Main Entrance door close up Sant Ivo Alla Sapienza, Italy. Image credit: M. Sullivan | Bluffton University
There are entrances… and then, there are Entrances!
Wider Angle, Main Entrance, Sant Ivo Alla Sapienza, Image credit: Ⓒ Viplav Nigam | flickr
wisdom— a lantern
carved indelible stone
its door, a long walk
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Constructed in the Italian Baroque style and in record time —18 years (1642-1660 A.D.), Sant Ivo Alla Sapienza, Italy was built into the space at the far end of the two halves of the existing collonades of Sapienza University, Rome (circa 1303 A.D).
The word sapienza is synonymous with “wisdom” and learning in Italian.
The featured door seen in the far distance is the main entrance facing east of the facade – a facade made primarily of travertine marble.
Trivia #1: Going above and beyond most cathedrals that top the building with a cross and a dome, Sant Ivo alla Sapienza church’s architect designed an elaborate and unique, for its time, lantern.
The famous hexagonal lantern’s concave sides are somehow carved into an ornate spiral in stone. The lantern is surmounted by a cross. See its image below.
Trivia #2: Because the building’s curvature precluded the traditional Latin cross common in most church building’s interior, the architect chose instead a layout based on two triangles – one atop the other, in the recognizable shape of The Star of Solomon.
Artwork by Marc Chagall – collage designed in Canva
champagne-hued wheel
loves sapphire embrace
defy gravity
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In response to David at #W3 prompt at The Skeptic’s Kaddish, where this week’s Poet, Melissa asks that we write a poem on one of two paintings and highlight the colors in the image in the poem.
I have chosen to write one haiku using both images. Originals below:
With no time to waste, Tirrel Ray Anthony Chadwick III, or simply Trac as he likes to be called, quickly flipped over the rusted-out Loblaws grocery cart, just as he landed feet-first in the dank ooze of the underground sewer across the street from the US Embassy Toronto.
Trac or Lord Death as his staff called him (albeit, behind his back) is the relatively new Head of Section “O,” the clandestine organization charged by world governments to prevent assassinations once led by Neroot.
His youthful good looks and trim Bond-esque phisique hide well Trac’s true personality, specifically his disregard for human life (except his own, of course).
Trac had demoted Neroot to Special Field Agent and had routinely assigned her to some of the most dangerous missions on the Section’s books, without any backup support.
Trac hoped that Neroot would suffer some “calamity” in the field and thereby be out of his way, for good.
Nonetheless, to his chagrin, two years later… Neroot was still alive and well…
A former mercenary, now calling himself a “freedom fighter” on his resume, Trac has deep pockets (aka, “old money”) — thanks to his family’s reputation as a financial backer for the famous naval vessel, The HMSVictory.
Trac crouched in the putrid stench of the sewer, kicking the rusted-out Loblaws grocery cart aside.
…strangely the grocery cart controlled its now upside-down slide and stopped with a soft splash in the putrid ooze.
Trac bent over the cart and gently unclipped the drone technology modules he had retrofitted on the cart’s four wheels to make his prior acting scene (as the homeless man) more comfortable. He loved his gadgets…
Thanks to Trac’s use of a secret piece of technology, he “borrowed” from an undisclosed military dark site’s secure lockup up North,
…he was now an undisclosed number of meters underground in one of the hidden sewage tunnels running parallel to Toronto’s underground catacombs.
***
In seconds, Trac stripped off his garbage bag attire to reveal his full armored body glove suit. The high-tech armor did not make him bulletproof, it made him invisible.
Not invisible to the human eye. But, his body glove suit made Trac invisible to any kind of camera-based technology with a wifi connection, including satellite tracking.
Lifting the faux guitar case which had by now spilled out from the contents of the upturned rusted-out Loblaws grocery cart…
…Trac opened the “guitar case,” and fondled the modified C14 Timberwolf’s long-range sniper rifle neatly arranged in its disassembled parts in mylar-padded slots.
Opening a zippered pocket in the faux guitar case, Trac checked the little plastic baggie secured in the pocket.
He made sure that the scotch tape with Sangje’s fingerprints which Neroot’s ex-husband, Lord Glasston-Mountbatten had provided was secure in the plastic baggie— for the next phase in his plot.
[Sangje, the Bhutan ex-monk turned Footman working both sides— pretending to be loyal to both Section “O” and Neroot’s ex-husband’s efforts to clean up his past in his bid for a seat in The United Kingdom’s House of Lords.]
Meanwhile, nearby in the catacombs beneath the US Embassy Toronto and unbeknownst to Trac…
Neroot took a second to catch her breath from her aerobic exit through the great fireplace at the US Embassy Toronto. Its lazy susan-style chute deposited her abruptly, into one of the catacomb passageways.
She quickly arranged her clothing and tied her Reebok running shoes’ laces. Neroot stood and took in her environment in the sparsely lit gloomy and damp catacombs extending for miles underground.
Neroot thought to herself in silence…
“I have to get ahead of all this. I’ve been operating in the dark until now. They, whoever they are, have been one step ahead of me all this time.
They do not just want me dead…they want my name dragged through the mud even after I am long gone.”
Neroot trod carefully in the dimly lit catacombs thanks to the costly outfitting of fluorescent light bulbs spaced out far apart but still effective enough for partial visibility.
Neroot first stop, she reasoned, was to find the Magician that her old friend “H,” the Head of Security at the US Embassy Toronto had offered as her backup support.
She had only heard of the exploits of the Magician and knew of only one place where it was rumored that he might “reside…”
…behind the city morgue!
Neroot dreaded a visit there— just thinking about it gave her the creeps!
Then suddenly Neroot thought she heard footsteps…
…they were coming from all around her as sounds seemed to echo as the waves bounced off the stone walls…
Then…
… the footstep sounds grew louder…
She tried to find a hiding place but found none…
Neroot softly removed her Glock42 from her jeans…
… quietly she slid its safety off.
She advanced forward— weapon raised…
The footsteps grew even louder…
Suddenly, as Neroot advanced, she could make out a figure in the dim light.
The person, a man in a tattered trench coat had his right hand raised in the peace sign.
Neroot did not lower her Glock42…
Nor did she trust the shadowy figure’s gesture of “friendship,” having glimpsed the shadow of a sawed-off shotgun behind his back thanks to the dim lighting on the catacombs’ walls.
She stopped as the figure advanced. Recognizing, and very unsettled by who he was…they had “met” before, hours earlier last night in the alleyway…!
Neroot’s gut wrenched as she suddenly realized…
This… all of it… was a trap!
Neroot did not see or sense the other person in a trench coat creeping up behind her…stun gun in hand.
Then suddenly, as twelve hundred volts ripped like fire through her veins and sinew…
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