Every Day in Tuscany Read Free Page B

greet the charcoal self-portrait of Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli above the soft-drink fridge. I’m on a Signorelli quest. He was born here, and spent his life painting all over Tuscany, the Marche, and in Rome. Famous, yes, but in my opinion, internationally undervalued. He always presides over my morning-coffee libations. In the local building superintendent’s office, I’ve signed documents under another copy of Signorelli’s self-portrait, which shows my man to be blond as an angel, with direct blue eyes and a strong jaw. A main piazza is named for Signorelli. The local museum features his work. Everyone believes that his fall from scaffolding in the chapel of the Palazzo Passerini caused his death.
    Without doubt, he spent charmed parts of his life centered on the piazza, where he most likely ran into a friend one rainy morning and heard the news that da Vinci, what a fantasist, has conceived of a flying machine. Someone tells him that Michelangelo has obtained a great piece of marble (destined to become the David ), and maybe even that far away a German named Gutenberg just invented a machine to print books. It’s easy to see Signorelli in gold-trimmed green velvet, sun glazing his light hair, intent as his neighbor mentions that the Pope has excommunicated Venice, and, has he heard, an ancient statue called the Laocoön has been excavated in Rome. In his spotted painter’s smock, he raises a glass in his dim studio and listens as his cousin, just back from Rome, describes the newly invented flush toilet. Going home at night, he bumps into Giovanni, the friar at the Dominican convent, whose sweet ways later earned him the name Fra Beato Angelico. His was a heady era. I know that as a local magistrate he was stopped constantly and asked for favors, just as Andrea, our mayor, is this morning. Signorelli, as a preeminent artist and also as a genius loci presence, continues to rise up through layers of time. He’s an old friend by now.

    T HE PIAZZA , for a Roman, for Signorelli, for me, for that baby in the red stroller, exists as a great old savings bank of memory. It is a body; it is a book to read, if you are alive to its language. I could offer Luca a caffè if he would just open the door and with a toss of his yellow hair, stride in. He’s here; he never left.
    Campanilismo , a condition of being: When you live within the sound of the campanile , church bell, you belong to the place. Command central, carnival ride, conference center, living room, forum—the piazza also is fun. Never dull. Today the barista flourishes my cappuccino to the table. He has formed a chocolate heart in the foam. He shouts to me, “Americans don’t drink coffee; they drink stained water.”
    “Sporca miseria! ” I reply, attempting a pun on a mild curse, porca miseria , which eloquently means “pig misery.” My wordplay means “dirty misery.” I’m gratified with laughs from both bariste .
    Lorenzo is just back from Florida. He buys my coffee and I ask about his trip. “Very nice.” And then, staring out at the piazza, he adds, “Meglio qui a Cortona.” Better here in Cortona. “America,” he sighs. “Either empty and there is nothing, or there is too much.”
    At home in the U.S. of A., I play a CD of the Cortona bells when I feel homesick. Old photos around town show the Allies whizzing in on tanks, liberating Cortona. So familiar is this image, I almost think I was there. The oldest memories, of the Roman forum lying layers below the cobbles, and the even earlier, deeper Etruscan streets, continue to inform the spirit of the place. Memory steams through the baked crust. Old people still call Piazza Garibaldi carbonaia , recalling the place where men brought their charcoal to sell. Via Nazionale to some is still the rough and rustic Rugapiana, flat street.

    T HE RHYTHMS OF the piazza are an ancient folk dance. In summer, the doors of the town hall open and the bride and groom descend the steps into the piazza,