Fiesole And The Etruscan Sigh

On the #7 bus to Fiesole, which we board at the stazione, two lovers—the ages of Romeo and Juliet—travel up the mountain with us. They sit in facing seats, profiles stamped against the passing slopes of Mount Ceceri, their eyes locked, with each breath inhaling the image of the other. Such a pure and perfect love touches my injured heart. Since my camera is in my lap, ready to memorialize the scenery, I take apparent aim at the vista beyond the bus window, focus my lens upon their yearning faces, and capture this icon of young love.

Italy is exploding with lovers, all of them energized, I suspect, by the great erotic statues that fill the city squares, gardens and museums. Michelangelo’s David, naked but for his sling in the Piazza della Signoria, towers above the onlooker in such a way that the eye is drawn naturally to the heavy bulbous parcel between his legs. The bodybuilding Neptune, bursting upright like a lord of his fountain, is a pillar of sex. Even the horses lurching from the fountain seem to have their veins engorged with passionate blood. (I think of how, in the movie “A Room With A View,” E. M. Forster’s heroine Lucy Honeychurch faints in view of these statues while resisting the attentions of George Emerson with whom she falls in love against her will.)

The young lovers in my camera’s viewfinder hold hands and stare into one another’s eyes; if the bus went over the edge of the cliff, I doubt their gaze would waver. I look to my husband’s face. Where is his gaze focused? Not upon me, of course, and not upon the lovers, but out the window, at the scenery.

The Teatro Romano—a short distance from Fiesole’s main square where the bus lets us off—is a ruin; everything in Italy takes on an awesome quality when the word “ruin” is attached to it. Or “Roman.” If you put them together, “Roman ruin”—you have your heart’s desire, all that Italy can offer. We pay our entry fee and make our way into the stone theater, where, it is said, unlike the bloody events at the Colosseum, kinder spectacles were to have happened. They are happening now, in fact. We see young and old visitors alike sitting peacefully on the stones or lying back against the sloping grass, their faces turned gratefully to the sun. There is not much to see, but just to be here may be quite enough. Being here is the single overwhelming attraction of Italy—to be able to say to oneself: I am in Italy. This is Italian grass, above us is Italian sky, the quality of light is Italian (and remember what masterpieces it inspired!) Soon, in fact, we will be hungry and the food we eat will be—above all—Italian food.

We walk the edges of the arena, we stand and observe the nearby hills in which the long span of the San Francesco monastery, whose arches resemble that of an aqueduct, stretches out like a train on its way to heaven.

In the small museum we examine unremarkable broken objects, shards, chips of statues, pottery slivers, stone lions and miniature horses, but even so feel we are in the major presence of history, art and beauty. Everything we see today is a balm. Looking outward together helps us begin the process of healing ourselves from the morning’s astonishing conflict. If we can’t understand it, we recognize it is best simply to leave it behind.

As we walk down a long sloping road and find ourselves coming toward a wooded area we see, at the same moment, a nun, all in white, stepping into the tangle of trees and undergrowth. Her habit is a sheen of brightness against the dark. Like an apparition, she begins to disappear into the woods. I aim my camera and catch her just as she bends to collect something—mushrooms, perhaps. Or truffles.

I have seen for sale in the windows of shops the black fungus (tartufo nero) famous for being an aphrodisiac and for its exquisite taste. These tubers (“un tubero d’oro” the Italians call it) are discovered deep in the woods, by pigs (and perhaps by nuns?). Just this morning I saw a photo of a truffle gracing a recipe in my stolen magazine. The truffle’s dark ridged outer skin, its spherical nature, gave it the appearance of a human scrotal sac.

Joe and I stand under a great cluster of trees whose dropped nuts are hard and bumpy beneath our feet. Picking one up, I tell Joe I think it must be a chestnut because of its shiny brown cover and dark nipple. Further down the road we see a young couple tossing the nuts beyond the trees and down upon the hillside below. The young man, before each toss, seems to take the stance of a discus-thrower.

“I’d like to take some home and roast them,” I say tentatively, looking toward Joe for some signal. (Is this a mistake also?) But he seems quite agreeable, in fact begins to help me gather the nuts by the handful, filling the pockets of my jacket and letting me fill his. We are laughing now. His pockets are puffed out like a chipmunk’s cheeks.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

“What shall we eat?”

“Anything you like.”

We bypass the trattoria in the city square, deciding instead on a little outdoor stand where a tray of panini is on display: the choices include sandwiches of focaccia, mozzarella cheese and tomato, or focaccia, mozzarella and prosciutto, or a “primo piatto,” a simple bowl of pasta and cheese. Joe and I each order the buffalo cheese and prosciutto. The young woman behind the counter takes the sandwiches off the tray, whisks them between two silver flatirons that hiss as they heat the food and melt the cheese. In half a minute we are seated at a little outdoor table, eating our meal. We devour our sandwiches in three bites.

“Fiesole,” I say. “The word sounds like the wind sighing in the trees.”

“This place is famous for something more like a choking sound,” Joe says. Then he explains, like the history professor he is, that in this earliest of Etruscan cities the language is famous for a certain sound—a guttural sigh—a “huch” sound instead of a hard “k” sound, as in the word “casa.”

“They still speak that way now, with a catch deep in the throat.” Joe demonstrates, as if he is clearing his throat.

I tell my husband that it’s a privilege to have my own private history professor as my guide. He seems pleased so I press my advantage. Could we buy some dessert at the gelato place in the main square?

The display is impressive; an artist’s palette of colors in the gelateria’s silver trays. On the counter is a vast display of cones—plain wafer cones, sugar cones, extra-tall cones, cones dipped in chocolate, cones dipped in chocolate and nuts. (Then there are the paper cups, small, 2,000 lire, medium, 4,000 lire, large, 5,000 lire, and the glass parfait dish on a little pedestal, 7,000 lire.)

How can we possibly choose? Each bin has been dipped into deeply; great scoops have been dug from the bins and in their wake are ridged invitations to the tongue. I want to taste them all.

The flavors are described on hand-printed signs, which I read aloud to Joe, softly. When I’m not sure of a word, Joe translates for me: Cioccolato (chocolate), Crema (cream), Nocciola (hazelnut), Noce (walnut), Pistacchio (pistachio), Vaniglia (vanilla), Torrone (nougat), Riso (rice!) Then there are the fruit flavors: Pesca (peach), Albicocca (apricot), Lampone (raspberry), Mora (blackberry), Banana, Fragola (strawberry), Melone (melon), Frutti di bosco (berries of the woods), Petali di rosa (rose petals), and Cioccomenta (chocolate mint). There are two we ask the salesgirl to explain: Bacio (which means “kiss” but is really hazelnut flavored chocolate with nuts), and “Buontalenti” (which means—she says simply, “very Florentine”).

“I’ll have them all,” I tell Joe. I select two tiny plastic spoons (shaped like shovels) from the bowl on the counter: one bright yellow, one chartreuse.

He says to the girl, “I’ll have the ‘Buontalenti’. And my wife will have…?” He looks at me.

“Bacio,” I say.

She points to the cones, to the cups, to the glass parfait dish. “Quale?”

“Grande,” Joe says and indicates the glass—and for that extravagance we learn we are entitled to take our bowls of talents and kisses and sit (for no extra charge) at one of the small tables on the square, to savor our own and each other’s luscious, smooth cream, to watch the passing crowds, and to breathe the country air of Fiesole.