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In Love With Emilia: An Italian Odyssey
by Virginia Gabriella Ferrari; Illustrated by Virginia Gabriella Ferrari
203 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0608; ISBN 1-4120-2780-2; US$20.00, C$22.45, EUR16.50, £11.50
A delightful story tempting its readers to visit Italy, journeying through hillside villages, wild-flower meadows, revealing a culture and a way of life in a beautiful place time has forgotten.
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About the Book About the Author Review and Excerpt Catalogue Information
About the Book
Set in the northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna this sometimes funny, often poignant, and occasionally irreverent story follows a path between 1996 to 2001 as the author and her husband seek legal ownership of the old family home.
The reader treads a path of discovery through the countryside, historical and architectural wonders, villages and cities. Restoration of the house, forming relationships with family and villagers aids the authors growing love of Emilia. Like all intellectual journeys, this story has much of the personal element of self discovery.
About the Author
Born in England the author attended a private school for girls where she excelled in creative composition and the arts. She has travelled extensively in Europe, North Africa, and North America. University courses and writing ad copy for adult and seniors courses round out her creative abilities.
Review and Excerpt
Review by Brian Jonson - Penticton Western News, October 10, 2004
It's a real life story of discovery and humour, inspired by a home located under the Italian sun and inspired by Francis Mayes' book. Virginia Gabriella Ferrari read Under the Tuscan Sun in 1996, two years after she was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer. "I'll be honest with you. I read that book and I said to myself, I can do that," said Ferrari. "My book is much smaller, but I think it's got much more in it than she had, although I admire her greatly." The result is In Love with Emilia - An Italian Odyssey, a 200-page book that pokes gentle fun at the foibles of life in a small Italian village. It follows the author and her husband as they take ownership of and restore the old family home from 1996 to 2000 in the Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy.
Ferrari describes the book as partly biographical, partly historical, but mostly humouros. The story is inspired by the real life experience of Ferrari and her husband Luigi as they took ownership of Luigi's family home: a stone house with a dirt floor built by his grandfather more than a hundred years ago on a basement that was over 600-years-old. "I was really drawn into the villages there, and how poor it all was and the life my husband must have led when he was a kid and I thought it would make a good story," said Ferrari. Luigi was left the house by his mother about 30 years ago - but in the tradition of that village, the will was oral. It took five years before the Ferraris obtained a deed to the place. "This little village is so old, it's sort of like a place that time's forgotten. It's a remarkable little place," she said.
During that time the couple worked on the house, often surreptitiously to avoid wagging village tongues. Their experiences with bureaucratic red tape and the local villagers - some of whom are given nicknames and character embellishments in the book - are set against descriptions of the little towns, the countryside and historic buildings, she said. Ferrari's ink sketches of the home - which looks towards the hills of Tuscany - and other landmarks also illustrate the book. Writing and rewriting the book - which Ferrari did by hand - was more than just a creative venture for the author. Since being diagnosed with cancer, Ferrari has been on and off chemotherapy - she's now on her fourth bald head - and received full brain radiation for a brain tumour.
"When you're diagnosed with cancer they tell you to set short-term goals, and I had various short-term goals that I met and I passed, and then I had the long-term goal to write this book since I read Under the Tuscan Sun," said Ferrari. Her battle with cancer makes it into the book, as she incorporates her own experience undergoing chemotherapy in an Italian hospital. "Italians tend to be very emotional, so when one person is sick, the whole family gathers around them and moans," she said. By contrast, Ferrari has always kept a smile on her face and has derived a tremendous sense of achievement from finishing the book. "It was a weight off my shoulders," said Ferrari. "I maybe have regrets that I didn't put more into it, because I could, I could have put a lot more, but I was just so tired and I couldn't go on anymore." Ferrari hopes to return with Luigi to their home in Italy next year, if she is well enough. She's achieved most of her goals, but still has one more. "To live - there's nothing more I want than to live," she said. "Just to go on and hopefully be an inspiration to others who are struggling."
In Love with Emilia - An Italian Odyssey is available through Trafford Publishing.
Excerpt
Through all the centuries of madness and mayhem of battles and world wars, of partisans and Nazis and Fascists, Borgotaro has plodded on her steady way through history, wall-less and perhaps not as beautiful as some historical centers, she retains an old-world charm, unspoiled by hype and commercialism. A charm enhanced and perpetuated by her people. The weekends and evenings bring out the crowds. Families stroll back and forth along the cobbled via Nazionale. Dads, moms, grandparents, teenagers, children running back and forth, playing free from the danger of traffic which is banned from the town center for the summer. The cafes and bars are full of coffee and aperitif drinkers, and of course many walkers lick at the inevitable gelati, the best ice cream in the world.
Beneath an archway on my way to the via Nazionale, I encounter one of my favorite people from our village. Paolino, dressed to kill, his red bandana tied saucily round his neck, sparkling white shirt open just enough to reveal a thick gold chain and crucifix nestling on a hairy chest. Hands casually resting in pockets of beautiful brown pants, which flow down to soft, Italian leather shoes. His handsome brown face breaks into a huge mustachioed smile, showing perfect white teeth. Out come his hands to relieve me of my bags. The traditional cheek to cheek greeting is performed. He rattles on in that incomprehensible dialect and I smile and nod accordingly, not understanding one word. He insists on helping me to the cafe where we dump the bags on the chairs under the trees. The other Paolino whom I know, is a toothless, weathered man who wears a dirty old hat and a ragged, frayed t-shirt, shorts with holes in the seat and big farm boots, laced to the calf and topped by home made wooly socks. The faithful red bandana round his neck and the twinkling saucy eyes are the only clues I have to help me in recognition. The smile, of course is ever present, the Sunday-Monday teeth absent. He drives his tractor back and forth between house and field, hauling hay and firewood. His routine never changes and his siesta is spent resting against his barn with a bottle of red wine, enjoying his beloved piece of Emilia Romagna. He is very proud of his children who attend university. He is even more proud of his lovely wife who is seldom seen, but feeds stray cats, milks one lonely cow, and makes cheese and bread. Every evening they regularly enjoy a little decadence and down tiny chocolatey pastries dripping with cream for which Paolino drives downtown each morning. Of course that also allows him time to coffee with his buddies, another entrenched part of his daily routine.
Secure in the knowledge that my bags will remain safely on the chairs I leave them and the nodding sunflowers and go into the bar to buy my "droga", my daily drug of choice, my cappuccino. Having been warned by my ever travelling expert-on-Italy daughter that I will pay more for coffee if it is served at the table, I remain standing at the bar ready to hand over my 2000 lire. The lady, whom I discover later to be Maria's daughter, insists I return to my table and she follows me out carrying the cappuccino. She says that I should pay when I leave. It will still only be 2000 lire. Oh, the joys of small town Italy. Maria's Café is situated on a piazza at the Portello. The Portello is an arched entranceway into the old town, at the top of the steps leading up from the main road. This road circles most of the town and in part runs along the top of what once was the old city wall. The chairs and tables are set out on the cobbled piazza beneath huge Plane trees. The Piazza is partially surrounded by some of the 15th century Palazzos which front onto via Nazionale, the main street. The old entrance to the town through the archway of the Portello is set at the rear of the piazza and is best known as a rendezvous point. The whole of Borgotaro seems to meet here at one time or another. School kids to be picked up for their ride home, young men and women meeting before going off to the gym or on to a bar. The Monday crowd waiting for rides home after the market, bank managers, surveyors, teenagers, and farmers. All manner of bottoms have graced the stone steps while waiting.
On one occasion several of us were standing around in Meri's farmyard discussing how I might walk down to the town via shortcuts through the fields. I could spend the day drawing and then meet with Giuliana to drive me back up to Rovinaglia. In my ignorance of the beautiful Italian language I suggested to Giuliana that she meet me at four o'clock at the Bordello. Roars of laughter erupted as she explained my faux pas to the listeners.
The Portello is an inspirational setting in which to draw or paint and I have often added to my memories with drawings done at Maria's tables. I was asked by her son-in-law, the pizza maker, to do a painting of the building housing the café. Maria's old man would come out and check my progress and throw his arms up in the air "Piu colore signora", he would shout, "more color, more color". It was alien to me, being a rather wishy-washy watercolorist. Attempting to fulfil his wishes, my picture became a work of horror to me. I could hardly add my signature to the painting and was pleased not to see it hanging in the restaurant. I later discovered, however, that when the family gave it to Maria, matted and framed, she refused to hang it anywhere but in pride of place over her sideboard in their house. Today, though, was the pleasant experience of quick sketches, capturing stances, gestures, expressions of the Borgotarese, drinking cappuccino and watching the world go by.
Luigi arrived from a meeting with the surveyor, Mussi. This man was in my opinion, quite remarkable. He handled all the legal stuff and visits back and forth between the land commission office, the town hall, the Forestry department, Rovinaglia, Parma. I only ever saw him once with a tape measure, stumbling around in a steeply sloping field below the house. Perhaps surveyors the world over do much more than my stereotypical image would have them do. I thought they stood at the side of Canadian highways with tripod scope things or measured city lots.
Shaking his head and emitting a huge sigh, Luigi sat at the table and I thought what now? We were aware of other members of Nona's family still living. However, assuming that her spoken word would be enough to assure Luigi of eventual legal ownership of the house, he was surprised to hear it would be his responsibility to provide the names and addresses of eight people, his cousins, who were spread from one end of the globe to the other. I suppose it simply boiled down to, if you want the house you can do the legwork. Luigi had had no contact with most of them since he left Italy at age fifteen, heading for New York on that stinking ship. If his responsibility of searching for the cousins was not enough, after providing this information to the surveyor and the surveyor officially apprising the cousins of the situation, there would be a twelve month period during which time the cousins could contest Nona's wishes. We did not even want to contemplate what might ensue should one, or any number of them, make claim on the house. I could imagine the house being carved up, a bit for this cousin, a bit for that cousin, and a bit for another, and nothing left but the doormat.
The ownership of Nona's land had never been in question. Luigi and his other sister understood that Meri and her family had worked every hay field, cutting, raking, turning, baling, stacking. They had ploughed acres of land, planted potatoes and corn, bending, digging, hand sorting, boxing, storing. Years of crushing and grinding corn, of cutting, sawing, chopping and stacking firewood. From the day they married fifty-five years ago, Meri and her husband, and later her boys, and her daughter, had broken their backs on this land. Luigi's only desire, which seemed pitiful considering the amount of land and how much lay fallow becoming overgrown brambly jungles, was to have three small pieces. What, in fact, was perhaps ten or twelve acres among a thousand or more had fallen prey to his sentimental memories of childhood. Of helping his father tend the terraced vineyards, of driving the livestock up to the summer pastures and staying up there in the thatched cottage, the family in one small room. Of climbing trees, and hunting snakes, and looking for old grenades and ammunition hidden in the hills. Of unexploded shells embedded in the earth, one of which blew his friend's hand off during one of these escapades, but his memory dimmed the horror and produced one of those great childhood adventures. Even so, it would be difficult for Meri to concede even these small pieces to her brother. Luigi spent most of the last few days of our holiday, talking with the old people in Rovinaglia and in his father's village of San Vincenzo. Any information might help his efforts to establish contact with those long lost cousins.
Catalogue Information
