What a weekend

Words, at least my words cannot begin to describe what Susan and I saw and heard this past weekend, but I’ll give it a try.

Our friend Roberto Bechi from Serre di Rapolano picked us up at about 8:30 Saturday morning and the three of us set off on one of the grandest adventures Susan and have had yet. Before we left the US Roberto and I had arranged to interview a dozen or so people in Tuscany, from all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds, as part of a project to capture the voices of modern Tuscany on videotape, voices not often heard in today’s mass marketing of the Tuscan “brand”.

So on Saturday we headed for our first interview, which was in Prato, with Renzo. Now into his 80s during WW2 Renzo had served in the Italian Special Corps, and was taken prisoner by the British in North Africa, spending three years in a prison camp (he said he would have much preferred to have been imprisoned by the Americans since they were much kinder to their prisoners), and now he spends most of waking hours painting, painting and painting, and in fact every inch of wall space in his home is covered with one of his pieces of art.

From Prato we drove into Florence to our next interview, with Romano, also well into his golden years, who along with his brother run the last true “bottega” in the shadow of the Duomo in Florence, a fabric shop. I will not even begin to describe this truly Renaissance man who has so much passion in his heart for Dante, love in soul for the Etruscans and grasp of what is truly important in the nature of man and can find such a way of expressing this through his eyes. The videotape does not even begin to capture the fire of the eyes.

From Florence we drove for our final interview of the say to meet with Mauro in Col di Val d’Elsa. Mauro and his brother run a tiny little operation where they blow glass at a nearby cooperative and then return to their shop to create fantastic glass etchings which Mauro does in a workshop next door. We felt so privileged to see and hear such wonderful stories and to have met these three men. The Etruscan zest for life and indeed their understanding of what is truly important in life is patently obvious in the words, actions and eyes of these three men. And this is just the beginning.

On Sunday we drove to meet Roberto near his home in Serre di Rapolano and from there drove to our first of four interviews for the day, Elise, a former attorney who lives who now runs an agriturismo operation near Serre.

Roberto, Susan and I then went to Rigomagno where we interviewed Ilaria, a lovely woman who worked for many years in the publishing business in her native city of Milan, and then on to Lucignano d’Asso, a remote hilltop village of only 15 souls today (from more than 450 a half century ago), where we interviewed a wonderful elderly man named Araldo, who was born and raised in the village. For decades Araldo ran the local grocery store and after our brief chat with him he played a couple of songs for us on his harmonium (?). Although they had quite a few bottles of Brunello di Montalcino in the front of the store for sale and in the café (part of the store) we opted for an unlabeled 2-gallon (?) 15 euro “vino sfoso”(open wine, since it is not bottled), from a large stack in the very back of the store – the wine from Montcalcino that the locals drink and which we had for our lunch after the interview.

Our last interview of the day was with Giordano, at the Etruscan museum in Chianciano, where he works as an artist restoring and reproducing many of the archeological discoveries, which are then put on display in the museum. The museum itself is wonderfully laid out and very user friendly. Through the work of the local amateur archeological clubs as well as professional archeologists the museum is able to bring together a large number of fascinating discoveries, which in turn can help to explain the fascinating history of Etruscan civilization.