Marco Beach Ocean Resort’s gourmet Italian restaurant has earned its 11th consecutive Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator magazine It’s the only restaurant on Marco Island to receive the prestigious award for its top-quality wine list and is among an elite group of only 1,093 Best of Award of Excellence recipients worldwide Best of Award of Excellence recipients must offer a wine list of typically 350 or more selections consistently provide a superior presentation and display either vintage depth – with several vertical offerings of top wines – or excellent breadth across several wine regions; Sale e Pepe offers 475 selections and a 4,500-bottle inventory Wine Spectator has honored the world’s best wine lists since 1981 recognizing restaurants whose vintage offerings include interesting selections appeal to wide range of wine connoisseurs and are appropriate to the cuisine The cuisine Sale e Pepe is the work of Executive Chef Alessio Selleri – born and raised in the town of Campi Salentina in southeastern Italy – who creates a menu reminiscent of his homeland Selleri and his team cook with the freshest ingredients complemented by South Florida’s fresh produce and seafood to create a dining experience that embraces the culinary traditions of southern Italy in a unique and progressive style in addition to receiving 11 Best of Awards of Excellence has also been recognized as a AAA Four Diamond award-winning restaurant each year since 2006 and was recently ranked No 2 among Marco Island’s top restaurants on USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards The resort itself also has an AAA Four Diamond rating and was ranked No 16 on Travel and Leisure World’s 2013 list of “Top Resorts in the Continental U.S.” Marco Beach Ocean Resort also earned the Wedding Wire Couples’ Choice Award in 2015; was recognized by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the top 25 resorts in Florida’s Gulf of Mexico and Central regions; was named among the top 400 hotels worldwide by Expedia+ members; and was inducted into the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame Marco Beach Ocean Resort is located at 480 South Collier Blvd. on Marco Island. Shopping, entertainment and dining are all within walking distance, and golf, boating, fishing, kayaking and nature tours are nearby. For additional information on the resort, call 239-393-1400 or visit marcoresort.com. To make reservations at Sale e Pepe, call 239-393-1600 or visit sale-e-pepe.com from Giorgio Baglivi’s Opera omnia medico-practica et anatomica, 1723 Anna Palazzo was working in the vineyards surrounding her hometown of Campi Salentina when a tarantula bit her on the elbow and the farmers working beside her rushed to her side as the situation deteriorated: her face and stomach swelled Worried that she was on the verge of death her husband and the other farmers hurried to bring the poor girl into town “slung over the back of a donkey and tied up as if she were a cadaver,” according to local physician Nicola Caputo She was nearly unconscious when they dropped her into her bed and called the only people who could still save her: the musicians.  Anna wasn’t suffering from the average spider bite: she had been bitten by the tarantola and harmonicas crowded into her small room in the center of town and began to play the young woman in my presence awoke and began to dance with so much force and fury that one might have called her crazy,” writes Caputo in his 18th century study of the infamous tarantula and its victims Salento is a region of Italy in the southernmost part of the Apulian peninsula the “heel of the boot.” The region has long been associated with magic and dance: from the Middle Ages until just a few decades ago ethnomusicologists and anthropologists documented the regional phenomenon of tarantismo bitten by tarantulas or other venomous insects like scorpions would be stricken by an apathetic unresponsiveness from which they could recover only through hours she becomes the spider that bit her,” describes mid-20th century Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino in The Land of Remorse one of the most extensive studies of the phenomenon this spider could be one of two species: the lycosa tarantula a large and frightening spider with a painful but innocuous bite a smaller spider with a dangerous but rarely fatal bite associated with muscle spasms and vomiting But the scientific names and classifications of these spiders were of no interest to the women suffering from tarantism–and many believe that spider venom had little to do with what the women endured it was a kind of possession: when she heard melodies of the musicians the tarantata dragged herself across the floor A 1749 study of the tarantula’s anatomy to try and understand tarantism The musicians’ had to intuit the melody that might make a sufferer dance they played lively folk music called the pizzica-pizzica, in reference to the “pizzico,” or bite the tarantata would eventually collapse freed from possession by the tarantula and healed the tarantulas are haunting me,” wrote Anna an older woman who had suffered a tarantula bite in her youth in a letter sent in the early 1960s to Annabella Rossi “I can’t eat because my plate is full of fat scorpions I can’t drink because my glass is full of tarantulas too and last night my bed was packed with the creatures.” It was late June and Anna had fallen victim to the tarantula again as happened to many tarantatas. Every year the tarantatas would congregate in Galatina Paul for mercy from the terrible tarantula Some scholars argue that the roots of tarantism can be traced to back to ancient Greece when groups of men and women worshipped Dionysus in ecstatic but there are few–if any–documents that attest to such origins tarantism first appears in a 14th century text by a physician from Padova describing how to treat bites or stings from venomous animals and insects.  like Ferdinand Epifanio in the 17th century documenting cases and effective treatments Epifanio offers a recipe for a homemade brandy that could be used to treat tarantismo; it included not only “tender oak leaves,” “blessed thistle,” and “dried red roses,” but also sage Another notable recipe suggests that the venomous tarantulas themselves be ground into a powder and mixed into a hearty glass of wine there is no remedy more effective and immediate than music.” These early descriptions of the venomous bite and the associated music and dance make no reference to Christianity as the Church sought more uniform control of its subjects, tarantism became one of the many traditions co-opted by Catholicism patron saint of the city of Galatina and of those bitten by venomous animals emerged as the protector and savior of the tarantata.  Paul during his travels across the Mediterranean If local musicians were unsuccessful in curing a tarantata in her home where she would plead with the saint for mercy from the spider’s venom and often drink the blessed well water the family would also bring monetary offerings for the saint and the church this trip to Galatina became a yearly pilgrimage: in June of each year and she and her family would work to collect the money to fund the trip and the pay the musicians that would accompany her when Ernesto de Martino and his team traveled to Salento to document the “relics” of tarantism they found that the phenomenon largely affected women–women who had been abused who had been forced to marry men they didn’t love or who found themselves at the margins of society in other ways.  and later researchers like Luigi Chiriatti argued that tarantism was an expression of this marginality: a way for these women to manifest their social suffering and relocate themselves within a community it was an opportunity for the community to come together Paul’s Chapel in Galatina, tarantataswould beg St protector of those bitten by venomous animals the family would lay a white sheet on the floor the tarantata would begin her dance: arching and doing it all over again to the melodies played by the tambourines and violins Community members would gather in the room bringing food or a few coins for the family exhausted from her dance and freed from the tarantula and community members expressing their support and enthusiasm.  a family brought their elderly grandmother into a mental health clinic in Poggiardo The family presented her to the psychiatrist in the clinic asking him to treat her for psychotic episode who had studied traditional medicine and healing in addition to his formal medical education knew that drugs would not help the old lady.  “‘That little grandma was a tarantata,’ he told me,” recounts Giacomo Toriano a sociologist and musician who worked in the clinic at that time “The family didn’t understand what was happening They didn’t know that she needed music.” In that moment Toriano understood that tarantism was dead “The cultural context in which the phenomenon had existed for centuries had disappeared.” In the years after de Martino and Chiriatti studied tarantism and emigration led to an abrupt abandonment of the fields stretching across Salento Entire systems of knowledge and ways of life–including those that had led to the abuse and mistreatment of women–were abandoned in turn crowds would gather to watch the tarantatas as they frenetically danced and howled for St Paul’s mercy. (Photo: Angelica Calabrese)  The tarantatas slowly disappeared: the musicians stopped being called to homes across Salento Though a folk revival has rescued the melodies of the pizzica-pizzica and local dance companies have created dances inspired by those of the tarantatas there are few people left who might recognize a true tarantata’s suffering and treat it appropriately: with a community-wide event filled with music and dance.  one of the most famous musicians of the tarantatas once claimed that the chemicals and pesticides used since the industrialization of the early 1950s led to the demise of the tarantatas:  “With all those herbicides and anti-parasites that they are dumping in the fields there aren’t any more tarantulas.”  But it wasn’t just the tarantulas that had caused tarantism We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the world’s hidden wonders Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders CONTEMPORARY ART MAGAZINE SINCE 1980 More... or in those of the footsteps practiced in an unknown material the sensation one feels when observing the works of Damien Meade is comparable to a sort of profound spell One is almost dumbfounded in intercepting the gaze of the depicted characters as much as in trying to follow the folds of the pink substance that animates the rest of the paintings wrapped in the vagueness of the untitled – paraphrasing Alessandra Franetovich’s words from the critical text of the exhibition – do not give any exhaustive answer The works presented on this occasion – the Irish artist’s second solo show after the one organized in 2018 – all belong to 2021 and constitute the latest efforts in Maede’s favorite field from the beginning: that of painting The difference is minimal compared to previous experiments yet highly perceptible: the same categories of subjects that characterize his production remain – those of the figures and of the affected material – but the ways in which the artist returns them change significantly It is enough to make a quick comparison with the paintings from a few years ago to realize this: the rendering of the new characters moves away from the primary source that generated them – the sculptural sketches – to acquire a more austere and enigmatic aura halfway between the surrealist sinuosity and metaphysical obscurity while the substance protagonist of the second category abandons the polychromism of the previous examples to reach only the pink-complexion gaining vigor and sensuality to the limits of eroticism this particular shade of pink is the identification of Meade’s painting and has always been present in every work of him even if only through small and imperceptible nuances in addition to overflowing into the paintings informal – “real canvases tempting a haptic taste for painting” writes Franetovich – it can be seen penetrating into the tones that surround the mouth and nose of individuals reddish or purple shades depending on the intensity of the light until they get lost in the remaining and predominant blue and silver colors Perhaps it is also thanks to this nuance – so human and carnal – if this last group of works is able to exercise the spell we mentioned at the beginning What is certain is that it is a very powerful spell albeit vaguely familiar – they have eyes hair – remain closed in their silence to scrutinize your every single movement undeterred Is therefore the magic formula capable of evoking made up of their chest Sort of armor or the whole of their entrails floating in indefinite backgrounds and separated from everything else; but it also consists of the sinuous agglomeration of materials trapped in the flatness of the two dimensions The question that would haunt anyone is: what are they made of But perhaps this is the meaning of Maede’s painting: to let you slip into the indeterminacy of its atmosphere letting you savor every detail and every fold of what it reports so as to instill doubt about what those figures wanted to tell and what could be hidden behind that mysterious substance by its nature sight is based on reciprocity And often dialogue is nothing more than an attempt to give voice to this reciprocity” After the three-year degree in Technologies for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage at the University of Salento I attend the Master of Science in Visual Arts at the University of Bologna I collaborated with Galleria d’Arte Maggiore g.a.m (Bologna) and with MUMA – Museum of the Ancient Sea in Nardò (LE) I am interested in events concerning contemporary art in particular those related to video-photographic and performative practices I write for ATPdiary and Juliet Art Magazine Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" ASSOCIAZIONE JULIET – via Battisti 19/a – 34015 Muggia (TS) Juliet art magazine è pubblicata a cura dell’Associazione Juliet - direttore responsabile Alessio Curto autorizzazione del Tribunale di Trieste registro informatico C.F./P.IVA 00699740320 | c/c postale 12103347 | SWIFT UNCRIT M10MC | IBAN IT75C0200802242000005111867 | UNICREDIT Banca Trieste.