Chapter 16 – Rome

The Pope in St. Peters Square

     We arranged our itinerary so as to have our first day in Rome on a Wednesday.

Each Wednesday at 10 am in St. Peter's Square, the Pope holds an audience with the people assembled in the square.

     It's June, and it's hot, even at mid morning.

     There are thousands of people here, the faithful coming to see the Holy Father and participate. As members of the Good Shepard Catholic Church in Tallahassee, our daughter and granddaughter left our apartment early to get a good seat in the reserved area.

     Then on schedule, a man in a bright red hat and white flowing robes appeared, standing in a cart, a cart being pushed through the crowds on assigned paths, surrounded by security guards.

     It was Pope Benedict XVI in person..

     It was electric, and if you can see by the photos accompanying this chapter, everyone had a camera, and as the Pope passed, all cameras were held in the air to get a picture.

     You probably have seen St. Peter's Square on TV during significant religious moments, such as Easter, when the entire St. Peter's Square is jammed with people, This event wasn't that crowded, but the faithful still number a few thousand.

As the pope left his cart and mounted the steps of the church, he sat under a canopy, and a priest changed his red hat for a white one, then he delivered a greeting in several languages to the assembled.

     When the Pope was in his cart, I was at the rail as he passed, and snapped some great closeups. Although not Catholic myself, but having grown up in Catholic families, the event still was meaningful. So here you are, in front of one of the greatest cathedrals in the world, standing in the square of one of the greatest historical locations in the world, and one of the greatest men of peace passes in front or you.

     How impressive is that?

     Let's talk about the popes. I'll take these next few paragraphs from the book, Insight Guides to Italy, facts and figures on the popes.

     “There have been 263 popes. The shortest reign of a pope was that of Stephen II, who died four days after his election in March 752. At the other extreme, the 19^th century's Pius IX, famous for his practical jokes and his love of billiards, headed the Holy See for 32 years. The youngest pope on record, John XI, was just 16 when he took the helm in 931; the oldest, Gregory IX, managed to survive 14 years after his election in 1227 at the age of 86.

     While the great majority have been of either Roman or Italian extraction, Spain, Greece, Syria, France and Germany have all been represented, and there has been at least one of African Birth (Miltiades, 311-14), and one hailing from England (Hadrian IV, 1154-9). John Paul II was the first Pole to lead the Catholic Church. At least 14 popes abdicated or were deposed from office. Ten popes met violent deaths, including a record three in a row in the 10^th century.”

     As we sat there in St. Peters Square, I had my 26 power lens on the camera, and panned around the statuary atop the colonnades later to learn that the figures are of former saints, members who set examples for the love of God. Also, on the church itself, on the top of each side of the facade, there are clocks, perfectly in sync with one another.

     I also learned that in ancient times, this area was part of the Roman circus, where chariot races were held, and executions, including St. Peter on the site where his church would stand in subsequent future centuries. The obelisk is from Egypt brought to Rome in 37 AD by Emperor Caligula. It's a sundial too, a solar symbol communicating with the devine.

     On this day, the only chariot was the pope's cart, winding its way through the crowds—twice.

     Some details on the colonnades. Actually, it's an elliptical space, with 284 Doric columns, four deep. The space was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and constructed between 1657-1667 during the pontificates of Alexander VII and Clement IX.

     Piazza San Pietro (St. Peters Square) is part of Vatican City, 100 acres of the world's smallest independent sovereign entity, as small as new York City's Central Park.

A pause in the action

We are going to pause here in our journey for a review

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1. This blog is getting long, and if you read the current chapter at the top of the blog, Part 2 of the War in Tuscany, I am sure you have discovered that you can stroll down several chapters past this one and discover some you may have missed The blog starts with our visit to Cretaiole, a week stay in a farm house in Tuscany, and our drive touring the farm roads and hillside villages.

2. If you missed the first chapter, look left, and see the “archive list” then click on July 17, for chapter one. Also at left, and you will have to scroll down a little to find them, there are several slide shows. You see them changing pictures. Click on the picture shown, let the slide photo come up, then click on “full screen,” and let the show begin. You an adjust the time between the frames at the bottom of the photos.
3. The chapters are added each Tuesday and Friday, so check your schedule to catch the latest editions.
4.  Tuesday and the approach of the storm, and due to the high probability there will be no power, this will be the entry, posting it Monday night.. Also, I will ad some photos of Florence.
5. The precaution against power is real, Monday morning, we awoke with no power, even though there had not yet been the slightest threat of storm. Tallahassee utilities in our part of town constantly fights falling trees and power outagesI hope you are enjoying these reports, and if you are planning a trip to Italy, I hope these missives give you some desire to do so.
6. Some of these chapters have a comment box on the bottom, so please let me hear from you, and comment. We are not through yet.
7.  After Florence, it's on to Rome for four days, then Venice for four days plus a visit in Venice to the world's most unusual bookstore where you can either walk in from the street through the front door, or disembark from your boat from the canal through the back door...or is it the other way around?

Some views of Florence

Tired toursts take a break outside the Uffizi musem in Florence

Statuary on the Duomo in Florence

Side view of the Duomo in Florence

Lean lights a candle in basilica in Florence

War in Tuscany Part II

Chapter 14 Part two,

The War in Tuscany

Part 2

     We have a Purple Heart in our house, mostly forgotten, somewhere in a box, or in a drawer, in the attic...somewhere.

     It was awarded to my step-dad, Joseph A. Ure, fighting in the US Army, part of the Allied forces in Italy, 1943-1945. A piece of shrapnel from a cannon shot sliced into the muscle in one of his arms. They fixed him up, got his arm working again, and he became one of the hundred of thousands of soldiers of WWII, living into his 80s, who in 2006 faded away, the last of this Greatest Generation.

     Think of this. You are a peasant farmer in Tuscany in 1943 and 1944. The country has been ruled by Fascists and dictator Mussolini since 1922. You are tired of the war, Mussolini too wants out, the Allies demand surrender of your troops and ships, Hitler says NO and sends in thousands of his troops to occupy the country.

     Now you have the Germans, the Allied invasion of the country coming up the interior, the Fascists who think they are still in power and attempt to put together an army, then partisan resistance against Germans which generates into a civil war between the Fascists and partisans..

     What do you do? Where are your loyalties?.

     In Tuscany, what you would like to do is tend your crops, press the olives for olive oil, press the grapes for wine, milk the goats for pecorino cheese, take care of your family and live in peace, become a-political.

     But, and a big but, the Albert line of defense, the defense line where the Germans take a stand to halt the Allies coming up the peninsula, runs right through your back yard.

     In the previous report, we discussed The war in Tuscany particularly the war in Val d'Orcia, and in particular the huge estate of La Foce. It was here at La Foce where Iris Origo was writing a daily diary of how it affected their lives, too busy to be afraid.

     In the farm roads surrounding the estate, partisan activity is at its peak. Every night German soldiers and trucks are ambushed along the supply routes towards the Albert line of defense. The Germans retaliate with unrestrained brutality. Mass killings begin of the peasants – 83 are executed in Niccolete, 40 in Gubbio, 30 in Bottola, 212 men, women and children in Civitilla

     On June 16, the Allies break through to Orvieto, 20 miles south of La Foce, halfway to Chiusi, 10 miles away. On June 18, German troops set up artillery forces on La Foce. Troops take over the villa. The war continues to level historic towns and villages, hundreds of years old.

     All troops passing through the towns and farms, Allies and Germans alike, loot food and household goods from the peasants. One American soldier tells a farmer, “when in war, there is a good chance you will be killed. Moral considerations don't carry much weight.”

     With the war in their front yard, the Origos of La Foce and the 23 children under their care, the local farmers and the workers of their land, evacuate and relocate in Montepulciano

Iris Origo reports in her diary:

     June 27 – The line of fire has been all along the hillside. The allies have at last retaken Chiusi and are pushing on towards Chianciano, We watch their progress by the artillery fire which we can see from our balcony. German sappers are already mining the bridge immediately beneath this house: we watch the dynamite being prepared, open all the windows and wonder when the explosion will be.

     Beneath our windows, the Allied and German forces appear to be dancing, the Lancers, back and forth, forward and back. Now, the gunfire seems nearer, and our spirits rise, now it is farther again, and they fall.

     No military news of any kind. The Allies still appear to be between Chiusi and Chianciano. But in the night some German tanks have gone northwards, and we see little clouds of explosions all over the valley, where ammunition is being blown up

     In the afternoon, the Germans blow up some houses inside the town to obstruct the inner road, and also destroy the magnificent Medicione gateway at the foot of the town.

June 28 – At eleven pm., Allied batteries in the direction of Monticchiello opened fire on the German batteries just beyond Montepulciano and the firing continued all night. At 4:30 am., there was a huge explosion which shook the entire town. The bridge into town had been blown up. At dawn, everyone went out to see the bridge — the rest of us settled down to two hours of unbroken, blessed sleep.

     The Germans have gone at last.

     July 1 – And now we have come home. Plenty of shell and bomb-holes on the road and in the fields. At La Foce, chaos meets our eyes. The house is still standing with only one shell hole in the garden facade, another on the fattoria, and several in the roof. In the garden, which has also got several shell holes and trenches for machine-guns, they have stripped the pots off the lemons and azaleas, leaving the plants to die.

    The ground is strewn with my private letters and photographs, mattresses and furniture stuffing. The inside of the house is far worse. The Germans have stolen everything that took their fancy, blankets, clothes, shoes and toys as well as of anything value or eatable, and have deliberately destroyed much of anything sentimental or personal value.

     In the lower part of the property, where the French coloured troops of the Fifth Army have passed, The Goums have completed what the Germans have begun. They regard loot and rape as the just reward for battle, and have indulged freely in both. Not only girls and young women, but even an old women of eighty has been raped. Such has been the Val d'Orcia's first introduction to Allied rule-- so long and so eagerly awaited.

     July 5 – We have been around to see the most damaged farms. Many are totally destroyed; in others, one or two rooms have no roof. In all of them, the looting has been thorough; either the Germans or the Goums (Moroccan soldiers attached to the French Army of Africa) have taken all that was not destroyed by shells or fire. All the farms have lost their cooking utensils, their linen, most of their blankets and their dearly prized furniture bought one piece at a time, year by year, and all their clothes. Now, almost 50 farms have to be provided for. Where will we find linen, blankets or shoes. The place is still strewn with unburied corpses both of men and cattle.

     Nevertheless, for the future, I am hopeful. The whirlwind has passed, and now, whatever destruction it may have left, we can build again. And it is here that the deepest qualities of the Italian people will have a chance to show themselves. The Fascist and German menaces are receding. The day will come when at last the boys will return to their ploughs, and the dusty clay-hills of the Val d'Orcia will again blossom like the rose. Destruction and death have visited us, but now – there is hope in the future.

Finally--

     Yes, they did rebuild. And if you travel these same roads today, you will see few remnants of the war. They did rebuild, and today, the Val d'Orcia and Tuscany blooms like a rose with its olive groves, fields of wheat, vineyards and picturesque farms. The largest Provence in Italy, is considered one of the Edens on Earth. And it is.

     A note about the War in Italy – from 1943-1945, 60,000 Allied and 50,000 German soldiers died. In all, Allied casualties totaled 320,00 compared to German casualties of 336,000. No campaign cost more in lives lost and wounds suffered than the Italian campaign. In Tuscany as the Germans retreated in 1944, the war on the peasants continued as another 3,650 lost their lives.

You can go there: www.lafoce.com See how it has transformed.

* Some readings: War in Val D'Orcia – An Italian War Diary 1943-1944 by Iris Origo, 1947. Used copies available through www.abebooks.com for about $10.

* Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-1945 by James Holland, 2008. Available through Amazon.com

* Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in WWII by Arthur Herman, 2012, available in bookstores or through Amazon.com.

Chapter 13

Aug. 21, 2012

The War in Tuscany 1943-1944

War in Val d'Orcia

     A few chapters back, we mentioned sitting in a church in Siena and noticing that the upper windows were either plain glass or stained glass, in no particular order. It was surmised at my observation that missing stained glass windows and damage to the church must have been results from Allied bombings during WWII.

     And so it was. Subsequent research revealed that Tuscany played a big part in the war, with the Allied ground forces driving out the Germans in 1944. The action in Tuscany and this region was devastated by the war and by the German occupation, the vary place where we spent a week on a farm last June, driving the rural roads and visiting the many hill towns

     Looking out upon these vistas in the beautiful of places on earth, one could not image the horror that was occurring here in 1943 and 1944..

     We are reporting here on the Val d'Ocia, the valley of Tuscany, involving the towns of Pienza, S. Quirico d'Orcia, Montepulciano, Chianciano, Sarteano, Castiglione d'Orcia, Contgmano, Radicofani and Monticciello. Also, there were many small villages involved in between the larger towns.

     In particular, we will be visiting the villa and farms of La Foce, almost in the middle of the valley. And since it was a rather large estate, it was a regular site for Germans, Italian partisans, Allied prisoners of war, and escapees. All found something of refuge in this estate, including some 23 children harbored from the ravages of bombings in Turin, Bologna and Modena, their homes destroyed and sent here by their families for safe refuge..

     Many books exist about the war in Italy, but we will focus on one book in particular for the next two chapters – War in Val d'Orcia, an Italian war diary 1943-1944 written by Iris Origo, mistress of La Foce

     This book in diary form chronicles the brutality of the German occupation, the people who survived the brutality and those who did not.

     Two examples of man's inhumanity to man: . In June 29, 1944, German SS troops stormed the Tuscan village of San Pancrazio and systematically murdered 73 people.

     On Aug. 24, 1944, German troops entered the village of Paduledi Fucecchio and massacred 184 men, women and children. In all, it was estimated German atrocities murdered more than 15,000 Italian peasants, most in retribution from partisan killings of German troops, and some, for no reason at all.

     In Rome on September 26, seven German soldiers were killed by Roman population, and in retaliation, the Germans rounded up 6,000 Italians and sent them off to German concentration camps. It also was the day Allied forces for the first time bombed Florence, Pisa, Livorno, Verona and Bologna with serious loss of life and property events unravel surrounding the farms in the d'Orcia valley.

     She writes in her diary that the farms were in the way of the Allied 8^th Army and the German occupation. There were 57 farms in number within seven thousand acres inhabited by about 600 people.

    The farms relate to a central farm with the villa, La Foce at the center of its activity with a dairy, carpenter shop, oil presses, laundry, granaries, wine cellars. The villa is a 16^th Century house, with formal and informal gardens, field hands, carpenters, brick layers, nurses for the clinic, all live in homes nearby or on the farm, basically a self-sufficient village.

     It is this large estate, La Foce, which attracts Italian army and Italian partisan soldier escapees, political agitators, prisoners of war, young Italians escaping the German draft, Allied airman and peasants bombed out of their homes. The villa with all its self sufficient resources has the ability to house and feed hundreds of these people, some passing through and others hiding in the nearby woods. The Germans too towards the end of their occupation, take over the property as field headquarters, then make it part of a line of defense against the advancing Allied armies.

     In all the farms, Germans continuously confiscate cars, motorcycles, bicycles, cattle, chickens, ducks, personal belongings, guns, food anything they can simply take.

     A friend writes: “There is a good deal of bombing of towns and villages along the railway, and much indiscriminate machine gunning along the roadways. What will be left of this wretched country? Perhaps a few isolated houses in the woods and hills – all the rest destroyed. I don't believe that the wars of the past, even with the pestilence and famine that they brought, were as destructive as this one. We have struggled to keep our cars and our freedom of movement, then our houses and those we love—and no doubt we shall soon be thankful merely to save our skins”.

     Some diary entries:

     March 14, 1944.-- The local news is grim. Three young recruits who had failed to report to the Germans have been shot in Siena, in the presence of their comrades, as “an example.” At Piancastagnaio two partisans, who were caught in the woods, have been shot on the spot, and their corpses hung at the gates of the city.

     April 25 1944 – In the afternoon, we hear that the man who was killed was one of our workmen – a quiet peaceable man, hard-working fellow, totally unconcerned with politics, whose murder by the Germans seems to us inexplicable. What new danger is coming now? In the dead man's little house, which after 30 years of hard work and self denial, he had at last succeeded in owning, the widow is hysterically moaning and sobbing beside the bed of her boy of eleven, who saw his father killed.

     May 18, 1944 – The attack on the Cassino front has begun.

     May 19, 1944 – Cassino has fallen.

     May 22, 1944 – Every day now, whenever I go out of the house, I find a little group of famished people sitting in the farm courtyard; haggard women, with babies in their arms and other children waiting for them at home; thin, ragged schoolboys or old men, carrying sacks or suitcases—all begging for food to take back to Rome. We give them all that we can, but Antonio begs me to remember that we must also go on providing food for own population and for the two hundred partisans in the

woods.

     May 26, 1944 – Anti aircraft guns, stationed at Spedletto, bring down five Allied planes out of an unusually large bomber formation, which is attacking German columns on the road. Some of the airmen save themselves by parachute. From our terrace we can hear the firing, and see the little silver balloons opening and drifting down from the sky. One plane, laden with bombs, explodes as it hits the ground. We see great columns of black smoke soaring up, and long to hurry to the scene to bring first aid; but the Germans will be there before us.

     The Allied Armies, still advancing, have broken through the Hitler line.

     Next, Friday, Aug. 24, Part two of War in Val d'Orcia, the Germans are driven from Tuscany and the farmers return to find their homes destroyed and looted to the bare walls, farmlands ravaged, a way of life gone with the wind.

War in Tuscany