More relatives found through the web

Not every new relative I have discovered results in a face-to-face meeting. I now have established online contact with distant cousins in Minnesota and California on the Seghieri side, and from Seattle, Olympia, Chicago, California and Wisconsin on the Spadoni side. Many, like me, are also exploring their family origins and are excited to establish contact and share information.

The gravestone for Narciso Spadoni and his wife
Giuseppina Bonacorsi, located in Chicago.

Most have found me after seeing that we have a family tree on Ancestry.com or after reading my blog. One of the first to contact me was Wendy Manganiello, who is a descendant of Narciso Spadoni, an immigrant to Chicago. Narciso was born in 1877, just six months after my nonno Michele Spadoni, and in the town of Borgo a Buggiano, less than three miles from Michele’s place of birth in Pescia. Wendy and I don’t know how they were related, and we are not even sure they knew, given the hundreds of years that the extended family had already lived in this area. But we have enough information from Italian sources to assure me that all the Spadonis from that little area of Italy are related.

I happened to be in Italy when Wendy first wrote me, so I was able to do a little research on her behalf at the Borgo a Buggiano municipio. I obtained the “stato di famiglia” document for Narciso’s father, which I mailed to Wendy when I returned to the states in May. This document traces Narciso’s line back three more generations to Francesco, born around 1775. If I am able to pick up the trail in the church archives on my next trip to Italy, I may be able to jump back another 100 or more years and find out where Narciso’s line fits into Carlo Spadoni’s Stignano family tree, and that would establish a definite tie to our Gig Harbor and Seattle branches of the family.

Thanks again to the power of the Internet, Diane Rinella of California also contacted me after reading my blog entry about the connection between the Gig Harbor and Seattle families. Her grandfather was Guido Spadoni, who made his way to San Francisco shortly after his U.S. arrival in 1903. He was born in 1885 in Ponte Buggianese, only a few miles from Borgo a Buggiano and Pescia. Now I have promised Diane that I will dig more deeply into her ancestry as well.

She shared with me the fascinating fact that her grandfather’s brother was Italo Spadoni, who achieved fame when he was brutally assassinated in Ponte Buggianese in 1924 for opposing fascism. A street in town is now named after him and a plaque has been mounted in the main piazza in his honor.

Trying to puzzle together the missing pieces that connect the various branches of the Spadoni family has become a passion for me, and it is great to find other family members like Diane and Wendy who share the pleasures of this hobby.

That's Manon (May) Spadoni on the left, on
the day of her wedding to Francesco Niccolai.
I received this photo through my online
correspondence with their granddaughter
Wendy.

I was able to help Wendy by referring her to Italian archivist Andrea Mandroni. For a reasonable fee, he traced the line of her grandfather, Francesco Niccolai, back to the 1500s. Wendy’s excitement over this demonstrates our shared enthusiasm for the ancestry obsession. She e-mailed me in August: “I got my family tree results from Andrea about a week ago and he did an AMAZING job!  I was in tears when I got the package from him!!”

Another magical moment occurred when Wendy (who lives in Wisconsin) read some information that Diane from California left on my blog and realized that she and Diane are doubly related. The mother of Diane’s grandfather Guido was Maria Gioconda Niccolai, a sister to Wendy’s great great grandfather Antonio Niccolai. That means Wendy and Diane are related on both the Niccolai side and the Spadoni side.

Wendy had heard her grandmother talking about visiting family in California many years ago, but that connection had been lost. When Wendy saw on the blog comments that Diane’s grandmother was a Niccolai, she put the pieces together and left an ecstatic comment on my blog: “Oh. My. Goodness. I am so excited right now that I’m not even sure I can put together a sentence.”

Now Wendy and Diane have established on online relationship as well, sharing information, photos and enthusiasm. Diane posted this comment on my blog: “This is all very exciting. Thank you, Paul, for this magic.”

Are there any more Spadonis and Seghieris from Tuscany out there looking to make a family connection? Or even a Capocchi or Marchi (my great grandmothers)? If your ancestors came from Ponte Buggianese, Montecarlo, Pescia or any of the other little towns between Lucca and Montecatini, we are probably related, and I will do my best to find out how.

Finding a lost Seghieri and solving questions of mysterious visits

My older Gig Harbor cousins can remember hearing stories about trips our grandparents took to San Francisco to visit cousins. One trip was taken perhaps in the 1920s, when our parents were relatively young, and there was another trip in the 1940s when our Nonno—Michele Spadoni—and my dad and some of his siblings went to San Francisco to visit cousins.

With everyone from my dad’s generation now gone, no one from my generation could tell me who these California cousins were, and it has been a mystery for many years.  Since there are numerous Spadonis in California, some cousins think maybe Nonno went to see a Spadoni family that only he knew about, but other cousins think they remember that the trip was to see Nonna’s cousins, in which case it would either be a Seghieri family or possibly even a Capocchi family, as the mother of our Nonna, Anita Seghieri, was Ines Capocchi before she married Torello Seghieri. Anita passed away in 1941, so she didn’t make the trip in the 1940s.

Donald Seghieri

This mystery has recently been solved. It started with a letter that came to my sister-in-law Rosemary’s ancestry account on March 28 of this year: “My name is Donald Seghieri. My father was Tristano Seghieri and grandfather was Egidio Seghieri whom I believe was Torello's nephew. Our side of the family lived in San Francisco, CA. I'm researching the family name and would appreciate any info or photos you may have.”

This message opened up a correspondence, followed by a visit and now a friendship between Donald and me, and it has solved the mystery about those visits to San Francisco. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Egidio Seghieri

In checking ship records, we found that Don’s grandfather Egidio came to the states in 1905, two years after Michele came here. On the same boat with Egidio were his cousins Ruggero Seghieri and Alfonso Seghieri. It is known that Michele was well acquainted with the Seghieri family back in San Salvatore, Italy, prior to his coming to America.  Initially, Michele and the Seghieri cousins all went to Chicago, but Egidio eventually made his way to Washington state, where he worked for a railroad company in Easton on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass. Don was told that Egidio came to Washington because he had family there, and indeed he did: records show that by 1909, Ruggero and his brother Seghiero are living in the Tacoma area, and their sister Anita and her new husband Michele Spadoni—my grandparents—are as well. There is also a record of a Francesco Seghieri in the 1910 census, though just how he is related is another mystery to explore. It is not clear when Egidio came to Washington, but he shows up in the 1910 census in Easton. It is unknown who came to Washington first, but undoubtedly family ties were involved in making this a popular destination for both Seghieris and Spadonis.

And it was family ties that brought Don Seghieri back to Washington for a visit this August. I invited him to attend a Spadoni-Seghieri family reunion at my brother Roger’s house on August 4, and he not only accepted but came a few days early to get in some extra visiting time. My sister hosted him at her house, and he turned out to be a delightful guest. We all concurred that we were proud to call Don our cousin.

“He was easy to talk to and he had such interesting life stories to share,” Linda said. “The thing I enjoyed most about meeting and talking with Don was finding out that the cousin Nonna Anita and some of my aunts and uncles drove down to San Francisco to visit long ago was Don’s grandfather and his family, and that those visits were part of Don’s family history lore, too.”

Not only is Don a great guy, but he is a cousin who shares my enthusiasm for family history. We spent an evening together delightfully sharing stories, photos and genealogical information. I confess to being a little jealous because Don grew up in a close-knit Italian community. Don’s grandfather moved to San Francisco around 1920. When my grandparents moved to Gig Harbor around 1915, they were one of the only Italian families around, and it became a priority for them to learn English and blend in as Americans. Their Gig Harbor friends were immigrants from Croatia, Scandinavia and various European locations. Every one of their seven children married non-Italians, whereas in Don’s San Francisco neighborhood, his dad married an Italian and many of Don’s friends and relatives were Italian-Americans.

Back: Alfonso, Ruggero, Torello.
Front: Egidio, Seghiero.

Egidio Seghieri, according to my research in Italy, indeed was a first cousin to Anita and her brothers Ruggero and Seghiero and sister Rosina. I found an old picture taken in Italy that shows Ruggero and Seghiero together with their father Torello. Also in the photo are two previously unknown persons about the same age as Ruggero and Seghiero. One is no longer unknown, though. Don compared him to photos he has of his grandfather and positively identified him as Egidio. The other person is very likely cousin Alfonso Seghieri, who went to Chicago on the same ship with Ruggero and Egidio in 1905. Probably it was a group photo showing the four cousins who were planning to leave for America soon. I have since discovered that Alfonso spent some time in Chicago, but then he returned to live out the rest of his life in Italy. He married Ida Carmignani and they had two daughters. His sister, Quinta, also came to America, and she married Ferruccio Di Vita, and they made their family in the San Francisco area.

Don verifies that our family came to visit his family. After the reunion, he wrote me: “I spoke with my Mom this week about last weekend’s Washington trip. She said that several Spadonis came down in the 1940s (after the war) to visit with the Seghieris in San Francisco. She said that she and dad were married (1939) and that my brother (1940) and I (1943) were already born. She also told me that Alfonso Seghieri had contacted the family in San Francisco several times and was coming out from Chicago to visit, but he never made the trip.” Don also said he remembers his Uncle Fiory (known to friends as Bud), who was a professional musician, giving our family an impromptu accordion concert.

Finding my Italian cousins in America

Sometimes I wonder about the strange interest I have in my family history and in discovering previously unknown relatives. Why does it make a difference what my ancestors’ names were or where they came from? Why do I feel an unusual affinity—a kinship, one might say—for a man who is my fifth cousin but otherwise a complete stranger?

A group photo taken August 4, 2012, at the Spadoni-Seghieri family reunion at the home of Roger and Rosemary Spadoni.

One need only to read a few of the heartwarming stories about siblings separated in their youth who have later reunited to see how the bonds of family remain strong through time. Another example is adoptees who feel compelled to seek out their birth parents, or vice versa. Granted, this drive varies in strength from person to person. I am reminded of the potential cousin I met in San Salvatore who cut off our conversation about our possible common ancestor by saying, “I’m not interested in these things at all.” However, I have found this man to be the exception in my search for family ties.

Andrew Holmes, while studying kin recognition in animals for his PhD in the United Kingdom, wrote in 2010 for newscientist.com, “There is evidence that many different animals can recognise their relatives, despite never having encountered them before. Indeed, there is evidence of kin recognition in all the major groups, from mammals to fish, birds to amphibians, as well as insects, plants and single-celled organisms.” He further explains the benefits of this in the animal kingdom: “In non-humans, kin can group together for protection or foraging, can cooperatively care for young, or can simply choose not to fight one another . . . (and) being able to recognise your relatives helps prevent matings between close kin. Certain animals are able to recognise unfamiliar kin and change their behaviour towards them accordingly, choosing not to fight, not to breed, to nest or group together or simply to avoid each other.”

This trait obviously carries over to humans as well. Most of us instinctively feel closer to people with whom we share a common genetic make-up, even if the relationship is rather ancient. Holmes cites an Arabic saying: “I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin, I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors, all of us against the foreigner.”

On one level, logic questions why this should be. Why should I go out of my way to meet an unknown distant cousin when I have plenty of friends nearby, and I already have trouble enough finding time to spend with my friends? Yet this is the way God made us—at least many of us—and I find that most of my relatives feel the same way. My conclusion is to leave the mystery of why this is so to the scientists and just enjoy my extended family. I accept that kinship is an important part of our primal nature.

With that stated, I am going to devote some time to writing about relatives that I have discovered and met in the United States within the last six months. Some I have met face to face and others, so far, only by correspondence, though I hope to someday meet them in person. I have found relatives in Wisconsin, Chicago, Texas, Minnesota and all over California. Some have been living as close as Seattle and Tacoma, but we never realized before that we were related. Admittedly, I haven’t found the final pieces that show how all of us are related, but that’s just a matter of time and research. We are all descendants of the Spadoni and Seghieri families of the small geographical region in Italy that contains Ponte Buggianese, Stignano, Montecarlo and other small villages within a 15-mile radius. These families have occupied this region since at least the 13th century and recognize that they are genetically connected. Any Spadoni from this region who immigrated to the United States is related in some way, even if only extremely distantly, and the same is true for any Seghieri. More to come soon on these relative discoveries . . .

The final installment in our Italian adventure . . . or to be continued?

May 7, 2012

Our six-month experiment in Italian living has ended. We fly back today. Lucy and I have held many discussions in the last month about our conclusions and what will come next. From the start, we knew we could have three possible outcomes.

First, we could decide that we want to live in Italy more or less full time. Granted, we still need to work at least five months a year to support ourselves, but we could spend the other seven months in Italy, in which case we would need to sell something in the United States and buy a house or apartment in Italy. We have looked at several places near San Salvatore that we really like, one in the heart of Montecarlo and another just outside Altopascio.

Or we could conclude that we have spent enough time here already, and it is time to focus our free time in another direction—other hobbies, other countries. I have, after all, already exceeded my expectations in discovering family roots, I have discovered the tie with the West Seattle Spadoni family and we have re-opened the connection with our Seghieri relatives.

The third alternative is to continue to come to Italy for about three months a year, in which case it would make the most sense to rent a room as we have done the past two years. If we take this route, it probably is best to keep coming back to our room at the Casolare.

Option two doesn’t seem likely, as our initial infatuation with Italy has turned into an abiding relationship. Like all good romances, we have become aware of our paramour’s flaws, but we are willing to overlook them for the sake of our love. We can’t see turning our backs on this place.

But should we commit our entire future to Italy? We have been leaning away from this idea in our conversations. Sometimes I say it would be easier to make this decision if we didn’t have such comfortable and satisfying lives in Gig Harbor. Our house has a beautiful view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains, and I enjoy my work. We live surrounded by American cugini, fratelli, figli and nipoti already, and we have no language barrier to overcome in communicating with them.

Claudia's mom and one of Luca and Claudia's twins.

It was actually during an Easter dinner at the Casolare that I realized beyond a doubt that Gig Harbor should remain our primary home. While enjoying the multiple-course feast of Italian delicacies and conversing as best we could with Claudia and her parents, we watched all the extended families engage in long, loud conversations. It was pleasant to watch, but it made me miss my family. One of the most important aspects of being Italian is keeping one’s family close, and ironically, I can’t do that if I am in Italy.

So we are taking the middle road. While keeping our feet planted in America, we will continue to come to Italy for about three months per year, renting, not buying. We will encourage family members and friends to visit while we are there. We will keep learning Italian and use the time to renew connections with our Italian relatives. We will try not to be frustrated at the slowness of the latter two goals. It’s hard enough trying to keep current with everyone on the American side—while also earning a living—so we just want to relax in Italy and develop relationships as opportunities arise. We will keep on collecting information on family history and trying to see if we can find more relatives in both countries. In this way, we hope to get the best of both worlds.

Thus, my blog entries will be infrequent in the coming months, as I focus on work and other more mundane activities of my U.S. life, but I may add an occasional update on family matters. We are planning a Gig Harbor-based Spadoni-Seghieri family reunion potluck for August 4. I am hereby issuing an open invitation to anyone of the Natucci, Donati or Capocchi families who have ties to a Spadoni or Seghieri, or anyone else who attended our family 4^th of July parties in the past. Thanks for reading . . . and maybe I’ll see you in August.

More serious reflections on our cruise

Saturday, May 5

We were warned beforehand to buy a cruise from an American company, a Dutch company, a British company—anything but an Italian company. But we had a good rate on a ship leaving from an Italian port not far from where we were living, so we went with Costa Cruises. We signed up in January, paying only $527 per person for our five-day itinerary. Mandatory tips would add another $45 per person.

Looking inside Vesuvius, we saw a wiff of smoke coming out of this
little dome.

At about $115 per day per person, we found this to be an incredible bargain. If we were taking a round-trip ferry between each of the five destinations, we would pay almost that much just for transportation—and that wouldn’t include the cabin, complete meals, entertainment and the free spa service we received. We would give our experience a 5-star rating.

This is our first cruise ever, so we find it hard to make comparisons, but before the trip, we read some online reviews about Costa, and while the Italians generally gave high ratings, many of the reviews written in English were not as enthusiastic. Critics were mostly people who had taken cruises with other lines and found Costa lacking in customer service and organization, though they still praised the food in the restaurants. Some said the Italian passengers and crew members were standoffish or even rude.

We are in our final day of the cruise, and we have absolutely no complaints, although I can see why some would say it is a drawback to be a foreigner aboard a ship in which the majority of the passengers are Italian. One of the reasons people take cruises is to meet like-minded travelers. That is not likely to happen if one can’t speak the main language of the ship, so we can see why English-speaking passengers might be disappointed in this respect. Even though we speak enough Italian to get by, it is an effort for us to maintain a casual conversation with Italians. We met a nice Italian mother/daughter pair on our tour of Vesuvius, but other than that, our conversations with Italian speakers have been minimal.

A long-necked turtle. That not its name, but I forgot its actual name.

Another drawback is that the on-shore excursions offered by Costa are more limited for non-Italians. For example, of the 10 excursions available in Napoli, only two were offered with English-speaking guides. We went to Vesuvius anyway, even though the guides only spoke Italian. We just count that as part of our daily language lessons. We took only one other official Costa excursion, to the tortoise park in Corsica. Our bus had guides who spoke English and German, and we discovered a lot about the 130 different species of tortoises and turtles in the park. We learned that some rare turtles sell for 20,000 euro, that the oldest turtle was 255 years old, and that turtles were around in the age of dinosaurs. We even heard two of them barking. 

So we peered into the smoking crater of Vesuvius, explored Malta with a taxi driving tour guide, hiked up the hill in Cagliari, Sardegna, to visit an archeological museum, and saw turtles and tortoises of every size and description in Corsica. But still my strongest impression of the cruise is that we were treated almost like royalty, especially in our nearly private restaurant.

Without paying any additional fee, we somehow were assigned a Samsara suite, which gave us free use of the spa, two free massages (or one massage and a facial for Lucy), a free body metabolism test and consultation, and use of the Samsara dining room. I would say that maybe only 10 other couples had Samsara privileges, so we sometimes had the whole dining room to ourselves, with three attendants waiting to put our napkins in our laps, make sure we had enough antipasto, refill our drinks or brush bread crumbs off the table (I’m not exaggerating). In any other restaurant, the four-course meals we received would have cost in excess of $60 each, I have no doubt. Of course, we had a window seat each time and could watch the cities, islands and other boats slip by.

We were lucky enough to sit right next to a very pleasant American couple, two of only four Americans we met the entire week. Orlando was actually born in Italy but added American to his citizenship about 30 years ago, and Joy is a mixture of Thai, Portuguese and American. We went with them in Malta and Cagliari, and I’d have to say we would have felt a little lonely if we hadn’t met them—one of the drawbacks of going on an Italian ship to mostly Italian ports.

Overall, I’d have to agree that Americans would be best served by going with a cruise line that caters to Americans, with all the tours in English and the majority of the passengers English-speaking. For us, though, it was a great opportunity to continue our study of the language and culture while being totally pampered for a bargain price. I wouldn’t have minded if it lasted a couple more days.

Going on a Costa cruise . . . and I’m not scared

Friday, May 4

Some people have asked me if we had any fears about this trip, since it was a Costa ship, captained by Francesco Schettino, that famously foundered just off the island of Giglio in January, killing 32 people. We passed Giglio on our first day, but not surprisingly, we didn’t come very close.

If you haven’t read the accounts of that accident, you may not understand the following story, which I found by googling “captain schettino jokes.” It’s probably in poor taste to joke about such a tragedy, but I can’t resist repeating this account of a last-minute announcement made by the captain:  “This is Captain Schettino speaking on behalf of my crew. I’d like to welcome you aboard Costa Concordia from Rome.  We are currently crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Giglio Island. If you look out of the windows on the starboard side, you will observe a gaping hole. If you look out of the windows on the port side, you will observe that the ship is listing badly. If you look down towards the Mediterranean Sea, you will see a little yellow life raft with three people in it, waving at you. That’s me, Captain Schettino , the co-pilot, and my personal attendant. Arrivederci!”

Taxi driver/guide helps make white island of historical Malta memorable

Wednesday, May 2

Italy has a long history of foreign occupations, but located just south of Sicilia, the island nation of Malta may top Italy in that category. The known list, starting from around 700 BC, goes Greece, Phoenicia, Carthage, Rome, Byzantium. Then Goths and Vandals invaded and briefly took control before the Byzantines regained power, only to lose it to the Arabs. Then the Norman empire expelled the Arabs and Malta became part of the Kingdom of Sicily. Periods of German and Spanish rule followed. In 1530, the island was given to a military religious order which later became known as the Knights of Malta, but they were overcome by Napoleon’s French troops. The British helped toss the French out, and Malta asked Britain to provide protection and governance thereafter. Malta finally negotiated its independence from Britain in 1964.

While we are eating lunch with Orlando and Joy, our cruise ship docks at Malta’s main port, Valletta. With maps in hand, the four of us disembark with only a vague plan of attack. We could take the double-decker tour buses for 20 euro each, but we decide instead to share a 10-euro taxi ride to the other side of town and then walk back toward the ship. Once in the taxi, our driver, Patrick, tries to change our minds. For another 50 euro, he will take us to all the best spots on the island, each time waiting to take us to the next stop. At the end, he will take us back to the dock, and only then will we pay him.

At first we resist, but gradually we realize the logic of his explanation.  We had planned to go first to a one-hour movie called the Malta Experience, located on the other end of the city, but Patrick points out that two cruise ships have just landed, and everyone will be going to the movie. We might have to wait an hour and a half to get in. He recommends going to the 4 p.m. showing, when everyone else will be thinking about getting back to the ship. Meanwhile, he knows all the best tourist sites and can show us around. We talk it over and agree.

Big twisted trees and Lucy.

He takes us first to the upper presidential gardens, where we photograph flowers, trees, ducks and swans. Then we are off to Mdina, a walled city founded by the Phoenicians in 700 BC and for many years Malta’s capital. It sits on a hill overlooking Valletta. It is the highest location on the island, and during the ride, we see quite a bit of the landscape.

Valletta, where we are docked.

White is the first word that comes to mind when I think of how to describe Malta. The stone used as the primary building material is soft off-white sandstone that wears down more quickly than the marble and pietra serena usually used in Italy. The light color can be a bit glaring, but the finish is soft and porous and weathers unevenly, absorbing some light in its rugged surfaces.

Between locations, Patrick fills us in with more details about his island state. Children learn both Maltese and English at school, as both are official languages. Maltese is an amalgamation of many languages, mainly Italian, French, English and Arab. As it is located right in the middle of the Mediterranean, Malta has always been a key stopover for ships, and it once had a strong industrial base. Now, however, tourism is the far and away the top domestic product.

Saint Paul's Cathedral in Medina.

Catholicism in the main religion, and Malta has a Christian tradition that started in the first century, when the Apostle Paul’s prison ship foundered on the beach during a storm. He stayed on for three months, during which time he was bitten by a snake and preached the gospel, leading to the conversion of one of the island’s principle leaders. St. Paul’s Bay, though, is on the other side of the island, and Patrick says we don’t have time to go there. However, it is believed that Paul lived in Mdina, so we have come close to seeing his footprints.

We stop off briefly to watch some Phoenician glass blowers at work. Supposedly they use different methods than the glass workers of Venezia, but our expertise ends with the knowledge that it is one hot job, and we are clueless of the fine points of technique.

Then we are off to the Malta experience, a movie that we watch using headphones, because it is offered in about 15 different languages. It is here that I discover the historical information I cited earlier about the various civilizations that have coveted and occupied Malta, which actually consists of five islands, with Malta and Gozo being the largest. One particularly brutal event occurred in 1551, when invading Barbary corsairs enslaved the entire population of Gozo, deporting 5,000 of the healthiest inhabitants to the Barbary Coast.

Patrick returns to our ship and collects his well-earned pay. This is an example of a time it is worthwhile having a personal guide, because we have seen much in a short time, and with four us to share the cost, it was only 15 euro per person for the guide and transportation (the movie was extra).

Cruising with Costa

Monday, April 30

We’ve never been on a cruise before, but in January, we responded to a discount offer from American Airlines to sign up for a five-day Mediterranean trip with Costa, an Italian cruise line. The day after we signed up, Captain Francesco Schettino ran the Costa Concordia aground, killing 32 people. He added to his disgrace by abandoning ship before all the survivors were evacuated.

This is NOT our ship.

According to the accounts, he had altered course to bring the ship close to the island of Giglio to salute the family of his ship’s head chef, who lived on the island—sort of the marine equivalent of a “fly-by.” As I write this, he is under house arrest, waiting his day in court. But we are undaunted, as are 2,000 others who join us on a trip that begins in Savona, near the home of Christopher Columbus in Genova, and will take us to Napoli, Malta, Sardegna and Corsica before returning to Savona.

Before we board the luxurious new Costa Deliziosa, we had to take a run-down, dirty ferry from Olbia, Sardegna, to Genova, marking the end of our week in Sardegna’s Costa Smeralda. The Tirrenia ferry left Olbia at 10:30 p.m. and chugged northward for 15 hours. We did not spend the extra euros to book a cabin, but we did reserve airline-like seats so that we could lean back and sleep. As it turned out, many of the seats were empty, and all who dared could lie down, spreading themselves over three or four ragged and stained cloth-covered seats. I tried a spot on the floor in a corner, thinking it would be better for my back, but even fully clothed and with carpet underneath me, it was too cold and I had to move to the seats.

In the morning, we found an unoccupied table, where we read, played cards and Scrabble (Lucy won), and munched on food we had brought with us. The windows were so dirty we could barely see outside, but there is not much to see between Olbia and Genova anyway.

After overnighting in the cheap but clean Hotel Le Tre Stazioni in Genova, we hop a train for a 55- minute trip to Savona. Once we board our cruise ship, we have entered other world altogether. Our luggage is delivered to our sparkling modern cabin, and we are greeted by smiling employees everywhere, al l of whom want to help us find our way and answer our questions. Food is abundant, free and delicious. We attend an orientation session offered for English-speaking guests, most of whom are from other European countries or Asia.

One of our swimming pools.

Our dinner is a full-course Italian meal, and the serving sizes are just the right proportion so we can make it through the full meal without feeling uncomfortable. We dine next to Orlando and Joy, a couple about our age who live in New York but have foreign roots. Orlando grew up in Italy but moved to the states about 30 years ago, and Joy originally hailed from Thailand. Orlando also has dual citizenship, and he is able to give me some advice about obtaining Italian medical benefits that may someday come in handy.

Afterwards we sit through a performance by an Italian entertainer who is also able to sing in English, French and German. He does a nice job singing some Frank Sinatra songs, but his impression of Elvis Presley is laughable. It doesn’t help that he is about 50 years old and looks unnatural trying to swing his hips Elvis-style. I think he would have done much better with Dean Martin. But it’s hard to be critical of anything when we get three full meals a day, free spa service and are treated like royalty everywhere we turn.

Much still to be uncovered about the fascinating Nuragic civilization

This nuraghe (tower) has lost its top. It was once about twice this height.

Friday, April 28

Most of the week, we have been enjoying dolce far niente—reading, walking or lying on the beach, sitting on the deck, browsing through the street markets, people-watching in piazze. Today we decide to take a short history lesson, and we drive to a nuraghe to find out more about the prehistoric tribes that populated Sardegna.

Inside the tholos, the top is
thicker and the opening narrows.

A nuraghe is a tower in a middle of a community center of a civilization that had its roots here as early as 1800 BC. A nuragic village served as a fortress, city hall, center of trade and dwelling place for the tribal leaders. The people who built them are referred to as the nuragic civilization, taken from the name of their primary structures, and there are between 7,000 and 8,000 nuraghi in Sardegna, one for every three square kilometers.

The nuragic village we visit, La Prisciona, was largely buried by the natural forces of wind, dust, decay and erosion, but careful excavation in recent years has uncovered some of its treasures. Our guide, Ornella, tells us that the heart of the village is a naraghe, a conical tower. La Prisgiona has one eight-meter tower left, but in ancient times, it had two, and they were probably about 40 feet tall.

Many nuragic villages have more towers than La Prisciona did. On the outside, the tower walls are pretty much vertical, but inside they widen at the top, making the opening smaller and smaller. This is called a tholos, or false dome, because from inside, it has the appearance of a dome, but it can still stand without the top being closed completely to support the wall structure. Between the outer wall and inner wall, there was a winding stone staircase, but in La Priscione, it has partly caved in and is no longer passable.

This 1000 BC bronze
Nuragic statue may
give an idea of
what a more elaborate
naraghe looked like.

Outside the tower, Ornella shows us an ancient well, which still has fresh water in the bottom. Many pottery vases have been retrieved from the well and are now displayed in a museum in Sassari. Some were very plain and were used to draw water out, but others were ornate and may have been thrown into the well as part of some kind of ritual, she says.

She also shows us a round meeting room where tribal elders probably met to talk about work, exchange gossip, argue about soccer and gripe about taxes. Well, she wasn’t really that specific about what they discussed, but I am basing my theory on what Italian men of today do in their little groups. In the center of the room was a granite stand which held a pottery pitcher, but archeologists don’t know whether it held wine, beer or some other kind of drink.

Other round rooms outside the tower were likely workshops for potters, tool makers and other craftsmen, Ornella says. This opinion is based on the various fragments found buried on the floors. Perhaps as many as 100 other huts are still buried in the four hectares surrounding La Priscione, and these will be excavated in the coming years. Many were probably homes.

Not far from the nuraghe is another tomb of the giants, bigger than the one we explored on Monday. The island is also dotted with these tombs, since all the villages had to have burial sites. The nuragic people dominated Sardegna until they were defeated by the Carthaginians around 500 BC and forced to take refuge in the mountainous interior. The Carthaginians were defeated in turn by the Romans, and Sardegna became a Roman province. The nuragic civilization still maintained a separate identity until around 200 AD.

This is another Nuragic village, Barumini, and it gives some idea of what archaeologists may find when they
finish excavating La Prisciona.

Once back in our room, I look up more information and find that these people have fascinated and baffled historians for many years. According to Massimo Pallottino, a scholar of Sardinian prehistory, the architecture produced by the Nuragic civilization was the most advanced of any civilization in the western Mediterranean during this epoch, including those in the regions of Magna Graecia.

It is surmised that the nuragic people were organized in clans led by a chief. Many bronze art figures have been found, and from these it is guessed that religion and warfare had a strong role in the society. They raised crops and animals and were fishermen and traders. Since Sardegna has remained relatively undeveloped in comparison with the rest of Italy, most of the nuraghe remain undisturbed. Only a handful of the 7,000-plus nuraghi have been scientifically excavated, so we can look forward to more of the mysteries about this ancient culture to be revealed in coming years.

Bronze figures reveal much about the once powerful Nuragic civilization, which had advanced armies and
boats that may have once dominated the Mediterranean.

Getting to the Sardegna ferry on time

Sunday, April 22

We met Eberhard and Dorothea last year at our church in Lucca, and although we spent only a couple of days with them, they seem like old friends. They are back to stay in their little house on the coast for two weeks, and we share lunch after church.

Once again we feel right at home with these gentilissimi tedeschi, who offer to take us to our ship in Livorno. Since we still don’t know how we would have arranged the second leg of the trip by bus, we accept gladly. Our only disappointment is that their time here is just beginning and ours is ending, so this is the only time we will see them.

Lucy in Livorno, waiting on deck for the ferry to leave.

We board a large ship, operated by Moby, which is really a combination of a cruise ship and a ferry. It has restaurants, entertainment, rooms and free wi-fi, but the meals are not included in the fare. We board at 8 p.m. and the ship leaves two hours later. The trip will take about nine hours.

We are fortunate to have a room provided free of charge. We had paid for a shorter daytime trip from Civitavecchia to Sardegna on Monday, but it was canceled. When a Moby representative offered us an exchange of an overnight cruise from Livorno, cabin included, we were delighted with our good fortune. It saves us from paying for a night in a hotel, and Livorno is much closer to Lucca than Civitavecchia, so we also save on train fare.

We enjoy a nice dinner on board and go to sleep in our cozy cabin, lulled by the gentle rocking of the boat. When we wake up, we will be in Sardegna.

Hunting for wild boars, tombs, ogres

Monday, April 23

Cacti, flocks of sheep and cows, rugged granite mountains, odd rock formations, isolated farm houses—these are our first impressions of Sardegna after we leave the dock in Olbia and drive inland with our rented black Volkswagen Golf. Olbia is on the coast, as is our apartment in Tanca Manna, and we know we will see plenty of water during the week—thus we chose an inland route so we can see a different part of the island.

We saw this field on our walk to the Tombe dei Giganti.

My knowledge of Sardegna is very limited, but it is obvious that its economy is dependent on tourism on the coast and farming in the interior. We also see that larger cities are on the coast, and the interior is green, hilly, pastoral and sparsely populated. It reminds us a little of Arizona, though for the most part, it is greener and at the same time rockier.

OK, if they were giants, how did they get in this little door?

We stop once to take photos of some unusual rock formations, and I gradually come to the opinion that this entire island consists of granite that has been thrust upward from the sea, though I am seeing only a small portion of the north, so I should reserve judgment. When we see a sign that says “Tombe dei Giganti,” we turn off at once. Who wouldn’t want to see tombs of the giants?

After a short drive over a rough dirt road, we find a place to park near the trailhead. One couple is just climbing in their car and leaving; otherwise we are the only ones here. The path leads past a flower-covered pasture with craggy mountains in the background. With not a human or house in sight, we feel we could have jumped back in time a thousand years. We note that even the fence posts here are carved out of solid granite. However, to remind us that we are in the 21st century, the mountain ridge is topped with a silhouette of communications towers.

A wild boar dug up wild flower bulbs
and ate them, leaving only the stems.

We also note that the ground has been disturbed in numerous places. Our first thought is that someone has been poaching wild plants, digging them up by the roots for transplanting. But on closer inspection, I realize that this widespread shallow digging must be the work of cinghiali, the wild boars of Italy that are highly prized for their delicious meat. It would be quite an experience to happen upon one of these, and while I’m pretty sure it would run from us rather than attack, I will be satisfied to say I saw sure signs of one rather than boast of an actual sighting.

I found a way in through the top. No bones, though.

We cross a beautiful arching wooden footbridge, and moments later we are at the end of the trail, standing beside a giant’s tomb. It is essentially a stone hallway, about four feet wide, four feet tall and 50 feet long. Dirt has been mounded up all around the outside. One end is blocked off with stones, and the other has a small rounded doorway, carved out of a piece of granite, that only a very small person could pass through. The top is covered with large, flat chunks of granite, though there are a few gaps that allow entrance. We can see that this would make a nice tomb, but we aren’t sure what giants have to do with it. We find no interpretive signs, so this is something we will have to explore later on the web.

One can enter the tomb through this gap in the top.

As we continue our drive, we see another sign for giant’s tombs in a different direction, so there must be more, but we need to continue to our apartment now. We are staying near the mouth of a harbor on the northern shores of what is called the Costa Smeralda, the Emerald Coast, so named for the color of the water.

The advertised free Internet at the resort is out of service, but I go to the only bar in town that has wi-fi and have time to look up a little about the giant’s tombs. It turns out there are 231 known tombs on the island, and nothing like them has been found anywhere else in Europe. It is thought that only the bones of the dead were put in the tombs, after the bodies had decomposed, and probably a large quantity were deposited at one time. As for the giants, when later generations of Sardegnesi came upon the tombs, they surmised that the bones inside were the remnants of a feast held by man-eating ogres. They called them domu 'e s'orcu, ogre houses, and though no traces of ogres have been found, the idea of giants has remained a part of the name that survived the translation into contemporary Italian.

These twisted querce (a variant of an oak) trees are all over island. I took these in a traffic mirror put up on a blind corner while driving near Calangianus.

We kick off our vacation with a memorable concert and a sciopero

Saturday, March 21

Arrivederci, San Salvatore. All morning and into mid-afternoon, we pack our belongings into boxes—the things that will stay here for next year—and suitcases to take with us. Then we catch a train to begin a two-week Italian-style vacation.

One could argue that our whole time here is a vacation, but most of the time we stay in one place while we try to fit into the daily routine, learn the language, study my family history and write. Lucy has also made two baby quilts for anticipated grandchildren. But now we are going to try out the daily routine of Italians on vacation. We will spend a week in Sardegna at a resort popular with Italians and rarely visited by Americans. After that, we’ll take a five-day trip with the Italian cruise line Costa.

After leaving San Salvatore, we check into a hotel in Lucca. From there, we go back to the train station to purchase tickets to take the little diesel train up the Garfagnana valley to Ghivizzano, where we will attend a concert. Oh, what’s that on the wall? We see a sign posted announcing a sciopero dei treni, a train strike, scheduled for tomorrow. This won’t affect our travel to the concert, but we are supposed to take a train to Livorno tomorrow. We have prepaid tickets to take an overnight ferry to Sardegna at 10 p.m., an eight-hour trip that has cost us more than 100 euro. Once on the island, we also have prepaid car and hotel reservations, so we don’t want to miss the boat.

We had wondered how we could have lived here almost six months without experiencing a sciopero, and now we have encountered one at a most inconvenient time. Strikes, of course, are supposed to be inconvenient, to draw attention to the important services the strikers provide. Italian strikes, however, are very civilized, because they are announced in advance, allowing people to make alternate plans. There is even an Italian website where all the coming strikes are listed on an easy-to-read schedule.

We are lucky to have seen the sign, because we don’t listen to the Italian news and might have been scrambling to make alternative plans at the last minute. We quickly develop a backup plan using the bus, though the local service will only get us as far as Pisa, and from there we’ll have to search for another bus to take us the last half hour to Livorno, but that’s a problem we will leave for tomorrow.

This is the war memorial, taken from
an Internet source. On the back side is the
Donati name. There was also a Natucci.

Now we are off to Ghivizzano, a small hillside town about 25 minutes north of Lucca by train. It is not far from San Romano, the birthplace of sisters Leona and Renata Donati, who moved to America as children and married into the Seghieri and Spadoni families. In the town square, we find a monument to those who fell in the wars, and we see the name Donati, but my camera battery has conked out, so I don’t get a photo.

The concert is a free community event and features choirs from the two major churches of the city and a group of young adults called Stereo Tipi. The headline group is the Chorus of the Alpi Apuane, 40 men who sing Italian folk songs of the hill region. All sing a cappella, unaccompanied, and the acoustics in the old stone Chiesa del Sacro Cuore are perfect for showcasing the amazing range and harmony of these singers. I can’t find the words to describe it, but my family will understand if I say that the concert began at 9 p.m., ended around 10:30 p.m., and I never once came close to falling asleep (I am notorious for nodding off during plays, movies and concerts).

I found this online photo of the Chorus. It was taken at a different
church and I don't think all the men were present this night.

Afterwards we enjoy an Italian rinfresco, with healthy snacks such as meats, cheeses and breads, although there are some delicious varieties of torta as well. One of the performers, Andrea, is music director in the Valdese church we attend, and he gives us a ride back to Lucca. We arrive after midnight, and we realize a train strike has its bright sides as well. Though our hotel is right next to the train station, there is not a sound all night, because the sciopero has begun and the trains are still. 

Inside the doors of Stignano’s church

Friday, April 20

Even some residents of Stignano have
not been inside the doors of this church,
but we are fortunate to have a private
viewing.

Carlo has made connections with Stefano, the Stignano resident who has the keys to the Pieve di Sant’Andrea, and together Carlo and Stefano take us inside this ancient church which closed to the public  some years ago. Constructed between the late 10th century and early 11th, the church is in sad shape both inside and out. Stefano says some people have inquired about having weddings here, but that’s not possible in its current state of disrepair.

Frescoes on the walls were painted over with gray paint after World War I, and tiles were put on the floors that cover the Spadoni tomb and four others. A huge and ancient hand-powered pump organ has been damaged, probably vandalized. One 14th century fresco is showing through the flaking gray paint, and Carlo and Stefano agree that the quality and style show it could have been from an important early Renaissance school for Florentine artists. Some of the art is as good as the works in the Uffizi gallery in Firenze, they tell me. Not all of the paintings were covered by gray paint, and some of these have been cleaned or repainted.

Though built around 1200, some of the art is from the years of the Renaissance, around 1300 to 1400.

Carlo has also given me an article copied from an Italian magazine that mentions a curious mystery. It says that behind the ostensario (an ornate display vessel) is the bust of a man with long hair, a beard and a cape. We did not see this, but the author of the article speculates that this could be the head of Giustiano, the Roman emperor for whom Stignano might have derived its name.

On the floor of the presbytery, in front of the
niche for the patron saint, is the Spadoni tomb.

As for the Spadoni tomb, it is located under the pavement in the presbytery, right before the niche for the church’s patron saint. Other tombs, including one for the Guelfi family and others for some priests, are back where the congregation would be seated. The Spadoni tomb is placed in an unusually prestigious spot for contadini, and we wonder what the family did to merit this honor.

Carlo hopes that the people will become aware of the treasures of Sant’Andrea and apply pressure on the various governmental and church authorities to allocate funds for repairs and restoration. Private donations could also be used. However, at this point, restoration seems low on the list of priorities of both church and state.

Carlo straightens the curled corners of this sign posted
outside the church, which has information in English.

Maybe some unknown wealthy members of the Spadoni family will step forward to contribute, he says with a smile. However, he thinks that none of the hundred-plus Spadonis in this region even realize that they are descendants of the Stignano family. As for the American side, I can pretty much guarantee that prior to my recent family history research, no one even knew there was a Stignano (by the way, for any Americans reading this, it is pronounced steen-yah’-noh).

This restored Renaissance-era painting shows Mary enthroned with
Jesus, between Saint Andrew and John the Baptist. To the right is a
deteriorating older fresco, once covered with gray paint, that shows
Saint Andrew and another saint. 

Once outside the church again, Carlo points out another important building, an old inn that was used to host pilgrims on their way from Canterbury to Rome. Stignano was on the Via Francigena, a major route once used by thousands of pilgrims, mostly in the beginning of the 11th century.

That may seem surprising, because Stignano is not only small but also up on the hillside, where today there is no traffic except a narrow road leading straight up the hill from Borgo a Buggiano. However, in earlier times, the flat valleys below were swamps, and travelers had to traverse through the hills to make their way past here.

The quality craftsman-
ship of these wooden
trusses has held up for
nearly 1000 years.

This broken organ is more than 300
years old.

I’m sure there is still much more about this church that I don’t understand, because at times Carlo and Stefano are speaking too quickly for me to understand, but now it is time to go. Lucy and I have to pack, because we leave San Salvatore tomorrow afternoon, but I hope to discover more about this church in future years. Even more, I hope to see its restoration in my lifetime.

These two paintings on wood have been retouched to
restore color. The top one shows Mary and some
saints. The bottom depicts the slaughter of the innocents.