Politics of Oil

I had to sit down. I was overcome from viewing too many paintings. The full body ache had set in from my mind to my feet; a sensory overload top to bottom. I grabbed a plastic wrapped English translation guide that I sometimes found at each room entrance and maneuvered among the crowds into Room 9 the Antonio Pollaiolo on the second floor of the Uffizi. We had all separated somehow in private meditations of Renaissance and the multitude of visitors. I went for the bench and with my elbows propped on my knees and hands clasped around my chin I stared intently at two Botticelli miniatures, one with a decapitated head balanced on top of a young girl like a basket of fruit and the other a headless body lying in bed with a group of men standing around. Wow. What’s this? I read my guide. Encamped outside the Jewish city of Bethulia the Assyrian army awaited their invasion. Knowing the Hebrews were no match against the Assyrians the Jewish heroine Judith snuck into the Assyrian General Holofernes’ tent. Plying him with alcohol under the pretense that the beautiful widow would betray her people by sleeping with him, she lopped off his head. The Botticelli depicts Judith returning home with her maid Abra from killing the Assyrian General. In her right hand is a sword and in the left an olive branch.

More than likely it was the beheaded General’s sword and the threat that someone would discover him and come after her was entirely plausible. Her pensive look backwards is however not of a woman afraid for her life but rather knowingly confident about the symbolism of her actions. Judith carries the olive branch of peace back to her city in anticipation of what is about to happen. On learning of their leader’s assassination, the Assyrians retreated without a fight. Heroics of the individual had come strongly into play during the 1460’s Renaissance and Judith like David was a popular subject for her defiant courage against enormous odds.

Hi dad. I turned to see my 13 year old son Jonathan sitting next to me. Museums were not his favorite pastime unless they had swords, crossbows and armor. The severed head in the Botticelli seemed to get his attention though. That’s weird, his voice cracked in several octaves. Yea it is weird I said. What’s with the branch he said? I mean why carry the branch. I get the sword cause she cut off his head but come on why pick up a branch? It’s an olive branch, symbolic I explain of making peace with the Assyrians who were going to run the town off the face of the earth. You see she kills the Assyrian General before they attack and it sends them packing. You mean, Jonathan says, like the trees that they grow olives on? Yea. I’m hungry he says. Can we get something to eat?

Insatiable is the only word to describe a teenage boy’s appetite. Jonathan was infamous in our group for consuming an entire loaf of bread in less time than the time it took to prepare any meal. There was no way to beat it. And to top it off he used copious quantities of olive oil and balsamic vinegar with every loaf. I guessed the olive branch set off the latest pangs of hunger. Well, you’ll have to wait a bit. There’s a café somewhere in the museum and we can eat when we get there. The guilt set in that I was responsible for starving him and I rose from my bench to hasten the tour.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote “the olive tree is surely the richest gift of heaven” and Homer called olive oil “liquid gold”. The tree is virtually indestructible and thrives in hot and cold climates. The oil is excellent to burn for lamp light and has been used in cooking, medicine, skin treatment and religious and political ceremony since its cultivation in the Fertile Crescent 7,000 years ago. The historian Pliny said that by the first century A.D., olive oil in Italy was the best in the Mediterranean and reasonably priced to boot. The “best” had always been considered to be “Lucca” oil produced in Tuscany. Florence was the center for Lucca oil trade and thrived on it through the centuries. Tomorrow I explain to Jonathan we tour the olive oil factory at the place we’re staying. True to form he had consumed an entire loaf of bread in the café before we are served our lunch. I still don’t get the branch dad. I mean did she just happen to pick up an olive branch on her way home. I thought you said the Renaissance painters were into realism. How real is that? Well let’s not get too focused on the olive branch.

Wait. What? Jonathan echoes his two most spoken words. We’re going to see how they make olive oil? Awesome.

That night back at our 15th century villa, Fattoria di Maiano, also an active Certified Organic Olive Oil farm, we switched on the TV and watched on RAI a variety show broadcast live from a beach resort on the Amalfi coast. Michael Bolton did a duet with the hostess, a very tall and beautiful black haired Italian woman. She towered over all of the male and female performers. It was very sentimental and a young opera tenor with perhaps the biggest neck I have ever seen brought a tear to my eye. Why don’t we have these kinds of shows in the US I said to Rebecca. Sal and Domo had gone to the café at the Fattoria to try to get a Skype connection on the internet as there was no service in the apartments. The news came on and amid images of Obama at the Big 8 Economic Summit and World Soccer Cup reports was a bit about the infamous comedian and social activist Beppe Grillo. He had been in Florence recently in a Summit of his own in which he laid out a grass roots plan to eliminate political corruption in Italy. His blog is the 7th most read blog in the world and he is the second most popular public figure in Italy. Described as a cross between Michael Moore and Stephan Colbert, Beppe has been a thorn in the side of the mafia and the political left and right and is a modern crusader for numerous causes not the least of which is term limitations for politicians and no parliament members with criminal records. There are at last count over 80 elected members in the Italian government with criminal records. It is not a coincidence that Beppe has launched his effort from Florence calling it a new Renaissance and is enthusiastically supporting young people to run for city councilors seats throughout the country. Banned for the most part from the government run television because of his encounters with officials he does his work on his blog and is a huge proponent of nationalizing Water and WiFi. He believes everyone should work at home and advocates sustainable living environments and no growth. Botticelli would have been proud of Beppe.

We got the tour the next day from two statuesque Italian girls, one brunette, and one blond. We walked through the main house and our guide, the brunette, showed us where scenes from the movies, Room with a View and Tea with Mussolini were filmed. The house had been Sforza family of Milan and later the infamous Pazzi family. A saint had grown up here Mary Magdelene de’ Pazzi and the Poet/Bard Alfonso de' Pazzi, In the 1800’s the property was purchased by Sir John Temple Leader and did a great deal to improve the house and grounds. Maiano estate covers an area of nearly 300 hectares, mainly used for growing olives (20.000 olive trees on 110 hectares). “Frantoio” and “Moraiolo” olives are picked entirely by hand in the months of November and December, then pressed in the olive mill on the farm a few hours after being picked.

In a New Yorker magazine article called “Slippery Business” the writer Tom Mueller chronicles the history of corruption in the olive oil business in Italy. In recent years millions of dollars have been made on substituting the real thing with other kinds of oils. “Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” one investigator told the reporter. Fattoria di Maiano is the real deal. After the tour we did a tasting of Laudemio, an extra virgin olive oil. Jonathan was first in line.

Dad, he said. I still don’t get the olive branch in the painting.