Antella: a Picturesque town in the Florentine Hinterland

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Francis

The little town of Antella has already cropped up in some of my posts. In particular, its fabulous chapel, almost entirely frescoed by Spinello Aretino, is mentioned at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/do-you-know-granacci-or-larciani/

Antella is also the last resting place of Claire Clairmont, who needs no introduction to Shelley lovers. For more information on this essential nuisance in the poet’s life do read my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/claire-claremont-the-epilogue/

A few days ago we stopped in Antella’s main square for an ice-cream.

It was a welcomed stop during an afternoon visiting the delightful countryside surrounding Florence festooned with matured vines, glittering with silvery olive groves and cooled by mysterious pine forests.

It’s a real pity that visitors to the cradle of the renaissance fail to visit the beautiful landscape surrounding the city except, at the most, to reach Fiesole, over-crowded during the season and with by no means the best views over the City of the Lily.

Antella’s main square epitomizes all that’s most liveable about Italy. Just a few miles away from the tourist-crowded streets of Firenze, Antella is another world. In the square different generations mix, play, relax and rarely collide. Old boys play briscola by the local bar. Women meet up for the local gossip. Children play hide-and-seek using the the massive parish church doors, opened out for the evening prayers, as a useful place of concealment.

In the centre stands the statue of a worthy from the town. (Italy’s first prime minister, in fact.)

The church itself contains a mixture of exquisite pre-renaissance pictures, skeletons of unremembered saints, massive oak beams spanning walls that have endured centuries of wars, floods and earthquakes.

A majestic crucifix of ancient date overlooks the nave.

Beyond the apse an even older chapel opens out with a handful of the devout reciting the joyous mysteries of the Rosary.

What I love in particular is the absence of the social divides that plague the provincial English town at this hour. In that ever more fractured land of Brexitania children separate themselves from parents at an ever-earlier age; the old are moved out-of-sight into geriatric institutions or, if lucky and still in their own homes, suffer loneliness and the fear of being mugged if they step outside after 8 pm.

Meanwhile, the young ready themselves to get hyped up for a night of artificial highs of binge drinking and vomiting on pavements while police sirens uselessly try to wake them up, and hospitals become arenas for the victims of fighting and knife attacks.

However, in places like Antella, such ghastly thoughts and memories of a country, soon to be torn apart from the mainstream of Europe by a ‘will of the people’ fed by lies, ignorance and small-mindedness, seem, thankfully, far away.

Looking for the Tuscan House of your Dreams?

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Francis

Recently we visited a friend’s particularly beautiful property situated by the Apennines between Barga and Coreglia Antelminelli. It has a plot size of 80,000 square metres, five bedrooms with five bathrooms, 100 square metres of parking space and heating which ranges from wood, photovoltaic, solar and GPL

This property is in effect, three houses for the price of one. It’s in immaculate condition and it’s for sale at an asking price which wouldn’t even buy you an undistinguished semi-detached in not a very good condition in an ordinary London borough in zone 4.

It has been a hard decision for the owner to arrive at, especially since so much love and work has been expended on ‘Grifoglia’ – the name of the house suggesting ‘quadrifoglio’, or four leafed clover, which traditionally brings luck and also has an Irish connection.

The property is fully described at

http://www.italianpropertygallery.com/property/casa-grifoglia/

And one can also read trip-advisor notices about staying at Grifoglia at

https://www.tripadvisor.it/ShowUserReviews-g654703-d296303-r47626030-Grifoglia-Barga_Province_of_Lucca_Tuscany.html

There’s a nice video of Grifoglia at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBSMPDvS09g

And, of course, a facebook page at

https://www.facebook.com/grifoglia/

Do also look at the blogspot at

http://grifoglia.blogspot.com/

During our visit we were able to collect some magnificently sized quinces useful for making jelly. (Quince in Italian is ‘mela cotogna’ and the tree bearing the fruit is called ‘cotogno’.)

The house, which comes with a swimming pool, would be most suitable for agriturismo or farmhouse holidays and would be particularly attractive for those persons with a strong ecological leaning.

Mentioning quinces here is our favourite recipe for making quince crumble cake:

Ingredients

For the quince puree

1kg quinces, cored and roughly chopped
175g caster sugar
zest and juice ½ lemon
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp cornflour

For the pastry

140g butter, diced
200g plain flour
50g ground almonds
75g caster sugar
zest 1 lemon
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk

For the crumble topping

100g plain flour
75g rolled oats
75g caster sugar
140g butter, diced

Method

To make the quince purée, put the quinces into a large pan with 350 ml water. Cover with a lid and simmer for 1 hr or until the quinces change colour and are pulpy. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then whizz with a stick blender until smooth. Pass the quince purée through a sieve into a clean pan and stir in the sugar, lemon zest and juice, and cinnamon. Cook the purée until it is reduced by one-third, then mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the purée until it’s thick. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour and almonds. Add the sugar and zest, then the egg and the egg yolk. Bring everything together, wrap in cling film and chill for 15 mins.
Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to line a 22cm tart tin. Place in the tin, trim the edges of the pastry if required, and chill for 15 mins. Line the pastry with baking parchment and baking beans, then bake blind for 20 mins. Remove the beans and paper, then cook for a further 15 mins until the base is biscuity. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
Increase oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Meanwhile, to make the crumble topping, mix the flour, oats and sugar with a pinch of salt, then rub in the butter until you have an uneven crumbly mix.
To assemble the tart, pour the quince purée into the tart shell so it comes just below the top, sprinkle over the crumble topping and cook for 25-30 mins or until the crumble is golden and the quince is bubbling around the edges. Serve warm with cream or custard if you like.

As soon as it’s out of the oven we’ll post our photo of the result here. Meanwhile, here are some pictures we took of this astoundingly charming Grifoglia:

Learn About Giacinto Scelsi

Posted on October 10, 2018 by Francis

PIANO RECITAL OF MUSIC BY GIACINTO SCELSI

On Saturday, November 10th at 7.30 PM, in the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio at Vorno (Lucca), Fabrizio Ottaviucci performs an “8-8-88 la porta dell’infinito” (“the door of the infinite”) piano recital of music by Giacinto Scelsi, on the thirtieth anniversary of the composer’s death. The program includes Suite IX, Ttai (1953) and Suite X, Ka (1954) both composed in the central period of Scelsi’s life and inspired by metaphysical concepts.

(Giacinto Scelsi, 1905 – 1988)

The first piece (“Pace”) relates to the movement of time. The second (“Essenza”) is based on variations on the answers to this question.

The recital is part of the “Della morte e del morire” (“Of death and dying”) theme presented by the Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio, with director and artist Cecilia Bertoni, in the performance space of the Tenuta di Vorno (Lucca).

From September 2018 to December 2019, there’s a packed programme of exhibitions, performances, concerts, workshops, residencies, scientific meetings and discussions and activities for children, focusing on an individual’s relationship with death.

The event includes winners of an international competition for artists in every artistic aspect. This involves over five hundred projects – alongside the creations and productions of the Compagnia Dello Scompiglio, meetings, exhibitions and guest shows.

If you are unfamiliar with Scelsi’s music then I am not surprised. So was I. His true worth has only recently been rediscovered and bears several similarities with that of the amazing English composer John Foulds (1860-1939). Among these are:

An interest in oriental music. Scelsi’s favourite singer was the Japanese artiste Michiko Hirayama.
The use of microtonal compositional tecniques.
An awareness of the second, serialist, Viennese school.
A life passed in scandalous neglect of his genius.

It is always an exciting moment when, just as you think you are pretty aware of western classical music, a name crops up that makes you reconsider its sonoral galaxy. Scelsi, for me, has changed the face of twentieth century Italian music just as much as John Foulds has altered my perception of English music.

For more info see the Scompiglio web site at http://www.delloscompiglio.org/ or phone 0583 971125

Florence’s Secret Grotto Treasure

Posted on October 8, 2018 by Francis

Since ancient times caves and grottoes have been associated with spirits and divinities. For example, the Cumaean Sybil, who could foretell the future, had her own cave which was rediscovered as recently as 1932.

The advent of Christianity did not destroy this supernatural association for the apparition of the Madonna of Lourdes took place in a cave; and in Roman Catholic shrines throughout the world her statue is embraced by a grotto or artificial cave.

In the Italian sixteenth century artificial grottoes became increasingly important elements of garden design. In Florence there are two well-known examples by Buontalenti in the Boboli gardens and the fashion spread to such villas as those at Pratolino and Castello. I have written a post about a charming grotto called the spring of Fata Morgana in the hills to the south of Florence. You can read about it at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/the-enchantress-well/

The grottoes are usually decorated with shells, curiously shaped stones, semi-precious gems, mosaics and imitation stalagtites. They contain a source of water which plays into pools and basins, the traditional haunt of naiads and nymphs (hence the word ‘nymphaeum’ to describe such features).

In the hot italian summer the grotto provided a welcome source of coolness and was even used for bathing but the fashion also spread to colder countries including Russia, France and England.

Alexander Pope was particularly enamoured of the grotto he created for his riverside villa at Twickenham and wrote ‘my grotto is finished with shells interspersed with pieces of looking glass: a thousand pointed rays glitter and are reflected over the place.’

It was an exciting discovery when I located perhaps one of the most beautiful grottoes in Italy in an unassuming Florence suburb. Originally a feature in a much larger park, now reduced by new buildings, the grotta del Bandino achieved its present form in the mid-eighteenth century and was designed and decorated by Giuseppe Menabuoi, famous for his engravings, Giuseppe Giovanozzi, sculptor, and Gaspero Pulcinelli, who arranged its shell features.

Built with materials including pottery, glass, shells and rocks the grotta is approached through the original gateway of the Bandino villa, half of which is now used as a public library. I was quite stunned with my entrance into this fantastique and equally grotesque artificial cave. Three arches framed an interior encrusted with shells and weird figures. Before me extended a basin, once filled with water, and an ocular window bathed the grotto with a warm autumnal light. Above me the ceiling was painted with several birds flying above a bosky landscape.

My guide told me he was equally stunned when he first entered this faery-like place and fell in love with the grotto. Indeed, he has helped to organise chamber music concerts there and commented on its perfect acoustics.

It is fortunate that the grotta del Bandino has been preserved amid the encroaching Florentine suburbs and been restored to its original glory at the turn of this millennium, transforming its former ‘grotty’ state into a worthy haunt of sylphs, naiads and fine music making.

Cluster Contemporary Music Festival 2018

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Francis

MUSIC BY GEORGE CRUMB FOR VOICE AND PIANO

After its great success last year Cluster’s second Music Festival is devoted to music of our time. There’s a calendar of seven events open to the public (organized through four afternoon weekends. All this is through valuable collaborations with other important Italian cultural organizations: the Puglia Region, the International Robotics Festival of Pisa, Torre del Lago’s Puccini Festival, Lucca and Massa Carrara’s FAI delegation, ”Il Baluardo” choral group ” and the Cinema Circle of Lucca. This is without forgetting the commissioning of eighteen new compositions by Cluster members to be heard during this Festival. It’s all free admission thanks to the contribution of the Banca Del Monte di Lucca Foundation.

Saturday, October 20 (Oratorio S. Giuseppe – 5 pm) there’s a concert entitled “Crumb portrait” with Maria Elena Romanazzi, singer and Raffaella Ronchi, piano. The concert is organized in collaboration with the Puglia Region and includes famous pieces by George Crumb and Cluster members Francesco Cipriano, Andrea Benedetti and Girolamo Deraco.

(Composer, pianist and Cluster Festival Promoter Francesco Cipriano)

CONCERT – HOMAGE TO FOUR RECENTLY DECEASED ARTISTS

Sunday, October 21 (Oratorio S. Giuseppe – 5 pm) Cluster will pay tribute to four recently deceased artists, who have been associated with Lucca. They are Claudio Josè Boncompagni, Daniele Lombardi, Fabio Neri and Joseph Vella. Ilaria Baldaccini will perform piano music by these composers as well as unpublished pieces, composed for the occasion by Francesco Cipriano and Girolamo Deraco.

YOUNG COMPOSERS IN THE LIMELIGHT

Saturday, October 27 (Church of St. Catherine – 5 pm) there’s a concert organized by young Cluster composers with the participation of the Yugen Ensemble. The event, organized by Stefano Teani, is organized in collaboration with the FAI delegation of Lucca and Massa Carrara.

SAX AND VIBRAPHONE IN SANTA CATERINA

Sunday, October 28 (Church of St. Catherine – 5 pm) there’s a concert by Alberto Cavallaro (saxophone) and Federico Tramontana (vibraphone). The event is organized in collaboration with the FAI delegation of Lucca and Massa Carrara.

LUCIO GREGORETTI’S CONFERENCE ON FILM MUSIC

Saturday 10 November (Conference Hall of San Micheletto – 5 pm) there’s a conference on film music with Lucio Gregoretti.

At the end a short film will be shown on the fairy tale of Pinocchio where the characters of the cat and the fox are acted by Ugo Gregoretti and Andrea Camilleri. Music is by Lucio Gregoretti

ELECTRONIC MUSIC CONCERT

Sunday 11 November at the Baluardo dei Balestrieri (in front of the Villaggio Del Fanciullo) at 5 pm there’s an electronic music concert organized by Cluster members. It includes compositions by young Cluster musicians written especially for this festival of contemporary music.

PIANIST EUNMI KO CONCLUDES THE FESTIVAL

Saturday, November 17 (Oratorio di S. Giuseppe – 5 pm) the Korean pianist Eunmi Ko will conclude brilliantly this Festival of contemporary music with a major recital.

What’s Eating Bagni di Lucca?

Posted on October 4, 2018 by Francis

Much of Bagni di Lucca’s High Street, the Corso Umberto I, is looking decidedly shabby. The upper section in particular, leading towards the post office, has seen so many shops closed down in the past fifteen years.

Gone is the hardware and ironmongers, closed since Mr Marroni’s decease a couple of years ago.

The best patisserie and coffee shop in Bagni is also shuttered, although it still contains all its fitments.

Daddo’s shoe shop has long since stopped supplying goods to Bagni di Lucca’s well-heeled inhabitants.

Sandra’s household-ware shop is in the last throes of its closing down sale.

And so the sad list goes on. There are vaguely hopeful signs stating that the premises are for sale to new businesses but when will these ever arrive to enliven Bagni’s high street?

It’s all becoming more and more like the scenario in that nostalgic film ‘What’s eating Gilbert Grape’ starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, when the local mid-west store sells out to the hypermarket.

Of course, we all know the reasons for Bagni’s High Street decay:

Declining population.
Move to shopping in hypermarkets (at Gallicano, for example).
Increasing on-line sales.
Retirement of shop-keepers with no offspring interested in carrying on the family business.
Heftier government taxes.
Difficult parking situations
A relatively short summer tourist season.
An aging population which does not need purchasing new items for the first time.
A difficult economic situation enveloping the nation.
An ever decreasing choice of items at prices which could be beaten for value at several other places.
Restricted opening hours with long lunch-hour breaks and Sunday closing.
A lack of attractiveness in the appearance of several shops.

It’s all very sad but is clearly not peculiar to Bagni di Lucca. It all started in the USA with out-of-town shopping malls, spread to the UK’s high streets, which are pretty dire in too many cases, and is now affecting Italy’s social in-town meeting points to an increasing extent.

What to do? Just think of the features you’ll miss out if Bagni’s High Street carries on in this way.

No quick repairs on items you have bought, like vacuum cleaners and TVs.
No friendly chats with helpful shop-keepers ready to advise you on products or keep up with the local gossip…
No shops with items different from the uniform boringness of chain stores and hypermarkets.
A High Street with decreasing signs of humans.
A town that is, in brief, slowly dying on its feet.

That’s why we should continue to patronise as far as possible our local shop-keepers even it is just a matter of buying spare bags for that vacuum cleaner or a filter for a moka coffee or a packet of picture hooks. For if this depressing trend carries on much further the only shops left in Bagni di Lucca will be a couple of catering establishments, estate agents and, hopefully, the tourist office.

As someone rightly said: Bagni di Lucca’s shop-keepers are its true, and largely unsung, heroes.

Another Seagull Lands in Bagni di Lucca

Posted on October 2, 2018 by Francis

It’s eight years since the highly talented young actor Stefano Girolami died at the age of just 28.

Every year on the last Friday of September Stefano’s friends and members of the theatre group with which he worked in Bologna come together to present a show in his memory and to raise funds for medical research at Bagni di Lucca’s Teatro Accademico.

The ‘Volo Della Farfalla’ programme had this letter printed on it which I have translated thus:

Dear audience,

Thank you for attending the premiere of ‘Another Seagull’, an adaptation written by Stefano Girolami’s friends from Bologna. I remember, as if it were yesterday, the opening night of my play in Moscow in 1896. It was a real disaster! Over the following years, the play has been performed countless times throughout the world, and is now considered a classic. Does this mean that failures count for something? My characters are great experts in failure: Pètr Sorin’s estate collapses, Masa tries to forget her unrequited love; Konstantin Treplèv battles against the cultural system of which he is a part; Nina Zarecnaja pursues the impossible, Boris Trigorin follows his lost youth; Irina Arkadina embodies a refusal to accept failure, Med exemplifies its passive acceptance. 120 years later, the seagull flies from Moscow to Bologna and lands on the desks of children who read it, re-read it, rewrite it … And they fall in love with it.

It was nice to see them all concentrated around the table, immersed in the script’s first readings and then seeing them discuss it in the rehearsal room … and continue to reflect on the choices to be made ininterpreting my work. And their humorous attempts to question me and make my play more up-to-date were also brilliant. Will they have succeeded? Or will they have failed too?

I still see them there, now that they are about to go on stage. And I see myself, many years ago; still in the throes of that creative crisis that is the theatre. Enjoy.

Affectionately,

Anton Chekhov.

***

This was the cast list.

UN ALTRO GABBIANO

di e con

PAOLA BASCHIROTTO, NICOLA BERTO

LAURA CARESSA, GIULIO FERRANTE

GIULIA OLIVARI, LUCA SERAFINI

con la partecipazione di . FRANCESCO MILANESI e la supervisione tecnica di

MARIANNA ROCCO

I personaggi:

IRINA ARKADINA, attrice (Paola Baschirotto)

KONSTANTIN TREPLÉV, suo figlio (Nicola Berto)

NINA ZARECNAJA, giovane ragazza (Laura Caressa)

BORIS ALEKSÉEVIC TRIGORIN, letterato (Giulio Ferrante)

PÉTR SORIN, fratello di Irina (Francesco Milanesi)

MASA, giovane inserviente di Sorin (Giulia Olivari)

MEDVÈDENKO, amministratore della tenuta (Luca Serafini)

Bagni di Lucca’s, Academic Theatre presented a highly enjoyable and varied evening. It helped Stefano Girolami’s butterfly to fly for another year, this time transmuted into a variation of the ‘Seagull’ and ending with a beautiful song ‘Molecule’ by the actress-songwriter Giulia Olivari.

Congratulations to all involved in a truly felt experience of theatre art!

Hell on Earth near Pisa

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Francis

Today it’s raining and that’s a real blessing for our part of Italy which has received virtually nothing from the heavens for over a month. The extreme dryness spreading over the land has made the risk of forest fires very real and the greatest conflagration in local living memory broke out over the Pisan Mountain on the 24^th of September. It spread rapidly, fuelled by strong winds, and was not finally extinguished until the 28^th.

(Photographs courtesy of Tuscany Fire-fighting service)

By that time the appearance of large tracts of the Monte Pisano, which separates Lucca from Pisa, had changed from a deep green autumn colour to a hellish grey desert.

(My photographs)

Over 1400 hectares of forest were destroyed, many houses were devastated out, damage to olive groves hundreds of years old was extensive, both domestic livestock and wild animals were burnt alive. An artist friend living in Pisa noted that the first she knew about any fire was when her and her neighbours’ houses were suddenly invaded by hordes of flying insects fleeing from the mountain fires. This is, indeed, a well-documented phenomenon.

Fortunately there were no human victims but hundreds of people had to be evacuated and many livelihoods destroyed.

It’s a sad fact that the Monte Pisano does suffer from fires at regular intervals. But the last major fire in September 2009, with 120 hectares burnt, hardly compares with the present catastrophe.

One of the families affected by the inferno and one of many having to suffer a ‘notte bianca’, i.e. a ‘white night’ of sleeplessness, was that of our friend Piero Nissim who lives on the route above Calci leading to Buti (still closed because of the wild-fires). Piero is a world-famous writer, poet, playwright, composer, singer-guitarist, master Esperantist, puppeteer and documenter of the Nazi-fascist atrocities perpetrated in the last war, particularly against the Jewish people. (Piero’s mother was from a Lithuanian Jewish family and his father, Giorgio Nissim, was an Italian Schindler-like figure who saved thousands from the death camps and was awarded the Italian gold medal for civilian valour). I have mentioned the multi-faceted Piero in my posts at:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/a-plea-for-justice-and-civility-in-italy/

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/pumpkins-and-puppets/

We visited Piero’s family just after the fire – the visit had been organised before the conflagration – and Piero gave us a hair-raising account of the terrible, sleepless night of the 25^th when evacuation and the destruction of their exceptionally interesting house with its art works, puppets and books were so perilously close.

(From left to right: Piero’s wife, Claudia, Sandra’s mum Elia, Piero’s daughter Miriam, Sandra, me, Piero Nissim)

Fortunately the flames didn’t reach them although they saw them rising hundreds of feet in the air just a few yards away. What saved them were the mountain stream and the road which separated their house from the main fire.

(Piero’s ‘white night’)

Now with the rains do not believe that things will come back to normal. Without the trees the steep slopes of the Pisan mountain will be subject to landslides and massive earth movements. For this reason, after the fire-fighters, with their Canadair planes and helicopters, the channel excavators have moved in tracing ditches which will hopefully allow the rain water to be diverted into conduits and not further devastate the hills.

The Pisan Mountain, scene of some of my most enjoyable walks, will never be quite the same again. True, the damage could have been far worst for even the splendid Charterhouse of Pisa at Calci with its priceless museum and monastery was threatened.

The fortress at Vicopisano, designed by Brunelleschi and curated by another friend Giovanni Ranieri Fascetti, was also dangerously close to becoming another victim:

(Talking of Vicopisano, there’s going to be a castagnata or chestnut festival there this October 4th in the late afternoon).

Forensic investigations now point to the fire as a deliberate act of vandalism. Why? There’s no reason to set alight a mountain which is a national park and protected from any illegal building.

Yes, these scars will last throughout our own lifetime and only disappear with new generations who, hopefully, will have greater regard for Mother Nature and her irreplaceable wonders.

From London to La Costa (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three

Monthly Archives: October 2018