Medieval Archery Festival in Fivizzano · Jul 11, 09:51 AM by James Martin
Last night the Disfida degli Arcieri di Terra e di Corte was held. We ambled over to Fivizzano at about 8:00pm so we could watch the villages group together and get photos of the social interaction between medieval-garbed villagers, my favorite part of the festival.
The various local villages and neighborhoods around Fivizzano get together once a year to see which geographical location has the most accurate archers. It’s the biggest festival in Fivizzano, I’m told.
At about 9pm the groups left for Fivizzano’s main piazza, filling the narrow streets with the resonant boom and clatter of the drums. When they arrived at the piazza, the pomp and circumstances began in the area near the famous Medici fountain. Lots of pomp. Almost endless pomp.
We were lucky enough to grab a seat at the Bar Ricci, so the pomp could be endured while sitting down. I ordered a glass of wine. It was festival time so you’d expect them to really screw you with the price. It was €1.30, and we had our seats for the rest of the festival.
So, you’re thinking we done good, eh? Well, while the big wigs were making their passionate speeches, and the flag throwers were filling the air with brighly colored flags, a whole bunch of young folks just threaded their not-so-narrow bodies through the cafe tables and stood exactly where nobody sitting could see what was going on. They didn’t order any food or drink. Nor did they watch the proceedings. They were just like those “good” drivers who like to drive slowly, but only as long as they are in front of you. They will turn up the turbo boost to get there, and then watch the scenery go by like a myopic slug. They are the barrier people. Welcome to their world.
Another thing about these younguns. Since they weren’t eating, they needed something phallic in their mouths and hands. So they lit up—awful, cheap, and stinky cigarettes. Like the proceedings, they ignored these as well, just letting them smolder for effect. They yammered on and on, while the folks on the stage did the same.
Then the archery started. I stood up. I could see over the head of one of the shorter barrier babes. One archer from each location was chosen and they all shot their arrows in the allotted time. 5 arrows, five targets. Odd thing, after they were done the totals were announced. I don’t know what a direct hit was worth, but it was a bundle. After the second round the numbers had gotten as astronomical as I had gotten tired. It was midnight, and after the second round, ten arrows each, the scores were like 12,450, 17,900, 9,890…
Almost beyond my ability to count in Italian.
By that time the area between us and the door to the bar was occupied by about 7000 people, all fondling smoldering cigarettes. Someone’s hair was burning; I could smell that.
It was time to go.
But I like the Medieval portraits I shot earlier. I thought you might, too. Disfida Fivizzano Pictures.
Medieval Archery Festival in Fivizzano originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Jul 11, 2011, © James Martin, 
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Nozzano Castello · Jul 10, 08:40 AM by James Martin
Ok, if you look at the picture on the right, you’re maybe thinking, wow, “that’s some tower with that small building on it.” Lots of people have never seen it before. In fact, I couldn’t get anyone on our facebook page to identify it. It’s in Lucca province, and it’s just up the Sercio river east of Massaciuccoli. It’s not so far from Lucca, as a matter of fact.
We came upon the view when we were letting our GPS guide us home from Massaciuccoli after we had taken an excursion to look for a well-signposted hotel. The GPS babe placidly lead us to an intersection when I blurted out, “Look at that!” and made Martha turn the car in the opposite direction, which perturbed the GPS woman no end. Since the last time I’ve had a GPS they’ve made the women who speak sound quite a bit more realistic. So when she muttered, “recalculating” there was a hint of annoyance in her voice, as if you’d wakened her during her pedicure by twisting one of those sticks under her toenails they use to torture you with. Anyway, we made it into town and there it was in front of us: Nozzano Castello, a walled hill town with a castle whose keep couldn’t be visited, ever, according to a woman I consulted who happened to be sweeping her terrace (with a great view!) before I interrupted her.
But hold on—perhaps you can. You see there’s a festival called Il Castello Rivive coming up. It’s one of those medieval festivals where people dress up in old-time costumes and you watch them take 7 hours to make things they could have bought from a Chinese sweat shop for half a Euro. Anyway, it’s likely that during the festival you might get into the castle keep. (I’ve read today that all historical sites in Italy have to open to the public at least one day a year.)
On the right you see a clickable picture of the town gate. Nice, eh? Nozzano Castello reminds me of the little Castle and borgo at Lari.
There’s a lot of interesting things the folks on the grand tour never see. Perhaps you should try a vacation rental for a while and see some of the small things.
Nozzano Castello originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Jul 10, 2011, © James Martin,
Ravioli to the Juice of Escapes · Jul 9, 10:55 PM by James Martin
It was Notte Bianca in Aulla last night. Kids stuff early (they got TV coverage!), adult stuff until late in the night. For us, it was a stroll around the city looking for a restaurant that was far enough away from the zillion-decibel, ear splitting “music” they had thoughtfully provided on every street corner that one could at least think straight. We ate at it, then we went home. Sera Bianca for us fuddy-duddies.
I had stuffed a small camera in my pocket. The picture below seemed to delineate the contradictions inherent in modern Italy to me, so I am forcing it upon you:
(By the way, the title of this blog post comes straight off the restaurant menu. Perhaps the Ferrari is your juice of escapes from Aulla. With shrimps. Or something.)
Ravioli to the Juice of Escapes originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Jul 09, 2011, © James Martin,
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The Sacro Cuore Feast and Independence Day · Jul 4, 08:39 AM by James Martin
Our community lunch built around our village’s feast day, Sacro Cuore, is officially in the record books. We ate hearty and well. We used big, manly knives to cut our cheese. We took six hours to consume it all under a plastic, blue sun shade. It was the full deal. Antipasti and Prosecco, a pasta course of a duo of testaroli with pesto and with porcini, then a palate-cleansing farro salad followed by a main course of Francesca’s excellent wild boar, then watermelon, cheese, dolce (including a traditional cake made before the days of packaged leavening agents, leavened with stuff bought at a pharmacy), wine, mirto and probably more lost in the haze of the aforementioned excess. More pictures of the feast on the Wandering Italy Facebook page.
It was a time for joking in a foreign language and serious networking. We managed to get some free consultation time with a retired Italian lawyer. And we talked of the day after, the famous fourth of July, which every Italian knows or think they know…
Except they think it’s turkey day.
I’m not kidding, we spent quite a while trying to convince them turkey day was in November. I don’t think they bought it.
“So what do you give thanks for on the 4th of July?”
“Well, freedom I guess, but it’s not the thanksgiving day with the turkey, that’s in November.
“Ok.”
So the next day, a thankfully cloudy July fourth morning, we step outside to work off a few calories by walking to the store in the next town over, Sericciolo, and we come upon two neighbors talking. They see us and bellow a greeting. Here is the rough translation of the terse conversation which didn’t include Martha or I.
“Ah, it’s an American holiday today, right?”
“Independence day!” volunteers Enrico in English, delivered with the flair of an Italian TV announcer surrounded by the never ending supply of scantily clad Italian womenfolk.
“Pity the poor turkeys!”
And that was that.
So we went to the store. I bought some nice pork spare ribs. I’ll make my own barbeque sauce and have a traditional fourth of July meat that I’ll eat with Martha’s Italian slaw.
And Martha, who eschews pork (!?), goes and buys a turkey leg. Sheesh.
——
If you missed it last year, here’s 2010’s feast condensed into a couple minutes of video
The Sacro Cuore Feast and Independence Day originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Jul 04, 2011, © James Martin,
The Mother Church of Avetrana · Jun 15, 01:19 PM by James Martin
In searching for some pictures to illustrate some of our iPad/iPhone apps I came across this picture of Avetrana, in Puglia. What you see is what Puglians call the Chiesa Madre, or mother church. It’s La chiesa di San Giovanni Battista or the church of Saint John the Baptist. Building on it began in 1468, but you probably don’t remember back that far. If you click the picture you can see it even better. I like it because of the odd, stormy spring light.
In front of the church are white arches festooned with lights. If you see these in a piazza or spanning one of the main streets in any Italian town, you can pretty much assume that there is a festival coming. It’s an important sign for those of you who have a car and are driving. We would never have known, coming back from an excursion to Galipoli, that we happened to have been traveling on San Biagio day, April 28th, when the town’s patron saint was being celebrated with parades, music and food. But we stopped and saw everything.
(If you don’t know the good saint, you’ll have a hard time finding out about him because google thinks he’s a church. But he is known as Saint Blaise in France and was an Armenian bishop who was martyred by being attacked with iron carding combs and beheaded. So, he’s the saint of steel combs and…throats. If you have a fish bone caught in yours, call upon San Biagio.)
In any case, I’ve condensed the goings-on on San Biagio day in avetrana into a short video. See it: Festival of San Biagio in Avetrana
The Mother Church of Avetrana originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Jun 15, 2011, © James Martin,
Calci - Hidden Tuscany · Mar 28, 05:03 AM by James Martin
Calci, in the Tuscan province of Pisa, is an interesting place. It’s one of those places you’d think would draw a fair number of active tourists. It’s also a place where you might need a guide to show you its hidden charms.
What’s in Calci? Well, there’s an interesting church, called a “pieve” which refers to a country church—which at some point during the early history of Pieve of Sts. John and Ermolaus it probably was, but today the town has sort of swallowed it up. That’s it on the right. You’re probably thinking, “gee, that’s a huge bell tower, and it doesn’t look like it belongs there.”
And you’d be right. Sort of. Really, it’s a facade with bells sitting on a square box with these narrow slits for windows. Right away you might think, “wait a minute, this looks rather defensive.”
Right again. Here’s where the townspeople fled when they were in danger. They had a great view of the outside through those slits, but there wasn’t a good way for someone on the ground to see in. You could also shoot things out of those slits quite easily, but they were hard to hit from outside.
We, of course, students as we are of Romanesque churches, would likely have missed all this as well without a guide, who just happened to be available as part of the “days of the Pisan Romanesque” festival weekend.
It turns out that this bell tower is part of what our guide called the Arab telephone, which is a lot like what (some) Americans call an Indian telephone without the bells. You see, if a town along the coast was in danger from, say raiding marauders, it could raise some smoke to get the attention of the next town up the hill, warning them that a particular message was coming up, then ring the bells in such a manner that the folks in Pisa with the bad-ass army would understand, and this bell-wringing code would be passed on through all the small towns along the chain, Calci included, without the relaying bell-ringers necessarily knowing what it meant. They could only repeat what they heard. It was a sort of primitive but secure communication system.
But that’s not all that’s fascinating about this church. Look to the right. Click the picture if you need to see it bigger. You’re looking at the outside of the apse. That’s the guide pointing out some engraved stones on the side of the pieve. They’re game boards. What are game boards doing on the side of a church? People didn’t play on them this way, that’s for sure.
Today we’d say that that these carvings were advertising silly games to the kids in the piazza. Simple as that. But remember things were different in the 11th and 12th centuries. Folks were largely illiterate. Romanesque churches used carvings to tell stories—or rather moral tales, often biased toward warning folks to avoid bad behavior. Just like the bible. Symbols were almost the opposite of what they’ve become today—so when we see a 12th century church carving of a man masturbating (and yes, you can find those), we think, “oh, my, those church people are advertising the doing of nasty things. How abominable they were in those days!”
But nothing could be further from the truth. You didn’t advertise, you told people the pitfalls of an immoral life directly and graphically. Thus, the game boards trumpet the message, “don’t play games anywhere near this sacred place” just as mothers might jump in to stop a Sunday soccer game in the piazza del Duomo.
Well, that’s enough about the Duomo, although the inside is interesting too. Most guide say that the only thing to see near Calci is the charterhouse of Pisa, or La Certosa Pisana di Calci to be exact. It’s an impressive building just out of town you just have to visit. Then there’s the evocative ruins of il complesso di Nicosia, a monastery complex just out of town. From there you can take a new walking trail to the fortress of Verruca and see great views.
And just think, the Wikipedia entry for Calci is a mere 5 lines. Wandering (and wondering) opens up the world to you, a bit at a time.
Calci Resources
If it’s open (and we have info on that in the article) the Nicosia Monastery Ruins are evocative and interesting.
Il Molendino is a highly rated b&b in the countryside, where you can arrange all manner of country excursions, including on horseback, a popular way of wandering in Calci and the valley it’s located in: Val Graziosa
Monumental Complex of the Charterhouse of Calci is today a historical and artistic museum in a stunningly large complex in the countryside outside of Calci.
As always, visit the tourist office to get a list of guides who specialize in what you want to see. Or go during special weekends (especially if you know a bit of Italian, most of these smaller places don’t cater to Americans, which is why you know little about them).
Calci - Hidden Tuscany originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Mar 28, 2011, © James Martin,
Sartiglia and Stars in Oristano, Sardinia · Mar 8, 10:55 AM by James Martin
This medieval carnevale game is easy. You get into an intricate costume (as does your horse), you ride in a parade through town to a starting point, then, when it’s your turn, you gallop down a street mounded with sand as fast as you can and do what you see in the picture, namely skewering a hanging star, which has a hole of about one inch in the center, using your foil.
It takes quite a bit of skill. And the horse has to cooperate, too.
Otherwise:
Sartiglia and Stars in Oristano, Sardinia originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Mar 08, 2011, © James Martin,
Reflections on Real Carnival in Italy · Jan 4, 10:32 AM by James Martin
Winter travel. What possible reason could there be to convince a person to take on the nasty and variable weather of winter?
Carnival. Carnevale. Carnaval.
Hear me out. We stand in awe of ancient architecture in ruins, the Nuraghe of ancient Sardinia, the Colosseum of Rome, the library at Ephesus. But culturally, we see nothing. It doesn’t seem to bother us. We move on.
But what about celebrations of people, of culture? I know one. Carnival.
In its purest state, there is no celebration more removed from the present—or more attached to it—than carnival. It is “time out of time,” a time when values are upended. Dirt poor folks become kings and queens of any respectable carnival. Ancient rites are reenacted. Real carnival oozes forbidden sexuality, a recall of the pagan life still wired into our imaginations. Out with the old by recalling it so it can die.
Increasingly, real carnival becomes hard to find as corporate influences take over our lives with their happy meal mentality and primary color you’ll-always-be-a-dumb-kid plastics. This means you have to go far afield to see real carnival. At least way down the boot to rugged Basilicata.
I was reminded of all this upon reading about the Carnival In Tricarico
First, people who are not taking part in the procession walk around the Church of Sant’Antonio Abate three times and receive the blessing at the end of Mass. Then the masked figures and their animals do the same.
After the blessing, the masked figures and animals walk through the medieval streets of the town, having a lot of fun and miming the coupling of cow and bull as they go.
See what I mean? You don’t do these kinds of things in American church-sponsored festivals, do you?
What’s interesting is that the circling of the church three times for a blessing is exactly what the horses and of the L’Ardia di San Costantino do before they streak down the hill on a dirt path while the three faux “Constantine and his flagbearers” try to hold off all comers.
In any case, I want to see Carnival in Tricarico some day. It’s one of the early carnivals, celebrated in January. It will play to your animal instincts. You can test this by seeing the film below. It’s grainy, jumpy, way too long and technically awful, which only adds to its pagan allure:
Sometimes, technology isn’t everything.
Reflections on Real Carnival in Italy originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com Jan 04, 2011, © James Martin,