Monthly Archives: October 2020

The Path not taken – the Photograph never Taken

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When did I first discover Italy? The question is a bit like ‘who first discovered America’ for Italy was always there for me. There were family members who lived there; my mother was born in Milan of Italian parents and I must have first visited the ‘bel paese’ when I was barely one. The train journey from that once shuttered-off platform for the continent at Victoria station, the steamer across the English channel (or ‘la manica – the sleeve – as that treacherous stretch of sea is called in Italian) the rails’ click-clack through the eerily deserted north French countryside, the entrance into Switzerland at Basle’s international marshalling yards and the last expectant stretch through the interminably long Simplon tunnel to enter the broad flatlands of Lombardy and the journey’s terminus at the grand Milan Central station flanked by its stone Pegasus horses is one, alas, never to be repeated in its continuity. For this was truly the end of our travel across post-war Europe: my grandparents’ flat was in the same expansive square as that which accommodated the station.

But when did Italy become not just a place for family visits but a land of scenic travels and cultural explorations? I was aware of fabulous things in Italy. My father had entered Venice towards the end of his war service and showed me his collection of postcards describing the city built on water. I was eager to float on a gondola or feed the pigeons in Saint Mark’s square. However, most of the time spent during our family visits was, unsurprisingly, spent with the family. It was only in 1957 that I saw the lagoons of ‘la Serenissima’, the Christians’ death trap of the Colosseum and the ancient Roman streets of Pompeii for the first time. I did later suggest to my grandparents’ who organized these trips that I might have been too young (at age eight) to fully appreciate these visits to Italy’s supreme icons. My grandparents told me otherwise: I had thoroughly enjoyed every moment; I do indeed retain scraps of vivid memories.

Regrettably I have no snapshots of these journeys. Carrying a camera about with oneself was still not essential in those pre-digital days. What would I give to hold a handful of pictures from those times!

Some family events, of course, have been immortalised on celluloid but photographs of sights I saw in Italy don’t appear until my visit to Lake Garda in 1961. By this time I’d been given a Bencini Comet II as a present and managed to take these shots of Catullus’ villa at Sirmione by the shores of Lake Garda, the Italian lake that comes closest to resembling an inland sea.

Sorting through the somewhat primitive originals, I’ve scanned and enhanced them using a variety of apps. I’m not too sure, however, whether the originals have a je ne sais quoi lost in the enhancements: I’ve put some of the before-and-after for one to compare.

 

 

I’ve been back to Catullus’ Villa (which, of course, was not Catullus’ – he could never have afforded something so grand) at least twice since those pioneering photographs. You can read about these subsequent forays in my posts at:

Italy’s Largest (and most Beautiful) Lake

The path not taken….The photographs not taken? Not quite….

A Tankard-full of Chanterelles

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Mushrooms, for so many people in our area, mean ‘porcini’, or ceps mushrooms. However, there are several other species which in our view are just as good to eat and, in some respects even superior. Among these is the chanterelle. There are plenty of these delicious fungi around at this time of the year when rain alternates with sunny days and leaves are falling fast.

 

We find chanterelles have several advantages over other edible mushrooms. They are more easily identified than many others and, thus, less likely to have one poison oneself and be placed under dialysis for life or, even worse, buy it. They also have a very subtle taste with a hint of apricots and even a touch of pepper. I enjoy them sauted with a dollop of cream: that’s a great way to combine fresh woodland produce with excellent nutritional value! They can also form part of a delicious flan:

Why are these mushrooms called chanterelles? It’s because the name derives from from the Greek kantharos meaning “tankard” or “cup”, referring to their shape.

Here is an example of a kantharos from ancient Greece:

Every season has something great on offer but autumn with its mushrooms is truly special!

Bridging the Generation Gap

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This picture taken the other night in our home in Longoio shows our oldest cat, Corniglia, age fifteen, nestling in with our newest cat, Archie, age one. 

(I just love the way their tails are touching each other.) Both are wild, rescue cats. For most of her life Corniglia, who was born in a wood pile, refused to allow herself to be touched. Age and the benefits of our free board and lodging have changed all that for her and she has become very friendly. Archie joined our household shortly before last Christmas to help fill the gap left by our (and Corniglia’s) much missed Napoleon. He has fitted well into our feline family and there are few scratches between him and the queens, which also include Carlotta and Cheeky. I do wish, however, that Archie would be less clumsy about knocking things over like our bedroom table lamps. He also needs to improve his jumping skills: the other morning Archie leaped off our bedroom cupboard and landed on sleeping Sandra’s face grazing her cheek. As for Corniglia, named after one of the Cinque Terre villages and the last survivor of the the original batch of five, she is still very active and good at landing correctly. She has, unfortunately, become very thin although we make every effort to feed her well and she still has a good appetite.

Anyway, we are so glad that two generations over seventy cat years apart are getting on well with each other and that Archie is showing love and respect towards Corniglia, the oldest member of our family.

Frisky Frescoes

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Murals – paintings on walls – have been around with us ever since Paleolithic man decorated his cave dwellings. In the UK advertising murals became very popular in the nineteenth century and murals with political messages have been a streetscape feature of Northern Ireland for many years. Increasingly, urban areas are again being enhanced by murals often focusing on historical and popular aspects of local life. Less common in northern Europe are interior murals although these have been making a considerable comeback. For example there are the intoxicating murals by Red Whistler at Plas Newydd, Wales and London’s Tate Britain and, more recently, a delightful mural has been created in Greenwich’s Fan Museum’s orangery in our area of London. I have mentioned an interior mural artist who regulary comes to our area and who is currently undertaking a major project at Marchmont house, Scotland in a post this month.

In Italy interior murals have continued to be created ever since Etruscan times as the rich decorations of the tombs of Tarquinia mentioned in my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/etruscan-faces/ display so magnificently. In domestic interiors murals have been the Italian equivalent of wallpaper and in religious buildings they have attained the highest levels of artistic inspiration as anyone who has visited the Sistine chapel in Rome or the Brancacci chapel in Florence must agree.

In our area of Lucca there are fine religious murals using the fresco technique in the church of San Frediano and in several of the city’s palaces. Domestic interiors will also contain murals although these, except in the case of aristocatic villas and palaces, are rather less well known and, indeed, hidden away. For example, near Diecimo, a town in our Serchio valley famous for its beautiful romanesque church, I, quite fortuitously, came across these frescoes tucked away in a largely abandoned and decrepit dwelling.

Clearly these murals are in rococo style and probably date back to the second half of the eighteenth century. They are the only visible murals in the house, although others may be hidden under whitewash, and decorate a room which may have been used as a ballroom on occasion as the lyre on the ceiling hints at.

The pastoral landscapes reflect the area in which the mansion is located and which may well have belonged to a rich merchant from Lucca who used it as a country retreat. I particularly liked the figures in the pictures enjoying the rural pleasures of fishing and rambling.

I wonder how many other old buildings in our area conserve these charming glimpses from another age. Like so many lovely features in our part of the world which have no protection from goverment agences they are truly at the mercy of those who own them. Let us hope that they will appreciate these relics from a past, more leisurely time.

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Paint it Black

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Why is it that a black cat crossing one’s path will bring good luck in England – so long as it crosses from left to right – but bad luck in Italy? Black is such an ambiguous colour! Associated with evil, dark forces, violence and death it is also related to authority and justice as with the cloaks of judges and academics. Regarding dress how can a colour be connected with totalitarian shirts and, at the same time, remind one of that little black number worn by Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’? Sadly for many the colour is the black dog of depression. These thoughts entered my mind while artist Delfina Nahrgang guided me through an exhibition of her paintings on display at Bagni di Lucca’s Corona Hotel since October 10th. Delfina, who has a studio in New York’s Manhattan and, since 1981, in Italy’s Pietrasanta, eschews labels affixed on her work. However, it is clear that her artistic journey owes much to abstract expressionism, a movement which turned the Big Apple into a newly pulsating arts centre. Delfina mentioned the names of some painters she felt an affinity with: Robert Motherwell, that most refined of abstract expressionists, Willem de Kooning and the surrealist Max Ernst.

Looking at the canvases displayed in the hotel, happily reborn in its picturesque riverside setting, I sensed the power of black both liberating and controlling the surge of colours emerging from the depths of metaphorical caves and canyons within a redefined space-time continuum. I was intreagued by the dialectic between the paintings’ visual message and their titles, bestowed by Delfina’s literary husband. ‘Opera’, for example, invites one to dream of plush opening red curtains, spectacle, expectancy, the radiant oscillations of musical sounds.

‘Bagdad ‘, on the other hand, with its suggestion of crude power and primeval jungle, paints a harrowing battle between positive and negative forces and is as direct an emotive reaction to the Iraq war as Motherwell’s ‘Elegies to the Spanish Republic’.

Of particular relevance to today’s health situation is ‘Masks’. Here swirls of colour seem to liberate themselves from the blackness. A white mask emerges, there are shades of lagoon waters, of secret liaisons, of midnight trysts. But is this a festive carnival or is it a dance of death?


Most of the paintings use oil but there are two delicate works in pastel which the artist says she rarely uses. Delfina is also a wonderfully fluent watercolourist.

Few artists enjoy labels fixed onto them. However, I felt that in any art history book Delfina may safely be placed as one of the finest Colour Field movement painters of contemporary times. Her creations have both power and delicacy, forcefulness and lyricism. Above all they encapsulate an originality and an honesty all too rarely found in today’s artistic universe.

The exhibition was due to close at the end of October. Let us hope that our persuasion to have it extended is possible for it would be a real pity to miss Delfina’s art.

 

‘Et tu Brute?’

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As I wake up to the following gloriously expansive view from my bedroom window with its clear blue Mediterranean sky and autumnally tinged forests it’s easy to momentarily forget that the world is living through some cataclysmic crises: climate change, species extinction, covid-19 for starters, and that so many countries, in addition, are having to face wars whether they be arms or trade ones.

 

As I write this large areas of our planet are being devastated by fires, by sea level rises, by military destruction and…by a new Kentish lorry park, digging into the idyllic landscape of the North Downs, in preparation for the impending brexit deadline of January first 2021. (To be suggestingly named, according to some wags, the ‘Nigel Farage Memorial Park’).

I just wonder how many New Year’s eve parties will be celebrated at the end of this year what with the strictures imposed by pandemic rules and the growing doubt among believers that what they voted for might have all been a con and that they were sold a pup.

I have sadly come to the view that there is a close relationship between those people who still deny climate change, those who are against any form of vaccination, those who affirm covid-19 is a hoax and those who believe that brexit is the best thing since sliced Hovis. Of course this is not to say that these belief systems completely tally one with the other but there is a far more intense overlap between them than between their opposites.

OK, we have earned the essential privilege, after centuries of feudal oppression and crass totalitarianism, of individual freedom as encapsulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have evolved considerably from being the huddled masses exemplified in the hierarchical ideology of so many societies – from the caste system in the Indian sub-continent to the class system still prevalent in the British Isles – towards the individualism which has arisen out of it.

However, if we all continued to behave in a highly individual manner as before – refusing to wear face masks in prescribed areas or failing to differentiate our household waste – then many of us will be in the same position as those inhabitants of German towns, just after World War 2 had ended, who were escorted into the remnants of concentration camps to witness their own country’s version of man’s inhumanity to man on a scale never before seen. I doubt there could have been any holocaust deniers left after these visits to their local extermination camp.

Yes, regretfully there’s also a connection, in my mind, between pandemic deniers and holocaust deniers. Perhaps visits to the local intensive care unit (where I was a denizen earlier this year) might be organized to dispel this belief if health restrictions did not permit it.

In Bagni Di Lucca I have come across people who blatantly remain mask-less in the middle of the Saturday morning market. They don’t even seem to carry one on their arms. I just wonder if they ever step into a store for their shopping; shop-keepers would never let them in for they too are subject to hefty fines for breaking anti-virus regulations. Other people have asked me ‘do you know anyone who has died of Covid-19?’ Sadly I do now and tell them so. They still appear to remain unconvinced, however.

The conspiracy theorists spread far and wide into that dark area of persons known as members of Q-anon who apparently are now considerably influencing the forthcoming US elections.

How does one relate to those who believe in these conspiracy theories? Bertrand Russell said that tolerance is necessary in any human relationship. All well and good but then are we to tolerate FGM, Suttee or legalised lethal injections? The other thing Russell said was ‘confirm the veracity of the facts’. That is clearly more difficult to handle and that’s where conspiracy ideology finds an easy way to worm itself into the collective subconsciousness.

Whatever happens in all this mess one thing is clear. Unless British residents in Bagni Di Lucca confirm their residence permission documents, obtain their Italian medical cards, exchange their UK drivers license for an Italian one and ensure their now European-citizenship-less passports are up to date they are going to find that discovering any brexitian benefits will be as difficult as locating the proverbial needle in a haystack. I just hope they will at least wear their ‘mascherine’ (as sanitary masks are called in Italy.)

Or you could sleep your way through all this…

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

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Carrying on from my previous post on the benefits of improving one’s language skills by following some italian quiz shows I mentioned that I too have been involved in these often entertaining and educational programmes.

The first time was in 1966 when I was chosen by my school to be part of a team of four contestants in Granada television’s less senior version of ‘University Challenge’, this time called ‘Sixth Form Challenge.’ I don’t quite know how I was chosen as I felt I was not a particularly distinguished pupil at Dulwich College. Furthermore, my school had great reservations about entering a television quiz show and almost refused the invitation to participate in one. I think it was the father, who worked in media, of another pupil who suggested the idea in the first place.

Anyway, we were whisked off to Manchester on my only trip so far to that northern city and were televised on video tape for the TV broadcast which took place in spring 1966.

I don’t remember much about the questions asked except for two of them. One was on Rossini overtures: I had to guess four of them and if anyone knows anything about Rossini overtures then they’ll realise it’s really easy to get them mixed up for one overture’s crescendo sounds so similar to another’s. In retrospect I feel it was a very unfair question to ask a seventeen-year old and I suspect that some sort of machination was behind it. In any case I managed to answer the last question which was about a Britten opera. I blurted out ‘Peter Grimes’, the gong went and we found we had beaten our opponents, Wellington College.

I viewed the broadcast in the company of my family and a gathering of friends at our home in Forest Hill, London. Of course, we had no VHS machines in those days but I managed to record the programme’s sound on a reel-to-reel tape . Goodness knows where that tape has gone now. However, I still have the Shorter Oxford Dictionary which Granada generously donated to the victors. It remains the thickest book on my shelves.

Our quiz-master was not the Bamber Gasgoigne of University Challenge fame but Chris Kelly who has also presented such programmes as ‘Wish you were here…?’ and ‘Clapperboard’.

My second foray into the television quiz world was less successful. It was ‘Mastermind’, famous for its original presenter Magnus Magnusson and his catchphrase: ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ which was also the title of Magnusson’s book on the show’s history. I was invited to turn up at the BBC’s television centre in White City and told that I had been privileged to be asked to be there and that I would have to pass a final test before being given a chance to sit on the programme’s menacing black armchair. Unfortunately I failed a question on cricket, not my forte, and so left the interview room without ever having had an opportunity of getting the prized winner’s crystal goblet.

I’ve often thought of joining in pub quizzes but not being a traditional pub goer never have. The most I dabble in quizzes these days is on-Line at Quiz Planet! Any one wish to challenge me or, better, anyone wish to start a bar quiz in Bagni Di Lucca?

Caged in an Italian Quiz Show

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On Italian TV prime time viewing is taken up by the quiz show. The current RAI 1 schedule, before the evening news at eight, presents the quiz show called “l’eredita”’ (the inheritance) presented by Flavio Insinna. This show concentrates on words and general knowledge and can be viewed in a truly educational light. For example, there’s a question dealing with vocabulary; unusual words are given a variety of meanings and the contestants have to guess the correct one. Then there are two words linked by a third whose letters remain hidden and are only gradually revealed, lessening the number of points scored of course. If anyone is learning Italian or just interested in the language l’eredita’, which has been running since 2002, is truly educational fun.

RAI has a long history of quiz shows starting with the iconic ‘Lascia o Raddoppia’ (leave or double your money) presented by Mike Bongiorno, based on the American ‘the 64,000 dollar question’ show and first broadcast in 1955, the year after TV transmission in Italy started.

I recently discovered a fascinating vignette about this show relating to the Avant Garde composer John Cage. In 1959 Cage was a participant answering questions on mycology (mushrooms) and winning 5 million lire (around 40,000 euros in today’s money). During the show he performed in a concert called “Water Walk”, under the astonished eyes of Mike Bongiorno and the Italian public, in which the “instruments” were, among others, a bathtub, a watering can, five radios, a piano, ice cubes, a steamer and a vase of flowers.

The dialogue that took place between Bongiorno and Cage when he took his leave was as follows:

MB: “Very good, good good good good. Good very good, good Cage. Well, Mr. Cage has undoubtedly shown us that he knew about mushrooms … so it wasn’t just a character who came to this stage to make some wacky performances of wacky music, so he’s really a prepared character. I knew that because I remember he told us he lived in the country near New York and every day went for walks and picked mushrooms. ”

J.C .: “Thanks to … mushrooms, and to RAI and to all the people of Italy”.

M.B .: “To all the people of Italy. Goodbye Mr. Cage, goodbye and have a good trip, will you go back to America or will you stay here?”.

J.C .: “My music remains here”.

M.B .: “Ah, so you go away and your music remains here, but the opposite would be preferable: that is if your music went away and you remain here”.

Of course Cage’s music must have sounded rather more unpalatable to a fifties Italian audience brought up on Claudio Villa and Verdi. Sadly no recording remains of the concert apart from a few photos.

Regarding my own participation in TV quiz shows: that’s another story and for another post…

From Power Stations to Hospital Trains in Tuscany

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This autumn FAI, ( Fondo Ambiente Italiano), the Italian counterpart to England’s National Trust, is organising special openings to several unusual places. In Tuscany thirty five sites from Florence to Livorno and from Lucca to Grossetto, will be open (with booking recommended) to the public.

The places it will be possible to visit include the thermal power plant of Santa Maria Novella station in Florence, a fine example of twentieth-century architecture, the maze of underground passages in the New Fortress of Livorno and the little theatre of Vetriano, in Lucca, the smallest historical public theatre in the world.

There is also a natural monument, the oak of the Checce in Val d’Orcia (also known as the oak of the witches), as well as a train-hospital in Massa used as the set of the ‘English Patient’.

The dates for these special visits are Saturday 17, Sunday 18 October, Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October 2020. Booking is recommended as entry is not guaranteed and the locations can only be visited if there are free places left.

Because of an agreement National Trust card holders are admitted free to the sites. Otherwise a minimum contribution of three euros is required (paid by credit card or PayPal). Children under six enter free.

Anti-Covid rules obviously apply: during visits it is mandatory to wear a mask, keep a safe distance and wash your hands often.

Near us at Bagni Di Lucca the following places will be open:

Church of Santa Caterina, Lucca

(Described in my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/luccas-baroque-flower-blossoms-anew/)

Oratorio degli Angeli Custodi, Lucca

Little theatre of Vetriano, Pescaglia (Lucca)

San Cassiano di Controne (Lucca)

Village of Vico Pancellorum, Bagni di Lucca

Carlo Niccoli marble sculpture workshops, Carrara

Centoporte Hospital train, Massa

Further details are available including how and where to book at:
https://ilreporter.it/sezioni/eventi/giornate-fai-autunno-2020-toscana-firenze-luoghi-aperti/quote

See you there?

Of Vines and Olives

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It’s not been the easiest of times for us two – indeed for all of us; a personal health crisis at the start of the year merged with the world health crisis brought by covid19. Even more disturbing is how time’s winged chariot seems to be pulled by ever faster steeds.

Difficulties in getting back to Italy have meant that we don’t have very much to show for in our field. Yet there are two crops which will ever survive – two items which sum up so much of Italy for me: grapes and olives.

Our vines climbing up the annexe to our house have been truly prodigious this year. Yet we have just been picking on them as a sort of dessert: we’ve never gone into wine-making although we have contributed to friends’ vendemmie (grape harvests).

When I was a kid and had already been on a couple of trips from the UK to Italy I tried to find the main reason why two European countries could have such differences between them. I suddenly blurted out ‘Italy has wine!’ ‘That’s right’, confirmed my mum. Of course, today England has some good vine growing areas particularly in Kent and Sussex but my childhood revelation continues to have some truth in it. Wine remains an essential tradition of Italian life in the way that it is not in the UK.

As for Olives several of those saplings I first planted in our field over ten years have matured into fine trees and carry their fruit with abundance this year. This is particularly heartening as it needs ten kilos of olives to produce one litre of oil.What more could one wish to have: a deep blue sky and truly warm sun around mid-day and one’s own little supply of olive trees while all around the warmth of late autumn colours embrace and the lenticular clouds above fascinate with their patterns.

It takes very little to make one happy in this world. Truly the best things in life are free – or rather they are impregnated with freedom, far away from those horrible restraints that the world (and oneself) is constantly trying to impose upon life’s essential being, particularly during this year. Liberty is there, truly, for the gathering, for the choosing….

It’s that time again in our part of the world: olive-picking time. In Longoio we are near the top height for growing olives (and vines) – 1750 feet. This year at least we’ve got something worth picking in our miniscule grove of twenty-odd trees.

If those of you living in northern climes think all this is irrelevant think again. There are now olive groves in southern England (see http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-18551076 ) and, indeed, some London streets are lined with them (ever been down Islington’s Fife terrace?). Whether the fruit will be as succulent as that coming from the deep south of Europe is another matter of course…

Plant you own little olive tree and wait and see. The olive is a sacred tree redolent of peace and harmony and everything that can be said to be positive in our disquieting times. We’ll be back during the following weeks to collecting the fruit from this sacred tree whose oil was used to anoint kings and athletes in ancient Greece and which remains holy to this day for so many of life’s ceremonies.