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* * * Inside Imperato’s Camera delle Meraviglie Naples, 1599 Ferrante Imperato directs us to look up as if to the constellations, though crustaceans swim above us instead. Starfish and moon snails. When we ask, he identifies cockles and conch among the flying fish— fans, he says, of water and air. Meanwhile his son, Francesco, with a pointer the length of his arm, aims at a crocodile where a chandelier should hang. Chameleon and flamingo, sea urchin and seal, uncanny the face of what’s that creature looking down at us? Have we lost our compass? On what axis are we spinning in this eely otherworld— not knowing, all of a sudden, what writhes or flies. What’s here. Far? Silent now, our guide leans against a window’s diamond pane in the ebbing light of his wonder room as if to say how thin it is between. * * * |
