Pandemic Diaries - Italian Interlude 2 & 3 October 2022 – San Gemini's Giostra dell'Armes

2 and 3 October 2022

 

I’m here in a gorgeous hotel room, in an old OLD building, in the hill town of San Gemini, Umbria.  Here’s a link to the hotel, San Gemini Home:  https://www.sangeminihome.com/?lang=en

I’ve been here in San Gemini since yesterday, the 2^nd, when our class at La Romita ended.  It was sad to say goodbye to Keiko, who is a wonderful instructor, an even more amazing artist, and a genuinely nice person.  But she had plans, I had plans, and La Romita needs to do their post-class cleaning which I would guess includes some serious Covid measures.

 

So another student (Anne) and I opted to spend time in San Gemini.  The town’s annual festival happens from late September through to 9 October, so it was the perfect place to enjoy Italian life and the recreation of Medieval San Gemini.

 

When we had been here earlier in the week, we saw wreaths and decorative hangings of greenery, flowers, and fruits (including hot peppers) – seeming to be very autumnal, or perhaps part of a harvest festival.  I don’t really know if they were or not, but they looked like things people might put up for Thanksgiving in North America, both the US and Canada.

 

As we wandered around, we saw areas being set up with straw on the ground, and various object that were basically props.  Tables with wood or ceramic tankards.  Small crates made of twigs and twine.  Twig brooms, piles of firewood, a wood wheelbarrow full of produce.  

 

Then there seemed to be a crew who were adding props to these straw areas: tables and benches with ceramic dishes and pitchers.  A wheelbarrow full of produce.  Straw-filled pillows and rough-woven blankets.  Hmmm!  Things were starting to look interesting, and even more baffling!

 

Now, Edmund (the on-site director of La Romita) had told us that witches are part of the San Gemini festival – that the belief or legend is that witches steal people’s time, and that the evening festival involved witches somehow.  So, we couldn’t figure out if these straw areas were going to be places to find witches, or what.  Especially since large tin cans filled with wax and a giant wick were set up around the straw areas.  (I know, major fire hazard, right?)  We really had no idea, it was like a bunch of mini stage sets minus the cast.

 

In the early afternoon, I heard odd noises and looked out my window which overlooks the town’s parking area and the “stadium” just on the other side.  I put stadium in quotation marks because I’m not sure if it qualifies – it’s maybe a bit smaller than a high school track, but much wider, with several rows of seats on one side, and just fencing on the other.  A group of men were watching as the jousters had their practice sessions.

 

This is the big culminating event that is scheduled for 9 October – instead of a normal kind of horse race, the San Gemini event is a jousting contest.  But not jousting as in trying to knock each other off a horse with a lance.  No, San Gemini’s jousting event is based on the rider trying to get his lance through a hanging ring.  I’m not sure if they pull the ring off, or what – they seemed to be hitting their lance on a board, because I could hear a loud thud as they passed.  I’m guessing there was a ring painted on the board, because after the thud I would often hear “Bene!  Bene” (as in, “Good!”).  But I could see the horses and riders, one by one, racing around the track to get up to the right speed and then, lance in hand, the jouster would try to hit the board in the right spot.  Periodically, after a few horses, a machine like a mini zamboni would come out and go around the track to rough up the dirt again, maybe so the horses would have better traction.  No clue.  But since we won’t be here for this main event, it was fun to watch the rehearsals, even if the jousters weren’t in full costume.

 

We knew things would start mid afternoon, so we wandered down to the main piazza.  This is the dividing line between the two neighborhoods, Rocca (Tower, the red and blue flags) and Piazza (Town Square, the green and white flags). 

 

We sat on some stairs and chatted with a few older men, all of us speaking a mix of English and Italian.  Suddenly, we heard the sound of drums coming over the hill, and saw a drum corps of young boys dressed in Middle Ages peasant clothing, drumming to their hearts’ content and marching slowly down the hill by the side of the park.  They were in red and blue, so the Rocca drum corps.  They were followed by all sorts of people in Medieval attire, long dresses, leggings and tunics, cloaks and hoods, everything but knights in armor! 

 

And people carried tools or implements of their trade – axes, a keg or two, even owls for people we thought might be falconers.  Two or three men having great fun playing the part of the town drunkards, stumbling around and bumping into everyone. 

 

The parade circled the main piazza, went down the road a bit into the Piazza neighborhood, then came back through the main piazza and up Via Casventio.  We followed the crowd, and realized that people were breaking off from the parade to head to their straw areas, where they would re-enact various aspects of medieval San Gemini life.

 

Anne and I both tried our hand at making picchiarelli, the local hand-rolled pasta.  She was better able to get long thin spaghetti-like strands of pasta.  I finally flatted my “snake” out and told the young women it was fettuccine.  But it was fun.

 

We watched a “magic” show – the crowd was laughing, but we didn’t know enough Italian to understand any of his jokes or “tricks.”  Visited the owls, talked to “farmers” with chickens and a lamb, admired the produce of another “farmer.”  That little lamb was always surrounded by a crowd of people trying to play with it and pat it's fuzzy little head.  It was a very cute little lamb.

 

I really liked the musicians, the drummer and bagpipe player.  Who knew that medieval Italy had bagpipe-like instruments?  I definitely could picture a castle full of carousing knights eating legs of lamb or pork while listening to this music!

 

There were three young women whose roles I could not figure out – two were sitting outside a “home” made in an alley, and one young lady was inside, semi-reclining.  I tried to talk to them, but really, I had no idea.  Until some young boys came by, and the women started almost catcalling them.  Yup, I think this may have been their version of a medieval house of ill repute.  I could be way off, but that really seemed like a reasonable guess. 

 

Either that, or they were the witches who steal time from people – which would explain their actions and behaviors.  They were rather funny if they were indeed witches, young women acting more like sirens trying to seduce young men away from their average lives.  NO idea which one it might be, ladies of the night or witches, but it was interesting to speculate.

 

There was also a group of men playing some game at a table, almost like checkers on a round board but I don't really know.  It seems that at the end of each set or game or whatever it was, everyone would bang their fist or ceramic tankard on the table, and someone bought the table a round of drinks.  I don't know if it was the winner or the loser.  Nor do I know what they were really drinking, actually.  But it was a rowdy "scene" that seemed to get a bit rowdier as the evening went on.  I suspect the men were very happy to have played this role for the event!

 

It was fun, and lasted several hours.  But by sunset, the actors and sets were gone, and life in San Gemini was pretty much back to normal.

 

All of that was on Sunday, 2 October.  Today, town is much quieter, with few tourists.  Things were very still after 2 or so, when most people are finishing lunch and having a rest before going back to work.  The streets were fairly empty, a switch from the crowds of yesterday!

 

But there’s one story I have to share, and it’s just too sweet to not do so.  Anne and I painted a bit in the morning, then wandered around a bit.  We spent our morning painting on the little upper terrace of our hotel –  I've been having fun painting the flags that are part of the decorations for this major event, whatever it is.  

 

She started a second painting in the park above the main square, and I walked around the “Piazza” part of the town.  It’s the slightly flatter part of town, and doesn’t reach the heights of the “Rocca” side.  It also is the “newer” part of San Gemini, meaning it only dates back to the 15-1600s, the late Renaissance, as opposed to the “old” section of town dating back to the Medieval period of about 1300 or so.

 

Anyway, I wandered a while, then went back to the park to enjoy the quiet before we had a bite of lunch.  As I sat, a young cat came bounding down the olive tree in front of me, and went running around the park.  I looked up in surprise, and saw another young cat hesitating in the tree – she was teetering on a steep branch, and was very hesitant about how to get down.  But she was too high up for me to just reach up and get her, so I tried encouraging her to come down.  (I debated climbing up the tree, but, well, I was never a great tree climber, rather like this kitty.)

 

A young woman came and sat on a bench, and started eating a sandwich.  I pointed out the cat, and we had a conversation in English/Italian, both of us worried about the cat and trying to encourage it to come down.  The little orange male went back up the tree, and came running down again, as if to show the female how to do this.  So I stood there, patting the branch that looked less steep, trying to get Little Miss Kitty back down.

 

She finally decided to brave it and just ran through the steep part, at which point the young woman with the sandwich started cheering, “Brava!  Brava!”  I patted the branch again, and the cat came on down and let me pick her up for a cuddle as her reward – all while our new friend continued to say “Brava!  Brava, gattina!”

It was just funny and sweet, the two of us helping out this hesitant kitty, each in our own way!

 

9 PM – I just returned from dinner, and there are people practicing their flag twirling out on the center of the jousting field!  The drum corps is giving them various repeating patterns, and the group are twirling what looks like different color flags in certain sequences to the rhythm.  I’d take a photo but it’s dark out, so I don’t think it would show much.  I’m thinking this may be part of the jousting event, a parade with flag twirlers, similar to the Palio of Siena.  Wish we could be there to see this!

 

Quick note on 4 October – I seem to have been the one and only guest in this entire hotel last night!  There are only two floors in this former palazzo, no idea if it dates back to the Medieval period but it would not surprise me.  Maybe up to six rooms or so, plus a study, and a large room with two dining tables for the bagged up breakfast.

But as I was falling asleep, it did occur to me that this would definitely be the place where I might encounter a ghost.  I mean, a 700 or so year old building?  In a small town in Italy?  Who knows what has happened in these rooms over the centuries?

Yeah, I just turned over and went to sleep.  I figured a ghost from that time wouldn't want to talk to me anyway.