Monthly Archives: October 2018

Bagni di Lucca and the End of the Great War

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Have you ever noticed this plaque in the foyer of Bagni di Lucca’s town hall? Have you ever stopped to read what’s on it? It’s going to be particularly relevant this November 4th.

There’s a plaque like this in every commune’s town hall in Italy, often cast using the bronze of captured enemy artillery. This is what’s written on it:

“Comando Supremo, 4 novembre 1918, ore 12 Bollettino di guerra n. 1268

La guerra contro l’Austria-Ungheria che, sotto l’alta guida di S. M. il Re, duce supremo, l’Esercito Italiano, inferiore per numero e per mezzi, iniziò il 24 maggio 1915 e con fede incrollabile e tenace valore condusse ininterrotta ed asprissima per 41 mesi, è vinta. La gigantesca battaglia ingaggiata il 24 dello scorso ottobre ed alla quale prendevano parte cinquantuno divisioni italiane, tre britanniche, due francesi, una cecoslovacca ed un reggimento americano, contro settantatré divisioni austroungariche, è finita. La fulminea e arditissima avanzata del XXIX Corpo d’Armata su Trento, sbarrando le vie della ritirata alle armate nemiche del Trentino, travolte ad occidente dalle truppe della VII armata e ad oriente da quelle della I, VI e IV, ha determinato ieri lo sfacelo totale della fronte avversaria. Dal Brenta al Torre l’irresistibile slancio della XII, della VIII, della X armata e delle divisioni di cavalleria, ricaccia sempre più indietro il nemico fuggente. Nella pianura, S.A.R. il Duca d’Aosta avanza rapidamente alla testa della sua invitta III armata, anelante di ritornare sulle posizioni da essa già vittoriosamente conquistate, che mai aveva perdute. L’Esercito Austro-Ungarico è annientato: esso ha subito perdite gravissime nell’accanita resistenza dei primi giorni e nell’inseguimento ha perduto quantità ingentissime di materiale di ogni sorta e pressoché per intero i suoi magazzini e i depositi. Ha lasciato finora nelle nostre mani circa trecentomila prigionieri con interi stati maggiori e non meno di cinquemila cannoni. I resti di quello che fu uno dei più potenti eserciti del mondo risalgono in disordine e senza speranza le valli che avevano discese con orgogliosa sicurezza.”

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(General Armando Diaz)

Here is a translation in English of the ‘Bollettino della Vittoria no. 1268’:

“The war against Austria-Hungary, which the Italian Army, inferior in number and equipment, began on 24 May 1915 under the leadership of His Majesty and supreme leader the King and conducted with unwavering faith and tenacious bravery without rest for 41 months, is won.

The gigantic battle, which opened on the 24th of last October and in which fifty-one Italian divisions, three British, two French, one Czechoslovak and a US regiment joined against seventy-three Austrian divisions, is over.

The lightning-fast and most audacious advance of the XXIX Army Corps on Trento, blocking the retreat of the enemy armies from Trentino, as they were overwhelmed from the west by the troops of the VII army and from the east by those of the I, VI, and the IV armies, led to the utter collapse of the enemy’s front. From the Brenta to the Torre, the fleeing enemy is pushed ever further back by the irresistible onslaught of the XII, VIII, X Armies and of the cavalry divisions.

In the plains, His Royal Highness the Duke of Aosta is advancing at the head of his undefeated III Army, eager to return to the previously successfully conquered positions, which they had never lost.

The Austro-Hungarian Army is vanquished: it suffered terrible losses in the dogged resistance of the early days, and during the pursuit it lost an enormous quantity of materials of every kind as well as almost all its stockpiles and supply depots. The Austro-Hungarian Army has so far left about 300,000 prisoners of war in our hands along with multiple entire officer corps and at least 5,000 pieces of artillery.

The remnants of what was one of the world’s most powerful armies are returning in hopelessness and chaos up the valleys from which they had descended with boastful confidence.

Chief of Staff of the Army, General Diaz”

 

(Scenes from the Battle of Vittorio Veneto)

The plaque declares the victorious end of the Great War for Italy and is especially relevant since this year is the centenary of that occurrence.

(Triumphant Italian troops entering the town of Vittorio Veneto on October 30th 1918) 

How are we to truthfully interpret this inscription, especially beloved by former Bagni di Lucca resident Ian Greenlees? (Do read my post on him at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/r-i-p-ian/ ).

How much of what is written on the plaque is true and how much is fantasy? Clearly the proclamation is highly triumphalist in tone; unsurprisingly so when so much of Italy had suffered long under the Hapsburg regime. It is, however, based on fact and is, indeed, located in place of honour at the ‘Altare Della Patria’, Italy’s wedding-cake like Vittoriano monument in Rome where her unknown warrior is interred.

I have written quite a few posts on Italy’s role in the Great War. The main ones are at:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/lest-we-forget/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-the-great-war-from-an-italian-perspective/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/bagni-di-lucca-and-the-lie-of-war/

One of my post readers, supreme United Kingdom guide and military history expert Stephen Liddell, commented: “I think the Italian role in WW1 is always forgotten outside of Italy, perhaps because they were on the wrong side 25 years later”. Do read Stephen’s book on WW1 available at

Lest We Forget: A Concise History of WW1

The final battle of Italy’s role in the Great War took place between the 24 October and 3 November 1918. It’s called the battle of Vittorio Veneto and forms the most decisive part of the third battle of the Piave.

Let’s remind ourselves of the three battles fought over a river which is sacred to the Motherland and whose waters turned red with the blood of slain soldiers.

First battle of the Piave: November 1917. After the disastrous defeat at Caporetto the Italian army held the line at this river and halted the Austrians’ advance into the Po valley and the industrial towns of northern Italy

Second Battle of the Piave. (Also called by poet and military hero, Gabriele D’Annunzio, ‘the solstice battle’ as it was fought in the middle of June). The Austrian tried again to overcome the Italian Piave line but suffered over 11,000 dead against the Italians’ 8000. More than that, the Austrian army had become exhausted and demoralised. This battle was truly the beginning of the end of the Hapsburg Empire

Third Battle of the Piave. The battle of Vittorio Veneto. The definitive Italian victory fought between 26 October and 3rd November culminating in the entry of victorious troops into a town until then not even familiar to the Italian General, Cadorna, who is supposed to have said “where the f***  is this Vittorio Veneto?” (Actually, Vittorio Veneto is also the birthplace of my mother-in-law for whom, obviously, I am grateful to for having produced my wife, Alexandra.)

(Broader picture of Italian strategy and tactics in the third battle of the Piave)

It’s important to understand that other factors other than sheer good commanding and outstanding bravery won this battle for Italy. These are:

  1. The Austrians had become exhausted and demoralised by three years’ war against Italy.
  2. The diverse populations of the Austrian empire Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Rumanians and, especially, Hungarians were deserting the Austrian army and supporting the independence of their own ethnic groups. Indeed, there were Czech soldiers fighting on the Italian side.
  3. Germany had asked extra troops from Austria to support its Western front, especially since the yanks had entered the war in 1917.
  4. The new emperor, Charles, I was desperate to end the war and sued for an Armistice with the allies in mid-1918 but without success.
  5. The Austrian nation was running out of food and had to import supplies from Germany.
  6. The Italians had to win the war by the end of 1918. The commander of Italian forces, General Cadorna was prudent saying that a major assault would not be possible until 1919 as the army was not sufficiently prepared. However, allied pressure, the thought that an armistice might be granted without a final victorious battle (and diminish Italian influence at the subsequent peace treaty) and, above all, that Italy was running out of cannon fodder to recruit – it was now 18 year olds who were being conscripted.
  7. The Italians were supported in the battle by allied divisions. As the victory inscription states, the Italian army was joined by “three British, two French, one Czechoslovak and a US regiment “. I rejoice in the fact that the Brits were on the Italian side in this war (but sadly not in the next). The principal commanders of the British Expeditionary Force (which friend David Reid was kindly enough to bring to my attention) were Rudolph Lambart, 10th Earl of Cavan and Italian Enrico Caviglia (who spoke excellent English and was subsequently made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath by King George V.)

(Commanders Caviglia and Cavan)

Last month we actually passed through Vittorio Veneto. (See my post on the town’s patron saint Augusta at https://longoio3.com/2018/10/26/my-story-of-abuse-by-augusta/ ). Throughout the year the town has been commemorating the battle which had finally put it on the map. Various regiments from the bersaglieri to the alpini to the cavalleria to the corazzieri to the fanteria have paraded in Vittorio Veneto and there will be a major display on 4th November to mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the Great War for Italy. I wish I could be there for that!

Meanwhile Bagni di Lucca is commemorating the momentous event that occured on November 4th one hundred years ago with this programme:

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Hot Stuff in Cune

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If you think that becoming fluent in the world’s most beautiful language, Italian, is the end of the story then you’re wrong. It’s just the beginning! Each region of Italy has its own vernacular tongue. Recently I visited the Veneto and local people sussed out that I came from Tuscany because I’d picked up Italian with a Tuscan accent and used Tuscan expressions (e.g. for ‘stupid’ I used ‘bischero’ and for ‘carefully’ I used ‘a modino’ etc.).

Vernacular, a local turn of phrase or way of expressing oneself, often turns into a distinct dialect. In many parts of Italy a dialect can be different enough from RAI Italian to form a separate language. Anyone who has visited cities like Naples Turin or Trieste will realise that their inhabitants will turn from speaking in their own distinct language in order to speak to you in RAI Italian so that you can understand each other.

It’s more difficult in Tuscany to spot this national/regional difference since it’s the Tuscan tongue that has been used as the basis of contemporary Italian. Most significantly, the greatest work of Italian literature, Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ is written in a Tuscan which is the foundation of modern Italian.

We associate comedies with funniness and such greats as the much missed Ken Dodd but the meaning of ‘comedy’ in Dante’s work means that it is written in the ‘low’ or vernacular style as she is spoke in the market-place and finishes with a happy ending, instead of the high or ‘tragic’ style which uses Latin and concludes with a sad ending. That explains why there are not that many jokes in the ‘comedy’ (although there are a few, e.g. ‘Inferno’ canto 21 line 139…)!

In Tuscany, as in other regions, there are variants of the regional vernacular.

The main ones are:

  • Florentine
  • Sienese
  • Western Tuscan (Pisan – Lucchese – Livornese – Pistoian).
  • Arretine (Arezzo)
  • Grosseto-Amiata
  • Apuan

Western Tuscan and Apuan are the ones that affect us. Even here, however, because of the nature of the land with its villages separated by high hills and mountains there are further sub-divisions:

These are

  • Upper Garfagnanese (above Castelnuovo)
  • Lower Garfagnanese (below Castelnuovo)
  • Barchigiano (Region around Barga which is not part of Garfagnana but which belonged to Florence)

Local inhabitants can quite easily place where someone comes from in our Serchio valley from the way they speak. One of the most distinctive accents is from Vagli di Sopra. Try following what people are saying in one of the bars there, even if you are fluent in Italian!

We were recently present at a book presentation in nearby Borgo a Mozzano. Gabriele Matraia’s “ ‘l diaule nela trafùsora” (roughly translated as ‘she’s got the devil in her fanny = she’s impatient for sex’, diaule = Diavolo = devil, trafùsora = accia = a fabric made of 75% wool, 25% of cotton, flax or hemp, and also meaning the female genital organ) presents the variant of western Tuscan, Luccan province, Serchio valley, Apuan area spoken in the village of Cune, where Matraia lives.

Gabriele Matraia has taught literature in secondary schools in Garfagnana and Borgo a Mozzano, where he was three times mayor. Matraia has also published two volumes of poetry and has curated publications on ancient Luccan organs – musical, not biological, I hasten to clarify – and a volume on the urban structure of Cune.

‘Some like it hot’, as I would politely translate the title of Matraia’s latest literary offering, makes fascinating reading for anyone with a knowledge of Italian and who is interested in linguistics and its relationship to local culture. The book is divided into four main sections.

  1. Sayings/songs/rhymes.
  2. Grammar.
  3. Dictionary. I found this part, which forms the book’s largest section, particularly fascinating. For example, ‘ciucio’ means ‘cat’, còcca is a hen or a girl.
  4. Appendix, with some musical notations and a story written in the local dialect.

The book is exquisitely illustrated by Fiorentina Maria Moriani Poli and has an excellent introduction by Massimiliano Argentieri.

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(L’arbuolo = item used to shake chestnuts,  maize or olives so as to separate impurities from them) 

‘L’diaul nela trafùsora’ can be found at Borgo a Mozzano’s tourist office. I was unable to find an ISBN number for it.

 

 

 

A Castle, a Castagnata and a Countess

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The chestnut festival season is in full swing in our part of the world.  I’d written a post listing all the main ones within easy reach of Bagni di Lucca at https://longoio3.com/2018/09/21/nuts-about-chestnuts/ .

We went to the castagnata at Lucchio last weekend. Quite a small affair it was delightfully intimate and the setting of the hill-town, which seems to hold onto the precipitous slope for dear life, was spectacular.

We first visited the rocca, or castle, which acted as the last defence post of the republic of Lucca for several centuries. It must have been massively impregnable at its height, enough to frighten away any enemy whether Florentine or Pistoian and even today, in its ruinous state, it presents an impressive picture. The views from the castle are to die for: one can see the whole length of the Lima valley and beyond with such mountains as the Balzo Nero and Monte Giovo.

For the castagnata, the castle was newly assaulted, this time, however, by a merry group of young people who were having great fun with a somewhat noisy drone.

We weaved our way through the precipitous streets to reach the village’s parish church of San Pietro, a sweet building largely reconstructed in the late nineteenth century.

Here the main event was taking place. We treated ourselves to necci con ricotta (chestnut pancake filled with cottage cheese) and a glass of vin brulée which was definitely needed now that the evenings are becoming ever chillier.

In the adjoining church hall there was an interesting exhibition which included a slide show on different types of mills.

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There was an example of a necci toaster.

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The chestnut pancakes are cooked between heated stones in a pile – most ingenious..

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon in convivial company and a good excuse to visit a village which, despite the difficulties of living there, still retains forty permanent inhabitants and in summer is filled with emigrants (largely to France) returning to their ancestral roots.

On the way out I glanced up at the mansion, perched on a hill at the entrance to the village, which was once Lady Anna Harley’s, Countess of Oxford, summer residence and dates from the 1840’s. The ‘Villa San Giorgio’ is now in a ruinous state, abandoned by its subsequent owners, but there are plans for restoring it.

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I have managed to find out the following about Lady Harley. She was born in 1803, the fifth child of Jane Harley, Countess of Oxford, who became Lord Byron’s mistress in 1811. Lady Anne Harley married Signor Giovanni Battista Rabitti, Count of Saint George and thus was titled ‘Contessa Anna Harley Rabitti di San Giorgio’. Her husband died in 1845 leaving the countess with three children.

This gelatine photograph shows Anne Harley together with them. I estimate it must date from the 1860s. But is it really a photograph from life or a photograph of a lost painting?

Anne published a ‘Catalogo Poliglotto delle Piante’ in 1870. It’s a glossary of plant names with their equivalent name in several, mainly European, languages.

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Do note the dedication  to George Bentham by the author.  George Bentham, CMG FRS FLS (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884), was an English botanist, described by botanist Duane Isely as “the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century”. He was also a distinguished researcher at Kew gardens; the dedication to him by the countess just shows what important academic links she maintained.  I wonder if that amazing botanic artist who travelled the world and whose pictures are collected in a custom-built gallery at Kew, Marianne North, knew both George Bentham and Anne Harley?

As the introduction states:

“Lady Anne Harley has spent many years in the compilation of this volume, which, we think, may prove useful to travellers on the Continent, and indeed, might even be made the means of instruction in our public schools. As an example, we select the Bellis perennis, which, a native of Europe, we find is, in English Daisy; French, Paquerette, Marguerite vivace, Fleur de Pâques; Italian, Pratolina, Margheritina de Prati; Spanish, Maya, la Margarita; German, Masslieben Gänse Blümchen, Angerblume, Osterblümchen. But we find not only the European names of a large number of plants given, but even in some instances, the Sanskrit, Bengal, Hind and Tamul names are also appended.”

Here is a entry dealing with dandelions from the volume. I’m grateful to my friend Marco Barsanti for sending me a link to download it.

2639. leontodon officinalis vide Taraxa- cum dens Leonis. — Eng. Dandelion common. —
Fr. Dent de Léon. — Ital. Dente di Leone. Radicchio.
Capo di frate. Soffione. Stella gialla. — Esp.
Amargon. Taraxacon.
2640. leontopodiuin alpinum ^ Eur.
Sibir. syn. L. vulgare. — Eng. Lions’, foot alpine. — Fr. Pied de Lion des Alpes. — Ital. Piede di Leone alpino. — Esp. Pie de Leon, alpino. — D.
G. All. Lòwenfuss, alpen.

Clearly the countess fell in love with the Lima valley and its villages and, as a naturalist, contributed significantly to the classification and collection of flora and fauna in this part of Tuscany. She must have been a very enterprising woman to come to these parts especially in an age when women were supposed to lead subservient and conventional lives. Anne died in 1874 and I just wish I could find out more about this remarkable person.

One of the people we met in Lucchio was Daniela (or Danièle) who lives in Paris and comes to Lucchio for her holidays. She is very knowledgeable about the village and we gathered this story about ‘Mariona’s doughnut’ from her.

At that time, the countess Anna’s beautiful villa, like other houses in the village, had no running water. People would go to the “Old Fountain” to get water and wash their clothes.

The countess brought with her as helpmate a young girl called Marie, who was nick-named Mariona.

One day, the girl brought a recipe for a cake that her mother was preparing for her to bring to the countess. Lady Harvey called this cake “Mariona’s doughnut”.

This is Mariona’s doughnut recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

– 500 g of flour

– 400 g of sugar (300 g are sufficient)

– 4 eggs

– 50 g of melted butter

– 1 packet of brewer’s yeast or 1 of dried yeast

– a pinch of salt

– 2 glasses of milk

– 1 small glass of cognac

– 1 glass of anise liqueur (pebble or other)

– Italian baking powder like ‘Pane degli Angel’.

 

PREPARATION:

In a container, mix the flour with sugar, yeast and a pinch of salt. (If you use brewer’s yeast melt it in some milk or water)

Add the egg yolks (keep the egg whites) then gradually pour in the milk, melted butter, cognac and aniseed liqueur, stirring well to avoid the formation of lumps.

Finally add the egg whites, stirring in gently.

If you use brewer’s yeast, let the dough rest for 1 or 2 hours in a cool place.

Preheat the oven to 180 ° C

Place the mixture in a mould from 23 to 26 cm, wide (preferably with a hole in the centre) and bake for about 45 minutes.

Allow it to cool before removing it from the mould.

Enjoy at tea-time or as a dessert.

PS As I still have to get the cognac I haven’t tried this recipe yet. Anyone who does is welcome to send me a photo of their efforts and I shall be glad to publish it in my blog.

 

PS If you haven’t been to a castagnata yet you’re still in time for the one at Barga from the 2nd to the 4th November.

My History of Abuse, by Augusta

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Hi. I am so glad you have climbed all those steps and stopped at all those shrines to come and see me in my lovely chapel which dates back at least a thousand years.

My name is Augusta. Please cancel from your brain any memory of the formidable Aunt Augusta in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of being Earnest’ for I am a quite different kettle of fish.

I am the daughter of Matrucco, one of Alaric’s captains when the Visigoth king invaded the Italian peninsula. Matrucco established himself in a fort on Mount Marcantone in Treviso province and became known for his despotism and cruelty, especially towards Christians. My life, as you’ll find out, was to especially suffer because of this.

My mother’s pregnancy proved very difficult and so she was taken to the more comfortable surroundings of a loyalist’s castle near the town of Fregona. I was born there in 410 but, sadly, mum died in childbirth. My father was evidently filled with grief for he truly loved my mother and gave me the name of Augusta as a sign of good luck, for the name was given to the daughters of Roman emperors and means ‘magnificent’.

Although my father didn’t believe in Jesus Christ I was baptized by a hermit who lived not far from the castle of Serravalle. From an early age I practised the teachings of the Gospel and helped and consoled as far as I could all those Christians who were being persecuted by my dad. Some of these Christians escaped death by miracles attributed to me!

My father tried to tell me off but I defended my faith. He then decided to imprison me in a small room but I refused to change my mind and my faith. Then, horribly, he hired a local dentist who came with his instruments and had him pull out all my teeth to spoil my beauty. I was locked up again.

My teenage life was largely spent being imprisoned and then tortured. Then the ogre of my father, for the redemption of whose soul I prayed daily passionately, decided to send me to the stake to be burnt alive. But the blood of Jesus, our Saviour, kept me from being touched by the flames and I miraculously emerged unharmed.

Unrepentant, Matrucco then had me tied to a wheel and thrown down from a nearby hill. Because he was such a powerful despot there was no-one to step forwards and plead for me. But God, in his infinite love, preserved my life yet again. At this stage my dad went wild with anger and ordered his chief executioner to behead me. It was, thus, that I finally found myself among the saints and angels in the kingdom of the Lord.

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Forgiveness is a great virtue and I forgave my father for the horrible life he’d given me on earth and for his abuse against, not only my innate freedom of thought, but my sex too,

From my forgiveness I saw Matrucco slowly realise what he’d done and he finally repented. He buried my body with dignity in the place you can see now. Matrucco then self-flagellated himself with remorse, accusing himself of being the most evil being on the planet. He subsequently left the area where I’d been born to travel back north to find a little peace in the Germanic lands where he had been brought up in. If God is great then he will have surely given Matrucco at least a little peace. I hope that all those men who abuse and kill women today may realise, like my father,  what they have done before they die.

Incidentally every saint is a patron of some cause. I am the patron saint of all those who suffer from diseases of the head. These could range from a simple headache to that spreading syndrome of your times, psychological ailments and maladies of old age. In fact, if you go behind the altar where now I lie you’ll find a stone with a hole in its centre. Place your head in that hole and all ills will disappear from you and you will feel as if you’ve never suffered from any mental anguish.

 

Praise his Holy Blood,

gaze upon his scarred body:

as I was, be saved…

 

La Serenissima Fights Again

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Napoleon (the emperor of France, not our dear cat who died last year on December 17th), is a figure who is regarded positively by most Lucchesi. His sister, Elisa, was appointed Princess of Lucca (indeed the first paragraph of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ directly refers to this fact) and in this role assuredly put the city back on the world map. Elisa held a magnificent court and ordered many urban and social projects for the benefit of her principality. For example, the ‘Piazza Grande’, also known as Piazza Napoleone and where the city’s summer festival is held, is due to Elisa (although two ancient churches and many houses were demolished to create the square).

Other projects include the beautifully restrained neo-classical Porta Elisa and the beginning of an arcaded street which would have connected the gate to piazza Napoleone.

The Luccan respect towards and interest in the Corsican is reflected to this day in the conferences and events held by the Fondazione Ragghianti in its attractive headquarters in the ex-Clarissan nuns’ convent near Porta Elisa. I have been to several of these and found them always full of interest. (See, for example, my post at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/200-years-after-waterloo-napoleon-return/).

Napoleon is, however, held in the opposite regard by the inhabitants of ‘La Serenissima’, the honorific title given to the former Venetian Republic. Bonaparte, then not yet emperor, destroyed a nation that had a glorious history dating back to the time when a group of refugees found protection from barbarians in a group of marshy islets set in a lagoon and, from these humble beginnings, began to build a trading and cultural country that eventually extended down the Dalmatian coat to Cyprus and, beyond, to the Crimea.

Napoleon has never been forgiven for his action by the inhabitants of the Veneto region. He brought no benefits to them. He put Lucca on the map, but he removed Venice from it.

The end of La Serenissima, the most serene republic of Venice, influences today’s Italian politics. Like Catalonia in the Iberian peninsula, there is a movement for the independence of Veneto: the area has its own distinct language, which is not merely another dialect but has a great literary past. (Just mention Goldoni). As for music, Venice invented not only opera but the concerto – just consider Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’.

Indeed, the present populist government in Italy has its roots with the ‘Lega’ in these parts. There are historical reasons why a nation destroyed by the French, subsequently sold to the Austrians, only joined to Italy after two wars, 1866 and 1915-8, and then just partly, because its Dalmatian territory was given to Yugoslavia, should harbour such resentments.

Such negative feelings, however, were drowned by pride in having fought bravely against Napoleon and winning two battles against the French before the final terrible defeat led to the death knell of ‘La serenissima’ and the scandalous 1797 treaty of Campo formio which formalised the end of the Venetian Republic.

(Napoleon at the time of his Italian Campaigns)

For the fairy-tale palace where the last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, died see my post at

Where Venice’s last Doge died, where Napoleon stayed and where Sting played

This pride was fully evidenced by the recent meeting we came across quite by chance, while on the former republic’s territory, of the re-formed regiment which had fought so valiantly against the enemy.

Counting a total of 120 soldiers, including some women, the faithfulness of this re-enactment society towards the apparel and equipment of the late eighteenth century was astounding. The details were quite marvellous!

Here are a few of my photos to show you why:

The fall of La Serenissima is surely one of the major tragedies to have hit the ‘bel paese’ of Italy. Such, however, is the inevitability of history from which few people ever learn and from which ever more nations repeat its errors.

A Missile Base Turns into a Peace Park

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The Pizzoc is a mountain in the Treviso Pre-Alps. It is 1,565 metres high (5134 feet), one of the highest points in Treviso Province in the Veneto Region of northern Italy.

It’s what I would call a mountain for the lazy (useful if one has an aged parent in tow) as its top can be reached by a hair-raising but stunningly beautiful road.

 

 

We visited the Pizzoc earlier this month when Autumn tints were beginning to show their full beauty. The majesty of leaf colours was a wonder to behold.

On the top of the Pizzoc (etymologically “Spizt Hoch”, “high peak” in the Cymbric language spoken by the teutonically descended forresters who still live locally in their own villages there) is the Piazza della Pace (peace square), used as a viewpoint and marked by a cross and an altar.

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Here, from 1962, during the period of the Cold War, a missile radar base was established in connection with the launch base located nearby. Operationally closed in July 1977, it was definitively abandoned on August 21st, 1979.

The ex-base site is an excellent vantage point from which to view the Alpago mountains, the lakes of Revine and Santa Croce and the dolomitic Col Visentin-Monte Cesen ridge.

On clear days the view ranges from the Gulf of Trieste to the Euganean Hills and the Venetian Lagoon.

Although a bright blue day our view was not of the clearest. It was still wonderful to be there, however. Even at this height it was hot enough to be wearing a T-shirt.

It’s sad how many beautiful places in the world are disfigured by military establishments. I think of Salisbury plain, for example, and certain areas of the Dorset coast.

Paradoxically, however, the exclusion of the public has preserved nature in these places meant for defence and destruction.

I think also of another missile-tracking radar station, that established on Britain’s remotest island, St Kilda, now belonging to the National Trust for Scotland and unpopulated on a permanent basis since 1930. We were fortunate enough to be on a SNT work party last century and it was truly difficult to believe that this wildest and loneliest of places was used for a weapon that, in the wrong hands, could spell the end of life as we know it on our blue planet.

Here are some photos from that unforgettable time of our lives.

Peace replaces war,

the land returns to its birth:

primaeval nature.

The Cleaner: Abramovic in Florence

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During a recent trip to Florence I visited the current exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi. It’s a retrospective titled  ‘The Cleaner’, is dedicated to the revolutionary performance artiste Marina Abramovic and runs from 21st September 2018 to the 20th January 2019.

The exhibition itself is revolutionary too since it’s the first time that a woman is the protagonist at the Strozzi and that protagonist is literally strong meat to take. In other words, the exhibition is not for the faint-hearted.

What is a performance artiste anyway? Marina uses her body ‘without limits and boundaries’ to express her artistic concepts. There are over one hundred works illustrating her pioneering career which now spans over fifty years and there are over thirty performers contributing to the exhibition.

One enters the retrospective, or rather squeezes, between two nude performers who act as a sort of caryatid-like door frame. They re-enact (for each of Marina’s performance acts has been carefully choreographed and documented) ‘Imponderabilia’ dating from 1977 and which was closed down by the police when it was inaugurated in Bologna in 1977. How times have changed!

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The Strozzi’s renaissance rooms each hold a different aspect of this incredibly versatile artiste who graduated from Belgrade Art College. Luminosity, for example, has a nude (or naked?) performer on a cycle saddle suspended on a wall for thirty minutes under a gradually more intense light. Is this a metaphor for our life’s loneliness and its inability to react truthfully towards other humans?

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(Performer removed for this shot)

It’s also a metaphor for Marina’s life when, after an intensely artistic and physical relationship with German artist Ulay, separation takes place. This phase leads to perhaps Marina’s masterpiece. From opposite directions of the Great Wall of China, Ulay from the Gobi desert, Marina from the Yellow Sea each one walks a distance of 2,500 kilometres to meet in the centre for a brief greeting and quickly depart. The film illustrating this experience moved me greatly.

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The cramped Citroen van which Marina and Ulay made their home is also part of the exhibition in the courtyard of the Strozzi palace:

As a Serbian the horrific wars tearing the former Yugoslavia apart affected Abramovic passionately. Her performance reflection on this tragic period of human history was to clean a huge pile of bones of their blood and viscera to form a new blanched ossuary.

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Death is physically embraced as a filthy human skeleton in ‘Cleaning the Mirror’. Marina tries to clean it with a brush but merely transfers its dirt to her own body which becomes increasingly grimy.

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One also becomes a performer together with others. In one room there’s a task of separating rice from lentils and counting them. I confess I gave up after an hour.

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Do not miss the part of the exhibition in the basement of the Strozzi (Strozzina). It illustrates the early life and times of Abramovic and her studies in Belgrade where she rebelled against the academic concept of art as being the pursuit of beauty and where she first envisaged self-mutilation as an artistic expression.

It comes as no surprise that at the end of the exhibition one is somewhat exhausted – drained, in fact. This is why it’s useful to make one’s way to a bar for a stiff (no pun intended) drink afterwards.

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The power of the exhibition was unfolded in the weird dreams I had that night; nightmares, in fact which evolved as a huge canvas illustrating the enigmatic battle between life and death, self and the other, body and spirit, the unreality of everyday reality.

PS ‘Strozzi’, besides being the surname of the Florentine family who built the palace in the fifteenth century, also means ‘strangle’. Be warned. This is an exhibition which can strangle your hold on what you think is reality;  it truly cleans out your mind.

 

 

Fishing for Compliments at Marina di Pisa

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We have known Marina di Pisa for a long time. During our summer holidays we would take the train with our cycles on board to Pisa Centrale station and then pedal the 13-odd kilometres to Marina di Pisa. Age has increased our affection for this place, redolent of history and inspiration, which, after some terrible years of decadence and neglect (like several English seaside resorts I know) is being revalued for the amiable resort it is.

One of Italy’s greatest poets, Gabriele D’Annunzio, wrote his finest poetry here, collected in ‘Alcyone’. My post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/superman-or-satanist/ describes this astounding person and includes my translation of his beautiful poem on the rain falling on the pine forests that form the background to Marina di Pisa.

D’Annunzio had an overwhelming love for Marina di Pisa. Equally in love with the town and its coastline were Eleonora Duse (who spent her holidays with D’Annunzio here in a villa by the sea),  another great poet, Dino Campana,  Sergei Rachmaninov, the painter Giuseppe Viviani and the nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo .

At that time, wild dunes of grey and brackish sand joined the pine forest. Then in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century disaster struck. Poor management and corruption increased erosion to the extent that, like a sea vampire,  waves eventually devoured the lovely sandy beach, today largely replaced by pebbles deposited on the sea front to avoid further destruction.

(Marina di Pisa’s beach as it used to be)

Furthermore, the railway which used to run between Pisa and Marina di Pisa (it continued to Tirrenia and Livorno) was closed down in 1960.

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Marina’s railway station is still there…

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However, all is not lost. Thanks to a 6.5 million euro funding from the region, province and the municipality, work is underway to restore the formerly sandy beach. It’s a sophisticated project and undersea barriers will be used to prevent the sea from consuming the once-praised beach yet again.

Marina di Pisa’s sandy beach restoration project is part of its revitalization as is the new marina at the ‘Bocca D’Arno’ (mouth of the river Arno).

This new marina has, however, caused some distress among those persons used to a more traditional town.  With affection I remember the delightful times I spent with friends at the ‘retoni’ (big nets) fishing for whitebait. We used to have marvellous fry-ups and watch the sun go down on the Tyrhennian Sea by the Arno. To see those happy times read my post at:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/a-big-network-at-marina-di-pisa/

 

Houses and churches which were once neglected are now being restored and there are some spectacular examples of fin-de-siècle architecture equal to anything in Viareggio.

There are several excellent sea-food restaurants and if many of them are now closed at the end of the sea-bathing season there is one that always seems to be open: the ‘Pescotto’. We enjoyed an excellent fritto-misto there:

Afterwards we took a walk around the resort.

Returning home we couldn’t resist taking another look at that miraculous church marking the spot where Saint Peter landed to proselytise Italy and eventually be martyred, crucified upside down in Rome.

I have written extensively about this exquisite building at:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/saint-peters-landing-place-in-italy/

and

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/a-more-interesting-way-of-getting-to-pisa-airport/

For those of you familiar with the beautiful Italian language I cannot resist including a poem on Marina di Pisa by Gabriele D’Annunzio:

O Marina di Pisa, quando folgora
il solleone!
Le lodolette cantan su le pratora
di San Rossore
e le cicale cantano su i platani
d’Arno a tenzone.

Come l’Estate porta l’oro in bocca,
l’Arno porta il silenzio alla sua foce.
Tutto il mattino per la dolce landa
quinci è un cantare e quindi altro cantare;
tace l’acqua tra l’una e l’altra voce.

E l’Estate or si china da una banda
or dall’altra si piega ad ascoltare.
È lento il fiume, il naviglio è veloce.
La riva è pura come una ghirlanda.
Tu ridi tuttavia co’ raggi in bocca,
come l’Estate a me, come l’Estate!
Sopra di noi sono le vele bianche
sopra di noi le vele immacolate.
Il vento che le tocca
tocca anche le tue pàlpebre un po’ stanche,
tocca anche le tue vene delicate;
e un divino sopor ti persuade,
fresco ne’ cigli tuoi come rugiade
in erbe all’albeggiare.
S’inazzurra il tuo sangue come il mare.
L’anima tua di pace s’inghirlanda.
L’Arno porta il silenzio alla sua foce
come l’Estate porta l’oro in bocca.
Stormi d’augelli varcano la foce,
poi tutte l’ali bagnano nel mare!
Ogni passato mal nell’oblìo cade.
S’estingue ogni desìo vano e feroce.
Quel che ieri mi nocque, or non mi nuoce;
quello che mi toccò, più non mi tocca.
È paga nel mio cuore ogni dimanda,
come l’acqua tra l’una e l’altra voce.
Così discendo al mare;
così veleggio. E per la dolce landa
quinci è un cantare e quindi altro cantare.
Le lodolette cantan su le pratora
di San Rossore
e le cicale cantano su i platani
d’Arno a tenzone.

(Gabriele D’Annunzio, “La Tenzone” da Alcyone – Marina di Pisa 5 luglio 1899)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Italian Bars and their Collectors

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Thankfully Italy is still largely a land of small businesses and nowhere is this more apparent than in restaurants and, particularly, bars.

This beautiful country is still essentially free of monstrosities like star-a-buckets and costalots (although one of them has recently opened in Milan and, in concession to Italian class and quality, has had to serve drinkable coffee in a surrounding which is probably the finest this chain has ever possessed):

Most bars retain their own individuality. I am particularly drawn to those bar-owners who are collectors. For example, at Aulla station this bar (since regretfully closed) had a scenic model railway running round its interior perimeter:

(See my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/on-or-off-the-rails-to-pontremoli/ for more).

If you’re a biker, or even just a mopedier, rather than a rail anorak then there’s the extraordinary bar-pizzeria described in my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/the-wild-one/ :

While traipsing around Florence the other week I chanced upon a bar whose owner was an avid collector of the hippie bus.

In case you don’t know what a hippie bus is it’s the Volkswagen Type 2, introduced in 1950 (sadly discontinued now) and officially known as the Kombi but better known to us travellers to eastern promises during the idyllic sixties as the hippie bus.

The owner told me his cabinet display was just a small part of his collection. His passion for the type 2 was ingrained in him for years and many exquisite examples of the ‘Kombi’ were donated to the bar owner from friends.

I admit I didn’t travel to Kathmandu on a type 2 but in a superior class (as Janis Joplin might have sung) Mercedes Benz. L 319 which transported me as far as Teheran.

Here it is in Beirut before that ghastly civil war and even greater post-war building vandalism destroyed the exquisite charm of this Paris of the Levant.

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Anyway, sipping a caffè macchiato con un pezzo dolce con crema in that Florentine bar, surrounded by seductive models of the classic L319 really started my day in a big way for me; Florence was no longer just a place where

in the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

(From T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in case you’re one of those ‘rational’ people who don’t read poetry).