The runway stretches into the distance down the rustic brick of Via Mazzini. A warm evening light creeps in from the arched entry at the foot of the street. Lights, photographers, and posing marks for models adorn the catwalk. Railings on either side of the runway carpet split the catwalk from the hundreds of people slowly crowding in to watch.

Next to the top of the runway, a Renaissance-era courtyard now functions as an impromptu dressing room. Models run in and out for styling, hair and make-up, and final choreography before walking the walk. Outside the courtyard, at the top of the carpet, a DJ sits in the center of the chaos, flanked by two towering speakers that billow music at an energetically deafening level. Children dance beside their families and look on with excitement in their eyes for what’s to come.

“We are almost ready to begin,” the announcer says at a quarter to 10.

Models await their turn to start down the catwalk at Urbino’s Sfiliata Sotto Le Stelle–Parade Under the Stars.

This evening looks and feels like something out of Marie Claire or a Mercedes Benz Fashion Week event. But this isn’t Florence, Milan, or Rome. This extravagant night is the brainchild of the boutique owners, designers, and retailers of Urbino, Italy, who have turned an unlikely stretch of Via Mazzini into the perfect setting for a charming fashion night out. What started as a strategic move to drum up business and promotion has turned into a collaborative creative effort, says Stefani Palazzi, owner of Nashville Boutique and an organizer of the event.

“We do this because we feel it can represent the fashion culture in Urbino—we want to try to do our best to make this event very successful,” says Palazzi.

For centuries, Italian fashion has been among the most revered in all of Europe. As early as the 11th century, powerful cities like Venice, Milan, Florence, and Naples produced some of the finest textiles, jewelry, shoes, robes, accessories, and elaborate dress of Europe. At the peak of the Renaissance, Italian fashion became known for its extravagance — velvets, brocades, ribbons, jewels, and fine detail.

However, by the 17th century, Italian fashion was dethroned, and didn’t begin to regain popularity until the 1950s, around the time Giovanni Battista Giorgini, an Italian businessman, began hosting aristocratic soirees and fashion shows. At the most famous of these soirees, “The First Italian High Fashion Show,” held February 12, 1951, several famous designers, like Fabiani, Simonetta, and the Fontana sisters, presented collections at Giorgini’s Florentine residence. The show attracted the attention of international buyers visiting from the Parisian Haute Couture shows. Soon, designers and boutiques across the region began mass-producing the Italian collections and exporting them to foreign markets — thus kick-starting the prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) era in Italian fashion, setting Florence as the birthplace of modern fashion in Italy, and revitalizing the market for the country.

Now, 60 years later and 185 kilometers away, in this walled city of the Le Marche region, designers, boutique owners, and entrepreneurs alike are applying the tactics of innovators like Giorgini to market their ready-to-wear business model to the public. The Sfilata Sotto Le Stelle (Parade Under The Stars) fashion show on Via Mazzini is a highlight of the series of Friday night events called Serate Ducali (Duke’s Nights) that are reminiscent of Giorgini’s soirees. Taking place from early June through the beginning of July, the events are planned by the Associazione Commercianti di Urbino.

The models from Nashville Boutique are paired to compare and contrast styling options.

The association was started around 10 years ago in an effort to cultivate a partnership between the many shop owners of the city and bring more business to the historic center of the town. The organization now works year-round planning events for winter holidays and the summer months that showcase the products and services the shops provide. At the heart of the association’s efforts are the Serate Ducali events. This year, the third year of the celebration, Serate Ducali now offers six different evening events, including the fashion show on Via Mazzini, street art nights, evening dancing, and live performances.

Marco Lazzari, president of the Associazione Commercianti di Urbino, says that when they created the Serate Ducali events, the idea was to have different nights with varying forms of entertainment in the historic center of the city.

“The goal of these events is to make Urbino come alive in the historic center,” says Lazzari.

Each lively event requires months of strategic planning. These kinds of bureaucratic duties are a large part of the event planning process and what the association does as a whole, Lazzari says.

“The association is voluntary; everyone pays a bit of money each year so that we can organize the events, like Serate Ducali. Politics are not involved in these events but we want to engage the administrations here in Urbino,” Lazzari says.

Lazzari works with a four-person team primarily focused on requesting city authorizations needed for events like the fashion show. He also works closely with event organizers and shop owners like Valeria Violini, owner of the Vodafone store in Urbino’s Borgo Mercatale, and one of the three producers in charge of the fashion show. The Sfilata Sotto Le Stelle was first held a year ago when Violini and a few other shop owners hatched the idea for the fashion show as a part of Serate Ducali.

“Our reason for doing this is to make the town more lively and offer something different to the public, but also respecting the rules in the process,” says Violini.

Hairstylist Stefano Iacomucci outfitted his models in Roman-inspired dress.

Now, the Sfilata Sotto Le Stelle fashion show features over a dozen retailers and designers of the region all jammed into an action-filled one-hour runway show. Around 6,000 euros and a prodigious catalog of models are only a few of the essential pieces to make this event happen.

In preparation for this year’s show, Violini and the other producers started contacting boutique owners and designers in the region to provide accessories, clothing collections, jewelry, and other merchandise to be showcased. The organizers of the event met with the association once a week for six months to trade ideas and collectively come up with a formula for the event that best fit everyone’s needs. From there, they cast models and divided them among each boutique. The models were then split up based on categories such as cosmetics, accessories, and other styling details. Then Violini decided on the order of the show. After the models were cast and grouped, the organizers hired a choreographer and had two rehearsals before the event. Violini describes the planning process as a multi-layered undertaking that involves bureaucratic duties, civil responsibility, and creativity all at once.

“The fashion show is a way to give exposure to the stores. It’s a good way for them to get publicity and also give alternative entertainment to citizens, both students and old people,” Violini says.

All the planning lead up to this: One hour before showtime, workers roll the carpet down Via Mazzini. More than a dozen models are in Mazzini Parrucchiere salon being styled by young cosmetologists and the owner, Stefano Iacomucci. The models are all covered with a layer of shimmering golden glitter dust and clad with flowing white gowns, inspired by historic Roman dress designs. Their hair is keenly styled in high buns and up-dos accented by fresh olive branches and leaves. The men are a bronze golden tint from their spray tans—each of them shirtless and wearing revealing white cloths gathered at the waist by a single golden rope. Iacomucci says that he is very inspired by history and wanted to modernize a classic dress practice to offer something different.

It’s now 10 p.m. and on the runway are models representing Palazzi’s Nashville Boutique, wearing glowing neon orange-and-white wigs. A brunette with a bun saunters out of the courtyard in an elegant white trench-style overcoat paired with designer slippers. Following her is a short, petite young woman wearing a shining orange wig and a black romper-style jumpsuit with a low pointed heel.

Palazzi styled the models in pairs to offer a unique presentation on the catwalk. Together the looks compare and contrast each other giving the boutique a well-rounded offering. Palazzi’s vast knowledge of trends and ready-to-wear markets are the product of years working in retail; she now owns the same boutique where she started working 34 years ago. She is precise in the way the models are styled with garments that are either in-season or trending, mixed with classic staples, giving her collection a fashion-forward feel.

Palazzi’s models line up at the end of the runway to make their exit. Standing together, the breadth of styles they cover is staggering: business casual, street chic, evening wear and seasonal dresses that incorporate almost every Pantone color and in-season silhouette.

Many more boutiques hit the runway as the night goes on; what was supposed to be a one-hour event has turned into a full-blown runway show. There are so many different styles: classic, modern street-wear, sportcore. Each shop shows their newest collections and designer items like Gucci and Marc Jacobs. The attention to details and accessories like scarfs, jewelry, and styling speaks to this region’s precise fashion interests.

It’s 11:30 now and the mood changes. The streetlights cast a soft, romantic glow on Via Mazzini. The music slows to a powerful ballad, and out glides a woman with a slicked-back ponytail in a white, halter-collar gown. The model is with five children: four little girls with matching white dresses and flower-bedecked pigtails and one boy with parted hair in a three-piece suit. The girls skip and throws flowers as the boy holds the woman’s hand and walks her down the runway.

Atelier Cardelli’s bridal fashions took the stage at the finale.

This is the finale of the show with the Atelier Cardelli bridal shop taking the stage. Vinicio Cardelli, now lead designer of the shop, was born in Urbino and studied here before he went to work with his family in Acqualagna. Atelier Cardelli has operated for over 70 years. Cardelli says that their gowns are designed with classic details, seeking to fulfill the buyer’s needs.

“We don’t just sell clothes; we sell dreams. The woman who buys the dress doesn’t want the dress [itself]; she is dreaming of something, so we try to give them that dream,” Cardelli says.

Now, a brunette paces onto the runway with an up-do adorned by two large curls that frame her face and lead the eye down the length of her veil. She is wearing a white velvet-and-lace mermaid-style gown. Her hands trace the outline of the dress and she beams widely, as if she is dreaming of her own wedding as she walks. Lace detail sprawls all over the dress and adds an accent on the veil. She has on a small pearl necklace and white gloves. Behind her is a couple, a man in a black Tuxedo with a wing-collar dress shirt and a woman with a gleaming ball gown studded with jewels and complex embroidery patterns.

Cardelli says that he likes to have drama and action in his shows and wants the ending to always be shocking or exciting. He and his three sisters put this elegant grand finale together, something their family often does.

“I love everything about my job but I really like doing fashion shows because if you don’t show what you create it doesn’t mean anything, and that’s why I like to do these shows because you need to show people what we can do,” Cardelli says.

Adele’s “Someone Like You,” starts playing, and the last of the models file out onto the runway. All of them, about a dozen, from the Atelier Cardelli show are lined up side-by-side, taking up the entirety of the runway. Women begin to make their way to the railing on either side of the runway with a look of desire in their eyes.

“Never mind—I’ll find someone like you,” Adele sings from the speakers as the music roars into the night.

The announcer hands each model a rose, and, on cue, they all throw their roses into the air. In that split second, hundreds and hundreds of hands reach up into the sky toward the stars, and everyone erupts into applause for the Sfilata Sotto Le Stelle fashion show.

Slideshow

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

The post Urbino’s Fashion Night Out appeared first on Urbino Project 2015.

Natalia Gasparucci is strolling the quiet streets of Sant’Ippolito, leading an informal tour of the stonework that decorates the city’s houses and ancient walls. She points to a keystone over a doorway and explains the carvings on its front. The grapevine in the center suggests that the people who commissioned this keystone were involved with making wine, and the letters “CD” stand for the family name. She says with pride that this work dates back to the mid 1700s.

On the building’s wall just to the left of the keystone is a sculpture of a Madonna. She is intricately carved and detailed, wearing a patterned dalmatica, or dress, that is covered in stars and small crosses. And she holds her baby, as many Madonnas do. This Madonna’s eyelids are closed, the trademark characteristic of a local artist known for such sculptures.

In response to a visitor’s question, Gasparucci looks from the sculpture down at her hands. With a small smile she confirms that this is her work. While happy to show off the ancient carvings in the city, she was hesitant to point out an example of her own work that was perched less than two feet away. In fact, Gasparucci’s Madonnas can be seen adorning many homes and structures throughout the city.

Natalia Gasparucci is a stone sculptor in Sant’Ippolito, a town rooted in tradition of this art and rich with history that dates back to the 13th century.

That humility is also one of Gasparucci’s trademarks, though she has many other defining characteristics. Her short, bleached-blonde hair is dazzling in the sunlight. The creative fire inside of her is much bigger than her petite build. She is full of energy, and apparently willing to talk about anything with anyone, even people who are practically strangers. With her thick black eyeliner and Crocs almost as colorful as her personality, you’d never guess that she is a grandmother.

Gasparucci moves away from the old doorframe, takes a sharp right turn down a small hill, and passes through the open doors of her studio, Bottega Artistica Della Pietra, the Artistic Studio of Stone. It is time to continue her work.

The studio sits right outside the old walls of Sant’Ippolito, a city with centuries of stone carving history and traditions. It is also the place where Gasparucci was born and has flourished. She raised a family and still lives in the house above her studio. Sant’Ippolito was once overflowing with studios and sculptors. Today, the studio Gasparucci owns is the only one remaining within the town; only a couple of other sandstone sculptors have studios in the area.

Gasparucci picks up a chalk-covered drill and drives it through a block of pietra arenaria, sandstone, breaking off small chunks. The noisy drill overpowers the chirping of birds outside the shop doors. Her gloved hands fly in every direction. Silver bracelets on her arms clink lightly, partially covering the tattoo that stretches from the top of one wrist to the middle of her forearm, a flower with vines. Her voice reaches every corner of the large room as she explains her process. Then she brushes away the dust that has collected on top of the piece to reveal the outline of an olive branch. This piece will be a keystone.

Sant’Ippolito was once the patria, homeland, of stone carving in Italy. At its height, the city was home to more than 30 studios and many well-known sculptors. One of these artists was Amoretto, who was called from Sant’Ippolito in the 14th century to do work at the Palace of the Pope in Avignon, France.

According to Renzo Savelli, a researcher and author on the topic of scalpellini, or stonemasons, there were large quantities of high-quality sandstone in the territory around Sant’Ippolito. It was because of this kind of stone that traditions grew so strong in the area starting in the 1300s.

During the 15th century the artists in Sant’Ippolito, through their connection with Florentine sculptors, developed their techniques. The old houses that still exist in the city once belonged not to middle class citizens, but to the elite class of carvers in the city. Wealthy barons commissioned artists to create sculptures for their houses, keystones, and doorframes. Artists traded with each other—sculptures for everyday items like flour and grain.

Savelli explains that sandstone carving declined after the 17th century when marble became more fashionable. However, sandstone carving’s small flame continued to burn, and the art made a comeback in the last part of the 20th century.

Twenty-five years ago, an art professor with the help of town administrators and the Pro Loco of Sant’Ippolito, a group that organizes events for the city, picked up a project that Gasparucci has never put down. The town opened small sculpting studios, at first aimed at teaching middle school students. When the focus shifted to adults, Gasparucci was asked to sculpt in one of the studios. She and her supervisor, Luciano Biagiotti, an art professor from Urbino, were given an abandoned theater right outside of the city walls as their workspace. With this project, the stone carving traditions in Sant’Ippolito were rediscovered.

“It was just as a game,” Gasparucci says laughing, referring to the start of her sculpting career. At the time, she was concentrating on oil painting. She and Biagiotti began sculpting in the theater whenever they had time after dinner.

She was only in the old theater for a short time. Bottega Artistica Della Pietra soon became her working space and has continued to be for 23 years.

Gasparucci has filled one of the three gallery rooms connected to her working space with sculptures of the Madonna of Loreto, a famous symbol of protection for the Le Marche region and for military aviators. Madonna of Loreto has been produced in many forms. Raphael, the celebrated Renaissance painter from Urbino, has his renowned Madonna of Loreto painting in Musée Condé in Chantilly, France. Carvaggio created another famous painting of Madonna of Loreto, which hangs in Rome.

Gaparucci’s Madonna sculptures range in size, some no taller than a bottle of wine. Each is slightly different, although Gasparucci’s overall style and characteristics remain consistent.

Gasparucci’s Madonna sculptures, which she’s most known for, are pieces for sale and exhibition.

The traditional style of Madonna of Loreto has a conic shape to her body. Gasparucci pulls inspiration from this, but sometimes sculpts the figure with her baby and sometimes without. Gasparucci combines Egyptian, Byzantine, and Mayan art in her sculptures, borrowing characteristics from each distinct style.

Some characteristics of the Madonnas are unique to Gasparucci. When the Madonna is not holding a baby, Gasparucci carves her with hands pressed together, as if praying. The faces of Gasparucci’s Madonnas also wear her unique style. Their perfectly smooth faces look peaceful and content, with soft smiles and closed eyes.

“It’s a form of sweetness,” she says about the closed eyes. “It invites you to a moment of reflection, of thinking about something.”

“The special thing about Natalia is that she not only works in the tradition of Madonna, but she introduced new subjects,” says Savelli, who is familiar with Gasparucci’s work. He explains that she is innovative; along with religious subjects, she also sculpts faces of women and men.

“She’s a great artist,” he says. “She deserves to be valued and to be known.”

Over the years, Gasparucci has been recognized for her hard work.

“My life is full of events,” she says when asked about her favorite memory or exhibition. Her work has taken her all over the globe to places like Korea, France, the United States, and every region of Italy. Gasparucci donated a sculpture to the Pope’s Palace in Avignon, France, and has been recognized with national awards. She has been interviewed by daily newspapers and popular magazines like AD, Grazia, Tutto Turismo, and Itinerari. Her work can also be found in the bank of Sant’Ippolito and many museums in the Le Marche region. One of her sculptures is in a specialized museum in Ancona, Italy, that caters to those who love art even though they can’t see it.

The director of the Museo Tattile Statale Omero, the State Tactile Museum, asked the town of Sant’Ippolito to donate a piece of art. Gasparucci sculpted Virgo Lauretana, a Madonna of Loreto holding her baby. Gasparucci explains that she spent a lot of time perfecting the details in the sculpture. She says the dalmatica had to be extra detailed, as blind people would only be able to enjoy it by touch.

Gasparucci has also donated a sculpture of Madonna of Loreto as homage to Pope John Paul II. This sculpture, presented as a gift from Gasparucci and the Le Marche region, now sits in the Vatican in Rome. Despite the world’s acknowledgement of her talent, Gasparucci remains humble.

“If I am famous, I’m still modest,” she says. “I am not so self promoting.” She says she is not driven by money so much as her passion for sculpture.

“Masterpieces only come once,” she says. Special works are linked to special feelings and states of mind, and Gasparucci says they are very different from works that are commissioned. If someone wants to purchase a work that she has a special connection to, she will not sell it.

One of these personal pieces is a sculpture of the bottom half of a face, from right underneath the nose down to the chin. The lips are plump, the mouth shaped in a serious line. In the same gallery room just behind this sculpture is another of a whole face. The chin, lips, nose, and eyebrows are visible, but the rest of the skinny features are covered in strips of stone fabric. Both sculptures were produced at important times in Gasparucci’s life, and for this reason she will never sell them.

While she still sculpts often, Gasparucci isn’t as busy with her work as she once was. She spends a lot of time with her family, particularly her grandson, Jacopo.

“Come take a photo with your poor grandmother,” she says to Jacopo during a break from her work. The five-year-old is not interested in being obedient. He is far too preoccupied with his friends playing nearby in the park. Wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses and a polo-style shirt with the collar turned up, he stomps over to Gasparucci with crossed arms. She takes his hand and proudly explains that he likes to play with her sculpting tools and leftover stone. He also asks a lot of questions about what she does.

“He’s very intelligent,” Gasparucci says.

Gasparucci starts by using a drill, but the rest she does by hand. Sculptures take anywhere from a week to 15 days.

After about 45 seconds of pleasing his grandmother, Jacopo runs back to his friends. 
Gasparucci puts her thick cloth gloves back on and returns to the keystone she’s been working on. Her small, fluffy white dog, Cica, finds a spot on the floor by her feet for a nap.

Instead of the loud drill, she pulls out a pointed tool and mallet. She chips away small pieces of the stone, the olive branch becoming more visible with each smack of the mallet. The afternoon sun warms the entire studio; sculptures in various stages of production reflect the rays in different ways. The only sounds are that of the mallet hitting the metal, the metal chipping the stone.

An expression of concentration takes over Gasparucci’s whole face. Her mouth forms a tight, serious line, her nose scrunched, her eyes, smudged with black eyeliner, unblinking through her glasses. She uses a brush to loosen chunks from the top of the sculpture and then runs over the smooth stone with her gloved hand. Her lips turn up into a small, satisfied smile.

Slideshow

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

The post Carved in Stone appeared first on Urbino Project 2015.

URBINO, Italy — Veli Ljatifovski looked out across Ponte Armellina, a housing development he has lived in for the last 20 years. He saw buildings spotted by mold from the corrosive effects of humidity, open sewers spilling into the streets, and derelict cars and mattresses strewn across weed-filled front lawns.

“It wasn’t like this before,” said Ljatifovski, 44, who arrived here in 1995 as a refugee from Yugoslavia after escaping war in his homeland. Ljatifovski, one of the oldest residents and homeowners in Ponte Armellina, helped found the community of immigrants that have made the neighborhood home.

“It was like paradise, clean, with good buildings,” he said.

Veli Ljatifovski stands outside Bar Raffaello which closed two years ago.

While listed inside the borders of Urbino, one of the most beautifully preserved Renaissance cities, Ponte Armellina is seven miles from the city’s historic center. It is a community formed by documented immigrants who moved to Italy in the mid-90s to chase the dream of a better life. As years passed and the buildings decayed, Ponte Armellina residents faced precarious living conditions and little attention from local authorities. Residents inside the walled city and local media stigmatized the community, labeling it “Urbino 2.”

Since 2009, the municipalities of Urbino and Petriano have been planning to rebuild the neighborhood, believing that by improving the physical decay, social problems will be addressed.

But residents are skeptical and confused. Before the redevelopment occurs, they have a number of worrisome options. Those who own their apartment would have to sell them at huge losses and leave. Those who are renting from private owners could have to move if their apartments are sold. Those in public housing, the largest group, would be moved into other subsidized housing during the rehabilitation. A small group of residents who occupied the apartments without paying rent will be evicted.

The €7.9 million ($8.8 million) urban redevelopment will be funded by the region. The project is meant to build bigger and environmentally friendly affordable housing, expand and create public services, improve urban landscape and sport facilities, and integrate more non-immigrant Italian families into the neighborhood.

According to engineer and assessor of city planning Roberto Cioppi, the project entails of purchasing 45 apartments as small as 320 square feet in buildings owned by the Regional Agency for Public Housing (ERAP) for €7,000 to €8,000 ($7,815 to $8,931) each. They will be turned into 26 apartments of 756 square feet each.

After the redevelopment, a square foot in a new apartment will cost €1,200 ($1,339) said Cioppi.

“The goal of this project is the urban regeneration of the area,” said Cioppi.

When Ljatifovski moved to Ponte Armellina, the neighborhood was a failed student housing project built by a private company in 1990. Parents bought many of the units, but students soon realized they were too far from the campus for an easy commute. The building soon became vacant.

Ljatifovski purchased his apartment from a Neapolitan family for €75,000 ($83,678) when the economy was good and it was easier to obtain a mortgage. His apartment is located in one of the two buildings that will be rebuilt in the redevelopment. As a private owner, Ljatifovski said he has been offered to sell his apartment for €25,000 ($27,903), due to a heavy devaluation of real estate in the area, or to pay a negotiated lease if he wishes to stay in a remodeled apartment.

“We don’t agree with them because we suffered to pay for this apartment,” said Ljatifovski.

Eduardo Barberis, a sociology professor at the University of Urbino and expert in Italian immigration policies, did a quantitative analysis of population, risks and social needs in Ponte Armellina in 2011 along with a team of students. The study, which was presented to the municipalities, revealed 20 percent of Ponte Armellina’s 600 residents owned their homes.

“For a 646 square feet apartment, residents paid more than €150,000 ($167,366) with a mortgage. Property value is now at around €20,000 ($22,322)” said Barberis.

Cioppi said that more funding will be pursued to increase the offers to homeowners unhappy with the current price.

Urbino Mayor Maurizio Gambini said the reason for the devaluation of property in Ponte Armellina is that Italians don’t wish to move into an area heavily inhabited by foreigners and that the quality of the houses is not that good.

“We are working in spite of the fact that many people say we shouldn’t follow through with the project and use this money for the redevelopment,” said Gambini. “These are Italians who don’t want extra-communitarians (people not from the European Union).”

The majority of adult residents in Ponte Armellina migrated from Northern Africa and The Balkans. Barberis’ study found that 60 percent of the residents are Moroccan, while 25 percent are Macedonian.

Many residents are skeptical of the outcome because of previous broken promises.

“They’ve talked about [the redevelopment] for years,” said resident Ben Sabir Mohamed, 40, of Morocco. “Today they say they want to eliminate this, tomorrow they say they want to fix that, another day they say something else. We don’t understand a thing.”

Ljatifovski agreed.

“There are many other things [problems] we told them about, but no one has done anything yet. Now they told us to keep calm, that they have money and will start building,” he said. “They’ve been talking about this for six years.”

The soccer field is a meeting place for children. Two tennis courts and a playground will be built next to it as part of the redevelopment.

Cioppi said the project will start around March 2016 and will take one year to complete.

Resident Abdel Maler, of Morocco, said that it would be a great benefit for everyone if change comes to the neighborhood. He’s been living in Ponte Armellina since 1996.

Maler, who is unemployed and lives in an apartment owned by the court, does not need to pay rent because of his employment status.

“It belonged to a private owner, then they failed to pay their mortgage, so the court took the whole thing.”

According to ERAP, minimum rent is €50 to €100 ($56 to $112) and residents must qualify based on income. The redevelopment will not affect those who legally live in ERAP apartments.

ERAP plans to evict those who moved in illegally, and have no plans to resettle them.

At the initial stage of the project, some families feared a possible eviction if the redevelopment took place. Cioppi said that only those who have occupied the apartments illegally would be evicted, but that the cases are very few.

The mayor has also guaranteed that families will not be removed from their homes.

“They will not be sent away. They will be moved somewhere here in Urbino for the time of the redevelopment,” said Gambini.

The families who live in the apartments that will be remodeled will be temporarily moved to other buildings in the complex.

Gambini said he understands that the project has been promised for years. He is positive it will happen because the municipalities were able to secure funding two months ago.

Despite living in the area for more than 20 years, obtaining a legal status, purchasing property legally and their children being born in Urbino, residents who migrated from outside Europe face discrimination from locals who base their beliefs against them on stereotypes, residents and city officials said.

In 2011 a raid took place in the neighborhood in which 100 carabinieri, Italy’s military police force, stormed into every apartment looking for undocumented people as part of a national stop and search campaign around the country. They didn’t find any irregular activity, and all the residents had proper documents.

“Everyone who lives here is legal and has papers,” said Ljatifovski, who is an Italian citizen.

“The only thing they did was prevent some children to use the school bus because they didn’t have tickets, which is really something horrible,” said Barberis, who was doing research in the neighborhood when the raid took place and remembers the coverage it received from the local media.

Barberis, a member of Regional Anti-discrimination Committee, blames the media coverage of Ponte Armellina for perpetuating stereotypes related to criminal activity in the area. “Local media is extremely racist, perhaps not explicitly. Every day they give ethnic label to criminals. If an Italian makes a robbery, then it’s a person making a robbery, but if it’s a Moroccan making a robbery, then it’s a Moroccan robber,” said Barberis. “It’s giving ethnic labels to behaviors.”

“At first it was kind of a bad neighborhood, but then newspapers made it worst,” said Maler. “They mixed facts with politics.”

Giovanni Lani, editor of the local edition of Il Resto Del Carlino, a national newspaper, does not think his publication gives a bad reputation to Ponte Armellina.

“If you go to Gallo di Petriano or other places near Urbino 2 and ask people what they think, they say it’s dangerous,” said Lani. “We don’t say this, the administration says it and we repeat it.”

Lani said the use of terms that could be seen as problematic could’ve been the case in the past but not now.

“I don’t know if they [residents of Ponte Armellina] can read Italian or if they read the newspaper.”

As a way to break the negative stereotypes tied to the community and neighborhood, filmmaker Andrea Laquidara made a documentary called Fuori dalle mura. In the documentary, Laquidara showed how people consider Ponte Armellina a second Urbino.

“Ponte Armellina is part of Urbino on paper,” said Laquidara.

When he premiered his documentary in Urbino last January a person from the audience asked him why he hadn’t interview Urbino residents. In the documentary, Laquidara interviews a child from Ponte Armellina who was born in Urbino and is of Macedonian descent.

“People don’t consider them as citizens,” he said. “A stereotype is that citizens are only those whose relatives come from Urbino. We have a new kind of society now.”

Ljatifovski said there are two Urbinos.

“People who live inside of the walls don’t know who is outside of them,” he said.

Gambini said Urbino is a city that welcomes immigrants and that they have always been present.

“The main goals are integration and to avoid creating ghettos,” he said. “Schools should be granted to everyone and help the process [of integration].”

Despite the problem residents face, the majority of the community of Ponte Armellina is glued together by faith.

“We are mostly Muslims. The country you’re from doesn’t really matter. What keeps us together is our faith,” said Marel.

Ljatifovski remembers that a few years back a resolution of the region labelled his neighborhood “the worst area in Le Marche.”

“If people don’t come here they won’t see what the reality is,” said Ljatifovski. “We are not animals.” 


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URBINO, Italy - As a customer walks into the small, two-room grocery on Via Nicollo’ Pellipario asking for fresh peaches, shop owner Luigi Valentini greets her with a smile, steps from behind the register and begins to hand-select the ripest fruit. Meanwhile in the adjoining room, his wife, Iside Mancini, is slicing prosciutto and ciabatta for the panini for a regular’s daily order.

“You need to feel affection for your job, you have to have fun!” Luigi said.

Luigi spends around half an hour unloading and organizing his fruit in the morning.

The couple own Frutta E Veroura. It is an alimentary, one of the small, neighborhood grocery stores offering fresh produce and meats that can still be found on the streets of most Italian cities.

As the rest of the world is moving to the impersonal, pre-packaged, bulk shopping at huge discount sellers, the tradition of one-on-one local grocers remains strong in Italy. It seems the alimentary is still valued in a nation with a cultural demand that meals be cooked daily and with the freshest ingredients.

Luigi and Iside have been filling that need in this Urbino neighborhood for 40 years and have no plans to change professions.

“In life you need to have the singular will to do something,” explains Valentini. “Everyone is meant to do one job and you have to enjoy it, and I love this job.”

He begins each morning at 5:30 on their vast farm about 4.5 miles from the two-room store . While most of the city still sleeps, he loads his aging white Ford van with produce grown on their fields. By 7a.m. he’s opening the doors of Frutta E Veroura and Iside has arrived to open the cheese and meat counter for the first of what will be a steady flow of customers begins. 

Costumers from all walks of life come in and out of Valentini’s doors in a consistent, rhythmic flow. From young parents going in for a few hand picked veggies to cook with dinner to old friends just stopping in to say hello, each costumer is greeted with a smile and a warm “Buongiorno!” Luigi tries to make every customer feel valued and appreciated.

With new fruit and veggies coming in every day, chain stores can’t compete with the freshness of alimentaries.

The only break the couple gets on these busy days are during pausa, the traditional Italian three- to four-hour lunch break. Valentini and Iside head back to their lovely home to relax and eat, although Valentini also likes to use this time to maintain his farm. Once they are refreshed, it’s back to the store by 4 p.m. where work continues until 8 p.m.

Luigi and Iside have managed to keep their business strong even as large chains have moved inside the walls of this famed Renaissance city. Luigi believes the strong personal relationships with his customers and the other alimentary owners help them survive.

“In the past, there used to be around fifty shops” he explained. “When Conad (a major Italian chain) came into town, they asked shops to join them and become investors. Some joined and some did not. We were the stubborn ones!”

Stores like Conad carry a large selection of produce at a much cheaper price than an alimentary, so most of the students in this college town as well as many residents tend to opt for the savings and can be seen carrying Conad shopping bags.

Luigi takes pride in his relationships with his customers, making it one of the many reasons why he loves his job.

Alimentary owners have fought back by forming alliances.

Claudio Polidoro, owner of an alimentary in town, explained. “When I am out of a certain kind of food that a customer wants, I will send them to a different shop that I know will have it,” he said

Luigi and his wife remain confident in the future. Luigi makes it clear that in order to be successful in a business where competition always surrounds you, you must have qualities that make you unique.

“Competition is the ugly beast of commerce and you must fight against it!” Valentini says forcefully. “I have fresh fruits here. It’s not pretty but it is good quality. It is why I’m still here.” 

He also says maintaining positive relationships with his costumers have been essential to their success. “Some of our costumers have been shopping here for 38 years!,” he said. 

The alimentary lifestyle apparently appeals to some younger Italians as well. Just up the street from Luigi’s shop, Daniela Formica and her partner run La Verde Mela.

“We bought this shop from our neighbors because they have a child and didn’t have the time to keep up with the shop,” explained Daniela. “[Competition] doesn’t scare me because we keep our products fresh.”

Valentini Luigi says their chances for success are good – as long as they provide fresh products and love the life.

“If you like your job, you will overcome the difficulties,” he said. “It is your art.”

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URBINO, Italy – Overheard in the classical Piazza della Repubblica are hundreds of Italian conversations. One young woman is seen wearing a t-shirt that says “Be Happy. It Drives People Crazy.” A man has a Chicago Bulls flat brim cap on. A young teenager’s shirt says, “I’m not young enough to know everything.”

What is going on here?

To an American who might not understand a word they’re saying, the messages on their t-shirts are easy to understand.

Stefano Gamba is proud of the way his t-shirt shop keeps up with the latest Italian fads.

“Just take a look around and you’ll see most t-shirts worn here have prints related to the United States,” said one male Urbino resident in his mid-20s who is wearing a New York Yankees t-shirt, speaking through an interpreter.

Beatrice Rinaldi, a 20-year-old University of Urbino student studying foreign languages who works at Einstein Space, a boutique shop in a small village near Bologna, notices the growth in this trend.

“In the last three or four years, the number of shirts written in English has increased more and more,” says Rinaldi. “If you go into any shop that sells clothing, you’ll find a great percentage of shirts written in English or related to the American culture.”

Emporio Gamba, a local t-shirt shop, is helping to spread this Americanization. Stefano Gamba, the shop’s owner, buys new t-shirts every week. He keeps up with the latest fashion trends with help from his two daughters, ages 14 and 20, who give him a hand in choosing the shirts. Though all the shop’s t-shirts are made in Italy, Gamba said that 80-90 percent of the shirts are related to America.

“People come into the shop to buy a t-shirt written in English and ask me what it means,” he says through an interpreter. “I don’t know what it means.”

Rinaldi agrees. “The interesting aspect is that they’re not interested in what is written on them, they just like the print or style of the shirts,” she says.

In a country famous for its high-end Prada and Gucci couture, it is surprising to see Miami Heat basketball jerseys, I ‘heart’ NY tees, and “#selfie” tank tops in place of the leather bags, snakeskin heels, and fur jackets one might expect of Italian fashion.

Many Italian teenagers wear t-shirts expressing their dream to visit America and experience all it has to offer.

Other t-shirt messages seen around the piazza: “Never stop dreaming,” “Holy Chic,” “I am not Joe,” “Do more of what makes you happy,” “good vibes only.”

Enrica Rossi, an English and Language Methodology professor at the University of Urbino, says that the tension between Italy’s high fashion and American pop culture is especially strong in young Italians.

“On one side, is the Italian fashion,” she says. “From childhood on, everyone recognizes and attributes it to Italy. On the other, is this t-shirt culture of shirts related to America. Wearing these t-shirts is a way to break the idea of everything that has to do with the stereotypical Italian formal fashion.”

Talk to a lot of people on the cobblestone streets here, and you notice that many feel the English language is cool, even if they don’t speak it. Most wearing t-shirts with words choose a shirt written in English rather than Italian. They say English is funnier, cuter, more influential, and more elegant.

These qualities, in turn, correlate to an idea of American culture.
    
Just as Americans may fantasize over the Italian ways of life – the delicious food, the regional wine, and the gorgeous views – the reverse is true as well. “In a certain way, Italians are obsessed with the American culture and with the American lifestyle, two aspects that we can relate to the idea of the ‘American Dream’,” says Rinaldi.
    

Italians, especially Italian teens and young adults, often watch American TV shows, and get a certain idea of American culture – whether or not their ideas are true. And in fact, oftentimes they are not. “Our young people watch shows like Jersey Shore and think that a lot of culture has to do with people getting drunk and getting on drugs,” says Rossi.

This explains a lot. Emporio Gamba’s most popular shirt shows Marilyn Monroe decorated in tattoos. The combination of Monroe and tattoos is disconcerting, but to Italians, it is apparently a powerful grouping of American rebellion.
    
Historically, and still the case today, Italian people are strongly linked to their families. The bond between generations in families perpetuates traditions, rules and customs. This is not the case in America, and Italian teens apparently long for this implied liberation from their inheritance.
    
Italian students believe that Americans leave their homes at the age of 16 and sometimes never return. In a country that leads their children to thinking they will never have to care for themselves, this is a shocking idea, though pleasing to many.

“Italians, particularly teenagers, are absolutely fascinated with this world which they don’t know,” Rossi says, remembering the t-shirts she wore when she was young. “Wearing these t-shirts is making them feel more independent and connected to the American culture.”

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URBINO, Italy – Sunday mornings in Urbino, a historic town in central Italy’s Le Marche region, are typically very quiet.

Most of the locally owned shops and cafés that line the twisted cobblestone streets are dark. Only a few strollers walk through the Piazza Della Repubblica as church bells bounce off the blonde brick palazzos like they have since the Duke of Montefeltro made Urbino a center of Renaissance art and culture 700 years ago.

But this Sunday morning in early June, things were different. The usual quiet had been replaced by the buzzing of hundreds of two-wheeled motor scooters lining up just outside of Urbino’s Ducale Palace.

Vespas sit in the parking lot outside the Ducal Palace before the rally.

They were Vespas, the iconic Italian motor scooter whose owners had rolled in from all corners of the country, packing into the archway leading from the walled city.

“The Vespa for an Italian is like pizza and spaghetti,” explained one rider, Gabriele Cavalli . “Pizza, spaghetti and Vespa.”

This is a Vespa rally, a fairly typical scene in Italy. Just as a Harley Davidson motorcycle is one of many icons of life in the United States, Vespas are a cornerstone of the Italian culture.

Rallies like this have been common across Italy for decades. The two-day event started with an exposition featuring Vespas dating back to the early 1950s, giving visitors the chance to view the original iconic scooters. The second day offered a 43-kilometer ride through the Italian countryside, showing off the region to almost 400 different riders.

And by simply looking at the Urbino Vespa rally, one can easily tell that the scooters are still thriving today.

“It means that Vespa fans still exist,” said Riccardo Costagliola, the president of the Piaggio Foundation. “They are here, even youngsters like to have a Vespa, because it is a symbol of their heritage…It’s very important because they keep alive the culture.”

The very creation of the Vespa came from a need to keep Italian industry and culture alive.

The end of World War II was a devastating time for Italy, one that left many cities damaged or destroyed.

And with the industrial base largely gone, there was a need for an economical motorized vehicle: And the two wheeled Vespa arrived.

A boy sits on his Vespa waiting for the start of the ride.

“The Vespa was born in a very sad moment for Italy,” Palma said. “Italy gets out of the war in terrible condition: poor, devastated, in need of being totally rebuilt. But as often happens in history from the darkest moments come out great events.”

The Piaggio Company, which specialized in aircraft carriers before the war, now had to switch gears to survive. Seeing a need, Piaggio focused on what they called personal mobility in 1944. Engineers envisioned as a simple, inexpensive two-wheeled motorized scooter, similar to an American moped or small motorcycle of today.

By 1946, they unveiled the first Vespa – Italian for wasp. Just 44 inches tall and 70 inches long, the single-cylinder engine gave the first Vespa a maximum speed of 37 miles per hour. The product was perfect for a population with little money to spend in a nation without the industrial base to build larger or more complicated vehicles.

The Vespa was an instant hit, selling almost 20,000 vehicles in just two years. And once these scooters hit the market, the Italian people fell in love.

“If you look at one of the first models, it was already extremely elegant, modern,” Palma said. “With the time, it only evolved…The Vespa, in that time, represented the joy of life, a reason to start again with new solutions.”

Vespas today can cost close to $7,000 and can travel much faster – up to 80 miles per hour. But in the 70 years since the initial launch, the design of the Vespa has stayed basically the same, even as the technology improved. This, Costagliola says, is what makes the scooter special.

“The Vespa is a Vespa,” Costagliola said. “Years after years change everything [else], but a Vespa is still a Vespa. If you see a scooter driving on the street, ‘Oh it’s a Vespa. Which kind? I don’t know, but it’s a Vespa.’ There are very few vehicles in the world with this ability.”

But it’s not just new Vespas that are hitting the streets today. Old scooters, even some from the 1950’s and 1960’s, are still in very good condition. Palma said that is an indication of both their initial high quality, and how deeply people care about them.

“As back then, even today the Vespa represents an object of worship,” Palma said. “It’s not something you can destroy or let get ruined. Therefore all the people that have a Vespa, they fix it up because nowadays the Vespa represent our own culture, which is the culture that has its roots in the Renaissance.”

The Vespa has long been a passion shared by entire Italian families, too. Cavalli traveled all the way from San Marino with his early 1950’s vintage scooter for the rally that he said was handed down from his grandfather.

“The Vespa is something you hand down, it’s a culture,” he said. “Then there are people who buy it because they like it. I brought the original one [to the rally], a vintage one. Then there are people who customize. I prefer to keep as it was because it is related to the culture”

While the scooters initially thrived in the 20th century, Costagliola said that he believes the Italian people will continue to go back to their roots and refuse to let the Vespa die out.

And after watching hundreds of men, women and children, both young and old ride through central Italy on that Sunday morning in early June, it’s easy to see how that prediction could be true.

“I think when [there are] periods of turbulence and periods of uncertainty, people stop and watch back to their past values, and Vespa is one of them,” Costagliola said. “It’s a piece of the story of the family and of the country, so I think the culture will continue.”

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SCHIETE, Italy – “Maurizio Gambini, the mayor of Urbino, is surrounded by friends young and old in the Centro Socio Culturale waiting to kick off Palio dei Trampoli, the centuries-old traditional stilts race here. The banner above him reads “Arte in equilibrio” – art in equilibrium.

It’s a fitting theme for the life Gambini now finds himself living juggling responsibilities to a city, a family and a business.

More than 40 years after quitting school, Gambini is starting the second year as mayor of one of Italy’s most famous Renaissance cities. It has been a remarkable and improbable journey with stops along the way tending crops, selling farm equipment and becoming immersed in organic farming before entering politics. 

Maurizio Gambini was elected mayor last June.

“I want to be the link between politics and the industrial world,” he said.

Aside from making appearances at public events and festivals, the mayor of Urbino makes the time to tend to the interests of his citizens first-hand, whether it is in person seated around the thick, timeworn table in his Renaissance-era office, or over the phone.

“The messages keep coming in,” he said. “If you do not solve them immediately, in five minutes there will be another problem.”

This wasn’t the life Gambini seemed destined for as a teenager.

Born in Urbino in 1960, Gambini was raised on a nearby farm He was forced to quit school at 14 to help out in the fields. When Gambini was 19, his father passed away, leaving him and his brother as the heads of the family. At 20, he took on odd jobs around the city, working in a factory and cleaning the streets of Urbino. Through months of manual labor, Gambini never forgot his great love, and at 22 resumed his agrarian lifestyle.

Within a few years his business interests expanded beyond the farm. He and a brother began selling farm equipment becoming successful enough to begin purchasing more farm property.

Eventually he became the president of his own business, Consorzio Agricoltori Biologici TerraBio Società Cooperativa – an association of organic farms whose products are sold across Europe. He also oversees the rental and distribution of machinery to other local farms. In recent years, the cooperative has expanded to include a department specializing in renewable energy. 

Mayor Gambini shares office space with Michele Cancellieri, the Secretary General.

His political career began in 1999. Under pressure from his fellow farmers and businessmen, Gambini ran for city council so that the farmers and the laborers would have a voice in the government. 

For the first five years, Gambini said he was extremely frustrated with the state of political affairs in the region. It was for this reason that he dropped his affiliation with the Partito Democratico – the Democratic Party, or PD for short.

Instead he became president of his own “civic list”, a community-oriented alternative to the party system which allows more direct involvementby members in political activity. Chartered in 2009, Gambini intended his Liberi Per Cambiare – Freedom for Change – civic list to result in more direct contact with residents, he said. He hoped to gain the support of Urbino’s working class, which had propelled him to the city council.

“Politicians feel entitled to their constituents, like they own them when it is, in fact, the other way around,” he explained. “Elected officials owe a great deal of responsibility to the citizens that voted them into office. Politicians should work for their citizens, not for their own wellbeing.” 

In 2014, Gambini announced his candidacy for mayor of Urbino. The decision was the next step in the now-natural progression of Gambini’s political career. He ran independently against two other candidates, one from the PD and one from the Movimento Cinque Stelle – the Movement of the Five Stars, and won with a 57% majority.

The headlines of the regional edition of Il Resto del Carlino, a national newspaper, called it a “revolution.” Gambini had unseated the PD, who had been in power in Urbino since the second world war.

The change was indeed a revolution in local politics. One of his first acts was to eliminate the chauffeured cars financed by public funds. Instead, Gambini drives himself in a Volkswagen Touareg, a luxury SUV with an automatic transmission.

Since his upset in the election last summer, Gambini discovered that winning may have been the easy part. When he is not holding court in his office with the citizens and other community leaders of Urbino, he can be found rushing across the hilly region, cutting ribbons at kickoff events, speaking at receptions, or even simply observing the goings-on at a construction site. 

Despite being the most powerful man in the city, Gambini has not forgotten his roots — cleaning the streets of Urbino. Last year, he spearheaded an initiative to purge the streets of binge drinking by students and the mess that ensues.

“Alcohol was invading the city,” said Gambini. “The citizens were angry with the students.” This initiative resulted in the banning of open containers of alcohol in public spaces within the city. 

Somewhere in the balance between his two jobs, Gambini also makes time for his growing family. His daughter, Lucia, is only a year and a half old. Lucia and her mother often accompany the mayor to his many social events – sometimes as many as three in one evening.

And sometimes the job and personal life mesh easily.

After a recent at the office, Gambini droves to Schiete near his home and company headquarters –just in time to preside over the opening of the Trompoli while sitting under the banner “Arte in equilibrio.”

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Voices crowd the air of Urbino’s streets in the early morning, each carrying a greeting, a jest, or a warning. The city is alive and awake.

In the Palazzo Ducale square, 20 men and women look about with nervous excitement. On some unseen command, their vocal power joins the morning fracas. But their voices do not vie for attention against the others. Their voices cooperate with one another, working as one to become a river of clear and powerful song that sweeps all other sounds away in the flow.

Ride on King Jesus,
No man can hinder thee.

Ride on King Jesus,

No man can hinder thee.

The other voices and their owners stop as the singing resonates across the square and down every street. The effect is magical—Urbino frozen in time, with only the rhythm of the human metronome to count the passing seconds.

Just as quickly, the song reaches a crescendo, and fades to silence. For a brief moment, the square is completely quiet. Then someone claps, the crowd follows suit, and the people return to life. The people singing by the Palazzo Ducale are a mix of students, teachers, and residents of Le Marche who are all part of the Coro 1506 Dell’Università Degli Studi di Urbino—the 1506 University of Urbino Choir. For them, music is a force that draws people together.

University of Urbino choir member Elisa Baggiarini sings out her name during an end-of-season party.

The choir began in 2001, after a few of the University’s teachers decided that their campus needed a singing group. Over the years, the choir has evolved as students and teachers have come and gone. Through it all, the choir has been first and foremost about making friends and enjoying the beauty of one’s voice; experience is neither considered nor required when joining, and the vocal instruction is applied with a light touch. Choir director Augusta Sammarini says the choir welcomes anyone who wants to sing, even if they have little time to practice.

Says member Elisa Baggiarini, “In this choir we grow together, we enjoy being together, we learn how to listen to each other, to love each other and to grow with music thanks to our wonderful teacher. She made me discover the beauty of singing in a group.”

Other members echo Baggiarini’s sentiments. Guido Dalliolio says, “At first, when Augusta started recruiting people for the choir, I couldn’t attend the rehearsals. I work in Urbino but I live in Ferrara. So I asked Augusta to move the rehearsal day. After that I couldn’t back away, even if I wanted to. I stayed because music creates a bond between people. Singing together is beautiful, I’m happy to be here, and I think I won’t ever leave this group.”

The University of Urbino choir is not alone in their commitment to one another and the power of the human voice. The event near the Palazzo Ducale was part of a program called UNInCanto, which was developed by Urbino choir director Sammarini and brought three other Italian university choirs to Urbino to share their music with one another and with the community. The program is in its second year, and considering the success it has been amongst the choir members thus far, it looks to be the start of a new tradition that will continue long after the current members depart.

“The purpose of UNInCanto was to let university choirs around Italy create a network to share cultural knowledge, to meet and share their experiences. …I think it worked very well,” says Maria Assunta, a founding member of the Urbino choir and a teacher at the University.

Sharing knowledge means more for these choirs than just meeting one another and singing. While the planning and direction took months of time and effort from professors, graphic designers, and the choir directors, the program itself lasted three days and involved lectures and debates on the theme of singing in chorus by professors from all four universities and from scientific, technological, psychological and historical standpoints.

Assunta says, “It’s important for students to get involved [in UNInCanto] because it teaches them how to grow as people from a cultural perspective. …We are important as individuals, but we also have to relate to society as part of a whole.”

This year the lectures took place during the first two days, but the third day was the heart of the program. The enchanting scene in front of the Palazzo Ducale was repeated all across Urbino as the four choirs traveled separately throughout the city and performed for the unsuspecting townsfolk.

Their music styles are as varied as the individuals in the choirs themselves. For example, the University of Urbino choir likes American gospel and rock’n’roll, in contrast to the Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria—the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria. According to Lucia Vartolo, a member of that university’s student press, their choir prefers songs ranging from classical polyphony like Lauridsen and Bruckner to film tracks like The Mission and popular Italian classics such as Calabrisella.

At 5:30, the four choirs met at the Church of San Domenico, next door to the Palazzo Ducale. They each gave a final performance, spent the rest of the evening chatting and enjoying one another’s company, and exchanged gifts in the hopes that the program will one day become a national event spanning all Italian universities.

For the University of Urbino choir, however, there was still one song left to be sung. A week later, on the 9th of June, they held a party to celebrate the end of the school year and another successful conclusion to the UNInCanto series. The event lasted well into the night, with choir members shouting out their favorite songs and the entire choir singing each composition as it was suggested.

The most requested song by far was Ride On, King Jesus.

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

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“Attenti ai cani”—beware of the dogs—reads a sign on the narrow dirt road that leads to Varea le Coste, a bed-and-breakfast two kilometers outside Urbino, Italy. My companion and I can hear dogs, many of them, barking in the distance. A little fearfully, we drive up to the two-story brick house, on acres of green grass, where owner Vittorio Scalbi awaits us. He smiles brightly, takes off his hat—which reads “Trainer, Top Breeder”—and holds out his hand to introduce himself, saying “Come meet the dogs.”

We walk down a hill behind the bed-and-breakfast. The barking is louder, and a kennel comes into view. Then Scalbi opens the kennel gate, and it becomes clear there is nothing to beware. These dogs are his best friends. A dozen animals jump up and down, each hoping to be chosen. Ringo, a black-and-white pointer, runs out of the gate and, with joy in his eyes, leaps on Scalbi to deliver a wet kiss.

Like others in these parts, Scalbi is a truffle-dog trainer. He teaches dogs to find and retrieve the elusive mushroom used in Marche cuisine. But unlike other trainers, he doesn’t sell his dogs. Instead, he keeps them for life, falling in love with each and every one.

Luna, a Branco-Pointer mix, retrieves a truffle from the nearby woods. Luna is currently being trained by owner, Vittorio Scalbi.

The Marche region is known for a precious delicacy: truffles. The area around Acqualagna, a town 18 kilometers south of Urbino, produces the second largest quantity of truffles in Italy, after the region near Alba, in the northwestern part of the country.

“Truffles are special in this region because they are so rare elsewhere,” says Monia Constantini, owner of Tartufi Antiche Bontà, a store in Urbino that sells truffles and other Marche specialties and provides tastings. She explains that a truffle is a fungus that grows under the soil, drawing food from the roots of other plants. There are two kinds of truffles, white and black. Black truffles are in season from January to August, and are less rare than white truffles, making them less expensive. On average, black truffles cost 250 euro per kilogram. White truffles are in season from October to December, and their price each year depends on the weather. If it rains more in the summer, more white truffles will grow, dropping the price. In the Marche, says Constantini, these fungi are added to pasta sauce or soup, melted into gnocchi, or topped on an omelet or beef, adding a pungent, earthy flavor with a hint of garlic and mushroom.

Finding this delicacy is not an easy job, however. Pigs and dogs, known for their exceptional sense of smell, are often trained to hunt for truffles in Italy. In the United States, however, only about 15 percent of truffles are found with dogs, says Alana McGee, founder of the Truffle Dog Company located in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. More often, says McGee, American hunters rake up truffles while they are still immature and not fully aromatic. Hunters in the Marche work strictly with dogs, says Constantini, who buys the truffles for her store directly from hunters in the area. These dogs could be sold for up to $10,000 in the United States, according to McGee.

Growing up in the countryside around Urbino, Scalbi began training dogs to hunt game, such as small birds. When he was a teenager, he hunted animals with friends, which then turned into hunting truffles as well. Training a dog to hunt animals comes first, Scalbi explains, followed by training it to hunt truffles.

Many dog trainers, Scalbi says, do not feed their dogs prior to a truffle hunt. This will make them hungry enough to want to find the truffle, knowing they will receive food when the fungus is retrieved. Scalbi does not believe in this type of training. He starts training dogs at 8 months, feeding them meat mixed with dog food from the beginning. He then spreads the meat mixture onto a truffle and hides the truffle under the soil next to his home, down the road from his bed-and-breakfast. In the beginning, many dogs eat the truffle instead of returning with it. However, Scalbi trains each dog to return with the fungi by rewarding the dogs with a treat for their accomplishments. The treat is a type of meat the dog is not usually fed, but something better, such as salami. The dog will slowly begin to associate the smell of meat with the smell of a truffle, in order to find the fungi in the woods. Scalbi helps the dogs in training locate the truffles by pointing them in the right direction. They are fully trained when they can finally retrieve a truffle on their own. However, he continues to train them throughout their lives, and occasionally still treats them to hunting animals for fun.
 
By training one hour each day, a dog can be ready to hunt truffles in only 15 days, says Scalbi. Any dog can hunt for truffles, he says. In fact, McGee, the American trainer, has even taught a Chihuahua and a Yorkie to find the fungi. However, Scalbi prefers hound dogs, because of their keen sense of smell and ability to hunt small animals. But the best hunting dogs aren’t always the best truffle hunters. “The better a dog is at hunting animals, the longer it will take me to train,” Scalbi says. “Good hunting dogs get more distracted in the field, as they look for animals instead of truffles.”

After training the dogs to detect truffles on their own, Scalbi heads to the woods near Urbino to hunt for real truffles. Because of the pricey cost of truffles, most hunters sell their findings. Vittorio Scalbi does not. He is not in it for the money; it is simply fun and relaxing for him, he explains. He gives his findings as gifts to family and friends instead.

Vittorio Scalbi gives Luna a warm congratulations, for finding a truffle in the woods on her own.

Each month, Scalbi meets fellow dog trainers at a nearby park. The trainers hold a competition to see whose dog will retrieve hidden truffles the fastest. Scalbi has won this competition multiple times, even at a national level in 2011. “There is often a prize, such as a trophy or a ham. But I don’t do it for the prize, I do it for the love of the game,” he says, nevertheless proudly pointing to the dozens of trophies that line the walls of his home. After all this time, truffle hunting is still a hobby, and a way for Scalbi to connect with his best friends, his dogs.

Back outside the kennel, Ringo sprints up the hill, excited to find the truffles Scalbi has hidden, knowing he will earn a treat. Scalbi follows his companion. They arrive at a small field, where multiple truffles are hidden under the soil around trees. The black-and-white spotted hunter sniffs through the grass, digging up nothing but dirt this time around. Scalbi yells, “Vai, vai, vai!”—“Go, go, go!”—and points Ringo in the direction of the truffles, giving him encouragement. Ringo finally detects the prize, digs it up, and grasps the black truffle between his teeth. He turns back around to spot his owner, who is holding a piece of salami in the air. Ringo jumps on Scalbi to reach the salami, trading the fungus for the treat. Truffle by truffle, Ringo impresses his owner, earning his favorite meat. Scalbi watches as Ringo continues to sniff through the field, bringing back truffles with ease. Each time his dog returns with a truffle, Scalbi leans down to pet him, receiving more wet kisses.

The two work as a team, like old friends finding truffles together. Scalbi gives directions while Ringo listens, and follows. “If you are not friends, you cannot work together,” Scalbi says. The relationship the two have formed has made hunting truffles easy. “You cannot have an enemy that works with you,” says Scalbi, describing his friendship with Ringo and the dozens of other dogs he has worked with. He has never had a favorite dog, because picking one would be too hard. He says, “Dogs are like people, some are more friendly than others,” but one is never better than another, in his mind.

Later, as we drive out the dirt road, I turn around in my seat to look back at Scalbi who waves goodbye with his best friend, Ringo, by his side. “Attenti ai cani” was nothing more than a joke, because there was nothing to beware.

Slideshow

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

The post Man’s Best Friend, in Training appeared first on Urbino Project 2015.

URBINO, Italy - Hanging above the main steps of the Piazza della Repubblica, a bright electronic sign shows a bottle with a red circle and slash through it followed by this warning to the nighttime crowd:

Di uso sostanze alcoliche e super alcoliche su suolo pubblico! 

The message to all Italians is clear: Drinking alcoholic beverages on public streets is prohibited – the result of a law passed last October.

Yet directly below the sign Stefano Marchi, 22, and his friends are sipping from beer bottles.

“The square is a meeting point for students and now we can’t stay,” says Marchi, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other.

Workers of Marche Multiservizi clean the streets of Urbino by disposing filled trash bins before the town awakens.

After decades of casual drinking and socializing in the square, students have lost their favorite place to unwind due to the new drinking law. Yet less than a year later town officials have come to agree with the students – they need a place to call their own, and a search has begun. 

“The main problem is that I know this city is not well equipped for huge groups,” said Mayor Maurizio Gambini, who has promised to find the students a new location.

The change in the nightlife scene since the new law went into effect has been dramatic.

Thursday nights in the main square had been the place to be for students at the University of Urbino. They would purchase beer and wine from the nearby supermarket then drink and socialize until the early hours of Friday. But when they staggered home their feet shuffled through piles of garbage the city would have to clean up.

That left the historic square surrounded by Renaissance structures in no condition to receive the next day’s tourists. Broken glass covered the ground, beer cans floated in the central fountain, litter lined the street corners and the odor of urine drifted over the cobblestone streets.

Last fall residents of the town had enough, some even threatening to “abandon the town” if the newly elected Gambini didn’t solve the problem.

The law forbids holding or carrying alcohol on public property from 8:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. However, drinks can be within three meters of any licensed bar. Violators face a €100 fine, but city officials said only 30 tickets have been issued. 

Gambini says one of the factors in his decision to meet that demand was a concern about students’ safety.

“I had a meeting with a doctor who saw many people who were on the verge of collapsing after excessive drinking,” he says.

“Some years ago a man died because someone killed him with a broken bottle and it was awful.”

Since the mayor’s decision, residents are generally happy with the impacts of the law.

Marchi and Ilaria Celentano, 22, see many visual improvements to the cleanliness of the town but they believe the law must level with the students until a new social space is approved.

They look at one another as they sit in the square and agree that putting a few garbage bins in the piazza doesn’t hurt but it won’t look too great. They have yet to set their heart on a fair idea but all they want is a balance, almost a friendly comprise with the law.

While most university students are home for the weekend, younger students spend their night in the piazza taking a moment to read the alcohol sign.

Resident Andrea Kleinpoppoen, 27, a friend of Marchi says the students may not support the law but he is relieved that the law has come into practice now that he is a father. As Kleinpoppoen sits at a local restaurant with Marchi and friends in the piazza, he looks around nodding his head and says, “the town is cleaner but this space was number one for the students.”

Yet others are sensitive to the students’ complaints.

Pietro Dachille, 49, owner of the restaurant Deliziose Follie says while the litter and rowdiness associated with the public drinking had gotten out of hand, he has also noticed his business has suffered from the ban. 

“Too much freedom is bad because people have showed that they can’t behave well when they have no rules to regulate their behavior,” says Dachille. “But strict rules are also bad because you can’t do anything with them,” he adds. 

And some students are not happy.

Celentano says Urbino was once a happening place for students in and out of the town. “Other students and people our age heard about Thursday’s meeting spot. Students and headlines of papers said Urbino was a relevant place to meet, so people from Chisena, Pesaro and closer towns would come, make a mess and entertained themselves because they heard it was a good time.”

Now, students like Marchi and Celentano, say the law is also an economic hardship on their social life because a bottle of beer at the supermarket sells for as little as € 0.99 compared to €3 at most bars.

Celentano says most students would spend four nights in the piazza to spend time with friends, but now many students prefer to stay in the town twice a week because they don’t want to spend money.

But the mayor says students won’t suffer much longer.

He is working with students and the university on the challenge and the town is open to suggestions.

One possibility is ‘La Data’ – an open space that overlooks the Piazza del Mercatale just outside the city’s historic wall where students can relax and spend time with friends.

While no official decisions have been made, it seems the students’ voices have been heard. They may never regain Piazza della Repubblica as party central but they will have a place eventually.

Slideshow

See the video “The Other Olive Oil Crisis” produced by Alysia Burdi & Christina Botticchio.

The post Looking for a New Place appeared first on Urbino Project 2015.