Plague

Plague (pronounced pleyg)

(1) An infectious, epidemic disease caused by a bacterium, Yersinia pestis (trans transmitted to man by the bite of the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis)) characterized by fever, chills, and prostration.

(2) In casual use, any epidemic disease that causes high mortality; pestilence.

(3) Any widespread affliction, calamity, or evil, especially one regarded as divine retribution.

(4) Any cause of trouble, annoyance, or vexation; torment; to pester.

(5) As in “… a plague upon…”, to curse another, wishing any evil upon them.  The variation “a plague upon both your houses” suggests an unwillingness to take sides, an implication one thinks both parties are in the wrong. 

1350-1400: From the Middle English plage, a borrowing from the Old French plage, from the Latin plāga (blow, wound, (and pestilence in Late Latin), from plangō or plangere (to strike), the ultimate root being the Ancient Greek plēgē (a stroke).  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch plāghe (from the Dutch plaag) & plāghen (from the Dutch plagen), the Middle Low German plāge, the Middle High German plāge & pflāge (from the German plage) & plāgen (from the German plagen), the Swedish plåga, the French plaie and the Occitan plaga.  Plague exists as verb and noun, plaguer being the other noun, plaguing & plagued the verbs.  Other derived forms exist but are rarely seen except in historic or technical writing: plagioclase, plagioclimax, plagiohedral, plagiotropic and plagiotropism, plaguesome & plaguy.  For the actual disease there’s no actual synonym but many words tend to be used interchangeably in any context: invasion, scourge, contagion, pandemic, epidemic, curse, infection, outbreak, influenza, infestation, blight, calamity, pest, cancer, bedevil, afflict, beleaguer, bother, haunt, torment.

The famous phrase "A plague of both your houses" is from William Shakespeare's  (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) .  When Mercutio says a "plague o' both your houses", he is damning both the Montagues and Capulets, asking fate to visit upon the families some awful fate because he blames both for his imminent death.  In modern use, it's used to suggest an unwillingness to take sides, the implication being one thinks both parties are in the wrong:

Mercutio. Help me into some house, Benvolio,

Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!

They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,

And soundly too: your houses!

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 1

Plagues and the Plague

Masked-up: Lindsay Lohan avoiding plague.

Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and exists in three strains: Bubonic plague, Septicemic plague & Pneumonic plague, the former two usually contracted by the handling of an infected animal or the bite of a flea, the last by contact between people via infectious droplets in the air.  Typically, several hundred cases are reported annually, mostly in India, the Congo, Madagascar & Peru and cases have been reported in the US but historically, outbreaks were large-scale events lasting months or years, the best known of which include the fourteenth century Black Death, estimated to have killed some fifty-million and the Great Plague of London which, in 1665-1666, caused the death of one in five of the city's population.  COVID-19 was thus a plague but not the plague.  A common noun, plague is written with an initial capital only at the beginning of a sentence, or (as in the Great Plague of London) when it has become a thing.  Notable epidemics have included:

The Black Death (1346-1353)

Death Toll: 75 – 200 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

The Plague ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia, with a death toll of 75-200 million, killing up to half the population of some European countries.  Thought to have originated in Asia, Plague was most likely spread by fleas living on the rats of merchant ships and in some countries, populations didn’t recover until the nineteenth century.  Now unknown in most parts of the world, outbreaks still happen in various places.

Plague of Justianian (541-542)

Death Toll: 25 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

Thought to have killed perhaps half the population of Europe, the Plague of Justinian afflicted the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean port cities.  The first verified and well-documented incident of the Bubonic Plague, it reduced the population of the Eastern Mediterranean by a quarter and devastated Constantinople, where, at the height of the pandemic, 5,000 a day were dying.

Antonine Plague (165 AD)

Death Toll: 5 million; Cause: Unknown

Also known as the Plague of Galen, the Antonine Plague affected Asia Minor (the modern Republic of Türkiye), Egypt, Greece, and Italy and is thought to have been either Smallpox or Measles, though the true cause is unknown. The disease was brought to Rome by soldiers returning from Mesopotamia.  The pandemic significantly weakened the Roman army.

London and the plagues of Plague

A London Bill of Mortality, 1665.

During the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries when "bubonic plague was abroad", the authorities compiled "Bills of Mortality" listing the causes of death recorded that week.  It's now believed the statistics are not wholly reliable (Plague numbers, like the global toll from Covid-19, believed greatly to have been understated) but the startling ratio of deaths attributed to Plague compared with other causes is indicative of the deadly nature of the epidemic.  In one week 3880 residents of London were reported as having succumbed to Plague, dwarfing the number recorded as dying by other causes including Old Age (54), Consumption (Tuberculous) (174), Small Pox (10), Fright (1), Grief (1), Spotted Fever and the Purples (190), Griping in the Guts (74), Lethargy (1), Rifing of the Lights (19) and Wind (1).  Like the Covid-19 statistics, there was likely some overlap in the numbers but the disparity remains striking.

After the Black Death, London's major plague epidemics occurred in 1563, 1593, 1625 and 1665 and although the last is best-known (associated as it was with the Great Fire of 1666), it's believed it was during the 1563 event the city suffered the greatest proportional mortality with between a quarter and a third of the populating dying; losses have been estimated to be as high as 18,000 and in some weeks the toll exceeded 1000.  From there, the disease spread around the nation the following year, the fleas which were the primary vector of transmission having hibernated through what was a comparatively mild winter.  Echoing the political and military effects of epidemics noted since Antiquity, it was at this time England was compelled to give up their last French possession, Le Havre, which was being held as a hostage for Calais.  Plague broke out in the occupying garrison and few troops escaped infection so the town had to be surrendered.

There were small, manageable outbreaks in 1603 & 1610-1611 but the epidemic of 1625 was severe and associated with a notable internal migration as those with the means to leave London did not, the reduction in the number of magistrates & doctors noted as inducing the predicable social consequences although as time passed, it was clear the disease was becoming less virulent and the mortality rate had fallen, something now attributed at least partially to the so-called "harvesting effect".  After 1666, the Plague didn't vanish and there were periodic outbreaks but the lessons had been well-learned and the efficiency of communications and the still embryonic public-health infrastructure operated well, even if little progress had been made in actual medical techniques.  The Hull (an East Yorkshire port city) Plague of 1699 was contained with little spread and when an outbreak of fever was reported in Marseilles in 1720, stricter quarantine measures  were imposed in English ports which successfully prevented any great spread.  Throughout the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries (as late as 1896-1897) there were occasional isolated cases and small outbreaks of plague in various parts of England but none ever remotely approached the scale of the 1665-1666 epidemic.

Werner Herzog's Nosferatu (1979) 

Werner Herzog's (b 1942) 1979 remake of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's (1888–1931) masterpiece of Weimar expressionism (Nosferatu (1922)) takes place mostly in a small German city afflicted suddenly by Plague, Herzog rendering something chilling and darkly austere, despite the stylistic flourishes.  The 1979 film delivered the definitive screen Dracula and was a piece to enjoy when living in the social isolation of the Covid era.

Scene from Werner Herzog's Nosferatu (1979)

Pandemic & Epidemic

Pandemic (pronounced pan-dem-ik)

(1) Of a disease, prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area (in modern use, now usually restricted to diseases spread over several continents, reaching epidemic level in at least two.

(2) In figurative use, general; universal.

1660-1670: From the Late Latin pandēmus (affecting all the people, public, general) from the Ancient Greek pandēmos (general) and the Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân) (all; equivalent to English pan-) + δῆμος (dêmos) (the people); the suffix –os was the adjectival form.  The suffix –ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European –kos.  The form existed in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (ikós), in the Sanskritas as श (śa) & क (ka) and in the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); a doublet of -y.  The suffix –ic is often added to words of Greek or Latin origin, but may be used regardless of source.  In modern English, there is sometimes the creation of redundant forms such as veganic (from vegan).  Related words include the nouns pandemia & pandemicity and the adjective interpandemic.

Epidemic (pronounced ep-i-dem-ik)

(1) Of a disease and affecting many persons at the same time, and spreading from person to person in a locality where the disease is not permanently prevalent.

(2) Extremely prevalent; widespread; a rapid spread or increase in the occurrence of something.

1595-1605: From the French épidémique, from épidémie, from the Latin epidemia, from the Ancient Greek ἐπιδήμιος (epidḗmios), from ἐπί (epí) (upon) + δῆμος (dêmos) (people) the Ancient Greek epidēmía translates literally as “among the people” but is often cited as “staying in one place”.  The early alternative forms epidemy and epidemick are long obsolete and related forms include the noun epidemicity, the adjectives interepidemic & preepidemic and the adverb epidemically.

Noted Pandemics

HIV/AIDS Pandemic (2005-2012)

Death Toll: 36 million; Cause: HIV/AIDS

First identified in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic with some 35 million people living with HIV, the vast majority in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5% of the population (circa 21 million) is infected.  The AIDS death toll is thought to be understated because (1) dubious validity of statistical record-keeping in some countries (there are places where many deaths are not accompanied by a death certificate) and (2) a cultural reluctance among families to have AIDS recorded as the cause because of the association with homosexuality and IV drug use, hence the 1980s spike in recorded deaths from pneumonia.     

Flu Pandemic (1968)

Death Toll: 1 million; Cause: Influenza

A category 2 Flu also known as “Hong Kong Flu,” it was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus, an offshoot of H2N2.  It took only days to reach Singapore and Vietnam, and, within three months, had spread to The Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the US.  Although wide-spread, it had a low mortality rate under 1%.  Worst affected was Hong Kong where 500,000 died, some 15% of the population.

Lindsay Lohan thanking the Dubai Police for their helpfulness during COVID-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.  Note the proxemics.

Asian Flu (1956-1958)

Death Toll: 2 million; Cause: Influenza

A pandemic of Influenza A of the H2N2 subtype, it originated in China, spreading from the province of Guizhou to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.  Estimates for the death toll vary but the World Health Organization (WHO) lists 2 million deaths, 69,800 of them in the US.

Flu pandemic (1918-1919)

Death Toll: 20-50 million; Cause: Influenza

The best known pandemic, it infected over a third of the world’s population, killing between 20–50 million.  The mortality rate was a high 10-20% and unusually, where influenza had previously killed mostly juveniles, the elderly or already weakened patients, the 1918 pandemic disproportionally killed robust and healthy young adults, leaving children and those with weaker immune systems still alive.  The movement of vast numbers of people around the world at the end of WWI assisted the spread.

Sixth Cholera pandemic (1910-1911)

Death Toll: 800,000+; Cause: Cholera

Like its previous five incarnations, the Sixth Cholera Pandemic originated in India where it killed over 800,000, before spreading to the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia.  It was the source of the last American outbreak of Cholera although effective public health measures there restricted the death toll to eleven.  Cholera, a classic Medieval disease, remains endemic in India.

Flu pandemic (1889-1890)

Death Toll: 1 million; Cause: Influenza

Know at the time as Asiatic or Russian Flu and though once to be a strain of the Influenza A H2N2, it was an outbreak of H3N8.   The first cases were observed in May 1889 in three distant locations, Bukhara in Central Asia (Turkestan), Athabasca in north-western Canada, and Greenland. The rapid growth in urban populations provided vectors for the spread and although the first true pandemic in the era of bacteriology, while much was learned from it, it claimed over a million lives.

Lindsay Lohan thanking the Dubai Police for their helpfulness during COVID-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.

Third Cholera pandemic (1852–1860)

Death Toll: 1 million; Cause: Cholera

Probably the most deadly of the seven cholera pandemics, it was the third major outbreak in the 19th century.  Like the first and second, the third originated in India, before spreading with extraordinary rapidity through Asia, Europe, North America and Africa.  A physician in England, where over 20,000 died, discovered contaminated water was the means of transmission.

Lindsay Lohan mugshot facemasks available through Redbibble.

The Black Death (1346-1353)

Death Toll: 75 – 200 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

The Plague ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia, with a death toll of 75-200 million, killing up to half the population of some European countries.  Thought to have originated in Asia, Plague was most likely spread by fleas living on the rats of merchant ships and in some countries, populations didn’t recover until the nineteenth century.  Now unknown in most parts of the world, outbreaks still happen in various places.

Plague of Justianian (541-542)

Death Toll: 25 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

Thought to have killed perhaps half the population of Europe, the Plague of Justinian afflicted the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean port cities.  The first verified and well-documented incident of the Bubonic Plague, it reduced the population of the Eastern Mediterranean by a quarter and devastated Constantinople, where, at the height of the pandemic, 5,000 a day were dying.

Lindsay Lohan thanking the Dubai Police for their helpfulness during COVID-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.

Antonine Plague (165 AD)

Death Toll: 5 million; Cause: Unknown

Also known as the Plague of Galen, the Antonine Plague affected Asia Minor (modern Turkey), Egypt, Greece, and Italy and is thought to have been either Smallpox or Measles, though the true cause is unknown. The disease was brought to Rome by soldiers returning from Mesopotamia.  The pandemic significantly weakened the Roman army.

Quarantine

Quarantine (pronounced kwawr-uhn-teen or kwor-uhn-teen)

(1) In historic English common law, the period of 40 days during which a widow was entitled to remain in her deceased husband's home while any dower is collected and returned.

(2) A strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease and (by extension), any rigorous measure of isolation, regardless of the reason.

(3) A period, originally 40 days (the historic understanding of the maximum known incubation period of disease) of detention or isolation imposed upon ships, persons, animals, or plants on arrival at a port or place, when suspected of carrying some infectious or contagious disease; a record system kept by port health authorities in order to monitor and prevent the spread of contagious diseases.  The origin was in measures taken in 1448 in Venice's lazaret to avoid renewed outbreaks of the bubonic plague.

(4) In historic French law, a 40-day period imposed by the king upon warring nobles during which they were forbidden from exacting revenge or to continue warfare.

(5) A place where such isolation is enforced (a lazaret).

(6) In international relations, a blockade of trade, suspension of diplomatic relations, or other action whereby one country seeks to isolate another.

(7) In computing, a place where files suspected of harboring a computer virus or other harmful code are stored in a way preventing infection of other files or machines; the process of such an isolation.

(8) To withhold a portion of a welfare payment from a person or group of people (Australia).

(9) To quarantine someone or something.

1600–1610: From the Middle English quarentine (period a ship suspected of carrying contagious disease is kept in isolation), from the Norman quarenteine, from the French quarenteine, from the Italian quarantina, a variant of quarantena, originally from the upper Italian (Venetian) dialect as quaranta giorni (space of forty days, group of forty), from quaranta (forty) from the Medieval Latin quarentīna (period of forty days; Lent), from the Classical Latin quadrāgintā (four tens, forty) and related to quattuor (four), from the primitive Indo-European root kwetwer (four).  The difference between quarantine and isolation is one of context; while people might for many reasons be isolated, quarantine is a public health measure to deal with those exposed to or at risk of having been infected by a communicable disease, the duration of the quarantine being sufficient to ensure any risk of spreading the infection has passed.  The name is from the Venetian policy (first enforced as the 30 day edict trentino in 1377) of keeping ships from plague-stricken countries waiting off its port for forty days to ensure no latent cases remained aboard.  The extended sense of "any period of forced isolation" dates from the 1670s.  A doublet of carene and quadragene.

In the context the L'Ancien Régime (pre-revolutionary France), it was a calque of the French quarantaine, following the edicts of Louis IX (and formalized by the quarantaine du Roi (1704) of Louis XIV which was a mechanism of quieting squabbling nobles).  Quarantine was introduced to international relations as a euphemism for "blockade" in 1937 because the Roosevelt administration was (1) conscious of public reaction to the effects on civilians of the Royal Navy’s blockade of Imperial Germany during World War I (1914-1918) and (2) legal advice that a “blockade” of a non-belligerent was, under international law, probably an act of war.  The use was revived by the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962).  The verb meaning "put under quarantine" came quickly to be used in any sense including figuratively (to isolate, as by authority) dates from 1804.  Predating the use in public health, in early sixteenth century English common law, the quarentine was the period of 40 days during which a widow was entitled to remain in her dead husband's home while any dower is collected and returned.  The alternative spellings quarentine, quarantin, quaranteen, quarantain, quarantaine, quarrentine, quarantene, quarentene, quarentyne, querentyne are all obsolete except in historic references).  While not of necessity entirely synonymous, detention, sequester, separation, seclusion, segregation, sequestration, lazaretto, segregate, confine, separate, seclude, insulate, restrict, detach & cordon, are at least vaguely similar.  Quarantine is a noun & verb, quarantiner is a noun, quarantinable is an adjective and quarantined & quarantining are verbs & adjectives.

Bleriot traversant la Manche le 25 Juillet 1909 (Blériot crossing the English Channel on 25 July 1909), coloré à la main pochoir print (hand-coloured stencil print) by Ernest Montaut (1879–1909).  In 1909, this image was issued as a commemorative postcard.

It’s a modern conceit that technology now moves too fast for bureaucracy and laws to keep pace but twas often thus.  Although as early as 1785, men had crossed the English Channel by hot-air balloon, for thousands of years since the retreat of the glaciers, most arriving in British Isles had travelled across the seas so by 1909 the British had never troubled to update the forms used by their customs officials. So, when French engineer and pioneer aviator Louis Blériot (1872–1936) on 25 July 1909 flew across the English Channel in his Type XI monoplane (a flight duration of some 37 minutes), the Collector of Customs at Dover noted in his daily log: “I issued to him a Quarantine Certificate, thereby treating it [the aircraft] as a yacht and the aviator as Master and owner.”

In scripture, the number 40 often occurs although Biblical scholars, always anxious to dismiss musings from numerologists, new age practitioners and crystal-wearing basket weavers, reject the notion it has any special meaning beyond the idea of a “period of trial or struggle”, memorably expressed in the phrase “forty days and forty nights”.  In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth in the Great Flood, he delivered rain for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12).  After killing the Egyptian, Moses fled to Midian where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks (Acts 7:30) and subsequently he stood on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights (Exodus 24:18) and then interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days and 40 nights (Deuteronomy 9:18, 25).  In Deuteronomy 25:3, the maximum number of lashes a man could receive as punishment for a crime was set at 40.  The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan (Numbers 13:25), the Israelites wandered for 40 years (Deuteronomy 8:2-5) and before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years (Judges 13:1).  Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him (1 Samuel 17:16) and when Elijah fled from Jezebel, he traveled 40 days and 40 nights to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).  The number 40 also appears in the prophecies of Ezekiel (4:6; 29:11-13) and Jonah (3:4).  In the New Testament, the quarentyne was the desert in which Christ fasted and was tempted for for 40 days and 40 nights (Matthew 4:2) and there were 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (Acts 1:3).  Presumably, this influenced Western medicine because it was long (and still by some) recommended that women should for 40 days rest after childbirth.

Plague, the Venetians and Quarantino

The Plague of Justinian arrived in Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 541, brought from recently conquered Egypt across the Mediterranean by plague-ridden fleas in the fur of rats on ships bringing loot from the war.  From the imperial capital it spread across Europe, Asia, North Africa and Arabia, killing an estimated thirty to fifty million, perhaps a quarter the inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean.  Plague never really went away, localized outbreaks happening periodically unit it returned as a pandemic some eight-hundred years later; the Black Death, which hit Europe in 1347, claimed some two-hundred million in just four years and demographically, Europe would not for centuries recover from the Black Death.

There was at the time little scientific understanding of contagion but it became clear it was related to proximity so officials in Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik in Croatia) resolved to keep newly arrived sailors in isolation until it was apparent they were healthy.  Initially, the sailors were confined to their ships for thirty days, formalized in a 1377 Venetian law as a trentino (thirty days), which radically reduced the transmission rate and by 1448, the Venetians had increased the forced isolation to forty days (quarantine), which, given bubonic plague’s thirty-seven day cycle from infection to death, was an example of a practical scientific experiment.  The word soon entered Middle English as quarantine (already in use in common law as a measure of certain rights accruing to a widow), the origin of the modern word and practice of quarantine.  The English had many opportunities to practice quarentine.  In the three-hundred odd years between 1348 and 1665, London suffered some forty outbreaks, about once a generation (or every twenty years), the significance of this pattern something which modern epidemiologists would later understand.  Quarentine laws were introduced in the early sixteenth century and proved effective, reducing the historic medieval death-rates to about twenty percent.

Eggs à la Lohan

During the Covid-19 pandemic, some turned back to neglected hobbies.  One of Lindsay Lohan's recommendations for a time of quarantine was to take the time to cook, posting a photograph of Eggs à la Lohan, a tasty looking omelet, inspired apparently by a widely shared motivational poem by Kitty O’Meara (on the internet dubbed the "poet laureate of the pandemic") which included the lines:

And the people stayed home.  And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.  And listened more deeply.  Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.  Some met their shadows.  And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.  And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.  And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

Unfortunately, viewed from early 2023, it would seem Ms O'Meara's hopes quarantine might have left us kinder, gentler and more thoughtful may not have been realized.  It may be Mr Putin didn’t read the poem and just ate his omelet.

Baroque

Baroque (pronounced buh-rohk or ba-rawk (French)).

(1) Of or relating to a style of architecture and art originating in Italy in the early seventeenth century and variously prevalent in Europe and the New World for a century and a half, characterized by free and sculptural use of the classical orders and ornament, by forms in elevation and plan suggesting movement, and by dramatic effect in which architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts often worked to combined effect (often used with an initial capital letter).

(2) In music, of or relating to the period following the Renaissance, extending (circa 1600-1750) which tended to be characterized by extensive use of the thorough bass and of ornamentation to create dramatic effects. Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, and Antonio Vivaldi were great composers of the baroque era.

(3) In literature, a style of prose thought extravagantly ornate, florid, and convoluted in character or style.

(4) An irregularly shaped pearl (rare except in technical use).

(5) In pre-modern twentieth century design or engineering, objects intricately or ornately detailed in a way no longer financially viable.

(6) Descriptively (of any object where the technical definitions don’t apply), variously (1) ornate, intricate, decorated, laden with detail & (2) complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.

(7) In stonemasonry & woodworking, chiselled from stone, or shaped from wood, in a garish, crooked, twisted, or slanted sort of way, grotesque or embellished with figures and forms such that every level of relief gives way to more details and contrasts.

(8) Figuratively, something overly or needlessly complicated, applied especially to bureaucracy or instances like accounting systems which either are or appear to be designed to conceal or confuse.

1765: From the French baroque (originally “pearl of irregular shape”), from the Portuguese barroco or barroca (irregularly shaped pearl) which was in some way influenced by either or both the Spanish berrueco or barrueco (granitic crag, irregular pearl, spherical nodule) and the Italian barocco, of uncertain ultimate origin but which may be from the Latin verrūca (wart).  The etymology is however murky and some suggest the Portuguese words may directly have come from the Spanish berruca (a wart) also from the Latin verrūca (a steep place, a height (and thus “a wart” or “an excrescence on a precious stone”).  Most scholars think at some point it probably conflated with Medieval Latin baroco, an invented word for a kind of obfuscating syllogism although one speculative alternative is the word was derived from the work of the Italian painter Federigo Barocci (1528-1612), a founder of the style, but most think this mere coincidence.  The comparative is baroque and the superlative baroquest, both thankfully rare.  Baroque is a noun & adjective, baroqueness is a noun and baroquely is an adverb, the noun plural is baroques.

Marble Court, Palace of Versailles.  Commissioned in the 1660s by Louis XIV (1638–1715; le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), King of France 1643-1715), the Palace of Versailles is thought one of the the finest example of secular Baroque architecture.

Baroque is one of those strange words in English which has evolved to have several layers of meaning including (1) a term which defines epochs in music & architecture, (2) a term referencing the characteristics in the music & architecture most associated with those periods, (3) a term which is a negative criticism of those characteristics, (4) a term which is (by extension) a negative criticism of the excessively ornate in any field (especially in literature) and (5) a term applied admiringly to things intricately or elaborately detailed.  In English, baroque began as an expression of contempt for the style of architecture which most historians believe began in early seventeenth century Rome and which shocked many with its audacious departure from the traditions of the Renaissance which paid such homage to (what was at least imagined to be) the Classical lines from Antiquity.  In architecture, baroque has never been exactly defined, something some explain by analogy with Clement Attlee’s (1883–1967; UK prime-minister 1945-1951) observation that it was as pointless to define socialism as it was an elephant for “...if an elephant ever walked into the room, all would know what it was”.

Karlskirche, Vienna.The Vatican's Saint Peter’s Square is often used to illustrate Baroque architecture and all those colonnades do make quite a statement but Vienna's Karlskirche better represents the way church architects took to the form.  It was commissioned in 1713 by Charles VI (1685–1740; Holy Roman Emperor 1711-1740) after the end of the last great epidemic of Plague as an act of memorial to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584; Archbishop of Milan 1564-1584), revered as a healer of those suffering from Plague.

Actually, although etymologists would say that's true, that’s not how the word is actually often applied because the terms baroque and rococo are often used interchangeably by non-specialists when speaking of just about any building adorned with the elaborate details not seen since modernism, functionalism & brutalism prevailed.  What distinguishes things is less the actual shapes than the feeling imparted, baroque and rococo both noted for asymmetry, luxuriant detailing, extravagant, unexpected curves & lines and a polychromatic richness but where baroque’s language is of grandeur, weight & monumentalism, rococo’s implementations summon thoughts of lightness, playfulness and frivolity.  Tellingly, rococo, when used as a critique is applied almost always in the negative, suggesting something fussy, pointlessly elaborate and overstated whereas baroque is often used admiringly, literature about the only field in which use is universally negative.  The other common use of baroque in the negative applies to bureaucracy or tangled administrative systems when it’s used as a synonym of byzantine.  For those seeking a rule of thumb, except in literature, baroque tends not to be used negatively and when describing objects which contain ornate or intricate detailing, it’s adopted usually to suggest something complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.  Baroque suggests restraint and good taste (there are many other words with which to describe the garish, crooked, twisted or grotesque) and to damn something as silly, over detailed and laden with decorations with no functional or aesthetic purpose, there’s rococo.

Winter Palace, Saint Petersberg.  Some do find the Winter Palace a bit rococo and there are elements of that in the interior but architecturally, it's an example of early baroque, albeit much modified by later renovations.  It was built as a residence of Peter the Great (Peter I, 1672-1725; Tsar of Russia 1682-1725) and remain an official palace of the Romanov Tsars between 1732 and the 1917 revolutions.  The present appearance reflects both the restorative work of the late 1830s when it was rebuilt after a severe fire and the restoration after the damage suffered during the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944).

The use in the language of literary criticism is, like any application of “baroque” in the non-visual arts, inherently imprecise.  Even in music, it’s understood as a period and many of the compositions which emerged from the era do have a style which is recognisably “baroque” but there was also much which was anything but.  The same can of course be said of the European buildings of the same period, the overwhelming majority of which were neither “baroque”, nor memorable, the adjective in what is now called the “built environment” making sense only when used of representational architecture.  That’s a well-understood distinction in architecture and even painting but more contentious in music, something made murkier still by musicologists having divided the baroque into the “early”, “middle” and late”, mapped onto a range of styles which were sometimes particular to one country and sometimes popular in many.  Interestingly, although as a generalized descriptor it needs still to be thought of as something which began as a term of derision in architecture (and it is from there it gained its parameters), there is an earlier, anonymous piece of (not especially serious) opera criticism which labelled a work as du barocque (in the sense of the original meaning “pearl or irregular shape”), damning the music as un-melodic, discordant and a roll-call of just about every known compositional device; something more like a student’s assignment than a opera.  It’s a critique not greatly different from that made some three centuries later by comrade Stalin (1878–1953; leader of the USSR, 1924-1953) who’d been displeased by one of comrade Dmitri Shostakovich’s (1906-1975) operas, calling it формализм (formalism), "chaos instead of music", a self-indulgence of technique by a composer interested only in the admiration of other composers.

L'Estasi di Santa Teresa (The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa) by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) is a sculptural group rendered in white marble, set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.  It’s thought one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque and depicts Teresa of Ávila, a Spanish Carmelite nun and saint, in a state of religious ecstasy, a spear-holding angel watching over her.  The installation in 2007 (briefly one supposes) gained baroque sculpture a new audience when it was used in a popular meme which noted some similarity with an early morning photograph of Lindsay Lohan resting in a Cadillac.

The last days of baroque: 1967 Mercedes–Benz 600 Pullman Laudaulet (left & rght) and 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Cabriolet (centre).  There was intricate detailing on the W111 and W100s, the last truly coach-built Mercedes-Benz.  Most were produced between 1963-1971 although the W100s continued in a trickle, substantially hand-built, until 1981.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), remembered as the philosopher who loomed over the French revolution, was also a composer and in his Dictionnaire de la musique (Dictionary of Music, 1767) declared baroque music to be that “...in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited...”, noting the term was a re-purposing of baroco (an alternative spelling of baroko (from a mediaeval mnemonic chant and a mode of syllogism used whenever some point seemed to be exist only pointlessly to obfuscate), used since the thirteenth century by philosophers discussing the tendency by some of their peers (usually those in the Church or university) needlessly to complicate simple concepts and arguments, just for the sake of grandiose academic gloss; formalism as it were.  Etymologists however remain unconvinced by Rousseau’s speculation and cite earlier evidence which suggests it was from architecture that the use in painting and music was derived, pondering that had Rousseau’s musicology been influenced by him being an architect rather than a philosopher, he too may have identified the source in brick and stone.  Anyway, baroque music as it’s now understood is a surprisingly recent construct, discussed as a thing only in the twentieth century, the term widely used only after the 1950s when the advent of long-playing (LP) records made the packaging and distribution of long-form composition practical and the industry became interested in categorizations, the Baroque something different from the Renaissance and the Classical despite the popular association of them all as one.

Apollo

Apollo (pronounced uh-pol-oh)

(1) The ancient Greek and Roman god of light, healing, music, poetry, prophecy, manly beauty and quite some more.

(2) A popular term to describe a strikingly handsome young man.

(3) In aerospace, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) programme of spacecraft (1961-1972) which between 1969-1972 carried 12 US astronauts to the Moon and back, the best known of which were Apollo 11 (which carried the first men to set foot on the Moon) and Apollo 13 (the mission successfully aborted after mid-flight equipment failure).

(4) A Eurasian mountain butterfly, Parnassius apollo.

From classical Greek mythology, the name is a Latin form of the Greek Apollon, often cited as related to an obsolete Greek verb apollymi (to destroy) but there’s nothing conclusive.  More compelling is the notion it’s a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of young men during the family-festival apellai.  Essentially, theories about Greek origins and a number of non-Greek etymologies are all speculative.

Apollo and the Muses, oil on canvas pentyptych (circa 1985) by Charles Meynier (1763 or 1768-1832).  Although in his notes the artist referred to the five panels as a pentyptych, that reference was conceptual and they've always been hung as five separate, framed canvases. 

From left to right: (1) Polymnia was one of the nine muses in Greek mythology and a patron of dancing or geometry.  Here she is depicted  standing in front of a bust of the Athenian orator Demosthenes. (2)  Erato, the muse of lyric and erotic poetry, is often shown with the golden arrow received from Eros (or Cupid), a sign of the emotion that inspires her.  (3) Urania leans on a starry orb, an allusion to her role as the muse of astronomy.  As all good muses must, she is staring dreamily at a god or man.  (4) The eldest of the nine Greek muses, Calliope was the goddess of music, song, and dance.  She was also known as the goddess of epic poetry and conferred the gift of eloquence on kings and princes. She stands here before a bust of Homer, the ancient Greek poet who history credits with having written the epic poems the Odyssey and the Iliad.  (5) Clio, the Greek muse of history, was the daughter of Zeus and Titaness Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and is here depicted writing while surrounded by objects associated with preserving the memory of historical figures and events: busts, reliefs, and sculptures.  Clio's name was from the Greek root κλέω or κλείω (to recount; to make famous; to celebrate) and Clio is the traditional Latinisation but there has among classicists for centuries been a faction which uses K to represent the original Greek kappa, and ei to represent the diphthong ει (epsilon iota), thus the appearance in some texts of Kleio.

The paintings were commissioned by a textile merchant who planned to hang them in a grand gallery in his Toulouse townhouse but he went bankrupt prior to delivery and the paintings were purchased by a Swiss general who took them to his castle in Wallenried.  A wing had been added to the castle just to display the general's collection and there Apollo and the Muses remained for almost 180 years.  Although in good condition, when re-discovered, there were signs of neglect typical of works not carefully curated under controlled conditions.  The fluctuations in temperature and humidity at the castle had caused cracking in the surfaces and, over time, the sheer weight of the canvases caused the tacking edges to deteriorate and pull away from their stretchers, creating large drape-like buckles.  Most also exhibited varying degrees of the dreaded “traction crackle”, the degenerative process in which a paint layer on the surface shrinks faster than an underlying layer underneath, resulting in wide cracks revealing the color below.  The original hand-carved frames were intact and needed only the time-consuming conservation work to address the deterioration of their gesso and gold.

All of the paintings needed reduction of their varnish layers which had grown dull and discolored, descending to a brownish-orange tinge and when first viewed, all the works were dark, dull and murky, as if the muses were stepping out of a dense fog.  Worse, at some point, a prudish white veil had been painted over the body of Cupid many years after Meynier had died, a contemporary watercolor by the artist and an etching documenting the Salon of 1801 both showing the radical intervention was not part of the original.  Restoration was challenging because the original paint had aged for least 75 years before Cupid’s drapery and working under high magnification, conservators spent much time removing the 180 square inches of overpainting, re-shaping and re-sharpening scalpels so the unwanted could be chipped away without harming the original paint.  When complete, the restoration enhanced Meynier’s reputation because for the first time it became apparent he was one of the era's great colorists, his use of juxtaposed, muted complementary colors in draperies and skin tones creating soft vibrancies that undulate throughout the entire suite.

NUMEC headquarters, Apollo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, circa 1961 (the site since razed).

The now defunct Apollo-based NUMEC should not be confused with the Northern Uganda Media Club (NUMEC), a most respectable and (as far as is known) nuclear-free institution.  The USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) has indicated its “clean-up” of NUMEC's waste disposal site is unlikely to be completed before the mid-2030s.  

The “Apollo affair” describes a mysterious “incident” (which some prefer to describe as “a process”) in which the company NUMEC (Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation) “lost” some 90-275 kg (200-600 lb) of highly enriched uranium, the suspicion being the material had been diverted to the state of Israel, then highly focused on developing its own IND (independent nuclear deterrent).  The name of the affair came by virtue of NUMEC being located in Apollo, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the place gaining the name in 1848 after instances of its mail being wrongly delivered to another town in the state, both then called “Warren”.  Despite an investigation which continued for almost two decades, the findings were inconclusive and the Apollo affair remains one of the murkier tributaries of the US nuclear industry.  Remarkably, one of explanations offered as an alternative to the stuff being smuggled to Israel was it merely was “absorbed” into the physical structure of NUMEC’s buildings and the environs of Apollo, one of the implications of that being some must have ended up in the air and water, making the extent of the contamination uncertain.  The stance of successive US administrations has been they'd prefer we conclude several hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium (ie of or close to "weapons grade") didn't by whatever means make its way to Israel but was instead absorbed into NUMEC's physical infrastructure, grounds and surrounding parts of Pennsylvania.  For those sceptical about that, the approach seems to be something like the approach taken by the more pragmatic of Vatican-approved theologians advising anyone troubled by the less plausible tales of Christianity: "You need not believe it but you must accept it".  

Planet Earth photographed from Apollo 8 as it rounded the dark side of the moon, 1968.  Our lovely blue home is like the most precious jewel in a desert of cold rocks, swirling gas and fiery relics.  We should look after it. 

Apollo has variously been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more.  Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and had a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.  An oracular god, the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle, medicine and healing were associated with Apollo although, in one of the paradoxes which are part of the charm of the myths of Antiquity, he was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and plague.  As the leader of the Muses and their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry and, using the lyre created for him by Hermes became the most common attribute in the works of art created in his honor.  The hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans and his most important daily task was to harness and ride his four-horse chariot with which he moved the Sun across the sky.

Map of the Greek Islands.

In most of the tales in Greek mythology, Apollo was born on the island of Delos and it's said Leto was unable to find a safe place to give birth because the jealous goddess Hera had placed a curse on her.  However, the island of Delos which until that moment had been floating around the Aegean suddenly became stable and anchored to the seabed, providing a safe birthplace for Apollo and his twin sister Artemis.  After that, not much happened in the region for a few millennia, the next significant event in 2019 when the MTV series Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club was filmed on the neighboring island of Mykonos which lies to the north-east.