Category Archives: Architecture

Abandoned Places

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There is a fascinating Italian Facebook page with the title ‘Luoghi abbandonati’ (abandoned places). You can find it here:

(4) Luoghi Abbandonati | Facebook

It contains hundreds of photographs of (you guessed it) abandoned places. These may range from palatial residences to humble cottage. What is so extraordinary is that so many of these places appear to be tinged with the spectre of the ‘Marie Celeste’: they seem to have been left in the midst of their family life as if the inhabitants had vanished in the twinkling of an eye. There seems to have been very little foraging of what was left and even less of vandalism.  Of course, nature has taken over: rotting floorboards, piles of decayed plasterwork, and a maze of cobwebs characterise them.

The contributors to the Facebook page are requested not to disclose where they found their abandoned place. This is for obvious reasons; so many of these places contain very collectable items and there may be also those dastardly beings around, the arsonists.

It’s, however, tantalizing that one is unable to visit some of these places for they are truly amazing – time-warps set in a swiftly changing world.

Our area is filled with many abandoned places ranging from houses to entire villages. I’ve described one of the most characterful of these abandoned villages in my post on Bugnano at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/abandon-all-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here/

If one wishes to climb higher up the mountains then there are several abandoned summer grazing settlements, some of which still have a church or chapel standing where once a year Mass is celebrated.

One doesn’t have to go far to discover these abandoned places. They can be found in any of our villages in the Media Valle and the Garfagnana.

I’m not sure whether I should give the name of one village quite near where I live.  Anyway, this is what I found.

Here is the village shop, derelict for years and a victim of chain supermarkets:

The shop-owner must have been quite prosperous judging from the remaining fitments of his capacious twelve-roomed house. I just wonder where he/she fled to. America perhaps?  

Sometimes a family tragedy may have caused the owners to leave their residence: a child who died in the house. Memory is, indeed, a strong force.

Anyway, whatever the reasons – and the major ones are economic – these abandoned places bear witness to the past in an almost unbearable degree.

The Way Home

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I was introduced to Claudio Monteverdi at school when we went with our music teacher, Alan Morgan, to Sadler’s Wells theatre to see his opera “L’Orfeo” in a ‘realisation’ by Raymond Leppard.  Leppard’s early baroque productions are no longer considered  comme il faut since the authentic music revival has revolutionised the way this repertoire is now performed. In fairness, however, Leppard did bring these hitherto unknown works to the public’s attention and, even with modern instruments, his productions were rather effective.

‘L’Orfeo’ was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Mantua carnival and is one of the earliest operas. (Jacopo Peri’s ‘Dafne’ is regarded as the first opera, written in 1598 for the Florentine Camerata.)

Monteverdi returned to opera towards the end of his life when he was asked by the Venetian republic to write for the new theatres there. Sadly at least seven of the composer’s operas have been lost and only ‘l’Incoronazione di Poppea’ and ‘Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria’ have survived.

On the other hand Monteverdi’s madrigals and most of his church music have survived. Why this situation? It’s clear that books of madrigals were purchased for home music-making and church music had its choirs requiring copies. The theatre, however, is more ephemeral and first performances may often be the only performances. Even in more recent times, operas have still been lost; for example, Sullivan’s ‘Thespis’.

It’s therefore lucky that three complete Monteverdi operas have survived for us to enjoy.  I attended a performance of one of them ‘Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria’ – only rediscovered by accident at the end of the nineteenth century – at Florence’s Alla Pergola theatre last week. This charming theatre dates from 1656 and is Italy’s oldest extant opera house. It is also the first theatre with superimposed boxes arranged in a horseshoe fashion – something which became de rigeur in subsequent opera houses.

Incidentally, the name ‘pergola’ relates to the framework on the top floor from which a vine, now looking ever more luscious, droops down.

Many operatic premieres have taken place at the Teatro alla Pergola, most famously Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’ in 1847!

We think of Italian melodrama as being a succession of brilliant arias linked by recitatives. This is not quite the case with Monteverdi and early baroque opera. The ‘stile rappresentativo’ in which they are composed consists largely of an arioso style of singing half-way between recitativo and aria. This means that the text is paramount and that there are no examples of ‘da capo’ arias such as came later with Alessandro Scarlatti and his followers. There are few repetitions of words and the whole can be said to be’ through-composed’. In this respect Monteverdi is quite modern in outlook as operas since Wagner have tended to be composed with a similar aesthetic idea – they are in all senses, music dramas.

However, towards the end of his life Monteverdi did allow some arias to interrupt his ‘stile rappresentativo’ and also introduced more instrumental interludes to break up what might have become a tediously endless recitativo.

We are indeed in a period of great musical changes in the mid seventeenth century: late polyphony is turning into early baroque ‘stile rappresentativo’ and moving towards the fully-fledged high baroque operas of Handel and his ilk with their pyrotechnic arias and the rise of the opera diva.

‘Il Ritorno Di Ulisse in Patria’, written when Monteverdi was already 72 years old, was one of the first compositions intended for public theatres.  A few years earlier opera was an exclusive court entertainment but in 1637 the world’s first opera house was built in Venice and with it came the possibility for the public of seeing a show by just buying a ticket. Performances were no longer unique events but could be repeated – in short, theatre as we know it was born and in the following decade four more opera theatres were built in Venice.

I very much enjoyed the performance and its staging at the Teatro alla Pergola. Ottavio Dantone conducted the dazzling Accademia Bizantina with the most resonant cornette (an early baroque instrument and not to be confused with the modern brass cornet) I have heard.

The singers were equally excellent and included Charles Workman, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani and Delphine Galou.

The stage scenery mirrored the theatre itself with the semicircle of boxes occupied by what presumably were the aristocracy of the times dressed in flaming red costumes. The main cast was dressed unobtrusively in more modern clothes.

I was so glad for the surtitles in both English and Italian for one couldn’t really miss a word in the unfolding drama of Ulysses’ return. Interestingly the libretto had no mention of Penelope’s weaving and unweaving of her cloth to keep the suitors at bay. They, unable to draw Ulysses’ bow-string, were eventually killed off by him when he handled the magic weapon. Penelope remained obstinate almost to the end, refusing to acknowledge Ulysses as her real husband. Even the old nurse’s recognition of a childhood scar (caused by a wild boar) on the returning hero’s back doesn’t convince her. It is when Ulysses accurately describes the pattern on their bed linen which Penelope has embroidered herself that she finally succumbs and realises that her beloved husband has returned from his long peregrinations around the Mediterranean.

Although my seat was ‘in the Gods’ I still obtained a very good view of the show as the Pergola is quite intimate in size and possesses heavenly acoustics!

The return of Ulysses to his homeland after years away has resonance in my own situation. Torn apart, not by any Trojan war but by a virus, we shall be spending our first wedding anniversary in forty-four years of marriage away from each other.

This is what I would have to do at present to reach the UK from Italy this summer (I’ve been double-vaxed).

Amber list passengers:

1. Be in receipt of a negative COVID-19 test, taken within 72 hours of arrival.

2. Book Covid tests for day 2 and 8 in the UK.

3. Complete a passenger locator form.

4. Self-quarantine in private accommodation for 10 full days after arrival (or full duration of stay if less than 10 days).

Last year we flew to Italy in the summer and back to the UK in the autumn and just required our standard passports and boarding passes in spite of the fact that both Italy and the UK were in the most desperate throes of the pandemic, far worse than now.

Shouldn’t these current precautions have been in place last year so that we could travel more easily (and safely) this year?

Anyway, there we are.

*

Home-coming

*

So near and yet so far in this strange year

like Ulysses will I see my birth’s isle

and sleep in the marriage bed with my dear

and sweetly dream forever and awhile?

*

Could I remember that road high-sea sprung

towards the enchanted path that led home?

Could I live liberated and unstung,

enveloped in the waves’ perennial foam?

*

I have left the lotus-eaters alone,

returned to be recognized by Argos

my faithful dog, by all the rest unknown

while the world hurls itself into chaos.

*

So be it but just let me hold your hand

and walk together to that golden land!

.

Florentine Facades

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There was a time when too many museums in Florence seemed stuck in a time warp: they were becoming museum pieces in themselves. There seemed to be no dynamic curatorship, few up-to-date guides, no provisions for children’s activities, no special events and the same rooms ‘under restoration’ since time immemorial.

The change since we first began visiting Florence in the 1980’s has been remarkable. There is a new awareness, a revaluation of the city’s extraordinary cultural heritage, management has been reorganized, and the introduction of digital technology for matters from bookings to virtual visits has changed everything. Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in the Museo dell’Opera Del Duomo, the museum dedicated to Florence’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. Completely renovated in 2015 it is one of the city’s most spectacular museums.

The entrance is through a spacious hall leading to a passageway with the names of those involved in building the cathedral carved on a wall.

We come face to face with Florence’s cathedral’s greatest treasure, the unfinished Michaelangelo Pietà now being restored. (I wish I could have seen the restorers at work).

We then enter a vast space where the original, uncompleted gothic facade of the Duomo has been reconstructed on a 1 to 1 scale.

A curator told me that this exhibit alone cost half the funds spent on the museum’s refurbishment. It was this facade that was torn down to be replaced, it was hoped, by a newly designed one. For almost four centuries this never occurred until in the nineteenth century there was final agreement on the present frontage as a result of a competition. Although clearly it would have been better if the original design had been completed the present facade is more suitable for a gothic building transitioning into the renaissance than the various abandoned baroque projects.

Why have so many churches in Florence (and, indeed, in Italy – Milan Cathedral’s front was only completed in the nineteenth century, for example) had problems in completing their facades. Of the great churches Santa Maria Novella is the only one with a frontage which was completed during the renaissance when Alberti built upon the uncompleted Romanesque section and finished it off with those graceful volutes which became a hallmark of many subsequent churches.

Santa Croce, the huge Franciscan church, only had its front added in the late nineteenth century. The two great Brunelleschi-designed churches of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito have no completed facades and Santa Maria del Carmine, with its great Masaccio frescoes, presents a similarly raw frontage.

What was the problem? Perhaps it’s because the facades were the last part of the churches to be built by which time funds could have run out, or perhaps styles may have changed in fashion and nobody could agree on how to complete the last part of their church.

A considerable part of the museum is devoted to this thorny issue as can be seen from the models of the facade designs submitted through the centuries before the present scheme was finally approved.

It’s significant to note that not all Italian cities have had this problem with their churches. For example, Siena, Orvieto and Spoleto completed their wonderful cathedral facades in gothic or early renaissance times.

Other sections of Florence’s museum house the original sculptures from Giotto’s bell-tower (the ones one sees on the campanile are reproductions).

Ghiberti’s miraculous doors of paradise are here too (again what one sees on the baptistery are copies).

A considerable part of the display is devoted to the revolutionary way Brunelleschi built the famous cupola without the use of centring form work or flying buttresses. The concept of a dome within a dome was one that Wren also took up when he came to build London’s St Pauls cathedral.

For me the most beautiful part of the museum was the section dealing with the cantorie or choir stalls for the cathedral. On one side is Luca Della Robbia’s design with its wonderful groups of angelic singers.

On the other side is Donatello’s more classical version. Both are quite exquisite.

Again there is a mystery for me here. Why were these beautiful features removed from the cathedral? Was it because choirs became larger and required more space which only the apse could supply? Or was it just a change in fashions. I do not even know when the cantorie were removed. Certainly the interior of Florence cathedral presents a somewhat bare appearance when compared, say, to the sumptuousness of Siena cathedral.

Because of the pandemic not all the building is open. There is a top floor viewing terrace which remains closed. However, there is so much to see and appreciate in this exemplary museum that I remained very pleased with my visit.

A Plague Church Resuscitated?

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Yesterday was  Italy’s first national  commemoration day in memory of its covid dead and Bagni Di Lucca was no exception in remembering this sad occasion with its own twenty nine  positive cases, four of which are in intensive care and its fifty quarantined families.

One year to the day when the shocking train of army trucks bearing the bodies of Bergamo Covid victims was shown on TV I passed the melancholy ruined shell of the former plague church of San Rocco located at the junction between the main Controneria road and the turn-off to the village of Vetteglia. San Rocco had been open for services until the 1970s when the Lucca bishopric declared the church redundant.  It was soon looted of its fitments and the weather did the rest.

I noticed this sign stuck on the facade:

Translated this notice, placed there by persons unknown last month, means.

“In this building which is no longer a church, why not make it into a meeting place for young people to be together and exchanges ideas and plans. From this more initiatives arise. If there are people who would like this to happen. let’s do it and invite local associations to join in. Covid will end. Life continues.”

Interestingly I’d thought about a similar use for this despoiled building when last year I wrote:

“I at least would feel inclined that to give thanks to the Almighty for eventually delivering us from the pandemic we could have the former church of San Rocco outside nearby Vetteglia and now in a ruinous condition memoralizing  this event and restored as a refreshment and information point for modern-day pilgrims to the extraordinarily beautiful area of the Controneria.”

I do hope something on this line can be done when things get back to as normal as I’m sure they will be before too long.

PS. In case you didn’t know San Rocco was invoked against the plague and, judging by the number of churches dedicated to him, was particularly venerated. Born in a noble family the saint gave his wealth to the poor and became a mendicant pilgrim. During his travels the town of Acquapendente became badly affected by the Black Death; Saint Roch stopped there and healed its victims by making the sign of the cross over them. He cured the sick of several other plague-ridden towns without catching the disease himself. However, when the saint reached Piacenza in northern Italy he fell victim and a fetid ulcer developed in his leg. So rank was its smell that people kept well away from him. Luckily a dog befriended Roch and brought him some food daily and even licked his ulcer clean. Hence St. Roch has also become the patron saint of dogs. So let’s have a refreshment point here for dog walkers and their pets too!

An Alpini Chapel

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At the top of Bagni di, Lucca`s volcanic hill providing the thermal waters feeding its baths is the charming hamlet of Colle.

From Colle, a narrow path leads through a grove of holm oaks.

One passes by an old stone cabin which, as two local vineyard keepers informed me, was where the German poet Heine, during his stay at Bagni, used to meet up with his ballerina girlfriend.

One then arrives at a circular building called “Rotonda del Colle”.

On this building is a plaque stating that it marks the site of the former castle of Corsena which was slighted (purposely demolished to put it out of action) by the Florentine army.

After the “Rotonda del Colle” one reaches the Chiesina degli Alpini built-in 1951.

The Alpini mountain infantry regiment with their characteristic black raven cap feather was founded in 1875 to protect the newly unified Italy`s northern alpine borders against the Austro-Hungarian empire.

In the First World War the Alpini distinguished themselves by fighting in an intransigent Alpine terrain of ice and snow. Indeed, to this day, especially with the results of global warming, frozen bodies of soldiers from that war are regularly being uncovered.

The Second World conflict brought even greater hardships (if that is possible) during the disastrous campaign against Russia. Sent to fight in the Caucasian mountains the Alpini found themselves instead in the Don river basin with inappropriate and inadequate equipment. Two Alpini regiments were completely wiped out and of a third only a tenth managed to return.

I had previously visited the little Alpini chapel to attend a service and remember meeting an Alpino who had taken part in that Russian campaign.

Once an Alpino always an Alpino. When soldiers leave active service they do not retire but remain `on leave` to form part of the ceremonial tenth Alpino regiment.

Today the Alpini continue their legendary presence by forming an important part of peacekeeping forces in such disturbed places as Afghanistan and the Middle East.

On the chapel, I noted a plaque with the Alpini prayer written by colonel Gennaro Soro and sent in a letter to his mother in 1935.

Here my translation of this prayer which is recited when Alpini gets together to socialize and commemorate their glorious history.

`On bare rocks, on perennial glaciers, on every crag of the Alps where providence has placed us as a faithful defence of our country, we, purified by dangerously fulfilled duty, raise our souls to You, O Lord, who protects our mothers, our wives, our distant children and brothers, and help us to be worthy of the glories of our ancestors.

Almighty God, who governs all elements, save us, armed as we are with faith and love. Save us from the relentless frost, from the whirlwinds of storms and the force of avalanches. Let our footrest safely on vertiginous crests, on precipitous mountain walls, on insidious crevasses. Make our weapons strong against anyone who threatens our homeland, our Flag, our millenary Christian civilization.

And You, Mother of God, whiter than snow, You who have known and experienced every suffering and every sacrifice of all fallen Alpini, you who know and gather every yearning and every hope of all the Alpini alive and in arms, bless and smile on our battalions and our groups. Amen.`

It was a lovely day for my walk; the peaceful atmosphere, the scattering of woodland flowers, the singing of the birds created a perfect haven for remembering those Alpini soldiers who have done so much to help preserve the peace of the troubled world we live in.

Mining Magnates of Tuscany

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I recently received a whatsapp message from my friend Giovanni Ranieri Fascetti, well regarded for his books on local history, his guardianship of the fortress of Vicopisano and his full moon conducted tours to the temple of Minerva. Giovanni and his partner have a property at Montecatini Val di Cecina, not to be confused with Montecatini Terme, and have become much involved in the history of this picturesque town.

The message attached a photo of the memorial plaque to Francesco Sloane who was instrumental in contributing the major part of funds required for the marble facade of Florence’s Santa Croce Church in the nineteenth century.

Sloane became rich by managing the Caporciano copper mine at Montecatini Val di Cecina for its Russian owner Count Dmitri Boutourline. Born as Francis Joseph Sloane to an expat Scottish family he bought the Medici Villa Careggi, part of the hospital where I had my heart operation last year, and got it restored by an architect called Niccolò Matas, the designer of the Santa Croce marble facade.

Another Russian family, the Demidoffs, employed the same architect to build for them the massive palazzo San Donato (not to be confused with the Villa Demidoff at Pratolino). The palazzo, badly damaged during World War Two and for long neglected, was restored in 2018 to its former glory by Florence City council.

Matas also restored Napoleons villa in Elba used by the Demidoffs as their holiday retreat. Matas designed many other buildings including the Porte Sante cemetery surrounding San Miniato sul Monte and it is here where, among other illustrious Florentines including Franco Zeffirelli, Francis Sloane lies buried. Matas himself is in Santa Croce. Bagni di Lucca has its Demidoff connection with the hospital which the great philanthropist had built and which is now an holistic well-being centre.

There is an interesting relationship between the Demidoff chapel at Bagni and the Demidoff chapel in Florence: with their round domed shape and columned porticoes they are both inspired by Rome's Pantheon.

I’m glad that my friend sent me that note about Sloane. It goes to demonstrate how interconnected people could be in the 19th century: Francis Sloane, the principal contributor to Santa Croce`s facade; Matas its designer and builder of the Demidoff palace and the strong connection between the great Russian family and Bagni di Lucca. As precursors of modern-day philanthropic magnates like Bill Gates and Elon Musk they show how they managed to give something back to the communities which had made them so rich in the first place. As Francis Sloane so aptly put it:

“We are not called to do extraordinary  things, but we are bound to do ordinary things extraordinary well.”

The Magic of Equi Terme

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I have translated the following article by our friend Giovanni Ranieri Fascetti, an authority on the area.

The article first appeared in ‘Toscana Today’ magazine, a very interesting publication dealing with Tuscan events, history and places. Here is the link:

Il segreto di Equi Terme

We love this area and have done many fine walks there. In addition, we have taken part in the living Christmas crib, described in the article, on several occasions. All photographs in the translation are mine.

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Equi Terme’s Secret

One can easily fall in love with Equi Terme. What is its secret? Is it the scenery with an abundance of rivers and streams or is it perhaps its inhabitants? Maybe it is the legends attached to EquI dating back into the mists of time. What is certain is that Equi is a special place and offers magical moments for everyone.

How many of you reading this have been to Equi? Many, certainly, have visited the living nativity crib, one of the most beautiful in Italy. It almost seems that the landscape has been specially chosen to create a town so that it would one day become the setting for a nativity scene. At a certain point the villagers chose St. Francis, who invented the Christmas crib representation at Greccio, as their patron.

When in 1986 some villagers decided to create a living nativity crib, they could never have imagined the success that  it would have. The influx of visitors during the four evenings of the Nativity scene reaches up to fifteen thousand persons. In the upper Lunigiana area, in Versilia and beyond, many places began to participate in this tradition. However, despite the competition, the beauty of the Equi living crib remains unsurpassed.

This village of stone houses clings to a steep rock face. Opposite is another very high almost vertical rock face. Eons ago the two were joined together to form a basin filled by a lake fed by a stream descending from the Pizzo d’Uccello mountain peak and by a source flowing from a cave.

This lake has produced a huge waterfall with a powerful beauty when the snows of the mountain melt or when it rains a lot in the Garfagnana. The water flow has caused the collapse of the rock wall revealing a cavity, the source of so much water known as “la Buca”. This crevasse in the rocks with its inspiring beauty releases a gentle flow of clear streams. Thunderstorms and heavy rains swell the underground rivers and the water from the Buca bursts out powerfully with a continuous roar.

The town has always remained tenaciously clinging to the rock face with some houses reaching to the edge of the stream near the Buca. These dwellings used to be mills grinding chestnuts and cereals and those crushing olives.

Equi crowns the valley of the shiny river whose waters, passing through the Aulella and the Aulla, reach the Magra river and from thence to the sea. From the sea, almost as if Neptune wanted to thank them for the gift of water, a temperate air climbs up the corridor of valleys reaching Equi softening the climate during winter. Here, around the Lucido valley, extensive terraces of olive trees are to be found and there is no shortage of vineyards producing distinctive wines like that of Monte dei Bianchi. In winter while the mountains that surround it are all white Equi is rarely covered with snow.

Arriving in Equi in autumn and winter – I recommend that visitors coming from Pisa, Lucca and Bagni di Lucca go by train on the Lucca-Aulla line – one has a vision of the town surrounded by a steamy mist arising from another torrent descending from Mount Ugliancaldo. This evocative steam comes from Equi’s thermal springs and is the origin of its name which derives from Latin ‘Aquae’ indicating the presence of a thermal source. The Roman structure came to light in the early twentieth century; Mrs Vinicia, the grand Lady of Equi now sadly departed, said that one could see the walls and floors of the rooms decorated with black and white mosaic tiles.

(Vinicia and Giovanni)

Equi is truly the Queen ruling the waters that in the Nativity setting with their sound, the waterfall’s noise at its foot and the steamy vapours play a decisive role in enhancing the area’s fascination. These streams give rise to the river called Lucido “because it never gets murky”. Where there is water there is life and in prehistoric times the area was rich in animals: bears would hibernate in the Tecchia, a cave next to the Buca.

A museum near the Equi caves tells us about these ancient events and also about the hunting of these animals by the first men.

Those who leave the town eastwards towards Ugliancaldo, can walk along the Via del Solco which winds through a ravine with vertical walls eroded over millions of years by the force of the waters. The path, of a unique picturesqueness, slips into long tunnels, dug by pickaxes when extraction of marble was first started at the foot of the Pizzo d’Uccello. At one point the path crosses a deep gorge on a bold single-arched stone bridge. After the last tunnel, one faces an amphitheatre made entirely of sparkling white marble which, although a wound inflicted by man in the mountain’s bowels, has all the drama that mining landscapes can sometimes inspire.

In the caves scattered at various heights along the Via del Solco, men from a tribe, well-defined culturally by the objects they used, laid the bodies of their dead. This neolithic human group is called “facies of Vecchiano”. But what does Vecchiano have to do with it?

Vecchiano is a town close to Pisa on the banks of the Serchio. In the caves of Vecchiano hill remains of individuals from the same tribe populating the mountains of Equi have been found. And here is visible the thousand-year-old, unwritten history of transhumance when shepherds followed the flocks that in the cold months left the Apuan area to come and graze in the Serchio, Arno and Era valleys. In the warm season the shepherds returned from the Maremma to the mountains.

Equi holds many stories, both ancient and more recent, and all always surprising. At the spa there is a small monument commemorating the engineer Carlo Tonelli (1855 – 1929). A native of Equi, after completing his studies at the Polytechnic of Turin, Carlo collaborated in Rome with the Mayor Ernesto Nathan in the planning of residential areas and parks that were to give the city the appearance of a modern European capital without distorting the complex and evocative context of historic districts. However, Carlo’s generous heart had not forgotten his native village and he dedicated his resources and skills to Equi’s economic development: the start of marble extraction, the creation of the thermal baths and the construction of the Hotel Radium with its very elegant art nouveau architecture. Tonelli finally conceived the project of getting the Lucca-Aulla railway line pass through Equi, contributing to the design of monumental architectural structures that recalled the grandeur of Roman imperial buildings. In a short time, Equi became an exclusive resort for the thermal holidays of the Roman nobility. Development smiled on the village and Carlo watched over and provided for all Equi’s needs, as when he took over its reconstruction after the 1920 earthquake that affected the area causing considerable damage to Casola, Ugliancaldo and Codiponte.

It was in Codiponte that Tonelli took care of the restoration of the Romanesque church, one of the most beautiful in the Apuan area.

One evening in 1926 Carlo Tonelli was returning with his gig from the town of Gragnola when he found the road blocked by blackshirts. The engineer understood that they were waiting for him and, raising his whip, exclaimed: “Get out of the way, you who have souls darker than your shirts!” Hit with batons he was left in agony on the roadway. Taken to Fivizzano hospital he died some hours later. Why was such ferocity towards such a generous man? I had guessed why and mentioned it in town. I was told it was not what I thought; in an Italy often gripped by taboos it is difficult to speak of Freemasonry but Ms. Vinicia, the dean of the town, who discreetly kept the secrets of the entire community of yesteryear said that the day after the engineer’s death Masonic insignia was found in his safe. After the approval of the law of 25 May 1925, with which the Prime Minister Benito Mussolini had banned Freemasonry in Italy, the engineer had kept alive the “Fiume Lucido” Lodge in Gragnola, thus challenging the Regime. Unfortunately, in the world there are those who build and those who destroy.

Those gentlemen wearing black shirts also provoked war and the war brought the occupation troops of the Third Reich who in the nearby village of Vinca made an unprecedented massacre of the people and then turned to Equi. They blew up every other house, even the house from which a paralytic could not get away. The inhabitants of Equi were shaking, hidden in the basement of the station. They trembled until the Germans hurried off after a comrade’s abdomen had been ripped apart by his own grenade.

Finally peace came and returned to the village, now made safe and sound. Vinicia’s husband, Giovanni, a handsome Sardinian financier, and she, as he had promised, made the path from Equi to the sanctuary of the wood, on top of the rocky ridges where the Madonna appeared to a shepherdess in 1600, who was on her bare knees on the stones of the mule track. Trade resumed, the Lupacino tunnel was inaugurated and trains finally began to run on the newly completed track from Lucca to Aulla and vice versa. Tourism developed. The living Nativity crib was born and the future seemed even brighter. However, more recently there has been an economic crisis, the abandonment of the mountains, an earthquake that caused considerable damage in the area, a lack of initiative by the administrators and finally, today the pandemic emergency. Despite all these difficulties, the inhabitants of Equi are resisting and look towards the futured The difficulty of life during past centuries, the river’s incessant flow, the changing of the seasons has taught them. They know how well the Czech people living along the Vltava River realize that “in this world nothing remains the same, the longest night is not eternal”. We wait with them and light will return, as every year, in January Candlemas occurs when, after months of shadow, sunlight filters again from the crests of the Pizzo d’Uccello  to illuminate the stream and announces the arrival of spring and summer.

 

Some of The World’s Most Beautiful Women…

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The Uffizi, along with Italy’s other national museums, was re-opened at the end of January. I could not resist going to Florence to pay a visit to one of my all-time favourite art galleries. Designed by Vasari as the Medici’s government offices the Uffizi incorporates perhaps the first comprehensive city street design. From the connecting portico at the end of its two arms there is one of the most memorable views of Florence.

 

And looking across from the other side this is what one sees.

 

In this case it was a river Arno boiling with mud brought down from the mountains as a result of the heavy rains we’ve been continually having. It is this sort of situation that caused the terrible floods in the autumn of 1966. Now, with the new overflow channels and improved weather forecasting let’s trust that these things never happen again to devastate one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

The delight of having one of the world’s greatest collections of renaissance paintings virtually all to myself as if it was my own private gallery was quite marvellous. The Uffizi was originally the Medici’s own personal collection  but in the eighteenth century it was opened to the citizens of Florence to create the world’s first public art gallery.

The Uffizi web site is very comprehensive and well designed. It’s at https://www.uffizi.it/en.

I’ve been to this treasury of all that’s finest in human artistic creation many times so I was wondering what new things would attract me on this visit. I noticed how the display of the Uffizi’s collection has improved considerably over the years; for example, there’s this room starting the museum’s itinerary and displaying the earliest Italian art, including the great Madonne by Duccio, Cimabue and the painter who changed the course of Italian art, Giotto.

The Botticellis remain ever sublime and are spaciously displayed. It was wonderful to be able to admire the great neo-platonic paintings of the Birth of Venus and the Primavera all by oneself!

I was astounded by the new Leonardo gallery and, in particular, by his ‘Adoration of the Magi,’ returned here after a seven-year restoration which has done so much to give back the freshness of this unfinished painting.

This is the painting before restoration:

And this is it after:

 

The adoration of the Magi remained unfinished because Leonardo got an irresistible invite to the court of Milan where, among other things, he painted his ‘Last Supper’. It was left to Filippino Lippi to paint a properly finished version for his commissioners. This painting is also in the Uffizi:

 

Two things in the Uffizi particularly struck me this time.

First, the wonderful representations of nature details in so many paintings. Surely landscape art starts here as part of the background to religious themes. Perhaps the painters, having to depict their sacred subjects according to strict ecclesiastical rules, let themselves go in these beautiful scenarios where they were able to introduce Tuscan landscapes and further display their descriptive skills.

Second, the sublime beauty of the Madonne. These endearing women must have been clearly based on the beauty of the models the painters took from the best-looking women of renaissance Florence. What love affairs and physical adoration must have lain behind these stunning faces!

 

Each one of us will have their favourites but I was particularly transfixed by this face painted by the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina. I just had to fall in love with her!

But then one falls in love with so much of Italian art. It is just beyond value!

Here is another selection of the photos I took of the  paintings:

The Uffizi museum is open from Tuesday to Friday only. To be absolutely sure of getting admission it might be worth booking ahead. Certainly if the tourist season starts in earnest pre-booking is essential. I could just turn up and got my ticket at 12 euros which is 4 euros less than if you book it.

A caveat. If one is a lover of seventeenth century painting including the Dutch school then one in for a disappointment. Only half of the Uffizi is open. So no Caravaggios or Rembrandts!

However, surely to be able again to see the Botticellis, the Michelangelos, the Raphaels and the Leonardos is more than adequate compensation for those of us who, in this continuing world health crisis, have been starved of museums and art galleries for so long…

 

Malta’s Old Capital

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Before La Valletta became Malta’s capital in the 16th century the island’s capital was Mdina, Arabic for ‘walled city’ but known in Italian as ‘La Notabile’. Situated in the centre of the island it makes a welcome change from the busy life of La Valletta and entering inside the town’s austere Arab walls we found it very pleasant to wander through quiet, almost deserted streets lined with several noble mansions.

The cathedral of Saint Paul is Mdina’s most ‘Notabile’ building. Mediaeval in origin it was completely reconstructed after a major earthquake in the late seventeenth century whose epicentre was at Noto in Sicily.  Saint Paul now presents an elegant baroque appearance which is not unduly fussy.

We also visited the cathedral’s museum with its rich collection of ecclesiastical vestments and paintings.

Malta has a total of 359 churches in a country with a population of just 514,564 inhabitants. Most of these buildings have something of interest distinguishing them. Clearly it would be impossible to see them all. However, of the handful that we visited we remember the following as outstanding:

The parish church of the Assumption (Mosta Rotunda) – Mosta.

St John’s co-cathedral – Valletta (already described in my previous posts on Malta).

The Collegiate Parish Church of St Paul’s Shipwreck – Valletta. Here are some of our photos of this lovely baroque building in La Valletta.

Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul – Mdina (described in this post).

Here is a useful list of some of the best Maltese churches:

9 Of Malta’s Most Beautiful Churches

As a young lad I collected stamps and was particularly proud of my Commonwealth collection especially the section on Malta. In the definitive series of Queen Elizabeth II stamps was this one showing the Mosta Rotunda. It had always been my ambition to visit it and finally I did!

Mosta Rotunda church was built in the 19th century to a design by the Maltese architect Giorgio Grognet de Vassé who believed that his island was a remnant of the great kingdom of the now underwater Atlantis. Its dome, with a diameter of 37 metres, is reckoned to be the fourth largest in Europe and the ninth largest in the world. Clearly inspired by Rome’s Pantheon the building was completed in 1860.

We found the rotunda’s interior very noble with its neo-classical style. The religious devotion of the Maltese must be truly intense to have been able to raise funds in their little island for such a magnificent church.

Malta is strictly speaking the name given to just the larger of its two main islands. We still had to take the ferry to Gozo, the other island, and discover its very special charms harking back to pre-package holiday times…

Popeye Lives in Malta

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‘Know what’s on the telly tonight?’ said excitedly a classmate at my primary school.’ ‘No, what?’ I answered. ‘Popeye!’ he exclaimed. I wondered who this Popeye was since I had never heard of him before. That evening I watched my first Popeye cartoon and immediately fell in love with the brazen, sometimes ingenuous but always triumphant character that had to constantly fight it out with Bluto the bully for the affection of Olive Oyl and with his can of spinach at the last moment helping him to win the day.

Fast-forward to 1980 and Popeye appeared on the big screen at our local Odeon in the guise of Robin Williams as the indomitable sailor man and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, his scatter-brain woman.

It was the wonderful Robin Williams’ first major film role and yet I was not unduly taken by it. I couldn’t understand a musical where the songs were so unmemorable, a plot which seemed so inconsequential and a dialogue which appeared to be largely the sailor’s incomprehensible mumblings.

The best thing about the film for me was the picturesque setting of Sweethaven the seaside fishing village where the drama was played out.

We were motoring along the southern Maltese coast when, suddenly, we came across what seemed to be an attractive fishing village.

It was Sweethaven, the film set for ‘Popeye’ and appears to have been built in a much longer-lasting way than most other film sets causing the film-making budget to increase alarmingly to twenty million dollars. (In fact, the film recouped its costs making almost three times as much).

Constructed film sets are by definition evanescent articles. True, when actual places are used then they will attract visits. Goodness knows how often the two major historic buildings in our part of London have been used for shooting films. The Royal Naval College appears, for example, in the version of ‘The Bounty’ starring Anthony Hopkins and much of the TV series ‘Porterhouse Blue’ takes place in Charlton house.

Despite its supposed schmaltzy connotations, Sweethaven turned out to be a fun experience. In fact, a really sweet one.   We enjoyed visiting the village’s pseudo-nineteenth century north-west American coastal architecture and found the museum exhibits on the making of the film and the history of Popeye himself fascinating. We were also entertained by the show depicting Popeye and Olive Oyl’s wedding and even joined in and were immortalized in the film that was taken of it!

Our visit to Sweethaven reminded us that Malta’s heritage is not only baroque fortifications and Neolithic temples but also involves its location for feature films. For example, ‘Gladiator’ (Oliver Reed, the owner of the gladiator school in the film, died after a drinking binge in Valletta’s ‘The Pub’), the ‘Da Vinci code’, and several James Bond films, including ‘Never say Never’, were all shot in Malta. There’s a more complete list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Malta

Popeye sang “I yam what I yam an’ tha’s all I yam”. He also uttered “That’s all I can stands, ’cause I can’t stands no more!” which is what a lot of us feel at the moment regarding a major world health crisis! That’s why it’s so nice to hark back to our visits before the world changed for ever and when the great Robin Williams was still alive.

May the spirit of Popeye live in all of us during these hard times!