#italian history
FORGOTTEN BY HISTORY: Caroline of Parma
Caroline Maria Teresa Giuseppina was born on 22 November 1770 in Parma, as the first child of Ferdinand I of Parma and his formidable wife, Maria Amalia of Austria. She grew up in happy environment, brought up mainly by her father. Her education was rigid and religious. Marriage of her parents was somehow problematic - Ferdinand had never measure up to Maria Amalia’s high expectations and later handed control over duchy to his more competent Austrian wife, who acted independently, far from Empress Maria Teresa’s commands. Carolina was close to her younger brother, Louis, who suffered from epilepsy. By all accounts, Carolina was beautiful, but also timid and painfully shy . Despite her being introvert, Carolina was pretentious and dominant towards her younger sisters - Maria Anna and Maria Antonia. She used to make fun of them, but later, she proved to sweet and loving sibling. She also had very deep relationship with her parents.
Maria Amalia had high hopes for her daughter and wanted her to marry into one of many German dynasties. Around 1790, she met her future husband, Maximilian of Saxony. Since Maximilian was the third son of his parents, he initially had no chance to inherit Saxon throne. Maria Amalia preferred Carolina to marry more significant prince, but seeing that Maximilian and her daughter were deeply in love with one another, she gave her consent. Their marriage was happy and harmious. They had 7 children, including 2 Kings of Saxony, 2 Duchess of Tuscany and Queen of Spain. Alas, constant pregnancies and stress strained her frail health - she was never to recover from birth of her last daughter, Maria Josepha Amalia in December 1803. She died from flu and fever, weakened by labour, on 1 March 1804
23 May 1992: Strage di Capaci
23 years ago, on this day, the judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and three men of Falcones’ security guard, Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo, and Antonio Montinaro, were assassinated by Cosa Nostra near Palermo.
Following the verdict of life-long sentences for many mafiosi in the Maxi-trial of January 1992 (led by Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in the picture above, among others), 0,2 tons of explosive material were put under the highway A29 near the exit for Capaci, where the cars of judge Falcone and his security guard were to pass.
The car of the security guard was thrown out of the highway by the explosion, while the car driven by the judge hit the wall of concrete that had been raised by the explosion.
i hate the non-italian media’s representation of the mafia as something quirky like an all-boys club. up until i got together with my (italian) husband i did not know how deadly and terrible the various mafias in italy can be and how their corruption of the government is a big problem for many cities in the south. this is a big problem for italy, so please stop valorising “la mafia” in any of its forms.
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………and her famous ropes of pearls. According to press reports, the King bought her new pearls “whenever he felt guilty about his infidelities”, and one courtier was said to have remarked that they were “so long they went down to her knees”.
Tiaras, A History of Splendour - Geoffrey C. Munn
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Lararium of Pompeii, and Street shrine of Naples. The Ancient Rome legacy.
Notice: I made this set of photos because I find the resemblance between the home shrines in Pompeii and the catholic shrines on the streets in beautiful Naples, as old as Pompeii and so incredibly similar, to be very interesting and adorable.
I am not comparing the beliefs of the ancient Romans with the Catholic faith, but the resemblance in art related to the religious.
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