Becoming Italian Word by Word

Four Passionate Italian Women Artists

Win a pre-publication bound galley of LA PASSIONE from Goodreads! Click here to enter the raffle. The giveaway ends March 13.

Italy’s dazzling pantheon of artistic geniuses seems a man’s world. Yet as I discovered in researching my upcoming book, a few women with singular passion defied all obstacles and created important works of art. As a way of celebrating International Women’s Day, here are four artists whose stories I recount in LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World:

Plautilla Nelli (1524-88)

At age fourteen, Nelli, a merchant’s daughter in Florence, entered a local convent (as did many girls whose families could not afford marriage dowries) and won the respect of prominent painters of the time. Florence’s first recognized female artist, Nelli set up a studio to train other nuns to paint. Her most remarkable composition represents a first in the history of women’s art: a massive Last Supper (above), almost twenty-three feet long, for her convent’s dining hall. Thanks to a crowdfunding campaign by the Advancing Women Artists Foundation, a recent restoration is unveiling rich colors and subtle details unseen for centuries.

Properzia de’ Rossi (ca. 1490–1530)

A sculptress in Bologna, Properzia carved intricately detailed scenes in an odd and challenging medium: the pits of peaches and apricots. On one pit Properzia carved a detailed Passion of Christ that so impressed the city wardens that they commissioned a marble sculpture above a set of doors in Bologna’s Basilica of San Petronio. Properzia chose an Old Testament scene in which the wife of the Egyptian pharaoh’s chamberlain, burning with lust for their Hebrew slave, strips off his tunic—a work the art historian Vasari interpreted as an expression of Properzia’s unrequited desire for “a handsome young man, who seemed to care but little for her.” Although the Bolognese applauded Properzia’s achievement, she died nearly penniless at about age forty.

Sofonisba Anguissola (ca.1532–1625) 

As an eleven-year-old in Cremona, Sofonisba apprenticed herself to one of the few male artists willing to accept female students. At age twenty, she painted her three sisters playing chess, considered the first realistic depiction of domestic life. As Donna DiGuiseppe recounts in Lady in Ermine, a novel based on Sofonisba’s life, the young artist was summoned to the Spanish court, where she won international acclaim as a professional painter.

When she married a Sicilian nobleman, the couple moved to Paternò, but Sofonisba’s husband was killed in a pirate raid as he sailed to Spain. Two years later, as she was returning to mainland Italy, the widow’s boat was shipwrecked on the Tuscan coast. Sofonisba fell in love with the ship’s dashing captain. They married tand settled in Genoa, where Sofonisba established a school for painters. In 1615, they relocated to Palermo, where Sofonisba continued to tutor young artists until her death at about age 93.

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–ca.1652)

Artemisia learned how to paint in the studio of her father, a friend and follower of Caravaggio. A colleague her father hired to tutor her raped the teenager. In a sensational seven-month trial in 1612, Artemisia testified under torture against her attacker, who was convicted of defiling a virgin.

Married off to a minor artist in Florence, Artemisia won high-profile commissions from the duke and duchess and became the first woman inducted into Florence’s prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy of the Arts of Drawing). Most of her almost sixty known works portray women, often as the strong, passionate heroines of mythology and the Bible. All reflect her determination to “show what a woman can do.”

A cache of long-lost letters discovered in 2011 revealed that the artist herself had a passionate affair with a Florentine nobleman—a liaison her husband seemed to encourage. With many international fans, Artemisia painted in Venice, Naples and England, where she and her father decorated the queen’s house in Greenwich.

After her death at about age 60, Artemisia slid into anonymity but was resurrected in the late twentieth century as a feminist icon who overcame ignominy to gain respect and acclaim. The late Jane Fortune, founder of the Advancing Women Artists Foundation, described her as “one of history’s most influential painters.”

 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and the upcoming LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information, visit her website: www.diannehales.com.

 

Cari amici, I will be moving my weekly blog to my new website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts.  Click HERE  to subscribe (top of sidebar).  Note that if you are already subscribed (via e-mail) to my Typepad blog, your subscription will automatically transfer to the new blog.  However, if you subscribed via RSS, you will need to do so again (using the same link as above).  Thank you!

 

10 Reasons to Celebrate Italy’s Cultural Heritage

Il retaggio culturale italiano

Italian Cultural Heritage

Every October the United States celebrates Italian heritage month (il mese del retaggio italiano). The 26 million Americans of Italian descent (di origine italiana) make up the fifth largest ethnic group (il quinto più grande gruppo etnico) in the United States. However, we all have many reasons to celebrate  il meglio della cultura italiana (the best of Italian culture), including the following:

1. Italians defined art and architecture (l’arte e l’architettura). More than half of the world’s designated cultural treasures (tesori culturali) reside within Italy’s borders. 

2. Italians created the first universities, law and medical schools, banks and public libraries (università, facoltà di giurisprudenza e medicina, banche e biblioteche pubbliche).

3. Italian scholars and writers produced the first modern histories, satires, sonnets and travelogues (storie, satire, sonetti e diari di viaggio). 

4. Italian wordsmiths created la bella lingua by crafting the effervescent Tuscan vernacular into a language so rich and powerful that, as Dante demonstrated in his Divine Comedy, it can sweep readers down to hell and up to heaven.

5. Italian musicians fashioned the original do-re-mi of musical notation, instruments such as the oboe, piano and violin and the language of music (il linguaggio della musica) with terms such as adagio, allegro, aria, concerto, soprano and libretto.

6. Through the influence of books such as Machiavelli’s The Prince (Il Principe) and Castiglione’s The Courtier (Il libro del cortegiano), Italy taught diplomacy and etiquette to Europe.

7. Italian scientists mapped the moon (mappato la luna) in the 1600s, split the atom (diviso l’atomo) and invented the battery, barometer, radio, telephone and thermometer (la pila,il barometro, la radio, il telefono e il termometro).

8. Italian designers, beginning in the Renaissance, raised fashion (la moda) to an art (un’arte). Today designer clothes (vestiti firmati) by Armani, Versace and Prada appear on runways and red carpets around the globe.

9. An Italian patented the first cinematografo—a machine that recorded, developed and projected films—and invented the forerunner of all panoramic projectors. 

10. Italians created the cuisine (la cucina) that the world loves best. Pasta, with pizza a close second, has conquered more people in more countries than any dish from any other country. 

How did a boot-shaped peninsula smaller than California make so many enduring contributions to Western culture? In his fascinating new book, Italianità: The Essence of Being Italian and Italian-American, William Giovinazzo suggests that the answer lies within the Italian soul: 

“How could Italians have produced the art that we have created had we not been consumed with the beauty that surrounds us? If we had not been in awe of the majesty of the divine? How could we have written the poetry and literature had we not burned with the revelations that could inspire others? How could we have given birth to a culinary tradition that has conquered the world had we not found delight in even the most common of meals shared with friends and family? How could we have composed the music and operas had we not wished to stir hearts with this joy?”

Words and Expressions

Ricevere in eredità –- inherit

Cittadinanza italiana –- Italian citizenship

Doppia cittadinanza –- dual citizenship

Eccellenza italiana –- Italian excellence

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Entrancing Language. Click here to preorder her upcoming book, LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. 

Five Centuries (Almost) of Leonardo's Legacy

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

The Da Vinci Code transformed his last name into an international phenomenon, but Italians have always referred to the ultimate Renaissance man simply as Leonardo. Next year the world will commemorate the 500th anniversary of his death on May 2, 1519. Few individuals have left a larger or more lasting legacy.

Other artists let their works speak for him. Not Leonardo, who left a treasure trove of words—an ongoing conversation with himself that covered more than 5,000 surviving manuscript pages gathered into libricini, combination sketch and notebooks, written in his idiosyncratic right-to-left “mirror script.”

“Dimmi” (Tell me), Leonardo would scrawl when breaking in a new pen nub. HIs incomparable volumes tell of everything from flying machines to irrigiation sysems, set down without punctuation or accents, often with several short words run together into a long one or a long word divided in half.  

An illegitimate son of a Florence notaio and a country woman, Leonardo described himself as an "omo senza lettera," a man without letters, but he loved writing and writers. In Florence in the 1470s Leonardo hung out with a group of Tuscan writers known as poets alla burchia (which translates as in a hurry, piled up at random or higgledy-piggledy). These rap artists of their day improvised verses in a slangy, ribald, satirical style called burchiellesco (from burchia).

Leonardo’s eclectic treatises include the memorably titled, "Why Dogs Gladly Sniff One Another's Bottom” (“Perché li cani odoran volentieri il culo l’uno all’altro”). The reason: The smell lets them know how well fed a dog is. A whiff of meat indicates a powerful and rich owner—and a need for deference.

Leonardo delighted in puns, wordplay, complex codes, spoofs and pictograms (sketches, for instance, of the letter “o” and the drawing of a pear--pera in Italian—to represent the word opera). He also jotted jokes in his notebooks. In one, a painter is asked how he depicted such beautiful images of dead things and yet produced such ugly children. The punch line: he made his paintings by day and his children by night. In a riddle, Leonardo asked which men walk on tree tops and which on the backs of great beasts. The answer: It depends on whether they are wearing wooden clogs or ox-leather shoes.

After spending his last years in France under King Francis I’s patronage, Leonardo died at Amboise in the Loire valley at age 67. His coffin was carried to the Church of Saint-Florentin by the chaplains of the church, followed by the prior, curates, friars and sixty poor men (compensated for their time) carrying tapers, while ten large candles burned and prayers were said for his soul.  His notebooks scattered to museums and collectors throughout the world.

Words and Expressions

Sfumatura -- gentle shading, characteristic of the painterly technique of Leonardo and his disciples
La Giocanda -– better known outside of Italy as the Mona Lisa, a reference to the wife of Signore Giocando or a term for a playful or laughing girl
Saper vedere -- to know how to see, Leonardo’s fundamental quest
Capolavoro -- masterpiece

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Welcoming Spring in the Italian Language

La primavera

Spring

In English the most eagerly awaited of seasons “springs” to life with blunt urgency. In Italian la primavera blossoms into four elegant syllables.

My etymological dictionary traces primavera back to radici indoeuropee (Indo-European roots): prima for “before” and vas for ardente, splendente (burning, shining), which evolved into a word for “summer.” And so Spring is simply the season “before summer.” But what a season it is!

An Italian word-lovers’ website waxes poetic on its glories, hailing la primavera as “l’inizio di splendore, per tutto, per tutti” (the beginning of splendor, for everything, for everyone). I cieli freddi spazzati dal vento (the cold, windblown skies) make room for un caldo sole (a hot sun). La terra (the land) awakens from its letargo (hibernation) and prepares to sollevare un manto smeraldino (push up a green mantle). People eagerly shed their heavy clothes to feel the sun on their skin -- an epidermico piacere (epidermal pleasure).

The artist Sandro Botticelli captured the glories of the season in the painting known as La Primavera, one of the grandi capolavori del Rinascimento (great masterpieces of the Renaissance), displayed at the Uffizi in Florence. Completed around 1482, it depicts a group of mythological figures in un ombroso boschetto (a shady glen), under una sorta di semi-cupola di aranci (a sort of half-dome of orange trees) against un cielo azzurrino (a light blue sky). At the center stands Venere (Venus), simbolo neoplatonico dell'amore più elevato (neoplatonic symbol of the most elevated love). 

Another Italian captured the essence of Spring in music. Antonio Vivaldi dedicated the first movement of his famed violin concerti Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) to La Primavera and wrote poems to express the sounds of each season. The sonnet on Spring begins: "Giunt' è la Primavera e festosetti / La Salutan gl' Augei con lieto canto” (Springtime is upon us. The birds celebrate her return with festive song). Click below to listen.

Writers, inventors and many others have adopted primavera as the name for poems, songs, software programs, political parties, soccer competitions and political upheavals, such as La Primavera di Praga (the Prague Spring). In honor of the season’s inspiring spirit, I pass along some advice from Italian wordsmiths:

As la nuova energia di nascita e creazione (the new energy of birth and creation) flows within and around you, non farsela sfuggire (don’t let it slip away)! It will take a year for this momento più sacro e tenero dell'immortale ciclo delle stagioni (most sacred and tender moment of the eternal cycle of the seasons) to return with its l'occasione del riscatto e della palingenesi (with its chance for redemption and regeneration).

Buona primavera!

Words and Expressions

L’aprile degli anni -- heyday of youth

Pasta primavera -– pasta made with fresh vegetables

Primaverile –- of Spring, vernal  

Terzo aprilante quaranta di durante -- as is the third of April so will be the next 40 days (a weather prediction)

Godere di un’eterna primavera –- to enjoy mild, spring-like weather all year round

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian the World's Most Enchanting Language and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.

 

A Season of Celebrations in the Italian Language

  

La stagione natalizia

The Christmas season

In ancient times the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a winter solstice festival, with religious rites and drunken feasts. The early Christian church decreed December 25 — then the feast of the sun god Mithras -- as the birthday of Gesù bambino (Baby Jesus), the “true light” who came to dispel darkness in the world.

Modern Italian holidays blend religious and pagan festivities that create un’atmosfera natalizia that lasts from weeks before to weeks after December 25. Children in Italy, as elsewhere, often count down the days with a calendario dell’avvento (advent calendar).  

Although you can find more extravagant decorations (decorazioni) in the United States, Christmas lights (illuminazioni natalizie) and alberi di Natale (Christmas trees) are becoming more popular in Italy. In Torino lighting artists illuminate more than twelve miles of streets and squares. An 875-yard-high Christmas tree—reportedly the world’s tallest--with 450 lights stands near the top of Monte Ingino, above Gubbio in Umbria. Its bright star can be seen from as far away as Perugia. 

Here are the key dates in a season of celebrations:

*December 6: La festa di San Nicola, patron saint of shepherds and of Bari--and the inspiration for the modern-day "Santa Claus."

*December 8: La festa dell'Immacolata, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic holy day honoring Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus. In Rome the Pope comes to the Piazza di Spagna to drop a garland of flowers around the statue of the Madonna. (Since she stands atop a high column, firemen on ladders do the actual placement.)

*December 13: La festa di Santa Lucia, the festival of lights.

*December 24: La vigilia di Natale, the vigil or eve of Christmas.

*December 25: Natale,  the “birthday” of Gesù bambino.

*December 26: La festa di Santo Stefano, Saint Steven’s day.

*December 31: La festa di San Silvestro, Saint Sylvester’s day, or New Year’s Eve (la vigilia di Capodanno).

*January 1: Il Capodanno, literally the top of the year.

*January 6: L’Epifania (Epiphany), which marks the arrival of the Re Magi, the three wise men who carried gifts from afar and of La  Befana, bearer of gifts for good girls and boys.

Stay tuned for more on these celebrations in the coming weeks!

Words and Expressions

Palline dell’albero di Natale -- Christmas tree ornaments

Ghirlanda natalizia –- Christmas wreath

Luci dell’albero di Natale –- Christmas tree lights

Aria di festa – festive atmosphere

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.

Wine in the Italian Language

Il linguaggio del vino

The Language of Wine

The warm days of early November –- known as Indian summer in the United States –- are called “l’estate di San Martino” (the summer of St. Martin) in Italy. Wine producers (produttori di vini) celebrate the  saint's feast on November 11 by uncorking the vino novello (new wine) from the recent vendemmia (grape harvest) and getting the first preview of the year’s vintage (annata). As an Italian saying puts it, “Per San Martino, cadono le foglie e si spilla il vino." (For St. Martin, the leaves fall, and the wine is tapped.)

In September my husband and I visited several wineries (cantine) as the grapes were being picked. At the NostraVita winery in the gorgeous Val d’Orcia, we spent a day with Annibale Parisi, a true Renaissance man whose passions extend from art to natural history to wine. As we walked through his vineyard (vigneto), he told me that  he “listens” to every vine (vite) and responds to its needs. The results show in the robust health of each grape (uva) -- thick skin (buccia dell’uva), moist pulp (polpa) and  firm brown seeds (vinaccioli). Annibale hand-paints every label (etichetta) in four colors: reddish-brown for the earth, black for hard work, red for passion, white for the sun.  

We arrived at Poggio Grande  in nearby San Quirico d’Orcia  just as bunches (grappoli) of freshly picked grapes were going through the first steps of sorting, trimming of stems (raspi) and maceration (macerazione). “We do everything by hand,” says Giulitta Zamperini, the fourth generation of her family to make wines.  She offered us a special treat: glasses of must (mosto), the grape juice that will eventually be  transformed into wine, straight from the vat.

At Le Chiuse (above), an azienda agricola (an estate that grows grapes and produces its own wine) in Montalcino, another family--Nicolo' Magnelli, his wife Simonetta and their son Lorenzo--balances innovation with tradition, including long soaks before and after fermentation (fermentazione) in stainless steel vats. The aging process (invecchiamento) for its signature Brunello continues in barrels (botti) for three years until the wine is ready to be poured into bottles (bottiglie) and sealed with corks (tappi).   

Farther north in the Chianti region, at Lorenza and Marco Pallanti's fairy-tale tenuta (estate) of Castello di Ama, we found lush vineyards and a dazzling collection of contemporary art. Over the last fifteen years distinguished artists from around the world have  captured their sense of this special place in striking creations -- including a wall of mirrors overlooking the countryside, a neon light installation in a wine cellar and a cauldron of iridescent red light in a centuries-old chapel.                                    

 “There’s a kind of competition with the artists,” says Marco, a French-trained winemaker (enologo) whose vintages have earned spectacular ratings and reviews. “They  inspire me to make wines at the same level as their art.   Wine and art have the same judge: time.   It’s relatively easy to make a wine or a piece of art that seems good because it’s new. But we want to create something that will last beyond us and carry the Castello into the future for centuries to come.”

Every visit ended with a tasting (degustazione) that taught us another aspect of viticulture (viticoltura): how to describe the wines we were sampling. Here are some of the terms we learned:

    Amabile -– semi-sweet

    Ampio -– ample, rich, complex

    Corposo –- full-bodied

    Dolce -– sweet

    Frizzante –- effervescent, fizzy

    Intenso –- intense in aroma, color or flavor

    Leggero –- lightweight, low in alcohol

    Pieno –- full-bodied, rich

    Robusto –- robust, full-bodied

    Secco -– dry

    Tannico –- rich in tannins

    Vinoso –- fresh and fruity  

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Click below for a brief tour of Castello di Ama:

CASTELLO DI AMA ART COLLECTION

Happy Birthday, Mona Lisa!

Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo

June 15, 1479 -- July 15, 1542

On a mid-June day in Florence in 1479, a midwife—called a levatrice for her “lifting” (levare) of a baby into the light -- gently washed the newborn daughter of Antonmaria and Lucrezia Gherardini with warm white wine and swaddled her tightly in linen. Only her pink rosebud face peeked out from her wrappings when her father took the priceless bundle in his arms.

Thirty-five-year-old Antonmaria Gherardini had great reason to exult in his daughter's birth: His first two wives had died in childbirth, a grim fate that befell one in four Florentine mothers. The new father led a high-spirited crowd of amici, parenti e vicini (friends, relatives and neighbors) from the humble converted wool shop he rented on fetid Via Sguazza across the Ponte Vecchio to the Battisero di San Giovanni (Baptistry of St. John). His exhausted wife remained at home in the care of an aptly named guardadonna (literally, lady-watcher).

Florentine Catholics baptized all newborns at the Baptistery by law until well into the twentieth century.⁠ Its octagonal shape represented eight days: the six during which God created heaven and earth and all that inhabits them, the seventh when He rested, and the eighth, the eternal day that never ends. Antonmaria Gherardini’s newborn daughter could not enter the Baptistery’s hallowed interior with an uncleansed soul.

On the entrance steps a priest exhorted any unclean spirits to flee and the Holy Spirit to come in their stead. Her godparents, bound to her almost as closely as blood relatives, pronounced the infant’s second or middle name: Camilla. The Gherardini party entered the vast open hall, its celestial ceiling, a huge Italo-Byzantine image of Christ the King and Judge, shimmering above them. At the octagonal marble font, the priest sprinkled holy water on the infant. When asked how the child would be called, her godparents intoned her first name, “Lisa,” a tribute to Antonmaria’s mother, who had died a few years before. 

Modern technology led me across five centuries to Lisa's baptismal record--in the digitalized “registri battesimali” (baptismal registries) of Santa Maria del Fiore di Firenze. Six lines below the bold heading of “Martedì Adi XV di Guigno 1479” (Tuesday the fifteenth day of June 1479) is the name “Lisa & Camilla di AntonMaria Gherardini di San Pancrazio” (an old neighborhood in Florence).

In a tradition that started five years ago, Lisa's hometown celebrates her birthday with a festival. This week Via Sguazza will be decorated in art honoring "la musa rinascimentale-icona pop" (the Renaissance muse-pop icon). Anyone who wants to dedicate "un omaggio creativo" (a creative homage) is invited to participate; everyone is welcome to attend. Click here for more information on the Monnalisa Day Facebook page.

Although many miles away, I will certainly be toasting the timeless beauty who continues to enchant us half a millenium after her birth. Buon compleanno, Lisa!

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.  

Click below for a report on last year's celebration. 

Related articles

Is that you, Mona Lisa?

Mona Lisa "Live"

Becoming Italian Word by Word: New Life for Mona Lisa's Final Resting Place

Mona Lisa on the Move

Evviva Dante!

New Life for Mona Lisa's Final Resting Place

Il Convento di Sant' Orsola

The Convent of Saint Ursula

Mona Lisa Gherardini, the woman with the world's most recognized smile, celebrates her 538th birthday this month. The mother of six children lived quietly as a merchant's wife in Florence. Yet mysteries have long surrounded her.  The greatest, still unsolved, is why the renowned Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci chose to paint her portrait. For centuries, scholars puzzled over another question: Where and when did she die?

No one knew until 2007, when Giuseppe Pallanti, author of Mona Lisa Revealed, reported his discovery of a record of her death at the convent of Sant' Orsola, where her youngest daughter had taken vows as a nun. After the death of her husband Francesco del Giocondo in 1538, Lisa chose to move to the convent, just steps from the family home--despite her husband's stipulation that she live with their son. 

She never left the convent. When Lisa Gherardini died at age 63 on July 15, 1542, the entire community of Sant’ Orsola gathered at her funeral to mourn a cherished companion. At her request, she was buried, not in the del Giocondo crypt with her husband, but at the convent. 

Sant' Orsola, deconsecrated under Napoleon in the early 1800s, served as a tobacco processing plant and university lecture hall before deteriorating into a hulking, boarded-up, graffiti-smeared ruin. "The shame of Florence," an editorial writer branded it, and Florentines have long clamored for a clean-up of the buca nera (black hole).

Several years ago I happened to be visiting Florence during the first official opening of the convent to the public. Musicians performed. Actors staged a dramatic reading based on Mona Lisa's life. Artists mounted portraits of contemporary "Mona Lisas" on the walls. I returned several times to linger amid the ruins. This place of devotion and tranquility, even in its decrepit state, held me.

Since then community groups have been advocating to bring Sant' Orsola back to life.  Hearings have been held, petitions filed, proposals floated. Always there seemed to be an obstacle, from too little money to too many bureaucratic hurdles. Now Sant' Orsola has found an angel: a group of supporters headed by music superstar Andrea Bocelli. 

City officials have given via libera (the equivalent of a green light) for development of the 25-30 million-euro project.  A music school, under the direction  of Bocelli and his  brother, would occupy almost 6,000 square yards of the total of about 21,000 available. Also in the plans are a coffee bar, restaurant, bookstore, parking garage--and a museum dedicated to Lisa Gherardini. 

 "Non stiamo ‘cantando vittoria’" (We are not crying "victory" -- or counting our chickens before they’ve hatched) notes Emanuele Salerno, speaking on behalf of the "St'O" or ObiettivoSanOrsola project, noting that a long road lies ahead. But the community's lunga e creativa marcia (long and creative march) toward its goal has taken a big step forward.

 "È una cosa fantastica" (It's a fantastic thing), writes a columnist for La Nazione, noting that "ridare vita a un posto straordinario come Sant' Orsola è sempre una buona notizia per tutti" (to give life back to an extraordinary place like Sant' Orsola is always good news for everybody). 

Personally, I can't think of a better birthday present for Florence's most famous and beloved daughter.

Click below for a tour of Sant' Orsola with the mayor of Florence. Even if you don't understand Italian, the images convey a sense of the convent's faded beauty. You can follow the progress on Twitter @StOrsolaProject, #IoStoConObiettiovoSantorsola.

Dianne Hales is the author of Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered and La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Saving the Church of the Patron Saint of Joy

La chiesa abbandonata

The Abandoned Church

A guest post by Rita Morgan Richardson  

I confess. I’m Catholic, and I’d never heard of Saint Philip Neri -- until I decided to save a church dedicated to him in Castiglion Fiorentino, a small town in Tuscany between Arezzo and Cortona.

In its historic center, on the same pedestrian-only vicolo as the apartment my husband Tim and I purchased in 2011, a boarded-up stone building dating back to the Middle Ages sits virtually unnoticed. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, this was the living quarters for priests serving the community. No one had been inside the structure for over fifty years. Too dilapidated and dangerous (troppo in rovina e pericoloso).

Located below the priests’ living quarters is a little chapel (una piccola cappella) dedicated to St. Philip Neri, whose feast day is celebrated this week. “The joyful saint” (il santo della gioia) was renowned for his humility and sense of humor, as well as his love and compassion for the homeless, the sick and the needy, and especially for children. St. Philip often would say, “Be good if you can” (“State buoni se potete”), exhorting his followers to practice charity, cheerfulness and humility (carità, allegrezza ed umiltà).

San Filippino was a bustling community center in the 17th and 18th centuries, a place where ordinary people did and experienced extraordinary things (cose straordinarie). Now, its crumbling exterior is hidden behind recycling bins and parked cars. For three years, Tim and I walked past the sad structure and wondered: Why was this building so rich in history being allowed to disappear? Why wasn’t anyone doing anything to save it? The response: Crisi. Niente soldi. (Economic crisis. No money.)

One day, for a reason that is difficult to explain, I realized that the “someone” to save San Filippino was me (la persona che doveva salvare San Filippino ero io) and, by default, my husband Tim. Neither of us had ever attempted anything like this. At that point, we had not even seen the interior of the chapel.

After a meeting in Arezzo with Archbishop Riccardo Fontana, we found ourselves inside San Filippino. We were blown away. (Siamo rimasti estasiati.) We saw beautiful cherub sculptures that are some of the finest examples of baroque art in Tuscany. An ancient 15th century wooden coffered ceiling of stunning cobalt blue and gold, believed to be the oldest in the town. A gorgeous hand-painted wooden balcony comprising the choir. Intact frescoes. And that’s just for starters! (E questo tanto per cominciare!)

Yes, there’s obvious damage due to neglect, a leaky roof and excrement from curious pigeons who have found their way in via the broken windows. Nonetheless, the chapel is still stunning, and we have fortunately arrived in time to return it to its original glory (riportarla alla sua gloria originale).

How much money do we need? Only $350,000, per the official estimate provided by the Archdiocese of Arezzo, to completely restore the interior and exterior of Oratorio San Filippino. After restoration, the chapel, which is still consecrated, will host religious and secular services benefitting the whole town and will provide a much-needed economic spark for our adopted town (nostra città adottiva).

We’ve created a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit association in the U.S. — Friends of San Filippino -- with 100 percent of donations going toward the restoration. All work is done by volunteers, most of them citizens (cittadini) of Castiglion Fiorentino! Once word spread about the project, via our Facebook page and our website, the townspeople enthusiastically joined in. Professionals (accountants, photographers, engineers, business owners, among others) are donating their services, and local artists are donating their works, with proceeds to benefit the project. A group of Castiglionesi have created a sister organization, Amici di San Filippino, and have already started holding fundraisers.

Let me be more like St. Philip, I pray. (Fa che sia ancora di più come San Filippo, io prego.) May I always remember and heed his call-to-action: “If you wish to go to extremes, let it be in sweetness, patience, humility and charity.” I’m hoping this project inspires others to do the same.

Rita Morgan Richardson is a French teacher in Nashville and an Italian-American with roots in Naples and the little town of Vinci in Tuscany. Write her at [email protected] for more information on the campaign to save San Filippino. Click here for a longer version of this story, which was first published in La Voce di New York.  

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian the World's Most Enchanting Language and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.

Photos of Rita and Tim by Piero Rossi.

Passion and Pleasure on an Italian Journey

     

    “Was your trip for business or pleasure?” asked the customs agent at the San Francisco airport on my recent return from Italy.

    “Business,” I replied. Then I paused to confess the whole truth.

    “Well, I was researching a book on Italian passions…”

    “So some pleasure too,” he said with a wink. It was indeed a trip brimming with passion and pleasure as I travelled from Agrigento’s magnificent valley of the temples to stone villages high in the Apennine mountains. On Good Friday in Trapani I was swept into the drama of the 24-hour procession of “mysteries” commemorating the passion of Christ. On Easter Monday, I climbed the mountain overlooking the town to Erice's ancient temple of Aphrodite, goddess of love.                                                                                                                                                                                            

    Spring-green Umbria offered passions of a different sort. In Perugia's Studio Moretti Caselli, a museum as well as a workshop, Maddalena Forenza follows the tradition of five generations of master glass painters.  Across town in a restored church,  Marta Cucchia of Giuditta Brozzetti (right) weaves cloths of timeless beauty on a centuries-old loom. Maurizio Tittarelli Rubboli displays his family's acclaimed designs and forges modern ceramics in the Museo Opificio Rubboli in the postcard-pretty village of Gualdo Tadino. In her home "laboratorio" outside Perugia,  Luisa Spagnoli, whose great-grandmother founded Perugina chocolate, creates sublime confections that elevate candy-making to a delectable art.  

At Rome's La Sapienza university, archaeologist Clementina Panella showed me long-buried treasures -- statues, vases, urns, even an imperial head (in photo) -- uncovered in thirty years of excavations on the Palatine Hill. "We have been digging in a very important area that had never been explored before," she says, "so we've come upon one discovery after another." (You can support her quest to explore Rome's earliest days  by contributing to LoveItaly's crowd-funding campaign.)

Ancient Rome comes alive in a different way on the backlot of Cinecittà, which I toured with the endlessly resourceful Barbara Lessona of Contessa Concierge, who specializes in making Rome feel like home for every client. Thanks to her, I met the daughter of the coppia reale (royal couple) of the golden era of “Hollywood on the Tiber”: director/producer Dino De Laurentiis and actress Silvana Mangano. Veronica De Laurentiis, actress and mother of celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis, has become an international champion for women who’ve suffered domestic abuse.

    I extend appreciation and admiration to the other talented artisans I met, including ceramist Maria Antonietta Taticchi of Perugia's Materia Ceramica; cioccolataio Giordano Mangano of Augusta Perusia; the cloth-makers of TelaUmbra in Città del Castello; and jeweler Francesca Trubbianelli of Raku Ceramic Workshop. Many thanks to the outstanding guides who shared their love for their regions, particularly Lorenzo Capraro of Agrigento Experience and Daniela Paci of AltraUmbria, as well as my gracious hosts at Villa Athena in Agrigento, Badia Nuova in Trapani, Hotel Sina Brufani in Perugia and Margutta Glamour Studios in Rome. Grazie di cuore to Andrea, Crescenzo and Simone D’Ambrosio of Pallenberg Bros. Travel, who always take the best possible care of our family, and to their colleagues at La Mattina Travel (with special thanks to Claudio and Pina) in Sicily and Autonoleggio Spigarelli in Umbria.

    Upcoming posts will focus on words and expressions I've picked up along the way.  However, the experiences did far more than expand my vocabulary: They enriched my appreciation of Italian creativity, tradition and passion.  If you travel to Italy in the coming months, by all means, visit the famous monuments and museums. But I urge you also to seek out local artists and artisans, who embody the living heart of Italy. To get started, check out Italian Stories, a website that lists tours and workshops by region and craft, and Articity, which features artisans in Perugia.  Buon viaggio!

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.