The Tavola Strozzi

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Back in 2004 I received an email from Andrew Daniels, an art writer and researcher who had recently been asked by an elderly lady if he could tell her anything about a print that she had of the Bay of Naples. He suggested to her that it probably dated from the 15th century and, as a panoramic view in its own right, was quite unusual, and that he would try to find out more. That brought him to the Dunnett website because the painting in question was one that was used as the cover for the Penguin edition of ‘Race of Scorpions’, details of which are available on the Bibliography page, with the information that it is attributed to Francesco Rosselli (1445 – c.1513), and depicts the re-entry of the Araganese fleet after the Battle of Ischia in 1442.

Much encouraged he had tried to find more information, such as the current location of the painting, but had so far drawn a blank, so he was writing to me to ask if I had any other sources of information on the painting or if the publishers might have any. I hadn’t, and knowing that the editors who’d worked on HN had since moved on I doubted if Penguin would either, but I was sufficiently intrigued to start my own net research, and being professionally involved with search engines I was able to find some resources that had escaped Andrew up till then.

Searching based around variants of “Francesco Rosselli Naples Napoli” etc. I found a couple of Italian sites, and although my knowledge of Italian is barely even rudimentary I was able to extract the name of the painting as being “Tavola Strozzi” with sufficient information to move on to some other sites. Now of course as soon the name Strozzi came up I was further intrigued. I’m not sure if Dorothy had any input into the cover designs but just maybe there was more to the choices than there appeared. Tavola appears to mean table, in the sense that the painting was done on wood, and it seemed that it was either commissioned or donated by Filippo Strozzi. It is now in the Museo di San Martino in Naples.

One of the sites is unfortunately no longer there but there is some useful information at some others including the following.

http://www.sullacrestadellonda.it/toponomastica/gn_toponindex.htm
http://www.storia.unina.it/strozzi.html
http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/naples/html/naples_map_strozzi.html

Although some of the sites appeared to suggest that the painting was anonymous others suggested that Francesco Rosselli was an accurate attribution. However the date of the depiction quoted on the book cover seemed to be doubtful and 1465 appeared to be suggested instead, with the painting donated by Strozzi in 1472/3. Andrew thanked me for my research pointers and, being familiar with the 14th and 15th centuries, felt that these dates would fit in well with Filippo Strozzi’s return to Florence in 1466, after his family’s banishment by the Medici in 1434. Filippo had been on intimate terms with the Italian courts, especially Naples, and a gift sent there after his very ‘grand’ re-establishment in Florence would help to cement his status.

He further felt that the suggested date for the naval depiction in the Italian extract I’d sent him – 1465 – seemed more sensible than the 1442 Battle of Ischia suggested by Penguin. It celebrates a victory achieved under the current regime (Ferdinand I of Naples, from 1458), and more or less coincided with Filippo’s return to Florence. Thus seeming more relevant to both parties.

At this point Andrew confessed that he had “only read the first two volumes of ‘Niccolo’ – they’re both still on my bookshelves, and I never got round to the rest”. I replied that while they were perhaps not the easiest of books to read because of the many puzzles and complex plots, they contained rich and meticulously researched descriptions of 15th century life in Europe and would repay the time spent in all sorts of ways. He later promised he would return to them.

Andrew continued his research and told me he’d found reference to the picture in Alison Cole’s ‘Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts’; which had been on his bookshelves all the time! (That sort of thing happens to me too!) He also found Lorenzo de’ Medici’s visit to Naples in Macchiavelli’s ‘History of Florence’ (Chapter IV), though unfortunately the website on which this was available at the time is no longer holding it.

Not long after he sent me a copy of the report he’d given to the owner of the print who had started the enquiry, and indicated that she was very happy with it.

—————

Your picture of Naples is known as the Tavola Strozzi, or ‘Table of the Strozzi’, because it was painted on wood, common practise at the time. The original is in the Museo di San Martino in Naples. Topographical views were popular in the later 15th century because of the influx into Italian Courts of Flemish paintings, which included detailed landscapes.

The Strozzi were a famous and powerful family in Florence, but from 1434 – 66, they were banished from there by the Medici, the ruling family. As a result, Fillipo Strozzi, born in 1438, became well known in several princely courts, especially Naples, where he gained wealth and influence. Naples was ruled at that time by the house of Aragon, and from 1458 to 1494 by Ferrante of Aragon, also known as Ferdinand the First.

The Strozzi were allowed back into Florence in 1466, and Fillipo returned in ‘grand’ style, becoming even more wealthy and powerful. He built a famous ‘palazzo’ there for himself and his family, and became a trusted advisor to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the leader of Florence’s ‘Republic’.

It’s believed that Fillipo commisioned your picture of Naples from a Florentine map-maker and artist called Francesco Rosselli, in order to present it as a gift to Ferdinand in Naples. This would have been a shrewd move, as gifts to prestigious acquaintances underlined his own status in Florence. It’s not certain that Francesco painted it, but it seems likely as he too had spent much time in Naples. It was painted in 1472 or 1473, and supposedly depicts the triumphant re-entry into the Bay of Naples of Ferdinand’s fleet, after he’d routed his Angevin enemies in the Battle of Ischia in 1465.

The picture may also be connected to a daring diplomatic visit made by Lorenzo de’ Medici to Naples in 1479, when the Florentines were under threat from an alliance made up of Naples, Milan and Pope Sixtus IV. Lorenzo personally sailed into Naples, spending several months there and completely winning over Ferdinand and his people. Lorenzo emerged a hero, celebrated for his international statesmanship. (In fact, there was more to it than that, but that’s the legend!) The picture may have been presented to Ferdinand on the occasion of Lorenzo’s visit in 1479, whether as a gift from Fillipo Strozzi or Lorenzo himself is debateable. This seems likely given Fillipo’s links with Naples and his position of trust with Lorenzo – he must have been seen as a perfect mediator by Lorenzo, and encouraged to exploit his connections?

———-

Altogether a perfect illustration of the sort of delightful byways that reading Dunnett can take you down. We have a number of Italian readers amongst the newsletter recipients and discussion groups. Perhaps one of them can add something to this research? Dorothy’s books were well translated into Italian and still sell well there, and she always enjoyed her promotional trips as well as the research ones. She once told me that the head of her Italian publisher was also a director of La Scala Milan and used to get her the best seats in the house for the opera, which she adored.

I wonder if any of the other cover paintings have similar connections to the stories…

Introduction to the Dunnett Blog

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Whether you are a long time reader of the Dunnett newsletters, or a new reader of the books, welcome to Bill’s Dunnett Blog.

I intend to use this blog to pass on any news of events in the Dunnett world, and to add my own thoughts and commentaries on the books. Some of it may turn into articles which I’ll transfer to the main site. Some of it may invoke discussion either here on in the online Dunnett discussion groups of which there are many, or maybe even on the pages of Whispering Gallery – the paper magazine of the DDRA.

Bill

Dunnett Newsletter – Dunnett Blog announcement

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Greetings from Edinburgh – full of Festival tourists but suddenly a lot cooler after basking in the UK heatwave of July.

It’s been a long time since I last sent out a newsletter (Dec 2003 in fact) and most of you probably thought I’d abandoned them. In fact I’ve had a half-written one on my computer for many many months, but never any time to finish it. The last couple of years have been extremely involved, working in the daytime for a startup company in search engine optimisation and in the evenings on my own web design business. Throw in my chess administration duties and my membership role for the DDRA and there was little time left over. Having recently finished a particularly heavy spell and wanting to get back to some writing and discussion I reviewed the position with the website and the newsletters, and came to the conclusion that a blog might be a more suitable vehicle for providing information since it would be better for short pieces which take less time and it would get rid of the need to administer the email list.

Before going any further I should offer my apologies to those of you who have subscribed to the newsletter list over the last year or so but have never had a reply from me. In the past I always prided myself on replying to everyone individually, but this simply became impossible. Too often I was still working at 1 in the morning and some things just fell off the end of the priorities list.

So, to the blog. It’s reached quite easily at
http://www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/blog/
or from a menu item under Questions on the site’s pages.

In it I’ve archived all the old newsletters so anyone interested can read them in a better formatted form than with the old text files. New items will appear in the main screen initially and then be archived under various categories such as news, book discussion, etc. Comments can be added by anyone registering on the site, but it might also be appropriate for more involved discussion to move to one of the Yahoo based discussion groups such as Marzipan if the list admins are happy that this be so.

One of the advantages of a blog is the ease with which it allows an RSS feed to be used. There is an explanation of this on the blog for those who have yet to embrace RSS, but basically it’s a way of automatically keeping up with developments without having to manually check sites for changes.

As for this newsletter I’ll use it to catch up with some of the things that have happened over the intervening period since the last one, at least up to the beginning of this year. I’ll then post all further items and articles as blogs. Hope you like the new format and look foward to re-establishing contact with you all.

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Let’s catch up, what’s happened over the last couple of years or so? If you’ll forgive me I’ll mix in my own activities with the directly Dunnett ones so they make some sort of chronological sense.

January 2004 saw the death of a brilliant and very well known Scottish fiddle player who had moved to America some years before. This was Johnny Cunningham who had been a founder member of Silly Wizard, one of the key bands of the Scottish folk music revival. I had once worked with him, and was a great admirer of his music, and his death came a a great shock. I was astonished to learn later that he was a Dunnett reader and had expressed an interest in writing music inspired by Dorothy’s work and using it in a film if one were to be brought to fruition. That we had never made the connection and had a chance to discuss this made his death all the harder to take.

By early 2004 I had been out of work for about 8 months and things were getting a bit grim. However my old friend and flatmate for the previous year and a half, John Sampson, had a new show coming up with the Natural Theatre Company of Bath. Another dear friend is usually their technical wiz but he was unwell and they were looking for a sound engineer to take his place on the tour. I’d worked with them many years previously when I did that for a living so John suggested to them that I should do it.

I had always loved that job and jumped at the chance, so it was off down to Bath for reheasals of “Scarlatti in Paradise”, and then off to Germany for two months where we had a wonderful, if rather hectic, time dashing around most parts of what was previously West Germany from Hamburg and the northern coast towns down to Munich and Kempten in the south. The scenery was superb, the people almost invariable friendly and helpful, the show went perfectly and the audiences were wildly enthusiastic. As a bonus I was able to meet up with German Dunnett fan and King Hereafter expert Heike Meyer on one of our days off, and we spent a lovely afternoon exploring one of the nearby medieaval walled towns.

Incidentally while staying with John I noticed a large model ship in his collection of artefacts brought back from various overseas music tours. Closer inspection revealed it was none other than the Peter von Dansig!

I was not long back from the tour when the DDRA AGM was upon us, and it was a rather traumatic one as membership had been falling rapidly in the years after Dorothy’s death and there was a move to wind up the association before we found ourselves in an impossible position. I was deeply uneasy at this but with touring in Germany I wasn’t in a position to do much about it. I don’t want to rake over old ground so I’ll just say that it turned out that the motion was defeated, but in the process we lost Val Bierman who as editor and chief organiser had been the mainstay of Whispering Gallery magazine and in effect the DDRA and its forerunner the DDF for all the years they had been going. Val received a remuneration for her work but it has to be said that it didn’t remotely begin to cover the vast amount of work that she did. Losing her abilities was a grievous blow and it meant that the committee would have to completely change its functions and spread all the work over a wide range of people. We were fortunate that the new committee members were willing and able to take this on but I think everyone found out just how much work and time was involved. We began a thorough review of just about everything that the DDRA was involved in and email flew thick and fast for many months afterwards.

I should also mention the Sunday trip of that AGM weekend which was to Stirling. We had a glorious hot April day and were guided on our way round Stirling Castle by Doreen Grove of Historic Scotland who gave us some wonderful insights into the development and history of the castle, which was one of the most important pieces of royal architecture of its period. We also got to see the superb Unicorn Tapestrys being woven, which we had been given an excellent talk on the previous day by the artist who had not long previously finished the first of them – the Unicorn in the Garden – which was now on display in the Chapel Royal.
I added a Stirling page to the Dunnett Places to Visit section with photographs from that trip. Access it via the North page on the menu or see the photos directly at http://www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/dustirling.htm

I was back to looking for work and was just about to start up my own little web design business when a former colleague from a couple of years earlier asked me to join his new company and I started travelling out to Livingston every day. After 21 years of walking to work at Thins it was a shock to become a commuter, though at least I was always heading in the opposite direction to the bulk of the traffic!

During that summer I was invited to give a talk on Dorothy to a party of Americans who were visiting on a literary tour. I was happy to do so and this took place in the Royal Overseas League. The ladies had visited Orkney and Roslin amongst others and while they weren’t all Dunnett readers they seemed to enjoy the talk and I received a charming thank-you letter from the organiser.

Another addition to the website around this time was a new page on the book covers section dealing with non-English covers. This was prompted by the receipt of some messages and copies of four covers from Russia. My correspondent, a young lady by the name of Galyna, has become a firm fan and has been inspired to read more Scottish literature. It transpired that the first two books of Lymond have been translated into Russian but published as four books.

I also added the hilariously inappropriate German Dolly covers to that page, while on the Old Book Covers page I added some of the Sphere editions of Lymond which are also amongst the less realistic covers we’ve had inflicted on us over the years!

The Bibliography page had a long overdue revamp – split it into a number of sub-sections relating to the different series and made much clearer. I also updated all the entries for the Howes audiobooks having been back in touch with Paul Radford at Howes who was as always very helpful and sent me scans of the titles I didn’t have for inclusion in the new Audiobook Covers page.

Dictionary of National Biography

Dunnett reader Belinda Copson had been working on Dorothy’s entry for the Dictionary of National Biography. This is a huge reference project which was published later in 2004 and as such the memoir will be a definitive one for future researchers. Belinda asked me if I would cast an eye over her early drafts and I was able to offer a few small amendments.
Readers should be able to access the new DNB via academic libraries and possibly larger public county libraries (it’s appeared both in print and in an online subscription version).

New German Editions of Niccolo announced

Martine Dauwel, who runs the excellent German Dunnett site, had been busy making converts in the publishing world and was able to announce some good news. Klett Cotta, one of the oldest publishers in Germany had decided to produce new translations of the House of Niccolo beginning with Niccolo Rising in 2005. (In fact this was a little delayed and was published recently)
Congratulations to Martine. Excellent work! Lets hope the books are a great success there.

Peter McClure

The artist and cartographer Peter McClure, who worked on the covers and maps for Dorothy’s books for many years, sadly died around this time. I’ve heard him described as a charming if slightly eccentric man who always insisted on delivering his finished works in person even though it must often have meant substantial travel costs. A talented artist who took great interest in producing images that reflected the books, his designs occasionally had to be rejected because they gave away important plot points – however he always took it in good grace and enjoyed the challenge. He had been due to speak at Jo Kirkham’s Dunnett day in Rye and would undoubtedly have been a big hit there.

Geography and Paintings

Two pieces of correspondence occurred which are interesting enough to be given separate articles in the new blog. The first was an enquiry about the geography around Midculter and the second was concerned with the painting used for one of the Niccolo titles. Look out for these articles appearing shortly.

April 2005 saw the DDRA AGM weekend move to a new venue. The Point Hotel, while having excellent rooftop views, was lacking in certain facilities and had put up its prices, so we were forced to look for an alternative home for Edinburgh in the Spring. We looked at a variety of options, most of them turning out to be way too expensive, before deciding on the Royal Overseas League on Princes St, which I’d suggested investigating following my earlier talk there. It has, if anything, even better views of the Castle, and has proved popular with the attendees.

There were plenty of highlights in the weekend. A talk on “Loving Sybilla” by Julia Hart was clearly extensively researched and delivered with great aplomb and conviction. I’m sure she will have won a few converts. Doreen Groves also gave a talk – one that can hardly be adequately summarised such was the breadth of its scope – putting Marie de Guise in the context of the political and dynastic landscape of Europe and based on some very new and as yet unpublished research which she decided at the last minute would be of interest to us.

However despite the excellence of these talks the undoubted highlight was the Sunday visit to the National Library of Scotland in George IV Bridge to see a selection of items from the Dunnett Archive. This was a specially arranged visit and as far as we know the only time in recent years that the Library has been opened on a Sunday. There were numerous items from various parts of the archive – some very early notes and card indexes from the time of Game of Kings. The famous roll of wallpaper which held the genealogy of the European rulers in the time of Thorfinn. Some items from Dorothy’s schooldays. There was far too much to take in and remember in the limited time available as we divided into two groups to make viewing easier, and we hope to return at a later date to see more of it. Our visit was followed by splitting into smaller groups for a walk down the Royal Mile – I had the pleasure of conducting one of these and pointing out various places of interest. Lunch was then taken in Jackson’s restaurant and followed by a tour around the new Scottish Parliament building. While many people found this interesting I’m afraid it merely confirmed to me that it had cost far too much money.

2005 also saw the publication of a list of the 100 Best Scottish Books. This was compiled to celebrate the launch of Edinburgh as the first European City of Literature – an ideal promotion for a city in which printing and publishing played such a prominent part, though sadly the days when it boasted the headquarters of many internationally important publishers have now gone. The 100 Best was a competition instigated by Prof Willy Malley of Glasgow University to encourage reading and discussion and he set it off with a list of his top 100 and invited people to vote for their favourite. Game of Kings achieved 2nd place, beaten only by Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song. A wonderful achievement even if the votes were boosted a little by our strong organisation as Dunnett readers.

This wasn’t the only success in terms of national recognition. The venerable BBC radio programme Woman’s Hour asked their listeners to vote for their favourite romantic hero – the result was a clear win for our favourite blond Scots mercenary, Francis Crawford, an outcome that seems to have caught the show’s producers a little unprepared, as they were clearly expecting the winner to come from the likes of messers Darcy, Rochester and Heathcliffe. Just to confirm Dorothy’s prominence she also appeared in the same programme’s list of Books That Changed Your Life in the top ten.

Later in 2005 the Dunnett Siege of Malta took place, a gathering organised by Simon Hedges and Cindy Byrne. Sadly I was unable to attend so I can’t give any first hand descriptions, but it was very well attended with readers coming from all over the world. Anyone interested can see descriptions and photos on Simon’s site at http://www.simonhedges.com/ or may wish to take out membership of the DDRA and obtain copies of the relevant copies of Whispering Gallery which also contained a report and colour photos.

Many of you have enjoyed the CD Music for Lymond and Niccolo produced by the Edinburgh Renaissance Band who have played at a number of Gatherings. After being unavailable for a while they managed to get some more pressed towards the end of 2005. They also brought out a new CD – Music of Castle and Kirk, which while not as closely associated with Dorothy’s work as the first one, is of the same period and contains further examples of the sort of music that was around during our heroes’ time. Once again this is a private production and not available in shops, but they have asked me to continue to offer them for sale through the website and I’ve added the details of it next to the first one.

That takes us to the end of 2005 and we’ll leave it there with the catch ups and I’ll add the 2006 activities to the new blog.

best wishes to you all

slainte

Bill

Dunnett Newsletter – 13th Dec 2003

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Winter Greetings from Edinburgh

I’d originally intended to get this out for last month but the stresses of job-hunting and a number of other personal matter (mum’s been in hospital for the last two weeks) have side-tracked me. I’ve also been having a lot of email problems – despite now having three different ISPs – and have been missing quite a few days incoming mail and a disturbing number of outgoing messages. I was thus reluctant to send out a newsletter until I was confident that it would go out without too many problems. I suspect that much of the difficulties have been caused by the massive number of worm-distributed fake Microsoft patches that were going around for a while as the failures mostly coincided with attempts to filter out those messages due to load they imposed on servers. One of the ISPs said that they were getting 4Gb of them a day at the height and before I found a suitable spam filter to run on my mailboxes I was getting around 40-50 of them a day. If any of you are having problems with spam and fake attachments then I can recommend Mailwasher as an excellent solution. Just as an added complication a couple of days ago AOL bounced a message I sent out via Freeserve (the largest UK ISP and part of the multinational Wanadoo group) and it looks as if they’ve blacklisted them so I’ll be using a different outgoing server and keeping fingers well and truely crossed. It’s maybe about time I set up my own mail server but that will have to wait until I have a permanent connection.

Orkney story and pictures

The principle feature of this newsletter is something I’ve had in half-finished form since last year – a description of the return trip I made to Orkney in August 2002. With the Claes group re-reading King Hereafter it seemed an appropriate time to finish it off and I’ve added some new Orkney photos to both the Dunnett web site, where I’ve rewritten and expanded the Orkney page, and my personal site, where I’ve added a second page for Orkney photos.  Both Orkney trip descriptions have been put onto the Dunnett website and I’ll put some illustrations into them later.

Another site that you may want to check out is www.maeshowe.co.uk which is run by Orkney photographer Charles Tait. With the winter solstice coming up he’s set up three web cams which, weather permitting, will show the sun streaming down the low passageway and being reflected around the interior of Maes Howe. He has loads of pictures on that and his other associated sites including some very atmospheric shots of Brodgar in mist and one of the sites has some wonderful photos of the recent spectacular Auroras. I rather think I could die happy if I could see an aurora from the Ring of Brodgar!

Writers Museum Exhibition page

There is a new page just added (www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/duwritersmuseum.htm) with some pictures of the small exhibition about Dorothy in the Writers Museum in Edinburgh. Once again we’re indebted to Elspeth Morrison for putting that together. The two interior pictures aren’t the greatest as I wasn’t really supposed to be taking them and the person I needed to get permission from wasn’t available. One of them shows the Warming Apple and the Unicorn Collar in the display case and I knew everyone would like to see those. If I get a chance I’ll go back and try and get permission for proper photos with the serious camera gear. The museum is an interesting building dating originally from 1622 and known as Lady Stair’s House. Extensively restored by Lord Roseberry in 1897, it now houses full time exhibitions about three of Scotland’s most famous writers – Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson, with many artefacts and pictures which will fascinate all devotees of literature.
There are also additions to the pictures in the Edinburgh pages (www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/duvisitsedin.htm)

Venice Pictures and new Maps

Since the last newsletter I’ve added a new item to the Dunnett Places to Visit in Europe page – some photos of the eternally romantic city of Venice very kindly sent to me by Sharon Michalove. (www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/duvisits2venice.htm)
A Maps page has also been added with centralised links to the maps on the site, including a new map of Europe in Nicholas’ time and a redrawn and slightly clearer Orkney map. I hope to add further items when time allows. (www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/dumaps.htm)

Forthcoming Events page

There is now a long overdue Forthcoming Events page with details of the various Spits and Gatherings (www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/duevents.htm).
A notable one for those living “down-under” is the Sydney Revel in Australia on Saturday 17th January 2004 being organised by Michael Sedin. There is a registration form you can download if you want to attend this, or contact him at msedin@exhibitorservices.com.au.

Along with the now well established UK dates such as Oxford there are also plans for a gathering in Malta in either Autumn 2004 or Spring 2005 and there is a Yahoo discussion group formed by Simon Hedges and Cindy Byrne to arrange this if you’re interested in seeing the home of the Knights.

DDRA AGM in April

Of course we also want to see as many of you as possible in Edinburgh in April for the 4th DDRA AGM. Alongside the AGM there will be a talk on the Unicorn Tapestry project by one of the weaving team from Stirling and Charles Burnett will give us more insight into Heraldry. Stirling – site of the Papingo Shoot in Game of Kings – is also the focus of the Sunday trip and we’ll take in the site of the Battle of Bannockburn on the way. A visit to the 16th century Argyll’s Lodging and lunch in Mar Place House will then leave the whole afternoon for exploration. Of course the E2000 Gathering Banquet was held in the Great Hall of Stirling Castle and it will be good to get a chance to explore the castle in more detail than was possible then. Cost is UKP 33 for the Saturday and UKP 27 for the Sunday trip.
Bookings or enquiries should be sent to The Editor, Whispering Gallery, 9 Gillespie Crescent, Edinburgh. Note that she’ll be away during February and during that time I’ll be taking enquiries instead.

At this point I should make an appeal to anyone whose subscription to the DDRA has lapsed – issue 81 has just come out and if you didn’t receive one it may be that you were one of the 37 people who were due to renew after issue 80 but didn’t. If you’re unsure please contact me as I now administer the membership database. We need as many members as possible to keep the Association going and keep Dorothy’s legacy of writing available to as wide a readership as possible.

Renaissance Band CD problems

A word about the Edinburgh Renaissance Band CD – I’ve been unable to get hold of my usual band contact Peter Jones since August, and his phone number has been out of service for some months, so I currently don’t have any copies of the CD. I’m trying to get hold of other band members at the moment. Will keep you posted.
I do still have signed copies of the Lymond Poetry for anyone who is looking for it.

Dunnett Readers in Spain

Earlier this year I received a message from Liza Cochrane in Spain who’s been running reading classes on Lymond! I asked if she could elaborate for us and she sent me the following delightful article.

– – – – – –
At various stressful times in my life, I’ve escaped into the 16th century. Reading the Lymond Chronicles again last summer, I realised just how much history I’d learned from them, and because of them! I live on Spain’s Costa del Sol where, for 4 years, I’d been giving a U3A course on Art History. Why not give Art a rest and offer a course on 16th century history? Being a Scot, I thought I might start with the How When and Why the United Kingdom became united. Why not, in fact, use Game of Kings as a starting point? The result was: 10 readers signed up for the course, all ex-pats like myself – a fellow Scot, three Americans, the rest English. To their own subsequent astonishment, none of them had even heard of Dorothy Dunnett! One lady commented, “I wondered how we were going to spend six sessions discussing one book. But then I started to read it; and it’s not just an ordinary book, is it?”
Indeed not!
“I found history boring at school,” said another.
“If only we’d had a book like this, making it so real!”

After Kings, I suggested we skip on to Disorderly Knights, but two members (hooked on Lymond) insisted they read Queens’ Play, so I asked them to give us all a résumé of it – which also allowed time for everyone to do the inevitable re-reading of Knights! During the Christmas break, two members went to Malta and returned with maps and books.

We studied the history of the Knights. We sidetracked into heraldry. Those of us with Internet researched Dragut Rais. I passed around my holiday photographs taken inside and outside a Scottish keep (Hunterston Castle, in fact) to explain the fight at Liddel Keep. I also encouraged those English members who’d never visited Scotland (!) to take a trip to the Borders on their next visit ‘home’ – and to look out for the keeps that belonged to the Kerrs. You can tell, I said, from the spiral stairs twisting the ‘other’ way, for defence by left-handed swordsmen.
“Fascinating!” said someone. “I know a Kerr. He’s left-handed.” (Corrie- or Kerrie?- fisted.)

By that time, we were all caught up in the Lymond story, so we’re about to start the new term and Pawn. Two members have bought all six books. One couldn’t stop, and has read the lot. Another “rationing myself”, she says, has deliberately left Checkmate in England for a Christmas treat.

She told me a funny story. At Easter, travelling back from England by train, there was a three-hour hold-up in France. She didn’t mind. She was engrossed in Pawn. Last week, travelling back from England by train, there was another delay. She didn’t mind. She was deep in Ringed Castle… But she’s wondering if bringing Checkmate back after Christmas might be tempting fate!

At least one of us (our computer guru) dips into several of the DD websites, but where our reading of the last three books will take us, who knows? Moscow? Istanbul? A search for Sevigny?

I did that very thing many years ago, and wrote to Dorothy about it. Her charming and lengthy reply (typed, with errors corrected in ink) has been with me through four ‘flittings’ – including the move to Spain. A treasure to treasure! My greatest pleasure has been in introducing Dorothy’s ‘box of delights’ to a group of brand new fans.
– – – – – – – –

Liza tells me she even negotiated a discount at her local English-language bookshop since they’ve been doing bulk sales of DD books! Long may she continue her excellent “missionary” work and many thanks for letting us know about it.

On to the main item. Many people wrote to me after I produced the Modern Orkney Saga to say how much they enjoyed it so I thought you might also appreciate a description of a second trip I made just over a year later.

This article has now been given its own page on the main website – Return to Orkney – and removed from this post.

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That’s all for now. Off to do some more job hunting.

A good New Year to you all when it comes

slainte

Bill