Giosuè Craducci’s life is deeply linked to the Livorno Maremma area, the poet’s muse and the host of his formative memories, those of childhood. Indeed, it was here that he would return even in adulthood to enjoy the pleasures that this land had always given him: the honest and truthful people, the good food, the healthy air. We can circumscribe Carducci’s activities to the entire territory of the municipality of Castagneto, then a “maritime” and before that a “Gherardesque community,” within what were the possessions of the noble family that had held rights and powers here for centuries. It should also be borne in mind that the conformation of these territories, as we know them today, derives from the reclamation works of the malarial swamps, begun in 1779 by Count Cammillo and resumed around 1828 following an edict of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II.
From a letter by Carducci to Annie Vivanti dated October 26, 1894: << I have been in Maremma for a long time. Not even a wolf anymore. Where those poor animals used to come in droves in the evening howling, now yellowing vines bloom these days and boys play mandolin. Old oak trees were fiddled with, now more years old, and from all over olive trees, wheat and vegetable gardens. Only in the lofty the gloomy green of the woods; and a few old mockingbirds, wearied by the world, retreat there, like Chateaubriand to the abadia, until some unemployed man pulls a gun on him. No more buffaloes, too bad. Something is missing. But the wine is in great copy and very good>>. (Lugioli B., (2022) Rhymes and Recipes in Joshua Carducci, The Green Lion, Turin)
A small list of places Carducci frequented.
- BOLGHERI: a topical place not only because of the dwelling located in today’s Albert Square, but also because of the famous Cypress Avenue with its history and emotional significance. Often recurring in Carducci’s works are the scenes of daily life revolving around the small village: the castle inhabited by the laborers and peasants who worked the nearby lands, the hills, and the malarial swamps.
- CASTAGNETO: also taking center stage here is the childhood home but also the relationship with local residents, friends, and Bombo’s testimonies. But not only this, there is also young Joshua’s departure and return as a university professor.
- SEGALARI and CASTIGLIONCELLO OF BOLGHERI.
- THE COAST
SOURCES:
Bezzini L., (1993), Giosuè Carducci and “his” Maremma, Bandecchi e Vivaldi, Pontedera.
Bezzini L., (1991), Castagneto epigraphica, Bandecchi e Vivaldi, Pontedera.
Bezzini L., (2007), Joshua Carducci. Mansions, escapes, rebuffs, honors, Bandecchi e Vivaldi, Pontedera.
Lugioli B., (2022) Rhymes and recipes in Giosuè sue Carducci, Edizioni Il Leone Verde, Turin.
The poems and collections realized here are: Idillio Maremmano (begun in 1867 and finished in 1872), Il bove (1872), Rimembranze di scuola (published in 1873), Una sera di San Pietro, Sogno d’estate, Davanti san Guido, Nostalgia, all published between 1871 and 1874.
HINTS OF LOCAL HISTORY.
An interesting path through Bolgheri’s history can be read on the epigraphs that litter the area, most of which were placed on commission by the Gherardesca family who wanted, in this way, to give memory to their many architectural works. This slice of land <<constituted the “county of Maremma” of the Gherardesca family. Then other estates appeared: the Incontri in Castiglioncello, the Ceuli in Segalari (…). To these heterogeneous possessions were added many levels granted by the Gherardesca to employees, collaborators, artisans (…)>>. (Bezzini L., (2007), Joshua Carducci. Mansions, escapes, rebuffs, honors, Bandecchi e Vivaldi, Pontedera).
This aristocratic family has gone through alternating fortunes over the centuries, but it has always been strong from its many estates and relationships with other families in the area. A turning point was in the 1700s when the Grand Duchy of Tuscany passed from the Medici family to the Lorraine family. It was these who enacted the feudal law that subjected feudal lords to the state’s legal system and to which the Gherardesca strenuously opposed.
Relations between accounts and the population were going through cyclical turbulence especially in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Emblematic is the sonnet of the castagnetani attached to the document sent to Grand Duke Peter Leopold in person: Querele e doglianze avanzate a s.a.r. da’ comunisti di castagneto contro i sigg. conti della gherardesca, of 1768.
Would come at last among the alien claims
Campaign Tosca or Mighty Grand Duke
this people is yours, these are the people
Who alone wills you and to you alone comes.
See how yearningly to you sen comes
As a son to his father all obedient
From you he hopes support and truly
To give them to you alone is fitting.
Already for many years fatigued and mournful
Far from his sovereign lived in oblivion
This People you see here modest.
Therefore lend a righteous and pious ear
To their prayers, and to chestnut remains
One Law, one Sovereign, one God.
In the first half of the 1800s for example, violent protests had erupted in the chestnut community related to civic uses, that is, hunting and fishing permits in the territories and for which the community demanded a more equitable redistribution.
The ferments and circulation of ideas were also facilitated by the great technological innovations of the time: from 1830 to 1832 the Via Pisana (today’s Aurelia) had been opened between San Guido and San Vincenzo, which guaranteed a flow in transportation.
During the period when the Carducci family arrived in Bolgheri, the Castagnetani made a strong claim to the concession of the preselle, or pieces of land for which exclusive use was required upon payment of a modest rent (level concession). Dr. Michele Carducci sided with Castagneto’s population, and the riots were such that in 1848 Grand Duke Leopold wrote to Count della Gherardesca to make this concession.
Obviously, the exposure of the father Carducci had important consequences for the family so much so that in 1849 a number of shots were fired at the window of his house. So it was that the family decided to leave that small hamlet so cooped up behind the castle that it became more and more reminiscent of subservience to the counts.
THE CARDUCCI FAMILY IN CASTAGNETO.
Carducci arrived in Bolgheri in 1838, at the age of 3, following his large family in search of work opportunities. His father Michele was a doctor with a bad temper and dangerous subversive ideas: he had been in trouble with the law for circulating revolutionary books, and he also ended up in jail in Volterra before finishing his studies and starting to practice in Versilia. Along with Joshua, born in Pietrasanta in 1835, the Carducci couple also brought little Dante, born in 1837, to the Maremma. Leading the caravan was Grandmother Lucia Galleni, Michele’s mother, and aunt and uncle Natale (who will return to Versilia) and Maddalena.
In Bolgheri, Michele would finally be able to practice as a surgeon, trying to lift himself out of a critical economic situation and a reputation “tarnished” by a revolutionary past in which there were also complaints of misdemeanors and loudmouths.
Michele was definitely lively in spirit and curiosity. Says Bezzini: <<Carducci’s life in Bolgheri was obviously conditioned by Dr. Michele’s ideological rigor and the reactions his behavior provoked in a closed environment, dominated from afar by the figure of Count Guido Alberto. Carducci, placed in such an environment without cultural and social openings, reacted “noisily,” inveighing against the constituted and dominant power, the Grand Duke, the Count, the Church; but while the Count showed for him and his ideas a continuous tolerance, a deaf aversion against him was brooded and nurtured by the parish priest Don Giuseppe Bussotti, already harshly opposed by the Count himself>>.
The family moved to a spacious apartment in the building in Albert Square, known as the Fabbrica Nova because it had been built in the 1830s to accommodate the growing population, consisting mostly of laborers and families. By the end of the nineteenth century, Bolgheri ended up being overpopulated, which created several problems from the point of view of the healthiness of the area, also aided by the slow spread of malaria. Seasonal work drew laborers from different parts of Italy who were forced into hellish work rhythms: in winter for wood, in summer for harvest. They were paid half in money and the other half in foodstuffs. The demand for laborers then over time decreased due to the progression of sharecropping. Children also contributed by serving as “basques,” i.e., bricklayers’ laborers, along with those who did not yet have enough strength for heavy labor.
Bolgheri’s population was mostly illiterate: in 1841 (Grand Ducal census), out of 711 inhabitants, they could read and write in 29, and only read in 12.
In 1839, Valfredo Carducci, the poet’s younger brother, was born in Bolgheri. We know that in adulthood he became a teacher and taught from 1872 in the province of Trapani. In 1879 he was appointed by Minister De Santis as Regent Inspector in Noto, only to be relieved of the post because he did not have a license. On that occasion Joshua wrote to the ministry, “He is the only brother I have left: I brought him up as a boy, his father having died; I never asked anything for him; he got what little he had by his work. And now they treat him like this-this time it’s justice I’m defending, not my brother, who counts for little and can do well as a town master. But these chatterers of justice, these clowns of progress are what they are.” Valfredo again obtained the position. He moved to L’Aquila and then to Forlimpopoli, to the school named after his brother Joshua, where Benito Mussolini was among the students.
LOCAL CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS.
The inhabitants of Bolgheri had a very poor diet. The laborers were given a share of compensation in foodstuffs, which usually consisted of some bread, cacio or lard. The dessert of the time was bread with dried figs. Meat was rare and its presence at the table depended on various external contingencies so the diet was mostly vegetarian.
Wine had its role in the diet: it was often bad and was used especially on the day off to sublimate frustrations.
Both wine and spirits were not only important at the table but also for medicinal use, think of grappa for example.
FRIENDS AND THE BLONDE MARIA.
Little Joshua spent time with his peers and played war with each other in the woods and scrubland scampering from the Grotto behind Bolgheri near the mill to the Coccolina, on the road along Castiglioncello. They were making a great racket, so much so that in an instruction dated April 20, 1844, Count Guido Alberto wrote: “The computists who came to Maremma for the sales (…) report that they were continually disturbed for the part of the Grotto by shouts and hubbub. It will be necessary to remove the usual boys; and it will also be good to discreetly warn Mr. Doctor for the children.”
All the children were already working at an early age. Thus should be interpreted the verses of the Idillio Maremmano referring to Bionda Maria, daughter of millers and therefore called “La Buratta,” from buratto, that is, the cloth used to separate flour from bran: “tra l’ondeggiar de’ lunghi solchi uscivi,” that is, engaged in the harvest, since she most likely accompanied the other adults in this work. To this day the figure of this young girl is identified as the Bolgherian Maria Rosa Banchini, whose home was located in what is now Piazza Bionda Maria, 2.
Of the meeting between the very young Joshua and Blonde Mary we find an interesting write-up in E. Barboni’s book, Col Carducci in Maremma: <<But does he really not recognize me? (…) or don’t you remember when your father bonanima kept him locked up as a punishment in a room, and me and another little girl would bring him some bread and some fruit?” (…) “do you remember that her ladyship not being able to reach you because you were too high up, we would hand him the stuff stuff stuffed into the top of a cane?” (…) “Poor thing, how I would have gladly freed him! And how about when he used to write me love letters sealed with the pan biascicato do you remember?” At this point the whole café said in a burst of laughter. Carducci pointed his fists against the marble edge of the coffee table and rolled his head back in a convulsive Homeric laughter, to which Chiarini and all the rest of us in the group chorused; at the same time that the good woman, confused and pained at having perhaps transcended, was taking care to say: excuse me, most illustrious, if I have disrespected you!… What do you want! I am not enticed!…. pity me!””But no, but no! Indeed, I thank you for making me relive those dear times,” replied the poet, always laughing amidst the general laughter. (…) And I added, “Isn’t that the blonde maria? (…)” He said neither yes nor no, but, still laughing, honored me by promising me a “long, very long,” letter about his youth spent in Maremma>>.
BOMBO.
Famous personality for numerous accounts of Joshua Carducci. He was given the nickname because of the colossal hangovers that would deprive him of consciousness even for two whole days. He was a farm mason who nevertheless did not shy away from a wide variety of jobs. He appears to have worked in Bolgheri in 1842-1843 and 1846-1847. After Joshua recovered from malaria, Father Michael put him under the wing of the Bumblebee to basacco with his friends. The experience lasted only a few days: put to the test by manual labor, Joshua went back to studying so much that Bombo said to his father Michele: “Sor doctor, listen to me, make your son study. In the study un pole failed, if he felt how he gives of poetry; but to work un is good, there is nothing to do!”
SCHOOL AND CHURCH.
Joshua and Dante’s education came mainly through the hands of Dr. Michele Carducci and his classical training. Don Bussotti, a Sassetano, was chosen as parish priest by Count Guido Alberto with the appointment in 1821.
An orphanage, the Bigallo, had even been built in Bolgheri, which was poorly attended but effective in training young people in the jobs. The town also needed a school, but the chair was not permanently filled; several teachers and chaplains followed until 1839 when Don Giovanni Bertinelli arrived. Carducci tells us about him, describing him as a “black priest”: a mutual dislike developed between the two, probably due to the fact that the Carducci brothers were ahead of the other pupils, thanks to the classical education they received from their father.
SAN GUIDO AND CYPRESS AVENUE.
The world-famous stradone had been there since the early 1800s. It was transformed into an avenue after the construction of the Via Pisana, with the planting of the first cypress trees in 1832. The first section ran from the Via Emilia to the Casone di San Guido. Bezzini in Castagneto epigraphy. History of Castagneto, Donoratico, Bolgheri through epigraphs, he tells us: <<On March 5, 1845, Count Guido Alberto wrote to the factor of Bolgheri, Angiolo Mariani: “As for the 1,000 cypresses that I sent you from Florence and that cost 3 crazies each of first quality, you will plant them from the Capanne dei Pastori as far as Strada Pisana; if you have any left over, you will put them at the Cerreta, but if necessary, I can send you some from here as well>>. It was not until 1911 that work on the road was completed thanks to the intervention of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca.
The little church of St. Guido, on the other hand, was built much earlier, in 1703, by Count Simone Maria della Gherardesca, both to pay homage to the patron from whom the elder brother was named and to give summer laborers an opportunity to stop in prayer without going up to the village and slowing down, in this way, the work.
GRANDMOTHER LUCIA.
A statue in Bolgheri sculpted by Flavio Melani is dedicated to her.
Bambolo Location. Even today there is the way of the bambolo. It was in fact an old tavern, right between the Aurelia and the village of Castagneto. It happened throughout the 1700s that inns were run half by communities and half by counts. At some point, however, the Gherardesca family liquidated the community and decided to move what was the Osteria Vecchia to the floor in what is now the Hotel Bambolo area: <<The corciata was chosen to go to the Casone because there was a ditch nearby, the Botro ai Mulini, which was indispensable for a thousand uses, and especially for watering horses. The work (…) was very long (…). In fact, great masters of the masonry art of the time worked there, such as Giovanni della Bella, a stonemason, who exhibited himself in thresholds, cardinaletto lintels, two stone pillar columns, and, hear hear hear, a marble mask-like head that the French would call Bambolo>>. (Bezzini L., Castagneto epigraphica. History of Castagneto, Donoratico, Bolgheri through epigraphs). The intersection at which it is located is very important, there the roads to go to the Fort, to the Seggio (both on the sea), to the Casone (built in 1687 by the Count of Bolgheri, Simone Maria della Gherardesca, near San Guido), to Castagneto (with the new road created immediately after the Via Emilia), to Campiglia via Guidalotto, to San Vincenzo. Epigraph on the facade commemorating Guido Alberto della Gherardesca’s restoration in 1832.
The Donoratico tower is what remains of the Gherardesca castle, built around the 11th century, and long remained their home. Its position on the summit of the hill made it an effective defense against raids by Saracens, Pisans, and Florentines. Apparently, the tower was destroyed at the hands of Alfonso of Aragon around 1447, on his way up from Naples to Milan, in conjunction with the sieges of Campiglia and Piombino. Another version has it that the castle was destroyed in 1433 at the hands of the Sienese. Today only the tower remains, which the Poet mentions among other things in “Forward Forward,” as carved in the epigraph not far from the site.
In adulthood, in late fame, we know well that Carducci returned to his Maremma, with friends and took advantage of it for the famous rebellions. He was very nostalgic for his childhood period, and the place became his muse starting in the late 1960s. Attendance in adulthood ranges from about 1874 to 1894. Trips to Maremma were made possible by the fact that he often happened to be in Livorno, visiting his friend Giuseppe Chiarini and his daughter Beatrice, who had married Carlo Bevilacqua, a mathematics professor in Livorno; as well as by his work for Cronaca Bizantina (based in Rome). It seems that he made a first visit to Maremma between 1871 and 1874, in great secrecy: he probably stopped for a couple of days while traveling by train to Civitavecchia.
He then returned with pomp and ceremony in 1879: the visit of the Poet, by then consecrated to fame, was followed by a swarm of onlookers, whom the Carabinieri tried in vain to keep at a distance. About this re-entry there are various testimonies even conflicting with each other. Carducci arrived in April, returning from Rome, (on that occasion, or perhaps even earlier, he wrote Pe’l Chiarone from Civitavecchia reading Marlowe). Welcoming him on that occasion was Emilio Bucci, a pharmacist and literary enthusiast. The poet then was welcomed into the home of his friend Francesco Borsi, father of Averardo and grandfather of the more famous Giosuè Borsi (named after the poet). The Borsi family was also a literary family: Cecco (Francesco) had a tailor’s shop that constituted “one of the cultural centers of the town” (Bezzini L. Carducci and his Maremma), Averardo worked for the Telegraph in Livorno, and Joshua was also a writer and journalist. A luncheon was held at the Borsi’s house, reserved for the Poet’s close friends; at the time of the toasts it seems that Carducci improvised a quatrain, as was his wont:
IN CASTAGNETO
Of thy fair and gracious nature
The shadow remained in the mindful thinker
Like your wine, O my sweet country,
My verse fervea, gentle and auster.
On March 18, 1885, the poet felt “the first peal of death”: a violent numbness in his arm that would pass after a few days, however. He began drafting Traversando la Maremma Toscana: he sent a draft of the sonnet to Chiarini, April 23, 1885. After a short time he wrote to Averardo Borsi: “I plan to make a Maremma peregrination, beginning in Castiglioncello and ending in Campiglia and San Vincenzo. I really want to see again one by one the places of my early age. And I will lead with me a young man from Romagna, who will be my son-in-law. I am counting for a banquet in Donoratico. G. Carducci.”
On May 17 he wrote to his wife, “I am in Castagneto and I am very well there. I am leaving now, which is eight o’clock in the morning, to go and eat under the tower of Donoratico. (…)” and of this ribot we have the photo, the most famous one, which includes only a part of all the “ribotists.” During the riots, everyone brought some wine, and they ate polenta, soup, mixed roasts. For this occasion Carducci recited Traversando la Maremma Toscana, which had recently been composed, generating a general commotion. Of course, the wine made everyone very emotional and uninhibited.
The poet extolled via letter to his wife the incredible taste of thrushes, and also to his university assistant, he wrote: “Severino, would you like to come tomorrow, Sunday, at 6 o’clock, to eat with me and with that inglorious one called Giulio of the Maremma thrushes?” and again, “Maremma thrushes, for me, are superior to the others, they feed on juniper cuddles, myrtle, olives, the meat takes on bitterness, unsurpassed taste, stuff to raise the dead!….”
On September 25, 1885, he returned to Bolgheri; on that occasion he met Maria Bianchini and childhood friends, after a good 37 years: but the poet found that nothing had changed there.
On October 5 Carducci wrote again to Averardo Borsi to let him know that again he would be returning to the area. He arrived on October 18, but the ribotta that was to be done at the Donoratico tower needed another location, given the bad weather conditions.
There seems to be reliable evidence of this ribotta in E. Barboni’s book Col Carducci in Maremma, which testifies that 300 thrushes had been cooked for the occasion.
Described by the poet in An Evening at St. Peter’s