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Everyone knows the great Italian cities, everyone has heard of Tuscany and Umbria, everyone yearns to hear Pavarotti or drive a Ferrari or wear a dress by Valentino. Everyone fears the mafia. But who knows Lazio? And who on earth has heard of Avea? ‘You can’t go and live there,’ a despairing friend remarked to the author and his wife when they found a house to rent in the village. ‘It’s not even in Rome.’ But they did go. And tucked away amongst the woods and gorges of the Lazio countryside they found a village of medieval aspect and chaotic, medieval ways which still survive despite the closeness of the capital and the pressures of the twentieth century. They experienced the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque, the sacred and the profane all blended together like something out of a Boccaccio. They discovered a rich cast of village people, from their landlord Pippo, the self-styled Duca di Avea, to the cowman with his tales of village lore, and the elegant and sophisticated Colasanti family who discovered an Etruscan tomb in their cellar. But they also found an instinctive warmth in the villagers, a glorious sense of the ridiculous and a shrewd sense of what life is, or ought to be about. This is their story, a story of discovery of a village and through it a whole country, that hidden Italy which lies behind the familiar stereotypes. Together they lived Italy’s delights and its frustrations, its agonies and its beauty. And they grew to love the country in a way that is too often denied the foreigner – for what it really is rather than for what the world perceives it to be. There is no Pavarotti here (although there is Little Tony), no Ferrari (that was impounded by Dutch customs), and no mafia (but just a touch of the camorra). There is instead the true story of how two foreigners learned to eat the Italian way, drive the Italian way, survive the Italian way . . . and even to have a child the Italian way . . . and how in doing it they came to love this hidden corner of the most visited and least understood country in Europe.
Everyone knows the great Italian cities, everyone has heard of Tuscany and Umbria, everyone yearns to hear Pavarotti or drive a Ferrari or wear a dress by Valentino. Everyone fears the mafia. But who knows Lazio? And who on earth has heard of Avea? ‘You can’t go and live there,’ a despairing friend remarked to the author and his wife when they found a house to rent in the village. ‘It’s not even in Rome.’ But they did go. And tucked away amongst the woods and gorges of the Lazio countryside they found a village of medieval aspect and chaotic, medieval ways which still survive despite the closeness of the capital and the pressures of the twentieth century. They experienced the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque, the sacred and the profane all blended together like something out of a Boccaccio. They discovered a rich cast of village people, from their landlord Pippo, the self-styled Duca di Avea, to the cowman with his tales of village lore, and the elegant and sophisticated Colasanti family who discovered an Etruscan tomb in their cellar. But they also found an instinctive warmth in the villagers, a glorious sense of the ridiculous and a shrewd sense of what life is, or ought to be about. This is their story, a story of discovery of a village and through it a whole country, that hidden Italy which lies behind the familiar stereotypes. Together they lived Italy’s delights and its frustrations, its agonies and its beauty. And they grew to love the country in a way that is too often denied the foreigner – for what it really is rather than for what the world perceives it to be. There is no Pavarotti here (although there is Little Tony), no Ferrari (that was impounded by Dutch customs), and no mafia (but just a touch of the camorra). There is instead the true story of how two foreigners learned to eat the Italian way, drive the Italian way, survive the Italian way . . . and even to have a child the Italian way . . . and how in doing it they came to love this hidden corner of the most visited and least understood country in Europe.
Simon Mawer
Simon Mawer (born 1948, England) is a British author. He currently lives in Italy.
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