To provide context for this story, let’s take a moment to dive into Classical Archaeology to provide the setting for the archaeological excavation…

Etruscan Civilization

The Etruscan civilization flourished in central Italy from 900 B.C. until its assimilation into Roman society around 400 B.C. The culture was renowned for its rich mineral resources and as a major Mediterranean trading power.

Etruscan culture was influenced by Ancient Greek culture, beginning around 750 BC, during the last phase of the Villanovan period, when the Greeks started colonizing southern Italy. Greek influence also occurred in the 4th and 5th centuries BC during Greece’s Classical period. Much of its culture and history was either obliterated or assimilated into that of its conqueror, Rome. Therefore, many archaeologists have dubbed the Etruscans as merely the predecessors of Roman civilization or only as the “pre-Roman” culture.

Disclaimer: I did travel to Firenze during a free weekend and was fortunate to view this famous Etruscan  sarcophagus in the photo above… a momentary nerd attack.

Cetamura del Chianti

Each year Florida State University (FSU) International Program organizes a field school at Cetamura del Chianti; it normally occurs in May and June, during the most beautiful months of weather in central Italy, the Tuscany region. The archaeological excavation I signed up for, via FSU, was an Etruscan village site that lay underneath a Roman site.

( the dig’s website) Students in the program may take courses in a variety of approaches to archaeology in the field, the lab, and the museum, according to their level, from beginners to advanced. The program features field trips to sites and museums that help to enrich the students’ knowledge of the cultures under excavation at Cetamura.

How I typically looked excavating… always graceful!

Pottery session in Lab (my specialty… long, long ago)

Gaiole in Chianti

The excavation site (Cetamura) was close to Gaiole in Chianti, which in Italian they called a “commune” or the equivalent of an unincorporated town in the U.S. Gaiole is located within the Province of Siena (an even more cool place… with an ancient bareback horse-riding event called the “Palio” that I was able to attend while there … but I digress), in the region of Tuscany.

Gaiole is about 40 km (25 mi) southeast of Firenze. I later learned that Forbes’ magazine listed Gaiole as #1 in their list of “Europe’s Most Idyllic Places to Live”. I knew nothing of this beforehand, but have been proud to brag about it, even 33 years later (it was the summer of 1988).

The field crew consisted of about 25 students and 4 instructors. Three of the four professors were from FSU- a Classics professor (who I was taking classes from on Etruscans & Romans, she’s the author of the book I cut-n-pasted above), an Anthro/Archaeology professor (who I had already taken her field school for a prehistoric excavation in North Florida), and another visiting professor.

We worked Monday-Friday with weekends off. Most weekends were spent traveling around the region, either as a class group (visiting museums and archaeological sites) or independently (solo or in small groups to the tourist places like Rome, Milan, Firenze, etc. by train) … and some weekends were spent “chilling” at the villa where we were staying. “Chilling” included working on projects (mine was pottery analysis), playing soccer, or restricting ourselves to the very absolute basics of eating awesome food and drinking Chianti wine.

The wine could be obtained from Gaiole’s local winery… where one could buy a bottle of Chianti for about one dollar (US) and then return to the same store for “refills” for a quarter (25 cents) … to say we had “tipsy times’ during the weekends at the villa is an understatement!

Thus, on a particular Saturday, I found myself on the precipice of experiencing a weekend of laziness or “chilling”. With a small cup of wonderfully strong and sweet espresso and a huge slice of focaccia bread that smelled of marjoram and garlic, I sauntered outside in shorts and t-shirt towards the backyard of the villa where a low, broken lounge chair bid me sit and savor the morning sun.

When… suddenly I hear from inside the villa my girlfriend’s voice shouting excitedly (insert heavy Italian accent since Gemma was from Milan)

“SIMONETTA! You have a telefono call! It’s your mother! Susanna, come quick, your mother is on the phone for you!”

NOTE: “Simonetta” was her nickname for me because I had confessed earlier to her a passionate love for the art of Alessandro Botticelli… you know… Birth of Venus and Primavera… so I discovered in talking with Gemma that Simonetta was Botticelli’s model for Venus as well as his girlfriend.

As I made my way through the villa, everyone cheered and shouted “not fair” along with assorted teasing since few crew members received phone calls at the villa. I deduced that my mum had finally received the letter I mailed some weeks earlier, giving her the villa’s phone number, just in case… which, I later figured out in “mom language” meant she would call me right away!

After the mandatory “Are you okay? Have you eaten? Are they treating you nicely? Have you met any nice Italians?” questions poured forth from my mum along with my teasing replies “Mum, I’m in Italy, of course I’m eating well! … yes, everyone is nice here!” (Actually, that was the truth) Then I began to regale her with tales of what I had dug up, the pottery I was studying… answers she listened to patiently but, of course like any normal human, was not very interested.

Suddenly my mum blurted, “You know, we can’t talk very long with international charges, so… I need to ask you….

“Have you been going to Church?”

Tangent– For some reason, my mother has always sounded more like an overprotective Jewish mother than the stoic Irish Catholic New Englander that she was raised to be. I did not grow up Catholic (another story) but I began to attend the Catholic Church when my mum returned to the Church, after her divorce. She married “out of the Church” so her marriage was not recognized in the Church, therefore she could return once she divorced. I was fascinated by the history and ritual of the Church, so attended while at home with Mom, but stopped when I divorced.

Now back to the story…

I tried to sidestep her inquiry by describing how busy we were, how most weekends involved field trips, etc. But she would have none of it! First, she tore down the “every weekend is busy” excuse… then dealt me a lethal blow, upon discovering that this weekend would be free, and spent at the villa. 

“Don’t tell me you can’t find a Catholic Church in Italy to attend Sunday Mass?” 

Touché, mum, well played!

She then went on to reveal how special it would be if she knew that I had attended Mass in Italy, the home of the Holy Father, the Pope. It was then I understood what she was asking of me….  she wanted to feel, if only vicariously through me, the experience of attending Mass in Italy.

Considering such a heartfelt request, how could I refuse? It was such a small thing… nothing that would cost me money or reputation or even a degree of discomfort… a small request that would make her happy and might even be an adventure for me.

I agreed and, after a few moments of tears and laughter and telling each other how much we loved the other, we said our goodbyes. I returned to the broken lounge chair in our backyard to contemplate how the hell was I going to go to Sunday Mass when I had no car and no idea where the closest church was located?

Sunday morning rose brightly with blue skies, daring me to begin my adventure. I had no idea where the nearest church was located or the schedule of Masses. As I sipped my espresso and munched on focaccia bread, I began contemplating what I could assume or not. Well, either there will be a church in Gaiole, or someone could tell me where one is located… so first goal… get to Gaiole!

I started walking down the  from the villa (looking much like the picture above), I also began to enjoy the buzzing of insects, the chirping of birds in the poplar trees lining the drive. Dressed in my favorite, and appropriately conservative, sundress with espadrilles and a scarf wrapped around my wrist; the scarf brought just in case I needed to cover my head during Mass (I assumed “old school” dress code since… you know… I’m in the land of old school).

Once I reached the end of the drive to the road, I only knew the way to Gaiole by road since we took the crew van there weekly to gather supplies and splurge on such items as focaccia and gelato…

When I started down the paved road, I could soon see the Castello di Brolio (pictured below) and I knew it was close to Gaiole. Since I was not a car and did not have to “stay on the road”, I determined, in a fit of bravado, to cut through the vineyards as a shortcut to Gaiole.

I then discovered the beauty of the vineyards- the leaves on the vines were as big as my hand; the grapes were so big, they looked like they would burst if you breathed too heavily on them.

The more I looked, the more colors I saw and began to smell the grapes as well as the leaves. I thought it to be permissible to pick a leaf that had a myriad of colors and hide it in my pocket to press in my journal later. Flies buzzed around my head and crickets chirped in the vines and it was… blissful.

I thought of where I had come from (i.e., student, flight attendant), that this trip was my first time being overseas, and…  this is the result? I was actually on an archaeological excavation, doing archaeology, which I had dreamt of for years and walking through these Chianti vineyards…  

How did this happen? I wondered… how did I become this fortunate?

As I walked to the end of the vineyard row, I find a dirt road and turn towards where I begin the see the tower of Gaiole’s ancient market. A few minutes later I was thrown into a time warp; coming towards me was an elderly man leading a donkey with a small boy riding on top…

I can’t even find a photo online that resembles their appearance, so the above drawing will have to suffice. They looked as surprised to see me as I was with them. As we approached each other closer, we greeted each other and, before I could lose my courage, I rushed into an apology for my bad Italian and asked him the question- “Where is the nearest church and what time is Mass?” The elderly man looked at me quizzically, not understanding a word I said; whereas the boy, probably having been exposed to foreigners and/or foreign accents before, translated for his (I’m assuming) grandfather.

The elderly man then smiled with the nicest, semi-toothless smile I’ve ever seen! He came towards me, pinched my cheek, and slowly said in Italian, “What a good girl you are, so pretty … you are going to church? Such a good girl!” Only partially understanding what he said, I still blushed and smiled, imagining my mum exclaiming… “see, I told you so, I told you that you needed to do this!”

The elderly man then gave me directions slowly in Italian with, of course, a bunch of extravagant gestures, to the Church (as I thought, it was in Gaiole, and the last Mass was at noon).

Both the elderly man and boy offered to take me to the Church on the donkey, but I politely declined since they were going in the opposite direction. Also, the image of arriving at the Church on the back of the donkey brought images of the Virgin Mary arriving in Bethlehem to mind and I cringed at what people in town would think (we were visitors to the area for the dig, so I was conscious of being appropriate and diplomatic).

Thus … I continued walking down the dirt road, now confident at achieving my goal and determined to arrive well before 12 noon! Such determination resulted in my arrival at the church about 25-30 minutes before noon to a small, very old Catholic church…

Closest photo I could find to my memory of the church.

When I arrived, no one was there yet… so I sat at the rear of the Church with my scarf ready to cover my head the moment I saw another woman with a scarf. It was peaceful… quiet… smelling of incense and smoke… there was interesting artwork and statues for such a small church… it was like a peaceful oasis. I noticed the kneelers were wooden with no cushion coverings (as is common in the U.S.) and immediately thought “these Italians are totally old school and hard-core Catholics!” and excited to share with my mum.

As noon drew near, people began to enter the church, chatting away with each other, and then becoming silent upon discovery of a definitely NOT Italian-looking woman with a freckled face, blonde-streaked haired girl sitting at the  back of the last pew at the back of the church. Hushed whispers rose as more people entered the church while I kept my head down; trying to listen and translate their words in my mind, while earnestly endeavoring not to smile when I finally translated and understood the phrases “who is she?”… tourist?… American at Cetamura archaeology?…” .

Promptly at noon Mass began and, amazingly enough, I could actually follow more easily than I anticipated! I later deduced this was because most of the Masses I attended with my mum were conducted in Latin, which was close to Italian. Before I knew it, Mass had ended, and everyone quickly exited the church in anticipation of the lunch that awaited them at home. I sat in the back pew for just a few moments longer, lingering in the atmosphere and remembering the sounds of the priest chanting, the handbell ringing, and still smelling remnants of the incense burned during Mass.

As I arose to leave, I took a last look around the Church, trying hard to remember every sight, sound, and smell to be able to convey to my mum later. I knew I would take my time returning to the villa… where my crew members were and associated “melodrama” that tends to happen with every archaeological excavation… to leisurely stroll through the vineyards, to once again breathe in their scents, to linger for a moment longer so I could commit, to my both heart and mind forever, this dreamlike experience I could only call “Sunday in Tuscany”.