The Republic of Heaven

This passage is from when Angelica is questioning Will and lyra on where they come from.

"you from Ci'gazze?" the girl said
Will shook his head
"from Sant'Elia?"

The old mad man lyra met in the svalbard dungeons was called Jotham Santelia, might the two be related?

Very observant. I was wondering something similar as well.

he might have been the founder of the town?

i dont think he would have done as he was a man from lyras world and would have mentioned if he came from cigazze, possibly though

Sant'Elia could be the name of lyras world to the cigazzians, or there could be a place called Sant'Elia in lyras world as well...

no because later on the men on horses escaping the specters say they were ehading to the city of Sant'Elia

Ah. Ignore the first suggestion then...
edit: And he doesn´t need to be the founder of the city, he was mad right? perhaps he had lived there, and just for no reason told that it was his name...

I think he was only mad becuase he was in the cell for a long time. He was very clever though so perhaps he could have know about the different worlds...

well he was the one who ~competed?~ against the palmerian professor at jordan. the palmerian prof was the one who told the librarian/master that the many-worlds theory was plausible/sound. perhaps he knew this because he had once visitted (an)other world(s).

The kids do shorten names of places though - both parts were capital so there could be more in between the two that they took out, plus Sant'Elia seems to be last name in italian PP could've just been looking for names like how he found Serafina Pekkala. Or perhaps he meant to use the name in one place but forgot he used it in the other as well - or indeed, it could've been named for the guy

Pullman's subconcious might have got him again and come up with the proffessor's name right when he was thinking about a possible town name. The two don't have to be connected, we've seen enough similarities between worlds to explain it - the proffessor may just take his name from a town in Lyra's Italy.

well cittigazze was based on venice, "sant'elia" must have been somewhere near it. are there any saint-elia-sounding cities around venice?

I can't be bothered to do a search, but it doesn't really matter. There could be one in Lyra's world even if we don't have one.

or it could have had another name in our world. however, some locations in the many worlds share the same names, maybe with different spelling (e.g. brasil and corea vs. brazil and korea).

probably no real connection, just another of those things authors leave in their for fun

Antonio Sant'Elia was a Futurist artist/architect, which was an Italian movement in the early 20th century. He wrote the Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, and I would have inserted some pics but they are huge. If you wnat to find out more, try this website:

http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/

So, that's where I think the name came from.

(Welcome to the boards, Sugerbum!)

This has nothing to do with this topic buuut... I've always wondered why Celestial Maddness's signature says this in itsy bitsy, unreadable font: thanks to eloquent for the hoasting, the pic is one taken by my brother.

It's about his avatar.

but why in tiny writing?