Giovanni Bononcini
Giovanni Bononcini was an Italian Baroque composer, cellist and teacher, one of a family of string players and composers. Bononcini was born in Modena, the oldest of three sons, his father, Giovanni Maria Bononcini, was a violinist and a composer, his younger brother, Antonio Maria Bononcini, was a composer. An orphan from the age of 8, Giovanni Battista studied in the music school of Giovanni Paolo Colonna at San Petronio Basilica in Bologna. In 1685, at the age of 15, he published three collections of instrumental works. On 30 May 1686, he was accepted as a member of the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, his services were much in demand: he worked at San Petronio as a string player and singer, published further collections of instrumental pieces, produced two oratorios for performance in Bologna and Modena. From 1687 to 1691 he served as maestro di cappella at the church of San Giovanni in Monte in Bologna, for which he composed a set of masses) for double choir which were published in 1688 as his op.7.
In 1690 he composed a further oratorio for Modena. He spent some time in Milan in 1689 and 1690. In 1691 he dedicated a set of vocal duets to Emperor Leopold I and played in the orchestra of the Cardinal Legate of Bologna, Benedetto Pamphili. In the same year, he moved to Rome, where he entered the service of Filippo II Colonna, a powerful patron of the arts, for whom Bononcini, along with Colonna's librettist, Silvio Stampiglia, produced six serenatas, an oratorio and at three operas between 1692 and 1696, including the successful Xerse. Another successful opera, Il trionfo di Camilla was produced in Naples following the appointment of Colonna's brother-in-law, Luigi della Cerda, as Spain's local viceroy. Between 1695 and 1696, Bononcini was made a member of two of Rome's most exclusive artistic circles, the musical Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the literary Accademia degli Arcadi. Around this time, the eclectic musician and poet Giuseppe Valentini wrote a sonnet in praise of Bononcini's teaching abilities.
Following the death of Colonna's wife Lorenza in August 1697, Bononcini left Rome for Vienna, where he entered the service of Emperor Leopold I with a large salary and established himself as the favoured composer of Leopold's heir and successor, Joseph. In 1702, following the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession Bononcini moved to the court of Queen Sophia Charlotte in Berlin, where he became the queen's favourite composer and broadened his public reputation with a production of a new opera, Polifemo. Although his activities in the next decade are less well documented, he appears to have been in Venice for the production of a new opera during the carnival of 1706. By this time Bononcini had an enviable international reputation: in the words of his fellow composer Francesco Geminiani, Camilla had "astonished the musical world by its departure from the dry, flat melody to which their ears had until been accustomed". By 1710, productions of Camilla had reached London as well as many cities across Italy.
At some time during this decade on one of his sojourns to Italy, he married Margherita Balletti. She came from a family of actors and commedia dell'arte players and was the sister-in-law of Luigi Riccoboni. From 1720 to 1732 he was in London, where for a time his popularity rivaled George Frideric Handel's, who had arrived in London in 1712; the Whig party favored Handel. Their competition inspired the epigram by John Byrom that made the phrase "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" famous. Handel gained the ascendancy, Bononcini became a pensioner of the Duchess of Marlborough, who had led his admirers. Bononcini left London after charges of plagiarism were proven against him: he had palmed off a madrigal by Antonio Lotti as his own work. After leaving London in 1733, Bononcini travelled to France in the company of an adventurer, Count Ughi, who swindled him out of most of his property. In Paris Bononcini gave concerts of his religious music at the Concert Spirituel and moved on to Lisbon to become the cello teacher to the Portuguese king.
In 1736 he returned to Vienna, where his opera Alessandro in Sidone and his oratorio Ezechia were performed in 1737. In dire financial straits by 1742, he petitioned Maria Theresa of Austria for help. In October of that year she granted him a pension of 50 Florins a month in recognition of his past service to the court. Bononcini died on 9 July 1747 in Vienna and forgotten. After his death, his last major composition, a Te Deum which he had composed in 1741 for Francis I, was performed in celebration of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, he published his earliest works for the cello. His other works include a number of operas, a funeral anthem for the Duke of Marlborough. One of his operas, parodied material in an earlier setting of that opera by Francesco Cavalli; this included the aria "Ombra mai fu". Bononcini's Xerse was in turn adapted by Handel with a third version of "Ombra mai fu", his song Vado ben spesso cangiando loco was used by Franz Liszt in his suite for piano Années de pèlerinage: Deuxième année: Italie.
Eraclea pasticcio Xerse Tullo Ostillio Muzio Scevola Il trionfo di Camilla L'amore eroica fra pastori La clemenza di Augusto La fede pubblica Gli affetti più grandi, vinti dal più giusto (1
Twelve Olympians
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called Olympians. Although Hades was a major ancient Greek god, was the brother of the first generation of Olympians, he resided in the underworld, far from Olympus, thus was not considered to be one of the Olympians. Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other cultic groupings of twelve gods; the Olympians were a race of deities consisting of a third and fourth generation of immortal beings, worshipped as the principal gods of the Greek pantheon and so named because of their residency atop Mount Olympus. They gained their supremacy in a ten-year-long war of gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling gods, the Titans, they were a family of gods, the most important consisting of the first generation of Olympians, offspring of the Titans Cronus and Rhea: Zeus, Hera and Hestia, along with the principal offspring of Zeus: Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Dionysus.
Although Hades was a major deity in the Greek pantheon, was the brother of Zeus and the other first generation of Olympians, his realm was far away from Olympus in the underworld, thus he was not considered to be one of the Olympians. Olympic gods can be contrasted to chthonic gods including Hades, by mode of sacrifice, the latter receiving sacrifices in a bothros or megaron rather than at an altar; the canonical number of Olympian gods was twelve, but besides the principal Olympians listed above, there were many other residents of Olympus, who thus might be called Olympians. Heracles became a resident of Olympus after his apotheosis and married another Olympian resident Hebe; some others who might be considered Olympians, include the Muses, the Graces, Dione, the Horae, Ganymede. Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other various cultic groupings of twelve gods throughout ancient Greece; the earliest evidence of Greek religious practice involving twelve gods comes no earlier than the late sixth century BC.
According to Thucydides, an altar of the twelve gods was established in the agora of Athens by the archon Pisistratus, in c. 522 BC. The altar became the central point from which distances from Athens were measured and a place of supplication and refuge. Olympia also had an early tradition of twelve gods; the Homeric Hymn to Hermes has the god Hermes divide a sacrifice of two cows he has stolen from Apollo, into twelve parts, on the banks of the river Alpheius: "Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a smooth, flat stone, divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot, making each portion wholly honorable."Pindar, in an ode written to be sung at Olympia c. 480 BC, has Heracles sacrificing, alongside the Alpheius, to the "twelve ruling gods": "He enclosed the Altis all around and marked it off in the open, he made the encircling area a resting-place for feasting, honoring the stream of the Alpheus along with the twelve ruling gods."Another of Pindar's Olympian odes mentions "six double altars".
Herodorus of Heraclea has Heracles founding a shrine at Olympia, with six pairs of gods, each pair sharing a single altar. Many other places had cults of the twelve gods, including Delos, Magnesia on the Maeander, Leontinoi in Sicily; as with the twelve Olympians, although the number of gods was fixed at twelve, the membership varied. While the majority of the gods included as members of these other cults of twelve gods were Olympians, non-Olympians were sometimes included. For example, Herodorus of Heraclea identified the six pairs of gods at Olympia as: Zeus and Poseidon and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Graces and Dionysus and Alpheus, Cronus and Rhea, thus while this list includes the eight Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Apollo and Dionysus, it contains three clear non-Olympians: the Titan parents of the first generation of Olympians and Rhea, the river god Alpheius, with the status of the Graces being unclear. Plato connected "twelve gods" with the twelve months, implies that he considered Pluto one of the twelve in proposing that the final month be devoted to him and the spirits of the dead.
The Roman poet Ennius gives the Roman equivalents as six male-female complements, preserving the place of Vesta, who played a crucial role in Roman religion as a state goddess maintained by the Vestals. There is no single canonical list of the twelve Olympian gods; the thirteen gods and goddesses most considered to be one of the twelve Olympians are listed below. Most listings include either one or the other of the following deities as one of the twelve Olympians. Notes^ Romans associated Phoebus with Helios and the sun itself, they used the Greek name Apollon in a Latinized form Apollo.^ According to an alternate version of her birth, Aphrodite was born of Uranus, Zeus' grandfather, after Cronus threw his castrated genitals into the sea. This supports the etymology of her name, "foam-born"; as such, Aphrodite would belong to the same generation as Cronus, Zeus' father, would be Zeus' aunt
Polyphemus
Polyphemus is the giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's Odyssey. His name means "abounding in songs and legends". Polyphemus first appears as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the Odyssey; some Classical writers link his name with the nymph Galatea and present him in a different light. In Homer's epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclops during his journey home from the Trojan War and, together with some of his men, enters a cave filled with provisions; when the giant Polyphemus returns home with his flocks, he blocks the entrance with a great stone and, scoffing at the usual custom of hospitality, eats two of the men. Next morning, the giant leaves the cave to graze his sheep. After the giant returns in the evening and eats two more of the men, Odysseus offers Polyphemus some strong and undiluted wine given to him earlier on his journey. Drunk and unwary Odysseus his name, promising him a guest-gift if he answers. Odysseus tells him "Οὖτις", which means "nobody" and Polyphemus promises to eat this "Nobody" last of all.
With that, he falls into a drunken sleep. Odysseus had meanwhile drives it into Polyphemus' eye; when Polyphemus shouts for help from his fellow giants, saying that "Nobody" has hurt him, they think Polyphemus is being afflicted by divine power and recommend prayer as the answer. In the morning, the blind Cyclops lets the sheep out to graze, feeling their backs to ensure that the men are not escaping; however and his men have tied themselves to the undersides of the animals and so get away. As he sails off with his men, Odysseus boastfully reveals his real name, an act of hubris, to cause problems for him later. Polyphemus prays to his father, for revenge and casts huge rocks towards the ship, which Odysseus escapes; the story reappears in Classical literature. In Cyclops, the 5th century BC play by Euripides, a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief from the grisly story of how Polyphemus is punished for his impious behaviour in not respecting the rites of hospitality. In his Latin epic, Virgil describes how Aeneas observes blind Polyphemus as he leads his flocks down to the sea.
They have encountered Achaemenides, who re-tells the story of how Odysseus and his men escaped, leaving him behind. The giant is described as using a "lopped pine tree" as a walking staff. Once Polyphemus reaches the sea, he groans painfully. Achaemenides is taken aboard Aeneas’ vessel and they cast off with Polyphemus in chase, his great roar of frustration brings the rest of the Cyclopes down to the shore as Aeneas draws away in fear. Julien d'Huy speculates. Elements of the story of Odysseus and Polyphemus are recognizable in the folklore of many other European groups. Wilhelm Grimm collected versions in Serbian, Estonian, Finnish and German. Versions in Basque, Lithuanian, Gascon and Celtic are known; the vivid nature of the Polyphemus episode made it a favorite theme of ancient Greek painted pottery, on which the scenes most illustrated are the blinding of the Cyclops and the ruse by which Odysseus and his men escape. One such episode, on a vase featuring the hero carried beneath a sheep, was used on a 27 drachma Greek postage stamp in 1983.
The blinding was depicted in life-size sculpture, including a giant Polyphemus, in the Sperlonga sculptures made for the Emperor Tiberius. This may be an interpretation of an existing composition, was repeated in variations in Imperial palaces by Claudius, Nero and at Hadrian's Villa. Of the European painters of the subject, the Flemish Jacob Jordaens depicted Odysseus escaping from the cave of Polyphemus in 1635 and others chose the dramatic scene of the giant casting boulders at the escaping ship. In Guido Reni's painting of 1639/40, the furious giant is tugging a boulder from the cliff as Odysseus and his men row out to the ship far below. Polyphemus is portrayed, as it happens, with two empty eye sockets and his damaged eye located in the middle on his forehead; this convention goes back to Greek statuary and painting and is reproduced in Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein's 1802 head and shoulders portrait of the giant. Arnold Bocklin pictures the giant as standing on rocks onshore and swinging one of them back as the men row over a surging wave, while Polyphemus is standing at the top of a cliff in Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting of 1902.
He stands poised, having thrown one stone, which misses the ship. The reason for his rage is depicted in Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus. Here the ship sails forward; the giant himself is an indistinct shape distinguished from the woods and smoky atmosphere high above. Although there are some earlier references to the story of the love of Polyphemus for the sea-nymph Galatea and her preference for the human shepherd Acis, the best known source is a lost play by Philoxenus of Cythera, of which a few fragments and several accounts are left. Dating from about 400 BC, it links the love story to the arrival of Odysseus and, according to ancient sources, had a witty contemporary subtext. Philoxenos had had an affair with the mistress of Dionysius I of Syracuse and as a consequence was condemned to work in the stone quarries. Here he is supposed to have composed The Cyclops, with the tyrant cast in the role of the giant, while the successful lovers are the poet and his Galatea; the Hellenistic poet Theocritus painted a more sympath
Amphitrite
In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite was a sea goddess and wife of Poseidon and the queen of the sea. Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became the consort of Poseidon and was further diminished by poets to a symbolic representation of the sea. In Roman mythology, the consort of Neptune, a comparatively minor figure, was Salacia, the goddess of saltwater. Amphitrite was a daughter of Nereus and Doris, according to Hesiod's Theogony, but of Oceanus and Tethys, according to the Bibliotheca, which lists her among both the Nereids and the Oceanids. Others called her the personification of the sea itself. Amphitrite's offspring included dolphins. Poseidon and Amphitrite had a son, Triton, a merman, a daughter, Rhodos. Bibliotheca mentions a daughter of Poseidon and Amphitrite named Benthesikyme. Amphitrite is not personified in the Homeric epics: "out on the open sea, in Amphitrite's breakers", "moaning Amphitrite" nourishes fishes "in numbers past all counting", she shares her Homeric epithet Halosydne with Thetis in some sense.
Though Amphitrite does not figure in Greek cultus, at an archaic stage she was of outstanding importance, for in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, she appears at the birthing of Apollo among, in Hugh G. Evelyn-White's translation, "all the chiefest of the goddesses and Rhea and Ichnaea and Themis and loud-moaning Amphitrite. Theseus in the submarine halls of his father Poseidon saw the daughters of Nereus dancing with liquid feet, "august, ox-eyed Amphitrite", who wreathed him with her wedding wreath, according to a fragment of Bacchylides. Jane Ellen Harrison recognized in the poetic treatment an authentic echo of Amphitrite's early importance: "It would have been much simpler for Poseidon to recognize his own son... the myth belongs to that early stratum of mythology when Poseidon was not yet god of the sea, or, at least, no-wise supreme there—Amphitrite and the Nereids ruled there, with their servants the Tritons. So late as the Iliad Amphitrite is not yet'Neptuni uxor'" ". Amphitrite, "the third one who encircles ", was so confined in her authority to the sea and the creatures in it that she was never associated with her husband, either for purposes of worship or in works of art, except when he was to be distinctly regarded as the god who controlled the sea.
An exception may be the cult image of Amphitrite that Pausanias saw in the temple of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. Pindar, in his sixth Olympian Ode, recognized Poseidon's role as "great god of the sea, husband of Amphitrite, goddess of the golden spindle." For poets, Amphitrite became a metaphor for the sea: Euripides, in Cyclops and Ovid, Metamorphoses. Eustathius said that Poseidon first saw her dancing at Naxos among the other Nereids, carried her off, but in another version of the myth, she fled from his advances to Atlas, at the farthest ends of the sea. In the arts of vase-painting and mosaic, Amphitrite was distinguishable from the other Nereids only by her queenly attributes. In works of art, both ancient ones and post-Renaissance paintings, Amphitrite is represented either enthroned beside Poseidon or driving with him in a chariot drawn by sea-horses or other fabulous creatures of the deep, attended by Tritons and Nereids, she has nets in her hair. The pincers of a crab are sometimes shown attached to her temples.
Amphitrite is the name of a genus of the worm family Terebellidae. In poetry, Amphitrite's name is used for the sea, as a synonym of Thalassa. Seven ships of the Royal Navy were named HMS Amphitrite Amphitrite, which wrecked in 1833 with heavy loss of life while transporting convicts to New South Wales At least one ship of the Royal Netherlands Navy was named HM Amphitrite. Three ships of the United States Navy were named USS Amphitrite. An asteroid, 29 Amphitrite, is named for her; the figure of Amphitrite plays a role in the 1918 Spanish novel Mare Nostrum by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and its 1926 film adaptation. In 1936 Australia used an image of Amphitrite on a postage stamp as a classical allusion for the submarine communications cable across Bass Strait from Apollo Bay, Victoria to Stanley, Tasmania; the name of the former Greek Royal Yacht. Amphitrite Pool, a shallow ceremonial pool on the grounds of the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York contains a statue of Amphitrite.
When First Classmen are taking their Third Mate or Third Assistant Engineer License Examinations, it is considered good luck if they bounce a coin off Amphitrite into a seashell at her feet. Smith, William. "Amphitri'te", "Halosydne. Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
Oceanid
In Greek mythology, the Oceanids or Oceanides are the nymphs who were the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. The Oceanids' father Oceanus was the great primordial world-encircling river, their mother Tethys was a sea goddess, their brothers the Potamoi were the personifications of the great rivers of the world. Like the rest of their family, the Oceanid nymphs were associated with water, as the personification of springs. Hesiod says they are "dispersed far and wide" and everywhere "serve the earth and the deep waters", while in Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, the Argonauts, stranded in the desert of Lybia, beg the "nymphs, sacred of the race of Oceanus" to show them "some spring of water from the rock or some sacred flow gushing from the earth"; the Oceanids are not categorized, nor confined to any single function, not necessarily associated with water. Though most nymphs were considered to be minor deities, many Oceanids were significant figures. Metis, the personification of intelligence, was Zeus' first wife, whom Zeus impregnated with Athena and swallowed.
The Oceanids Amphitrite and Doris, like their mother Tethys, were important sea-goddess. While their brothers, the Potamoi, were the usual personifications of major rivers, Styx was the personification of a major river, the underworld's river Styx, and some, like Europa, Asia, seem associated with areas of land rather than water. The Oceanids were responsible for keeping watch over the young. According to Hesiod, who described them as "neat-ankled daughters of Ocean... children who are glorious among goddesses", they are "a holy company of daughters who with the lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping—to this charge Zeus appointed them"Like Metis, the Oceanids functioned as the wives of many gods, the mothers, by these gods, of many other gods and goddesses. Doris was the wife of the sea-god Nereus, the mother of the fifty sea nymphs, the Nereids. Stix was the wife of the Titan Pallas, mother the mother of Zelus, Nike and Bia. Eurynome, Zeus' third wife, was the mother of the Charites.
Clymene was the wife of the Titan Iapetus, mother of Atlas, Menoetius and Epimetheus. Electra was the mother of Iris and the Harpies. Other notable Oceanids include: Perseis, wife of the Titan sun god Helios and mother of Circe, Aeetes the king of Colchis; as a group, the Oceanids form the chorus of the tragedy Prometheus Bound, coming up from their cave beneath the ground, to console the chained Titan Prometheus. They were the companions of Persephone when she was abducted by Hades. Hesiod gives the names of 41 Oceanids, with other ancient sources providing many more. While some were important figures, most were not; some were the names of actual springs, others poetic inventions. Some names, consistent with the Oceanids' charge of having "youths in their keeping", represent things which parents might hope to be bestowed upon their children: Plouto, Tyche and Metis. Others appear to be geographical eponyms, such as Europa, Asia and Rhodos. Several of the names of Oceanids were among the names given to the Nereids.
Sailors honoured and entreated the Oceanids, dedicating prayers and sacrifices to them. Appeals to them were made to protect seafarers from other nautical hazards. Before they began their legendary voyage to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece, the Argonauts made an offering of flour and sea to the ocean deities, sacrificed bulls to them and entreated their protection from the dangers of their journey. Jean Sibelius wrote an orchestral tone poem called Aallottaret in 1914; the Manchester-born painter Annie Swynnerton, the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Academy in 1922, painted a work called Oceanid some time before 1908. It shows a strong, unidealised female figure at one with nature, typical of Swynnerton's many depictions of'real' women and her feminist politics. Nereid Siren Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. Vol 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. 1926. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F. B. A. F. R. S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius: the Argonautica, translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, W. Heinemann, 1912. Internet Archive. Fowler, R. L. Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0198147411. Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9, ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3. Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 9780631201021. Hard, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H. J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books. Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Homeric Hymn
Acireale
Acireale is a coastal city and comune in the north-east of the Metropolitan City of Catania, southern Italy, at the foot of Mount Etna, on the coast facing the Ionian Sea. It is home to numerous churches, including the Neo-Gothic St. Peter's Basilica, St. Sebastian's Basilica in the Sicilian Baroque style, the 17th century Acireale Cathedral, a seminary, for the training of priests. Acireale is noted for its art and paintings: the oldest academy in Sicily, the "Accademia dei Dafnici e degli Zelanti", is located here. According to tradition, the city's origins trace back to Xiphonia, a mysterious Greek city now disappeared. In Roman times, there existed another Greek town, involved in the Punic Wars. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, there is a great love between Ā́cis, the spirit of the Ā́cis River, Galatea the sea-nymph. According to mythology, the tears of Galatea after the death of Ā́cis gave birth to the Ā́cis River, Fiume di Jaci, flowing past Acireale; the Romans called the town Acium, it was on the main road from Catana to Tauromenium.
In the Middle Ages, the town expanded around the castle, known as Jachium under the Byzantines, as Al-Yāj under the Arabs, as Aquilia. In 1169, a huge earthquake scattered the population of the mainland, divided between the numerous boroughs of Aci. Another Aquilia was founded in the late 14th century further north, creating the nucleus of the modern city; the only remains of the medieval Aquilia Nova is the Gothic-Lombard-styled portal of the church of Saint Anthony. In the 16th century, Emperor Charles V freed the city from feudal ties, creating it as a Crown commune. In the late 16th century, the town had between 7,000 inhabitants; the most ancient document mentioning the Carnival of Acireale dates to 1594. The town received numerous new edifices. Acireale was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1693, which halted its economic growth. During the Expedition of the Thousand, which freed Sicily from the Kingdom of Naples, Acireale was the first town to rebel against the Bourbons. In 1941, it was bombed by the Allies.
The church of San Biagio in Acireale contains some of the relics of the Venerable Gabriele Allegra, who had entered the Franciscan seminary in 1918. Villa Belvedere and Parco delle Terme, two large public parks and "La Timpa", a beautiful natural reserve overlooking the Ionian Sea, offer great nature sights. Piazza Duomo, with its St. Peter's Basilica, is in the main square of the city. There are many beautiful historic Baroque buildings in town, such as Palazzo Pennisi and Palazzo Modò, which date from the 17th century, Palazzo Musmeci dating from the 18th century; the commercial city center is located in the streets including and adjacent to Corso Umberto and Corso Italia, which are the city's principal thoroughfares. The Fortezza del Tocco, a 16th-century fort, has been converted to a nature reserve. Acireale houses floats parades during the carnival season. Acireale is twinned with: Mar del Plata, Argentina Viareggio, Italy Nantes, France Site about Carnival of Acireale
Nereus
In Greek mythology, Nereus was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia, who with Doris fathered the Nereids and Nerites, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea. R. S. P. Beekes suggests a Pre-Greek origin. In the Iliad the Old Man of the Sea is the father of Nereids, he was never more manifestly the Old Man of the Sea than when he was described, like Proteus, as a shapeshifter with the power of prophecy, who would aid heroes such as Heracles who managed to catch him as he changed shapes. Nereus and Proteus seem to be two manifestations of the god of the sea, supplanted by Poseidon when Zeus overthrew Cronus; the earliest poet to link Nereus with the labours of Heracles was Pherekydes, according to a scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes. During the course of the 5th century BC, Nereus was replaced by Triton, who does not appear in Homer, in the imagery of the struggle between Heracles and the sea-god who had to be restrained in order to deliver his information, employed by the vase-painters, independent of any literary testimony.
In a late appearance, according to a fragmentary papyrus, Alexander the Great paused at the Syrian seashore before the climacteric battle of Issus, resorted to prayers, "calling on Thetis and the Nereids, nymphs of the sea, invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horse chariot to be cast into the waves."Nereus was known for his truthfulness and virtue: But Pontos, the great sea, was father of truthful Nereus who tells no lies, eldest of his sons. They call him the Old Gentleman because he is trustworthy, gentle, never forgetful of what is right, but the thoughts of his mind are mild and righteous; the Attic vase-painters showed the draped torso of Nereus issuing from a long coiling scaly fishlike tail. Bearded Nereus wields a staff of authority, he was shown in scenes depicting the flight of the Nereides as Peleus wrestled their sister Thetis. In Aelian's natural history, written in the early third century CE, Nereus was the father of a watery consort of Aphrodite named Nerites, transformed into "a shellfish with a spiral shell, small in size but of surpassing beauty."
Nereus was father to Thetis, one of the Nereids, who in turn was mother to the great Greek hero Achilles, Amphitrite, who married Poseidon. Kerenyi, Karl; the Gods of the Greeks. Graves, Robert; the Greek Myths. Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Nereus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press. Theoi Project, Nereus—the sea-god in classical literature and art
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Acis". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
