The Renaissance Company

Arrivederci, Eatalia.

What happens when you spend a six weeks in Italy and are literally sedentary the entire time? True, I had to go up and down 32 stairs daily on crutches in our apartment building. Mercifully, the sedia ascensore (stairway chair lift) covered the other 8 flights. I would have been the Strega of Santa Croce without it. But after the temptations of the San Ambrogio market – we always overbought and had to drag it all upstairs, usually bags of food under the chair that was churning its way up the stair – the addiction to the pappa al pomodoro of a certain restaurant followed by a same obsession for the papardelle with duck, living a block from Vivali (the best gelato in Florence – dark chocolate with orange is what I am wearing on my hips this year), and spending the last week divided between the Veneto and Bologna…when the German gentlemen boarded our plane with the wheelchair after we landed in Frankfurt and said they were going to carry me, in the wheel chair down the stair ramp, and kept saying “Do not be frightened” each time a little more strained, I was sure we would all land in a heap next to the baggage which was much more gracefully making its way to the ground via the conveyor belt. They must be in physical therapy this week.

While surrounded by chic Italian women of every age in Claudia Cardinale sheaths, my eyes at their wasp waist level all day as they skated down the stone covered strade in beautiful high heeled sandals, the I am so handsome it hurts men in their Mastroianni suits, the era of La Dolce Vita was as fashionably current as Mad Men is here. (Speaking of La Dolce Vita, there was an outdoor screening of the newly restored version in the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna) I rehearsed “Per me, no grazie” as a response to the cameriere’s inevitable “Dolce?” query at the end of a meal. And just as inevitably, a dolce would be casually brought to our table “un piccolo regalo – per due e’ niente.” It would have been rude not to have eaten it. And discovering a new best pizza with truffles either of us has ever tasted, well, I was pretty sure I was returning having conspicuously consumed more than art and high culture.

I live in blissful ignorance of just what the damage is and instead as I write this I wish could have a bowl of that crimson, more tomato than a tomato ever tasted, velvety pappa. Or twist my fork around the tagliatelle Bolognese that we had at a trattoria in Mt Donato., while hoping Frank would be absorbed in his own pranzo not to notice I was finishing it without passing over another bite. (I know. It’s mean. He really was such a prince, patiently pushing, fetching, cooking, cleaning but it was nearly our last day. He was enjoying his own delicious though I can’t remember what it was even though I had tasted it dish.)

We would have missed that altogether were it not for Stefano, our gallant Bolognese friend who after several tries, was able to find a restaurant that was open for lunch on Monday in August in Bologna. There was so much we would have missed had it not been for old and new friends and total strangers who always went out of their way to be helpful. I fell once, ironically, on the stairs in front of the Ospedale of the Innocenti. It was a soft landing for me but a loud one with my crutches clattering all the way down on the stone steps. I laughed at my conspicuous clumsiness while Frank and a young man picked me up and threw my arms over their shoulders , a little boy  carried my stampelle and the seeming committee that had formed got me down the stairs. They all shrugged off my effusive grazies and went on with their business.

I had an Italian tutor, Francesca, who came to the apartment and trudged up all those stairs everyday. At first, we talked a lot about the news. I would pick up news stories on television or in newspapers that I did not fully understand and she would fill in the gaps as we worked on grammar and vocabulary. She had taught art history for some time and so our conversations inevitably drifted there or to my book project, to our tours, or we would gaze out the window and talk about the horrors of mass tourism. Groups of 50 people or more drifting across Piazza Santa Croce behind a tour guide more interested in directing them to shops and distracting them from the transforming beauty that was all around them – the Giotto frescoes just yards away, the Donatello Annunciation through that doorway, to name merely two wonders. Still the guides squawked into their mikes about the best places to buy leather and to get “the best lunch” -  a restaurant nearby which offers what you could find in the frozen food section in any American grocery. It surprised me this summer to find so many museums nearly empty with all the tourists in town. I remembered what a friend from the Uffizi told me: “The average visit to Florence is 18 hours. People see the copy of the David on the Piazza Signoria, the Botticelli Primavera at the Uffizi, and take a few pictures on the Ponte Vecchio and think they have seen Florence. In the same way, a few days in Venice, Rome and Florence and they think they’ve seen Italy when they have in fact traveled a long way to miss it.”

Francesca runs a cooking school now but a mutual friend put us in touch and she was kind enough to take me on. This friend had told me Francesca had been her art history instructor so I was uncertain of her age nor did I want to ask Donatella “How long ago was that?” The first morning she was to come to the apartment, I thought, “I wonder if this will be the first and last time she comes once she climbs the stairs.” Fortunately, she is young, vivacious, smart and witty and our sessions would drift well past the prescribed time. I will miss that.

I will miss the exchange of waves and “Salve” from the cafes and shops on our familiar routes. The easy smiles and “Come ha fatto?” about my leg and the remarks about my “world cup injury.” The inn keeper at a very small b and b who when we arrived late in the evening last Sunday (traffic being terrible as all of Italy heads to its shores for August leaving the interior empty but for the tourists and the autostrada) and there was nothing open for dinner, knocked on our door “We are going to make ourselves dinner very soon. We would be happy if you would join us.” On another Sunday evening, the fine doctor who, with care and wit, tended to a medical issue. The volunteers at the Misericordia whose kindness presented an art viewing opportunity. Roberto, who always found (virtually made) a place for us in his restaurant of five tables. At the Chiesa d’ Buonuomini, the elderly caretaker whose knowledge, grace and love for the church and frescoes there added so much to our own experience of them – and his pride in showing the skill of his wife’s needlework as she crocheted and tatted lace while sitting in the church with him every morning. The time Frank ran the wheel chair aground because a crowded sidewalk suddenly narrowed and I was hanging half out in the street and everyone gasped and then we all laughed as the melons and peaches from a bag on my lap went rolling down the street. The very nice woman at the stationery store who stopped and chatted when she saw us at the antique book stall. The fruttavendolo who always threw in an abundance of basil when Frank bought tomatoes. The employees of certain places who let us see some wonders that we would not have experienced without their grace – you know who you are. A very particular and moving experience at Santissima Annunziata.  And so much we will savor for the rest of our lives.

Some of you have generously given unearned compliments about the courage to make the trip after the injury. (The courage was mostly Frank’s. As my son said right after the Achille’s rupture “Mom, I feel sorry for you but I think I am sorrier still for Frank.”) This was in so many ways, the best, the richest trip we have ever taken. I wouldn’t have missed it or a single added pound for anything!

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