Italian love

This article is a lightly edited version of the first half of a talk given earlier this year to Edinburgh’s Scottish-Italian Circle. The second half, omitted here, was a personal appreciation of Dante, Italy’s greatest poet. In this article, the spoken form of the original has been frequently retained.

IN its first form, this piece was a response to a request to share something of the unusual story of my decades-long connection with Italy and love for its language. The story begins with another language, for the request was that I should explain how a Gaelic-speaking Highlander found himself on this Italian ‘journey’.

My interest in Gaelic began at a young age. Both my parents hailed from South Harris. Gaelic was their native tongue but, as with many Gaelic-speakers of their generation, they did not use it in communicating with their children. Part of the reason for that, I believe, was the fact that their generation of schoolchildren in Harris, as elsewhere in the Islands and Highlands, were punished severely if caught speaking their native tongue anywhere in the school premises. Being a fairly determined chappie, I decided at a young age that somehow I would pass through that door to discover what lay beyond. Long summers were spent as a boy in Gaelic-soaked Harris. My remarkable seanmhair (granny) alone encouraged my faltering endeavours in the language. The best opportunity came as a pupil at Oban High School where Gaelic was an available subject choice. It became a favourite subject. To this day, it remains an intense pleasure to immerse myself in the beauties of Gaelic literature.

Further studies, over two years, in the University of Glasgow’s Celtic Department enhanced my appreciation of the language.

“To this day, it remains an intense pleasure to immerse myself in thebeauties of Gaelic literature.”

Although my first degree was in Classics (Latin would later prove indispensable when researching Augustine of Hippo) Gaelic has played a significant part in more than forty years of ministry, not least during a decade spent in the Outer Hebrides, as minister of St Columba’s Old Parish Church in Stornoway.

So how does this love affair with Italy and the Italian language fit in?

My own Italian adventure began when I was a student studying for the Free Presbyterian ministry. I had been instructed by the denomination’s Dominions and Overseas Committee to learn Italian, with a view to joining a small ministerial team offering occasional ministry to a Protestant group in a Tuscan town. The members of this group were attached to the Scottish denomination.

How did that connection come about? At some time in the 1960s, two Italian sisters, Liliana and Laura Marchi, came to work in Glasgow from the Tuscan town of Fornaci di Barga.

Given the area in Italy from which they hailed, this was not as surprising a move as might at first appear. Ascending some two miles from Fornaci di Barga (often abbreviated to ‘Fornaci’), you reach the neighbouring and more famous Barga, a stunningly beautiful mediaeval hilltop walled town. The road sign as you enter Barga declares it to be Il paese più scozzese d’Italia (‘the most Scottish town in Italy’). This claim to fame is the result of successive waves of emigration, which began, according to Barga lore, when a certain young Duke of Argyll (no less), who had been studying in Lucca and went down with malaria, was taken up to Barga in the hills to recuperate. It is said that he was so well cared for by the locals that he vowed to welcome any Barghegiani who wanted to come to Scotland and give them work on his estate. Today there are Barga connections in towns all over Scotland.

In Barga itself, some 60% of the roughly 10,000 inhabitants can claim to have Scottish relations. If you stroll around Barga for any length of time you are almost bound to hear a Glaswegian accent. The late Archbishop Mario Conti, a friend and colleague, had strong Barga connections. For many years his cousin ran a grocery store in the town. Each year, usually in September, a seven-day long ‘Scottish Week’ is held, celebrating Barga’s bonds with Scotland. The summer also witnesses the annual Sagra del Pesce e Patate, a Fish and Chips Festival, reflecting the same connection.

It was, therefore, a well-trodden path that Lilian and Laura took from this uniquely Scottish corner of Italy. They developed a close friendship with a colleague in their office, a Highland Free Presbyterian. Through that friendship the sisters came to embrace the Protestant and Presbyterian faith. For a period they became minor celebrities at communion seasons all over the Highlands and Islands.

Having returned to Fornaci in the early 1970s to care for ageing parents, the sisters faced some challenges. Their denominational transfer while in Scotland was not appreciated by all. Vatican II’s new perspectives had still to work their way through the system. For the sisters there was no Protestant congregation (Waldensian or other) within convenient reach. Undeterred, they shared their faith with friends, and a small and growing group formed and began to meet for informal worship, Bible study and prayer.

A need was increasingly felt for the services – even occasionally – of an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament. Having communicated with the Scottish denomination, it was agreed that a few ministers would be encouraged to learn Italian in order to offer occasional ministry to the Fornaci group. The sisters apart, most of them spoke little or no English.

My initial attempts at learning Italian were undertaken solo. The first threeweek long visit to Fornaci, in the hot summer of 1976, was a shock to the system. The informal gatherings took place most evenings around the kitchen table in the home of Claudio and Emelia Campani (happily still with us, although now quite frail) in the old part of Fornaci (Fornaci Vecchia), with its atmospheric and enchanting lanes and logge. Worship, including a reflection, was followed by often lively discussion, which did not always stick to the subject in hand. I was regularly frustrated by my frequent inability fully to understand contributions, which could pour forth at break-neck speed.

The reflections I gave most evenings on that visit took long, laborious hours to prepare in the sticky summer heat. What kept me at it and what has bound me for life to these dear people was their patience, kindness and encouragement. They tried to make me think I was doing fine when I felt a complete disaster. Long meals together restored my vigour.

The following year, a six-week long residential intensive course run by the University of Pisa proved very helpful. At weekends I would travel to Fornaci to take Sunday ‘services’ for which preparation time had to be found in the week. Over the following years – decades indeed – I visited Fornaci many times, usually staying for a few weeks, alternating visits with a ministerial colleague and dear friend.

The passage of the years has brought inevitable changes. Names that remain dear are no longer with us. Others, like Claudio and Emelia Campani, whose hospitable home was our place of meeting, are elderly and frail now. It is with their daughter Simonetta and her husband Maurizio that contact is maintained these days, usually by electronic means, unheard of when these visits began. Fellowship and support have been found in a congregation not too far distant from Fornaci.

Through a series of remarkable events, my own journey has led to service in another denomination. One of the pleasures of the Moderatorial year was a visit to our partner Waldensian Church. It was altogether a wonderful experience, travelling from Torre Pellice in the Waldensian heartlands to Turin (where, a few months earlier, Pope Francis, in a moving meeting with Waldensian Church leaders, had apologised for the Roman Catholic Church’s past persecution of their forebears). We then continued to Rome and still further south to Riesi and Scicli (of Inspector Montalbano fame) in Sicily, where we witnessed some of the caring work of Mediterranean Hope.

This particular visit was so full that it proved impossible to visit our Tuscan friends. My wife and I were able to visit them the following year. That was, as always, a joy. For some of us, Mary Shelley was completely right: ‘The name of Italy has magic in its very syllables.’