old English feþer, from the Proto-Germanic feþrō)).  The original use was of birds but this quickly extended to things where a left-right distinction was useful such as architecture, sport and military formations (later extended to organizational structures in air forces).  Blackwing is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is blackwings.  In commercial use, as a registered trademark, an initial capital is used.

Quite why Cadillac (the premium brand of General Motors (GM) since 1909) chose the seemingly improbable “Blackwing” as a name for an engine and later the premium, high-performance versions (the V-Series) of its sedans (a now rare body-style in North America) is said to date to the very origin of the brand, more than a century earlier.  It was to recall the stylized black birds which appeared on the corporate crest first in 1902 (although not widely used until 2005 and trademarked in 1906).  That escutcheon was adopted as a tribute to the French explorer (some are less generous in their descriptions) Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (1658-1730) who in 1701 founded the settlement which became the city of Detroit.

Evolution of the Cadillac Crest: Antoine Laumet's original (and dubious) family crest (top left), A early Cadillac from 1905 (top centre), from a 1960 Coupe DeVille (top right), with the restored laurel wreath on the unfortunate vinyl roof of a 1968's Eldorado (bottom left), a post 2014 version without couronne & merelettes (bottom centre) and the current versions (bottom right), the black & white edition an illuminated badge created to mark the transition to electric propulsion; it's currently available as an option on petrol vehicles.  The illuminated grill badge was a trick long used by the English manufacturer Wolseley (1901-1975). 

Although of bourgeois origin and having departed France surreptitiously after “some unpleasantness”, shortly after arriving in the new world, Antoine Laumet re-invented himself, adopting a title of nobility named after the town of Cadillac in south-west France and in some histories, it wasn’t unusual for him to claim some vague descent from the royal line, a story common among many of Europe’s aristocratic families and his “family crest” was wholly his own invention.  Such things were possible then.  The Cadillac company modified the crest but retained the most distinctive elements: (1) The couronne (crown (from the Old French corone, from the Latin corōna, from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē)) symbolized the six ancient courts of France; (2) The pearls (which appeared in various numbers on both the family & corporate versions) signified a family descended from the royal counts of Toulouse; (3) The shield denoted the military traditions of a noble family, the “warrior symbol” one of the most commonly used in heraldry while (4) The black birds were known as merlettes (an adaptation of the martin), mythical small birds without beaks or feet and never touching the ground, always in flight; they represent a constant striving for excellence, and when presented as a trio, referenced the Holy Trinity and thus a family’s adherence to Christianity.  The merelettes appeared often on the standards flown by knights during the late Medieval Christian Crusades staged to recapture the Holy Land but they didn’t disappear from the Cadillac crest in deference to sensibilities in the Middle East (a market of increasing value to GM).  Like the crown, the black birds were removed in 2000 as a part of a modernization exercise, the aim to achieve something “sharper and sleeker”, the more angular look of the new “Art and Science” philosophy of design.  “Art and Science” was from the class of slogans campaign directors of corporations and political parties adore because they mean nothing in particular while sounding like they must mean something.

A Cadillac Escalade driven by Lindsay Lohan receiving a parking infringement notice (US$70) for obstructing access to a fire hydrant, Los Angeles, September 2011.  The crest’s laurel wreath would remain until 2014 but the merelettes had been removed a decade earlier.

Prestige by association: the badge of the 1971 HQ Holden Statesman de Ville.

Cadillac over the years made may detail changes to the corporate crest and structurally, the most significant addition came in 1963 when an almost enclosing laurel wreath returned (it had been there in 1902 but was gone by 1908, returning for a run between 1916-1925) and it proved the most enduring design thus far, maintained until 2014.  It clearly had some cross-cultural appeal because in 1971 Holden (GM’s now defunct Australian outpost) made a point of issuing a press release informing the country “special permission” had been received from Detroit for them to borrow the wreath to surround the Holden crest on their new HQ Statesman de Ville, a car so special that nowhere on the thing did the word “Holden” appear, the same marketing trick Toyota would three decades on apply to the Lexus.  What has remained constant throughout are the core colors and, according to Cadillac, black against gold symbolizes riches and wisdom; red means boldness and prowess in action; silver denotes purity, virtue, plenty and charity while blue stand for knightly valor.  Behind the and crest, the background is platinum (a high-value metal) and the whole combination is said to have been influenced by Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), a Dutch artist noted for his work with color and geometric shapes.

The elegant black-winged Damselfly, one of dozens of insects, birds, aquatic creatures and the odd bat known as the “black-winged” something.  One of some 150 species of Calopterygidae, the taxonomic name is Calopteryx maculata and the stylish little mosquito muncher is commonly found in North America, its other common name the ebony jewelwing.

Cadillac Blackwing V8.  It was a genuinely impressive piece of engineering but according to Road & Track magazine, Cadillac booked a US$16 million dollar loss against the project.    

Cadillac’s all aluminium Blackwing V8 was designed with an AMG-like specification which would once have seemed exotic to Cadillac owners.  Built in a single basic configuration, it featured a displacement of 4.2 litres (256 cubic inches), double overhead camshafts (DOHC), four valves per cylinder, cross-bolted main bearings and twin, intercooled turbochargers mounted in a “hot-V” arrangement (atop the block, between the cylinder banks) a layout which delivers improved responsiveness but, as BMW found, can bring its own problems.  Intended always to be exclusive to Cadillac’s lines (recalling GM’s divisional structure in happier times) it was in production less than two years because the collapse in demand for the models for which it was intended doomed its future; it was too expensive to produce to be used in other cars.  The early indications had however been hopeful, the initial run of 275 over-subscribed, a slightly detuned version accordingly rushed into production to meet demand.  In 2020, the Blackwood V8 was cancelled.

2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.

Repurposed, Blackwing however lives on at Cadillac, the company in 2021 appending applying the name to exclusive variants of its CT range sedans.  The CT5-V Blackwing is the last survivor of what once was a well-inhabited niche and although clearly an anachronism, demand still exists and although Cadillac has admitted this will be their last V8-powered sedan, in announcing the 2025 range they’ve made it clear the last days will be memorable.  In a nod to history, the company chose Le Mans in France to reveal details of the 2025 V-Series Blackwing “Special Editions”, honoring the “Le Monstre” and “Petit Pataud” Cadillacs which contested the 1950 24 hour endurance classic.  Each of those was a one-off (one especially so) but in 2025 there will be 101 copies of the Blackwing Le Monstre and 50 of the Petit Patauds.  The two are visually similar, the exteriors finished in Magnus Metal Frost matte paint, accented by Stormhawk Blue Carbon Fiber and Royal Blue brake callipers, the blue theme extened to the interior fittings.  Mechanically, the two are essentially stock, the Petit Pataud based on the CT4-V Blackwing powered by a twin-turbo 3.6 liter (223 cubic inch) V6 while the more alluring Le Monstre includes a supercharged 6.2-liter (376 cubic inch) V8.  For those who care about such things, although Mercedes-Benz AMG once offered rear-wheel-drive (RWD) 6.2 litre V8s, the Batwing offers the chance to enjoy the experience with a manual gearbox, something the Germans never did.  The Blackwings are also much cheaper and have about them an appealing brutishness, a quality Stuttgart’s engineers felt compelled to gloss a little.

2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.  Compared with some of the atmospheric interiors in the Cadillacs of old, the Blackwing is disappointingly close to what one finds in a Chevrolet but for a number of reasons, creating something which is both attractive and lawful is not as easy as once it was.  For many, the sight of the stick-shift and a clutch pedal means all is forgiven.

In something which would for most of the second half of the twentieth century have seemed improbable or unthinkable, it’s now possible to buy a Cadillac with a manual gearbox and a clutch pedal but not a Ferrari so configured.  Ferrari by 1976 had begun to flirt with automatic transmissions in their road cars (GM’s famously robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400) but until 2004, Cadillac hadn’t needed clutch pedal assemblies on the assembly lines since the last 1953 Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase “the unpleasantness of 1982”).  However, by the early twenty-first century, the market for the cars Cadillac had perfected was shrinking fast so, noting the success of Mercedes-AMG and the M-Series BMWs, Cadillac entered the fray and the existence of the Chevrolet Corvette’s transmission in the corporate parts bin meant offering a manual gearbox was financially viable in a way it wasn’t for the Germans.  In the same decade, advances in hydraulics and electronics meant the earlier inefficiencies and technical disadvantages attached to automatic transmissions had been overcome to the point where no Ferrari with a manual transmission, however expertly driven, could match their performance and customers agreed, sales of manual cars dwindling until a swansong when the Ferrari California was released in 2008 with expectations some 5-10% of buyers would opt for a clutch pedal.  However between then and late 2011, a mere three were ordered (some sources say two or five but the factory insists it was three).  Ever since, for Maranello, it’s been automatics (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and that wasn’t anything dictatorial; had customer demand existed at a sustainable level, the factory would have continued to supply manual transmissions.  The rarity has however created collectables; on the rare occasions a rare manual version of a usually automatic Ferrari is offered at auction, it attracts attracts a premium and there's now an after-market converting Ferraris to open gate manuals.  It's said to cost up to US$40,000 depending on the model and, predictably, the most highly regarded are those converted using "verified factory parts".  The Cadillac Blackwing offers the nostalgic experience from the factory although the engineers admit there is a slight performance penalty, buyers choosing the manual purely for the pleasure of driving.

Living up to the name: The 1950 Cadillac Le Monstre.

The two cars Cadillacs which in 1950 raced at Le Mans were mechanically similar but visually, could have been from different planets.  The more conventional Petit Pataud was a Series 61 coupe with only minor modification and it gained its nickname (the translation “clumsy puppy” best captures the spirit) because to the French it looked like a lumbering thing but, as its performance in the race would attest, Cadillac’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 (which would grow to 429 cubic inches (7.0 litres) before it wqs retired in 1967) meant it was faster than it looked.  Underneath the second entrant (Le Monstre obviously needing no translation but used in the sense of “monstrosity” rather than “large”) there was also a Series 61 but the body had been replaced by something more obviously aerodynamic although few, then or now would call it “conventionally attractive”.  Although Le Monstre’s seemed very much in the tradition of the “cucumber-shaped” Mercedes-Benz SSKL which had won the 1932 race at Berlin’s unique AVUS circuit, the lines were the result of testing a 1/12 scale wooden model in a wind-tunnel used usually to optimize crop dusters and other slow-flying airplanes.  Presumably that explains the resemblance to a section of an airplane’s wing (a shape designed to encourage lift), something which would have been an issue had higher speeds been attained but even on the long (6 km (3.7 mile)) Mulsanne Straight, there was in 1950 enough power only to achieve around 210 km/h (130) mph although as a drag-reduction exercise it must have contributed to the 22 km/h (13 mph) advantage it enjoyed over Petit Pataud, something Le Monstre’s additional horsepower alone could not have done and, remarkably, even with the minimalist aluminium skin it wasn’t much lighter than the standard-bodied coupe because this was no monocoque; the Cadillac’s chassis was retained and a tube-frame added to support the panels and provide the necessary torsional stiffness.

Le Monstre's 331 cubic inch V8 with its unusual (and possibly unique) five-carburetor induction system.

Some of the additional horsepower came from the novel induction system.  Le Monstre’s V8 was configured with five carburettors, the idea being that by use of progressive throttle-linkages, when ultimate performance wasn’t required the car would run on a single (central) carburettor, the other four summoned on demand and in endurance racing, improved fuel economy can be more valuable than additional power.  That’s essentially how most four-barrel carburettors worked, two venturi usually providing the feed with all four opened only at full throttle and Detroit would later refine the model by applying “méthode Le Monstre” to the triple carburettor systems many used between 1957-1971.  As far as is known, the only time a manufacturer flirted with the idea of a five carburetor engine was Rover which in the early 1960s was experimenting with a 2.5 (153 cubic inch) litre inline five cylinder which was an enlargement of their 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) four.  Fuel-injection was the obvious solution but the systems then were prohibitively expensive (for the market segment Rover was targeting) so the prototypes ended up with two carburettors feeding three cylinders and one the other two, an arrangement as difficult to keep in tune as it sounds.  Rover’s purchase of the aluminium 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V8 abandoned by General Motors (GM) meant the project was abandoned and whatever the cylinder count, mass-produced fuel injection later made any configuration possible.  Five carburettors wasn’t actually the highest count seen in the pre fuel-injection era, Ferrari and Lamborghini both using six (done also by motorcycle manufacturers such as Honda and Benelli) and Moto-Guzzi in the 1950s fielded a 500 cm³ Grand-Prix bike with the memorable component count of 8 cylinders, 4 camshafts, 16 valves & 8 carburetors.  The early prototypes of Daimler’s exquisite V8s (1959-1969) were also built with eight carburettors because the original design was base on a motorcycle power-plant, the reason why they were planned originally as air-cooled units.

Le Monstre ahead of Petit Pataud, Le Mans, 1950.  At the fall of the checkered flag, the positions were reversed. 

Motor racing is an unpredictable business and, despite all the effort lavished on Le Monstre, in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour, it was the less ambitious Petit Pataud which did better, finishing a creditable tenth, the much modified roadster coming eleventh having lost may laps while being dug from the sand after an unfortunate excursion from the track.  Still, the results proved the power and reliability of Cadillac’s V8 and Europe took note: over the next quarter century a whole ecosystem would emerge, crafting high-priced trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined elegant European coachwork with cheap, powerful US V8s, the lucrative fun lasting until the first oil crisis.

Perfection in a pencil: The Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602.  They were not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", were less prone to rolling onto the floor.  

The Blackwing 602 remains fondly remembered by those who admire the perfect simplicity of the pencil.  Produced in the shape of a square ferrule (both pleasant to hold in one’s hand and less susceptible to rolling off the desk), it used a soft, dark graphite blend which required less pressure (the manufacturer claimed half but it’s not clear if this was science or “mere puffery”) to put what was wanted on paper.  To casual users, this may not sound significant but for those for whom pencilling was a full-time task (notably writers and artists), the advantages were considerable and the advertising claim “Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed” must have convinced one target market because the Blackwing 602 was a favourite of stenographers (a profession one of the early victims of the technological changes which have emerged in the wake of the transistor & microprocessor).  The Blackwing 602 was manufactured by Eberhard Faber between 1934-1988, by Faber-Castell (1988-1994) and by Sanford (1994-1998).  In 2012, after buying rights to the name, Palomino being production of a visually similar Blackwing but they didn’t quite replicate the graphite’s recipe.  Original Blackwing 602s are now a collectable and in perfect condition are advertised between US$50-100 although there was one recent outlier sale which benefited from a celebrity provenance.

Pencil porn.

Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees.  There was Lot 275: (Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers”, listed with a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.  The hammer fell at US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.  That’s US$200.00 per pencil, indicating the value of a celebrity connection but whoever set the pre-sale estimate (US$18.75-25.00 per pencil) clearly didn’t check eBay.

Biscione

Biscione (pronounced bisch-sho-nee)

Pre 1100: An Italian word, the construct being bisci(a) (snake) +‎ -one (the augmentative suffix).  Biscione is a masculine augmentative of the Italian feminine noun biscia (grass snake, a corrupted form of the Late Latin & Vulgar Latin bīstia), from bēstia (beast) of unknown origin.  Biscione is a noun; the noun plural biscioni (used in English also as bisciones).

(1) In heraldry, a heraldic device consisting of a large snake “giving birth” to a child through its mouth (not devouring the infant as it may appear).

(2) A surname of Italian origin.

The Biscione is known also as the vipera (viper) and in the Milanese dialect as the bissa.  In heraldry, the symbol is used as a charge (any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon (shield)), over Argent (a tincture of silver which appears usually as a shade of white) and often in Azure (a range of blue).  The snake is depicted in the act of “giving birth” to a human through its mouth and while anatomically improbable, it was doubtless always understood and something symbolic.  Historically, what emerged was depicted as a child but in the more sensitive twentieth century this tended to be blurred into something recognizable merely as “human of no distinct age or gender”.  It has been the emblem of the Italian Visconti family for almost a millennium.

A biscione used by the Visconti family for crests and costs of arms.

The origins of the symbol are obscure but there are the inevitable (and of the fanciful) medieval tales including that it was (1) taken as a prize of war from a standard or shield of a Saracen killed by Ottone Visconti (1207–1295; Archbishop of Milan 1262-1295 and the founder of the Visconti dynasty) during the Barons' Crusade (1239-1241) or (2) to honor Ottone Visconti for having killed the drake Tarantasio, an enormous snake which dwelled in Milan’s now vanished Lake Gerundo and ate the local children; the serpent feared also because its venomous breath polluted the water and made men ill.  Less bloodthirsty (and thus less popular) is the story it all began with a bronze souvenir in the shape of a serpent, brought to the city from Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul in the Republic of Türkiye) by Arnolf II of Arsago (circa 950-1018; Archbishop of Milan 998-1018).  It’s said the archbishop used the symbol wisely during the episcopate and it became so associated with Milan the city and its citizens embraced its use.  Most prefer the tale from the thirteenth century Crusade and it would explain why the child was often said to be “a moor”.

Although it’s not thought related, serpents have much occupied the minds of those in Christendom, notably the one coiled around the lush foliage in the Garden of Eden who tempted Eve with forbidden fruit, her weakness leading to the downfall of mankind and our eternal sin, thus establishing one of the central tenants of the Church: Women are to blame for everything bad.  There’s also a reference to beasts and a new-born child about to be devoured in the vivid imagery of chapter 12:1-4 in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (King James Version (KJV, 1611)):

1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

Not wholly improbable as an Eve for the third millennium, while on holiday in Thailand, just after Christmas 2017, Lindsay Lohan was bitten by a snake and while said to have made a full recovery, there was never any word on fate of serpent.  The syndicated story on the internet attracted comment from the grammar Nazis who demanded it be verified the snake really was on holiday in Thailand.

Alfa Romeo and the biscione

Alfa Romeo Automobiles SpA is based in the northern Italian city of Turin and for much of the twentieth it wrote an illustrious history on road and track before losing its way in the 1980s; it’s now one of the fourteen brands under the corporate umbrella of the multinational Stellantis (headquartered (for various reasons) in the Netherlands).  Alfa Romeo was founded in 1910 as A.L.F.A. (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (which translates literally as “the Anonymous car company of Lombardy”).  It was in 1915 A.L.F.A. was acquired by Italian Engineer Nicola Romeo (1876–1938) who in 1920 added his name and turned the company into an industrial conglomerate encompassing not only passenger & racing cars but also a product range as diverse as heavy machinery, aero engines and a bus & truck division.

Biscione bas relief, Piazza Duomo Oggiaro, Milan.

The Anonima (anonymous) was a reference to the legal structure of a “Società anonima” (S.A) which designated a class of limited liability company, a common device still in countries which have maintained the traditions of the Code Napoléon (the codified Napoleonic civil law (1804)).  Originally, it provided for shareholders remaining anonymous and able to collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates in an “over-the-counter” transaction, paid to whoever held the paper.  The attraction was the certificates could be transferred in secret and thus nobody (not the company management nor the regulatory authorities) necessarily knew who owned the shares.  That system was obviously open to abuse and abuse there was, tax evasion, money laundering, related party transactions and bribery soon rife, prompting governments to legislate and while SAs and the later SpAs (Società per azioni, most accurately translated as “joint-stock company”) no longer offer shareholders the same degree of anonymity, devices such as intricate structures made up of trusts, and holding companies can be used to at least obscure the identities of ultimate beneficiaries.  The tradition of concealment continues in many places, including common law jurisdictions in which the Code Napoléon was never part of the legal system.  Some are more helpful than others and although, despite the urban myth, it’s apparently never been possible to turn up at the counter of the famously “flexible” Delaware Division of Corporations and register an entity as being owned by "M. Mouse, D. Duck & E. Bunny", the US state is said still to be “most accommodating”.

Whether true or not, the industry legend is the Alfa Romeo logo was adopted because high on the wall of the Filarete Tower in Milan’s Piazza Castello were mounted several heraldic interpretations of the Biscione Visconteo, the coat of arms of the city of Milan and of the Visconti family which first ruled it in 1277 when Ottone Visconti assumed the Dominium Mediolanense (Lordship of Milan).  Late in 1910, waiting for the No. 14 tram to arrive for his journey home, was a draftsman from the A.L.F.A. design office and he was so taken with the symbol he sketched the first take of the corporate logo which remains in use to this day.  The biscione and a representation of Milan's official flag (a red cross on a white background) are the two elements which have remained constant in all nine version of the logos used in the last 115 years-odd.

The Alfa Romeo logo since 1910.

The original (1910-1915) version featured a biscione (either devouring or producing a child, Moor or Ottoman Turk (depending on which legend one prefers)) while the crown on the snake's head functioned to distinguish the official Milanese symbol from that used by the Visconti family for various escutcheons while the words ALFA at the top and MILANO at the bottom were separated by two figure-eight "Savoy Knots," a symbol of the royal House of Savoy, a branch of which reigned in Italy between unification in 1861 and the abolition of the monarchy in 1946.  The “Romeo” name was appended in 1920, reflecting the change in the corporate identity and in 1925, a gold laurel leaf surround was added to commemorate the Alfa Romeo P2’s victories in the European Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium and the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Alfa Romeo Typo 158s (Alfetta), 1950 British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit, England, May 1950.  The Alfettas finished 1-2-3.

When by referendum, the Italian people voted to establish a republic (the monarchy tainted by its support for the fascist regime (1922-1943) of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)), the knots from royal regalia were replaced by some nondescript waves but more obvious was the switch from the multi-color design to a simple gold-on-black, a change necessitated by the damage the country’s industrial capacity had suffered during the war, one victim of which was the factory producing the badges.  The simplified version was short-lived but suited the times because it was easier to mass-produce with the available machine tools and the heterochromatic look would return in 1950, the year the pre war Alfa Romeo tipo 158 (Alfetta) would prevail in the in inaugural Formula One World Championship, the tipo 159 retaining the driver’s title the following year.

Umberto II while Prince of Piedmont, a 1928 portrait by Anglo-Hungarian painter Philip Philip Alexius László de Lombos (1869–1937 and known professionally as Philip de László).  Note the ruffled collar and bubble pantaloons.

Umberto Nicola Tommaso Giovanni Maria di Savoia (1904–1983) was the last king of Italy, his reign as Umberto II lasting but thirty-four days during May-June 1946; Italians nicknamed him the Re di Maggio (May king) although some better-informed Romans preferred regina di maggio (May queen).  At the instigation of the US and British political representatives of the allied military authorities, in April 1944 he was appointed regent because it was clear popular support for Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947; king of Italy 1900-1946) had collapsed.  Despite Victor Emmanuel’s reputation suffering by association, his relationship with the fascists had often been uneasy and, seeking means to blackmail the royal house, Mussolini’s spies compiled a dossier (reputably several inches thick), detailing the ways of his son’s private life.  Then styled Prince of Piedmont, the secret police discovered Umberto was a sincere and committed Roman Catholic but one unable to resist his "satanic homosexual urges” and his biographer agreed, noting the prince was "forever rushing between chapel and brothel, confessional and steam bath" often spending hours “praying for divine forgiveness.”  After a referendum abolished the monarchy, Umberto II lived his remaining 37 years in exile, never again setting foot on Italian soil.  His turbulent marriage to Princess Marie-José of Belgium (1906-2001) produced four children but historians consider it quite possible none of them were his.

Benito Mussolini in 1930 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS, Rome, April 1931.  The 6C was in almost continuous production between 1927-1954, a few hundred made even during World War II (1939-1945).

In 1960 only detail changes to the logo were introduced but in 1972, not only did the wavy line vanish but so did “Milano”, a recognition the company had opened a new production plant at Pomigliano d'Arco near the southern city of Naples, built to construct the new Alfasud (the construct being Alfa + sud (south)), something encouraged (and subsidized) by the national government, anxious to reduce crime and unemployment in the south.  The Alfasud was an outstanding design but, for a variety of reasons including appalling industrial relation and political instability, the plant Neapolitan was beset by problems which were visited upon the unfortunate Alfasud, many of which rusted away with some haste.  As if to exorcise the memory of the Alfasud, in 1982 the design was again revised, producing what has to date proved the longest-lasting iteration, remaining in use until 2014.  It was essentially a modernization exercise, the graphics simplified and the font switched to the starker Futura font, the revision in 2015 more subtly austere still.

1969 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super Biscione.

The “Biscione” version (1969-1973) of the Alfa Romeo Giulia (type 105, 1962-1978) was mechanically identical to other Giulias built at the same time, the package exclusively a trim level, the same concept Ford used in their “Ghia” ranges, the badge added to various blinged-up models between 1973-2008.  The trim features which appeared on the Biscione Giulias weren’t always exclusive, some appearing at various times on other Giulias but there seems to have been a standard specification for the Bisciones (that plural form preferable in this context) and all included:

A sunken Alfa Romeo badge on the trunk (boot) lid.
A chrome centre strip on the hood (bonnet).
Chrome strips on A pillar & roof.
Chrome spears on the rockers (used also on the Berlina models and different from those on other Gulias).
Green snake badges (ie biscioni) on the C pillars (external).
A partially black headliner.
Chrome surroundings on the B pillar interior light switches.
Velour & moquette used for floor coverings rather than rubber mats.

Silvio Berlusconi, Fininvest and the biscione.

M2 corporate logo (left) and Fininvest corporate logo (right).

Finanziaria di Investimento-Fininvest SpA (Fininvest) is a holding company which holds the equity division of the Berlusconi family.  It was founded in by the estimable Silvio Berlusconi (1936-2023; prime minister of Italy 1994-1995, 2001-2006 & 2008-2011) who has thus far proved irreplaceable in the part he played on the European political stage.  Like many things associated with Mr Berlusconi, Fininvest has not been without controversy including intriguing accounts of the way its initial capital was provided in physical cash (unfortunately whether the bundles of lira notes were emptied from suitcases, paper bags or potato sacks has never been disclosed) and the curious phenomena of the way in which laws under which the company or its founder were facing charges mysteriously were repealed prior to the cases going to trial.  Fininvest is now chaired by Mr Berlusconi’s oldest daughter, Maria "Marina" Berlusconi (b 1966).

Novecento

Novecento (pronounced no-vee-chen-toh)

(1) In Italian, nine hundred (900).

(2) In Italian the “twentieth century (1900s)”, the term used in the modern way to define the century as 1900-1999 rather than the strictly correct 1901-2000.

(3) As Novecento Italiano (literally the “Italian 1900s”), the Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 with the aim of representing the fascism of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) in artistic form.

An Italian word which translates literally as nine-hundred (900), the construct being nove (nine) +‎ cento (hundred).  Nove was from the Latin novem, from noven (contaminated by decem, the original form preserved in nōnus), from the Proto-Italic nowem, from the primitive Indo-European hnéwn̥, the cognates including the Sanskrit नवन् (navan), the Ancient Greek ἐννέα (ennéa), the Gothic niun and the Old English nigon (which became the English nine).  Cento was from the Latin centum, from the Proto-Italic kentom, from the primitive Indo-European ḱm̥tóm, the formal cognates including the Sanskrit शत (śata), the Old Church Slavonic съто (sŭto) and the Old English hund (from which English, with an appended suffix, gained “hundred”. In Italian, the adjective novecentistico (feminine novecentistica, masculine plural novecentistici, feminine plural novecentistiche) is used generally of “twentieth century art” while “Novecento Italiano” was specifically of the movement (1922-1943) associated with Italian fascism.  However, “novecentistico” is sometimes used casually in the sense of “modern art”.  Novecento is a noun and novecentesco & novecentistico are adjectives.

Mussolini, Italian fascism and the Novecento Italiano 

In Italy and beyond, the curious coming to power in 1922 of Benito Mussolini (an event less dramatic than the Duce’s subsequent “March on Rome” propaganda would suggest) triggered many events (Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) always acknowledging the debt the Nazi state owed because "Mussolini was the one who showed us it could be done") and one of the more enduring footnotes of the epoch was the Novecento Italiano, opportunistically announced as having been “formed” in Milan in 1922 (although some “members” at the time appear not to have been aware they’d "joined".  What attracted the movement’s founders was the what Mussolini called “la visione fascista” (“the Fascist vision” and sometimes translated as “the Fascist platform” (la piattaforma fascista) although, as the years went by, most seemed to conclude Mussolini dealt more in concepts than plans (even the so-called "corporate state" was never really "corporatized").  The Duce had expressed his disgust at the decadence of the modern Italian people, believing they had been seduced by French ways into “elevating cooking to the status of high art”, declaring he would never allow Italy to descend to the level of France, a country ruined by “alcohol, syphilis and journalism”.  His vision extended also to reviving national vigour with “the beneficial hygiene of war”, something which worked only until his army was confronted by forces with more firepower than the brave but out-gunned (and out-gassed) Abyssinian (Ethiopian) tribesman.  Mussolini was harking back to the glories of the Roman Empire which has once stretched from “Hadrian’s Wall to the first cataract of the Nile, from Parthia to the Pillars of Hercules” and while so much of fascism was fake and bluster, the Duce genuinely was intoxicated at the notion he might be a “new Roman Emperor”.

Paesaggio urbano (Urban Landscape, circa 1924), oil on paper mounted on board by Mario Sironi.  Despite his latter day reputation, not all Sironi's representations of streets and buildings were gloomy, cold scenes but the ones now most popular seem to be; they must suit the twenty-first century zeitgeist.  Sironi was a devoted and leading Futurist and traces of that really never left his works; his most compelling technique was to exclude the human element from his urban scenes or deliberately have the figures dwarfed by the built environment.  The supremacy of the state over the individual was a core component of fascism and although as a motif it isn't apparent in all of the Novecento Italiano's output, it's a recurrent theme in Sironi's works. 

It was a vision which appealed to a certain sort of artist, one with a mind full of the grandeur of Italy's classical artistic heritage and the possibilities offered by science and the techniques of modernity, something seen as an authentic continuation of the works of Antiquity and the Renaissance whereas other threads in modern art, like the Futurism which had come to dominate avant-garde Italian art, were derided as “the work of skilled draftsmen”.  Futurism had also been disruptive and Italy had suffered more from the effects of World War I (1914-1918) that its status as a nominal victor might have been expected and like Mussolini, one of the Novecento Italiano’s key themes was a “return to order”, presumably the cultural analogue of “making the trains run on time”.  Again reflecting the post-Renaissance “construction” of a certain “idea” of the perfection of things in the ancient world, the movement sought a “return” to the Classical values of harmony, clarity, and stability.  They were pursuing a myth which remains to some persuasive, even today.

Lindsay Lohan as the Novecento Italiano might have depicted her: Lindsay (2019) by Sam McKinniss (b 1985), from a reference photograph taken 22 July 2012, leaving the Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood, Los Angeles.

The most obvious influence on the movement was a return to the imagery associated with Antiquity (albeit with many of the exemplars from later artists), with mythological or historical subjects, emphasizing form and balance, a deliberate rejection of the abstraction and dynamism of Cubism, Vorticism or Futurism.  Instead, a figurative and realist prevailed, an attempt deliberately to place the movement as the inheritor of Italy’s artistic heritage.  The movement was founded by a number of prominent figures but remains most associated with art collector, critic & journalist Margherita Sarfatti (1880–1961).  That focus is probably unfair to others but signora Sarfatti also wrote advertising copy for the Partito Nazionale Fascista (the PNF, the National Fascist Party) and perhaps more significantly, was also Mussolini’s mistress, a form of administrative horizontal integration not unfamiliar to the Duce.  Prominent members of the movement included Mario Sironi (1885-1961), known for his monumental and often sombre depictions of urban landscapes and political figures, Achille Funi (1890-1972) who focused on classical subjects with modern interpretations and Felice Casorati (1883-1963), in many ways the most interesting of the movement because few were more accomplished in the technique of fusing elements of modernism with a sharp focus on form and structure; the (not always complimentary) phrase “technical ecstasy” might have been invented to critique his output.  The most comprehensive collection of the movement’s works is displayed in Rome’s La Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art).

Donna al caffè (Woman in the Café, 1931), oil on canvas by Antonio Donghi (1897-1963). The subject matter (a lone woman at a café table) was familiar in European art but the artists of the Novecento Italiano anticipated the later technique of "photographic clarity", achieved with the air of stillness, reminiscent of the precision with which Renaissance portraits were staged though without their sumptuous detailing.  As well as the movement's focus on clarity, order, and balance, there was a new interest in depicting "ordinary" urban citizens in scenes of a detached, almost serene realism.  In the work of the Novecento Italiano, woman tended to be represented as what the fascist state would have liked their citizens to be.

The comparisons with “Nazi art” are sometimes made but because art was a topic of little interest to Mussolini (who preferred the Autostrada (the world’s first motorways (freeways)), tanks and battleships, never in Italy as there anything so so dictatorial and the funding was spread to ensure the widest support for the regime.  That was a contrast with Hitler who to his dying day never ceased to think of himself as “an artist” and assumed the role of the Third Reich’s chief critic and censor, meaning there was a recognizably political theme to the art of the period.  Interestingly, while artists in the Reich increasingly “worked towards the Führer” and dutifully churned out what they knew would be “regime approved”, more than one memoir from his contemporaries recorded how little interest he took in them, responding with delight only to stuff like landscapes or portraiture he thought works of genuine beauty.  Really, there were probably fewer than a couple of dozen “Nazi” paintings or sculptures; it was just that hundreds of artists produced them thousands of times.

Dafne (1934), oil on plywood by Felice Casorati.  Casorati’s work often featured mythological subjects but, unlike many, he surrounded them with simplified forms, drawing attention to his sense of focus, precise structure and clarity.  Here, Daphne (in Greek mythology transformed into a laurel, the tree sacred to Apollo), is rendered in a figurative, geometric style with flat, muted colors, the work, while obviously modernist, owing a debt to classical traditions, Mannerism and hinting even at the Italian Primitives.

So the movement was neither monolithic nor “political” in the way things were done in the Third Reich and certainly nothing like the even more severe regime which prevailed in comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) Soviet Union but it was supported to some extent by the Fascist state and while that association proved helpful, even before the tide of World War II (1939-1945) turned against Italy, as early as the mid-1930s the historic moment of Novecento Italiano had already passed as the world responded to the latest “shock of the new”, the language of surrealism and other adventures in abstraction capturing the imagination.  When in 1943 Italian Fascism “burst like a bubble” and Mussolini was removed from power, the movement was dissolved.  However, artistically, the legacy was real in that it did foster a dialogue between modernism and tradition in European art and ensured the Italian state during the inter-war years became involved in the commissioning of monumental and representational public art, beginning a tradition which continues to this day.