Miriam's Moments

Tuscany and Umbria, Part II: Assisi, Montepulciano, Pitigliano, Sovana, Pienza, Perugia, Spoleto, Spello

Breakfast was always a beautiful array of food!

Pienza is a "planned town" because in the 1400's, locally born Pope Pius II (1405-64, educated writer and diplomat from a prestigious Sienese family) decided to remodel his town called Corsigliano, built on a flat plateau, surrounded by rolling hills, into a city fit for a pope. He renamed it Pienza after Pope Pius. It was designed by architect Rossellino, and built it in the fashionable Renaissance style. It certainly is charming. The best are the sunsets!

Linda's ceramic shop was an ancient Etruscan tomb, and the oldest well is within the cave (below).

The Belagio church outside the city of Montepulciano is magnificent.

In Montepulciano, known for its thermal baths, in the Val d'Orcia region we descended to a wine cave and had a light lunch

The views and the Palazzo Comunale were beautiful!

September 30 we spent the morning at the Etruscan Museum in Chianciamo staffed and funded by local volunteers who have recently excavated a site, the Acropolis di Tolle, a few kilometers away. The Etruscans lived in 9-2 century BC in Tuscany and Umbria between the Arno and Tiber Rivers. They were merchants, not warriors and treated women as equals with men. They used cremation (remains contained in canopies jars), were meat eaters, and have a unique language, written from right to left, which is still not well deciphered. It is believed they came from an area around Albania/Turkey. Rome finally assimilated them in 2BC.

We enjoyed modeling a piece in gray clay using Etruscan symbols

Tombs are filled with pots, jewelry and other very sophisticated possessions of the deceased person. They practiced human sacrifice

Lodo is demonstrating a couch where men and women reclined and played a game like our "spin the bottle."

The optional tour on October 1 to Pitigliano and Sovano was great. We crossed the Marema, the wildest area of Tuscany, famous for its historical villages built on tufa (lava) hills

The old aqueduct of Pitigliano, then down a narrow street to the Jewish ghetto, on the cliff side. Ghetto comes from the Venetian word ghettare= throw away. Jews began settling her in the 1622, seeking refuge after being expelled from the Papal State in Rome during the counter-revolution persecutions. About 1/4 population were Jewish. During WWII all the town's Jews escaped Nazi persecution with the aid of their mostly Catholic neighbors, with whom they had been integrated for centuries.

The last Passover was celebrated in 1939 before racial laws took effect. The boy on the right was celebrating his Bar mitzvah, the little girl is the last Jew left in Pitigliano. 70 were left. Many had already left. The other little girl moved to the US and wrote a book about this.

There was a bakery, winery, weaving and cloth dying shop

Above are bake ovens. There was also a ritual bath (Miqve)

The synagogue built in 1598, collapsed in a landslide in 1960's, and rebuilt in 1995. It is now a museum, as only one family is left.

Across the gorge, built into the tufa rock are some amazing Etruscan tombs. The many miles of "road" was all built by hand, and restored later. It was also used as an escape route, as it is invisible from the air.

Fernanda was a very knowledgeable guide through the underground Sovana Necropolis tombs, all with sloping entrances. There were 12 Etruscan cities which were not united, so unable to defend themselves. The poor man cremated, the rich, buried in an elaborate sacophagus. During the 1800's tomb robbers looted so there are not artifacts left.

Hildebrand (discoverer) tomb.

Figures reclined and were guarded by lion and other sculptures. Romans copied the Etruscans, who copied the ancient Greeks.

October 2 we departed Pienza for Perugia and Spoleto in Umbria, "green heart of Italy" and the only landlocked region. We visited a family-owned Turan chocolate factory in Perugia, where we each made a yummy dark chocolate bar under the direction of Julia.

Perugia has clean, very long escalators. I enjoyed seeing all the teenagers coming from school, and had a nice conversation with the math and physics teacher.

A most fascinating experience was to the 15th century home where 5 generations have "painted on glass," after Lodovico Casselli Moretti figured out the process in 1860, and has been followed by daughters Rosa and Cecilia. Crushed glass, turpentine and paint are mixed and merge with the glass when fired in a special kiln. Leaded lines give the glass structure as paneled pictures are placed in windows to use natural light. So vibrant with detailed texture as in a normal painting. Cartoons are used a la Michelangelo and other painters and tapestry makers.

Margarita di Savoy (first Italian queen) is so rich! The house is fun too

In the afternoon we were treated with an extra Lodo trip to Assisi, which was my favorite city when I first visited in 1964 and still is!

Around 1200, a simple friar from Assisi, to become Saint Francis (1181- 1226), was opposed to the decadence of the Catholic church, and going against his wealthy prominent father, vowed to teach by example, living a simple life without worldly goods like Jesus. He was made a saint in 1939.

The lower basilica is subdued and Romanesque with medieval frescoes, the upper, begun in 1228, is believed to be the first Gothic church in Italy. The frescoes by Giotto are Renaissance, and also adorn some of the lower church. His beautiful tomb is in the crypt.

I have had these framed photos in my home for years and loved seeing the originals on the St. Francis basilica again!

Spoleto is a beautiful walled town, surrounded by the Apennine Mountains, with a restored amphitheater and more.

Ponte delle Torri, a 14th century bridge, actually an aqueduct built on ancient Roman foundations, running over a gorge. I walked around "La Rocca" with great panoramas. We had only 1-2 days of rain in all.

The Duomo di Spoleto is 11th century, made from old Roman stones, rebuilt in 1644, with gorgeous Fra Lippi frescoes. The 8 rose windows symbolize infinity.

I loved the Umbrian Folk Music optional tour in Spello. Unfortunately it was pouring rain, but we enjoyed all the pots of flowers everywhere and the tiny winding streets of this old walled town in east central Umbria. Our bus driver let me practice my Italian and does not like tomatoes. My cheese crepes, bruschetta, and mil foglia were delicious

Gianlucco on accordion, Stefano on guitar, Claudio singer and group leader played wonderful folk music, some traditional, some their own, and had a great story and props for each one. Donkey Home Theater in back of a store. I bought 2 CDs and am enjoying listening to them.

Jean, Jean, Sandy, Fran, Diane, and Mary, Gary, Kevin (front),Miriam

October 4 was a fun day with Bruno, a truffle hunter since 1969, and his dog Enea in a birch forest in an Umbrian mountain village in the Apennines. The dog does the digging. Medium-sized are usually best

The two are a team! Chinese and Eastern Europeans are trying to pass off inferior qualities for Italian, which are the best. There are black and white varieties in seasons. Truffles can be kept 10 days unwashed.

For lunch we ate truffle antipasti, and eggs with truffles. Fortunately the dessert wasn't truffles but a very typical tarte.

Nearby we saw the oldest (1700 yrs) olive tree in Italy where Bishop of Trevi, San Emiliano was beheaded on orders from Diocletian for performing marriages between Roman soldiers and Christian women.

Italians sure love their olives and other antipasti!

And October 5th we were off to Rome where we saw a wedding about to take place, at a favorite wedding church.

Monument to the fighters for the Italian Republic. There were many who died, even children. Their busts line the street from which we had such a beautiful view of the city and Vatican, Saint Peter's

In the afternoon I took a taxi to visit the Rome Temple, a long- time goal for me. It is a miracle that our temple was built near the Vatican. Permission was hard-won and took a long time.

Beautiful stained glass panel in the visitors center, by Utah artists designed by the Holdmans and team of artists along with the beautiful Christus and 12 Thorvaldsen Apostles' statues, the originals of which I saw in the Copenhagen Cathedral in Denmark years ago. Mural by Brickley.

The announcement of the temple was one of several indications of the increasingly firm foundation of the Church in Italy. In 2012, the Church was granted an intesa. This agreement with the Italian government grants the Church protections under the Italian constitution, including freedom to pursue its worldwide mission and recognition of Church leaders as clergy. Currently, there are over 25,000 members of the Church in Italy in 101 congregations.For more:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/multimedia/file/History-of-the-church-in-italy.pdf

In 1843, Joseph Toronto (born Giuseppe Taranto) became the first known Italian convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was baptized in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1849, Taronto was among the first missionaries to his homeland when he accompanied Church Apostle Lorenzo Snow and others in opening a Church mission. This first mission was short-lived; it was closed in 1867, but a handful of converts remained. This is a modern painting of what these early leaders saw as they came over the mountains into Italy, Mount Brigham, and the below painting portrays how they may have imagined a modern-day temple in Italy.

And back to our hotel, packed for the trip home October 6, I took a quick walk over to Piazza Popolo.(Rome was not part of our itinerary)

I think the rainbow was a sign that I might someday return to this beautiful country, Italy, where I had just spent 2 wonderful weeks!

For our farewell dinner at a local restaurant, we enjoyed guitar, saxophone and vocal music, and Margaret Norman and Judy and Kevin Landon received gifts for their many (20 each?) trips with OAT!

We are especially grateful to our wonderful leader Lodovico, whose American-born partner Celina and 3 month old baby Chloe came to meet our group in Rome, their home