Beauty Stitched By hand
Collection that fete Italian excellence in needlework. For more than forty years now, Loretta Caponi and her daughter Lucia, have been creating unique expression of the most authentic traditions of made in Tuscany excellence and “made to measure” couture. Garments of impeccable quality: even linings and hems are stitched by specialists.
The atelier presents men’s, women’s and children’s collections and product lines for the home and the yachting trade, plus a collections reproducing the drawings of the well-known architect A. Mendini.
Art the Caponi boutiques in Floorence, Milan, and Forte dei Marmi, summer and winter collections are available all year round: Caponi stands apart from the frenetic seasonal round of the griffes.
This year Loretta Caponi is proposing a line of coordinates feauturing a shell motif embroidered in dark blue, sky blue yellow, and amber on sheets and pillowcases, cotton piquet bedspreads, towel sets, and linen throw pillows.
Other outstanding proposals this year are an exclusive white cotton dress, embroidered with flowering vines, that becomes a long skirt for evening wear, men’s printed cotton trunks and coordinated terry sarongs, and children’s sunsuits in cotton and linen.
Sitting just to the west of the Italian mainland somewhat south of Pisa lies the island of Elba. It is common knowledge that Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to Elba when nobody in France knew what else do with him but there is much more to this “Toscana” island. So much more that it appears to have multiple personalities, which for the visitor is very desirable.
There is the Elba with umbrella covered sandy beaches, pleasure boat harbors, and crowds of bathers. But there is also the Elba with a quiet rocky coastline, aromatic pine forests, and ancient hillside towns. There is also the Elba of ruins, archeological sites and abandoned mines. Napoleon Bonaparte’s s brief rule over the island in the 1800’s is but a suggestion of the push and pull of past powers.
Elba is ancient and complex geologically as well as culturally. It is fair to say that the mineral riches of the island have lured many throughout ancient times and continues to draw mineralogy pros and amateurs alike up into the hills. Elba has been inhabited since early peoples first learned how to cross the narrow stretch of sea to the island from what is now Piombino on mainland Italy. Stone age tools, some made from stone not found naturally on the island, that have been discovered on Elba attest to this. It was the Etruscans who located and first extracted the mineral wealth of copper and later, the rich iron ore deposits.
Historians believe that the Iron Age in Italy began on Elba. These mineral treasures attracted the Greeks and the Romans along with Spaniards, French and English. Saracen pirates often raided the island and surviving fortifications in Portofarraio and elsewhere stand as reminders of how valuable Elba was. Mining, with various starts and stops due to the demands and consequences of the process (especially to the forests, depleted to fire the smelting furnaces in ancient times) continued through World War II. Elba has since turned its attention to tourism for current prosperity.
Elba is the largest of the Tuscan Islands at about 86 square miles which is quite a bit larger than Capraia. It is large enough to venture out for a day’s exploration knowing that the trip back will not be very long. We stayed on the coast to the west of the town of Procchio, which is centered on the Northern side of the island. Our rented apartment was within a 20 minute walk of Marciana Marina which served as our base for food shopping, dining out, and strolling around in the evening.
This is a lively town that did not feel overcrowded with a good choice of restaurants and interesting small shops. In the evening, craftspeople set up their tables along the waterfront and a pleasant mixture of families, young lovers, and seniors were out enjoying the breeze of a warm July night. By night or by day, Marciana Marina had a nice balance of activity without a feeling of orchestrated tourism.
One issue that bears mentioning is that walking might best be limited to within the towns and along specific trails through the mountains. The roads are narrow and winding, often without shoulders. The drivers were not particularly bad (for normally lead-footed Italians) but there just isn’t much space to walk along the busier coastal roads without having to pay close attention to where you are and what is coming around the bend. Our initial thought of renting bicycles was negated by our first day’s walk to town because the hazards would have made it unappealing at best. Having a car to explore the island is a very big advantage though there are nice air conditioned busses that maintain a regular service around the island.
Above Marciana Marina at the foot of Monte Capanne, the largest mountain on Elba, are two small towns that retain their ancient roots. Marciana Castello is the older of the two and boasts fortifications that resisted attack by Dragut the corsair, one of the most legendary Saracen pirates to plunder the Mediterranean in the 1500’s. With nasty guys like Dragut appearing suddenly into the harbor it makes perfect sense why so many towns along the Italian coast were either perched high on rocky cliffs or sited well above the sea. What appeals to us as charming and picturesque today was a matter of survival when these towns were built. Poggio Terme is also very beautiful and ancient with a small church dating from the 7th century. Above these towns, often with clouds grazing the upper ridge is the granite outcrop of Monte Capanne.
The sea surrounding Elba is clear, clean and easy to get to but it is the diversity of the island that has left a lasting impression and a desire to return. The topography and vegetation varies from one end of this small island to the other with rounded granite outcroppings and low-growing plants to the west, a forested interior of pine and chestnut, and the rugged multi-hued peaks and tree-covered hills of the mining centers to the east. One feels they have traveled far, based upon the views, in only 30 minutes.
The mining history and its remains are fascinating not to mention the fact that the mineral wealth of the ancient rocks of Elba have by no means been eliminated. Rock hunting for Neanderthal stone tools to semi-precious gems is still practiced. Attention to avoiding the well known vipers of Elba needs to be maintained whenever poking around their habitat but that should no more prevent exploration than does the rattlesnake keep people away from the Grand Canyon.
Aside from the ever-present emperor of France, history is softly spoken in Elba but very much alive at every turn. It is said that Napoleon often sat by the sea on the west coast and gazed longingly at the island of Corsica in the distant haze. For those of us that have not lost an empire, reversing one’s view back to Elba is more than enough.
Pienza, a small town near Siena, is a rare example of Renaissance town building. Defined, from time to time, the “ideal city”, the “utopian city”, it represents one of the best planned Renaissance towns, where a model of ideal living and governing was realized thus working out the idea of a town able to satisfy the need for a pacific, civil and hardworking living. It represented the so called utopia of the “civitas” vainly cherished by people for centuries.Pienza has at present two museum, a third one into being. Its location in the middle of Val d’Orcia, a wonderful and untouched valley, enables the town to perfectly embody the basic interest which the humanistic architecture gave to the relationship man – nature.
Nowadays Pienza is part of a territorial system called “Parco artistico, naturale e culturale della Val d’Orcia”, which aims at preservation of the extraordinary artistic heritage of the five boroughs which constitute it: Castiglion d’Orcia, Montalcino, San Quirico d’Orcia, Radicofani and Pienza.
The center of Pienza was completely redesigned by Pope Pius II in Renaissance times. He planned to transform his birthplace into a model Renaissance town. The architect Bernardo Rossellino was commissioned to build a Duomo, papal palace and town hall, the construction were completed in three years.
Duomo
Piazza Pio II – Open daily
The Duomo was built by the architect Rossellino (1459) and is now suffering from serious subsidence at its eastern end. There were cracks in the walls and floor of the nave, but the splendid classical proportions are remained inctact. It is flooded with ligth from the vast stained glass windows request by Pius II; he wanted a domus vitrea (litterally “a house of glass”), which would symbolize the spirit of intellectual enlightenment of the Humanist age.
Palazzo Piccolomini Piazza Pio II – Open Tuesday – Sunday The palazzo is next door to the Duomo and was home to Pius II’s descendants until 1968. Rossellino’s design for the building was influenced by Leon Battista Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai in Florence. The appartments open to the public include Pius II’s bedroom and library. At the rear of the palazzo there is an ornate arcaded courtyard and a triple-tiered loggia looking out on the garden. From here there are spectacular views across to the wooded slopes of the Monte Amiata.
Pieve di Corsignano Via delle Fonti. Open by appointment. Phone to the tourist office: (+390578749071)
Pope Pius II was baptized in this 11 th. century Romanesque parish church on the outskirts of Pienza. It has an unusual round tower and a doorway decorated with flower mytholgical motifs. A crib is sculptured on the architrave of the side doorway.
It’s a happy accident of translation that the word “opera” in Italian translates into English as both “opera” (as in musical drama, opera lirica) and “work”. So the neatly named permanent exhibition in Lucca of “puccini Opera” can serve both as a showcase for the maestro’s whole output of work and his famous operas.
You’ll find Puccini Opera in Via Santa Giustina, midway between Piazza San Salvatore and Via Galli Tassi in the centre of Lucca. Established in the last few months by a not for profit organisation, this elegant little establishment offers three exhibition rooms and a shop.
The permanent exhibition tells the life story of Lucca’s famous composer Giacomo Puccini through opera posters,programmes and sheet music, much of which has been lent from private collections. Puccini was in fact very effectively promoted his publishing house Ricordi packaged him like no other previous composer, with posters, postcards and elegantly illustrated editions of his scores which are collectors’ items in themselves.
In addition to the permanent collection, Puccini Opera is currently offering two temporary exhibitions Puccini e il Cinema, with an outstanding collection of posters of the many films inspired by Puccini’s life and operas; and I Piatti di Puccini featuring original porcelain and ceramic works illustrating scenes from the operas, from two important Italian manufactures Richard Ginori and Piero Fornasetti.
A thrid exhibition will open on 18 September promising Puccini Mai Visto with rare photographs, previously unseen letters, and the composer’s own signed score of his exquisite “Salve Regina”.
Lots to see, then there is even a tiny viewing room with a large screen showing performances of arias from his operas by famous singers. And last but not least, a shop with an interesting collection of new and second hand books about the composer and his music in both Italian and English, and a good range of CDs and souvenirs.
Puccini Opera
Via Santa Giustina 16, Lucca. Entrance free. Open every day except Tuesday from 10 am until 7 pm.
More information on www.pucciniopera.it
Tuscan marble, fireplace built in Galleni workshop
A workshop with a calling for art.
A first glance, you’d say he’s a typical Pietrasanta youngster, with is ready smile and loquacity. But truth be told, Massimo Galleni is a member of “historic” generation of the city’s craftspeople: his grandfather started the family tradition and Masimo, who has been active in the sector since 1980, opened his own marble workshop about 15 years ago.
