Tuscany

Nostalghia for the Medici, et alios.....

October in Tuscany.  It's cold.  In Volterra the wind is high, shivering down the deep, narrow, stone streets.  The Medici (Masters of Florence) have taken over the Piazza dei Priori to film the second series of their selfie fest [a political family drama set in Florence in the early fifteenth century. Cosimo de Medici finds himself at the helm of his banking dynasty when his father, Giovanni, dies suddenly.....  Starring Richard Madden.]

We came from Pisa, where a combination of one-way streets, road closures, pedestrianisation and general impassibility set me up me to accumulate around 100 florins in taxable offences.....  A small price, perhaps, for a view like this.....

As dusk falls the streets are busy with visitors hurrying away.....

And then, in the dark, the university, where Galileo - and his feathers - studied the nights, the city is quiet....

And the Campo dei Miracoli is silent and deserted.

The Medici rose to power in the early fifteenth century.  They came from a region north of Florence, initially were doctors (hence the name), then they became wool merchants, then, deftly employing double entry book-keeping, they became the most powerful bankers in Europe.  Having gained wealth, and prominence, they trumped Florence and ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.  In the meantime, they produced three popes and two queens of France.  Their intermarriages with other rich families, and their sponsorship of the arts, meant that for centuries they shaped the development of Tuscany and beyond.

Not that they ruled everywhere....  Siena, fiercely Ghibelline (supporting the Holy Roman Emperor) as opposed to Florence's Guelf stance (on the side of the Pope) was a rival, partly also because of the difference in the sources of their wealth - Florence being a mercantile trading city, while Siena relied on agriculture for its economy.  They weren't friends, anyway, and in September 1260, at Montaperti, ten thousand Florentines perished at the hands of the Senese and a further fifteen thousand were taken prisoner.

Today, Siena is peaceful, and an Aperol Spritz in the Campo is a pleasure that neither Guelfs nor Ghibellines can diminish, though we are only days after the horse of the Giraffe contrada died in agony after a fall during a special run of the Palio to commemorate the centenary of the end of WWI.

Not far away, dominating the val d'Elsa, is San Gimignano, famous for its towers, but also a renowned spot on the via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome.  Like Pisa, Volterra and Siena, there are tides of visitors, washing through the streets and sights in the chilly October sun, admiring themselves against the stone walls, and leaving a little of their wealth behind.

San Gimignano produces a lovely white wine, known as Vernaccia, and the town has installed a fine tasting bar in the ruins of the Castle here, the Vernaccia di San Gimignano Wine Experience.  The centre was created by Consorzio del Vino Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a consortium which brings together all winegrowers producing Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG, the first Italian wine to obtain the Appellation of Origin in 1966....  The world, almost suddenly, seems a better place.

As night falls the day trippers fade away, bussed back to their cruise ships or modern hotels, and I wander the cool dark streets, silence cloaking my footsteps,

As the moon rises above the medieval towers.

In the morning, it is still October, and though the Italian sun shines there is a cold wind.  We head for Monte Amiata, at 1,738 metres (5,702 feet) the highest mountain in Southern Tuscany, a volcanic cone far mightier than any Medici.  I pay my respects to Andrei Tarkovsky at the ruins of San Galgano, one of the great Cistercian monasteries of Italy.  Scenes from his 1983 film Nostalghia were filmed here and I breathe the air of yesterday.... 

Further on down the road we pass the Abbazia di S. Antimo, a Romanesque gem said to have been founded by Charlemagne at the end of the ninth century.  Once this was so quiet and little visited that a Roller nested in the campanile, but now it is cared for and practised in and visited by many.

We approach the mountain, its twin peaks looming behind the restored Castello di Velona Resort Thermal SPA & Winery (where you could have B & B for about £300) which was a roofless ruin when I first explored this region....

This is the Tuscany, the Italy, that I love most.  I arrived here to stay with friends in August 1976, carrying a suitcase up the road from the railway station at Monte Amiata Scalo.  It was hot then, and somehow I lost the instructions of how to find my friends on the way up the hill.  But eventually I got there, first to meet Corrado, now in his nineties, and his wife Concetta,

And then to sit by the fire in an isolated farmhouse, dining on fegatelli (little intestine wrapped parcels of pig's liver flavoured with fennel) and drinking dark red wine.  

The area is dotted with villages, their church towers aspiring heavenwards.  Things have changed since I first came, but it is still a harmonious landscape that shows how man and nature can coexist.  There is no longer the braying of the donkeys first and last thing in the day, and there is less wood smoke drifting up from kitchen chimneys now, but wine and olives and bread and sheep's cheese are still the main products here.....  There are good things in life.... 

And the sun still goes down with a golden glow, leaving the world in the purity of darkness, filling me with Nostalghia, 

Nostalgia which circles round and round, like the coloured bricks and stones in the ceiling of the chiesetta di S Galgano.....

It is October.  It is cold, and the Medici are still filming their power struggles in Volterra.  

But nonetheless my heart warms with love for Tuscany.

Vicarello

Are you sitting comfortably?

If you fly into Rome from Northern Europe in daylight, just after the cabin crew have taken their seats for landing, and just before you hear the clunk of the landing gear extending into place, you will have the Tyrrhenian Sea on the right and Lake Bracciano, or the Lacus Sabatinus as it once was, on the left.  Once upon a time you might have landed here, at Vigna di Valle, 

in your seaplane, for a stopover on your way to India or Australia, but now you plunge on to the flatlands of Fiumicino.

Anyway, imagine, if you will, your 'plane is glass bottomed, and that, just for a minute or two, it stops midair for you to take in the scenery..... Almost immediately below you you will see a blue swimming pool by a large, tiled building in the midst of green countryside.  There are some smaller, greyish pools in the greenery, with people calmly bathing in the steaming water.  These are the Bagni di Stigliano, a place of volcanic springs enjoyed since Etruscan times and highly esteemed by the Romans.  

If you see this complex, you will note that it is neither large, nor obtrusive, and it nestles in virtually unspoiled countryside, on the east of the Monti di Tolfa and just south of the Monterano Nature Reserve, with its ruined village, church and palace.

Directly east of here you will see the forests of La Macchia Grande di Manziana, the bubbling Caldara, with its white birches, 

then after that the forested slopes of the caldera that holds Lake Bracciano.

It is beautiful.  Not absolutely untouched by human hand, but still a green and pleasant land.

Imagine, if you will, this was Trumpland.  Golf courses, villas spattered amongst the woods, casinos and hotels aplenty.

Or, if it's possible, worse....

Well, hold your breath.

Trevignano Romano is a picturesque village about fifty kilometres north of Rome.  It sits on the shore of Lake Bracciano, a bottomless (some 160 metres deep, but even Jacques Cousteau failed to find the deepest point) lake which fills a 30 kilometre round volcanic caldera.  The village is dominated by the remains of an Orsini castle (destroyed in 1496 by one of the Borgia family) and a forested volcanic cone, known as the Rocca Romana, to commemorate the shrine the Romans created on its top.  Volcanic activity is still very much present in the area, with a derelict hot-spring spa at Vicarello (about three kilometres from the village) awaiting multinational corporation agreement on its redevelopment. 

And there's the rub....

Vicarello, which takes its name from Vicus Aurelii (Marcus Aurelius was here....), is the name now given to 1016 hectares of land which includes a small rustic trattoria, a crumbling palazzo where the erstwhile owners, the Collegio Germanico in Rome, used to hold retreats for the faithful, a large farm, which produces wonderful olive oil among other products, a chapel and the Casina Valadier, once used as a hunting lodge by the Orsini family.  Below this you can see the remains of part of the Trajan Aquaduct, which carried water, the Acqua Paola, into Trastevere in Rome.  

The trattoria at Vicarello

[I have to declare a personal interest here.  This trattoria was run for many years by a delightful family, and it was one of my favourite haunts.  On occasions I would take the train from Rome to Oriolo Romano and then walk down through the woods and fields to Vicarello and lunch at this trattoria - their Coniglio alla Cacciatore (hunter-style rabbit) was to die for - and then wander the last three kms home, full of good wine and benevolence.  The family moved to a slightly grander, independent location nearer Trevignano, and my friend, Rosa, moved in, keeping all the traditions of local produce and simple treatment.

Rosa retired recently, but I managed to confuse her with her younger sister in the steam of the kitchen (nuff said) and things were going well, though the last time I tried to get a table there, Ridley Scott had taken the place over to film a scene for All the Money in the World.  Not to be outdone, I pushed myself forward, reminding Ridley that I was a Replicant from Blade Runner..... Would you believe it?  He declared me illegal.....]

Nearby, down a gated lane, surrounded by woods and olive groves, there is a derelict hotel and outbuildings once known as Aquae Apollinares, or the Terme Apollinari (despite dispute with the not distant Bagni di Stigliano over the appropriateness of this name).  Here mineral water springs from the ground at 48 degrees Celsius, and (in the later 19th and through the 20th century) sufferers from arthritis and rheumatism, gout, post-fracture trauma and other delights would trek here to rest and be cured.  

The Albergo Terme Apollinari, 1936

During WWII this was briefly used as a German military hospital, and then in 1962 the hotel was modernised and flourished until the Società Agricola di Vicarello ran into financial difficulties and was sold.  By the early 1980s the baths were in ruins.

In 1989 the new owners, Schroder Asseily & Co Ltd. (who provide financial advisory services from 41 Upper Grosvenor Street, Mayfair) began planning a great new Spa, under the name of The Vicarello Partnership, which included Mannai Trading & Investment Co. Ltd. (from Bahrain), two Cypriot companies and the Harkness company, which is based in Grand Cayman.  The project comprised a hotel complex, commercial facilities, 271 villas and three golf courses.  Italia Nostra and other environmental agencies, understanding what damage this would cause to the natural environment and considering the historical value of the location, opposed the plan and in 1994 the then Minister for the Beni Culturali, Alberto Ronchey, blocked the proposal and in 1999,  with the approval of regional law Number 26 on the part of the Region of Lazio, the Parco Naturale Regionale di Bracciano-Martignano was initiated.

Unfortunately, although the offer was on the table, the Region of Lazio did not take up the option to actually acquire this superb natural park, not even in 2014 when The Vicarello Partnership broke up.

And so, with the help of a certain Italo-Australian broker, John Cassisi, this jewel of unspoiled land has recently passed to Chinese buyers, for somewhere between 16 and 25 million euros (the deal has been cloaked in secrecy and so no details are available and estimates vary), or something in the region of 20,000 euros per hectare.....  

No one knows precisely how many people currently live in Trevignano Romano.  When we resided there in the eighties and nineties the received wisdom was that around 2,500 people lived there in the winter and that that figure might rise to as many as twenty thousand at times in the summer.  A recent (2008) census figure put the population at 5,819 but many of those will not be permanently resident.  

And more will never mean better.....



Trevignano from the Rocca degli Orsini, with La Chiesa dell'Assunta 

Until the second world war Trevignano was little more than a fishing village, and metalled roads did not reach it.  Then, in the fifties, market gardening flourished and the villagers prospered by getting up early and trucking their produce into the Rome central markets in the early hours of the morning.  The fertile volcanic soil was perfect for tomatoes and salad crops, beans and leaf vegetables.  For a while, until the coastal strips to the north and south of Rome caught up, there was a boom. 

When, inevitably, that faded, the village was on the map, Gianni Agnelli’s Fiats were everywhere, the roads had been tarred, and Trevignano became a desirable place for holiday outings, then second homes, and then even commuters.  Instead of being a tight jumble of close-knit houses around the church, with the occasional villa along the shoreline, the march of apartment blocks away from the medieval centre began, but it remains a quiet village, busy in the summer, but sleepy like a cat in the winter.

And so, I put it to you, what possible need have 'the Chinese' (whether an individual, a corporation, or a multinational) for a small, historic, beautiful parcel of land and derelict buildings in the unspoiled natural wonderland of the Monti Sabatini, unless (and I admit this is a possibility, though implausible) they are lovers of natural Italy?

Unfortunately it is unlikely that a development on the modest scale of the existing Bagni di Stigliano would generate sufficient return on the necessary outlay for distant landlords.

So, wondering what these various entities really want out of a remote, beautiful, small corner of Italy, I would suggest that the motive is either to launder money (by buying and then eventually reselling), or to make quick profits which can only result in the ruination of the natural environment and the degradation of the existing human social and historical balance with that nature.

Understandably, perhaps, there will be people in the locality who would enjoy the potential wealth foreign money might bring; there will be employment, more visitors with more money, but, in the long term, when the cement has replaced the chestnut trees there will be no more porcini....

If you are, currently, sitting comfortably, then I would advise you to make the most of it, as I fear that greedy eyes are even now thinking how they can develop and profit from your nice comfy seat.....

And the world will not be a better place for it.

As Francesco de Gregori sings, 

in Viva L'Italia,

Viva l'Italia, presa a tradimento,

l'Italia assassinata dai giornali e dal cemento...

Post scriptum:  My informants tell me that the China connection intends to reconstruct the hotel and reopen the spa, and perhaps that will be that.....  All good if so.  Work for local people, minimal disturbance to the environment, and a reconstitution of a once-valued asset to the locality.

Time will tell.  I am not an economist, but something here does not add up.....

Roma - Back in the glue pot again!

Towers of Silence.....

I am watching Trust, a sprawling dramatisation of the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in 1973.  It takes me back, sort of, to Rome in the 70s.  Getty was expelled from St George's English School a little before I taught there, and the whole affair was over a couple of years before I arrived.... but I claim a remote connection, and, in the midst of the herds of tourists on my recent visit, I feel a sense of belonging.... 

{er...To the city, not the tourists, y'unnerstan?} 

This was my street, in Trastevere, where I lived on the second floor of 169 Via di San Francesco a Ripa....

They were exciting times, for many reasons.  Kidnapping was one thing.....  The deaths of three of my transvestite neighbours, found shot and dumped on the periphery of the city after some drug deals went wrong, added to the spice of life.....  In the Caffè di Marzio, in Piazza Santa Maria di Trastevere, a hundred metres from our door, my flatmate was stabbed in the stomach, in exactly the spot from which I took this photograph....

Unsurprisingly, things have transmuted. Trastevere is now trendy, in a Montmartyrdom sort of way, with lots of bright young things and laughter and spritzers and chips....  Despite defacement, the sign on this Caffè hasn't changed....

But its interior and nature has....  You would never have got a beer here in the seventies.  It was coffee or milk, and a digestivo, and that was about it.

But not everything e cambiato.  Santa Cecilia still rests her marble head under the altar in her church....

And round the corner the finest fifteenth century cloister in Rome, if not the world, that of the Pia Società di S. Giovanni dei Genovesi, is still fairly difficult to access....

But despite the trends some of the narrow lanes and alleys in this part of town, where Genoese sailors stopped over while their ships were unloaded on the Ripa Grande, are still quiet and atmospheric....

And some, at least, of the restaurants maintain the post war charm that Fellini and co - and Peck and Hepburn - celebrated.... 

Across the river, in Roma propria, between Largo Argentina and Piazza Paganica, I pause at the doorway of via Sant'Elena, 8, known to have been home to one of the covi (hideouts) of the Brigate Rosse in the '70s,  possibly even the place in which Aldo Moro passed his last hours on the night of May 8th/9th 1978, and where he was shot in the back seat of the red Renault 4, in the garage of what now claims to be a fish shop.

I look up at the shuttered windows, not unlike my own flat across the river, and wonder what secrets they could tell....

And I look round the back, at the dingy, narrow Vicolo dei Falegnami, down which Moro may have been hustled and into the back door of via Sant'Elena, 8,

Before being killed, stuffed into the boot, and driven to be 'discovered' in Via Caetani, right outside one of the stations of the Fiamme Gialle, the Guardia di Finanza, Cossiga's Teste di Cuoio, a branch of Italian Military Police whose role, amongst others, is to be anti-terrorist.  They also have a pleasant beach resort at Fregene, where Aldo Moro is thought to have been held for a while before being brought into the city to be murdered..... from where he got sand in his trouser turn ups.....

Beware of the Griffons, I say!

Yes, Rome is full of secrets.  Mutterings in huddles of bandsmen,  

Quiet phone calls from men in suits,

Whispers in the darkness of churches,

Or painful sighs behind closed blinds in secret service offices,

Rome has always been like this.  In the middle ages, powerful families sealed themselves inside towers like this, La Torre dei Capocci,

Or like this one, the Torre dei Conti, built at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Pope Innocent III, mentioned by Petrarch, and then partially destroyed in the earthquake of 1348....

Then there's the granddaddy of them all, the massive Torre delle Milizie, also from the thirteenth century, but leaning perilously above the ruins of Trajan's Forum, and reputedly the site where Nero fiddled when Rome burned....

Towers of silence.  As Dylan sang, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble, ancient footprints are everywhere....

But light still shines on the tourists in the city, mostly happy and oblivious to the darker side of history.  They take their selfies by the Fontana di Trevi,

Relax awhile in the Piazza di Spagna,  where Little Pauly dances alone in Danny Boyle's Trust.  Climb the steps to the church of Trinità dei Monti (hard by the Hassler Hotel where Tony Soprano ate his last pound of Foie Gras)....

Gape at the columns and the ruins of the Imperial Forum,

And wander aimlessly on the unnaturally white Carrara marble of the Wedding Cake, the Altare della Patria, in saluting distance of Mussolini's office in the Palazzo Venezia....

Me, I'll sip a beer and read my book, 

And peer down at the dark street below, secretly wishing it were yesterday,

Then in the morning,

Is that really the time?

I must pick up my bed,

And walk....

And get back to sniffing at secrets in this dog-forsaken city....

And, trust me, a dog will have its day,

Or maybe it is the wolf, the wolf that suckled Rome and made it what it is....

Free to Roam

(You are, secretly, being watched)

Trust me....