Italy is made by particular places, each corner of this Country oozes history, a land that saw all sort of things, a land that went through both dark and magnificence periods but that seldom was bored. And so, wandering around between villages and cities there is no road without stories of every kind. If the land could talk, it would have so many things to tell, so many stories that an entire life would never be enough to listen to them. We would be stopped at each corner called by some intriguing and mysterious story.
Stories of powerful families that are behind each tower in the mediaeval villages, stories of people that struggled all their life, stories of rich and poor ones. Stories of battles and stories of political plots. Italy has seen many things, a lot of things. Through the endless incessant seasons turns these lands gave birth to the Etrurian and to the Romans, hosted the Greek ones, suffered the barbaric invasions, the saracen incursion, have seen the seigneuries splendour, beared the burden of fights of the Lombard League. Its coasts have seen the maritime republics that with their vessels have ploughed the seas of most of the world and more, this Country has seen the Spanish, Austrian and French domination until the Renaissance and the fight for Unity. With few words I have extremely summarized the lives of millions of people where each one lived his personal small portion of the time that the Italian land has seen. In this extreme summarization I’m not talking about another thousands historical changes that passed over here.
How I could not quote that popular phrase, an hymn to Italy, that is told during a dialog of the Orson Welles “Third man” movie? I hope the Swiss won’t be offended. “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
After all, in this period, Italy faces some problems, but when you pass over here, you breathe art, culture and a pervasive history that is behind every corner. With this thought came along the idea to write, sometime, about some of that many hidden places of this Country that enclose in themselves, like in an ampulla, a portion of that endless stories that, if the stones could talk they would tell us.
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* In the picture Ostia Antica.