My grandparents, circa 1950.
…small moments of beauty.
Category Archives: art + photographs
Keeping the past…
Came across this in an old, cardboard box of photographs of my grandmother’s:
Fossa, 1975 – Nonno Anni looking melancholy (his first time there again since 1939), and Nanna Francesca, sleeves rolled, her usual harried look when about to get back to a pot on the stove or the washing or something. So very them.
Have kept it in a frame on my wall and whenever I wish I could seek their advice or miss just having a chat, it’s a comfort to remember how they were at times. (I think Nanna Francesca had almost this same look peering from the doorway when I arrived in Fossa for the first time 20 years later!!) xx
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Fossa’s village windows…
Following the photographs of Fossa’s doors, it seems fitting to share some of Fossa’s windows too. So many beautiful and distinctive windows throughout the village (and to me, so much more character than most modern ones these days).
These photos were taken over the past 20 years or more so some are a bit grainy since I had an old Pentax camera with film back then. I could have perhaps photoshopped them but that didn’t seem being true to the era of even 15 or 20 years ago.
I didn’t realise just how many photographs I’d taken of Fossa during my visits, especially windows! (And no, I didn’t peek in any!) But I loved the resonances of village life you’d hear drifting down from them as I walked along the lanes – loud conversations in rapid Italian I mostly couldn’t understand, the aroma of a pasta sauce simmering on a stove, a tv set blaring, someone singing… all lovely. xx
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Fossa’s village doors…
Walking around Fossa, along lanes that become so steep and narrow they merge into steps or descend into tunnels, I began to notice all the different doors I passed. Some with stylised, door furniture of lion heads or dragons and beautifully varnished wood, others crude, weathered timber, or painted mission brown.
Several were fastened with long, draw bolts that looked like from another era, stable doors with cobwebby corners, cat holes cut into the bottom by kind residents looking after the village cats. A few of Fossa’s resident animals managed to get into some of my photographs. I took these in the village four years before the earthquake. Perhaps one of the doors you may recognise as yours! xx
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From blossoms to broccoli…
Came across this photograph of my family’s Applethorpe farm in the 1950s with the orchard in flower and realised when I was there doing research for Mezza and Joe’s, I happened to take a picture from almost the same spot 60 years later.
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patting ‘the little pigs’ for luck…
Patting il Porcellino, ‘the little pig’ for luck, (left) in Sydney, (right) in Florence. These bronze, wild boar (cinghiale) sculptures are replicas of the original by Pietro Tacca (1577-1640) commissioned by Cosimo II de Medici in 1621 that is now in the Museo Bardini. Apparently since at least 1633 visitors to Florence have ‘rubbed the snout’ for luck and to ensure their return to the city and tourists now rub it so much they have to replace the sculpture every decade or so.
The Florence ‘piglet’ is located in Mercato Nuovo also known as the Porcellino market and the Sydney one, (donated by Marchesa Fiaschi Torrigiani in 1968) is outside Australia’s oldest hospital, Sydney Hospital, in Macquarie Street. There are dozens of others around Europe, America, Canada, the UK and Asia so perhaps unlikely I’ll get to pat them all but hopefully might have just enough luck from these two!
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sign of the old shop…
In this photograph of my family’s fruit shop and milk bar in its earlier days, it’s apparent how it began very modestly with my grandparents standing on the footpath in Ann Street selling produce from a ‘hole in the wall’ before they expanded the space to include a milk bar. Visible in the top left is some of the sign that hung over the footpath from around the early 1950s. It was white with ‘milk bar’ in red Perspex letters and lit up at night.
Below is the only part of the sign we managed to salvage after Brisbane’s 2011 floods (and happens to be the bit seen in this photograph taken almost 70 years ago!) It might be broken but it’s one of only a handful of items my grandparents kept when they closed their milk bar and with now no trace that it ever existed, it seems lucky to have this piece left.
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Beyond the earthquake…
Since the earthquake, my family’s house in Italy remains too damaged to stay in. Much of the village remains empty. And now, thieves have broken into the house. They mainly upturned drawers adding to the mess of earthquake damage, since belongings inside are mostly of sentimental value, but of course it is another blow.
For the past week, my cousin has been there cleaning up and an unexpected side to what’s happened is that she’s come across old documents, letters written by our great-grandparents and photographs, including this lovely find!
My mother (on the left) was just twenty-two at the time when she and my Dad were the first to travel back to the house after the family migrated to Australia decades earlier. Pierina (on the right) is the relative who lived in the house and kept it maintained all those years before the family could return. This was taken in Fossa just before Christmas in 1970.
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Some of Fossa’s laneways…
… at around dawn while most of the village still slept.
These are just a few of the lanes that wind under, over and around the village and to me they are magical. Some tunnels have small frescoes and lanterns in them.
Most are just wide enough for a tiny car, others only able to be walked. The dog on the steps is Musso Nero, the village dog who was looked after by everybody {page 328, Mezza Italiana}.
I took these photographs with black and white film and an old Pentax camera more than a decade ago while staying in the village writing Mezza Italiana.
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Old photographs and family stories…
Even though Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar is completed, it is a pleasure to keep hearing more stories from my older relatives who always seem to have a little more to reveal about this era of their lives.
Talking to my great uncle Vincenzo recently I found out the varieties of produce they grew on the family’s Applethorpe farm included Granny Smith and Delicious apples, Santa Rosa and Wilson plums, Packham pears and green beans, also known as French or string beans. And the beans were the easiest to pick come harvest time.
(My great-grandmother – back left – was in her 50s when this was taken and though having recently lost her husband was working hard to keep the farm going.)
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From over the Aterno Valley, Abruzzo…
The steeple of Santa Maria Assunta in Fossa… the church that sits opposite my family’s house in Abruzzo. It was lovely to walk along the lanes below and listen to the bell tolling the time of day or to hear it from afar when you were on your way back to the village.
When I took this in 2005, it was a beautiful, serene day with no hint that just four years later the steeple’s turret would be gone when the earthquake caused it to crash down through the church roof.
Originally built in the 1200s, the church was expanded during the 1400s and then partly rebuilt following the earthquake of 1703. (At this time, my family’s house was about a decade old and had experienced its first terremoto.) I took this photograph with my old Pentax camera on black and white film. Although just over a decade ago, I didn’t yet have a digital camera then!
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To come from what is left behind…
As much as migrants love and embrace their new country, many cannot help but feel they’ve left a piece of themselves behind… and often those born in later generations still feel that bind as well.
This poignant sculpture at Marseilles is by Bruno Catalano, Moroccan-born in a Sicilian family who later moved to France. Being ten years old and watching from a boat his native land fade away had a profound impact that would stay with him throughout his life.
Bruno Catalano
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Ethel’s Chooks…
Perhaps it’s old-fashioned but I still have a wall calendar where I write up all that’s happening. This year it features paintings by William T. Cooper (1934-2015) an Australian artist who painted mostly natural subjects, especially birds. He painted with extreme precision so if there were a certain number of a certain colour feathers then that is exactly what he depicted.
While he painted many exotic species too, I love this painting, Ethel’s Chooks, which Cooper painted of his neighbour’s chooks that free ranged around the farm. When I sit down to my desk each day, seeing the work and precision Cooper put into his art is inspiring. His career as an artist spanned more than 50 years and he continued to paint into his 80s.
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The path toward a fresh year…
A new year stretches ahead and there is something thrilling and also sobering in not knowing where our paths may meander as the months unfold. Hope this year is a wonderful one for you that brings much happiness! I couldn’t go past this beautiful painting by L’Aquila artist, Juan Alfredo Parisse to begin the year. He painted it on the road below my family’s village of Fossa in the Aterno Valley of Abruzzo and it is called, Verso Fossa.
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19th century Italy in regional Australia…
Recently, while in Victoria I visited the Bendigo Art Gallery and it was wonderful to see their collection of 19th century Australian art (inspiration for the next book!)
It seems Italy is never too far away however as I couldn’t help noticing this circa 1879 painting of women carrying their copper conche to collect water, such a common sight in Abruzzo especially.
Titled, ‘Peasant Water Carriers’, it was painted by Pietro Barucci {1845-1917} who was mainly known for his paintings of landscapes in the rural areas surrounding Rome.
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milk bar glass, circa 1950…
An original glass {circa 1950} from Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni’s milk bar. These were mostly used for my grandfather’s sought-after, homemade orange drink but customers would also request milkshakes in them too if they preferred glass to one of the metal canisters.
The milkshake flavours available at the time were chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, custard, lime and caramel, with chocolate always the most popular. The only flavours I had in the house to make this one were maple syrup and vanilla bean, which turned out quite delicious. And yes, that is an old-style, waxed paper straw!
Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar
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the fairy tree dwellers…
Part of The Fairy Tree in Fitzroy Gardens, carved in the early 1930s by sculptor Ola Cohn {1892-1964} as a gift to the children of Melbourne. Though my own childhood is distant, I found myself rushing through the gardens to find it. And while there were plenty of beautifully carved tree folk to capture, I was taken by this little group hiding in a notch near the base of the trunk, and especially like the owl.
Afterwards, I read, “A Way with the Fairies”, Ola Cohn’s autobiography, and it was interesting to learn more of this Australian sculptor and philanthropist. For many female artists of a certain era, sadly, their work did not always receive all the recognition it may have merited.
A gift to the children of Melbourne…
“I have carved a tree in the Fitzroy Gardens for you and the fairies, but mostly for the fairies and those who believe in them. For they will understand how necessary it is to have a fairy sanctuary – a place that is sacred and safe as a home should be to all living creatures.” Ola Cohn
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Mercers Lane Mosaic…
A beautiful, mosaic artwork is emerging along Mercers Lane in Ingham, Queensland to commemorate the history of the local sugarcane industry. Really inspiring to discover around 2000 local volunteers and tourists so far have taken part in creating the mosaic and it’s wonderful to see local history recorded in art like this, particularly all the different cultures that have been a part. 
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Official opening of Anzac Square, Brisbane…
Official opening of Anzac Square in Brisbane on 25th April, 1930 (taken from Ann St looking towards Adelaide St).
– image courtesy State Library, Qld.
{For those familiar with the Astoria Café in Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar, this building can be seen in the far right of the photograph.}
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Queen Street, Brisbane in 1939…
….as it looked when my grandfather, Annibale arrived alone in Australia at the age of 15. Met by his father, Vitale, who took him straight from the ship dock to this street to buy some new work boots. The very next day, they left Brisbane for Annibale to commence work at a farm 200km away. After seven years apart, father and son got to spend just 24 hours together.
{image courtesy State Library, Qld}
Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar
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Milk Bar in the Regent Theatre, Brisbane circa 1936…
{image courtesy State Library, Qld}
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a seat by the cove…
— Farm Cove, Royal Botanic Gardens
So lovely that whenever in Sydney, despite the hectic traffic and millions of people, it is still always possible to find an empty seat to watch the harbour…
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Italian street painting in Sydney…
Giuseppe, aka Pepe, is a Madonnaro whom we came across by the harbour at Circular Quay in Sydney. Since the 16th century, Madonnari from Puglia in Italy’s south have been itinerant artists who originally went to cities to work on the cathedrals and when the job was done found a way to make a living by recreating paintings from the church on the pavement. Aware of festivals and holy days in each town, the Madonnari would travel to different provinces throughout Italy to eke out a living from observers who would throw coins if they approved of the work. Pepe explained he makes a living based solely on donations and never sells his paintings. Once they are completed, he gives them away to charitable organisations that then raise money by auctioning his paintings. His most recent work sold for $16,000.
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Rosen in Deutschland…
Spring in Australia starts today {although the equinox is a few weeks off yet}. I wish I’d grown these myself but I took this picture during the northern hemisphere’s spring – in Beutelsbach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where I was doing research for a future book. It seemed every window box and garden were growing beautiful red flowers.
After the storm…
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Piano accordion orchestra
For the first time, we recently saw a piano accordion orchestra concert. It was great, some of the music taking me back to attending those big Italian weddings when I was a child and also our family gatherings when my uncle sometimes played the piano accordion. Of course, there were a couple of classics played, including Volare and Funiculi Funicula.
{Photograph courtesy of Germaine Arnold: http://deptford.tumblr.com/}
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Beautiful old buildings…
One Sunday morning, we came across the Wiss Emporium in the town of Kalbar and came away with a number of vintage finds including an unusual wooden picture frame circa 1920. It was really wonderful to see this one hundred and five year old building with its original long counter and pressed metal ceilings being utilised and looked after so beautifully, its history and character much valued by its current owner.
Original Wiss Brothers store on the same site circa 1890
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Katoomba magic…
I can’t take credit for the cockatoo in flight, it just happened to appear as I clicked the camera.
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a little bit of Italiana…
Anyone with Sicilian connections or who have been to Sicily may recognise this doll in folk costume (right) and the decorated cart, carrello or carrozza…
Came across the display as part of an Italian migrant exhibition at the Commissariat Store Museum in Brisbane.
Along with some bomboniere… (below) familiar to Italian weddings, christenings and communions.
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the old macaroni factory…
The Lucini macaroni factory (circa 1859) is said to be the oldest building in Australia built by Italian-Australians. There are 150-year-old frescoes inside that unfortunately remained hidden as it was closed the day we came by. Sitting in the main street of Hepburn Springs in Victoria, the building was also the location for Jan Sardi’s film, Love’s Brother, about two Italian brothers in Australia and a proxy marriage to a girl in Italy.
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art in nature…
View from the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia where we recently went to see the new Margaret Olley Art Centre housing rooms from her Sydney terrace house, her artworks, and exhibitions by other artists. This view from the café was like an artwork in itself.
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Togetherness and separateness within la famiglia…
…this family from le Marche were photographed by Mario Giacomelli during time he spent with them between 1964 and 1966 for his series, la buona terra – the good earth, in which his aim was to capture the story of work, of life, throughout the revolving seasons, and endlessly repeated throughout a lifetime.
Related article: Priests dancing in the snow
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“Dolcetto o scherzetto” ~ trick or treat
as night falls, the children may call…
{vintage paper cut – ‘if these walls could talk’}
…vigilia d’ognissanti ~ eve of all saints ~ halloween…
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‘alla fontana’ ~ to the fountain…
The woman in the foreground carries two conche, the copper vessels traditionally used in Abruzzo to collect water from the village fountain for the household. Perhaps she was teaching the young girl to carry it back on her head (depicted by the women in the background). The village women used to do so to transport all manner of heavy things with evidence of this including iron bedheads and, on occasion in very steep areas, even coffins.
The artwork pictured here was painted in Civita d’Antino in Abruzzo by Danish painter, Kristian Zahrtmann (1843-1917) who first travelled to the mountain town of Civita d’Antino in June 1883. Zahrtmann came to consider it his second home as he was fascinated by “the life there, the strong Italian sun, the brightness of colours, and the exoticness of Catholic Church rites”.
He spent every summer from 1890 to 1911 in Civita d’Antino where he stayed with the Cerroni family, and was named an honorary citizen of the town in 1902. In Civita d’Antino, a memorial plaque to Zahrtmann is set into the wall of the Cerroni house near the town gate.
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the art of birds…
“Birds don’t only use their beaks to build: they press their breasts against the inner wall to make it round, imprinting their shape on their home, an interior formed by the steady rhythm of their beating hearts.”
Janine Burke
from Nest: The Art of Birds
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Late afternoon walks…
a beautiful end to a Sunday, walking along Obi Obi Creek, Maleny…
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Castel del Monte, Abruzzo…
- Castel del Monte – “Fortress of the mountain”.
Castel del Monte, Abruzzo
- Evidence of the site first inhabited as early as the 11th century BC.
- Visited and painted by artist and folklorist, Estella Canziani in 1913.
- Birthplace of a distant cousin I was pleased to meet the last time I was in Italy.
- Location where George Clooney was filmed in, “The American”.
- In mid-August the town hosts the annual event, La Notte delle Streghe – The Night of the Witches, a late-night spectacle I really hope to see in the future.
Castel del Monte by Estella Canziani, 1913
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Jeffrey Smart, 1921 – 2013.Litografia di Maurits Cornelis Escher…
Goriano Sicoli, Abruzzi, 1929, by M.C. Escher (1898-1972), a Dutch graphic artist known for his woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
After finishing school, he traveled extensively in Italy, where he met his wife Jetta Umiker. They lived in Rome from 1924 until 1935, during which time Escher travelled throughout Italy, drawing and sketching for the various prints he would make when he returned home.
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a beautiful place to sit and read, or lie and daydream…
Painted by Estella Canziani (1887-1964) who wrote {as well as drew and painted the illustrations for} one of my favourite books on the Abruzzo about her 1913 travels – Through the Apennines & Lands of Abruzzi.
She painted this picture {oil on paper} from inside her house in London at 3 Palace Green in 1922. The white bird in the painting one of the many birds she rescued and cared for.
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un amour des livres… a love of books
Miniature book art by French artist: Marc Giai-Miniet
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The beauty of walking in Italy…
…a fleeting glimpse down a narrow, side alley often reveals the unexpected and the beautiful. 
{Taken in Orvieto, Umbria.}
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Lightly, lightly….
Life Behind by Maki Horanai
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days…Lightly, lightly—it’s the best advice ever given me. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling.”
Aldous Huxley
From ‘Island’, 1962
Related articles: Watching Over
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una passeggiata in italia…
- Passeggiando Santo Stefano Sessanio by Juan Alfredo Parisse
~ a walk in Italy…
Costa Masciarelli, L’Aquila by Juan Alfredo Parisse
‘…success
unexpected in common hours.’
Henry David Thoreau
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The need for a lie down…
…about seven hours into an Italian wedding.
{Photographer: Giuseppe Leone, Sicily.}
Related article: Rogues, gargoyles and gallery….
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the copper chocolate pot…
Still life with chocolate service {Bodegón: servicio de chocolate}, 1770, painted by Luis Meléndez {1715-1780} who was born in Naples and died in Madrid, a pauper, his paintings unappreciated, and owning only his pencils.
Among the enormous, Spanish paintings of royalty, religion, death and destruction at the Masterpieces from the Prado exhibition, it was this small portrait of a copper chocolate pot with its wooden whisk, pieces of cacao, bread and biscuits shaped like churros, a modest part of everyday life, that stopped me still the longest.
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Italia at night…
….taken from the International Space Station above the Mediterranean Sea on 18 August 2012.
{The lights of Rome and Naples are clearly visible on the coast near the centre.}
{Courtesy Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium, Australia.}
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Rogues, gargoyles and gallery….
Gargoyles, in their myriad forms include being carved to represent local heretics, controversialists, rogues, or personal enemies of the architect or building owner, particularly for ecclesiastical structures during the Middle Ages.
Photographer, Giuseppe Leone ~ known for his photography that ‘narrates’ life in Sicily, its traditions, monuments, landscapes and in particular, its people ~ has created a series that strives to match the faces of locals with gargoyles on nearby buildings.
Related article: the Italian wedding…
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Estella Canziani bookplate…
Bookplate: Estella Canziani {1887-1964} artist, writer and folklorist, London {by Frank Brangwyn}, c1919, woodcut, 10.2x9cm.
Related articles
- Cherry wood and Estella… (zoeboccabella.com)
- Serpent charmers of Cocullo… (zoeboccabella.com)
- A beautiful place to sit… (zoeboccabella.com)
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To the beach!
Photographer ~ Gina Lollobrigida {from her book Italia Mia, which my father purchased in the early 70s}.
Related articles
- Separateness and Togetherness in the family (zoeboccabella.com)
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Fossa Sole, fossa soul, Fossa in the sun…
This painting of Fossa in the Abruzzo is by artist Juan Alfredo Parisse, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and whose parents are from L’Aquila, Italy.
Parisse paints watercolours en plein air to capture the people, the towns and rural villages of the Abruzzo.
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Life in the Abruzzo in 1913…
“Maria with cooking pots”, painted by Estella Canziani in Mascione, Abruzzi, 1913. Part of the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery collection and printed in Canziani’s book, Through the Apennines and the Lands of Abruzzi.
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3 year anniversary of Abruzzo earthquake…
On April 6th it is 3 years since the earthquake hit the Abruzzo around L’Aquila in 2009 and most residents are still in temporary housing. This photograph shows residents also in temporary timber housing or barracks, taken in L’Aquila after the area’s previous major earthquake in 1915 killed more than 30,000 {epicentre Avezzano}. The humour of the man on the roof bending looking through his legs is heartening considering the recent trauma they must have experienced.
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Freshly baked bread…
For many centuries, baking in most Italian villages took place mostly once a week or even a fortnight. Both my grandparents told me how they recalled the women of the village taking their dough to the forno (often the only oven in the entire village), and that each piece of dough had an identifying mark on it for when the women came back to collect their baked bread.
In Palmi, Calabria my great, great grandmother and bisnonna baked for their area in a large, wood-fired oven or forno in a room beneath their house.
While I’d heard these stories and have been to the village forno I had never seen any pictures so I was thrilled when photographer, Carla Coulson recently sent me this Henri Cartier-Bresson photograph. It was taken in 1953 in the Abruzzese town of Scanno as women were carrying their dough to the forno for baking.
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Dancing in the snow…
This picture of young priests
dancing in the snow
was taken at a seminary in le Marche
in the early 1960s by Italian photographer,
Mario Giacomelli (1925-2000).
Initially they reminded me a little
of whirling dervishes but it is not any
type of ritual, merely an innocent time of
relaxation. The seminarians were
playing ‘ring a ring o’ roses’,
unaware of being captured by
Giacomelli’s lens as he hid up in a roof.
Later, he gave them cigars,
which the young priests enjoyed
but the rector wasn’t too pleased.
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Michetti’s Abruzzese shepherdess…
Born in 1851 in Tocco da Casauria of Pescara province, Francesco Paolo Michetti was an Abruzzese artist who aspired to paint ‘real life’ capturing people, animals, and local events. The Abruzzo was his inspiration and in 1883 he purchased a convent there as his home and studio. For the next 20 years, the convent was a meeting place for Abruzzo’s artists including writer Gabriele D’Annunzio. Time moves slowly in the Abruzzo and fortunately some landscapes such as in this painting remain.
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Cherry wood and Estella…
Piedmontese peasant wood-pipe carved from cherry wood that writer, artist and folklorist, Estella Canziani presented to The Folklore Society of London in 1911. She donated it along with other items from her travels in northern Italy when she wrote and illustrated her first book, Costumes, Traditions and Songs of Savoy (before she ventured to the Abruzzo in 1913 to pen Through the Apennines and Lands of Abruzzi).
I saw a similar pipe sitting on a stall table at the antique market in Arezzo and am still regetting not having bought it…
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