L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano John Keahey is a journalist turned travel writer who lives in S alt Lake City, U tah. S ome years ago on a visit to Italy he became enamored with Italian culture: its history and art. His falling for Italy in such a big way is understandable. He joins the legions of writers since the seventeenth century who have written about their Italian jour- neys. Besides the book under review , he has als o w ritten Seeking Sicily, Venice Against the Sea, and A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionia Sea, which I reviewed in this column when it appeared in 2000. In the latter book Keahey follow s in the foots teps of George Gissing's 1897 classic, By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy. Keahey's Hidden Tuscany is not the conventional travel book listing those obligatory monuments and villages to visit. Nor is he interested in pointing his readers to new and undiscovered restaurants, thus rendering them both popu- lar and avoidable. There are enough Rick Steves in the world of travel writing, and Keahey does not intend to compete with the travel industry. Rather, in Hidden Tuscany he writes an introspective and inter- esting account of his travels through Tuscany's smaller, less- er known villages. As he says more than once, he urges travel- ers in Tuscany, or anywhere in the world for that matter, to lift their eyes out of the standard travel book and to follow their instincts. After a month's study of Italian in Rome this May, my wife and I left for the northern regions. We followed several of Keahey's suggestions along our wandering route. Our plan was, like Keahey's, just to follow our instincts. Before we departed, w e did our res earch, w hich pointed us in the right directions. There is no time here to recount the architectural and art histori- cal discoveries of our tour. I will reserve that for a later essay. No matter what a travel book propos- es, the Italian cul- tural and histor- ical land - s cape is endless. There is alw ays more to discover that can ever be covered in a book. I must make something clear, something that Keahey perhaps does not emphasize enough. It has become a cliché for travel writers to advise their readers how to avoid touris t s ites . According to UNESCO, Italy has the greatest number of world heritage sites and contains 85% of the world's art. New Italian sites are being added every year. There is no avoiding it: if you are a serious traveler, not merely on some sort of European adven- ture, you must visit Italy's major and minor monuments . If you are not so d i s p o s e d , a good tour of the A us tralian out- back is probably something you should consider. Of course, too many people spoil the experience of viewing art. As Keahey suggests, travel- ing off the grid is one technique. But what Keahey does not say is that following an itinerary that includes only obscure sites is only for the experienced traveler, the one who has been to Italy a dozen times or more and has made an adequate review of Italy's treasure trove of art and architecture. Otherwise, other strategies can be designed to avoid the crowds and allow for that tranquil experience required in museums and churches, such as traveling in the off season or making visits to monuments or villages later in the day when the tour buses return their passen- gers to their hotels for din- ner. We used all three in our travels this summer with great success while visiting some of the most popular sites in the north. To gather material for Hidden Tuscany, Keahey traveled for eight months. He spends time on the seldom visited western coast of Tus cany, mainly in and around Pietrasanta, not far from the marble quarries of Carrara, once a famous Renaissance and still a contemporary art center. M ichelangelo once w orked there. When he finds an English- speaking resident he can talk to, Keahey relates many stories about the artists drawn to the his- toric town. He speaks to estab- lis hed artis ts and then to one woman w ho at the age of s i x t y - e i g h t r e i n v e n t e d herself by retir- ing and moving to P ietras anta to become a sculptor, w orking only w ith marble. Keahey travels by car, bicy- cle, and on foot. He follows his instincts, sets off in a direction, and given the nature of Italian villages and towns, he is nearly always rewarded. He meets peo- ple w ho direct him to thos e obscure villages or sites in the countrys ide that otherw is e escape the average traveler. In the region know n as Versilia, there are many small villages, each with its own char- acter. Nearly all the villages have a central piazza flanked by a church of a certain historical vin- tage worth visiting. He visits the medieval town of Barga and then goes on to Cas telnuovo di Garfagnana. Both towns are a must for anyone traveling in the region. Tuscany's famous coun- tryside in between these small towns is as beautiful as it is serene. In the remote hill-top village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema his travels take a sad turn. He dis- covers the w ell-documented German massacre of over five hundred villagers at the end of World War II. It is a site that recalls one of many such mas- sacres throughout Italy. In the final chapter he travels to southern Tuscany where he visits Pitigliano and two nearby villag es . S ovana and Sorano. These towns are seldom visited but are incomparable in both their history and beauty. It is fitting that he ends with three such towns. They typify what most travelers identify with Italy and in particular Tuscany. Carole and I visited all three. Their medieval quar- ters are fasci- nating. But per- haps more impor- tant, Carole and I were careful to obs erve that w herever w e went in the many remote small towns and villages we visit- ed, the Medieval quar- ters are well maintained, and there was no signifi- cant vacancy factor in the commercial spaces lining the main avenues . Cafes and restaurants were filled, and busi- nes s s eemed bris k in all the shops. However, the traveler must always keep in mind that the unemployment rate for those under thirty-five remains nearly forty percent. Keahey does his best to inform his serious reader and traveler about each town's history. He has done his homework. Each of the sites is interesting not just for its beauty or its obscurity, but for what its art and its history can teach the serious traveler. In virtu- ally every village we visited, we went directly to the village church. In the smallest churches we found famous and less famous works by artists: frescoes, paint- ings, and sculptures. For example, in the majestic baroque church adjacent to the mountaintop Monastery of Camaldoli, we found three perfectly restored Vasari paintings. Though this is a well-known site, in early May we were ahead of the high season and were alone in the church and able to enjoy the church and it artistic treasures. The state of restored and preserved art that we found in even the most remote and unvisit- ed village churches is a measure of the Italian government's com- mitment to preserving western culture's unique and remarkable heritage in Italy. Hidden Tuscany is a useful guide for the italianista, more for its message than for its destina- tion travel tips. Above all, as Keahey does, first inform yourself and create an itinerary. Then fol- low your instincts. We did just that in May, and our tour of Northern Italy, by no means our first, could not have been more enjoyable and educational. Ken Scambray is the author of A Varied Harvest: The Life and Works of Henry Blake Fuller, The North American Italian Renaissance: Italian Writing in America and Canada, Surface Roots: Stories, and Queen Calafia's Paradise: California and the Italian American Novel. KENNETH SCAMBRAY H i dd e n T u s c a ny : D i s c ov e r i n g A r t , C u l t u r e , a n d Memories in a Well-Known Region's Unknown Places. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2014 by John Keahey.

• Cover