Donovan’s World

Last night an ancient thunder banged and rumbled over the hills of Barga. An intimidating, bullying tempest, it whipped the heavens and the chestnut glades like a mediaeval landowner reminding his subjects of their vassalage. By dawn the overlord had quieted and withdrawn to observe an uneasy peace. Throughout the day, the sky has been heavy with threat; strange perfumes have arisen on the humid air; scents of rich earth and floral decay ; fecund seductions of early summer.

From ‘Antipasto’ random samplings from various writings made over a few years of visits to a ‘New Zealander’s Italy’

Alan and I go to the Café Alpini in Barga’s Piazza Roma to drink iced Campari. I do a pen sketch, from my chair on the boardwalk outside the café, of the street that goes towards the centro storico from the Piazza Pascoli. Alan is content to smoke and read. My sketch finished I order another round of drinks marvelling, yet again, at the Italian practice of not paying until everything has been finished. How the café owners, let alone their patrons, keep a tally of how many drinks and of what type, and whether or not there were cakes or savouries beats me; but practice is that one does not pay until after. Then one must be certain to get a receipt (una ricevuto fiscale) for fear of being stopped by polizia and thrown into a dungeon for lack of evidence of payment. I’ve never yet been stopped and asked for a receipt but they tell me it happens often.

A group of ripened middle-aged ladies in black silk, satin and crêpe chatters away at an adjacent table. They’re nearly all smoking. I’ve seen them before; they gather regularly. They’re locals, retired and probably widowed. One of them is totally different from the others. She blooms like an eager rose, pink, with ruby red lipstick, a hint of azure in her hair, and wearing the sort of spectacles that Sophia Loren might have modelled for Rodenstock. She has plump, white arms and stubby, jewelled fingers which she uses expressively. I catch her eye and she smiles. Alan, his back to her, is oblivious. After a particularly long diatribe rapidly pattered out in Italiano molto espressivo she leaves the table and, as she passes close to us, she says ‘Have a happy holiday’ in heavily Scots-accented English.

‘You’re very kind signora.’ I thank her.

Alan swivels around and smiles ‘Buona sera.’

‘Where are you from?’

I explain that I am from la Nuova Zelande while Alan is a Londoner with a casa in Barga.

‘Oh,’ she lights up at Alan, ‘Where are you?’

‘Gragnana.’

He explains where it is but there’s no need, she knows it.

‘I’ve just been trying to get the others to come to the protest at the hospital tonight,’ she says, pointing a thumb over her shoulder. Then dropping her voice conspiratorially she wrinkles her nose and says, ‘but they’re a bit apathetic. The authorities are trying to close it down.’

She taps me lightly on the shoulder: ‘Nice to have met you.’ and she’s away, bustling across the grass of the Piazza Pascoli.

‘Nice woman.’ says Alan. ‘Typically Barghigiani Scots.’

At Borgo a Mozzano the fourteenth century Ponte del Diavolo - devil’s bridge - is also called The Ponte della Maddelena. It is the most beautiful thing along the Serchio River. When the surface of the water is unruffled the central arch and its reflection form a perfect ‘O’, the bridge arcing like a toreador’s hat, grey-white stone with clumps of flowers growing from the mortar. The legend is that it was such a difficult thing to build that they had to call in the devil to help. He agreed but claimed the first soul to cross it. The builder, San Giuliano, cunningly sent his dog across. I think a descendant runs the suede shop in the Via Fillungo…

 
From ‘Antipasto’ random samplings from various writings made over a few years of visits to a ‘New Zealander’s Italy’

© DON DONOVAN

It’s in the Garfagnana area of northern Tuscany, with the Apuane Alps on the west and the Appenines to the east. Lying between the Ania and Corsonna tributaries at 410 metres above sea level, the town dominates the valley of the Serchio River which rises on the slopes between Monte Tondo and Monte Sillano, flows south past Castlelnuovo di Garfagnana and Barga to Lucca and then to the sea at Migliarino.

The surrounding river terraces and hillsides are given over to vines, olives, vegetables and orchards with, here and there, cattle and goats. The higher hills are covered with native forests of chestnut and lime trees which are selectively logged in summer for use in hard winters.

Barga is a hill surrounded by higher hills. The towered 11th century cathedral, San Cristoforo, caps the town which, in essence, is a castle. By the 11th century, it was constantly being fought over by Lucca, Pisa and Florence. In 14th century, despite Florence being the farther of the three cities Barga became a Florentine stronghold under the Medici, and enjoyed a period of peace.

With peace came prosperity and the people concentrated their energies on trade and industry, especially a silk trade, using Livorno, to the south, as their port.

The centro storico is relatively small in area and has, at times, a brooding, mediaeval atmosphere, with narrow, steep, flag-stoned streets, stairways and alleys. It’s uncrowded and quiet; not overburdened with tourists even at the height of the season. There are two gates: at the west the Porta Reale with its castellated central tower is the main gate. The Porta Macchiaia, on the very edge of the eastern town wall, opens narrowly to the old suburb of Fornacetta. A third gate, Porta Borgo, at the north, was demolished in 1833 but its Via di Borgo leads directly across a viaduct into the new portion of the town and its shops, restaurants, cafés, banks, and comfortable homes in streets lined with heavily summer-scented lime trees.

The cathedral went through four historical phases: 1. 9th century. 2. 12th century when it was widened. 3. 13th century when a gothic apse was added. 4. The apse was extended in the 16th century. Serious restoration was required after a major earthquake in 1920, and major earthquake proofing of the tower has taken place at the millennium with the help of EU funds.

It is officially the Chiesa di Santo Cristoforo. Its 12th-13th centuries pulpit is attributed to Guido Bigarelli of Como. Supported by four columns with, at front, two lions, one of which holds down a dragon, the other a heretic. The front bas-relief, in marble, depicts John the Baptist proclaiming Christ, the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Wise Men and the Evangelists. The large wooden statue of St Christopher in the apse was made in 13th century. (Tombolino, a local restaurateur, told me an improbable story that when it was made it was found to be too big to fit its niche and so was shortened by cutting a section out of the legs: the family of the carver all subsequently suffered major or minor injuries to their legs!)

Tombolino also described how the Germans, in 1944, fighting on the Gothic Line, bombarded Barga from Sommocolonia and destroyed the houses to the southeast of the duomo. Mussolini had, for political reasons, given Barga city status and contrived to have his head carved on one of the corbels of the tower of the church. I have found that any mention of Mussolini’s effigy meets with a blank denial of any knowledge of its existence by modern Barghigiani!

From ‘Antipasto’ random samplings from various writings made over a few years of visits to a ‘New Zealander’s Italy’

© DON DONOVAN

I wander along the Barga-Renaio road and sit with my feet in the long grass of the downward side of the road doing a painting of the houses that teeter over the bluff above the town, with the very misty, almost obscured at times, Apuane Alps in the distance. Although absorbed, I hear a faint shuffle behind me and some laboured breathing. I look around to see an old, stooped man leaning on a stick watching me. ‘Buon giorno’ I wish him; he replies with a grunt. I continue my work while he wheezes. He seems content to be ignored. I, not at all put off, work quickly with oil pastel and watercolour and as the lighter colours emerge from the wash he grunts, ‘Buon lavoro…’ and totters away. When I realize that he has just congratulated me I call after him, ‘Grazie, signor’ and he waves his stick at me without looking round. ‘Good work!’ Indeed, I must be good if he has said so.

It’s pleasant sitting in the summer grasses looking out into the silvery mists across the olive groves that dive away from my feet. The tortuous trees - they look saurian with lizard limbs of wood - are fruiting with hard little olive, modest looking treasures.

The weather seems to be changing.

From ‘Antipasto’ random samplings from various writings made over a few years of visits to a ‘New Zealander’s Italy’

© DON DONOVAN

I take the cameras into Barga and roam the steps and alleys taking ‘cameos’, shots of little details that intrigue - a barred window, a crumbling wall, shuttered windows edged with geraniums, niche statues, door knobs - I always feel happy when I’ve shot some frames; work ethic pushing through, I suppose. With the camera on the tripod I wait for the light to be just right for a shot across the terra cotta roofs of the centro storico towards the Apuane Alps. It’s a long wait, the clouds move infinitely slowly. On one of the park benches sit two women, a mother and daughter, the mother bent and bird-like, trembling, grasping an ebony stick, her ivory knuckle bones about to burst through their fragile vellum skin. The daughter is a middle-aged lustreless blonde. I nod to them across the rose beds and turn to lean on the parapet waiting for the moment.

As the shadows chase patches of distant sunlight over the river valley I’m aware of a footstep beside me. It’s the blonde. Scuffed. Faded. Worn. She’s like something out of Coronation Street, an Elsie Tanner well past a best that might once have been voluptuous. She starts to talk in a soft monotone and doesn’t stop even when I tell her I speak very little Italian. She flutters her eyes and makes some provocative moues and it dawns upon me that she’s chatting me up. Gin fumes waft on the heavy air. I imagine that Barga, while being a delight to us holidaymakers, must be a cold bed of suburban neuroses, a place of frustrated wretchedness for a woman of a certain age, her happy times bedded in history, left now to shepherd her old mother and hopeful of lust from the odd stray tourist. She must be desperate to solicit an old joker like me.

Sudden sun flattens the seams of her face, and floods the landscape. Just what I’ve been waiting for. ‘Mi scusi, signora.’ I turn my back on her and thumb the cable release for a series of bracketed exposures. When I’ve finished I’m relieved to see her and the old woman taking pigeon steps out of the park.

From ‘Antipasto’ random samplings from various writings made over a few years of visits to a ‘New Zealander’s Italy’

© DON DONOVAN