FANO, Italy – At 3:30 on a Wednesday morning, the smell of freshly-caught fish permeates a small amphitheater near the docks of an ancient fishing port. As the owners of local restaurants and markets gather here for the weekly fresh fish auction, a conveyor belt begins rolling plastic bins of cuttlefish, cod, goatfish, crab, calamari, and many other species into the room for inspection and bidding.

But something isn’t quite right with this picture.

The 140 seats in the bleachers are filled to only a quarter capacity. An auction that once lasted a few hours is completed in just 30 minutes.

“In 20 years when [we] retire, the next generation won’t be replacing us because it’s not a job that people aim for anymore,” said fisherman Massimo Perugini. “The industry will slowly disappear because it’s no longer a tradition as it used to be.”

This tradition, which historians say extends 42,000 years, appears to have an impending expiration date—-and the clock is ticking.

A combination of collapsing fishing stocks, a degrading environment, fewer fishermen, and a new generation uninterested in the hard work and sacrifices of this profession, may be leading to the end of this way of life.

“It used to be generational, a tradition that was passed on, but now it’s not anymore,” explains Daniele Isotti, a fisherman of 40 years. “Fisherman used to have more boats, like 17, and now they only have 5, so it’s a smaller industry now.”

Harvesting fish from the Adriatic Sea has been an important part of life along Italy’s eastern coastline since long before the time of Christ. Archeological records from civilizations such as the Terremare culture, which began in 1450 BC, show signs of fishing. And an ancient harbor belonging to the Illyrians in 900 BC has been discovered and identified as an ancient trading post.

More well-known civilizations, like the Greeks and Romans, also relied on fishing in the Adriatic. All segments of those societies relied on fish. The poor could only afford small fish like anchovies and septs, while the wealthy ate tuna, bass, and red mullet.

Fishing and seafood continue to be integral parts of Italy’s cuisine and economy, but records show that could be ending. Italian fish production doubled from 1960-2000 but has been suffering from a severe decline since early in the 21st century.

In the past 50 years alone, research shows the Adriatic Sea has lost half of its marine mammals and fish populations.

Perugini and other fishermen believe they are contributing to the problem. Fisherman don’t always follow the protective government regulations on size and species of legal fish, he said. Instead, they catch and sell young fish before they have time to reproduce the fish stocks, leading to a lack of replenishment. He believes many fishermen ignore these rules and sell the illegal fish under the radar: “This stuff [illegal fishing] happens everywhere in Italy…it happens all the time, but it is illegal.”

Research shows global warming is also harming Adriatic fish populations. As sea temperatures increase, the waters become uninhabitable for the fish. This is predicted to be a global problem that will only increase as temperatures continue to rise. There has already been a 4.1% global decrease in fish species and shellfish.

Adriatic fisherman, like Perugini, have also noticed that new species of fish such as the dusky spinefoot, have appeared and are predators to the native ones, “destroying and contributing to the decline in local fish.”

The lack of fish in turn leads to declining jobs within the industry, causing members of traditional fishing families to look elsewhere for occupations and income. Research shows Italian fishing employment dropped every year since 2000.

“The cost of the fish is higher, and the quality is lower, but it used to be the other way around.”

Fishermen have noticed the decline has affected the quality of fish as well as the quantity.

“…The cost of the fish is higher, and the quality is lower, but it used to be the other way around,” said Perugini. He also believes that this increase in cost has spread to equipment and maintenance, not just in the fish.

Due to these financial factors, most Italian fisherman nowadays don’t do it for the money, but for the passion.

Unfortunately, they say, their passion is absent in most of today’s generation.

“It’s a tough job made of sacrifices that aren’t appreciated by newer generations,” Perugini said. “When the weather is good I work 24/7, so I don’t get days off. . . You have to be passionate and love what you do, then see what you get out of it.”

Although there are many factors threatening this tradition, many organizations, public and private, are joining together to continue it. The government has made laws to protect endangered and young fish, restaurants are beginning to place importance on the freshness and quality of fish rather than the quantity, and fisherman are moving to eco-friendly techniques.

Isotti agrees that fishermen have an important role in this effort.

“Of course it is the responsibility of us fisherman [to fish eco-friendly], if I only fish the regulated kind, then everything will work better. The restaurants will be better, and the smaller fish will have time to reproduce and get bigger.”

Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students Luca Cocozza and Francesca Massari.

Video by Olivia White & Katherine Inman

The post Fishing for a Future appeared first on 2019 Urbino Project.

Halfway down Via Giuseppe Mazzini sits the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola, a small, unassuming church lost within the multitude of bright doorways. The church holds more than four hundred years’ worth of Urbino’s history, and is home to the Confraternita del Corpus Domini.

The church’s main hall, though small, is full of religious treasures. Low wooden pews line either side of the room, drawing the eye to an altar framed by a hanging censer on each side. Stretching across the entire ceiling are oval frescoes, the figure of San Francesco di Paola only just visible through the dust and faded paint. Each side wall contains three niches for statues, which stretch almost to the ceiling. The statues are of bishops and saints, colored to resemble stone, with halos and staves painted an antique gold. The center statue on the right is entirely obscured by scaffolding, displacing the symmetry of the church interior.

In the humble adjoining office, Giuseppe Cucco, the head, or prior, of the confraternity, sits and sifts through the church archives. The shelves behind him hold boxes upon boxes of scrolls, parchments, and old leather-bound tomes, some of which date back to the 1200s. He flips through them slowly, carefully, running fingers over the looping script and ink blotches, digesting everything, however trivial. Sometimes, he stops and crinkles his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. It can take Cucco up to thirty minutes to decipher a single word, but he always forges on.

“If we’re able to let them view it for as long as possible, why close the church?” says Matteo Bacchiocca.

“When I started researching these records, my curiosity made me dig deeper every single time,” says Cucco. “At one point, I had so much information that I said, ‘Let’s write a book, so that everybody will know what I know.’”

In total, the prior spent upwards of a year gathering data from the archives and poring through old documents to chronicle the history of the confraternity and the church. The research began as a necessity to bring about the restoration of the church and the statues, frescoes, and artwork within it, but what began as an obligation soon became a labor of love and personal interest.

The book, titled La Confraternita del Corpus Domini di Urbino: Scrigno di arte storia e umanita, or “The Confraternity of Corpus Domini of Urbino: a trove of art, history and humanities,” details Cucco’s findings in the church archives, including the history of the construction of the church, restorations and maintenance, and the artwork associated with the building.

The book also chronicles the history of the confraternity, founded in 1340 and once a well-known brotherhood with members such as artist Raffaello and his father, Giovanni Santi. The confraternity was funded by wealthy patrons, and used this money to pay the dowries of poor girls so that they could get married. Today, donations largely benefit those affected by economic hardship, including students who have trouble paying for an education. Although the confraternity plays a smaller role in today’s society, they hold mass weekly on Wednesday nights.

The Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola was ceded to the confraternity in 1708, when their old headquarters in the nearby piazza was demolished to make way for the Collegio Raffaello. Since then, generations of priors have made changes to the church interior by repainting the statues and architectural elements, either to fit the aesthetic sensibilities of the time, or to save the walls of the church from the humid Urbino climate.

Cucco, however, intends to break with this tradition. He has employed restorers to return all six statues in the church to their original condition, by peeling off the layers of paint to uncover the past.

—

It is 10 a.m. at the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola, and restoration of a statue is under way. The pews are arranged haphazardly, with one set directly in the middle of the floor to create a barrier. Behind this barrier, Isidoro and Matteo Bacchiocca, a father-son art restorer duo, have set up shop atop the two-story metal scaffolding. The structure is draped in white plastic, shrouding the statue of San Filippo Neri, the last of six to be restored.

Isidoro, the father, uses a scalpel to chip relentlessly at the paint, which can be five or six layers thick. He is white-haired, bearded, and bespectacled, and wears a long white lab coat. His son, Matteo, is dressed more casually, his brown hair and beard contrasting with his father’s features. He takes a cotton swab soaked in solvent, and carefully swipes it along the curve of a decorative border to reveal a flash of gold from underneath. It’s quiet, focused work, disturbed only by the scratch of scalpels and faint rustling of paint chips falling to the floor below.

Removing the old paint may be a tedious process, but it certainly doesn’t compare to trying to fix previous restorers’ efforts.

“The most difficult part is getting rid of the previous parts that were badly done,” explains Matteo. “When the other restorers used materials that weren’t right for the job to create new parts of the statue, we have to get rid of them and create a new part that looks good with the whole.”

He motions towards the restored statue on the left, which depicts San Crescentino, the patron saint of Urbino, squashing a morose-looking dragon underfoot.

“For example, the tail of the dragon isn’t entirely original; there are some parts that were made with chalk, and we had to create continuity by fixing some sections,” says Matteo.

The humid Urbino weather also affects how the statues have aged. Isidoro points out the condensation forming on the floor of the church, just inside the inner door. Apparently, the situation used to be even worse. Water used to flow beneath the church’s foundation, and had to be drained to create a suitable environment for the old statues and artwork.

The statues depict local religious figures such as Beato Mainardi di Urbino, a famous 11th century abbot. Each of the six is constructed with an iron core that is covered in plaster, and then painted to look like terracotta or marble. The moisture in the church has warped and rusted the cores, as in the case of San Crescentino’s dragon’s tail, and cracked the outer layer of plaster. Cucco is entirely familiar with this phenomenon; in fact, he keeps the fragments of rusted cores in a plastic cup in the back room of the church.

At night, pedestrians can step up to the glass pane and see the artwork and frescoes of the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola, as well as the scaffolding hiding the last statue to be restored.

Luckily for the Bacchioccas, their current project appears less work-intensive. The statue of San Filippo Neri primarily requires the removal of layers of accumulated paint. Matteo points out the segments that have been restored.

“On this side [of the statue], you can feel the flavor of the original, and you can see all the little scratches,” he says. “It feels antique. On the other side, you can see all the new paint.”

Matteo laughs, gesturing at the contrasting textures. “In short, this,” he points at the unrestored part, “is ugly.” He delicately brushes some plaster dust off a freshly cleaned scroll on the statue, and taps it with the tool. “And this is beautiful.”

According to Isidoro, the church represents the only example of its style in Urbino. After having been rebuilt in the 1600s atop the ruins of an older church, it has largely retained the aesthetics of its time. While other buildings like the nearby Oratorio di Santa Croce were built during the same period, they have undergone changes since.

However, the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola has some commonalities with another building in Urbino. Four of the statues in the church were created by artist Marcello Sparti, who was also responsible for creating some of the statues inside the city’s cathedral. These statues are the only example of Sparti’s work in Urbino, as he worked mainly in Genoa and Siena.

The Bacchioccas have been restoring the statues in the church since 2017, but the end is not in sight. They estimate that will take at least four more years to strip layers of paint from the gilded balcony, polish the frescoes on the ceiling, and restore the front of the church.

“When someone comes in in the future–after the restoration—the atmosphere will be important,” says Matteo. “The tourists that come into this church should experience the same feelings that believers in the past would, when entering for the first time.”

Cucco agrees with the restorers, noting that his personal approach is quite different to those of priors past.

“I just want to restore [the church] to how it was at the beginning,” he says.

He gestures at the statue of San Filippo Neri, where a cherub rests on the saint’s foot, carrying an open book. Cucco highlights a corner of the page where Isidoro and Matteo have done tests to show the difference in color of the original (demarcated neatly with a dotted line) and the paint on top.

“Beati qui ambulant in lege domini–blessed are those who walk in the law of the Lord,” reads Cucco, in halting Latin.

The phrase is written over the new coats of paint, which still partially obscure the book. Different letters, however, emerge from the corner that the Bacchioccas have marked. It’s enough to confirm that the two inscriptions are different, but not enough to ascertain what the original means.

For all his digging, even Cucco can’t crack the mystery of the hidden phrase.

“I’m curious too,” he admits with a smile.

Although five statues have already been restored, many such mysteries remain within the church. The balcony above the door is gray, but streaked with two bright flashes of gold, where Isidoro and Matteo have done tests to strip away the new paint. The frescoes on the ceiling are dusty and faded with age. Only time–and the Bacchioccas’ efforts–will reveal all.

—

The interior of the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola lies behind two doors, the first of which is solid wood. The second door, however, is glass, which allows tourists to peek in and those within to see the street outside. From his perch on the scaffolding, Matteo spies an important teaching opportunity on the street outside. There’s a crowd of young children led by two teachers who are passing by, and the restorer hurries to unlock the door and usher them inside the church, his movements animated and eyes flashing with excitement.

Onlookers line the stairs of the ducal palace, cheering and raining handfuls of confetti down on the group. As they near the main plaza, there is applause and a crescendo of chatter. It appears that the entire city of Urbino has turned up to celebrate.

The children cluster around Matteo, staring in quiet awe at the small space that seems gigantic to them. The teachers lurk near the back of the church, ceding their responsibility momentarily to the restorer as he tells the group about the history of the church and the nature of his profession. Already, some of them are growing restless.

“How much do you earn?”

One of the boys in the group grins cheekily up at Matteo, and there is a smattering of laughter. The restorer smoothly avoids the question, ending his brief lecture to let the fidgety children resume their day.

For Matteo, it’s important for the younger generation to familiarize themselves with history and art by entering his place of work whenever possible.

“After all,” he says, “this is an important piece of history. If it’s supposed to be available to the world and humanity, you shouldn’t deprive them of being able to come and take a look. If we’re able to let them view it for as long as possible, why close the church?”

This is a subtle jab at the local tourist attraction, the Duomo di Urbino. The famous cathedral has been closed to visitors while it is being rebuilt after the earthquake that hit Urbino in August of 2016.

That’s why Cucco has installed a motion-activated light above the inner door that comes on at night. The decision was made by the confraternity a year ago, some time after the restorers first began their quest to restore the church.

—

Mass is held at the little church on Wednesday nights, beginning at 7:15 on the dot. Inside, the right side of the pews is blocked off by the scaffolding around San Filippo Neri. People are sitting slumped in pews and plastic chairs on the left side of the room. Silence permeates the small space. A bird trills hesitantly from outside, before the congregation chimes in.

They take turns reading from a prayer book. A girl in a red puffer jacket takes the pulpit, her voice high and tremulous. However, as she reads, her tone becomes steadier. When she pauses at a break, the congregation’s voices swell around her in song, a chorus with various timbres of the old and young, male and female: Hallelujah!

The girl in red is Lucia Marchetti, an education student at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo. In a congregation dominated by older members, she stands out. According to Marchetti, much of Italy’s youth are not religious, since bible study classes are boring and not relatable to the younger generation. She found her way to religion, however, through community. Marchetti attends mass daily, either here in Urbino, or in her hometown of Rimini, but most of the time with friends.

Domenico Campogiani is also at mass that Wednesday night, and belongs to the older crowd. Even though he wasn’t born in Urbino, he’s lived in the city since 1972 and considers it his hometown. Like Marchetti, he’s built a community around his religion, going to mass twice a week and meeting with like-minded friends monthly to share the latest happenings.

“For me, being Catholic means following our Signore–our Lord,” he says. “It means living in a community with other persons of our religion, and if possible, to be a good husband, a good father, a good colleague at work, and so on.”

When he talks about his four children, Campogiani seems reluctant to describe them as purely religious in the traditional way, instead highlighting the importance of a community of believers.

“Young people [today] can be religious, and be Catholic, if they meet other people who are happy to share in the experience with them,” he explains.

—

June 1. It’s the day of the feast of San Crescentino, the patron saint of Urbino. Afternoon sunlight filters in between the buildings, illuminating the Chiesa di San Domenico and the crowds in the square outside the Palazzo Ducale. The babble of the crowd is cut with strains of hymns emanating from inside the church. At length, people begin streaming out. Two men bearing a banner of Urbino’s flag lead the parade, followed by a crowd of children, and then various organizations and brotherhoods in their religious vestments, and finally, four men carrying a painted statue of San Crescentino. The Confraternita del Corpus Domini is among them, and Cucco appears amidst the brotherhood as they begin to walk. Wearing the red, white, and gold robes of his order and a stern expression, he cuts a completely different figure from the smiling, casually attired prior at the church.

The procession winds its way down a serpentine, scenic path at the edge of the city’s walls, passing under arches and the shade of trees. Somewhere in the throng, a marching band plays a solemn tune as accompaniment to a disembodied, melancholy voice that echoes through portable speakers.

Curious onlookers line the stairs of the ducal palace, cheering and raining handfuls of confetti down on the group as they pass by. As they near the main piazza, there is applause and a crescendo of chatter. It appears that the entire city of Urbino, religious or not, has turned up to celebrate.

The procession stops in the square, where the crowd has parted around the sunniest spot. A small group including the Bishop of Urbino breaks out of line, and the crowd around him quiets. From within the folds of his voluminous robes, the bishop retrieves a golden object, and it is hard to make out what it is until he raises it high above his head. He turns this way and that, blessing the gathered masses with San Crescentino’s relic.

The crowd erupts into cheers and applause, and soon, the procession resumes its course out of the square and back to the church. The crowd begins to disperse. The main event is over, the blessing complete for another year.

“The procession consists of taking the statue of the saint through the streets where people live,” Cucco explains. “It means asking for the protection of the saint in everyday life. For me, it’s also a demonstration of my faith to everyone.”

Tonight, the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola stands empty. But someone in the crowd may meander down Via Giuseppe Mazzini and wander past the outer doors of the church to peek in through the glass pane. If it’s dark outside, a light will flicker on, and allow them approach the deep layers of history embedded within the church.

This article, by Meaghan T’ao, won a Raffie Award for Best Magazine Text Story. Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students and graduates Liliana Cogliandro, Giulia Mazzoni, Bianca Sartini, Silvia Malagoli. This article also appears in Urbino Now magazine’s Arte e Cultura section. You can read all the magazine articles in print by ordering a copy from MagCloud.

The post Uncovering the Past appeared first on 2019 Urbino Project.

At the piercing sound of the six o’clock bells, 7-year-old Luciano Bussu smiled knowingly–it was time.

He walked deliberately through the long hallway to the back of his parents’ country-style home. There he entered the cheese kitchen, a room with reddish-brown brick walls that were nearly a foot wide and void of decorations or family photos. The spring heat trapped in the room clung to his olive-colored skin, causing small beads of sweat.

Luciano carried cheese molds and a container of sheep milk to a steel table at the center of the earthen floor where a tall steel pot sat on a burner. Pride washed over him: For the first time on his own, he was going to make Sardinian cheese and ricotta, two of the cheeses his parents had been producing and supplying to local shops since 1941.

His parents had left for the evening and had told him, joking, that if they didn’t return by 6 p.m. he’d be in charge of making the cheese. Little Luciano had taken them literally.

The steel pot that would hold the sheep milk towered over his small stature, preventing him from seeing over the top. But with a wooden stool, his small hands, patience, and the recollection of many hours spent watching his parents work, he refused to let the size of the task or the pot intimidate him. With focused eyes and calculated movements, the young boy successfully poured and cooked the milk, formed the wheel of cheese, and made the fresh ricotta.

His parents, on their return, were astounded.

Bussu’s confidence and willingness to stand tall in the face of challenges followed him into adulthood. Now 55, Bussu is the owner of Casa del Formaggio di Bussu, a milestone on Via Mazzini that for 31 years has weathered economic storms and changing tastes to remain a stalwart source of cheese and other Marche products for its loyal customers. Bussu’s focus on relationships, both with his family and clients, keeps his shop alive and bustling with activity. And through his devotion to high-quality local suppliers, Bussu has not only strung together a community of people but continues to preserve a myriad of Italian family traditions.

“I was born in cheese,” Bussu says, shifting aside cream-colored beaded curtains to unlock an aged wooden door. It’s now morning and Bussu is opening his shop for the day. He pulls out a crate overflowing with bright red strawberries and a box with golden peaches propped inside, placing them on the sidewalk beside the front door.

“I started making cheese when I was very little, so I grew up doing it,” he says as he props a scarlet red stand with a list of featured products by the window. In the wood-framed window, as always, he has displayed honey, truffle sauce, and wine. “It came very naturally to me to open this place just to sell the products that we had been making our whole life.”

Now finished with setting up, he walks through the front door shaded by two beige awnings. The brown, slightly faded words “Casa del Formaggio Di Bussu” stretch across the awnings, welcoming clients into the quaint shop.

Bussu and his family, originally from Sardinia, moved to Urbino in 1965 for a job offer. Once in the small town, they conformed to local tastes to satisfy their clients. Instead of aged Sardinian cheeses, they made younger, fresher casciotta d’Urbino and pecorino. From the leftover whey, they made ricotta, which was also used as a cake ingredient. They relied on their hands as tools. And for better quality products, their cheese was produced from sheep that were only fed organic products.

“It’s a lot of work behind it,” Bussu says, now leaning on the cluttered granite counter by the cash register. The wooden walls and shelves cast a golden warmth throughout the store. An assortment of different products, such as peanuts, bread, cheese, and other items can be seen. “It can sometimes take a village to make cheese,” he says, “especially since some cheese requires more accuracy than others.”

“He gives his shop a good reputation and casts a good light on the community around him,” says honey supplier Fabrizio Pesare.

The door clatters open and an elderly woman with feathered gray hair pushes through the beaded curtains. Bussu, tall and lanky, greets the woman with a warm smile. As he puts her cheese in a white paper bag, they share anecdotes from each other’s day and laugh.

This client of 31 years, Maria Romana, has known Bussu since he was one year old and says he’s like a son to her. She remembers Bussu’s family fondly, and says in the mid-60s, when they moved to Urbino, they used to supply her family’s shop with cheese. To this day, Romana continues to visit and buy from him.

“I come back here because I like it and because Bussu and I are friends,” Romana says, with a soft smile in Bussu’s direction. “I don’t really like supermarkets. I only go there when I’m in hot water. I [rather] come here because there is a friendship that unites us, it’s not just buying things.”

Bussu spent his high school summers helping his parents produce cheese at their home in the countryside of Urbino. Even though as a child Bussu admired his parents and their craft, as he grew up, he explains that he wanted to do something “bigger” and make his parents proud. After graduating from high school, he went on to pursue law at the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo.” But after a year, he realized he no longer wanted to study and came back to make cheese with his family.

In 1988, he opened Casa del Formaggio di Bussu.

“I wanted to be able to get my own money and build my future on my own,” Bussu says. “I think that is a very important lesson in life, to learn how to get by without other people’s help.”

With a faraway look in his eyes, Bussu recalls the vivid memory of arranging his products in the glass case near the door on the day his shop first opened. From the start, he was motivated to line the shelves with nothing but top-quality products, mostly his family’s cheese. Each Thursday, Bussu went to his family’s farm where his brothers, Sebastiano and Michele, and his parents helped him produce it.

In 1998, his parents stopped making cheese and moved to Tuscany, just east of Urbino. This left Bussu with the task of finding another cheese-maker to supply his shop.

“I was looking for a supplier for a long time. It’s hard to find a farmer that makes the cheese the proper way,” Bussu says sharply. “There are many farmers who rush the process just to get a good income. You have to be willing to work hard. The client is the final judge and knows if the cheese is actually good or not.”

He gestures to a wheel of cheese enclosed in a dimly lit glass case. On it is a label with a bright green graphic of a mountain, thick red letters that read “Martarelli” and the word “Formaggi” in white cursive font. After years of having suppliers who didn’t quite meet his standards, Bussu found this family business about a year ago. With its use of raw sheep milk from organically fed sheep, the taste is the closest to the “perfect supplier” he was in search of.

“Cheese-making is a job that’s becoming less and less big every year because it’s like an ancient job, so people tend to not do it anymore,” Bussu says.

In 2007, Bussu and similar shopkeepers were hit with a double whammy: the global economic crisis and the rise of supermarkets. Many stores around him folded, but he prevailed by incorporating other products in his shop.

“I tried to adapt my business to the request of the clients and the social context that surrounded me,” Bussu says. “As supermarkets were opening everywhere, I had to keep up with them so I started carrying top-quality items you can’t find in supermarkets.”

Now, various food items flood the store, many representing Italian family traditions. Bussu points to the window, where a tall bottle of Gambelli wine from a Marche winery sits. The winery dates back to 1898. Next, he gestures to a glass jar of Acqualagna Tartufi truffle sauce made entirely with Italian ingredients and ancient techniques.

“There’s also Gabannini’s honey,” Bussu goes on, smiling. Bussu points to an assembly of honey jars on a wooden platform by his cash register. Marino Gabannini, a man who had a unique fascination with bees as a child, first began making honey in 1913. Since then, the company has expanded, and the family of beekeepers aim to respect nature’s course, bees, and their territory to create top-quality products.

Fabrizio Pesare, Gabannini’s great-grandson who now works with the factory, says he admires the positive impact Bussu’s shop has had on Urbino and other residents in the Marche region.

“He gives his shop a good reputation and casts a good light on the community around him,” Pesare says. “He’s always looking for high-quality local products. For instance, instead of buying from mass markets he looks for ham from Italian pigs. Many shops have tried to imitate him and have failed.”

Over the years, Bussu’s customers have grown to trust his choice in products.

“If you go to a super market you can find Sicilian products and products from all over Italy,” says Anna Rosa, a client of 31 years. “But here you can find the real products made in Urbino by people from Urbino [and the Marche region] so that’s actually a unique thing.”

“There are many farmers who rush the process just to get a good income. You have to be willing to work hard. The client is the final judge and knows if the cheese is actually good or not,” says store owner Luciano Bussu.

Bussu’s customers are like his family, and he puts his family above everything. A swarm of childlike illustrations are taped to the wooden walls behind his counters. One is a crayon drawing of a young girl with a light blue shirt and black hair, standing in a grassy field. A speech bubble beside her reads: “venite tutti alla casa del formaggio di Bussu Luciano.” This translates to “come all to Luciano Bussu’s home of cheese.” The drawings were made by his two daughters, now 13 and 18, when they were younger. Bussu has yet to take them down.

It’s now mid-day on Thursday, the day he closes early to have a long meal and visit with his family. Sunlight casts a soft glow through the honey jars and wine bottles propped in the window. Bussu brings in the crates of strawberries and boxes of other assorted fruit. He snaps the sandwich sign closed and brings it inside. He removes his apron, and then turns off the lights. He lets out a subtle sigh of relief. Finally, Bussu locks the door and begins to head up the street to his car to return to what matters most to him–his family.

“I’m one of those people that doesn’t live to work,” Bussu says. “I work in order to live.”

This article, by Jazmine Otey, won a Raffie Award for Best Magazine Story Package. Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students Francesca Massari and Beatrice Burani. 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 post Bussu’s Home of Cheese appeared first on 2019 Urbino Project.

The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee brushes against your nostrils as you enter the coffee shop. While you wait, your mind begins to wander, thinking about what you have planned for the day, what you will cook for dinner, or what you will bring to your office party next week. Then the barista calls, you grab your drink, and continue about your day.

But have you once stopped to think about the hands that prepared these coffee beans that you enjoy?

Massimo Mogiatti has, for more than twenty years. In 1993, Mogiatti co-founded Mondo Solidale—“world of solidarity”—a fair trade cooperative in the Marche region focused on creating equitable income for products from developing countries. In 2003, Mondo Solidale started a project with coffee growers in Guatemala, aimed at getting them paid a living wage for their labor. In September 2012, Mogiatti decided to focus solely on fair trade coffee and created Shadhilly, which now also has cooperatives in India, Haiti, and Uganda. And, for 25 years, he and the people behind Mondo Solidale have tried to educate others so that they will stop to think about the hands that produce the beans for the coffee they drink.

In Fano, at Shadhilly’s headquarters, Mogiatti slides open the green warehouse doors, revealing a huge white room. To the right is a custom coffee machine and burlap bags filled with coffee ready to be distributed in the Marche region and other parts of the world. The stores that participate in the fair trade world are ensuring that their products are sold at an ethical rate and producers are guaranteed proper payment for their labor. Typically, businesses like Shadhilly compete with larger corporations like the European chain stores Conad and Coop to grow and profit in the coffee industry. Carlo Mogiatti, export manager and son of the mastermind behind Shadhilly, ties his apron and prepares to serve a fresh batch of coffee. Mogiatti and Carlo then prop themselves against the burlap sacks to explain how Shadhilly came about.

In 2002, a Guatemalan working in Italy came to Mondo Solidale in Fano ready to tell his story. He explained that the price of coffee had dropped below $100 a sack and was continuing to fall. Many farmers were not being offered even half that amount for their coffee sacks, and while prices plummeted for coffee growers, large corporations increased their earnings. Guatemalan coffee growers had lost over $300 million since the end of 2000. Many farmers and their families had resorted to producing a lower-grade coffee or made the decision to immigrate to a new land.

That same year Mogiatti and others from Mondo Solidale traveled to El Bosque, Guatemala, to witness the problems first-hand. They saw children roaming the streets because there were no schools, abandoned crops, and people needing work. Mogiatti remembers seeing young boys waiting until they were old enough to leave their country because they saw how bad it was for their fathers and grandfathers. “These people do not want to leave their homes, so our goal was to help them,” says Mogiatti.

Mondo Solidale partnered with El Bosque to set up the cooperative La Nueva Esperanza, and registered Anacafé and Inacoop as cooperatives. The partnership allowed for the Guatemalan farmers to produce 100 percent Arabica coffee, which is known for its sweet taste, while also receiving adequate income and building relationships with other businesses. Mogiatti and members of Mondo Solidale sat with coffee farmers in Guatemala and created a price for the importation of coffee bags. “The people in Guatemala were planning to leave the plantation because it wasn’t useful working,” says Mogiatti, so Mondo Solidale gave the farmers roughly $50,000 to purchase updated machinery, a new warehouse, and an export license. Producers were now receiving income to continue producing uncontaminated, quality coffee.

In 2012 Mogiatti founded Shadhilly, solely to focus on coffee and to ensure farmers in developing countries were prospering in the economy. Mogiatti now has partnerships with La Nueva Esperanza, Anacafé, and Inacoop. Mogiatti says Shadhilly and fair trade rely on building trust with every partnership, so they give 50 percent of the agreed revenue to their farmers in the month of November in order for them to get proper materials and appliances to produce quality coffee. Roughly six months later, after the coffee has sprouted, been packaged, and shipped to Shadhilly, the farmers receive the remainder of their revenue.

Mogiatti regularly returns to El Bosque for updates and has seen the economic growth in the coffee community. Mogiatti says, “I see the young boys that were eager to leave their country now grown and married because they have seen the benefits of the coffee industry that once tore their people apart. Fifteen years ago in Guatemala there were no schools or healthcare, but now there are three primary schools, two secondary schools, a doctor that comes once a month and a nurse.”

The three projects now employ roughly 1,200 coffee farmers. In addition to their projects in Guatemala, Shadhilly now has projects in India, Haiti, and Uganda. Currently, the Uganda project includes approximately 20,000 farmers, India about 5,000, and Haiti about 200.

Carlo explains that his father started Shadhilly because coffee is the most consumed beverage around the world­—in America alone, more than 100 million people drink it daily. Along with roasted Arabica coffee, Shadhilly now imports roasted Robusta coffee, which is stronger in taste and easier to grow than Arabica, as well as green coffee, which is linked to weight loss and other health benefits. And still, says Carlo, “Mondo Solidale and Shadhilly are close friends, currently working together to help the coffee business.”

—

Displayed in the windows and glass doors of the small shop at the bottom of Urbino’s Via Mazzini are handcrafted decorative glass bowls, hats, and wind chimes dangling from fixtures. Inside, a rainbow canopy drapes from the ceiling and the smell of incense sticks, tea, spices, soaps, and coffee send the mind on a trip to Tunisia, Kenya, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and many other countries. Displayed in a glass case are toy cars made from recycled tins from Madagascar, and the tables and shelves are filled with colorful jewelry, stationary crafted from elephant dung in Sri Lanka, pasta, wine, and honey from the Marche region, and coffee from Shadhilly cooperatives.

This is one of 16 shops throughout the Marche region operated by Mondo Solidale. The organization has few paid employees but some 250 volunteers who are passionate about educating the world about fair trade. These shops import products from developing regions in Africa, South America, and Southern Asia, providing consistent income for the businesses and changing the lives of the families involved. Mondo Solidale is well known in the fair trade world around Italy because they have many paying subscribers supporting the movement. Those volunteers around the Marche region as well as customers pay a one-time membership fee and own their own part of the cooperative. They believe everyone plays an important role in the economy and must act responsibly so everyone benefits, from producers, to consumers, to the environment.

Sandra Abderhalden, vice president of Mondo Solidale, says it is difficult for the shop in Urbino to grow because it is strictly volunteer-based, and volunteers are hard to come by. In addition, the idea of fair trade is becoming popular among people with larger businesses. Ironically, some fear that the Mondo Solidale shops will close because of competition from businesses offering similar fair trade items.

Abderhalden says, “Coming from a farmer family, I always knew about fair trade.” Now her goal is to get the people of Urbino, all of Italy, and around the world to know what Mondo Solidale does and what they can do to make a difference. “What we do is inform, our main goal is to educate,” says Abderhalden. There are people in Urbino that stumble across the shop and believe it is new, so volunteers take the opportunity to discuss the importance of their products because they want people to be aware of the craft and dignity of the producers. Products like wine, chocolate, coffee, and the occasional bananas continue to draw many customers back into the shop. Once they learn about the mission and products they realize the difference between Mondo Solidale and large chain stores.

Francesca Guidarelli, coordinator of Mondo Solidale in Urbino, began volunteering after being a frequent customer. In the beginning she was not convinced about the idea, but she decided to learn more about the industry. Today, Guidarelli and other volunteers go out to the local middle schools to educate students about fair trade, water conservation, immigration and other sustainability issues. The goal is to teach kids at a young age, because they will be the new voices in society fighting for humanity. “We are very lucky to be born on this side of the world, but a lot of people don’t understand this fact,” says Guidarelli.

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The Conferenza Regionale del commerico equo e solidale, the “Regional Conference of Fair Trade,” is held annually in the Marche region. This year, the 10th conference is held at Abbadia di Fiastra, a nature reserve in the province of Macerata. Outside, tents and signs for Mondo Solidale, Shadhilly, and other cooperatives welcome attendees to Aula Verde, the “green room.”

As attendees file into the room and fill the chairs, Leonardo Becchetti, economics professor at the University of Rome, and Roberto Mancini, theoretical philosophy professor at the University of Macerata, are found sitting in the front of the room prepared for a panel discussion about fair trade in a changing world equipped with new ways of creating businesses. A slide on a screen behind the men reads, “We are not super heroes, but we have superpowers.”

The discussion focuses on the main principles of fair trade, which are creating economic value and growth in a sustainable environment and establishing groups that trust each other. Becchetti says, “Fair trade is not just about the products, but through the products you can understand the culture.” Following the panel discussion, attendees gather outside while Mogiatti speaks about the challenges in the coffee industry. He explains that farmers are struggling to produce coffee due to various diseases, some are placing rocks in their packing to meet weight requirements, and it all ties back into creating an ethical way of doing business with these individuals, so their farms are in good shape.

Afterwards, speakers, volunteers, and families line up to sample fair trade wine, juice, cheese, and bananas. As all the attendees socialize, Jabel Kanuteh, a Gambian musician, plays the kora, ending the day with musical selections from old traditions of his ancestors. These individuals know to appreciate the hands that crafted the products sold at Mondo Solidale.

A photo that accompanies this story (see the second photo in the slide show above) won a Raffie Award for Best Magazine Photo. Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students Liliana Cogliandro and Luca Cocozza. 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 post Feel Good, Trade Fair appeared first on 2019 Urbino Project.

Video by Elizabeth Brown

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SASSOCORVARO, Italy – He dips his left hand into the vat of white liquid and brings it up to let the small chunks drip down and bounce against his right. The light coming in from the warehouse windows illuminates the line of scientific symbols tattooed around his arm.

“It’s the chemical process of the sheep’s milk forming to the cheese,” Emilio Spada explains. “It’s like a marriage, two halves coming together and by the end they are completely united, and the love story is complete.”

Emilio Spada is the owner of Cau & Spada, a farm tucked away in the hills above Sassocorvaro. He uses milk from his sheep to create different types of pecorino cheese.

In the 1970s, Spada’s father moved his flocks of sheep from the region of Sardinia to this province of Montefeltro to pursue his dream of cheesemaking in the area. The original house where the family lived on the second floor and the sheep on the first, still stands on the property today.

But Spada is no traditionalist.

“Tradition to me means there is no attempt to experiment and create something new and having too many rules keeps you in a box,” he says. “There are no rules!”

“Tradition is what is in my blood, white just like the color of milk.”

Spada motions to the green hills that roll up and down around the farm, then points to himself.

“It is my responsibility to put all of nature into my cheese,” Spada says. “My sheep turn everything that they encounter and breathe into milk.”

A soft breeze blows through, rustling the olive trees. The ringing of bells signifies that the sheep are near. The sheep are brought in for milking during the afternoon. Three sheep produce the six liters of milk needed for one kilo of cheese.

Spada pauses the milking machine process to milk a sheep himself. He hands back a wine glass to a visitor containing warm, fresh, and frothy milk.

“To have the full experience, there is an order that you must follow. You start with the softest and then follow with the more intense aged ones.”

“Remember the taste of the milk,” he instructs before opening the door to his workspace. Inside there are towers of rounded cheeses, big and small, aged and fresh.

He grabs an assortment of these cheeses and lays them out on a wooden board. He shows off each individual knife that is used for cutting each particular cheese.

“To have the full experience, there is an order that you must follow,” he explains, gesturing towards a bright spongy cut of cheese. “You start with the softest and then follow with the more intense aged ones.”

Indeed, the softest fresco cheese practically melts in the mouth like a kind greeting. But the pecorino degli amanti, a special cheese that is aged in a pit for 100 days, explodes on the taste buds with a sharp smack that is similar to the attentiveness of seeing someone attractive walk by.

Pecorino degli amanti translates as “the cheese of lovers.” The traditional aging process gives birth to formaggio di fossa (cheese of the pit), but Spada refuses to call his cheese that.

“Like every beautiful thing, man ruins it with business,” Spada laments. “The formaggio di fossa was exploited by business man when it was a fad and people grew tired of it as the quality worsened.”

Spada knew he could not sell a formaggio di fossa under that name. Instead he named the cheese after the chapel that is housed in the same building as the cellar-hole where his cheese is aged. This chapel holds relics of St. Valentine, the saint associated with love. The cheese also gets its name from the warm feeling one gets in the stomach after ingesting it, because it has been compared to the same feeling one experiences when he or she is in love.

Looking around, it is hard to believe that this small farm hidden in the hills has managed to make its cheese known throughout Europe and earned its way into the preparation of dishes for prominent figures such as President Obama. It is when one encounters Spada that the reason is made clear.

In Urbino, meanwhile, Raffaello Degusteria wine and cheese shop owner Alberto Carinelli proudly presents every Cau & Spada cheese in his front display.

“Emilio is really the face of Cau & Spada,” Carinelli explains. “I was convinced to sell his cheese after tasting it, but Emilio and his passion are the ones that really sold me.”

Back in the town of Sassocorvaro, Spada leads his visitor to the building where the pecorino degli amanti is buried for 100 days of aging every August to November. The walk to the building that hosts St. Valentine’s chapel is lined with poster blow-ups of black and white wedding photographs showing beaming newlyweds. A water spigot set in a wall bursting with color stops walkers in their path. The spigot is set in between a couple kissing. These romantic elements enforce even more Spada’s naming of the cheese.

“It started as a part time job, but then it was a passion,” Spada explains as he walks. “Passion pushed me to explore new things and the beauty around me ignited curiosity.”

Spada pushes open a door. Dust billows up as he moves around, flicking on lights. He says the building dates from the 10th century. He proudly shows off the pit that stands out in the middle of the cellar floor. It is deep and reaches down several feet into the earth. A metal ladder leads down into the dark abyss.

“I had no idea what I was doing when I started all this,” Spada explains. “I was ignorant and had no formal teaching. I just experimented until I felt that we created a product that tastes like it is a part of us and what people from far away think that Italy is.”

As he closes up the hole and returns to the outside world, Spada once again poetically relays his business philosophy.

“The Earth welcomes us, and we respect her as she respects us, and this is Cau and Spada.”

Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino student Lisa Oliva.

Video by Allison Baxter & Liza Moore

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FANO, Italy – Inside a nondescript doorway on a busy street in this seaside town, eighty-six-year-old grandmother Maria Tena is attempting to upset one of the oldest traditions in Italian culture: How to cook seafood.

“Maria is a revolutionary,” said Domenica Tamati, her daughter. “She wanted to get back to the easiest way of cooking food in the sense of keeping it simple.”

Maria’s rule is equally revolutionary for a restaurateur:

“It is better to not eat than to eat something that is not good.”

Maria and Domenica are the eccentric duo that own, operate and cook at Trattoria Da Maria under a set of eco-friendly rules that guide every action from purchase through preparation and serving of their seafood meals.

For example:

• If they can’t get fresh fish that day, they don’t open.
• They only serve small fish.
• They only use salt, pepper, parsley, lemon and olive oil.
• They don’t allow meat on the premises.
• They won’t use cans or plastic containers in their cooking.

Maria said these ideals were taught to her at a young age. She was born in Monteciccardo, a small town located the hills of central Italy between the mountaintop city of Urbino and the seaport of Fano. Raised by her aunt when her mother passed, she gained her passion for cooking fish by growing up the daughter of a fisherman.

As she tells it, the family used traditional techniques of Italian cooking with plenty of fresh seafood from the Adriatic. Maria met her husband who decided after their marriage that he was going to become a fisherman as well. The couple moved to the center of Fano and had two daughters.

“My passion was for cooking and then fish so I thought I could start something in the center because it is near home and it is doing something for my daughters,” she recalled.

So, 50 years ago they purchased a space on Via IV Novembre that had housed a restaurant for two hundred years and opened Trattoria Da Maria – named for Maria.

 She wanted to create a restaurant that was ecofriendly, a place that customers could interact from all parts of the world and enjoy small portions of quality food.

“We should get back to forms of fishing that are eco-friendly because the Adriatic offers the possibility to fish smaller and fish in an eco-friendlier way.”

Maria and Domenica said the rules they follow are designed to be as friendly to the planet as possible. For example, they do not purchase big fish because they believe it is more harmful to the sea than catching smaller species.

“Social, economic and cultural factors have fueled the notion of bigger is better in our fishing and eating practices,” said Domenica. “We should get back to forms of fishing that are eco-friendly because the Adriatic offers the possibility to fish smaller and fish in an eco-friendlier way.”

 The restaurant also does not use plastic water bottles or cans.

“We respect the human being and animals – animals first actually,” Domenica said with a laugh. “Here any animal is welcome. In fact, the other day a man came in to eat with a (pet) wolf.”

That different ethic was on display one Wednesday in June. Through the juniper green string curtains over the kitchen door, Maria and Domenica were scaling, cleaning and slicing the small fish and langoustine they purchased from fishermen early that morning. The aroma of fresh fish grilling over natural charcoal mixes with the essence of steam rising from a kettle of boiling shrimp.

The mother and daughter not only value how the fish are caught, but how they are prepared. In the kitchen painted seafoam green there are not many spices other than salt, pepper, and parsley. Maria uses minimal seasoning to ensure that the natural flavoring of the seafood is brought out and not masked by other spices.

Most of the fish is grilled or boiled, then drizzled with olive oil from a small local producer. They only use ingredients from local producers with whom they have a direct relationship. Even though the ingredients and preparation are the same every day, the menu is not.

 It is possible to get clams and polenta one day and come back the next to receive boiled tender langoustine.

 “The sea chooses the food we offer, not the customer,” said Maria.

 And just like fruit, every fish has its own season – which means only what is in season will end up on the plate at Da Maria.

So at lunchtime that Wednesday customers from Holland, Italy and America found calamari, shrimp, squid, hake, sole and cuttlefish on their plates. All were purchased fresh from fishermen that morning.

The meals arrived on silver platters to tables on the patio in the rear of the restaurant. It is a calming green space that is also home to their two cats.

Serving customers their fresh fish meals is their favorite part of the occupation for this mother-daughter team.

“It’s definitely hard and there are many sacrifices, but we enjoy the possibility to interact with many different people because every person brings a new experience to us,” said Domenica.

Maria and Domenica chat with their customers because they think it’s important to create a connection with them.

Today, Luciano Bruna is satisfied with his spread of fish, which is his favorite part of the meal. He has traveled here from Parma in northern Italy, for his third visit to Da Maria.

“What they prepare is quite uncommon to any place I have been,” he said. “They use few ingredients. It’s a delicate way to cook fish but I like it.”

Across the patio, Maria is laughing with a family from Holland. They are on holiday in Italy and were told by friends they should stop by Da Maria for lunch. The mother, father, grandma, and two children are sharing a plate of shrimp and clams.

 “I don’t know what’s going to happen because I live daily,” Maria says. “I don’t make projects for the future because I’m trying to live – living good and living well in the present.”

 The youngest member of the family, a daughter with curly blonde hair, is standing up in her chair eating. The oil from the clam has greased her pale petite fingers. Domenica soon joins the family and brings a wipe for the young girl’s hands.

 Maria looks at Domenica’s profile with pride in her wrinkle framed eyes. When asked if Domenica will take over the restaurant after her, Maria’s answer is as simple and direct as her style of cooking.

 “I don’t know what’s going to happen because I live daily,” Maria says. “I don’t make projects for the future because I’m trying to live – living good and living well in the present.”

Video by Katherine Inman & Olivia White

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