Anghiari si racconta

My story is a peculiar one – my family doesn’t come from Anghiari… Anyway, I was born in a little town, in the province of Siena, called Buonconvento, an interesting town, ancient, where an excellent wine is produced – we are close to Montalcino, the Brunello area. My father was a daziere, an excise duty collector. In 1969 he was promoted and became a director, and he came to run the branch located right here, in Anghiari. So, when I was 9 years old all my family moved here – my mum, my dad, my sister and me.

And it was a shock. Because here, it was very different. Here, in 1969, it was totally different. The people: the people here, they are mountain people. The roads: it was very difficult to get here – there was only one road, the Libbia, build by Napoleon. But above all, what I remember from when we arrived here was my mum – well, she was very beautiful, she wore high heels, and Siena, Buonconvento, it was all flat land, but, when she arrived here, she couldn’t wear high heels in these streets.

And, people didn’t leave the keys on the door here, while in Siena, the keys were left on the door, and anyone could enter… there were no dangers. Here, people were more suspicious, a bit more closed. And also, poorer here… because, in comparison to the Siena province, where there is wheat, wine….this is a mountainous land and so….

We lived, for the first month, in a hotel, here at the Meridiana, so beautiful! Then, in those times, as I remember, there was nothing there, in the theatre piazza; there was just the theatre and this big merry-go-round with horses. There were very few cars in town then – the road that goes down the hill was still unpaved.

I felt different from the people here, like a migrant. From Siena – 100 km away! A migrant! First of all, people spoke in a different way. In Siena they don’t sound the “c”, and in Siena pure Italian is spoken. Here they spoke in dialect. So, the language was a bit peculiar. Then, I went to school where I was the director’s daughter. There was this class difference.

The school was right there, above the Meridiana – there’s the theatre, and that tiny alley past it up to the elementary school. Anyway, I immediately felt at home, really, because I have a very open personality. I made friends immediately, and, because I was chatty, they always kept me at the back of the class, or the teacher threw me out of the class! The teacher was excellent by the way, a teacher who was also an important poet. The school was good, it was just the environment that was a bit foreign.

But my dad was welcomed immediately. So much so that, a few years later, he became the mayor, and he was the mayor here for 17 years. When he arrived here, he was a communist party leader and it was a crazy thing, he was a government employee, a director, and a communist! His office was right here, in front of the restaurant. That’s why I wanted this place, because it reminds me all the time of my childhood, because my father was there, across the road. At one point they asked him to go back to Siena, but me and my sister didn’t want to leave anymore. We grew up here, we went to school, we had our first boyfriends. And my mum also loved this town, these people. Now this is our hometown.

Slowly, but beautifully, we made friends – always with respect, with affection. Then, precisely because my dad was in politics and he knew everybody, we visited people’s houses, in the country. Everyone knew us. Then in 1980, when he retired, he opened a patisserie, for us his daughters, and we worked there for many years. He retired very young, at 42, because the state had given him the opportunity to do so. Now he is 80, and so he has had a really good life. After the patisserie, we opened a restaurant – my dad and my mum and me, in Toppole. Do you know Toppole? In the country? We had that restaurant for 5 years, yes, yes. And, actually, now my dad has a restaurant there again, open during summer.

I have always had a passion for cooking. I studied accounting, ragioneria, but I never liked it. My auntie, my father’s sister, had restaurants in Montecatini, my grandma was a great cook, she was a cook in the country, in a big farmhouse, and so there is this thing about cooking for us as a family. For me cooking has also always been a way to be with, to understand, people. A way to understand people’s souls, and also a way to care, to love… do you understand how it is? It’s not for the money, I swear, I could have had jobs where I could have earned much more money, and had less hard work.

I have friends, people who over the years have become friends, who come here, and they maybe don’t have much money but they eat here and they bring me vegetables, for example. Or they play for me. A nice guy who has some financial problems who is a flute player plays from time to time, for example, at the evenings we have. You have to understand why I always wanted to have a restaurant. I have always wanted people to feel as if they were in my home, and that you have come into my living room, salotto. Because I have a small house, I can’t have people over …And, then, there are my daughters. They go travelling the world? Well, I want to do something that keeps them here, because I am alone, my husband was…

I’ve been married twice. My first husband was a school sweetheart, and that didn’t last long, but we maintained a good relationship. And then, in 1987 I went to Russia, because I am very short-sighted and there was a famous professor there, and I had surgery for this myopia. And there I met my husband, my former husband. He was very charming, intelligent, and he listened to classical music. He is an electronic engineer, and I met him while he was installing this MRI machine in this hospital. We married and moved to Korea, to Seoul where he lived.

I liked Korea. I opened a restaurant, yes, a pizzeria in the university quarter, in Seoul. And I taught Italian to students; I did this for 2 years, and do you know what I taught? I taught librettos to opera students – La Traviata, Rigoletto….

Then, around ’91-92 I started to have big problems with my husband. I was also pregnant with my first daughter so I wanted to persevere. But I wanted to come back to Italy for the birth because I was scared, and because I had the impression that in Korea women were not yet equal to men. So, I came back here. I gave birth here, and then he came to Italy, and found a job at Samsung in Milan. We stayed for 4 years in Milan, and it was a mess, always problems. I fell pregnant with the other daughter, and then we came here because he found a job in Florence. Then we separated because it wasn’t possible anymore. Now he lives in Germany.

After we separated, I continued to take the girls to see him, in various places around the world, and to their grandma, in Korea. I tried to maintain the relationship with the family…All the travelling was difficult, but I thought it was the right thing to do, but I am not sure now, because he doesn’t have a good relationship with them.…They are grown up, they are not babies anymore, and they are more distant from their father. I am sad about it, but I can’t do anything because they are adults and they will make their own choices.

Going back to my life, I have always felt connected with this place. I left, but I always came back. First of all, for my parents… And there is something special about this town. You know sometimes, when I was down, very down, when I felt alone, I used to get up at night, even at 2-3 am at night, and I could go to a bar and talk with someone, easily, then I would go back to bed. And I felt well. Sometimes it is true that when you go into the piazza it is like being at home, because you know everyone. There is a relationship, I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel very connected to the walls, the roads, the stones, the countryside, because I grew up here, and, in conclusion, I am happy (mi trovo bene).

I still have friends here from when I was a kid; some friends have left but many are still here. And I sang for many years in a choir, so those are friendships going back to when I was 15. As I told you, I am the kind of person who works all the time, and it is these old friends who come here, to visit me. That is why this feels more like a salotto, a living room, than a restaurant.

I’ve always liked the idea of doing a kind of a salon, where one can read a book, listen to good music and talk. So, we organise events here. Musical events, for example. Throughout the summer there is music. My daughters are into music, and they have an association which brings musicians here. In summer we have this loggia, outside here, where music is played, all sorts of music. So, we are happy, it’s a very peaceful life (molto tranquilla).

There is a sense of culture here, with the Free University of Autobiography, the library, orchestras that come regularly, the choir, the music school… It has changed a lot since I arrived – it’s much more open. I must say that a lot of this is thanks to my father’s work. Also, for example, to Beppe Dini, who has done a lot for this town. Because, first of all, he was someone who could speak English when they didn’t even speak Italian here, and then he brought many people from outside, Canadians, Australians…this is extremely important. When I arrived here, there wasn’t one foreigner, there wasn’t one, now it has an international feel…Big names of Italian culture, world culture, come here.

In 1977, when my dad was Mayor, he met an important journalist who was with L’Europeo. He had come here to visit another journalist friend who had a house in Monterchi, and he fell in love with the place. At the time, I was a waitress at Sorci Castle, and this journalist asked me: ‘Excuse me, do you know who is the mayor here’ ‘I know because he is my dad’, and it was a funny thing! And then I introduced him to my dad, and he said: ‘But this is a wonderful town, we must do something here, something cultural that remains’, and so he founded a prize. And this prize has, for years, brought people of the highest level to Anghiari. Beppe Dini, for example, organized a concert with the biggest jazz players of the time from Canada.

And so, it was like throwing a seed in the ground, that slowly slowly grew. People got together and continued on this path and many activities have grown. Anghiari, for example, is now full of associations doing different things, from a cultural point of view. Do you know Pietro Calli? He is the president of the Pro Loco. This is an important association that organizes different events in town, and people here participate a lot, everyone makes their contribution. I must say that, in this sense, life is good here. There is … how can I say it? A sense of belonging. There is this sense of belonging.

There is an atmosphere here really like a family, isn’t there? And this is beautiful. For example, if you go to the historical centre, in the narrow alleys, everyone cleans the street as if it were their house – if you look on the ground, there isn’t anything. In summer, everybody puts out flowers, there is a care also for the streets as if they belong to everyone. Each of us… and I see my mum there, outside, she puts out all those flowers. And this is important, this is, in my view, the sense of belonging to this community.

There is a problem for young people here, certainly. It’s because of the economic situation that has worsened over the years. Many factories in the area have closed down – shoe, shirt manufacturers, for example. The artisan activities, that were in the town itself, went into decline at the beginning of the ’90s. For example, the antique furniture trade had been very important in Anghiari in the ’60s. And Anghiari was well-known for furniture restoration and woodworking.

In my opinion, the answer to the economic problems here is tourism – art, culture and beauty, but I don’t know if politicians and our administrators understand this. For example, I think that there is a total lack of infrastructure; there is a lack of hotels, a lack of rooms, professional staff.

If you think about it, here, we have some of the best paintings in the world, because here we have ‘The Resurrection’ by Piero della Francesca. You know the story of this painting?  It saved Sansepolcro in ’45, because, when the English were going to bomb the town, a soldier remembered what Aldous Huxley had said about it: ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’! When people come here, from America, for example, they know this story!

And if tourism was developed, the artisan sector in Anghiari would also be revived – the furniture making and woodworking and inlaying.

I like tourists very much. Above all, they are different from me and so I can learn. … And I have daughters who are foreigners in a way … . We are all foreigners (stranieri), we are all foreigners, because we are all …we are all mixed and this is really beautiful.

Here people haven’t travelled much, but young people are starting to now.  It’s important to see the world… and to come back! I tell you, I saw it myself, the effect the experience had on me: if I hadn’t travelled I am certain I wouldn’t be like this; I would be a donnetta who stays here, yes, who…. But travelling opens the mind, to know other people opens the mind. Because…because the world doesn’t end in Anghiari. So, it is important to travel, to look around, to get to know each other, to appreciate the other. To be open towards others.