by Reep » July 1st, 2006, 12:44 am
.
Concerning Narnia and Narni Roger Lancelyn Green writes about C.S. Lewis and Walter Hooper:
"When Walter Hooper asked [C.S. Lewis] where he found the word 'Narnia', Lewis shoved him Murray's Small Classical Atlas, ed.G.B. Grundy (1904), which he acquired when he was reading the classics with Mr Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham [1914-1917]. On plate 8 of the Atlas is a map of ancient Italy. Lewis had underscored the name of a little town called Narnia, simply because he liked the sound of it. Narnia - or 'Narni' in Italian - is in Umbria, halfway beween Rome and Assisi.
Narnia, a small medieval town, is situated at the top of an olive-covered hill. It was already ancient when the Romans defeated it in 299 BC. Its thirteenth-century fortress dominates a deep, narrow gorge of the Nera river which runs below. One of its most important archeological features is a Romanesque cathedral, which contains the relics of a number of Umbrian saints.
It is possible that Lewis named one of his central characters 'Lucy Pevensie' after his goddaughter - Lucy Barfield - to whom The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is dedicated... It is nevertheless a surprise to discover that the most popular of Narnia's saints is Blessed Lucy of Narnia, whose uncorrupted body lies in a side-chapel of the cathedral." See: Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: A Biography, 2002, p.306.
It is interesting that Roger Lancelyn Green prefers and suggests the original spelling Narnia (and not the Italian "Narni") for the modern English usage.
Is this the map (the plate 8) to which Walter Hooper refered? I came across it somewhere before I saw Roger Lancelyn Green's book:
.
Last edited by
Reep on September 22nd, 2007, 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Further up and further in! -- The Last Battle