How a poor student from a New England town dreamed of having a villa in Italy, with a well-stocked library for reading retreats, world-class musicians to perform in the salon and fascinating visitors from near and far -- and how he got it.
5 December 2001
Dear Friends and Members,
Few of you have known me for more than five years, because it was five years ago this month (December 17th, 1996) that I came to the villa, and our first concert wasn't held until July of 1998. I arrived in Italy in December of 1995 and stayed in Bologna for a year, taking any job offered; from work in a pizzeria to babysitting in Via Castellata to (an all-time low in my life) dressing up as Santa Clause and roaming the streets of Reggio Emilia, distributing balloons.
I took any job I could find because I arrived here with a one-way ticket and $300, and I was too proud to return to America and ask my family for help, admitting defeat. It was my decision to leave the New World and settle in the Old, because it was here that I had decided to realise my big project, with no clue as to what I was getting myself into. By the spring of 1996, I had met many people who were interested in helping me get my "Reading Retreat" started, including an English teacher from Budrio, Anna Trombetti, who put me in touch with a former assessore of Budrio, Carlo Pagani, who introduced me to the owner of Palazzo Montefano, Dina Pondrelli Rizzi.
Finding the villa was easy in comparison to finding free furniture and books and foreign guests who wanted to pay for a reading retreat in the Italian countryside, but when the readers didn't come from far away, an antique dealer from Bologna, Andrea Bertoni, (who was also one of the first lenders of furniture from shops) called his harpsicord-playing friend, Luisa Stanghellini, to the rescue. "If foreigners don't come to read, we'll invite locals to concerts", was the idea, and it worked. I'll never forget meeting Luisa at the train station in Mezzolara, explaining I had no car, so we would have to walk 40 minutes over the river and through the fields. Luisa didn't mind the hike, and she loved the villa, so she contacted the flautist Cristina Bertoli. and the first concert was performed. Monthly concerts in the autumn of 1997 became weekly concerts by 1998, and a few more foreigners (literally less than 15) came to visit the villa over the next year.
But now thousands of people know about the villa: musicians, writers, artists, and tourists from around the world. and many of you have brought many of your friends, and the villa continues to grow. On the evening of December 15th 2001, I would like to celebrate five years of living in the villa. five years of beautiful music, good food, quiet nights of reading by the fire, garden work, parties, summertime croquet, springtime walks around the flower-filled fields, six major art exhibits held, and thousands of visits from people who come from both near and far. The pianist on the 15th is Guido Facchini, who with Fabiana Ciampi was the the first musician to play the piano we rented here four years ago, and the singer is Jill Janzen, who lived here for a year when the living wasn't exactly easy. Some of you remember; we had no car, and not much money for heating or food.
I think all of you know that I love to have you here just as much as you like to visit, so I hope to see you again soon. Please always make reservations! Happy Holidays.
Sincerely,
Clark Lawrence
______________________________________
Reading Retreats in Rural Italy
Palazzo Montefano, Via Volpino 13,
40060 Vedrana di Budrio,
Bologna, Italy
Tel +39-051-6929-587
http:// www.montefano.com