See You in the Piazza

by Frances Mayes

  The work is dense. Though each panel looks packed with detail, the story is clear and explicit. Art! A holy ferment of creativity in this small town centuries ago. The museum and church are immense treasure troves, worth any detour.

  * * *

  AND NOW, PRANZO. Umbrian food is hearty everywhere, but especially over in Norcia, where every part of the pig is celebrated. The local lentils taste like the earth smells. Big unsalted breads, full-bodied olive oil, the old-world bean cicerchia, farro, chestnuts, and fava. Truffles! This is the season. We’re at Olevm, where three tables are squeezed in downstairs and upstairs, slightly more spacious, another few. Everything homemade. On the way in, I spot the pie-sized chocolate budino on the counter, trays of fresh pasta, and my favorite cheese bread with walnuts.

  The young couple next to us drinks two bottles of wine with a plethora of courses, all scarfed up quickly. We admire their fortitude. She giggles. He has a nose ring that in profile looks like something dripping from his nostrils. Don’t look.

  What could be finer than just-pressed olive oil on bruschetta spread with black truffles? Especially when paired with a glass of sagrantino, followed by zuppa di cicerchia, dense puréed soup made with a bean that looks like an irregular little pebble and tastes like time itself (similar to chickpeas). And, ah, a basket of breads. The house sagrantino is Montefalco Sagrantino 2013 Montioni. Quite a house wine! I love semifreddo desserts but can’t manage theirs, which is made with sagrantino. I guess the owner saw my admiring look at the chocolate budino on the way in. She cuts us each a sliver of this delicate pudding cake as we pay. A mighty espresso sends us on our way.

  Some shops, including Tessitura Pardi and Tessuto Artistico Umbro—the linen ones—have stayed open during the pausa. Textiles are a major weakness of mine and the holidays will be upon us soon, so I have a good reason to go in. I am drawn to the dusky fresco colors of the Umbrian designs. I select placemats and napkins in old gold and a stack of kitchen towels to give to dinner party hosts. There’s a yellow tablecloth like a skirt in a renaissance painting. I don’t buy it but I can always come back.

  * * *

  BENOZZO GOZZOLI PAINTED his first four frescoes in the Chiesa di San Fortunato, just outside town. Some of the funeral stele we saw in the museum were found on this ancient holy site founded in the fifth century, and paintings in the museum were moved from here. We walk into a small cloister. The church is closed. A smiling priest gets out of his car and walks up to us with his hand out. He’s new here, transferred from Israel. Not only is the church closed, it’s not going to open anytime in the foreseeable future. Seismic, he explains. Recent earthquakes will have Umbria sorting out possible damage for a long time. We do get to see a chapel in the cloister, charmingly painted by Tiberio d’Assisi in faded green, lavender, saffron, and buff. A resurrection with Christ emerging from a pink sepulcher. Two lithe and delicate angels, as lovely as Botticelli’s, accompanying San Francesco on a bucolic walk. He already has the stigmatas but is carrying a bouquet of flowers. In medallions above, two martyrs are shown with knives plunged into their shoulder and head.

  Sebastiano must be the most popular subject among all saints. Here, he’s pale, tall and blond, pure frontal nudity except for a wisp of lavender scarf tied around the strategic spot. He survived the arrow attack. Infections from arrows were thought to cause plague. Since he lived, he became the saint people beseeched when plague settled on their towns. The priest doesn’t know the painter, he says. He’s new, he repeats. “Tiberio d’Assisi,” I tell him. We leave an offering but not enough to restore San Fortunato.

  * * *

  DRIVING AWAY, WE stop several times to photograph undulating hills planted with grapevines, delicate plumes of gold poplars, lindens turned flamboyant yellow, even evergreen oaks and ilex leaves gone to sepia from the summer drought. The grapevines blaze dark, russet red, embers with sparks of fire, the color of sagrantino.

  NOTE:

  “A city set on a hill…” Matthew 5:14, English Standard Version of the Bible.

  What amazes me most about Italy is that I travel a few kilometers and everything changes. A different pasta, a dialect incomprehensible from the last town’s. Different artists. There you have the Romanesque, here the Baroque, there the Venetian Gothic. Pastries, wine, the color of the stone, even the most popular tint of women’s hair, the preferred dog. We do it our way, each town maintains.

  Bevagna lies only seven kilometers from Montefalco. Both are walled, both have Roman roots, and both are unspoiled and intact. And yet: They are light-years apart.

  * * *

  PIAZZA FILIPPO SILVESTRI, Bevagna’s main piazza, has an off-center fountain and the buildings zigzag, cutting each other off at odd angles, giving Bevagna’s centro a disorienting sense of surprise. I’m not lulled by beauty but fascinated by the dynamics. The intimate nineteenth-century Torti opera house, the severe church of San Domenico, a lone column standing next to an outdoor café where people are enjoying the first day of November sun, a surreal flight of steep stairs, an arcade—a harmony of disharmonies.

  Two facing Romanesque churches, San Silvestro (1195) and San Michele Arcangelo (built shortly after and by Binello, the same architect), have raised altars that must be approached by many steps. From this exalted height, the priest looks way down onto his congregation. In San Silvestro, the square plan seems overtaken by two rows of robust columns out of proportion to the space. “This looks like an Egyptian tomb,” Ed says. Rough gray brick walls are stripped of ornament.

  “Gloomy,” I agree. “But monumental.” Unless I miss something in the dimness, there’s only one painting—a damaged fresco of a saint, who must be Silvestro, holding a book and a long iron object that might be a key, as Ed guesses, or what it resembles more, handcuffs.

  * * *

  SAN MICHELE, NOT perfect with an odd oversize round window (was a rose window added later and not finished?) and cut-off top (was a matching campanile lost?), has a marvelous entrance. The wooden doors are topped with carved bull heads, foliage dangling from their horns—such a primitive welcome. In the tympanum above, Michael slays the dragon. Best of all, on either side of the door, carved into stone, are crude, long-legged birds. Not artistic, but here’s the hand of the maker. The symbolism is lost on me—it’s not the pelican often associated with the Virgin, but they meant something.

  Inside, it’s light and airy, the rhythmic arches supported by a double row of stone columns of a pale buttercream color. There’s Catherine, with the wheel on which she will be tortured standing beside her for the portrait, and a fresco fragment of the heads of Mary and Jesus. The six pots of flowers on the altar stairs are arranged haphazardly—everything is wonderfully off-kilter!

  * * *

  WE’RE BROWSING ALONG the main street, Corso Matteotti, reading menus of restaurants, popping into the cashmere outlet, when Pasticceria Panetteria Polticchia’s window entices us. Mid-morning, time for a little something. We buy a few each of sagrantino-flavored cookies, fig pastries, pastarelle di San Nicolò (clove, cinnamon, nutmeg spice biscotti), and roccette alle noci (hazelnut biscotti). Then there’s pancaciato and some marron glacé for our neighbor who loves them. Ed may eat the whole loaf of pancaciato before we get to the car. The walnut and pecorino bread has slightly crunchy crust and a texture like cake. (It makes perfect toast.) I’ve heard of rocciata, decorated with streaks of red sugar and piled on a plate. Typically baked around All Saints’ and All Souls’ days, rocciata is one of the most historic Umbrian pastries. Often you see it formed into the shape of a snake. The dessert is a simple olive oil pastry rolled around a filling of dried figs, apples, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, lemon peel, and a moistening of wine. The recipe jumps straight out of a medieval cookbook. We are having people over for coffee tomorrow morning; all these treats will be fun to serve.

  * * *

  QUITE A BIT of the Roman endures. A curve of houses follows the an
cient theater. There’s a bit of a temple. But nothing sings out from that pass like the mosaics that line the frigidarium in the Terme di Mevania, the public thermal baths. Black-and-white sea creatures—giant lobsters, octopuses, dolphins—must have appeared to swim as the waters of the second century moved over them.

  * * *

  BEVAGNA INVITES STROLLING. We climb up to the medieval neighborhood and come upon the cartiera, the place where rags become paper. The workshop is only twenty years old but it expertly employs the oldest methods, re-creating the once-upon-a-time of torn linen and cotton, mauling, slurry and vats, dank air, and emerging pristine pieces of thick white paper. We meet Francesco Proietti, the papermaker who works with these medieval techniques. He runs through the process for us. Open all year, the cartiera is also a main part of Mercato delle Gaite, the June festival where old crafts such as candle-making and silk weaving are demonstrated, jousts are fought among the four gaite (sections of town), medieval music and food are in abundance, and, judging from the photographs, the entire town parades about in period dress.

  * * *

  BEFORE WE LEAVE we stop into the Baroque Chiesa di San Francesco, which posseses the very rock the saint stood on when he preached to the birds outside Bevagna. We sit down and read the sermon. They should be grateful that they could fly, he told them. After his gentle words, the birds rose into a murmuration in the sky and formed a cross, before breaking into north, south, east, and west flocks and flying away.

  At the end of October, we’re in northern Le Marche for truffles. The Roman poet Juvenal thought these pungent funghi were born from the strike of thunderbolts. That seems as good an explanation as any for the gnarly little jewels. Sant’Angelo in Vado is truffle central. On the final weekends of October and the first ones of November, they celebrate with music, food stands, and colorful markets lining the streets. Restaurants feature menus rich in truffle dishes and the town fluffs up for visitors by opening any closed churches and monuments.

  * * *

  ONLY AN HOUR out of Cortona, we’ve already crossed mountains, curving through unsettled land, climbs, sheer drops, and jagged horizons. Ever since I’ve lived in Italy, I’ve heard that Le Marche will be “the next Tuscany.” Le Marche (“the Borders”) certainly are as physically alluring: the varied landscape dotted with hilltop villages, noble historic towns, the 180-kilometer-long Adriatic coastline. Does any region of Italy have mediocre food? No. Everywhere, si mangia bene, one eats well. But the cooks of Le Marche excel. The food is robust, bountiful. As we drive, I’m dreaming of a salami made with figs, a duck stew, and vincisgrassi, a much-loved pasta layered with mushrooms, béchamel, and rich ragù. And a walnut cake dense with nuts, citrus flavors, and raisins. But, no, Le Marche have not become a fevered destination and these spiny mountains see to it that they won’t. Excepting the coast, it’s hard to get around in Le Marche.

  Once over the rugged Apennines, we dip into the sweetest countryside imaginable—hummocky green hills with isolated farms. Tractors on the verge of tumbling sideways as they plow steep fields, overturn hard clods, and break them down into rich brown earth. What are they planting now? Cover crops? Winter wheat? Substitute oxen for the tractor and this scene has been playing for centuries.

  Ed loves to drive, especially in Italy where you can speed and other drivers know what they’re doing. You rarely meet a duffer cruising the left lane at fifty miles per hour. He would be blown off the road. Here, we’re meandering; hardly anyone is out. It’s delightful to find yourself alone on winding back roads, some that run out of pavement. Even the GPS can give up and improvise, sending us through someone’s cow path marked PRIVATO to land on a gutted dirt road that finally leads to a pristine village.

  * * *

  DRIVING ALONG THE lush valley of the Metauro River, I see a road sign near the village of Làmoli: ABBAZIA SAN MICHELE ARCANGELO. One of Ed’s major talents is his ability to swerve into small roads when an intriguing glimpse of a tower or a sweet slice of landscape appears. We hop out in front of a seventh-century Benedictine abbey. Middle of nowhere, although in Italy you learn quickly that what you’d have thought “middle of nowhere” is a considerable somewhere. Often a small borgo existed since long before the Romans, and has stacked up a dizzying history along the lines of who begat whom, who begat and begat.

  In Làmoli, since pilgrimage years fourteen centuries back, Archangel Michele’s inevitable lines have graced the lives of those who lived within the sound of its bells. For now, it’s all ours: wooden ceiling like the skeleton of a sailing ship. High oculus of white light, carved-out side windows, the silence of the arched interior, on whose columns muted remnants of frescoes remain.

  The Romanesque, my favorite style for any church, keeps to a purity and human scale. The elemental lines seem closest to the spirit. This abbazia is plain as a pancake outside, and obviously restored, but the dark and quiet inside—we are all alone—calms and claims me. Dio, it’s cold. Must be frigid here in winter.

  * * *

  BLACK OR WHITE? We’ll go for either or both, but this is the season for the more prized tuber magnatum pico, the truffle currently selling for two thousand euros a kilo. That sounds, and is, outrageous but a kilo is more than two pounds of truffle. Fortunately, the taste is so prominent that a few quick and thin shavings over a mound of tagliatelle is enough to send that dish into the category of sublime.

  Sant’Angelo in Vado since Roman times sits on the banks of the Metauro, a bucolic little river that, I read, in stormy times suddenly can turn vicious. “In Vado” means a place to ford the river. I can’t wait to see the recent excavation of a Roman villa but first I’d like to gaze on those toffee-colored little fists, the white truffles.

  Sant’Angelo’s Piazza Umberto I is surrounded by a bell tower, proud civic buildings, and two churches. Chiesa di Santa Caterina delle Bastarde, Saint Catherine of the Bastards—odd name for this miniature church. Once an orphanage for females, the narrow interior is overwhelmed by looming oversize statues of the cardinal virtues and the church doctors, whereas the altar painting shows the martyrdom of Saint Catherine on the wheel. Must have scared the little girl “bastards.”

  Nearby, San Filippo, a tiny, octagonal treasure box. I always admire the country Baroque, where the ambition for grandeur exceeded the budget. The creative builders constructed of wood what richer churches would make out of stone and marble. Skilled painters used their talent for faux, painting the swirl of marble’s white and cream and greens on wood. San Filippo is one of those, although plenty of gold was lavished on the square ceiling frescoed in gilded panels. Almost hidden on a side wall I find a tender Annunciation by Raffaellino del Colle. Of all the set religious subjects, the Annunciations appeal to me the most. She wears a pomegranate-colored dress, reading a book. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to these paintings—Mary is often holding a book, or there are books nearby. Mary before she became who she became.

  * * *

  WE DIDN’T RESERVE but are late enough to secure a table at Trattoria Taddeo e Federico, where we succumb to the white truffle. Our server authoritatively tells us what to order. “You will be happy,” she assures us, and we believe her. Only two diners remain in the room; they surreptitiously feed their dog when the server exits. They look over at us, hoping we don’t mind. We don’t.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” I ask. They are dressed in scruffy walking clothes, hoodies, and boots, a late-middle-aged couple both with straw-colored hair and ruddy cheeks.

  “Pietro,” the woman says. As his name is called, the dog stands and looks hopeful. He’s carefully groomed, with thick, curly toffee-colored fur that invites petting.

  “Oh, a truffle dog!” The Lagotto Romagnolo is my favorite kind of dog. Smart, adorable, so alert. Brown with white underbelly, Pietro looks at me with “I-speak-Italian” eyes. The breed goes way back: Lake dogs of Romagna, working dogs used for hunting and for water retrieval, now famous as
keen searchers of truffles. “Is he finding truffles here?”

  “No,” the man says, slipping Pietro a sliver of prosciutto. “We’re from Piacenza. He’s trained for black truffles and shows no interest in the white, only in digging up the ground.”

  “Just the same trouble at home,” the woman adds. “They like to dig everywhere. Especially daffodil and tulip bulbs.” She looks at him fondly. “He’s terrible.” Tremendo is what she says, a word often applied to a rambunctious toddler.

  I wish she were not saying this in front of Ed, as I’ve been lobbying to get this kind of dog.

  As the server brings my tagliatelle and Ed’s passatelli, a super-size policeman comes in the door. Someone is parked illegally in the piazza. “My husband,” our boisterous server announces. “Isn’t he lucky to have a wife like me?” We agree and turn to admire bowls of steaming passatelli redolent of sliced truffles. Not truly a pasta, passatelli is a local favorite. The tender little cylinders are formed from bread crumbs, lemon, eggs, Parmigiano, and nutmeg. The batter is passed through a special press with holes, or a ricer or sieve. The little dumplings are poached, like gnocchi. I’ve tried making them twice, only to have them fall apart. These don’t. They’re in a bit of fragrant broth, with, yes, truffle slices crowning them.