Led By Donkeys

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Francis

No we’re not talking about the now-disclosed group protesting against the absurdity of the brexitisis plague still afflicting the British Isles. (Hasn’t a vaccine been discovered yet to protect one against this national self-mutilation?)

ledbydonkeys-20190121041938685

There are real donkeys involved in Querceta, the ones with lovely furry ears.

An inordinate amount of rain prevented us from attending the scheduled date of the ‘Palio dei Micci’ at Querceta, one of Tuscany’s major events; a pageantry of mediaeval and renaissance costumes with flag-waving acrobatics from the ‘sbandieratori’ announcing the six-lap race of the ‘micci’, the local dialect term for donkeys. Indeed, the Palio is an elaborate Italian take on the traditional English ‘donkey derby’. Regrettably, the rain almost washed away one full year of preparations and we then could only enjoy the Palio dei micci by viewing the film made by our local station, NOI TV, last year.

Here it is:

https://youtu.be/buhrKZL7WkM

The good news is that the Palio dei Micci was only postponed and it took place the following Sunday from 10.00 with the main race at 16.00.

We managed to catch the tail end of the event and decided that, although the costumes and displays of the various troupes and sbandieratori (flag-wavers) of the various rioni were impressive, it was not quite what we expected from a traditional Italian medieval pageant and palio.

This was because the event was staged in a sports stadium used on other days for football matches and political rallies.

The beauty of mediaeval pageants in Italy is that they take place in a picturesque medieval town setting. Siena’s Palio and Arezzo’s ‘giostra Del Saraceno’ owe their fascination partly because of the historic palaces and mansions surrounding them and the fact that the spectators truly merge with the competitors.

Clearly the inhabitants of Querceta are very proud of their Palio dei Micci but we felt it was very much their event and the somewhat cold setting of the stadium (the weather was also very dull) also didn’t help very much.

However, on another occasion when the sun comes out I’m sure it will please many to attend Tuscany’s own Donkey race.

Madness comes to Lucca

Posted on May 28, 2019 by Francis

Robin was an exemplary pupil in my secondary school. Never late for any lesson, always with his homework completed and never in any way disruptive in the class he was the very model of a good student. We, others, were the somewhat wild lot and our form teacher, in desperation, would point Robin out to us as the way we should aspire to behave and learn at school.

Many years later, when many of us managed to obtain a university education, start a career and get married, I visited Robin in Cane Hill mental asylum. Two years later he was dead because of some incorrect medication given to him. The mental asylum has since been sold off by the National Health Service and, as in the case with so many other similar institutions, is now converted into luxury flats.

What does this prove? Perhaps that madness is an expression of repression which seeks out alternative views of the world where life has never found a secure safety valve. Anyway, for too many to call someone ‘mad’ is an easy opt-out clause to use if that person cannot be fathomed.

Vittorio Sgarbi, the eminent Italian art critic, historian, cultural commentator and one-time mayor of the Sicilian town of Salemi, has been described as mad by several of his critics because of his frequent public outbursts but, at least, Vittorio uses these tantrums as a release from the often impossible situations he find himself entrapped in.

All forms of madness are similarly attempts to escape from impossible situations when the door seems shut. Ironically, however, the door is, indeed, shut – in many cases for life – despite liberalization though the Basaglia law passed in 1978 when Italy became the only country (so far) to abolish psychiatric hospitals. (Does it show with regard to some of the people one meets in the street here?).

Vittorio Sgarbi is a prodigious curator of highly idiosyncratic exhibitions. We remember his selection of paintings displayed at Milan’s international exhibition of 2015 and described in my post at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/sgarbi-con-garbo-at-expo-2015/

There was an equally memorable show when we visited Trieste a couple of years ago.

As cultural commentator, Sgarbi has some pretty weird ideas too, as described in my post at:

https://longoio3.com/2017/08/22/great-job-opportunities-in-italy/

With special mention of Lucca’s former lunatic asylum at Maggiano, which we visited (as tourists, I hasten to add) and described in my post at:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/luccas-very-own-snakepit/

Sgarbi’s disturbing exhibition entitled ‘Il Museo della Follia’ (Museum of folly) at Lucca’s ‘cavallerizza’ (stables), on until this August, is well worth taking in – if you can take such things, that is.

I recently visited the ‘Museo’; I don’t wish to introduce too many spoilers here; I’ll just say what for me the highlights were:

Francis Bacon’s self-portraits:

Antonio Ligabue’s post-naive paintings:

Sketches of patients in the former Maggiano mental ‘structure’:

This evocative painting of women at Florence’s own psychiatric institution at San Salvi:

The pleading letters of inmates assuring the authorities that they are now sane and can be released:

The extraordinary explosively-lit, ‘grill’, wallpapered with almost nose-less photographs of inmates:

Stereoscopic glimpses into the former electro-therapy quarter of Maggiano hospital:

And plenty more to drive one somewhat crazy (if one isn’t already).

What is significant in all this is that the definition of whether someone is mad or not still has little consensus in medical science. Tobino’s 1953 book on the inmates he supervised as head psychiatrist at Maggiano mental hospital is entitled ‘the free women of Maggiano’. However, these wretched females, entrapped in an ex-convent on the Luccan hills and with separate male and female quarters, could hardly be described as ever truly having been free today.

Indeed, currently we are as far from true freedom of expression as ever before. As William Blake put it in his poem on London: ‘in every cry of every Man, in every Infant’s cry of fear, in every voice: in every ban, the mind-forg’d manacles I hear.’ In each generation new definitions of freedom are formulated, often so far from that natural freedom which is the rightful inheritance of every human on this planet. The concept of freedom is, indeed, defined by the ideology of those who control us. They can tell us whether we are ‘free’ or not: indeed, whether we are ‘mad’ or not.

In this respect, Sgarbi’s exhibition arouses many disturbing thoughts and connections in the minds of all who dare to visit it. If you are in Lucca you should drop in to view it before you drop out…

Where Leonardo Da Vinci was Born

Posted on May 24, 2019 by Francis

For Italy, and for much of the world, this is Leonardo da Vinci’s year – the five hundredth anniversary of the death, as treasured guest of King Francis I at the castle of Amboise, of perhaps the greatest polymath genius the world has known.

Leonardo_self

We had already visited an exhibition on Leonardo’s first teacher, Verrocchio, at Florence’s Strozzi palace, described at https://longoio3.com/2019/05/14/leonardo-da-vincis-first-teacher/ and were keen to revisit his birthplace among the lovely hills of Monte Albano.

Vinci is easily reached from either Florence or Lucca and makes a truly pleasant break on one’s journey between the two cities. The old town is built around the eleventh century castle of the Guidi Counts which contains an excellent collection of models based on the master’s drawings and shows the multiplicity of his interests whether they be directed towards communications (canals, bridges, helicopters and other flying machines) defence (machine guns, tanks, or mechanics (pulleys, gears.)

Of items actually by Leonardo’s hand we came across this beautiful sketch.

landscape-drawing-for-santa-maria-della-neve

It’s the earliest known drawing by him, dated August 5, 1473 and is on loan from Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. It shows the valley of the Arno and Montelupo Castle so well-known to the artist as the scene of his childhood walks and explorations. It also happens to be the first purely landscape drawing of any western artist.

During these walks Leonardo collected a profusion of items from flowers, leaves, fossils, oddly-shaped pieces of wood and animals. One case presents items Leonardo had picked up and which he drew.

The castle’s courtyard has a garden in which a wood sculpture by Mario Ceroli of Leonardo’s celebrated take on Vitruvian man is displayed.

Incidentally, there is another sculpture of Leonardo’s Vitruvian man displayed in London’s Belgrave Square near the Italian Institute of Culture where my wife’s father was Secretary-General.

And here is Leonardo’s original drawing:

the-vitruvian-man

Our museum ticket included admission to the farm-house where Leonardo, an illegitimate child, was brought up by his wet-nurse. It’s a short distance uphill from the town. Here we met the man himself in holographic form reminiscing, at the end of his life at Amboise, on his life and thoughts. Leonardo’s last words were about how much he missed his native hills and his beloved Florence which he would never see again.

For it was in Vinci that Leonardo was baptised at the font of Santa Croce parish church.

Also comprised in our ticket was an exhibition in a nearby aristocratic villa on Leonardo’s paintings. Although no actual pictures from the artist’s hand were on show the reproductions, particularly of his masterpiece of the Last Supper, painted for Milan’s convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, were very well done.

It was truly lovely to be once more enfolded by the beautiful landscape of the Monte Albano hills which were dramatically enhanced by the magnificent clouds these days of tormented meteorological conditions have given us.

Florence’s Monumental Fountains Reinstated

Posted on May 22, 2019 by Francis

In 1865 Florence was appointed the capital of the newly unified Italy and it remained so until the capture of Rome in 1871. It was also acknowledged, however, that Florence, though once a great renaissance city, was now considered to be a city unfit as the capital of the new state.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, in a process called by some ‘risanamento’ (restoring to health) and by others, more honestly ‘sventramento’ (disembowelment), large parts of Florence were moulded to satisfy the aspirations of the nouvelle bourgeoisie for a more fitting capital city. The ancient heart, the Jewish ghetto, and the walls north of the Arno were demolished. Indeed, so widespread was the destruction of ancient landmarks that the English ex-pat community of the time complained bitterly to the authorities about the loss of so many of the city’s ancient quarters and managed to halt the annihilation.

Nothing comparable to this urban wrecking occurred until, in 1944, the Nazis blew up the mediaeval areas to the north and south of the Ponte Vecchio in the mistaken belief that it was better to have them blown up and prevent the bridge’s use, blocked by the rubble, than the bridge itself. If only! A bridge can be rebuilt, as were the instances of the historic bridges of Bassano Del Grappa and Pavia, but whole quarters vanish for ever.

The grandiose nineteenth century urbanisation of the city of the lily did, however, produce one positive result: that of planning the sylvan avenues leading up to Florence’s classic view at the Piazzale Michelangelo.

Laid out in gentle gradients so that horse-drawn carriages could easily climb up the city’s southern hills, the ‘viali’ have, at one point, the Piazza Giuseppe Poggi, a series of ramps which once held elaborately cascading waterfalls.

Sadly, for over a century these waterfalls were dry. However, in a spurt of worthy restoration, which included placing the various reservoirs back into operation, the re-planting of the footpath borders and the renovation of the massive buttresses, the whole complex, the brainchild of Poggi, principal designer of the ‘new Florence’, has its waterfalls gushing anew.

Piazza Giuseppe Poggi is located between the Lungarno Benvenuto Cellini, the Lungarno Serristori and Via San Niccolò. Until 1911 it was called ‘piazza delle mulina’, which means ‘water-mills square’.

Here once were mills operated by a canal fed by the river: the canal began near the San Niccolò weir, flowed along the Lungarno Serristori and re-entered the Arno near the Ponte alle Grazie.

The square is dedicated to Giuseppe Poggi, the architect of Piazzale Michelangelo and the Florentine avenues of Circonvallazione, who here designed one of his most daring creations, with the series of neo-mannerist style ramps leading up to the Piazzale’s viewpoint.

We were lucky last week-end to be in Piazzale Poggi when Florence’s mayor turned on the taps. It was slightly ironic that everyone actually wished there was less water on that day as it had been raining since the morning and the planned celebrations, which included a concert and children’s activities, had to be postponed. However, we did manage to enjoy this wonderful reinstatement of one of Florence’s most spectacular features.

Let our photos of the occasion tell the tale. (Note the ancient San Niccolò gate in the middle of the square).

Tree-Climbing with Cats

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Francis

Our two cats, Carlotta and Cheekie, love to accompany us on our woodland walks. They truly enjoy exploring the wild scents, stalking each other and….climbing up trees.

It’s a well-known fact that cats are rather better at going up trees than coming down. Their retractable claws act like hooks in the ascent but the descents another matter. Our cats have realized that the best way to come down is often backwards.

Our meadow is stunningly full of flowers which include wild carnations and field orchids.

The long grasses are truly a pleasure-ground for our felines.

It would be a real pity to have to cut these meadows, which in the UK would even receive protected status. I wonder when I’ll have the courage to use a strimmer on them?

Gliding over Tuscany

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Francis

The hobby of a friend in an adjoining village is gliding. In 2010 he was part-owner of a two-seater glider which had the facility of a motor to fly it to a required height where it could catch the thermals necessary for a satisfactory flight path.

The glider was housed in a hangar at a gliding club in Valdera which is south of Pisa. This is a good place since it avoids the difficult and restricted area around the Galileo Galilei airport.

I had never been on a glider before and was slightly hesitant at first. I need not have worried. At least, if anything went wrong with the glider there was a lever operating a giant parachute: something not available in one’s standard airline flight!

The silence of traversing some of the most beautiful landscapes of central Italy was awesome. A giant map unravelled itself below us, It was Google earth in real-time!

We flew over Montecatini (the one in Maremma), the area round Volterra and the Etruscan coast.

One of the highlights was gliding over Siena’s main square, the Campo. I could see distinctly the humans below having their caffè and children playing in the streets of this beautiful town.

Since that time the friend has graduated to other forms of gliding with or without motor, whether it is petrol or electric. As an electronics engineer he has also developed a special glider control panel.

However, I shall always remember that glider flight taken in May 2010 as a clear highlight of my time in Italy.

Here are some photos I took of that flight.

Recognize Siena and its campo where the famous Palio horse race is run?

And here is Volterra with its long, grim fortress and its square keep still in use for lifers.

The towers of San Gimignano are utterly unmistakeable..

For part of the flight I took the controls.

Landing was text-book perfect. (I didn’t do that bit!)

I impatiently look forwards to Elon Musk’s flying cars now!

download

Remembering Sam One Year Later

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Francis

(Dopo l’inglese segue traduzione in italiano).

It’s incredible how quickly time flies: it’s now one year since Sam Stych, the oldest Englishman and honorary citizen of Bagni di Lucca has left us. The following was written one year ago.

It is with sadness at Sam’s passing away but joy in our hearts that we were privileged to have met and known Sam for the last thirteen years.

Here are some photos taken of Sam for his 94th birthday lunch at Bagni di Lucca’s Circolo dei Forestieri. in the company of friends:

Dr Franklin Samuel Stych was born in a part of Birmingham, which was then in county of Worcestershire, now East Midlands, in 1916 when the First World War was raging in its second year. Sadly, Sam’s father died of his war wounds shortly afterwards and Sam was never able to get to know him. Sam’s mother never remarried.

Sam himself saw active service in the Second World War in the Ordnance department of the army and was stationed in North Africa and Italy where his love for this country grew.

When Sam returned to the UK in 1946 he also returned to his great love of libraries and bibliography and became a senior member of staff of the municipal libraries. One of his mentors was the great Italian scholar Professor Whitfield of Birmingham University. Sam retired about forty-four years ago and, when given the chance to acquire a residence in Italy through his connection with Ian Greenlees the director of the British institute in Florence, made the move to Bagni di Lucca with gladness.

There are three significant works by Sam, which have greatly contributed to deeper understanding between Britain and Italy.

How to Find Out About Italy is an excellent introduction to the bibliography relating to this country and, although published over forty years ago, is in the opinion of many still highly relevant and useful.
Sam devoted twenty years of his retirement here in Bagni di Lucca to the creation of a comprehensive annotated bibliography, in cooperation with Michael Buckland, of 2,242 items by Boccaccio, adapted from Boccaccio, or about him . This seminal work still remains the most fundamental formidable tool for any research on Boccaccio.
‘Pinocchio in Gran Bretagna e Irlanda’, tr. Gaetano Prampolini, Firenze: Quaderni Della Fondazione nazionale Carlo Collodi n. 8, 1971.

Sam received several honours in recognition of his work. Among these he was elected as a commendatore of the grand ducal house of Tuscany.

Throughout his time here in Bagni di Lucca Sam became the last remaining Englishman to link the present generation of residents and newcomers in the area with the classic coterie of cultivated English gentlemen who included such names as Ian Greenlees, Robin Chanter and, last but not least, Harold Acton. He is important not just for his great bibliographic works, not just for Bagni di Lucca, not just for Italo-English relationships but also for his quality of character.

Indeed, in 2014, during a conference on his erstwhile friend and neighbour Ian Greenlees Sam was visited by Laura Chanter, who was Robin’s wife until his death in 2004. I remember fond memories being exchanged during that visit.

Sam was an example to us all of kindness, scholarliness, decency, hospitality, courtesy and warmth, qualities which are enduring and which, all too often, are sadly lacking in the age we live in now.

Sam we will miss you!

A Mass will be celebrated on Friday 18th May at 10 am at the obitorio intercomunale di Lucca. (See https://www.paginebianche.it/lucca/obitorio-intercomunale-lucca.9004586 )

***

(Quello che segue fu scritto un anno fà nell’occasione della scomparsa di Sam Stych, professore e cittadino onorario di Bagni di Lucca.)

Dott. Franklin Samuel Stych nacque in una parte di Birmingham, che era allora nella contea di Worcestershire, ora East Midlands, nel 1916, quando la prima guerra mondiale infuriava nel suo secondo anno. Purtroppo, il padre di Sam è morto per le ferite di guerra poco dopo e Sam non è mai stato in grado di conoscerlo. La madre di Sam non si risposò.

Sam vide servizio attivo nella Seconda guerra mondiale nel reparto Ordnance (artiglieria) dell’esercito e si trovò prima in Africa settentrionale e poi in Italia, dove il suo amore per questo paese si sviluppò.

Quando Sam tornò nel Regno Unito nel 1946 riprese anche il suo grande amore per le biblioteche e la bibliografia e diventò un membro del personale delle biblioteche comunali. Uno dei suoi mentori è stato il grande studioso d’italiano Professor Whitfield dell’università di Birmingham. Sam andò in pensione circa quarantaquattro anni fa e, quando fu data a lui la possibilità di acquisire una residenza in Italia attraverso la sua connessione con Ian Greenlees il direttore del British Institute di Firenze, si stabilì felicemente a Bagni di Lucca.

Ci sono tre libri indicativi di Sam, che hanno tanto contribuito a una maggiore comprensione tra la Gran Bretagna e Italia.

1. Come scoprire l’Italia è un’eccellente introduzione alla bibliografia riguardante questo paese e, anche se pubblicato più di quarant’anni fa, è, a parere di molti, ancora molto pertinente e utile.

2. Sam dedicò vent’anni qui a Bagni di Lucca per la creazione di una bibliografia completa di 2.242 scritti su Boccaccio o adattati da Boccaccio.Questo lavoro seminale rimane ancora lo strumento fondamentale per qualsiasi ricerca su Boccaccio.

3. Sam scrisse anche un interessante studio su ‘Pinocchio in Gran Bretagna e Irlanda’, tr. Gaetano Prampolini, Firenze: Quaderni della Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi n. 8, 1971.

Sam ricevette diversi riconoscimenti per il suo lavoro. Tra questi fu eletto come commendatore della grande casa ducale di Toscana.

Sam rimase l’ultimo inglese a collegare l’attuale generazione di residenti e i nuovi arrivi al comune con la classica cricca di gentiluomini inglesi coltivati, tra i quali spiccano nomi come Ian Greenlees, Robin Chanter e Harold Acton. Sam è importante non solo per le sue grandi opere bibliografiche, non solo per Bagni di Lucca, non solo per le relazioni italo-inglesi, ma anche per la sua qualità di carattere.

Infatti, nel 2014, durante una conferenza organizzata dalla Fondazione Montaigne sul suo ex-amico e vicino di casa, Ian Greenlees, Sam è stato visitato da Laura Chanter, che era moglie di Robin fino alla sua morte nel 2004. Mi ricordo delle belle memorie scambiate durante quella visita.

Sam era un esempio per tutti noi di gentilezza, della cultura, della decenza, dell’ospitalità, della cortesia e dell’amicizia, qualità che, troppo spesso, sono purtroppo mancanti nell’epoca in cui viviamo ora.

Sam ci mancherai! R. I. P.

Una Messa sarà celebrata il venerdì 18 maggio alle 10 al obitorio intercomunale di Lucca. (Vedere https://www.paginebianche.it/lucca/obitorio-intercomunale-lucca.9004586 )

32761394_2069510379997575_8415877434557071360_n

Leonardo da Vinci’s First Teacher

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Francis

For Italy and for much of the world this is Leonardo’s year – the five hundredth anniversary of the death, as treasured guest of King Francis I at his Amboise palace, of perhaps the greatest polymath genius the world has known.

If curiosity killed the cat then it fed Leonardo’s mind, transporting it light years away from the often heavily blinkered universe he was born into.

All masters must be pupils first and Leonardo’s master was Andrea Verrocchio who began as a goldsmith, transferred to his greatest love, sculpture,

found time to paint a handful of pictures worthy to stand besides those of his main contemporaries, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli, and frescoed monasteries:

(Note the similarity between Verocchio’s and Leonardo’s Saint Jerome.)

PotW-45

Several of these paintings show the touch of an apprentice Leonardo. None more so that the two angels in Verrocchio’s baptism of Christ, in the Uffizi gallery of Florence.

It’s those angels in this painting which fully show the emerging genius of Leonardo and his particular speciality in their enigmatic smiles and their intricate drapery. Florence’s Strozzi palace exhibition, which is on until 14 July, celebrates Andrea Del Verrocchio as Leonardo’s teacher placing the young da Vinci in the context of the Italian renaissance and, in particular as one brought up in the colourful decorative Florentine school.

The exhibition, which has a special section at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, brings together for the first time Verrocchio’s celebrated masterpieces and works by the best-known artists connected with his workshop in the second half of the 15th century. These include Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino and ….Leonardo da Vinci, his most famous pupil.

Here is a selection of paintings by those connected with Verrocchio’s workshop.

And here is the hand of Leonardo in this drawing of entwining grasses – he loved interweaving motifs – witness also his drawings of tresses and branches

– indeed, in Milan’s Castello Sforzesco there’s a whole room he frescoed which transforms that space into a tangled forest.

The greatest treasure is left for the last exhibition room. It’s a terracotta sculpture of the Madonna and child from London’s V and A which stubbornly still attributes it to Rossellino despite its quite obvious Leonardesque features. Just that quizzical smile of the virgin gives it away!

It’s sometimes said that only one of Leonardo’s sculptures survives to this day. I believe there are three. In addition to the Virgin and child there’s an extraordinary Annunciation in the church of San Gennaro only a few miles away from us, near Collodi.

You can read more on this work in my post at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/crossing-over-at-villa-bove-san-gennaro/

There’s also another sculpture which is never seen as it’s locked away in some private collector’s vault. (Rather sad, this fact).

I shall ever remain in awe of Leonardo and just wish he’d completed a few more of his projects. Surely with da Vinci’s creative mathematical sense he might have explored the musical world and written something for the voice or for the instruments he invented? Who knows? Great geniuses shall ever be enveloped in the draperies of arcane secrets. It’s surely a great idea to walk the hills where the great enigma was born and brought up as we did and which is described in my post at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/a-walk-in-leonardo-da-vincis-hills/

An Earlier Rebellion Against Extinction

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Francis

It was one year after Chernobyl that artists Enrico Bandelli and Gianni Oliveti presented an exhibition of their works inspired by our precious and so terribly threatened natural world.

Thirty years later, after a period of considerable dilution of their urgent artistic message, Bandelli’s and Oliveti’s works seem more relevant than ever, especially since we now live in a time when over a million species are threatened with extinction.

A local library in the Gavinana suburb of Florence has presented those paintings from thirty years ago in one of their halls, appropriately titled ‘sala del paradiso’.

It’s truly sad that there are very few grounds for optimism in a situation which is getting worse and worse.

Here is a selection of images of polluted seas, hunted animals, trapped birds, dying plants and so many other prophetic warnings regarding our planet.

Perhaps the only way forwards now is to heed to international respected British Naturalist David Attenborough when, with today an Earth population of 7,472,985,269, he remarks:

We have to limit our population growth or nature will do it for us.

A Mountain of Cakes

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Francis

Maureen Halson is well-known and well-regarded for her sculpture which combines a long experience in the ceramics industry in the UK with delicate and perceptive creativity. Those of you who have collected china figurines from such firms as Royal Worcester, Wedgwood and Royal Doulton will recognize her work. And those who have participated in the Colombina Festa of Bagni di Lucca (alas, no more) will identify Maureen as the originator of that white dove you can paint in whatever colours you like.

There is an important association between the little dove and the feast of Pentecost which this year falls on June 5^th. The feast celebrates when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles gathered together in a small room after the death and resurrection of Christ. They then began to speak in all the languages known around the Mediterranean so that everyone who heard them could understand what they were saying – I wish a similar technique could be used today when learning languages! The other two symbols for Pentecost are fire and wind.

The Colombina is also a typical cake of Bagni di Lucca.

25152349_1466970960068812_6040299265338536351_n-864x400_c

Here is one recipe for it I gleaned from a local:

Ingredients

1 kg Bread dough
150 grams of sugar
25 grams of yeast
50 grams of butter
300 gr ‘0′ Flour

Method

1 Mix the bread dough with yeast, sugar and flour to make it smooth and velvety. Add the soft butter at room temperature

Place in a covered container and leave to rest until doubled in volume.
Cut into roughly 70 g portions
Divide into two and form two loaves, one short and stubby and one more stretched
Let it stand for 10 minutes
Put the longer loaf around the shorter one and connect it together (see photo). When pairing the two pieces do not put flour between them otherwise they do not stick well and create a crack
Let the mixture rest for 10 minutes. After sprinkling it with flour, crush and stretch slightly.
Place into a baking-pan to rise.
Once the volume is doubled bake at 185 g for 20/25 minutes.

Note: Vegans or vegetarians can substitute butter with sunflower-seed oil It is important to use high quality raw materials, avoiding margarine or lard. A feature of the Colombina is that it is neither sweet nor salty… It, therefore, can be filled either with mortadella or Nutella or jam

Tips: The Colombina can be flavoured with orange peel and grated lemon or vanilla. If you like you can make it sweeter, saltier, and more buttery or add other ingredients, such as chocolate or raisin drops. The Colombina can be brushed with egg before putting it in the oven to make it more colourful. It can also be dusted with icing sugar before placing it in the oven to make it crunchier.

***

The main feature of mountain districts like ours in the Mediavalle-Garfagnana region of Tuscany is that it produces wholesome and nutritious meals with very plain ingredients. One of the glories in our part of the world and a feature of many festivals, especially in the autumn, is the neccio, or chestnut flour, pancake.

Chestnuts, before being turned into flour, are placed on wooden shelves to be dried in a hut called a metato. This is a characteristic stone houses, where a fire is lit on the floor and fed with chestnut wood. Flour grinding then takes place with stone millstones. In addition to polenta and bread, chestnut flour is the essential ingredient of the neccio, which is a sort of soft crepe that is usually rolled and filled with fresh ricotta, or with Nutella. (Another typical Garfagnana dessert is the so-called Castanaccio, or Torta di Neccio, in which dried fruit and rosemary are added to chestnut flour).

The neccio is cooked on a piastra which translates as a griddle in English.

Interestingly, another mountainous district, this time in the United Kingdom, uses a griddle to bake its own, particularly delicious cakes. The principality of Wales is noted for its ‘picau ar y maen’, ‘pice bach’,’ acennau cri’ or ‘teisennau gradell. They are usually called bakestones or ‘pics’ and have been popular since the 19th century.

Pics are also known as griddle cakes, or bakestones, since they are traditionally cooked on a bakestone ‘(maen’ = stone’) planc, lit. ‘Board’) this is a Cymric form of the Italian ‘piastra’; it’s a cast-iron griddle placed on the fire or cooker.

Pics are made from flour, butter, currants, eggs, milk, and spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. Roughly circular and usually just over an inch in diameter they can have attractive scalloped edges and are around half an inch thick. Served hot or cold the pics are dusted with caster sugar and are complete in them without needing, unlike scones, to be sliced and eaten with jam or cream.

Pics were introduced to us by neighbours from South Wales and they were the highlight of our tea. Indeed, they could easily have provided our supper too: so filling and nutritious were they!

If you have a griddle and are keen to make these delicious mountain region cakes from a Celtic country then here is one recipe to try out.

Ingredients:

225 g plain flour
85 g caster sugar
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp baking powder
50 g butter
50 g currant
1 egg
splash of milk