"The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dugeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe."
[#49] George MacDonald: An Anthology of 365 Readings by C.S. Lewis
11.18.2010
11.08.2010
an excerpt from draft two of the novel.
Siena is Italy’s forgotten treasure, the trove of rubies and crowns that American tourists overlooked when calendars and post cards glamorized the Ponte Vecchio in Firenze and the charming pressed together row houses sinking into the canals by fractions of millimeters each year in Venezia. The bolded city names on a map of Italy include others, like Roma and Milano, but never Siena. On the map, the medieval city appears to be a mere skosh of a town. But it is not.
The approach to the walled fortress is uphill from all angles. Outside the walls for kilometers small suburbs full of pizzerias and Laundromats blanket the gently rising terrain. There are bus stops along the way, sitting places for small women wearing wool skirts that fall to mid-shin and scarves to cover their short hair. It is dusty in August, hot and dry, and as you approach one of the city gates there is less and less green and more stone. The gates, palatial in their day no doubt, are now simple arched entryways into the wide stone stronghold.
Crossing underneath one of these archways, you are starkly transported to a very “other” place, if you can imagine such a thing. Suddenly medieval, the view is stone on stone on sky, rich, blue sky like the Mediterranean, often cloudless. Stone streets wind inscrutably around corners, connecting to other avenues, invariably stone, all similarly bent and uneven. At once it is a maze of mystery and appeal. Structures, the veins and muscle of the city, rise up from the narrow streets, one continuous system that houses apartments for singles or families, trattorias, small restaurants and markets, churches, hotels, panty shops, stocking shops, wine shops, cigar shops, boutiques, patisseries, tailor shops, ancient meeting places, butchers, pottery stores, gift shops and, more than any other thing, cafés. At just the right time of day, usually late afternoon, every door is swung wide open and the city dwellers bustle in and out like ants on an anthill. Small cars move slowly through the streets, avoiding the surge of pedestrians, with drivers often honking and shouting, “Va!” through the window, crossly pumping their fists in frustration at the traffic caused by careless foot people who believe in walking. A car larger than a shrunken utility truck is an anamolie, and is usually met with dirty looks from grandmothers on foot. The breezeless city streets, blockaded from any sideways air flow, are hot and the sun is bright off of the stone. Women move from shop to shop, filling their baskets with bread and prociutto, while school children play with balls around statues of the wolves Romulus and Remus seven hundred years old.
Everything points toward the city center: The Piazza del Campo. The “Campo,” as everyone refers to it, is one of the most distinguished, beautiful and unique piazzas in the country. Exquisite in it’s grandiose shell shape, the entire floor structure points casually down and inward for the most perfectly-erected drainage system built to service the entire city. Incredibly, the architects of the city created a center for both the practical functioning of the city itself, as well as a center for socialization. There is no place as busy as the Campo at any time of day.
In the evening, the nocturnal old men come to the streets to socialize. Posses of men in caps and slacks stand on corners and against stone walls, speaking with gross animation and waving hands. They smoke pipes and cigarettes, laughing and buzzing in low tones of quick Italian. Oh how they laugh with such an easy delight! It is hard to imagine they have ever seen sorrow, that they were ever anything other than simply content in work, family, city and life. They mingle for a few hours, until at least nine or ten o’clock in the evening. Then they mosey away, bidding each other, “Ciao,” in a nonpartisan tone, until we meet again. Tomorrow. Then they go home, up into apartments above a street where Signora is busy cooking a dinner of at least four impeccable courses.
Though the city appears blithe and placid, the tension of pride and the honor of generations underlies the rhythm of the Sienese in a way that circumvents the eyes of tourists and foreigners. Seventeen contrade constitute the corners of the city, marking Siena with invisible lines of unspeakable allegiance. Each citizen of the city belongs to one: Tower, Caterpillar, Unicorn, Ram, Porcupine, Eagle, Snail, Little Owl, Dragon, Giraffe, Seashell, Goose, Wave, Panther, Forest, Tortoise or She Wolf. Colorful coats of arms are the insignias of each pocket sub-community and one recognizes the street he treads by the flags that hang from sconces, windows and doors...
The approach to the walled fortress is uphill from all angles. Outside the walls for kilometers small suburbs full of pizzerias and Laundromats blanket the gently rising terrain. There are bus stops along the way, sitting places for small women wearing wool skirts that fall to mid-shin and scarves to cover their short hair. It is dusty in August, hot and dry, and as you approach one of the city gates there is less and less green and more stone. The gates, palatial in their day no doubt, are now simple arched entryways into the wide stone stronghold.
Crossing underneath one of these archways, you are starkly transported to a very “other” place, if you can imagine such a thing. Suddenly medieval, the view is stone on stone on sky, rich, blue sky like the Mediterranean, often cloudless. Stone streets wind inscrutably around corners, connecting to other avenues, invariably stone, all similarly bent and uneven. At once it is a maze of mystery and appeal. Structures, the veins and muscle of the city, rise up from the narrow streets, one continuous system that houses apartments for singles or families, trattorias, small restaurants and markets, churches, hotels, panty shops, stocking shops, wine shops, cigar shops, boutiques, patisseries, tailor shops, ancient meeting places, butchers, pottery stores, gift shops and, more than any other thing, cafés. At just the right time of day, usually late afternoon, every door is swung wide open and the city dwellers bustle in and out like ants on an anthill. Small cars move slowly through the streets, avoiding the surge of pedestrians, with drivers often honking and shouting, “Va!” through the window, crossly pumping their fists in frustration at the traffic caused by careless foot people who believe in walking. A car larger than a shrunken utility truck is an anamolie, and is usually met with dirty looks from grandmothers on foot. The breezeless city streets, blockaded from any sideways air flow, are hot and the sun is bright off of the stone. Women move from shop to shop, filling their baskets with bread and prociutto, while school children play with balls around statues of the wolves Romulus and Remus seven hundred years old.
Everything points toward the city center: The Piazza del Campo. The “Campo,” as everyone refers to it, is one of the most distinguished, beautiful and unique piazzas in the country. Exquisite in it’s grandiose shell shape, the entire floor structure points casually down and inward for the most perfectly-erected drainage system built to service the entire city. Incredibly, the architects of the city created a center for both the practical functioning of the city itself, as well as a center for socialization. There is no place as busy as the Campo at any time of day.
In the evening, the nocturnal old men come to the streets to socialize. Posses of men in caps and slacks stand on corners and against stone walls, speaking with gross animation and waving hands. They smoke pipes and cigarettes, laughing and buzzing in low tones of quick Italian. Oh how they laugh with such an easy delight! It is hard to imagine they have ever seen sorrow, that they were ever anything other than simply content in work, family, city and life. They mingle for a few hours, until at least nine or ten o’clock in the evening. Then they mosey away, bidding each other, “Ciao,” in a nonpartisan tone, until we meet again. Tomorrow. Then they go home, up into apartments above a street where Signora is busy cooking a dinner of at least four impeccable courses.
Though the city appears blithe and placid, the tension of pride and the honor of generations underlies the rhythm of the Sienese in a way that circumvents the eyes of tourists and foreigners. Seventeen contrade constitute the corners of the city, marking Siena with invisible lines of unspeakable allegiance. Each citizen of the city belongs to one: Tower, Caterpillar, Unicorn, Ram, Porcupine, Eagle, Snail, Little Owl, Dragon, Giraffe, Seashell, Goose, Wave, Panther, Forest, Tortoise or She Wolf. Colorful coats of arms are the insignias of each pocket sub-community and one recognizes the street he treads by the flags that hang from sconces, windows and doors...
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