Ti Morti

A short distance away from objects of inauspicious birth I begin to see images of death: certainly a more present force in infancy for medieval foundlings than today’s new Venetians, but nevertheless still twisted into the same umbilical thread.

Ti Morti: You (re) Dead (!). I’ve searched on the Internet, but as yet can’t find a reference to graphic novels or indeed a source for this image. Maybe it’s an original. Maybe the text is a shortened version of a traditional dialectical offence: Ti ta morti cani or Chei cani dei to morti, with their variants I to morti (simple) and Chei becanassi de tuti i to morti (composite) all of which mean literally that your dead parents are dogs, probably (and more interestingly) referring to the dogs occasionally carved on the tombstones of Turks, the mortal enemy of Venetians, although tonight’s dinner companion Sergio is more convinced that it refers to the the dogs that guarded cemeteries and tombs.

There’s something about cracked and peeling wall surfaces that emphasise images of decadence and death so sympathetically.