"UNA STANZA CON VISTA" A ROOM WITH A VIEW!

I think I've already mentioned our Umbrian apartment has two reception rooms and two bedrooms all of which have large windows overlooking the Chiana valley and the Tuscan hills. We are using the smallest of the two living rooms as a dining room and at one end there is a pair of floor to ceiling french windows with full shutters all of which open to reveal a small cotta tiled terrace with open wrought iron balcony. From the start, even when we viewed the apartment, I found myself reluctant to step out on to it, as on this side of the building we are on the fourth floor and it's a long way down to the ground!! Jon doesn't seem to mind this at all and there's even a small white enamelled table and two chairs in the flat which the professor must have acquired to fit this space which he's suggested we set up when we are in residence, but I haven't been encouraging about this. Am I being mean here? I'm not sure, but I've told him he can sit outside with his glass of red wine and that I'll just perch on a seat inside the doors with mine!!

OUR DINING ROOM IN THE CITTA APARTMENT

What I do love to do, however, is to stand or sit near the open french windows and take in the panorama outside and when we are staying in the apartment I do this several times of day, in the morning, whilst we have lunch and in the evenings too. I've titled this posting "una stanza con vista" which translates as "a room with a view" - the title used by E M Forster in 1908 for his famous novel which begins in Florence and describes the disappointment felt by Lucy Honeychurch and her cousin when they arrive at the Pensione Bertolini in the city to discover they have been given rooms overlooking a courtyard rather than ones with Arno views which they'd requested at the time of booking. Our Italian adventure began in Florence in Christmas 2012 when we stayed in a room overlooking the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio (now the Hotel Degli Oraffi) and which had been used by Merchant Ivory to make their film of Forster's novel in 1985. As I reflect on looking out over the Tuscan hills now from the apartment in Citta,  I don't think I could have adopted the role of the chivalrous and selfless Mr Emerson in giving up my view for another individual to savour instead of me! There is something uplifting and good for the human spirit about a room with a a splendid view and its something I've already come to treasure here on a daily basis. Even when we are back home in the UK I can visualize it when I get depressed with the British weather.

THE VIEW FROM OUR HOTEL IN FLORENCE - CHRISTMAS 2013
THIS WAS IN THE HOTEL DEGLI ORAFFI - THE BUILDING MERCHANT IVORY USED FOR THEIR 1985 FILM OF
E M FORSTER'S NOVEL - "A ROOM WITH A VIEW"

I also like to think of windows in any building as structures which frame the view outside. As an art and design historian I've been used to looking at landscape pictures in frames and artists have used this device as a construct when making landscape compositions for centuries. In European art history a "veduta" is an established and recognized specific type of usually Italian landscape painting, drawing or etching which attempts to accurately represent a specific view. They were probably first produced by northern European artists working in Italy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and were very popular with English grand tourists in the mid 1700's. I don't have the skills to paint or draw a "veduta" of the landscape visible from our terrace so I think the best thing to do is to show some photographs of it and attempt to describe a selection of things its possible to see from where we sit..

The view is 180 degrees from left to right with a westerly prospect in front of us and with south to the left and north to the right. We look across to a range of mountains opposite which are in Tuscany rather than Umbria and the tallest of them, Monte Cetona, is an extinct volcano and clearly visible on the left. Almost directly opposite we can see the Tuscan hillside town of Cetona and a little further along to the north west - Sarteano. Both of these are visible at night as groups of pinpricks of light against the inky black landscape and look quite charming. A bit further along still and we can catch a glimpse of the famous spa town of Chianciano Terme.

VIEW FROM OUR BALCONY TAKEN IN JANUARY 2014

THE TOP OF SPINDLY ASH TREES OUTSIDE
OUR APARTMENT IN JANUARY 2014

Citta della Pieve is a  medium sized hill top town and our apartment is on the southern edge of the 'centro historico'. Just below us is the road which circumnavigates the old town and it delivers to us a modicum of traffic passing to and from Chiusi and Perugia. Sometimes I wake in the morning to the sound of vehicles passing by beneath us, but its not disturbing and small compensation for the views which we see on a daily basis and which I'm describing now. On the edge of the road is a line of tall and spindly ash trees, full of lovely green and delicate foliage at this time of year and these seem a common tree in the Lake Trasimeno area. I am fascinated to appreciate they are exactly the same kind of delicate tree which feature in many of Perugino's 16th century paintings such as the one of the Adoration of the Magi in the Oratorio of Santa Maria dei Bianchi in the Via Vannucci. The land then falls away to a small terrace with a single, small house on it. I can see it between the slender tree trunks and here an elderly local has cleared a narrow patch to grow vegetables - today he is tending to the canes supporting his beans as I write this piece. He also keeps a small flock of white geese and these honk at various times of day. Beyond this narrow strip the land falls away sharply to reveal steep cliffs with broken ground and what looks like reddish clay slopes. I was fascinated to discover these are the remains of the old clay quarries used to make the bricks from which the old town of Citta was built centuries ago. There were no local supplies of stone here, so the the locals turned to brick making and the results have not only shown huge longevity but are one of Citta's greatest charms today.

PERUGINO - ADORATION OF THE MAGI - 1504
NOTE THE SPINDLY TREES IN THE TRASIMENO LANDSCAPE BACKGROUND

To the left of us its possible to see fragments of the restored old town walls and a range of brick built houses on top of what must have been ramparts with others clustered below; to the immediate right of us is a series of small narrow streets gradually rising up the slope from road level and they are lined with small houses with roofs made of terra cotta pan tiles. These reflect the light in an interesting way and provide a textured patchwork of rectangles and squares all at slightly different angles and producing a picturesque and pleasing end result. In the mid ground a ridge of land runs in front of the eye and falls gradually away from north to south; it has along its edge a range of different sized houses and a mixture of trees including Cypresses and Umbrella trees, both of which produce darkened silhouettes against the lighter landscape behind them.

SPRING 2014 - CETONA & SARTEANO CAN BE SEEN JUST BELOW THE HORIZON

Looking down the broad valley between the hilltop on which Citta is built and the semi-wooded hills in the distance is the broad expanse of the relatively flat Chiana valley which follows a path from south to slighlty north west across our line of view. Here its possible to catch glimpses of the array of cultivated fields on the centuries ago reclaimed land from the marshy river valley and with binoculars its also possible to see some of the farm buildings where the famous hunky Chiana white cattle are reared for the beefsteak so favoured by Umbrian, Tuscan and Florentine restaurants. Evidently they spend virtually no time outside.At the far side of the valley is the A1 toll motorway running between Rome and Florence and also the two railway lines - one for local stopping trains and the other recently constructed to take the high speed pendolino bullet trains which travel between Milan, Florence and Rome. Once again I am reminded of my old geography teacher who would have loved to call this landscape a typical geographical palimpsest. This is a term used by landscape archaeologists to describe the layered physical evidence left behind by different generations of occupants over the centuries. It's an interesting thought that the hillsides opposite us was once occupied by the Etruscans long before the Romans settled in the area. Though I can't quite see the ancient hill top town of old Chiusi from where I am sitting, I know its there and that it was an important Etruscan settlement. We've already been across to see some of the well preserved hillside tombs relating to these ancient and mysterious peoples and they are a reminder that these lands were occupied by highly civilised folk long before Christ was born.

In 1990 I attended a conference of architectural historians in the US city of Boston and I went to a lecture given by a lady who lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the Oak Park suburb of Chicago. Her talk was profusely illustrated with slides she'd take of the landscape surrounding her unique property. She'd photographed it at different times of day, in different weather conditions and through the seasons of the year. The result was a visually stunning selection of images and many of the vistas have remained in my mind to this day. The experience gave me the idea of doing a similar thing here in Citta with our outside vista and though our images have only been taken with an ipad camera, or a point and shoot hand held job, we are pleased with some of the results which I wanted to show you here.

One of my favourite images was taken at the beginning of our most recent stay in the apartment. We arrived in early June to find that the migratory swallows and swifts had arrived in Citta and when we opened the shutters and doors to our dining room on that first early evening we were confronted with hundreds of birds swooping through the air outside our flat. Often they would circle the air in groups and how some of them didn't end up in our dining room I don't know. They swirled, glided and darted through the early evening warm air for a couple of hours securing dinner and chirped and screeched  at the same time. Back home in the UK where we live in the East Midlands these birds have for some reason become rare in recent years and we barely see one or two at a time so this was a real treat. Here in this part of Italy they migrate from north Africa in April and no doubt stay till September. They have become our friends and we enjoy their antics at all times of day, but especially in the evenings. Walking round the streets of town we can see the nests of some of them underneath the eaves of the ancient red brick buildings. Miraculously Jon managed to capture a couple of them on his ipad camera and the result is below. The image is a memory we can take home with us and during the winter months remember our June stay in the apartment; this is a time when the birds themselves will be sunning themselves in the warmer climes of north Africa of course.

SWIFTS IN JUNE OUTSIDE OUR BALCONY WINDOW

During the last week the weather here has been very hot by our standards with temperatures reaching 34 or 35 degrees every day. We are not used to this and have routinely followed the orders of our neighbours to close the shutters at 8am and leave them closed all day to keep the apartment cool. After venturing out in the mornings we've come home, had some lunch, and then retired for our afternoon siesta - just like all the locals sensibly do. Even the traffic dwindled to virtually nothing during these rest hours. A few days ago the weather broke in the early evening with the most amazing thunder storm and on opening the shutters the view from our balcony was unmissable. It was a truly elemental experience and the swirling, constantly moving air and forks of lightening were both dramatic and just a little frightening. After an hour or so the thunder continued to rumble and the sheet lightening continued, but the sun broke through at the same time and this produced some more memorable vistas from our room with a view. I end this posting with just two of the pictures we took that evening.

And the next morning? - it was back to clear blue skies and the prospect of another hot day!