“The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.”
I took this picture about two years ago when I visited Italy.
This is the Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri). The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone and has windows with stone bars. It passes over the Rio di Palazzo and connects the old prisons to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace. It was designed by Antoni Contino (whose uncle Antonio da Ponte had designed the Rialto Bridge), and built in 1602.
The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals. Also, they could barely see any view from inside the Bridge due to the stone grills covering the windows.
A local legend says that lovers will be granted everlasting love and bliss if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the bridge.
This is "Lamento Della Ninfa" from "Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi" (Libro Ottavo, 1638) composed by Claudio Monteverdi.
I listened to this song for the first time while watching a BBC documentary about Bernini. The song talks about a lost love and it is certainly a master piece. It is like an echo inside of my head, it makes me shiver every time I listen to it.
I thought the Jupiter and Antiope painting would be appropriated to give life to such a beautiful music.
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag-pole rag and the wind won't stop
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
That's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
That's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtime's ebb
That's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread
There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack
There's a black-winged gull with a broken back
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
Queen of pain
I'll always be queen of pain
I'll always be queen of pain
