Voodoo Vibes

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Walking in Tuscany

WANDERWAY ONE

FIESOLE -­ MONTECECERI - SETTIGNANO

But that ungrateful and malignant race,

Who in old times came down from Fiesole,

Ay and still smack of their rough mountain-flint… Dante’s Inferno

Before setting out, the best way to interpret our wanderway from Fiesole to Settignano, over Montececeri, and back down to Florence, is to observe it from afar.

From the city centre, let’s take a bus up to Piazzale Michelangelo, one of the most frequented landmarks of the city. Standing at the front balustrade of the Piazzale, we look down over the river Arno to the cupola of the Cathedral, and then directly up to the horizon.

1. Facing the river, we now walk to the left and round the balustrade and come to a flight of steps leading down to a small piazza. At the end of this area is a board-map showing the most eminent buildings of the city and our hilltop.

FIESOLE

The bus ride to Fiesole from the city centre takes twenty minutes. On the way up today we pass old wayside churches, shrines, crosses, great villas once frequented by the Medici, illustrious artists and writers, now somewhat oppressed by modern hi-tech buildings in what seems intentional defacement.

A century ago, the walk uphill from Florence to Fiesole was only for the energetic. The electric tram was tedious and long-winded, and downright punishing for the horses dragging their carriages of goods and passengers.

Every Latin historian had something to say about Fiesole. Rambling and strange at times as their stories might seem, they do contain a grain or two of truth. Some asserted that it was built by the Tyrrhenians, others by the Pelasgians, or even by the Phoenicians. It was certainly one of the richest and most powerful of the Etruscan cities. Inevitably, the proud Roman clarion echoed one day along the Arno valley up the hillside and the inhabitants of Fiesole were either slaughtered or ordered to genuflect before the Invincible Legions. After the fall of Rome, it was subsequently plundered several times and lost its peculiar qualities. On the ancient Etruscan and Roman ruins and monuments the new town was slowly built.

In the immediate post-war years the young flower-girl sat at the corner, aggressive street hawkers strolled the streets with cardboard boxes tied round their waists containing their wares, and pitiful beggars, little more than road-rats, sold holy pictures with potent prayers for a safe wayfaring.

Poverty was a role to be performed, not social offence, so a Tuscan rispetto sings –

I cast a palm-leaf into the sea:

The waters devour it.

I see others cast lead, and –

Lo! For them it sails.

To the earliest footsore pilgrim with sturdy pastoral staff and tattered burlap outfit it was once a day’s walk from Florence to the hilltop, up the steep stony path, still there, but less trodden, which reminds one of far-off endeavour and spiritual gratification. This dusty wayfarer has given place to turbo buses pouring out streams of camera-burdened tourists.

At present, Fiesole is an open square, rewarding to the eye, with a number of aesthetically attractive buildings forming its personal façade.

Indeed, one can find some cloistered nooks with a watercolour artist at work and a gathering of shadows with a writer. A few minutes out of town one can come across the typical Tuscan farmhouse with a vine loosely drooping over the doorway.

WANDERWAY ONE

Getting get off the bus in Piazza Mino da Fiesole we look up towards the Town Hall, the Municipio, at the east end above the piazza. Before setting out, let’s stop to observe the remarkable display of heraldry on the façade honouring the Podestà, and visit the church of Santa Maria Primerana.

Now facing the church, we take the narrow uphill lane at the extreme right. This is Via Giuseppe Verdi. Look for the sign on the wall to the right

PASSEGGIATA PANORAMICA

and above reading –

This day, 28 April 1710, the respectable eight Signori of the Guardia e Balia (magistrates, bailiffs) of the city of Florence forbade any person whomsoever to play any sort whatsoever of game near the oratory of S Maria Primerana of Fiesole within 50 armlengths when said oratory is open under penalty of 4 scudi, or arrest, or arbitration.

while on the left is a red and white mark indicating

CAI-ITIN-1 SETTIGNANO 1 h COMPIOBBI 2.30 h

Our walk now begins. The roads and footpaths ahead are copiously way-marked with these red and white CAI (Italian Alpine Club) blazes.

The tight little lane climbs fairly steeply for a few minutes between villas and houses of refined composition and artistry until it levels out at the top.

One should enjoy the peaceful, ambling pace. On the right is an all-embracing view over the Arno valley and Florence and set against the background are the Chianti hills - a sight to slake the thirst of any romantic soul. From this point the city is best seen at dawn or in the evening when the sun is low and the bordering hills present a sharp edge against the western sky.

We walk forward keeping to the left, ignoring Via Doccia which dips down to the right. This is Via Montececeri. Up on the right-hand wall of the corner house is a sign

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT lived here 1910

After 150m the road levels out again for a second view across the valley as far as the eye can see. Via Montececeri ends after a minute and at the branch we take the road downhill to the right, Via degli Scalpellini, following the red and white CAI mark. A few paces forward will take us to Via del Pelagaccio, which veers sharply uphill to the left that we leave behind and walk forward along the straight gravel footpath leading towards the wood. After 200m we come to a board on the right showing a map of the park. The footpath now takes us through the wood. Swinging uphill to the left at the first Y-junction and bearing in mind to follow the red and white CAI blazes on the trees or rocks, disregarding the blue-red marks, we turn right after 50m. It takes about 10 minutes to reach a handrail on the right and a wooden bench on the left. Here we have another eye-filling view over the Arno valley. The Florence soccer stadium is straight down in the foreground and the Cathedral and Palazzo Vecchio are just over to the right.

Downhill again, we come to the first stone quarry on the left. A dark sinister hole in the hillside, worthy of a short prudent visit. These forsaken quarries, which were still active until the 50’s and once supplied the blocks for some of the most prominent buildings in Florence, are no longer the womb of unborn stone gods.

When that which is divine in us doth try

To shape a face, both brain and hand unite

To give, from a mere model frail and slight,

1. Michelangelo

At the nearby 3-pronged junction, we take the middle path on our same level that swings over to the left, following the red and white blazes. The path dips down, the ground is rough, but soon one comes to clearing in the wood where we swing left, turning uphill looking for the blazes on the trees.

Looking up to the cypress trees on the hilltop, we get our bearings and ten minutes later, keeping the hilltop on our left, we reach to the red-and-white marks on the rock –

MONTECECERI -------------BORGUNTO

MAIANO

This time we take the left-hand path to Montececeri, past a quarry up to the right and at the first Y-junction take a few steps forward, then to the left along a short path for a striking view from the top of the open face quarry over to the distant hills and down along the valleys.

Retracing our steps, we follow this path with the red-and-white marks and after 10 minutes reach an uphill stretch along a wooden handrail and stone steps. The path spirals round to the left until we reach Piazzale Leonardo da Vinci. A few benches and tables are available for rest and picnics.

The board shows its history. This place is dedicated to the memory of Leonardo da Vinci’s first human flight experiment.

The translation of stone column reads -

The great bird will rise to its first flight over the summit of Ceceri,

filling the universe will awe and filling with its fame all writings and

with eternal glory the nest where it was born.

Leaving the Piazzale, take the wide path along the garden wall on the left, that leads downhill for a few minutes to a mapboard, where we turn left after the road barrier a small open area of hard ground comes into view with a quaint little church on the corner.

This is Piazza dei Pini and the parish church of Borgunto, seated like a Christian seer in the midst of a not-too-remote heathendom, which like so many woodland churches, may have been built on the very spot set apart for sacred and solemn rites in honour of some ancient pagan god of the soil.

Facing the church, look to the wall on the left which is marked

CAI-FIRENZE-ITIN-1

Settignano

Compiobbi

SENTIERO DEGLI DEI

This is Via Peramonda, perhaps anciently a military road or a trade route. After a few strides along this road we see the entrance to Fiesole Camping Site on the left. Proceeding downhill, a keen eye should be lifted to enjoy the views over the far-off hills with their large farmsteads and elegant villas which beckon us over the valleys for a visit.

Turning right at the main road, we walk on for a few minutes to the local bus area on the right, which is little more than a clearing at the roadside and walk down into the wood from the top side of this area and follow the path running parallel to the main road to the left above it. This path through the wood will soon meet a narrow road at a T-junction where we take a right turn and walk straight on, disregarding the barrier across the track on the right.

Look carefully for the CAI signs on the tree at the entrance to this rough stony way, more suitable for cartwheels and the cloven hoof, and we can stroll on beside the tall rushes on the right and to a once admirable, yet still dominating, wayside shrine on the left. One of the thousand tumbling wayside shrines in Tuscany, worthy of a scholar’s quotation or an artist’s affection. The face of a young cherub looks down with mock humility as if offering a prayer for burdened wayfarers with a long road behind, and nowhere to go.

In those days gone by a place of worship, rest and refreshment; a meeting point for trivia where you could still meet a farmer with a loaf of bread under his arm, an onion in his hand, and the neck of a small wine bottle peeping out of his pocket.

We now walk past a farmstead further along the road and down along the cart track through an olive grove. These tracks can become muddy after some rain and are again better suited for cartwheels and the cloven hoof. Until a few years ago one could still meet beasts of burden tramping along here, sturdy white oxen, with slow, swaying bodies, great beasts already worshipped two thousand years ago as the incarnation of the earth-gods.

And to those also, O Lord, Thy humble beasts, who with us bear the burden and heat of the day, and offer their guileless lives for the well-being of their countries, we supplicate Thy great tenderness of heart.

At the end of this first stretch we head towards the wood, avoiding the right-hand turn downhill. Near this spot we can see the location where scenes from “A Room with a View” were filmed.

The walk through the wood is brief. In the morning a dew-laden spider’s web lays itself across our face and a keen eye can find regurgitated owl pellets of slimy fur and half-digested bone. The end the path comes to another old, crestfallen farmhouse with a yard and outbuildings. We walk round it, down between rugged dry walls and along a track covered with Summer dust waiting for September winds to make a sally and lay bare its stony humps again. After 10 minutes uphill we step onto a narrow asphalt road.

Downhill to the right is the roadside church of San Lorenzo and across the valley are the open face stone quarries of Maiano.

A few minutes down the road is the haughty castle of Vincigliata. On the high outer walls are stone tablets commemorating the sojourn of names such as Queen Elizabeth and Beatrice, Battenberg, Hohenlohe and Hohenzollern and the Duchess of Russia.

At the first sweeping bend after the castle, we take the track on the left through the olive groves.

“There is comfort and security in long, straight roads where life flows smoothly on. But the Genius Loci in the Tuscan countryside appears from behind the sudden dips and bends of the footpath and lives under the uncontaminated blank spaces on the wayfarers map.”

Now slightly uphill to the large renovated building on the right with its chapel standing on the ground opposite. The view from here over the olive groves and cypress trees towards Florence in the background must surely be one of the deepest emotional admiration.

Not far along the track we come to a house on the corner of a junction. This is Casa al Vento. A lofty cypress tree rises on the right and round the house and we enter the rough stony road on the left.

This path is rough and dusty in dry weather, and slippery after rain. There are olive trees on the right, cypresses up to the left, and further up heather bushes taller than a man beside smaller plants showing a struggle to survive. After 20 minutes we come to Via del Fossataccio. On the left is a house with a shrine up on the wall. The inscription reads -

MONSTRA TE ESSE MATREM

Note the marks on the wall to the right. Now straight forward along Via Desiderio da Settignano, past the cemetery on the right and uphill a little between the first houses of the town to the junction with Via S. Romano.

A right turn takes us to the Piazza not forgetting to look at the curious façade of the Società Corale, a building on the right just after the very narrow part of the street.

“We can only plod

Lit by a starveling candle; and we sing

Of what we can remember of the road."

The bus from the piazza takes thirty minutes back down to Florence.

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