Paolo’s advice for a good life

We’ve spent the last year improving the nest, getting around to things that we haven’t tackled after being in the house close to six years. One category was getting some large mirrors. When you live in a house that’s somewhere north of 600 or so years old the aesthetic choices about something like a mirror get a bit complex. Do you go in-your-face modern, real old (which is often gilded and simply too much for our simple house), or pseudo old, most of it screaming out every bit of its fakery. At the risk of sounding pathetic, we’d not found the solution since we’d moved in and wanted it solved and to never think about it again.

The next small town over from us has an intriguing store, although it rarely seemed to be open. One dusty window facing the street revealed a long, narrow space piled high on both sides with all sorts of old wood, some frames, and assorted furniture. We’d tried to go a few times, with little success. Sometimes a worker or two would be there but they seemed unable to give details on what was available because the owner, Paolo, wasn’t there.

One day, this lovely woman who seems to specialize in decorative and faux painting, offered to contact Paolo, who was in his office, and have him come to the shop. She called, and about a minute later he appeared. He sorted through the mess, sometimes needing to crawl on top of tottering furniture to get to what was behind, while the woman called out warnings, and finally we had several possible frames. He helped us pile them in the car to take home to try out and although we’d met five minutes earlier he wanted neither deposit, name, or phone number. And we drove off with hundreds of euros worth of frames.

Several of the frames worked, so we returned the following week to buy a couple, return some, and have more made. Once again Paolo had to be called from the office. We discussed what needed to be done and he invited us back to the office for a coffee. We had things to do so declined.

Several back and forths to check on progress all yielded a similar pattern and it was revealed that the office was in fact the cafe just around the corner. We finally took Paolo up on his offer of refreshment at the office, and he shared his philosophy of life to the tune of church bells.

You choose a work you enjoy and is fulfilling—he has worked with wood since he was a child at the side of his father—but you never, ever let it dominate the rest of the mix. Your life always needs to be bigger than your work or you are lost. He works (or more from what I saw his charming and talented employee works) but it is only to support life and to provide funds for enough time “in the office,” a cafe adjacent to the town square, in the shadow of one of the most famous paintings of the Renaissance, Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection, and filled with his friends and enough new people wandering through to keep life interesting.

With that he invited to come visit him at the office whenever we happened to be in the area for a coffee or glass of wine and more conversation. And we have our mirrors at last.

When a goddess descends

In 1963, the most exciting event occurred in our village since Florence smacked down Milan in the big battle of 1440—Claudia Cardinale came to town to shoot the movie La Ragazza di Bube. Her equally gorgeous co-star was George Chakiris, who had just won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his performance as gang leader Bernardo Nunez in West Side Story, but today all the old men seem to remember only Claudia. I have not interviewed the older women on the subject. Claudia’s career was just becoming hot, hot, hot as earlier in 1963 she’d starred in Fellini’s 8½ with Marcello Mastroianni, AND with Burt Lancaster in Visconti’s The Leopard. Both films were critically acclaimed and are often cited by critics and scholars as among the greatest films ever made, so when she hit the village to shoot La Ragazza di Bube it was noticed by the locals—they didn’t even need the Esquire article about her, titled “The Next Goddess of Love,” to help form an opinion. Most Americans know her as from the breakthrough film she did the next year, playing Princess Dala in The Pink Panther, as David Niven’s love interest.

The after effects of this brief event in 1963 are everywhere in the village. The movie poster is lovingly displayed in several of the coffee bars. When John was scouting for a shoot and had a tour of the attic of our local theater, the very spot on the floor, tucked under the eves, where Claudia napped between scenes 50 years earlier was pointed out with awe.

But we were lucky enough to be in the piazza when Claudia returned for a visit in honor of the 50th anniversary of the film. The square was cleared of cars for the occasion and packed with about a hundred people, mainly quite old and male, many of whom I barely recognized as they were all cleaned up and wearing their finest suits. A black car pulled into the piazza and the square became completely silent. Claudia alighted, and was greeted by the mayor, wearing not only his best suit but also his Italian flag sash, only pulled out for very special occasions. Like when he swore me in as an Italian citizen.

One more poster being added before Claudia’s visit.

She walked across the square, chain smoking and now quite stout, was presented with an award, and was whisked off to revisit key sites from the movie followed by a long Tuscan lunch with the local glitterati. But the look on the men’s faces when she crossed the square. I could almost see their youthful passions, possibilities, and obsessions, existing for one important moment intact and alive, a shadow self revealed in the sunlight, as Claudia stood before them. And it was beautiful to behold. Later there was a viewing of the film in our village theater (photo above).

Claudia is still going strong having starred in over 145 movies with stars as diverse as John Wayne, Rita Hayworth, Klaus Kinski, Rock Hudson, Anthony Quinn, and George Segal. In 2020 she was in Netflix’s film Rogue City. Despite a bit of a rocky start to her romantic life, including having a child at 18, she lived with Italian director Pasquale Squitieri for 42 years until his death at 78. She was born in Tunisia to Sicilian parents and is fluent in French, Arabic, Italian, English, and Spanish. She is a passionate advocate for women’s and gay rights. In a 2014 interview she said, “If you want to practice this craft, you have to have inner strength. Otherwise, you’ll lose your idea of who you are. Every film I make entails becoming a different woman. And in front of a camera, no less! But when I’m finished, I’m me again.”

Claudia, here’s to you. Not only from the men of the village, but from me. Never lose the grace of being yourself.

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale and American actor George Chakiris star in Luigi Comencini’s film ‘La Ragazza Di Bube’, also known as ‘Bebo’s Girl’, 1964. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

My own private theater

Descriptions of modern high-end houses often brag about having a private theater where one can gather with friends and watch a movie. Starting in the Renaissance, wealthy Italian home builders also had the desire to share entertainment with their friends, but instead of small screening room they built actual theaters in their houses, sometimes including stages with sets, an orchestra pit, and box seats, so they could host theatrical productions or operas in the comfort of their own homes. Or, uh, palaces. Even our small village of around 6,000 people used to have six different private theaters, and recently I did a walking tour that visited them all.

The most mysterious one of them (pictured above) was one I’d only heard about only once or twice over the ten years we’ve been here. When we were looking for a house to buy a couple of people asked if we’d seen the place for sale with the theater, right in the middle of town. A friend said she was walking around the rundown rooms and she opened a door that she thought was to a closet and BOOM, there she was, in the middle of a private theater. Seemed kind of too good to be true, but we couldn’t find anyone to show it to us and when we finally saw plans of it we reached the same conclusion that friends had—the layout was very difficult to convert into a house. So when I had the chance to see this place on the tour I jumped. It’s on the main floor on a smallish palazzo on the distinctive steep, straight street of town that descends and then crossed the valley in a perfect line. Inaugurated at the beginning of the 18^th century, The Ulivi Stefanelli Palace theater is pretty humble. It was designed for a standing audience and has its backdrops painted into the walls instead of changeable, but the backgrounds are full of perspectives where your gaze loses itself in the search of imaginary places dotted with bizarre and fantastic characters. It has a petite balcony surrounding it where guests could watch from a different angle.

Today, the old palazzo has been divided into flats so the main floor now holds the theater, a couple of other rooms that could be used as bedrooms, a place that could be a kitchen, and a back garden. (Apparently the floor above is also for sale which could make it much more liveable.) And yes, it is for sale if your home owning dreams include your own spettacolo.

This desire to see a mysterious piece of real estate in the village made me curious about theaters in Italy. Turns out that Italians invented theaters as we know them, as well as some of the widely-credited art forms that are still performed in them, like opera and the Commedia dell’arte.

Theaters started to boom in Italy during the Renaissance as the passion for perspective that was taking over painting naturally extended to backdrops for performances, setting the stage (OK, I will stop) for a flood of innovation as they brought their theories into this three-dimensional space.

The first permanent modern interior theater, the Teatro Olimpico, was designed by Palladio and is still in existence in Vicenza, near Venice. Opened in 1585, the theater has an elliptical shape with tiered seats so everyone could see and hear well. The design was a reflection of Palladio’s love of Roman antiquities.

The scenery could not be changed, but the set incorporated the latest thinking about perspective and vanishing points, emphasized by a tilted floor to force perspective. Every seat was aligned to marvel at one of these views.

The demand for spectacle drove even more innovation and in 1618 the Teatro Farnese was designed in Parma and had the world’s first proscenium, creating a window around the action, the standard in most theaters today, and it also allowed for scene changes. First used in 1628, it hosted about everything you’d want to share with the 3,000 people you’d invited over for pizza and a beer: drama, opera, and ballet were performed on the stage; equestrian acts and sumptuous balls were held in the large arena between stage and seating—this area could also be flooded to a depth of two feet and used for mock naval battles; and, when not floating little boats, hosted court ceremonies and princely extravaganzas.

Competition heated up across Italy and noble families were quick to put the artists they had on the payroll, including Michelangelo and Da Vinci, to design costumes, scenery, and stage machinery for their private events between the big assignments, like the Sistine Chapel.

The ultimate piece of scene change high tech, the chariot and pole system, hit in 1641. Giacomo Torelli designed a set of slots in the stage floor to set backdrops into that were connected to a set of understage “chariots” on casters to roll them back and forth, all engineered with winches, pulleys and ropes so that scenes could be changed with a single winch. This clever bit of engineering quickly spread all over Europe and was the standard until the end of the 1890s. This technology was more than just pretty—it allowed for the use of specific scenes rather than a general static backdrop—plays could now be written about much more specific places and situations.

Back to the village, in addition to the small gem I talked about at the open, the theater craze hit hard and six theaters were built over the years. According to the director of our local theater, Andrea Merendelli, in 1631 Italy was in the throes of yet another round of the plague, which had killed 10,000 in Florence out of a population of 75,000, and one out of four people in Milan. At that time wooden blockades were put up at the village gates to check health passes that travelers carried to prove they had not been to plague-ridden towns, and to keep anyone suspect out. On February 17, local records show, not only were a troupe of performers admitted to town to put on plays but the wooden planks forming some of the blockades were repurposed to extend a stage. Merendelli assumes that they must have been a well-known troupe for this exception to be made—actors were beginning to be stars during this period and often cannons were shot off to announce their arrival in larger towns.

The main theater in the village is well-used and loved to this day. We’ve been many times to events ranging from a Pink Floyd tribute band (Pink Floyd is huge here) to school plays, to film screenings, to all sorts of performances.

Lola loves evenings at the theater.

Sebastian’s fifth-grade play packed them in.

Built in 1789 as a part of a grand compound that included a palazzo, a private chapel, and a garden leading to the private theater, the grandness has gone—the garden is now a parking lot and a road through town—but the theater remains as an historical setting for a vibrantly alive local events.

The other four theaters in town did not fare as well. One burned, two were broken up and converted into unrecognizable civic offices. One tiny piazza still hosts events, now mainly musical, as it has since the 1500s. A tunnel leads in from one side in which, during the Renaissance, a large machine was placed to produce an echo.

I had so much fun uncovering all of this and realizing how much the Italian love of spectacle and beautiful spaces, that has been a constant through the centuries, adds to life daily life. I wonder when they were creating these spaces if it ever crossed their minds that villagers would be enjoying them, and making them their own, hundreds of years later. Somehow it seems unlikely that will be the case for most of what we are building today.

The three diviners

Ten years ago our friends needed a new well. Their contractor suggested using a scientific approach to the question of where the well should be placed: have three different diviners come out at different times and if there was a common location that all three selected then that would be the spot to drill. To be as scientifically rigorous as possible the contractor suggested using diviners with different techniques. Although the techniques differed the diviners were remarkably similar: old, very short, Tuscan men.

The first diviner to visit our friends brandished a forked wooden divining rod. I am not sure if this was the same old, very short, Tuscan man who our contractor had brought in for a consultation about our water situation about five years ago. According to our builder he is famous all over the area. He appeared to be such at the top of his profession that he had an assistant carry the divining rod until he needed it. Maybe the assistant dropped the stick, or this was a different famous rod-using-diviner, but our friends’ expert appeared alone. He wandered all over their hilly four acres until he was satisfied that he had found three spots that he was certain contained water. These were subtly marked.

The second diviner came a week later. He was not a fan of the stick method and instead deployed a heavy washer suspended from a string which he proceeded to swing in a circle as he walked. He covered the acres as well and ultimately declared that he had found three spots which were carefully and unobtrusively marked. One of his spots was very near one from the first diviner.

My friends waited impatiently for what the third diviner would discover. He arrived a week later, introduced himself, and then turned away from my friends and appeared from the back to be fiddling with his pants. He turned back around while zipping up his fly and had a meter-long piece of metal wire emerging from the front of his trousers. He walked around the property, swinging the metal wire which preceded him, until he arrived at a spot and declared that he didn’t need to look further. This was the place where the water was. He knew because the wire was connected his “most valuable and sensitive pair” and he pointed to the wire and to the valuable and sensitive pair. Remarkably the spot he identified was very close to the position that the other two diviners had found.

Thus the well placement was scientifically determined and the task of drilling commenced. Water was struck and our friends have never had a problem with supply since.

The Signora of the grass

Old men stand in small groups on the street by our house to watch me mow. Being men, I am certain they have strong opinions about what I am doing. As Italian men I am even more certain none of them agree, except that I am doing it wrong. People are often referred to by their eccentricities and I am sure I have earned a nickname like La Signora dell’erbe.

That I’ve started doing the mowing doesn’t sound momentous, but when you have over ten acres and are watched by hundreds of eyes from the village it quickly gets overwhelming, especially in spring when it feels like you can see the grass grow. I pickup up this, eh hobby, because John has been having some problems with his back and the experts all agree that mowing is not helpful. When he was doing it I would often be stopped in the square, sometimes by people I don’t know, who would offer their complimenti to my husband about his mowing which is why I know the state of our grass is of interest in a town where not a lot happens.

I first make straight, careful rows but as I start to navigate around all the trees my mowing paths begin to look like cooked spaghetti. I am sure there are best practices about this—how to mow around a bunch of olive trees without sacrificing one’s precise pattern. If it involves stopping the blade, I’m not interested. I think that’s cheating, like lifting your pencil on one of those puzzles where you are supposed to create a design without lifting your pencil.

My partner in all things mowing is the magnificent Grillo Climber. Grillo means cricket in Italian and my bright green mowing marvel can navigate almost any hill. There are a couple of slopes that need to be mowed parallel that do worry me in case of tipping over, which might mean death.  John tells me that the Grillo doesn’t have a problem with these slopes, except for one dangerous part which I will know when I get there. I think he knows that I have just renewed our life insurance policies.

There are always tall weeds and grass that are too close to each tree to cut and make my end product look sloppy. There is time to daydream while mowing and I think of strapping young men bearing weed wackers showing up to whack my weeds. And I do not mean this metaphorically. (I refuse to go British and use their term, strimmer. Weed whacker has that in your face American directness that I love.)

Before my new side-gig in lawn maintenance I never thought much about decapitation. Rarely comes up when pitching a client. Now, the brim of the hat I choose when I mow becomes important—not too large to block seeing the low tree limbs. I comfort myself in the news that Cate Blanchett recently had a small chainsaw accident (she’s fine…). If Cate can wield a chainsaw Nancy can dominate cutting the grass.

I’ve been at this for six months and so far the tally has been: John’s carefully laid out drip irrigation for the baby trees, ripped up. A family of hare, saved. The battle between a metal stake, the mower, and my finger, finger lost the small fight, but it’s healing well and wasn’t too bad. A field of chest-high wild blackberries (the dreaded rovi), gone.

Maybe next I will try the chainsaw.