Harry Potter’s Morning Light

   Chapter 762 The Lion in the Cage

  Venice’s winter is actually quite cold, but unlike the United Kingdom, every household has a fireplace, and the civilian apartments are heated by a single-family centralized boiler.

  Nobles and wealthy people have fireplaces, but they basically do not use them because they are afraid that the ashes produced by the fireplace will stain the plaster sculptures and paintings, so the fireplace becomes a decoration, and the palace also uses boilers for heating.

  By the 19th century, most of Venice’s once great families had fallen. They could not even afford the heating costs of their huge mansion, so they sold them.

Some are sold to hotels and restaurants, and some are sold to the city government. The sale of these palaces to collectors does not mean that the person can dispose of them at will, but to keep them as they are. The daily water, electricity and heating costs are a terrible expense. .

At the same time, the buyer has to bear the costs of daily wear and repair. If the mural has faded, someone needs to repair it, the gold leaf needs to be repaired, and the plaster sculpture arm has fallen to be restored. It is a real bottomless pit, and there is no money to buy materials. That’s fine. I have to find a professional painter and sculptor, and ask the master to do it once. The labor cost alone is terrible. When Paul Veronese first came to Venice, he was not well-known. He made money after painting the wedding in Ghana. 324 Venetian gold coins, which was already a lot of income at the time.

  The shrewdness of the Venetian merchants still exists. One accidentally falls into the trap they set. Ordinary people can buy a mask in Yiwu Small Commodity Market for the price of luxury goods at most, and the rich will be devoured by them.

  François bought the palace to build a museum. He donated a weather vane in exchange for privileges. He can expand the use of the palace and display his exhibits.

  The Baroque style pays attention to extremely complex carvings. He likes American minimalist art. This creates a contradiction—simple to save money, complicated to spend money, did he come to Winnie to build or tear down the platform?

The Venetians like guests like the Marquise, and everything is done according to their rules. They don’t like people like Pinault very much. The conditions are soft and hard. This is the difference between men and women—women are easier to control than men, and that imitation of Venetian literature and art The marquise who held the banquet in the Revival style was controlled by an invisible hand, and François did not. Therefore, Napoleon wrote in his code: The husband has the power to manage the real and movable property of his wife, so there is The right to accept the movable property brought by the wife and the movable property acquired by the wife in the marriage relationship, but this property needs to be returned after the marriage relationship is dissolved or the court judges.

  Who wants to be supervised when spending money? That's too unfree, but the rococo style of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI was created by women. In fact, it is more terrible for men to splurge. Luxury cars, good wine, clothes, shoes, and watches. The problem is that women can control. Your own husband?

  In Tiepolo’s "Venice Accepts the Gift of the Sea God", Venice is depicted as a blonde girl who is casually resting on a lion.

In the ancient Greco-Roman era, there were few blonde beauties in Europe, and there were more brown-haired beauties. As the Vikings of Northern Europe looted southward, blonde beauties gradually moved to the world, and people’s aesthetic concepts became more and more inclined. Yu thinks that beautiful women with blond hair are the most beautiful.

   is also the goddess of Venus. In medieval paintings, her hair is between brown and gold, while in the 19th century painters, her hair is more of a golden color.

  With the development of hair dyeing technology, many actresses’ hair is not originally golden, but can also be dyed golden. For example, Monroe’s hair is dyed platinum.

  "Why can't the Italian girl with black hair represent Venice, but the blonde girl!" Pomona asked angrily when she looked at the oil painting.

"Men, always like blonde beauty, this kind of inferiority has penetrated into their genes and bone marrow, just like dogs can't change eating shit, cats can't change fishery, it can't be changed at all!" The blue masked woman looked at that. The picture is as angry as saying.

  Except for the lady wearing the black velvet mask, she and Dama were both driven out to accompany Pomona to continue watching the oil paintings in the Doge’s Palace.

   "Pig." The woman in the blue mask said.

   "It was clearly Poseidon who seduced Medusa, why did Athena punish her priestess?" Dama said on the matter.

   "Because Poseidon is her younger brother." Pomona said helplessly.

  "Since Adam and Eve are responsible for the crime of jointly driving out of the Garden of Eden, men and women should be equal." The woman in the blue mask said, "Sometimes I just hate their attitude."

   "Lazy, arrogant," Pomona said, following Severus's tone.

  "Never expect them to help with housework." The woman in the blue mask said, "I will lie on the sofa when I get home, just waiting for me to deliver the meal to his mouth."

   "Maybe it's because he is too tired at work." Dama said softly.

   "Which head do you come from?" the blue mask said angrily.

   "I don't belong to anyone, I just talk about the matter." Dama said rationally.

  Women’s friendship is often because they have people they hate in common. Pomona looks at the blonde beauty in the painting. She is the public enemy in the eyes of all non-blonde women.

  At the same time, in order to attract men’s attention, women quietly dyed their hair blonde. There are more black-haired girls in Italy, but blondes are rare, so blonde chicks have become a symbol of Venice.

  The Adriatic Queen in Pomona's heart has long black hair like waves, a gray-blue crown on her head, and a hearty smile with her grin, not a gift from the **** of the sea like this blonde.

   "I want to burn this picture." Pomona whispered.

   "That's the authentic work of Tiepolo, don't do that." The blue mask woman said, implying that she didn't like the painting, but because it was authentic, she didn't burn it.

   "Why do they like blondes?" Pomona complained.

   "You are also blonde," Dama said.

   "No! I am gray."

   "It looks golden under the light." The blue mask woman said.

   "I want to see Titian, where are his paintings?" Pomona quickly changed the subject.

   "Although your husband is not handsome, he is like a beast." The blue mask woman said cheerfully.

   "I think what she wants to express is that Mr. Smith looks alive." Dama explained.

   "He has a great body. I really hope my husband has his physique."

   Pomona thought of his inverted triangle figure, and then desperately pushed the image out of her mind.

   "Straight lines belong to humans, and curves belong to gods." Dama said, "What do you think of Antoni Gaudi?"

   "I have no interest in abstraction." Pomona said.

   "He is not abstract... Are you classic?" Dama asked.

   "I am not very interested in art." She said distressedly, "I have a school for people to feed."

   "You sound like an old mother." The blue mask woman said.

   "Who said no?"

   "How did you meet?" Dama asked.

   "Colleagues." Pomona said casually, and then realized that this was a idiom.

   "Office romance?" Dama asked.

   "No, he is from outside the school, we met because of work." Pomona said.

   "If you don't prove that you are a wizard, we thought you were a Freemason." Dama said, "Tracing the Templars is not a good sign."

   "I believe Venice sheltered them, and Napoleon thought so too." Pomona said.

   "You know, if you are reported to be associated with Freemasonry in the Republican era, you will be sentenced to death." Dama said.

"But we are not in the Republic of Venice. Venice belongs to Italy. Thanks to the bridge of Mussolini, you can live the lives of modern people." Pomona said, if not for the bridge and the water pipes under the bridge, Venice People continue to drink well water as in the Middle Ages. This is how cholera broke out during the siege.

At this moment, the bell tower of San Marco rang. The clock was different from ordinary clocks. The dark blue clock face was divided into 24 cells, and the 24 hours were represented by Roman numerals. There was a sign of the zodiac on it, seven at night. The point is between Sagittarius and Capricorn, and its 0 o'clock is not the center of the dial, but the 4 o'clock direction of the ordinary dial.

  The zodiac signs are arranged in a counterclockwise direction, representing the lion of Venice at 1:30 to 2:30 in the morning.

  Lions are often related to the sun. Why should they become the patron saint of midnight?

  "Are there any other activities besides opera at night in Venice?" Pomona asked suddenly.

   "It depends on what kind of activity you are talking about." The blue mask woman said.

   "I don't know, I am a tourist!" Pomona said angrily.

   "If it is a little sacred, the Church of Our Lady will hold a night mass on the night of the carnival, and the church will play in the original style." Dama said.

   "You don't think that the dome can only be admired." The woman in the blue mask said, "It not only looks magnificent, but also has a sound gathering effect. The black spot standing in the center of the whirlpool has a healing effect."

"what?"

   "She was talking about the marble floor laid on the ground, it formed a whirlpool." Dama explained.

Pomona remembered another thing. When she first went to the Church of Our Lady of Ann Khang, there was a handsome Italian man standing in the center of the "vortex". He was dressed in gorgeous clothes, like the golden silk of Venice. Cushions.

  The beauties in the paintings are often leaning on the cushions, and Pomona suddenly wants to buy some back.

  "I want to buy a few gold thread cushions. Where can I get them?" Pomona directly asked the locals, "I want the genuine ones, and the price is not a problem."

  Of course, it costs money to come to Venice. Even the Princess Sultan can't resist the temptation of Venice, let alone ordinary women.

  Material desire makes people degenerate, roaring like a lion, trying to break out of the prison of reason and morality.

  Monsters may not be terrifying, they may be very beautiful. Who knows whether that man is an angel or a devil.

  (End of this chapter)