Tomatoes and Kiwi

One morning while shopping in the open-air market I counted nineteen varieties of tomatoes!

Did you know that kiwis are grown in Italy? The farming of kiwis started in Italy in the 1980’s. Today, Italy is the world's largest producer and exporter of this fruit. The average Italian supply figures are around 380,000-390,000 tons per year, followed by New Zealand (280,000-290,000) and Chile (150,000). Source: The Italian Institute for Foreign Trade

The Macchiaioli

Recently I was exploring a small neighborhood in Rome just across the river form the Castel SantAngelo. (I often use Georgina Mason's "Companion Guide to Rome" when I am wandering around the city. It was originally published in the 1960's. I had it as a text book for an Art History class that I took while a student at the Loyola Rome Center my junior year of college. I now have an edition that was revised in 2003.) I discovered the Piazza Santa Maria della Pace. It was late afternoon and the church of Santa Maria was closed. However a beautiful cloister designed by Bramante, the architect of St. Peter's Basilica, was open. This cloister has been recently restored and now houses art exhibitions. As I wandered through the galleries of the current exhibition, I discovered the "Macchiaoli" or Tuscan Impressionists.

The following is adapted from "In Italy Online" www.initaly.com

The Macchiaioli (pronounced "mah-key-ay-OH-li") were probably a direct consequence of the Risorgimento, a movement whose dream was to unite the Italian peninsula under one government. These Tuscan artists were veterans of this movement and they would hang out in the Caffè Michelangiolo in Florence. Redirecting their rebellion away from the state and toward the artistic establishment of the day, they retreated into the country and developed a style of painting that focused heavily on landscapes and scenes of simple daily life. This, they declared, was the "Italy" they had dreamed of. Unable to contribute to its political birth, they created it in their canvases.

The Macchiaioli had developed their technique of capturing the moment, by means of bold strokes and "pools" of color. Because the term for these areas of color was macchia (meaning "stain" or "spot"), the Tuscan artistic revolutionaries soon came to be known as Macchiaioli.

Most people tend to focus on the Italy’s other two millennia of artistic output, so few ever actually see a work by Giovanni Fattori, Giuseppe Abbati (one of the very best of the bunch, despite having lost an eye fighting with Garibaldi), Telemaco Signorini, Giovanni Boldoni, Cristiano Banti, Odoardo Borrani, Adriano Cecioni, Raffaello Sernesi, Vito D'Ancona, Vicenzo Cabianca or Silvestro Lega. The problem is compounded because the vast majority of their many, many canvases is in private hands.

This show at the Cloister of Bramante brought together dozens of works from private collections as well as museums.

Back to School

My 5th Grade Class

Today was back to school after a one week Autumn break. My students are surprised that I speak only one language. About 1/3 of my students have Italian as their first language, 1/3 have English as a first language and the other third have other languages as their first language. They all speak at least two languages. Many speak three languages and some speak four languages!

Torre Argentina

Largo di Torre Argentina is a square in Rome that hosts four Republican Roman temples, and the remains of Pompey's Theater. The temples on this site were excavated in the late 1920s. Torre Argentina is also a Roman cat sanctuary, staffed by volunteers seven days a week, and caring for more than 250 cats. Sylvia and Lia, are the two organizing volunteers who have given their hearts to this project. When I first visited the Cat Sanctuary in October, Lia introduced me to a newly arrived blind kitten named Emily Bronte. In honor of my daughter Emily, who is a 4th grade teacher in Jersey City, I "adopted" Emily Bronte. Each month I make adonation that covers the cost of the kitten's care and food. Here is a picture of Emily Bronte that I took this afternoon.

Singing in Rome

Last night was the culmination of hours of rehearsal time for Vincenzo and I when we were part of an International High School Choir. (We volunteered because they needed extra tenors.) The concert was presented in conjunction with the annual conference of the Mediterranean Association of International Schools that took place this week in Rome.

The performance was at St. Stephen's School on the Aventine Hill. The repertoire included:
Salve Regina from To the Mothers in Brazil by Lars Jansso
La Musica by Jay Althouse
Sing Me To Heaven by Daniel Gawthrop
Band of Angels by Andre Thomas
Fa Una Canzona by Orazio Vecchi (d. 1605)
N'kosiSikelel'i Africa (Pan African National Antem)
Freedom is Coming

All Soul's Day

Cimitero Acattolico (the non-Catholic Cemetery of Rome)

This afternoon we stopped at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Wall to remember our beloved who have died. The Benedictine abbot of St Paul has pastoral care with ordinary power (like that of the diocesan bishops) over a part of Rome that includes our neighborhood of Garbatella. So, it was like stopping in at our local Cathedral.


Today I am especially remembering Madeleine l'Engle who died on September 6th. I first encountered Madeline as an author while reading "A Wrinkle in Time" in a drive from California to New York in 1979. I have enjoyed many of her books, both fiction and non-fiction. One of the last books my mother read, before her own death, was Madeline's "Glorious Impossibe," a reflection on events in the life of Christ with illustrations from Giotto's frescoes in the Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua. It is a book I have read over and over again. I got to personally know Madeline when we were at All Angels Church together in New York City. I have many memories of meals together in restaurants and her home during this time and the work we did together on the vestry of the parish. She was a treasured friend and wonderful "significant older person" in my life.

All Saints Day

Cathedral in Monreale, Sicily

Today the world wide church celebrates All Saints Day and Italy has a national holiday. Throughout the day the children's hymn "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" has been in my mind. It is one of the favorite hymns sung at Mustard Seed School during the month of November. It is also the playful recessional on November 1st at the Church of the Holy Apostles in New York.

I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus' sake
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there's not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes or at sea,
In church, or in trains or in shops or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.

Lyrics: Lesbia Scott


Vincenzo and I are singing in the Interntional High School Choral Festival here in Rome this weekend. Today was busy with rehearsals and a mini-concert at the opening reception of the Mediterranean Association of International Schools Conference. It has been fun working with 50 high school students from Marymount and St. Stephen's Schools here in Rome, as well as kids from Tunis and Lisbon.