The coronavirus situation has confined us to Bologna for months now, and with each passing day I yearn more and more to travel–especially to non-urban areas like the mountains.
I have never been to the Latemar range in the Dolomites. But someone posted about them the other day on one of the “beautiful Italy” Facebook pages I follow, and the urge to be up high in some remote rifugio–to breathe in the pure air and see for miles and miles–hit me hard.
During the plague of 1630, the groups of men who went around collecting the sick and dead in Milan were called “monatti,” and they wore little bells on their ankles to signal their approach. In Manzoni’s The Betrothed, the monatti are often inebriated and pass flasks of wine among themselves. At one point, they encounter a young mother who entreats them to take her dying baby and to return later that day to collect her.
David Salvage composes and performs all the music on this blog, unless otherwise indicated.