Baroque

   Baroque is a style of art and architecture of the early seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, characterized by elaborate ornamentation, curved lines, and enormous size. The Oxford English Dictionary says the style pays tribute to Francesco Borromini (1599-1667), its chief exponent. But the French word baroque came from the name of the founder of the baroque style, Federigo Baro i (1528-1612), an Italian painter whose flamboyant art was thought to evoke the mood of a movement known as Counter-Reformation, which stirred a sense of religious enthusiasm in Europe and which expressed its drama and emotion. Baro i was regarded a master of tender sentiment with "a nervous, fluttering style and gay colors." Perhaps the most majestic portrayal of baroque is St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

   According to Klein's Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (and other authorities concur), baroque was not derived from the Portuguese word barroco, "irregularly shaped pearl," as has been generally assumed. The term baroque was used to describe musical compositions that were chromatically elaborate and had distinct ornamentation. The word was also used by Italian Renaissance philosophers to represent far-fetched arguments in Scholastic syllogisms. By the eighteenth century baroque was considered a pejorative term to indicate an abandonment of the norm of nature and of classical antiquity. The Bartlett pear, long before its introduction into America, was grown and enjoyed in Europe, where it was called Williams, Bonchretien, after a London farmer. The pear trees were imported to America from England by Captain Thomas Brewer in the 1800s, and were planted on his farm in Roxbury, Massachusetts. The farm was purchased by Enoch Bartlett (1779-1860) of Dorchester, Massachusetts, who, although the fruit deserved the name Brewer pear, distributed and promoted the fruit under the name Bartlett.

   These delicious yellow pears have moved west to Oregon and Washington, where they can enjoy a healthier and longer growing season than they might have had in the East. Most Bartletts today come from that area but are a delight all over America. The Seckel pear was grown by a Philadelphia farmer whose name was Seckel. It is a good eating pear from!!!