I took a day off from staying with family in Connecticut and took the commuter train down to Manhattan. My initial objective was the renovated Morgan Library on 36th Street. Its three buildings had been recently tied together by an open Scandinavian atrium designed by Renzo Piano, the architect, and Morgan's library and study had been restored to their original brilliance. Alas no photograps allowed, though I did sneak one of the Morgan Dining area (ahhh...the marriage of art and food).
And the treasures Pierpont Morgan had stored for himself and, now, for us. In just one display case in the library were the following:
- a letter from Elizabeth I of England to her stepfather telling him, ever so gently, to "buzz off" - 1538
- a letter from Galileo declaring his innocence (you know, that the earth moving around the sun was not heresy but that was the way the planets did move) - 1635
- first draft of Alexander Pope's "Essary on Man"...."know thyself, presume not God to scan/the proper study of mankind is man" - 1733
The most interesting encounter in the library, though, was in Morgan's study...walls draped in heavy red velvet with Renaissance paintings, brilliant in their coloring and composition, all around. I asked the guard what his favorite painting was. He looked around and pointed out one with several saints, including Saint Barbara holding a replica of a tower in her arm (she had been locked in a tower but had become a Christian. She refused to marry a pagan chosen by her father and was murdered by him but the father, in turn, was killed by a lightning bolt accompanied by a loud clap of thunder). The guard explained that she was also identified as Shango, a West African (Yuroba) goddess, who is identified with thunder. And he had studied African religion at times...so he identified with her. His favorite painting. And clearly one of Pierpont Morgan's also.
