He covereth the heavens with clouds and prepareth rain for the earth.

Saturday, 1st Vespers of 2nd Sunday after Easter

Ps. 146

Great is our Lord, and great His power *
and His wisdom is beyond measure.

...

He covereth the heavens with clouds,*
and prepareth rain for the earth.

He maketh the grass to grow on the hills*
and herbs for the service of men.


Happy Sunday.

Just a few pics from the last few days.


On the way home from the shops.


Looking up along our lane to the hamlet of San Fortunato.

 Everything coming along nicely. I really do trim it all back regularly. But the next day it's back to this.

A lot of gardening is just waiting to see what will come up. I didn't plant this. Or at least, I don't remember planting irises here. Quite a lot of the seeds I tried last year have only put out plants this year. Nature has its own ideas about things. 

These beautiful bearded irises did nothing for the first two seasons, but I've been trying to make them more comfortable, mulching with compost. It seems to have worked. 

Had the first two today. Not quite perfectly ripe, but the snails were already having a go. It started pouring or I'd have finished the job of collecting some dried cut grass to use as straw mulch.







































California poppies. They came up from a packet of mystery-mix last year and were quite modest. This year I'm having to stake them up and be quite ruthless in cutting them back to give the strawberries enough light and space.



~

Spring in Umbria

First sunny day in a couple of weeks here. I should have realised it was going to be nice when I heard the wind that has blown away all the clouds.

I've got some deadlines to chase today, but thought I'd share some pics of the garden, and a few ideas I'm working on for the spring. (That is apparently happening right the heck now!)

I've become enamoured of the idea of creating a medieval herb and flower garden in what I can really no longer call The Big Dry Patch. Building beds is rough work though.


Annamaria has pruned her olive grove and there's a small mountain of olive cuttings that aren't doing anything. I've already started wattle fence experiments.


Gathering data for a series of articles - haven't decided where I'm going to flog them - on the concept in medieval mysticism of the "Hortus Conclusus" - the "garden enclosed". It shows up starting in the mid-14th century in the manuscripts, where Mary is often depicted sitting (frequently on a "turf bench") in a lovely garden, surrounded by all manner of flowers and animals, and often accompanied by ladies in waiting like a courtly medieval queen, entertained by minstrels. There's a lot to unpack.


Also gathering garden ideas. I'd like everything to be documentable from primary sources. Fortunately, there's a LOT of stuff uploaded, and the medievals seemed to really love painting their gardens into the manuscripts.



The turf bench shows up again and again in the manuscripts, most often set in front of a trellis with red or red and white roses. Apparently one was supposed to put on one's best clothes and go out in the summer and weave little bonnets with the roses. All very symbolic. I'm working out how to do a turf bench with the materials at hand.

Here's my first trellis, taken a few weeks ago. The side supports are an old wooden ladder that's lost its rungs. The space behind it is just the right size for a melon and squash patch. I'm planning another trellis, made of much sturdier materials, that will be an a-frame for the viney plants to climb. This will create some shade for things that like a bit of shade like lettuces.

New beds, lots of mulch to treat the clay soil and keep the water in when it gets hot; in the background are rows of brassicas in the orto (and Henry, guarding his territory from the farm cats). I got about 25 nice Romanesco broccolis - now all packed away in the freezer for summer - and still have some cauliflower and red cabbage to go. I've planted lots and lots of garlic too, as well as red onions and a few white ones. 

Everything looking a bit grim and grey this time of year, of course, but it's perfect weather for getting out and digging and building. Couldn't do it in the heat. 

Unfortunately, after the very bad drought and unusually hot summer, the loquat tree decided that autumn was spring, and produced all its flowers in November, which were subsequently killed by the frost. A few of the flowers that were a bit sheltered survived and there will be a little fruit. But droughts are bad for so many reasons. 

New beds to protect the beginning grape vines, all planted around with garlics. I'm only about half way done. You can see the big stack of tufa stones in the background along the base of the jasmine hedge. Got plans for all that. In front is my first go at making an obelisk trellis out of bamboo uprights and olive branch twists. It's for sweet peas.

 Here it is in the bed, and the sweet peas are all planted.

That beautiful black soil all comes bucket-by-bucket from Annamaria's family compost heap. It's got to be at least a hundred years old, and covers an area the size of three parking spaces. She's said I can help myself to as much as I like.

Pippy loves to help in the garden.

The apricot in blossom.

My neighbour Franco's almond tree blossoming as it towers above my still-bare fig tree.








Magnificent botanical accuracy in a detail from one tiny corner of the great Ghent Altarpiece by Jan Van Eyck. You can clearly identify every species. So much research to do.

It's no wonder that Italian politics is the way it is.

Nosing about today into the local history of Umbria in the Spoleto-Perugia area, the big horseshoe valley of the Tiber.

My local village church, San Martino, was rebuilt in 1815, as were most of the parish churches of this area. It's a really lovely building, and of course was built in the same spot as the older church from the 13th century. But I wondered why that particular date and why all the rebuilding around here, since all the churches up and down the country road here were all about the same date and by the same architect.

As it turns out, there's a very sound historical reason. Of course, I live in what was once the Papal States. And that's kind of where the problem begins.

The history of the Church in Italy is not a happy one, and of course has a lot to do with the 1000 year conflict between the Pope and the Emperor, that spilled over into various iterations through the ages, culminating in the catastrophe of the secularist/freemasonic revolt of 1870 and the disastrous farce of unification, an artificial construct that has little actual social reality.

But as Rome and the Papal States flipped back and forth between rule by France, rule by Naples/Sicily, rule by the pope, like an oscillating sprinkler, there were brief moments of peace. One of these was at the end of French rule in this area, the département Trasimène (prefecture of Spoleto) ended in 1814. I expect after Napoleon had finished imposing his weird ideas of religion and the relations between Church and State, there wasn't much in the way of Catholic life left around here, so rebuilding was a way of reviving Catholic culture. Look particularly at the dates 1815: Rome changed hands three times in a single year. Hardly surprising that steps were taken in the provinces to try to establish some kind of ecclesial order.

Later in the 19th century the secularist Italian rulers had another go at the Church, in much the same way and for much the same reason as the English Dissolution: a kind of national possession of odium fidei...

Here is a little blurb about the decree of the governor Gioacchino Pepoli of 1860 in which all the convents and monasteries in this area were stripped of their possessions.

The Italian Suppression in 1866

With regard to the religious suppression decreed by the Italian Government in 1866, there is no specific mention in the Records of the Convent.

It is known from other sources, though, that the first decree of expulsion was issued by the High Commissioner of the Government, Gioacchino Pepoli on November 1th, 1860, after the occupation of the regions of Marche and Umbria. Such decree contained a clause which stated that all mendicant friars could remain in their cloisters of residence, provided that they expressed their intention to do so. They then provided to do such request. The definitive decree arrived nonetheless on July 7th, 1866.

Leafing through the Provincial Records in S. Maria degli Angeli, we have found a historic document sent to the General Ministry by the Provincial B. Stefano from Castelplanio, in 1882: “S. Antonio of Paccian Vecchio”, diocese of Città della Pieve – The Friars were expelled from this Convent as well, on March 24th, 1864”. The Church remained closed, and the building as well as its surroundings were rented to third parties.

~

Who was this Pepoli guy, and how could he have had the power to just wipe out Catholic religious life with the stroke of a pen?

This was the period of the beginning of the great disaster that Italy is still suffering from today. This comes from the 1935 (Mussolini-period) Italian Encyclopaedia...

Note the little ting of approval...

"Well accepted to Napoleon III, he was among the most valid cooperators with him to make him benevolent to Italian politics, especially to the Piedmontese one. Liberate the Romagne (1859) and appointed governor of them L. Cipriani, the P. assumed the posts of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance, of which he was an expert connoisseur. Member of the Romagne assembly, governor of Umbria, when he was occupied (September 1860) by the Italian government, he administered the region with wisdom..."

The blurb comes from the historical notes of a former Franciscan convent that is now a swank agritourismo near Trasimeno (a common fate of many, many monasteries and convents in Italy, and increasingly so...)

The Convent of Sant’Antonio of Padua Pacciano Vecchio, situated in the diocese of Città della Pieve, dates back to 1496. Its construction was authorised on July 16 that year by Pope Alexander VI, addressing the inhabitants of Pacciano Vecchio and Panicale. He affirmed the importance of this authorization based on the need of the presence of priests who would spread God’s Word and celebrate the Holy Misteries. He therefore gave his permission to build the Convent (“which would have the indulgencies and privileges of all other churches”) with a Church -consecrated to Saint Antonio of Padua- a bell tower, the cemetery, a dormitory, a refectory, a cloister, vegetable gardens and the smithery.

There is a Memorial, found in the Parish Archives of Panicale which says: “The Convent of the Fathers of Sant’Antonio of Paccian Vecchio was founded at the expenses of people from Panicale and Pacciano in 1496, in the site of the prisons of the County of Pacciano Vecchio, granted by the Counts Baglioni”.

~

It's no wonder that Italian politics is the way it is. They've had hundreds of years of this or that foreign or domestic ideological power declaring itself to be the rulers of this country. It's not surprising that the ordinary people have developed their unique Italian form of mental stoicism, a kind of aggressive indifference to politics at the national and international level, and the instinct to simply ignore the larger issues and preserve the family and one's private holdings, to be concerned exclusively with the local area, to protect the local interests.

It is also enlightening to see where the current suppression of the Catholic Faith within the Church's own institutions came from. It was, of course, in part the work of Modernist and Neo-Modernist theologians mainly from northern Europe. But a study could be usefully made of how the anti-clerical and secularist suppressions of the 19th century affected the situation in Italy, France and Germany to generate a kind of episcopal hopelessness, a sort of culture of ecclesiastical despair in response to the apparently unending stream of catastrophes of the modern period in Europe.



~

All I want for Christmas is a 3.5x-90x Trinocular Stereo Microscope with USB Digital Camera and 54 LED Ring Light

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I recently got a book contract. It's not a huge deal; my name won't be on it and it's not the whole book - just three chapters and some editing - but it's a good start in the book world. And when I've actually managed to produce something, I'm going to be paid a nice little chunk of money. Again, not a huge fortune, but it will keep us in kitty-kibble and tea n' biscuits for a while. And if I do it right, promote myself right, I might be able to grow this little shoot into more work as a ghost writer. I like researching and can put decent English sentences together, and am starting to be very wary of the urge to be "known". When I'm done and the book is sailing along the publishing process I might look into the many websites about "how to start a business as a ghost writer," and see what they say. I'm sure there's a Wikihow about it.

Meanwhile, life here in the Perugia lowlands continues to be a consolation. The weather has warmed up considerably, but we get lots of nice breezes and fairly regular thunderstorms to keep things cool, and not boring. The kitties are becoming real outdoor cats, only showing up for meals and nap time.

Pippin's new favourite nap spot. It's my collecting basket, but I put a padded placemat in it to keep the fur out and to be nice and cozy. 

I've been to the village festa and it was charming; a Mass that was not too bad and a very lovely procession through town with a glorious gilded 18th century baldacchino, many antique banners and lots of local hymns and songs to Our Lady and St. Martin, the town's patron. So far I have managed to go to Mass in the village parishes three times and not even once started yelling or stormed out, or even made faces at the gladhand o' peace. I met the curate and he speaks adequate English to get my confession heard. Friendly chap. I think if he gets to know me better, he'll be rather shocked at how old fashioned I am (they always are), so we'll have to see how friendly he remains. I've even found my antique lace mantilla and recovered it from its box, though I don't want to shock anyone just yet. Let em get used to seeing the straniera every week first.

I've started about 30 litres of nettle and ginger beer, and the cherry trees in the garden are heavy and bright with fruit, so the two large bottles of vodka are just waiting for two extra large hinge-topped jars and we'll have boozy cherries and warm cherry cocktails at Christmas again!

Meanwhile, I've started sketching a little. The landlady, Annamaria, gave me a beautiful slab of white marble in an arch shape, about 3/4 of an inch thick, and very smooth.

The arch is not even. I thought of taking it to the local funerary stonemasons who specialise in this sort of thing, but then thought it seemed rather charming lopsided. I'm thinking instead of trying to hide it, I'll incorporate it into the painting somehow. Maybe have the extended corner at the bottom right as a little side chapel containing some monks or acolytes peeking through the curtain at the great folk. Maybe with a cat. 

It was supposed to be the top of a bit of the kitchen counter, but its been sitting outside getting green and aged. I asked if I could have it to paint on, and a few days later, Bruno came struggling in with it and put it in my workroom. So I have to start planning seriously what to put on it.

If I do a decent job of it, I might be able to sell it for at least a few thousand, (though how I could safely ship such a large and heavy thing might be a bit tricky, I can only just lift it!) and it would keep us going for a good long while. It's such a lovely thing it deserves to have a Sacred Conversation, in the late Gothic, early Renaissance style that is so prominent around here. Last weekend I had a wonderful chance to visit Spello, a nearby medieval town with loads of churches, and their most famous son is the great painter Pinturicchio (Benetto di Biagio). We saw the absolutely mindbogglingly beautiful frescoes of the Baglioni Chapel (not allowed to take pics), in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore that was damaged in the quakes and remains partly closed. I fell instantly madly in love with Signore Biagio, and bought the only English language Pinturicchio book they had and several post cards.

One of the things I love about these late Gothic painters is the incredible attention to detail. I once saw an exhibition of Filippino Lippi (the much nicer son of the profligate and unpleasant Fra Filippo Lippi) student of Botticelli, and I was amazed to see that in the background of these paintings of saints and miracles, he had gone to scrupulous care to depict the flowers and insects and birds with absolute and minute botanical perfection. You could recognise every species. This is something I will be doing my best to emulate.

Today I saw that a friend of mine in the US is taking a college course in botany, just for the fun of it, and she posted some of the screen shots of the USB-compatible dissecting microscope she's using in class, and it awakened again my longing for one. Lots of work to get through in the next few months, and of course loads of financial priorities, but if things keep looking up, I might think about it again.

Here's a few pics of beautiful Spello. It's right next door to Assisi on the same train line from Rome, but having no first-rank saints to attract the zillions of tourists, is a much nicer place to visit.

Beautiful wooden loggia in the Spello municipal building. Very typically Umbrian

Trying to coax out a beautiful blue-eyed white kitty to come be petted. 

Philip, always keeping an eye on me. In San Lorenzo church. We went on a Sunday and arrived just as the Mass was ending, and it was packed to standing room, with everyone dressed to the nines. I would say that Umbria is a place of the Faith. 

What everyone comes to Spello for is the flowers. Some time ago, the town fathers knew they had to increase tourist interest, nearly all of whom would just zoom past on to Assisi and the big museums in Perugia. They hit upon the idea of flowers. They provided pots and hooks and gardening advice, and now the whole town blooms. There are contests for the locals to produce the most beautiful displays. 

Right at the very top of this very Franciscan town is the 12th century church of San Severino, well out of the tourist zone and  very peaceful. It is the church of the Capuchin Provincial house. Just down the lane is a Poor Clare monastery (which we came to too late in the day to visit.) 

The view from the table where we had lunch. 

Agnese Bocci, a third order Franciscan whose house is more or less right next door. Under this portrait there was a marble plaque that said she died in the odore suavitatis on the 8th of October, 1793. A mystic, she is one of Umbria's many stay-at-home saints.

Where we stopped for a glass of wine, at the very topmost summit of town, looking down into the valley behind it, away from the train tracks. Dead ahead is the Sibiline mountains, and Norcia is about 100 km away. 

Spello

The eucharistic chapel of San Lorenzo church. 

You can see the little plaques they give you for "best balcony", five years in a row!

Back in the village in the late afternoon, all hung with the flags of the four "rione," the neighbourhoods, who have a week long sports tournament. Volleyball and calcio, and music and beer and sausages all week. The festa is the Madonna della Scala, in honour of Our Lady's icon that was found in the remains of the medieval church when they were building a new one. 

Warm welcome in chilly Cascia

Overnight in Cascia in a freezing cold but otherwise perfectly adequate little pilgrim's hotel (Blankets... lots and lots of blankets...). Took a good long walk around yesterday afternoon and saw nearly all of it in two hours.

Met the nice elderly nun at the Agostiniane, who spends her time manning the parlor, chatting with pilgrims and tourists and making everyone feel welcome. Her hands never stopped while she crocheted the hats and scarves and baby-booties and every other thing you can think of to crochet that were piled up all over the nuns' gift shop. The work of many years. (She knew I was a straniera right away, of course, but seemed to think I was secretly Polish and kept trying to give me Polish language holy cards of St. Rita. I think I convinced her in the end, and I got a handful of the cards with the St. Rita intercession prayer in English to hand around to friends when I get home. (That is, "home," to Sta. Marinella.)

I got into a conversation with Giovanni, the nice chap who owns the hotel and who has to live there now since his house was damaged in the October quake. (His alone on his whole street... worse luck!) And he understood completely about looking for a house in Umbria. "The sea is nice for a holiday," he said, "but Umbria's the place you want to live." Without my having asked, when I went for my walk he had been busy talking to his friends in town, asking around if anyone had a flat or a house they wanted to rent out. One of these friends was the guy who owns the pizza shop downstairs from the hotel, and when I went down in the morning for a slice of "rossa," he became animated over how nice Cascia is.

This morning, Giovanni walked me over to the bar - his bar, you understand... the one next door is for other people... bought me a cafe doppio and introduced me to Mario the bar owner...

This is how Italy is. Giovanni assured me that there were no "agenzia immobiliare" in Cascia. "That's not how we do things in Cascia. Norcia, yes, but here no. we have a different mind here." It's just as well, since I do have a very good realtor who came to see me in Norcia and said he'd be working on getting a house "for you and the kitties to be safe..."

But Giovanni dove right in. I'm a straniera, but also a fellow "terremotata."

So, now I'm back at the bar, (the right bar,) having a tea and a packet of crisps, watching the news and waiting for the bus down to Spoleto, so I can get the train to take me out of the Peaceable Kingdom of the Valnerina, and back to that other place, that other Italy. But I know Umbria is waiting for me to come home.



O powerful Santa Rita,
You are called the Saint of the Impossible.
In this time of need
I come to you with confidence.
You know my trials,
for you, yourself were many times burdened in this life.

Come to my help,
pray with me,
intercede on my behalf before the Father.
I know that God has a most generous heart
and that he is a most loving Father.
Join your prayers to mine
and obtain for the the grace I desire *of a home in the Valnerina*

I promise to use this favour, when granted,
to better my life,
to proclaim God's mercy,
and to make you widely known and loved.

I ask this through Christ our Lord.



~


(I've just realized I have not posted the update. The house is not "agibile". My flat is fine, and so is the one downstairs, but the third floor (second in Italy) is badly damaged. I think the chimney needs repair too, since it smoked very badly when I was there in December. This means that it is not possible to live in the house. Further, the commune is not issuing repair permits until the quakes stop, and when this will be is anyone's guess. I was there two nights and felt a total of about ten, mostly small, one big. It means that the house is not going to be repaired in the immediate future. For this reason, my realtor has said he will start to work on finding me another house in the area. Cascia, Roccoporena, Monteleone... quite a few of the little towns of the Valnerina are not so badly hit, so there are possibilities still and there is quite a lively little bus service that trundles all over from town to town - mostly for older people to go to the shops in Cascia and for school children.

All the efforts in Norcia right now are focused on getting the little "case degli legni" built and prepared for all the people whose houses are completely collapsed or so damaged they're not safe to go into. Whole sections of town outside the walls have been bulldozed and flattened to make room, and the little pre-fab houses are going up. All of Norcia looks like a giant construction site. Some of the little houses are completed and are already occupied. I saw housewives hanging laundry outside and signs of kids toys and life generally carrying on, which was very heartening to see.

The little houses are only being made available to people whose houses are permanently damaged or destroyed. In some cases the firemen have been helping people get their things out of their houses, packing boxes of china and carrying out sofas and other things because they can't let people in even to rescue their belongings. I think it is going to be several months before it is possible even to begin repairing houses that can be repaired. Many, many houses are so badly damaged - in some cases with parts of roofs and whole walls collapsed - that the remains will have to be bulldozed.

From a distance, Norcia looks damaged but mostly still there. In reality and for purposes of living daily life, there is very little left. And with 3000 people wanting to come home and 70% of the housing stock damaged renting in Norcia is currently impossible.)