The hilltop city of FERMO, Italy: Some Surprises

We visited the city of Fermo in Le Marche, less than a 30-minute drive from where we’re living in Montefalcone.  It’s a bit of a letdown after Urbino; but that would be the case for many comparisons.

Still thinking about Urbino in my last post, I was also thinking of sprezzatura. I don’t think I have much of it: I’m too intense or maybe it’s just that I don’t like to curb my enthusiasm when I’m enthusiastic about something. Besides, coolness may be over-rated compared to other qualities. Nevertheless, I think I’d be able to handle a soirée and magnificent feast at the Duke’s (not that I’ve been invited)…  even if it meant slowing myself down and pulling back a bit. After all, I know what 'cool' is and how to do it. Style is just style. It’s good to have some, I suppose, and it's probably unavoidable in any case if you venture forth into the world at all. Sprezzatura as a style is certainly more pleasant than some others, like acting boorishly argumentative and opinionated or, at the other extreme, sycophantic. But, to repeat: style is style. And then there’s substance, the real stuff beneath the glimmer or the glamour. Sooner or later, one finds this out.

Today's Painting (1 of 2 in this post)

Harmonic, painting by Janet Strayer

Fermo is located on a hilltop and has a fine view of the land below. There’s a very pleasant park at the top of the historic part of town, close to where we parked. It was a steep walk down to the Piazza del Popolo, an agreeable oddly shaped polygon lined with by now familiar Renaissance buildings. Familiar, in this case, doesn’t mean tiring or boring. It’s really a nice style of architecture for human interaction.

Today's Thought

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

and

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

-- both from Cicero

Waiting for the Pinacoteca (art museum) to open (most such museums and tourist venues close from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m), we looked around for a place to eat. We settled on an enoteca, or wine bar, overlooking the piazza. Nice place to sit, good wine, very hip server, simple menu listed for us verbally by the server (no menu or prices): antipasto with slices of local salumi, prosciutto and melon, tasty bit of tomato salad, followed by small but tasty portions of ricotta and egg tart and sliced porcini-lasagna."Sure", we said, with our good appetites nodding agreement. All was very tasty and nicely served, with no rush about leaving (never in any Italian restaurant we’ve enjoyed). But, yikes, the bill for this ‘modest’ lunch was 60 Euros (about $90 Canadin bucks). Not that I  let my surprise show. I handled it with total sprezzatura, knowing we had about 10 Euros left: enough to enter the museums and a bit to spare for a gelato.

The museum was really 3-in-1. One part had some rooms displaying and explaining (in Italian) pre-Roman archaeology from this region. There was a lavishly designed meeting room with plush red chairs, fully equipped electronically for meetings. Another part of the museum was focused on paintings. And the last part was the library.   

I like these kind of museums: small enough to see everything.  But again, no photos permitted. Of all the archaeological fragments, paintings, remnants of frescoes, sculptures, and furnishings presented in the museum, the most surprising and memorable room I entered was an actual Renaissance library. It had huge tomes, manuscripts, and all manner of books dating back even earlier. Imagine, this library was just as had been for centuries... only a lot mustier and somewhat tattered. The books seemed all the dearer for it.The ancient volumes stood, filling the shelves that surrounded the room and climbed up to the ceiling.

Maybe it’s the academic in me, or just the response of anyone whose life has been enriched by reading. But being in this room was like being in a little bit of joy. Even if it was nostalgic, being in the presence of all the diverse knowledge and invention written and printed in these volumes, I felt like I was somehow privy to, and part of, a tradition of learning and respect for the search for knowledge and wisdom. Even if it leads to odd paths, some of them untrue, others unreal, this remains a great human tradition to be part of. 

The shelves were organized alphabetically and by Roman numerals, with ladders to different tiers of the bookshelves. It was dimly lit, to protect the books. I supposed that just picking up one of them might reduce it to dust. But the guard told me that, upon formal requests, the books were sometimes brought out for trusted visitors. 

library in Fermo, Italy

Best of all, in the middle of the room stood a globe that was as large as a person (the chair in the photo is large).  It was corded off for protection, and the writing, drawings, and cartography on it were faded and vague. If you’ve seen even replicas of ancient maps, you know how imaginative some of the best of them are, including drawings of monsters at the edge of the sea. No wonder Columbus mistook one place for another when encountering the “new world.”

Today's Painting 

Night Music, monoprint by Janet Strayer Sold

Fermo was also home for a time to Pergolesi and there’s an active music conservatory in town to honor him. It was nice to see folks strolling or bike-riding the streets, their packed instruments snugly cased beside them.They must make some pretty fine music in this town. Nope, I didn’t see the tuba-player, or the double-bassist, come to think of it.

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