San Gimignano aka Silvia

Through the ages the beautiful town of San Gimignano has had a variety of names. Apparently the origins of the town date back to when two aristocratic brothers fled from Rome and settled in the area of Valdelsa  where they each built a castle; one of them on the hill where San Gimignano now stands. The brothers decided to give their castles names and one of them chose ............Silvia. This distinctly Pythonesque choice conjures up (for me at least) an image of Eric Idle and Terry Jones, dressed up Roman garb, reclined on a hill side and reviewing their handy work. ‘Well Eric, your castle is looking good, whadya gonna call it?’ ‘Not sure brother mine, I was thinking of the Castle of Fear or the Castle of the Forest ...... but maybe I’ll just call it......Silvia’. Eric looks a bit wistful and sighs heavily looking off into the distance, could Silvia have been a woman? Whatever the reason behind this unusual choice it didn’t last and town was later named after Saint Geminianus (also a slightly unfortunate name) who saved Silvia from being destroyed by Attila the Hun. Lucky escape!

Later on there was a frenzy of family rivalry in San Gimignano and, towards the end of the medieval period, no less than 72 tower houses had been constructed in the town, some of them up to 230 feet tall! It isn’t hard to imagine how this medieval form of ‘mine is bigger than yours’ got a little out of control amongst the local nobles. So much so that height restrictions had to be implemented by the local authorities who deemed that none of the towers could be higher than the tower adjacent to the ‘palazzo comunale’. If I am not mistaken the same thing happened with cod pieces; they became so ridiculously large that their size had to be restricted.

But enough of that, here are some interesting but irrelevant facts about San Gimignano.

A fictionalised version of San Gimignano (called Monteriano) is featured in E.M. Forster’s 1905 novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread. Also, a character in the John Grisham novel, The Broker, rents a 14^th century monastery near to San Gimignano.

Tea With Mussolini was partially filmed in San Gimignano and Franco Zeffirelli used it as a stand in for Assisi in his 1972 biopic Brother Sun, Sister Moon. 

Escher’s 1923 woodcut depicts the towers and a 15^th century version of the town is featured in the 2009 video game, Assassin’s creed.

Italy is being invaded!

Apparently Italy is being invaded by trees. An invasion that may be hard to believe when the annoying buzz of chainsaws is a frequent sound on most days. A report has revealed that abandoned farmland, especially in mountainous areas in the south, has led to massive (yes massive) re-afforestation.  Italy now has more forest and woodland than ever before with 35% of the country being covered. There are now 27% million acres of forested land which is more than double the amount that there was at the end of the second world war.

Tourists in the green heart of Italy are used to seeing hillsides swathed in green but now even the dryer southern areas of Molise, Sicily and Calabria have seen woodland increases of 17, 11 and 10% respectively.  

The increased cover is helping to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide and is also providing homes for larger wild animals like lynx, deer, wild boar, brown bears and wolves. In the last ten years the numbers of wild boar roaming the woody hillsides have increased from 600,000 to 1 million and the population of Roe deer from 10,000 to an estimated half a million.

Britain has comparatively little forest cover; only 12% whilst Ireland, surprisingly, has less than 10%.

 

 

 

Furia and fireworks in Florence!

Jackson Pollock and Michelangelo are not the most likely couple, but an exhibition at the Palazzo Vecchio and ex-Tribunal of San Firenze in Florence puts the action painting of Pollock in direct comparison to Michelangelo's Renaissance work. 'La Figuria della Furia' marks the 450th anniversary of the death of Michelangelo and is an experimental comparison of two geniuses.

La Figura della Furia runs until the 27th of July and is open all day every day until midnight, with the exception of Thursdays when the exhibits close at 14.00.

The exhibition is in two parts; the first being in the Palazzo Vecchio  and the second in the complex of San Firenze.

 

 

 

Also explosive are the Easter celebrations in Florence with the famous ornate and exploding cart. The cart, carrying a lit candle, is pulled from the Porta al Prato to the Piazza del Duomo by two oxen. The flame is blessed and is then used to light the 'Colomba' a dove shaped fuse, which sets off fireworks and pyrotechnics. A successful explosion apparently guarantees a year of good luck for the city. Let's hope it works and that the oxen aren't of nervous dispositions.