At the end of the narrow corridor, scenes of Urbino appear, hanging from the walls of the town’s oldest restaurant. Rays beaming in from the garden-level windows cast the only light on the meticulously set tables. Empty during siesta, La Trattoria del Leone projects the ambience of an ancient art gallery rather than a fine Italian restaurant of the Marche.

Mauro Lucarini clears a table in the back dining room as his wife, Nadia, prepares a shot of espresso behind the bar. A familiar smell of egg, cheese, and breadcrumbs expands throughout the room while the broth from a steaming pot of passatelli in brodo sits in the kitchen. Large woodcut paintings tower over the tables, and every painting carries the same signature: “Mauro Lucarini.” He sits comfortably in his chair with one leg over the other and arms spread wide, surrounded by his art and his cuisine, a king in his palace.

Lucarini’s dual kingdom is grand, but it originates from humble beginnings. “There is a great connection between my dishes and my artwork,” Lucarini says. As owner and designer of Urbino’s eldest restaurant for over 10 years, Lucarini aims to connect his guests to the town not solely with dishes, but equally with the décor. The woodcut paintings, created by a technique know as xilografia, line the walls of the restaurant and ally with the menu that serves nothing but regional products to immerse customers in the town’s culture deeper than any tour guide or history book.

“They represent myself and the landscapes of Urbino,” Lucarini says of his artwork. His style carries no common theme, with inspiration coming entirely from Lucarini’s own experiences in the Urbino region. La Trattoria del Leone displays paintings of the Marche region featuring towers in Ascoli and archways in Urbino’s Piazza della Repubblica, which are just a few steps outside the restaurant. The pieces range from several dense gouges and brightly colored paintings, to longer incisions and darker colorings. Lucarini says he lets the past speak for itself.

Lucarini, who specializes in regional dishes made with ingredients from local producers, sets a pair of dishes on a holding rack for a waiter to deliver.

In Clessidra 2, which translates to “Hourglass 2,” two yellow triangles meet at their peaks and create an hourglass appearance to form a single figure in the foreground. The background begins as a light blue at the top of the vertical painting, then transitions almost unnoticed into a dark blue towards the bottom, similar to a clear day’s sky with a storm in the distance.

In Morte Seconda, “Second Death,” Lucarini offers a variety of emotion with one of his darkest xilografia paintings. The mixture of black and grey evokes an eerie feeling of a dark forest. The texture xilografia conjures is blatant as horizontal lines cover the frame looking similar to bark on a burned tree. The natural curves in the painting appear to be a detailed close-up of the wood inside a tree trunk.

He explains that xilografia has its roots in Urbino as far back as the 15th Century. “Xilografia was very popular in Urbino between the Middles Ages and the Renaissance,” Lucarini says. “They used this style to print images of saints and holy figures and gave the images to people who were not able to read so they could be close to God.” He says that the University of Urbino still teaches the traditional style of engraving today and is the only school in the country that is still doing so.

“The first step of xilografia regards cutting the wood,” Lucarini says. A version of printmaking, xilografia is relief printing where engraved wood is painted, then transferred to paper by pressing. “It is called elevation printing,” Lucarini says. The wood that is engraved creates the white space.

Lucarini began practicing xilografia at age 15 when he was in high school. From there he graduated from the University and began his career as an artist. Years later, Lucarini and Nadia bought the restaurant after visiting for lunch one day. “We were here when I was looking for a lab near the center of the city,” Lucarini says. “We stopped in La Trattoria to have lunch and my wife knew the owner. When talking with him [the previous owner], he says that he would like to retire and that my wife and I were the right people to take over the restaurant.” Lucarini saw the restaurant as a beneficial alternative to just finding a new studio. His newly acquired restaurant not only doubled as his gallery, but it also allowed Lucarini to express himself through a new avenue of food.

Friends enjoys an evening in La Trattoria del Leone beneath Lucarini’s artwork named “Composizione.”

One of Lucarini’s final paintings before he opened the restaurant, Fuga A Sud, reflects the period of transition he went through. “This is the sea and this is the earth,” Lucarini explained while pointing to the painting. A jagged blue coastline frames the left side of the bird’s eye view painting of a sea. The water features several wave-like swirls, reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. An evident, sharp black arrow pierces through the right half of the sea, exits the painting, and points to the bottom of the frame. “The line represents an escape,” Lucarini says. “I knew I would be very busy after I opened the restaurant so I couldn’t work on art as much.” A circle representing the cardinal directions sits near the bottom of the painting outside the frame of the sea and confirms the direction ‘Sud.’

His art production has been slowed by the restaurant recently, but Lucarini remains compelled to manage his restaurant. “This restaurant has a great impact on Urbino,” Lucarini explained. “I would like to impress people and tourists with the local products and by showing what Urbino has to offer.”

Lucarini proudly displays a list of 30 products originating throughout the Marche that comprise the ingredients used in La Trattoria del Leone’s traditional menu. “My favorite product is the local oil I use,” Lucarini says. “The oil plays a very important part in the cooking.” Assaggio di olii monovarietali is La Trattoria del Leone’s tasting appetizer of four different oils from “Il Conventino” which is in Monteciccardo, a small city outside of Urbino. The popular oil antipasti is served with a basket of fresh bread. The waiter explains the characteristics while pouring each of the four oils.

Tagliatelle, Lucarini’s favorite dish, is a simple pasta with olive oil and bread crumbs. The long-time Marche dish isn’t your typical wet Italian pasta that slips off of the fork. The abundant breadcrumbs soak up the rich oil and allow all of the noodles to stick together, forming a seemingly single unit for easy cutting.

Antipasto di prodotti locali, an appetizer of local meats and cheeses, sits ready in the holding rack as Lucarini starts on the next order.

Coniglio in porchetta, roast rabbit with black olives, and passatelli, the egg-cheese-breadcrumb pasta served in broth, are also among traditional Urbino favorites served. While Trattoria perpetuates customary dishes, the restaurant also gives customers like Antonella Rampulla other reasons to keep coming back. “My favorite is casciotta with vegetables,” Rampulla says. Casciotta is a popular Urbino cheese. “Many places in Urbino serve casciotta alone or with ham, but only La Trattoria del Leone serves it with cooked vegetables.” Adding its own twist on Urbino cuisine, coupled with the location just off of the main Piazza, helps spell longevity for the restaurant. Founded circa 1920, it is closing in on 100 years in business.

The name La Trattoria del Leone, “The Restaurant of the Lion,” originates from a fountain in close proximity to the restaurant that once had a lion statue in it prior to being destroyed during the Second World War.

“I was impressed by the environment,” Rampulla says of her first experience at the restaurant. “The owner and his wife are very nice people and they create a comfortable ambience.” Rampulla noted that the artistic décor is what makes it her favorite restaurant. “There are many artists in the city but only a few are good. One day I would like to have Mauro’s art in my home.”

Since taking over the restaurant over 10 years ago, Lucarini’s goal of expressing himself through his life in Urbino has been steadfast. “The other day a couple came in to eat,” Lucarini explained. “They asked me if I was the artist of all of the paintings. When I responded yes, they claimed they knew I had to be the artist—because they somehow could tell that the food and the art were all connected.”

This article also appears in Urbino Now magazine’s La Gente section. You can read all the magazine articles in print by ordering a copy from MagCloud.

Giulia Savini and I stroll down her gravel driveway alongside a fence overgrown with wild plants. Her farmhouse stands behind us, and in front of us spreads her vast farm, where we can see the afternoon sun glowing over fields of wheat and cow pens. Groomed mountains owned by neighboring farmers stretch into the distance. Savini grins and points towards a feathery fennel plant along the fence, explaining the many purposes of its leaves, flowers, and seeds. She hands a piece to me, saying, “Just bite a bit, it tastes a bit like licorice.”

Foraging, the practice of picking wild plants to make delicious meals, desserts, and liqueurs, is a way of life for Savini. She has been the primary owner of her family’s organic farm and inn, Valle Nuova, an agriturismo—or farm stay—about eight miles south of Urbino, since 2007. Savini raises organic cattle, accommodates travelers from around the globe, and incorporates wild plants into her everyday life in the kitchen.

Once a city girl, Savini is now a full-fledged country girl. She did not always live this way, though. As a child, she grew up in the lively city of Milan. She found it to be “boring,” while going to her grandparents’ house in the countryside was a “bit of freedom.” She says, “It was very normal for children to run free. You could just disappear for a whole afternoon and be back for dinner.”

Savini’s mother, Adriana Negri, also grew up with an active knowledge of plants, residing in a village near Lake Como before living in Milan. Negri remembers learning about wild herbs from her grandmother as a small child, who claimed to be a witch. With a sly chuckle, Negri explains, “She wasn’t really a witch, but she liked to say she was.” Negri continues, “She would have bottles of things and go around feeding everybody a spoon of God-knows-what,” claiming to use wild herbs for medicinal purposes.

Giulia Savini’s organic farm and inn, called Valle Nuova, is nestled between groomed mountains in the Italian countryside eight miles south of the town of Urbino.

Although Savini lived in the city most of her adolescence, she nostalgically recalls time spent gardening with her granddad, “collecting strawberries for grandma.” She remembers finding joy in gardening because she could “be around [her] granddad in the countryside” as an escape from city life.

After a life spent picking berries in hot summers and maintaining a small kitchen garden in Milan, Savini’s parents decided to buy Valle Nuova in 1981. Negri explains they wanted to escape the corruption rampant in Italy at that time: “The late 70s and 80s were a difficult time in all of Italy. It was difficult to work if you were not affiliated to the right political party or you did not pay or know the right people, and that was not the way we wanted to live.”

“We wanted to live more naturally,” she adds, “and to be in contact with real things, not having to struggle to make a living.” Between 1981 and 1991, the family stayed in Milan while visiting the farm every month or so, delegating the actual labor to hired workers. In 1991, they moved permanently to Valle Nuova after Savini’s father saved enough money from his job as an architect in Milan.

Like her parents, Savini’s transition to owning and operating Valle Nuova was a long time coming. She decided to study at the University of Urbino in the ‘90s to remain close to her parents, then began living and working in Madrid during the winters and returning to the farm in the summers. “The first years were great,” she recalls, “because I felt like I had two lives, more than normal people do.”

Before she knew it, she began to feel differently: “I was never in the right place. So I decided I had to choose one or the other.” After a life spent in various Italian cities with occasional forays to the countryside, Savini officially took over the Valle Nuova operation in 2007. Of life in the city, she now says, “For a while it’s all right if you can escape, but I prefer to live the other way around—living here with my cats and nature and going on holidays to the city.”

Savini feeds one of her two bulls a bit of organically grown grass. The cows at Valle Nuova are kept according to organic regulations and sold solely for their meat.

Savini now operates Valle Nuova as an organic farm, growing things the same way her parents did. The agriturismo’s website says, “Farming has gone through uncontrolled growth and development in order to meet an insatiable and diversified demand.” The mission of the farm is to reclaim past traditions and fuel a more sustainable Earth by “the use of composted manure, enriching the terrain with humus, ensur[ing] land fertility for the future and allow[ing] us not to use weed killers and chemicals because we reestablished the ecological balance of the earth.” Savini also raises organic Marchigiana cattle, meaning that they are fed organically grown grass and have pens with outdoor access half the year, roaming the fields for the other half of the year.

Savini’s sustainable practices have earned the respect of her neighbors. Like Savini, Ashley Bartner and her husband, Jason, operate a farm and inn, La Tavola Marche, and teach cooking classes with foraged wild plants. Bartner speaks highly of Savini: “Instead of being nearby rivals with similar mission statements, we have always been supportive of one another’s businesses and proud of each other’s successes. She is an inspiring pioneer of green eco-friendly farming and inn-keeping for years, which makes us strive to be better as well.”

Savini’s practices also inspire others around the world. Vivian Aldridge, a recent visitor, says, “I wanted to remind myself what it is like to live slowly and simply. These are important values for me to rediscover since I live in the high-paced tech world of the San Francisco Bay Area.” During her visit, she was rejuvenated by the fresh air and landscape of the Italian countryside. Savini’s influence doesn’t stop there though. Her website and blog allow others to learn about organic farming and foraging. Aldridge says, “Taste, freshness, and quality are of utmost concern to me, and Giulia continues to inspire me in that direction through her blogs and Facebook.”

Several cats roam freely around Valle Nuova, where they camp out in front of the kitchen door in case any food comes their way. One adult cat curiously sniffed the dried Elderflower Savini always keeps on hand.

In addition to operating the farm, Savini has built a sturdy foundation of knowledge about foraging for plants, allowing her to gather wild ingredients for meals, desserts, and liqueurs. She doesn’t claim to be an expert on wild plants, because to her it is “really all about grandmothers and neighbors.” She learns from others’ experience whether something is poisonous. Her rule of thumb is to avoid plants she doesn’t know. For her, foraging is a tradition, not a science.

Walking into her small storage room with her playful dog, Chicca, running ahead, Savini proudly turns to several shelves crowded with jars of with earth-toned liquids and preserves. She likes to cook with fresh wild plants, but there is an inevitable problem: “All of them get ripe together, so you have to find a way to preserve them. That’s how you can eat them throughout the year.” She does this in many ways, by letting liqueur concoctions marinate for a year or more, making smooth flavorful juices, or jarring several types of jams.

Savini’s favorite wild plant to use in the kitchen is the Elderflower, a fragrant, cream-colored, small flower that grows in bunches on the Elder tree. She keeps a large jar of dried Elderflower on the bottom shelf of her storage room, ready to use throughout the year. She hands me a piece of cake, saying, “My favorite ways of using it are in liqueur and drawing the flowers out, using them in cakes. You can use a plain cake batter and add the flowers.”

As we share our snack, Savini says, “When you’re dealing with live things and the weather, many things can happen so you have to adapt to what nature brings.” You could say Savini has done just that.

This article also appears in Urbino Now magazine’s La Gente section. You can read all the magazine articles in print by ordering a copy from MagCloud.

The Mediterranean sun shone down on Ivo Klaver’s face as he lifted up yet another wild orchid for me to see. “This is a bee orchid,” he said. No wonder: With six white petals and a spectacular combination of yellows, browns, and greens in its center, the flower looked just like a bee. As we continued on our hike on the outskirts of Urbino, Italy, with mountains surrounding us and a faint view of the Adriatic Sea in the horizon, Klaver explained that orchids have evolved to take on the shapes of the insects that pollinate them, to attract the insects and assure the plants’ survival.

He seemed to know everything about each orchid we saw, its species, name, and history. But, as I soon learned, Klaver also seemed to know everything about English literature, the history of science, and the 19th century. A native of the Netherlands, educated in England, and now at home in Italy, he is a Renaissance man in a Renaissance town. And orchids seem to be the common thread throughout his research.

Klaver first started studying orchids when he was a boy in Rolde, Holland. “My father grew tropical orchids in a hot house, so he was interested in orchids in general, and he showed me around when I was a lad, the wild orchids growing around at home.” His father was a biology teacher.

Klaver left home when he was 21 to get his M.A. in English Language and Literature at Exeter College in western England. He described this part of England as “good for orchids,” and began studying them during his stay at Exeter. While he was a student, Klaver bought Charles Darwin’s book Fertilisation of Orchids, which explained complex evolutionary theories of orchids and insects. As Klaver told me, “It was the first publication after On the Origin of Species to show that his theory of natural selection was working.”

The Ophrys holosericea is shaped like a bee to attract bees, that then pollinate other orchids.

After reading Darwin’s book, Klaver continued studying orchids at university. While still living in England, he became a member of the German Orchid Society, one of the largest in Europe, which publishes a journal four times a year of over 200 pages of findings and facts. After moving to Italy upon graduating school, he became part of Gruppo Italiano per la Ricerca sulle Orchidee Spontanee, or the Italian Group on Research of Wild Orchids. According to their website, G.I.R.O.S. “promotes the knowledge, study, and protection of Italian orchids” and organizes trips, conventions, conferences, and exhibitions.

Klaver’s love of orchids started to intersect with his studies when he was in university, working on a Ph.D. on the history of science and Victorian literature. After reading Darwin’s book on orchids, he noticed that about the same time Darwin wrote about the flowers, Victorian authors began describing orchids in their novels. “There was a point where my interest in orchids related to my professional interest in history of science and how the idea of evolution changed the idea of the spirit of the age of Victorians,” he said. In other words, what the Victorians thought and wrote changed greatly because of Darwin’s theories of evolution.

Klaver and I were sitting in his office across the street from Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, built in the 15^th century by another Renaissance man, Federico da Montefeltro. In the dim light, I spotted the book Klaver wrote about his findings, Geology and Religious Sentiment: The Effect of Geological Discoveries on English Society and Literature Between 1829 and 1859. His hands moved about as he described the history of the Earth, and his eyes lit up as he spoke in a serious, yet lively tone.

“In the 1830s,” he said, “geologists started to build up a new kind of discipline which becomes modern geology. They realized that the Earth was much older than was previously thought, much older than the biblical story. If you calculate back [using] the Bible, you can go back about 6,000 years to the creation of the Earth, and the geologists simply say that that is not [old enough]. The Earth is at least millions of years old.”

The cephalanthera rubra orchid is a very rare woodland species found around the Marche region.

I began to wonder how this connected with orchids. As I should have guessed, there was more.

“Darwin writes his book on orchids to show that orchids slowly evolved into very complex mechanisms, and in order to make this possible, Darwin needed a lot of past geological time.” In other words, Darwin used the evolution of orchids to prove his theories to the Victorians. As Darwin’s theory became more accepted, the Victorians started writing about and describing orchids in their novels, making them a popular flower at the time. Orchid hunters became popular as well. In Klaver’s eyes, orchids and his research connect simply because of the flowers’ evolutionary and scientific importance in the 19th century, and because they were such a prominent part of Darwin’s theories.

Currently, Klaver is working on a project with several members of his orchid group. “What I’m working on now…here…just let me show you.” Klaver pulled out his computer and began typing vigorously, excited and eager. A Google Earth map appeared on the screen, along with hundreds of tiny red dots. “You can click on the map and get all of the distributions of the orchids in Italy and the areas around Italy,” Klaver said. “This is a huge project which should result in an atlas of the distribution of Italian orchids.”

The orchid group notes on their website that Urbino is a perfect place to study and research. More than 60 species of wild orchids have been found in the Marche region so far, and new species are still being discovered.

Likewise, Urbino is an inspiring place for Klaver to study the Victorians. In the Renaissance, as in the Victorian era, he says, “The boundaries between literature, science, and theology were often hazy.”

He adds: “I am aware of Urbino’s history every day I walk to my office.”

This article also appears in Urbino Now magazine’s La Gente section. You can read all the magazine articles in print by ordering a copy from MagCloud.

PESARO, Italy – The motto “Dixi, Suasi, Vici” (I Said, I Persuaded, I Conquered) is a far cry from Roman Emperor Julius Caesar’s “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (I Came, I Saw, I Conquered).  But for Italy’s 28ºReggimento “Pavia” (28^th Army Regiment “Pavia”), named after a town in Northern Italy, “I Said, I Persuaded, I Conquered” is their motto, and persuasion through tactical communications is becoming their NATO-based mission in Afghanistan.

American US Army Captain Damon Hart speaks to Colonel Giovanni Gagliano and other Italian soldiers who together work in Afghanistan.

 “There’s no way we can end wars and prevent conflicts with guns,” says Captain Damon Hart, one of ten U.S. Special Operations officers training alongside the Italian soldiers at the “Pavia” headquarters in the Adriatic coastal city of Pesaro.  The American officers have come from the army base in Fort Bragg, N.C., to train with their Italian counterparts, to assist them in obtaining NATO Special Operations status by July 1, 2014.  With NATO certification the regiment will be deployed to Afghanistan to utilize high technology communications systems in a peace-making role in that war-torn nation. Many NATO countries, including the United States, are involved in similar training and activities.

Colonel Giovanni Gagliano of the “Pavia” Regiment says their mission is “to bring peace, build a new society”.  When asked about working with the Italian unit, Captain Hart replies, “You have to love what you do”.  He has worked previously with Italian troops in Germany and believes it is important to reduce the learning curve among NATO countries, so they can easily cooperate on missions in Afghanistan. 

The American officers are training with the Italian officers for two weeks. Their base at Fort Bragg has similar print, radio, and television capabilities, only on a larger scale.  Their goal is to understand, “the place where they are, what the right message is, and what means to use in order to communicate,” explains Colonel Gagliano.

An Italian soldier manages the audio board for the base’s television deployable news container.

The communication methods that the soldiers of the “Pavia” will use include:

• Distribution of leaflets by soldiers while they are parachuting to the ground from 25,000 feet
• Messages broadcast through loudspeakers that have a land-based range of 1.5 kilometers
• Face-to-face conversations with the Afghan people
• Television and radio broadcasts 

The regiment’s television and radio deployable containers look like professional studios transformed to fit into various camouflage boxes. In these tiny workspaces the soldiers can host interviews and produce news pieces that are either prerecorded or live.  The radio container has two rooms, a sound booth and an editing area that can be used to transmit commercial radio programs with popular songs provided to the soldiers.

These fliers, destined for towns and villages in afghanistan, contain warnings about nearby IEDs in Pashto and Dari. They contain mostly pictures for those in rural areas who are illiterate.

A typical leaflet might contain information about Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), homemade bombs that were not constructed or deployed by the military. The leaflets contain mostly pictures in order to be understood by literate and illiterate Afghans alike, with the goal of ensuring each resident’s safety. Most of the “Pavia” regiment’s flyers are printed in a facility on the base in Pesaro and at the rate of 15,000 flyers per hour. The soldiers also have a smaller, deployable printing container that they can use in the field.  

But the messages conveyed through TV, radio,  loudspeakers, or  flyers are not always understood.  According to Major Antonio Caragnano,  one difficulty is an  information gap between young Afghans attending school in the cities and elderly mostly illiterate Afghans living in the rural mountain areas. The educated urban citizenry can understand complex messages about the ongoing conflict and are targeted with detailed video and print information.

By contrast, Lt. Colonel Cartini recounts meeting an elderly man in the mountain regions who thought Cartini was a Russian soldier returning to the area after many years. The elderly man did not realize that the Russians had pulled out of Afghanistan and NATO forces were involved instead. In cases such as these, interpersonal communication is often needed. “Pavia” participates in role-play exercises to develop ways to respectfully and effectively speak with people of differing ages, genders and cultures.

Other NATO countries with communications bases such as Germany, France and Great Britain, want to use their technology to reassure the Afghan citizenry that they are there to help them.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insists the coalition “won’t fall off a cliff at the end of 2014.”  U.S. President Barack Obama has set that date as the formal end of the combat mission in Afghanistan.

In the meantime and, according to Rasmussen, NATO allies are taking advantage of the fact that “the Taliban are on the defensive in the information space.”

Communication-based missions are “becoming much more important than before,” claims 2^nd Lieutenant Grifa of the Italian regiment.

President Obama  announced on May 27, 2014, that he plans to withdraw the last American troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.  Italian Defense Minister Mario Mauro says 500 to 700 Italian troops will remain after other NATO troops withdraw. There are currently about 3,000 Italian troops in Afghanistan.

Mauro reasons that, “We can’t turn our backs on this country, if we don’t want the atrocious dictatorship of the past to return.” The soldiers from “Pavia”will attempt to fend off “the atrocious dictatorship” to which Mauro refers, by using their communication skills and technology.  Major Caragnano hopes, in the end, “with a word you can reach more than with a bullet.”

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URBINO, Italy – It’s a sunny, lazy day in this famous Renaissance town of soaring towers and cobblestone streets as college students Martina Russano and Giulia Ivanges socialize in the Piazza Repubblica.

Between sips of cappuccino the friends exchange glances and giggle like schoolgirls as two boys stroll past. Life is fun.

But when the conversation turns to their futures after college, the mood changes abruptly. The giggles disappear. A cloud moves over the sunny day.

“I am not optimistic about my future at all,” admits Giulia, a pharmacy student. “Present day Italy is in a complete crisis.”

Martina, a foreign language major, agrees. “I try hard to stay optimistic, but it’s difficult since our generation has it so much harder,” she says.

 This is the reality of life for Italy’s younger generation. Just below a sunny, carefree surface lies a current of deep anxiety and fear caused by the economic crisis that has gripped Italy and much of Europe for almost 10 years.

Students Giulia Ivanges and Martina Russano enjoy some free time between classes, listening along as a friend strums the guitar. The two will face a high Italian unemployment rate when they graduate.

As of April 2014, Italy’s unemployment rate was 12.60 percent, it’s highest level since record keeping began in 1977. More than half a million industrial jobs have been lost since 2007, and more than eight million Italians already live below the poverty line, including many who have been employed for years. The nation is now 2 trillion euros in debt.  

No Italian group has suffered more than the young.

Youth unemployment is a staggering 43.30 percent.  By comparison America’s youth unemployment rate, a major concern in Washington, was 16.1 percent in April 2014 for those between the ages of 16 and 24, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Getting a job in Italy let alone Urbino has proven  difficult  even for the college educated. Many recent university graduates are living at home remaining financially dependent on their parents well into there twenties.

Alice Bocconelli, 28, knows that story line all too well.  After 10 years at Urbino University she has two diplomas including a degree in economics, but has no job to show for it. Living at home and jobless as she nears 30 was far from the life she spent her childhood dreaming of.

Many students like Giulia are financially dependent on their parents, well into there twenties. Without receiving any help from the government, Giulia’s parents are responsible for covering the costs of her college education.

“I hoped to have a career and family by now, I’m not getting any younger, but the crisis started 4 years ago and it’s difficult to see a future here because of it,” sighs Alice.  “I see myself going backwards.”

College students like Giulia and Martina live in fear of sharing that journey, so they dream of lives in different countries where job prospects are brighter, especially in the U.S.

“I want to teach Italian abroad, in America hopefully” said Martina. 

“We all have an American dream,” finishes Martina.

That dream can be  seen on the many t-shirts showing the Stars and Stripes, or handbags bags displaying the New York skyline. Urbino shops are filled with clothing and accessories representing American culture. 

What was the blame for Italy’s crisis and how to fix it is a matter of debate among Italians. But few students here disagree about what their immediate future holds

“Italy’s situation is the worst in the world,” said Giulia.  “And nothing scares me more.”

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PESARO, Italy – It’s a hot, sunny, sweaty day and Filippo Ferri has been working in the field harvesting and cleaning the onions and lettuce for about three hours. Ready for a break, he changes into a fresh set of clothes. “I enjoy picking up the vegetables from the fields and then cleaning them off,” Filippo says. “It is rewarding for me because, once I have finished, the vegetables are transported to the store and I know I accomplished my task.”

Filippo Ferri works for the social food cooperative Campo Base in Pesaro, Italy. He is one of the persone svantaggiate, the Italian phrase for disadvantaged persons, who are employed here as an integral part of the food growing and retail selling operations of the cooperative. “I wanted to give the right to work to those who society doesn’t give the possibility to work otherwise,” says Campo Base co-founder, Antonio Russo. But, as Russo explains, the motivation extends beyond employment to also providing consumers with organic foods that are grown locally and in an environmentally sustainable way 

Here, the disabled worker Rossella, happily poses for a photo with one of Campo Base’s volunteer, Antonella.

The tasks that the mentally or physically disadvantaged workers complete on a daily basis may seem simple to the onlooker. However, their efforts at harvesting, cleaning, transporting, and selling the produce enables them to gain confidence in themselves and with others. “I find it harder to socialize with people I don’t know”, says Filippo. “Since I have been here, it has helped me be open and more comfortable socializing.”

Emanuele Cuccitto, who educates workers like Filippo, plays a major role in their personal growth: “I help them and follow them while they are working and try to make them feel comfortable in what they are doing.” Both Emanuele and Antonio previously worked at T41”A”, a social cooperative classified as type A that “provides various activities of pre-employment, arts and crafts, play recreation, socialization and integration to those who are disadvantaged.” Type A cooperatives cannot, by law, pay the people they train. Antonio wanted to create an environment where disadvantaged workers could be paid for their efforts. With this goal in mind, he co-founded Campo Base in 2008. “In the city of Pesaro there are not many type B cooperatives who work with the people who have a physical or mental handicap, about four or five.” Type B cooperatives are legally allowed to train and pay their workers: type A cooperatives provide skill and social training without compensation.

“I enjoy working here because of the people I work with and the customers,” says Rossella Petrucci, a physically disadvantaged worker at the Campo Base retail store. “It also makes me self-confident and happy.” Before Rossella started working at the store, she stayed at home. This job has given her the chance to form new relationships–including one with volunteer Antonella Omiccioli. Antonella has been volunteering at Campo Base for three years. Even though Antonella works at other paying jobs she says, “I come here because I am happy working with those who need help.” Whether Antonella is re-arranging the produce or checking out a customer, Rossella is by her side grinning with admiration. 

One of the fields at Campo Base growing celery on the far left and cabbage in the center.

Campo Base collaborates with the City of Pesaro to create events that enable local residents to interact with the cooperative’s workers. Last month they held a tasting event featuring their own harvested crops, and local organic and fair trade products sold in their store. “It is a great opportunity for the citizens of Pesaro to see a different reality from their own and to understand and respect those who are disadvantaged,” Antonio says. 

Campo Base is affiliated with organizations that follow the Km0 or Kilometro Zero (Food Kilometer Zero) philosophy of promoting food that is produced, sold, and eaten locally. The growing movement is similar to the expansion of local farmers markets in the United States. Km0 started in Italy with the goal, among others, to reduce transportation costs and limit environmental pollution. Campo Base’s adherence to those principles as well as organic food production is gaining attention and respect amongst its workers and its customers. “I shop here because they are biological and genuine,” says Campo Base customer Nives Servi. “I respect their collaboration with disadvantaged people and think it is a great way for them to work and live life again.”

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