Yesterday we spent most of the day in Lucca, mainly because we both had dental appointments. Apart from that, we walked around a little, did some shopping, managed a tasty oriental kebab, sorted out our telefonini and—since the weather was gloomy—decided it was the perfect moment to visit an exhibition at the Cavallerizza, (the former riding school), which has become one of Lucca’s main venues for art shows, rather like Palazzo Blu in Pisa or Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The exhibitions there are usually original and fascinating, and this one certainly was.
This exhibition continues a thread that began with the Puccini posters a couple of years ago, linked to the world of the Belle Époque—the “beautiful times.” That period has been everywhere lately: the great show at Palazzo Blu, the Toulouse-Lautrec display at the Innocenti in Florence, and now this one in Lucca. This time the focus is on Giovanni Boldini, the Italian painter who perhaps sums up the Belle Époque better than anyone.
Boldini is, in a sense, the Italian equivalent of John Singer Sargent: master of swish, elegance, and dazzling portraiture, especially of women in extraordinary dresses. (Boldini knew Sargent and even painted a fine portrait of him). He was lucky to live at a time when women’s fashion was perfect for painting, lucky to meet so many beautiful women, and luckier still to have affairs with some of them. His paintings capture movement, life, and glamour through long, flowing brushstrokes, a sense of speed, and a nervous, brilliant energy.
But his work is not only about fashionable society. Of course there is high life, elegance, and display, but there are also intimate portraits of young women, quiet scenes in orchards and gardens, and tender, almost enchanting countryside views, even if these are fewer. At times he moves close to Impressionism. He was influenced by the Macchiaioli, the Italian Impressionists, but only as part of his range. He could use their techniques when he wished, yet above all he remained himself: the swish, the flow, the long strokes, the elegance.
Sadly, Boldini’s eyesight deteriorated toward the end of his life. He died in the 1930s at almost ninety. After the First World War he painted very little, and in a way that suited him. I don’t think he ever really felt at home with the new fashions of the 1920s—the flappers, the short dresses, the sharp lines. There are one or two portraits with those dreadful cloche hats, but they are not what we remember him for. His true world was the Belle Époque.
We were really glad we went to this exhibition which also displayed several paintings of his contemporaries placing his own uniqueness into perspective. It was far more impressive than we expected, and we fell in love with many of the paintings. I was completely struck by one in particular—a woman just after her bath. The beauty of her body, the form, the softness… it was deeply sensual. Yes, it is sexual, but sexual with elegance and culture, not the crude vulgarity that passes for sexuality today. This was refined, sophisticated, and deeply human.
It is a wonderful exhibition, and I would recommend it to everyone. It is beautifully done and truly memorable—a perfect escape from all the gloomy things that surround us: the news, the weather, the economy, everything. It lets you plunge into the Belle Époque, even while knowing that that period itself had many problems—disease, hypocrisy, poverty, moral contradictions—most of which are not shown here.
And perhaps that is why Boldini was so loved. He gave people a way out. He gave life, movement, and elegance. He glorified women, made them radiant, modern, and beautiful. And if beauty is truth, then perhaps truth is beauty too.
‘Càscina lies at the heart of a rich, flourishing and populous land, amid fertile fields and vineyards, stretched across a splendid plain along the ducal road from Pisa to Florence, between the River Arno and the Rinònico drainage canal.”
Thus begins Càscina and its Environs, written in 1912 by the Reverend Francesco Conti — a sentence that already contains, like a seed, the town’s geography, its vocation, and its destiny. It
Càscina stands where water, land, and roads have always converged: two miles east of Fornacette, eight from Pisa, fourteen from Livorno. A crossroads of trade and cultivation, history and survival.
The origin of the name “Càscina” remains veiled in uncertainty, suspended between legend and scholarship. Some historians trace it back to the Etruscan settlement of Càsne; others link it to the river that once bore the same name. That river appears in documents as early as 935, while the name “Càscina” itself surfaces in a parchment dated 26 June 750 AD, recording the donation of a house to the Church of Saint Mary of Càssina — a humble act marking the town’s first appearance in written history.
Four centuries later, on 27 October 1142, another parchment — preserved today in the Archbishop’s Archives of Pisa — records a decisive moment: Archbishop Balduino granted the inhabitants of the territory the right, and the duty, to build a castle and a town. Càscina was no longer merely a place; it became a fortified community.
By the Middle Ages, the town had taken on the form of a stronghold: a rectangular castle encircled by twelve towers, linked by low defensive walls and protected by a wide moat. Documents from 1270 speak of a bell tower and a fortified channel dug south of the Arno, both to defend Pisan territory and to regulate the river’s dangerous floods — a reminder that here, nature has always been both ally and threat.
In the 14th century the defenses were reinforced once more. Walls were raised, towers strengthened, and two gates constructed: one opening toward Florence, the other toward Pisa — symbols of a town poised between rival powers.
During the era of the Pisan Republic, Càscina stood loyally with the Emperor, opposing Lucca and Florence. That allegiance endured until 29 July 1364, when Florence defeated Pisa in the brutal Battle of Càscina — an event immortalized by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Though only preparatory drawings survive from his hand, the clash lives on through Vasari’s fresco in the Hall of the Five Hundred in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, where art preserves what history destroyed. Under Florentine rule, Càscina did not decline. On the contrary, it grew. By 1622 the town counted 5,587 inhabitants, and by the 18th century it had become the most populous and important rural center in all of Tuscany.
Modernity arrived with violence and progress intertwined. Toward the end of the 19th century, the Pisan and Florentine gates — along with parts of the walls — were demolished to make way for the Leopolda railway linking Florence and Pisa. Later, war inflicted further wounds. The Second World War erased entire sections of the ancient defenses.
Today the historic center appears fragmented, shaped by demolitions and transformations between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet fragments endure: the pentagonal Parisina Tower, the Stradina, the Piazza d’Armi, and the streets tracing the ancient walls — relics embedded within the modern town like fossils in stone.
The first monument to greet the visitor is the Civic, or Clock, Tower, rising in the western part of the old town where the Pisan gate once stood. Built of brick, it originally formed part of a militia building. Its current height of 72 feet reflects centuries of additions, visibly layered upon its surface — time made architectural.
Like many Italian towns, Càscina grew around its parish church square. Here stand the most significant civic and religious buildings: the Parish Church of Saint Mary and Saint John, the Chapel of the Sacrament, the Holy Cross Oratory, the bell tower, and the Stefanini Palace. The parish church — the oldest in the area — already existed in the second half of the 8th century, though the present structure dates from the late 11th. Its Romanesque basilican plan, sober and harmonious, is marked by a gabled façade with blind arcades and crowned by a marble cross. On its right wall, an inscription recalls the passage of Emperor Frederick II’s troops in 1228 — history etched into stone. Inside, monolithic columns of pink granite and cipollino marble preserve the church’s original Romanesque severity.
Adjoining the church is the Chapel of the Sacrament, once separate and part of a small cemetery relocated in the late 18th century. Its interior unfolds in late-Baroque elegance. To the south lies the Holy Cross Oratory — once a baptistery — long abandoned, now restored to its baroque splendor, with a marble baptismal font at its heart.
The bell tower, asymmetrical and misaligned with the church, hints at its military origins. Built on the remains of an earlier tower, it aligns with the old castle. Its limestone base supports a brick upper section rebuilt after damage from a raid in 1295.
Facing the church stands the Stefanini Palace, now home to the Misericordia. Its austere brick façade contrasts with the richness inside, particularly the grand galleried hall blending baroque and neoclassical styles.
Along Corso Matteotti, the town’s main artery, stands the Oratory of Saint John the Baptist — known locally as “the nuns’ little church.” Built at the end of the 14th century by Bartolo Palmieri, a member of the Knights Hospitaller, it contains frescoes by the Sienese painter Martino di Bartolommeo. Anna Franchi, writing in 1928, captured its essence: “At first, the emptiness makes it seem larger than it is. Gradually, solitude dissolves. Magnificent images fill every surface. No wall has been neglected.”
Leaving the historic center and heading east, one reaches the Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Water — an elegant Greek-cross structure built between 1614 and 1619, with a domed bell tower added decades later. The municipality’s 30 square miles extend westward along the Tosco-Romagnola road, the commercial spine of the territory. Along it rise villages, churches, and traces of devotion and labor.
At Settimo stands the Church of Saint Benedict, mentioned as early as 861. Its sanctuary houses rare works, including a 14th-century English alabaster altarpiece — one of only four in Italy.
Nearby, during dry summers, the Arno reveals the submerged ruins of Saint Peter within-the-Castle, destroyed by floods in 1545.
Further west lies Saint Casciano, whose Romanesque church — adorned by the sculptor Biduino — stands among the most important monuments of the region.
Nearby Zambra preserves the unspoiled medieval church of Saint Jacopo, with symbolic murals recalling early Christian iconography.
Saint Savino’s Abbey rises on an artificial embankment, born from disaster and devotion after an Arno flood destroyed its predecessor. Its bell tower, destroyed in 1943 by retreating Nazi troops, has been rebuilt — an act of memory and resilience.
Castles, churches, and villages mark the western boundary, beyond which lies Pisa. Turning south and east, the journey continues through Bibbiano, Marcianella, and finally back to Càscina — a circle completed.
For centuries, agriculture shaped the town’s identity. In the 20th century, craftsmanship — particularly woodworking — transformed it. In 1922, the first permanent furniture exhibition opened, followed by the founding of the National Institute of Art, spreading Cascina’s fame worldwide.
Later economic crises redirected the town toward commerce, services, and innovation. The City of the Theatre and Navacchio’s Technological Centre symbolize this new chapter.
Yet perhaps Càscina’s most astonishing contribution lies in the fields south of town, where science reaches for the cosmos. Here stands VIRGO, a vast interferometric antenna designed to detect gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime predicted by Einstein himself. With arms stretching two miles each, it listens to the universe.
And so, in a land shaped by rivers, wars, faith, and labor, one of humanity’s oldest questions — Where do we come from? — may yet find its answer. Here, in Càscina.
The painting depicts a young woman reclining with a doll beside her.
Antonio Mancini was a prominent Italian painter known for his realistic and expressive portraits.
The inclusion of a doll in such paintings was a traditional custom in Southern Italy, symbolizing happiness, fertility, and good wishes for a new family.
The painting is titled Electricity (or Elektriciteit) by the Belgian artist Alfred Stevens, created around 1890.
The artwork is an oil painting on canvas and measures 116.5 by 81.5 centimeters.
It depicts a woman with long red hair holding a black cat, with a stormy or dark cityscape in the background.
The painting is a notable example of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, often associated with themes of modernity and the mystical aspects of electricity.
It is currently housed in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.
Giovanni Boldini: Provocation.
Three ladies conversing.
The image shows a detail of the painting “Girl with a Black Cat” by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.
The oil on canvas painting was completed in 1885.
Boldini was a genre and portrait painter known for his “Master of Swish” style due to his flowing brushwork.
The painting is noted for its vibrant red background, which makes the figures of the girl and the black cat stand out.
The girl’s expression is captivating, and the cat’s eyes are described as vital and hypnotic.
The original artwork is held in a private collection.
The image is a painting titled Figure of a woman (Léontine De Nittis) by the Italian artist Giuseppe De Nittis.
The subject of the painting is Léontine Gruvelle, the artist’s wife, friend, and model.
De Nittis was a renowned Italian Impressionist painter, famous for his elegant depictions of Parisian high society in the late 19th century.
He died at a young age, thirty-eight, but achieved significant success both in Italy and abroad.
Many of his works, including this one, are housed in the Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis in Barletta, Italy, following a donation by his wife after her death in 1913.
The image is a portrait painting titled “Portrait of Lady Eden” by the American artist John Singer Sargent.
The painting was completed in 1906.
It depicts Sybil Frances Grey, who became Lady Eden after marrying Sir William Eden.
Lady Eden is shown seated at a table, holding playing cards in her hand.
The finished painting is part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The image is a photograph of the painting “Reading by the Sea” (also known as In lettura sul mare or Dreams) by the Italian artist Vittorio Matteo Corcos.
The oil on canvas painting was created around 1910.
It depicts a man and two women dressed in white, with the woman in the center seated on a green chair looking directly at the viewer.
The painting is considered an important work of 19th and early 20th-century Italian realism.
The work’s original title was “Dreams” and it was considered somewhat controversial at the time of its exhibition due to the woman’s bold, unconventional pose and direct gaze.
The image is a painting titled The Chat (also known as The Gossip or Suada in Korean) by the Italian Impressionist painter Federico Zandomeneghi.
The artwork is an oil on canvas painting.
The original dimensions are 54 cm x 65 cm.
The image is a painting titled La Coccoli by the Italian artist Vittorio Matteo Corcos.
The artist, Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859-1933), was known for his elegant and realistic portraits during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The painting depicts a young child on a beach interacting with a crab, embodying a moment of quiet observation.
The work is characteristic of the Belle Époque era, capturing a sense of innocence and the leisurely lifestyle of the bourgeoisie.
Corcos worked in both Paris and Florence and contributed significantly to the artistic movement of the time with his refined and detailed style.
Youth: Giorgio Kienerk
Alceste Campriani: garden in Lucca
Fields around London (also known as Fields near London), created by the Italian artist Giuseppe De Nittis.
The painting was created circa 1875.
It is an oil on canvas painting and is categorized under the Impressionism art style.
The work is a genre painting depicting people enjoying leisure time in a vibrant, blooming field.
The painting is held in a private collection.
Young Woman with a Blue Ribbon (also known as Girl with a Blue Ribbon or Jeune Fille au ruban bleu) by the French Impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The oil on canvas painting was created in 1888.
It is housed at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon in France.
The work is characteristic of Renoir’s return to a gentler, more delicate style after his Impressionist phase.
The model’s name is unknown, but she is believed to be the same young woman who appears in other Renoir works, such as Les Grandes Baigneuses.
“Dreams” (or Sogni in Italian).
Artist: Vittorio Matteo Corcos, an Italian painter.
Date: It was painted in 1896.
Subject: The painting depicts Elena Vecchi, the daughter of a friend of the artist.
Location: It is held in the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, Italy.
Reception: The painting caused a stir when exhibited in Florence in 1896 due to the subject’s modern pose, which was considered quite indecorous for the period.
Sogni (Dreams) by the Italian artist Vittorio Matteo Corcos, created in 1896.
The painting depicts a young woman in a light green dress seated on a wooden bench, resting her chin on her hand.
It is considered a masterpiece of Italian portraiture from the late 19th century.
The work is part of the collection at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (National Gallery of Modern Art) in Rome, Italy.
The woman in the portrait is thought to be the Countess Annina Morosini.
Vittorio Matteo Corcos. This particular work is a landscape piece, which is less typical of the artist, who is primarily known for his portraits of aristocratic and upper-bourgeois women.
The artist is Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859–1933), an Italian painter.
He was known for his portraits and genre paintings, often depicting finely dressed young men and women.
While his fame is tied to his depictions of women, his work also includes landscapes like this one, which reflect a connection to naturalism.
The painting captures a village scene with a focus on a tiled roof and smoke rising from a chimney.
Eleonora Duse
“Edith Warren Miller” created by the French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre.
The artist, Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836-1911), was a prominent French figure painter, educator, and a leading academic artist during his time.
The subject of the painting, Edith Warren Miller, was a socialite and the wife of a wealthy American banker.
The painting is a notable example of Lefebvre’s work, known for its elegant style and realistic depiction of the sitter.
The artwork is part of the permanent collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Alfred Sisley, The Seine at Daybreak (La Seine au point du jour).
The work was painted around 1877 or 1878.
Sisley was known for his dedication to painting landscapes outdoors (en plein air), capturing the transient effects of light and atmosphere.
This painting depicts a small riverside settlement with a chimney pluming above, focusing on the river and the sky.
Sisley’s style in this work is characterized by delicate brushstrokes that capture the nuances of light and color, especially in the detailed rendering of the clouds and water.
Portrait of Mme Helleu Reading a Letter, created by the French artist Paul César Helleu.
The painting depicts the artist’s wife and frequent model, Alice Helleu, reading a letter.
Paul César Helleu was a celebrated society portraitist during the Belle Époque era.
Helleu’s work often focused on feminine grace and the elegance of high society life, as described by Marcel Proust.
The work is executed in oil on canvas and has appeared in various auctions and art collections.
Portrait of the Countess de Leusse, née Berthier, an 1890 oil on canvas work by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.
Artist: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931)
Year: 1890
Medium: Oil on canvas
Subject: Countess de Leusse, born Berthier
The work is a notable example of Boldini’s style, which captured the elegance and dynamism of high society during the Belle Époque.
Kitchen Gardens at L’Hermitage, Pontoise by the French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. It depicts a rural scene with a woman working in a vegetable garden, capturing the natural beauty and a traditional way of life in the area.
Artist: Camille Pissarro
Style: iompressionism
Subject: A scene in a vegetable garden in Pontoise, France
Date: Painted in 1873
Location: The original painting is housed at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh
Sleigh Ride (also known as Sledding or Corse di slitta) by the Italian artist Giuseppe De Nittis.
Artist: Giuseppe De Nittis
Title: Sleigh Ride (or Sledding, Corse di slitta)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Style: Impressionism
Current Location: Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta, Italy
The image is a famous Impressionist painting titled In the Garden (also known as Woman and Child Seated in a Garden) by the American artist Mary Cassatt.
Artist: Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), a prominent American painter and printmaker who lived much of her adult life in France and was a key figure in the Impressionist movement.
Subject: The painting depicts a tender moment between a woman and a young girl seated on a bench in a garden setting.
Style: The work is characteristic of Cassatt’s mature Impressionist style, featuring a high vantage point, a bright color palette, and loose, visible brushstrokes.
Date: The painting was completed around 1903 or 1904.
Theme: Cassatt is widely admired for her perceptive portrayals of the intimate bonds between mothers and children, a recurring subject in her art.
The image is a detail from the painting La guardiana di tacchini (The Turkey Keeper) by the Italian Impressionist painter Federico Zandomeneghi.
Federico Zandomeneghi was born in Venice in 1841 and later moved to Paris, where he was influenced by the Impressionist movement and artists like Edgar Degas.
The painting, also known as Jeune fille aux dindons (Young girl with turkeys), was created between 1890 and 1895.
It depicts a young girl sitting outdoors, seemingly focused on knitting or a similar task, with turkeys visible in the foreground.
Zandomeneghi’s work often focused on capturing everyday moments of contemporary life, particularly featuring female subjects.
Portrait of a Lady Jacques-Emile Blanche
La Mare, effet de neige (The Pond, Effect of Snow) by Claude Monet.
It is an Impressionist oil-on-canvas painting created in 1874.
The painting depicts a snow-covered landscape with a pond or river bank, utilizing Monet’s signature soft brushstrokes and focus on light and atmosphere.
The scene captures a cold, misty day, with trees lining the bank and a hint of an industrial area in the distance.
The work is part of a series of snow effect paintings by the artist.
Although any project to restore Villa Fiori to its former glory is to be applauded I remain hesitant about its success for the following reasons.
1. The restoration of the villa in itself is a mammoth project. We have visited its interior in the past year – just the replacement of the roof would require major investment. To add to this restoration the building of a spa and health centre next to it without even the certainty that it will be supplied with thermal water is a heroic task.
2. Thermal waters with a spa are already present at the Bagni Bernabo’ (which we have attended for some years now), the Hotel delle Terme and, very soon now, at the Terme alla Villa. These establishments are in addition to the Terme Varraud with its natural caves, mud and thermal baths which, regrettably, largely because of economic reasons, have been closed for some years now
3. The area around the Villa Fiori is a public garden owned by the comune of Bagni di Lucca. To sell a part of it off to built a private wellness centre would be both a huge legal challenge and be unfair to Bagni citizens who use it for their recreation and for local events. Already to our shock horror we notice that the garden is now blocked off from anyone who tries to reach it across the footbridge at Ponte.
4. The whole area is under the Italian ‘Belle Arti’ and remains a conservation area subject to strict rules regarding any development. I do not feel the plans I have seen for the proposed wellness centre would satisfy the Belle Arti.Frankly I would like the project to be restricted to the villa itself which, no doubt, would suit itself well for conversion into a time-share residence (like the town’s Hotel Svizzero) or partitioned off as flats or even turned into a boutique hotel.Of course, we would all like Villa Fiori to see better days but let hopes not be raised too high. I feel we need to concentrate first of all in getting the original Terme Varraud, which many who read this will remember with some fondness, back into business with a firm reinvestment there.
Sebbene qualsiasi progetto di restauro di Villa Fiori sia degno di plauso, rimango titubante sul suo successo per i seguenti motivi.
Il restauro della villa in sé è un progetto colossale. Ne abbiamo visitato gli interni l’anno scorso: solo la sostituzione del tetto richiederebbe un investimento ingente.
Aggiungere a questo restauro la costruzione di un centro benessere e termale adiacente, senza nemmeno la certezza che sarà alimentato con acqua termale, è un’impresa eroica.
Le acque termali con spa sono già presenti ai Bagni Bernabò (che frequentiamo da alcuni anni), all’Hotel delle Terme e, molto presto, alle Terme alla Villa. Questi stabilimenti si aggiungono alle Terme Varraud con le sue grotte naturali, i fanghi e le terme che, purtroppo, soprattutto per motivi economici, sono chiuse da alcuni anni.
L’area intorno a Villa Fiori è un giardino pubblico di proprietà del Comune di Bagni di Lucca. Vendere una parte per costruire un centro benessere privato rappresenterebbe un’enorme sfida legale e sarebbe ingiusto nei confronti dei cittadini di Bagni che lo utilizzano per il loro tempo libero e per eventi locali. Con nostro grande orrore, notiamo che il giardino è ora interdetto a chiunque cerchi di raggiungerlo attraverso la passerella pedonale di Ponte.
L’intera area è sottoposta a vincolo delle Belle Arti e rimane un’area protetta soggetta a rigide norme per quanto riguarda qualsiasi sviluppo edilizio. Non credo che i progetti che ho visto per il centro benessere proposto soddisfino le esigenze delle Belle Arti. Francamente, vorrei che il progetto fosse limitato alla villa stessa, che, senza dubbio, si adatterebbe bene alla conversione in una residenza multiproprietà (come l’Hotel Svizzero della città) o alla suddivisione in appartamenti o addirittura alla trasformazione in un boutique hotel. Certo, vorremmo tutti che Villa Fiori vedesse giorni migliori, ma non lasciamoci prendere dalle speranze. Credo che dovremmo concentrarci prima di tutto sul rilancio delle Terme Varraud originali, che molti di coloro che leggono questo ricorderanno con affetto, con un solido reinvestimento.
This time of year is wonderful walking weather. Today we made it up the path from Ponte di Catagnana to Sommocolonia, scene of the last battle in the Garfagnana during WWII where lieutenant John Fox of the US ‘Buffalo’ forces died for Italy’s freedom.
This footpath is actually the old mulattiera (mule path) to Sommocolonia.
The path is beautifully engineered and graded: a ‘super highway’ of the mediaeval age.
This little chapel on the path is a lovely place to get one’s breath back.
The Buffaloes: Afro-American soldiers who helped so much to win the war in this part of Italy.
The views from this part of the path are spectacular: down the valley one can see the city of Barga
The memorial of the Martyrs of December 1944
Memorial plaque. Gerry’s attack almost synchronised with the battle of the bulge and was Nazi Germany’s last attempt to attack the Allies before its final defeat the following year
Lieutenant John Fox’s USA army memorial stone.
The church of San Rocco in Sommocolonia
Something more about the battle of Sommocolonia:
During the Second World War, on December 26, 1944, Sommocolonia was the scene of “Operation Wintergewitter”, a limited offensive conducted on the Gothic Line by the Italian-German forces against the US troops (92nd “Buffalo” Division), supported by the partisans of the XI zone.
There were over 150 casualties among the Allied forces (including John Robert Fox, awarded the US Medal of Honor) and 7 civilian victims, and over 50% of the buildings were destroyed by the bombings. The last large bomb dropped by a US plane was found unexploded near the Rocca in the 1980s. The last devices, two American Mk2 hand grenades, were removed and detonated in July 2009, near the “Campeglio” location.
On February 19, 2010, a delegation of American soldiers from the Camp Darby base (PI), visited the town and the sites of the battle of Christmas 1944. They were subsequently hosted by the local town committee for refreshments and a visit to the small but very well-kept museum that collects the war material found and the collective memory of Sommocolonia.
On July 6, 2010, Lieutenant Richard Neumeister of the 4th Alpine Battalion, who launched the attack on Sommocolonia on December 26, 1944 during the “Winter Storm” operation, asked to visit the town and the small museum, accompanied by his family. Arriving there, he cried when he saw those places again. Subsequently, numerous delegations of American soldiers from the nearby American base of Camp Darby went to Sommocolonia to visit the battle sites.
Yesterday I visited Lucca’s Santa Zita clinic with its sweet garden.
The ‘Casa di Cura’ Santa Zita was opened in Lucca in 1955 by an association composed mainly of doctors. Since 1958 it has been managed by the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit. Their Religious Congregation was founded in 1882 by Elena Guerra, born and raised in Lucca. Like the other main clinic in Lucca, the Barbantine, it works closely with the Italian national health system.
Lucca boasts many saintly women (and some less so like Lucida Mansi!) Of the saintly there are three who are particularly venerated. They are
I’ve written about the two saints in other posts but said nothing about Elena so far.
Maria Elena Antonietta Guerra was one of the six children of Antonio Guerra and Faustina Franceschi, a wealthy and pious aristocratic married couple from Lucca. Only three children reached adulthood. Elena Guerra, after time spent in assisting the sick, decided to dedicate herself to a more intense religious life.
In 1882 she founded a lay female community in Lucca dedicated to the education of girls and to Santa Zita, patron saint of the city. It was a community without vows, a fellowship of volunteers dedicated to teaching. Gemma Galgani was also among her students.
The spread of spiritualist practices in those years and the anticlericalism of the Italian State pushed Guerra to publish several booklets and convinced her to turn directly to Pope Leo XIII, so that the Church would rediscover the action of the Holy Spirit of which she was a particular devotee.
Guerra died in Lucca on 11 April 1914. Her body was transferred in 1928 to the church of Sant’Agostino, next door to the Santa Zita clinic, which constitutes the conventual chapel of the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit, where it is still venerated. Elena’s remains were subjected to canonical recognition and placed inside the main altar where they can be seen.
Elena was given the title of Apostle of the Holy Spirit. In 1930, the process for her beatification was opened and in 1953 she was beatified on April 26, 1959 by Pope John XXIII.
A sudden and baffling healing miracle attributed to invoking her name by the very ill person led to the reopening in 2012 of the ‘causa’ for Elena being made a saint. The healing was declared scientifically inexplicable by the medical board and on 13 April 2024 Pope Francis recognized it as a miracle and decreed that the canonization ceremony of the blessed Elena Guerra take place on 20 October 2024. Thus Lucca will now have three fully-fledged female saints from next month.
Incidentally what is the difference between a venerated person, a beatified one and a saint?
A venerated person is someone who has shown heroic virtues in a religious life.
A beatified person is one who in addition has caused one miracle to happen.
A saint is someone who has two miracles attributed to them in addition to being a great inspiration to humanity.
I think most of us would be extremely lucky to be even vaguely respected, let alone venerated!
The Santa Zita clinic visit was followed by one to the Palazzo Pfanner.
Here the garden is being restored but the palace museum was open where clinical instruments and documents used by Dr Pfanner (who was also a psychiatrist) were on show in the frescoed interiors.
I was so glad they’re not much used today! To take my mind off them I Imagined Nicole Kidman going down the monumental staircase in ‘Portrait of a Lady’ which was filmed in the Palazzo.
The Palazzo Pfanner (or Controni-Pfanner to give its full title) stands on the north side of Lucca. Built by the Moriconi family in 1660 using their wealth acquired through silk manufacture it was sold by them to Controni, another silk manufacturer, in 1680 who expanded it and added the monumental staircase designed by the Luccan architect Domenico Martinelli (who was also much in demand by the Hapsburg courts of Vienna and Prague).
The beautiful formal garden was designed by Filippo Juvarra. Born in Messina in 1678, Juvarra became one of Italy’s greatest baroque architects. His best work can be seen in Turin but he spent some time in the Luccan republic and designed the Villa Mansi and the Villa Garzoni together with their dramatic gardens.
In the nineteenth century the palazzo was bought by the Bavarian beer brewing family of Pfanner who still own it today and who have been engaged in a loving restoration project on their lovely house since 1996.
Going through my photographic archive I realised that I’d visited this palace in the distant 1980’s when it still housed a collection of eighteenth century costumes. Today the costumes have gone and instead there are those surgical instruments. I think I’d prefer the costumes to be back!
The rest of the palace is little changed as these almost forty (!) year-old photographs show:
A little Jerusalem arises among the gentle hills surrounding Montaione in Tuscany. Within its bounds one can find all those places mentioned in the gospels relating to Jesus’ last days on the Earth. There is Mount Calvary, Golgotha the Place of the Skull, the house of Caiphas, the palace of Herod and even Christ’s sepulchre.
San Vivaldo, a hermit who spent much of his life living in a hollow chestnut tree, thought up the idea of transforming a spot in Tuscany into a miniature Holy Land. It was a time when, despite the militant efforts of the Crusades, the Turkish Muslims had rendered Palestine out of bounds for Christian pilgrims. What else could be done in a time before Zeffirelli-type epic films or computer generated virtual reality to recreate the ambience of those events so dear to so many people using the best means available at the time?
For the construction of the chapels, a friar, Fra Tommaso da Firenze relied on his experience gained from countless trips to the Holy Land and on interactions with Brother Bernardino Caimi, who in those years was designing a Holy Mountain at Varallo in Piedmont.
A little hill brought to mind Mount Calvary. Other features reflected topographical similarities with the sanctuaries existing in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 16th century.
It was for this reason and through the Papal bulls that gave prestige and religious merit to a pilgrimage to a parallel universe reflecting the original Holy Land that starting from the fifteenth century chapels were built each one containing a scene from those momentous last days of the Saviour.
The chapels house valuable terracottas of the Della Robbia tradition which illustrate the last period of Jesus’ life. They had the function of a ‘ Biblia puperum’, that is to represent the Bible and make it understandable, even empathetically, to the largely illiterate people of those times.
We visited the chapels yesterday in a little group of five persons with a sweet Italian whippet under the guidance of a most erudite young man who pointed out things to us in the chapels’ dramatic depictions which we had never suspected.
For instance the man on the far right riding a palfrey is none other than Joseph of Arimathea who brought Christ to England and Glastonbury and supplied His sepulchre after the crucifixion.
The vividness of the depictions struck us. We felt that we were really part of the dramatic scenes: mingling with the crowds, joining the other disciples at the Last Supper’s table and witnessing those final harrowing moments on the Via Crucis.
The artistry of the terracotta figures reached heights which fully proclaimed the influence of a Della Robbia workshop. I remained amazed that these testimonies of a pre-digital age still had so much power in them with their expressive energy and vivid colours.
So even if so many of us today, sadly like those times which gave rise to this rural artistic installation, feel discouraged to visit Jerusalem with the current troubles we can still partake of the vision of San Vivaldo and visit a ‘little Jerusalem’ set deep withn the wooded Tuscan hills.
I remember having visited San Vivaldo before. Searching through my photos I came across these recording a cycle trip there from Florence in 1986. We were shown around by a lone friar who someone has identified as Fra Antonio. We were young then and married for less than ten years. Hopes sprang eternal then: some realised, others, like wanting to have children, dashed to the ground. It was lovely, therefore, to say that we have returned. almost forty years later to a loved spot of our youth.
Last week we received an invitation from our local Bhikkhu (Buddhist monk: the word also means ‘beggar’ thus underlining the ideal of non-attachment Bhikkus practice) to attend festivities in honour of the Buddha’s birthday at their little temple at Ponte a Moriano. Also known as Wesak this is the most important of the Buddhist festivals and is celebrated on the full moon in May. In 2024 Wesak officially takes place on 23 May but since most people are working in Italy it was celebrated yesterday, the 19th of May.
Wesak commemorates not only the birth of Prince Siddhartha Gautama at Lumbini in Nepal (sometime between the 6th and the 4th century BC) but also his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. Unfortunately Ponte a Moriano’s own Bodhi tree (Ficus Religiosa) seemed a bit threadbare this year.
My thoughts went back to the time when I sat under the (supposedly) original Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya during my hippy escapade.
The birth of the Enlightened One is commemorated in different ways in different Buddhist countries. In Ponte Moriano with its Buddhist community largely coming from Sri Lanka it’s celebrated by particular religious observances and offerings.
We arrived at a nicely decorated temple precinct and assembly hall with candles and paper, bamboo-framed lanterns.
We placed our little offering of a potted yellow flower to the Buddha in the temple which was attended by three Bhikkhus.
We then went outside and sat ourselves under a decorated pavilion where we had a tasty lunch known as a Dansalas which means the free offering of food and drink to people. It consisted of red and white rice, lentils, aubergines and fish and, this being Italy, was finished off with gelato and fruit salad.
The stage was then decorated with the statues of Buddha transported from the temple.
The congregation offered birthday presents to the Buddha consisting largely of rice and clothing. One lady said to us she spent more fifty Euros on her present.
Devotional songs known as Bakthi Gee then followed led by a Bhikkhu whose warm voice lulled me to a particularly ecstatic trance.
Children and ladies then entered the stage to sing. No knowing Sinhala I was unable to fully follow the words but they were devotional in tone and offered praise to Gautama.
Thus ended our Buddhist birthday. It was a sweet way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the peaceful surroundings of Ponte and we would like to thank our Bhikkhu for his kind invitation.
So here we are back at Mauritius International airport to start our return flight to blighty after two weeks splendid vacation in the (first time for us) southern hemisphere. During this time we did the following.
Organized tours
1 Went on a tour of the south part of the island
2 Went on a catamaran cruise.
3 Turtle watching boat trip
Our own exploration
1 To Port Louis waterfront
2 To Port Louis town
3 To Poudre d’Or
4 To Pamplemousses
5 To Souillac.
6 To Choisy
7 To Triolet
We visited the following museums:
1 International Slavery museum
2 Aapanasi Ghat
3 Postal museum
4 Blue Penny museum
5 Photographic museum
6 Robert Edward Hart Museum
We ate at the following places
1 Casuarina
2 Choisy (Kingfisher)
3 Souillac (Bonne Bouffe)
4 Poudre d’Or
This is, of course, in addition to relaxing in the sea, sun and sand for which the island is famous.
What do we wish we had done but didn’t?
1 More star-gazing, considering that it was the first time we’d seen the night-sky of the southern hemisphere
2 A closer look at the former capital of the island Mahebourg.
3 More time for hiking up the weird volcanic mountains of the Moka range.
Ah well we can’t do everything on one short holiday. But will we come back? Returning to the airport we met a couple who’d already stayed here five times! Not really for us though. Life is too short to keep on returning to the same places. No ‘boarding house at Bognor’ mentality here.
And the future of the island? Considering its smallish size and beauty we happily noted that in most of the places we visited the dreaded tourist was hardly encountered. In almost all cases we were the only ‘westerners’ on the local buses and the lovely places we encountered seemed to belong to us alone.
Hyper-tourism is becoming an increasing threat in many parts of the world and authorities there are attempting to combat it. Venice, for example, is now charging admission to tourists. The city of Vivaldi and Palladio is ever being reduced to a Disneyland theme park, it seems.
Will Mauritius become such a theme park? A friend tells me that her husband was brought up at Cure-pipe on the island where his father, after service in the King’s Rifles in Africa found employment managing a sugar plantation. She referred to the very bad roads on which carts trundled with their loads and the calm and clarity of the lagoon waters surrounding the beaches protected by coral reefs.
Today the island is traversed by six-lane highways, and there’s a metro system from Port Louis to Cure-pipe. The waters look still clear but increasingly plastic is being identified in the fish which swim in them. Moreover, areas which once were clearly country are bring built on. At least two major shopping centres have sprung up and a ‘cyber-city’ is being developed. However, picturesque fishing villages such as the ones at Poudre d’Or and Souillac still survive and much of the plateau region is a well protected national park.
So who knows? One thing is certain: the multicultural milieu of Mauritius where Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists continue to respect each others’ beliefs serves as an excellent example of the tolerance and co-existence prevalent in Mauritius, increasingly rare in a world ever being divided by bloody factionalism and extremism.
we have been able to make more sense of Mauritius’ dense bus network.
Yesterday we decided to visit a place near the aptly named Cape Malheureux commemorating a shipwreck which inspired enlightenment writer Bernardin De Saint Pierre to write his immortal ‘Paul et Virginie’.
The first part of our bus journey was on an express bus which meant that for over thirty minutes we were holding on for dear life as a somewhat clapped out Leyland rushed at break neck speed through a countryside of sugar cane plantations and papaya trees.
We reached the town of Goodlands, a very busy shopping centre with a colourful Hindu temple.
Transferring to a more leisurely vehicle we arrived at our destination, the quiet fishing village of Poudre d’Or.
At the end of a promontory stands the monument to one of the most famous shipwrecks in literature.
The ‘Saint Geran’, a ship belonging to the French East India company, was launched in 1736. Her first sailings were from Pondicherry under the command of captain Laurent Dupleyssis. In 1744 with a cargo of food for Mauritius, which was suffering from a terrible drought, she was shipwrecked off the island’s northern coast. Just nine out of her crew of 149 survived.
It was this event that inspired Jaques-Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre, a French civil engineer and botanist living on the island, to write a novel which for many marked the new sensibilities of the romantic movement. In Bernardin’s story the heroine meets her fate by drowning when the ship she is returning on from France is wrecked on the lethal reefs of Mauritius. Could anyone have saved Virginie? The fact is that she could have saved herself if only she had taken off the cumbersome eighteenth century clothes she was wearing but which she kept on out of a sense of modesty. Ah well!
After our visit to the monument’s site, which also holds a much more recent memorial to another drowning, we walked to Poudre d’Or’s local eatery where we tucked into an appetising biryani, just one dish characteristic of an island which, true to its nature as an oceanic crossroad, invites cuisine from Africa, India, China and Europe into a deliciously assorted melting pot of flavours.
Leaving the beach at sunset
we concluded our evening by attending a rumbustious session of the island’s traditional music form, the Sega which incorporates elements from both Africa and India. For long despised by more prudish authorities this lively dance has encapsulated the spirit of the island in much the same way as reggae has done for the West Indies.
