Force

Egyptian Church, Force, from above

1. On Monday we drove up to Force (pronounced For-chay) We parked on a lower street and walked up to the central piazza. Force is a small hill town with narrow streets. There is a church on the top, around the piazza (plaza) and then there is the 'Egyptian' church lower down. The Egyptian church cracks me up; the windows and brick work make faces.

I'm not sure why our hosts call it the Egyptian church, I will try and find the proper name of it though.

Force

Force, piazza

Elise stood by the wall and drew the landscape and I settled on painting  the buildings on a little street. We had several admirers, though only one, an Albanian worker, could speak English. I did figure out that one of the gentlemen was also an artist and painted in oils.

Begonia, force

Everywhere in Italy, any little sliver of land there is a garden and where there is no land there is an abundance of flowers growing in pots.

street in force

geraniums in wall pots, Force

Most of the little hill towns are similar, built on top of a hill, the main road spirals around to the center, then back down the other side of the hill. Buildings are built on curves to conform to the streets. The towns all have one or more churches, the main church and often any government buildings will front on the piazza or central square. If the town has a market, this will be where it is held one day a week, as well as any seasonal festivals.

street in Force

little old door, Force

old door, Forcce

There are many interesting bits of architecture in the old towns, this door still seems to have a very old lock attached to it, though I don't think they still use it. this door is probably to a store room of some sort.

View of the Retreat from Force

Street in Force

All the shops close up and the traffic is very light in the afternoon for siesta. Then everything opens back up about 4 or 5 until 6 or 7, except the restaurants which of course are open later.

We Arrive in Force

View of Force from the Retreat

On Saturday evening we arrived in at The Retreat in Force. Actually the Retreat is across the valley from the town itself. Had a lovely evening just relaxing and catching up with our friends, John and Jana, and their two girls, Lilly and Ivy.

We hung about the Retreat on Sunday, drawing and painting and getting -reacquainted with a familiar landscape. In the evening we went with John and Jana into town where an Englishman, Chris Owens, was having an art opening. Chris and his wife have summered in the area for several years and hope to move permanently from England over the winter.


We were also introduced to Adam Williams and his wife Hong Ying, both best selling authors, who come on holiday each summer. We then went to a lovely restaurant and had dinner with Chris and his wife Terry along with John and family.then back up the mountain to have drinks under the stars and off to bed.

          

Force view from the Retreat

Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap

I participated in the Liberate Your Art Postcard swap and just before leaving for Italy received the last of the postcards. So here are the ones I received with links to the artists. This has been really fun. Kat Sloma organized the swap. How it works is I sent 5 postcards to Kat with postage. Kat then selected 5 postcards to mail back to each participant individually. Very nice work. There are links to all the participants websites over on the Liberate Your Art blog.

http://www.kateyeview.com/

Denise Baldwin

Stereo Hearts/Gym Class Heeros/Jen

www.WalterHawn.com

 

 

http://lovelifeandpictures.blogspot.com/

Not all of the artists added their contact information to their postcards, and I haven't had time to hunt them up yet. I've given the info I have available at the moment here. See a list of all the participating artists at Liberate Your Art.

Fabriano, Paper Capital of the World

On the road to Fabriano

On Saturday we said 'Arrividerchi" to Agritourismo San Fellissimo and traveled towards the town of Fabriano. Along the way we left the wide open and flatter valley around Perugia and began climbing up into the thickly wooded mountains.

On the road to Fabriano

I was especially interested in going to Fabriano because it is the papermaking capitol of the world.


Paper has been made here since around 1300 AD. Handmade paper is still made here as well as machine made. The commercial paper is sent all over the world. In an old cloister is the papermaking museum:
Museo della Carta e Della Filigrana.

The convent where the paper museum is housed.

The paper makers of Fabriano invented many things after they learned the basics of papermaking from the Chinese. In past centuries only cotton and linen rags were used to make paper as those fibers lasted the longest.

Even so, in many countries right up to the 20th century official government documents such as deeds and contracts could only be written on vellum parchment made from animal skin. This was because the vellum would last much longer
than any paper.


At the papermaking museum we learned that it takes apprentices 7 years to learn their craft, especially the actual making of the sheet of paper. We also saw many types of water marks, which were invented by the papermakers of Fabriano. I was not allowed to take photographs inside any of the rooms of the museum, only outside in the courtyard. The museum does offer workshops of varying lengths about making paper and that might be a fun trip.

The museum shows how the rags are torn into small peices, then put into wooden tubs with water. There are large beaters made of wood that go up and down, three to each tub, with nails on their bottoms to shred the rags into pulp. The beaters would have originally been powered by a water wheel. This was a very noisy process. Since the museum is in a convent building without access to a river they use an electric motor for the demonstration.

Here I am standing next to some antique machinery for making paper.

The pulp is then transferred to a large vat where the paper sheets are actually made. The mold is a wood frame with a fine screen on it; the watermark is actually fine wire bent and sewn to the screen to make a decoration in the paper sheet. But the watermark is only seen in the finished paper sheet when it is held up to the light. Filling the mold with the pulp is the most important part of the whole operation and is what takes so long for the apprentice to learn to do well. It takes time to learn exactly how to dip the screen into the pulp and get just the right amount of pulp on the screen, then how to wiggle and shake the screen just exactly right so that the pulp settles evenly across the screen. Otherwise the sheet of paper might be too thick or thin or have an uneven thickness.

After draining the sheet for a minute the paper is turned out onto a piece of thick wool felt. The docent said these felts are very expensive, now costing about 200 euros each for what looks to be a piece about 20x30 inches (give or take a few). She also explained that in the medieval period, when the felts were totally worn out for paper making they were given to the wives of the workers who used the good parts for making jackets, bags and other things. The felts and paper sheets are stacked up and then they are put into a heavy wooden press and the screw turned until most of the water is squeezed from the stack. Then each sheet of paper is hung up to dry.

At this point the paper is still very absorbent and it is not possible to write or draw on it. Another innovation of the paper makers of Fabriano was 'sizing' the paper. Scraps of animal skins, hooves and such were melted in a huge copper pot until the gelatin they contained was boiled out. (pretty much the same gelatin you see on cold roast beef or that you use to make jello). Then the sheets of paper were dipped into this sizing and hung to dry again. After that they were rubbed all over with a wooden tool to help smooth out the surface. Then they are ready for writing or drawing on.

Of course today, there are machines that do many of these tasks. Even some handmade paper is finished by machines doing the pressing, sizing and drying. The museum had a lovely gift shop where they sell the paper that they make there. The gentleman there also directed us down the street to a book shop that sold commercially made Fabriano paper where we bought sketch books and souvenirs.

There was a park next to the museum and that was the way we walked to the shop. Beautiful chestnut trees and grass, along with a little tea house that was very unusual looking. It looks a bit like a Chinese pagoda, not the sort of thing you usually see in Italy. But we didn't have time to have a look and find out about it.

light through the chestnut leaves

We found a little coffee shop nearby and had lunch. Then back into the car to continue to The Retreat.

Balcony, Fabriano

Elise at the paper museum

wall pot- Fabriano

Perugia

Palace dei Priori, window circa13th century

We visited the Palace dei Priori which was built from the 13th-18th centuries and incorporated some other buildings, including 2 towers. The upper floors of the Palace are the National Gallery of Umbria, Italy's richest art collection. A maze of rooms with all sorts of paintings and sculpture.

view of Corso Venucci

Here is a view of Corso Venucci from the upper floors of the Palace.

entry hall Palace dei Priori

 The entry hall to the Palace contains the gift shop and ticket office to the National Gallery and has beautiful Gothic arches.

Perugia, the City

Street in Perugia

You can see from the photos how narrow the streets are. This particular one is closed to cars but even where you can drive they are this narrow. Remember this is the oldest part of the city; most of the buildings here are 500+ years old.

I am facinated by how they have built little bridges between the buildings, which you can see in this first photo. Some seem like open terraces and others are closed in and even look like they are part of an apartment.

built over the street, Perugia

You can see in this close up the lowest bridge in the other photo. To me it looks like it might have been just a walkway with the railing which was later filled in and built on top of.

The streets are very confusing, especially if you are driving, since you can't drive on all of them and some of them are one way. Of course they are all so narrow they don't seem large enough to have two way traffic, even if the cars are smaller over here!

We Arrive in Perugia

Agriturismo San Fellissimo

After about a 3.5 hour drive from Rome, we arrived just outside of Perugia at the Agriturismo San Fellissimo; this is our lovely bed & breakfast. A bit more than I expected; They make up the rooms each day as in a hotel, free wireless internet and a small fridge in the room.

A lovely breakfast in the morning on the terrace; fresh plain yogurt, freshly pick blackberries, croissants, about 6 kinds of preserves, (plum, kumquat, quince, others we couldn't name but were delish) along with a very light honey. along with tea, coffee and juice.

black berries grow everywhere and are ripe now

begonia on the steps

The B&B is up on a hill with beautiful views and lovely landscape full of fresh herbs and flowers.

pergola

This lovely pergola is on the terrace by the swimming pool.

elise

Elise meditates in the early morning light.

potato vine blooming in the garden

quince?

shadows