A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter F

Fiesole

Historical Location
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An ancient Etruscan town overlooking Florence, Italy, later a Roman municipium and Renaissance retreat

Detailed Definition
Fiesole’s hilltop position offered strategic and aesthetic advantages, favored by Roman elites and later poets like Dante. In poetry, Fiesole symbolizes contemplative retreat, the harmony of nature and culture, and the layered history of Tuscany—often contrasted with Florence’s bustle as a place of serene reflection, ancient roots, and poetic inspiration.
Example
Example in poetry:
Dante’s Inferno references Fiesole as a rival to Florence, embodying civic pride and conflict; Petrarch’s letters in verse praise Fiesole’s hills as a retreat for contemplation; Renaissance humanists depict Fiesole as a cradle of Platonic thought; Victorian travelers describe Fiesole in lyric as a serene overlook above Florentine bustle; Contemporary poets use Fiesole to reflect on the tension between urban and pastoral.
Additional Notes
Fiesole, overlooking Florence, was an Etruscan settlement later Romanized and then romanticized during the Renaissance as a retreat for scholars and artists. Its ruins and panoramic views made it a symbol of contemplative distance from urban life. Dante mentions Fiesole disparagingly (due to historical rivalry with Florence), but later poets—like Browning—celebrated its serenity. In verse, Fiesole often represents the ideal vantage point: elevated, historical, and conducive to reflection on time, art, and civic strife.
Also Known As
Florentia Fiesolana
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