POSTCARD FROM ITALY
Meditative cadence
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With its leisurely pace, Tuscany has been called a paradise for exile.
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PHOTO: SADHANA RAO
Architectural showpiece: The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
TUSCANY appears like a microcosm within Italy, with its maverick, exuberant and mature identity. Its landscape has been illuminated with renaissance, art, architecture and ideology. The terrain does not appear magically familiar but one can immediately integrate due to the underlying homeliness. Shelley once referred to Tuscany as "a paradise for exile". The images of the region are expansive and evocative: the sound of cicadas in the countryside, the remnants of Etruscan walls, the rendering of an impromptu aria in the town plazas, manicured topiaries, acres of olive plantations, medieval palaces and villas, the aroma of oven-fresh baked bread. Each portrait has an engaging intimate completeness. Exploring Toscana is like saving an allegorical narrative with myriad unpredictable textures.
Tuscan sun
Tuscany lacks the overdrive of grandiose Rome, the relentless commercial nature of Venice, or the ceaseless industrial tempo of Milan. The Tuscan sun (it always seems mellow) sort of bathes its hill towns, valleys, and beaches, giving them an unhurried temperance. Tuscany then appears to be in a cadence of meditation. Its denizens are ardent followers of decelerated lives... a given day can be punctuated with several languid espresso breaks. Speed and rush remain mere ideas. Yet, this region, at one point in time, with great alacrity, got rid of all its paradoxical gallimaufry. Rebuffing its confounding politics, it hitched on to another cycle of history. Tuscan lands securely embraced the renaissance and Tuscany gave itself and the world staggering declamations for a new order.
A Milanese economist dumbed down Tuscany's commercial corridor as being insignificant and confined only to the plains between Florence and Lucca.
Tuscany's spirited rejoinder was that the intricate mesh of Tuscan economic corridors liberally spread to the Carrara marble quarries, to the Chianti wine country... . How could an outsider ever calculate the dimensions of Tuscany?
Wine country
We settled ourselves in an old Medici fortress to spend a day with Chianti wine and its creators. The Chianti region (the hills between Florence and Siena) was amongst the first to organise a "consorzio" of producers (hence its popularity). Antonio, our host, over several hours, walked us through the process of his craft. The vineyards inhabit and invade the physical and emotional landscape of the nurturer. Antonio's Chianti went through a mosaic of calibrated steps, a written canon of ancient wisdom. A grape called Sangiovese predominates the wine, a small proportion of white grapes (the Malvasia) too is blended. In some instances, according to the Chianti tradition, little unfermented dried grapes are added to the fermented wine to ensure a tingling prickle. A good quality Chianti Reserva (the law demands) needs to be aged for three years in oak casks before being packaged.
Beneath the shade of a cypress tree, Antonio offered us hand-plucked olives from his trees, with cheese and opened a ten-year-old Chianti Reserva (which he discreetly forgot to bill us). The taste of the wine was light, fruity and refreshing at the first sip, gradually it became dense and lingering to finally becoming pungent. Our innermost response to the wine was utter gratification and delight at the experience. Antonio on an olive wood plaque placed strategically in his office has the words "Wine is earth's answer to the sun" embossed on it. Apparently in Tuscany, a day in the vineyard is considered a therapeutic practice.
The old and the new
When one walks through the streets of Florence or the alleys of Lucca and Siena, multiple emotions grip you. One, a wish to have been born when the grand masters were at work. And then a sense of gladness creeps in. After all, one is now blessed to have had the gift to view a legacy. The Tuscan countryside retains the vigour of freshness, as nature has evolved a better mechanism of regeneration. The urban centres have faced their decay, weathering and vicissitudes of time and age. However, they still retain their paramount position in art and architecture; the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the scallop-shell piazza in Siena, the Duomo and Baptistery in Florence take your breath away. It was in these centres that Brunelleschi brought mathematical perspective to design and construction. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo broke down the palisade of defined art. Combining the knowledge of science and classical art, a new form of expression evolved.
Tuscan cities have firmly built their life around their architectural showpieces, piazzas and famous courtyards. The old and the contemporary identities merging... None of the cities has a sense of a megapolis, but are confident of their provincialism. The treasures of the small towns of Tuscany, got encapsulated in a pair of handcrafted and embroidered shoes and in hand-painted bookmarks. By an ancient church in Florence, I saw a profusion of terracotta pots redolent with spilling geraniums. The spray of flowers were used to camouflage the ends of a wall that had seen better times... a present day attempt at palingenesis.
Postscript
At the Leaning Tower of Pisa (fortunately the admission to mount the towers has recommenced as of this summer) from an incline and height, the rays of the sun and our gaze fell on Galileo's Institute of Learning. For us it was a fitting tribute to Tuscany's scientist who proved that the earth revolved around the sun, overturning Church doctrine.
SADHANA RAO
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