Category Archives: Italy

Amaretti: Bitter-Sweets

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During my days in Italy as a child I used to love it when my grandfather placed a tin box of ‘Amaretti di Saronno’ biscuits on the dinner table for dessert. He would unroll the rice paper wrapping two hemispheric amaretti and we’d be handed the delicious biscuits. My grandfather then spooled the very thin tissue paper into a tube and placed it on a plate. He lit the paper which, consumed by the flames, rose up towards the room’s ceiling. We expressed a wish and if the paper touched the ceiling our wish was supposed to be fulfilled. I was utterly transfixed by these pyrotechnics and the paper’s defiance of gravity … even if my wishes were rarely granted.

In these bitter-sweet times the Italian pastry biscuit made with almond paste, sugar, egg white and sweet and bitter almonds known as ‘amaretto’ (sometimes translated as ‘macaroon’ in English) continues to make the perfect dessert. The word ‘amaretto’ translates as ‘little bitter’. I am not entirely sure whether this means that the biscuit is small in size or whether the biscuit has a slightly bitter taste.  Perhaps both.

The Amaretti di Saronno with their famous paddle steamer logo are the classic and best-tasting amaretti. A box of these amaretti even appears in a scene from the film ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’!

There are, however, several amaretti regional variants. Apart from the crunchy and crumbly Saronno amaretto there is the Sassello-type amaretto, soft and more comparable to marzipan. In our local Penny discount store I found these Sassello-type amaretti made in Mombaruzzo, a town near Asti in Piedmont, in which, in addition to the usual ingredients – sweet and bitter almonds, egg white and sugar – are armellines, the seeds contained in the apricot’s kernel, which give the amaretti a hint of bitter taste mixing with the usual sweet one.

As a sufferer of ‘biscuititis’ – a disease which can be defined as an addiction to the eating of biscuits (and not knowing when to stop!) – I love both of these types of amaretti.

Actually the amaretto does not originate from Italy but was introduced by the Arabs during their conquest of Sicily in the ninth century. From thence it spread throughout the peninsula. Well done Arabs- If your physical conquest lasted less than a hundred years your culinary one continues to the present times.

Amaretti go very well dipped in dessert wines like Pantelleria. They are also delicious with peaches and tiramisu where they can replace the Savoyard biscuits.

However, amaretti are sometimes also mixed with salty dishes.  In Lombardy they are often used for particular fillings, such as pumpkin tortelli, or crumbled as a substitute for grated cheese in some vegetable dishes and in Piedmont they are one of the ingredients of the Piedmontese mixed fry, together with apples and sweet semolina pancakes.

Incidentally, the Italian word ‘biscotto’, from which we get the English ‘biscuit’, means ‘twice cooked’ and derives from the method in which biscuits are produced.  I’d certainly prefer these twice-cooked than those half-baked dishes served during these weird times!

Don’t forget that there is also a great liqueur called Amaretto di Saronno. Like many recipes based on almonds, it is of ancient tradition and has its origins in 1500. In the city of Saronno a fresco depicting the Madonna and the Adoration of the Magi was commissioned to the painter Bernardino Luini. The fresco is still visible today in the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Miracles. Legend has it that during the time the painter was in Saronno he was staying at an inn whose landlady was so beautiful, that he fell in love to the point of using her as a model for his Madonna.

(Luini’s fresco in Saronno)

To thank him, she offered him an elixir of herbs, toasted sugar, bitter almonds and brandy which was immediately appreciated. This liqueur, therefore, has always kept a meaning of affection and friendship.

Who launched the modern version of this liqueur in the United Kingdom? Clement Freud. My wife was the interpreter, the perfect model for a Luini Madonna, even as a teenager!

 

A Snowy Fish Friday

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On Fridays we eat fish – at least we do in our household and, as it seems so many others do the same. For example, over a quarter of all fish and chips eaten in the UK are sold on a Friday.

What is the association of fish with Friday? As someone brought up as a Roman Catholic the answer is easy. Jesus died on Good Friday and the church decided to commemorate this by cutting out any meat dishes on that weekday. Moreover, there is a symbolic association between Christ and fish. The Greek word for fish, “ichthys”, was turned by Christians into an acrostic: Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter, i.e. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour and the fish was used as an indication that there was a Christian congregation nearby as is especially seen if one visits a Roman catacomb.

The king of England, Henry VIII, with his great schism from Rome removed the importance of eating fish on Friday as he disliked the Romish connection of this custom. However, in more recent years, thanks also to advertising campaigns from the UK’s leading supermarkets, fish Friday has come back into fashion in the UK.

For me it did not matter too much being cut off from visiting the fish fry boats of Viareggio because of the harsh winter weather. After two days of snow and sleet, blue skies and crisp air announced a very special fish Friday for me. I decided to use the ample layer of snow on our outside table to prepare a slightly frugal but still delicious fish lunch. At least the fish was frozen fresh!

The first course consisted of prawn in mayonnaise sauce.

The second course introduced salmon, with lettuce condiment and lemon juice.

The third course was a tuna, tomato puree and caper (our own capers) mix.

All this was served with our home-baked bread and a bottle of Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

Desert consisted of a Ferrero Rocher chocolate which I like to call an Auroville mini-mandir because of its similarity to the religious building in the centre of south India’s Auroville where we stayed just four years ago. (Of course, there was no snow on the tables there!).

My meal is no longer to be called a rustic variant of ‘nouvelle cuisine’ but is a completely different type of eating experience coming under the title of ‘cuisine neigeuse’. La cuisine neigeuse should always be served on a table well-coated with snow to preserve the freshness of the food and excite the eating experience

Just a word of warning. Ensure that no felines are lurking about as they too enjoy a fish meal!

Finally, every good square meal should be rounded with a sunlit siesta in order to avoid that flat feeling…

A Sad Day for Europeans

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Today is a sad day, weather-wise, politically, socially and culturally. Weather-wise, because it hasn’t stopped raining, hailing and sleeting for the past week.

Politically, because the UK is going to be in practice as well as in theory (it was supposed to be the latter last January) out of the European Union.  Socially, because, freedom of movements for Brits will have been removed in the EU. No freedom to work where you want to. No freedom to live where you want to. No freedom to love where you want to. In effect, a whole citizenship has been removed from us holders of those British passports which up to now had also comprised European citizenship. Culturally, because teacher and student exchanges throughout the union in the Comenius and Erasmus programmes, from which I too have benefitted, and the cooperation of artistic bodies from orchestras to theatres will be made so much more difficult.

But was the UK ever part of the EU? Was it ever part of their continent? Geologically yes. Until 6500 BC there was no physical separating between the UK and the rest of the European continent. Global warming largely caused the separation, especially when the great glaciers of the most recent Ice Age started to melt. A giant tsunami caused by landslides in Scandinavia cut the British Isles off from the rest of Europe. It was yet another effect of climate change and another vindication that politics are closely related to, indeed influenced by climate.

(The British Isles getting cut off from the rest of Europe in 6500 BC)

However, the appearance of the English Channel (known as ‘la Manica’ – the sleeve in Italian – no mention that it is ‘English’ here) did not stop those in the Italian peninsula from invading the UK. The period of Roman occupation was, in the opinion of many, a time of great opportunity for Brits. They learnt new skills; they became part of the largest western empire the world has known. They became civilized – a difficult word to define as even Lord Kenneth Clark had to admit.  Brits learnt to live in cities.  

(At the British-Roman city of Uriconium a few years ago)

They learnt the benefits of under-floor central heating (indeed UK houses have never been so warm since). They learnt the benefits of having regular baths and keep-fit centres – something which has only recently returned to full capacity in that Roman Spa aptly known as Bath. Brits even became literate – a skill which has sadly become lost to too many of its inhabitants today.

(Sandra at Bath a few years ago)

For over four hundred years the UK prospered under Roman governance which was in many aspects a precursor of the EU in terms of its tolerance, equal workers’ rights (give or take a few slaves) and multicultural immigration policy with Roman citizens settling in Britain from many parts of the Empire.[ Indeed, there arose a distinctive Roman-British culture which had a great influence in improving such areas as agriculture, urban planning, industrial production and architecture.

All this changed with the barbarian invasions. Not quite as quickly as many archaeologists used to think but enough, rather like the Tory party’s ERG to irreparably damage Romano-British culture.

By the Middle Ages, however, the UK had been restored to a position of prime importance in the continent of Europe. Indeed, some of the best works of art there came from Britain. ‘Opus Anglicanorum’ (English Needlework) was particularly sought after, especially for ecclesiastical vestments and furnishings.

(Opus anglicanorum at Pisa’s cathedral museum)

Regrettably, the best of this work only survives on the continent since most of it in the UK was destroyed in one of the worst disasters to occur to any civilization: a catastrophe equal to the demolition of Montezuma’s Aztec civilization by the Spanish conquistadores or the obliteration of historical mosques and ancient Hellenistic monuments by Daesh.

(Tintern abbey when I photographed it as a schoolboy)

This disaster was, of course, the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 by the bestial King Henry VIII. Under the con that the riches of the monasteries were to be redistributed to the feudal peasants the only real beneficiaries were the lords and barons of the king’s court. It was very much in parallel to the swindling of the common man by Brexit where the recipients will be the rich, owners of hedge funds, off-shore accounts and tax-evaders who will become even richer while the rest of the populace will be deprived of even their basic workers’ rights and removed from the EU’s generous welfare policies to deprived areas. To illustrate one example of how big this con has been just look at the county of Cornwall where the majority of Cornish, already dispossessed of their native Celtic language, which was banned from being taught or even uttered in schools, voted for Brexit but are now complaining that their EU subsidies have been withdrawn and replaced by a pittance from Westminster instead.

I need not continue any further. It will be for future generations to repair the damage done by the present thugs of Westminster and hopefully restore the UK as an integral, indeed a leading partner, of the EU. Sadly, I fear I may not live long enough to witness this but on my heart shall always be inscribed the word ‘Europe’.

Of Tipples and Tinctures

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What’s your favourite tipple? This is quite a topical question, especially since Christmas is just round the corner. We can’t be locked down from a drink with one other person surely?

In recent years there has been a resurgence of gin drinking, especially in London where the juniper-flavoured potion started being distilled in the seventeenth century after being introduced by the Dutch. A G & T seems to be a traditional introduction to an evening’s entertainment in many circles and certainly there are some interesting brands around: Bombay Sapphire, for example, an echo of the Raj if there ever was one. For me, however, gin is unbearably connected with ‘1984’ and Winston’s last drink at the Chestnut Tree café after he has been tortured and brain-washed to love Big Brother.

“Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafe.”

Gin also has horrendous connotations with Hogarth’s engraving of Gin Lane where one sees the effects of the drink among which can be espied  infanticide, madness, disease, starvation and suicide.  For example, there’s that syphilitic woman throwing her child down the steps at the bottom of which is a figure reduced skeletally by the effects of the beverage.

If it was

“Drunk for a penny

Dead drunk for two pence”

I would add “dead for threepence”

Dickens, of course saw that gin was not the primal cause why people were reduced to such wretched states. He writes:

“Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance that, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour”.

Plus ca change!

Compare all this with the healthy humans in Hogarth’s parallel engraving of Beer Street where commerce and good company thrive. It’s almost as if the unhealthy tinctures of the continent are contrasted with honest healthy English beers.

Of course, I agree there’s nothing to beat a pint of ‘Nelson’s Blood’ brewed in Chatham, the dockyard where HMS Victory was built. It’s one of the few things that would make me return to a post-brexit UK.

Whisky and soda is OK although I prefer to drink whisky by itself, preferably from a hip flask that anyone venturing across the Highland heathers is advised to take as an essential part of their survival equipment.

I’ve tried Vodka a few times but the way it has turned me into a psychopath is frightening. No wonder Russia has the one of the highest records of domestic violence.

No, none of these would really satisfy me except for my two favourites. Not Rum and coke (I just don’t like coke that much and its taste reminds me of some tooth eroding disinfectant) but rum with a fruit juice like pineapple and coconut.

Now that’s a really sunshine drink prompting memories of wonderful holidays passed in Antigua, Saint Lucia and Saint Maarten. And particularly, in Cuba where, naturally, it is closely associated with that other fabulous snifter the Mojito, Hemingway’s favourite tipple, made with the best rum, brown sugar, lime, soda and mint. A mojito is a cocktail no-one could possibly be without, especially during these somewhat trying times.

In Italy my favourite pick-me-up is Campari and Soda which a friend calls their ‘happy drink’. Quite right too! Obtained from the infusion of bitter herbs, aromatic plants and fruit in a mixture of alcohol and water, it has an intense aroma and a ruby red colour.

This awesome drink was developed in a small bar in Novara by Gaspare Campari in 1860 who then moved to Milan a couple of years later.  The (secret) Campari recipe has remained unchanged ever since.

Campari Soda was launched in 1932: with that famous conical bottle designed by the futurist artist Fortunato Depero.

His advert designs for the drink are equally original.

I hope that you’ll have a respectable amount of your favourite tincture this Christmas. It’ll keep us company if nothing else and is a better cure for the blues than any psychotherapeutic session and (in most cases) a lot cheaper.

Now as for Italian wines …but I’d better keep this post short before I become too thirsty!

 

 

What is next…

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What a strange approach to Christmas we are experiencing!

In the Christian calendar it is called Advent but I have never felt an Advent like this. No living cribs, no presepi, no Christmas markets. Not even a lovely Christmas carol concert such as we experienced  in Southwark cathedral a couple of years ago with my own school and also at the Convento del Angelo.

Indeed, what a strange year is drawing to its weird close. Unwelcome? To be thrown out like a pet’s mischief on our kitchen floor? No certainly not! We should be grateful for every day of life we have been given on this planet (which a few ignorant megalomaniacs are still attempting to destroy). No, we should be appreciative to have reached this far and to have had the resilience to live through the most life-changing epoch so many of us have experienced.

I certainly do not believe in the axiom that this year is a write-off. Absolutely not! How can we write off the time that we have lived? Indeed, as every day in our lives teaches us something and imparts a  parable, so this year should be a huge lesson for us all. A lesson principally of the definition, of the adventure into our own humanity.

I have been so used in a custom-built community like village Italy to look forwards to the next big event whether it be ‘la Befana’ or the ‘Carnevale’ (at least we were present at the last ‘normal’ event we experienced at Viareggio’s carnival this February), at the events of the ecclesiastical year: Easter, Marian May, Ferragosto, and the local events of our mountain community reflecting the agricultural year: the Fornoli harvest commemorations, the chestnut festivals, the great fiestas of Gallicano and so, so much more. Even the intellectual occasions: the annual De Montaigne festschrift for academics, the theatre season, and the wonderful concerts our talented musicians are able to muster up for us. All gone, all gone with the wind, all cancelled with nothing in our calendar dates to remind us of what might have been and all that has passed. No markers, no alarm calls, no days to tick off the calendar. No hugs, no hand-shaking, no kissing, no warmth of human contact. Yet ever, ever, invisible loving, even illicit, behind social distancing and masques. It is almost like wearing a watch without hours or minutes to tell the time.

What remains then? The planet, around its solar parent, the seasons, the advent of hopeful spring, the ecstatic heights of summer, the reflective season of autumn and now, in the depth of winter, the approach to the longest night, the vigil of Saint Lucy… and the snows on our Apennine peaks. Yes, let us relate to ourselves to the seasons, so disparate in England where my continental friends say that all four can occur in single day. Let us return back to the cycle of nature. Let us remember  the environment. Embrace her with all the love we can possibly give with our tiny mortal incapable selves. Let us listen to the call of bird-song, feel the crunch of falling leaves, revel in the ending warmth of setting rays on our cheek, observe the inescapable changing of our sphere, regain our innermost strength, and just live for one second in eternal ecstasy and joy!

A Modelling Career

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The combination of seemingly unstoppable rain for almost a fortnight now combined with our drastic cut to social life thanks to covid and the predictably disastrous end to the biggest con executed upon the British people since the dissolution of the monasteries – I refer, of course, to the no-deal – may drive some of the more susceptible of us  to drink and despair and the less susceptible to spend more time on personal leisure activities whether these be the exploration of the more abstruse passages of the Kama Sutra or other exotic practises to develop the mind and other parts.

I’ve tended to find that a nice way to get one’s mind off the present calamitous world situation (actually hasn’t any world situation since the end of the last Ice Age been calamitous) is to take to modelling. No, not for Vogue, not even to photograph some alluring siren on the cat walk – I’ve my own felines to do that. Here’s one I did in marquetry some years back:

But, instead, to indulge in a hobby I have enjoyed on and off since my earliest days: that of making miniatures of buildings or modes of transport or animals using a variety of materials.

For wood there’s my vague Sopwith camel imitation.

Sandra may probably manage to come over here on this cardboard version of a monoplane:

Of buildings this will probably be the closest I’ll get to owning a castle.

The nice thing about it is that the keep slides off to reveal the inner sanctum of the lordly habitation complete with treasure chest and minstrels.

Of course, the ancient Romans were more laid back with one of their villas here, complete with triclinium and Arcadian arbour.

As for Lucca’s mediaeval times I’ve managed to piece together this miniaturised version of the Guinigi tower. Making it from a pre-printed postcard was really too small for comfort.

I love my prehistoric and not so prehistoric animals: our planet’s denizens if it goes on any further like this might soon join them

Our bathroom is not exempt from this activity although it tends to concentrate more on fluorescent jigsaws and plastic fish.

Of models that actually work I’ve this variety of gliders. When younger I used to have great fun making them with the more sophisticated Keil Kraft gliders (remember them?).

I love messing about in boats (having obtained a RYA certificate in the Thames waters):

And cutting cute woodland book ends have been my pride and joy.

There’s nothing to beat a typical English nineteen thirties semi. Here are a couple I’ve completed for nostalgia’s sake.

My finest model is not on show. Regrettably it got lost in transit from the UK to Italy many years ago

I’d spent ages on the cardboard version of one of Spain’s most fabulous buildings; the King’s palace of Escorial. I’d even fitted it up with interior lights and with loudspeakers to transmit the motets of that greatest of Hispanic renaissance composers Tomas Luis de Victoria. I also added a bit of Soler who was also resident at the palace, played exquisitely by friend Gilbert Roland who has recorded every one of his amazing sonatas. Who knows where this model is now? Not even the company that supplied me the parts for its construction is in existence any more. ‘Sic transit…

At least my Victorian house remains. It has proved most useful in my English lessons to Italian children. They all now know what upstairs/downstairs means…and as for counterpanes,

This chap is a frenetic jazz drummer I picked up in pieces from a fabulous wood modelling centre in Wales at Timberkits models in the heart of beautiful mid wales. Our drummer will shortly have a double bass player to keep him company. Just turn their Handels and hear the sounds that come out.

There is a pile of Airfix-type models I still have to piece together. If the bloody pandemic carries on like this I, might well have to complete further warships and tanks in order to fight the world’s injustices

Anyway the best modelists are Italians both in the wonderful way the world’s most beautiful girls do the cat walk with the world’s most gorgeous dresses and with the presepi or cribs which every Christmas tide grace Italian churches and streets. Sadly this year there will be so much fewer of them around but I will still attempt to hunt out those that are on display. At least my one poor effort, cobbled from some ready-made ones, and my own additions will grace the mantelpiece on top of our fire this Christmastide.

And, by the way, with all the snow that’s happened and the extra we are promised we cannot do without this little multi-coloured snowman I also recently put together.

Tiepolo in Milan (and lots more)

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Milan has for me always been the Italian city with the greatest significance. My mother’s parents lived there and for some of my early life I was brought up by them in their top-most flat situated on the Piazza Duca D’Aosta fronting that grandiloquent display of neo- Assyrian architecture which is Milan’s central station.

This is a bird’s eye view of the flat showing that it is the only one with a terrace in that block. I note that on the north side of the terrace some greenery has been added.

It was on this terrace that I would enjoy my ‘tinned’ baths:

My grandparents, however, were not originally Milanese. My grandmother was born in Turin and my grandfather spent his early days at the naval port of La Spezia where his father was a carabiniere. My mother, however, was born in Milan and lived in Via San Marco where, in the local church, Verdi’s Requiem received its first performance on May 22nd 1874, exactly one year after the death of its dedicatee, Alessandro Manzoni, author of ‘I Promessi Sposi’, better known in English as ‘The Betrothed’ and Italy’s seminal novel, not only because it is so engrossingly written but because it set the pattern for modern Italian prose writing.

Although Milan was a city I lived a considerable part of my early life it was only later that I began to appreciate its artistic wonders, some of which are the most extraordinary in the whole of Italy.

Yet Milan is not a city to immediately attract the visitor’s eye unlike places like Venice, Perugia, Naples, Florence and Genoa, for, in the midst of its modern architecture, Milan does not present a characteristic Italian mediaeval historical centre, although it does have many mediaeval buildings, including one of Europe’s finest gothic cathedrals and one of the most imposing castles in the peninsula.

This lack of immediate beauty in Milan is because of three main reasons.

First, there was considerable nineteenth century redevelopment in an ambitious attempt to bring the rapidly growing industrial and commercial centre up to date with other European cities. Milan remains Italy’s and one of Europe’s financial hubs. Indeed, the city of London’s Lombard Street is evidence of how much Milanese finance became a component of England’s capital city. Part of this rebuilding included, as in Florence, the demolition of the old city walls, the ‘bastioni’, leaving just the gates which give their names to Milan’s main areas.

(The ‘bastioni’ of Porta Venezia)

Here is one of the gates remaining. It’s Porta Nuova, one of the earliest photos I took with my then new Bencini Comet II camera.

(My early picture of Porta Nuova)

Second, Milan was very heavily bombed during World War II (especially during 1943-4) and lost several characteristic streets and many noble palazzi. Although some famous buildings were restored – among the first was the city’s world-famous opera house, ‘Teatro alla Scala’: its reconstruction pleaded for by the great conductor Arturo Toscanini who knew how its restoration would contribute to raising Milanese  morale. – others unfortunately disappeared for ever; for example the wonderful palazzo Archinto behind the Duomo, the cathedral, with its ceilings frescoed by Tiepolo.

This sad fact I discovered by exploring Milan with a pre-war guide to the city published by the Italian Automobile Club.  I had thought the palazzo was still standing but, instead a new office building had risen in its place. One of the employees kindly showed me black-and-white photographs of the magnificent frescoes Milan had lost thanks to the sorties of the liberating US flying fortresses.

Happily, however, several other palazzi with gorgeous Tiepolo frescoes still stand in Milan.

Palazzo Isimbardi, Milan’s Town Hall:

Tapestry room: Palazzo Clerici:

Ballroom: Palazzo Dugnani

Luckily, as I later discovered, Milan remains a world centre of Art Nouveau architecture, or ‘Stile Liberty’ as it is known in Italy. My tour of these remarkable and newly revalued buildings with David Hill who worked for the British council but who is now, alas, departed from this world, will always rest in my memory.  One of the most spectacular buildings of Milanese Art Deco, David pointed out, is the Casa Galimberti near Porta Venezia.

Third, much like what happened with London when, thanks to bureaucratic vandalism, it lost, among other treasures, the Euston Arch and the Coal Exchange, the sixties and seventies were decades with scant appreciation of nineteenth century buildings. True, some fine modern architecture was erected during this period. As a child I excitedly witnessed the progress of Pier Luigi Nervi’s ‘Pirellone’, for a long time Europe’s tallest building, rising up to seemingly stratospheric heights on the opposite side of the square we lived in. Now the headquarters of Milan’s civic administration, the skyscraper was once the headquarters of Pirelli – a company which my wife was to work for as official translator and with her own secretary.

Sadly, however, it was during this somewhat iconoclastic period of the city’s history that many of its characteristic ‘palazzini’ apartment blocks, dating from pre-unification days and now considered too unhygienic, came under the pick-axe to be replaced by concrete monstrosities.

Among the greatest losses I list the covering up and disappearance of most of the characteristic Milanese ‘navigli’ or canals which connected the city to the rivers Adda and the Po and which were main arteries of transport even after the railways had reached the city. In particular, I remember the Naviglio della Martesana running behind the Salesian institute  where my grandmother used to take me for catechism lessons.

What would I give for these wonderful canals to be restored to the open air again?

(Via Melchiorre Gioia, Milan, as it was until the 60’s with the Martesana canal skirting it. The church is  the basilica of Sant’Agostino of the Salesian Institute Don Bosco where I learned my catechism.

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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….

‘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…

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.