L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2021 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano O n c e u p o n a time, a whole 1 3 t h c e n t u r y village disap- peared under water, but if you bring your- self on a lake's shores at the right time, you can still see it. No, it's not the beginning o f a f a n t a s y t a l e , n o r t h e romanticized version of a tragic event of our past. It's reality and no one got hurt w h e n t h e o l d v i l l a g e o f Fabbriche di Careggine - - f i r s t r e c o r d s o f i t d a t e back to 1270 -- in the Lucca province of Tuscany, ended its existence under the cold, icy waters of the Lago di Vagli , an artificial water basin created between the l a t e 1 9 4 0 s a n d t h e e a r l y 1950s. A bit of history is here n e c e s s a r y . T h e v i l l a g e o f Fabbriche di Careggine was f o u n d e d b y a c o l o n y o f blacksmiths from Brescia (Lombardy) in, we said, the 1 3 t h c e n t u r y , w h e n t h e y moved to the Garfagnana region of Tuscany. There, plenty of iron was extracted f r o m M o u n t T a m b u r a , e n s u r i n g t h e y h a d s t a b l e employment. For centuries, t h e v i l l a g e s u r v i v e d o n craftsmanship and agricul- ture, up until the 20 th cen- tury: one church – dedicat- ed to San Teodoro -- thirty homes, a graveyard, a three- arch bridge, 146 residents. I n t h e e a r l y 1 9 0 0 s , a small dam was built to sup- ply water to local marble quarries; by the 1940s, how- ever, it was no longer suffi- cient for their increasing needs, so, in 1941, it was decided to create a larger one to contain the waters of the Edron River. The people of Fabbriche di Careggine were evacuated and moved to Vagli di Sotto, a new vil- l a g e b u i l t t o h o m e t h e m . The old one was submerged w i t h f o r t y m i l l i o n c u b e meters of waters, between 1 9 4 7 a n d 1 9 5 3 . B y t h e n , only a faded memory of it remained, the lake living instead of a settlement that had lasted the good part of 700 years. ENEL, the national elec- tricity company behind the b u i l d i n g o f t h e d a m , h a d planned to empty the lake every ten years for mainte- nance, but it didn't quite go as planned, as it happened only a handful of times, in 1958, 1974, 1983 and 1994. In the last occasion, about one million people visited F a b b r i c h e d i C a r e g g i n e , attracted by the mysterious, eerie charm of this ghostly place. What do you see, when Fabbriche reappears from its deep, Atlantis-like sleep? The roofless remains of its buildings are all made the color of mud by water and soil but, magically, thanks to the sun, streets and alleys reappear, a phantom of life long gone. Perhaps this is what attracted so many peo- ple to Fabbriche, 27 years ago: the fact you can, there, live suspended between real a n d i m a g i n a r y , b e t w e e n w h a t ' s l i v i n g a n d w h a t ' s dead, yet still talking to peo- ple's heart. Since then, though, the village has been hidden to t h e w o r l d , u n a b l e t o breathe. M a i n t e n a n c e w a s planned for 2016, but later p o s t p o n e d t o 2 0 2 0 . Needless to say, last year w a s n ' t t h e r i g h t t i m e t o c a r r y i t o u t : i f a n y t h i n g , we'd all have loved to live under water for the past 18 m o n t h s . E N E L G r e e n Power, which owns the dam t o d a y , w a s s u p p o s e d t o empty the lake this year, but plans were postponed once more, this time to 2023. A t s o m e s t a g e , s o m e believed that Fabbriche di C a r e g g i n e w a s t o e m e r g e from the waters for good, that ENEL was to empty the Lake of Vagli for ever. But, p e r h a p s , t h a t w a s j u s t hearsay. While we still don't know when visits to Fabbriche di Careggine will be possible, we can at least see it virtual- l y : o n l i n e , y o u c a n f i n d plenty of videos showing the v i l l a g e a s i t a p p e a r e d i n 1 9 9 4 , w h e n t h e l a k e w a s emptied last, and even an old Istituto Luce video dedi- cated to the day it was aban- doned for good, its people l e a v i n g t h e i r m e m o r i e s behind, walking away from it for one last time. There is s o m e t h i n g i n c r e d i b l y poignant in those images, in spite of the cheery voice of the commentator: it was, in the end, a moment of grief, a s i g n t h a t t h e p r e s e n t , s o m e t i m e s , m u s t d e s t r o y the past to survive. T his week's word, r o v e n t e ( r o h - vehn-tai), comes f r o m t h e L a t i n rubenten, or "red- dish." However, we don't quite use it for red stuff, but rather for what's very, very hot. Non toccare la padella, è rovente! ("Don't touch that pan, it's very hot!") you may hear a grandma shout to her g r a n d c h i l d r e n w h i l e s h e cooks. Indeed, rovente is often used to indicate the very high temperature of an object or substance. I l f e r r o r o v e n t e ( " h o t iron") is what blacksmiths work with and coffee is often rovente, too (we'd say "pip- ing hot" in English, in this occasion). R o v e n t e i s a l s o u s e d metaphorically to talk about a heated discussion, like in ho avuto una discussione rovente sulla politica inter- nazionale con il mio profes- sore ("I had a heated discus- sion about international poli- tics with my teacher"), or a particularly lively romantic encounter (apparentemente, hanno trascorso una notte rovente in un hotel 5 stelle; "apparently, they spent a hot night together in a 5 star hotel"). But these days, the mean- ing of rovente we've been using the most is related to the weather. Yes, because rovente also means "scorch- ing" or "boiling:" if you want to say today it's a scorching day, you'd say oggi è una giornata rovente, and there is no denying that August this year has been a boiling hot month in Italy (un mese rovente in Italia). And what's the best way to tackle una giornata sotto un sole rovente ("a day spent under a scorching hot sun")? Well, perhaps a gelato, or e v e n b e t t e r a b i g s l i c e o f anguria, watermelon, the ultimate treat when it's hot in Italy, the real taste and scent of summers back here. A m e i l c a f f é p i a c e rovente! I like piping hot coffee! La sabbia è rovente, butti- amoci in acqua in fretta! The sand is piping hot! Q u i c k , l e t ' s g e t i n t o t h e water! U n p i a t t o d i m i n e s t r a rovente è la cena migliore quando fuori fa freddo A bowl of boiling hot soup is the best dinner when it's cold out LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Word of the day: rovente – just like Italy right now! Italian curiosities: did you know in Italy there is a Medieval village under a lake and you can visit it? A photo of Fabbriche di Careggine from 1994, the last time the village was fully visible (Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons license. Author: Robyfra1 at Italian Wikipedia. License: Public Domain) © Monkey Business Images | Dreamstime.com

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