ATD 724-747

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

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Sample entry
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Page 724

Dolomites
Mountains, a sub-chain of the Alps, northeast Italy. Dolomites.

Page 725

Squarcione
Francesco Squarcione (c.1397-1468) was a Padovan artist. His pupils included Andrea Mantegna (with whom he had many legal battles), Cosimo Tura and Crivelli. There are only two works signed by him: the Madonna with Child (imaged here, Berlin) and an altarpiece (Padua).

Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna (1431-1505) was an Italian Renaissance artist. He was one of the foremost north Italian painters of the 15th century. A master of perspective and foreshortening, Mantegna made important contributions to the compositional technigues of Renaissance painting.

the famed Paduan collector and impresario
ie. Mantegna. Mentegna studied and worked between 1441-1459 at Padua, a city of northeast Italy west of Venice. At that time in Padua there was much interest in collecting and studying Roman antiquities. Padua was an important cultural center during the Middle Ages and was known for its artistic and architectural works by Giotto, Mantegna and Donatello. Galileo taught at its university from 1592 to 1610.

On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away
Indiana's state song; lyrics.

Page 726

Lost Lands
a fictitious place in the Lagoon?

The Sack of Rome
a fictitious mural artwork?

caorlina
???

Marco Zoppo
Marco Zoppo (1433-1478), another Paduan painter. An innovator with a very personal style with rich artistic inventiveness. His reputation as an artist diminished gradually in the past, but his contributions to Venetian painting and book illumination have now been recognized.

Haruspices
Roman religious functionaries who looked for clues to the future in the entrails of sacrificed animals.

strung by one foot upside down
The Hanged Man again.

Cassily Adam rendition
It's Adams. Titled "Custer's Last Fight," the picture was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, reproduced and placed in thousands of taverns. The company later gave the work to the 7th Cavalry Regiment.

Page 727

Cannareggio
Cf page 573: Cannareggio.

lucciole
Italian: "prostitutes"

squadri
Italian: "teams", "gangs"

soldi
Italian: "money"

forcheta
??? (on page 582, there is one foschetta)

Hottentot
Part of a series of zany distortions. French attentat = coup, assassination.

Antietam
It refers to the Battle of Antietam in the American Civil War. The Battle of Antietam was the first major battle in the War and fought on September 17, 1862 near Antietam Creek in Maryland. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history with almost 23,000 casualties.

Page 728

San Polo
Cf page 573: San Polo.

Rialto bridge
Cf page 439: Nuovo Rialto.

bisi
Italian: peas.

campo
a large square.

Ca' Spongiatosta
Casa Spongiatosta: House of Princess Spongiatosta. (see page 582).

Topinambur
Helianthus tuberosus: Jerusalem Artichoke, or sunchoke. It is a variety of sunflower; tuberous root was used as a potato substitute in WWII [1]. The name "topinambur" is used in Europe.

Friuli
Friuli is a region in northeast Italy next to Slovenia and Austria.

Treviso
Treviso is a town in the Veneto region of Italy.

radicchio
a chicory of a red variety with variegated leaves.

verza
Italian: cabbage.

auguri, ragazzi
Italian: "all the best, folks"

Page 729

no . . . apiarian byproduct of hers
I.e., none of her beeswax (American slang for "business").

pennsilvoney
More foreign-language comedy. Italian pensione = pension (lodging with board included).

the Britannia, once known as the Palazzo Zucchelli
???

old Barkie
???

eighty-seven not out
Cricket metaphor: having a banner day and not close to the end of it.

Eleanora Duse
Consensus spelling is Eleonora. 1859-1924, Italian actress, pioneer of realism on the stage.

Page 730

Damned cowboy
Same expletive used on page 623 (annotations).

Florian's
A café in San Marco Sqaure.

qualsiasi
Italian: "whatever"

Page 731

camerieri
Italian: "chambermaids"

levante
Italian: "east wind"

the ancient family arms
"[A] sponge couchant on a field chequy with flames at the foot." Pynchonian mock-heraldry. Couchant refers to an animal lying down with its erect head to the viewer's left. Well, at least sponges do belong to the animal kingdom. Chequy (one correct spelling) identifies the field or background of the shield as being divided into squares like a checkerboard. At the foot is a heraldic solecism; in base is preferable.

Taking two colors at random, say gules (red) and argent (silver or white), we could blazon the arms as "Chequy argent and gules, a sponge proper couchant above flames of fire of the third in base." Of course when the arms are carved in stone you can't see the colors. Proper means "in the color of the natural object," so . . . sponge-colored for the sponge, red and yellow for the flames.

Heraldists refer to "canting arms" when the charges on the shield pun on the bearer's name, as in this case: The flames are toasting the sponge.

Page 732

Pearl Street
The location of the headquarters of Vibe Corp, (pp. 333-334 of AtD).

daylit America ... its steadfast denial of night
Cf. The novel's epigraph, Thelonious Monk's "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light."

outnumbered . . . overwhelmingly
One of Cantor's results. If aleph₀ represents the "cardinality" of the rationals (a measure for infinite sets that corresponds to the number of elements for finite ones) and C represents the cardinality of the real numbers, then C + aleph₀ = C. In words, the reals don't even notice if you take away the rationals, leaving just the irrational numbers. Pretty overwhelming.

the D.and D.
???

Page 733

areeferdirtcheap
Reef getting his Italian wrong again: arrivederci, goodbye.

Page 734

osteria
Italian: "bar"

Page 735

Cazzo
Italian: "shit"

Page 736

vero
Italian: "true"

appunto
Italian: "exactly"

straccio
Italian: "rag"

Marienbad
German for Mariánské Lézně, a spa town in the Carlsbad Region of the Czech Republic. The town's Golden Era was in the second half of the 19th century, when many celebrities and top European rulers came to enjoy the curative carbon dioxide springs.

forty mule
A Reefian parting shot: French faute de mieux, meaning "for lack of anything better."

hangers
A kind of pocketbook or purse that hung from a wrist (not in the OED, however).

Page 737

Rigby Nitro Express
Some kind of bullet?

Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was an American industrialist and art patron. In 1881, he and Andrew Carnegie formed a partnership between H.C. Frick & Co and Carnegie Steel Co. with Frick in charge of the Steel Company's operations. The 1892 Homestead Steel Strike was mishandled by Frick, and he soon became a target of radical anarchists and others.

Brother Berkmann
Alexander Berkmann (1870-1936), also spelled Berkman, Anarchist and lover of Emma Goldman, with whom he plotted his unsuccessful 1892 attempt to assassinate Henry Clay Frick after the bitter Homestead Steel Strike. Dally dates this to "fifteen years ago", making it 1907 in book time.

Page 738

the San Marcuola stop
Photo of the Canal Grande at San Marcuola vaporetto stop.

Laguna Morte
Dead Lagoon.

macche
Italian: "no way"

Page 739

La macchina infernale
"Infernal machine"; a (particularly 19th century) term for explosive devices used for terrorist attacks. The most famous example is "La conspiration de la machine infernale", or "Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise", an assassination plot against Napoleon that failed in 1800 (wikipedia). Earlier in the book, we have encountered Tancredi working on "Preliminary Studies" toward such a machine (see page 585f.)

Bresci
Gaetano Bresci (1869-1901), an Italian-American anarchist who assassinated Italian King Umberto I on July 29, 1900. He died in prison.

Luccheni
Luigi Lucheni (1873-1910), an Italian anarchist who stabbed, with a frayed file, to death the Austrian Empress Elizabeth in Geneva, Switzerland, on Septem 10, 1898. He late died in prison.

bad news rolling up the rails
cf p. 41: "Most people have a wheel riding on a wire, or some rails in the street [...], to keep them moving in the direction of their destiny". Inevitability?

Page 740

Torino
Torino, Turin, is a major industrial city as well as a business and cultural center in northern Italy. It is the home of the headquarters of Fiat and host of the 2006 Winter Olympics. It was the first capital of Italy.

Lampo, Gaulois
A very small firearm. Some great photos and a description (in French). Gaulois.

Riva
Cf page 575: Riva.

Page 741

the Procuratie
The Procuraties are three connected buildings on St Mark's Square in Venice. They are historic buildings over arcades and also connected to St Mark's Clocktower.

imprimatura
The first layer of paint applied to a canvas, a base color that helps establish and control tone in the painting.

susurrance
murmur ?

Strauss Jr.
Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899) was an Austrian composer known especially for his waltzes, such as The Blue Danube.

Luigi Denza
Cf page 353: Luigi Denza.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) was an Italian composer, best known for his comic operas.

Page 742

paletot
an overcoat.

piano nobile
In a large house, the level holding formal spaces, usually the first or second floor above ground level.

teppisti
thugs.

his terrible intention
moral judgment of the attempted assassin.

Via, via!
Come on, come on!

like the glowing coal in the Buddhist parable
???

Glisentis
A pistol manufactured by Glisentis Company of Italy

Page 743

Batti! batti la faccia
Beat! beat the face.

Vibe "takes on mass" (!)

his gravity increases! Cf. GR, of course.

rectified
Main Entry: rec·ti·fi Inflected Form(s): -fied; -fy·ing Etymology: Middle English rectifien, from Anglo-French rectifier, from Medieval Latin rectificare, from Latin rectus right -- more at RIGHT 1 : to set right : REMEDY 2 : to purify (as alcohol) especially by repeated or fractional distillation 3 : to correct by removing errors : ADJUST <rectify the calendar> 4 : to make (an alternating current) unidirectional synonym see CORRECT - rec·ti·fi·ca·tion /"rek-t&-f&-'kA-sh&n/ noun--Amer Heritage Dictionary

Here: self-justification into "iron impregnability". Pynchon does not use iron positively in ATD.

foschia
Italian: "haze"

Empress Elisabeth
Austrian Empress Elizabeth was stabbed to death by Luigi Lucheni on September 10, 1898. Cf page 739.

King Umberto
Italian King Umberto was shot on July 29, 1900 by Gaetano Bresci. Cf page 739.

Page 744

the Bauer-Grünwald
The Bauer-Grünwald Hotel in Venice. It is a five-star luxurious hotel located a few minutes walk from San Marco Square

Pommery
A high-class French champagne. Pommery.

Page 745

Somebody shopped him
Betrayed him (in exchange for something). Shop= to trade 1) in buying and selling for profit. 2) To make an exchange of one thing for another. American Heritage.

stranniki
Cf page 663: stranniki

Page 746

the Ponte degli Scalzi
The Ponte degli Scalzi is one of the only three bridges in Venice to span the Grand Canal. It connects the districts of Santa Croce and Cannaregio. The Italian words mean Bridge of the Barefoot.

Page 747

melancholy of departure
Allusion to: Giorgio de Chirico's painting: Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure), dated to 1913 or early 1914; the title was reused in works with the same theme of 1914, 1915 and 1916. The paintings reproduce the sadness of separations by depiciting haunting, empty railway stations, pictorially or in abstract [2].

Annotation Index

Part One: The Light Over the Ranges	1-25, 26-56, 57-80, 81-96, 97-118
Part Two: Iceland Spar	119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428
Part Three: Bilocations	429-459, 460-488, 489-524, 525-556, 557-587, 588-614, 615-643, 644-677, 678-694
Part Four: Against the Day	695-723, 724-747, 748-767, 768-791, 792-820, 821-848, 849-863, 864-891, 892-918, 919-945, 946-975, 976-999, 1000-1017, 1018-1039, 1040-1062
Part Five: Rue du Départ	1063-1085