Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes

Author:Frances Mayes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780767916301
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2003-08-04T21:00:00+00:00

Circles on My Map

Monte Oliveto Maggiore

A DREAMY DAY TO DRIVE. THE GREEN LANDSCAPE smears across the windshield. Flowering chestnut trees begin to droop under the rain. We cross the valley, skirt the hilltown of Sinalunga, and drive toward Monte Oliveto Maggiore, one of the great monasteries of Italy. The greens! Hills look as though footlights angle across them—neon green, poison green, green velvet, Life Saver green. When I was five, I saw an irresistible green moss and jumped on it. I quickly sank into sludge and my father, in a pale linen suit and shouting “Jesus H. Christ,” had to fish me out. I had jumped through a brilliant, thick algae covering the surface of an open septic tank behind the cotton mill. But this green is innocent; I could jump into it and roll like a horse.

We start to glimpse the wild landscape of eroded crete, clay, which you see in many Sienese paintings. Dramatic and forbidding in late summer, the crevices are still softened by grasses. The monks who chose this spot definitely wanted to leave the world behind for a place of contemplative seclusion. I try to think of travelling here in the 1500s, when twenty miles was the most you could count on covering in a day and the maps that existed rarely showed roads. A curvy one like this must have been a tortuous track susceptible to washout in storms. Italian roads still depend on a directional sense rather than highway numbers. You see signs to specific places rather than 580 East or 880 North, a custom probably connected with early travel. One traveller in the 1500s wrote, “I have had so little respite that my bottom has been constantly a-fire from the saddle.” Obviously a common problem; earlier, the rigors of the road inspired Cato to give a bit of advice, “To prevent chafing: When you set out on a journey, keep a small branch of Pontic wormwood under the anus.” The more comfortable Alfa hugs the road nicely and Ed loves the constant downshifting on hills and hairpin loops.

Around a curve, suddenly the red brick complex looms. The moat and stronghold effect of the massive structure remind me that even here in the Middle Ages defense was an issue. Cypresses and chapels and footpaths surround the monastery, which looks like a beautiful prison. At the entrance, a Benedictine monk in an ankle-length white robe that looks unbearably scratchy and hot checks everyone for proper attire. My daughter was turned away last summer by this fashion policeman when she presented herself at the door in a sleeveless Lycra top and a short skirt. The monk wagged his finger in her face and shook his head. Arms may not be exposed. She was furious when she saw men in shorts being admitted but she went back to the car, borrowed her boyfriend's baggy T-shirt and then was allowed to enter. Today, I see him turn away a man in short shorts. If the Benedictines must wear those wooly robes, I suppose flesh has to be a philosophical concept.

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