A Child's View of Assisi

Children have a particular perspective and experience of Assisi.  Each time I come with children I discover something new and amazing!  Follow along seeing this beloved place through a child’s eyes.

First is the story of St. Francis, the patron saint of Italy, best told walking down the path at San Damiano beside the bronze statue of this humble saint gazing across the Valle Umbra.

The birds are singing in the branches of the olive groves lining the path and we arrive at the little Chapel of San Damiano, that Francis rebuilt with his own hands.  It is just exactly like in his life.

We explore the courtyard surrounding the convent where Francis' beloved friend, Clare spent her cloistered life.

We climb the very small stone steps worn smooth by millions of visitors to see Saint Clare’s tiny garden and the room where she slept with her sisters on bare straw mats and wonder what it would be like to live inside for our whole life like they did.

Next, we go almost up to the top of Mount Subasio, winding our way up the steep mountain road, to Eremo dei Carceri, perched beside a chasm, where Francis loved to sleep on a rock buried deep within a grotto.  The monastery has tiny stairs and doorways just our size!

Walking in the footsteps of St. Francis along the forest path we children delight in watching for small animals darting about in the branches above and crevices of the stone wall.

We wander the paths and see where Francis preached to the animals in a forest amphitheater now filled with offering of handmade crosses.

We all want to make their own little offering out of small twigs tied together with grass.

We stop to savor the quiet tranquillity of this place and read Francis’ lyrical poem “Canticle to the Creatures”, his celebration of the natural world and all its creatures. We really are walking in the footsteps of this saint.

Now, it will be time for a gelato, so into Assisi, passing shops filled with toys! How many Pinocchio puppets can you count?

Oh, and just take a look at all these pastries, giant meringues and candy!  But we just had a gelato.

Now we can climb on the fountain at the Piazza del Comune and visit Roman Minerva’s Temple.

Just how old is this temple? Try more than two thousand years!

Along the way to the Basilica we might hear a woodworker singing opera and we can watch him carve a big window frame with intricate flowers and birds of wood.

The woodcarver tells us that he learned how to do this when he was just our age from his grandfather!

After all those stairs to see where Francis was buried deep within the Basicilia where no one could find him for many years, it must be time for a playground before we go home!

What a great day this has been in Assisi! 

 

Umbria: Terre dei Santi, Land of the Saints

Most people know of Umbria as the “Green Heart of Italy”, but it is also called the “Terre dei Santi”, Land of the Saints, with the highest number of saints in all of Italy.

Something about the verdant hills and the soft light that emanates throughout this region inspired these holy folk to follow a path of mysticism and service.

The earliest, S. Benedetto was born in Norcia in 480. He founded western monasticism with the Benedict Order, after living for years in solitude in a cave.  He is the patron saint of Europe; his twin sister, S. Scolastica dedicated her life to God as a child and is the patron saint of nuns.

 We find another pair in Assisi, the most venerated religious figure in history, the patron saint of Italy, S. Francesco, who with his beloved friend, S. Chiara, founded the Orders of Franciscans and Poor Clares in 1210.

S. Chiara lived a cloistered life with forty sisters in the Convent of San Damiano, that S. Francis built for her order, for 35 years below the city of Assisi.  A visitor marvels at the perfectly preserved quarters of sisters who slept on meager straw pallets together in one room. The place where she died so many hundreds of years ago is in the corner with a cross and bouquet of flowers.  What would it have been like not to leave San Damiano for so many years and have only a small garden to tend?

Also spiritually evocative is the little known, but powerful holy place, the Celle di Cortona where St. Francis lived for months in solitude sleeping on a wooden bench listening to the cascading waterfall below his small window.

San Damiano in Assisi and Celle di Cortona just outside Cortona are two of many uniquely preserved and richly satisfying places for visitors following the trail of the Saints of Umbria. 

The Welcoming Genti of Piegaro Welcome Commerce!

My village of Piegaro has a rich history and as I live here year after year, it is revealed to me through layers and layers of stories shared by my neighbors and friends.  Our own L'Antica Vetreria played one of the most important roles in Piegaro's history, the establishment of the glass making industry that has thrived for the most part for over 750 years and is still producing commercial glass in the new cooperative.  But let's back up to 840 A.D. when the lowest area of our property was the most important defensive tower and rooms within the ancient wall overlooking the valley below. 

In1292, a famous decree went out in Venice that all the glass artisans would have to pack up their ovens and locate on the island of Murano, where they are today.  Little did they know that under penalty of death, they could never leave the island, for Venice wished to have a monopoly on the emerging wealth coming from commissions of chandeliers and stained glass windows of huge villas and churches in Italy and Europe.  Two glass masters managed, with the help of Benedictine friars, to escape and landed in Piegaro.  Spotting the immense forest for fuel for their ovens and the presence of fine sand in the Nestore River, they settled within our defensive rooms and made two glass ovens.

As the history books state, "Sensing an opportunity for commerce the people of Piegaro welcomed the glass masters with open arms." The glass maestri became so famous throughout Italy that the architect, Maitani, asked them to create the intricate and elaborate mosiacs in 1312 that cover the facade of the Duomo in Orvieto. 

In the 15th century they built up three levels with glass ovens below and a large factory floor and dormitory above.  In the centuries following Piegaro began to have a warren of smaller glass factories and in the 18th century a large factory was opened

that is now a museum to the history of glassmaking, Museo del Vetro.  One can now visit the Museo and see how glass was made from the 18th through the 19th, when mechanical steam equipment was

    

used to the time in 1960 when the glass oven was turned off and the new factory was opened simultaneously with a puff of smoke rising from their new chimney.  Today, this factory is a beehive of activity 24 hours a day, the largest in Europe producing over 3 million, yes 3 million bottles of every kind a day.  From wine to spice to water bottles and all the Martini Rossi bottles in the world are made at the Vetreria Coopertiva Piegarese.

From 1292 when two escaping glass masters settled in our ancient property to today, the men of Piegaro are proud to carry on a thriving legacy.  More about the women's contribution another time.

Tom and I are also proud to preserve an important piece of this history in our L'Antica Vetreria when we turned a derelict abandoned 15th century factory into a luxurious Villa for guests to enjoy!

We came full circle in 2004 when we were welcomed with open arms by the new mayor and the cultural committee of Piegaro.....for "sensing and opportunity for commerce....".  Today all the villagers greet our guests with a warm Umbrian welcome each day coming and going in the piazza!

L'Antica Vetreria sits atop a mountain of glass from 750 years of glassmaking and many of our guests love to dig for ancient souvenirs. 

A Protected Piece of Paradise for 2,200 Years.

Millenia ago, the Etruscan clan of Vibis lived on the top of Monte Vibiano, where my friends, the Count Lorenzo Fasola-Bologna and his wife, MaryAm, live in the Castello Monte Vibiano Vecchio now perched above Mercatello, Umbria. 

 









In June, 217 B.C., the lady Vubia saw her two young sons conscripted by passing Roman Legions to fight the powerful Carthaginian general Hannibal. Praying in her vineyard to Bacchus to deliver her boys safely home, she heard devastating news that Hannibal had annihilated 15,000 Romans in the great battle at nearby Lago Trasimeno.  After her boys came safely home, she dedicated this vineyard to Bacchus and built a stone wall with a strong gate.

Today, you can sit on 2,200 year old steps and savor Vubia’s view, a serene paradise of vineyards and olive groves extending for thousands of hectares in the purest air imaginable; now the only carbon-neutral producer of organic and hand-picked grapes and olives in the world because of Lorenzo's vision of a "360 Degree Green Revolution".  Powered by big solar panels, the farm and cantina is completely solar energy and all the farm equipment is either electric or bio-diesel. Even the workers are given electric bikes to comute to work from home. 

The Count Lorenzo Fasola-Bologna welcomes everyone to his family’s protected “Vigna Lorenzo” each day of the week when you arrive for the complimentary “Eco-Tour”

riding right into the vineyard in electric jeeps just like MaryAm and Tom beside Vubia's fence and gate.  Then Lorenzo will explain exactly how the cherished olives are grown and harvested by hand each year, for no machinery is ever used in the picking of grapes or olives. 

Then through the vineyard back down to the Cantina located in the valley below the Castello we go to learn about the organic winemaking in his specially designed solar energy Cantina with double roof which is the same temperature in winter cold and summer heat.

Lorenzo and MaryAm created a special treat for our guests to enjoy a free tasting on their beautiful wine terrace surrounded by vines and sunflowers. Lorenzo loves to explain the unique qualities of their cold-pressed olive oil when the olives are picked, pressed, bottled and then frozen in milleliter bottles. 

 Then we get to try the olive oil poured over freshly toasted brushetta with a little salt and pepper.

Our guests at L'Antica Vetreria love the tour and tasting that we give them each Sunday morning.

The purity of their four superb wines with olive oil is truly divine.  Bacchus would be proud of Vubia for protecting his vines and of Lorenzo's passionate dream to continue to protect the purity of his vineyards and groves with his “360 Degree Green Revolution”.  Four years ago, Lorenzo and MaryAm created this tour and tasting for the guests of L'Antica Vetreria, but now the Cantina is open every day of the week to the public and the tour and tasting will always be free.

I feel remarkably blessed each week to visit my friends at the Cantina who are so passionate about their work and love sharing it with guests.

I am so passionate about Vubia's vineyard that when Lorenzo invited me to own a vine, I did not hesitate and now I visit my vine number 13, the luckiest number in Italy. When I sit on Vubia's 2,200 year old stone steps I know that I am in paradise.

From early April when the leaves are just a few and the tiny grapes are no larger than a seed through the summer to the vendemmia harvest in early October, I visit my vine each week and shower it with love and care.  In 2014 we will enjoy the first vintage of Vigna Lorenzo, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon.

http://www.montevibiano.it/en/