THE PROJECT: By creating opportunities for intimate interaction with the area of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano in southern Italy, we hope to generate new relationships and new exchanges based on the centuries-old patterns of travelers in this territory: pilgrims, monks, brigands and artists... we are all VIANDANTI.
Between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas, between the East and the West, there has long existed a road: a route by which travelled the goods and people of various cultures. In each era these travellers left a tangible trace of their passing: drawings on a cave wall, an ancient warrior sculpted in stone, the magnificent frescos of a chapel; a smattering of words from a faraway language.
At every crossing, every resting place, a viandante, a wayfarer, took something and left something behind, carrying with them in their memory and their spirit, the beauty and richness of this region.
At every crossing, every resting place, a viandante, a wayfarer, took something and left something behind, carrying with them in their memory and their spirit, the beauty and richness of this region.
OUR INSPIRATION
Here in the mountains and wide valley of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano, there exists a long history of pilgrimage and ritual journeys for motives both religious and secular. In the springtime, for centuries upon centuries, the shepherds go up the mountains with their flock, not returning until autumn. Ancient Greeks and pagans, early Christians and modern Catholics, using many of the same trails as the shepherds, all sought the heights of the holiest places. Today, pilgrims carrying statues of flower-strewn saints on their shoulders, accompanied by songs, prayers and sometimes the sound of bells or tambourines, still make their way each year, often before dawn on a spring or summer day, up to one or other of the many shrines that dot the mountaintops. Perhaps they seek to honor the Madonna of the Snow, or the Madonna of the Dove, or the Madonna of the Oaks: Protector of the Forest; perhaps to offer a prayer to the patron saint whose shrine sits above their village: Saint Michael, Peter, Anna, Cono, or to Saint James, (known here as San Giacomo), patron saint of pilgrims.
Like these folks, we sometimes need to deliberately set out and follow the urge to seek nourishment or peace; enlightenment or inspiration: to look for something that irrevocably changes us; that opens up a window or door in our spirits and allow something new to enter (or leave).
Our adventure follows ancient paths through this rich cultural landscape from the pre-historic caves of the regions' first dwellers, to an altar to a lost divinity; over the mountains, through pockets of rugged wilderness, and toward the Tyrrhenian Sea to find the hauntingly beautiful temples of the ancient Greek city of Poseidonia at Paestum. We'll immerse ourselves the faded Baroque glory of the 500-year old Certosa of San Lorenzo, the largest monastery in Italy. We will meet the Madonna of the Snow, farmers and shepherds; a local artist or artisan and the warm and genuine people who live on and from this land.
Like these folks, we sometimes need to deliberately set out and follow the urge to seek nourishment or peace; enlightenment or inspiration: to look for something that irrevocably changes us; that opens up a window or door in our spirits and allow something new to enter (or leave).
Our adventure follows ancient paths through this rich cultural landscape from the pre-historic caves of the regions' first dwellers, to an altar to a lost divinity; over the mountains, through pockets of rugged wilderness, and toward the Tyrrhenian Sea to find the hauntingly beautiful temples of the ancient Greek city of Poseidonia at Paestum. We'll immerse ourselves the faded Baroque glory of the 500-year old Certosa of San Lorenzo, the largest monastery in Italy. We will meet the Madonna of the Snow, farmers and shepherds; a local artist or artisan and the warm and genuine people who live on and from this land.
“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” -- Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon