Thursday, August 28, 2008

Barack Obama, Medievalist (?)

From the annals of strange stuff, I ran across this Italian article that has the mayor San Giovanni of Fiore inviting Barack Obama to his town in order to become an honorary citizen. Apparently, according to this article, Obama has invoked the 12th-century mystic and theologian Joachim of Fiore on no fewer than 3 occasions.

Excuse me. What???

Does anyone know anything about this? The article doesn't give details of those occasions and I can't find -- anywhere -- independent verification of this. I've used the google, searched through Obama's website, used LexisNexis, Aldo Civico's website (the scholar who's mentioned in the article), etc. Nothing.

If, however, the report is true. I would like to formally declare my interest in becoming -- for either major candidate, McCain or Obama -- the US' 1st Cabinet Secretary of Medieval Stuff. I encourage the campaign staff for either candidate to get in touch.


UPDATE: Little more (in Italian) here. Seems more about Joachim than Obama though...

7 comments:

Liam said...

Wow. Very cool. Strange, but cool.

Liam said...

My google came up with this:

"POLLS: My entire Family is Voting for Barack Obama/Joe Biden. Signed: Hon. Joaquim Fiore."

It appears that Joachim of Fiore is still around and voting for Obama. So is his entire family.

theswain said...

I can't support your candidacy for that position Matthew, because that's the one I've written Obama about assigning to me.....

Anonymous said...

Here in D.C., everyone thinks the Joachimite vote will totally decide the election. Me, I'm waiting to hear who St. Martin endorses.

Notorious Ph.D. said...

Fucking hilarious.

(and Jeff wins "best comment", IMO)

Anonymous said...

I wonder that Barack Obama has mentioned, in his speech our Joachim of Fiore. Surely he is a wise man, I hope he will be the next president

Anonymous said...

It states clearly in the article that
Aldo Civico recognized Barack Obama
using the philosphies of Gioacchino da
Fiore. Why don't you
call Mr.Civico and confirm?