Another Year Older and Deeper in Florence

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  Florence, Italy
Monday, March 26, 2007

March 23, 2007
Florence, Almost the Beginning of the Second Term of School

The View From 62

Today I turned (like the proverbial cheese) another year, to 62. The Italian word for this is "compleanno" meaning "complete year" or "another step closer to the cold, cold earth").

I've told everyone here to forget about it, and they pretty much have. I think at dinner tonight (it will be Annette, Ihren, Nancy and I - the two-week-old gang) at the Buca Dell'Orafo (recommended by David Brookes, thank you David) and located in a small smelly alley just to the south of the north end of Ponte Vecchio, we may raise a toast or two, but we shall see. I was in there yesterday to (1) find the damn place and (2) make reservations, both of which were accomplished. The few dishes of food I could spy looked very, very, good, and that was just the antipasti.

This weekend is filling up with interesting adventures. I must have interesting adventures, as the new teacher is certain to ask each of us what we did over the weekend (the fine settimane, if you are scoring). Teacher today was filling in some time (it was review-for-the-big-test day) and made the mistake of asking that question after a Thursday evening.

The answers ranged from "I went outside, then I went home, then I went to sleep" to "We went to Piazza della Signoria and had two glasses of wine, each" to "I went to my local café, played on the Internet, went home, studied, and went to bed" (that was my answer). Ask on Monday morning and the answers are bound to be more interesting.

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that much of central Florence is nothing more than a somewhat interesting playing field for the American College Students of Today.

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The locals pass by on their way to somewhere; the Americans take up all the rest of the space. Behind the closed doors and in the lovely courtyards there may be angels, frescoes and silk trees. On the street there are all sorts of exotic accents: Brooklyn, Bryn Mawr, (sp?), California, Texas, and Utah, too. It's all "Did you look at the map, dear?" and "Are you coming to dinner with us before we go out to the disco?" and I go and you go and they went.

Another reminder of where I am: I live in a neighborhood in which people actually use the Wash & Dry, buy milk and pastries, get a coffee, or a dress, or replace a broken plate, and make things like picture frames or antique furniture (instant antiques: another ancient art of the artisans of Florence). Then I have occasion to walk over to the rich part of town. Turn only one corner and one instantly is back in America, with Americans, and their accents and their attitudes, Prada, and big department stores. There are leather shops everywhere, but these look like SHOPS, not holes in a wall. There are restaurants and bars everywhere in Florence, but the ones along Via Calzaiuoli are huge, and go back a LONG way from the street, and the waiters wear ties... you get the idea. Instead of ignoring you, they simply speak perfect English, which sometimes is just another way of doing that.

I should say also that I have been treated with courtesy and respect in many places, on many locations. In fact, the Italians usually are much more interested in whoever they are addressing, and more courteous, than people of another nearby (nameless) nation whose name starts with F.

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This is a gross generalization, of course, but generally, it's true.

I break off here for a moment for a bit of reality. I have a red shirt in the sink, and it needs to be kneaded for a few minutes, then rinsed, then hung up over the barely breathing heater. Life on the road; the same for everyone.

For Saturday I now have tix to take the train to Sinalunga (in southern Tuscany) traveling via Arezzo, to have lunch with Robert Etherington. We haven't yet met, but he sounds like my type of foreigner-in-Tuscany. He not only flies balloons over the wine country, but also is organizing a "play-in" for chamber music this July in his town of Montisi. I should have some good tales to tell. His wife Liz is a writer of children's books, with her next one appearing this summer.

Then, on Sunday, I plan to meet Annette at my apartment here and we (and maybe Nancy and her American friend) and we will all take the #7 bus into the hills nearby, to the well-known and famous and well-visited village of Fiesole, overlooking Florence. After we look around and eat, we plan to walk all the way (downhill, mostly) back into town. If I can do this, I can climb the Duomo, about 463 steps!

So... Saturday turned out to be a wonderful day, minus the boring hours on trains. Robert and Liz are wonderful, interesting people. When I think about all the things they are doing, pretty much at the same time, I'm speechless (not wordless, of course, just speechless). Robert is a builder who with Liz, who is highly experienced in working with locally produced authentic materials such as gesso and lime to make accurate restorations in the houses and churches in Tuscany, has an ongoing 20-year project to convert their farmhouse and land into finished living space, but also to restore some of its former functionality as a water-driven flour and corn mill.

J11

There are so many stories here!

Plus they are raising (and eating) pigs and chickens, have a dog and cat and will have, when the mill pond is restored, ducks. Robert is planning a summer of music with high level players coming to Montisi to rehearse and perform. No doubt he will bring it off (he and a friend started a similar musical festival in his native Cornwall, and it is still going on, and has become a major locus for music). So this will very likely happen. Meanwhile, when the weather is good, tourists search him out for balloon floats over the lovely, hilly countryside dotted with castles and other monuments to a warlike past.

As we drove in Robert's Deux Chevaux from Sinalunga to Montisi, Robert paused to point out the intersection of two painfully straight roads, both Roman. In Mendocino a hundred years is ancient history; in Italy that would be something akin to about a minute ago.

Pardon me if I belabor the obvious with these superficial reflections, but as these places and stories are revealed to me I enjoy the same awe and bemusement that many before me have felt and expressed. I have to talk about it too. Can't help myself.

Robert really should write down his stories (others have already done some of this for him - see his website: www.ballooningintuscany.com ). Among the tales he told this afternoon: How he met the original Montgolfier family in Paris and acquired a very famous engraving showing the original 1783 Paris balloon flight, and on the back of the frame was written the names of those who flew that day (Robert has this as a postcard; and on his site, too).

In Italian the word for hot-air ballooning is "il mongolfiera" after the original French adventurer.

Other stories: How acquiring a small studio in Montisi for Liz (currently writing children's books) became both an historical reclamation project and a study in how property is reformed in Italy.

J12

In order to reach the studio, they had to buy the adjacent staircase. Then another room to connect everything (formerly Communist Party Headquarters, complete with various membership stickers from 1974) and somehow a one hundred foot-long tunnel through the hillside also became part of the deal. In this tunnel, Robert found a sandy pit that had been used in centuries past to collect rain runoff. To keep it from fouling the wine making and storage operations in the tunnel the sandy pit was filled with a goodly amount of broken, museum-quality, painted pottery. When pottery broke it was added to this pit, as a barrier between the sand and the water, to keep the accumulating sand from floating into the tunnel. I am aware that I don't have the details all correct, and this is why we must urge Robert to tell his stories, on his website.

Until a century or two ago, their farmhouse was in fact a mill. In this valley there is a lot of flowing water, and a nearby stream was diverted to collect in a mill pond (since filled in to ground level and now partially excavated by Robert and Liz). The water from the pond was forced through two narrow openings (I saw these) and flowed under the house where it turned paddles that in turn powered the large milling stones on the floor above. The water exited through a small bricked arch at the other side of the house (now easily viewable from the kitchen where we enjoyed a delightful lunch), then down the hillside to rejoin the stream. In addition, rainwater from the nearby hills was captured and directed into the mill pond.

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The holes in the stone fence that allowed the runoff to join the mill pond now are favorite hiding places for the local cats.

The whole operation existed not merely to fill local needs, but also provided free flour and cornmeal to pilgrims passing through, or being served at the local hospital, one of the first if not the first in Europe, if I have Robert's story correctly.

That's only two stories. There were several more.

Another guest at lunch was Bruce Kennedy, distantly related to the Massachusetts Kennedys. Bruce is a world-famous maker of harpsichords, who has settled in Montisi, and now heads a major campaign to raise money to build a living museum in which authentic (when available) and reproduced (when necessary) harpsichords can be played and studied. Also in a nearby de-consecrated church there are plans for an additional performing space.

This kind of thing is an impossible dream available for free to many; but Bruce already has a board of directors, some highly placed Angels, and has raised a million dollars, with more millions in the works. You will be hearing more about this. In the meantime, there is information: www.PiccolaAccademia.org . The full name and address is Piccola Accademia di Montisi, Viale della Rimembranza, Castelmuzio (SI) 53020, Italy.

Did I mention Bruce's organization owns that castle, and the church? This is a BIG thing in a small town, and of course there are issues, both good and not so good, with locals, and with the committee of Belle Arte, which supervises and controls historical restorations.

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They can kibosh or stall a project, or help it along.

Back to Scuola

Monday it's back to school for the second two-week session. I plan to pay attention EVEN MORE as I think I now know the routine, and can study ahead a bit, too. But two weeks is not enough to become fluent, of course. Not even close.

The test last Friday the 23rd appeared to be easy, and it was, but I tripped over tenses, agreement, and prepositions. I only scored "Buono" which is less good than Molto Buono, and far less than perfect, AKA Ottimo. One woman scored 100 per cent, I noted. I was disappointed in my performance, but it motivates me to review, and pay even more attention.

It seems that I can read straightforward Italian comparatively well. I had no mistakes or problems reading text and answering questions. Like a lot of beginners, however, I stumble with the details unique to romance languages, that are pretty much unknown in English. Who knew (I knew, but I forgot) that the gender of the verb and the number of the verb must also agree with the subject, unless it's a direct object, in which case..... (taking a deep breath now).

My brain has divided itself into the part that can read Italian, the part that can understand Italian if you speak slowly, but not too slowly, and the other part that can hardly speak a complete Italian sentence, and the other, other part that looks at the first three parts and says, "You are stupid."

The Weekend

On Sunday I opened my window to discover the street below had been transformed into a market, a flea market.

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There were covered tables for several blocks around, and people strolling throughout, holding open umbrellas. I'm tempted to use Italian words for umbrellas, and flea markets, but why... it would only sound like I talk - three words of perfect Italian followed by a couple of English words, then some incorrect Italian words, and so forth. In this way I make myself understood:

"Good afternoon, I mean, oops I think I just spoke in French. Good morning, signorina no I mean signora no I mean signorina, well, anyway, I would like to eat. Here. Now. Something. Have you something to eat? Good, I will eat that hub cap in the window. Here. I would like to eat that. And that. And (pointing) maybe that, too. Finally, of course, I would like to eat all your hub caps and take a look at your backside. I mean, what is on the other side of that plate over there? Thank you forever and with so much gratitude for all this food. It was as good as a concerto. Arrivederci! Ciao!"

I think in fact when I do speak it is not nearly as understandable as the example above.

Sunday was spent doing things the Florentine way. I slept through breakfast, then discovered that my Swedish friend Annette was not going to show up at my doorstep to go to Fiesole with me. This is entirely understandable, as it's difficult for her to get over here from her house on the other side of the river. If she walks, it takes an hour. And neither of us have phones.

While waiting I read that Fiesole was founded in the 7th or 6th century BC by Etruscans, then Romanized.

J2

For many centuries it was the important town of the area - Roman veterans were settled here, and it commanded important roads to and from Rome. About 1000, Florence became an important rival, and eventually the Florentines climbed the hill and razed the place to the ground. After that Fiesole became a suburb of Florence, a locale for expensive villas by the Medici and others, and finally, the site of picturesque ruins frequently depicted by the Renaissance painters of Florence. And so it goes. Whoever has the power wrecks the other guy's city. Eventually.

So, after a half hour I left a note and walked around the corner to this little place - don't know what it would be called here, but in New York it would be a deli - and had a slice of frittata and a salad. It was quite elegant and simpatico. The woman behind the counter had a smile and was genuinely concerned to set me up well. I sat alone (for the moment) at a lovely marble table for four in the back of the place, in front of three very large metal barrels of local wine. I declined the wine (after all, it was about 11 am) and had orange juice instead. I was soon surrounded by a couple of what seemed to be local housewives out for a bite of lunch, and three working guys from around the corner, one with a NY Yankee's cap on his head.

I kept breaking my plastic fork, and both the lady and her friends would bring me a new one each time. Very funny, and very nice. Next came an English couple speaking excellent Italian, even to each other, and somehow we began to chat in English.

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I joined them, and discovered he is a retired Reuters correspondent from London, and they have a second house in the Marche, a formerly swampy (a lot of Tuscany, including Florence itself, was once swampy) area near the coast, about a three hour drive from here. We talked until we couldn't talk any more.

Here is how you know you are genuinely welcome. The deli lady pointed out a bowl of mandarin oranges, and invited me to have one. She asked if I wanted a café, and brought me a lovely espresso. The whole thing came to 8 Euro. This is CHEAP by most Florentine standards. I left feeling that I had rarely gotten more value than I did for these 8 Euro.

I then walked around the entire city, getting lost only a few times, and enjoyed a leisurely visit to Museo di San Marco, on a lovely square about a block from the Accademia (David). The Fra Angelico frescoes and paintings are numerous and well preserved. Once again I was grateful to Rick Steves for doing the leg work to figure out which of the many monk's cells were authentically by Angelico, and which were most interesting. I looked at everything, but Steves really does help one to focus on the best and most interesting works. At one moment I wanted to blurt to another couple that the figure kissing Jesus' foot in this particular cell is a portrait of Cosimo de' Medici, who built this (former) Dominican monastery. But I refrained. Thank you, Rick.

The Savonarola rooms really were evocative. His desk, his hair shirt, one of the sticks from the bonfire that consumed him in 1498, the view out his window of the cloisters below.

And I noticed that in the credits on the wall next to the Angelico paintings that Fra Angelico has been promoted to (spelling is wrong here, sorry) Beato or Beati or Beata Angelico, as he apparently was beatified between editions of Rick Steves' Florence & Tuscany 2007.

I've written quite a lot here, and still have left out so many of the little things that make all this so interesting to me. But it is late. Time to change the bedsheets, move the clock forward an hour, assemble all my school implements, and hit the bed. Letto. Whatever.

Goodnight, buona sera, buona notte, ciao a domani, ciao ciao, and so on.

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