I WAS once told the tale of an old Sicilian Mafia don. We were wandering through the cathedral of Monreale, a few miles above Palermo, with Riccardo, a charming and well-connected local. As we glided down that cool nave, he was holding forth on this exquisite juxtaposition of Norman heft and Byzantine soul. But it was nearing noon and my thoughts, as ever, were turning to glories of a more edible variety.
The tour ended and, as we walked outside, gazing over the great city, he suddenly stopped dead. ‘I remember one spring 30 years back,’ he declared, his eyes made owlish by thick glasses. ‘I was eating with the big Mafia boss, the capo, out in the countryside near here.’ He gestured grandly. ‘We had some good local bread, fresh broad beans, pecorino and it was a perfect spring day.’
He paused, lost in delectable reverie. ‘The capo ate the beans then the cheese then took a long draught of cool local wine, straight from the clay jar. He was a big man, and powerful in every way, and he looked at me as he wiped away the wine. “I could happily die now, but there’s not even anyone to kill me.”’ Ah, the brute power of simplicity.
この記事は Country Life UK の July 08, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の July 08, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
