by John Keahey
Farnocchia in
food of
Gallena in
Isola Santa in
map of
pathways/foot trails through
Pietrasanta in
Sant’Anna in
tourism in
Viareggio in
Versilia River, Tuscany
Versiliese tordelli (dish)
Vezza River, Tuscany
Via Aemilia Scaura (Roman road)
Via Aurelia (Roman road/highway)
Via Cassia (Roman road)
La Via Cava di Poggio Prisca, Sovana (Etruscan roadway)
Via Clodia (Roman road)
Via Francigena (ancient pathway)
Viareggio, Italy
Shelley’s death near
Violante, Ilaria
Vittorio Emanuele II (Italian king)
Vivian, Charles
Viviani, Franco
Volegno, Italy
Williams, Edward
Wofford College, South Carolina
World War II (WWII)
African-American troops in
chronology of
Gothic Line in
Italian Campaign in
Japanese-American troops in
Monte Sole massacre in
recognition/decoration of soldiers of
Sant’Anna massacre in
war crime prosecution post-
Zappelli, Cristina
Zia, La Gabella
Spartaco Palla, a native Pietrasantese and third-generation sculptor, in his studio near the center of town. (Steven R. McCurdy)
Card games are a major pastime for pensionati at this circolo, or private club, for marble artisans and sculptors. (Steven R. McCurdy)
A marble quarry dominates the scenery near the tiny village of Colonnata, high in the mountains above Carrara in northwestern Tuscany. (John Keahey)
A mosaic artist captures, in thousands of tiny pieces of colorful stone, a Madonna with child at the Barsanti Art Center in Pietrasanta. (John Keahey)
Doris Pappenheim, a sculptor from Edam, Holland, makes art several months a year in Pietrasanta. (John Keahey)
Roberta Giovannini Onniboni, a former artigiana who worked with nearly all of the mid-to-late twentieth-century sculptors who called Pietrasanta home, now makes her own art, including this three-dimensional piece. Roberta is a close colleague of the Colombian sculptor Fernando Botero. (John Keahey)
Elisabeth Page Purcell, a New York City stone carver, has come to work in Pietrasanta each summer for more than a decade. (John Keahey)
Colombian sculptor Fernando Botero, in July 2012, appeared at the opening of a major monthlong public exhibit of his art in Pietrasanta. Turning eighty on opening day, he has lived and worked there for more than thirty years. (John Keahey)
A precision team of foundry workers pours molten bronze into a form that is part of a large Botero sculpture. (John Keahey)
The Devil’s Bridge, more properly known as Ponte della Maddalena, in Borgo a Mozzano, along the Serchio River Valley in western Tuscany. (John Keahey)
The medieval village of Pruno, high in the Alpi Apuane, just a few miles, as the crow flies, from the northern Tuscany coast. (John Keahey)
Louis-Edward Fournier’s painting “The Cremation of Shelley,” depicts a beach at Viareggio, Tuscany, in 1822, when the body of poet Percy Shelley washed ashore after his boat capsized in the Ligurian Sea. Witnesses represented in the painting include Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. (Courtesy National Museums Liverpool)
Enrico Pieri was ten when he witnessed the murder of his family and several other innocent civilians in their home, shown in the background, near Sant’Anna di Stazzema. The August 12, 1944, massacre, lasting three hours, was conducted by German SS troops, who killed 560 elderly, women with children, teenagers, and infants. (John Keahey)
Children play in the area near the front of the church at Sant’Anna where 130 villagers and refugees from other towns and villages were killed by German SS troops during the largest massacre of innocent civilians in Tuscany. The balance of the 560 victims were killed in and around homes near the village. (John Keahey)
The harbor at Porto serves the small island of Capraia in the Tuscan Archipelago. (John Keahey)
The medieval village of Pitigliano, built out of soft tufa stones, sits high on a plateau in the Tuscan area of Maremma on a site settled by protohistoric peoples, Etruscans, and then Romans. (John Keahey)
La Via Cava di Poggio Prisca is a roadway carved by Etruscans through soft tufa stone more than two thousand years ago. This road is still used as a shortcut by locals today. It is near the Maremma village of Sovana and is set in the midst of dozens of Etruscan tombs. (John Keahey)
The remnants of the ancient Roman road, Via Clodia, runs through the modern village of Saturnia, where Romans used thermal springs still in use today. (John Keahey)
A private beach at the nineteenth-century town of Folonica, south of Livorno. Private beaches abound along the Tuscan coast with just a few public beaches sandwiched in between. (John Keahey)
A bronze statue, located on the outskirts of Pietrasanta, honors California native and Japanese-American soldier Sadeo Munemori. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for actions that saved his men during fierce fighting in the waning days of World War II in Europe. Nisei soldiers and black troops, known as Buffalo Soldiers, did much of the fighting that liberated villages along the Tuscan coastline. (Steven R. McCurdy)
ALSO BY JOHN KEAHEY
A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea
Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged
Seeking Sicily: A Cultural Journey Through Myth and Reality in the Heart of the Mediterranean
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN KEAHEY is a travel writer and former award-winning newsman whose career spanned forty-five years in and around daily journalism. A native of Idaho and two-time graduate of the University of Utah, with degrees in history and marketing, he first stepped onto Italian soil in 1986. Enchanted by what he found—stunning ancient ruins, unique food, magnificent countryside, and, most important, warm and engaging people—he has returned nearly every year since. Keahey focuses his writing on Italy’s people and their cultural diversity, art, and history. His other travel narratives include Seeking Sicily: A Cultural Journey Through Myth and Reality in the Heart of the Mediterranean, Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged, and A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea. Keahey lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and partner, Connie Disney, a freelance book designer.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martins Press.
HIDDEN TUSCANY. Copyright © 2014 by John Keahey. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover designed by Steve Snider
Cover photographs © Alan Blaustein Photography
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
Keahey, John.
Hidden Tuscany: discovering art, culture, and memories in a well-known region’s unknown places / John Keahey.—First edition.
p. cm.
Includes biographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-250-02431-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02432-9 (e-book)
1. Tuscany (Italy)—Description and travel. 2. Keahey, John—Travel—Italy—Tuscany. 3. Tuscany (Italy)—History, Local. 4. Coasts—Italy—Tuscany. 5. Tuscany (Italy)—Social life and customs. 6. Arts, Italian—Italy—Tuscany. 7. Cooking—Italy—Tuscany. I. Title.
DG734.23.K425 2014
914.5'504—dc23
2014008826
eISBN 9781250024329
&n
bsp; First Edition: July 2014