by John Keahey
A sign on a building a few dozen feet from the arch caught my eye. In Italian, it mentioned Via Clodia, and I realized that this bumpy roadway was part of that famous imperial Roman road. Later, when I looked at a map of Rome’s roads in Italy, I realized that the Via Clodia upended the famous dictum that all roads lead to Rome. It didn’t. It began off the Via Aurelia in the far northwest of modern Tuscany, near my major base at Pietrasanta, and swept inland down south through Tuscany’s center, ending at Saturnia, not Rome.
Via Aurelia and Via Cassia were imperial roads designed to quickly move troops north and south through western Italy. Via Clodia, which ran between them, was a commercial road that connected the thermal areas in this part of Tuscany—Saturnia is not the only one—and facilitated trade among them. It was completed early in Roman history, by 225 BC, at a time when the Romans were the undisputed masters of road building. The high quality of their craft allows us today to see such sections of several Roman roads, such as the stretch into Saturnia.
Later I discovered that the high stone arch I first spotted—the Porta Romana—was attached to an old Sienese fortress. The walls, reused by the Sienese and made from polygonal blocks of travertine first set in place by Romans, Etruscans, and their predecessors, show the builders’ advanced skills: the stones fit precisely together without mortar of any kind. This method makes walls in this part of earthquake-prone Italy resistant to such tremblers. The ancient wall builders did their work well; these structures, like portions of Via Clodia, have survived for nearly twenty-five hundred years.
* * *
That last evening in Maremma, I wandered through the brightly lit streets of Pitigliano, listening to a brief performance by a group of drummers. It was the same band who had announced, with their tom-toms and snare drums, the procession of medieval-dressed townspeople several days earlier.
Tomorrow, I would head north again, through the central part of the Maremma in Tuscany’s southwestern edge, before rejoining coastal Via Aurelia somewhere north and west of Grosseto. It would be a three- or four-hour drive back to my apartment at Pietrasanta and only a few weeks before I would return to my U.S. home.
After coffee outside a bar along the town square, I found myself at a parapet on the edge of town, high on the plateau where I could look over the darkening valley below. The music in the distance was low, the evening cool, and the air rich with scents of foliage intermingled with smells from a nearby restaurant.
A small family walked up onto the parapet—mother, grandmother, perhaps an aunt, and a young boy. Slowly, behind them, the father was pushing a wheelchair with a severely disabled girl who looked to be a teenager. He leaned over her and wrapped his arms under hers, and she struggled to wrap hers around his neck. He lifted her and carried her to the edge. There he pointed out the glow of the moon and the skittering of the insects. He held her there, in his arms, for the longest time, murmuring soft words in her ear as she gazed, eyes glistening in the lunar light, at the countryside far beyond and below.
It was a scene I certainly could have witnessed anywhere on the planet. I know there are many parents, Italian or otherwise, who are like that father and daughter. But that night, in that village on a spot as old as time itself, in the presence of this multigenerational family quietly, lovingly engaged with one another, and this gentle father with his daughter struggling to respond as he pointed out all that was around her, I felt Italian graciousness sweep over me once again.
AFTERWORD
There is so much more to western Tuscany than this book, any book, can capture. I drove through dozens of small towns and villages and past ancient sites without stopping. I only had time to visit a few of the hundreds peppered along the coast and through the low hills of the coastal interior. Each site could have been a new adventure offering great memories.
Because this is not a guidebook in the strict sense of the word, only a few specific B and Bs and a couple of restaurants are mentioned. They are easily found on the Internet if the reader wants to try them as I did. I like to think of this book simply as a guide to being a traveler: pick a direction, carry a map so you know how to get back to your resting place each evening, and set out each morning with no agenda. And if you have an agenda, be willing to abandon it if something else draws your interest. If you come to a fork in the road, flip a coin to decide which one to take. And stay off the autostrada!
And of course traveling isn’t without its mishaps. But welcome surprises outweigh minor problems—such as scratching a rental car’s fender when backing into a low, unseen stone wall. Occasionally, I would see a castle high on a hill and make a snap decision to go up there, sometimes finding a closed, tumbledown place, but more often finding, within the walls, a village that did not appear on my map. I stopped in villages that spoke to me in some inaudible way, and usually found conversation, great food, a few hours of relaxation on a stone bench in a shady spot on the main square.
I left my touristy shorts in my suitcase and Hawaiian shirts back in the States and did my best to dress like a local, particularly in the villages within the coastal hills: long pants, a dress shirt, a comfortable jacket or vest, nicely shined shoes. Of course the locals knew I wasn’t from there, but my show of respect for their culture made it easier to start conversations.
The exception to this dress code was in Pietrasanta. The only truly casual place for men of my age, the pensionati, seemed to be Pietrasanta—and then only in the hottest, most humid days of June, July, and August, when flip-flops, T-shirts, and shorts were de rigueur. Still, younger men and boys seemed more dressed up than the older guys. When there, I dressed accordingly and fit in just fine. I should mention that while the older men were casual in this art-filled town, the women, no matter what age, were always dressed fashionably. I could never get a straight answer why Pietrasanta was unique in its residents’ fashion habits compared with what I experienced elsewhere in Italy, even in Sicily and Sardinia.
I made a handful of good friends in the months I lived in Pietrasanta. These were men and women I saw on a regular basis, in whose restaurants or clubs I ate, or in whose bars I enjoyed my morning coffee and cornetto. We would greet each other by name, and in the service establishments they knew my routine just as I knew theirs. Nearly every day I was in town, I could count on a caffè doppio being set before me within a few moments of sitting down at my table on the outside terrace of Bar Pietrasantese, located at the west end of the main piazza.
One of my best memories of my time in Pietrasanta was the almost daily conversation I had with the grandfather of my close friend Filippo Tofani. Gualtiero Coluccini, who is in his late seventies or early eighties, speaks no English. I had limited conversational skills in Italian, but each day as I strolled around the piazza, Gualtiero—he was originally named “Walter,” but Mussolini decreed that all names had to be Italian, not foreign—would be sitting on the well-worn, white-marble steps of the Duomo, sometimes with fellow pensionati, sometimes alone. We would greet each other warmly, and he would ask me where I had been, what I had learned about his beloved western Tuscany, and where I was going next. Remarkably, we found a way to understand each other. We would have only basic conversation, so I did not have the opportunity to delve into his life story.
One day his grandson Filippo took me to Valdicastello Carducci on Pietrasanta’s outskirts and to the house where Gualtiero lived as a child. It was just a few dozen feet from the end of the long mule track from Sant’Anna. I learned in further conversations that the day after the massacre at Sant’Anna, Gualtiero, probably only age ten or eleven, having heard the rumors, went alone up that steep path and into the tortured village and saw the aftermath of that great tragedy. I never asked Gualtiero about it—it was something I sensed he might not want to talk about—but it was an interesting bit of insight on the man’s history.
On a Sunday morning in early September, just five days before I was scheduled to return to the United States, I got a call from Brad, my youngest son, with the tr
agic news that his brother, my oldest then at age forty-five, had died the day before from a massive heart attack. I made immediate arrangements to fly out from Pisa the next day and would be at my son’s home by that evening.
Somehow, I had to face the remaining day and say good-bye to the people I had become close with in the preceding five and a half months. None were around—it was Sunday—so I left notes where I knew they would find them. I contacted Filippo, who helped me arrange a final meeting with my landlady, and then packed.
All that done, I was left alone with the emotions such a thing engenders. I walked over to the piazza and there, in his usual spot on the steps of the Duomo, sat Gualtiero. The news spilled out of me somehow in perfect Italian, and the anguish on his face indicated he understood. He immediately offered comfort that I so desperately needed, and I understood his words perfectly. We sat on those steps for quite a while, his arm around my shoulder. Eventually, I said good-bye. He gave me a long, solemn embrace, and turned toward his home just a short distance away.
People were heading into the church. I could hear through the open doors women’s voices, saying prayers in unison. Inside, white-robed priests were in their confessionals listening to parishioners, one after another. Church workers were setting up the main altar for a service. I am neither Catholic nor religious, but I have often felt at peace inside Italian churches. So I stayed, sitting in the back row. I stayed through the women’s prayers, the confessions, and the entire service, complete with High Mass.
Preoccupied as I was with my son’s death, the surprising comfort I felt in that sanctuary prepared me for the rest of the evening, the twenty-hour series of flights beginning at 5 A.M. the next day, and the weeks that followed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These projects are never done in a vacuum. Many people make recommendations, provide information, and offer support and friendship that, in the end, help make the whole come together in what I hope is a tidy package.
Anna Camaiti Hostert, when she was helping me with certain aspects of my previous book about Sicily, spoke often about her beloved home in Tuscany’s Maremma and how few Americans spend time there. That triggered thoughts about the parts of western Tuscany that are little known to non-Europeans. I am grateful to her for opening a window into this wonderful part of southwest Tuscany.
Many years ago, I met a young man visiting my hometown of Salt Lake City who grew up in Pietrasanta. Filippo Tofani and I became good friends, and when I told him of my plan for this book, his enthusiasm bubbled over. He became a major supporter and helper. Filippo, who had returned to the town of his birth, laid the groundwork for finding my apartment, helped with interpreting, and spent several days showing me around Versilia. Most important, he introduced me to the story of the village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, which became a significant chapter in this book. Filippo’s knowledge of history proved faultless, never steering me wrong as I checked and double-checked historical facts. He, more than anyone else, played a key role in shaping the outcome of this project.
Historian Leonard Chiarelli of University of Utah’s Marriott Library—and my close friend—also had a great impact on my work. A tireless researcher, he kept me supplied with documents and other reference material that added immeasurably to my efforts. This is the second book of mine to which he has contributed. His friendship and support, emotional as well as in all things historical, are priceless. Also, I must recognize photographer Steven R. McCurdy who has helped me with photos for two books. He also is a filmmaker, a fellow Italophile, and good friend.
Others also stepped in when asked. Two University of Utah historians—Drs. John Reed and Ed J. Davies—provided insight into western Tuscany’s involvement in World War II. Dr. Davies helped guide my understanding of the Nazi mind-set regarding the massacres of civilians in Italy; Dr. Reed suggested sources for understanding Allied involvement in coastal Tuscany and through the Serchio River Valley, something a lot of popular World War II histories barely mention, or ignore altogether. He reviewed my chapter on the war to ensure no errors had crept in during my brief retelling of those brutal days, focusing in particular on the roles of the black soldiers—the Buffalo Soldiers—and the men of the Japanese-American Nisei regiment, who were both segregated from white units.
A University of Utah colleague of theirs, Dr. Winthrop L. Adams, enlightened me about Etruscans and their impact on ancient Rome and tipped me off to a little-known legend about Napoleon Bonaparte’s family origins.
I also am grateful for the warm hospitality of the staff at the Biblioteca communale di Pietrasanta, a true library with sunny rooms and pleasant spaces where I spent most mornings and afternoons working when I was not on the road. Incidentally, the staff kept me well supplied with books in English for when I’d relax after a day’s labors. It was there I “discovered” many of John le Carré’s spy novels, was reintroduced to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and plowed through a massive history of the World War II battle of Stalingrad.
During my five and a half months in Pietrasanta, I struggled to expand my basic Italian beyond being able to use complete sentences only to make hotel reservations and order food. My teacher, Cristina Zappelli, tailored each of my lessons to what I was discovering during my travels around the region. While I am still nowhere near fluent, my conversational skills improved markedly. Most important, she was instrumental in arranging my first interview with a survivor of the Sant’Anna massacre. She and her colleague Ilaria Violante were interpreters for that first interview. Claudio Lazzeri, who helped me to understand the story of his mother’s and aunts’ experiences during that tragic event, complemented their efforts.
I also thank my editors at Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, Kathleen Gilligan and Melanie Fried. I am particularly grateful to my publisher, Thomas Dunne, who for nearly fifteen years has provided a platform that allows me to write about my many walks in the warm Italian sun.
Of course, family plays a significant role in an undertaking of this magnitude. My wife, Connie Disney, kept things running smoothly during my nearly half-year absence and offered much-needed support through the writing process. One of the best times I had during these nearly six months of travel was when she joined me for two weeks of wandering along the southwestern edge of this remarkable region, particularly during the six days in and around Pitigliano. I am grateful for her enthusiasm, observations, and insight, and to everyone else who helped make all of this possible.
—John Keahey,
Salt Lake City,
March 2014
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