How did the people of Piombino Dese greet the arrival of their newest residents?
My introduction to the Piombinese was really quite remarkable, particularly since they have an initial tendency to be cautious with strangers. Maybe it’s because in our first spring there I arrived at the villa entirely alone. A certain circle of women– Silvana Miolo, Bianca Battiston and a few other ringleaders–decided that I must be lonely at the villa by myself, so one evening they planned a welcome-to-town pizza party. There must have been 30 or 40 women there! Some of them are still among my best friends, more than 15 years later. That seemed to break the ice, partly because it put me more at ease. After a while, strangers waiting in line at the butcher shop would offer me recipes. Others would stop me on the street to say that as children they attended the parochial kindergarten that was operated in the villa in the 1950s; they were eager to tell me of their mischievous exploits as students. One day the pilot of an ultralite airplane, someone we had never met, waved at us as he f
