Fiesolean heaven
Church of San Francesco, Fiesole
A quick post while the pasta’s on the boil…
This Franciscan church sits on the site of the Etruscan acropolis high up in Fiesole, and has a small museum underneath which gathers material brought back by the monks on missions around the world, particularly from China: combs, fans, statues, vases, plates, robes. There was a room of Egyptian artifacts, a mummified cat making quite an impression on Fi and I, though here’s a less stomach churning exhibit:
Church of San Francesco museum
The climb to the church is really not all that steep, and the views are stunning, and equally so from the museum windows, where you get the added benefit of shade and a cool wind.
While Fi had a look at the archaeological park earlier on in the day, I quietly played out my version of a Fiesolean heaven: Grazia Deledda’s Canne al Vento bought from the weekend market on Piazza Mino for a euro; an apple, a sandwich, a bottle of water; a bench under some trees by the Etruscan wall; and a good two hours with the world flung aside : ).
Silently monumental
Etruscan wall, Fiesole
Rock cut into Cyclopean blocks, oftentimes angled, with smaller stones wedged in where gaps remained – thanks to S and L the archaeologists I have added a fascination with Etruscan masonry – for fascination it is – to an interest in stone. I spent an hour taking photographs of the wall, and have plans to return, largely due to the 19th century scholar George Dennis, whose Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria describes a little something I must try and find…
“Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin”
Fiesole archaeological area
So wrote Thomas Hardy in ‘In the Old Theatre, Fiesole‘, his mind opened to ‘the power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome’.
In contrast, DH Lawrence, weary of Roman virtue and inspired to write ‘Cypresses‘ during visits to Fiesole, invokes ‘the spirits of the lost’, the Etruscan-dusky, wavering, flickering men of Etruria, whose meaning is now ‘wrapt inviolable in soft cypress-trees’.
For Lawrence, the cypresses are Etruscan cypresses, ‘folded in like a dark thought / for which the language is lost’.
Haunted lines for a place equally so.
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- Etruscan cypresses and Roman arches
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- Pool, Roman baths
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- Detail, calidarium, Roman baths
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- Etruscan temple ruins
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- Etruscan temple wall
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- Arch and church
Fiesole of the winds, the gods and the poets
View from the Etruscan wall, Fiesole
Angelo Poliziano, poet-in-residence at the Villa Medici in Fiesole, writing to Marsilo Ficino in the 1480s:
When you are incommoded with the heat of the season in your retreat at Careggi, you will perhaps think the shelter of Fiesole not undeserving your notice. Seated between the sloping sides of the mountain we have here water in abundance and being constantly refreshed with moderate winds find little inconvenience from the glare of the sun. [...] Populous as the vicinity is, yet I can enjoy the solitude so gratifying to my disposition.
Eight kilometres and a 10-minute-drive north-east of Florence, there is certainly shelter, fresh winds and relative solitude to be found in Fiesole. With my companions, L and S, both archaeologists, I spent a dream morning among the ruins of the Etruscan temple, Roman theatre, baths, and archaeological museum; and after lunch in the modest strip of restaurants along Piazza Mino stayed to examine the Etruscan wall (about which more later) and to wander among the ruins, alone for the most part – surprising considering Fiesole’s proximity to Florence.
- Roman Theatre, 1st century BC
Angerona, goddess of the new year and the returning sun, protectress of Rome and as the Goddess of Silence custodian of the sacred name of the city, was worshipped in Fiesole as Ancharia, delivering supplicants from their ills and protecting their flocks.
A heady mix on a summer day, but with a change of clothes in my backpack it was easy to favour a more down-to-earth perspective of the landscape.
Three bests
In Fiesole
Was today really the best teaching day I’ve ever had in Florence?
How is it possible to beat my Friday morning class, for example, with my 3-strong group of 11-year-old girls, who had made me exceedingly nervous on that oh-so-long-ago Monday last week when I faced them, my first class of children ever, for the first time: intelligent, lively and too adorable for words. Cut to eight hours later on Friday for our last lesson, and Teresa, Camilla and Elena had filled the blackboard with some beautiful chalk drawings and some stunning phrases in English, such as “I had hiccough yesterday!” and in Italian: TVB for “Ti voglio bene”. I had already asked the DOS the day before to leave some time free to look after them while I ran down Via dei Mille for gelato – stracciatella, mint, cream and chocolate – affirmed wide-eyed as their favourite flavours in the previous class – and if you haven’t seen three ethereal little girls devour a bowl of gelato that really ought to be remedied: spoons and hair flying everywhere, mint and stracciatella streaked cheeks, globs of chocolate on pretty dresses: fabulous! I had already gotten a bounty of kisses and hugs, sharp attention to grammar, spot-on wild animal memory, creative kangaroo colouring, and by the end of the class had added: a divine turtle eraser, which we christened Balu and created a history for, ie his favourite gelato and what he keeps inside his house; Cecità by the Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago; and some precious time with a pink sequinned hat – yeah!!!
Today was really quite special, however, starting with a panino and wine at a hole-in-the-wall eatery called I Due Fratellini in the centre of Florence, strictly on the sidewalk eating, then a meander around taking in the usual suspects while encouraging R, my student, in preparation for his trip to London to visit his girlfriend, to just hang with the language. Then a coffee at Caffe Florian, quite beloved in Florence and a must for the little chocolatey things one nibbles on, and the coffee of course, then surprise surprise, the rest of the time in beautiful, airy, light-flushed Fiesole – hence the reason for the phone call early on in the day asking me to bring my camera – wandering around the quiet, narrow streets taking in different panoramic views of Florence, a walk through a pine and oak forest, a drive through and around the area, including the long, narrow road that cuts through the valley and connects La Lastra to Fiesole.
Il Tucano, Via Antonio Gramsci, Fiesole
And the pistachio gelato at Il Tucano on Via Antonio Gramsci was the best I’ve had in Florence. A small cone is usually more than enough for me, but considering how good it was, I was seriously tempted to have another…
R, the law student
But what do I really need to say about R, who I’ve been teaching since February, in great hilarity usually, with independent bursts of laughter interspersed with great seriousness. The day – lunch, wandering around Florence, coffee and chocolate, Fiesole, gelato, a thoughtful travel book to end our time together – speaks for itself. Off he goes, to try and follow my instructions on how to get from Stansted to Liverpool Street to Holland Park, complete with tube maps, web shots, and an old Oyster card. Should his language skills fail him he has promised to call me from London to put whoever it is that’s making life difficult for him on to his teacher…
