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The results of the first experiments with laboratory mice led to stem cells being seen as a miracle cure.
In China, Russia, Costa Rica, in the Dominican Republic, in Turkey and in Cyprus, all kinds of medical centers sprang up, promising a cure for cerebral palsy with stem cells drawn from the skin, the spinal cord, from blood, from fat, from animal tissue, from placenta and from aborted fetuses.
According to a study carried out in 2008, the average cost of such treatments was $21,500.
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Eleven years after Tito was born, an article published in the Scientist warned of the risks of “stem cell tourism.”
According to the authors of the article, people with cerebral palsy who travelled to those medical centers in search of a miracle cure were exposing themselves to “unproven, and potentially harmful therapies.”
The article described the doctors who offer stem-cell cures as “clinical charlatans” and “fraudulent.”
393
Christopher Nolan’s miracle drug was also fraudulent.
He died shortly before his forty-fourth birthday, with a sliver of salmon stuck in his throat.
To go back to Tommaso Rangone: the food that proved most harmful to Christopher Nolan’s health was salmon.
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(Picture Credit 1.23)
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In the previous image: Tommaso Rangone above the doorway of the church of San Giuliano.
The sculpture is by Jacopo Sansovino. It dates from 1554.
Tommaso Rangone is holding a sprig of guaiacum, the main ingredient in his miracle cure for syphilis.
396
In his memoir, Christopher Nolan frequently compares himself to James Joyce.
One wrote about cerebral palsy, the other about general paralysis caused by the syphilis bacterium.
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James Joyce’s Dublin, like Tommaso Rangone’s Venice, was peopled by syphilitic sailors, syphilitic soldiers and syphilitic prostitutes.
In Ulysses, James Joyce used the morbid paralysis caused by the syphilis bacterium as a symbol of the intellectual and moral paralysis of his time. The episode in Bella Cohen’s brothel — which he himself described as being written in “the rhythm of locomotor ataxia” — is the rhythm that best represents that paralyzed world.
Tito was my Bella Cohen’s brothel.
398
The theme of Ulysses is paralysis. The theme of Finnegans Wake is the fall.
There is the fall of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker — in Phoenix Park. There is the fall of Humpty Dumpty — the egg. There is the fall of Shaun — into the river. There is Shaun’s other fall — also into the river. There is the fall of Finn MacCool — while skating. There is the fall of Eve — in the Garden of Eden. There is the fall of Issy and the fall of Troy.
No one falls better than James Joyce. Apart from Lou Costello.
399
There is another fall in Finnegans Wake: a drunken Tim Finnegan falls down the stairs and dies.
Then he comes back to life, like Tito.
400
In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce based himself on Giambattista Vico’s theory, according to which, “History follows set phases, and the law that governs it is repeated eternally.” For Giambattista Vico, humanity moves from the Age of Gods to the Age of Heroes, from the Age of Heroes to the Age of Men, from the Age of Men to the Age of Gods, and so on, endlessly repeating the same cycle of birth, progress, decline and resurrection.
That’s what Giambattista Vico’s storia ideale eterna is like: circular.
401
Now Tito and I are in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
I want to show him Venice Hospital. I want to return — in circular fashion — to the place of his birth. I want to relive his first fall.
402
Tito walks alone to Venice Hospital. I walk beside him, ready to catch him if he falls.
403
I count Tito’s steps as if I were reciting Dante:
Uno … Due … Tre … Quattro … Cinque … Sei …
Sette … Otto … Nove … Dieci … Undici … Dodici …
Tredici … Quattordici … Quindici … Sedici …
404
Tito and I pass the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni.
In The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin wrote:
I do not believe … that there is a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world than that equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleone [sic].
405
406
In the previous image: the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni by Andrea del Verrocchio.
The photograph was taken by Tito.
407
If Andrea del Verrocchio made the most glorious equestrian statue in the world, then I can say that I made the most glorious club-footed* boy in the world.
(* The Portuguese term for clubfoot is pé equino or “horse foot.”)
408
Tito continues to ride toward Venice Hospitaclass="underline"
… Duecentododici … duecentotredici …
duecentoquattordici … duecentoquindici …
duecentosedici … duecentodiciasette …
409
After two hundred and eighteen steps, Tito stumbles and almost falls on the uneven paving stones in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
I catch him before he falls and start counting again from zero.
410
In his final poem, entitled “Wild Broom,” Giacomo Leopardi describes an apple falling onto an ants’ nest and destroying in an instant the results of the ants’ vast labor, so painstakingly achieved.
I am Tito’s ant. His falls are a constant reminder of the precarious, temporary nature of everything I have tried to build.
411
Now Tito and I are standing before the Scuola Grande di San Marco, the entrance to Venice Hospital.
I show him the finest sculpture on the façade, The Healing of Anianus, in which Mark the Evangelist is applying his miraculous cure to the cobbler Anianus’s wound.
412
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In the previous image: The Healing of Anianus.
The sculpture dates from 1488. It was made by Tullio Lombardo.
Tullio Lombardo was the son of Pietro Lombardo.
The photograph was taken by my son Tito.