Turritecava, that ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ hamlet on the road to Gallicano, has already received an enthusiastic post from me at In Europe but not European? | From London to La Costa (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com). I was; therefore, keen to attend a seminar study evening at its community centre a couple of days ago.
The subject, in collaboration with the local history group at Gallicano, had as its theme the uncovering of documents relating to five main areas of Turritecava life and was a starting point for further investigation into the hamlet. These subjects were:
- The old ‘locanda’ or inn
- The customs post
- The farm of Turritecava
- The social mobility of women.
- Poets
The talks presented by Maria Stella Adami, (The farm of Turritecava), and Manuele Bellonzi (The old locanda or inn) were preceded by Mass in the local church and a supper provided by the locals both of which we were unable to attend.
Regarding the main themes it’s remarkable how many old documents are left in empty houses waiting to be found by historical detective work. The locanda, for example, uncovered several letters and information regarding the sale of bread and visitors to its bakery in past times.
The customs post shows how important excise dues were once for the local economy and how there were implicit agreements with the local officers for their collection. It should be noted that customs were not positioned only between different states in re-unified Italy but also between towns within those states. Incidentally there’s an example of a former customs post on the road between Pian di Coreglia and Ponte all’Ania. It’s the building with a columned facade one sees just before entering Ponte all’Ania. There our presenter uncovered an old plan showing how the different rooms were used in bureaucratic and protocol procedures
. I thought about how a principal theme in setting up a European Union was the abolition of the tedium of these customs posts and how a retrograde nation further north has allowed them to be set up again!
Mobility of women was another fascinating topic covered and showed how, even if they once had fewer freedoms and certainly no voting right until after the last war, women here did have considerable independence in several work spheres, one of which was the rearing of silkworm using local mulberry trees and supplying the Lucca market which was world-famous and enriched by its production of the finest silk.
The Turritecava farm received some revealing interjections from older members of the audience who remembered their own parents and grandparents ‘memories of the occupations carried out there. These accounts should be recorded as valuable pieces of oral history.
Poetry had been mentioned since it was customary for local bards to produce celebratory sonnets and odes for weddings, religious festivals and such-like.
The evening, therefore, concluded with a recollection of one of Turritecava’s most notable former inhabitants, Lamberto Pellini, a poet and song-composer of some distinction. The young violinist, Elena Pellini his descendant, played a piece of music.
Finally the presenter, Maria Elisa Caproni, read Lamberto’s exquisite poem ‘L’Altana’ right below the covered rooftop terrace which the poet describes.
All in all it was a fascinating evening which shows just how many more documents are waiting to be uncovered in our region. Further evidence of this I found the following day when at the customary end-of-month antiques market in Bagni di Lucca I came across some payment books relating to contributions for the building of the Controneria road in 1931, a thoroughfare which enabled locals for the first time in their lives to reach their villages by bus or car instead of by Shanks’s pony. I felt that these notebooks should more usefully have been stored in an archive rather than sold on a market stall.
I look forwards to future meetings with Turritecava’s local historians when further discoveries of documents and oral history will, no doubt, be revealed.