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tinues to grow. But, for most Americans who are not professional academics, the past and
the people who inhabited it continue to recede into the background like a train station we
passed through once in a dream.
ThereisanimageofHenryFordinEgyptthatperfectlycapturesmodernAmerica'sdisdain
for the past. With his foot on the Great Pyramid, Ford declares: “History is bunk.”
Until fairly recently Americans had no qualms whatsoever about tearing down the previous
generations of buildings and streets in our city centers and replacing them with newer, bet-
ter ones. As Mick Jagger put it, “Who wants yesterday's papers?” We toss the past out the
window like litter as we drive down life's highway. “That's so yesterday!” We look toward
the future for a better life.
Italians, on the other hand, live in a world where the past is very much with them. The
Sienese still complain occasionally that they should have finished off the Florentines after
the Battle of Monteaperti when they had the chance. (We're talking about 1260!) And the
highlight of the Sienese year is unquestionably the Palio horse race that pits the neighbor-
hoods against one another and has been run annually in its present form for five centuries.
Italians are surrounded on all sides by monuments that bear witness to the glories of the
past. They are happy to have the Pantheon in Rome, Brunelleschi's dome in Florence, the
Cathedral of Siena—and they know they could never build such masterpieces today. It
keeps them humble.
Each generation arrives on a stage set which has already served its purposes for centuries.
They are the latest players in a generational drama that precedes them by millennia. They
feel that the people who walked these same streets in the 15 th century were more-or-less
like themselves, whereas we Americans are already light-years distant from the 1920s, not
to mention the Pilgrims with their funny shoes.
The stone and tile used in building Italy's cities and towns have enormous weight, both
physical and psychological. They're not readily disposable like sheetrock, plywood and
shingles. A portion of a wall that once surrounded a village is used, to save effort, as the
fourth wall for a private dwelling. The past is recycled and incorporated into the present
in a multitude of ways. The overall effect is to create a sense of continuity where we, in
America, experience rupture and distance.
We often take our groups to visit a castle owned by our friend, Salvatore. He has been busy
restoring it and transforming it into a magnificent hotel for the past fifteen years. When he
tells stories about the place, you discover that he knows the history of each of its stones, of
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