History of Art by Margaret Luongo

Author:Margaret Luongo [Luongo, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2016-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Londinium

Art is long and so are curses. In the Museum of London, relics of superstitious Romans reside in glass cases that preserve the grudges of yesteryear. The small marble figure of a plump Venus, found buried in the Walbrook Valley; the necklace of emerald beads linked by gold figure eights; the scrap of lead inscribed “Martia Martina.”

Your rival scratches your name, “Martia Martina,” inverted, on a scrap of lead. She stands at the stream’s edge, folds the scrap over, and hurls it into the water for quick delivery to the gods. Later, you stand on the same bank, looking for evidence of your fate in the current. You finger the beads you wear for protection. She dies. You live. You cast a statue of Venus into the stream as thanks for the victory in love. Babies come. You die, of course. And Martia Martina, your backwards name, crackles, metallic, over the speaker system in the museum’s permanent exhibition—a curse so old as to make you immortal.

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