Christmas in a village in Tuscany

Babbo Natale knows how to find Bagni di Lucca. Although it was a thriving spa town in the nineteenth century, like most of Tuscany it has roots in the Etruscan & Roman epochs as well. Close to the gorgeous walled city of Lucca, Bagni di Lucca is a little gem of a Tuscan village where life rolls along with a rythm in tune with the seasons. Off the beaten track and filled with magic.

Lisa Clifford wins literary award

In August this year, Lisa Clifford was awarded the 2009 Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia.


The book, Death in the Mountains, describes a Tuscany the travel brochures don't know. It takes the reader into a time & place & a world almost forgotten now, even by Tuscans, but still vivid in the effects on each person who was formed by those times. Lisa sees with the clear-eyed love of an adopted Tuscan, & shares with us her warm appreciation for the harsh and beautiful world which lies so close behind the one we all see today.
I love this book & I am delighted that it has been properly recognised. Don't miss it.
See below.

'Death in The Mountains' by Lisa Clifford

Winner
The winner of the 2009 Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia is:
Death in the Mountains - WINNER
Lisa Clifford
(Pan Macmillan)

The world of the Italian peasant, hundreds of years in the making, is difficult to describe to the modern reader, as it is overlain with the memories and misconceptions that are mixed up in the migration process. In Death in the Mountains, Lisa Clifford intricately re-creates an almost forgotten world of a rural Italy, a world of peasant mezzadri (sharecroppers) governed by poverty, hard work, frugality and resourcefulness in which adversity is sometimes paradoxically mediated by both religion and superstition. The key factual events, particularly the murder of the family's paterfamilias, Artemio Bruni, are located within a vivid reconstruction of the occluded world inhabited by these mezzadri. The details are astonishingly good, based on careful interviews with the descendants of Artemio and Bruna and their contemporaries, now very old people living on the margins of an Italian region better known for its glamorous villas and majestic urbanscapes. By drawing readers into the world of the Italian mezzadro peasant the story of the Bruni family, Clifford provides insight into the values, attitudes and ways that helped define the Italian peasantry and which subsequently moulded the lives of Italians both in Australia and Italy.

ORSANMICHELE ORATORIO

A treasure re-opened
Volunteers staff long-shuttered museum

Orsanmichele is the most Florentine monument in Florence. Palazzo Vecchio is a town hall, like the town halls that are found in many other cities. Santa Maria del Fiore is a cathedral, just like the ones in every other city. But there is only one Orsanmichele and it is in Florence. Only in Florence could a monument like this one be born; a monument that is part church, part granary; a monument that serves both religious and civil life; a monument that exalts both faith and work'.

These words, spoken by then mayor of Florence, Piero Bargellini, in a 1956 speech, are on the back of the tickets that give visitors free entrance to the newly re-opened Orsanmichele museum, located on the second and third floors of the church.

Lacking personnel, the museum, which showcases the original sculptures that once adorned the Orsanmichele's exterior tabernacles, has been closed for the past four years. Now, thanks to volunteers from the Amici dei musei fiorentini association, the museum opens its doors every Monday, from 10am to 5pm.

‘It's a gift for all-both residents and tourists. For this we thank the Amici dei musei fiorentini,' said the museum's director, Antonio Goldoni.

‘We will work to control the visitor influx, but we will also answer visitors' questions and help out in any way we can. We decided to open the museum on Mondays because the city's other museums are closed and we hope to attract more visitors', says volunteer and Florentine entrepreneur Roberto Santini.

The Florentine, (issue no. 108/2009 / September 24, 2009)

'Something wicked this way comes' Macbeth at the Bargello

As daylight wanes over Florence, the divide between man and fate collide in this summer's performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The study of murder, greed, and deception will be played out in the former execution grounds of the Bargello Museum.

‘Florence English Speaking Theatrical Artists (F.E.S.T.A.) is making history as the first company to perform Shakespeare in English in a Florentine museum,' remarked Cristina Acidini, head of the Polo Museale Fiorentino, the organization in charge of Florence's most renowned museums.

‘The emphasis is very much on the metaphysical, on humanity, and the battle between the gods and fate,' said director Shaun Loftus. ‘One of the hallmarks of tragedy is man against the gods, so the idea was to put emphasis on the witches.'

Living in a society where the end justifies the means, Loftus' Macbeth is presented as a tragedy of humanity. The witches represent three primordial fates-the spinner, the allotter, and the cutter-altering the characters' lives. Inspired by Akira Kurasawa's Throne of Blood
, Loftus emphasizes that the witches' power to determine life, length of life, and the moment of death comes from the characters' belief in them.

‘I mirror the fights because I'm deciding who gets away and who dies,' explained Stephanie Taylor, who plays the cutter. ‘Our biggest fear is if these people stop believing in us because then we'll die.'

Echoing modern notions that the winner conquers all, and that immorality deserves reward, Macbeth digs into the roots of Greek tragedy, said Loftus.
The marriage between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is one of equal partners. Although Macbeth is often interpreted as weak, Simon Blackhall portrays a very warm and strong Macbeth. ‘It's a tragedy; there's no way out for Macbeth,' said Blackhall. ‘Along with that there's also a lot of humanity in the play-the visceral language equates to this rawness.'
The Florence production of Macbeth features an ensemble cast of actors from Broadway to the Stratford Theatre, from America, Rome, Pisa, and the U.K.
‘When I heard about this project, I knew I had to be a part of it,' said Baron Kelly, who has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, and in regional theatres across America. On his role as Duncan, the king, he recounted that Loftus told him, "‘I'm sorry you came all this way just to get killed.'"

The murders take place in the courtyard of the Bargello, where prisoners were once executed. ‘Macbeth is an incredibly bloody play, and in medieval times criminals used to be hung in the courtyard,' said Elia Nichols who plays Lady Macbeth. ‘Very little set was needed. Macbeth is set in Scotland during the Middle Ages, so all we needed was a castle.'

Works of art in Florence are echoed in the costumes, designed by Dagmar Lise Pedersen. One of Lady Macbeth's costumes, a cape with fabric relief sculptures of babies' heads, signifying a central theme of the play: Macbeth's willingness to slaughter innocence in order to fulfill ambition. It was inspired by a wooden sculpture in the Bargello, the Madonna della Misericordia.

Commenting on her approach to the production, Loftus explained, ‘We wanted a violent Macbeth to show people what not to do. We're in a world where horrible wars happen and we never see it around us-we live in a society that's become disaffected.'

Macbeth will be performed at 9pm at the Bargello from July 8 through 12. Italian translation will be projected on the wall. Tickets can be purchased from www.themacbethproject.org/boxoffice, www.boxol.it, or at the BM Bookstore, Borgo Ognissanti 4r.
This article is from The Florentine, (issue no. 105/2009 / July 2, 2009)

TUSCAN B&B VILLA LA MASSA

Our daily bread took on a much more immediate meaning during a recent stay at Villa La Massa in the Tuscan countryside to the east of Florence. Peter & Daniele, who run this gorgeous B & B deep in a Tuscan valley in the Casentino, are delightfully warm hosts who spare no effort to make their guests feel, for a time, part of the rich ritual of the country rythm which is their life. And so, on our first morning, we found ourselves in Peter’s 4WD on our way to the ancient water mill in a local village to pick up a sack of flour for more of the scrumptious homemade bread we had devoured for breakfast. We watched the big stones grinding on as they had for centuries, powered by the rush of water directly beneath us, all viewed through a fine haze of new flour. After a chat to the baker, who, with his brother, continues this family business with contracts as far off as Tesco in the UK, we collected our sack and headed into the local bar for the morning coffee ritual. No tourists ever stray here—the beaten tack is far away.
La Massa sits high on the side of the valley, flooded by sunshine for most of the day. We took the SITA coach from Florence, enjoying the spectacular scenery of the villages and mountains of the valley which follows the River Arno to its source. We passed through ancient villages and towns such as Pontassieve with its Roman bridge, and on upwards through stunning forests into the snow-covered mountains and the high pass at Consuma. This was once one of the poorest regions in Tuscany, and the traditions are still strong. At a bend in the road we alighted at a local stop signed Vertelli & made our way on foot up the lane which wends its way to the house through olive groves and across a stone bridge across a tumbling river, and on upward into the light and welcome of La Massa.
On this early spring evening the fire was already lit and the lamps were burning and the sense of homecoming was overwhelming. Peter & Daniele have thought of everything. I’m a hard marker, but over the course of our three-day visit I could not find a single thing which could be bettered. This is hospitality at its most utterly gracious, offered by hosts who really are pleased to have you.
We spent a day exploring the surrounding villages—visiting the perfectly preserved town of Poppi with its medieval castle and collonaded streets reached from below by an Etruscan footpath. Perched high on its eyrie the town sits surveying the surrounding countryside just as it has done for over eight hundred years, still silent and brooding like the castle-keep it once was. Sounds floated up from the valley below—dogs barking, church bells tolling, wisps of smoke from the plains where the prunings from the harvested olive trees are being burned.
Peter drove us to the market town of Strada in Casentino where he took us to meet his friends who run the alimentary—deli to us. We had a delightful chat about the Slow Food Movement, to which they belong, and which is now, after its beginnings in Torino, a world-wide sodality. The array of regional cheeses was enough to make me despair, and so of course we tasted them all and bought far too much, and staggered home laden with enough for forty people for forty days, but determined to eat it all the same.
At night in the valley the stars glitter as I have only ever seen them before in Australia. By day we followed the ridge-line high, high up behind the house to the very top from where you can see forever.
La Massa offers every possible comfort & joy of modernity—super comfortable beds; lavish bathrooms; fully equipped kitchens; central heating; a wood-burning stove ( with chopped & ready-stacked wood) and elegant, welcoming, comfy décor. This is the best of modern Italian design, married to casual rustic charm and thoughtful generous hospitality.
The ‘breakfast’ part of the Bed &Breakfast is no less generous—a luscious selection of goodies which included berry jam made by Daniele’s mother and of course Peter’s homemade bread, which we almost felt as if we had had a hand in making, as we had at least supervised the milling of the flour!
There is also Wi-fi internet and a gym, for those who could be bothered with the outside world or self-discipline, but I ignored both of those and even the solar-heated pool set amongst geraniums and lavender with a view across the valley. This is a place to be still and feel life eddying around you. This is Peter & Danny’s home, and the B&B is an extension of their home & their life, which we were fortunate enough to share for a short time. Lucky us!!

B&B in Tuscany - Villa La Massa

Villa La Massa visit on our links.