The Rapolla Sarcophagus Mystery

 

Our Little Piece of Heaven Circled in Yellow at 
Sunrise Just below Calitri’s Castle

The Rapolla Sarcophagus Mystery

Right now, at this precise moment, I can envision our Calitrane rooftop terrace, unoccupied and silent though far from forsaken.  We built it on a gamble in 2014.  Ours hadn’t been a bout of intense labor where we’d pulled down stone walls, had to mix cement and shuffled terracotta roof tiles about.  No, though I’d loved to have taken part, our labors had been from a distance, done remotely.  Back then, our commitment on whether we should make the investment at all to transform our vision into reality was fleeting at best, for any agreement to proceed would come as fast as it would vanish with a “no, let’s not”.  Once we’d finally made up our minds and committed to do it, details like where it should go and how to access it somewhere up on the roof where all in play — an elevator maybe?  How about a dumbwaiter to shuttle those savory delights up and down?  A more practical and economical solution, stairs, won out, although these days the frequent ups and downs with trays in hand, though still worth it, can be a drag.  Where should the stairs go?  Should we raise the terrace’s back wall for some privacy and afternoon shade, could a metal railing do the job instead of a wall at the edge of a three story abyss?  Decisions, decisions.  We knew what we wanted, access to an amazing vista.  It was only a matter of expressing it clearly on paper or in a sketch now and then to Italian workmen from another place we also called home in the States, where we inhabit a forest surrounded by silence.  Early discussions with our builder, Nicolo, transformed our ideas into sketches before we had to leave.  From then on, the Internet would support the design’s evolution and issues as they popped-up.  All that dithering from “let’s do it” to “no, let’s not,” had stolen our time in Calitri.  We had to leave and missed out on the demolition and the eventual fun part, the construction.  I doubt Nicolo minded.  He’d made terraces before, and though this one happened to be up in the air, replacing a roof, he didn’t have us, especially me, mucking about and getting in the way.  For Maria Elena, she’d avoided a caravan of laborers trekking through the house and one gigantic mess.  Months later when we returned, as Pharrell Williams is like to croon in his hit, Happy, our bedroom had become “a room without a roof.”

The agita involved is now long behind us.  It turned out to be a safe bet with the dividends going well beyond our monetary investment, for as Mare is wont to say, “It’s only money.”  How do you value a morning sunrise above a cloud deck lying in the undulating riffle of valleys below us that appear like a misty shoreline?  Then, there is that view toward a jagged sawtooth caldera that dominates

Morning View from our Rooftop Perch

our eastern skyline. Today, thankfully, it is an extinct volcano that each morning serves as an altar to host the rising sun.  From this ancient fixture, wooded hillsides laced every which way with farmhouses and quilted fields unfurl across the countryside.  By night, a spider web of roads lit by headlights lead to and from a network of crested hill towns like Pescopagano, Rapone, and Sant’Andrea that dapple distant ridges. Worth a dollar a day or would you go all in and call it priceless?  

There have been many late afternoons when Maria Elena and I have taken in the steely expanse of an impossible blue sky there on our terrace.  By day, it is a sky bruised with popcorn clouds.  By evening, they’d fall away to gradually be replaced with a riotous splattering of stars that ignite a sky show of twinkling lights.  Soon, they in turn would give way to share the night sky with the moon’s silver luminescence.  So bright, so many, and appearing so close, you imagine that like low hanging fruit you could reach out to touch them.  This drama occurred daily as the shadow-line of evening, cast by a retreating sun, gradually moved up a nearby mountainside topped by a sentinel of a church, now rarely used.  Much like a blanket being drawn up, this phalanx of an ever-advancing dusk slowly ascends the slope as the first rumor of nightfall makes its appearance.  Gradually, day is erased, replaced with a veil of blackening dimness.  Sitting there, we’d strain to spot the first pinprick of light appear in the blackboard night sky and make a wish.  

Where is that magic carpet, another transformative veil, when Maria Elena and I need it most to whisk us away from where we’re from to where we want to be, to that other place we consider home in Calitri?  It would surely take magic about now in the COVID depression of a locked down world.  In this stay at home existence, I’ve finally become overwhelmed with Broadway Joe Namath TV Medicare ads, by those constant appeals to be sure to ask your doctor about every sort of unpronounceable new drug, and the insatiable droning on and on about leaf gutter guards and the unfathomable danger of using a ladder.  It’s a wonder I haven’t yet dreamed that I took a ladder, climbed onto my roof, ingested a handful of pills I couldn’t pronounce, got dizzy, slipped on the leaf guard, fell, and wound up in the hospital fortunately covered by Medicare insurance I’d purchased through Joe.  Yet in frustration, I’ve wandered just a wobbly bit here away from our terrace experience at home in Calitri, high up as it is.

When I pause to think about it, is home where we lay our heads at night?  Could it simply be where at end of day we plug in our cellphones and laptops?  Is it possibly where we hail from, the place our story began, or could it be as elementary as where our mail is delivered, maybe the address where, beyond our laundry, we store our possessions?  Still, these are all merely locations that I’ve prefaced with the word “where,” followed by another “where.”  Just maybe they’re a little too materialistic in nature when home might better be described as where we build our lives and attach meaning with family.  More than a place, it’s a feeling we ache for, an ache beyond homesickness, where we find the most happiness.  There I go, I’ve wondered off again, haven’t I.

Our enchantment with this big sky dominated landscape is not exclusive to us.  When our son-in-law emerged onto the terrazzo that very first time, he verbalized our sentiment precisely when he remarked, “I’m never leaving.”  More than simply being “the money,” Maria Elena and I had been its

End of the Appian Way, Brindisi

creators and now serve as caretakers.  We cherish this privilege as we gaze off at those rolling mountains, teeming with history, as they in return just might contemplate us, the current interlopers.  In the time yet before us, if only there could be hundreds more such occasions ahead, to drink in the ambiance there like hummingbirds on our Italian perch.  Oh, I’ll admit there are sunny days and starry nights elsewhere in Italy, so I wouldn’t say our corner of Italy is any more particular in that way.  Still, across the valley laid out at our feet and at times known to run high atop that distant mountain ridge where earth touches sky, lies an ancient causeway that in coexistence with the past, crowns this area as indeed special.  

The trail I’m referring to begins at the ancient bullseye of early Rome, the Roman Forum.  From there it courses its way south then easterly until it ends at the entrance to a port where in antiquity Roman infantrymen set off for the eastern empire.  Built beginning in 312 BC, its purpose was to support the quick movement of military forces and supplies as well as commercial traffic.  The road led

Route of Appian Way Antica

many a young legionnaire off to police an empire from this seaport.  Years later, for the lucky ones by then considered seasoned veterans, it would lead them a step at a time all the way back to their homes.  Lying on the Ionian Sea, the port was known as Brundisium, to the Greeks, Brentesion.  Today, we know it more efficiently simply as Brindisi.  This relatively straight road was the kind Romans loved to build.  Why bother to go around anything when up and down will do just fine?  Essentially the first highway in history, on the order of England’s M1 motorway or the A1 Autostrada from Milan to Naples, it was referred to as Regina Viarum, the queen of all roads.  We know it as the Appian Way, the oldest and most prestigious of Roman roads.  Approximately 435 miles (700 km) in length, and in places still paved with large basaltic stones typical of Roman roads of the time, it was a revolutionary development in its day and the origin of the expression, “All roads lead to Rome.”

Departing Rome along Via Appia from its beginning close to the Circus Maximus and Baths of 

The Remains of Porta Capena, Rome
Where the Appian Way Begins

Caracalla, an ancient Roman traveler passed first through a gate that bore the name Porta Capena overhead.  Passing through the Servian Wall that surrounded Rome at the time, its name, Porta Capena, served as a giant road sign, proclaiming the first major destination along the roadway, namely Capua.  In 73 BC, a slave uprising against Rome, led by an ex- gladiator, Spartacus, began in Capua and continued for over two years.  Spartacus attempted to escape Italy by getting to Brundisium.  He and his army of 120,000 never made it.  Pinned between armies led by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) and Marcus Licinius Crassus, the slave army was finally defeated in 71 BC not far from Calitri.  In the defeat, thousands of the ex-slaves were captured.  The Romans, having judged that the slaves had forfeited their right to live, crucified 6000 slave prisoners along the 200 km stretch of the Via Appia from Capua to Rome.

Closer to Rome, although shifted in time to 1943 in the throes of World War II, this same stretch of the Appian Way would be lined not with crucified slaves but with German armor racing to push the

Via Appia Today

Allies into the sea at Anzio.  The Allies had landed on the coast of Italy close to Anzio at Nettuno.  In fact, Maria Elena’s “Uncle Sweet” was wounded there.  They were keen on breaking the stalemate at Monte Cassino and taking Rome.  Upon landing, they found the place undefended.  Their intent had been to move along the line of the Via Appia and take Rome, outflanking Monte Cassino and its defenders in the process.  It never went as planned, which is how wars usually go.  They didn’t move fast enough and were pinned down by artillery fire as the German army surged to counterattack.  A costly quagmire ensued along a four mile front that lasted four months before the Allies broke through and following the Appian Way, captured Rome.

I’m uncertain about your experiences along roadways but from time to time, all I ever seem to find by the side of the road is a shoe.  Never a pair mind you, just a single shoe.  I’ve seen enough of them that when I put my shoes in the car, I take a moment to tie the

A Typical "Solo" Lost Shoe

laces together.  At least then, whoever finds my loss has a pair and if they fit, who knows where they might lead.  I’ve yet to come across a pair myself but it’s within the realm of possibility.  I’d be willing to bet though that I’ll never ever find a sarcophagus out there, but others have.  In fact, one was discovered by chance along the route of the ancient Via Appia in the countryside near the town of Rapolla, about 20 miles from Calitri off in our panorama to the east.  The exact date of the discovery in 1856 is uncertain but it was triggered when a road construction crew found it in the countryside between Melfi and Venosa, where I confess, we often go to fill our jugs with bulk wine.  Was such a find uncommon or might it be on the ancient equivalent of finding a lost shoe?  Truth be told, since dead bodies were regarded as polluting, burials inside Rome’s Servian Wall were forbidden.  In terms of convenience and ease of access, you might expect the next best option

Servian Wall (in red) Circling Ancient Rome
with Porta Capena Circled

would be just beyond the gates along the Appian Way and it was.  Today, that beginning stretch is a tourist attraction due to the ruins of numerous monumental tombs lining Via Appia there.  I’d think it unusual, however, to find a tomb or single sarcophagus very far from a major Roman city.  Situated like that, it might attract grave robbers.  Regardless, being located in such a remote area in far off Basilicata seems to have been the case.  Possibly there may have been a villa of a noble family nearby who in keeping with funerary rules had the sarcophagus placed nearby along the road.

This snow white sarcophagus was the centerpiece of an empty unadorned room, blacked-out but for a beam of light that bathed it from above in a white glow.  Western made sarcophagi are decorated only on the front side.  In this case, all four sides are richly decorated in elaborate relief statuary murals inspired by ancient mythology.  The fact that all the outer surfaces are decorated indicates to scholars that it originated in Asia Minor, likely present day Turkey.  It is considered among

The Magnificent Rapolla Sarcophagus with a Caricature of Aemilia Csaurus
Reposed Atop as We Observed it in Melfi Castle

the best examples of funeral art from the period.  The top lid portrays the marble figure of a young woman lying on her bed as though she is sleeping.  A little dog lies on her lap, but all that remains of it today are its paws.  Finally, a cherub stands nearby holding a garland of flowers in one hand, and a torch pointing downward in the other, adopting a pose which, in Roman funerary iconography is an illusion to death.

When I saw what is referred to as the Rapolla sarcophagus that first time at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale del Melfese Massimo Pallottino located in the Norman Castle in nearby Melfi 
and read what information there was concerning its discovery, I wondered who the young woman

The Norman Style Melfi Castle

immortalized on the lid had been.  Unfortunately, this apparently abandoned “marble shoe” by the side of the road did not come with an inscription that might have offered some clue to confidently identify the deceased.  Without an inscription to help settle matters, the name of the young woman may remain a matter of scholarly speculation forever.

Yes, controversy swirls around the identity of the person once laid to rest in this pristinely preserved tomb.  I tend to get behind the traditional explanation presented in the museum that contends the sarcophagus contained the remains of Aemilia Scaurus.  Aemilia or Emilia was the 18 year old daughter (100 - 82 BC) of the Roman patrician and consul, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (163 - 89 BC) and his wife Cecilia Metella Dalmatica.  Aemilia's father, considered one of the most illustrious and influential politicians of the Republic in his day, was the orator of the senate and prestigious princeps senatus (senate president).  While this museum claim as to the occupant of the tomb lacks strong supportive evidence, there are also arguments against it being Emilia, mostly related to the chronology of the monument and customs.  Her hairstyle, for instance, is just one of them.  The style presented on the reclining figure was typical of women who lived much later (96-196 AD) in the time-period known as the Antonina Dynasty.  Also, cremation was in vogue by the aristocracy at the time, not internment.  Finally, the location of the find raises doubt that it could have been Emelia who’d been entombed there.  Since Emilia is known to have died in Rome, why would her tomb, itself in question as to its date of manufacture, have been sited in such a remote region of Basilicata, just about at the other end of the Appian Way?  Is it simply a historical misunderstanding?  Could it involve speculative inference by some, or as others might heatedly argue, akin to unquestionable settled science, all relying on a few chiseled curls of hair?

There was a profound amount of human drama intermingled with tragic family intrigue

Thought to Be Aemilia Scaurus
 (100 BC - 82 BC)

surrounding Emilia and the characters in her short life especially from one, Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, commonly known to history as simply Sulla.  He would seize the empire and become dictator in 82 BC.  It gets a bit convoluted but stay with me here for an appreciation of the manipulation she experienced, though did not quite survive.  Her father, Scaurus, mentioned earlier, married Caecilia Metella.  Caecilia would later become Sulla’s third wife, making Aemilia Sulla’s stepdaughter.  Before this marriage occurred, however, young Aemilia had married and was expecting a child.  The same year of her husband’s death, Cecilia Metella married Sulla.  This worked to ally Sulla with a powerful family of Roman plebeian nobility and accelerate his career first to Consul then Dictator by 82 BC.  Sulla’s marriage to Cecilia was celebrated with great pomp, following Sulla's divorce of Cloelia, his third wife, whom he divorced citing “barrenness.”  Aemilia, now Sulla’s stepdaughter, would soon become the second wife of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.  Better known simply as “Pompey”, Sulla persuaded him to divorce his wife, Antistia, and marry Aemilia.  Aemilia, though at that moment pregnant from her first marriage, was forced by her mother and stepfather, Sulla, to separate from her husband and marry Pompey in a scheme designed to forge an alliance with Pompey.  After Pompey divorced Antistia, the latter's mother committed suicide, cursing those who had harmed her daughter, now dishonored.  In noble families, it was customary to build the political careers of their 

Cecilia Metella's Mausoleum Built by
Sulla on Via Appia Just Outside Rome

important men through marriages.  In case after case, the women, in addition to being brides were also victims.  It didn’t stop there, and while it had begun tragically, it ended just as appallingly when Aemilia died in childbirth at Pompey’s home shortly following her forced marriage to him.  There was no consideration of Aemilia’s plight in these affairs since, at that time, citizen women were considered little more than chattel, with the maturity of a child, thus in need of the perpetual oversight of a guardian.

Like a lost shoe found along the road, its owner nameless, it remains a mystery as to who exactly the beautiful young woman immortalized by the Rapolla sarcophagus had been.  There are many historic mysteries hidden in plain view, off in the distant terrain visible from our terrazzo, this being but one of them.  Listen hard and long enough and the mountains may hint at, even reveal, their shadowy secrets.  Pulling back the curtain of time for instance, they could share the echoes of legionnaire voices heard above the clatter of their footfalls as they marched along Via Appia toward Brindisi.  Listen closely, there it is, the voice of one forced to pause from continuing his ribald boast of conquest.  Ah, another, a disparaging taunt directed at a fellow soldier just steps ahead, likewise cut short.  Then, fading as well, the faint mutter of an insubordinate curse, though not discernable, addressed to his centurion commander a few paces further on.  All of them had stopped what they were saying, mid-sentence, to step aside and make way for an approaching wagon.  One of them shouted to the men walking alongside the heavily loaded vehicle to ask how far they had journeyed from Brindisi, if indeed it had been their point of departure.  His reply, “Alio modo 135 mille passuum esse Brundisium, mi amice” (Only another 200 kilometers to Brindisi, my friend), told them what the mile markers and their officers had not.  Unfortunately, days more of their unending trek awaited them before they could hope to see rest aboard ship, anywhere for that matter.  Thoughts of their plight hadn’t fully sunk in when their attention was drawn again to the weighted-down wagon now so close they might shift the packs on their backs,

Aemilia Scaurua?

reach out, and touch it.  Pulled slowly by a laboring team of white podolica cattle, its overburdened load, a gleaming white sarcophagus, so long it extended from the back of the cart, was clearly visible.  As the abrupt snap of the team leader’s whip hastened the wagon along, each of them caught a glimpse of the beauty, rivaling Venus, lying atop her milky white marble vault.  Frozen in the silence of stone, like a victim of the Gorgon, Medusa, the scene caused each in turn to pause just a moment to remember recent shadows from their past, fragments of memory of those they had left behind — the sweetheart, daughter, wife, — all about her age, everyone they had ever loved, who with each step they distanced themselves from further.  They, like us, had gazed in awe wondering who she had been, curious to know her name, a secret you see, layered in time, well-kept to this day.

 

From That Rogue Tourist

Paolo

Life's Defects

Life's Defects

Defects sometimes get the better of us.  At times the rarity of a defect can prove valuable as, for instance, in the case of the 1918 Inverted Jenny, 24¢ American postage stamp where at auction recently, someone was willing to pay $575,100 ¹.  At other times a defect, even a rare one, can prove disastrous as was the case of the o-ring gasket failure that led to the 1986 Shuttle Challenger tragedy.  And then there are physical aberrations like blemished tires that we don't hesitate to scoop up at a discount or injuries, also deemed defects that occur in life that some of us try to hide.  Take for example the story of the Duke of Urbino, Federico III da Montefeltro (1420-1482).

History records that the Duke lost his right eye while jousting. Considering                                                  

the medical abilities of the time, it's a wonder he survived the loss at all. Afterwards, and for the annals of posterity, he never permitted himself to be portrayed face-on due to a more than minor concern for his appearance.  This seems a little extreme when an eye-patch might have served him well, possibly even adding a sense of bravado and manliness to his brand.  Instead, as can be seen in Florence's Uffizi Gallery, he is portrayed like a playing card One Eyed Jack, only in profile.  To make matters worse, at least in my estimation, it is reported that he subsequently had the top of his nose, also damaged in the tournament, flattened with a file in order to increase his peripheral vision.  Without anesthetics, it had to have been excruciatingly painful.  This resulted in a flat deck on the bridge of his nose that forever marked him, especially considering his insistence on profile depictions.  Possibly such representations of him were his most flattering.  Then again as a man of arms, somewhat a mercenary, somewhat a general, could the loss of an eye have been more damaging to his Renaissance résumé than a weirdly angled nose?  Vanity sometimes gets the better of us, and sometimes, telling from the Duke who also suffered from an inferiority complex due to his rumored illegitimate birth ², can last into perpetuity.  History has not passed him by though, for today, like the craze of a modern tattoo, his face borders on the notoriety of the Mona Lisa, her only defect, an insufficient smile.  

Such anomalies, like a visible smudge or an irregular decorative brush stroke can see value regulated to the trash heap.  For others it can prove to be treasure.  On the hunt for just such blemished prizes, though doubtfully none so rare as a diptych of a Duke or a misprinted stamp, if only it were possible, we took to the road recently.  Our destination was Vietri sul Mare.  

Implied in its name, sul Mare, Vietri borders the sea and sitting as it does at the beginning of the Penisola Sorrentina, better known as the Amalfi Peninsula, is practically a suburb of Salerno.  It was an easy 100 km ride from Calitri to Vierti, but only until we got close.  Then, as we neared Salerno with its free-for-all, big city style, we took an additional tug on our seat-belts and assumed a DEFCON 1 high alert status.  We were being especially vigilant of anything, whether moving or fixed, that might get in our way.  Once on the peninsula, I was grateful we hadn't far to go for it was the first town we came too following a series of tunnels.  A quick exit from the highway, followed by a whifferdill turning descent under the highway, and we'd arrived in the small seaside town of Vietri.  

The other half of the town's name, Vietri, led me to believe that the town had something to do with glass.  Initially, I believed vietri was some variation of the Italian word for glass, vetri. The slight difference in their spelling seemed explainable as a departure into local dialect.  It would be a treat to have a center for glass production so close to home instead of having to travel north to the Venetian lagoon island of Murano, so well known for its glass.  I was, however, way off on that count.  Vierti hadn't gotten its name from an association with glass at all.  I could also have convinced myself it had been named for a powerful local family, but as I soon learned, it most likely was derived from reference to the early Etruscans settlers in the area of Vietri.  Current thinking is that most probably the name of the town came from the term veteri which was the name Romans gave to early settlers and settlements ³. If only I'd studied Latin in high school, I may have known this. 

Rounding a corner, we found ourselves on main street Vietri, Corso Umberto I.  Also conveniently at hand was a gated parking lot that obliged us with an empty spot.  Apparently we'd been expected.  Soon afterwards, walking along Corso Umberto, we quickly realized that Vietri sul Mare was all about ceramics, not glass, its origins in the late Italian Renaissance period when the earliest earthenware factories appeared in the area.  Today it remains well-known for its ceramic handicrafts, ranging from dishes, flowerpots, housewares, artistic pieces, crockery, vases and tiles.  Its ceramics are known the world over and especially in the area of the Amalfi peninsula.  To simply categorize its creations as handicrafts, however, is a disservice.  Centuries of handed-down expertise and technical evolution have elevated these "handicrafts" far beyond simple run-of-the-mill terracotta ashtrays.  Instead, they are works of art for here expertise resides not solely in the art of pottery-making but extends into sophisticated decorative designs in addition to talented portrait and scene paintings on ceramics.  From the portrayals and meticulous renderings we saw, we could be persuaded to believe that the blood of Botticelli, Caravaggio, or Raphael ran through their veins.  It just may.  

There was so much to visit and see that we made our rounds, the length of Corso Umberto, before deciding what we might want to buy.  The range of choices was overwhelming and only compounded further when we discovered Ceramica Artistica Solimene.  It proved to be the surprise of our visit.  Right off, it presented itself like none of the other ceramic businesses we’d seen to that point. 

Located at the far end of Corso Umberto, near beckoning eateries like Ristrpub Sud Est and Bar Miramare, it had a modernistic Frank Lloyd Wright Guggenheim Museum look about it.  We were greeted with an irregular and undulating exterior surface accented with diamond shaped porthole style windows.  In appearance it was almost as though I'd zoomed into a picture of the structure, so far that it had pixelated into dots, some a shade of green, the majority an earth tone color.  Definite horizontal patterns emerged, one in particular reminiscent of a familiar Greek interlocking square wave pattern.  The only difference was that here the particular dots that dressed the surface were thick ceramic disks, thousands of them.  

This unusual building had been designed by visionary Italian architect Paolo Soleri, not Frank Lloyd Wright.  His Solimene Veitri sul Mare creation was completed in 1954.  I was spot on in my first impression in associating the design with Wright, however.  Collaboration with Wright had occurred when Soleri visited the United States in the 1940s.  In fact, it was while he was in Arizona that he'd spent over a year as an apprentice under the tutelage of Frank Lloyd Wright.  Wright's influences were clearly evident in Soleri's innovative Vierti creation.  This was confirmed once we were inside the Artistica Solimene ceramic studio.  The open interior featured a rotunda with forked concrete pillars rising multiple stories to a glass canopy.  The openness of its interior was one thing but it was the iconic spiral ramp, gradually sloping upward, so characteristic of New York's Guggenheim that confirmed my speculation.  

Every nook and cranny, the expansive surface of the ramp, side room offshoots, overflowing containers, and pile upon pile of beautiful ceramic creations cluttered the floor, filled shelves, and carpeted the surfaces of tables.  In places it was so close that it was difficult to get to a particular item that may have caught our eye.  Some items were pristine, approaching museum quality, many were of decorative value, and some simply flawed Searching through the clutter for our particular idea of treasure, we gradually worked our way through the studio.  We felt like archaeologists eager to scavenge through long lost shards and forgotten detritus.  It called for hours of exploration to properly investigate this cache.  Budding archaeologists without a grant, shy of the time necessary to do it justice, or simply because we were overwhelmed by the extent of the horde and thought a cappuccino best, we soon tired.  It was toward the end of our treasure hunt, however, after blowing the dust from dozens of pieces, searching through crates of plates, much of it the excess production of restaurant after restaurant customized dinnerware that we found what we were looking for.  In the end, we came away with a series of beautifully decorated fish plates, the future resting place of Maria Elena's frutti di mare and spaghetti alle vongole creations.  And oh yes, an ashtray that never made it to some Neapolitan bistro.

seconds or the result of overproduction.

We reserved our high-end art purchase for Ceramica Romolo Apicella, the ceramic studio of Artist Anna Rita.  She descends from an extended family of ceramic masters.  We did not get to personally meet Rita, but after exploring two floors of her art pieces we quickly appreciated her motto:

           "He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."

We'd happened upon another beautiful ceramic studio and it was there that we splurged on the purchase of the head of the Lo Spirito della Primavera (The Spirit of Spring).  Today when the winter snows are thickest here in the States, she rings eternal the promise of spring.

We noticed there was an overt emphasis on owls in much of the Apicella artwork.  While the ancient Greeks considered owls to be signs of good fortune, this belief took a 180 degree turn when it came to the ancient Romans. Romans considered owls the harbingers of disaster and a bird of the occult, all adding up to bad luck.  Indeed owls can appear to be strange creatures.  Unable to move their eyes, they have to pivot their entire head in order to look around.  When I raised this point there that day, I was surprised to learn that there were good and bad owls.  Surprisingly it all apparently had to do with their ears.  I knew that the ears of owls were not aligned evenly and that the resulting geometry resulted in a heightened sense of hearing.  Could this seemingly unnatural misalignment, in contrast to the usual symmetry of nature, have contributed to their bad karma?  I think it may have, for as explained to us, owls without their ears visible were just fine, thereby consider-

 ed good owls.  This superstitious fact is borne out on close examination of their business card, which I happened to take away with me.  It prominently portrays what else but an earless owl.  Give a hoot or not, here's wishing you luck.

For a refreshing break we stopped by Gelateria Artigianale.  From the ads on every napkin dispenser on the tables outside their door they offered real Italian espresso, Caffè Vergnano.  While it is indeed a high octane brew, we were more in the mood for tall glasses of latte macchiato to the pleasurable accompaniment of Italy's marmalade filled version of the croissant, il cornetto.  The extra milk working to dilute the Vergnano's strong flavor just enough to indulge our American palates.  Yes, I must confess, we still haven't acclimated fully to high test Italian espresso.

Making our way back down Corso Umberto we next investigated La Bottega dei Ricordi, which was just jammed with ceramic surprises.  While Maria Elena browsed downstairs, I took a staircase to the upper level.  It was there that I met one of the artists at work, Theresa.  She sat in the middle of the room, apparently her studio, surrounded by colorful bowls of paint (see lead photo).  I watched as she dabbed her needle-like brush into one of the many colors, then as she methodically, with a play of her hands in a swirl or looping stroke, applied the color to the fluted bowl before her.  All the while she'd slowly turn the bowl.  It was like watching the stick and foot action of a drummer without the sound.  Far from mass production work, it was nevertheless repetitive, continuing until her steady hand was finished with a particular pattern.  While she was about this, we chatted.  Her curiosities took the form ... Where are you from? ... while my inquisitive counter questions were along the lines ... How long have you been doing this?  

Downstairs once more, I found that Maria Elena had made progress.  She'd been searching for some gifts, one in particular for our daughter.  At this point she was considering an espresso serving set - all together six demitasses, a sugar bowl and tray.  There only remained a final decision, which one of the many different sets to choose.   By some process of elimination, one I can't now recall, we made our final selection and had it bubble-wrapped first for the return trip to Calitri and eventually the States.  Today it sits on our daughter's dining room sideboard in competition with a Keurig coffee maker for attention.

 
By then it was time for lunch.  We'd been the length of Corso Umberto, end-to-end and back in fact, and seen its mealtime offerings.  Instead, we decided to head down to the lower part of the town, closer to the sea, to a quarter named Marina di Vietri.  After all, when looking for seafood why not go where the fish are.  But first we returned to our car to drop off our purchases.  From there it was a downhill walk along Via Osvaldo Costabile to the lower seaside part of the town.  I was thankful it was downhill all the way, but all the while I couldn't shake the thought that somehow we had to make the return trip.  

Unfortunately the first restaurant we thought we'd like to try was closed that day.  We continued to search until some passers-by directed us to an alley between two blue and purple colored buildings leading to the beach.  When we emerged from the alleyway onto Via Cristoforo Colombo we discovered Ristorante La Maison Felix.  Better yet, it was open.  Our waitress would be Francesca and the cook, Chef Peppe.  It was Francesca who showed us to an outside table under the

awaiting shade of an awning.  She went on to explain that they specialized in fish dishes.  Bingo, we'd apparently hit the jackpot.  As with Vietri sul Mare, I was once again curious about their name.  Of course Felix is an old Roman name meaning “Lucky” and the use of Maison may simply have been a step-up in an attempt to avoid using an overused word like Casa.  But as I am want to do, I imagined an alternate scenario.  I wanted to believe that the name of the place, La Maison Felix, French of course for The House of Felix, possibly had something to do with an overweight cat.  I was familiar with Alice’s Cheshire Cat, with its piano-key grin, but here Felix the Cat came to mind, who in my counter-history, took care of any fish leftovers.

We appreciated the opportunity to relax as we sipped a refreshing, thirst-slacking bottle of local Falanghina wine and awaited the arrival of our starters – thinly shaved prosciutto with snowballs of mozzare cheese for Maria Elena, and for me, the green and white poker chip like rounds of a caprese salad, hopefully sprinkled with basil and just oozing olive oil.  By our second glass of wine they'd arrived and I mimed a toast to Bacchus in gratitude.  They were consumed before the need of a third refill, the only sounds faint compliant mummers of gratification.

For lunch Mare sometimes makes a meal of a few appetizers.  She'd already enjoyed one and as her primo she enjoyed another, this time an antipasto of olives, cheeses, some salami and sopressata, little tomatoes, and to our surprise fried pieces of fish.  It was a generous portion and a challenge for her to get through, so I pitched-in less the cat got fatter.  My luncheon had to be pasta.  Show me an

Italian lad who doesn't consume a dose of pasta at least once a day and we'll both be looking at one sad Italian indeed.  Holding up my end of this notion, my primi piatti was a liberal portion of spaghetti alle vongole.  It put the flavor of the sea in my mouth.  I could only imagine the mouth watering presentation following a morning run to the fish shop we frequent in Calitri for some golden shelled clams nestled in fresh parsley, then home again for Maria Elena to serve-up this same pasta dish on our newly acquired ceramic plates.  I couldn't wait, but Mare always says, I shouldn't be thinking about my next meal while I'm eating.  I simply blame it on some repressed Neanderthal gene deep inside me whose sole purpose was to insure there was a next meal. 

We had just about concluded our meals when in front of us, farther toward the street, yet still within the confines of the patio, I noticed a quick movement under a table.  Moments later, I’d confirmed the source of the movement.  It was a mouse.  While mice don't get me excited, I decided to gently break the news to Maria Elena who doesn't like the quick movements of these adorable Topo Gigio creatures.  After all, it may have been a distant ancestor of an ancient squirrel-like rodent called a dormouse, once a Roman snack-time delicacy, especially enjoyed when doused with honey and stuffed with pork.  She'd eaten rattlesnake in Oklahoma, why not try a mouse?  It wouldn't be long before we'd agree it tasted like chicken!  But I certainly digress, sometimes needing to lasso my imaginings.  The incident, however, put a stop to any thinking about ordering a secondi piatti.  Instead, my thoughts returned to the name of the place, The House of Felix, whose namesake just possibly might be a cat and how a brief scamper had improved my theory about this feline’s diet.  I was now sure it was definitely fish and mouse.  Seeming to be unhurried, but now eager to retreat, we said farewell to Francesca and passed our best wishes along to Peppe, but only after appraising her of the little interloper off in a corner somewhere.  She indulged us by saying she'd get on it immediately, but I secretly knew she'd only put my imagined furry phantom Felix to work.  

While we'd been there, I'd noticed a bus stop across the street.  It had been busy all the while with small shuttle busses coming and going.  I asked Francesca if by chance it made the return climb into town.  We were in luck, the good owls must have been with us for that's just what they did.  Now comfortably revived, we took a bus back up into town for a small fee.  We exited in the park-like piazzetta near that now familiar landmark, the Ceramica Artistica Solimene, with more than enough energy saved to run the gauntlet back to Calitri.

A famous Roman once addressed an obstinate Roman Senate with the words "Veni, Vidi, Vici" ... "I came, I saw, I conquered".  In our case on that special day, we'd bravely come to Veitri, referred to as “The First Pearl of the Amalfi", for a special pearl or two of our own.  We'd eagerly explored it, end-to-end, top-to-bottom.  As opposed to a conquering vici mind-set, 
we'd instead been so captured by what we'd found, we hesitated to leave.  Here were both the treasures and blemishes we’d been searching for in the distilled traditions of Vietri sul Mare's superb ceramic craftsmanship.  Lately it seems, I have been writing about the echoes and ripples of past traditions.  Steeped in harmony and an alliance with the past, they run strong in Italia and even stronger in little Vietri, for in Vietri sul Mare they have been amplified with an infusion of modern technology.  Could Vietri's forefathers have anticipated making their piatti microwave and dishwasher safe?  Likewise could they have anticipated the advent of temperature controlled electric fired ovens?  Good or bad owls aside, would Botticelli, Caravaggio, or Raphael have considered it witchcraft to have modeled their works not with molds or clay sculptures, but with a 3D graphic program?  One foot in the past, the other in tomorrow, Vietri possesses a distinct quality of place worth experiencing, worthy of anyone's bucket list.

                                                            

From that Rogue Tourist

Paolo

1.  Inverted Jenny - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny

 

2. Montefeltro Duke of Urbino by Ralf K, www.academia.edu/6148726/Montefeltro_Duke_of_Urbino

Illegitimate

3.  History of Vietri - Italian Pottery and Ceramics,

www.italianpotteryandceramics.com/en/content/10-history-of-vietri