G TUSCANY’S E GRAPEVINE

TUSCANY'S

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GRAPEVINE

MAGAZINE

Second series, Year III No. 4 - May 2018

with the sponsorship of

WH8-ApTa'gSeOfNoldIN-o&ut!AROUND

The magazine for those who live in Tuscany ? or wish they did

For food lovers and professionals alike, daily cooking classes: fresh pasta and sauces, fish and seafood, Tuscan specialties, risotto, pizza, focaccia, Hands-on classes in a relaxed, fun atmosphere. Participants cook the dishes themselves, then enjoy these with plenty of wine and home-made liqueurs. Highly recommended by Tripadvisor! Monday to Sunday 10am to 2.30pm. Afternoon classes upon request. Info: cucina- Via di Sant'Alessio no. 3684, Lucca Tel 0583 329970 ? 338 6718641

La Cantina Di Carignano Restaurant

Open every day for lunch and dinner. Typical Tuscan trattoria with local specialties: zuppa di farro, tordelli lucchesi, wild boar pasta, porcini, asparagus, artichokes. Specialties from the charcoal grill: Bistecca alla Fiorentina (T.Bone steak), lamb, mixed grill. Specialized in seafood dishes, with fresh fish every day!

Tasting menus

Special menus prepared by Chef Paolo Monti for you. Special Dinner with demo in the cooking class kitchen, by reservation only. chefpaolo@cucina-

Tuscan Sun Apartments

In the green Lucca countryside, ten minutes from the city center and adjacent to the cooking school, four newly remodeled Tuscan style apartments. Terracotta floors, wooden beam ceilings, wroughtiron beds, cooking facilities ... but with all modern comforts: private bathrooms, telephones, air-con, free Wi-Fi, 32" flat screen TV. Info: tel 0583 329970 Via di Sant'Alessio n. 3684, Lucca

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2

Tuscany's GRAPEVINE Magazine May 2018

2Ma0y 18

Editorial

Dear Readers,

Direttore Responsabile Giuseppe Brandani

Editor Norma Jean Bishop

Contributors Helen Askham Anna Benedetto Norma Jean Bishop Chiara Calabrese Gianpiero Della Nina Sara Della Santa Judith Edwards Dee Montalbano Paolo Monti Alessia Peri Sue Perry (photo) Francis Pettitt Donna Pilletere Jenny Schutz Carol Tomlinson Pierpaolo Vannucci

Marketing & Distribution Claudia Casoli Diana Gatti Nicola Girolami Silvano Simi Adam Walker

Cover: Flowers bursting free from a window (Lucca Centro Storico) by Norma Jean Bishop

Contents

Art/Music/Books/Beauty

Cosmic Energies in Deredia's Sculptures 5

Traditions & History

Gente di Corte (A Story from Porcari) 08

Three Good Reasons to Visit Porcari

0 9

Le Mura in Motion

10

Excursions

Flower Carpets for Corpus Christi

6

The May Festival in Lucignano

7

Food & Drink

Cantuccini alle Mandorle

21

Practical

Make a Day of It before Flying from Pisa 4

Drink, Speak, and Share!

20

Investor Visa for Italy

23

Remembering

Mary Campbell

24

Events of the Month 11-18

Markets, Venues, What's On: Music, Art & Exhibitions, Traditions, Sagras, Sports, Children, Cinema, Conferences

Bilingual Crossword

19

Properties for Sale

22, 25, 26

Where Grapevine Is Sold 25

Professionals

27

Whether you live here or are just visiting, there couldn't be a more enchanting season, offering blue skies and balmy weather that we hope will continue into summer.

Strolling around Lucca, you can't fail to notice the sculptures by Jim?nez Deredia in the main squares (San Michele, Giglio, San Martino, San Giovanni, Anfiteatro) and near the San Pietro Gate. These will be on display until 28 September, along with some of Deredia's smaller works at the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca Exhibition Hall. See the article on page 5 to learn more about this important artist. At the same time the town is alive with music: Lucca Classica Festival, which we presented last month, offers almost 80 events in the first week of May! Enjoy Lucca's beauty, a feast for ears and eyes, including the majestic Walls presented to us by Dee Montalbano this month.

This is also an ideal time to travel, and so we have suggested several excursions beyond our local region. If you don't want to go very far, you can enjoy the Corpus Domini celebrations in Camaiore or other nearby towns. After reading about the town of Porcari (written by Alessia Peri, a student from Lucca's Liceo Vallisneri), you might want to visit, perhaps by bike or bus? Stroll and shop in this peaceful little town situated between Capannori and Montecarlo, with its surrounding natural landscapes. And see the What's On Calendars for many more activities.

For those who regularly travel between Pisa and the UK, don't miss Francis Pettitt's economical suggestions about how to make the red-eye flying experience more bearable. Also on the practical side, one of Lucca's best fiscal experts, Pierpaolo Vannucci, explains the new Investor Visa for Italy. Maybe you or one of your friends or relatives will find a way to buy that dream villa in Tuscany or invest in an Italian business....

Finally, we have to sadly say goodbye to Mary Campbell of Barga, who throughout her life was engaged in helping women and children in difficult environments such as Syria. She will be missed.

With our warmest wishes, ? Norma and the Grapevine Team

Tuscany's Grapevine Magazine by Grapevine Editions

Registered office: Via Guinigi, 22 - Lucca 55100. Visit us at Via dell'Angelo Custode 3A. Mobile +39 333 8617962 - editor@ - P. IVA 02416230460 - C.F. BSHNMJ48C65Z404D. Iscrizione CCIAA - LU 223932. Registrazione Tribunale di Lucca n? 4, 23 Feb. 2016. ? Tuscany's Grapevine Magazine ? What's On In & Around Printed by Luminarprint srl - Calcinaia (PI).

Articles/photos for consideration may be submitted to the Editor. Advertising in editorial form may also be submitted for inclusion. Pages enclosed with a frame contain paid submissions.

The listings published in Grapevine are taken from reliable sources and reproduced in good faith. However, to avoid disappointment, readers are advised to check information before setting off. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or of the Direttore Responsabile.

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3

Make a Day of It Flying from Pisa

arly flights from Pisa to the UK are all very well if the

E airfare is truly cut-price, if you have a private means of getting to the aerodrome and, most important, if you can bear to shift yourself from the snug warmth of your bed at an unearthly early hour. Otherwise, why not take a train to Pisa the day before your journey, check into a place near the airport, and enjoy more of the inexhaustible delights this lively city can offer?

My favourite check-in place is Pisa Hostel in Via Corridoni, just six minutes from the railway station and a brisk fifteen minutes walk to the Galileo 's departure lounge. If you are a couple (or two couples) you can have your own room; otherwise you can share a four-bunk-beds and en-suite bathroom with others.

The place is truly fun. You can have a great eat-as-much-as-you-like buffet for 8 euro, get the best scrambled eggs in Tuscany at 4 am before walking across to your flight, have a jam session on the musical instruments provided for guests, laze in the garden, meet and exchange notes with other world travelers, and, most importantly, have friendly and helpful staff who will bend backwards to make your shortest stay a pleasant one. And all this accommodation for 13 euro a night!

Of course, if you still have a craving for your boutique hotel....

My afternoon walk around Pisa took me to the new fortress, whose otherwise delightful gardens were turned into a small lake thanks to the deluge of rain we've been having. I crossed the Arno, on the way passing the bombed-out wreck of a palazzo where in 1821 Shelley wrote his elegy Adonais on hearing of the death of his contemporary, Keats.

On the Arno's northern bank I visited my private museum, which includes a collection of superb Pisan paintings and statuary. Or so it seemed my own private museum to me. For three hours there were no hoards of tourists to obstruct my views, no peering guards, no interference to the meditative pleasure of gazing on some of the most exquisite women, the most animated scenes, the noblest

of religious representations, by artists which included greats like the Pisano family and even a Masaccio, all beautifully presented in the old convent of San Matteo.

When I told the entrance staff how much I enjoyed my visit but was surprised that I was the only visitor, he replied, That's what they all say. But isn't it better like this? You can truly enjoy the beauties around you without the distraction of all those tourists like you get in the Uffizi. I had to agree! I walked along the Lungo Arno, which I find quite as beautiful, if not more, than Florence's, especially when a transcendent sunset is colouring it.

I began to feel peckish and so headed for my favourite Chinese restaurant near the Palazzo Blu, the Great Wen. The menu is well translated into Italian so that my favourite Xiaolonbao became ravioli al vapore. They were just as good as the ones we had tasted at Shanghai's Nanxiang Bun shop. The spaghetti with Beijing sauce were scrumptious with their spring roll additions, and surprisingly al dente. I knew it was a good place to come to eat by the preponderance of young Chinese customers and the very cordial service. Then it was a walk back to the Pisa Hostel via the animated pedestrian Corso Italia, to the dreaded 4 am wake-up, alleviated by those charmingly served delicious scrambled eggs.

? by Francis Pettitt Follow Francis' blog at

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Tuscany's GRAPEVINE Magazine May 2018

rom 28 April to 10 September, eleven monumental sculptures by

F Jim?nez Deredia will grace the main squares of Lucca, in an event created thanks to the contributions of the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, Fondazione Lucca Sviluppo, and the Town of Lucca, curated by Massimiliano Simoni of Artitaly.

The open-air locations are: Porta San Pietro, Piazzale Vittorio Emanuele (in front of Antico Caff? delle Mura), Piazza del Giglio (in front of the theatre), Piazza San Michele (with four of Deredia's works), Piazza San Giovanni, Piazza Anfiteatro, and Piazza San Martino.

At the same time, sixteen smaller works will be on display at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Piazza San Martino, 7 (free admission) between the hours of 3.30 pm and 7.30 pm from Tuesdays to Sundays.

Deredia in Lucca is the continuation of an exhibition that has been shown in many cities: Firenze, Rome, Valencia, Trapani, Mexico City, and Miami. The circular and oval forms in the works of this artist will accompany us on a fluid and harmonious re-visitation of our historic town. Through the transformation of material, which according to Deredia makes us "aware that we are stardust in transmutation", we experience the theme of cosmic participation, as expressed by his "Genesis" series.

The artist was born in Costa Rica in 1954. At age 22 he moved to Italy, where he began working in marble and bronze. After attending the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara, he studied architecture in Florence. During this period he gained deeper understanding of pre-Colombian spherical stone sculptures, which became a constant source of inspiration. In his "Genesis" works he explores material changes in temporal-spatial existence. This Trasmutational Symbolism forms the basis of his artistic ideology.

For the 2000 Jubilee in Rome, Deredia was commissioned to create a marble statue of San Marcellino Champagnat, which was then placed inside a

niche created by Michelangelo Buonarroti at Saint Peter's Basilica. In 2006, he was named Academic Correspondent of the Class of Sculpture at the Florentine Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, an honor he shares with Michelangelo, Tiziano, Tintoretto, Palladio and Galileo Galilei. In 2009, his works were displayed in the main squares of Rome, and around the Colosseum. On this occasion, the Roman Forum welcomed contemporary art for the first time in its history.

fondazionebmluccaeventi.it

(InAcademy) International Academy of Foreign Studies

srls

Via Stefano Tofanelli, 275 San Concordio - Lucca 0583 312911

inacademy.lucca@ inacademy.international Language Training Centre

Tuscany's GRAPEVINE Magazine May 2018

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5

From Tree-Worship to the May Festival in Lucignano

he oak-worship of the Druids among the Celts of

T Northern Europe is familiar to everyone, but treeworship was as common in Italy as in other countries in Europe. There are abundant proofs of this. Archaeological excavations have shown that long before the rise and presumably the foundation of Rome, a wide part of Italy was covered with elm, chestnut and oak woods. The Roman historian Titus Livy (first century BC) compared the Ciminian forest, at the centre-north of the Italian peninsula, to the thick woods of Germany.

Considering the enormous importance that the wood had in daily life, it is natural to think that religious practices and beliefs connected to tree-worship should be found in ancient Rome. James Frazer in The Golden Bough tells how in the busy centre of Rome, the Forum, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped and the withering of its trunk caused consternation among the people. According to tradition, the tree grew on the spot where a she-wolf had suckled Romulus and Remus. And on Capitoline Hill, where the temple of Zeus was located, there was an oak tree beside which Romelus placed rich spoils of war. But one of the most widely worshipped holy trees in Rome was a cornel-tree on the slope of Palatine Hill. According to the Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch (46 AD-120 AD), when people saw that it was drooping they would start to cry out and people would run from all the sides of the city with buckets of water.

More widely speaking, various forms of agrarian rites could be found in several areas of the Italian peninsula, with or without a May-tree as protagonist. Francesco Toschi in Le origini del teatro italiano (the origins of Italian theatre) says that almost certainly the people that inhabited Italy welcomed the arrival of spring around the first of May. Toschi explains that in May the Romans celebrated Maja or Majesta, one of the oldest divinities in Lazio. They believed that the month of May (Latin Maius) was named after Maja. Contemporary etymologists, though, believe that the two words originated separately from the same root mag (big) which is connected to the idea of growth. The goddess represented the fertility of the earth in May, and for this reason she was identified with the goddess Bona, the symbol of fertility. In order that the earth might be fertile, the Romans sacrificed a pregnant sow

to Maja (and to Bona). The word maiale (pig) is connected with the name of the goddess: sus majalis was in fact the animal sacrificed to her. So, originally, the adjective majale had a beautiful significance, only when it became a noun did it acquire a negative connotation (when rudely addressed to people). Similar celebrations, and the cult of the trees, were widespread in central Italy. They were maintained throughout the pagan period and continued later in medieval times, even though in a different form.

Nowadays, the rebirth of Nature in spring is welcomed in various ways. The Maggiolata Lucignanese is a festival celebrated in the medieval town of Lucignano, in the Arezzo province, reminiscent of the ancient spring celebrations. The festival, which has existed for more than eighty years, this year starts on 17 May and ends on 27 May. On Sunday 20, Tuesday 22 (in the evening) and Sunday 27, a parade of folk groups in traditional dresses, with popular music bands, will cross the town. Four floats, each representing one of the four contrade of the town, are decorated with thousands of colourful flowers. Good local cuisine is available every day during the entire festival. On the second Sunday, a jury will chose the best float and present it with the Grifo d'oro (Golden griffon). Soon after, all those who contributed to the creation of the floats will start the Battaglia dei Fiori (battle of the flowers), until the floats are completely bare of flowers.

? by Chiara Calabrese

Admission: Sundays 8 euros, Tuesdays 5 euros

(children under 6 free; group & multiple-day tickets

available).

For information: maggiolatalucignanese.it

or tel. 334 1958505

From Lucca to Lucignano by car is about 1 ? hours,

by train & bus 4-5 hours.

6

Tuscany's GRAPEVINE Magazine May 2018

Flower Carpets for Corpus Christi

carperia is located in the Mugello, the region just north of

S Florence. This area is heavily linked to the Medici family who dominated Florence for many years. The main Palazzo in Scarperia bears witness to the power of the Medici, with shields of the families loyal to them displayed on its facade.

One of the network of 'most beautiful villages in Italy', Scarperia is worth visiting at any time of year but is particularly lovely during the Infiorita to celebrate Corpus Christi, which in 2018 takes place on Sunday 27 May. At this time, the town's historic centre is decorated with designs formed from thousands of petals and seeds.

If you can, come on the Saturday before the Infiorita so that you can see the preparations for the day. Groups of locals gather to strip the petals from thousands of carnations, readying them to use like mosaic pebbles to provide colour to the designs which will fill the streets. The centre is closed to traffic and the designs are drawn on the

central street and piazzas. They follow a theme, which last year was the signs of the zodiac and this year is comics (fumetti).

On Sunday morning, groups of locals rise early to complete the designs. They use soil to outline the designs, and coloured petals and seeds to fill in the outline. Some designs are even three dimensional. During the day there are many visitors who come to view the beautiful designs and who stay to enjoy a meal in the restaurants lining the main street.

You can reach Scarperia by car in little over an hour, or like us take a bus from Florence (from the bus station next to Santa Maria Novella train station). There are lovely views from the village over the Tuscan countryside.

? by Carol Tomlinson

Ristorante

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Tuscany's GRAPEVINE Magazine May 2018

7

Gente di Corte

Anna and Rinaldo

nna was 16 years old in 1946. Rinaldo, who always

A thought of her as a child, suddenly noticed her that spring day, while she was drawing water from the well. She had become a woman, and was very pretty, made as God commanded. From that moment on, she entered his heart like a thorn. He had never thought of her as a potential life companion, but more like a relative: a cousin.

They had grown up together in the courtyard. They drank from the water of the same well. In the houses near the well, they played with the smell of hay in their noses.

And then, they searched for nests, and looked for acorns for a piglet that her father had bought, which died young, unexpectedly, one night....

He closed his eyes and saw the little pig as if it were in front of him. Yet ten years had passed since that time.

Rinaldo and Anna baptized the piglet as they had seen the priest do. They called him Paco, finally reaching agreement after a long discussion. Then they raised him tenderly, like a little brother. Mornings, right after awakening, they ran to him, and little Anna said that Paco greeted her by laughing, and there was no way to contradict her. Often she questioned Paco and waited patiently for the answers. Until one day, the little girl asked her father: Why is Paco mine? She wanted to know what kind of relative he was to her.

Her father understood then that it would be difficult to kill the little pig, once it fattened, without the child knowing -- and then to make her believe that the salami, prosciutto, bacon and meat conserved in the vat were not the remains of poor Paco.

Despite the attentions and loving and assiduous care of the two children, Paco didn't grow; in fact within two months, he began to fade away. Nonzia, Germano's wife, noticed this first, and he had to agree with her. The attentions were increased, but Paco continued to worsen, especially at night. He was crying more often in his pen, under the hayloft, in front of the courtyard.

Then one night there was silence. The next morning they found Paco, not moving, with a last feeble smile on his face, costing him who knows how much effort: for Anna! Rinaldo knew that he had begun to care for the little girl beginning at that moment.

At the children's request, Nonzia and Germano performed the honors for Paco, as if he were a Christian. They laid him in a little box and went to bury him nearby, alongside the Ralla stream, while Anna and Rinaldo followed the procession with daisies in their hands, ready to drop them onto that body before the earth swallowed him up forever.

Anna at that time had hair the color of mahogany.

It was almost evening and Rinaldo had placed the history book on the chair, to exchange some words with Anna. Seeing Rinaldo approaching, she paused, fiddling with the bucket.

Seated on the edge of the well was Gilda. The old lady, already lost, tired and smelly, spent her days there, turning a little stick around in her wrinkled hands. She kept repeating: I'm a splinter of wood. Now I'm going to throw myself in. And one day she really did throw herself in and there was a great to-do by everyone in order to save her. They managed to pull her up to a certain point and then once again she fell in. Finally it was up to Germano to go down into the well, tie a strong rope around her waist and finally pull her to safety. For a month no one took any more water from the well, then the matter was forgotten.

The presence of the woman at the well continued to represent a threat to everyone, and so everyone tried to take her away from there, with good and bad manners, in her best interest, mind you! Because her precarious mental condition made it even more dangerous for her to sit on the edge of the well. But she wouldn't listen to reason. She waited, sitting there until evening: until her husband returned. Then her eyes, absent for hours, focused on the man. He detached the sweating beast from its cart, led the donkey into its stall, prepared its bed and gave it water.

Here's Genio, she repeated. Only this. The man seemed not to see her. He slowly walked to the door of the house, which had a small copper-colored cross nailed to it at eye's level, and he opened the door. She heard him moving around inside lighting the fire and preparing something to eat. Then he came out with the bucket. He drew some water from the well, and finally Gilda came down and accompanied him once more into the house, where together they shared a hopeless silence. When they went into the bedroom, Gilda let herself fall onto the bed like a rag. In the dark, Genio, born Eugenio and re-baptized Il Nero, the Black, remembered Gilda in bloom, proud and dignified, and he didn't understand how life and time could have been so devastating. Upon awakening, Nero was sorry that the night had been so short.

Among all the things that Rinaldo wanted to say to Anna, that evening at the well, only this came out:

You remember that piglet we had? Yes, his name was Paco, she replied, without adding anything else. Are you coming back tomorrow evening? Where? Here, to the well... He realized that he had become her subject, like someone feels towards people who are more important, or more educated, or richer. They seem unreachable. What nonsense! This was Anna: that little girl of the courtyard who had only attended elementary school, the daughter of Germano and Nonzia. He didn't like thinking about this. He turned towards the door of his home, and left her there in the middle of the courtyard, without even giving her a Ciao. Gilda remained seated on the edge of the well waiting for Nero, and before Anna went away, said once more: I'm a splinter of wood. Now I'm going to throw myself in.

? translation by Grapevine

This is Chapter 4 of Gente di corte, written by Giampiero Della Nina (2018, Albatross), who was born in Porcari in 1942. The book is based on his memories of the 1940s.

Photo: property of the author.

8

Tuscany's GRAPEVINE Magazine May 2018

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