MAGICAL AND MYSTERIOUS VOLTERRA: an arcane charm, with houses huddled together, truncated towers and cobbled streets, between history and legend.
Stretched out like a stone hand on the top of the hill that, sometimes green and lush, sometimes bare and ghostly, slopes gently into the valleys of the Cecina and Era rivers, Volterra displays an arcane charm that emanates from the huddled houses, the truncated towers, the streets crossed by disturbing shadows, paved over time with sweat and absurdity that traverse history and legend, carving endless furrows in the influenced minds of men.
A poignant anxiety travels the circumnavigation of the imagination and insinuates itself like a gust of wind into the violated tombs that, like eye sockets dug into the soft tuff, open up in the side of the hill battered by Sulla’s wrathful legionaries, by the hungry hordes of the Goths, by the perjured mercenaries of the Duke of Urbino, by the insatiable soldiers of Francesco Ferrucci.
The wave of the meadows agitated by the north wind reveals the earth soaked by the blood of the Christian martyrs that welcomed the remains of Justus and Clement, which opened up equally under the feet of the sacrilegious gambler as under the hooves of Blasphemy’s oxen.
On the facades of buildings wrinkled by the ravages of centuries is carved the hatred that pierced Bishop Galgano, that severed the head of Bocchino Belforti, that extinguished the heroism of Giusto Landini, that suffocated the pride of Paolo Inghirami.
A sinister light accentuates the contours of imaginary creatures who blend in with the great characters, with the poor people swept away by poverty and war.
Only on the bell gables of the oratories and in front of the doors of the parish churches immersed in the intense green of the woods does the sun acquire softness and project its dazzling rays onto miraculous images.
Then, when the sky turns bloody and darkens in the darkness of night, the laments of Michele Marullo hover in the air and the witches of Mandringa dance around Satan’s unbridled orgy, until dawn radiantly announces that another day is falling on this lump of memories and emotions solidified in the worn stones of Volterra.
Contents transcribed from the book “Volterra Magica e Misteriosa” by Franco Porretti, published by Pacini Editore in 2001. We thank Brunello Porretti for his kind permission.
