The Eagle of the North

There’s a new Armani shop right next door to the Rylands (I say new, but it could have been there a year, as I am famously unobservant), and on the front, there is the outline of an eagle which changes colour every so often.

The (pink) eagle of the North

Every time I walk past it, which is often, I think of Paradiso XVIII, when the souls form themselves into the head of the eagle: ‘La testa e ‘l collo d’un’aguglia vidi / rappresentare a quel distinto foco’ (Par., 18, 107-08). Presumably the shop designers were thinking just the same thing, especially given its location right next to the Rylands Dante Collection. It’s pink in the picture, but today it was red; much angrier.

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