Sweet Lombardy

Sweet Lombardy - Italy

Lombardy (Italian: Lombardia Italian pronunciation: [lombarˈdiːa], Western Lombard: Lumbardìa, Eastern Lombard: Lombardia) is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country. Major tourist destinations in the region include the historic, cultural and artistic cities of Milan (which is Italy's second top tourist destination), Brescia, Mantua, Pavia, Cremona and Bergamo, and the lakes Garda, Como, Maggiore and Iseo.

The official language, as in the rest of Italy, is Italian. The traditional local languages are the various dialects of Lombard (Western Lombard and Eastern Lombard), as well as some dialects of Emilian, spoken in some parts of the provinces of Mantua, Pavia and Cremona. These are not widely spoken due to intense immigration from other parts of Italy whose local dialects were not intelligible with Italian.

Geography

Lombardy is bordered by Switzerland (north: Canton Ticino and Canton Graubünden) and by the Italian regions of Emilia-Romagna (south), Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto (east), and Piedmont (west). Three distinct natural zones can be fairly easily distinguished in the Lombardy region: mountains, hills and plains - the latter being divided in Alta (high plains) and Bassa (low plains).

The most important mountainous area is an Alpine zone including the Lepontine and Rhaetian Alps, (Piz Zupo, 3,996 m), the Bergamo Alps, the Ortles and Adamello massifs; it is followed by an Alpine foothills zone Prealpi, which include the main peaks are the Grigna Group (2,410 m), Resegone (1,875 m) and Presolana (2,521 m). The great Lombard lakes, all of glacial origin, lie in this zone. From west to east these are Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano (only a small part is Italian), Lake Como, Lake Iseo, Lake Idro, then Lake Garda, the largest in Italy. South of the Alps lie the hills characterized by a succession of low heights of morainic origin, formed during the last Ice Age and small barely fertile plateaux, with typical heaths and conifer woods. A minor mountainous area lies south of the Po, in the Appennines range.

The plains of Lombardy, formed from alluvial deposits, can be divided into the Alta - an upper, permeable ground zone in the north and a lower zone characterized - the Bassa - by the so-called line of fontanili (the spring waters rising on impermeable ground). Anomalous compared with the three distinctions already made is the small region of the Oltrepò Pavese, formed by the Apennine foothills beyond the Po River. A large number of rivers, all direct or indirect tributaries of the Po, cross the plains of Lombardy. Major rivers, flowing west to east, are the Ticino, the outlet of Lake Maggiore, the Olona, the Lambro, the Adda, outlet of Lake Como, the Mincio, outlet of Lake Garda, and the Oglio, the Lake Iseo outflow. There is a wide network of canals for irrigation purposes. In the plains, intensively cultivated for centuries, little of the original environment remains. The rare elm, alder, sycamore, poplar, willow and hornbeam woods and heaths are covered now by several protected areas. In the area of the great Alpine foothills lakes, however, grow olive trees, cypresses and larches, as well as varieties of subtropical flora such as magnolias, azaleas, acacias, etc. The mountains area is characterized by the typical vegetation of the whole range of the Italian Alps. At a lower levels (up to approximately 1,100 m) oak woods or broadleafed trees grow; on the mountain slopes (up to 2,000--2,200 m) beech trees grow at the lowest limits, with conifer woods higher up. Shrubs such as rhododendron, dwarf pine and juniper are native to the summital zone (beyond 2,200 m).

The climate of this region is continental, though with variations depending on altitude or the presence of inland waters. The continental nature of the climate is more accentuated on the plains, with high annual temperature changes (at Milan an average January temperature is 1.5 °C and 24 °C in July), and thick fog between October and February. The Alpine foothills lakes exercise a mitigating influence, permitting the cultivation of typically Mediterranean produce (olives, citrus fruit). In the Alpine zone, the valley floor is relatively mild in contrast with the colder higher areas (Bormio, 1,225 m, --1.4 °C average in January, 17.3 °C in July). Precipitations are more frequent in the Prealpine zone (up to 1,500--2,000 mm annually) than on the plains and Alpine zones (600 mm to 850 mm annually). The numerous species of endemic flora (the Lombard native species) are typical mainly of the Lake Como area.

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Odinic symbol still banned by the U.S. military for grave markers

Asatru - The Quest for the Hammer

Stephen McNallen gives an address before an audience of Asatruar and Pagans in Washington, D.C., calling for the recognition of Thor's hammer as a symbol on the headstones of veterans of the Asatru faith.

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Lombard bilingual signs

Lombard bilingual signs

See also: http://www.squidoo.com/padaneis - Some bilingual road signs in Lombard and Italian. Also featuring a few signs in Emilian.

Some frames have been driven beyond their natural resolution limits so they are now of low quality; however the primary goal of this video is documentary and educational. No audio.

Photos taken between 2009-08 and 2011-09. Most photos by the author.

We are proud to thank the following persons (here listed in alphabetical order):

1) Joan Francesc Roger for suggesting us many places with Lombard panel signs in Bèrguem province ["provincia di Bergamo"] as well as for sending us a photo from Bèrguem;

2) Robert Stefenaç-Boss for sending us a photo from Cassan Manyag ["Cassano Magnago"];

3) Antjol Veronés for sending us photos from Varés, Gatjava-Schan, Bugutjà, Moraçom, Lonà-Cepin, Tradaa, Visévar [Varese, Gazzada-Schianno, Buguggiate, Lonate Ceppino, Tradate, Castelseprio];

4) Danyel Vitæl for sending us photos from Bonden and Campsent [Bondeno, Camposanto].

To get constantly updated info, please subscribe, free of charge, "The Padanian newsletter":
https://groups.google.com/group/the-padanian-newsletter?hl=en

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Guido von List: Part 6

I will just continue with my related observations, and continue to add and use new posts as necessary.

Already in the 'Secret of the Runes', I can see that the concepts are pretty deep. There are two apparent interests, which I feel that I can relate with von List on: his unyielding "folkishness," and his focus on the ancients. Needless to say, I'm beginning to understand why Ron McVan constructed an Odinic "hof" shrine specifically in honor of Guido von List in Idaho.

I probably should point out again, I am not an Odinist/Asatruar/Wotanist, or an Armanist. I believe that many folkish spiritual concepts tie in to one another, and I find myself more comfortable with the Cernic tradition (Celitc Wicca). Even the Runes themselves have a Cisalpine origin, not Germanic. I find myself, again and again, feeling that I have to look up this fact to "prove it to myself" again. I would love to see someone put together a "religious map" of pre-Roman Europe. I may have to do it myself, and just keep amending it as time goes on.

9-29-11: In 'The Secret of the Runes', in Flowers 'Sources of List's Ideas' (pg. 26), there are some insights that merit some mention here. Simply put, List was "an original." Flowers comments: It cannot be shown as it has been done with the Theosophists and Anthroposophists, that List plagiarized many of his writings from previously written material. His formulations are unique and constitute an original mystical synthesis.

Another important idea was that List was not motivated by anti-Christian feelings. Far from it. Again, to quote Flowers: Although List was basically a neopagan, and had been one from an early age--as is seen in the reported vow made when he was fourteen to build a temple to Wuotan--he seems nevertheless to have absorbed a fair amount of Christian sentiment. The "catechism" he wrote in 1898 shows the remnants of this, as does he general attachment to the outer forms of Christian (especially Roman Catholic) symbolism.

The underlying theme of Guido von List seems to be the fact that he was a mystic. According to Wikipedia, Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with the Supreme Being. He was a mystic long before he explored other avenues of the occult. According to Flowers: Germanic mythology and lore were List's primary sources of inspiration, coupled directly with his experiences with nature.


Apparently, from an early age, List could go into the woods and mountains of Austria and made mystical connections with the distant past. Of course, it would be all to easy to say that this was "all this imagination." However, I can say from personal experience, having hiked at all hours of the day and night, in at least one remote area which was once settled by people (American/European; or even Amerindian), that I have had some very strange experiences there which seem to have been connected to the past.

I suppose that I will not comment a lot on the specific and deep areas of List's 'Secret of the Runes' work, which begin after a few more pages. Part of this focus is to drum up some interest in the occult master and his work. Not a lot of his work has even been translated into English. Perhaps only three books. I would like to read his book about Carnuntum. The following is another quote from Flowers, which gives a little more insight into List:


The "high mythology" of the elder Germanic gods and goddesses was not List's only source of Teutonic inspiration. The so-called "low mythology" of folk-tales and folk customs formed an equivalent function of inspiring him as illustrating his rediscovered Armanic principles. 'The Secret of the Runes' provides numerous examples of this.


It seems most likely that List's original synthesis of Germanic mythology, his subjective nature worship, and his sense of national identity were formulated at an early date (before 1875) and that most of the later influences of occult doctrines and methods did not essentially alter this basic outlook. New influences continued to be assimilated more or less completely into his system.

It should also be noted that Indian theology influenced List, although some of that seemed to have been via earlier Theosophical works. Also. "Pan-Germanism" was simply the desire of all German peoples to be united into one nation (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Prussia, etc.). Flowers regarding List and Pan-Germanism: This, in and of itself, would seem to have little to do with List's mysticism. But because his ideas were based on national traditions, and because he has seen in the very land of his native Lower Austria a sort of sacred territory, List was naturally predisposed to the ideas of Pan-Germanism, which were very widespread in his day. In retrospect, it seems tha the Pan-Germans and list each had something to offer the other.


Much, or even most, of List's work seems to be tied in one way or another to Wotanism/Odinism. Certainly Lower Austria would be historically tied into Wotanism. However, Wotanism, as far as anything that I have ever heard of, was not part of the pre-Langobard spiritual traditions of the nearby Camunian Valley. The Camunians were a very ancient Alpine race, and were only influenced by early Celts, Romans, and Langobards. It's still interesting to ponder how they may have viewed Celtic neighbors, and even their northern neighbors in Lower Austria after it became Germanic/Odinic. The iceman, 5,000 years ago, seemed to have been part of a people who engaged in trade between both sides of the Alps.


Once last quote from Flowers, which ties in List's influences: The ideas of Guido von List are to some extent the culmination of long historical and cultural developments (Germanic tradition, Christian doctrine, European romanticism), to some degree the synthesis of contemporary waves of popular thought (Theosophy, Pan-Germanism), and in large part also the product of List's own subjective originality and true mysticism.


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Asatru - A Native European Religion

Asatru - A Native European Religion

Stephen McNallen introduces the native European religion of Asatru, and describes some of its main philosophical premises.

Steve McNallen's YouTube channel

Asatru Folk Assembly

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Bergamasque dialect

Bergamasque

...Se bé cognosse, che sto nost parlà
bergamasch no s'convè a lodà la zét,
gnè da fà pians, perché chi lès o sèt
al gà fà pio tost gni vòia d'grignà...
—Giovanni Bressani, (1489-1560)

The Bergamasque (sometimes also called Orobic, from the Orobii Celts) is the western variant of the Eastern Lombard group of the Lombard language. It is mainly spoken in the province of Bergamo and in the area around Crema, in central Lombardy.

In Italian-speaking contexts, Bergamasque is often generically called a "dialect". This is often incorrectly understood as to mean a dialect of Italian, which actually is not the case. Bergamasque and Italian are not mutually intelligible, although today almost all Bergamasque speakers are also Italian speakers.

As per today, Bergamasque does not have any official status either in Lombardy or anywhere else: the only official language in Lombardy is Italian.

Classification

Bergamasque is a Romance language and belongs to the Gallo-Italic branch. Its position on the language family puts in evidence that it is genetically closer to Occitan, Catalan, French, etc. than to Italian.


Geographic distribution

Eastern Lombard is primarily spoken in the province of Bergamo and in the area around Crema, in central Lombardy.

Bergamasque is generally mutually intelligible for speakers of Eastern Lombard's variants of neighbouring areas (i.e. from Brescia) but this is not always true for distant peripheric areas, especially in alpine valleys. Differences include either lexical, grammatical and phonetic aspects.


Speakers

Monolingua Bergamasque speakers are now virtually non-existent. All Lombard speakers also speak Italian, and their command of each of the two languages varies according to their geographical position as well as their socio-economic situation, the most reliable predictor being the speakers' age.


Samples of literary works in Bergamasque

[...] hec mulier id est la fomna et dicitur mulier, [...] hoc ignifer id est ol bernaz et dicitur ignifer [...]

E fì senorzat da Peter e incalzat da Martì, [...] cola pena mal temprata no po fì bona letra.

—E. Zerbini, Note storiche sul dialetto bergamasco ex B. Belotti, op. cit. in note, Petrus dominatur mihi. Et Martinus insequitur me, [...] calamo quem quis male moderatus est non potest fieri bona littera

A nomo sia de Crist ol dì present
Di des comandament alegrament
I qua de de pader onnipotent
A morsis per salvar la zent.
E chi i des comandament observarà
in vita eterna cum Xristo andarà [...]
—Ex B. Belotti, op.cit.

...Se bé cognosse, che sto nost parlà
bergamasch no s'convè a lodà la zét,
gnè da fà pians, perché chi lès o sèt
al gà fà pio tost gni vòia d'grignà...
—Giovanni Bressani, (1489-1560)

I armi, i fomni, i soldacc, quand che in amôr
I andava d' Marz, af voi cuntà in sti vers,
Che fü in dol tèp che con tancc furôr
Al vign de za dol mar i Mor Pervers,
Condücc dal re Gramant, so car signôr,
Che voliva più Franza e l'univers
E destrüz sech Re Carlo e i Paladì
Per vendicà sò Pader Sarasì.
—Belotti. op. cit.

Che per spiegass bé e spert, sciassegh e stagn
a tate lengue ch'è montade in scagn,
al Fiorentì, al Franses
la nost lagh dà neuf per andà ai dès.
[...]
Mi per efett de ver amour, de stima,
Lavori e pensi in prima
A i mè compatriogg a i mè terèr;
E dopo, se 'l men vansa, a i forestèr.
—ex Belotti, op. cit.

Al vé vià quacc diàvoi chi gh'è mai
Al segn de quel teribel orchesù.
De pura 'l sa sgörlè i mür infernai.
E serè fò Proserpina i balcù;
I è röse e fiur, borasche e temporai,
Tempeste e sömelèc, saete e tru,
E a par de quel tremàs là zo de sot,
L'è cöcagna balurda 'l teremòt.
—ex Belotti, op. cit.


Language family

Indo-European
...Italic
......Romance
.........Italo-Western
............Gallo-Iberian
...............Gallo-Romance
..................Gallo-Italic
.....................Lombard
........................Eastern Lombard
...........................Bergamasque


Bibliography

Bortolo Belotti. 'Storia di Bergamo e dei bergamaschi'.

Umberto Zanetti, 'La grammatica bergamasca' - Bergamo, Sestante, 2004. ISBN 8887445591.

'Dizionario italiano-bergamasco', compilato da Carmelo Francia e Emanuele Gambarini, Bergamo: Grafital, 2001.

'Dizionario bergamasco-italiano', compilato da Carmelo Francia e Emanuele Gambarini, Bergamo: Grafital, 2004.


References

The Orobii were, more correctly, a Celtic-Ligurian people whose origins can be related to the Culture of Golasecca dating back from the 9th century BC.

2006 report by the Italian institute for national statistics.(ISTAT)


External links

Orbilat - An interesting site more for western lombard, but the map of the distribution of the two main varieties is noteworthy.

Italian/Bergamasque Dictionary - Carmelo Francia, Emanuele Gambarini - Ducato di piazza Pontida

Ducato di piazza Pontida (folkloristical and linguistic association)

Difficult phrases in Bergamasque

A collection of comedies in Bergamasque

A Casiratese-Italian vocabulary, a dictionary for the Bergamasque variety of Casirate d'Adda village, in Italian.

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Vrilology Luck Seminar

Vrilology Luck Seminar

A Sample of Vril Master Robert Blumetti's Vril Luck Seminar - more information at www.vrilology.org

VrilologyTeachings YouTube channel

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The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum

The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum

Wooden masks, portraits and the occasional human skull mark the collections of this small museum near the French Quarter

By Abigail Tucker - Smithsonian magazine - June 2011

Jerry Gandolfo didn’t flinch when a busload of eighth-grade girls began shrieking at the front desk. The owner of the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum simply assumed that John T. Martin, who calls himself a voodoo priest, was wearing his albino python around his neck as he took tickets. A few screams were par for the course.

Deeper in the museum it was uncomfortably warm, because the priest has a habit of turning down the air conditioning to accommodate his coldblooded companion. Not that Gandolfo minded: snakes are considered sacred voodoo spirits and this particular one, named Jolie Vert (“Pretty Green,” although it is pale yellow), also furnishes the little bags of snake scales that sell for $1 in the gift shop, alongside dried chicken feet and blank-faced dolls made of Spanish moss.

A former insurance company manager, Gandolfo, 58, is a caretaker, not voodoo witch doctor—in fact, he’s a practicing Catholic. Yet his weary eyes brighten when he talks about the history behind his small museum, a dim enclave in the French Quarter half a block off Bourbon Street that holds a musty jumble of wooden masks, portraits of famous priestesses, or “voodoo queens,” and here and there a human skull. Labels are few and far between, but the objects all relate to the centuries-old religion, which revolves around asking spirits and the dead to intercede in everyday affairs. “I try to explain and preserve the legacy of voodoo,” Gandolfo says.

Gandolfo comes from an old Creole family: his grandparents spoke French, lived near the French Quarter and rarely ventured beyond Canal Street into the “American” part of New Orleans. Gandolfo grew up fully aware that some people swept red brick dust across their doorsteps each morning to ward off hexes and that love potions were still sold in local drugstores. True, his own family’s lore touched on the shadowy religion: his French ancestors, the story went, were living in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) when slave revolts convulsed their sugar plantation around 1791. To save Gandolfo’s kinfolk, a loyal slave hid them in barrels and smuggled them to New Orleans. The slave, it turned out, was a voodoo queen.

But it wasn’t until Gandolfo reached adulthood that he learned that countless Creole families told versions of the same story. Still, he says, “I don’t think I even knew how to spell voodoo.”

That changed in 1972, when Gandolfo’s older brother Charles, an artist and hairdresser, wanted a more stable career. “So I said, ‘How about a voodoo museum?’” Gandolfo recalls. Charles—soon to be known as “Voodoo Charlie”—set about gathering a hodgepodge of artifacts of varying authenticity: horse jaw rattles, strings of garlic, statues of the Virgin Mary, yards of Mardi Gras beads, alligator heads, a clay “govi” jar for storing souls, and the wooden kneeling board allegedly used by the greatest voodoo queen of all: New Orleans’ own Marie Laveau.

Charlie presided over the museum in a straw hat and an alligator tooth necklace, carrying a staff carved as a snake. “At one point he made it known that he needed skulls, so people sold him skulls, no questions asked,” Gandolfo says. “Officially, they came from a medical school.”

Charlie busied himself with recreating raucous voodoo ceremonies on St. John’s Eve (June 23) and Halloween night, and sometimes, at private weddings, which typically were held inside the building and outside, in nearby Congo Square, and often involved snake dances and traditional, spirit-summoning drumming. Charlie “was responsible for the renaissance of voodoo in this city,” Gandolfo says. “He revitalized it from something you read in history books and brought it back to life again.” Meanwhile, Charlie’s more introverted brother researched the history of the religion, which spread from West Africa by means of slave ships. Eventually, Gandolfo learned how to spell voodoo—vudu, vodoun, vodou, vaudoux. It’s unclear how many New Orleanians practice voodoo today, but Gandolfo believes as much as 2 or 3 percent of the population, with the highest concentrations in the historically Creole Seventh Ward. The religion remains vibrant in Haiti.

Voodoo Charlie died of a heart attack in 2001, on Mardis Gras day: his memorial service, held in Congo Square, attracted hundreds of mourners, including voodoo queens in their trademark tignons, or head scarves. Gandolfo took over the museum from Charlie’s son in 2005. Then Hurricane Katrina hit and tourism ground to a halt: the museum, which charges between $5 and $7 admission, once welcomed some 120,000 visitors a year; now the number is closer to 12,000. Gandolfo, who is unmarried and has no children, is usually on hand to discuss voodoo history or to explain (in frighteningly precise terms) how to make a human “zombie” with poison extracted from a blowfish. (“Put it in the victim’s shoe, where it is absorbed through sweat glands, inducing a death-like catatonic state,” he says. Later, the person is fed an extract containing an antidote to it as well as powerful hallucinogens. Thus, the “zombie” appears to rise from the dead, stumbling around in a daze.)

“The museum is an entry point for people who are curious, who want to see what’s behind this stuff,” says Martha Ward, a University of New Orleans anthropologist who studies voodoo. “How do people think about voodoo? What objects do they use? Where do they come from? [The museum] is a very rich and deep place.”

The eighth graders—visiting from a rural Louisiana parish—filed through the rooms, sometimes pausing to consider candles flickering on the altars or to stare into the vacant eye sockets of skulls.

The braver girls hoisted Jolie Vert over their shoulders for pictures. (“My mom’s going to flip!”) Others scuttled for the door.

“Can we go now?” one student asked in a small voice.


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I believe that the caretaker, a Catholic, exemplifies the dynamic of honoring a pagan tradition without literally becoming a pagan. I always found curious, the stories of how slaves, chiefly in Latin America, would hide their own pagan rites within Catholic/Christian ceremonies. In that way, secretly, their rites would be preserved generation after generation. For whatever it's worth, the snake was also an important symbol in the Cernic tradition, usually more tied into an astrological connection.

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Guido von List: Part 5

I just started 'The Secret of the Runes', so I think that I will use this post to enter my related observations over time.

9-16-11: I just started the book, but it occurred to me that von List was originally from Vienna, only about three hundred miles from the Val Camonica. Apparently, one of von List's great interests was the ancient traditions of lower Austria, which would be much closer than that. I suppose if we were discussing someone else, this would be of little consequence, but since that is of ancient interest, there does seem to be some parallel since the Camonica Valley also has very ancient cultural roots. Also, there is the Celto-Alpine connection, which overlaps the Alpine region. For whatever it's worth, the Camonica Valley is only about thirty miles away from fully German-speaking areas (beyond Lombard and Romansh speaking areas in southern Graubünden).

9-17-11: This is a classic book on runic magic. A lot of New Age writers [copy] his occult ideas. The Right misunderstands him and the Left smears him. One of the most lied about men in occult history.

This book is well worth the price. Even though many of his ideas have been used by other occult writers, and some of his ideas on magic are standard New Age rite, it is always interesting to visit the soucre where these rivers sprung. Hopefully, all of Von List's book will be made ready to an English speaking market.

--Wyatt Kaldenberg, Amazon.com review

I was thinking under different circumstances, von List, especially as he appeared later in his life, could almost be labeled as some type of nature-loving hippie environmentalist in the modern era. Stephen E. Flowers' preface begins with "The time has come to let Guido von List at least speak for himself to the English reading public."

9-18-11: Excerpt from pages three and four of the book ('The Mystic Wanderer 1870-77'): List often went in the company of others on his journeys into the mountains, which were taken on foot, by wagon, horse, or rowboat; but he would usually strike out on his own at some point to seek the solitude of nature.

Besides gaining general mystical impressions in these outings, List also engaged in active celebratory ritual work. He would perform various rituals that sometimes seemed quite impromptu. The most famous depiction of such an event is his celebration of the summer solstice on 24 June 1875 at the ruins of the Roman City of Carnuntum. For this--as for so much else--we are dependent on List's own somewhat fictionalized account, first published in Vienna in 1881.

Basically, the ritual elements of this outing included the arduous task of gaining access to the so-called Heindentor ("Heathen Gate") of the city (which List mystically identified as the gate from which a German army set out to conquer Rome in 375 C.E.), the drinking of ritual toasts to the memory of the local spirit (genius loci) and the heroes of the past, the lighting of a solstice fire, and the laying of eight wine bottles in the shape of the "fyrfos" (swastika) in the glowing embers of the fire. List and his company then awaited the dawn.

These early experiences were sometimes later more completely fictionalized, as, for example, in his visionary tale "Eine Zaubernacht" (A Night of Magic). In this account, the persona (List) succeeds in onvoking from the great mound a divine seeress (Hechsa) who reveals to him that he is not to be the liberator of the Germans--but that despite this "the German folk has need of the skald."

[Above right: "Heathen's Gate" in Carnuntum]

Excerpt from page five (including text from 'The Folkish Journalist 1877-87' and 'The Nationalist Poet 1888-98'): Through these years, List was also working on his first book-length (two-volume) effort Carnuntum, a historical novel based on his vision of the Kulturkampf between the Germanic and Roman worlds centered at that location around the year 375 C.E.

Carnuntum was published in 1888 and became a huge success, especially among the Pan-German nationalists of Austria and Germany. Its publication brought its author more to the attention of important political and economic leaders of German nationalist movements. In connection with the appearance of Carnuntum, List made the acquaintance of the industrialist Friedrich Wannieck. This association was to prove essential to List's future development.

'Carnuntum' would be a period of history that certainly would have greatly affected our ancestors, who had already been basically herded into the Roman fold by that time. The book has not been translated into English though. The city of Carnuntum was located in what is now Austria. One irony, and further connection to us, is that the city was located in the Roman province of Pannonia, which was later the home of the Langobard tribe. They were considered Roman allies at that point.