The day started out with a rain that mostly disappeared by the time we maundered up Rua da Esperanza on our way to MNAA (Museu Nacional de Arte Antica). This is the first museum on our trip that didn’t require a mask (nevertheless, we’re still sticking to the old guidelines).
We didn’t linger by the painted vases and ceramic dinnerware, nor did we venerate the sacred vessels no matter how well crafted, or how golden; once you’ve been to the Vatican Museum you can only marvel that over time more monstrances and chalices haven’t been melted down for more secular adornments. The art from Portuguese discoveries only made us pity the discovered. It had the makings of a da Gama estate sale until we found the hall of rooms with European painting from the 15th to 17th centuries. I had no prior knowledge of what MNAA had in their collection, so some of the Dutch painting like Pieter de Hooch’s “Merry Company” came as a welcome relief.
Then, as if MNAA was teasing me on with a Tiepolo here and a Dürer there, I entered a room of triptychs. To my right was Van De Weyden’s “Presentation of the Child in the Temple.”
Glancing over my shoulder to the left I was stunned to see a triptych that could only have been by Bosch, viz.,“The Temptations of Saint Anthony”.
All the horrifying hybrid creatures notwithstanding, one can’t help but be drawn to the city burning in the background like a news shot of Ukrainian devastation.
Transfixed as I was by this triptych (I love the crowded paintings of Bosch and Brueghel busy with activity), I knew Ella was in the lobby waiting for me to be done with it, so I slowly backpedaled away from Bosch’s wonderful demonology.
With all deference to Bosch, it didn’t take the fallen promise of an inner monk to see that even with a lesser artist’s inferno, the hellish tale had a more complex story to tell than all the madonnas filling up the surrounding walls.
But enough of the wonders of Hell; Ella’s getting restless.
After a quick pit stop at our Airbnb, we made out for Livraria Bertrand, the oldest bookstore in the world that is still in operation. Sectioned off like an indoor arcade, maybe it was the low arches leading from room to room, or maybe it was my obsession with the inner monk, but the store had an underground feel to it, like catacombs dedicated to preserving all those dead letters.
We had to add purchasing power to our metro tickets, so after Bertrand’s, we found the Chiado-Baixa metro stop and descended into the station where the hellish imagination pauses to pay homage to modern subway design. We went down, down, down, down at least for long levels of stairs as if Jules Verne had written the script. Just to use a ticket machine!
And just like some Christian allegory, if it took steps to reach the lower depths, we ascended to the surface on an escalator …where there was the hectic commotion of a tight traffic circle and jostling crowds of people. It made the netherworld subway tunnels seem inviting.