Wednesday Links

Good morning! An Italian diver has discovered an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Sicily: “The vessel was found piled high with hundreds of well-preserved containers, which were used to transport goods such as wine and olive oil. Italy’s Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli hailed the wreck as ‘one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years.’ . . . The culture ministry says it dates from the second or first century BC.”

How the Bayeux Tapestry returned home:

When Elizabeth II was about to be crowned in 1953, British officials decided on the perfect gift for the monarch-to-be: They would bring home the Bayeux Tapestry.

For over 900 years, the 220-foot-long embroidery depicting the 1066 invasion of England by William the Conqueror had resided in Bayeux, France. A celebratory loan of one of Britain’s most important cultural artifacts would have made an ideal coronation present, but there was a problem: French art experts wouldn’t let the tapestry travel. It was too fragile to move, they said.

French experts scuppered another British plan to borrow the tapestry in 1966 for the 900th anniversary of the invasion. Then again in 1980. Last year, too, the tapestry’s handlers insisted a loan was impossible.

And yet, against the odds, the tapestry is now in London. On July 9, at 6:15 p.m., a bright yellow truck carrying the masterpiece, sealed in a climate- and vibration-controlled case, left Bayeux in a secretive overnight operation. Accompanied by members of the French security services, the truck drove onto a Eurostar train that took it under the sea through the Channel Tunnel.

The magic of musical scores:

Franz Welser-Möst was having coffee at Café Imperial in Vienna when he was given a musical score under the table.

He was with the media mogul Herbert G. Kloiber, who nudged a black briefcase toward him with his foot. Kloiber didn’t say what was inside. He just told Welser-Möst, the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and a conducting eminence in Austria, to hold on to it for a few days.

The conductor had an idea what was inside the briefcase, but he waited until he got back to his apartment to open it up. He unlatched the lid and saw the autograph manuscript of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, a cornerstone of the orchestral repertoire. It was, he said in a recent interview, “a really sacred moment.”

Why? Scores are more available than ever: in multiple published editions, online in public domain collections, in libraries and elsewhere. But a manuscript, music written in a composer’s hand, has the almost magical power to make even the most distant giants feel near and alive. You can learn about the personalities of, say, Beethoven or Brahms through their penmanship. You can track their doubts and changes of heart. You can argue, with yourself and others, about what was meant by something as small as a dot.

Barack Obama launches book podcast: “Obama is set to host a podcast about books that have ‘profoundly shaped his worldview and our society,’ from Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré. The podcast, called A Great Book with Barack Obama, will launch on Audible on 24 September.” I am not particularly interested in President Obama’s worldview, but I am curious to know what he thinks of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses.

In defense of stereotyping: “Stereotyping is a form of generalising. People stereotype because they need to simplify their experience. And because we all need to simplify our experience, we should not rule out stereotyping as inherently irrational. It may often lead us to error, but our mistake is not our desire to generalise.”