L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 22 L'Italo-Americano I 'm not a great fan of the fan- tasy genre — exception made for a recently discovered love for the Harry Potter saga: yes, I know. I come about 20 years late — but who doesn't know about J.R.R. Tolkien? Add to the mix I did dabble in the world of Old Eng- lish while doing my Medieval Studies MA, and the presence of the popular linguist and author in my life ended up being more con- spicuous than my personal literary tastes may have hinted at. A beautiful translation of Be- owulf, he made. But The Lord of the Ring saga? Not my cup of tea. At least until I found out something that tickled the interest of the historian in me: the potential link between the ge- ography of Middle Earth and the Italian town of Ravenna. Now, be- fore writing anything further, let's say one or two words about Ravenna itself: you see, we Italians fill with pride and a tad of reverent respect when we hear its name be- cause there — not in Florence, not in Rome: there — lie the mortal remains of our Poet, our Dante, the father of the Italian language. Standing in front of his tomb is an experience many an Italian teen have experienced during one of those mid-Spring school trips where first loves blossom and night time secrets are revealed, while hiding under the scratchy sheets of two stars, all-included hotels. And you can bet there was a lot of anger, LUCIA DEGLI ADALBERTI When Italy becomes Middle Earth: the strange mystery of Ravenna and how a map tells us it inspired Tolkien incidentally sold for about 83.000 USD. And it was the Tolkien Ital- ian Network, that brings together all the groups and associations dedicated to the author in Italy, to highlight the link, as well as to re- port an interesting interview Tolkien had given to the Daily Telegraph in February 1967, where he had said that "If Hob- biton and Rivendell lie at the same latitude as Oxford, then Minas Tirith, a good 600 miles south, should be about at that of Flo- rence." Or, indeed, Ravenna. The discovery of the map brought once more attention to the interest Tolkien had for geography and to the dedication he showed to his work, in all stages of its de- velopment. We don't know, how- ever, why he did choose Ravenna as a calc for his Minas Tirith: was it a mere latitudinal reason, or was it because it had been the capital of an Empire? Was he attracted by its architecture, which he then de- veloped into that of Minas Tirith — of which he left some hand drawn sketches — or by its his- tory? Or, let's put it on table right here, was he just trying to pay trib- ute to the greatest poet of them all, who made of creating universes the very heart of his own narra- tives? Is Ravenna's presence in Tolkien's Middle Earth a nod of respect to our good, old Dante? in that moment, thinking of all the hours spent studying because of him, but also a good deal of re- spect. Dante, Alas! You steal my thoughts: it is of Tolkien we must write today. Ravenna, we were saying: how do we know the au- thor had it in mind when describ- ing and creating Middle Earth? Well, it all goes back to people's habit to hide random pieces of pa- pers in books and to authors' just as common habit to annotate any- thing related to their work. As most Tolkien fans probably know, Mid- dle Earth was more than a simple idea described in words, it existed in the form of a map: a map that Tolkien had conceived in 1970 with illustrator Pauline Baynes for The Lord of the Rings' edition published by Allen and Unwin. Baynes was an already famous artist when she was commissioned the job, as she had been known in the UK for her drawing in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. No mention of Ravenna, yet! Yes, but we're getting there. As you would expect from someone who accepted the duty of drawing the continent where all the action takes place, Baynes was in possession, presumably to read the whole trilogy before getting to work, of a copy of Tolkien's major work. A book that for at least 40 years rested untouched somewhere in a dusty bookshelf, only to be opened again in 2015, when - lo and behold!- a hand drawn map of Middle Earth, complete with hand- written notations by Tolkien him- self, fell off the volume. On it, a clear mention by the author to Ravenna as the inspiration for the city of Minas Tirith. And what do have the two cities in common? Apparently quite a few things. First of all, both of them were capitals of an Em- pire: Minas Tirith rules over the realm of Gondor, where the "men of the west" eventually retire to find protection. Ravenna was the last glorious capital of the Western Roman Empire, from the year 402 to the year 476 AD. Both of them are hilltop towns and there is no doubt that Ravenna's heavily Me- dieval allure may have influenced Tolkien when imagining his Mid- dle Earth stronghold. But the Ital- ian town wasn't chosen to repre- sent Minas Tirith in the famous movies, where a computer gener- ated image, inspired by the French Mont Saint Michel, was preferred. It is known that Tolkien was keen on perfecting his work with a plethora of details taken from the real world, especially when it came to the creation of his fictional uni- verse, Middle Earth. He had openly declared, once, that Hob- biton, Frodo's own town, "should be imagined as at the same latitude as Oxford." And the map found in Baynes' volume also mentions other geographical points of inter- est: for instance, Tolkien associ- ated the "far south" of Middle Earth with Jerusalem, Cyprus and Belgrade. The association between Ox- ford and Hobbiton has been known for quite sometimes, but the Ravenna connection was discov- ered only 4 years ago, when our map was found — map that was ALL AROUND ITALY TRAVEL TIPS DESTINATIONS ACTIVITIES Ravenna, the last capital of the Roman Empire and final resting place of Dante Alighieri © Sergio Pazzano | Dreamsti- me.com According to Tolkien's handwritten notes of Middle Earth map's sketch, the city of Minas Tirith was inspired by Raven- na © GoneWithTheWind | Dreamstime.com

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