I think that I can empathise with Alberti Biondi more than I ever could, not least because I’ve only just found out who he is. Biondi was one of the first ever archaeologists, taking a (then unheard-of) fascination with the relics of the past and turning it into a recognised study within his own lifetime.
It was Biondi that orchestrated the first mass excavations of the forum Romanum in Rome and it was he that found the rubble and ruins of a once great civilisation and imagined to what it was like in its prime. (Incidentally, Biondi found Rome in such a state that he often despaired, like the time he found cows grazing on the Capitoline hill, the former seat of republican government in amongst the fallen columns and weathered statues.) Walking home from university today, I think I can understand in microcosm what it must have felt like to look into the once-glorious past from a perspective of utter, unceasing ruin.
As even the least observant amongst the general public will inform you, the last few weeks have been sodding cold. Accompanying this cold was more than a little bit of snow which made for a pleasant change for a lot of people until it started to interfere with their lives. I was struck by just how quickly snowmen could appear seemingly from out of the ground and come to dominate the landscape as the only things of any definable stature, as everything else was covered in snow. The great snow car of Manchester appeared outside our house and numerous half-used snowballs could be found littering the place. Alas, nothing lasts forever, and the snow was destined to melt. However, I didn’t expect it to be so drawn out and distressing to watch.
First, trees and buildings start to shed themselves of their shiny white coatings and soon reveal the gritty, grimy colours underneath. Then paths begin to form amongst the snow on the floor allowing people easier access – this one I can permit. Then the snowmen begin to melt, with each component slowly dropping off to lie, ruined, on the floor. Before long most of the snowmen are either in pieces on the floor like the columns on the forum or else are holding onto the wall on which they rest for dear life as their body slips away from under them. Even the once-illustrious snow car is now nothing more than a vaguely car-shaped blob of snow. Snow gave way to barbarous ice before a second snowfall promised to return us to the glorified days of enveloped neigery but, alas, it wasn’t enough. It dusted the ground and gave the appearance of progress but, in actuality, it just concealed the barbarian glacial covering for a short while. It was not long before that snow, too, gave way to the ice underneath and the slippery, shiny pavement hints at what once was, much like the present paving on the Acropolis in Athens.
As I write this the rain has now come, washing even the ice away in a drizzly deluge and revealing the civilisation of man once more from underneath its frosty coating. The kingdom of the snowmen has come and gone and is replaced by the far less ephemeral land of mankind and we can but remember the once great hold the kingdom of the snowmen held over our lives.
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