A Late Summer Walk on Bagni di Lucca’s Volcanic Hill

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Francis

The aim on the last of the walks organised by the Comune of Bagni di Lucca was to get to the top of the town’s volcanic hill, the source of its medically beneficent hot springs, beginning from Ponte a Serraglio and then descending towards Villa.

We started from the garden of Villa Fiori; the first part of our walk covered sights that we’d already seen on a previous walk, this time organized by the Michel de Montaigne foundation and described here: https://longoio3.com/2020/07/29/how-pardini-beautified-ponte-a-serraglio/. These included Europe’s first purpose-built casino and the Bernabò baths, hopefully to be shortly opened to the public.

We took the footpath leading up to the ‘Terme’ Varraud, Bagni di Lucca’s main spa, named after the Frenchman who refurbished it in the last century.

The Terme comprise the original buildings which Napoleon’s sister, Elisa, princess of Lucca and Piombino used for her own therapy. The interiors were once prettily frescoed but unfortunately in the 1960’s – an era notorious for its insensitivity to heritage buildings, the decorations were largely destroyed or covered over by cement. A few details, however, remain, including this lovely set of bird representations and landscapes.

It was in this space that the original casino and its ballroom were situated; the takings of the gaming tables were used to subsidise thermal treatment for the poorer classes who could ill afford them. It’s nice to know that the casino originated not so much for profit but for philanthropy.

Virgilio, our guide, has been nicknamed the ‘prince’ of this demesne. Not only is he barman of the Terme but he is probably the most knowledgeable person on its history: anything Virgilio doesn’t know about the Terme is si mply not worth knowing.

Virgilio gave us a lively description of what it was like for high society when they disported themselves in the baths here during the nineteenth century. (Notice that the Terme were already open to all regardless of colour or creed).

Regrettably, the ‘grottine’, the naturally heated caves within the establishment, cannot at present be used because of the health crisis but the spa offers other facilities: mud baths and hydrotherapy (which my wife is currently availing herself of) among them.

We continued to the top of the hill where there is a hamlet appropriately called ‘Colle’.

There is also a building known as ‘Il Paretaio’ which means ‘bird trap’. Here there was once a scheme to erect a monument to the memory of the German poet Heine who loved Bagni di Lucca (particularly one of its women, a ballerina) and wrote extensively about it in his travelogue on Italy.

There’s a somewhat dodgy road going down from here to Villa but we took a much more romantic way: the ’via dell’amore’ or lover’s path, favoured by the likes of Byron and Shelley. I was amazed I’d never previously discovered this beautiful walk down to villa with its cool shades and stone benches. Anyway I’ll certainly add it to my favourite walks around Bagni.

Eventually we reached the old, upper part of the town which consists of a collection of noble mansions arranged around a central square. I’d already visited some of these previously: the Burlamacchi house, for example and the Casa Mansi which was once the former director of the British Institute of Florence, Ian Greenlees’, residence next to which until 2018 (when he died aged almost 102) lived Boccaccio authority, Sam Stych, friend of Greenlees and our friend too.

On one side of the piazzetta is the Bagno alla Villa which although refurbished, is still waiting for someone to administer and open it to the public.

Virgilio is chamberlain to the Vicaria della Val di Lima, a historical re-enactment society which has done much to enliven the atmosphere of Bagni di Lucca with its pageants and crossbow competitions. Its headquarters are in the sixteenth century villa Buonvisi, once the holiday residence of a noble Luccan family. The villa subsequently passed to the rich Scottish financier John Webb whose friend Lord Byron stayed here.

It’s lovely how the Vicaria have lavished care and brightened up the villa with its displays of flags, costumes and arms. Bagni di Lucca has some extraordinary but regrettably unused buildings and Villa Buonvisi is a great example of how they can be employed for the benefit of all those persons living in or visiting Bagni di Lucca.

Our visit ended with a look at the centre of town with its theatre, the Teatro Academico, and the suspension footbridge across the Lima. Here we parted from the main group who were booked for a meal at the nearby Tana Del Ghiro (‘Dormouse den’) restaurant. We had, however, previously booked with friends near Pescaglia so thanked Virgilio for a truly enjoyable walk which let us see familiar sight (and some new ones…) with a fresh pair of eyes.

These walks have been a highlight of this summer at Bagni di Lucca and I really look forwards to seeing them repeated next year when hopefully the wearing of masks will be a distant recollection!

Elisa’s Villa Resurrected

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Francis

The hills surrounding Lucca are dotted with some very fine villas which not only provide an escape from the city’s often torrid summer heat but also supply their owners with farm produce, especially olives and wine.

One of the most notable of these villas is the ‘Villa Reale di Marlia’ Napoleon’s sister Elisa’s favourite summer residence during her time as princess of Lucca and where Paganini was her music teacher. Elisa transformed the old medieval structure into an elegant palace in the latest neo-classical fashion and redesigned its grounds into Italy’s first English-style landscape gardens with their broad natural vistas.

After the fall of the principality the property passed into the hands of Maria Louisa of the Bourbons and a long period of decadence subsequently followed. Luckily in 1923 the Villa Reale was purchased by the Italo-American Pecci-Blunt family who set about restoring it and turning it into a mecca for artists and cultural activities. One of their guests was Dali.

The Villa’s chapel is the resting place for the deceased members of this distinguished family.

It must be terrible to have to part with such a gorgeous property but sadly this is what happened;

(Camilla was a talented photographer of celebrities. Her husband managed the Rolling Stones’ recordings).

the villa entered into a second phase of dilapidation as the family decayed until in 2015 it was saved by a shining knight in the form of a young Swiss couple who had fallen in love with it. Five years of thorough restoration of the villa and its gardens ensued. Frescoes were cleaned, ornamental details were reinstated, furnishings and musical instruments were refurbished and the grounds were returned to their former glory. Most important for visitors the Villa itself was open to the public for the first time (The Pecci Blunts only allowed entry to the gardens) and from this year we are now able to enjoy the property’s varied charms.

(The times of opening together with many other details about the Villa Reale are shown on its web site at: https://villarealedimarlia.it/. Booking is necessary as entry numbers are limited).

Despite the strictures of Covid-19 it’s quite amazing how new life has been breathed into the villa and, in particular, through the various events it is programming.

We attended one of these events last Monday. It was ‘Shooting Star Night’, known in Italian as ‘La Notte di San Lorenzo’, when one wishes upon a star (or more correctly meteors and comets) and hopes that a request may be realised.

The wish to see a villa resplendent in all its original animated glory was certainly realised for us and the gardens were filled with varied events relating to the theme of the night. We started with a little refreshment, including a glass of Camellia gin, at the refreshment gazebo.

We then proceeded to Pan’s grotto with its eccentric sculptures.

Here a group of gifted singers dressed in the high-waisted empire style, entertained us with arias from Mozart and Bel canto operas.

We accompanied some of them on a tour of the grounds as passengers in a horse-drawn wagonette.

It was truly a sweet manner to be whisked away to a different more leisurely era (except for those ubiquitous face-masks which must be worn!)

The Villa’s gardens are divided into very different areas. First there’s the grand central lawn with views south to the Pisan Mountain

and north towards the Pizzorne hills.

The variety of trees and shrubs is remarkable: mimosa, camellia, magnolia, weeping willow, Gingko Biloba, hibiscus, and many others are all found in the grounds.

The Spanish garden, inspired by the Alhambra, was filled with bubbles by a very talented artiste who captured the attention of children of all ages.

The two limonaie (orangeries) were the location for an art and a photographic exhibition, the latter concentrating on pictures of the cosmos.

The Teatro Della Verzura (or theatre of greenery) with its manicured hedges and terracotta statuettes was the venue for a dramatic monologue dealing with Dorian Gray.

In the lemon garden acrobats and singers amused us as dusk approached and coloured lights were switched on.

We then visited the Villa Reale which has been perfectly restored – some might say too perfectly, but then there are still some fitments missing, curtains and draperies for example. One downstairs room was dedicated to the restoration with ‘before and after’ pictures. Everything has received the attention of the Swiss couple from the painted door panels to the ceiling decorations, from the Napoleonic bed to the harp and fortepiano. It has been truly a labour of love. One might say how lovely it is for people to be able to live again in this charming pleasure palace. However, the truth is the owners do not actually reside there but in the bishop’s ex-palace further along in the grounds. (No photographs inside the villa are allowed).

There are so many water features in the Villa’s park: a grand pond, the rivulets and fountains of the Spanish gardens,

an art-deco swimming pool, the gorgeous colonnade

and pond of the lemon garden

and the semi-circular water theatre with its cascade behind the villa.

Our enchanted evening concluded with an open-air talk by members of the Capannori observatory on the phenomena of ‘La Notte di San Lorenzo’. We learned the difference between comets, meteors and meteorites and, with the help of a laser, constellations and stars were pointed out to us. For instance, I finally found where Vega, the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra, is positioned and where Saturn is located.

There are plenty more events planned including a repeat of the one we attended and a cosplay day. Everything is well-marked on the villa’s web site. However, it is essential to pre-book; we obtained our tickets a week before our event which was just as well since it was sold out on the day. (Numbers are, again, limited by Covid 19 rules).

I just wish that Bagni di Lucca could have its own shining knight coming to the rescue of some of its own palatial dwellings like the Villas Ada and Fiori, for example. Is there anyone out there who missed buying the Villa Reale but is happy with something more modest?

A Jurassic Park in London

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Francis

I alighted from perhaps the grandest suburban station in London: Crystal Palace. Those stylish colonnades, that refined brickwork, that spacious ticket office, those seductive arches!

The station remains the last gateway to a monument which, more than any other, reminds me of those lines in Edgar Alan Poe’s poem to Sappho:

The glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome.

To which might be added the splendour that was British Empire – or at least it might have seemed such in the politically incorrect age of the Victorians.

This vast palace was made of glass and iron. It stood on one of the highest points in the capital with views towards the City to the north and Kent and Surrey to the south. It housed collections of objects from all parts of the empire: the world: the farthest pacific islands, the jewel in the crown that was India, the iciest parts of Canada. Handelian music resounded from huge choirs, visiting dignitaries, like Garibaldi, orated to crowds.

Below the transcendental palace stretched wide Italian style terraces opening onto pleasure gardens where fountains played, guests lost themselves in a complex maze and couples romanced under leafy arbours.

Alas, the palace is gone, destroyed in 1936 in a massive fire seen over much of London.

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But the park is still there although fountains no longer play and the statuary has departed. Miraculously the dinosaurs on their geological islands in the south of the park survive to this day, unlike their Jurassic era forbears. They were, indeed, in danger of disappearing as a Facebook friend remarks: ‘I remember playing amongst the dinosaurs before they were renovated – it was all a great big jungle with broken dinos in there‘.

A series of sculptures designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the direction of geologist Sir Richard Owen and inaugurated in 1854 the dinosaurs became a highlight when the palace moved from South Kensington, where it had housed the 1861 Great Exhibition, to Sydenham. They remain a highlight. Indeed, an old school friend notes ‘The first time I went to Crystal Palace Park I did not know about the dinosaurs. I nearly passed out with surprise!’

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I, too, remember my astonishment at seeing these monsters from a primaeval epoch for the first time. Crystal Palace park remains for me a haunt of memory and desire: the memory of bygone times with friends and desire for those intangible dreams of our childhood.

Its dinosaurs represent fifteen different genera of extinct animals not all of which are dinosaurs. (For example the giant Irish elk, one of which has unfortunately broken antlers).

They were realised with the early palaeontological knowledge of the Victorians and consequently many of them are scientifically inaccurate. For example, the Ichthyosaurus is shown as being crocodile-like. However, today it is considered to be more like a shark with dorsal fin and fish-tail.

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It doesn’t matter, however, if the monsters are examples more of nineteenth-century misinterpretation than of accurate representations of the extraordinary species that once ruled the earth: they are fascinating in their own right.

I left the monsters with their fearless company of waterfowl and headed towards the expansive Italian terraces made up of a lower and upper level.

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Pairs of sphinxes punctuate both ends of these elegant structures which formed the southern approach to the great palace and illustrate just how huge it was.

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I gazed upon the ruins of what had been and Shelley’s lines from ‘Ozymandias’ came to mind

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

From here it was a short walk to the bus terminal on the parade. Just in time to avoid being drenched from yet another torrential outburst of the skies!

PS I recollect reading an evocative description of a child visiting the Crystal Palace in Michael Sadleir’s novel ‘Fanny by Gaslight.’ Here is a passage from it:

“We wandered under the vast arcading of the Palace, staring at statues and costumes in glass cases and models of engines and triumphs of ornament in porcelain, gilt and ormolu. We went on the tiny railway and fed the ducks on the pond, and stared at the crowds.”

If I could time travel I might not wish to select Athens at the time of Pericles or Rome when Marcus Aurelius was emperor but rather the Crystal palace when Victoria was Queen.

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Praying for Protection Against the Plague

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Francis

This Sunday, 22 March, in the church of Saint Michael the Archangel at Castiglione di Garfagnana, Mass will be celebrated behind closed doors, without a congregation, according to the recent edicts of the Italian state, and broadcast on television. At the conclusion of the service there will be a plea for the intercession of the Madonna of the Rosary who in 1631 saved Castiglione from the plague. This occurrence is remembered annually at the so-called “Festa del Regalo” (Feast of the Gift) which takes place on the first Sunday of the year.

Yesterday, on our visit to Kandy’s world heritage site of the Temple of Buddha’s Tooth we heard the chanting of monks praying for the deliverance of the nation of Sri Lanka from Covid-19 and broadcast loudly on speakers throughout the sacred enclosure.

In both cases I am aware of a similar return of prayers to a supernatural force for deliverance from the plague. At school we were taught that people no longer needed to pray to Gods to save themselves from the plague: the progress of medical science and the resources of modern hospitals obviated the need for such observances now considered quasi-superstitious. Even the catastrophic ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic of 1918-9, which killed an estimated 500 million (a third of the world population at that time), was considered unrepeatable. Yet since that time we have had further pandemics:HIV, H1N1 (2009 flu) and now the rapidly spreading coronavirus. The contageous horrors of the plague are, apparently, ever with us.

I recollect a visit to the church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Ashwell, Hertfordshire. The majestic west tower has poignant mediaeval graffiti carved on its walls by victims of the Black Death in the fourteenth century. One of them, in translation from the Latin, reads:
“1350. Miserable, wild, distracted. The dregs of the mob alone survive to witness.”

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I hate to think what lack of medical facilities existed at that time. However, today at our local hospital of Northwick Park, Harrow, (appearing as the introduction to the Fawlty Towers episode where Sybil Fawlty is admitted for ingrown toenail surgery) a critical incident was declared when it ran out of intensive care beds because of a surge in corona virus cases.

Near to our village of Longoio in Italy at the junction that leads to Vetteglia are the ruins of the church of San Rocco (Saint Roch).

The saint 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 from several other plague-ridden towns without catching the disease himself. However, when the saint reached Piacenza in northern Italy he fell a 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 on a daily basis and even licked his ulcer clean. Hence St. Roch has also become the patron saint of dogs.

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I am not sure whether, as a practising agnostic, I would go as far as praying to San Rocco in the present somewhat distressing situation. However, everything is possible and I am quite sure that religious fervour is increasing in the wake of a disturbingly uncertain phenomenon. One thing is sure: like the aftermaths of the Black Death and Spanish Flu our lives will never be quite the same again and we may truly revalue the simple things in life like hugging a loved one or friend, having a cappuccino in a bar, shopping in a supermarket or taking a turn without any reason, apart from the sheer pleasure of it, in the country amid wondrous nature which is now awakening with the song of Spring at its solstice.

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The Last Princess Demidoff

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Francis

My name is Maria and this is my grave where I was buried in 1955, the last Demidoff princess.

That name may be familiar to you, especially if you know Bagni Di Lucca where, in 1825, my grandfather, Prince Nicholas, built a hospital for the poor who had come there in search of a cure from the healing thermal waters. The hospital, with its miniature pantheon of a chapel, is still there and now used by the global village.

My family made their fortune from iron and steel. The first Demidoff, Demid Antuf’ev, was a smith from Tula in Russia and invented a gun which was adopted by Tzar Peter the Great for his army and used successfully to ward off a Swedish invasion of Russia. (Tsar Peter’s visit to Woolwich dockyard in London, where he learned how to build effective fighting vessels, also came in useful).

By the nineteenth century our family had become the second richest in Russia after that of the Tsar. If anyone today thinks we simply exploited our country’s serf to build our wealth they are wrong. My forebears did much for health and education in my country, founding several schools and hospitals and giving grants to Moscow university. In addition Prince Nicholas was appointed ambassador to the grand duchy of Tuscany and that’s how my Italian connection began.

My husband, Simon Amabalek Lazarev, became a noted archaeologist but tragically was killed in 1917 in the October revolution, leaving me a childless widow for the remainder of my life.

Our wonderful palace in Florence’s Novoli quarter was badly damaged in the last war and had to wait until 2012 to be restored and converted into flats. Meanwhile, I needed to find a new home and found it in the park of the former Medicean villa at Pratolino.

Of the score of country retreats built by the Great Medici dynasty of Florence Pratolino was the grandest. It was surrounded by formal gardens built along a central axis on which were placed the huge colossus of the Appennines by Giambologna:

The fountain of Jupiter:

And the statue of the river Mugnone.

Francesco Medici, a curious and scholarly person, (rather like my poor Simon), adorned the villa’s parkland with a thousand wonders all centred around the theme of flowing waters. There were fountains which formed watery pergolas, water flowed over the colossus, there was a sequence of ponds which were used as shrimp nurseries, a lake of lilies and, underneath the villa itself, a maze of decorated grottoes and hydraulically powered automatons.

Alas, it was this miraculous water that proved the undoing of the most beautiful of all the Medici villas. In 1821 the building was dynamited as it was decided by the dynasty succeeding the Medici, the House of Lorraine, that the damage caused to the foundations by the water flowing through them was too expensive to repair. The rubble was used to fill in the prawn ponds and the original formal park layout converted into a landscape English garden more in keeping with the new romanticism and certainly easier to maintain.

It was in 1872 that my family bought what was left of this park of wonders. They converted the service buildings into their summer villa and added a stately salon.

This is where I spent the last stage of my life. Every afternoon I would be driven round my estate to make sure that everything was in order. If I came across children from the adjoining village I would distribute candies to them and It was behind the chapel, built by Buontalenti in the sixteenth century and one of the features still remaining from the original park layout, that I requested to be buried.

I am happy that people still remember me, for every year, on my birthday, the priest and choir from Florence’s Russian orthodox church come to my tomb to pray and sing for me.

La Squisita Campagna Attorno Petersfield, Inghilterra

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Francis

I treni d’Inghilterra non sono certo a buon mercato quando contrastati con Trenitalia. Usando però l’app ‘trainline’ si possono trovare delle riduzioni veramente eccezionali.

Un invito dall’amico, che abita vicino al ridente paese di Petersfield, ci ha indotto a visitare questa squisita parte di Hampshire che confina sulle colline South Downs e Sussex.

La regione è piena di felici memorie per me. Era qui che si facevano i campeggi d’estate con gli scout. Era qui che abbiamo fatto lunghissime biciclettate ed era qui che abbiamo navigato le nostre canoe per i fiumi Rother e Arun. Nomi come Petworth, Trotton e Arundel suscitano tempi di gioventù veramente ameni.

(Costruzione di catapulta al campeggio Scout)

Petersfield è un tipico paese, centro di commercio e di agricoltura con un ‘High Street’, pieno di una bella varietà di negozi e di ristoranti. La sua architettura varia dal seicento ai tempi moderni. Speriamo che Bagni di Lucca ritorni a una prosperità dimostrata da Petersfield.

Da questo centro ci siamo avviati per vie idilliche alla dimora di Uppark.

Uppark è una casa del diciassettesimo secolo a South Harting, West Sussex, in Inghilterra. È una proprietà del National Trust, l’equivalente della FAI italiana.

La casa, situata in alto sul South Downs, fu costruita per Ford Gray (1655-1701), il primo conte di Tankerville, intorno al 1690. Si ritiene che l’architetto sia stato William Talman. La tenuta fu venduta nel 1747 a Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh e sua moglie Sarah. Matthew e Sarah ripristinarano la casa dal 1750 al 1760 e introdussero la maggior parte della collezione esposta oggi, molta della quale fu raccolta durante il loro ‘Grand Tour’ in Italia dal 1749 al 1751.

Il loro figlio, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, ampliò la collezione e commissionò a Humphry Repton l’aggiunta di un nuovo portico a colonne, un caseificio e un giardino paesaggistico, (detto – in Italiano – ‘all’inglese’). Nel XIX secolo furono aggiunte stalle e cucine come edifici separati, collegati all’edificio principale da tunnel. Sir Harry sposò, all’età di settantuno anni (!), la cameriera della tenuta, la ventunenne Mary Ann Bullock, alla quale lasciò Uppark alla sua morte nel 1846. Lei, a sua volta la diede a sua sorella Frances.

Frances la lasciò in eredità nel 1895 al tenente colonnello Keith Turnour, che assunse il nome Fetherstonhaugh e visse lì per trentacinque anni, lasciando infine la tenuta al figlio di un amico, il futuro ammiraglio Sir Herbert Meade, che adottò il nome Fetherstonhaugh.

Uppark è associata con il grande scrittore di romanzi di fantascienza, H. G. Wells. Nella gioventù trascorse le vacanze dove sua madre, Sarah, era governante.

La casa e la gerarchia sociale della casa ebbero un effetto importante sul Wells. Le profonde divisioni di classe che osservò contribuirono a ispirare molte delle sue idee liberali e socialiste. Questo sviluppo fu incoraggiato dalla sua scoperta, nella grande biblioteca di Uppark, di opere di filosofi e radicali come Platone, Voltaire e Thomas Paine.

Queste impressioni si riflettono nei suoi libri: per esempio, il contrasto tra il mondo soleggiato e spensierato dell’Eoli e le oscure grotte sotterranee dei Morlock in ’The Time Machine’ (‘La macchina del tempo’) sono ispirate dalle osservate disuguaglianze. Altrettanto significativa è stata la scoperta di Wells di un telescopio nella soffitta della casa, che diede al futuro autore di ‘The War of the Worlds’ (‘La Guerra dei Mondi’) la sua prima opportunità di osservare il cielo notturno in dettaglio.

Il 30 agosto 1989 Uppark fu devastato da un incendio, non da un invasione marziana ma provocato dalla fiamma ossidrica di un operaio mentre riparava il piombo sul tetto. L’attico e il primo piano sono crollati.

Per fortuna, la maggior parte dei mobili della casa è stata salvata, le parti bruciate sono state rimpiazzate, vecchie arti sono state riacquistate e il magnifico esempio di architettura secentesca ha riaperto le sue porte nel 1995.

Particolarmente interessante è il piano dei servi domestici, con la sua cucina e l’appartamento, dove stava la mamma di Wells.

La casa delle bambole che risale al secolo diciassettesimo è molto attraente.

Dopo Uppark ci siamo avviati al mare a Southsea vicino a Portsmouth (l’equivalente inglese di ‘La Spezia’ e centro della marina britannica). Certi si sono tuffati nelle onde burrascose di una giornata molto ventilata ma non ci siamo accontentati col mangiare il fish and chips in un bel ristorantino proprio sulla spiaggia dove crescevano, tra i ciottoli, anche i cavoli marini chiamati ‘kale’.

Insomma, è stata una giornata splendida con il consueto miscuglio di sole, nuvole e vento che caratterizza una nazione d’isola e un insolito contrasto con il multiculturalismo di Londra.

Nuvole di cotone:

le onde delle colline

sposano il mare.

Lascivious Luxury at Viareggio

Posted on March 18, 2019 by Francis

Viareggio isn’t just sea, sun, sand and ice-cream. It’s also history with beautiful mansions ranging from classical to art nouveau. It’s a major luxury yacht building and service area. It’s a great fishing and sea food centre and it has a considerable artists’ colony. Together with its nearest English equivalent, Brighton, Viareggio has been the holiday haunt of the rich, the famous and the princely. Within its boundaries there are no less than two regal residences: the Villa Borbona on the Viale dei Tigli (‘Lime Tree Avenue’) and the Villa Paolina by the square which has a monument to Shelley, who unfortunately met his briny death in 1822, aged 29, off the Viareggio coast in a violent storm.

For last week’s fish Friday, I couldn’t miss my cod and chips. What better place to have it fresh from the sea of Viareggio with crispest batter but no soggy chips, and mayonnaise instead of vinegar…. mind you, I did miss my mushy peas… but not the rain!

P.S. The cat below is Ettore – a favourite of fishermen – sadly no longer with us on this planet since 2016 but in spirit with his statue. (Still miss my beloved cat Napoleone badly…..)

Other must-see places in Viareggio are the stunning art nouveau Villa Argentina (see my post on that at

Tiger-Hunting in Viareggio’s most Exquisite Art Nouveau Villa

and Puccini’s residences. (For more on them see my posts at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/where-turandot-grew-up/

and

https://longoio3.com/2018/06/30/the-house-of-the-princess-of-my-dreams/

Recently, as part of international women’s week, at Bagni di Lucca’s casinò, Renata Frediani gave a fascinating talk on Paolina Bonaparte Borghese and her times. (See my post on this at https://longoio3.com/2019/03/13/dont-miss-out-on-pontes-casino-this-week/).

Renata mentioned that she had helped to refurbish the princess’s rooms in the Villa Paolina. Last Friday I visited the villa and was certainly not disappointed!

The exhibition is set up in the stately rooms of the ‘piano nobile’ of the emperor Napoleon’s sister, Paolina Borghese. It has been refurbished with furniture and artistic items of the Napoleonic age, all curated by Renata Frediani who is an antiques collector from Lucca and an expert on ‘style empire’. Most of the precious furnishings, including the entire collection of exquisite dresses on display, were supplied from Renata’s own collection.

The exhibition is further enriched with evening dresses, also from Renata’s collection. They are of special interest as they are by the famous fashion stylist from Lucca, Dina Bigongiari Santini who died in 2004 aged 89. If you’ve never heard of Bigongiari, you should know she was Giorgio Armani’s favourite designer as well as of the Royal House of Montecarlo. Dina was much appreciated for her novel dress designs which have a truly refined, aristocratic quality. She opened her atelier during the post-war period in the historic centre of Lucca and also created the silk museum, (upon which textile Lucca founded its fame and fortune).

Dina Bigongiari ’s styling was innovative and of the highest quality. For me a definition of beauty would be to meet a lady wearing one of her dresses…

Set in the exquisite ambience of Princess Borghese’s pleasure palace with its delightful frescoed rooms, the Villa Paolina’s collection is certainly something to seduce one away from the esplanade and the ozone-laden air of Viareggio’s seafront.

These are the villa’s current opening times.

1 September to 14 June: Wednesday to Saturday 3.30 PM to 7.30 PM, Sunday 9.30 to 1.30 PM, 3.30 PM to 7.30 PM.

There’s more information on the villa at https://www.visittuscany.com/en/attractions/villa-paolina-civic-museum-in-viareggio/

If your thing isn’t fashion then the villa Paolina houses no less than three other museums:

Museo Archeologico e dell’Uomo A.C. Blanc (local prehistoric and Etruscan finds.)

Museo degli Strumenti Musicali C. Ciuffreda (Musical instruments collection, including items from Tibet).

Atelier A. Catarsini: an artist’s studio and contemporary art exhibitions including paintings by one of my favourite local artists, the brilliant Fornaciari who lives round the corner from the villa.

To sum up do look at this leaflet about Viareggio’s civic museums:

Riverside Haven at Ham

Posted on October 29, 2017 by Francis

There’s an aquatic motorway stretching right through London and expanding from a couple of lanes to over ten. After years of neglect it’s being put back to increasing use for once it was the main means of getting across London. I am, of course, talking about the river Thames and there was a time when people vied with each other to obtain property by this great waterway. With rough roads infested by highwaymen what better way of moving around the city than by water? There are the most magnificent mansions and palaces by the river’s side, especially to the west. Hampton court palace, Marble Hill house, Syon house, Kew palace, Osterley Park and Ham house are all by or close to the side of the Thames.

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With the coming of the railways London began to spread in a more north south direction than in an east-west one.

Furthermore, until Bazalgette’s great nineteenth century sewerage building network, living near the Thames had become a stinking and health-threatening hell.
Now attitudes have reverted to former times. The closing of the docks, the cleaning up of the river, the fact that there can be a wonderful open area in front of one’s residence which no one can build on has made a property by one of the world’s great waterways highly desirable. London’s riverbus service makes use of new and restored piers and is increasingly popular as an alternative means of travel to congested roads.

Another day of mild autumnal weather brought us to one of the metropolis’ most beautiful riverside palaces: Ham house near Richmond. Built in 1610 for King James I’s eldest and most promising son, Henry Frederick, the little palace is a noble brick building set in leafy surroundings. It reminded me a little of Charlton house near us in London, which I later realised had been built for Sir Adam Newton who was Prince Henry’s tutor.
Sadly the Prince died aged 18 of typhoid fever and the successor of James became Charles I. How differently might the course of English history have run had the more gifted Henry lived!

Ham’s most significant moment, however, came with the restoration of Charles II when Elizabeth, daughter of owner Lionel and Elizabeth Tollemache, married John Maitland, first duke of Lauderdale. She became part of a secret inner circle advising the king on policy and, by all accounts, became, unusually for the times, the first woman to wield major political influence. Even before her marriage Elizabeth had been part of the sealed knot, a resistance movement which fought against Cromwell. She even risked her own life by smuggling dispatches to the royalists.

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The following centuries witnessed the house’s ups and downs but eventually it was saved for the nation, virtually unchanged for over three hundred years, in 1950.

Like several other stately houses in the UK Ham house has featured in period dramas and films including ‘the young Victoria’ and ‘never let me go’ with Keira Knightley. So the chances are you’ve seen it before although you might have never visited it!

The interior has both public and intimate rooms. There are fine tapestries, furniture, miniatures and paintings.

The series of portraits is impressive including one of the Duchess of Lauderdale painted by Peter Lely which shows that she had beauty as well as brains.

An unusual feature is the way the first floor above the entrance hall is cut through into an elongated octagon creating a charming interior balcony.

The main staircase is especially impressive.

There is so much to linger over in Ham House and the mainly volunteer staff are keen to point out details and help you to recreate the amazing past of this beautiful London riverside palace.

The walks around Ham house are equally delightful, especially at this time of year.

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For more details do check out the National Trust website at
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ham-house-and-garden

La Principessa del Popolo

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Francis

Twenty years ago a lady, who to many still remains close to their hearts as the Princess but who to others is regarded as someone who almost destroyed the British monarchy, was killed as a result of a sequence of bizarre events in a car crash in the Alma (= soul) tunnel in Paris. (Since our own accident last May we have a double fear of tunnels – I should add)

I was present both at the celebration of a marriage that in 1982 raised the spirits of the country but in which, at the same time, the heir apparent was hard put to define what ‘love’ was. The birth of the two princes followed. The wife had done her duty as a producer of heirs to the royal lineage and in subsequent events was separated, divorced and even stripped of her title of Princess of Wales.

By the time Diana was dead the popularity ratings of the British royal family was at an all-time-low and (although constitutional rules forbade it) the Queen was reluctantly forced to raise the flag at half-mast over her London residence.

Of course, Diana did destroy much of the perception of the house of Windsor but it was a necessary clearing out of the dusty panoply of grey men, of arthritic protocol, of buttoned up upper lips and, to put it mildly, of generations of secretive hypocrisy.

The light of Diana shines through her two sons William and Harry who, despite the inexcusable trauma of having had to walk behind their mother’s coffin, are now able to talk about their experiences with a moving devotion to their mother’s love and memory.

(I remember at the time of the funeral the sight of little William and Harry and the comments of so many of the people lining the processional route murmuring, ‘poor little boys’.)

I am not a fervent royalist although I would not like it if the UK became a republic. I make no apologies for what I wrote on this day twenty years ago. Sentimental it might be but re-reading the poems now still captures for me the extraordinary outpouring of a nation’s grief, the fields of flowers, the Hindu Arathi candles placed on the Victoria monument, the dignified sadness of walking down a traffic-free moonlit Mall, a sense that someone who had done more in changing attitudes to British emotional sangfroid than she could ever have known, had gone but, at the same, had left something that would change public perception of royalty, and even society, for ever.

THE MORNING

Outside the Palace I stood with gladness

waiting for the open landau to pass;

good will touched people with a light caress

lacking difference of culture or class.

What is left of that day now? Betamax

video still plays back the scene

innocent of the mistakes and attacks,

the wedding album of what might have been.

I woke up early on that strange morning,

switched on the radio to hear faithless news.

Just once before felt I this sudden sting,

my mind was mute for who could I accuse?

The stark, unforgiving Sunday headlines:

Diana and Lover Dead and still the sun shines.

***

THE FUNERAL

You stayed at home for you could take no more

and I found your place in nation’s mourning:

silent crowds with flowers come to adore,

in clear blue sky and a sun-filled morning,

the passing of a princess that entranced

our lives and the country’s sudden-found heart;

a beautiful, rose-cheeked woman who chanced

to lace with love every downtrodden’s part.

The gun carriage moves toward the high arch

where we had our wedding photos taken;

the dignified tread of soldiers’ slow march

as world of each mourner is forsaken.

I, too, can take no more and, cut to bone,

burst into tears as I pick up the phone.

Diana followed the great line of female regal humanisers whose names include Mary, wife of William of Orange and Princess Alexandra, (similarly traduced by her husband king Edward VII). All of them broke through the heartlessness of a stilted monarchy to become truly the people’s princesses – and who has the cold-bloodedness to deny the fatal fantasy of these icons of British history and memory?

Moonlight Magic at the Villa Bonvisi-Webb

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Francis

Last night, in the parterre of the Villa Bonvisi-Webb, the same villa where Byron stayed when in Bagni di Lucca, an event took place which would have delighted the great romantic poet and debaucher. It was a ‘degustazione’, or tasting, of toscani – the Italian cigar which is still manufactured in two places, one of which is in the Lucchesia – and grappa, which is a spirit distillation of wine.

The evening opened with a fascinating introduction to the toscano and the grappa. Italy is the only country in the world which is famous for three products which alleviate the tedious moments of human existence: great food, great wine and great cigars. Cuba may be famous for its cigars but not its wine, and France lacks any cigar industry.

I could go on to say the cigar produces an alkaline rather than an acid smoke which is not meant to be inhaled like cigarettes, that it is pure tobacco without cancerogenous paper (cigarettes were first invented during the Crimean war when soldiers used the paper wrappings of their cartridges and filled them with tobacco), and that the savouring of a toscano is improved by keeping it in a humidor which preserves its original moisture, that it is not to be lit with standard cigarette lighter but with special long matches, that it is preferable not to cut it and that there are three separate phases to its enjoyment.

As I have already enough vices I kept but did not smoke the cigar offered, together with the long matches which were given to us. With the grappa, however, it was a different story. We were given the opportunity to savour four different varieties ranging from basic distilled grappa to a delicious one made from Chardonnay grapes. Grappa is truly the king of Italian spirits, the country’s equivalent of Scotch whiskey, and, as with whiskey, there are many different varieties based on the way the spirit nectar has been distilled and the years it has aged. Toscani cigars too, have an amazing 23 different varieties.

For me, however, the best experience was to be with excellent company in such a splendid full-moon lit ambience. It was a truly magical dusk of connoisseur tasting and amicable gatherings.

I give full marks to Valerio Ceccarelli who, yet again, has proved to be a most energetic impulse in restoring Bagni di Lucca’s visitor attractions, to Guido Bracci of Bagni’s Enoteca (wine shop), to the providers of the cigars and the grappa and to the rest of the team who turned the grounds of the wonderful villa into ‘some enchanted evening’.

Here is a small selection of photos from last night. As you can see, the rule of no under-eighteens to the event was waived in the case of dogs (and cats).