The gods are capricious. And even more so those from Olympus or their Latin counterparts. Two mythologies, two worlds, that María Belmonte enjoys exploring in her books. In the latter, it would seem that the goddess Fortune has had malicious or naively clueless fun spinning her wheel. And the publication of The Murmur of Water (Acantilado), an erudite and at the same time entertaining song about fountains and water gardens from Greece, Rome, the Renaissance and the Baroque, has coincided with one of the most worrying droughts that Catalonia suffers. Now, it is also possible that the goddess of the cornucopia knows very well what she is doing because the pages written by Belmonte remind us of what we may have forgotten or ignored, that water is much more than water. Our ancestors knew it. And that’s why they revered her.
The water now murmurs more than it speaks…
When I started the book, about three years ago, we had the serious problem of climate change but the drought still did not torment us like it does now. In ancient Greece and Rome, water was a very important issue because for them it was something sacred, as in all cultures.
Have we lost the sacred concept of water?
Completely. For us it is opening a tap and having the water you want, until now, of course. On top of that it’s cheap, or it was. It’s just that everything is going to start to be in the past…
In the book he quotes Ian McEwan who warns us about the absence of water: “It will be one of the first luxuries we lose.”
And grandparents will tell their grandchildren how we used to bathe, shower with hot water in winter and wrap ourselves in large towels like blankets.
What should we learn from ancient civilizations?
They had veneration for water, it was sacred. The fountains were places consecrated to nymphs. They couldn’t get dirty and people flocked to them like someone entering a cathedral. To the point that Emperor Nero was publicly reprimanded by the priests when he had the idea of ??bathing in the spring that supplied water to one of the most important aqueducts in Rome.
Should we consider it sacred again?
Yes we should. Or at least realize the importance it has and that we can no longer defile it, dirty it, or put an end to it. In the book I wanted to celebrate water. I finish it with a phrase from Pindar that says: “the best is water”, it comes before gold. Ancient cultures have always known this, however, in consumer civilization it has become just another consumer item.
Did the fountain of eternal youth come to exist?
No, but we will never stop looking for it. It is a great desire of the human being.
The Greeks considered that there were inspiring, prophetic, medicinal sources…
They were useful for everything. They cured madness, leprosy and even restored virginity. Others were disastrous, it was better not to drink from them. They were experts in water and the Romans inherited their knowledge.
And as they used to do, did they improve them?
In addition to all these wonders, they knew how to make the greatest devices with water, such as aqueducts. They also gave it recreational importance, with the bathrooms. They realized that water was power.
The Renaissance gave water a metaphorical value with the Neoplatonic initiation gardens…
That is wonderful. It was my great pleasure in the book to learn how the Neoplatonists cultivated water in their gardens. Everything had a meaning, you had to know how to go from one source to another because it was telling you a story to end up in a cave where enlightenment occurred or not. Now we visit these gardens and we don’t know how to read them and in many, the water no longer runs. Sadness overwhelms you.
The book ends with the great baroque fountains.
The popes also used water as a manifestation of power. Bernini’s sources are still there for everyone to enjoy, although he also had his detractors. It was a bit over the top.
As in the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa?
It is the most erotic statue that exists, a woman in full orgasm. Bernini knew a lot about that because he was a womanizer, but he was also a genius.
Do you claim the baroque?
I didn’t like it because it seemed to me the epitome of everything I hated most about the Catholic Church. I entered the Baroque with Borromini, a suffering man and wonderful artist. Baroque Rome is a gift to dazzle us. We must learn to get rid of prejudices. Long live Bernini!
