Picture That

Picture That

 We have a painting in our living room.  It’s pretty large, on the order of 5’ x 3’, and full of browns, greens, blotches of white, and touches of beige.  This oil painting is also absent a frame, but I don’t think it matters for it is so captivating the lack of a frame isn’t noticeable.  In fact, its absence promotes the impression that we’re looking through a large window off into a pastoral scene viewed from a slightly higher vantage point.  It isn’t a reproduction of a famous bucolic country scene drawn by the hand of some renowned artist either.  For all I know, it may be representative of one of those production pieces where one artist paints the trees, another specializes in structures, and someone else handles the landscape.  And while I’m sure it isn’t old, the wrinkles that run vertically through the canvas would certainly make me think so.  As for the scene washed in floodlight from the floor, it is reminiscent of a rolling Italian countryside full of classic conical cypress trees tipped like pointed paintbrushes, leafy olive trees, and bulbous hardwoods resembling oaks.  A gravel road meanders through the panorama only to disappear into foothills leading off to an outline of undulating mountains grown small in perspective.  There are a few quaint farmhouses here and there along the roadway, each topped in a signature terracotta hue.  If we could somehow get closer, I’m sure we’d be able to make out their interlocking, half-pipe, clay roof tiles, so emblematic of Italy.  

There is a limit to my rambling eye, however.  Sitting there, I can look as far into the scene as I’d like, limited only when it runs out of depth 

Charming Monteriggioni

and the mountains gradually soften to blur with the horizon in a series of misty waves.  Is it some snippet of the fabulous vista from that artist perch in Pienza looking out across the Val D'Orcia countryside, or maybe from lofty Cortona looking off across the Val di Chiana toward Lake Trasimeno, or does it capture the view from one of the towers surrounding charming Monteriggioni?  Doubtful.  More likely it is a compilation of all they exude to their respective beholders.  Bella Italia is like that.  Italy is the canvas that we get to paint into memories.  Its beauty is intoxicating.  The scenes spread out before you, wherever that might be, simply spectacular.

Downstairs in the basement, close by my desk where I compose my monthly yarns, there is a similar painting, even larger, and just as easy for the eye to lose itself in.  It is a survivor of our house fire, hard to believe already past its three-year anniversary, one like Pearl Harbor that we recall but

Our “Smoky” Country Scene

never celebrate.  Back then, it hung on a basement wall by our dining table where it was lucky enough to have avoided the ravages of fire.  When I walk by it nowadays, a muted odor of smoke still lingers as a constant reminder of what happened that day.  The vantage is again from above, possibly a few hundred feet up like one of those cool, high-tech, camera drones might capture.  Here again, a road runs through a scene of undulating countryside, but this one is far clearer in its fictitious details.  Relying on lighter colors, the foreground scene is far brighter as if daybreak is beginning to thin the darkness.  Again, classic farmhouse roofs emerge among rows of olive trees.  It is easy to make out windows, doorways, and chimneys.  In the far distance, a mountain town, much like the sloping Calitri borgo or nearby conical Sant’Agata di Puglia, rises from the darkness as the colors in this part of the scene transition to dawn from black.  It’s funny how on separate occasions we managed to purchase such comparable impressions of Italy. 

A far more vivid reminder of Italian life is captured in a black and white photo taken on a street in Florence that has since become a classic, gone viral long before the word was coined.  It would become one of the more indelible photographs of a bygone era and remains so to this day.  Again, sticking with our penchant for large scenes, ours fits the bill. It is actually larger than the two previously mentioned.  It plays on a common Italian male stereotype, possibly true, of how males

“American Girl in Italy”

take pleasure in ogling females, eyeing them amorously with flirty verbal invitations, and the affectionate pinch, or could I be confusing the Italian male with a Frenchman?  This kind of pastime is sometimes politely excused by referring to it as “boys being boys.”  This particular photo of Ninalee Allen Craig is entitled “American Girl in Italy” and was taken in 1951 by her newfound friend, photojournalist Ruth Orkin.  They had known each other only briefly, maybe only a matter of hours, before they struck on the idea for a photo spread about the experiences of women traveling abroad alone — a rare occurrence at the time.  Ninalee, an adventure-seeking college graduate, did it for the novelty and excitement it might afford, while Ruth sought a worthy subject for a hoped-for magazine spread.  Together, in the roles of photographer shadowing her model, they roamed Florence for approximately two hours one morning.  The idea was to have fun and wait for the right shot to materialize.  While Ninalee admired statues, asked for directions, haggled in markets, and flirted in cafes, Ruth Orkin waited for just the right moment to capture the event.  To a degree, Ninalee was trolling for attention when this photo was snapped on a corner in Florence’s Piazza della Repubblica.  The opportunity presented itself as she walked past a group of men and Ruth captured the image for history.  The photo appeared in Cosmopolitan Magazine as part of a 1952 photo essay entitled “When You Travel Alone.”  

There is some debate on whether this iconic photo is a construct. Was it staged or not?  The answer is maybe yes, maybe no.  In 1995 Ninalee told the NY Times that Ruth ran ahead and “took one picture, asked me to back up, and took another.  That’s all that was done at that location, two pictures.”  Together it took all of a few seconds.  Ruth spoke only to the two men captured on the motor scooter pulled up alongside the curb.  “I yelled to them to tell the others not to look at the camera.”  So, if truth be told, this photo was both spontaneous and with its repeat, somewhat staged.  Now as I sit at my desk, it hangs on a nearby wall.  It once hung in our carriage house adjacent to where our destroyed home stood.  More than a carriage house today, this fancy garage has been transformed into our summer home and the picture moved to a new location to join the others.  When at times, many times, I dawdle and glance at the photo, I can only wonder whether I’m looking at the first or second snap.  While Ninalee recently passed away at age 90, the image of her iconic walk, holding tight to her scarf, remains with us.  For many of those years, she wanted us to know she never sensed fear or felt threatened as she ran the gauntlet past fifteen men.  They all clearly stared, some with cigarettes prominently displayed were surprised at the unexpected appearance of an unchaperoned woman.  They were of a variety of ages, most of them dressed in suits, which was typical of the time.  Some were smiling, others stone-faced, no doubt caught off guard when presented with such a rare sight in post-war Italy – a young foreign woman walking alone in Florence.  One of the two gentlemen on the scooter seems to be engaging Ninalee, likely with a catcall, certainly in Italian, which it is doubtful she understood beyond its universal suggestiveness that went along with the leers and their painting stares.  The subject of the photo has said the scene shouldn’t fluster anyone.  At that moment she felt admired and flattered.  She went on to say that she perceived herself as  “a symbol of a woman having an absolutely wonderful time.”  As she once put it, her expression was not one of distress but more of strength.  It would be interesting to know, if today, tour guides bring their charges to this corner in the piazza.  I’d sure like to visit the spot and when next in Florence.  I promise myself that I will.

From imagined paint-stroke depictions of Italian landscapes hectic with color, on beyond Orkin’s photo statement from a bygone era of unbridled harassment or feminine confidence, depending on your viewpoint, I now turn to a collection of personal photo clicks informed by my love of Italy.  They live together as a group on a wall 

Photo Mosaic

where our living room begins the transition to kitchen.  In columns and rows 3 by 3, the nine of them daily remind Maria Elena and me of past Italian adventures and friends.  As a group, they remind us of former years of Italian adventures.  Those that made the wall are each 8” by 10” prints that in aggregate fill a commanding space with memories of friends and places.  When they went up some time ago, the idea was to change them occasionally, something I haven’t gotten around to yet.  That has been complicated when the fire took twelve years of our travel photos.  Then again people say we’re never home anyway, certainly not long enough to do it.  As a result, they have become familiar friends that we greet almost daily as Maria Elena does when she walks in the house and declares, “Hi House!”  Our first row of “familiars” begins with Vincenzina, the wife of a close friend, Guiseppe.  Her name means “conqueror, winner, or she who wins.”  It was taken on a day we were picking grapes.  She is standing in the doorway of a hut in their vineyard, where when she rings a bell, we drop that last bunch of grapes just snipped from the vines into a bucket and gather around tables in the middle of the vineyard for breakfast.  Being a conqueror, she seldom smiles, but here, disarmed, she shares something just a little more than a Mona Lisa smile.  

Next on the way to a picture of another friend, there hangs a photo of a memorable doorway in Tuscany at Massimo Ferragamo’s Castiglion del Bosco Resort where we once stayed.  Bruno occupies the upper right slot in this photo mosaic.  Toasting with him is Donatella (“Gift of God”), an excellent former waitress.  Bruno (“Shield of Armor”) operates the “Double Jack” pub in Calitri, a place where everyone knows your name.  Maybe just a coincidence but the Jack that symbolizes Bruno’s bar is a knight in full armor.

The following three begin with a garden scene at what I call Italy’s Versailles, better known as the Royal Palace of Caserta.  Move three hours north of Calitri and there sits Rome, two hours east and you arrive in Alberobello.  In the Rome photo, the Spanish Steps with family members takes center stage.  It’s a picture difficult to reproduce these days, for sitting down on these steps is now forbidden and past history.  No, it’s not some new EU ruling, but a squad of local police who can issue significant fines.  They start at 250 euros and move upwards of 400 euros if you manage to "soil or damage" the steps in any way.  Avoid these fines and instead spend the money elsewhere. 

How about in sunny Puglia?  Moving to the third photo recalls our overnights in pointy stone trulli off in famous Alberobello, deep in Puglia.  It reminds me of a morning walk where I investigated the source of a clacking sound.  The sound led me to a father-son team of masons chipping away at stones and placing them, one by one, into position on a mortarless trulli roof.  There for centuries, they’ve essentially been “rediscovered” and become very popular as rentals and vacation homesites. 

The final series of three photos are all of additional memorable places.  Though void of familiar faces, they bring to mind the faces of people, not seen but there, who with a friendly hello are willing to share tales and life events worthy of Facebook postings.  It begins in Matera, at a favorite restaurant of ours, Il Tarrizzino, where you can overlook the Sassi while you enjoy a relaxing meal, 

for hours if you but afford the time.  I took the next snapshot at a street festival inthe little town of Saviano, not far from Naples.  The picture is mindful of “old ways” that the town was celebrating that evening with entertainment, food, music, dancing, and traditionally set tables like this one.  We return to Rome for the last of the nine contiguous photos.  This is the famous Pantheon, a Roman temple since approximately 120 A.D. situated in Piazza della Rotonda.  It was here, where once-upon-a-time, in front of this spectacular structure, where there occurred a significant historical event … the memorable moment where for the first time we enjoyed an Aperol Spritz! 

Misty Harbor

One final painting warrants mention.  This one is shrouded in sea mist which muddles a clear view of the scene.  It depicts a town crowded by greedy mountains along a water’s edge and washed by extremely blue, mirror-like waters.  It’s clearly there, but what isn’t clear is where it might be.  It would be rather easy to imagine it depicts one of the Cinque Terra towns on the coast south of Genoa.  I’d rather like to think it captures one or more of the towns beginning at Salerno in the Bay of Naples and from there romanticizes towns running along the bottom of the Amalfi Peninsula.  There are a few places along this famous coastline - Vietri sul Mare, Positano, Minori, Praiano, even Amalfi easily come to mind, any one of which, or an amalgam of all, may have been in the artist’s mind.

Whenever I pass it, its unclear, gossamer mood sets my mind adrift.  Have I been there?  Wouldn’t I like to be there at that moment?  I’m unsure whether when we leave a place, have we left a piece of ourselves there or has it been captured, a piece of it meant to stay with us?

It’s precisely paintings and photos like these that provoke thoughts and emotions each time we observe them.  They are more than mere accoutrements or alluring aesthetics.  Surrounding ourselves with these warming companions, some of which I’d like to walk into, serves to remind us that Italy is now a part of Maria Elena and myself.  Like a Christmas tree, they can create a mood but one for all seasons, serving as ornaments of past experiences.  Sometimes we take comfort in their precise beauty.  At other times, delving into them we find solace and comfort in their hazy abstractness, lending to imaginative flights of fancy. I guess 

Santa Maria della Salute Watercolor

there is power in art whether homemade with the click of a camera, museum-quality if you can afford it, or store-bought from your favorite thrift shop or Home Goods.  In an age of consumption, we’ve chosen to consume bella Italia.  The nice part about that is that it’s sooooo easily renewable.  

From That Rogue Tourist 
Paolo

Italian Thoughts

Italian Thoughts

Brilliant orange and glimmering crimson autumn leaves, steadfast against a relentless wind, greeted me this morning.  Regrettably, the beauty of spring’s renewal will fall to these persistent gales as nature’s slate prepares for winter’s cleansing.  

Autumn Leaves

Home in the States, unpacked, still sorting through months of mail, our sleep-wake patterns disrupted from jet lag mixed with Daylight Savings Time, thoughts of Italy remain.  Like the leaves outside our window try their best to hold firm, we cling to Italian memories.  As we gradually adjust to new rhythms, our thoughts leap across the time zones that now separate us from the unfinished perfection of Italy.

It is more than, as Maria Elena likes to relate, an impulse to greet passing strangers here with a buongiorno or buonasera.  Just maybe, like the physical disruption of our body clocks, there is a psychological reordering underway.  In this case, it would be nothing approaching PTSD.  Instead, on a more positive note, far removed from anything approaching trauma, we are experiencing what I’d define as Post Pleasant Existence Adjustment (PPEA).  I refer to it as an adjustment, rather than a disorder because there’s nothing disjoint here, simply an adaptation to new conditions far less enjoyable in this rushed age.  There are many recent memories to go along with this clinging consciousness.  A night at the opera and Matera by umbrella, readily come to mind.

There were three “seatings” that went along with our evening at the opera.  As with life aboard a cruise ship, these “seatings” weren’t scheduled times for meals in the dining room, or as might

Pink Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto 

easily be assumed, to different theater performances throughout the day.  Instead, our opera “seatings” were literally our movement to three venues at discrete intervals aligned with the opera’s acts presented in separate rooms of an ancient palace – a dining room, parlor, and finally, a shabby bedroom.  The curtain didn’t close only to open to a new scene.  Instead, in a clever twist, the rooms were the stage sets and we moved into new scenery with bubbly flutes of Prosecco offered along the way.

In fact, the entire night was one of movement beginning when we departed our B&B.  We set off early that evening to give us enough time to find 15th-century Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto where “Musica a Palazzo” would host the soiree.  All these unfamiliar places were new to us in a yet alien city with nightfall only adding to the adventure.  Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, we were told, was accessed via Fondamenta Duodo, a narrow street that terminated on the Grand Canal located behind Santa Maria del Giglio Church. 

We Found It!  

We found the street and followed it as it ran along a small canal all the while looking for the spur of an alley, Sestiere San Marco, about halfway along its length somewhere to the right.  It was dark with the walkway covered by a shed-like roof and just a railing to keep us from falling into an adjacent canal.  The requested evening attire was “elegant casual” that sounded contradictory in itself.  If, however, we’d changed our clothes to the Venetian style of 500 years earlier, you would have easily thought we’d traveled through time into a scene from an old master’s painting.  On our first attempt, concerned over the tricky surroundings, we overshot the alley and had to double back.  The dimly lit walkways left behind, we eventually found the entry with the help of a sign announcing “Musica a Palazzo” on the last door at the end of the alley and entered.  Just finding it

Maria Elena at the Opera 

had been part of the experience.  As we followed the directions and climbed the candle-lit wide treads of a marble stairway from the entry hall to the next level, we were full of anticipation, ready to next experience a chamber opera performance of Verdi’s “La Traviata”.  Unfamiliar with the story, we were eager to learn what lay behind this title which literally meant, “The Woman Who Strayed”.

A brief Cliffs Notes style summary of Verdi’s storyline begins with an August party at the home of Violetta Valery, a glamorous courtesan, famous in Parisian high society.  She is introduced to Alfredo Germont and learns that he has been a long time silent admirer and had called on her daily during her recent illness which we’re reminded of in a fainting interlude. She is suffering from tuberculosis.  Intrigued, she gives him a flower telling him to return it when it has faded, in hope that they will meet again.  It is not long afterward that Alfredo declares his love for Violetta, something she has never known.

Time moves forward to the second act.  It is now January

Alfredo and Violetta 

and Violetta is living with Alfredo in the Parisian countryside.  Their relationship well advanced, Alfredo’s father visits her privately.  He asks her to break off her relationship with his son.  Arguments and counter-arguments ensue until Violetta relents on learning that Alfredo’s sister’s wedding is in jeopardy because her fiancé will not accept an alliance with a family, however noble, “in disgrace”, due to Violetta’s reputation as a courtesan, a prostitute with wealthy, upper-class clients.  Realizing that her continued relationship with Alfredo would compromise his sister’s future, she decides to give up Alfredo and asks him to promise her that after she dies, he will explain to Alfredo the real reason why she left him.  Much back and

Act III  - The Bedroom

forth ensues when Alfredo confronts Violetta.  He is confused from the veil hiding the untold truth and the fiction of a supposed new suitor.  It is February when the final act begins.  The scene is of a dimly lit bedroom, the walls scabby with fragmenting plaster.  We learn that Violetta is in the final stages of her illness with only a few hours to live when Alfredo arrives.  Having been estranged for some time, he is now aware of her sacrifice from his father.  The drama is much like the final scene of La Boheme.  Reunited, reconciled, and their love reaffirmed, Violetta dies in Alfredo’s arms.

There are thought to be parallels with La Traviata and the still popular 1990 movie, Pretty Woman.  The film and the opera have similar characters, a wealthy Richard Gere, very similar to the nobleman, Alfredo Germont, and a prostitute played by Julia Roberts who mimics Violetta Valéry’s lifestyle although nowhere near as sophisticated or wealthy.  To draw the comparison further, there is a point in the movie where Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera and wouldn’t you know it, they watch La Traviata.

Such an intimate performance, set in a 

Act II -  Paolo's Near Audition

palace with the actors moving about among us made me feel that I was part of the action, far more a contributor than an observer.  In fact, there was a point when I could have been.  Seating was on a first-come, first-serve basis.  When we moved to the parlor scene, I took a seat along a wall beside a credenza.  At one point events got close when a distraught Violetta in a dramatic move heightened further by the music, moved in my direction and laid her head in her hands on the table only inches from mine.  She’d just been told to break off her relationship with Alfredo and her anguish was palpable.  Caught up in the moment it would have been understandable to touch her hand in comforting solidarity.  The thought occurred to me but then I held back.  Luckily, I hadn’t been totally absorbed into the drama.  My hesitation proved long enough for her to compose herself and move on.  Actor union card or no union card, my debut as an extra, never envisioned by Verdi, who I doubt ever imagined his creation would be performed in this manner, was at an end before it had begun.

There was no need for our performer’s fine voices to require amplification.  Their Italian diction clear, their volume was likely loud enough to be heard outside on the Grand Canal by a passing gondola even over the four-piece orchestra accompaniment that traveled with us room to room.  A mural above our heads in the baroque parlor where Violetta was asked to renounce Alfredo, said it all.  This painting is entitled “The Triumph of Virtue over Ignorance”.  Indeed, here was an example of virtue over ignorance as Violetta chose righteousness and goodness when the veil of ignorance of the situation was removed.  Although abbreviated a bit in detail from a full-blown La Scala performance, likewise in our haste we’d arrived uninformed and I must admit, ignorant to the magic of opera.  Yet like Violetta, we’d soon become informed.  Certainly, our escape from the crowds of the city that evening had a different worth for about the same cost as floating in a gondola.  Each has its moments to cherish.  More than a theater in the round ever could, we’d been drawn into the surrounding action and absorbed into the play, bathed in the music, mesmerized by our historic surroundings, the fabulous costumes, and moved by the emotion of the scenes.  Each more than reason enough to cling to these memories of Italian excellence.

There were many other pleasurable rhythms among our most recent memories of Italy.  Still

Matera Chimneys  

on the move, this one found us in the region of Basilicata, in ancient times called Lucania, many hours from Venice and almost two hours from home base Calitri.  We’d been there before.  Each visit revealed another side of Matera which in 1993 was designated a “World Heritage Site” by the UN.  More recently it had been selected as the “2019 European Capital of Culture”.  In preparation, the city had met the demanding task of planning 50 weeks of cultural events featuring a pan-European character - their slogan “Matera 2019 Open Future”.  Each day of this celebratory year, there would be exhibits to visit, a live show, and time to wander natural trails and meet the people of Matera.  This turnaround follows its long-held negative reputation as a city synonymous with poverty, its citizens living in caves in conditions of squalor.  That squalor is now gone.  Its caves have been resurrected as tourist sites, restaurants, homes, shops, and hotels.

Matera has been inhabited since the Paleolithic period, better known as the Stone Age, when people made their homes there by burrowing into the tufa limestone along a river valley.  This built-up ravine is today known as the “Sassi” (Stones).  The city was allegedly founded by the Romans in the 3rd century BC, with the name of Matheola after consul Lucius Caecilius Metellus.  Much later, Matera and its cave-bound citizens received widespread attention following Italy’s fascist era.  Carlo Levi, a writer, doctor, and artist, was exiled to a nearby city by Benito Mussolini. From this experience, he wrote that he had never seen such a picture of poverty.  It took until after WWII that a state of emergency was declared in Matera, then referred to as “a national disgrace”. 

Our plan was to stay overnight.  We arrived mid-afternoon a little later than expected because of the route we’d taken from Calitri.  Our trusty GPS, Margaret, had me turn east toward Matera earlier than we knowingly would have.  I realized this miles into it and decided not to turn around.  I should have, for the route, which eventually led north of Matera to Altamura, not only proved longer but was a trail of snaking switchbacks and rolling terrain.  Confusion lingered when we did arrive at what we thought was Albergo Italia.  Pulled up alongside the curb, however, we were surprised to discover Albergo Roma.  Something was amuck.  Our desire to stay at Albergo Italia was because it provided easy access to the Sassi and had a relation to the making of the Mel Gibson movie, “The Passion of the Christ”.  Gibson had stayed there during the filming.  A scene had also been recorded from a room’s balcony with the Sassi, thought to look much like ancient Jerusalem, serving as backdrop. 

While Maria Elena stayed with the car, I went inside to verify we had a reservation.  Sure enough, we did.  Margaret had done her job and brought us to the programmed address, however unintended.  It wasn’t some ephemeral hand that had typed in the wrong name, but our hand.  Human error, not Margaret, had brought us to Albergo Roma.  It seems that “Roma” had come to mind instead of “Italia” when we’d googled for the hotel’s address.  At least we’d been consistent and had arrived where we’d booked.  In the end, it turned out that our slipup would prove fortunate.  Soon settled in, we were eager to set off.  In our conversation with the desk clerk, Giulio Cappella, about some of the sites and a restaurant for the evening, it was obvious that he was an expert in both the geology and history of Matera.  We had struck gold, for Giulio was a certified city guide and we hired him on the spot.  In past visits, we had not taken tours and knew we’d missed a lot.  We arranged to meet him the next morning for a tour of the Sassi on the steps of Banco di Napoli in Piazza Veneto sharply at 9 a.m. 

The rest of that afternoon and on into evening, we explored on our own.  From the front door of Albergo Roma, it was only a five-minute walk 

View into the Sassi  

along busy Via Roma to Matera’s social center, Piazza Vittorio Veneto.  There we hesitated at Belvedere Luigi Guerricchio to take in the view across the sprawling Sassi before us.  Elevated above the ravine in the modern 18^th century part of the city, the view down and across this truly ancient, grey vista is staggering, needing to be witnessed to be fully appreciated.

Our first stop was a visit to the “Domenico Ridola” National Archaeological Museum.  It was a perfect day to stop by because on that day, always appreciated, admission was free.  In addition to being a physician, Domenico was an archaeologist who towards the end of the 19th century unearthed villages of the Neolithic era, an ancient burial ground, in addition to some tombs belonging to the later Age of Metals.  On the basis of his findings, he put together a fascinating collection of archeological relics.  In 1911, Dr. Ridola donated his discoveries to the State.  Now conserved in the museum dedicated to his memory, it was the first of its kind in the Basilicata region.  Today, the museum’s holdings present this collection of prehistoric articles, up until the 3rd century BC, which over the intervening years has been further enriched and updated.

Paleolithic Animal Pen 

Early Oven 

In addition to typical glass cases commonly found in museums of categorized pots, terracotta statues, colored vases, jewelry, bronze armor, javelins, and more, along with accompanying descript- ions in many cases in English, it was fascinating to walk through a life-size physical display of a prehistoric village.  There was a mud and stick hut, an animal pen, cave wall art, a primitive oven, and implements.  Additionally, we walked through a cave, its walls painted with animal 

Skeletal Remains 

shapes along with archaic graffiti.  What was so special in the cave were the skeletal remains of a stone-age human still partially entombed in a grave.  His, maybe her, skull and teeth could be easily recognized.  Though likely a replica of the real thing, I wanted to believe it was the “real McCoy”.   This uninterrupted museum layout, rich in artifacts from prehistory to early history on up to the historical age, afforded us a unique insight and a greater understanding of the origins of Matera.

Farther along Via del Corso, past where it morphs into Via Ridolla, we arrived at the Carlo Levi exhibition.  Dr. Carlo Levi was an anti-fascist activist/politician from Turin in northern Italy who worked diligently to remedy the centuries-old backwardness of destitute Basilicata.  He became familiar with the plight of the southern Basilicata region when he was banished to the village of Aliano in 1935 as a confinato (political prisoner) for his anti-fascist agitation.  For a year, he lived among impoverished peasants and was overwhelmed by the hardships he observed these people endured daily.  The grueling poverty he encountered was on a scale unknown in his prosperous north.  He described life there as “… that world hedged in by custom and sorrow …”  It was during his exile that he spent much of his time painting, writing, and assisting the townspeople as a doctor.

His legacy as a painter includes a huge narrative painting, "Lucania '61", showcased in the Palazzo Lanfranchi Museum in Matera.  This mural is a proud spectacle of everyday life in Lucania

Levi's Lucania '61" Painting

depicting life filled with pain reflected on the faces of the characters, in many cases real townspeople.  The paint long dry, the images forever frozen in time, its chronology, left to right, first laments a single death.  It goes on to depict the life of the deceased and in so doing mirrors centuries of courageous Lucanian existence.  Though we’d seen it before, it had more meaning to us after we’d watched the movie “Cristo si è Fermato a Eboli” (Christ Stopped at Eboli), based on the book by the same name that Dr. Levi had published in 1945.  The book’s title is confusing.  Its origin is a peasant expression that requires a familiarity with the region to appreciate.  In the local dialect, cristiani primarily means “Christian,” but can also mean “civilized,” or “decent”.  The local expression and subsequent title were therefore a way of saying that Christ’s civilizing spirit never made it farther than Eboli (a town farther west of Aliano toward the coast, south of Salerno) due to their isolation leaving

A Panel of the Painting 

them unenlightened, without political voice, creatures of paganism, and victims of curses and magic.  Untouched by both the Greeks and Romans who preferred the coasts, neither Christ nor time had gone that far.  Those who had did not understand and soon left.  His book would eventually spark an outcry over this “national disgrace”, that eventually led to a relocation of its population out of the caves to the modern part of Matera you see today.  Levi was so moved with Lucania and Aliano that he is buried there, in effect never leaving, forever remaining a part of the peasant world he found there, and which had reshaped many of his earlier convictions.

Besides this graphic depiction recounting Levi’s year of exile in the abyss of Aliano, it happened that we were there during a month-long exhibition of a series of political drawings Levi produced for the L’Italia Socialista daily newspaper from 1947-48.  We were unfamiliar with the

A Levi Cartoon I Particularly Liked

nature of the political season that accompanied the dissolution of the monarchy and the founding of Republican Italy about that time.  Though we did not fully appreciate what we can presume were cutting satirical illustrations, history recounts they played a part in shifting political opinion. 

The next morning, we were out by 8 a.m. for the “breakfast included” repast next door at the L’Orchidea.  It was really a gelateria by day but that early in the morning substituted as a quick-stop coffee bar.  “Breakfast included” consisted of a coffee of choice and a cornetto.  Any further variety came with your choice of filling - cream, marmalade, chocolate, or plain.  Sitting there in a recess in the wall, no bigger than a cubbyhole, 

The Coffee Crew at L'Orchidea

it was interesting to watch the activity of the baristas and those of their boss overseer.  He appeared to be an exacting taskmaster, a stranger to a smile, to me reminiscent of a feudal master dealing with underlings that in past eras had been so much a part of long-ago Matera.  It got me thinking of the past again, where in Matera as we’d seen in the museum, “past” went back to before the beginning of recorded time.

We arrived at the bank rendezvous point early and sat on the steps to await Giulio’s arrival.  He’d said 9 a.m. and like a magician, poof, he appeared exactly at the stroke of 9.  This was one on-time Italian!  Rain was in the forecast and the sky was heavy with it.  No sooner had we moved off toward a ramp leading down into the Sassi that the rain began.  We’d “umbrellaed-up” in anticipation of a lousy day, weather-wise.  Still, we were upbeat and looked forward to a great tour as Giulio immediately began to recount the history of Matera.

As we meandered narrow lanes of continuously connected houses reminiscent of Calitri, through small squares, and noble palaces, one particularly impressive stop, in the medieval zone

Matera's Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral 

referred to as “Civita”, was at the Chiesa di Saini Pietro e Paolo.  Better known as San Pietro Caveoso, it dominates Duomo Square high atop a plateau in a well preserved 15th-century district.  Referred to as the Cathedral of Matera, it connects to the palace of the archbishop.  Besides the grandeur of the church exterior with its sixteen-ray rose window and front, ornate with statues surmounted by Michael the Archangel, there are marvels inside.  One I found especially interesting was a mural, maybe ten feet on a side.  Looking up at it, it was hard to believe it had survived. Sections of it were missing.  It was definitely a victim of the mayhem inflicted by time and decay.  I wouldn’t describe medieval times as PC but … here I go again creating acronyms … I’d wager that in those days they were absolutely Religiously Correct (RC).  In such a religious time, intolerant of any affront to the church’s authority, I found it hard to believe this mural depiction would have been tolerated.  Not a painting, but a fresco, the presentation was a symbolic expression of Hell and Purgatory dating to the 14th-century.  The painting picks up following the Final Judgement where devil-like creatures prod the condemned with pitchforks.  Surprisingly, at the pointy end of a

On the Way to Hell After the Last Judgment 

pitchfork, a group of nobles is depicted besieged by dogs and slithering snakes.  The common people of the time most likely couldn’t read the accompanying descriptive tags, neither could I, but the message was clear.  Death, that great equalizer, will see rich and poor alike judged equally.  From the imagery of affluent robes, regal crowns, and pious miters, these were clearly noblemen, some among them priests, others royalty.  I find it unlikely this was some unnoticed error or God-forbid, deliberate humor slipped-in on the part of the artist.  If it was intentional, was it a visual reminder to powerful aristocrats to repent while there was still time, similar to the message conveyed in the later-day motion picture “Scrooge”?  Possibly.  Or could it be a controlling reminder to the peasantry, one they often heard, that although they suffered daily, by continuing to endure their hellish existence, unlike those depicted, they’d find reward and see justice bestowed in the final judgment?  I wondered.

We drove home later that day “the correct way” toward

Back Home in Calitri

Potenza to arrive in Calitri late in the afternoon.  Our day ended on a high, dry note.  The weather had cleared.  I made spaghetti sauce, Maria Elena cooked sausage and toasted bread topped with ricotta and fried peppers, in addition to salad and wine.  As we enjoyed our dinner, images of distant Venetian voices and thoughts of ancient stone-bound Matera, practically a study in contrast, percolated in our heads.  Each in its own way was memorable for the lasting impressions it made. 

 “Regrettably”, I said earlier, “the beauty of spring’s renewal will fall to these persistent gales as nature’s slate prepares for winter’s cleansing.”  Like leaves blown away by the wind, some memories fade, others disappear entirely.  To insure against that, our renewal of Italian memories that fill our past and the formation of new recollections, like the advent of new leaves in springtime, will hopefully occur in 2020 when on touchdown we hear the announcement “Benvenuto in Italia”.

Calitri Morning View Looking Off Toward Matera

From That Rogue Tourist

Paolo