See You in the Piazza

by Frances Mayes

  The cavernous room of government chambers is covered with painted heraldic blazons, swags, wreaths, and faux red draperies, which would create a festive atmosphere if it weren’t so dim. Ed sits down in the vicar’s chair and I quickly snap his picture as he stamps a papal decree. I hope surveillance isn’t always watched.

  What I’d most like to do is open the glass cases and thumb through the handwritten parchment pages bound into thick books. Some on display are open to drawings of knives.

  After seeing the knife collection at Palazzo dei Vicari, I doubt if I’ll ever be content with one of those packets of six Japanese kitchen knives with colorful plastic handles that I’ve bought at Sur La Table. As with chocolate, coffee, shoes, and anything else, once you know, you can’t go back. The artistry simply stuns us. The blades so accurate, the handles of bone, ivory, and horn exquisite. Agricultural tasks, sacrificial killing, murder, gelding, bread slicing—everything symbiotically fits its purpose.

  We’re fascinated to see knives in reproductions of paintings by Duccio, Donatello, Ghirlandaio, Giotto, Caravaggio, Pontormo, Fra Angelico. In Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac, a strong hand grips a lethal knife used by shepherds to kill sheep. In Duccio’s Last Supper, broad-bladed knives lie on either side of the meat on a platter. Supper at Emmaus by Pontormo shows three graceful knives in use at the supper Jesus attended after his release from the empty tomb. (One of history’s oddest dinner parties.) All these appearances in art inspire local craftsmen. I see the Pontormo knife is reproduced by Andrea Berti.

  * * *

  AT THE HOTEL at lunch, Ed starts with three jumbo crostini—eggplant with garlic, grana padana cheese, and parsley; cannellini beans and lardo di Colonnato (herbed, thinly sliced dorsal fat of the pig); and the third with prosciutto, pecorino, and truffle-enhanced honey. I’m swooning over the vegetable sformato with Gorgonzola sauce. Then, I order hearty robollita, vegetable soup thickened with bread. Ed is happy with potato-filled tortelli con ragù. There’s new olive oil to dribble on top of the soup. I can’t finish it. We’ve found too many appealing choices on the menu.

  Since we have a few minutes before meeting Andrea Berti, we walk across the park to Oratorio della Madonna dei Terremoti. The venerated Madonna is credited with protecting Scarperia from earthquakes. The sign outside says the painter is Filippo Lippi, a favorite of mine, but inside we find scaffolding and two white-jacketed men at work on restoration. “No, the sign’s wrong and everyone knows it. The work is by just someone. It was in a roadside shrine before it was moved here,” the burly one tells us. “Still worth saving.” Yes, she’s lovely and will be more so after her makeover.

  * * *

  WE GREET ANDREA at his retail store on the main street. Big-bearded, with black-rimmed glasses, he looks professorial but his smart cabled sweater with wooden buttons and the yellow knotted scarf show us that appearances matter. He drives us out to his laboratory where he introduces us to his wife and son at work in an office, then we tour the showroom. He picks up a serrated vegetable knife, just right to hold. A squared-off blade perfect for cutting gnocchi. The so aesthetically pleasing cheese set.

  “I read there were five hundred knife makers in the Middle Ages. Why here?” Ed asks.

  “No one knows. You need three things for making knives, a river for the grinding wheels, carbon, and iron. We have none of these.”

  A man is fastening together the two sides of the handle to those ivory-looking knives you see in very upscale restaurants. He’s making holes and hammering. A woman is attaching handles onto cheese knives. Another is packaging. A calm workroom. They only produce twenty thousand knives a year. Obviously, they have to be expensive. This is craft raised to art.

  Back at the shop, Andrea turns us over to his other son and we say good-bye. He has given me four sculptural steak knives. The young son is reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. The photos of three generations of Berti knife makers look down from the wall above. “When are you getting your picture up there?” I tease.

  “Probably never! You have to work hard in this family.”

  We send more steak knives home for Peter, my daughter’s ever-grilling husband. Ed selects a cheese set for our friends Fulvio and Aurora, who are from Piemonte and know their cheeses. That perfect vegetable knife is for me, and me alone—don’t touch it!

  * * *

  “DID YOU LOVE this day?” Ed asks. We’re in the hotel restaurant for dinner.

  “I did. And we’re going to love this wine—mostly sangiovese with a swig of cab.”

  Ed picks up the bottle. “Dreolino Chianti Rufina Riserva. DOCG made over the hills in Rufina. That’s right outside Florence.”

  “The Mugello area is so close to Florence. Wonder why it’s relatively undiscovered.”

  The owner of the locanda is in the kitchen with his daughter, the wife out front running the show. We like staying in places that have a solid restaurant with simple rooms upstairs. It reminds us of Italy when we first traveled here.

  “Are you ready to order?”

  “Just bring us what’s good,” Ed says. That’s my boy!

  First, a plate of lightly battered and fried vegetables. So crisp. “Is there anything better than onion rings?” Then she brings out their special fried rabbit and chicken with roast potatoes and chicory. “Lots of southern-fried tonight,” I observe.

  “I’m not complaining.”

  We haul ourselves up to bed and sleep with the window open. I can’t see in the dark but I know that a persimmon tree is right outside. When Ed is half-asleep, I say, “I should have bought the Pontormo knife. You know who should have that?”

  “Yes. Alberto. I thought of that.” He’s our architect friend, who is also a painter and loves to cook. He would appreciate the knife and the connection to the painting.

  “What’s wonderful, I guess, is that when you find something special, it reminds you of people you love.”

  * * *

  THE MUGELLO, EARLY. Hills shrouded in clouds, low slopes lapped in fog, and a distant opening of blue, promising a day of clarity. We pass a Medici villa under scaffolding, its noble stable decorated with painted flourishes, all soon to become a luxury hotel in this old landscape. A spiky-legged bird stalks the reeds along Lago di Bilancino. We wind down, skirting Florence, to the autostrada. Back to the velocity of the present. One day can seem like a week.

  Is there a square inch of Tuscany that’s unexplored? Yes. I constantly hear of towns I don’t know. Hundreds of borghi remain out of sight. We’ve found that roaming the back roads yields pleasures equal to the delights of well-visited places because without preconception the sense of discovery intensifies. I’ll venture this advice: Put down a water glass on a map of Tuscany and draw a ring anywhere. Pick a hotel in the middle of your circle, check in for three or four days, and venture out from there. You will make your own discoveries. This throws the emphasis on spontaneity.

  * * *

  WE DID JUST that. Wanting to explore the Tyrrhenian coast, Etruscan places, the Maremma—the low, formerly swampy stretch that now is primo wine country and lost-in-time hill towns, we looked on the agriturismo.it site and found a simple apartment in the country outside Buriano. I love driving thought flat agrarian land, fallow now, with distant blips of hills, castles, and towers. Plows turn up chunky brown clods that shine on the cut side. As we whizz by, the fields glitter and the earth smells of rain and dust and ground-down stalks of sunflowers and corn.

  * * *

  AN ALLÉE OF umbrella pines and old-growth cypress trees lines the long drive to a sprawling farmhouse with four apartments. A German couple lounges by the pool while their energetic toddler in water wings flays about with happy shrieks. It’s only a few days until the agriturismo closes for winter, and these northerners are braver than we are. The water even looks cold. In our upstairs apartment, the kitchen occupies only an angle in the living room and there are t
wo plain bedrooms, two baths. When we travel by car, Ed brings his espresso machine and the milk foamer for me. We don’t plan to cook anything here, but it is nice to have excellent cappuccino and some bakery pastries in the mornings while we plan the days.

  We unpack our oranges, grapes, cheese, and crackers. Put the yellow flowers I picked on the roadside in a glass, and we’re off to explore Castiglione della Pescaia on the coast.

  * * *

  BEACH TOWNS LIKE Castiglione can be junky. In July and August, the Tuscan coast is affollato, crowded. Our friends flock to these wall-to-wall stretches of sand, every inch covered with umbrellas and relaxed people (no one wears a one-piece bathing suit) having a fine time visiting with each other. Bring three or four suits because after every foray into the water, the costume is changed, often under a skillfully manipulated towel. In the evenings, everyone swarms into restaurants and cafés, later promenading again through the piazza, stopping for gelato. The festive atmosphere means holiday. See and be seen. It’s a cultural thing and you either like it or you don’t.

  I’m excited to see Castiglione della Pescaia in this season, returned to locals, along with a few tourists out for a fall weekend. The fabulist Italian writer Italo Calvino kept a house outside town at Roccamare for thirteen years before his sudden death. That speaks well for the area, doesn’t it? We park near a harbor of sailboats and small craft at the bottom of town, and walk along a broad pedestrian street lined with outdoor cafés under gay awnings. Flower boxes still rave forth, even in early October. Sand-colored or stone, the buildings climb the hill in tight cubes. Rather dreamy; was this fairy-tale setting in Calvino’s mind when he wrote Invisible Cities? At the very least, it plays a prominent role in his last novel, Palomar.

  This town isn’t going to be junky even in touristy August. Chalkboard menus offer fish and fish, along with big salads and grilled vegetables. After the charming promenade, we climb up, up, skirting fortress walls, to the castle. Along the way we pause for broad views of coast and long, long beaches. The skies are overcast today and the opaque sea gleams like a hammered pewter tray. Many tiny streets are appealing, with picturesque doors and flowering balconies. Near the top—and it’s steep—the barny and neglected church of San Giovanni Battista. And then we wind down again, going a different way. We’re near the cemetery where Calvino is buried, but we don’t stop. I prefer to imagine him looking out to sea and his character Palomar swimming out into a blade of light. Of the coastal Tuscan towns, Castiglione is a stand-out.

  We drive along Pineta del Tombolo, a pine woods with paths to the beach. Curious about the all-inclusive vacations Italian friends often take, we stop at the beachside, four-star Riva del Sole Resort and Spa. The first thing we learn is that it fills quickly for the following summer; families return year after year. The rooms are contemporary and attractive, the sandy beach long and private. Your responsibilities fall away as you check in. Play activities, sports, and cooking classes keep the little ones busy. Three pools, biking, mini-golf, tennis, running tracks, restaurant, pizzeria, bars (one on the beach)—you don’t have to leave the pine-shaded grounds. Relax. We had salads for lunch in a functional but pleasant café with super-friendly staff, sitting inside because of the cool day. But for most of the year, the terraces probably catch sea breezes and pine-scented air. Ed and I prefer small hotels. And I’m not one for endless sun exposure, but I can see the appeal of going with the flow here.

  If I were a guest, I’d surely take a boat tour of nearby Diaccia Botrona reserve, a protected marshland of calm beauty and big skies, like the views in Dutch landscapes. Eighteenth-century efforts to promote agriculture in Maremma led the grand dukes to drain vast stretches of marshland, and Preglio, a large lake, is now the reserve for turtles, flamingos, and hundreds of other creatures and plants.

  “You take delight,” Calvino wrote in Invisible Cities, “not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.” I agree. His castle-topped fishing village answers my question about the quintessential Tuscan beach town. I also delight in at least seventy wonders. Lemon gelato, for one.

  * * *

  AS WE DRIVE up to Vetulonia, I begin to notice patches of pink haze on the roadside as we zip by. At a curve, I focus and am astounded to see that those blurs are beds of tiny cyclamen. Thousands! These woods must be enchanted, under a spell cast by the Etruscan past. A field of tombs lies just off the road. A round, slightly domed one looks like the ancient structures you see scattered in olive groves in Puglia, an archetypal primitive house. Below town, there are later ruins—a Romanesque abbey, some remnants of a Roman settlement—but never forget, this is Etruscan territory.

  Vetulonia was one of the twelve major towns leagued together for reasons of trade, religion, mining, and common culture. Prime time for the Etruscans was long, 800 to 400 B.C., with more time on either end as they waxed and waned. Everything that remains shows them to have been advanced and resourceful. They drained the Maremma swampland! When Romans took over around 300 B.C., the area fell backward and gradually the boggy terrain returned. The Etruscans were highly artistic. I’ll never forget the tomb paintings in Tarquinia, another of the twelve city-states. Frescoes show the dead and friends banqueting, dancing, enjoying life. Cortona, where I live, is another Etruscan center. A large metal chandelier with explicit erotic figures was found there, proof of a sensual culture. Tombs (called melone for their shapes), stairs bordered with stone scrolls, a thin, fragile bronze sheet covered with writing, and much else has come to light there in recent years; for always, farmers have been turning up bronze votives in their fields.

  This little rook’s nest has blissful views. Vetulonia’s houses seem intact from medieval times. What a pity they have asphalted the street. Most Tuscan towns have retained stone and cobble streets; this looks incredibly wrong—ugly.

  We have come to see the Museo Civico Archeologico Isidoro Falchi, which houses in seven rooms objects pulled from the local tombs. Falchi was a medical doctor with a passion for the Etruscans; his amateur, careful explorations continued for seventeen years. Grazie, Isidoro! This collection is haunting. Funerary urns for cremated bodies look like miniature homes fashioned in clay. Who could imagine that so many of these fragile vessels could survive? The black colander with a whimsical pattern of holes—someone rinsed the berries in that. Iron frying pan—cook the deer’s liver. A finely shaped funnel for transferring the olive oil, a pair of bone dice with circles for numbers, a disk on a rod for a game of skills at drinking parties, which involved flinging wine lees at targets and uttering the name of your true love. What modern-looking hand scales. Many shapely jugs and storage jars. My hand reaches out, wanting to cup the curves. The warrior’s helmet is pierced with holes around the face opening, perhaps for the lacing of the soft lining. One hundred and forty were found in a ditch; most were damaged but this one is perfect. What touches me most is fine gold jewelry worn to the grave. Any woman throughout history would covet the long gold necklace fitted with twenty-four coin-size embossed medallions. The gold, beaten thin, is almost like gold leaf. Earrings and rings loved by someone in the fourth century B.C., some so small they must have belonged to a young girl.

  * * *

  ON A WINDOWSILL of a modest stone townhouse, someone keeps a pot of succulents. I’m always photographing windows with curtains edged with handmade trim. Starchy white and prim—you know there’s roast chicken for Sunday pranzo and the house is immaculately clean. A crafty woman has crocheted for each of the two sides of the window small squares in a pyramid shape at the bottom. They’re connected by thin knotted strands of thread to meet the inverse pyramid of squares at the top. To work out this design, the woman who tends the succulents had an instinct for design that reaches back to those distant Etruscan ancestors.

  As we turn into our agriturismo’s lane, a brindled cat leaps out of the bushes around a tumbledown barn. Barely older than a kitten, the lit
tle thing is a glorious patchwork of all the cat DNA in the neighborhood. Caramel, alley-cat spots, white, black, and tiger-gold, with a winning face: nose and mouth white, pale ginger speckled around celadon eyes, black ears splotched with touches of ginger. She slinks to us, tail in a question mark. Used to guests, she follows us up our outside stairway and waits by the door. We’re smitten. Yes, milk. Yes, bits of bread and cheese.

  The cat devours. Nudges at the stairway door, wanting in. We draw the line but are conflicted. Let her in? No. Yes. No.

  After an hour, as we leave for dinner, she comes out of the brush to the edge of the bushes and stares.

  * * *

  LUCKILY, IN DEEP-COUNTRY Tuscany, you can depend on good restaurants. Tonight, we try Locanda Mossa dei Barbari, just below Buriano. We find a down-home, checked-tablecloth trattoria owned by the friendly Baldoni family. Why the name “Movement of the Barbarians”? Alessio explains that it’s not barbarians but Berber horses that knights used to race on the road. We join a few local families and a jewel-laden woman with bouffant hair. Her husband is burly, blunt-jawed, and keeps going out to smoke.

  Crisp fried vegetables, house-made tagliatelle with fresh mushrooms, and a platter of mixed meats grilled in the fireplace—pork, chicken, veal, and a slab of tasty bacon. Tuscan comfort food. He brings us a wine of the region, Elisabetta Geppetti Fattoria le Pupille Morellino di Scansano, 2014, ink-dark and serious.

  The menu is in Italian and German. We ask Alessio if many Americans come in the summer. “Only a little drop, mostly tourists are from Germany and now some are Russian.” He nods toward the bejeweled woman. “They are buying property here.”