Ever since Luca and I met and became close friends four years ago, he has been telling me about his hometown Acquapendente in Italy’s Lazio region near its borders with Tuscany and Umbria.  After Luca came to visit me in Orange County, California last winter, he urged me to spend time with him, his family and friends in Acquapendente.  He said that May would be the ideal time for me to visit.  It is a special time of the year in Acquapendente.  The biggest festival, known as the Festa dei Pugnaloni, in his hometown takes place during the month of May.




Luca picked me up at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport a week before the Festa dei Pugnaloni.  He took the week off from his limousine and tour business, so he could devote his time preparing his group’s entry to the Pugnaloni art competition, and showing me around.  With Luca’s eagerness to get back home, it took us much less than the two hours it normally takes to drive from Rome to Acquapendente. 




Day to day life seems to be put on hold as Acquapendente’s town folks prepare for the Pugnaloni celebration on the third Sunday of May.  Every year, 15 groups of Acquapendente residents work on a large (about 7 ft. by 10 ft. in size) bozzetto, a sketch designed by an artist, and enter the Pugnaloni contest.  The art competition is friendly but fierce.  Each competing group prepares a beautiful mosaic of leaves and flower petals, commemorating the miracle of the Madonna del Fiore (Madonna of the Flower) that led to the liberation of the town from the German emperor Frederic I Barbarossa in the 12^th century.

Pungoli are ancient agricultural tools that peasants used for plowing.  Legend has it that a withered cherry tree represented to the town’s peasants the oppression they suffered under the emperor.  When the dead cherry tree miraculously blossomed, the peasants took it as a divine sign of their emancipation from the tyranny of the emperor. The peasants rebelled against the ruler and drove him out with support from the pontifical army.  

The festival is a religious celebration, art contest, pageantry of medieval costumes, and fraternity-like bash rolled up into one.  Flowers that symbolize the miracle are central to the celebration.  Children participate.  They have their own mini-Pugnaloni before the main festival.  During the festival week, a wooden statue of the Madonna del Fiore is moved in a procession between the Santa Vittoria church and the Basilica of San Sepolcro.










It is evident that Luca and his friends have been involved in the Pugnaloni festival preparations since childhood.  Luca has been the ardent capogruppo (group leader) of his Pugnalone called La Rugarella for the past couple of years.  He took me to his Pugnalone’s gathering directly from the Fiumicino airport.  He introduced me to the group, and with their boisterous but warm welcome, I became part of the group in no time. I realized why Luca and I became the closest of friends very quickly.  It is the way of life in their town.  It is the way he was raised.  I would meet his parents, Carlo and Morena Del Segato, for the first time a couple of days later and immediately develop familial bonds with them.  Luca’s family became my Italian family in an instant.

 


La Rugarella is like an extended family, a brotherhood. The group members have pet names for each other.  Every night that week, we gathered to complete the bozzetto for the competition, painstakingly cutting leaves and flowers and pasting them on the 7-by-10 ft. bozzetto board.  Strict rules apply to the competition.  Only flower petals, leaves, corn husks, and onion and garlic skins are permitted to be glued on the wooden canvass to form the colorful mosaic.  There are even rules governing the type of glue that can be used. 




Leaves and flowers are collected during the day.  One afternoon, Luca took me to the woods near the river to gather leaves, protectively cautioning me to stay close to him since it was a warm day, when snakes come out of their hiding.   He carefully selected the right kind of leaves to put in the plastic bags I was holding.  He knew exactly what to do and where to go to find the right leaves.  This is something that he has done since childhood.  We froze the leaves before cutting them so that they would turn into the grayish color needed for the borders of the bozzetto.

 




But it was not all work.  We also ate, drank and sang together each night.  Meat was barbecued on an outdoor grill.  Delicious pasta was prepared in a big pail for 50 people.  One night, we had the traditional imbuto (funnel) ritual, taking turns drinking wine through the imbuto.  As wine was poured into the funnel, the wine was consumed by each individual without spilling a drop.  After I successfully completed my turn, Luca led the group in celebrating my initiation by bursting into their Italian rendition of Guantanamera, “Uno di noi, Wilfredo č uno di noi …. Uno di noi, Wilfredo č uno di noi”.  (One of us, Wilfredo is one of us …)

  


During the day, Luca, Morena and Carlo took turns giving me a tour of Acquapendente and nearby towns in Tuscany and Umbria.  Morena and Carlo also took turns preparing hearty 5-course meals.  Luca explained to me that this is their normal lunch.  It typically consisted of antipasto such as prosciutto (thin slices of ham), followed by a plateful of pasta, then a meat or fish dish, then vegetable salad, and finally dessert.  I did not mind the heavy lunch.  Mi piace molto.  I liked it a lot.  I loved it.  Just as Luca previously told me, his mother Morena is an excellent cook.







When Morena and Carlo had to go to work, Luca’s girlfriend Chiara and her mother Stefania served us the 5–course lunch.  We also got the chance to go to Luca’s favorite corner restaurant, just walking distance from their house.  The owners are good friends of his, just as the whole town seems to be, the butcher, the baker, the clay pot maker, the mayor.




One day, Luca drove the passenger bus route that he used to drive 10 years ago before he started his own limousine and tour business.  His former boss needed a driver for the day, so Luca offered to drive his old bus route in Tuscany.  He was the bus driver, and I was the conductor during our journey through quaint villages in the Tuscan hills.  Passengers fondly remembered him, some of them giving him a kiss as they boarded the bus.  I kidded Luca that he should run for mayor, since he knows everyone in Acquapendente, and perhaps even for president, since people in other towns like those in Val D’Orcia, Tuscany know him well also.   It was a wonderful and unique experience to see the spectacular view in Val D’Orcia with its gentle rolling hills, while mingling with the locals in a passenger bus.  I even learned some Italian from the children passengers who were more than eager to talk to me.

Throughout my 10 days in Italy, Luca and his family provided me everything - lodging, food, transportation.  I cannot thank them enough for all these and for embracing me into their family.  They took care of me with boundless hospitality every waking hour of the day.

Each night, Luca, his sister Francesca, her boyfriend Gabriele, or one of Luca’s friends, whoever imbibed the least that night, drove me back to the townhouse that Luca got for me.  Francesca, Gabriele, and Luca’s girlfriend Chiara are all active members of La Rugarella.  Every morning, Luca, Morena, Carlo, and Gabriele took turns picking me up.  Friday morning, when the town center turned into one big marketplace, Gabriele took me on a walking tour.  Carlo gave me a tour along the streets of Acquapendente during the day of the Pugnaloni art competition, to see the 15 entries that were on display in different parts of the town for people, including the judges, to view.

 


I enjoyed tremendously the tour of Acquapendente that Morena gave me.  She, too, seems to know everyone.  We were allowed to enter the museum of the San Francesco church which is not open to the public.  She showed me where she and Carlo got married in Acquapendente’s Basilica of San Sepolcro.  Within the crypt of the basilica is a stone believed to be stained with Jesus’ blood.  Acquapendente is on the Via Francigena, the medieval pilgrimage route between Rome and Canterbury. 




Morena drove me to the beautiful hilltop town of Orvieto in Umbria. Orvieto offers stunning views of verdant hills and valleys. The Orvieto Cathedral is magnificent with its polychromatic marble façade.  The priest of the cathedral is a good friend of the Del Segato family.  He guided us to a chapel of the cathedral so we could admire impressive 15^th to 16^th century religious frescos on the walls and ceiling.




Pressure mounted in the last couple of days prior to the award night.  Half of our bozzetto was still unfinished. But some of the Rugarella members seemed to take things in stride. They said that it was like that, too, in previous years, but somehow, they managed to finish.  During those last two nights, work mixed with drinking and singing, lasted until five in the morning.  Halfway through the night, we took a walking tour of the town, visiting the home bases of the other Pugnaloni teams where we were also offered food and wine. Music played everywhere. People danced in the streets.




Luca introduced me to Acquapendente’s Mayor Alberto Bambini during one of our morning trips to a coffee shop at the town center where the mayor also happened to drop in for some coffee. Mayor Bambini enthusiastically led the Pugnaloni celebration and award ceremony.  There was great excitement during the announcement of the winning entry. The sounds of horns and firecrackers were deafening.  Thick smoke filled the piazza.    



 

We did not win the competition, but that did not matter much to me.  I enjoyed everything.  Luca the cheerleading capogruppo seemed sad for a moment, but it did not take him long to recover and lead the group in another boisterous celebration during dinner.  We took turns drinking a glass of wine, bottoms up, as Luca cheered nonstop using his bullhorn, and the group banged forks loudly on the table.  We chanted Ru-ru-ru, ga-ga-ga, siamo la Rugarella. We are the Rugarella.  I am now one of them.  They told me to come back next year.




The Rugarella bozzetto will stay in the basilica for a year as the leaves and flower petals slowly wilt away.  The bozzetto board will contain a different design for next year’s Pugnaloni art competition. I look forward to working on the bozzetto once more, and celebrating with La Rugarella, win or lose.  The time I spent in Acquapendente was short, but I am certain that the friendship that developed during those 10 days will last a lifetime.

 

 

 

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