Great-name Literary Tours
Ever since the days of Homer and his Odyssey, travel notes have been turned into masterpieces by celebrated writers. Even short ones, of just a few pages, of just a short stroll, but always with a guide able to tell the stories of journeys and emotions, describing places and sensations. The pages of Pirelli magazine were open to the greatest authors of the time, and it published numerous and illustrious examples of literary journeys. Like the slow walk of Piero Chiara one morning in 1962, with the works of Antonio Fogazzaro under his arm, through the silence and shadows of the Valsolda, between Lake Lugano and Lake Como: Valsolda, a “lure and sigh of souls in love, a solitary corner of dreams and poetry”. In that “little, ancient world”, Fogazzaro lived and brought to life the characters of his masterpieces. “A city at sunset”, on the other hand, was Tuscania contemplated by Carlo Cassola in 1959: “Here, everything is collapsing. Here, everything is going to ruin!”, little by little, the tufa was corroding Tuscia, which was also being plundered of its Etruscan treasures by grave robbers. A little farther south, in the Fucino basin in Abruzzo, silence turned into cold and snow in the article signed by Ignazio Silone in 1970. In this piece, he speaks of “bought bread” – the bread that used to be made at home during “the time of hibernation” in winter, and that shepherds and farmers in Pescina now prefer to buy, because it costs less: “people used to think about keeping supplies, while now it’s all about money, everything is bought and sold.” There is no trace of cold or silence in the on-the-road story by Renzo Biasion along the Apennine ridge in the Marche, in 1964: “If Umbria is made of silk, the Marche is made of wool”. There is indeed an explosion of colours, from the cyclamen pink dresses of the girls in Montefeltro to the pinkish tinge of the clouds, the blue-green meadows, the yellow of the fields, and the white of the snows. From Urbino to Camerino, to the beaches in Numana and the summit of the Conero, everything is a curious and amused transition of people and landscapes. From north to south, Italy is portrayed in all its nuances by the masters of twentieth century literature.
Ever since the days of Homer and his Odyssey, travel notes have been turned into masterpieces by celebrated writers. Even short ones, of just a few pages, of just a short stroll, but always with a guide able to tell the stories of journeys and emotions, describing places and sensations. The pages of Pirelli magazine were open to the greatest authors of the time, and it published numerous and illustrious examples of literary journeys. Like the slow walk of Piero Chiara one morning in 1962, with the works of Antonio Fogazzaro under his arm, through the silence and shadows of the Valsolda, between Lake Lugano and Lake Como: Valsolda, a “lure and sigh of souls in love, a solitary corner of dreams and poetry”. In that “little, ancient world”, Fogazzaro lived and brought to life the characters of his masterpieces. “A city at sunset”, on the other hand, was Tuscania contemplated by Carlo Cassola in 1959: “Here, everything is collapsing. Here, everything is going to ruin!”, little by little, the tufa was corroding Tuscia, which was also being plundered of its Etruscan treasures by grave robbers. A little farther south, in the Fucino basin in Abruzzo, silence turned into cold and snow in the article signed by Ignazio Silone in 1970. In this piece, he speaks of “bought bread” – the bread that used to be made at home during “the time of hibernation” in winter, and that shepherds and farmers in Pescina now prefer to buy, because it costs less: “people used to think about keeping supplies, while now it’s all about money, everything is bought and sold.” There is no trace of cold or silence in the on-the-road story by Renzo Biasion along the Apennine ridge in the Marche, in 1964: “If Umbria is made of silk, the Marche is made of wool”. There is indeed an explosion of colours, from the cyclamen pink dresses of the girls in Montefeltro to the pinkish tinge of the clouds, the blue-green meadows, the yellow of the fields, and the white of the snows. From Urbino to Camerino, to the beaches in Numana and the summit of the Conero, everything is a curious and amused transition of people and landscapes. From north to south, Italy is portrayed in all its nuances by the masters of twentieth century literature.