Let's imagine that one of the thousand architects of the Ferrero family (the richest one in Italy) is looking for a fireplace with the following characteristics (in the architect's words) for one of their thousand villas:
A) Large, powerful, about a meter and a half wide...
B) With soft, almost sensual lines, you understand?
C) Quite deep, so it's more proportionate...
D) Carved in refined Statuario Carrara Arabescato marble (architects know that Statuario, if properly veined, makes women swoon...)
E) AAh, I forgot, the white background of the marble... it's better if it tends slightly towards “Ivory White”...
F) Please note: it must be equipped with its original cast iron insert...
G) Obviously, given the importance of the client, the fireplace must be PERFECT...
Well, with all these demands, where else could this Nutella-loving architect find such a BIJOU if not at Artis?! (I'm being clever and presumptuous, because a fireplace like this comes my way once in a blue moon, but this time it's the right one and I hope you'll forgive me for taking the opportunity to advertise the truly great selection that anyone can find in our warehouse...).
As luck would have it, just two or three days ago we finished restoring a beautiful Louis XV “Trois Coquilles” IN PERFECT CONDITION, SCULPTED IN STATUARIO CARRARA ARABESCATO MARBLE AND, AS IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH... COMPLETE WITH ITS CAST IRON INSERT WHOSE HISTORY, IN ITSELF, IS WORTH A FORTUNE...
I'll tell you the story told in the figures of this spectacular cast iron insert:
On its surfaces, in two circular areas at the top right and left, there is the slender figure of a woman together with the figure of a cherub... They are mother and son and are floating in the sky...
Her name is Europa and she is the beautiful daughter of Agenor, king of the city of Tyre. The cherub is the son of the beautiful Europa and Zeus, king of all the gods, who had fallen in love with Europa and, transforming himself into a white bull (how refined...), raped her. Their story has been told by many Greek and Roman writers and poets, such as Homer, Hesiod, and Ovid. The name Europa first became the name of the island of Crete, then of Greece itself, and then, once again, the name Europa was given to all the known land up to the Atlantic Ocean.
THIS MANTELPIECE IS (ALSO DUE TO THE QUALITY OF THE MARBLE AND THE THICKNESS USED) IN EXCELLENT CONDITION, AND THE SAME CAN BE SAID FOR ITS CAST IRON INSERT.
THE QUALITY OF ITS SCULPTURE IS ITALIAN (LUNIGIANA DOCET) AND THE STYLE IS OF A LIGHT, ELEGANT PARISIAN BAROQUE. THE DATE OF ORIGIN OF THIS MANTEL IS VERY CLOSE TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT THIS PAIR OF FIREPLACE MANTEL AND CAST IRON INSERT HAS BEEN PERFECTLY RESTORED BY US (IMPORTANT DETAIL: THE SURFACE OF THE CAST IRON INSERT HAS BEEN MANUALLY TREATED WITH GRAPHITE, EXACTLY AS WAS DONE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The elderly lady in Paris who sold me this fireplace must have been around eighty years old... She was very kind, had silver hair similar to that of Levi Montalcini, and was very well-groomed, with a minimalist yet elegant style of dress...
She didn't seem “run down” to me at all, yet she confessed to me, with teary eyes, that she had health problems and was going to a “Hospice pour vieillards” and that she was selling the mantelpiece because her apartment on rue de Versigny, which she had just sold, was going to be turned into an insurance office, and they didn't want the fireplace mantel; that space would be used for modern shelving...
“But don't you have any children to go to?” I asked her in French...
“Oui, je n'ai trois, mais touts mariès” (Yes, I have three, but they're all married).
As if to say, “My daughters-in-law don't want me.”
How sad, how melancholy, to hear these choked words...
Seeing her and listening to her, I couldn't help but think of my grandmother and my childhood.
At that time (the 1950s), no one in my hometown (Novi di Modena) would ever have thought of abandoning an elderly mother in a nursing home. Those who went there to wait for death were the “familyless,” the most desperate, or the mentally ill who were not dangerous...
At that time, my parents and I lived in my grandparents' big house, together with my mother's seven siblings, one of whom was already married with two children of his own. For us grandchildren, our grandparents were truly a sacred treasure trove of love and knowledge... They raised us while our parents were busy working... My grandmother was as important to me as my mother, and perhaps even more so...
What did my grandparents teach me?
Many important things, but this example sums it all up:
At Christmas and Easter (and only on those two occasions), we ate cappelletti in capon broth. Well, when on one of these two occasions, eagerly awaited by all the members of the family, the cappelletti did not appear on the table, it meant that ‘the debts had not been paid’. It was a simple and clear way of asking everyone, without the need for words, that it was necessary to give up going to the cinema for the little ones (it was enough to go to the priest's cinema, which cost nothing, even if it only showed Laurel and Hardy...), that the older ones would have to wait until the following year to buy their Bianchi or Legnano bicycles, and that the men would have to make do with the same worn-out shoes for the next few months...
Debts had to be paid, only then could we hold our heads high!
Returning to the beautiful Parisian lady who brought me back to the thoughts above, we talked a little and, as we said goodbye, we even hugged each other informally, like old friends, even though we knew that after that greeting we would never see each other again...
So, this fireplace will always remain in my thoughts, together with the memory of this lady, abandoned by “efficient modernity” and “modern” wives (beautiful modernity!!) incapable of understanding the importance of family and the infinite heritage it could contain, if it still existed.
The lady's name is Helene...
