News

• Sunday 20 February 2000. Graves Conference 2000 - Robert Graves in America, June 22-24, 2000:
  
  

  This Graves conference will be held at
  
  The Poetry/Rare Books Collection
  University at Buffalo
  The State University of New York
  420 Capen Hall
  Buffalo, NY 14260-2200 USA.

  The SUNY Poetry/Rare Books Collection holds a large quantity of Robert Graves Papers, assembled since the late 1960's. The web pages are maintained at SUNY. The principal access page is: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/graves2000/ and the information is contained in a frames structured site. Those wishing to avoid the frames can find general conference information at: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/graves2000/confinfo/index.html. A web form for contacting The Poetry/Rare Books Collection is at: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/graves2000/contact/index.html. A small gallery of photographs of Robert Graves is available at: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/graves2000/gallery/index.html

• Monday November 15, 1999. 'I never thought of leaving him':
  
  

  An interview with Robert Graves' widow Beryl appeared in today's Daily Telegraph newspaper (London), as the featured article in both the printed and electronic editions. The occasion of the interview is the publication of the third and final volume of Robert Graves' Complete Poems, volume III, edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward, and published by Carcanet Press.

  This interview follows the least line of critical resistance, as established in the 1995 BBC documentary, 'I, Graves', by Sean O'Mordha: focussing principally on Robert Graves and his muses, and develops the theme by exploring Beryl's reaction to her husband's relationships with these young women.

  The article is available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

  Registration is necessary before the article can be accessed. However this is free, and the required information is relatively basic (name, geographic address, and email address). The electronic edition features one photograph by Bill Brandt, and the paper version has another photograph of Beryl in contemporary Deya.
  
  

• Saturday October 30, 1999. 'The Lost World' and 'New Perspectives on Robert Graves':
  
  Jay Ansill's musical settings of some Graves poems: The Lost World, has become available again after three years of what he has called 'record label limbo'. He has managed to aquire the unsold copies of the CD from the now defunct record label BCN. For more info on the CD, visit Jay's new website at www.fortissimo.org/artists/ansill. The CD's are $15 each and can be ordered from:
  
  Jay Ansill
  Box 35
  New Hope PA
  18938
  USA

  The Robert Graves Society announced (on the 23rd October) the publication of the new volume of Robert Graves studies: New Perspectives on Robert Graves. The editor of the volume is Patrick Quinn. The publisher is Susquehanna University Press and it is being distributed by the Associated University Presses. The book can be ordered via Amazon from the Robert Graves Society site.

• Saturday September 18, 1999. Agrippina's villa located:
  
  The Times Newspaper of London today (page 11 of the news section) reported in an article by Richard Owen in Rome, that Agrippina's villa has been found near the river Tiber. The discovery 'brings to life the era described in Tacitus's Annals, the great historian's penetrating account of Roman feuds and power struggles, and the poisonous intrigues vividly described by Robert Graves in his historical novel I, Claudius'. The discovery was made during a Vatican millenium project: the construction of a giant underground car park, 'designed to ease the traffic pressure caused by millions of visitors descending on the eternal city.'

  Last weekend, the archaeologists, led by Claudio Mochegiani, 'announced that workers tunnelling into the Janiculum Hill next to the Vatican to construct a spiral ramp into the new multistorey garage had called in scholars after coming up against a Roman wall.' Carla Socrate, the first archaeologist to enter the site, and now the leader of the excavation, said: "we took the wall down because it was collapsing... We think it was the retaining wall of the villa, which was built into the hillside." Signora Socrate thinks that what has been found on the other side of the retaining wall of the villa is "only the beginning," and that "there must be bigger rooms behind, probably magnificently decorated, perhaps with treasure such as frescoes and mosaics." 'Fiorenzo Catalli, a senior archaeologist, said that the villa almost certainly had a porticoed entrance and two huge wings, with an open central courtyard. In addition, there were summer houses and other buildings in the vast grounds overlooking the circus.'

  The main discovery so far, according to the Times article, is 'a 10ft painted wall 30in below the present ground level, unseen by human eyes for nearly two thousand years. It has a floral border in ochre, red, green and black, and paintings of yellow and red birds - thought to be bee eaters - and flowers such as columbines. There are also stylised architectural paintings of architraves and colums. On the floor lie multicoloured slabs of marble from Greece, Tunisia and Turkey, which Signora Socrate believes may have fallen from floors above. "These are fine, sumptious materials" she said. "This was without doubt an imperial palace." ... Signora Socrate said the pattern of tufa stonework and brick makers' stamps in the drains (which flowed into the Tiber) also pointed to a great 1st-century building, with 2nd-century additions. She said the six archaeologists and two workmen assigned to the project were having to separate the villa's remains from material deposited during the construction of a nearby road tunnel in the 1940s, and were working "round the clock" so that the Vatican and the Rome authorities could decide what to do next.'

  The Director of the British School at Rome, Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, says in the article (as readers of I, Claudius are aware) that 'the early years of the Roman Empire after the death of Augustus witnessed an "extraordinary" succession of emperors - Tiberius (AD14-AD37), followed by Caligula (AD37-AD41), Claudius (AD41-AD54) and Nero (AD54-AD68). Agrippina, grandaughter of Augustus, was the mother of Caligula and wife of the popular soldier-hero Germanicus, whom she believed should have succeeded Augustus, but who was poisoned. Tiberius eventually exiled Agrippina to the island of Pandateria (modern Ventotene) near Naples, where she died of starvation. The villa would have passed to her notorious daughter, also named Agrippina, who successfully schemed to put her son Nero into power, only to be murdered by him later. "I think that what we are looking at here is a rustically decorated garden pavilion dating to the end of the 1st century," Professor Wallace-Hadrill said. "The imperial ladies of Rome loved their gardens, which they used for sexual intrigue as well as political conspiracies."

  The article notes that 'in the 1st century the area - which lies across the Tiber from the city centre - was dominated by Agrippina's extensive villa and gardens and the adjoining racecourse, which became the bloodstained circus where Agrippina's son Caligula and her grandson Nero had their enemies put to death. The Christian martyrs who met their end there included St Peter, and eventually the circus - ironically - became St Peter's Square, Christianity's principal shrine... Officials said what had been found was on Italian territory, just outside the Vatican City. "We have no idea what might lie over on the Vatican side," one said. "For all we know the builders have already destroyed priceless remains."'

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