It all started with a celebration of roast suckling pig, la porchetta. As of the 1970’s, the Sagra della Porchetta had gathered the local bevignati in a convivial sharing of an Umbrian culinary specialty. In 1983, this celebration of food goodness ripened into an exuberant celebration of Bevagna’s medieval life, il Mercato delle Gaite, with the representation of medieval markets: The…
The 13th-century civic building Palazzo dei Consoli, dominating Bevagna’s main square, Piazza Filippo Silvestri……. ….hides a treasure just inside that door under the pointed Gothic arch at the top of the stairs – which you can see also in this decades-past postcard of Bevagna: When you’re next in Bevagna, head to the door beneath the stairway…
In 1943- 1944 when 300 Jewish refugees were hidden in German-occupied Assisi, many a convent became a place of safe haven. One was the Monastero di San Quirico. Traveling all the way to Umbria from the northern Italy town of Fiume (part of Croatia as of 1947), Lea Baruch and her sisters Mira and Hella…
During World War II, which Italian town was saved from devastation by a German commander? Assisi. The German occupying forces in Italy, had placed Werhmacht commander, Colonel Valentin Müller, a devout Catholic and trained medical doctor, in charge of the town of St. Francis as of 1944. The offices of the German military were in…
During World War II in Assisi, the Bishop of Assisi sometimes had to double as a stonemason; that is, when it was time to hide the valuables, torahs, and documents of the Jewish refugees. Declared “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in Israel in 1977, Monsignore Placido Nicolini was one of the seven “Righteous” of…
Ironically, just steps away from Assisi’s Museo della Memoria, 1943-1944 recounting the story of the salvation of Jewish refugees in Assisi in World War II – you’ll pass the entrance to one of the convents where many of the Holocaust survivors were hidden. And whenever I walk past the entrance to the Monastero di San Quirico,…
What did a world-champion Tuscan cyclist have in common with two Assisi printers? A couple of things: all three have been recognized as Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel. And each of the three termed their heroic efforts – at risk of their own lives – as “simply doing my job.” Gino Bartali…
I first met Don Aldo Brunacci in 1975 shortly after Pino and I moved into our Assisi countryside farmhouse. At that time, I had started teaching English to children – as a supplement to our work on the farm (which was giving us great pleasure and satisfaction but no lire!). The number of students requesting lessons…
When I think about Graziella Viterbi, I always remember that bright twinkle in her eye, that spark. That spark was there when she met Pope Francis in 2016 during his Assisi visit, thanking him for the Church’s assistance to her and all the Jewish refugees saved in Assisi during World War II. She certainly had…
Did you know that the 101st edition of the Giro d’Italia (“Italy Tour”) – one of Italy’s Grand Tour cycling races – started in Jerusalem (on May 4, 2018), not in Italy? There were two additional stages in Israel and after a rest day, the cyclists headed to Italy for 18 further stages, the race…