palermo – SaltShaker

Hero of the Two Worlds

Dan Perlman — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:44:41 +0000

“There is around the name of Garibaldi a halo which nothing can extinguish: a whole life devoted to one object – his country; a name consecrated by deeds of honor, first abroad, and then at home; valor and constancy more than admirable; simplicity of life and manners which recalls the men of antiquity; all the most mournful trials and losses manfully endured; glory and poverty! Every particular relating to such a man is precious.”

– Giuseppe Mazzini, Italian politician

Buenos Aires – Sometimes you just don’t feel like a long walk. Maybe you only have a short few moments on a lunch break, or stepping out of the exhibition center, but you’re here in Buenos Aires, and you know you need to see a sight or two, and there’s one, right there in the middle of the street. We’re at Plaza Italia, a confluence of three major streets, the hub for many a bus line, and an easy reference point when you’re meeting up with acquaintances for whatever you’re up to next. To the east, coming to a point between Av. Santa Fé and Av. Las Heras, is the stretch of the Botanical Gardens; to the north, between Las Heras and Av. Sarmiento, the Municipal Zoo; to the west, the La Rural exhibition complex, and to the south, all of Palermo Viejo awaits. And in the center, in a pretty little plaza, Giuseppe Garibaldi watches over it all.

The plaza is laid out in sort of a squashed elliptical shape, though that wasn’t always its form. When originally designed in the late 1800s it was a small octagon of green surrounding a decorative fountain, and later (1904), the statue of Garibaldi, a gift from the local Italian community to the city. The three major arteries were much more direct, at that time known as Chavango (now Av. Las Heras), De las Palmeras (now Av. Sarmiento) and Paseo Santa Fé (now Av. Santa Fé). A huge portal had been built in the late 1800s as a sort of entrance to De las Palmeras, and it was flanked to one side by the recently opened gardens and zoo and to the other by the first La Rural exhibitions. The city installed the first electric trolley line to start from here, at the Portones station, which is now the Banco Nacion building along Santa Fé.

I’m not going to get into the history of Garibaldi himself, other than a brief outline – he was actually born in 1807 in France, in Nice, though within a community of semi-exiled Italians. In 1833 he joined a revolutionary faction against the current Italian government, ended up “permanently” exiled, went Tunisia, Brazil, and eventually found his way to Uruguay, where he married, started a family, worked as a trader and schoolmaster, and somehow, from that position, found himself appointed as the commander of the Uruguayan naval fleet, defending Montevideo against various invaders. He eventually returned to Italy when the fortunes of government changed, but soon found himself exiled yet again for anti-government military activities, at which time he took refuge in the small state of San Marino. From there he made his way to Tangier, and then on to… Staten Island, then later to England, back to Italy, exiled again, off to Austria, then France, and finally spent his last years on a small island off the coast of Sardinia, where he died at age 75.

Here’s the lowdown, or is it downlow on the statue…. According to the text on one of the four plaques placed around the plaza (in side-by-side Spanish and Italian), it depicts Garibaldi, with sword drawn, atop his anxious horse – anxiety apparently due to being surrounded by various forces out to dispatch his rider.

This figure is the seated Liberty, a female figure with the shield of the city of Buenos Aires in her left hand and a broken chain held loosely in her right fist. Over her head is a small banner that translates to “Liberty is sweeter than life”.

On the opposite side of the statue is a seated female figure of Victory, in a Greek style, crowned by laurels. She has a battle shield tucked under her right arm and a helm for a suit of armor balanced on her left knee; her sword is sheathed – the basic theme being, the battle is over and we won. The banner above her head translates to “Fortune crowns the victor.”

On the front of the statue is a narrow relief depicting the February 8, 1846 battle of San Antonio de Salto, with Garibaldi commanding the local Italian legion in defense of the city of Montevideo.

To the rear, in a narrow space between the statue and surrounding trees, a similar relief showing Garibaldi leading legionnaires from Piedmont and Lombardy against the army of the Bourbons, referred to as La Partida de Quarto.

The rest of Plaza Italia is taken up by a nice array of bushes, trees, and benches. There is a small brick, orange glass block and tile shrine to the Virgin of Lujan (the guardian of travelers if I understand it all correctly). And see, hardly any walking.

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The Sicilian Connection

Dan Perlman — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:34:29 +0000

“The people? They are the dust you draw your circles in. THOSE are the people! Sicilians are hopeless. I mean exactly that! Nothing changes here… EVER!”

– Abbot Manfredi, in The Sicilian (1987)

Buenos Aires – As I mentioned the other day, I found myself walking around Plaza Sicilia, on the chance of sighting a Statue of Liberty replica that the city’s database asserted was there. As long as I was mucking about and checking out statues, I figured, why not cover the plaza? Part of it I’ve mentioned on occasion – the Jardín Japonés, though it occurs to me I’ve never really done a writeup on it – not that it’s a particularly outstanding one – it’s about what one might expect going in. Perhaps one day… back to the Plaza as a whole – it’s more or less bounded by Avenidas Libertador, Sarmiento, Alcorta, and Casares, at the far eastern edge of Palermo and the Parque 3 de Febrero. There’s a long, narrow traffic island running along the Alcorta side, and smack dab in the middle of it is what appears to be the sort of launching point for the plaza – this little dias with a Persian Lion (that strangely seems to be diagrammed for butchering), followed by a towering pedestal with two bulls’ heads atop, called the Column of the Persian Temple (a replica of the column at the Palace of Persepolis), gifts of the Iranian government to the city of Buenos Aires. I’m not even sure that these are considered part of Plaza Sicilia, given that they’re on the traffic island. One of the two plaques in front of the lion has been removed, the other is the Iranian coat-of-arms.

From there, entering the plaza proper, the next encounter is with the Caperucita Roja, or Little Red Riding Hood. The sculpture dates from 1937, and is by French scupltor Jean Carlus. Originally the work was located in Centro, in the Plaza Lavalle, facing onto Av. Córdoba, but was moved to this spot in 1972, where it balances atop a piece of concrete removed from the first site. More than once in its history, the bronze plaque that sits in front of the statue (and that of most of the monuments in this park) has been stolen and had to be replaced – whether the plaques (and sometimes whole busts or statues) are being stolen for their sentimental or historical value, essentially souvenirs, or as sources of scrap metal, is up for debate.

The standout statue, at the corner of Sarmiento and Libertador, at least as far as guidebooks are generally concerned, is the Rodin sculpture of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, seventh president of the Republic of Argentina. He is perhaps best known for his progressive outlook on education, and is generally credited with the implementation of the free and open admission educational system and library system here in Argentina. The statue is of note, besides being a Rodin, with its interesting pedestal details of Mercury emerging from the Gates of Hell, is that the statue is erected precisely on the spot where Sarmiento’s arch-enemy, Juan Manuel de Rosas, had his home. In fact, the entire plaza was constructed on the grounds of the home, which, with great fanfare, was dynamited to the ground. The statue is also placed with its back to a small acacia tree (you can just see it to the left, inside a low black fenced square) that bears a plaque at its root, commemorating the Aromo de Manuelita, the spot where Rosas’ daughter used to rest under the trees to escape the tyrannies of her father, according to her memoirs. (Of additional note, a monument to Rosas is located cross corner and defiantly facing Sarmiento’s statue, placed there later by his supporters.)

In 1998, on the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, that nation gifted a bust of Mahatma Gandhi to the city of Buenos Aires, and it is positioned along Libertador not far along to the east. The statue is a work by Indian sculptor Ram Vanji Sutar, who also sculpted the bust of Gandhi that sits at East 21st Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, along with many statues that grace government buildings throughout India.

A few steps further on is one of my favorite statues, a bust of Nobel Prize winning Italian poet and author Luigi Pirandello, donated to the city by the province of Agrigento, in Sicily, his home region. The work is that of Sicilian sculptor Giuseppe “Pino” Cirami, and was placed here in 2003.

Finally, we’re back at the edge of the Japanese Gardens, and on the corner of Libertador and Casares, is this flower-ringed statue of Carlos Tejedor, who was a congressman, and then foreign minister under Sarmiento’s presidency, and later became the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, and was noted for his staunch opposition to federalism and led the fight against the idea of an autonomous federal capital, the city of Buenos Aires itself.