Passions & Places in Le Marche – The Magazine

Macerata Opera Festival and Possible Beauty

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 23:00:00 GMT

I assured myself that I would be professional. No, hold on, I am professional: I had the intention of simply being a chronicle. But with familiar things, which you care about, which you value, and which you strongly believe in, the chronicle really has little to do but observe. Let me be clear: I am not talking about a chronicle in terms of truth. Mainly because it is actually the truth that makes the professional. The point is that, some time ago the Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata published an announcement inviting young people to put themselves forward for the position of graphic designer responsible for the 2012 opera season.

I am not certain about many things in life; I do not even know what I shall do with mine exactly. I grew like the ice in a glass, but my glass did not shatter: when you are able to do everything quite well, it means that you do not develop a wild passion for anything in particular, but instead you remain there, pressing on the rim, waiting for a great boom. It is great to be three years old and already know that you will be a firefighter, a journalist or a ballerina. It is great to be thirty and not have contradicted yourself. For me it is not like that. Nevertheless there is one capability about which I feel a certain conviction: I know how to recognise beauty. When eight years ago, on a cold day in Urbino I saw Francesca Ballarini’s first drawing, which depicted a man pushing a horizontal hourglass, I singled her out immediately. Over the years I have had the fortune of being able to share in the jewels that her hands have created and not even for a day, an hour nor a second did I think that such wonders could remain a private thing or risk being obscure to others. When beauty contains truth it becomes absolute, like poetry. And Francesca’s drawings are the most poetic I have seen. They turn up all over the place because truth is a bit like water: it diffuses fully through osmosis and takes the form of the object that holds it.

You will think that I am saying all this and that I am singing her praises (to stay on the topic of opera) because Francesca is the art director of Paradise Possible, but that is not the case. And do you know why? Because I am certain that through my words you will actually hear the absolute truth I am talking about.

Now, if, as I believe, ‘my twenty-five readers’ (Manzoni) are not exactly ‘as thick as two short planks’ (grandmother Iris), they will have put two and two together and realised that, of the 150 applications that reached the Sferisterio’s board of directors of, Francesca’s has in fact been accepted. And this is something that really reconciles with life, not because Francesca is one of us, but because it shows that there is still hope: involving the region and giving space to real talent satisfies the need for good communication and understanding, which is at the foundation of a society that does not want to regress but continually move forward with the power of ideas. In times like these, the opening up of the Sferisterio to young people is something of a miracle. Giving people a chance is something we need to do in order to change the world. Hold out a hand, open your arms, open your eyes. Put your faith in people and in hidden treasures. Only in this way does the Iron Age end and become the Golden Age, which, as Matteo Ricci said, was one of a happier community.

I am not certain, knowing her humility, that our art director supposed she would have been chosen, and it makes me smile to think of her putting herself forward whilst not overly convinced. But when an artist is a real artist, it is the conviction of those that appreciate them rather than their own conviction that is important: it is the others who believe; who risk the dreaded dialectical silences; who recognise and feel the living connection between the infinitely small and incredibly large. God only knows how much we believe in Nina (Nina, for those who do not know, is Francesca, but I will let her explain that). On choosing Francesca Ballarini, therefore, they have demonstrated that they have taste, intuition and sensitivity. And, above all, that they make sound investments.

The season, dedicated to the master scenographer Josef Svoboda who died ten years ago, will inaugurated with his La Traviata of mirrors (on stage 20–29 July, 4–12 August). In this golden age for the Sferisterio, Francesca will illustrate the love between Violetta and Alfredo, but also La Bohéme (on stage 21–27 July, 5–10 August) and Carmen (on stage 22–28 July, 3–11 August). The season’s programme and the new look designs have been presented last month at a press conference in the Svoboda Auditorium at the Fine Arts Academy of Macerata. A project like this, which makes the opera season the prime mover in a world of fringe activities (Off Festival), has an automatic positive effect, in both the short and long term, on the city’s and the region’s economy, thus increasing the value of the Marche region in an active and, above all, modern way. “There’s nothing more powerful than beauty in a wicked world,” goes a song I heard in a concert some time ago: evidently, at the Sferisterio they understand this.

The Paradise Trotter

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The many (nick)names for Harmony

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:32:24 GMT

Someone advised me once: “When you don’t know what to say, tell the truth.” The truth in this case, is that over the past few days I’ve had no desire to write. It’s not that I’ve been too busy celebrating Christmas or the New Year – when I celebrate, I always get the urge to write. No,in fact, my 14 year old dog suddenly began to age, and his elderliness stole not only my time and but also took the energy out of both of us. It might seem a bit boring, and I hope it is unnecessary to say at this point that ‘dogs are like family members, and that’s something only people with dogs can understand’, because what counts aren’t theories but specific situations. My dog, specifically, who means so much to my specific family. Also, there’s never any need to justify love, whatever form it takes.

Jack’s mother was a German shepherd, and his father was a husky. The colleague who pointed out the puppy to my mother told her that he was the fruit of a clandestine union consummated in the countryside between the dogs of two families who didn’t get on very well. Two ‘star-crossed lovers’ as Shakespeare said. And so nobody wanted the puppies. When my mother went to see them, she was struck by the only one of the four to have ruffled fur, who was came late to drink from the bowl of milk, who invariably went hungry. Titanic had just opened at the cinema when we got him, and everyone thought we’d called him Jack after the main character. Actually, we called him Jack because he was black, white and amber coloured, like the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that farmer kept on the shelf. It wasn’t a highly original choice, but it suited him almost immediately.

Even if he has never had any great enthusiasm for food, he has certainly had an enthusiams for liaisons dangereuses. When he was little he got stung by a wasp, and within ten minutes his nose had taken on a sort of anvil shape, and it seemed like he might have anaphylactic shock. One summer morning I found him fighting what turned out to be a viper in the garden; but the most memorable occasion was on one November day when, alone in the house he leapt – practically flew – over the gate and went to vent his boisterous energy in the henhouse of the farm not far away, brutally killing ten hens, according to the farmer’s wife. From then on, Jack was of course rechristened Jack the Ripper.

Thinking of him, I’m realise just how instrumental his presence was in maintaining a certain kind of harmony in my house, how he balanced things out, and got us used to being active, developed our intuition. Our boss Giuliano Gnagnatti maintains that the criterion Paradise Possible applies when it selects a new paradise (Western Ireland, for example) or new accommodation facilities (for example, Villa Censi Mancia), is a demonstrable harmony between Nature, Culture and Society. Let’s say then that in the case of our family, Jack was the natural element which balanced out our microsociety, encouraging us to confront each other and ourselves with a method of communication that was more direct than artificial. Looking at him and how he is now, it makes me think that every family where there is affection is itself a little paradise. I love you, Jack.

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Matteo Ricci’s “new eyes”

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:12:40 GMT

Have you seen the Coca Cola advert which was broadcast recently? The one in black and white which fastidiously recounts the history of the drink? It begins with the pharmacist who invented it in 1886 and kept its recipe a secret, and ends with a 1950s Roman mother (followed by a Parisian mother and then others from all around the world) who decides to serve it with lunch. The underlying message of the campaign is that Coca Cola has gone global, bringing joy to our households because of its innate formula for happiness. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the campaign is called “open happiness” and the Coca Cola company has literally bought the word “happiness”: No one in the food and beverage industry in any country can now use the word. Does that seem crazy to you? Selling a feeling, after buying the word which describes it; selling the signified, buying its signifier, as Ferninand de Saussure would have said.

Why am I telling you this? Because this is quite clearly not the approach described to us by Matteo Ricci, President of the Pesaro-Urbino province, when we went to interview him about his “Plans for a happier community”. The President claims that during times of crisis it is important to “get our priorities back in order” and to this end he has drawn up a development plan with environmentally sustainable town planning, improvents to infrastructure, quality of education, safety, legality, resolving inequalities and many other areas which Pesaro is working on to create, together with Istat, the BES (Benessere Equo e Sostenibile or Fair and Sustainable Wellbeing), a new indicator to measure a population’s quality of life.

The highlight in the calendar for this scheme, where the Pesaro-Urbino province is Italy’s prime example in a now international trend, is the Festival della Felicità or Happiness Festival. The first edition took place last June and the second is now in the planning phase. It highlights questions about quality of life as well as the beauty of Le Marche, revealed through the particular attention paid to tourism in the Pesaro development plan.

Paradise Possible can only agree with Presidente Ricci’s approach to the “public sphere of happiness”, which is fortunately changing the attitude of citizens who have always considered institutions intruders, perhaps because they impose taxes. In the case of P-U province, institutions are turning to individuals and asking, “How are you?”, making sure their lives are good and discussing possible improvements for things that aren’t working well. The public sphere of happiness, Ricci explained, is the “Common Good”, which amounts to creating private spheres of happiness for every individual.

Here at Paradise Possible, as you will know, we love the idea of Travel as geographical movement, but also and especially as reinventing our horizons. It was no coincidence that Marcel Proust claimed “a true journey of discovery does not mean searching for new countries, but seeing through new eyes.” Well, we think that Matteo Ricci has new eyes, which are looking in the same direction as ours.

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Le Marche, Ireland: a place in the geography of the heart

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:42:25 GMT

My first contact with Ireland came through the third person. When I was young, I would have been eight or nine, my mother travelled there with work and stayed for a whole month: I remember if felt like a never ending wait to me and that before she left, my older brother and I slipped a card into her suitcase in which we told her to be careful and to think of us. I also remember that I cried whilst we wrote it and a single tear fell upon the page, so my brother circled it with the felt-tip and wrote: ‘tear of F.’ Knowing my mother, I imagine she will have kept the card somewhere.

All these years she and I have talked about the actual duration of that trip. As you know, one’s perception of time changes according to who one is waiting for, why one is waiting for them and what one has to do in the meantime: she has always maintained that it was only 17 days. I’m convinced that it was at least double that. Anyway, at a certain point she returned. And so began the phase of the storytelling. Have you seen Tim Burton’s film, Big Fish, in which a father tells his son of his fascinating life, his adventures, and the strange encounters he had along the way? It was more or less like that. Since then, for me Ireland has always been tied to specific elements.

She told us that one evening she was in a pub drinking the first Guinness of her life with her colleagues when a wild German man, also there for work, invited her to dance. Sheepishly she accepted, she said, perhaps helped on by a drop of the stout, but above all struck by the man’s generous smile. I remember our laughter as she explained that the fellow was not exactly Fred Astaire, and so concentrated was he on making her twirl with style, he hadn’t realised that not only had he laid his hand on her back, but also upon her long, free flowing hair, thus pinning it down. And she had danced the whole time with her head forced backwards to avoid losing her hair during an impromptu caschè. The song, I should add, was If you don’t know me by now by Simply Red.

She spoke of how she went on a lengthy bike ride to the Aran Islands, how she fell in love with them so much that she promised she would return with us as well. She bought me a blue t-shirt from there, which I still wear to sleep in after twenty years (she was vaguely on the mark with the choice of size). Written on the front was ‘An Pucan’, which if I’m not mistaken means Aran Islands in Gaelic. From that moment on the expression An Pucan had sounded like a series of magic spells because I felt such joy inside every time my mother recalled and uttered it. Even the t-shirt became a lucky charm.

One morning she told us she had gone jogging on the beach with her colleague from Lyon. They were chatting away in French, when all of a sudden a tall, middle-aged man who ran at pace of someone who’d never stopped training appeared at their side, and whilst he ran he managed to disregard the fact that he was about to die of a heart attack. Perhaps he even had the strength to exchange a few words. She told us that the man had given them a very brief and resolute greeting as he went past them, and then disappeared into the morning fog. There was one detail, however – the man was Sean Connery.

She described Dublin as an exciting city and explained that at the bottom of Grafton Street there was a statue of an attractive woman called Molly Malone, who according to the legend was a fishmonger by day (the statue wheels a barrow of shellfish) and a prostitute by night. My mother thought it was beautiful and didn’t understand why, with an air of affectionate scorn, Dubliners called her ‘the tart with cart’. She even recited off by heart the first verse of the song about her, which is the unofficial anthem of the city of Dublin:

In Dublin's fair city,

where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive alive oh!"

I saw a picture of Molly’s statue many years later, when I had access to the Internet. As soon as I saw it I understood one of the reasons my mother had always appreciated it with such eager indulgence: it looks like her. Needless to say that she was immediately mocked about this.

These are some of the many wonders of that journey from which, amongst other things, mum returned laden with presents (the above mentioned t-shirt, an amazing rubber dinosaur, two snow globes, every type of Irish music and an infinite amount of beer mats, each one more beautiful than the last). Wonders that, as you can imagine, created the myth of a fantastic place in my youthful mind ‘where the women are beautiful and the men horrendous, where the gulls are enormous and sociable, where the smell of the sea mixes with the damp earth and also with the whiff of fresh onion’ (cit.).

It’s twenty years since that legendary journey and now I have also travelled there, so for me, Ireland is tied to different elements other than those maternal ones: I have already written about them and if you like, you can read about them here. But I can assure you that in twenty years, none of my mother’s passionate words have lost their validity.

The Paradise Trotter

P.S. I’ve forgotten something fundamental. When my mother returned from Ireland, every important family lunch or dinner would begin with a special starter: slices of smoked salmon with chopped onion, capers and accompanied by toasted bread with a layer of butter on top. You know what? I’ve just decided what I’ll be eating today. See you soon, Dubliners.

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Paradise Possible’s Alphabet

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:06:59 GMT

In human language there is no proposition that doesn’t imply the entire universe.

J. L. Borges – The Aleph

You may have noticed that the first itineraries that we presented at the Paradise Party take their name from two words that begin with the letter A: Amore (Love) and Armonia (Harmony). Obviously, this doesn’t refer to destiny, it’s talking about a new pathway that naturally could only begin with the first letter of the alphabet. The letter A, as you know, has its origins in the Pheonician aleph, whose philosophic meaning - for Borges - is so important that it implies the entire universe: the aleph is the starting point to which everything returns and everything belongs.

Those of you who attended the Paradise Possible evenings already know that the use of words is very important to us, because through them we construct our world and change it for the better. Initial ideas that give shape to our itineraries are born out of this topic. They are not simply suggestions for journeys, but transverse messages sent to bring about a new way of thinking regarding our region: positive, shared, generous, but above all human.

For this reason, the first journeys that we wanted to present to you (at Casa Rastia B&B, 29 July) are the Amore Itineraries, because without fear of boring you, we are convinced that without love (whether from a parent, a child, a friend or a partner) life becomes crippled. And God only knows how difficult to travel when you’re relying on just one leg. The Amore Itineraries, organised along three different lines (Essential, Respiration, Respite) were born out of personal experiences and are an example of how sometimes certain places take on a significance and keep forever one of the many kinds of love that our existence offers us. Every one of us holds in our hearts a place ‘where love resides’ and those of you who were at the Paradise Party know exactly what I’m talking about. The three words that describe the itineraries form a sort of memorandum; they are loving pieces of advice that could be those of a grandmother. The first group of places (Essential) represents the substance of a past that should be understood and valued. The second group (Respiration) reminds us that we need to respect ourselves, that we have a body and that it’s an integral part of a complex system that is nature. The third group (Respite) represents the daily care we should devote to others, done with small gestures and apparently insignificant moments that are, in fact, vital.

The Armonia Itineraries, which the second of our evenings was dedicated to (at Borgo Lanciano Relais, 19 August), completed our discourse that had begun with Amore. The word harmony, as Riccardo Picciafuoco from Paesaggio Marche reminded us during the evening, comes from the Greek verb armozein which means to connect, to join, to be in agreement and therefore means proportion, balance and agreement amongst parties. The Armonia Itineraries rediscover places in Le Marche in which it’s possible to balance mind and body, man and nature, modernity and history. To find harmony means to restore the word wellbeing to the original sense of the word: an intimate and personal condition founded precisely on proportion, balance and agreement among parties. The three words that describe the itineraries (Relaxation, Charm, Movement) are like the three notes of a chord with your journey as the score. With the word Relaxation we recommend places where it’s possible to free yourself from space and time. Under the word Charm we’ve grouped together places that remind us of how beauty is often found in simultaneously miraculous and hidden locations. The word Movement denotes a series of places that evoke a stirring in the heart, the eyes and the limbs.

If you think the alphabet of Paradise Possible and the Suitcase of Dreams is well communicated, then you know that the Amore and Armonia Itineraries are not merely illusions. It’s possible to book them throughout the entire year via Paradise Possible (email travel@paradisepossible.com) with a 10% discount on the accommodation, maximum flexibility regarding the journey and a number of benefits along the way. If instead you need more time, please wait for the following letters of the alphabet to appear. We hope that at some point to surprise you: the road is a long one until we reach Z!

The Paradise Trotter

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Open Letter to All the World’s Gardners

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:49:09 GMT

‘He who plants a garden will sow happiness’

Gardeners of the world must unite to change the appearance of our horizons of green and of the future.

The ‘green’ is our vital, green space, a part of our future and potential happiness.

We’ve met ‘guerrilla gardeners’; green activists who want to change the appearance of the city to contrast the urban decay, who shower seeds upon the flowerbeds and spaces spoilt by cans and flowerings of plastic.
We know ‘social gardeners’; collectives of citizens that occupy neglected areas of the city and transform them into lush green spaces to be enjoyed by the whole neighbourhood.

These gardening creatives connect with the ideas of philosopher Gilles Clement who described the world and society as neglected, like a third state from which rises a rebellion against the private flowerbeds and the well off who are as soulless as hybrid plants.

And so here we are, with a permanent creative act we invent for ourselves new and vital spaces where we can change the rules of the game. We can construct new collaborations and new way of communicating a potential paradise, with the passion of the silent people who rather than expecting that paradise, instead construct it day by day.

The gardeners of Paradise Possible have always been on the look out for such spaces that become liberated from hybrid occupants with no soul, where they can sew new projects to reconstruct the lost paradise to which everyone will want to return.

We urge those of you who share the same aspirations as us to visit A Suitcase of Dreams to sow the seeds of knowledge about the pleasure of discovering a human landscape with an unforgettable welcoming by proposing new journeys throughout the beautiful places.

The itineraries in A Suitcase of Dreams are the seeds and the fertilizer for the frontier of a possible paradise, crossing open hearts and minds so that we don’t lose the green spaces that belong to us and that every citizen of the world wishes to visit.

We’ve selected the most beautiful green spaces in Le Marche where together with you we can open up A Suitcase of Dreams to get know Le Marche as it reveals hidden places and beauty.

We have chosen corners of Eden in places that will inspire your amazement, places - situated in the comfort of a fresh summer under the hinterland hills and far from the mad crowd of the coast - to listen to the poetry of Itineraries of Love and learn about our land whilst raising up a goblet of wine towards the sky to toast such charm.

The Book of portrayals of Paradise Possible’s Itineraries is already focused on the greenest places in Le Marche, at the hour of sunset with an exclusive welcome and the taste of a refined menu for all the guests who’ll have booked it.

“Beauty will save the world” stated Dostoevsky and if you think hard about every time we find ourselves in the presence of enchanting places, uncontaminated nature, works of art, sublime music and poetry, we are always better for it. We feel infinitely satisfied, happy and proud to belong to the human race.

To do our bit in the world we need to demand a better place, it’s futile to resist since we are guided by a primary urgency, by the eternal nostalgia of that famous Garden of Eden from where we were thrown out at the beginning of the world, a place of delicacies, a paradise lost that we have always dreamed of regaining.

And higher than that wall a circling row

Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit

Paradise Lost – J. Milton

Main Office, 3 Luglio 2011

The Editor of Paradise Possible

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Le Marche: when wellbeing means taking care of people

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:19:20 GMT

There is a phrase of Emily Dickinson’s that I try to live by:

We used to think, Joseph, when I was an unsifted girl and you so scholarly that words were cheap & weak. Now I don’t know of anything so mighty. There are [those] to which I lift my hat when I see them sitting princelike among their peers on the page. Sometimes I write one, and look at his outlines till he glows as no sapphire.

‘Words matter’ (‘Le parole sono importanti’), as Nanni Moretti cried in Palombella Rossa. And, like human beings, they need looking after: they have the right to an identity, to a semantic area in which to carry out their work in peace, coherently, but at the same time, every now and then, they show a desire to change, to surprise us, to cross the border into the realm of metaphor. They must be respected, left free and un-abused, when we happen to stumble upon them during their absent-minded search for an object or an idea to name.

If you misuse a word, you reduce it to a thin, dry casing, like the skin of a serpent which has been shed. You kill it. I’m telling you this because when I have nothing to do I often find myself making a ‘list of misused words’, of those words which come into use and become colloquial, fashionable, omnipresent. In the end, you use them out of laziness, because it’s easier to get the shopkeeper to wrap the present than to do it yourself. And this is the reason why I draft this list: to force myself to find alternatives. You won’t be surprised to hear that among the words broken down by usage, many are related to tourism. Today, for example, I was reflecting on the word benessere (the Italian for wellbeing), or if you prefer (and I for one certainly don’t), ‘wellness’.

Benessere is a beautiful word, primal and delicate, charged with describing that particular state when body and mind are in harmony with each other and their surroundings. A word such as this should not be mistreated: it is too closely associated with who and what we are – it is, in short, too human. But ‘the laws of the market’, to use another invented expression, have little to do with humanity. And so it happens that a powerful word such as benessere must scurry back and forth to lend prestige to such and such a situation, deployed in promotional discourse right, left and centre. And at the end of the day it arrives home exhausted, de-humanised, further and further away from its roots. How many times have you heard this word – benessere, wellbeing - used in the last few years? Have you used it or heard it used to describe an intimate mental and physical state of being? I imagine that the majority of the time you’ve seen it used to describe various beauty spas, gyms and hotels. This in itself isn’t a crime, and as we’ve already heard from Marina Pieroncini, manager of Riserva Privata San Settimio, today any such business must have a benessere or wellbeing centre attached to it, in order to compete in the market.

The point, though, is the way that we use words, the sort of atmosphere that we associate with them. There is a way to breathe new life into the tired quasi-corpse of the word benessere. Words, unlike human beings, can be revived, reborn. Even if it can’t be completely detached from its now permanent association with the world of markets and money, you can think carefully about the situations in which you choose to deploy benessere: using it in relation to humanity rather than money. When this hierarchy of usage is respected, just like in San Settimio, not only will whoever seeks benessere find it, but the word itself will be reborn into a new life, because the sense of humanity the word has lost through over-usage, will be recovered through being used by people who really cares about you.

As ever, it is individuals who can make a difference. And we at Paradise Possible have chosen only to support and endorse those who are making such a difference.

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Le Marche: antiques and their pull on the heart

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

I was thinking about a couple of things this morning which I wanted to explain to you. Below is my attempt to put them “in black in white” as clearly as possible.

Primary hypothesis. There is always a close correlation between human activity and the kind of test entitled "draw me a tree and I'll tell you who you are." These tests display a grain of logical reasoning. You probably wouldn’t expect the person who fails to wave in thanks after you let them pass at at a junction to let their fellow occupants out of a lift before them. The person who finds your Iphone which you lost at a petrol station and gets it back to you most probably also pays their taxes. I realise that these are not mathematical rules, but the fact remains that details are important and we need to pay attention to them. They count if we want to understand people, take care of them or, as is unfortunately sometimes the case, protect ourselves from them.

Secondary hypothesis. A charming way to give meaning to existence and continually find points of similarity is by associating various human actions with something they resemble. Matching the practical with the symbolic, establishing links. It’s very useful if you think about it: if you learn to connect an event or person you meet along the road of life with a metaphorical image, you’ll remember them for ever, and God only knows how important memory is.

I have made these two statements because this morning I was thinking about the concept of care. Care in terms of intuitive attention, silent support, innate wisdom. I realise that I could have been clearer in the way I have expressed these ideas, but I hope to be able to shed light on my reasoning by and by. I should also mention that I was thinking about my grandmother, Nonna Iris, the consistent protagonist of a little space into which, like a good little Paradise Trotter, I want to invite you- freely- to take part in my peregrinations, whether real or simply imagined. A few days ago, on 15th June to be precise, it was her birthday and I began to reminisce about the summers we spent at her house in the countryside in Rastia, a tiny village in the municipality of Matelica. In the beginning, when we were young, the house was just one of four long and narrow divisions in a big, isolated building which had been separated into residences. The bathroom was outside in the yard. Then, when some of the other villagers moved to the city, Nonna bought another “section” of the building and, a few years later, redecorated the huge barn next to it which “incorporated” the yard with the bathroom, transforming it into an annexe. I can clearly remember going to buy the tiles for the longed-for indoor bathroom, and how Nonna let me choose the ones with vine leaves painted on them; and I remember how the staircase which led to the second floor felt like a Da Vinci contraption when I climbed it. I remember the emotion of seeing the finished annexe with the big skylight and the sky to witness our laughter.

The care with which Iris tended to her countryside home during those torrid summers of the 1990s was, and continues to be, a source of inspiration for me. The idea behind improving the building was not, as you will probably be thinking, to transform it into a show home. It was a- successful- attempt to make it more amenable to the person who dwelt there, adapting it to host relations and friends, a loving setting for others. This was also revealed through the objects inside: every knick-knack, every piece of furniture in that house had a meaning, because it is the history of the object which counts more than its supposed beauty. There's the porcelain hen which belonged to my great-great-grandmother, the sea-green sideboard which used to be in my great-grandmother’s kitchen, the model cars which my uncle made out of old tins when he was little are on display... When I was a child, there was a clock with a pendulum from my mysterious Aunt Gorizia. Then there are the tiles which I chose. A kind of showroom in which every object is linked to a type of love which, obviously, it does not need but which is capable of transferring itself to the object and transforming the object into a good luck charm.

For me, this is the principle of an antiques store. Being surrounded by objects whose beauty comes not necessarily from their elegant appearance, but primarily from the meaning bestowed on them by time, every hand which has touched, stroked, and polished them. An 18th century toelette is a beautiful object, but it is especially beautiful because someone is reflected in it; it has witnessed an awakening, a kiss, or, perhaps, an argument. Who knows how many love letters were penned at a 1930s desk, how many books or drawings. The same goes, in my opinion, for the sea green sideboard, which housed the plates which my ancestors used or where they stored their bread to stop it drying out. And when I go into an antique store in Ostra, Senigallia or Ancona, for example, this is the exact kind of deeply human resonance I feel.

There is a significant difference between considering an object old and considering it an antique. This difference is called respect. And it's possible that if someone has the gift of imagining meaning, the energy hidden behind something which appears to be just an object, then they will have the same attitude towards people and will respect the aging process, attributing high value to it. My Nonna, for example, gave that to me. I will never forget the time when, on the way to see my cousin, we saw an elderly man some distance away who was losing his balance on a battered bicycle: I had barely spotted him before Iris flew to his rescue, several metres away. Therefore, I like to think that an interest in antiques, or simply for old objects as keepers of history is, more than a passion, a positive metaphor for the care which surrounds us, that intuitive attention, silent support, innate wisdom.

The Paradise Trotter

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Vittore Crivelli in Sarnano: Le Marche creating Beauty

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:38:53 GMT

For a while now, circling around in my head has been the most famous phrase from The Diary of a young girl, by Anne Frank, which bit by bit, our teacher read to us at primary school; the size of each day’s piece depending on the irregular flow of the author, so typical of a diary. During those days in May, silence surrounded her voice like a light mist, as we sprawled across our desks to listen:

È un gran miracolo che io non abbia rinunciato a tutte le mie speranze perché esse sembrano assurde e inattuabili. Le conservo ancora, nonostante tutto, perché continuo a credere nell'intima bontà dell'uomo. Mi è impossibile costruire tutto sulla base della morte, della miseria, della confusione. Vedo il mondo mutarsi lentamente in un deserto, odo sempre più forte l'avvicinarsi del rombo che ucciderà noi pure, partecipo al dolore di milioni di uomini, eppure quando guardo il cielo, penso che tutto si volgerà nuovamente al bene, che anche questa spietata durezza cesserà, che ritorneranno l'ordine, la pace e la serenità.

[It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death. I see how the world slowly becoming a desert, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that this cruelty too shall end, and that peace & tranquility will return once again.]

If I were you, at this point I would be asking what I was getting at: amongst all this song and dance about charm, relaxation, luxury and wellbeing from a blog that is essentially about tourism you would expect just about anything, except an opening paragraph that refers to Anne Frank. Perhaps I should be boasting about aperitifs by the side of the pool, horse rides on the seashore or the paragliding courses. Instead I’ve chosen to tell you about people and examples of the unyielding passion I come across everyday whilst doing this job. Since I was little, the words of Anne Frank have always made me think that faith in others should go without saying, in the sense that, one should initially put their trust in others and only cease to do so when they feel they have been let down. Otherwise it creates distrust in one another and things will never improve. I realise that the analogy with Anne Frank’s longing for hope is bold to say the least, but be patient: this is the lesson I learnt at the age of nine and I’m not letting it go.

A few days ago, for example, my friend (Daniela Giardinieri, Travel & Tourism Consultant at Paradise Possible) and I went to Sarnano to interview Alessandro Delpriori, who together with Francesca Coltrinari is a curator of the exhibition Vittore Crivelli - Da Venezia alle Marche [from Venice to Le Marche]. I woke up that morning feeling deplorably lazy, but gradually the day took a turn for the better, escalating towards an energetic climax. The car journey with Daniela - one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever met - was enough to remind me that at my age, tiredness should not be an issue. And if that wasn’t enough to wake me from my slumber then the arrival into Sarnano certainly was. The city is stunning, with its amber bricks shining in the light of the magnificent sun, surrounded by the green of the mountains which provide protection without imprisonment. In Piazza Alta, which the Palazzo del Popolo – the venue for the exhibition – looks out onto, dozens of swallows paint the sky with circles, offering their own interpretation The Dance by Matisse. We barely saw a soul as we travelled through the medieval alleyways, and yet judging by the way in which the flowers were arranged in vases on windowsills and the authentic cooking aromas that lay in wait around each corner, I realised that there was certainly life. It’s just that it presents itself in its own discreet way, which is typical of some of the villages in our magnificent region.

The meeting with Delpriori represented the peak of the climax I spoke of earlier and is responsible for my Pindaric flight in the direction of Anne Frank. People that manage to convey to you an exuberant passion about what they do, give the world hope. If indeed mistrust is contagious, so too are passion and trust but to an even greater extent. One must never stop believing in the human qualities of those around them, from which all the other virtues, primarily the professional ones, derive. The Vittore Crivelli exhibition was conceived with true passion and generosity. The young curator opened it just for us despite it was closed to the public that day. The attention to detail is striking, from the organisation of the room and the paintings combinations to the ideas of philological reflection about the art that come to you with every step. The affection with which it has been curated shines from Delpriori’s eyes and from the willingness with which, at my simple request to take a tour of the exhibition after the interview, he offered himself as the guide. Approaching each artwork, he patiently revealed the secrets of a cultural project that not only values the artistic heritage of Le Marche, but also the region in its entirety. In fact it’s no accident, as you will hear in a moment, that Sarnano was chosen as the venue for the exhibition.

But I don’t want to tell you too much, so I will let Delpriori himself do the talking:

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Meeting with Alessandro Delpriori, curator of the exhibition on Vittore Crivelli

And so after today, whenever I look up at the blue of the sky, reaffirming my faith in people and a brighter future, I will also think of the sky that I saw in Sarnano, which in its way reminded me once again how humans are capable of producing real and wholesome beauty. I learnt to do this at the age of nine following Anne Frank’s shining example, which I continue to do at Paradise Possible.

The Paradise Trotter

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On the Cinema Trail in Le Marche

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:00:00 GMT

“How did you know you wanted to act?” Every time that I come across this predictable question, whilst browsing through an interview with such and such, I prepare myself to have a laugh about it. Having seen it so often I have created a sort of survey, divided into two large groups of clichés. There is the ‘despite themselves’ group of actors who were sought after personally by fortune, at the audition of a friend, whilst walking down the street, eating a hamburger, paying a bill, absent minded and beautiful, unaware of their enormous talent. And there is the ‘destined from birth’ group who as children were already reciting the bard with the skull in their hand or repeating the Christmas poem whilst stood on a chair, filling it with minute pauses just as Eleonora Duse would have done. There would be one of them whose passion developed gradually, in a logical manner, maybe following a process of elimination or perhaps because they had simply wanted to try something new, which then they discovered they really enjoyed. Personally, as someone who has done and would like to continue to do so, at the age of three I played with Lego and I couldn’t care less about acting; and when I walk down the street, oblivious, the best I can hope for is a push or a shove. If I want to be an actor it’s because at school - to paraphrase the title of a Jim Carrey film - ‘a series of fortunate events’ took place, the last of which involved almost having a part in La Stanza del Figlio (let alone the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2001), a film by Nanni Moretti that was shot in my home city, Ancona.

When word spread that Moretti was organising a series of auditions in the schools - having already started acting in the school theatre group after overcoming a shyness that was bordering on a disease - I began to get excited. It could have been the perfect opportunity to show off my talent, as well as my acne. To cut a long story short, of all the students that auditioned at my school only one had a small role, everyone else (practically my entire class) had to settle for being an extra. Elisa, for example, makes an appearance in the Lunapark scene, Annalisa walks down Corso Garibaldi and Giulia takes the dog for a walk across Piazza Cavour. And myself? Well, obviously my scene was cancelled the night before shooting began. You should know that I only forgave Nanni a few days ago, after seeing his emotional tears following the ovation that was bestowed upon him at Cannes for his marvellous Habemus Papam.

Joking aside, the arrival in the city of such a well-known troupe gave me at the time an indication of just how important cinema can be for the development of an area, as well its culture. It was as though we’d begun to see places of our childhood in a different light, with someone else’s eyes: like someone seeing it for the first time without taking its beauty for granted. It led me to a conclusion to that I certainly hadn’t thought of before. The Audiovisual Library of Le Marche has been promoting the knowledge of the region’s cinematic history for more than twenty years, in particular in Ancona. In my personal library, Images from Le Marche in Italian Cinema: People and Places of Le Marche’s Films - a much-loved present from my father - has been sitting there for some time. It’s a book by Anna Olivucci and Massimo Conti from which I’ve learnt, to give you an example, that Hudson Hawk - a film I thoroughly enjoyed at the age of 11 - was mostly filmed nearby the splendid fortress of San Leo. And I can give it you straight from book, as I thumb through it, that in San Leo itself the film Cagliostro was also filmed, with the great Massimo Girotti and directed by none other than Daniele Pettinari, my lecturer in directing at the drama academy.

The fact is that when a location is chosen as a film set, it automatically becomes shared heritage. And if the film is memorable or lots of films are shot in that area, then it really becomes part of our imagination. The first time I arrived into New York, re-immerging from the subway onto Sixth Avenue, I felt at home, even if that home was the setting of a Spike Lee film. Obviously the same thing happens to me endlessly in Rome and I’ve also experienced it on the Aeolian Islands, which makes me think of Antonioni’s L’Avventura. It’s all about mutual benefit: a good setting infinitely enhances a film. It’s no accident that in Massimo Conti’s Atlas of Cinema from Le Marche there are also films

defined as ‘Le Marche on loan’ by Olivucci and Galosi – that although are not explicitly about Le Marche (La Stanza del Figlio by Moretti, Alfredo, Alfredo by Germi), make use of it and pass it off as somewhere else (Marco Polo by Montaldo, Acque di Primavera by Skolimowski). These are films that have used the human landscape and the territory with aim of creating a kind of ‘perfect geography’ or ‘ideal type’: the sandy beach (Senigallia), the impenetrable rocks (San Leo), the desert plains (Sibillini Mountains, Monte Nerone), the small centres of provincial Italy (Ascoli Piceno, Ancona), the medieval countryside (Pennabilli, Cagli, Sarnano) and the castle (Gradara).

And so, why not promote itineraries to discover the cinematic settings in Le Marche that are already set out in MarcheCinema, a project developed by Regione Marche and the Audiovisual Library of Le Marche? Why not, in complete collaboration and agreement, do what we do best and create new ones? By following the film trail in Le Marche (for your information, Pupi Avati is currently filming one in Fermo) it will be possible to acquire a deeper understanding of the cultural value of our land, to become part of the open-minded view of the world that the seventh art represents and to give therefore a new and specific meaning to Godard’s famous phrase:

Now I have ideas about reality whereas when I first started, I had ideas about cinema. Before I saw reality through cinema, and today I see cinema through reality.

The Paradise Trotter

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