Word: saltcellars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Cellini (Abbeville; 324 pages; $85), Sir John Pope-Hennessy corrects this impression. Although much of Cellini's early work in precious metals vanished, enough sculpture survives (and is photographed here in careful detail) to convince anyone of its creator's genius. From the exquisite gold and enamel of The Saltcellar of Francis I to the muscular bronze of Perseus, the impression grows: Cellini was better than even he had the nerve to maintain...
...What do you do with a gazebo?" Bright bars of sunlight lay on the rag rugs and the pine floors, and a shaft of the stuff glinted off the Wolfs' decanter collection and their cut-glass saltcellar collection (here a discerning eye might see that a couple of the spoons came from a head shop in Hollywood). The house held dried ferns, wicker furniture, an odd assortment of rocking chairs, a hand-turned oak banister, framed advertisements from long ago, framed pictures of flowers from National Geographies of the 1920s-phlox, gentian, evening primrose, wintergreen, bird's-foot...
Salt, unlike most seasonings, is more noticeable by its absence than its presence. For this week's cover story TIME has virtually upended the saltcellar in order to leave nothing absent from its report on the less than salubrious effects of salt. Yet, despite the warnings linking consumption of salt and hypertension, a number of TIME staff members who worked on the cover story find that well-intentioned dictates of the mind do not always govern the whims of the palate...
During the Middle Ages, the ancient sanctity of salt slid toward superstition. The spilling of salt was considered ominous, a portent of doom. (In Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper, the scowling Judas is shown with an overturned saltcellar in front of him.) After spilling salt, the spiller had to cast a pinch of it over his left shoulder because the left side was thought to be sinister, a place where evil spirits tended to congregate...
...social symbolism of salt was painfully evident in the medieval equivalents of the Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette. As late as the 18th century, the rank of guests at a banquet was gauged by where they sat in relation to an often elaborate silver saltcellar on the table. The host and "distinguished" guests sat at the head of the table-"above the salt." People who sat below the salt, farthest from the host, were of little consequence...