Donkey Dread

Last summer, on a day trip of sketching in the countryside of Central Italy, north of Rome, I started my day in the peaceful little town of Corchiano. Like so many of the ancient towns in the area, Corchiano hangs on a peninsula cliff. I was determined to draw the town from below, and found a path that lead down and around to below the cliff on which the town perched. Scampering along a narrow path I came to a gate with a big sign nailed to it that stopped me. And stumped me.

The sign said, in big, bold, red letters, "RICHIUDERE IL CANCELLO.” Above that, in slightly smaller letters, it said, "Attentione Animale in Liberta" along with a picture of the sweetest donkey face in the world. Along the top of the sign were all the insignias of an official decree. This sign was telling me something important and saying it officially. But what? As someone who speaks little Italian, I was puzzled, and a bit alarmed. To me, it seemed that the sign was warning me not to go beyond the gate because there is a donkey up ahead. So, heeding the warning, I went all the way back up to town, and then around and down along the other side of the peninsular to find an alternate view. But alas, an identical sign was hung on a matching gate over there, too.

The question that formed in this stubborn artist's head (stubborn, in that I was determined to draw from below this town), was, "Should I be afraid of donkeys?" After some thought, including some imagined violent scenarios—mostly involving kicking—I "bravely"passed through the gate, into the wooded area ahead, around and about many donkey droppings.

Now, mind you, these silly situations are not uncommon for me. I often suffer from dilemmas totally of my own making. Lost in Translation would be a very suitable title for most of my Italian travel stories.

Finally finding the dramatic view I craved, I sat and sketched for 90 minutes, all the while listening carefully and looking over my shoulder often—so as to not be suddenly attacked by a violent donkey.

After packing up, I walked further along the path to what looked like a little bridge which offered one more glimpse of the striking view. Turning the corner, I came face to face with not one, but two donkeys! I jumped, made what I'm sure was a gutteral squealing sound and backed away from the animals, as they looked at me sleepily, barely blinking an eye.

Turning on my heels, I made a hasty retreat. Following the path back to town, I looked over my shoulder and saw that they were following me! Actually, moseying, would be a be a better word. Just as I noticed they were coming, they stopped for a bite of grass. I hustled out of the gate, and found my wife in a local cafe, where I told her the whole stupid story. I knew it was ridiculous, but she knew I was ridiculous. Later, I learned the sign simply asked that I remember to close the gate. You could say it was a story about two donkeys and an ass.

Twisted Roots

A search for some old relatives is what brought me to the Claypit Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts, a couple of days after Christmas. I thought I'd take advantage of the (relatively) warm weather to find a tiny hidden plot near the Merrimack River. An article in a local newspaper had piqued my interest. It described a forgotten cemetery which held the remains of the earliest white settlers of that area, including the Colburns—my grandmother's family name.

Because I grew up with no knowledge of the existence of these distant relatives, a forgotten burial ground seemed like the perfect place for them to be. In fact, I had been told the Colburns, whom I knew to be settlers of northern Nova Scotia, were Scotish. My father was told that, too. I wonder, how far does that misunderstanding go? Or was it a cover-up? It turns out my ancestor, Richard Colburn, the Nova Scotia settler, was from Massachusetts, and on the wrong side of American history—siding with the British in the Revolutionary War. He left for Canada with other Loyalists, with a land grant—a sort of conciliation prize. Generations later, my great grandfather emigrated from Canada to Massachusetts and I wonder if he knew he was actually of early American stock—from England, not Scotland, and that his relatives arrived in Boston in 1635.

The tiny Claypit Cemetery was as hidden as advertised. It was not on any street, but between land parcels. It sat in the woods—behind a bowling alley and between an abandoned drive-in movie theater and the beginnings of a Cambodian Buddhist Community. (It was the Buddhists who were inspired to festoon the borders of their property and some elements within the cemetery, with pennant strings, like those you see around used car dealerships.) 

All of the seventeen headstones lay on their backs. A good many of them were indeed Colburns, and some from the Revolutionary War era. One was even marked pointing out that a War for Independence veteran lay below—a veteran on the Patriots’ side, and perhaps rolling over in his grave, as a distant relative of enemy-cousin Richard Colburn was visiting.

What I chose to draw that day was a tragically ironic scene found among the graves. I drew a charmingly carved gravestone on which was written: 

In blooming youth, one moment stood,

The next was call'd t'the bar of God.

Think Reader can thy heart endure

A summons to a bar so pure?

Above the poem was carved:

In Memory of

Aaron Coburn Son of M' Eleazer & Mrs. Bridget Coburn, 

who was suddenly killed by the fall of a tree,

on the 13th day of Jan' 1789

in the 21st year of his age

I drew the stone, where I found it: on its back, below a tree.

The New Shrine

Carved above the door was the Latin quote, "Ego Sum Paster Bonus," meaning "I am the good shepherd."

Viterbo, where I draw each July, has such layers of history. Many buildings have been around for centuries, while Italy is thoroughly modern at the same time. It's the juxtapositions of old and new that often draw my attention—particularly those that reveal.

Take for instance, this place. On the left, is the entrance to a building that clearly housed, long ago, a house of worship—a chapel. But now, the sheep follow a different shepherd, as the door is currently the entrance to "Palestrum Fanum" meaning "Athletic Shrine." It's a new kind of worship.

The Remains of the Day

It wasn't until the early 1800's that historians learned about what the countryside outside of the walled city of Viterbo had held for over two thousand years. Of course, shepherds and farmers had worked the area for long time, but whether they understood what their sheep were poking their noses into, is hard to know. What we do know now, from the 1848 book, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, written and illustrated by George Dennis, is that this was where a small but important city of the Etruscans once was. Every trace of the actual city is long gone, but what's left behind are rows of elaborate tombs carved from the hillside- a necropolis.

illustration by George Dennis, 1848

Like with many of the wonders that I visit in Central Italy, I spent my time there alone. The necropolis, I presume, seems similar to how George Dennis described it in words, although, I must say, Castel D'asso is far less dramatic looking than in Dennis's stunning illustration!) You can venture down into any cave before you, or scramble up a sandy cliff to look in others. Peaking inside the tombs one finds rows and rows of sarcophagi carved into the stone. However, a friend broke her leg by falling into a surprising pit here once, so I was really cautious and didn't explore much. 

Where I drew wasn't eerie at all - more like a beautiful, shady street - albeit an unusual one. To the left and right were slightly overgrown and crumbled caves. The entrances were carefully carved and included steps. Most of the tombs featured what looked like a "T" or two, carved from the rock. I learned later that those were not "T's", but the image of doors - false doors - doors to the afterlife. It turns out that these were tombs of three levels, and below the false doors is where the deceased were laid to rest with their families and some possessions for life after death. The possessions that they left behind sit in museums now.  They are seen, but this place is not. On hot afternoon, I sat alone, drawing the quiet remains of an entire city - long gone and seemingly forgotten.

print by Jules Gailhabaud an Jean Arnould Léveil from 1865-70

Siesta's Silence

I recently stumbled upon an essay by the writer Italo Calvino, who described beautifully the Italian siesta; the hushed hours of the afternoon. So perfect is the essay, entitled "The Silence of the City," that I feel as if I've been illustrating it unknowingly, for the past five summers.

"Piazzas, for silence, are the ideal place to dwell; it can stretch, expand on all sides, curl up around the kiosks and memorial columns, lurk beneath marquees, crouch on the steps of the churches, cram niches, and the tracery of rose-windows. But the greatest pleasure silence knows is not in taking possession, but in duration, the pause it forces on time, the weight it manages to exercise on things by lying heavily on them. Its aim is not to be a flood, but a lake; and so it favors piazzas, those dry lakes that bathe in the silence and soak it up and contain it in harmony of their jagged outlines."

The New Old Roman Town

Jupiter himself greets you as you pass into Roman town of Falerii Novi. He looks down at you from the Gate of Giove (Jupiter) - one of the last of eight gates that once surrounded the town, along with eighty towers. This was a busy place, long, long ago. But now, inside the crumbling walls, everything Roman from the ground up is gone. Falerii Novi is mostly farmland today. I explored a bit of the area, following markers along an overgrown path, through lunging, spikey weeds, to a grid of large stone blocks. But I had a hard time picturing the Roman theatre that once stood there.

Despite the town being called Falerii Novi (New), there was nothing new here. It was built to replace another town which was destroyed and deserted in 240 BCA, in a war between the locals and the Romans to the south. By the 7th Century, Falerii Novi was also abandoned too, in favor of the better-fortified Civita Castellena which sits high upon a hill.

The Abbey of Santa Maria, Falerii Novi

With the exception of a chicken coop, built by farmers who now use the property, the newest buildings that I could see were the church and abbey of Santa Maria of Falerii, a monastery constructed by Cistercian monks from Savoy, in the 11th Century. A few centuries later, they left too.

What’s left behind is a peaceful pastoral place. Torn between drawing the ancient gate (which may be the oldest example of an arch in this area of Italy), and the beautiful Medieval abbey, I made the only fair decision that I could image - to draw both. I stayed drawing for hours as the slowly setting sun caused a bigger and bigger shadow to grow on the abbey’s facade.

The farmer and I left at dusk. The chickens stayed behind.