Nostalgia for Pontito
Metamorphosis of an Italian Song

Franco Magnani never thought he would become a .painter Had he not been diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 30, he would have probably continued his quiet life in California with his American wife, far from his native village in Tuscany, which he left as a child. During his illness, the landscapes of his childhood appeared to him so vividly that he was unable to thing of anything else. He painted houses and courtyards with a visionary force, as if they were right before him. He never painted anything else. When I visited him and saw his house entirely covered by paintings, I asked him whether he has ever returned to his village. "No" he replied. This surprised me at the time, but later on I understood that he made a right choice: should he return, he could have hardly painted with such emotion Only childhood memoried could lead him so deep into the past. At the time of Franco's birth, Pontito counted about 500 inhabitants. Perched high in the Apennine mountains, it was an ancient village, away from main roads and modern life. The villagers lived off olive groves and vineyards, which have hardly changed since the time of the Etruscans. The alleys were steep and winding, and could only be only negotiated on foot or on a donkey. Most married within the village, so the majority of the populations formed one extended family. In 1943 this traditional and ancient community collapsed. Germans invaded the village and deported the inhabitants. About the same time Franco's father died in an accident. When they returned after the war, the villagers found their houses destroyed and fields devastated. Most young people moved on, leaving behind the old and the disabled. After the war, Franco became a furniture maker and woodworker, but could not make a living in the declining village of Pontito. In 1987 someone showed Franco photos from Pontito. He was appalled by the state of the houses and the fields. This was not his village anymore, the one he has been painting for twenty years. "I don't want to go there", he declared. But he did return. The Uffizi Gallery of the Florence staged an exhibition of his works. It was then that he decided to go back, but to do so in a peculiar way. He would climb the steep road, wearing a cross prepared to go back, wearing a cross prepared for this occasion. He would deposit the cross in the old church, stop at the fountain, splash some fresh water on his face, lay down and die. It did not happened this way. Florence people took him in their car, near the village he asked to be left alone. He walked the empty streets, he met no children or donkeys, not even cocks. No curtains in the windows. no laundry suspended between the houses. He walked out of the village. It seemed to him that not only Pontito but the whole civilization was in ruins. He said: "One day the whole world will be infected and covered with wild vegetation. This is why I tried to preserve Pontito for the posterity". He once told me that when he had first left the village he had told his mother: "You will see, I will give Pontito back to you".