Roberta Reports From Italy
June, 2005

This month we will talk about Imola in Romagna, as well as a hilltown near Imperia in Liguria, some restaurants in Milan and Rome, a food festival in Tuscany, and a few more places along the way.

Imperia

Imola

I have been invited on another educational -- obviously people think I need a bit more education. (Perhaps they have heard of my Imola/Imperia thing, and want to make sure I can distinguish the two.) Indeed, the destination this time is the Apennine area of Bologna and Imola. This is the rugged countryside of mountains and forests that you see to your left as you drive down the Autostrada del Sole towards Florence (and clearly to your right as you drive back). I am not sure exactly what is on the itinerary because – three days before departure, I still do not have a detailed program. What I do know is that we get a guided tour of Bologna itself, which I am very much looking forward to. I have been there several times, but have never spent time in the city seeing the sights. One place we definitely do get to see is the Museo Guglielmo Marconi, in Villa Griffoni. This is the original Marconi family home, for although Guglielmo made his fortune in England and elsewhere, he was a bolognese. And the museum is bound to be fascinating. For more information about Imola, click here.

However, my interest is more focused towards the next day's trip: to the Terme di Porretta. This spa town has been known for its curative waters since at least Roman times. During the Renaissance periods, visitors included Lorenzo il Magnifico and Bianca Cappello, who was the wife of Francesco I de' Medici and whose house can be seen in Via Maggio in Florence. There was also Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga who brought his favorite painter along: Andrea Mantegna. Another prestigious guest was Giovanni Sforza Visconti, the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia. Whether she came along or had other fish to fry (as it were), I am not sure. Another early fan of the terme was Francesco di Marco Datini, who sent his wife there in 1387, in the hopes that this would cure their fertility problems. I would have to go back to the book to see if their hopes were fulfilled. What book, you ask? Why, “The Merchant of Prato” by Iris Origo, which I highly recommend. It is a fascinating and very readable account of everyday life in Prato. We will speak of this busy Tuscan city below, but for now let's stick with the tour.

On the third day, we go to the Parco del Corno alle Scale, which is a ski resort. After lunch, we head for a flourmill in the Valle del Samoggia. Not sure where exactly, but the choice will be between Bazzano, Castello di Serravalle, Crespellano, and Monte San Pietro, which are the main towns in this picturesque  valley. Somewhere along the line we also visit some vineyards specialized in producing the Colli bolognesi wines. We also see a place where they make Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Also on the menu are the Lago di Suviana, and the Lago Brasimone. These are artificial lakes created as a result of the hydro-electric generating stations in the area. Lago di Suviana is the site for an annual bikers' convention. Not as frightening as it sounds. Italian bikers are, in the main, perfectly respectable professional people, bank managers, accountants, and so forth.

Anyway, I look forward to my trip. What's strange is that so few of these places are mentioned in my various guide-books, so it may well be that what you are reading is a first! Which is not as surprising as it may seem. I always thought that everything in Italy worth seeing was written up by now, in Italian if not in English. Not so. There's still more to explore. Keep watching this space.

As promised, let us now consider Prato. With a population of 190,000, this is Tuscany's second-largest city after Florence (whose resident population is about 500,000 – even if there are more than three million visitors annually). From humble beginnings in the 17th-century, Prato's textile-manufacturing has grown to become the country's largest, producing an annual 350 million meters of cloth for apparel, furnishing, and technical applications.


It's not surprising therefore that the city has a Textile Museum. And it is here that a rather interesting cross-cultural exhibition is taking place from June 21 until November 30. Called quite simply "Jeans!", the show celebrates denim, with a special emphasis on the fact that this fabric was originally produced in Italy, became famous in the USA, and then returned to its origins (almost). Did you know that the material the Italians call "il jeans" derives its name, in the first instance, from the city of Genova, the seaport in Liguria where it was originally made in the 18th and 19th centuries? Of course, its fame was achieved through exportation to the USA and thanks to such brands as Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler (usually pronounced "V-rangler" in Italy). But back in Italy in the 1970s, textile manufacturers in Prato started to produce as contractors, later moving on to create their own brands. One example is Rifle. Not only have you never heard of it, but you do not know how to pronounce it either. If you want to be understood by the Italians, remember it's "riffle."



Among the exhibits in the show are the denims worn by Giuseppe Garibaldi at some time during his long struggle to help bring about a united Italy in the 1860s. These have been loaned by the Museo del Risorgimento and the Vittoriano in Rome. A less belligerent use of this material can be seen in the 18th-century nativity scene figurines sporting costumes of denim. These come from the Municipal Museum in Nervi, near Genoa.


Inaugurated in 1975 and in its present location since 2003, the Textile Museum boasts some 6000 exhibits ranging from the Paleochristian to the present day. The museum can count on assistance from a number of quarters. At the one extreme is the textile section of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, which was set up by none other than Lorenzo de Medici. At the other is the local industrialists' association. This group is responsible for one of the most dynamic exhibits: a season-by season display of the most interesting and innovative textiles produced by their members. The Prato Textile Museum is a finalist for the European Museum Award 2005, organized by the European Museum Forum, under the aegis of the Council of Europe. For more information, click here.

While you are in Prato, don't forget to go to Mattei, where those delicious crunchy almond cookies for dipping in vin santo were created. You know these delicacies as biscotti, but that is actually a generic term similar to “biscuits,” which means “twice-cooked” in both languages. If you want one of these tidbits in Tuscany, you’d better ask for cantucci, and if you pronounce it “han-TU-chee,” you will truly sound like a native.

Mattei is at 20-22 Via Ricasoli. If you can live the experience only vicariously for now, click here. And for more on Italian pastries, cakes, and other sweet treats, check out L'Italia dei Dolci, a Touring Club Italiano publication.

On the eating front, the Sagra della miseria (or Festival of Penury), held in Colle Val d'Elsa, near Siena, is the place to be if your taste runs to "poor people's" Tuscan food. Being held every weekend throughout the month of June, this event commemorates what was eaten in the days gone by when poverty was the common denominator. Piazza Santa Caterina in Colle Alta, or the upper part of the city, will be filled with stands selling panzanella (bread, tomato and onion salad), ribollita (black cabbage soup), and zuppa di pane, verdure e fagioli (bread, greens and bean soup), right the way through to zuppa di fagioli (bean soup) and trippa al sugo (stewed tripe). I personally would not touch these dishes with a barge-pole, but they are featured on almost all country menus in Tuscany, and this event has been taking place for several years now.

At the opposite end of the scale in terms of Tuscan cuisine, Colle Val D'Elsa is also home to one of Italy's best restaurants. This is Arnolfo, which surely has a couple of Michelin stars. Housed in a 16th-century locanda in the upper part of the city, Arnolfo serves highly esteemed “contemporary cuisine” and is definitely reservations only, not just because it is closed Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as the second half of January and the first half of February and the whole of August. For more information and to make those mandatory reservations, click here.

An artist friend called the other day to say she has a show in Perinaldo, a village just north of San Remo in Liguria. Her drawings are to be exhibited in the observatory of this hilltown, which seems to offer the best of all possible worlds: a peaceful country existence in an exquisite climate, with extensive views of olive groves in the valley, the sea in front and the Alps behind. If the need arises for city lights, Ventimiglia, San Remo, Nice and Cannes are just a few kilometers away. 


Perinaldo was also the birthplace of the astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini, who was summoned by King Louis XIV of France to head up the Royal Observatory in Paris. If the name is familiar – GD, I mean, not the Sun King – that’s perhaps because NASA's 1997 exploratory mission to Saturn was named for Cassini.

There is a silly joke in Italy that goes: "What's the longest town in Italy? Ventimiglia (whose name means “20 miles”).” Don't all laugh at once, please. Exactly why this town, located on the far western point of Italy and just a few kilometers from Montecarlo and the Côte d'Azur, should be called 20 Miles is a mystery to me. Apparently, the original Roman name was Albium Intermelium, which was then “shortened” to Albintimillium. But I cannot quite make the leap to VM. Perhaps if I cleared my brain of ridiculous jokes like the one above, I might have more time to reflect upon matters etymological. Perhaps.


Anyway, to get back to the 20-mile town, apart from a bona fide Roman amphitheater, there's the cathedral which was built between the 9th and the 13th centuries, the baptistery, and the Romanesque church of San Michele. There are also two important places on the Via Aurelia heading west out of town towards the French border. One is an accidental documentation of human presence, while the other is the result of a very deliberate act.



Located on the beach below the village of Grimaldi, right on the border between Italy and France, at the location known as the Balzi Rossi, or red cliffs, are several caves bearing relics of a Paleolithic settlement. These were discovered, quite by accident, in 1892, and include cave drawings, stone-age tools, and many fossils. Some of the relics are exhibited in the adjacent Museo Nazionale Preistorico. This was established in 1892 by Lord Thomas Hanbury, and is open 8:30am-7:30pm, Tuesday to Sunday.


The deliberate act also involved Lord Hanbury, as well as his brother Daniel who, starting in 1867, created the beautiful (albeit now more-neglected-than-they-ought-to-be) gardens of the Villa Hanbury at La Mortola just outside Ventimiglia. Open daily, June to October from 9:30 to 7pm and the rest of the year from 10am to 5pm, the Giardino Hanbury is worth seeing. Since the early 1980s, it has been managed by the University of Genoa. The botanists there are trying to restore these 18 hectares to something of their former glory from the state of total abandon in which they languished after being taken over by the Italian government in 1960. For more information about this and other historical gardens, please click here.

If, like me, you love books, then you must also love printing and all that goes with it. Here's a place you might care to visit. It's the Museum of Printing in Soncino, a tiny town on the banks of the River Oglio, 10 kilometers northeast of Crema, in Lombardy. The story goes like this. Forced to leave Germany to escape persecution in the late 15th-century, the family of the rabbi Israel Nathan found patronage with the Sforza family, who allowed them to take residence in the town of Soncino, on the edges of the dukedom of Milan. The town was then a lively center of innovation, and so it was that, in 1488, just 28 years after Guthenberg brought movable type to the world's attention, the Nathans printed their first book. Known as the Soncino Bible, this was the first complete printed version of the Old Testament. Ten years on, having printed about thirty works in Soncino itself, the Nathan family – who had since changed their name to Soncino – moved on, setting up printing presses in a number of cities. In Italy, these included Barco, Brescia, Casalmaggiore, Fano, Pesaro, and Naples; but their presence reached Salonico, and Costantinople too. Among their works was the Berlin Bible of 1494. Printed in Brescia, this was a revised version of the Soncino Bible, and was the text used by Martin Luther when he translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into German.

The Museo della Stampa is in the fortress at Soncino and includes incunabula and old printing presses. The address is Via Lanfranco 8, the phone number is 0372-83171.

In closing, don't say I don't bring you news hot off the press. Here's something all you olive oil lovers will want to know if you are planning to eat in some of the leading restaurants of Milan and Rome between June 6 and June 11. Often when we dine out, we are confronted with an anonymous bottle of oil about which it is not possible to know anything. Well, that is going to stop, if the Consorzio DOP Chianti Classico and the Consorzio DOP Terre di Siena have anything to say about it. In participating restaurants on the pertinent dates, diners will be served their very own 100-cl. bottle of oil, duly labeled, quality guaranteed. Taking part in the initial launch of the Centolio initiative in Rome are Sebastiano Allegrini, patron of Al Presidente in Via dell'Arcione; Oscar Di Mauro, of Il Sanpietrino in Piazza Costaguti; Arcangelo Dandini of L'Arcangelo in Via Belli; Fabio Baldassarre of L'Altro Mastai in Via Giraud; and Paolo Cacciani, of the eponymous restaurant in Frascati.

In Milan, we have Pietro Leemann at Joia in Via Panfilo Castaldi and Joia Leggero in Corso di Porta Ticinese; Alfredo Russo and Angelo Cangemi of Don Carlos in the Grand Hotel et de Milan in Via Manzoni; Danilo Angé of Gli Orti di Leonardo in Via Zenale; Claudio Sadler whose place is called Sadler, of course, and is in Via Monte Bianco; as well as Augusto Tombolato of the Casanova Grill in the Westin Palace Hotel in Piazza Repubblica.

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