best post ever

Gathering in the field

This is going to be a long post so you may want to jump ahead to the part you are interested in or you might just want to look at the pictures.
1. Catacombs
2. Church of San Francesco
3. Pizza
4. Granita


Catacombs

The wind was fierce. The eighteen of us walked past the river with trees whipping overhead up the steep hill between fields of grain. Near the top of the hill the trees again grew thickly. The air was hot and dry. We stood at the entrance of the 200 - 300 AD catacomb. Cool, damp air seeped out and cooled our ankles. The expert archeologist, that the mayor had enlisted for this tour, described the importance of the find. He spoke Italian, but luckily when people are called upon to speak here, they repeat themselves, repeat themselves, repeat themselves so one can at least get the gist. These catacombs are one of the most important finds in all Italy. They are the burial ground for a group of christians who lived in the surrounding hills. The time is before Christianity was made legal (and Christ declared divine). The tunnel is about 30m (100 ft.) long and is dug into solid rock.

Into the trees by the catacomb

Into the catacomb

The anthropologist and the mayor

The mayor and me

Leaving the catacomb

 In our group were two sisters, one who had immigrated to the United States and one to Australia. This was a homecoming for them. They are related to the mayor. The mayor and his brother, three men from Rome with sunburns so bad they could hardly walk, three Danish couples, the archeologist and us. Unfortunately, because the Vatican owns the catacombs, no pictures were allowed. You will have to rely on description.

One by one we entered. I never had to stoop, although probably some of the men did. The Danes are a tall people.   On the walls I could see the marks made by a chisel as these determined people chipped their way through the rock. The floor was smooth with even steps to mark the descent. On either side of the four foot wide path, final resting places had been chiseled out. People were entered in stacks of three. First  a human shaped hole was chiseled into the wall, a person was laid to rest, a lid, carved out of stone was placed and then the hole was covered with bricks and mortar. Maybe ten of the graves have been excavated. Another 30 remain untouched, but have been probed by a camera inserted through a tiny hole that was drilled into the bricks. There were niches in the wall, blackened by the smoke of the oil lamps that had set there. The air was cool and damp and there was condensation on some of the walls that reflected the light like tiny fireflies. The roof arched above us. This was not a creepy little hole, but rather an amazing feat of work made by real people 1700 years ago. Into the wet mortar words had been inscribed. They were in Latin. Only a couple of tombs had them. On one was the symbol that predates the cross we use now to represent Christianity. It was a cross with a loop at the top. In the wet mortar of another tomb a non-religious person had scrawled something. Most people had exited and I was bringing up the end, unwilling to leave and spending too much time looking around. The mayor (Pietro) was ahead of me holding a mirror and flashlight into one of the tombs that only had a small hole opened. With the light shinning in the hole, reflected in the mirror, I could see the bones of the person reposing in their tomb. It is so hard to grasp that this is not Disneyland. I felt solemn, but elated to be privileged to be in this place. The catacombs are never open. We tried two times last year to see them, but the key could not be found. This time the mayor was in charge. Upon my exit, I was shocked by the dry, hot air. I had forgotten where and when I was. The pine trees swayed above us as we gathered around for photos. The mayor wanted to have his picture taken with me. I don’t know if I was doing him a favor or if he was doing me one. We overheard talk of the tour continuing at the Church of San Francesco, the church’s facade I just painted, to see the relic of San Francesco.

with the relic

San Francesco
San Francesco traveled to this valley and spent time here. We have walked in his footsteps. On his trip he left behind some part of himself and this is now one of the treasures of the local church. Our group reassembled in the church after mass let out. There was an inscription in French that the mayor read the Italian translation. Everyone listened attentively, although most people had no idea what he was talking about. I was walking around the church with the two sisters, who both speak English. They were talking about all the times they had sung in the choir for Christmas or Easter and that they had buried the mother, father and grandparents there. The memories were flooding them. In the church are many monuments carved in wood. One sister told me they are from the noci tree. The wood is dark and obviously very hard. We exited the church for the cloister. I was glad to see that different areas have scaffolding this year than last. The church bell tower is still enclosed with scaffolding and mesh. We walked through many rooms, some damaged and some restored. At last we reached the room where the churches treasures are stored behind large, iron bars. The priest unlocked the door and took out the relic of San Francesco. As you see the container looks just like the ones you see in museums. There are only two other relics for San Francesco. I am not clear on whether this is a bone or a fragment of cloth. We were encouraged by the mayor to have our picture taken with the priest and the relic. Although the relic is the most important religious item in the church there were many other amazing items behind bars.

In the store room

One cabinet held the finds from the catacombs. There were many oil lamps, little bronze statues, including one of the man who martyred St. Agatha, (more about her some other time), and a tiny bottle of Roman glass with its patina of green and turquoise. To my right was the cabinet of golden chalices, crowns and a special statue of the Virgin Mary. Sitting in a book shelf were the records of the time. They mayor handed me the record of deaths from 1550 - 1650. The pages were wrapped in a paper and by looking in from the top I could see the spidery handwriting in brown ink that marked the end of each individual’s life. It was almost too much. These are the kind of documents and artifacts that are only in museums. You do not expect to be having your picture made with a saint’s relic on a day that you thought you were only going to be turning out pastels of Gagliano for the gallery.

The two rooms in the cloister that are restored are beautifully lit by sky lights. These rooms will be part of a museum for the relic of the saint and the other items in the collection. A large storage room contained all the treasures from San Giovanni, the main church in the village that was destroyed in the earthquake. The opposite walls split apart and if they weren’t held together by giant cables they would each fall out and the roof would collapse. Paintings, statues of saints to be used in parades through the town on different religious days and a hodge podge of sacred items loaded the room. The sisters were telling me about the different festivals with tears in their eyes. It must have hurt them to see such important items stored as if in an unvisited attic. Finally the tour was over. The mayor had done this for his family, but he was most solicitous that we were happy and had found it meaningful.

Pizza
We had left the house hours ago and we were more tired than seemed possible so we went for pizza. The three sunburned guys from Rome were there and although they had not spoken to us on the tour, you would have thought we were long lost friends. A man was eating that I had seen there last year. He had an antipasta meal: simple but beautiful. Procuitto on cantaloupe, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil and brochette with olive oil and tomatoes served in wooden trays. (seems to be the way to do it here) Some women we knew from town were having pizza and one family we didn’t know. One of the kids ordered the hot dog and french fry pizza, I wish I was kidding, the poured the french fries over the pizza when they served it. The most interesting thing was that they gave us one menu in Italian and the other in Danish. There are so many Danes here that they rate their own menu. It is amazing the affect Casper and Anja have had on this valley. They have gotten so many Danes to buy houses here that the local restaurant prints a Danish menu.

The good news is that I would have gotten a pizza with sardines, if Jim had not read the Danish description. He always gets the four cheese pizza which includes gorgonzola. I get a regular pizza. Everyone gets their own pizza and even though we said that we would not eat it all, we did. So does everyone else. After all it is ten p.m. and lunch was served at 1 o’clock. It was breezey and lovely while we were eating and then like a switch turned off the wind stopped and it was hot.

Water, wine, glasses and view from the pizza place

Granita
At home we had a glass of blood orange granita. I used a carton of juice, one fresh orange and a bottle of pear juice. It was quite excellent after a sweaty walk home. 

So that was our afternoon: 1700 year old catacombs, relic of San Francesco, pizza and granita. And people think there is nothing to do here.