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New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Truth About F. Scott Fitzgerald's Drunken Brawl in Rome
One ill-fated night in December 1924, F. Scott Fitzgerald got into a drunken brawl that ended up in a Rome police station, where he punched an officer and was severely beaten by some others. In a letter to a friend ten years later, Fitzgerald described it as 'the rottenest thing that ever happened in my life,' an event so traumatic that his biographers say he could not bear to discuss it. But Fitzgerald fictionalized the incident twice, initially in a travelogue called 'The High Cost of Macaroni,' written in 1925 but published posthumously, and more famously in his 1934 novel 'Tender is the Night.' In the novel, a very intoxicated Dick Diver, the protagonist, has a vicious scuffle in Rome with some taxi drivers, gets arrested and, after hitting an officer at a police station, is 'clubbed down, and fists and boots beat on him in a savage tattoo.' He ends up arrested, bloody and broken, only to be salvaged by his sister-in-law and officials from the U.S. Consulate. In Fitzgerald's case, his wife Zelda came to the rescue. Biographers of Fitzgerald have taken the writer's fictitious accounts as fact. But official reports by Italian police and diplomats from the consulate in Rome, uncovered by Sara Antonelli, a professor of American literature at the Università Roma Tre, suggest that doing so can obscure the full truth. 'I had this buzzing thing in my head for years,' she said. 'The fact that in all the biographies they kept saying that what you read in 'Tender' happened to Fitzgerald. But I'm a literary critic — this is not the way things work.' Antonelli's quest for clarity took more than three years and many hours mining the historical archives of Italy's various police forces. At Rome's central state archive, she uncovered a single pink folder labeled 'Arrest of the Foreigner Scott Fitgerat' with five sheets of paper inside: an initial report by the carabinieri, the military police force that detained and beat up Fitzgerald on the night between Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 1924, along with follow-up reports by the Italian national police, the country's civilian force. She compared those reports with an account of the incident drafted by a lawyer for the U.S. Consulate in Rome, which she found at the Library of Congress. 'The two do not agree on many points,' she said of her findings, which are included in 'Domani Correremo Più Forte' ('Tomorrow We Will Run Faster'), a biography and literary assessment of Fitzgerald that will be published in Italian on April 1. The chapter on Rome will be published in The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review in late spring. According to the short carabinieri report, 'a rather tipsy' Fitzgerald had been stopped by a couple of night watchmen who found him trying to get into the Caffé Imperiale, a night club, that had already closed for the evening. The author was detained at a carabinieri station, where he flew into a rage, then punched an officer in the nose, provoking 'a reaction' from other officers who locked him in a cell 'after an energetic scuffle,' the document says. After being alerted about the scuffle, Zelda immediately asked the U.S. consulate to intervene. In a memorandum drafted by the consular official overseeing the case, there is no reference to Fitzgerald being drunk, and blame is shifted to aggressive taxi drivers and an argument over the cost of a fare. The beating in the police station is mentioned almost in passing, with Fitzgerald having 'recollection of having been treated very ill.' It's clear, Antonelli said, that both sides decided it was better to let the matter drop. Fitzgerald risked jail time for hitting an Italian officer, and the police had no interest in pursuing a case against a man who had been badly beaten by the carabinieri. Moreover, Romans were distracted at the time by reports of a serial killer, briefly cited by Fitzgerald in 'Tender Is the Night.' 'They had something else to think about' than a disorderly drunk, Antonelli said. She added that she believes the full story explains why both Scott and Zelda decided not to tell anyone about what happened in Rome. 'It was evidently too violent, too unbearable, too shocking for both of them,' she said. 'We hate Rome,' Fitzgerald wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, just before the writer and Zelda left for the island of Capri in February 1925. Adding to Fitzgerald's contempt for the city was that they had arrived in Rome ahead of a Roman Catholic Jubilee. The couple were used to renting homes when they traveled, but he wrote in 'The High Cost of Macaroni': 'To the Roman business man, Holy Year is that period when he counts on making enough profit out of foreign pilgrims to enable him to rest for twenty-five years more.' That is still the case in 2025, another Holy Year, in which an expected influx of pilgrims has driven housing costs sky high. Luca Saletti, an archival expert who helped Antonelli track down the police documents, said it was 'plausible, that the situation got out of hand because neither the carabinieri nor Fitzgerald understood each other.' This was likely aggravated, he said, 'by Fitzgerald being a foreigner during a time of growing nationalism.' The documents suggest that both sides tried to 'shut down something that could have become very unpleasant,' Saletti said. Kirk Curnutt, a Fitzgerald scholar and professor at the Troy University in Alabama, said 'the incident was a deep source of shame and embarrassment to him, but he wasn't so embarrassed that he wasn't ever going to use it as material.' 'That's what a writer does,' Curnutt added. 'You use your elements of your biography to create art.'
BBC News
27-02-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Man's brain turned to glass by hot Vesuvius ash cloud
Guido Giordano Nearly 2,000 years after a young man died in the Vesuvius volcanic eruption, scientists have discovered that his brain was preserved when it turned to glass in an extremely hot cloud of ash. Researchers found the glass in 2020 and speculated that it was a fossilised brain but did not know how it had formed. The pea-sized chunks of black glass were found inside the skull of the victim, aged about 20, who died when the volcano erupted in 79 AD near modern-day Naples. Scientists now believe a cloud of ash as hot as 510C enveloped the brain then very quickly cooled down, transforming the organ into glass. It is the only known case of human tissue - or any organic material - turning to glass naturally. "We believe that the very specific conditions that we have reconstructed for the vitrification [the process of something turning into glass] of the brain make it very difficult for there to be other similar remains, although it is not impossible," Prof Guido Giordano from Università Roma Tre told BBC News. "This is a unique finding," he said. The brain belonged to a man killed in his bed inside a building called the Collegium on the main street of the Roman city Herculaneum. The fragments of glass found by the scientists range from 1-2 cm to just few millimetres in size. The massive eruption of Vesuvius engulfed Herculaneum and nearby Pompeii where up to 20,000 people lived. The remains of about 1,500 people have been found. Scientists now think the hot ash cloud descended from Vesuvius first, probably causing most of the deaths. A fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter, also called a pyroclastic flow, followed, burying the area. Experts believe the ash cloud turned the man's brain into glass because the pyroclastic flow would not have reached high enough temperatures or cooled quickly enough. The process of glass formation requires very specific temperature conditions and rarely occurs naturally. For a substance to turn to glass, there must be a huge temperature difference between the substance and its surrounding. Guido Giordano Its liquid form has to cool fast enough not to crystallise when it becomes solid, and it must be at a much higher temperature than its surroundings. The team used imaging with x-rays and electron microscopy to conclude that the brain must have been heated to at least 510C before cooling rapidly. No other parts of the man's body are believed to have turned to glass. Only material containing some liquid can turn to glass, meaning that the bones could not have vitrified. Other soft tissues, like organs, were likely destroyed by the heat before they could cool down enough to turn to glass. The scientists believe the skull gave some protection to the brain. The research is published in the scientific journal - a publication where researchers report their work to other experts - Scientific Reports.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Mount Vesuvius eruption turned a victim's brain into glass
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE presented its surrounding ancient Roman communities with a number of terrifying ways to die: falling debris, collapsing buildings, asphyxiation from superheated dust plumes, etc.. And while attention is often focused on the destruction of Pompeii and its thousands of victims, the fate of nearby Herculaneum wasn't much better. According to recent analysis of unique samples recovered from the seaside archeological site, the Vesuvius eruption even caused one person's brain to flash-fry into a rare form of organic glass. The theory, laid out in a study published February 27 in the journal Scientific Reports, is based on examinations of tiny shards found in 2020 inside the skull and spinal column of an individual at Herculaneum–a small port town with a population of around 5,000 people at the time. The victim is believed to have been a roughly 20-year-old man who worked as a guard at the Collegium Augustalium, a public building dedicated to worshipping Emperor Augustus. At the time of his death, however, the guard was laying in his bed—and it was this environment that likely fostered the extremely specific conditions needed for brain and spinal fluid vitrification. While glass is a foundational component in many industries today, it only naturally occurs in rare circumstances. This is because glass is only created when its liquid state cools fast enough to prevent crystallization as it solidifies. In order to accomplish this, there must be a major temperature difference between the substance itself and its environment. Not only that, but the liquid material must also solidify at a much higher temperature than its surroundings. Because most organic matter is largely water, conditions rarely allow for natural glass formation given its freezing point.'It would therefore be impossible to find organic glass embedded in volcanic deposits that have reached several hundred of Celsius degrees,' wrote the study's authors. Using X-ray analysis and electron microscopy, the team confirmed the guard's brain could only have turned to glass if it was heated 'well above' 950 degrees Fahrenheit (510 degrees Celsius) before quickly cooling. But the majority of the eruption's known after-effects cannot account for brain and spinal fluid vitrification. The eruption's pyroclastic flows, for example, did not exceed 869℉ (465 ℃) and cooled far too slowly to create the glass. The study authors therefore concluded that 'the body was exposed to the passage and vanishing of a short-lived, dilute and much hotter pyroclastic flow' that offered an early, quick flash-heating before subsequent rapid cooling. 'The glass that formed as a result of such a unique process attained a perfect state of preservation of the brain and its microstructures,' they wrote, adding that it is now the 'only such occurrence' known on Earth. And according to Guido Giordano, the study's lead author at Italy's Università Roma Tre, it's unlikely they will find another example anytime soon. 'In principle it is possible. There is more to be excavated below the modern city that may have preserved a similar occurrence,' Giordano tells Popular Science. 'However conditions must have been very, very specific because the organic tissue must have experienced a heating fast enough not to entirely destroy it (which is instead the most common occurrence) and then fast-cool to turn into glass.'Giordano believes the building and room in which the guard died offered just the right conditions. But if additional brain glass is to be found, it will be in the ruins of Herculaneum and not Pompeii. 'Such [a] hot ash cloud hit Herculaneum during the night when Pompeii was still under the fallout of pumice,' he says. 'The early pyroclastic flows arrived and buried Pompeii the day after, but at lower temperatures.'
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Man's brain turned to glass by hot Vesuvius ash cloud
Nearly 2,000 years after a young man died in the Vesuvius volcanic eruption, scientists have discovered that his brain was preserved when it turned to glass in an extremely hot cloud of ash. Researchers found the glass in 2020 and speculated that it was a fossilised brain but did not know how it had formed. The pea-sized chunks of black glass were found inside the skull of the victim, aged about 20, who died when the volcano erupted in 79 AD near modern-day Naples. Scientists now believe a cloud of ash as hot as 510C enveloped the brain then very quickly cooled down, transforming the organ into glass. It is the only known case of human tissue - or any organic material - turning to glass naturally. "We believe that the very specific conditions that we have reconstructed for the vitrification [the process of something turning into glass] of the brain make it very difficult for there to be other similar remains, although it is not impossible," Prof Guido Giordano from Università Roma Tre told BBC News. "This is a unique finding," he said. The brain belonged to a man killed in his bed inside a building called the Collegium on the main street of the Roman city Herculaneum. The fragments of glass found by the scientists range from 1-2 cm to just few millimetres in size. The massive eruption of Vesuvius engulfed Herculaneum and nearby Pompeii where up to 20,000 people lived. The remains of about 1,500 people have been found. Scientists now think the hot ash cloud descended from Vesuvius first, probably causing most of the deaths. A fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter, also called a pyroclastic flow, followed, burying the area. Experts believe the ash cloud turned the man's brain into glass because the pyroclastic flow would not have reached high enough temperatures or cooled quickly enough. The process of glass formation requires very specific temperature conditions and rarely occurs naturally. For a substance to turn to glass, there must be a huge temperature difference between the substance and its surrounding. Its liquid form has to cool fast enough not to crystallise when it becomes solid, and it must be at a much higher temperature than its surroundings. The team used imaging with x-rays and electron microscopy to conclude that the brain must have been heated to at least 510C before cooling rapidly. No other parts of the man's body are believed to have turned to glass. Only material containing some liquid can turn to glass, meaning that the bones could not have vitrified. Other soft tissues, like organs, were likely destroyed by the heat before they could cool down enough to turn to glass. The scientists believe the skull gave some protection to the brain. The research is published in the scientific journal - a publication where researchers report their work to other experts - Scientific Reports. 'Once-in-a-century' discovery reveals spectacular luxury of Pompeii First glimpse inside burnt scroll after 2,000 years
Telegraph
27-02-2025
- Science
- Telegraph
Vesuvius eruption turned victim's brain to glass
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ancient Rome was so hot that it turned a victim's brain into glass in a process never before seen on Earth, scientists have proved. A shard of 'obsidian-like' glass was found inside the skull of one victim of the disaster in 79AD which is thought to have killed up to 16,000 people. Fresh analysis of this shard revealed that it had to have been made through a process of vitrification – rapid heating and cooling – and must have at some point reached more than 500C (932F) before plunging to below zero. It was previously thought that this shard of glassy brain, which was found in 2020, was caused because the man was buried under an avalanche of hot gas and rock, called the pyroclastic flow, which buried the cities in a layer of debris. However, these can only reach 465C and therefore would not have been adequate to create the piece of glass. Scientists from Università Roma Tre in Italy think they have solved this conundrum and believe Vesuvius created a superheated cloud which hit the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum, which is east of the volcano on the coast, before the pyroclastic flow. This rapid cloud was in excess of the 510C necessary to instantly turn the normal brain into a liquid, therefore allowing for a more rapid cooling, they believe. The extreme heat and cold in such quick succession turned the liquid brain into the glass found inside the skull and spinal cord of the sleeping man, who was about 20 years old, scientists write in their study. Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by the eruption and the victim with the vitrified brain is thought to have been in his bed in the Collegium Augustalium, a building that was dedicated to the cult of the Emperor Augustus, on the main street of Herculaneum. The researchers used X-ray and electron microscope analysis to study the properties of the glass and find out what conditions would be needed to create it. They found the conditions needed to turn the organic material into a liquid and then back into a solid in a short enough time period to create the glass are extremely unusual. More than 2,000 bodies have been found as part of the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but only this one individual has the glass brain. 'The apparently vitrified remains of brain and spinal cord found in the Collegium Augustalium, is the only occurrence of this type,' the scientists write in the study. 'This uniqueness requires very specific and rare conditions for glass formation and preservation. 'The brain tissue studied here is the only known case of preserved vitrification of human tissue as a result of cooling after heating to very high temperatures. 'This is the only way by which such a glass type can be preserved in the geological or archaeological record and explains why this is a unique occurrence and preserves the ultra-fine neural structure of the brain.' Prof Guido Giordano, who led the research, said: 'We hypothesise that in 79AD the following scenario occurred: after the first hours of the eruption that produced the eruptive column observed and described by Pliny the Younger on the night of Aug 24, the first pyroclastic flows began. 'The first of these reached the city with a diluted but very hot ash cloud, well over 510°C. 'It left only a few centimetres of very fine ash on the ground, but the thermal impact was terrible and fatal, although brief enough to leave - at least in the only case of the discovery in the Collegium Augustalium – remains of brain still intact. 'The cloud must have then dissipated just as quickly, allowing these remains to cool so rapidly as to trigger the vitrification process. 'Only later in the night was the city completely buried by the deposits of the pyroclastic flows.'
