I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 361. Here are my solutions to them.

1: This second was actually the sixth and bumped up by 20.

Click for a solution

Macintosh II

This second (II) was actually the sixth (there had been five previous Mac models) and bumped up by 20 (its CPU was the first 68020 used in a Mac).

2: Its A5 followed the A4, without any one, and a third thinner.

Click for a solution

iPad 2

Its A5 (its chip) followed the A4 (the chip in the original iPad), without any one (there was no iPad 1), and a third thinner (it was claimed to be about 33% thinner than the original iPad).

3: First with a 750 followed the 604, but there was neither 1 nor 2.

Click for a solution

Power Macintosh G3

First with a 750 (it was one of the first Macs with a PowerPC 750 processor) followed the 604 (previous models had PowerPC 601-604 processors), but there was neither 1 nor 2 (Apple didn’t start naming Power Macs by generation until the G3).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They were each the first model in their series to be numbered, but didn’t start at 1.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: This second was actually the sixth and bumped up by 20.

2: Its A5 followed the A4, without any one, and a third thinner.

3: First with a 750 followed the 604, but there was neither 1 nor 2.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 360. Here are my solutions to them.

1: With parents born in 1984 and 1989, it was born a server and raised with aqua.

Click for a solution

Mac OS X

With parents born in 1984 (Classic Mac OS) and 1989 (NeXTSTEP), it was born a server (first released as Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999) and raised with aqua (its initial GUI, explained by Steve Jobs as “when you saw it you wanted to lick it”).

2: First with Face ID and no Home to go to in 2017.

Click for a solution

iPhone X

First with Face ID (it was the first iPhone to feature it) and no Home to go to (it was the first iPhone without a Home button) in 2017 (announced in September, and released in November).

3: It shocked without MIDI in 2009, and ten years later went solo.

Click for a solution

QuickTime X

It shocked without MIDI in 2009 (it first shipped with Snow Leopard, and dropped MIDI support), and ten years later went solo (when Catalina was released in 2019, support for previous 32-bit QuickTime was removed, leaving just QuickTime X).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They each use the Roman numeral X for decimal 10, and should be pronounced ‘ten’ rather than ‘ecks’.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: With parents born in 1984 and 1989, it was born a server and raised with aqua.

2: First with Face ID and no Home to go to in 2017.

3: It shocked without MIDI in 2009, and ten years later went solo.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 359. Here are my solutions to them.

1: Could in theory be 995 or unreal apparatus for running old macOS.

Click for a solution

VM

Could in theory be 995 (Roman numerals VM, although that’s not how the Romans would have done it) or unreal (virtual) apparatus (machine) for running old macOS (one of their purposes).

2: More than a superlative manager at the heart of 1.

Click for a solution

Hypervisor

More than a superlative (hyper) manager (supervisor) at the heart of 1 (it’s central to virtualisation).

3: Unreal input and output from Rusty Russell for 1.

Click for a solution

Virtio

Unreal (virtual) input and output (I/O) from Rusty Russell (it was originally proposed by him) for 1 (it provides the device support for VMs).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They’re all involved in virtualisation on Apple silicon.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: Could in theory be 995 or unreal apparatus for running old macOS.

2: More than a superlative manager at the heart of 1.

3: Unreal input and output from Rusty Russell for 1.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 358. Here are my solutions to them.

1: Thinly dispersed line of people could save lots of space.

Click for a solution

sparse file

Thinly dispersed (sparse) line of people (a file) could save lots of space (what a sparse file can do).

2: Identical copy of rasp when duplicated.

Click for a solution

clone file

Identical copy (a clone) of rasp (a file) when duplicated (what is created when you duplicate a file in the Finder).

3: Steadfast 7.92 inch two-way volume connector.

Click for a solution

firmlink

Steadfast (firm) 7.92 inch (link, an old imperial measure of length equal to this) two-way volume connector (a firmlink is just that, between System and Data volumes).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They’re all distinctive features of the APFS file system.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: Thinly dispersed line of people could save lots of space.

2: Identical copy of rasp when duplicated.

3: Steadfast 7.92 inch two-way volume connector.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

This article provides a brief overview of the plot and sub-stories of Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Jerusalem Delivered, with links to individual articles, and some of the very best of the paintings.

Jerusalem Delivered is a fictional elaboration of the events at the end of the first Crusade, starting with the departure from Antioch, after its capture, and ending with the full possession of the city of Jerusalem.

Introduction: A forgotten epic

Historical background

Mounting the First Crusade
Capture of Jerusalem

Jerusalem Delivered

Advance to Emmaus

The crusaders’ leader, Godfrey of Bouillon, is visited early one morning by the Archangel Gabriel, who spurs the French noble to lead his army south to the Holy City. During their journey, they are provisioned by sea, and meet little opposition.

Aladine, ruler of Jerusalem, hears of their progress and starts preparing to receive them. Ismen, formerly a Christian soothsayer now turned to ‘pagan’ sorceror, arranges a trap to oppress the remaining Christians in the city, by having a sacred icon of the Virgin Mary stolen. Aladine attributes this to a Christian and uses it as an excuse to persecute the Christians.

Sophronia, a young Christian woman, tells Aladine she stole the icon, and is condemned to burn at the stake. Her lover Olindo insists that he is the thief, and is tied on the other side of the stake for execution with her. Just as the kindling is about to be lit, the beautiful ‘pagan’ knight Clorinda arrives and intervenes.

Sophronia and Olindo are spared, but Aladine banishes them and all other able-bodied Christians to beyond the city limits. Most flee to Emmaus, where the crusaders have just arrived.

First skirmish and a sorceress

Godfrey of Bouillon politely rejects overtures from two ambassadors of Egypt, inviting him to abandon his mission to capture Jerusalem. One, the Circassian Argante, warns Godfrey of dire consequences before he heads off to join Aladine in Jerusalem.

Soon after the crusaders arrive at the city, Clorinda leads an initial skirmishing party to size up the French forces. Godfrey sends Tancred to support the French, and when he knocks Clorinda’s helmet off, he falls hopelessly in love with her. Inside Jerusalem Erminia, former princess of Antioch, reveals her love for Rinaldo, another of the crusader knights. Argante shows himself to be a fearsome warrior by claiming the life of Dudon.

Godfrey decides a plan of action, and realises his need for a good supply of timber to build siege towers and engines.

The ‘pagan’ wizard Hydrotes sees his beautiful niece Armida, a sorceress herself, as an essential weapon in the campaign, so directs her to sow chaos inside Godfrey’s camp.

Armida tells the crusaders a story of woe, and beguiles many of the finest of Godfrey’s knights to follow her on a fool’s errand.

Erminia flees

In the midst of the chaos wrought by Armida, Rinaldo accuses Gernando of being a liar; they settle this when Rinaldo kills Gernando in a duel. Godfrey condemns Rinaldo to death, and he storms off from the camp. Armida then leads many other knights away on her diversionary mission.

In an attempt to expedite matters, Argante challenges the crusaders in one-to-one combat. Godfrey approves Tancred as the knight to face the Circassian. They fight viciously, wounding one another, but are brought to a halt by nightfall.

Erminia decides to go and tend Tancred’s wounds, so dresses up in Clorinda’s armour and slips out of the city in the dead of night. However, that makes her appear to be Clorinda to the crusaders, and she is forced to flee in panic. Tancred then rides off in pursuit of her, thinking her to be Clorinda. Overnight, both Erminia and Tancred become lost, and fail to find one another.

Erminia happens on a small family of shepherds, who console her, and dress her in their country clothes.

The death of Clorinda

Tancred is trapped in Armida’s magic castle, behind the bars of its dungeon. The following morning, with his combat against Argante due to restart soon after dawn, he is nowhere to be found. Raymond of Toulouse is drawn by lot to fight as his substitute, and proves a match. The devil, though, gets a ‘pagan’ archer to loose an arrow that strikes Raymond without wounding him. At this breach of chivalry, the affronted crusaders and defenders of Jerusalem join battle, which turns bloody until the hand of God intervenes with a massive thunderstorm.

Rinaldo and Tancred are still missing, but the crusaders riot in fear that the former has been killed. Godfrey realises he must attack the city soon.

Arab forces then attack the crusaders by night, which develops into more general battle. Knights return from their mission for Armida, reporting that they had been rescued by Rinaldo, who hadn’t been killed after all. They report that Armida has taken Tancred prisoner.

Godfrey prepares for assault on the city, first celebrating mass on Mount Olivet. The following day the crusaders bring up their siege towers and engines to tackle the walls of Jerusalem, but make slow progress against a strong defence. At nightfall the towers are pulled back, but Clorinda sneaks out of the city and sets alight to the towers, burning them to the ground.

She is caught outside the walls by Tancred, who cannot tell it is her and engages her in combat. Eventually he wounds her mortally, recognises her, and she asks to be baptised before she dies. Tancred does so, and she goes in peace.

Rinaldo abducted by Armida

The wounded Tancred is carried back to his tent.

Ismen enchants the forest which is the crusaders’ only supply of wood, preventing them from cutting replacement timbers for new siege towers. The weather turns oppressively hot and dry, causing crusaders to collapse and die of heat and dehydration. After prayers of the crusaders, the weather breaks and there is heavy rain.

Godfrey has a vision revealing the importance of finding Rinaldo to break the spell so that he can obtain timber again. Charles and Ubaldo leave on a mission to discover Rinaldo. They learn that Armida had originally intended to kill him, but just as she was about to sink her dagger into his sleeping body, she fell in love with him and abducted him instead.

Armida’s Garden

With the help of a wizard, Charles and Ubaldo sail in a magic ship to the Fortunate Isles. Overcoming various obstacles, they see the couple together in Armida’s garden, where Rinaldo has clearly become Armida’s dandy, and no warrior knight.

Rinaldo retrieved

Showing Rinaldo his image in a polished shield, Charles and Ubaldo get him to see how he has changed, and to return to the siege of Jerusalem with them.

Armida first tries to lure him back, then weeps, and finally departs in rage in her own chariot, to wreak vengeance.

Into Jerusalem

Rinaldo is reunited with Godfrey, who asks him to solve the problem of the enchanted wood. Rinaldo enters the wood and breaks Ismen’s spell, enabling timbers to be felled to build fresh siege towers.

Meanwhile, the King of Egypt is leading a massed army towards the crusaders at Jerusalem. Joining him is Armida with forces provided by her evil uncle. There are several volunteers who promise to kill Rinaldo in return for her hand in marriage. The King of Egypt also plots how he will kill Godfrey using deception. Those plans are discovered by a crusader spy, Vafrine.

With new towers built, Godfrey resumes the assault on Jerusalem before the Egyptian forces are due to arrive. Rinaldo, Tanred, Godfrey and others lead the ascent of the walls, and crusaders enter the city, where they quickly start massacring its ‘pagan’ defenders.

Argante and Tancred agree to conclude their previous combat beyond the city walls. After a bitter fight, in which both men are badly wounded, Tancred finishes the Circassian off, then collapses at dusk.

Vafrine has completed his mission spying on the Egyptian forces when he is recognised by Erminia, who wants to defect to the crusader camp. On their way back, they stumble across Argante’s body, then the wounded Tancred.

Erminia cuts tresses from her hair to make improvised bandages for Tancred’s wounds, and he is taken into Jerusalem for further care. Vafrine goes on to brief Godfrey of the Egyptians’ plans, to help him plan his defence.

Delivery

The Egyptian army arrives late the following day, but Godfrey won’t be rushed, and battle commences at dawn the next day. Egyptians wearing false colours as crusaders get close to Godfrey but are quickly recognised and killed.

As the battle rages on, Rinaldo sees Armida as an archer in her chariot, but passes her by to continue fighting. She struggles to loose her arrows at him, and those that she does shoot, bounce off ineffectively. With the Egyptian forces in full retreat and their leaders all dead, Armida flees on one of her horses.

Rinaldo catches her, just as she is about to stab herself with one of her own arrows in a bid to end her life. She swoons into his arms, he cries with pity for her, and Rinaldo promises to be her servant and her champion.

With the ‘pagan’ armies defeated and departed, Godfrey now leads his crusaders into the city as the sun sets. He goes to the Temple, having fulfilled his vow to deliver Jerusalem.

Leading characters

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 357. Here are my solutions to them.

1: John’s afterword was dropped in 13.

Click for a solution

PostScript

John’s (it was developed by John Warnock and Charles Geschke) afterword (a postscript) was dropped in 13 (deprecated in macOS 12.3, it was removed in macOS 13 Ventura).

2: Painted people who merged with Scots, from QuickDraw to Catalina.

Click for a solution

PICT

Painted people who merged with Scots (the Picts), from QuickDraw to Catalina (the graphics format for QuickDraw, support was largely dropped in macOS 10.15 Catalina).

3: Brisk march for panoramas was lost from X in 2009.

Click for a solution

QuickTime VR

Brisk march (quick time) for panoramas (it introduced many of us to interactive panoramas) was lost from X in 2009 (it was removed from QuickTime X, which came with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in 2009).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They are abandoned graphics-based formats. See: PostScript, PICT, and QuickTime.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: John’s afterword was dropped in 13.

2: Painted people who merged with Scots, from QuickDraw to Catalina.

3: Brisk march for panoramas was lost from X in 2009.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

One of the main priorities of the Third Republic in France was to secularise the nation, and one of its pillars was the introduction of free and mandatory education. This was accomplished in the Jules Ferry laws of 1881 and 1882, whose changes swept across every part of France, and became an important theme in French Naturalist painting.

Jean-Baptiste Jules Trayer’s wonderful watercolour of A Breton Infants School from 1882 predates any celebration of the Republican policy: the crucifix high on the wall at the right confirms this is one of the older Catholic schools. It shows a teacher helping one of her students with writing, in a class wearing only traditional Breton costume. There’s clearly room for improvement, though, as one girl is sleeping on her book, doubtless exhausted from her early morning work on the family farm.

By 1882, Jean Geoffroy had entered the schools where he was to be most successful and prolific; he apparently lodged above a school, with a couple of teachers. Snack Time shows the pupils outside their primary school during a break, armed with their lunchboxes and baskets. He tells their stories using subtle hints including their clothes. A well-dressed girl in white is being harassed by a smaller boy into surrendering some of her food. He wears rougher clothes but seems in control of the situation, as others watch on and laugh.

Within two years of the early death of Jules Bastien-Lepage, Paul Louis Martin des Amoignes’ In the Classroom (1886) looks as if it may have been painted from photographs. One boy, staring intently at the teacher in front of the class, is caught crisply, pencil poised in his hand. Beyond him the crowd of heads becomes more blurred.

Geoffroy’s Primary School Class from 1889 doesn’t give us the same depth of field effect, but shows one of the Republic’s new lay teachers working diligently in the classroom with her pupils. They’re still a bit of a shower, with the younger ones at the back working on traditional slates, but this is the public face of the modern Republican School.

In 1895 Geoffroy shows a Drawing Lesson in a class of older boys, who are following the classical tradition of drawing casts and appear remarkably diligent and well-behaved.

In his In School from about 1900, another lay teacher in a modern Republican infants class is caring for the French men and women of the future.

The Third Republic believed in catching its future citizens young. In 1899, Geoffroy painted The Nursery, one of very few images to show the state’s approaches to the early rearing of children. Hospitals developed a rigorous almost military approach to nurseries and feeding that endured well into the twentieth century, and separated mothers from their infants for much of the time.

It was only right that those citizens of the future should celebrate the national day of France, Bastille Day, on 14 July, as painted by Geoffroy in about 1900. For young boys in the years before the First World War, this was becoming increasingly militaristic rather than just patriotic.

I have been unable to locate an image of Geoffroy’s painting from which Charles Baude made this print of Prize-Giving at an Infants School in 1904, but it’s a fine example of the artist’s depictions of the social interactions within groups of young children.

Geoffroy’s undated painting of It’s Hard to Share shows another of the tribulations of childhood. These young boys have just emerged from a sweet shop, and the child in the centre is reluctant to share the paper cone of sweets he has just bought. His face says it all, as he looks with great suspicion at his less fortunate friend, and a dog also looks up expectantly.

The Third Republic also opened up higher education to French women.

In Jean Béraud’s undated The Thesis of Madeleine Brès (or The Doctoral Jury) he shows us one of the early woman doctoral students defending her thesis before the academic jury. At the time, this was a major landmark in the improvements in women’s rights, and their archaic academic dress emphasises this change.

Over the last three months I have illustrated a summary of Torquato Tasso’s epic Jerusalem Delivered, concluding that last week. To draw this to a close, this article considers the stories and fate of its six leading characters.

The three leading men are Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince Tancred, and Rinaldo. The leading women are Clorinda the ‘pagan’ knight, Princess Erminia of Antioch, and Armida the sorceress. One fact is immediately apparent: Tasso’s heroes are all crusaders, but the heroines all ‘pagans’, supposedly their enemies.

Godfrey of Bouillon

According to Tasso, the hero of heroes was Godfrey of Bouillon, who led the crusaders to a remarkable victory. Current historical analysis differs: despite the astonishing success of the crusaders at Jerusalem, at no time did they appear to have a single person in overall command, and much of their success was due to Count Raymond of Toulouse rather than Godfrey.

As with Tasso’s poetry, the paintings of Godfrey portray him as a pious warrior, as in this section of Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s magnificent frescoes in the Casa Massimo in Rome. Here The Archangel Gabriel Appears to Godfrey of Bouillon, reminding him of the pressing need to get on with the delivery of the Holy City.

This is reiterated in Overbeck’s Consecration of Godfrey, where Peter the Hermit stands holding the crucifix, as Godfrey, still wearing his armour, sinks on bended knee.

As a pious knight and leader, Godfrey never succumbs to the temptations offered by Armida. As far as we’re told, he remains pure and celibate in both body and mind, his sole mission being to deliver the city.

Tancred and Rinaldo are very different, hot-blooded young knights who fight like there’s no tomorrow, and engage in amorous adventures that get about as explicit as you’ll encounter in literature of this period. But their relationships are each unusual.

Tancred and Clorinda

Clorinda, one of two women warriors featured by Tasso (the other being Gildippe, a crusader), is in love at first sight with Tancred.

Clorinda is portrayed from her arrival as upholding the standards of chivalry, fighting ferociously but fairly, and being morally sound. She first arrives on her charger and holds up her right hand to tell those about to burn Olindo and Sophronia at the stake to hold fire, and quickly secures their release.

She has a vindictive streak, though, which becomes apparent when she decides to torch the wooden siege towers after the first day’s assault on the city walls. This backfires when she is caught outside those walls by Tancred; knowing it’s him, she forces him to fight, resulting in her death.

Predictably perhaps for a Catholic of his age, Tasso ends this part of the story with her baptism in the moments before her death, shown so brilliantly in Domenico Tintoretto’s Tancred Baptizing Clorinda of about 1585. Tasso also provides details of Clorinda’s ‘unfortunate’ upbringing outside the Christian faith of her mother, reinforcing that her sacrifice in battle was to her ultimate benefit in life after death, a thoroughly moralising thread.

Erminia and Tancred

From the outset Erminia is noble, cultured, and in love with Tancred, who had treated her well after the fall of Antioch and the slaughter of the rest of her family. But her love for Tancred isn’t returned: he’s smitten by Clorinda instead.

Mattia Preti’s undated portrait of Erminia, Princess of Antioch expresses well Tasso’s descriptions of her.

This unfortunate threesome doesn’t unravel until after Clorinda’s death. Before that, following the first round of the duel between Tancred and Argante, it becomes more complex. Seeing Tancred wounded in that battle, Erminia leaves the city of Jerusalem wearing Clorinda’s armour. Although that provides her passport to exit the city, she is recognised as Clorinda by crusaders, and is forced to flee from her bid to tend to her beloved Tancred.

That sets up an almost comical situation, in which Tancred leaves the crusaders’ camp in pursuit of a woman he thinks is Clorinda, whom he loves, who is in fact Erminia (who loves him) wearing Clorinda’s armour.

Eugène Delacroix shows this in his Erminia and the Shepherds of 1859, a detail of which I show above. Here is Erminia dressed as Clorinda, with Tancred erroneously in pursuit, heading for trouble in Armida’s magic castle.

Tasso doesn’t develop this confusion any further, but picks up the one-sided relationship again when Argante is dead and Tancred badly wounded, outside Jerusalem. Erminia gets her chance to revive the ailing Tancred, sacrificing her tresses to fabricate improvised bandages.

This is shown best in Alessandro Turchi’s Erminia Finds the Wounded Tancred (c 1630). We are left in suspense over the further development, even consummation, of this relationship.

Armida and Rinaldo

By far the most complex of Tasso’s characters is Armida. The niece of a ‘pagan’ ruler and sorceror Hydrotes, her mission is to wreak havoc in the crusader camp, so destroying command, unity and morale, as she does so effectively.

But Tasso is ambiguous about Armida, and early on reveals some of the complexity of her character. In a lyrical passage about a rose in her garden, Tasso’s poetry inspired Marie Spartali Stillman’s exquisite watercolour of A Rose in Armida’s Garden from 1894.

Having literally seduced many of the crusaders, led them astray, and sold them into slavery, she gets her hands on Rinaldo, who has stormed off under Godfrey’s over-zealous sentence of death. Although Prince Tancred (whom she also imprisons for a while) is one of the crusaders’ finest knights, Tasso repeatedly shows Rinaldo as the most valiant of all. That’s probably the result of Rinaldo being a fictional ancestor of Tasso’s patron.

Armida’s original plan was to beguile Rinaldo and murder him, but she falls in love and devises a more mutually satisfying fate: she abducts him to her enchanted garden, where he becomes her on-call gigolo.

Francesco Hayez in his Rinaldo and Armida from 1812-13 is almost as explicit as Tasso’s lines in depicting their relationship. It’s only Charles and Ubaldo who save Rinaldo from a life of empty pleasure, making love not war, achieved by getting the knight to see himself for what he has become in his self-reflection.

Hell hath no greater fury than Armida spurned: with her lover’s departure, she joins forces with the King of Egypt to exact her vengeance, being promised Rinaldo’s head on a plate, in the manner of John the Baptist’s for Salome (although that reinterpretation didn’t become popular until the late nineteenth century).

The last great battle to secure Jerusalem, which is probably based on the crusaders’ battle at Ascalon, is thus not just between Godfrey and the King of Egypt, representing the forces of God and those of the devil, but a personal feud between Armida and Rinaldo.

That concludes with Armida in despair, trying to take her own life with one of Cupid’s symbolic bolts of love, and her rescue by Rinaldo. He then promises to be her servant and her champion, in the hope that true faith will be revealed and convert her to Christianity.

Armida has often been compared to Circe and other sorceresses who anticipated the more modern concept of the femme fatale. Tasso’s Armida is still more complex, and the fate of her relationship with Rinaldo left open to speculation.

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 356. Here are my solutions to them.

1: Lowing and barking as you’d expect to hear from Clarus.

Click for a solution

moof

Lowing and barking (it’s claimed to be a mixture of the lowing of a cow and the barking of a dog) as you’d expect to hear from Clarus (from the original dogcow identified by Scott ‘Zz’ Zimmerman, named Clarus by Mark ‘The Red’ Harlan in 1987. See this brief history).

2: Alert heard in the battle between two Apples was replaced in Big Sur.

Click for a solution

Sosumi

Alert (it was an alert sound introduced in 1991) heard in the battle between two Apples (it was a defiant pun on Apple Computer’s use of music in its products, in conflict with Apple Corps’ claimed trademark for the music of the Beatles) was renamed in Big Sur (when it was replaced by Sonumi, although it’s still named Sosumi in /System/Library/Sounds).

3: Arpeggio or shattering glass heard with a Sad Mac.

Click for a solution

Chimes of Death

Arpeggio (it was originally an upward major arpeggio) or shattering glass (later models made the sound of glass being shattered) heard with a Sad Mac (displayed at the same time to indicate a severe problem that prevents normal startup in a Classic Mac).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They are sounds distinctive to Macs.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: Lowing and barking as you’d expect to hear from Clarus.

2: Alert heard in the battle between two Apples was replaced in Big Sur.

3: Arpeggio or shattering glass heard with a Sad Mac.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

With the massed Egyptian army approaching Jerusalem, Tancred finished his duel with Argante, leaving the Circassian dead and Tancred seriously wounded. Erminia, in company with Vafrine (who had been spying for the crusaders in the Egyptian camp), stumbled across Tancred, gave him much-needed aid and saw him carried away to recover inside the city.

Night has now fallen. Vafrine goes to Godfrey, and tells him of the Egyptians’ plans to kill him and Rinaldo during their imminent attack. Vafrine’s opinion of the strength of the Egyptian army is encouraging: although large in number, he considers that most of them are of limited value in combat, the exception being one company of Persians. Godfrey and his commanders then discuss their strategy, and agree to change the dress of the day so any Egyptian imposters will be caught out of rig, and to fight them out in the open.

The twentieth and final canto starts with the arrival of the Egyptian army late the following day. Godfrey won’t be rushed, though, and decides to join battle at dawn of the next day. When that time comes, he deploys his forces on the plain by the city, with a rear party remaining inside the walls guarding Jerusalem.

Godfrey’s forces take possession of a mound, around which he disposes his men. He then tours each unit before addressing them en masse. Emiren does the same for his Egyptian troops, then crusader trumpets launch the attack. The first blood is claimed by a crusader woman, Gildippe, who kills the King of Hormuz. She’s joined by her husband, Edward, and the couple have a long string of successes fighting together.

Ormondo, wearing false colours as a crusader, gets close to Godfrey in his bid to kill the leader, but is recognised and dies swiftly under a hail of arrows and other weapons. Rinaldo then enters the battle when enemy forces try doubling back on the crusaders and unleashing their archers.

David Teniers the Younger’s painting of Rinaldo’s Feats against the Egyptians from 1628-30 captures Rinaldo in action against his Egyptian foe.

Rinaldo then reaches Armida, who is riding in her golden chariot with a heavily-armed escort.

Teniers shows this in another oil-on-copper painting of Armida in the Battle Against the Saracens from 1628-30. She stands on her chariot in her role as an archer. Rinaldo is at the far left, concentrating on fighting those around her.

Armida recognises her lover Rinaldo, and first turns white, then burns with a passionate mixture of anger and desire. Rinaldo, though, passes her by and carries on fighting, ignoring her. Three times Armida takes aim at Rinaldo with her bow, and three times she cannot loose her arrow at him.

Finally, as shown in Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s fresco of Armida as an Archer Aims at Rinaldo (1819-27) in the Casa Massimo in Rome, she lets her arrow fly. It bounces off Rinaldo’s armour, so Armida shoots a succession of equally unsuccessful arrows.

Prince Altamor comes up to clear a way through for Armida’s chariot; while he’s attending to that, Rinaldo and Godfrey attack his troops and put them to flight.

Soliman has been watching all this from a tower in Jerusalem, and now decides to join the battle, where he quickly claims the lives of many of the crusaders. The wounded Tancred leaves his bed to rescue Raymond, who has been lying injured, and brings him back to safety.

Soliman is attacked by Gildippe, but he strikes back and mortally wounds her. As her husband Edward comforts her in her final moments, Soliman kills him too; the couple appear in the painting from Overbeck’s series shown above, lying dead in the foreground.

Adrastus, who had promised Armida that he would kill Rinaldo and present her with his head, now challenges Rinaldo, who kills him almost immediately. This exposes Soliman, who senses his death is imminent, and so it proves to be. By now most of the Egyptian forces are in full retreat. Emiren stops their standard-bearer from running away, and persuades him to return to die with honour, as those who remain fighting the crusaders are being slaughtered.

Armida now sits alone in her chariot, her guard of honour dead or deserted. Fearing she will be captured, she mounts one of her horses and rides off. Tissaphernes follows her, but runs into Rinaldo, who quickly kills him. Rinaldo looks around to see where else he might be needed, but the Egyptians are melting away in defeat, and he decides to follow Armida’s tracks.

Those take him to a dark and lonely place, where Armida is nursing her defeat, and has just taken her sharpest arrow with which to kill herself. Rinaldo stops her from doing so. When she turns and sees who it is, she swoons into his arms. He cries tears of pity on her, which wakes her from her faint. She accuses him of being cruel in both his departing and his return, and for stopping her suicide, then she dissolves into floods of tears. Rinaldo promises to be her servant and her champion, and to take her back to the lands of her relatives if she wishes.

This dramatic moment has been surprisingly rarely depicted in paint. This image of Cesare Dandini’s Rinaldo and Armida from 1635 isn’t of high quality, but shows Armida about to impale one of her arrows into herself, and Rinaldo grasping her hand in restraint.

Teniers also paints it in his Reconciliation of Rinaldo and Armida from 1628-30, adhering more literally to Tasso’s words in showing Rinaldo coming from behind.

Godfrey has struck down the standard of the Egyptians. Emiren, their general, makes one last personal attack on Godfrey, who kills him. The leader of the crusaders then takes Altamor captive; the latter promises that he will be ransomed for a great amount of gold and gems. Those Egyptians who have fled to make a last stand at the wall of Jerusalem are finally killed, ending all resistance.

Godfrey finally leads his crusaders back into the city, as the last light of the sun dims in the west. He goes to the temple, where he pays his respects, and fulfils his vow to deliver Jerusalem.

I’m not sure whether this scene of the Consecration of Godfrey (1819-27) in Overbeck’s fresco in the Casa Massimo, Rome, painted between 1819-27, is intended to show these closing moments in Tasso’s epic. Peter the Hermit stands holding the crucifix, as Godfrey, still wearing his armour, sinks on bended knee.

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 355. Here are my solutions to them.

1: Covid, smallpox, nVIR, but no more.

Click for a solution

virus

Covid (a coronavirus), smallpox (the variola virus), nVIR (a virus affecting Classic Mac OS, first reported in 1987), but no more (viruses are now almost unheard of for macOS).

2: Wooden animal concealing Greeks like DubRobber.

Click for a solution

Trojan

Wooden animal (the original Trojan horse from the Trojan War) concealing Greeks (it did, and ensured they were taken into the city of Troy) like DubRobber (a macOS Trojan also known as XCSSET, identified in 2020).

3: A thief like Amos can arrive by clickfix.

Click for a solution

stealer

A thief (a stealer) like Amos (AtomicStealer, AMOS, or SOMA, identified in 2023) can arrive by clickfix (now one of the most common means of its delivery).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They are types of malware that have affected Macs.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: Covid, smallpox, nVIR, but no more.

2: Wooden animal concealing Greeks like DubRobber.

3: A thief like Amos can arrive by clickfix.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

Armida has been abandoned by Rinaldo so he could return to the siege of Jerusalem, and has joined the massed army of the King of Egypt. One of its leaders, Adrastus, has promised to rip Rinaldo’s heart out, and present his head to Armida, to satisfy her lust for vengeance.

Rinaldo, Charles and Ubaldo return in their magic ship, and land on Judea’s shore. Waiting nearby is an old man guarding Rinaldo’s new suit of armour, specially forged and crafted to protect him. His shield bears figures demonstrating its heroic roots, and Rinaldo is presented with the predestined sword that had been owned by Sven, the late Prince of Denmark. The three are then whisked through the night sky in the old man’s chariot to rejoin the crusaders in their camp near Jerusalem.

At the start of Canto eighteen, Rinaldo and Godfrey of Bouillon are re-united: the knight says he is ready to redeem himself, and Godfrey throws his arms around him. The leader then explains to Rinaldo the problem they have with the enchanted wood, which is stopping them from felling trees to replace their siege engines and towers so they can resume their assault on the city.

Rinaldo accepts Godfrey’s challenge and, with the encouragement of Peter the Hermit, he sets off alone for the wood, where all is still and calm. He seeks a place to cross the river, and a bridge of gold appears, sees him across, then vanishes again. In front of him, the trunk of an oak splits open to give birth to a fully-grown nymph resembling Armida.

Rinaldo ignores the nymph’s overtures, draws his sword, and goes to cut down some myrtle. The nymph intervenes, and transforms into a monster with many arms bearing swords. Then there is lightning and thunder, and heavy rain, but Rinaldo persists and cuts through a black walnut tree. This instantly dispels the enchantment, and the wood returns to normal.

Rinaldo goes back to the camp and tells of his success. Crusaders and their expert engineers swarm out to the woods to fell trees and build new siege machines. In no time they build three great towers to place against the city’s walls, replacing those burnt to the ground by Clorinda before her death.

There is frantic work going on inside Jerusalem to repair and reinforce the city’s walls, build their own towers, and create inflammable weapons using mixtures of sulphur and bitumen.

Some French crusaders then spot a messenger pigeon, which is attacked by a hawk. The pigeon lands on Godfrey, who discovers the message it’s carrying. This is from the Egyptian forces expecting to arrive at Jerusalem in four or five days. Godfrey knows how little time he has left to capture the city, and calls on his commanders to prepare to assault its walls.

In their meeting, Raymond nominates his polyglot valet Vafrine to be a spy on the approaching army from Egypt. The valet agrees, and promises to bring back full details of their forces and disposition.

The day before their intended assault they spend in prayer, confession and celebrating Mass. The crusaders then move their siege towers to a well-armed gate to mislead the enemy. Overnight they shift them again to where they intend to use them, catching the defenders of the city off guard.

Soon after dawn, with their host of smaller engines brought into play, the crusaders start their massed assault. The air is filled with arrows tipped with poison, then stones hurled from the walls. The knights and soldiers approach under cover, and Rinaldo has a high ladder placed against the wall so he can lead many others also scaling its heights.

The crusaders swarm up using ladders and the three towers, taking casualties from missiles and heavy objects dropped upon them. Then balls of fire start to rain upon them, as if from hell. As the soldiers try to control fires burning in their wooden towers, the wind suddenly changes and blows the flames back at those defending the city. This sets alight woollen materials they had been using as protection, and the defenders are scorched away.

Ismen takes two of his neophytes out to try to cast spells, but a stone flung from one of the towers kills all three in a single shot.

As Soliman takes to leading the defence, the Archangel Michael appears to Godfrey, and reveals a whole army of angels in support. This inspires Godfrey to challenge Soliman. Rinaldo makes a way for his leader to plant a holy Cross on the top of the city’s wall, bringing cheers from the crusaders, who push onward and upward. Tancred too storms over the wall, raising his banner of the Cross in victory over Argante’s men.

Finally, the nearby gate is opened, and the whole crusader army enters Jerusalem. The wrath of their victory is immediate, and the city’s streets are soon awash with blood and piled high with corpses.

Canto nineteen opens within the conquered city, where only Argante the Circassian fights on. He is met by Tancred, and the two agree to conclude their previous combat alone, outside the city. Argante has no shield, and stands higher by his head against his opponent. They swing their swords at one another, inflicting wounds, but fight on. Taunting one another, they grapple and wrestle so forcefully that both fall to the ground.

Argante is the slower to get up, and they continue slashing through their armour into flesh. But Argante is now bleeding badly from his arm, and Tancred offers to call a halt. The Circassian responds by wounding Tancred viciously in the shoulder and ribs. Argante then falls to the ground, opening up his wounds. Still he won’t give up, and Tancred has to drive his blade into Argante’s skull to finish him off.

Tancred may be the victor, but is himself badly wounded, and struggles to walk. He sits down, trembling, and as night falls he lapses into unconsciousness.

While Argante and Tancred have been engaged in their duel to the death, slaughter has continued in the captured city. Rinaldo will only kill those who remain armed. Many of the citizens are packed into the shelter of the Temple of Solomon, whose doors are quickly battered in, leading to mass murder of the occupants.

Aladine and Soliman find their way to the Tower of David, where they barricade themselves in, armed with a steel mace. When Count Raymond of Toulouse tries to break into them, he is knocked senseless and dragged in as a hostage. Rinaldo is just about to enter when Godfrey sounds the retreat for the night, leaving the storming of the tower for the following morning.

Meanwhile Vafrine has been sizing up the Egyptian forces during the day. He has spoken freely within their camp, gleaned details of strengths and plans, even learning of the soldier who has been designated to kill Godfrey. He found Armida, and her suitors who have vowed to kill Rinaldo for her hand. There he bumps into a beautiful woman who recognises him: it is Erminia, who asks him to take her back with him.

Erminia tells Vafrine how the death of Godfrey has been planned using subterfuge. His killers will be dressed as crusaders, bearing the red cross on white to ensure they can get close to him, with just a small sign on their helmets to distinguish them as ‘pagans’.

By dusk, Erminia and Vafrine are nearing the crusader camp, when they spot Argante’s corpse, and a little beyond it the unconscious Tancred, who at first appears dead. When Erminia, who is in love with Tancred, recognises his faint voice, she leaps from her horse and weeps over him. Vafrine tells her that there is still time to cure his wounds and save his life, and removes Tancred’s armour.

Erminia has nothing to use as bandages to bind Tancred’s wounds, so cuts her hair off and uses that. Tancred regains consciousness, and recognises Vafrine. Others who have been searching for Tancred arrive, and start to carry him back to camp. Tancred insists on two things, though: that Argante is given a proper burial, and that he is carried into the city of Jerusalem to rest.

It is this last section that has been painted most often, and by great masters.

Giovanni Antonio Guardi’s Herminia and Vafrine Find the Wounded Tancred from about 1750-55 shows the start of the sequence, just after Erminia has leapt from her horse. The corpse of Argante is in the lower left corner, Tancred’s sword still impaling its head.

Guercino’s Erminia Finding the Wounded Tancred from about 1650 shows the scene slightly later, as Erminia rushes over to minister to the ailing Tancred, still uncertain whether he is alive or dead. This painting was originally commissioned by the Papal Legate of Bologna, but he let the Duke and Duchess of Mantua buy it from its creator in 1652.

Much earlier in his career, Guercino had painted a few moments further into the story, in Erminia Finds the Wounded Tancred from 1618-19. Vafrine has now removed Tancred’s armour, and they are trying to work out how to bandage his wounds.

Pier Francesco Mola’s Erminia and Vafrine Tending the Wounded Tancred After the Battle with Argante from about 1650-60 shows a similar scene, with Vafrine cradling the knight’s head and upper body, and the body of Argante at the far left.

There are three great paintings depicting the strange climax, when Erminia cuts her tresses to form bandages.

Alessandro Turchi’s Erminia Finds the Wounded Tancred is thought to have been painted in about 1630. Erminia is using Tancred’s sword to cut her hair, a detail omitted from Tasso’s text. Argante’s body is behind them.

At about the same time, Nicolas Poussin was painting this first version of Tancred and Erminia (c 1631), now in the Hermitage. It contains the same elements, even back to Argante’s body, but in a more open composition dominated by Erminia and her white horse.

This slightly later version by Poussin is thought to date from about 1634, and has a more powerful close-in composition. Erminia’s arms are in a similar position, also using Tancred’s sword, but she is now kneeling at Tancred’s side. The love between Erminia and Tancred is also made clear in the pair of cupids, and the two horses are anticipating the arrival of other crusaders to carry Tancred away.

It is now night, and Vafrine has a lot to brief Godfrey about, as the crusaders prepare to complete their conquest of Jerusalem then defend it from the approaching Egyptian army.

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 354. Here are my solutions to them.

1: In favour of a Scot who was mostly the biggest for almost 20 years until last month.

Click for a solution

Mac Pro

In favour (pro) of a Scot (Mac) who was mostly the biggest (apart from the trash can years, it was the largest model of Mac) for almost 20 years until last month (introduced August 2006, discontinued 26 March 2026).

2: Waterproof novel with a magnetic latch until 2019.

Click for a solution

MacBook

Waterproof (a mac) novel (a book) with a magnetic latch (it was Apple’s first laptop with a magnetic lid closure) until 2019 (when it was discontinued).

3: Opening shot for unknown number like a pizza box in a rack.

Click for a solution

Xserve

Opening shot (a serve in tennis) for unknown number (x) like a pizza box (it looks like one) in a rack (it was Apple’s only Mac intended to be mounted in a rack).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They are all discontinued model series.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: In favour of a Scot who was mostly the biggest for almost 20 years until last month.

2: Waterproof novel with a magnetic latch until 2019.

3: Opening shot for unknown number like a pizza box in a rack.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

The ‘Saracen’ sorceress Armida had abducted the crusader knight Rinaldo to her enchanted garden on the Fortunate Isles, far to the west out in the Atlantic. A rescue team of the knights Charles and Ubaldo then sailed out in a magic ship piloted by a fair woman. After they had overcome a series of obstacles, Charles and Ubaldo found Rinaldo dressed and behaving as a woman’s dandy, and have the task of restoring his senses as a warrior knight, so they can take him back to rejoin the siege of Jerusalem.

By showing Rinaldo his own image in a highly polished shield, the knight is put to shame and realises what he has become. Ubaldo bids him rejoin the forces of Godfrey of Bouillon, and the holy war. They hasten away, leaving Armida weeping and choking with grief. She runs after them, calling him back. Rinaldo and his two companions wait for her, and the couple stare at one another in silence.

The scene of Armida and Rinaldo separating has proved another of Tasso’s great images for art. Its greatest exponents were the Tiepolos, father and son, who painted a succession of works showing this parting, in the eighteenth century. I show here four examples, each using the compositional device of collapsing Armida’s garden on one side, with the beach and ship on the other, and using that spatial and temporal merging to tell the whole sequence, from Rinaldo’s awakening to their departure by sea.

In this version for the Tasso Room in the palace of the Cormaro Family in Venice, painted in 1742-45, Charles and Ubaldo are stood in full armour, pointing to their ship which is waiting to take Rinaldo away. Armida lies back exposing a lot of leg, trying to persuade Rinaldo to stay with her.

In Tiepolo’s Rinaldo’s Departure from Armida from 1755-60, Rinaldo is still being woken from his enchantment, and Armida bares her breast as she is trying to lure him back.

His son, Giovanni Domenico, squeezed the three knights in tighter, and omitted Armida from his Rinaldo Leaving the Garden of Armida in about 1770. Rinaldo’s separation from Armida is marked by the hold he has over the blindfolded Cupid in his right arm. This was painted in a fresco in Ca’ Rezzonico in Venice, Italy.

The father Tiepolo had painted another variation in Rinaldo Abandoning Armida, from 1757, as a fresco in the Villa Valmarana ai Nani, in Vicenza, Italy. In this, the composition is reversed, with the ship at the left, and Armida pleading with Rinaldo at the right. This is perhaps Tiepolo’s most complete account, as it includes both Armida’s crystal mirror at the right, and the polished shield into which Rinaldo looked, at the feet of Charles and Ubaldo.

Tasso’s narrative, developed in this painting, may have a sub-text about looking and its power: for Armida looking in her crystal was a means of strengthening her allure over Rinaldo, but for him looking into the polished shield was a means of restoring his power by showing what he had become in her clutches.

The Tiepolos were by no means the first to merge Armida’s garden with the sea and ship. Nicolas Colombel’s undated painting from the late 1600s showing Rinaldo Abandoning Armida has done much the same.

Armida then launches into a speech, asking Rinaldo to let her follow him back, and offering to be his shield. His love has been replaced by compassion for her, and he asks her to remain there in peace. The three knights then sail away on the magic ship, leaving Armida behind on the beach. Her grief now changes to anger at her loss, so she casts evil spells and conjures up her chariot. On that she departs for the battlefield in vengeance.

David Teniers the Younger shows this section of the story in two of his small paintings on copper: in his Armida and Rinaldo Separated of 1628-30, Armida is weeping and being comforted by Charles and Ubaldo, as the woman pilot of their ship waits for them to board by its stern.

Teniers’ sequel, Rinaldo Flees from the Fortunate Isles, shows the group returning to war, with Armida still looking disconsolate in her chariot above them.

Canto seventeen opens in Gaza, between Egypt and Jerusalem, where the King of Egypt is mustering his army ready to advance towards Godfrey’s forces. He sits on his throne to review his forces, which Tasso lists in procession much as he had done when the crusaders were setting out for Jerusalem at the start of the epic. These start with Egyptians, and progress through those from the coast of Asia, citizens of Cairo, those from the land to the south, men of Barca, those from the coast of Arabia, from the Persian Gulf, and the Indies. At the end, Armida appears riding in her chariot with her own forces who had been mustered in Syria by Hydrotes, together with Circassians and more.

The king then retires to a banquet, where Armida offers her forces in support of the king, and tells of her desire for vengeance against Rinaldo. Adrastus, a ‘Saracen’ leader of Indian troops, offers to rip Rinaldo’s heart out, and make a present of his head to Armida.

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 353. Here are my solutions to them.

1: The future was here 25 years ago when the fastest land animal arrived.

Click for a solution

Cheetah (Mac OS X 10.0)

The future was here (launched under the tagline of ‘the future is here’) 25 years ago (released on 24 March 2001) when the fastest land animal (a cheetah, despite Mac OS X 10.0 being far from the fastest) arrived.

2: This atelier came with more than a marathon four years ago.

Click for a solution

Mac Studio M1

This atelier (a studio) came with more than a marathon (the first Apple silicon Mac to feature an M1 Ultra chip) four years ago (announced 8 March and released 18 March 2022).

3: Wicked fast at 40 MHz, its special effects impressed 36 years ago.

Click for a solution

Macintosh IIfx

Wicked fast (it was dubbed ‘wicked fast’) at 40 MHz (the clock speed of its 68030 CPU and bus), its special effects (FX) impressed 36 years ago (released 19 March 1990).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They each celebrated their anniversaries this month.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: The future was here 25 years ago when the fastest land animal arrived.

2: This atelier came with more than a marathon four years ago.

3: Wicked fast at 40 MHz, its special effects impressed 36 years ago.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

The crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon desperately need Rinaldo back if they are to resume their assault on Jerusalem. Guelph’s party, notably the knights Charles (Carlo) and Ubaldo, have gone in search of him. But Rinaldo has been lured into a trap by the sorceress Armida, who intended to kill him. At the last moment, though, she falls in love with him and abducts him in her chariot.

That flies the couple to the distant, deserted and enchanted Fortunate Isles, where she lives in her garden that is perpetually in Spring. The wizard explains this to Charles and Ubaldo, to aid them in their mission to rescue the knight.

David Teniers the Younger’s The Magician Shows Carlos and Ubaldo the Whereabouts of Rinaldo (The search for Rinaldo) from 1628-30 is a small oil on copper painting in his series telling this section of Tasso’s epic. Here the wizard despatches the two knights to the Fortunate Isles.

At the start of canto fifteen, Charles and Ubaldo set off to retrace their steps with the wizard as their guide. The river takes them gently down to the sea, where a ship awaits. They board, and sail at miraculous speed past Ascalon and the mouths of the River Nile, westward through the Mediterranean, and through the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic Ocean. They eventually approach the Fortunate Isles, pull into a harbour, and the two knights disembark.

They spend the night at the foot of the mountain they have to climb to reach Armida’s garden with the captive Rinaldo. They set off at dawn, only to encounter their first obstacle: a fearsome dragon blocking their passage up the mountain. Charles draws his sword ready to slay the dragon, but Ubaldo waves a golden wand, a gift of the wizard, which drives it away.

Poussin’s The Companions of Rinaldo (c 1633-4) shows the two knights confronting this dragon. Charles stands in the centre with his sword ready, but Ubaldo behind him leaves his weapon in its scabbard and brandishes his golden wand instead. In the background at the left is the magic ship in which they sailed, and standing in its prow is the maiden who steered it.

Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s fresco of Ubaldo and Carlo free Rinaldo from Armida’s Castle from 1819-27, in the Casa Massimo, Rome, shows an interesting composite scene. To the right of centre, Charles and Ubaldo wield their sword and wand, and in the distance are Armida and Rinaldo in the garden on the summit. Amorini are playing with Rinaldo’s weapons, and his empty suit of armour has been cast into the undergrowth.

Next the pair have to face a lion, which is similarly dismissed with a wave of the wand. After that comes an army of animals they disperse readily, and Charles and Ubaldo are on the ascent towards the stretch of snow and ice they must cross before reaching Armida’s eternal Spring. Once up at the top, the two knights pause from their strenuous climb, slaking their thirst in a mountain stream. Grassy banks either side of the stream have a fine banquet laid out on them, and there are two naked young women cavorting in the water.

David Teniers the Younger’s Carlos and Ubaldo in The Fortunate Isles (1628-30) shows this moment, with the banquet laid out on a clean white tablecloth rather than grass. Surrounded by trees and standing proud on the skyline is Armida’s palace, their destination.

I only have this monochrome image of Charles-Alexandre Coëssin de la Fosse’s painting of Danish Warriors in the Garden of Armida from 1848. The two knights are dallying rather longer than their mission had intended.

Once Charles and Ubaldo can tear themselves away from these nymphs, they press on to the circular outer wall of the palace, which opens the sixteenth canto as they enter Armida’s garden.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Armida’s garden appeared on all manner of products. This wallpaper designed by Édouard Muller in 1854 is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, while smaller images appeared on coffee cups and much else.

Tasso gives a brief description of the garden with its figs, apples and grape vines. Birds sing, and the wind murmurs softly. One bird speaks to the two knights, telling of the chaste and modest rose flower that springs virgin from its green leaves.

This passage about the rose was the inspiration for Marie Spartali Stillman’s exquisite watercolour of A Rose in Armida’s Garden from 1894, given by the artist as a wedding gift to a family friend.

Charles and Ubaldo then peer through the leaves and spot a loving couple, who they presume to be Rinaldo and Armida. The knight’s head rests in Armida’s lap. He then stands up and takes a crystal glass hanging at his side. Armida uses this as a mirror to adjust her hair, telling Rinaldo to keep looking into her eyes.

Tiepolo paints this clearly in his Rinaldo and Armida in Her Garden from 1742-45, now in The Art Institute of Chicago. It was originally hung in a special room dedicated to Tasso’s epic in the Palazzo Corner a San Polo in Venice, where it belonged to the noble Serbelloni family.

In Angelica Kauffman’s Rinaldo and Armida from 1771, the crystal glass is ready at Armida’s feet, and she is busy distracting him by sprinkling flowers over his head.

Francesco Hayez shows a variation in his Rinaldo and Armida from 1812-13. Anticipating the next part of Tasso’s narrative, instead of Rinaldo wearing the crystal glass at his side, his circular shield rests on the ground next to Armida. Charles and Ubaldo are shown peering from behind a tree trunk, safely in the distance.

Armida then kisses Rinaldo goodbye and leaves. Charles and Ubaldo see their opportunity and step out from the bushes, dressed in full armour. Ubaldo holds a highly polished shield up so that Rinaldo can see himself for what he has become, a woman’s dandy, not a warrior knight.

References

Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.

Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).

Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).

Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.

I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 352. Here are my solutions to them.

1: British sister of ANSI is Tahoe’s child of RSR.

Click for a solution

BSI

British sister of ANSI (The British Standards Institution, or BSI, is the UK equivalent of the American National Standards Institute) is Tahoe’s child of RSR (it’s the macOS 26 reimplementation of Rapid Security Responses from Ventura).

2: Puzzle vault in the Da Vinci code contains Safari.

Click for a solution

Cryptex

Puzzle vault in the Da Vinci code (in Dan Brown’s novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’, it’s a portable cylindrical vault resembling a combination lock, used to contain secret messages or precious objects) contains Safari (recent versions of macOS include two cryptexes, the App cryptex containing Safari, and the OS cryptex containing dyld caches).

3: The sound of a liquid hitting a surface could be 1 or its parent.

Click for a solution

Splat

The sound of a liquid hitting a surface (a splat) could be 1 or its parent (it’s Apple’s internal name for the cryptex updates in RSRs and BSIs).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They all refer to the sealed disk images used by recent versions of macOS.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

During the 1880s Bruno Liljefors excelled as a wildlife artist, and was appointed head of the art school in Gothenburg, Sweden, in succession to Carl Larsson. But his personal life was in turmoil, and the 1890s were barren years when he often ran short of money.

His Common Snipe at its Nest from 1891 is a fine painting, but lacks the brilliance of his earlier works, with their loose backgrounds.

Hooded Crows (1891) captures these northern members of the crow family well, though.

Some of his finest paintings from this period are almost pure landscapes, such as his Hunting Geese (1896) with its superb mackerel sky.

He seems to have recovered his earlier form in the early twentieth century, as his new family grew around him. Spectacular paintings such as this Sea Eagle’s Nest from 1907 were often set around the fragmented coast of the Baltic. Although photographic technology was advancing rapidly, wildlife photography was still in its infancy: for instance, the National Geographic magazine had only published its first monochrome wildlife photos the previous year.

This is one of the many paintings that Liljefors made of a Winter Hare, here from 1910.

His later works include some substantial groups of birds, such as these Long-tailed Ducks in the Outer Archipelago (1911).

In 1917 Liljefors moved his studio to the village of Österbybruk near Uppsala, but continued to work from hunting lodges when necessary. Some of his landscapes became more post-Impressionist, as seen in this Autumn Landscape with Fox (1918).

His dedicated wildlife works didn’t weaken, as he concentrated on coastal wetlands, as in these Bean Geese Landing (1921).

Some of these late paintings have wonderful dialogues between the sky and water, as in these Geese in Wetlands (1921).

Liljefors never lost his fascination for the relationship between predators and prey, as seen in his Sea Eagles Chasing an Eider from 1924.

Eider on the Islet, painted in 1937, must be one of his last works from the coast.

Liljefors was also an accomplished gymnast, acrobat, and variety artist. With his two brothers, he formed the Manzodi Brothers, an acrobatic group who entertained Swedish audiences.

He died in Stockholm on 18 December 1939, a few months after the start of the Second World War. He had outlived his contemporary Anders Zorn by almost twenty years.

Reference

Wikipedia (in Swedish).

When the Swedish artist Bruno Liljefors specialised in natural history painting in the late nineteenth century, he wasn’t the first to depict wild creatures and their surroundings.

It was probably Albrecht Dürer who pioneered faithful depictions, first in his meticulously rendered watercolour of this Hare in 1502.

Dürer followed that with some of the earliest botanical watercolours, such as this Primula from 1526. Despite those, few painters showed any interest in the genre.

Some of the Dutch artists who travelled to the Republic’s colonies were exceptions. This is Albert Eckhout’s Study of Two Brazilian Tortoises believed to have been painted in Brazil in about 1640.

Other painters of the Golden Age set faithful images of native species in more entertaining surroundings, as in Melchior d’Hondecoeter’s Concert of the Birds from 1670. But at that time, animal paintings were largely confined to domestic species.

The most famous of the early natural history specialists is John James Audubon, whose paintings of birds were turned into sets of prints. Among his surviving oil paintings is this of a Wild Turkey Cock, Hen and Young (Meleagris gallopavo) from 1826. Although clearly destined for use as an illustration, the setting is intended to appear more natural.

As the century progressed a new, objective style of painting developed in botanical and ornithological work in particular. Artists like Edward Lear illustrated multi-volume scientific publications classifying and describing different species.

Liljefors is one of the pioneers who painted rather than illustrated wildlife, and is revered today as one of the genre’s most influential figures. In this weekend’s two articles I show examples of his paintings that remain some of the finest artistic depictions of wildlife in the history of art.

Bruno Liljefors was born in Uppsala, in the east of Sweden, in the same year as Anders Zorn. He doesn’t appear to have been as precocious a painter, and started his studies at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm four years later than Zorn, in 1879. He left the Academy after three years, and went to Dusseldorf to learn to paint animals.

In the early years of his career he travelled to Rome, Naples, and Paris, and was particularly inspired by the artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing, then dominated by the ideas and style of Jules Bastien-Lepage. Liljefors perfected his plein air painting technique, and became influenced by the Japanese woodcuts that were so popular at the time. He also aligned himself with the ‘Opponents’, a large group of Swedish artists who effectively seceded against the conservatism of the Academy.

During the early 1880s, Liljefors started to paint wildlife set in natural surroundings. Hawk and Black Grouse is a good example of these from 1884, showing a hawk attacking the gamebirds in a winter landscape. Although he had a deep affinity with his subjects, Liljefors was also a hunter, and many of his paintings explore the predator-prey relationship, as here. His hunting also provided him with dead specimens to use as models.

In 1885 he demonstrated his virtuoso skills in what he described as ‘five studies in a single painting’. Above is A Cat with a Young Bird in its Mouth, and below is A Cat and a Chaffinch. These were assembled from observations of living and dead animals and birds, and sketches, to produce composites that photography couldn’t match for decades, even in monochrome.

Following the tradition established by Dürer, one of Liljefors’ favourite species was the elusive hare. This page of Hare Studies from 1885 shows a tiny part of the image library he assembled, as well as the spring antics of hares. Liljefors also assembled his own wildlife park, with living and apparently quite tame creatures, including foxes, badgers, hares, squirrels, weasels, an eagle, eagle owl, and others.

The fox appears in many of Liljefors’ paintings, here A Fox Family (1886) in their role as predators, as they feast on an unfortunate bird.

Liljefors’ paintings are often painterly, such as in Jays (1886) which gives the impression of having been painted en plein air, in front of the birds and landscape.

Even for the modern amateur photographer, the fleeting form of Common Swifts (1886) is a great challenge. Set against a riot of flowers, these birds are the product of field observation, museum specimens, and careful studies, to make them look real.

Liljefors had deep insight into the behaviour of species he painted. The five Red-Backed Shrike Chicks (1887) shown here may not, at first sight, appear in keeping with their popular name, the ‘butcher bird’, but the chick at the left end of the branch is already taking an interest in a passing bee or fly. When a little older, it will catch it and impale the corpse on thorns in its larder.

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: British sister of ANSI is Tahoe’s child of RSR.

2: Puzzle vault in the Da Vinci code contains Safari.

3: The sound of a liquid hitting a surface could be 1 or its parent.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.