Hidden Tuscany

by John Keahey

  The village itself has a strong Jewish background with roots in the early 1500s. Jews, until World War II and the precipitous rise of Fascism, were very much a part of town life. There was a period that lasted a little over a century in Pitigliano when they were required to wear distinctive clothing and live in a ghetto. This happened in other places at various times throughout history. But at some point in the late 1700s the requirement that the Jews of Pitigliano wear distinctive clothing was removed; they were allowed back into the daily life of the village.

  Writer Abby Ellin, in the Times story, reported that when anti-Jewish Fascist laws came into effect in 1938, only sixty Jews were living in Pitigliano. Some were able to stay with friends throughout the area, likely in secret. Twenty-two, all born in Pitigliano, died in concentration camps during the war.

  When Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943, the town was being used as a German military headquarters, occupying the Orsini Palace just inside the town’s ancient gate. Allied bombing runs targeting that headquarters missed their mark, preserving that building but destroying some of the village’s medieval housing structures and killing a handful of civilians. Those buildings have been rebuilt, of course, to closely resemble the architecture of what was lost.

  Today, there is a kosher delicatessen along the southernmost of the town’s three narrow streets. Nearby and down steep stone steps is the village’s restored synagogue, dating back to the late 1500s. This remnant is all that is left of Pitigliano’s Jewish past. I walked around the old town in just a few hours, dipping into noncommercial, purely residential areas. In all, four thousand people live here today.

  I spent my evenings in Pitigliano enjoying the festival activities, standing with locals cheering on a corps of costumed drummers who dazzled with their virtuosity, or spontaneously dancing to popular Italian singers and musicians. My days were occupied with trips to the countryside, visiting such places as Sorano, Sovana and its nearby Etruscan center, and Saturnia, which surprised me with a preserved section of the Roman road known as Via Clodia. These short journeys marked the end of my nearly six months in Tuscany’s west.

  * * *

  If, from a distance, Pitigliano appears like a pile of yellow and reddish stone set high on a plateau, Sorano is a mirror. Just seven miles to the northeast, it dominates a ridge, and tumbles down the concave side of its gentle slope. Sorano is the highest village in the Maremma region—at 2,243 feet above sea level it is 200 feet higher than Pitigliano. Its walls are intact, and the few gates in the grand sweep of stone parapets reinforce the sense that one is approaching a fortress. I could almost hear medieval trumpets braying in the distance and imagine sentries in the various watchtowers.

  A large parking lot outside Sorano’s main gate is only partially full on this particular Sunday visit, and that is because a crafts fair is under way along a street below. I get the sense that tourists are few here as well. A desk clerk at a local hotel lamented, “We almost always have rooms available. This should be where you stay when you visit [inland Maremma],” she said. “It is more quiet here [than Pitigliano] and there is much to see.”

  She is correct. The fortress looms above the town. While standing on the castle’s ramparts and looking downward to the north, one can see the old town spread out among narrow streets in an almost indecipherable pattern, one more complex than Pitigliano’s. Sorano offers a warren of passageways and small, dead-end courtyards with clustered living spaces. Before braving the steep stone steps that lead to it, I could imagine that I was back in the Middle Ages: The buildings seem to have been plucked from that era and remain unchanged. The only hint of modernity is the satellite dishes on their rooftops.

  Sorano’s population is about the same as Pitigliano, about four thousand, but it is a far more sedate village with only brief flashes of activity. This is the high tourist season in Tuscany, but you wouldn’t know it here.

  Giovanni Feo, respected author of an excellent book about the area and its various villages, writes that in reality, the town’s inaccessibility—the narrow streets within the old town were made for donkey carts hundreds of years ago and have not been widened to suit the age of motorized vehicles—has made it impossible “to expand or modernize,” and this gives it “the largest proportion of inhabited medieval buildings” in inland Maremma.

  Feo’s description of this lesser-known part of the Tuscan south offers an accurate picture of its past and present. He tells us that Sorano, due to its position along a main route from Rome to Siena during medieval times, was “the target of repeated sieges and interminable wars” for many centuries.

  But, despite the wars, Sorano’s location had medicinal benefits. Its high position kept it and other highly placed hill towns above the mosquito breeding areas in the marshy plains nearer to the sea, where tens of thousands of Tuscans perished over the centuries. These coastal marshes developed around the mouths of rivers that brought silt down from the rolling hills. They were perfect incubators for the anopheles mosquito.

  From Sorano, it is a quick six-mile drive through sparsely populated countryside to Sovana, a much smaller town to the west that has obviously been well scrubbed for this age of tourism. Not a stone seems out of place; fresh paint is everywhere; stones are cleaned to exhibit their burnt-yellow hue. I visited twice, and for a third time I went to the Etruscan sites around the village.

  Sovana is built on nearly level ground in the midst of a wide valley with olive groves and hardwood forests populated by wild boars, the official symbol of Maremma. The village is far smaller than either Pitigliano or Sorano and far easier to navigate. There are two long main streets radiating from the large town square, with one road leading to one of the most delightful, unadorned, and tasteful cathedrals I have ever visited in Italy.

  Feo describes the cathedral as “a rare example of a Romanesque and Gothic cathedral.” It sits near the point of a small promontory, which has a commanding view of the beautiful Tuscan countryside below. The cathedral has its origins in the ninth century. In the twelfth century, the site was modified and expanded into what one finds today.

  The mid-August humidity outside vanished once I entered the church. It seems to be the ultimate in comfortable simplicity. The walls are made of light-yellow stone, and fragments of the original frescoes remain—perhaps a partial figure here and there. Natural light is drawn in through small windows along the edges of the vaulted ceiling. The light and the inherent coolness combine to make this serene, simple place a rewarding, relaxing spot. I sit for a long time on a stone bench at the back, listening to the soft recording of a Gregorian chant piped in through hidden speakers. It was a fine respite indeed.

  * * *

  Prehistoric peoples lived in Sovana, as did the Etruscans, who drove the early village to the peak of its growth in the fourth and third centuries BC. The Romans, according to historian Feo, apparently left the village and surrounding area alone throughout the empire’s five-hundred-year history.

  Christianity made its way throughout the empire following an edict in AD 380 making it the official state religion. By the fourth century AD Sovana was home to a bishop. Christian hermits and ascetics gathered here, living in caves around the village and, Feo said, their “example contributed significantly to the spread of Christianity.”

  The first time I had heard of Sovana was in connection with its “reliable tradition” as the birthplace of Pope Gregory VII, whom papal historian John Julius Norwich called “the greatest churchman of the Middle Ages.” The dates are not precise. One source says his birth as Hildebrand of Sovana was sometime between AD 1015 and 1028. His papacy lasted from 1073 to 1085.

  Pope Gregory VII began his reign in 1073 by enforcing priestly celibacy and demanding an end to simony—paying to receive sacraments. He removed bishops and priests who had been appointed by kings and emperors and not by Rome. Such action angered these rulers, who felt they had the right to name their own bishops and other churchmen.

  In this battle over papal
right versus royal prerogative, Gregory refused to crown King Henry IV of Germany, who was next in line to be Holy Roman Emperor. In response, Henry called together bishops faithful to him and declared Pope Gregory dethroned. Gregory ignored that declaration and excommunicated Henry. It was at Countess Matilda’s castle at Canossa where, as legend has it, the king, barefoot and dressed in sackcloth, waited three days in the snow to be allowed to enter and ask Gregory for forgiveness.

  At around this time, a pope’s authority to name emperors, kings, and churchmen was beginning to be challenged. Henry, who had once again broken with the pope, occupied Rome in 1084, and Gregory, his papacy in ruins, was exiled to Monte Cassino, a monastery high in the mountains between Rome and Naples, and then to the castle at Salerno, south of Naples, where he died in 1085, far from his Tuscan birthplace.

  Sovana still had a lot more to offer. The following day, I was back in the area for a walk through its Etruscan past. The Etruscan village likely is beneath a large portion of medieval Sovana. Ruins have been excavated in the area near the northern edge of the cathedral. This side trip took the better part of a day and covered a wide array of tombs, both grand and small. Still, I barely touched on what is there. Three streams flow through a swath of countryside that ranges east to west around Sovana. Dozens if not hundreds of tombs are spread along their three narrow valleys.

  Nearly all styles of tombs found in various Etruscan sites throughout central Italy are laid out in this countryside: chamber tombs, façade tombs, niche tombs, and burial ditches. One tomb, in the area along the stream called Picciolana, is made of eight carved stone columns and a façade with twin stairways to a second level. It is one of only two found in the Etruscan world that is carved out in this way. It is called the Ildebranda tomb, named after Hildebrand of Sovana, Pope Gregory VII.

  Perhaps one of the most unique sights I caught that day was La Via Cava di Poggio Prisca, an ancient roadway cut twenty to thirty feet deep through solid tufa. It is a short distance from the Ildebranda tomb. Such roadways are common in Etruscan areas. They provided a way to bring quarried rock down to tomb sites; later, in medieval times, they offered a shortcut from one part of the valley to another for travelers and farmers.

  The Via Cava curves gently for perhaps five or six hundred feet, coming out at the far end onto a dirt road with a wide expanse of vineyards on either side. I walked its length, pausing to lean against the cool stone and enjoy the refreshing shade of its leaning walls and the well-developed trees that created a leafy arbor overhead.

  After several hours of plodding along in severe heat and humidity and seeing tomb after tomb, my brief walk through this wide slash in a solid stone block was the highlight.

  * * *

  With two days left in southwestern Tuscany, I wanted enough time to visit three or four more small villages. That gave me one more full day of exploration. The second day would be for the three- or four-hour drive back to Pietrasanta.

  My day started early. I plopped my finger, almost at random, on my map. It landed on a village northwest of Pitigliano, Castell’Azzara—a village that is part of a nature preserve created in the 1990s. It is positioned on woody and mountainous terrain, and the mountainside holds numerous giant “holes” called by various names that incorporate the Italian word buca, or mouth.

  The village’s castle was built here in the twelfth century for precisely the same reason this area impressed me: magnificent panoramic views of the Tuscan countryside. Whereas castle dwellers wanted to be able to see invaders arriving, travelers thrill over the beauty of the views. The first time I had ever been overwhelmed by a Tuscan panorama was in the mid-1990s, when I stood on the ramparts of Volterra. This sweep of countryside from Castell’Azzara was Volterra’s equal. The warm, inviting vineyards I had driven through to climb up this mountainside now lay below me, interspersed with olive groves and shorn wheat fields with their huge machine-rolled bales of straw.

  The village and the woods around it are eminently walkable. The main drag, Via Garibaldi, is full by midmorning with locals, either strolling along the narrow sidewalks or reading newspapers on terraces. Groups of older men, likely pensionati, played cards or engaged in conversation punctuated by loud laughter and myriad hand gestures.

  A caffè, a cream-filled cornetto, and an hour of observing small-town Italian life made up a pleasant interlude—the kind of interlude I have perfected into a fine art over the years—in what would be my final full day in the Tuscan south.

  My next town, Santa Fiora, exemplifies why I often slow down and observe as a way of making discoveries. As I approached Santa Fiora, I noticed a long bridge that spans a gully with homes and gardens far below. Beyond the bridge is the old town, splayed across the side of a mountain and surrounded by Tuscan pines and chestnut trees. This place, in ancient times, was likely difficult to attack. The gully is wide, and I wondered how folks here crossed it before the bridge was built. They likely went down a steep, narrow footpath carved out of stone, walked across the gully’s bottom, and then endured an exhausting climb up the other side.

  I parked on the far side of the bridge and walked across it. I was surprised to discover a modern elevator put in the bridge’s middle to give gully residents an easy way home. At the bridge’s end, the old town begins, and all the churches that would appear on a tourist office’s official “points of interest” list are in plain sight. The main street is wide and boasts the customary cafes and bars, clothing shops, and food peddlers.

  But the real town can be found on numerous side streets perpendicular to the main street. These narrow, medieval streets roll up and down with the gradient of the land and are lined with shops full of local products: cheese, various kinds of sausages, herbs, and fruits of all kinds. This local aspect, I suspect, is what keeps them in business with a population of fewer than three thousand people. There rarely are chain stores to drive out the local business owners in these tiny places. Produce, meat, and fruit come from farms in the valleys below and are as fresh as the same-day seafood offered in Tuscany’s coastal communities.

  And, despite its small size, Santa Fiore has perhaps a dozen restaurants, all specializing in cuisine that is specific to the village itself or southern Tuscany in general: wild boar, pork, and some beef, along with pasta shapes not found anywhere else on the planet.

  It is before noon, and the restaurants in the old town are not yet open. I wander back across the bridge and, near where I parked my car, I see a young woman opening a door to the Ristorante al Ponte, which has a collection of outside tables under umbrellas. I ask if she is open. “Si, prego,” she says, pointing to table.

  I sit, order a bottle of mineral water, and peruse a menu presented only in Italian—a good sign if you want a restaurant geared to serving locals. I tell the young woman I would like a meat dish of her choosing, something local, una specialità della casa, a specialty of the house. She likes that idea and disappears through the beaded doorway.

  Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes later, she places before me a plate with thin squares of pasta, covered in a pork sauce rich with chunks of meat. Sprinkled in is a healthy dose of fennel. The pasta, she tells me, is made from chestnut flour and is called fazzoletti, or handkerchiefs. This particular shape and its ingredients, she claims, have been invented by her chef partner and, she assured me, are not found anywhere else. I certainly had never seen pasta like it before. The food at Ristorante al Ponte is among the best I have ever eaten during years of travel in Italy, north and south.

  I eat only a first course, finish with a creamy dessert and a double caffè, and wander across the street to my car. The one place on my agenda that I had definitely wanted to see, Saturnia, is several miles away, and I want to enjoy the ride through the Tuscan hills with a clear head—hence my comparatively light lunch.

  * * *

  Saturnia’s name comes from the Roman god Saturn who, according to myth, grew tired of man’s constant warfare. So he sent a lightning bolt to earth. A spring erupted fro
m the spot where it hit, and the warm waters washed over the people, making them calmer and wiser. Saturn also gave his name to the English day of the week Saturday and to our solar system’s second-largest planet. Why not to a hilltop town in the Fiora Valley?

  The ancient Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing in the time of the Roman emperor Augustus, said he believed Saturnia was one of Italy’s first towns. It could initially have been settled, perhaps in the ninth century BC, by predecessors to the Etruscans, the Pelasgians—the same people we first encountered to the west, around Orbetello. The Etruscans took over the site a century later. Then, in 183 BC, Roman colonists arrived, making the village a prefecture of Rome. Historians and archaeologists generally agree that the key to Saturnia’s long life, other than its prime position atop a long, broad hill of white travertine stone in the midst of classic, fertile Tuscan countryside, was the nearby hot springs and water from two rivers, the Albegna and Fiora.

  Nothing in Italy’s ancient history stayed mellow for long. Groups of raiders from various tribes, Goths, and Saracen pirates besieged Saturnia and the Tuscan countryside for many centuries. Bandits hid out in these hills. The Sienese eventually attacked Saturnia, built a fortress, and eventually destroyed the town. By 1500, it was abandoned and left to fall into ruin.

  Today, Saturnia flourishes. The hot springs, once appealing to a cult of water worshipers, draw tourists. The town also has a variety of low-key Roman ruins, and the remnants of ancient walls exist.

  When I drove into Saturnia, I didn’t know any of this specific information, only that it was worth visiting. Its center is unlike most hill-town destinations tourists seek out. There is no grand piazza, for example. Instead, the center is parklike with rows of trees and green areas where locals lounge on park benches. I stopped for gelato and a caffè at one of the pleasant bars along this area, enjoying the coolness of a covered terrace. As I was leaving, I turned down a few random streets and found myself on a bumpy roadway made of worn stone blocks. It was in bad shape, so I decided not to head down it and go through what I thought was a medieval arch and up into the surrounding countryside.