The Viper's Flight: 1390 to 2025

What flies away is never truly lost. It only waits to be found again, to catch the light, to rest in someone’s palm and tell its story one more time.

Candelo’s main piazza (square) with one of the Ricetto towers

The archeologist’s trowel scraped through mud in Candelo’s main piazza and stopped. Something caught the light—a flash of silver pressed into earth that had held it for centuries.

He knelt, brushed carefully with fingers that knew how to coax history from dirt. A coin emerged: sesino di Gian Galeazzo, Milano 1390. The viper of the Visconti, fierce and unmistakable, is still visible after 635 years in darkness.

Late spring, 1390. The same piazza, but different.

Yesterday’s rain had finally stopped, leaving the world washed clean. The air tasted sweet. Ginevra emerged from the narrow cobbled street into the brightness of the square, and in her palm lay the sesino—warm from her hand, catching the morning sun like a small promise.

Continue reading https://exegi.substack.com/p/the-vipers-flight-1390-to-2025

The Weight She Carried: A Chronicle of the Mountain Markets

 Looking for the Slow Life, trying to escape the hectic pace of our lives, is the dream of having a peaceful life like our ancestors. I'll tell you today what their life was really like. 

Your phone has buzzed seventeen times since you started reading this. Mine too. We live in an age where everything arrives instantly, yet nothing feels like it truly lands.

But let me take you somewhere else. To a woman I never met, walking a path I’ll never walk.

Three Days Up, Three Days Down

A friend told me about his grandmother. Every month, she would fill a wooden chest with whatever her hands had made—preserves, woven goods, vegetables from the terraced garden clinging to the mountainside. Then she would lift that chest onto her head and begin to walk.

Continue reading https://exegi.substack.com/p/the-weight-she-carried-a-chronicle

Everyone Hates Cyclists (Except When They Don't)

The complex relationship Italians (and others) have with cycling blends the charm of the race tradition with the tensions it creates.

The roads through Valdengo wind toward the sanctuary of Oropa like ribbons thrown carelessly across the Piedmont hills. Last Sunday, they belonged entirely to the cyclists — or more precisely, to the grand theater of Italian professional cycling, as the first edition of the TROFEO TESSILE e MODA VALDENGO — OROPA carved its way through these ancient textile valleys.

By mid-morning, the procession had already begun. First came the motorcycle outriders, their engines growling importantly. Then the police, lights flashing their blue authority across shuttered shops and closed intersections.

Continue reading https://exegi.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-cyclists-except-when

The Garden That Teaches Us to Wait

This Sunday, I'll stand in a garden that took 140 years to become what it is. Not because anyone was slow. Because that's how long it takes to grow a masterpiece. 

Have you ever seen doorbells like this? Lovely!

I’m volunteering with FAI—Italy’s National Trust—at Villa Silvio Mosca in Biella, a place most tourists will never see.

It sits in the shadow of the Alps, in a town known for wool mills and rain. The kind of place many of us skip on our way to more photogenic destinations. But here’s what they’re missing: a lesson our accelerated world desperately needs.

In 1889, Silvio Mosca—an engineer who’d made his fortune in textiles—stood on a bare plot of land. He could have hired an architect. Instead, he drew the plans himself. For two years, he personally oversaw every stone, every tree placement, every sightline. He planted a cork oak, exotic and improbable in Piedmont’s climate. He positioned cedars where they’d frame the mountains just so. He created artificial hills to make a small garden feel infinite.

Then came the waiting. 

Continue reading: https://exegi.substack.com/p/the-garden-that-teaches-us-to-wait

Tagliere — The Mountains' Shared Board

 In Italy, time isn't chased—it's shared. The tagliere, a rustic wooden board laden with simple abundance, invites you to slow down, one bite at a time. 

A Weekend in Acqui Terme: Time Slows Where Warm Waters Flow

In the Piedmont hills, where Romans once soaked their weary bones, a small town keeps ancient secrets bubbling just beneath the surface.

The Station That Time Forgot

Mountains Are Born from The Graves of Oceans

[Continued from "The Stone Heart of Italy"]

Water that tastes of vanished oceans, flowing toward a sea that inherited the dreams of Tethys.   

The green stones of Monviso are not alone in their exile.

The Stone Heart of Italy

From the hills above Turin, from the ancient terraces of Biella, even on the clearest days, from the distant spires of Milan, one mountain alone commands the western horizon.

The Great Cornetto Divide: A Morning Ritual That Maps Italy's Soul

There's a moment every morning in Italy when the country reveals one of its most charming contradictions.

The Devil of Piedmont

 For many of us, Italy is sun-drenched piazzas, the gentle clink of wine glasses, and the slow, sweet rhythm of days that have unfolded the same way for centuries. It’s a romantic vision, but

But Italy, like any ancient place, is a palimpsest. Layers of beauty are written over layers of blood and iron.

The Art of Condensation: From 10 Hours to 1 Hour

I needed to reduce my 10-hour course to 1 hour (a 90% reduction!) and was unsure how to handle all the materials I had collected. I thought my research would be interesting for you, too.

A classic challenge for any educator: how to condense a rich, detailed subject into a concise, high-impact overview! It's like trying to fit an entire symphony into a pop song – you have to keep the most memorable melodies and essential movements.

For my "History of Russia: Ruling Dynasties" course, specifically the Rurikovichi part, requires a very strategic and often ruthless approach. The key is to shift from a comprehensive teaching goal to a compelling overview or teaser goal.

Here's how I approach it, step by step:

When the Italian Night Comes Alive (and Tries to Eat You)

 Okay, fellow night owls and adventurers, let's talk about Italian nightlife.