Last Sunday’s concert in Borgo a Mozzano’s “il bello e il buono” series took place in the town of Diecimo which, as its name implies, is ten Roman miles north of Lucca. As an added bonus we were treated before the event to a guided tour of the town’s remarkable Romanesque pieve (parish church) by Silvia Valentini, an estate agent and local historian.
Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the church was begun in the twelfth century by order of the Countess Matilde di Canossa (see my post on this remarkable mediaeval woman, who was also responsible for our area’s distinctive Devil’s bridge or Ponte della Maddalena, at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/borgo-a-mozzanos-matilde/) .
(Our recent ‘piena’ on the Serchio)
The church, which consists of a nave, two aisles and a large semi-circular apse, is built of local dark-hued limestone blocks.
Above its entrance door is a beautiful carved lintel which our guide suggested represents the parable of the Vineyard. (See Matthew, Chapter 20, verses 1 to 6).
I particularly liked the little carvings on the apse cornice and a distinctive ‘ocular’ window. Be aware, too, that the lower of the two entrances of the campanile lead into the town gaol.
Next to the nave stands the imposing bell tower, with its characteristic succession of single, bifurcate, trifurcate and quadrifurcate windowed stages.
The pieve’s stately interior has sculptures dating from the first half of the thirteenth century.
There’s a bas-relief depicting the prophet Isaiah, two column-bearing lions and a capital with eagles.
The sad thing is that these sculptures are all that remain of a pulpit which was once on the same scale as that which can still be admired in Barga cathedral. The eighteenth century was not so appreciative and the pulpit, (or ambo as it’s technically known as), was crudely dismantled and largely dispersed.
I absolutely adore these lions: one is seen attacking the evil monster hydra:
The other is fending off an attack from a heretic who is trying to stab its throat with a dagger.
Clearly the lions are symbols of the Church Triumphant.
Other sculptures include a thirteenth-century hexagonal baptismal font demonstrating that once Roman Catholic baptism meant complete immersion – still practised by some Christian denominations to this day (e.g. the Baptists and the Church of Latter Day Saints).
There’s an outstanding Roman sarcophagus adorned with lion masks:
There’s also this strange slab depicting a knight almost hidden behind a large shield and locally known as King Pepin. Silvia theorised with regard to two odd features of this sculpture
One, it’s not that the knight is a dwarf but that the horse merely carries, as was the wont of the times, the helmet of the dead knight in a funeral procession. It’s rather like the British army’s tradition of mounting a dead warrior’s boots upside down in the stirrups.
Two, the lower part of the slab was quickly finished off by an apprentice, hence its clumsy appearance. Perhaps the knight had lost favour or his descendants failed to finish paying for the monument?
After this enjoyable and instructive visit we made our way towards the birth-house of Diecimo’s local hero, Saint Giovanni Leonardi, passing his recently-erected statue near the churchyard on the way.
San Leonardi was the youngest of seven children born to artisan parents in Diecimo. Aged seventeen, he began a ten-year study to become a certified pharmacist’s assistant in Lucca. Later, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572.
Among Leonardi’s achievements was to gather a group of volunteers to work in hospitals and prisons. He was also an important contributor to the devotional movement known as the Counter-Reformation and took much interest in the Council of Trent reforms as a result of which he founded a congregation of secular priests, the Lucca fathers, which still exists to this day under the name ‘Congregation of the Mother of God”.
Indeed, our host at San Giovanni Leonardi’s house, padre Francesco Petrillo, is a member of this order which has in recent years returned to minister at its founder’s birthplace.
He displayed to us the sweet presepi or Christmas cribs in the pieve’s sacristy which he makes himself and sells to boost church funds.
Padre Petrillo also showed us the precious collection of saintly reliquaries containing the bones of various martyrs.
There’s much more to say about San Giovanni Leonardi: his resilient personality and his friendship with Saint Philip Neri (without whom London would not have had its Brompton oratory), for example.
Leonardi was made a saint in 1938 by Pope Pius XI; his liturgical feast is celebrated on October the 9th and his relics lie in the church in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome. Diecimo, however, has the honour of his birthplace and housing a museum dedicated to him:
Not surprisingly, Saint Giovanni Leonardi is the patron saint of chemists given his long career in this occupation. (I wonder how many Boots assistants know that…)
The fourth concert of the musical season promoted by the Borgo a Mozzano’s Salotti music school was an absolute treat. ..I don’t think I’ve been so enveloped by guitarists: the room was small and I was triphonically surrounded by the players. No problem, the music was brilliantly performed (and with acoustic guitars there’s no problem of anything being too loud).
The Lydian Guitar Trio is formed by Nicola Fenzi, Dario Atzori and Giacomo Brunini (the artistic director of the festival) and the programme ranged from the classical period to the present day with music by Filippo Gragnani, Astor Piazzolla, Paul Hindemith, and contemporary composers Antonio Gabriele Martinique and Luca Guidi. It was particularly enjoyable to have living composers in the packed room introducing their music and they could have had no better set of musicians to perform their adventurous offerings.
The encore was a repeat of one of four beautiful Basque tunes; it was truly an utterly memorable way to spend a somewhat intemperate evening.
If you are a Fornolian try not to miss next Sunday’s concert, on the first of December, which will take place at 5 pm in Fornoli’s parish church. It’ll be presented by our journalist in resident and master of ceremonies Marco Nicoli and is sure to be another delectable way to spend a late autumn afternoon.
