Avignon

yeah i did like i did a bit of a like after my apprenticeship i was itching as i said like i've always wanted to to get across to to to europe um i think a lot of most young chefs in australia do but um yeah so i went i sort of had saved up and and planned a bit of a trip so i spent i went to seattle first um and went to the states and then did some things in Seattle and then...

And, yeah, did a sort of internship at Research and Development Kitchen and then headed to France where I spent quite a few weeks, a couple of months sort of travelling through from Nice to Alsace, Lyon, Champagne, Avignon and sort of around those regions and then ended up in Paris.

I didn't speak a word of French and nor do I now, but, um, yeah, get into that environment where you're, you're, you know, you're in a kitchen and a very, obviously these, the places I starved were three Michelin star restaurants.

Um, so they obviously were sort of intense and, and, uh, go-go sort of kitchen but then on top of that not understanding the clue what was going on like it was I definitely learned to feel uncomfortable in those situations and just sort of just trying to adapt in a situation where you know a thousand things are going on you're in the middle of service of things you don't understand so but yeah I loved it I just you know Paris is such a cool city and it's such a sorry which restaurants were these? I started at Le Sang and Le Prix Catalan yeah um so yeah it was yeah they were i mean they were lovely as well to me um they they uh yeah really looked out like after me while i was there and just you know that they you know they they try to show me as much as possible and and get me involved as much as possible so yeah i loved my my experience there and and uh yeah then i headed to scandinavia

an occasional cote du rhone but i think a lot of it was ropy bordeaux but but i do remember when she started buying australian wines and i started thinking to myself oh this is juicy and you know delicious and fruity i quite like

this surprisingly drinkable yeah exactly yeah So you studied French at university and that comes, as I know, because I had a year in Avignon, coincidentally, which is obviously in the southern road.

Yes, I think you've mentioned that to me in the past.

Yeah.

she's like, oh, you...

So

how did you find Avignon? Yeah,

oh, it's

The papacy at this time was closely allied with France, some thought little more than her tool.

In 1305 the Archbishop of Bordeaux had been chosen Pope, chiefly by the influence of Philip IV, and from this time the papal court had been established at Avignon, a place which though not actually French territory was perilously near the lands of France.

Philip must undoubtedly have proposed this change of residence as a means of securing his own control over the head of the Church.

In 1323 John XXII, the Pope at the time, declared that to him belonged the right of sanctioning an election, that Louis therefore had taken his title of King illegally, and that all his decrees so far were null and void.

He had allowed the foundation of a very strong estate between himself and France, for Burgundy in the hands of the successors of Philip the Bold was to be a danger to future emperors as well as to future kings.

He had been forced to acknowledge the Swabian League of Towns, although so independent a union was really contrary to the Golden Bull.

He had helped to bring about the return of the Avignon Popes to Rome and lived just long enough to see how this resulted in the great schism of the papacy.

Above all, he weakened the territorial position which he had built up with so much care by following the general custom of division amongst his sons.

But as any watcher of slasher films will tell you, there's nowhere to hide where this killer won't eventually find you.

On January 25th, 1348, the first fatalities are recorded in Avignon in southern France, then the site of the papal residence.

River traffic connects the city to the coast.

Refugees are arriving.

So they went to the newly arrived Bishop of Ossory, a man named Richard Ledred.

And Richard had been in Avignon, which was a hotbed of heresy at the time.

And he brought back his fancy continental notions with him to Kilkenny.

And when the children approached him to say that their fathers had all died mysteriously, Richard didn't think, I wonder if she's been feeding them arsenic.

And if you like zombies, you're sure to enjoy zombie survival games.

This year, The Zombieing the Dark, which is a nocturnal zombie-themed orienteering game, is settling near Avignon on October 31st.

Teams will navigate a nighttime course through vineyards and parks, trying to collect checkpoints and avoid the zombies.

And this one sounds particularly fun because you can either sign up to be a survivor or a zombie.

He left many disciples and among others Giotto who was afterwards an excellent painter which Giotto dwelt after Cimabue in his master's own house in the Via del Cocomero.

Cimabue was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore with that epitaph made for him by one of the Nini Credidit ut Cimabus Picturae castra teneret Sic tenuit Vivens Nunc tenet astra poli I will not refrain from saying that if to the glory of Cimabue there had not been contrasted the greatness of Giotto his disciple his fame would have been greater as Dante demonstrates in his Commedia wherein alluding in the eleventh canto of the Purgatorio to this very inscription on the tomb he said Credete Cimabue nella pittura Tener lo campo Ed ora ha Giotto il grido Sicce la fama di colui s'oscura In explanation of these verses a commentator of Dante who wrote at the time when Giotto was alive and ten or twelve years after the death of Dante himself that is about the year of Christ 1334 says speaking of Cimabue precisely these words Cimabue was a painter of Florence in the time of the author very noble beyond the knowledge of man and withal so arrogant and so disdainful that if there were found by anyone any failing or defect in his work or if he himself had seen one even as it comes to pass many times that the craftsman errs through a defect in the material whereon he works or through some lack in the instrument wherewith he labours incontinently he would destroy that work however costly it might be Giotto was and is the most exalted among the painters of the same city of Florence and his works bear testimony for him in Rome in Naples in Avignon in Florence in Padua and in many parts of the world This commentary is now in the hands of the very reverend Don Vincenzo Borghini prior of the Innocenti a man not only most famous for his nobility goodness and learning but also endowed with such love and understanding for all the finer arts that he has deserved to be elected by the Lord Duke Costimo most properly as his lieutenant in our academy of design But to return to Cimabue Giotto truly obscured his fame not otherwise than as a great light does the splendour of one much less for the reason that although Cimabue was as it were the first cause of the renovation of the art of painting yet Giotto his pupil moved by laudable ambition and assisted by heaven and by nature was he who rising higher with his thought opened the gate of truth to those who have brought her to that perfection and majesty wherein we see her in our own century which being used to see every day the marvels the miracles nay the impossibilities wrought by the craftsmen in that art is now brought to such a pitch that nothing that men do be it even more divine than human causes it in any way to marvel Well is it with those whose labours deserve all praise if in place of being praised and admired they do not thereby incur blame and many times even disgrace The portrait of Cimabue by the hand of Simone Sarnese is to be seen in the chapter house of Santa Maria Novella made in profile in the story of the faith in a figure that has the face thin the beard small reddish and pointed with a cap according to the use of those times that is wound round and round under the throat in lovely fashion He who is beside him is Simone himself the author of that work who portrayed himself with two mirrors in order to make his head in profile, placing the one opposite to the other; and that soldier clad in armour who is between them is said to be Count Guido Novello, then Lord of Poppi.

There remains for me to say of Cimabue that in the beginning of our book, where I have put together drawings from the own hand of all those who have made drawings from his time to ours, there are to be seen certain small things made by his hand in the way of miniature, wherein, although to-day perchance they appear rather rude than otherwise, it is seen how much excellence was given by his work to draughtsmanship.

End of section 4.

And in truth, he who puts his hand to building and to doing anything of importance should ever take counsel, not from him who knows little, but from the best, in order not to have to repent after the act, with loss and shame, that where he most needed good counsel he took the bad.

Giovanni, having dispatched his business in Perugia, wished to go to Rome in order to learn from those few ancient things that were to be seen there, even as his father had done.

But being hindered by good reasons, this his desire did not take effect, and the rather as he heard that the court had just gone to Avignon.

Returning then to Pisa, Nello di Giovanni Falconi, warden, caused him to make the great pulpit of the Duomo, which is on the right hand going towards the high altar, attached to the choir.

Remember that shocking anti-Semitic rant against an Australian Jewish couple holidaying in France? It came from an Irishman who said his name was Paddy and he went as far as saying he'd put a bullet in someone's head.

It all unfolded in a supermarket in Avignon back in August.

Here's a reminder.

I'm glad that Hitler didn't finish the job.