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The Vatican looks likely to call for a boycott of Angels and Demons, the prequel to the blockbuster film adaptation of Dan Brown‘s The Da Vinci Code, reported the Guardian last week. The movie, based on the eponymous book by Brown, opens worldwide on May 15 and will reprise Tom Hanks in his role as Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon.
This time, it’s Rome instead of Paris as the backdrop, as Langdon travels to the Eternal City to investigate a murder victim branded with an emblem signalling the presence of the shadowy Opus Dei. The film’s producers were banned from entering the Holy See or any church in Rome last summer, forcing them to use soundstages to film interior scenes set in the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. The royal palace at Caserta near Naples is doubling for the Vatican. “Weirdly, even though there was so much controversy on The Da Vinci Code, we were able to shoot everywhere,” producer Brian Grazer told USA Today. Scenes were shot on-location for that film at Paris’ Louvre, London’s Temple Church, and Edinburgh’s Rosslyn Chapel, among other places.
[Image: Courtesy of Sony Pictures]
If you missed last night’s episode about The Mount on the SciFi Channel’s weekly show Ghost Hunters, you can still catch the episode for free online by clicking here.
The Mount, which witnessed the painful break-up of Edith Wharton’s marriage, has long been the subject of ghostly rumors. After Wharton and her husband sold the estate in 1911, it spent several years being used as a dormitory for the Foxhollow School, and later became home to the Shakespeare and Company acting troupe. During those decades, residents frequently reported unexplained noises, odd sensations, and the occasional encounter spectral figures dressed in old-fashioned clothing.
To determine if these experiences were tricks of the imagination or something more, The Atlantic Paranormal Society’s (TAPS) lead investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson visited The Mount in December with the television crew and spent successive nights in the mansion performing paranormal experiments and collecting data, the results of which were revealed on last night’s show.
For its 2009 season, The Mount will feature special “Ghost Tours” of the estate, kicking off with a special hands-on investigative event on April 24-25. Happy haunting!
One of the greatest treasures in literary-rich Dublin is The Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript produced by Celtic monks around a.d. 800. Housed in the Old Library at Trinity College, the magnificent tome contains the four Gospels of the Bible written in vividly colored, decorative script and adorned with ornate illustrations.
A famous bibliophile who once marveled at The Book of Kells was novelist Eudora Welty. “All the wizardry of letter, initial, and word swept over me. The illumination, th
e gold, seemed a part of the word’s beauty and holiness that had been there from the start,” she recalled in her autobiography One Writer’s Beginnings.
Other than trekking to Trinity College, there is another way to garner an up-close look at the medieval text. The library shop offers a DVD containing images of the first digitized version of the manuscript — all 340 folios — accompanied by a narrative account of its history, symbolism, and themes.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, visitors are invited to view the Book of Kells free of charge. —Shannon McKenna Schmidt
The mystery of what William Shakespeare may have looked like came one step closer to being solved this week when the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust unveiled what is thought to be the only authentic image of the Bard painted during his lifetime. (Controversy has long swirled around the authenticity of another famous likeness, the Chandos portrait, which hangs in England’s National Portrait Gallery. The Chandos portrait depicts a balding, rounded-headed bard and is similar to the engraved portrait that adorns the title page of his First Folio.)
The recently unveiled image shows a rosy-cheeked Shakespeare of high social status, contradicting the popular view of a struggling playwright, according to experts from the Trust. The sitter of the newly unveiled painting, known as the Cobbe portrait, had always been unknown until art restorer Alec Cobbe (whose family owned the portrait) attended the National Portrait Gallery’s “Searching for Shakespeare” exhibition. There he came upon a painting known as the Folger portrait, which itself had once been thought to be a life portrait of Shakespeare. The similarities between the two were obvious and the discovery set in motion three years of research and testing.
The result is the belief that the Folger painting (which hangs in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.) is a copy of the Cobbe original, painted around 1610 when Shakespeare would have been 46 years old. The Trust’s director, Diana Owen, called the painting’s discovery a ”momentous, historical and fascinating event”. Shakespeare enthusiasts will have a chance to view the Cobbe portrait when it goes on display for the summer in Stratford-on-Avon on 23 April.
“Visitors often comment that the home seems as if Eudora had just stepped out and will return at any time,” Mary Alice White, director of the Eudora Welty House and the writer’s niece, shared with us while we were researching and writing Novel Destinations. Welty bequeathed her Tudor-style home in Jackson, Mississippi, to the State, and the abode remains much as she left it.
To commemorate the 100th anniverary of the Southern scribe’s birth, free tours of the Eudora Welty House will be given on April 
13th. Keep an eye out for items mentioned in Welty’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Optimist’s Daughter: the cubbyhole desk (at right) and books by Charles Dickens with “old crimson bindings scorched and frayed.” Welty’s mother once braved a burning building to rescue the 24-volume set of the British writer’s works on display in the house. Guests can also tour the restored Welty House gardens, which include a section devoted to camellias, her favorite flower. A photography exhibit, a play, and other events are also happening in conjunction with the Eudora Welty Centennial.
Can’t make a visit to Mississippi? Click here to take a virtual tour of the Welty House and Gardens. –Shannon McKenna Schmidt
(Photos ©Eudora Welty House/Mississippi Department of Archives and History)
