Anghiari si racconta

I was born on the 31st December 1955 in Anghiari, where I also went to school up to Year 12. I have done many jobs, including, for many years, working at Soldini, the shoe factory that was a big employer here before there was the fire that destroyed everything.

My grandparents, Angelo Piccini and Dina Cambiotti had five children, one of whom was my father. My grandmother died young, perhaps due to her hard life. When my parents married they lived in the same house … the other brothers were older and had moved out. I was born there, then my brother. I got married and separated after almost ten years. I have two older children, Rita, 47, and a boy, Andrea, 41. Lisa, 25, was born later because I had met someone else. Lisa lives here with me. Rita now lives nearby with my mother; Andrea lives near Perugia with his family.

When I separated, I went to work as a live-in helper for a family in Milan for six years. I moved there because there were many problems with my ex-husband. I would have liked to take my children but it wasn’t possible because he opposed it. When I came back from Milan, I met Lisa’s father, and she was born a little later. I was living in this house where I was born, which I managed to buy – it belonged to one of my aunts. Slowly, slowly, I have fixed it.

We live in the historical centre, near the famous gate of Sant’Angelo, and then there are the walls that surround the village – it is the ancient part of Anghiari and it is very beautiful. When we were young, there was a community, lots of people, lots of kids – every family had four, five kids, and we all played in the streets, with balls and many other games. Back then, we were all united, together. Houses were full of families. In our house there was a kitchen-living room; my father divided the space, to make more bedrooms. My grandparents had a bedroom and my parents had a smaller one, which is Lisa’s now, and that was all. There wasn’t even a bathroom. Slowly, slowly … all these years later…. I like the garden in front of the house, I have always cared for it, I love flowers.

There used to be other women living in houses near the wall who had flowers in the garden. Now they are dead, and their houses are empty, like those at the bottom of the street, near the fountain. We are unhappy about this and would like the town to be repopulated with families and children. As old people have died, and youngsters have got married and moved to other houses, often on the outskirts of Anghiari, the houses have become empty. Some young people, like Lisa, move away to study, but others stay in the surrounding area, outside the old centre walls, because, with children, it is easier with a car. But not for people like me – those of us who love the village where we were born, we will never leave.

I feel good here – my house is always full of sun, it faces east … when I get up in the morning, I open the window and, in that moment when the sun rises, I see the whole valley – I always take photos, and there are my flowers on the windowsill. Visitors walk past, they ask me lots of things, about the flowers, for example, and ‘What is this village like?’ ‘Do people live well here?’ ‘Very well!’ Of course, I say that because I was born here, but also foreigners say that life is really good here. They say it when they come inside my flat, tourists, also foreigners – one day a guide arrived with women from South America, I invited them in, they looked around and asked me: ‘Do you want to sell it?’ ‘Absolutely not!’ They liked it immensely.

Also, I have antique pieces of furniture that belonged to the family, which I like a lot because they are the history of the house, of our lives, of Italy. The furniture and the house are a part of me, they are my roots. And they carry the whole family history because, after my father’s premature death, and then that of his brother, he also was 59, and then the two daughters… they all died too young…

My mother lives in what was one of the earliest buildings in Anghiari. It was a monastery, above the church of La Badia, and all the houses were connected, part of the monastery. It feels far away because it is all uphill… when I go up every day it is all up, but not far really. Eugenio, who lives next door to me, in what was his family home, knows the history of all the places around here – the monasteries of the Camaldolesi, Francesco of Assisi and so on. He told me, for example, that Cantabria was so-named because the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, stayed there when he was in-hiding.

There were many artisans here, many. I knew them … one who repaired shoes, for example. Some lived here and had a small shop a bit further away, others lived and worked in the same house. Some of the ladies did sewing and they sewed all their own clothes; my grandmother and her daughters embroidered, and my grandmother made felt shoes. Eugenio’s mother, who died three years ago, was a very good embroiderer, working from home because she had four children. I have some of her beautiful embroideries. My mother would sit on the front steps, talking with neighbours while she sewed. Young people think it is a hard job now, even to sew on a button. I fix all my things, it gives me great pleasure, most of all bobbing lace.

I am really happy that young people have bought that house across the street. Nobody has lived there for so long. Tomi, Alessia and their baby, Ruby, will be there now. Alessia is very kind, she always says ‘hello’ when she walks past: ‘How is your house? All ok?’ Here we walk out of our house, we greet each other, and if you need anything you just ask.

Having another family here with children makes me very happy. I would like at least a hundred families here, in the historical centre, not in the new houses. There are lots of old houses in Anghiari but people think they are not comfortable. That’s not true – if you start to live in them, you find that they are better than the modern ones with very thin walls. Here, the walls are thick, and the houses have a history they recount to you when you live in them … you can change them a bit, restore them, but they are full of history. The new ones might have a regular square shape, but there is nothing else. Your story will be there in one hundred years, but here there is already a history, part of the whole village.

The house is called ‘the house of the wild chestnut’ because there was once a very tall chestnut tree there, but it got cut down. I was a child, I remember it. The garden always seemed so big to me. There was also an enormous persimmon tree. Because the house was empty so much of the time, we asked the owner for permission to pick up the persimmons rather than leaving them to waste. They are excellent! Finally, there will be a new family there, so they will find this very old tree.

Lisa:

I also remember that when I was a very small child I played with many kids around here – there were Claudio’s children, Andrea and others. We often played soccer, at the Poggiolino… we would stay there the whole afternoon to play together, or we went around the village on our bikes. I have always gone around Anghiari, since elementary school, without any problems. I have a beautiful memory of this place.

Most of my friends live on the road to Carmine where there are the new houses built in the last thirty years. I am possibly the only one who lives here in the historical centre. Some live at the Campo della Fiera, some in Giardinella, a very new development.

Actually, I now live away from Anghiari because I’m studying. I majored in economic development and international cooperation at Florence University and I am now studying for a master’s degree in international studies at Perugia University. I come back here to Anghiari every two or three weeks. My father lives in Città di Castello, and we have a good rapport.

Many of my friends live and study in places all over Italy, and they also come back once every month, two months, according to their work or study commitments. Like me, others decided that they weren’t content with what the valley offered – unfortunately there are very few work opportunities. They come back for religious holidays, Christmas and Easter, during the summer holidays, at the end of the exams. But when one starts to work, it is more complicated coming back regularly.

In comparison with other medieval towns I have visited in Tuscany and Umbria, Anghiari is very backwards – it doesn’t have many services to satisfy tourists or young people. For example, there are not many bed and breakfasts, coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, and not many pubs or wine-bars for the young in the evening, nor a disco or a cinema. Ok, there are some working theatres, but, for us young people, the services are lacking. There is a new wine-bar, but it’s not that cheap, it is for tourists and young people with an income. A student can go only occasionally, it is not for everyone. In summer we go to La Pineta, the beer garden and pizzeria, or the new pizzeria down near the station, which is run by a guy from Anghiari who had migrated to Australia and has come back.

Also, transport-wise, Val Tiberina is totally disconnected from the main transport system. Anghiari is badly linked: from here to go to Florence, without a car, we have to take a bus to Arezzo, and there aren’t many and it takes forty minutes to get to the train station.

In a way the isolation is good for the peace. For sure, the lack of public transport has limited the influx of tourists – when a place is too touristy it becomes unliveable for the residents; without tourists it remains real, authentic, but there must be a middle way. Now it is too isolated, and, for a tourist without a car, it is not so easy to visit the area. Even from Perugia, it takes more than two hours by train and you need to change twice.

I have always considered Anghiari a peaceful place. After six years of living elsewhere – first in Florence and now in Perugia – I am always happy to come back. It is a good life here, a quiet place, immersed in nature.