STEEMIT MYSTERY - In the name of love pt.3

In the name of love

Men are willing to climb mountains and sail dangerous seas in the name of love, and even wage wars. Equally in the name of love art was created as well, such as Taj Mahal or Castle Boldt.

A Sphinx also arose out of love, but not in Egypt or Greece. She appeared in Zadar, a mediteraneean coastal town in Croatia. This mysterious creature looks way out of place in a town that never had any Pharaohs or pyramids. This unconventional act of art is attributed to Giovanni Smirich, a renowned restaurator, art historian, curator, and painter, who studied in many of the Italian art centers. The man responsible for restoration and preservation of the towns monuments.

Remains of the old steps from the garden

What once was

The villa is placed in a garden, heavily influenced by neoclassicism and romanticism. We can only imagine how beautiful this place was in the old days, when it was maintained. As the town had drug crisis after the 90s war, this place was a regular meeting ground for junkies. Today not anymore, only an occasional hippie group would nest here and do a pseudo art festival, and a couple of tourists would take photos if they are fortunate to discover this place as it's not an official tourist location.

Somebody left a sketch of the sphinx

From a couple of really old people I’ve discovered that the garden was made from a multitude of labyrinths of green natural walls, and rich with diverse scents from flowers and trees. The labyrinths would hide architectural objects that were placed there as if they grew and matured along with nature.

Absorbed by nature

This entire garden park was designed with English influence, that respect already existing natural form and shape of the surrounding landscape, in which one would incorporate architectural elements and sculpture.

The most intriguing element is the monumental sphinx from the year 1918. Pointed at east, and placed in the usual pose of Egyptian sphinx, the sphinx was created as a remembrance of the artist beloved wife Attilia after her death, exactly 101 years ago as I'm writing this.

As he was interested in the occult and was a huge romantic, he gave the sphinx another meaning than it's usually attributed. His sphinx was a love monument. Among many local legends, one says that the sphinx fulfills wishes to couples from Zadar, and of course… tourists as well, how could we exclude them.

The hair of the sphinx is collected into a braid resting on the back, while her tail is bent to the right side of the body. She is wearing the traditional Egyptian head wear, the Nemes, and it is decorated with hieroglyphs on both sides. A local egyptologist tired to decipher them once, but speculates they are only decorative as they're usually found on the chest and not on the nemes. Nobody knows if all this was some sort of symbolism, a secret message or perhaps purely decorative.

Closeups of Nemes with hieroglyphs

Closeup of damage on the torso

In front of the sphinx there was a shell shaped pool with golden fishes swimming in it. On the chest of the sphinx there was a relief of an eagle holding a dagger, which was destroyed after World War 2. The town was also bombed a lot in WW2, so the sphinx was lucky to survive as much cultural heritage was razed by air raids. The pool and a part of the sphinx’s hands are now under ground as a result of long neglect of maintenance.

Closeup of hands

Not the first sphinx in Croatia

2000 years ago Emperor Diocletian commissioned the erection of two smaller sphinx for his palace in the town of Split, so it’s assumed that this was Giovanni’s closest reference for making accurate sculptures of the sphinx, as both those two sphinx had human hands instead of paws.

The irony

No doubt that this garden and all the monuments are brought to the state of unrecognized from what they once were. The irony of all this is that it was erected by a human who fought the most for the preservation of the towns cultural heritage, art, monuments of all ages and cultures. Isn't it only fair and the correct way to repay homage to him by restoring the villa, the sculptures and the entire garden today?

PS: we both got sunburns taking these photos, we wanted to do it while the weather was good. Steemit is pain, but its also love <3