To Die in Tuscany

by David P. Wagner

  He stopped to take a drink of his mineral water, either to clear his throat or simply for dramatic effect. Either way, he had their attention.

  “You may have heard, when you were viewing that masterpiece, that for centuries, when it was located in a country chapel just outside the town, it was venerated by the local women. Partly it was due to the belief, which I understand to be true, that the artist executed the work to honor his mother, a simple peasant with whom these women could identify. But also, since it was the depiction of the pregnant Virgin Mary, women who were having difficulty conceiving began going there to pray for a child. Naturally, word got around that such a pilgrimage worked, and women trying to get pregnant came from all over Tuscany, as well as farther away, to kneel before Piero’s painting. One of those women, Riccardo, was your grandmother.” He leaned back in his chair and awaited a reaction.

  “Zio, that is a wonderful story. Can I guess where I think this is going?”

  “I would expect nothing less from my clever nephew.”

  Rick raised his glass, which fortunately still held some wine. “Let me raise a toast to the artistic powers of Piero della Francesca, and to my uncle, who was given his name.” They tapped their glasses and took their sips. After some moments of silence, Rick added, “Zio, I have to ask you—did…?”

  “No, Riccardo, two years later your mother arrived without any help from the Madonna.”

  They decided to skip the main course and ordered fruit and cheese instead.

  The Wine and Food

  Just as Le Marche does not get the tourism it deserves, the wines of the region are not as well known as those of its flashier neighbors. But don’t take that to mean it is a vinicultural backwater. Among Italy’s twenty regions, Le Marche ranks twelfth in acres of vineyards, tenth in gallons of wine produced, and eighth for DOC (controlled origin denomination) wines. While production is now very diversified, at one time the region was known solely for verdicchio, a white that was, and still is, mass produced. (The fish-shaped bottles of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi are almost as distinctive as Chianti in the basket flasks.) The areas that produce the best verdicchio are found around the towns of Jesi and Matelica, and as with wine from any grape, its taste varies according to climate—how far up the mountain, how distant from the sea—as well as the composition of the soil, which in Le Marche is mostly limestone and clay. Curiously, the only time Rick and Betta have a white while in Urbino it is a Bianchello del Metauro, from grapes of the same name grown along the Metauro River. They apparently didn’t get the memo about verdicchio.

  Regarding Le Marche reds, the game is dominated by one grape, montepulciano. Two of the best montepulciano reds, Rosso Cónero and Rosso Piceno, are enjoyed by Rick and Betta on the pages of this book. At the wine bar the last night, they also try a Focara Rosso that is made by a friend of the owner, which may indicate how obscure this wine is, even in Italy. Its main grape is sangiovese, with a bit of pinot nero.

  That same sangiovese grape, along with other varieties, goes into the Cesanese di Olevano Romano that Piero orders at the lunch in Rome with Rick and Betta. It comes from the Castelli Romani, the hills southeast of Rome where Romans have been escaping summer heat for centuries. The area is best known for its whites, especially frascati, but some excellent reds like this one are produced there as well.

  It will not surprise my regular readers that when Rick and Betta are in Urbino they manage to eat well and sample some of the local specialties. The sampling begins at their first lunch when DiMaio orders them olive ascolane and vincisgrassi, the latter being one of the more curious names for what is essentially lasagna. According to tradition, in this case true, it was named in honor of an Austrian military commander named Windischgratz (or Windisch Graetz), who was stationed in the area and fought against Napoleon. Most of my sources note that it is usually more rich than the lasagne from other regions, thanks to such ingredients as chicken livers or sweetbreads.

  For their first dinner, the restaurant I had in mind when writing was Vecchio Urbino, where my wife and I had a memorable meal on our first trip to that city. All I have to do is mention the distinctive star-shaped light fixtures and she remembers it. At the meal in the book, all four diners have gnocchetti al ragu di cinghiale, small gnocchi tossed in a wild boar sauce. (Regular readers of Rick’s adventures will recall that I extol the taste of wild boar in the first book in the series, Cold Tuscan Stone.)

  The place where Rick and Betta lunch with Loretta Tucci the next day is also a real place, out in the country between Monterchi and Sansepolcro. My wife and I had lunch at the Castello di Sorci years ago, on a Sunday, which meant it was packed with families, and children running loose everywhere. The fare was simple that day: generous antipasto platters and homemade pasta. That’s what I decided Rick and Betta should have for their lunch as well. Dinner back in Urbino that evening featured chicken breasts with one of the most famous local specialties, black truffles, something I had to include in at least one of their meals. I’m not a big fan of truffles—they’re just too overpowering a taste for me—but it is something everyone should try, especially if you are in Piedmont, the region of white truffles, in the fall.

  The lunch spot the next day has a specialty of grilled meats, which reminds Rick of the churrascarias he went to when visiting his parents in Rio de Janeiro. (By an amazing coincidence, your author spent six years in Rio.) For the setting, I again had an actual restaurant in mind when writing, though not one located in Urbino or Brazil. Coccorone is found on a narrow street in Montefalco, a town southeast of Perugia. Because of its rustic atmosphere and grilled meats specialty, it seemed the perfect eatery to move temporarily to Urbino for Rick and Betta’s enjoyment. Be assured that I put it back in Montefalco, a beautiful hill town, right after describing the lunch in the book.

  The last dinner in Urbino isn’t much of a dinner. Ironically, given the Spanish nationality of the book’s victim, the place they go to could almost be described as a tapas bar. Importantly, it gives Rick and Betta a chance to sample another famous local specialty, formaggio di fossa, which is described in some detail as they eat it. In addition, they once again have bruschetta with their wine. You just can’t have too much bruschetta.

  The traditional Rome wrap-up lunch with Uncle Piero is set in a restaurant just off Via Veneto called Peppone. It was on our regular rotation of restaurants, and not just because it was conveniently located so close to our apartment that we could have thrown water balloons down on diners sitting at its sidewalk tables. (We never did.) One of its specialties, taglioline carciofi e mentuccia, was a favorite of mine, so I had Betta and Piero order it. Rick has one of those simple but hard-to-do-right dishes, spaghetti cacio e pepe, which is pasta tossed in tangy cheese with black pepper. The hard part is getting just the right amount of pasta water when you toss it with the cheese.

  Author’s Note

  Given Rick’s knack for turning up in wonderful Italian towns, it was inevitable that he would eventually find his way to Urbino. Located in Le Marche, one of the less traveled of Italy’s twenty regions, it is a true gem well worth the effort needed to reach it. The traveler must remember that if Urbino were located almost anywhere else in Italy, it would be overrun by tourists, so its isolation is a small price to pay. For the most prominent Duke of Urbino, Federico II da Montefeltro, that isolation was just fine, a splendid location to hold court when not fighting wars. Federico took seriously the “fortune” part of the term “soldier of fortune”: he never formed alliances but instead fought strictly for cash. And he was good enough at warfare to amass a treasury that allowed him to enlarge his territory and create one of the most enlightened courts in Europe. The duke’s greatest pride was not his considerable skill in battle but a library that rivaled those of Italy’s great universities. Federico was also the patron of several of the finest artists of the time, including, of course, Piero della Francesca, whose work is frequently described i
n this book.

  The reader will not be surprised that Piero is one of my favorite Renaissance artists, and you can check out his paintings on my website to understand why. Naturally, this book is a murder mystery, not an art history text, so my descriptions of his work are superficial at best, but I tried to be accurate. The best way to appreciate Piero is to go to Italy and seek out his work in Arezzo, Sansepolcro, Monterchi, and Urbino, as well as in museums in Florence and Milan. On one post-retirement trip, when my wife was studying art history at the University of New Mexico, we parked outside the walls of Rimini and hiked the length of the town just to see his faded fresco portrait of the young Sigismondo Malatesta. It is found inside the Tempio Malatestiano, designed by an architectural genius of the period, Leon Battista Alberti. (Alberti’s final work is featured in book five of the Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries, A Funeral in Mantova.) The trek to the Tempio was worth it.

  You could say that Piero actually wrote the book on perspective—Di Prospectiva Pingendi was the title—and he used its mathematical principles in everything he painted, including the human figure. I have always found it fascinating that he died on October 12, 1492, the day that, thanks to Columbus, may have marked the beginning of the end of the Renaissance. If you are interested in learning more about him, I would recommend Piero della Francesca by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, the book I had in mind for one scene involving Betta.

  Urbino’s most important native son is of course Raffaello, whom we know in English as Raphael. The house where he was born, now a museum, is featured in a final scene of the story. If you want to explore it without going to Urbino, you can do a virtual tour of its rooms and courtyard on the museum’s website: casaraffaello.com. When I finished writing the first draft of this book and was checking the veracity of some of its details, I noticed a news item in an Italian newspaper about some faded frescoes found in a chapel outside Urbino that one expert thought had been painted by a young Raphael. Tucked into the story was a mention that 2020 would mark five hundred years since the death of the master. I checked other sources and found that a series of major Raphael exhibits would be mounted during the quincentenary, including in Paris at the Louvre, Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale, and of course Urbino at the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, which is the scene of some of the action in this story. So, even though it was pure chance that I discovered it, I thought why not tie this real anniversary into the plot of a book of fiction? Obviously, I have no shame.

  Sansepolcro, which Rick and Betta pass through all too quickly, is another small Tuscan city worth a visit. Most people, understandably, go there for the Civic Museum and its collection of Piero’s works, but there are other things to see inside this walled town, like its cathedral and the church of San Francesco. I must note that it has another famous native son besides Piero: Luca Pacioli, the mathematician who invented double-entry bookkeeping. Well, famous among accountants. West of Sansepolcro is the town of Anghiari, mentioned in the book as the birthplace of Somonte’s Italian mother. On the plain below the town, the Battle of Anghiari took place in 1440, one of the more famous engagements of the period, fought between a Milanese force and an army of Florentine and Papal troops. The victory was so important for Florence that it commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint the action on a wall in City Hall, but the work never got beyond the drawing stage and is still the subject of conjecture among art historians.

  At one point in the book Rick is looking at a painting and wishing he had his book of Christian symbols to help him appreciate it. The book he refers to is one I have recommended to many a traveler to Italy, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art by George Ferguson. Why does the baby Jesus have a piece of coral hanging around his neck? Who is the saint filled with arrows? What’s the significance of the number seven? Ferguson explains it all. The book comes in paperback, so it’s easy to carry when walking through museums.

  There is frequent reference in this book to the great Italian crime writer Andrea Camilleri. Just as I was finishing it, the news came that the author of the Montalbano series had passed away in Rome at the age of ninety-three. Whenever people ask me about other crime novels set in Italy that they should read, I always recommend his books, and I do so here.

  My thanks go out to my good friend Richard Draper, a true Italophile, whose menu suggestions found their way onto the pages of this book.

  As always, my wife, Mary, kept my feet to the fire and was the perfect sounding board for ideas and plot lines. She also helped with key details about the artists mentioned on these pages. I can’t write these books without her.

  About the Author

  Photo by M. Wagner

  David P. Wagner is a retired foreign service officer who spent nine years in Italy, learning to love all things Italian. Other diplomatic assignments included Brazil, Ecuador, and Uruguay, as well as two hardship postings to Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Mary, live in Pueblo, Colorado. Visit his website at davidpwagnerauthor.com.