A Visit to the Ancestral Comune

Way back in the early days of this blog, I mentioned that my great grandfather Cesare Pesaresi was born in Corinaldo, in Ancona province, in the region of Le Marche.  This past weekend, thanks to cousin M. and her family, we got to see the home of his parents, Pietro Pesaresi and Marianna Pierpaoli, as well as the centro storico of the comune, and some of the surrounding countryside.  Both the ancestral homestead and the comune itself were larger than I'd pictured in my mind.

We made the drive from Senigallia to cousin M's family's home in a little under 25 minutes.  The countryside of the Marche region is very pretty - quite agricultural, like Molise, though the hills are smaller here.  I took a short video (about 26 seconds) of the drive - here is the link.  While we did see a few olive groves, as well as several signs advertising olive oil for sale, we encountered more vineyards, farms, and orchards here.  Incidentally, I learned that the wine region here is called Colli Pesaresi - although to my knowledge my family doesn't have a winery of its own (by the way, "Pesaresi" just means "from Pesaro"; "colli," in this sense of the word, translates to "hills").  I shall have to see if I can find some wines from the Colli Pesaresi region when we are back in the US!

When we arrived, M., her husband L., her daughter A. (they have a son, too, but he is currently studying in Milano), and M.'s parents were waiting to greet us.  And inside waiting for us was cousin F. - my grandfather Alfonso's first cousin, who was born in 1926!  Her mother was my great grandfather's sister Palmira - the girl with the large bow in her hair in the photo at the top of this blog.  Hard to believe there is still someone of that generation living, but there she was, very sweet and frail.  She seemed quite happy to meet us, although we couldn't really speak directly to one another as she doesn't speak English and my Italian is next to nonexistent.  She is also extremely hard of hearing. My grandfather and she used to exchange brief letters and holiday cards - he would write in English while she would write in Italian - and she still had many of the cards and letters he'd sent over the years, which they showed me!  I let them know that I have the letters and cards she sent to him, as my grandparents gave them to me years ago (along with a lot of other family memorabilia) when they sold their house.

Me, F., and M's mother/F's daughter FS.  And one of their two dogs - it kept nipping me when we first arrived.  I realized after we left that we didn't get cousin M. in this group picture for some reason😞

A US map was brought out, and we were asked to indicate on it who lives where - so we marked ourselves in PA, and to the best of our ability added various other relatives they asked about.

Mapping out the US Pesaresi family

After looking through photos and letters, marking the map, and of course, caffè, we set off to see the ancestral homestead - the home where my great, great grandparents lived, which was just a short drive away.  

The house is now owned by a German couple.  While we were there taking pictures, the woman came out to see what we were doing there.  She wasn't overly-friendly and more or less chased us away, as she was busy painting, she said (in English) - although she invited us to come back some other time.  I apologized for disturbing her and explained I'd just wanted to see the house where my great grandfather once lived.  We scooted off pretty quickly after that.

We also stopped to visit the town cemetery.  L. asked me about the cemetery at home - I think perhaps he assumed the family was all buried in one place, which isn't the case - and I did my best to explain that cemeteries in the US are not at all like the cemeteries commonly found in Italy.  In Italy, the cimitero is usually a sort of walled enclave located outside the town proper, and owned by the local comune, not the church (I believe my own comune charges a nominal "cemetery tax").  A typical cimitero consists of family mausoleums and rows of vaults - they look almost like a little village.  In at least some cimiteri, the vaults might be leased rather than owned outright; if the lease is not renewed, the deceased (or whatever remains of them) is then removed to an ossuary elsewhere on the grounds.  

Views of the cimitero

The vaults of Palmira Pesaresi and her husband, Adolfo Mosca (the parents of cousin F.)

The vault of Pietro Pesaresi, father of Cesare and Palmira.  

From there, we were taken to see the birthplace of Santa Maria Goretti, who was born here in 1890 - just nine years before the birth of Cesare Pesaresi (she died when he was three years old).  If you're not familiar with her story, know that it's not a very pleasant one - she is the patron saint of crime victims - rape victims in particular - among other things.

This is the bed in which Maria was born

Afterwards, we drove into the walled centro storico for a walking tour.  Two of the more well-known sights of Corinaldo:

Del Pozzo della Polenta - the "Polenta Well."  The story goes that a man carrying a sack of corn flour was walking up the steep hill (I guess the steps hadn't been built yet).  He stopped to rest at the well, and his sack of flour fell in - and he jumped in after it.   Polenta-making chaos ensued - there are actually several variations of the story of what happened next:  some say he threw down some sausages, too; others say the townspeople jumped in after him because they didn't want him to selfishly eat all the polenta himself.  It's a little weird, to be sure; perhaps the story doesn't translate well across cultures.  But there is a yearly festival based on this story called La Contesta del Pozzo della Polenta - the Struggle for the Polenta Well.  The festival isn't about the polenta; rather, it is in honor of the well itself - the water from it ensured the victory of the Corinaldesi over the Duke of Urbino, who laid siege to the town back in the 1500s

This "house" is, obviously, just a façade.  The story behind the Casa di Scuretto is that Signore Scuretto, the town drunk, had a son who went to the US to work.  The son would send money back to his father, which was to be used to build a house to which the son would one day return after having made his fortune in America.  But the father spent the money in the local bars instead.  At some point, his son got suspicious and asked his father to send him pictures of the work in progress.  The father quickly had this façade built, stuck a house number on it, and sent the requested photos.  Eventually, the son found out what his father had done, and stopped sending money - so the house was never finished.

The town is larger than I had imagined.  I wish that we had planned to spend more time here, because there was much more we would have liked to have seen.  We did have a chance to climb up one part of the city walls - which, incidentally, aren't actually the original walls, as they "only" date back to the late 1400s!  So:  practically new, in Italian terms.  

Inside some kind of walkway within the walls, I think - it was a little unclear to us where we were at this point - we were just following L. as he led us through the highlights.  I wish I'd had a map...

One of the city gates

M. & L., atop the tower at the Porta Nova, I believe

The "New" Gate dates from 1490.

Views from atop the city walls

At the main entrance to city hall

Just a couple of tourists on a breezy day - please excuse my wind-blown hair

Side view of the end of a row of small houses that I thought were cute; too bad I didn't see any "vendesi" ("for sale") signs on any of them.  The front door for this end unit is on the left (unseen) side of the building.

The last part of our somewhat whirlwind tour included visits to a couple of the town's major churches.  Our first stop was the Sanctuario di Santa Maria Goretti (formerly known as the Chiesa di Sant'Agostino):

The saint's mother.

We also stopped in at the Chiesa dell'Addolorata, where they keep the Madonna and the Dead Christ that are carried in the town's Good Friday procession:

The Good Friday procession statues

After our tour of Corinaldo, we returned to the family's home to say goodbye and thank you to the cousins before heading back down the A14 (the Autostrata Adriatica) towards home.  As we were driving, we took note of how pretty the route is.  The A14 runs from Bologna over to the coast, then more or less down the Adriatic coastline before cutting back over to Taranto at the western top of the "heel" of the "boot" of Italy - on the Gulf of Taranto in the Ionian Sea.  We decided that we might like to do an A14 road trip someday - starting in Bologna and working our way down, stopping along the way to explore whatever cute beach towns catch our fancy.  Anybody in?

When we finally arrived home, we realized - much to our embarrassment - that we'd completely forgotten to give our hosts a cake we'd bought at our local bakery as a gift for them.  This cake is called Colomba di Pasqua ("dove cake," although to me, the texture is more like a light, sweet bread - somewhat like a panettone),  and is traditionally served at Eastertime here (Paolo waited in line for quite a while at the bakery to get one).  Ugh, I felt like a jerk - I don't know how it slipped my mind.  Well, I will send them something from the US once we return, I guess.  In the meantime, we've been eating the cake/bread ourselves, as there's no sense in letting it go to waste; it's super tasty.  I will have to see if I can find a good recipe to replicate this back in the US.  Which, sadly, will be all too soon...

Next up:  Paolo had an appointment to pick up his carta di soggiorno at the questura in Campobasso.

A Day in Vomero - 4/09

We chose to spend Saturday up in the Vomero district.  We could see it from our hotel room window:

The big hill in the back

I suppose fitter, hardier folks might walk up there in order to explore other neighborhoods along the way - but those people might also be nuts.  We rode the Montesano funicular, as the funiculars are included in the metro pass.

At the station, waiting for the funicular to arrive.

You'd think that there would be an opportunity to take some cool photos as you travel up and down the hillside - but you'd be wrong.  Much of the ride passes through a tunnel, so there's not much of a view.  Still, it beats climbing the mountain, that's for sure.

From Morghen station we walked to our first destination, the medieval fortress of Castel Sant'Elmo (taking notice that the streets up un Vomero are much less congested as well as noticeably quieter than those in the city below).  The fortress dates from about the 1300s, was once a military prison, and is now fairly empty, except for a few cannons and some art installations here and there.  

A whole lot of nothing much

The hands on the clock appear to be knives or, perhaps, spearpoints of some kind...?

But the real reason to visit it isn't so much for the fortress itself - aside from its interesting star shape, it's not much to look at.  Rather, it's the breathtaking views available as you walk along the top of the walls that makes the excursion worthwhile.  I took many (far too many) photos as we slowly made our way around.  I couldn't help myself.  I'll include a few of the better ones here:

My favorite travel companion

Photographic evidence that I, too, am here in Italy.  Please excuse my messy hair; it was a bit breezy up there.  Also, I ran out of conditioner.

I think these photos convey a sense of just how dense Napoli is.  Notice that there is very little green space within the city.

After we made our way around the fortress walls, we headed down and out to the street to the nearby Renzo e Lucia for a leisurely lunch on the terrace, so we could keep admiring the view.  

How could you not eat outside on a day like this one?

After lunch, we continued a short distance downhill to the Certosa di San Martino - the Charterhouse of St. Martin.  Once a monastery dedicated to St. Martin of Tours (the St. Martin who gave half his cloak to a beggar, not the one trying to convert the rustic pagans, or the one who is the patron saint of gout sufferers), it is now a museum focusing mainly on Spanish/Bourbon-era artefacts.  It also houses a large collection of Nativity scene displays (this is a real thing here in Italy - they're called presepio, and can be extremely elaborate as well as humorous; some of them include pretty wacky characters that I am fairly certain aren't mentioned in the gospels).  The Charterhouse, incidentally, is the big white building at the top of the hill that is quite visible from our hotel room (pictured at the beginning of this post).

Detail from the front door

Paolo said there was nothing in the well except "dirt, grass, and coins."  He was disappointed.

Really glad we went to Sant'Elmo first, otherwise we'd have missed out on those amazing views of the city.  A heavy fog rolled through while we were at St. Martin's.

The Royal Whip

Obligatory artwork featuring St. Martin of Tours.  I am of the opinion that it would have been a bit more saintly to just give the beggar his whole cloak.

I just liked these tile floors

The most elaborate of the nativity displays, complete with flying angels

For the record:  I'm not the one who put the flowers in the skulls.  But I wish I had thought of it!

Don't often get to see the view behind the altar

Detail from the wooden panels

We enjoyed our time up in Vomero very much.  If we were going to live in Napoli, this is the section of the city I would choose, as it is relatively clean and quiet, and there is a lot less vehicle traffic than in many of the other neighborhoods - part of the area is in a ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone).  To give you a sense of the difference, here are a few shots I took on our walk back from the funicular station to our hotel:

Imagine having to drive around racks of clothing in the middle of the street on a daily basis. Or having to drive in Napoli at all.

Selling seafood in the middle of the sidewalk...

…and selling it in the middle of the street

See the motorcycle folks stopped in the middle of the road for a chat...with traffic behind them?  Also - see how steep that hill is!

This is the spot on Via Toledo near our hotel where it seems musicians play every late afternoon.  There's always a military vehicle and a couple of soldiers here too.

For dinner this evening, we wanted to have pizza - after all, we're in Napoli, home of the some of the world's best pizza.  Gusto Marigliano did not disappoint!  I took our server's recommendation to order the "Super Bufalina" (a reference to the buffalo mozzarella cheese on it, not its size).  It was as if I died and went to Pizza Heaven.  The crust!  The cheese!  The nearly perfect ratio of tomato-to-cheese!  Yum.  Paolo had a pizza with anchovies, olives, capers, and lord knows what else on it, which he enjoyed thoroughly.

If you look closely, you can see the stacks of wood beneath the oven.  Our server is on the left.

Sure, these pizzas look huge - but despite the relatively wide edges, the crusts were quite thin and light - very typical in Napoli.

Dessert was some kind of ricotta and pear concoction with a cookie, topped with a sprinkle of black salt.  It too was delicious.

Next up:  I make a mistake in planning, so we end up at a museum we previously visited in 2018.