Anghiari si racconta

I was born in Sansepolcro in 1983. Although I grew up and went to school in Sansepolcro, I don’t have a sense of belonging to that town. Rather, I have always felt very connected to Pieve Santo Stefano, from where both my parents came. I’ve gone back to live there on and off between travels, particularly to be close to my grandma who is a very important person in my life. However, it was when I came to Anghiari, after many years abroad, that I thought ‘this is the place’. I am in love with this town, I am really in love with this town.

I left Sansepolcro when I went to university, and I never went back. I moved from Rome to Abruzzo, where I worked as a fashion designer, and then to Sydney, for personal reasons. Although I had a degree in fashion designing, with my visa, I couldn’t do that work while I was living in Sydney. However, while I was learning English there, I was lucky enough to come across this marketing world. It was early days in digital marketing and I was very excited about it. So, I decided to switch careers. When I came back to Europe in 2011, I won a scholarship to study marketing. Then I travelled a bit – in Central America, Europe, everywhere I found interesting communities. I was a sort of digital nomad. Then I met Tomi, my husband.

It was 2015, and I was going to a big expo work thing in London, and I needed to stay near the venue because there was a big strike on. Tomi had a room on Airbnb – not for money but to meet people… he was very busy, and it was a way to meet travellers. Well, we met, and it was like straight away we sort of….

At that time, I was setting up a company in collaboration with a psychologist, Martina Faralli. Recognising the importance of understanding the people you are trying to reach, I had become interested in the concept of communities. I was interviewing ‘tribes’ around the world, and meeting with sociologists, ethnographers. Tomi works in the field of AI, so he contributed the tech part of the project – it all came together in the right way – I was lucky. Now, the company couples AI and social scientists and we call it ‘hybrid intelligence’, the digital ethnographer. It’s very much an international project: Martina is always working on it – she lives in Tuscany, but works worldwide. Different academics collaborate with us on a project basis – for example, when I did a project in Spain and France, I hired local people …that is important.

Having travelled across the world, I have never seen a town of the dimension of Anghiari where there is so much culture – we are so spoilt by the beauty, the culture. Where do you find the genius of someone like Andrea Merendelli putting on theatre seasons of all kinds of sophisticated stuff? Then there’s the incredible work done by Gabriele Mazzi in the museo della Battaglia di Anghiari, bringing history back to life – combined a very respectful vision of the past and incredibly modern contemporary approach. I could name lots more people like this – they make me feel…well, ok it is very small scale but maybe I am a little town girl. I just find it very impressive.

I have also never seen any town as small as this that is so welcoming. I know British people, Americans, Australians that come here and come back and bring their friends because they have found this amazing gem that is not fake. People are welcoming, and they are themselves.

The fact there are so many piazzas, so many little corners, makes a big difference – people bump into each other, it isn’t planned, we don’t text each other. You stop, you have, sometimes even a deep conversation, and always funny – that is the Tuscan way. Even up there in the little piazza outside the church, La Badia, Tomi will stop and talk with the residents for 45 minutes. This is a gift – it keeps us alive. Yes, there is the food and the air, but this is what keeps me …. I have to stop and talk with these people who are very different from me … so I love it.

We started renting a place in Anghiari, in Propositura, in 2018. After London, the slower pace and cheaper lifestyle, gave us time to think about how we wanted to live. We thought we could do half and half between Anghiari and some big place where Tomi could feel more international vibes… he also likes a faster pace. Ruby was born in 2020, we travelled on and off, and then came back again. It was still Covid time, and we started looking at houses, as a sort of hobby, and then we came across this amazing house. We fell in love with it – we could see all the potential. Initially, we thought this would be our second house, with our primary residence in London. But, it might end up the other way around.

We began the restoration process on this house in October 2022, gathering quotes, getting approvals and so on. There are quite strict regulations for renovating houses here – you can’t change the façade, and you can’t make changes inside either without approval. For example, if you have a huge beam which is in a critical state, it has to be assessed, and the materials used to repair it have to be approved. The hardest job was the floors – in places there were 16 cm of stones and rubbish, and these days floors have to be made structurally safe in case of earthquakes. My dad helped find tradespeople, who have been excellent, and, with our help, he restored the beams. (He and my mum now live in the countryside outside Anghiari.)

After Covid, people, particularly Millennials, are reevaluating their lifestyles, and there is definitely a trend towards people going back to the countryside, and some are coming to Anghiari. There is the possibility to create things at a slower pace here which means a lot for a lot of people who are working in strategy, in creativity or researchers. And, you know, Anghiari is a big castle, it is safe – I can walk at night in the dark without feeling stressed about it. There is a big potential for this town because things happen here – music, theatre – and people are extremely welcoming, and they look after each other. And there are the flowers – things look beautiful, not just because of the Comune, but because of the gardens like Fiammetta’s and the flowers on every doorstep.