Anyone travelling up from Ponte a Serraglio towards Granaiola knows the Global Village, housed in the buildings that once formed part of the Demidoff complex. Few people, however, notice what stands just beyond it.
On the right-hand side of the road, almost hidden by vegetation, is a small abandoned chapel. For years it remained smothered by brambles, ivy and bamboo, so much so that many motorists passed by without ever realising it was there. Today, thanks to some clearing of the surrounding growth, it has become visible once again and is beginning to catch the eye of those who travel this road.

At first glance it might appear to be nothing more than a roadside shrine. Looking more closely, however, it is clearly something more substantial. The façade has a proper entrance protected by an ornate wrought-iron gate, and behind it can be seen a larger stone structure, now almost completely engulfed by greenery.
It is not the Oratory of Madonna della Neve, which stands much higher up, just below the village of Granaiola. This little building seems to belong to a different and less familiar story. It may have been a private nineteenth-century oratory connected with an estate that has long since disappeared, or perhaps a chapel built for travellers making their way along the old route to Granaiola.
For the moment, its origins remain something of a mystery. Local guides and lists of religious buildings in the area do not appear to mention it clearly, and that only adds to its fascination. It is one of those places that survive the passing of time, forgotten by most people yet still quietly present in the landscape.
Looking at it today, with its weathered walls and the vegetation slowly reclaiming it, it is easy to imagine a time when the chapel was cared for, visited regularly and lit by candles. Perhaps local farmers stopped there to say a prayer before climbing to the fields above Granaiola. Perhaps travellers paused for a moment of devotion as they made their way along the road.
For now, we do not know its name or its exact history. Yet this small chapel on the road to Granaiola serves as a reminder that in Bagni di Lucca even the most hidden corners can preserve fragments of a past still waiting to be rediscovered.

Today is 2 June — Italy’s Republic Day — a public holiday and date that carries significance far beyond ceremony. It marks the moment in 1946 when Italians, emerging from the devastation of the Second World War and the collapse of fascism, voted to become a republic and to leave behind the monarchy and the legacy of Fascist Italy. It was not simply a change of government, but a re-founding of political legitimacy on democratic principles.
That decision grew directly out of the catastrophe of World War II. In Italy, the war was not only something suffered from the outside; it became internal, fragmented, and ultimately divided. In the final phase of the conflict, occupation and resistance produced a civil war within the wider war itself — a rupture that turned political disagreement into lived conflict between compatriots. That experience left a deep imprint on the national psyche, still visible in memorials, landscapes, and family memory across the country.

That rupture is also one of the central themes explored in Anna Valencia’s novel ‘The Chestnut House’ set in our part of the world and more specifically the Garfagnana. Anna Valencia is a friend who I met through a cat donation from her while she was living in this area and I translated her unputdownable work into Italian because its subject matter carries equal importance for an Italian audience. The novel brings this chapter of Italian history into vivid human focus, showing how civil division and wartime occupation penetrated ordinary lives. It is particularly powerful because it translates political rupture into lived experience, reminding us that behind every constitutional transformation lie private stories of survival, loss, and reconstruction.
Against this background, the Republic was not a triumph in the conventional sense. It was a reconstruction — political, social, and moral. Italy did not simply emerge both defeated and victorious; it reassembled itself from collapse. The republic represented an attempt to restore order, justice, and democratic continuity after dictatorship and war, and to redefine the relationship between citizens and the state on new foundations.
This gives Italy’s experience a particular intensity compared with countries that were not occupied in the same way. Britain, for example, endured severe bombing and wartime loss but was not occupied (with the exception of the Channel Islands). Its post-war transformation therefore took place within an uninterrupted constitutional framework. The reforms of the Labour government under Clement Attlee reshaped welfare, housing, and the economy, but within a stable institutional continuity.
Italy’s transformation was more fundamental. The 1946 referendum that created the republic was also the first national vote in which women participated fully, marking a profound shift in civic identity at the moment of national re-foundation. Citizenship was no longer inherited or restricted; it was actively extended as part of the republic’s creation.
All of this unfolded under the early pressures of the Cold War. Europe was dividing into opposing spheres of influence, and Italy stood at a strategic crossroads, with tensions reflected in issues such as Trieste and the wider presence of the emerging Iron Curtain. Despite this instability, the republic aligned itself with democratic institutions and the long process of European reconstruction.

In my own family, this connection is direct. My wife’s father was an Italian army radio operator at El Alamein, responsible for battlefield communications in the North African campaign while my father was a British Eighth Army tank driver involved in armoured warfare and the maintenance and repair of vehicles in the same theatre. These were not abstract roles but essential functions within the machinery of one of the most decisive battles of the war. Both men were part of the same immense historical moment, each contributing in different ways to the same conflict.
Like many of their generation, they did not often speak in detail about what they had experienced – although my dad mentioned that he found it exciting to be involved in it. The war was present but contained — carried in silence as much as in memory. Yet it shaped everything that followed.
That silence reflected a wider post-war condition. Many who had lived through the conflict preferred not to revisit it. The priority became rebuilding life: restoring stability, expanding opportunity, and moving toward a world defined by normality rather than survival. Across Europe, austerity and scarcity lingered into the 1950s, but they coexisted with a strong desire to build a more secure and hopeful future.
Even so, the war never fully disappeared from culture or consciousness. It remained embedded in education, public life, and entertainment, where it appeared as shared reference rather than distant history. Over time, however, that immediacy faded, and lived experience gradually became historical knowledge.

This is why Republic Day retains such importance in Italy. It is not simply a celebration of constitutional form, but a reminder of how that form was created: through occupation, civil fracture, resistance, reconstruction, and a conscious decision to rebuild public life on principles of justice, equality, and participation. To think that Italian women had to wait until 1946 to be able to vote and that now just eighty years later the country is governed by a female prime minister who has already served longer than most Italian prime ministers and where the opposition leader is also a woman.
Over time, Italy’s republic has also become part of a wider European story — one shaped by countries emerging from war and choosing cooperation over conflict, stability over fragmentation, and institutions over collapse. Italy’s role within that process reflects both national recovery and continental reconstruction.
In the end, Republic Day is not only about 1946. It is about continuity — the deliberate, fragile continuity of democracy itself. It is a reminder that freedom is never automatic, justice is never permanent without effort, and the republic exists only as long as each generation chooses to sustain it.

For those of us belonging to the Baby Boomer generation, born in the immediate post-war years, this history was never distant. It was still present in the people around us. Our parents belonged to the wartime generation, and their lives were shaped by experiences that continued to define the post-war world even when not spoken aloud. The Second World War was not only present in parental memory, but also in education and culture: we were taught by teachers who themselves had directly experienced wartime service or national service, and only the very youngest teachers had escaped that direct involvement. The war therefore remained embedded in the classroom as part of lived authority, not abstract history. At the same time, it persisted in public culture and the media — in BBC broadcasting, in television, and even in comedy. Series such as Dad’s Army treated wartime experience as shared cultural memory, while Fawlty Towers could rely on its famous phrase “don’t mention the war” precisely because the subject still sat so close to the surface of everyday life.

The War was still present even in the playful antics of our English secondary school scout summer camp antics.

.When memory becomes history, it gains perspective but loses immediacy. What once felt close becomes something studied, and with that distance comes a risk: that the cost of democratic stability — the fragility behind it — becomes easier to forget.
This is why Republic Day retains such importance in Italy. It is not simply a celebration of constitutional form, but a reminder of how that form was created: through occupation, civil fracture, resistance, reconstruction, and a conscious decision to rebuild public life on principles of justice, equality, and participation.

Saturday felt like the true beginning of summer in Bagni di Lucca.
The town suddenly seemed to come alive, with not one, not two, but three major cultural events taking place on the same day. In the end, we managed to attend two of them, and both proved well worth the effort.
The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the inauguration of the restored Villa Ada. For many local people, this was more than just the opening of a building. It was the culmination of a dream that had taken decades to become reality.
The ceremony itself was a reminder of how differently public events are celebrated in Italy compared with Britain. There was the national anthem, treated with genuine respect and pride. There was the town’s vicar’s blessing.There were speeches from the mayor and other local figures. In Italy, speeches are an essential part of any public occasion. Whether it is the opening of a restored villa, a concert, or a community event, there is always time taken to explain the significance of what is happening.

And then, of course, there was the refreshment.
This was no hurried buffet. Everything had been prepared with care and attention, and guests were able to enjoy food and conversation in the beautiful gardens of Villa Ada. The atmosphere was festive, elegant and, above all, hopeful.

The reopening of Villa Ada represents a remarkable achievement. Until 1975 the villa was still occupied by the aristocratic family who owned it. There was an exhibition of photographs showing how the interiors looked then. After they left, the property passed into the hands of the thermal baths company and subsequently after they relinquished it gradually fell into decline. For years it stood as a reminder of better times, and many wondered whether it would ever be restored.

More than one person commented during the afternoon, “I never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime.”
Now, thanks to funding aimed at regenerating historic buildings and town centres, Villa Ada has been given a new future. It will host exhibitions, community events, cultural activities and local groups. It is exactly the sort of project that Bagni di Lucca needs, and one can only hope that local people and visitors alike will support it.
Unfortunately, we were unable to attend the early evening Writers’ Festival event at Villa Webb. This new series of literary evenings promises to bring authors, discussions and book presentations to the town throughout the summer. As someone interested in creative writing, I was sorry to miss it. It is precisely the kind of initiative that enriches a community and connects readers with the people who create books.
Still, the day was far from over.
At 9 p.m.—a perfectly normal starting time in Italy, though perhaps not too suitable for many British visitors—we attended a screening of a film managed and directed locally exploring the relationship between Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Whipple, whose book A Famous Corner of Tuscany remains one of the most charming accounts of Bagni di Lucca.
The film was beautifully made. It combined dramatic reconstructions, historical research and expert interviews to tell a story that was both personal and moving. It portrayed the deep bond between the two women and the sacrifices they made throughout their lives, while also placing their story firmly within the wider history of Bagni di Lucca.
What particularly impressed me was the way the film highlighted the town itself. It reminded the audience why so many international visitors chose Bagni di Lucca as their home or refuge. For generations, the town has been a meeting place of cultures, ideas and people from across the world. In many ways, that international spirit remains part of its identity today.
By the time the film ended, it felt as though we had experienced a whole festival compressed into a single day: the reopening of a historic villa, the launch of a literary programme and a film celebrating an extraordinary chapter in local history.
Not bad for a Saturday.
Sunday, by contrast, was much quieter. A few jobs around the house, a chance to recover, and time to reflect on everything we had seen.
Now Monday approaches, bringing with it the return of ordinary routines. But if Saturday is any indication of what lies ahead, Bagni di Lucca is set for a lively and memorable summer.
And that is life in Bagni di Lucca, 2026. Watch out for plenty more local events on this page!

One of the oldest and most historic hotels in Bagni di Lucca is finally being brought back to life. After decades of neglect and decline, the Hotel Svizzero — remembered fondly by many visitors and residents — is now undergoing a major restoration that aims to return the building to its former importance in the spa town.

The project, overseen by the young architect Stefano Scarpellini and a team of specialists, will transform the historic complex into a three-star hotel equipped with modern comforts while preserving the character and elegance of the original building. Completion is expected in 2028.

Located on Via Contessa Casalini, opposite the gardens in the centre of Bagni di Lucca, the refurbished Hotel Svizzero will include fifteen guest rooms distributed over three floors, together with three apartments in a smaller adjoining building. The plans also include a semi-covered swimming pool suitable for both summer and winter use, a wellness spa, gymnasium, bar, and two parking areas.

Particular care is being taken to preserve the historic appearance of the building. The furnishings will combine contemporary comfort with a classic atmosphere, and the architectural lines of the old hotel will remain intact. Even the large plane tree beside the perimeter wall — much loved by local residents — is being preserved.

Bagni di Lucca remains, in essence, a traditional spa town, whose identity has always been closely tied to its thermal heritage. In recent years there have been several attempts to revive this vocation through a series of redevelopment projects, including initiatives linked to historic villas such as Villa Ada and the hoped-for restoration of Villa Fiori. Some smaller thermal facilities have also been brought back into use, helping to restore at least part of the town’s bathing culture. However, despite these efforts, the main historic spa complex in the centre — the old “Varraud” baths — remains closed, deteriorating, and sadly out of operation. Many locals feel that until this central establishment is restored, Bagni di Lucca cannot fully reclaim its identity as a true European spa town.

The name “Hotel Svizzero” — literally “Swiss Hotel” — also carries a double significance. On the one hand, this part of Tuscany has often been described as having a landscape reminiscent of Switzerland: wooded valleys, green hills, and in places a character that feels closer to the Jura Mountains than to the stereotypical image of Tuscany alone. While the nearby Apennines and Apuan Alps add height and drama, the overall impression is of a lush, almost Central European scenery. On the other hand, the name reflects a long-standing association with Swiss hotel standards, traditionally considered among the highest in Europe. In this sense, “Hotel Svizzero” captures both the character of its surroundings and an aspiration toward quality, combining landscape and hospitality identity in a single name.

For many years the hotel itself stood in a state of abandonment, a sad contrast to the role it once played in the social life of the town. Older residents still remember staying there or attending events in its rooms during its more elegant days. Among those who later chronicled its decline was a visitor who recalled seeing the hotel’s gates and entrance area repainted in striking colours while the building itself remained in a neglected state, a vivid contrast that symbolised its long period of uncertainty.

The Hotel Svizzero is closely associated with one of its most celebrated guests, the French novelist Alexandre Dumas. Best known for works such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas visited Bagni di Lucca during his travels in Italy and became part of the hotel’s enduring legend. According to local tradition, he was of such imposing physical stature that the hotel’s entrance had to be enlarged to allow him to pass through — a story that has become part of the building’s folklore, whether literally true or not.

Further literary interest surrounding Dumas has been reinforced by later rediscoveries of his work. In particular, the novel The Last Cavalier, long overlooked, was only rediscovered and published in 2005, renewing attention to his vast literary output. Dumas was one of the most prolific writers of the nineteenth century, as well as a politically engaged figure connected to the Italian Risorgimento and the founding of the newspaper Indipendente. His life was as energetic and dramatic as his fiction, and his cultural legacy extends well beyond literature. One of his sons later wrote La Dame aux Camélias, the inspiration for Verdi’s La Traviata.

A personal connection to Dumas’ literary legacy can be found in the work of Robin Buss, a now sadly deceased friend and translator responsible for bringing The Three Musketeers to modern English readers. The scale of his translation work was so substantial, and the printed proofs so extensive, that he once joked he nearly had to move out of his home, as the pages and galley proofs occupied almost every available surface. It is a small but telling reminder of the physical and intellectual weight behind translating Dumas’ vast body of work

Stefano Scarpellini, who was born in Bagni di Lucca, has described the hotel restoration project as both a professional undertaking and a personal commitment to the future of the town. The redevelopment is expected to create jobs and attract renewed tourism, contributing to the economic and cultural revival of the area.

For many residents who remember the hotel in its heyday, its reopening will mark the return of an important piece of Bagni di Lucca’s history.

Lino Capolicchio was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter, born in Merano in 1943 and who died in Rome in May 2022. He was one of the most important faces of Italian cinema in the 1970s, especially known for intense and melancholic roles.
The film that made him famous was The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, directed by Vittorio De Sica and based on the novel by Giorgio Bassani. For that performance he won the David di Donatello award.
Another of his best-known films is The House with Laughing Windows by Pupi Avati, which became a classic of Italian thriller and horror cinema.
Capolicchio also worked extensively in theatre and television. He studied at the Silvio D’Amico Academy in Rome and began his career with Giorgio Strehler at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano.
In later years he taught acting and also devoted himself to film and theatre directing. In Lucca, for example, he staged works by Giacomo Puccini at the Teatro del Giglio.
After a difficult and unhappy love affair, Capolicchio became a close friend of my future wife, Alexandra.. Their friendship grew during an emotionally difficult period in his life and remained warm and affectionate. Sandra introduced him to new artistic and musical circles and once took him to a concert where he met Donovan. Those friendships and encounters formed part of the rich cultural world that surrounded Capolicchio beyond cinema and theatre.
Years later, I was able to rediscover a number of snapshots of Lino, many of them taken around Belgrave Square in London, where Sandra spent the first part of her life while her father served as Secretary General of the Italian Cultural Institute London. With a little help and careful restoration work, I managed to recover something of their original beauty and atmosphere. The photographs now preserve fleeting moments from that time: Lino in conversation, at ease among friends, and moving through the artistic and cultural world that linked London and Italy during those years.
It is moving to remember that it was in this same month of May that Lino left us in 2022 — already four years ago now — yet these photographs and memories still retain something vivid of his presence, sensitivity, and quiet charm.

A contemporary news item reports on Lino Capolicchio, who was photographed in London with my future wife. The article highlights several details about the 25-year-old actor: It says that despite having planned a trip to Russia to recover from a failed romance, it seems that Lino quickly moved on, suggesting his sentimental disappointments are short-live Lino had recently achieved notoriety through his roles in the films Escalation and Metti, una sera a cena….Before his success, Lino spent many years trying to establish himself in the industry. His training included studies at the Piccolo Teatro academy, and he previously appeared in television dramas such as Davide Copperfield and Il conte di Montecristo, as well as performing in theatre with the Brignone company.

The three tombs of Evangeline Whipple, Rose Cleveland and Nelly Erichsen stand in their recently restored and re-whitened dignity at the upper left side of the old Protestant cemetery of Bagni di Lucca. Quietly grouped together beneath the Tuscan hills, they tell a story which is at once literary, artistic, political and profoundly human — a story whose resonance seems only to grow stronger with time.

Evangeline Whipple will already be familiar to many readers through her affectionate and evocative book A Famous Corner of Tuscany (1928), one of the most charming English-language portraits ever written of Bagni di Lucca and its expatriate community. Nelly Erichsen, meanwhile, was the illustrator of several volumes in Dent’s celebrated The Story of… series, including works on Italian cities which introduced many readers in northern Europe and America to Italy’s artistic and architectural heritage. Through her artistic circle she also connects with the wider Anglo-Italian world of Lina Waterfield and the cosmopolitan expatriate society of early twentieth-century Tuscany.

Yet it is Rose Cleveland who remains the most historically striking of the three. Known publicly as the sister of President Grover Cleveland, she served for part of his first administration as acting First Lady of the United States before his marriage to Frances Folsom Cleveland. In an era obsessed with appearances, newspapers commented endlessly on her unconventional elegance and intellectual seriousness. More significantly, she was recognised as a woman of exceptional intellect, deeply engaged with literature, theology, politics and philosophy at a time when such interests were still often discouraged in women.
Born in Fayetteville, New York, in 1846, Rose was the youngest of nine children of the Presbyterian minister Reverend Richard Cleveland. After her father’s death, she helped support the family through teaching and scholarship, later becoming a respected educator and lecturer. She published essays and works including George Eliot’s Poetry and Other Studies, You and I: Or Moral, Intellectual and Social Culture, and The Long Run.
Behind the public figure, however, there existed a deeply personal emotional life. In middle age, Rose entered into a relationship with the wealthy widow Evangeline Marrs Whipple. At the time, such relationships between intellectually independent women were often referred to as “Boston marriages” — a term that disguised what society found difficult to acknowledge: that women could form deep emotional, intellectual, and romantic bonds with one another.
The surviving letters between Rose and Evangeline reveal an extraordinary intensity of feeling. They are among the most candid same-sex love letters of their period. Rose writes of “long rapturous embraces” and of “the summit of joy, the end of search, the goal of love.” Written in an era when women were assumed to be passionless and socially dependent, these words now read as both radical and strikingly modern.
Their relationship endured separation, social pressures and personal complexity. Evangeline had previously been married to Bishop Henry Whipple, but after his death in 1901 the bond between the two women re-emerged with renewed strength. Eventually, Rose and Evangeline settled in Bagni di Lucca together, sharing their life there with Nelly Erichsen amid the expatriate artistic and literary circles that flourished in the town during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The First World War transformed this peaceful Tuscan refuge into a place of humanitarian urgency. Following the Italian defeat at Caporetto in 1917, thousands of refugees poured through northern and central Italy. Rose, Evangeline and Nelly responded by assisting displaced families, refugees and orphaned children, placing themselves directly in contact with the suffering caused by war. Soon afterwards, the influenza pandemic known in Italy as La Spagnola swept through the region.

Both Nelly Erichsen and Rose Cleveland died in 1918 during the pandemic. Evangeline survived them by twelve years and was eventually buried beside them. The three adjoining tombs, each marked with a carved flower, remain among the most poignant memorials in Bagni di Lucca — symbols of friendship, devotion, courage, independence and chosen family.
Today, more than a century later, interest in Rose and Evangeline has expanded far beyond specialist historical circles. Their correspondence has become a key source for studies of women’s writing, LGBTQ+ history, and transatlantic cultural life. Rose Cleveland is increasingly recognised not merely as a presidential sister or historical curiosity, but as a serious intellectual figure whose life quietly challenged the assumptions of her time.
This renewed attention also resonates with broader questions about women and political power in the early twentieth century. A particularly striking parallel is found in Edith Wilson, who, after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a severe stroke in 1919, effectively controlled access to the presidency and the flow of governmental business for the remainder of his term. Though never formally empowered, she became a de facto gatekeeper of executive authority at a moment of national and international crisis.
Her role exposes both a constitutional gap — the absence at the time of any clear mechanism for presidential incapacity — and a broader historical reality: that women could exercise significant political influence within structures that formally excluded them. Edith Wilson remains a controversial but essential figure in the history of women’s political agency, positioned between invisibility and authority.
Modern scholarship on these questions has been notably advanced by Rebecca Boggs Roberts, whose book Untold Power re-examines Edith Wilson not as scandal, but as a complex political reality shaped by necessity and circumstance.
We met Rebecca Boggs Roberts last year in Bagni di Lucca, where she was engaging with the wider historical landscape connected to American women who lived, travelled, and were ultimately buried in the area. She kindly presented us with a copy of her book, and she continues to research these interconnected lives — from Edith Wilson in Washington to the expatriate women who shaped their lives in Tuscany.

Seen together, these histories form a revealing contrast: Edith Wilson represents informal power at the centre of political authority in Washington, while Rose Cleveland, Evangeline Whipple and Nelly Erichsen represent a more personal form of independence, creativity and chosen community on the margins of Anglo-American life in Europe. Both illuminate different ways in which women navigated systems only beginning to acknowledge their public role.
This continuing interest will be marked this coming Saturday in Bagni di Lucca at the Biblioteca Comunale “A. Betti”, where the national premiere of the docufilm Evangeline e Rose will take place at 21:00.
The film is presented by the Fondazione Michel de Montaigne and is based on the volume Mia preziosa e adorata. Lettere d’amore di Rose Cleveland e Evangeline Simpson Whipple 1890–1918 (Italian edition, 2021), itself derived from the earlier Precious and Adored (2019), edited by Tilly Laskey and Lizzie Ehrenhalt. The project originated from an idea by Enrica Benedetti.
Directed by Patrizia Lazzari and Mariana Giurlani, and promoted by the Associazione Città delle Donne di Lucca, the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, the Comune di Bagni di Lucca and the Fondazione Montaigne, the docufilm reconstructs a wholly female historical narrative centred on Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Whipple. It revisits their humanitarian work during the First World War and the Spanish flu epidemic, when they provided assistance to the local population and refugees in Bagni di Lucca.
Filmed in 2025 in key locations around the town — including places still associated with their lives and burial — the documentary blends dramatic reconstruction with historical testimony. The roles of Whipple, Cleveland and Nelly Erichsen are portrayed by Michela Totino, Silvana Rossomando and Rosella Petrucci, interwoven with scholarly contributions from historians and researchers including Tilly Laskey and others who have worked extensively on the Anglo-American presence in the region.
The screening is free and open to the public, and represents not only a cultural event, but also a renewed act of remembrance for a story rooted in both personal devotion and historical transformation.

The story of Rose Cleveland, Evangeline Whipple and Nelly Erichsen therefore belongs not only to American political and cultural history, nor solely to the expatriate world of Tuscany, but to a wider reflection on dignity, education, equality and the freedom to live and love with autonomy. Their graves in Bagni di Lucca remain eloquent reminders that progress is never guaranteed, and that every generation must decide anew which values it is prepared to defend.

Le tre tombe di Evangeline Whipple, Rose Cleveland e Nelly Erichsen si trovano nella loro recentemente restaurata e nuovamente imbiancata dignità nella parte alta a sinistra del vecchio cimitero protestante di Bagni di Lucca. Silenziosamente riunite tra le colline toscane, raccontano una storia al tempo stesso letteraria, artistica, politica e profondamente umana — una storia la cui risonanza sembra crescere con il passare del tempo.

Evangeline Whipple è già nota a molti lettori attraverso il suo affettuoso ed evocativo libro A Famous Corner of Tuscany (1928), uno dei ritratti in lingua inglese più affascinanti mai scritti su Bagni di Lucca e sulla sua comunità di espatriati.

Nelly Erichsen, invece, fu illustratrice di diversi volumi della celebre serie Dent The Story of…, compresi libri dedicati alle città italiane che, per molti lettori dell’Europa settentrionale e dell’America all’inizio del XX secolo, offrirono la prima visione delle meraviglie artistiche e architettoniche dell’Italia. Attraverso il suo ambiente artistico si collega inoltre al più ampio mondo anglo-italiano di Lina Waterfield e alla società cosmopolita degli espatriati della Toscana di inizio Novecento.

Eppure è Rose Cleveland a rimanere la figura storicamente più significativa delle tre. Conosciuta pubblicamente come sorella del presidente Grover Cleveland, servì per parte del suo primo mandato come First Lady ad interim degli Stati Uniti prima del matrimonio del presidente con Frances Folsom Cleveland. In un’epoca ossessionata dalle apparenze, i giornali commentavano incessantemente la sua eleganza non convenzionale e la sua serietà intellettuale. Più significativamente, fu riconosciuta come una donna di straordinaria cultura, profondamente interessata a letteratura, teologia, politica e filosofia in un’epoca in cui tali inclinazioni erano ancora spesso scoraggiate nelle donne.
Nata a Fayetteville, New York, nel 1846, Rose era la più giovane di nove figli del pastore presbiteriano Reverend Richard Cleveland. Dopo la morte del padre contribuì al sostegno della famiglia attraverso l’insegnamento e lo studio, diventando successivamente un’educatrice e conferenziera rispettata. Pubblicò saggi e opere tra cui George Eliot’s Poetry and Other Studies, You and I: Or Moral, Intellectual and Social Culture e The Long Run.
Dietro la figura pubblica, tuttavia, esisteva una vita emotiva profondamente personale. In età matura Rose intraprese una relazione con la ricca vedova Evangeline Marrs Whipple. All’epoca, tali relazioni tra donne indipendenti venivano spesso definite “Boston marriages” — un’espressione che mascherava ciò che la società faticava ad ammettere: che le donne potessero costruire legami profondi, affettivi e intellettuali tra loro.
Le lettere sopravvissute tra Rose ed Evangeline rivelano un’intensità straordinaria. Sono tra le più esplicite lettere d’amore tra persone dello stesso sesso del loro periodo. Rose scrive di “lunghi abbracci estatici” e del “culmine della gioia, la fine della ricerca, il fine dell’amore”. Scritte in un’epoca in cui le donne erano considerate prive di desiderio e dipendenti, queste parole oggi appaiono al tempo stesso rivoluzionarie e sorprendentemente moderne.
La loro relazione attraversò separazioni, pressioni sociali e complessità personali. Evangeline era stata precedentemente sposata con il vescovo Henry Whipple, ma dopo la sua morte nel 1901 il legame tra le due donne si rafforzò nuovamente. In seguito Rose ed Evangeline si stabilirono insieme a Bagni di Lucca, condividendo la loro vita con Nelly Erichsen, nel contesto dei circoli artistici e letterari anglo-americani che fiorivano nella cittadina tra fine Ottocento e inizio Novecento.

La Prima guerra mondiale trasformò questo rifugio toscano in un luogo di emergenza umanitaria. Dopo la disastrosa sconfitta italiana di Caporetto nel 1917, migliaia di profughi attraversarono il Nord e il Centro Italia. Rose, Evangeline e Nelly risposero offrendo assistenza a famiglie sfollate, rifugiati e bambini orfani, esponendosi direttamente alle sofferenze della guerra. Poco dopo, la pandemia influenzale conosciuta in Italia come La Spagnola colpì la regione.
Sia Nelly Erichsen che Rose Cleveland morirono nel 1918 a causa dell’epidemia. Evangeline sopravvisse loro di dodici anni e fu infine sepolta accanto a loro. Le tre tombe contigue, ciascuna segnata da un fiore scolpito, restano tra i memoriali più toccanti di Bagni di Lucca — simboli di amicizia, dedizione, coraggio, indipendenza e famiglia scelta.

Oggi, a più di un secolo di distanza, l’interesse per Rose ed Evangeline si è ampliato ben oltre gli ambienti specialistici. La loro corrispondenza è diventata una fonte fondamentale per gli studi sulla scrittura femminile, sulla storia LGBTQ+ e sulla cultura transatlantica. Rose Cleveland è sempre più riconosciuta non solo come sorella di un presidente o curiosità storica, ma come figura intellettuale di rilievo che ha silenziosamente messo in discussione le convenzioni del suo tempo.
Questa rinnovata attenzione si collega anche a questioni più ampie sul potere femminile nel primo Novecento. Un parallelo particolarmente significativo è rappresentato da Edith Wilson, che dopo il grave ictus del presidente Woodrow Wilson nel 1919 controllò di fatto l’accesso al presidente e la gestione delle attività governative per il resto del mandato. Pur senza alcun incarico formale, divenne una sorta di “guardiana” del potere esecutivo in un momento di crisi nazionale e internazionale.
Il suo ruolo evidenzia sia un vuoto costituzionale — l’assenza all’epoca di un meccanismo chiaro per la gestione dell’incapacità presidenziale — sia una realtà storica più ampia: le donne potevano esercitare un’influenza politica significativa all’interno di strutture che formalmente le escludevano. Edith Wilson resta una figura controversa ma essenziale nella storia dell’agenzia politica femminile, sospesa tra invisibilità e autorità.
Gli studi contemporanei su questi temi sono stati significativamente arricchiti da Rebecca Boggs Roberts, il cui libro Untold Power rilegge la figura di Edith Wilson non come scandalo, ma come realtà politica complessa, determinata da necessità e circostanze.
L’abbiamo incontrata lo scorso anno a Bagni di Lucca, dove stava approfondendo il più ampio contesto storico legato alle donne americane che vissero, viaggiarono e furono infine sepolte nell’area. Ci ha gentilmente donato una copia del suo libro e continua le sue ricerche su queste storie intrecciate — da Edith Wilson a Washington fino alle donne espatriate che hanno segnato la vita culturale della Toscana.

Letti insieme, questi percorsi storici offrono un contrasto significativo: Edith Wilson rappresenta il potere informale al centro dell’autorità politica a Washington, mentre Rose Cleveland, Evangeline Whipple e Nelly Erichsen incarnano una forma più personale di indipendenza, creatività e comunità scelta ai margini della vita anglo-americana in Europa. Entrambe le esperienze mostrano, in modi diversi, come le donne abbiano navigato sistemi che solo lentamente iniziavano a riconoscere il loro ruolo pubblico.
Questo rinnovato interesse sarà celebrato sabato prossimo a Bagni di Lucca, presso la Biblioteca Comunale “A. Betti”, dove si terrà la prima nazionale del docufilm Evangeline e Rose alle ore 21:00.
Il film è presentato dalla Fondazione Michel de Montaigne ed è basato sul volume Mia preziosa e adorata. Lettere d’amore di Rose Cleveland e Evangeline Simpson Whipple 1890–1918 (edizione italiana 2021), derivato dall’opera originale Precious and Adored (2019), curata da Tilly Laskey e Lizzie Ehrenhalt. Il progetto nasce da un’idea di Enrica Benedetti.
Diretto da Patrizia Lazzari e Mariana Giurlani, e promosso dall’Associazione Città delle Donne di Lucca, dalla Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, dal Comune di Bagni di Lucca e dalla Fondazione Montaigne, il docufilm ricostruisce una narrazione interamente femminile centrata su Rose Cleveland ed Evangeline Whipple. Il film ripercorre il loro impegno umanitario durante la Prima guerra mondiale e l’epidemia di spagnola, quando offrirono assistenza alla popolazione locale e ai profughi.
Girato nel 2025 in luoghi significativi di Bagni di Lucca — inclusi spazi ancora oggi legati alle loro vite e alla loro sepoltura — il documentario alterna ricostruzioni sceniche e testimonianze storiche. I ruoli di Whipple, Cleveland e Nelly Erichsen sono interpretati da Michela Totino, Silvana Rossomando e Rosella Petrucci, intrecciati con contributi di studiosi e ricercatori, tra cui Tilly Laskey e altri specialisti della presenza anglo-americana nell’area.

La proiezione è a ingresso libero e rappresenta non solo un evento culturale, ma anche un atto di rinnovata memoria per una storia radicata nell’amore personale e nella trasformazione storica.
La vicenda di Rose Cleveland, Evangeline Whipple e Nelly Erichsen appartiene dunque non solo alla storia politica e culturale americana, né esclusivamente al mondo degli espatriati in Toscana, ma a una riflessione più ampia su dignità, istruzione, uguaglianza e libertà di vivere e amare con autonomia. Le loro tombe a Bagni di Lucca restano un richiamo eloquente al fatto che il progresso non è mai garantito e che ogni generazione deve decidere nuovamente quali valori è disposta a difendere.

What began as a simple shopping trip unexpectedly turned into a small lesson in Italian language and culture. After our little wanderings, we returned home and did our main weekly shop at Penny Market, specifically at the branch in Pian di Coreglia, near Coreglia Antelminelli. We are actually rather fortunate, because we have two branches within easy reach of us: one at Borgo a Mozzano and another at Pian di Coreglia.
Like many Italian supermarkets, Penny Market runs a points collection scheme. Customers can collect points and exchange them in several different ways. Some people choose free food items — tins of tuna, biscuits, and similar products. Others use the points for shopping discounts, such as three euros off with 250 points or five euros off with 500 points.
But the most interesting option for us was something quite different: Italian kitchenware.
Suddenly, what seemed at first to be an ordinary supermarket promotion became an unexpected vocabulary lesson. The cookware on offer introduced us to the wonderfully specific Italian names for different kinds of pans and pots — words that do not always translate neatly into English.

The padella is a frying pan or skillet, used for quick cooking and frying.
The tegame is deeper than a frying pan and ideal for slower cooking, risottos, stews, and sauces — something between a braising pan and a shallow casserole.
The casseruola resembles a saucepan or casserole pot, useful for soups, sauces, and more delicate cooking.
And finally there is the pentola, the general Italian word for a cooking pot, especially one used for boiling pasta, making soups, or cooking with larger quantities of liquid.
The promotion also included a wok — interestingly one of those culinary words that remains almost identical in both English and Italian because of its association with Chinese cooking. Everyone already has a fairly clear idea of what a wok is used for: quick high-heat cooking, stir-frying vegetables, noodles, meat, and rice dishes.
Another item on offer was the pentola a pressione — the Italian term for a pressure cooker. This was clearly the premium item in the Penny Market collection, requiring 2,500 points plus an additional payment of 24.99 euros. Since we already own a pressure cooker we did not feel the need to collect points for that particular item, but it was still interesting to see how prominently it featured in the promotion.
What made the whole experience unexpectedly charming was that this vocabulary did not come from a classroom or textbook, but from ordinary daily life — from supermarket shelves, reward catalogues, and practical household shopping. In Italy, language learning often happens exactly this way: through food, cooking, and the details of domestic culture.
So in the end, the Penny Market promotion gave us more than special offers. It gave us a deeper appreciation not only of Italian kitchenware, but also of the richness, precision, and everyday practicality of the Italian language itself.

I still remember the first time we ate at Circolo dei Forestieri in Bagni di Lucca. It was one of those unforgettable meals: aristocratic surroundings, old-world elegance, attentive service, and food that seemed to belong to another age. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and at the end of the meal I naturally left a tip. It may have been ten percent or thereabouts, but whatever the amount, it seemed entirely obvious to me that one should reward such service. Only later did I realise that I had not merely tipped a waiter, but one of the proprietors themselves. In those days the establishment was run by two owners who later disappeared from the scene amid a certain uncertainty surrounding the business, but at that moment they were still there, serving their guests personally and accepting tips with old-fashioned courtesy.
Yet as time went on, and as I came to know Italy more deeply, I realised something rather curious: Italians rarely tip at all. In fact, we ourselves almost never tip in Italy. One pays the bill and, at most, pays the coperto, the cover charge. The coperto is an old institution, covering bread, table linen, cutlery, washing up and general table service. In other words, the service itself is already included in the culture of the meal. The waiter is paid by the establishment, not by the uncertain generosity of the customer. If one leaves a few coins behind, it is merely a small gesture of appreciation, not a moral obligation.
The same has generally been true in England. There may once have been occasions where one tipped a hairdresser or rounded up the fare in a taxi, but even there it was occasional rather than essential. Nowadays we scarcely even think about tipping. Here in Lucca, when we go to our Chinese hairdressers near Viale Giannotti, we simply pay the amount requested and leave perfectly satisfied, as do they. Nobody appears offended, deprived, or disappointed. The transaction is complete in itself.
And indeed, travelling across Europe, I have never encountered the kind of psychological pressure surrounding tipping that one experiences in America. Last year we travelled through Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, and Poland, and nowhere did we feel obliged to calculate percentages, evaluate service levels, or worry whether someone’s livelihood depended upon our generosity. We paid the bill, thanked the staff, and departed. The social contract was straightforward and complete.

America, however, is an entirely different world.
The first time I truly understood this was many years ago, in the 1970s, when, as a student, I found work as a waiter in a hotel somewhere in the hills and mountains above New York, in that great region stretching towards New England. It was one of those old American resort hotels where guests stayed for entire periods and took all their meals in the dining room. I arrived expecting to earn wages from the hotel itself. Instead, I suddenly realised that most of my actual income would come not from wages but from tips.
That discovery astonished me.
The guests did not merely tip at the end of their stay. They tipped after every meal. Breakfast, lunch, dinner — each encounter carried the possibility of reward or disappointment. I quickly realised that my survival depended not simply on doing my job but on performing it in a way that pleased the customers sufficiently for them to reward me personally. My income depended directly on charm, efficiency, memory, friendliness, and speed. One became not merely a waiter but, in a sense, an actor.
I will also say this: waiting tables remains one of the most exhausting jobs I have ever had to do in my life. The hours were relentless, the physical labour immense, and the emotional strain considerable because every interaction potentially affected one’s income. One was constantly “on stage”, constantly aware that one’s livelihood depended upon satisfying complete strangers.
There was one particular table whose occupants almost prided themselves on not tipping. They seemed philosophically opposed to the whole practice. For us waiters this became a source of dread because serving them meant working for virtually nothing. Eventually our frustration became so great that we placed little handwritten notices on their table asking them, politely but desperately, to tip us because we needed to survive. Looking back on it now, I realise how extraordinary that situation really was. We were not appealing for a bonus or a token of appreciation. We were appealing for part of our livelihood.
That experience revealed something fundamental about America: tipping there is not an optional courtesy but an integral part of the wage system itself.
Historically, this developed in a peculiar way. After the American Civil War, many service industries — hotels, railways, restaurants — adopted tipping as a substitute for proper wages. Employers discovered that if customers could be persuaded to pay service workers directly, businesses themselves could keep wages extremely low. In some cases, formerly enslaved Black workers were employed under exactly such arrangements: nominal pay from the employer and dependence upon gratuities from customers. Over time this practice became normalised and eventually embedded in American labour law.
To this day, many American states permit what is called a “tipped minimum wage”, meaning employers may legally pay restaurant servers far less than the normal minimum wage because tips are expected to make up the difference. Thus the customer effectively becomes part-employer. This is why Americans often regard failing to tip not merely as rudeness but almost as withholding somebody’s wages.
For Europeans, this feels deeply strange. We assume that the employer pays the employee and that the customer pays the establishment. In America, however, the boundaries blur. Every restaurant meal becomes a small moral drama. Was the service good enough for fifteen percent? Twenty percent? Twenty-five percent? Was the waiter attentive enough? Friendly enough? Fast enough? One is no longer simply purchasing a meal but participating in the economic survival of another human being.
And this extends everywhere. Sit down for a coffee, have a drink in a bar, take a taxi, eat in a diner — and at the end comes the moment of calculation. Modern card readers in America often confront one directly with suggested percentages before payment can even be completed. Fifteen percent, twenty percent, twenty-five percent. One feels almost guilty selecting too low a number, even when the prices and taxes are already high enough.
What makes this especially paradoxical is that America is also one of the richest countries in the world. The wealthiest corporations, the richest businessmen, the grandest displays of prosperity — all exist there. Yet at the same time millions of ordinary workers in the service industries rely upon what Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’ play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire” famously called “the kindness of strangers.” In a sense, America transformed that line into an economic system.
Of course, defenders of tipping argue that it rewards excellence. A particularly attentive waiter can earn more money than he might under a fixed salary. Customers can directly reward good service, and restaurants can keep menu prices lower. Some waiters in expensive American establishments earn remarkable incomes through tips alone.
Yet the system also creates insecurity and emotional exhaustion. Workers must constantly perform friendliness because their wages depend upon the moods and generosity of strangers. Customers, meanwhile, feel pressure and guilt where none should naturally exist. Instead of simply enjoying a meal, one becomes aware of participating in another person’s economic survival.

In Europe, by contrast, service remains part of the profession itself. The waiter may be warm and charming or formal and distant, but either way he is understood to be properly employed. A tip remains what it originally was meant to be: a spontaneous sign of appreciation rather than an essential wage subsidy.
Looking back now, I realise that my time travelling through America — from New York to the Deep South, from New Orleans to Carlsbad Caverns, from the Grand Canyon to San Francisco — were financed in no small measure by tips. The generosity of strangers enabled me to buy Greyhound tickets and see a vast continent in all its contradictions and magnificence. For that I remain grateful.
But I also came away understanding something else: America is not merely a country where people tip. It is a country where tipping became woven into the structure of everyday life itself, to such an extent that service workers often depend upon it not as a reward, but as a necessity for staying alive.

Another uncertain day in London — one of those days when the city seems wrapped in cloud, the light diffused into a grey softness that never quite becomes rain. It threatened showers all day, yet somehow held back, and so we decided to make the most of what felt like the last truly leisurely Saturday outing before ordinary routines resumed again.
Our destination was Ham House, reached from Richmond after a bus journey through one of the most attractive corners of the capital. Richmond remains exactly what a London suburb ought to be: lively without vulgarity, historic without self-consciousness, and full of variety and charm. Few places balance urban life and riverside calm so successfully.
From Richmond we travelled onward towards Ham House, one of the great noble houses built along the banks of the River Thames. In the seventeenth century the Thames was not merely scenic decoration but the great highway of England itself — infinitely preferable to the dreadful roads of the age. To build beside the river was to place oneself at the centre of movement, politics, commerce, and influence.
Part of the pleasure of visiting Ham House lies in approaching it. It does not suddenly emerge beside a bus stop or car park. Instead, one walks gradually towards it through long avenues bordered by trees, the house slowly revealing itself with a sense of ceremony. The approach prepares the visitor for another world.

This visit carried an additional layer of memory for us, since we had last been there in 2017. I remembered then describing it as “one of the metropolis’ most beautiful riverside palaces,” and the phrase still seemed perfectly accurate. Built in 1610 for Prince Henry Frederick, the gifted eldest son of James VI and I, Ham House remains a noble brick mansion set among leafy surroundings. On that earlier visit I had been reminded of Charlton House, another Jacobean survivor in London, later realising that it had been built for Sir Adam Newton, Prince Henry’s tutor.

Prince Henry’s death from typhoid fever at the age of only eighteen remains one of those tantalising turning points of history. Had he lived, and not his younger brother Charles I succeeded to the throne, how differently might English history have unfolded?
Yet Ham House achieved its greatest importance somewhat later, during the Restoration. Elizabeth Tollemache, daughter of the house’s owners, married John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale and became an influential figure at the court of Charles II. Remarkably for a woman of her age, she exercised genuine political influence and became part of the king’s inner advisory circle. Even before her marriage she had risked her life carrying secret dispatches for the royalist resistance movement known as the Sealed Knot during the years of Cromwell’s rule. Peter Lely’s portrait of Elizabeth Tollemache, Duchess of Lauderdale, at Ham house capures her beauty and intelligence in equal measure.

At the end of a very long leafy avenue we finally came face to face with this glorious house.

One aim of our journey was to see a special exhibition of cabinets, strong boxes, and private writing desks — objects ordinarily closed to the public and opened only twice a year. What a remarkable collection it proved to be. There were cabinets fashioned from rich woods, decorated with ivory and intricate craftsmanship, each one as much an artwork as a practical possession.
Yet these were not merely pieces of furniture. They were symbols of prestige, intellect, and power. More intriguingly still, they were instruments of secrecy. Hidden drawers and concealed compartments safeguarded private correspondence, confidential documents, and political messages. Looking at them, one could not help thinking how little human nature changes. The secret chambers of these cabinets were, in effect, the seventeenth century’s equivalent of passwords and encrypted files — methods by which people protected their most intimate information from unwelcome eyes.

The exhibition gave the house a particularly vivid atmosphere, as though one were suddenly allowed into the private world of its former inhabitants. The excellent staff, many of them volunteers, added enormously to the experience, enthusiastically pointing out details and helping visitors recreate the extraordinary past of the house.
Ham itself remains wonderfully preserved, saved for the nation in 1950 and largely unchanged for more than three centuries. Its interiors move between grandeur and intimacy. There are tapestries, portraits, miniatures, fine furniture, and richly decorated rooms that seem to hold echoes of vanished conversations.

Architecturally, too, the house rewards lingering attention. An especially charming feature is the way the first floor above the entrance hall opens into an elongated octagon, creating an elegant interior balcony.

The grand staircase, meanwhile, remains one of the most impressive in any English country house.

Like many historic houses, Ham has also lived several lives through cinema and television. It has appeared in productions including The Young Victoria and Never Let Me Go, meaning many people have probably seen its interiors without ever realising where they were.
And then, after all the history and hidden compartments, came a thoroughly civilised reward. Some time ago, after writing something for the National Trust I had been sent a cream tea voucher for two in thanks. We decided this was the perfect opportunity to use it.

So we sat in the gardens with tea and scones beneath the heavy sky that still stubbornly refused to rain. Around us stretched the calm beauty of the grounds, touched with that gentle melancholy peculiar to England when signs of summer hesitate once more to show themselves.

The walks around Ham House were as delightful as ever, especially at this time of year. The long avenues, the riverside atmosphere, the sense of retreat from the city — all combined to create one of those rare London days that feel both historical and deeply personal.
It was, altogether, a wonderful outing: part history, part reflection, part simple pleasure. And perhaps that is the enduring magic of Ham House. It reminds us that history is not only made in battles and parliaments, but also in hidden letters, quiet gardens, riverside walks, and conversations carried softly through oak-panelled rooms beside the Thames.