I took these snapshots from an old video of a house in Montalcinello, later sold. It was the master's house. A house full of memory, of gestures repeated for years, of silences and voices that still seem to live in the rooms. It ended up in capable hands, and that is a good thing. But looking at these images brought back to mind something bigger.
Because in all the houses of Montalcinello I saw things that you “humans” could not imagine.
Objects left still in time. Kitchens where the fire told the seasons. Stairs worn down by generations of steps. Courtyards where people laughed, argued, celebrated, worked.
A world that no longer exists, or that survives only here, hidden among these stones.
If you are fleeing the modern world,
if you feel the need to truly slow down,
if you want to drop everything and start over,
find a way and a reason to reach us.
Sure, we have strong characters, like all mountain folk.
Sure, we don't mince words.
Sure, we raise our voices… and sometimes the elbow too.
But we are real.
And in a world that is more and more fake and war-mongering, having a native identity is a rare thing.
.jpeg "Visit Montalcinello, the village where stones speak")
