Urbino Project 2011

Once Urbino was a city with a university but in recent decades it has evolved into a university with a city. Now the last natives of this beautiful Renaissance town wonder what their future holds.

URBINO, Italy — Antonio Bisciari looks over this famous Renaissance city that has been his family’s home for 150 years and sees what the tourists see: a picture-perfect postcard town of unforgettable beauty. But he also sees something else.

“The people I grew up with are no longer here,” Antonio said. “So, staying in Urbino, a beautiful city, a marvelous city, but alone and with no friends is not worth it.”

“If you stay here for too long, Urbino becomes a jail; it’s not as good as one would think,” Antonio said.

To the thousands of tourists who flock to this scenic city each year, Urbino seems as lively and prosperous as it must have looked when the Duke of Urbino made it the hub of the art world in the 14^th century. But beneath the facade of robust health lurks a different story.

According to city authorities, of the 5,000 people living inside the walls of this ancient town, 4,000 are now students. Although the exact figure isn’t known, some local experts, including University of Urbino professor Eduardo Fichera, estimate that the actual number of families living fulltime within the walls of Urbino is less than two dozen.

A reflection of the three generations of the Bisciari family, one of the last families of Urbino; Felice (grandfather), Antonio (son), and Paolo (grandson), enjoy each other’s company during a family dinner.

The Bisciaris are one of these last families. Felice Bisciari is Antonio’s father, and also the grandfather of Anna and Paolo. Though their family’s existence in Urbino dates back more than 150 years, the lingering question is, “How much longer will their ancestral name will be carried within this little city?”

The Stacciolis are another one of these remaining families of Urbino. Lamberto Staccioli, a life-long resident who raised his family in Urbino, is Giorgio Staccioli’s father, and two-year-old Eduardo Staccioli’s grandfather. He said he believes that “it is necessary to always remember where your family roots lie, and [he wants] to make sure [he] can give [his] family the feeling and sense of belonging with which [he] was also raised.”

Today the Stacciolis all live within the same fortress walls but the manner in which Eduardo is being raised is very different from his father’s. The atmosphere of the town has created a dramatic cultural shift.

Giorgio Staccioli grew up with nine of his closest friends. He left town to attend college, came back and opened his own bar, and built a family here in Urbino. But upon his return, eight of those ten families had moved on, leaving Giorgio and only one of his childhood friends to continue their lives together in their hometown. This trend had become prevalent, as Urbino transformed from a small city with a university to a university with a small city.

The younger generation of Urbino residents are conflicted on whether to stay within the historical walls they’ve grown to love or to leave in search of bigger opportunities elsewhere. They say that the choice is between different hurts: The feeling of missing your hometown, or the feeling of being alone in your hometown.

“You have to stay in Urbino on the 24^th of December, the day before Christmas, when there are no students around, to notice how small Urbino is and how alone you really are,” says Antontello.

Carmen Staccioli, Girogio’s wife, is also struck with the same feeling around July each summer.

“Once the students have left this town becomes so empty. It becomes really sad and difficult to come to work,” she said.

Lamberto, head of the Staccioli family, takes a moment to reminisce about the beautiful city of Urbino, a place where both he and his ancestors have called home.

Antonio believes Urbino is a beautiful and magical city, but that “it’s a town from fables, and when you’re 20 years old it’s perfect, it’s the right town, there are no dangers around and nothing bad ever happens. But when you are a grown-up man and you want to have a family it gets difficult.”

Those difficulties revolve around finding work, and places to live. The job market mostly has two options: working for the university, or running a shop. And real estate is expensive because student rents drive prices up.

So Antonio deals with a 90-minute daily commute to work. But he feels the commute is worth it, because he wants to raise his family here, close to their roots. However, the saddening feeling of seclusion still tears him.

“Living within the walls of the city is expensive and Urbino doesn’t offer a lot of work,” Carmen Staccioli said. “The opportunities are very limited.”

Though she only moved here a short seven years ago, she claims it is still evident to see the distinct evolution that the city has experienced through this brief window of time.

This evolution has been especially evident to the older generations.

“The way of living is really different now,” Felice Staccioli said “Fate allowed the exterior part to remain as it was, luckily, but the relationships between people have really changed. Now everyone just ‘harvests their own fields’ and there is more individualism; in the past there was much more solidarity and brotherhood.”

In Lamberto and Felice’s youth, the streets resonated with the laughter of children and piazzas were places where families and friends gathered. But now, the sounds of partying students drinking from open beer and wine bottles echoes down the narrow cobblestone streets from early afternoon until three in the morning, making it hard for children and residents to sleep.

But while the last residents of Urbino see the students changing the quality of the life they cherish, they also know that their livelihoods and futures are tied to these same students.

“The youth help boost the town’s economy because they are constantly buying drinks, shopping, and keeping the town alive,” Lamberto said.

Antonio’s brother’s family has already moved away to Bolzano, leaving Anna and Paolo as the only future Bisciari descendants within Urbino.

“I belong to a generation that just wants to move away and look for something out of these walls,” said 17-year-old Anna.

She and her brother are torn with the tough decision of whether to raise their own families here, or search for better opportunities. Though it would make their family happy to see them stay and continue their legacy within the walls of this extraordinary city, they would rather see their children choose for themselves.

Antonio said he feels, “I can only help them to choose, but it’s their call. I’d like them to stay here and have children here; I’d be happy. But it’s their happiness, not mine.”

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Pierluigi Nieddu has been into cheese since his childhood in Sardinia. Now, he has found fulfillment making organic Pecorino cheese on his 170-sheep farm outside Urbino.

URBINO, Italy – Imagine you are visiting Italy, and there are millions of boutiques with beautiful clothes. Somehow you have to quit eating this great Italian food to fit in them, especially goodies like Capocollo, a ham rolled around some kind of cheese. Cheese is such a big deal in the Italian people’s life, nothing seems more important than the happiness it brings.

So you think: Why quit eating? It makes you so happy, this cheese.

Pierluigi Nieddu, an Italian cheese maker, runs his cheese business in Urbino.

Pierluigi Nieddu, a local cheese maker here, understands the dilemmas of cheese as well as anyone. He has been in cheese all his life, through ups and downs.

Nieddu, keeps 170 sheep to make high quality, organic Pecorino cheese, a traditional cheese made of 100 percent sheep’s milk.

He was born in Sardinia, the third largest island west of mainland Italy. Nieddu spent his childhood and teenage years there, where his father ran a small cheese business.

When Nieddu was 6, his father taught him how to make cheese. The boy had so much fun mixing milk in the pot that he forgot about time, and the cheese overcooked. “My first experience with making cheese was miserable,” he said.

In 1976, Nieddu decided to move to the mainland of Italy with his cousins for a better life. He worked for a cheese factory in Piemonte. Then with the experience that he gained in the factory after two years, Nieddu made up his mind to start his own cheese business in Tuscany. The business didn’t turn out as well as he expected because he didn’t understand business management and marketing nearly as well as he understood making cheese. Nieddu and his relatives fell on hard times. From 1982 to 1984, they had to sell all their sheep in order to survive.

Nieddu’s cousins thought about going back to Sardinia. Nieddu had a different thought. He was determined to stay. It was the biggest decision in his life.

Pierluigi Nieddu makes Pecorino cheese, which is a traditional cheese of 100 percent sheep’s milk.

In 1988, Nieddu moved to Urbino, where a local farm was available at a low cost because the owner was having to leave for a job in a big city. That’s when Nieddu’s cheese career got back on track, and the life in Urbino seemed to bring good fortune.

Nieddu got married and had two daughters. Now he sells his cheese not only in Urbino, but also in Gadana and Montesoffio.

Many local shops love to sell his cheeses because they are organic and of high quality. Those qualities are exactly why Renato Radici says he sells Nieddu’s cheeses in his specialty shop in the Galleria Raffaello, Galleria Dell’Altra Economia..

Nieddu has continued to make cheese not because of the money he makes, but because he enjoys the work that he does each day. Cheese is more like a friend than a food, or job.

“Cheese makes me happy,” says Nieddu.

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Pascucci supplies gourmet coffee around the world and to nearby Urbino.

MONTE CERIGNONE, Italy – In the rolling farmlands of the Marche region, amid cattle grazing on steep hills and farmers working their crops, sits the factory of the Pascucci company.

Pascucci is a worldwide supplier of organically grown and locally roasted coffee beans. Its only facility is here, in the heart of traditional, rural Italy.

The Pascucci family has owned and operated the company since 1883. “We combine modern technology with ancient traditions to produce the best quality product,” says Mario Rossi, the operator of the factory. “We roast the same way people roasted beans from the very beginning,”

Rossi, the highest authority below the Pascucci family, describes the importance of this singular location.  Humidity can influence the quality of the roast and thus, the final product.  Here, in tiny Monte Cerignone, the humidity is low nearly year-round, thanks to the location’s perfect balance of altitude above sea level and distance from the Adriatic sea. “If we were even 30 kilometers closer to the sea, the humidity would be all wrong,” he says.

The Pascucci emblem is proudly decorated on this almost 8 feet tall statue.

The Pascucci building stands out in contrast to the farmland surrounding it. This bright, green building stands stories tall with a mural of coffee bean plants scaling the walls. Through the front door, a quest is greeted by a nearly eight-foot tall sculpture of a coffee cup that proudly bears the Pascucci emblem.

The company’s roasting process hasn’t changed for years. There are three stages, any one which, if done incorrectly, can ruin the bean.  First, the beans are rotated in a bin under extreme heat, to remove the moisture.  Then, they are slowly roasted at lower temperatures, for an evenly browned bean. “It’s like when you cook a chicken,” Rossi said. “ f you cook it to fast, it will be burnt on the outside and pink in the middle.  [It’s the] same for coffee beans.”  Finally, they are rotated in a cooling bin, and allowed to “breathe,” as Rossi puts it.  Robust and enticing aromas fill the room.

Technology is used to maintain control of bean placement, before and after roasting, and to preserve the fresh quality through vacuum tight-containers.

But the coffee business does not end here.  Pascucci offers a variety of coffee blends. They start from 12 types of carefully selected green beans, which are then roasted and blended.  These beans are imported from all over the world, and grown by what Rossi refers to as “the best farmers of the best producing countries.”

The farmers are in Haiti, Colombia, India and other coffee-growing nations of the world.  Pascucci, along with purchasing its beans, has helped the Haitian farmer’s bean to become the first certified organic bean in the Pascucci company, through a international organization called FairTrade. “Not only does this certification allow Haitian farmers to send their children to school and get more profit for their crops, it also allows us to advertise our product appropriately [as certified organic],” Rossi says.

Mario Rossi is operator of the Pascucci roasting facility. He explains, in detail, the importance of the location, in Monte Cerignone.

It is clear that the Pascucci company is serious about how it does business. Its customers stay loyal. The company ships its coffee all over the world, but one place it is especially appreciated is in the historic Renaissance town of Urbino, barely an hour away.

Nestled in the narrow streets and steep hills of this city sits “Café Del Academia,” owned and operated by Fabio Gostoli. His café is softly lit by high windows and decorated in local artwork.  Upon entry, customers are quickly greeted by Gostoli’s animated voice, which can be heard from outdoors. He’ll proudly serve the Pascucci product at any time of day. In fact, it is the only coffee he serves.  “You don’t make an appointment with coffee,” he says. “Any time is a good time to drink and enjoy good company.”

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Keiichi Iwasaki bikes into a town, performs his magic tricks, then rides on to his next stop. He’s traveling around the entire globe on a 3-speed bicycle.

URBINO, Italy- Keiichi Iwasaki went to college and then earned a master’s degree in Chemistry. Like many other young Japanese, he longed to see the world. But not in the usual way.

“I thought that if I use airplane it’s too fast so I can’t see nothing,” he says in the broken English he learned growing up in his native Japan. “But bicycling is much better to see the world.”

So he set out on an unpretentious three-speed bike, with only two dollars in his pocket and “a dream to see the world.” Ten years later, at age 38, he arrived in the Renaissance hill town of Urbino.

Although he lives simply, carrying only what he can tie to the back of a small bicycle, no one would call Keiichi Iwasaki dull.  He departed from his home in Guma, Japan, in 2001 on what he thought would be a three-year journey. Now, a decade later, Iwasaki continues circumnavigating the globe, like a 21^st century Magellan with a monk-like contentment.

“There are so many kinds of people,” he says. “Different in culture, language, color of eyes, hair, skin. Different but in one point of view we’re still the same. We are human.”

Unlike most travelers, neither time nor direction dictates Iwasaki’s itinerary. His nomadic tendencies – in balance with an overall goal of circling the planet – have propelled him in zigzags across the map. But it’s within these imprecise, impulsive detours that Iwasaki has stumbled upon the most memorable experiences of his journey, including an unexpected romance in the city of love – Paris.

Before this expedition, Iwasaki was working for his father as an air conditioning engineer. Unsatisfied, Iwasaki grew restless with the small rural town he called home. “Life is so short and there are many things I want to see,” he said. With the support of his parents and older sister, Iwasaki spontaneously shoved a few belongings into a small backpack and hit the road.

After testing the waters for a year, he decided to leave Japan. In 2002 he took a ferry to South Korea and began pedaling his way across China.

His favorite memory? After a long pause he began to describe his adventures in the foothills of Nepal. “When I passed Nepal I saw the Mount Everest and I thought, is it possible?”

In Nepal, he eagerly put down his kickstand and set up a temporary home where he practiced mountaineering until qualified for the expedition team. After a yearlong diversion, Iwasaki’s adventure was stamped a success. On May 31, 2005, he reached the summit of Mount Everest.

“From the top of the world, well that is a beautiful place.”

From Nepal, Iwasaki made his was across India and Middle East, stopping in Pakistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. By 2007 he crossed into Eastern Europe.

After arriving at any of his various destinations, Iwasaki sets up the small tent and stove he carries on the back of his bicycle and settles in for the night. His days are simple, but they are not ordinary. In the morning he leisurely makes a fire and a cup of coffee and sets out for work.

Each new place he visits could fear him as a swindler, a mysterious stranger in town, bemusing young children and dazzling the minds of strangers passing on the street for money. Magic has been a hobby since Iwasaki’s high school days, but has become the main funding for his travels. But he isn’t pushy about panhandling, and he obviously isn’t getting rich.

His presence brings an odd juxtaposition in the Piazza del Repubblica, as this Japanese cyclist has one of the few bicycles here in this city of steep cobblestone streets.

Using the same chopsticks he eats with and a small deck of cards, Iwasaki performs simple but captivating tricks in the main square of Urbino, hoping onlookers will spare a small contribution.

Aside from magic, Iwasaki has periodically taken a break from the road, working in various hostels throughout his trip. It was while working at a hostel in Budapest, Hungary, that his terrestrial navigation again veered off course when a strikingly beautiful Japanese woman walked in and asked for a room.

Here stood a man who had spontaneously bicycled half way across the globe and fearlessly scaled a nearly 30,000 foot ice covered cliff, but became utterly humbled by a slender, quiet woman who barely stood five feet tall.

Yuka Otsuka had also been cycling across Europe, making her way through Berlin, Amsterdam, and Holland and was on her way back to Japan when she met Iwasaki. Taken with this woman, Iwasaki immediately asked her to join him. Until this point, failure had been an experience unfamiliar to Iwasaki. Yuka declined the invitation.

The two strangers exchanged e-mails and stayed in contact throughout the years.

It was not until the summer of 2009, nearly three years later, that the two would again meet.  Yuka was traveling through Europe again and agreed to meet Iwasaki in Paris.

This time Iwasaki did not come unprepared.  “I gave Yuka a bicycle as her birthday gift and asked her, join me, and come together by bicycle.” This time, she agreed.

The two strangers set off to Berlin and have been traveling together ever since.

Time and planning are more a figure of speech than concrete ideas to Iwasaki, but his latest rendition of planning was to head south from Urbino to Perugia, loop around to Venice and eventually, somehow, make his way into South Africa and finally to North America. “This should be about five years.”

He has passed 43 countries in the past 10 years and has no intention of stopping. His next trick will be crossing Atlantic Ocean on his way to America.

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A look at a hog’s heaven near the mountain town of Cagli reveals one secret in the magic story of how salumi has become a star of Italy’s culinary culture.

CAGLI, Italy – Atop a flat plain nestled deep in the rolling hills near this old Roman town, pigs are going wild.

It is feeding time. Boars and sows of all colors, shapes and sizes scramble from their wallows, knock into fences and collide into a tangle of loin, belly and butt in the middle of the farm yard.

In the tumultuous center, amidst the babel of sniffing, snorting and squealing, stands pig farmer Sergio Lapico, clutching a handful of grass and herbs to the jostling mass of eager, upturned mouths.

Squealing and gesturing madly, he is beseeching the swine in pig-speak: Eat more, grow fat and be happy, my children. And the pigs reply with grunts of delight, perfectly ignorant of the meaning of the theatrics of this strange human figure. But they nod their snouts in agreement all the same.

“I want them to be happy, because a happy pig is a delicious pig,” said Sergio, clad in mud-splattered cover-alls and dusty wellingtons.  “This is how good salumi comes about.”

Organically-raised pigs like the ones on Sergio’s farm are perfect for the creation of the salumi, superstars of ham and one of Italy’s distinctive gastronomical inventions.

And one of its favorites. Offer an Italian a slice of salumi and see his face light up magically. It is a specialty dish that holds a unique place of affection for many Italians due to early childhood memories of hand-sliced treasures served up at dinner tables.

Diverse types and splendid names. Prosciutto, mortadella, capocollo, culatello, lardo, and salame. Royalty among pork products, they hang regally behind the glass windows of specialty shops and gourmet delicatessens all over Italy. These cured meats adorn the menus of world-renowned restaurants and are mainstays of the antipasto platter.

Salumi, known to most Americans as salami, encompasses a family of hams, salamis and bolognas from Italy. These preserved meats lend robust flavors to appetizers, soups and pastas. They start with whole cuts of meat from farm-raised hogs that are cured and then aged for months, maybe even years.

Although it lacks the universal appeal of pizza and pasta, Italy’s ubiquitous culinary exports, salumi is an indispensable food in this artisanal food culture. But the world is slowly waking up to what is possibly Italy’s best kept culinary secret. Within the past decade, restaurants like Eataly in New York and Salumi in Seattle have sprouted all over America and are famous for making the tastiest salumi outside of Italy.

But try as they may, nobody makes salumi with as much tradition, craft and flair as the Italians.

For Stefano Galli, owner of Salumi Galli, a renowned salumi making company in Fermingnano, preserving family traditions is much more than just sticking to every detail in the family recipe book. It is also an unstinting devotion to his family’s practices of using only the freshest locally grown meats and to make them using centuries-old artisanal methods of spicing and curing.

For the past 20 years, Galli has been selling his name and his products to a loyal clientele made up of housewives, restaurateurs and local connoisseurs who have developed a penchant for his intricately seasoned meats.

With short cropped hair, delicate features, shy demeanor and a nose as sharp as the knife he uses to slice his hams, Galli looks more like a shrewd scientist than a skilled curer of meats. Indeed, making salami is as much a science as it is an art. There are no magical elves in white aprons scurrying across kitchen floors hacking, slicing and dicing, conjuring up truckloads of sausages a day. Instead, modern equipment like table-top meat grinders turn pounds of cold loin and belly into mashed ribbons and sausage stuffers load the meat into sheaths of natural skin made from pig intestines.

“Seasoning and curing meat is an extremely precise and painstaking process,” said Galli, a tub of minced pork belly at his elbow. “Lean meat, fat and seasoning salt have to be in exact quantities; too much or too little will ruin the flavor.”

“Everything has to be perfecto. Everything”, he said while tying the loose end of a sausage casing, his voice suddenly edged with an impressive gravity. You never doubt a man when he speaks like that. Not when he is a salumi artisan, wholly immersed in his work.

Salumi making methods have changed very little since the time the very first salumi was made, says Galli. The raw meat is first varnished with a curing mixture of salt, sodium nitrate, and live culture. Salt prevents spoilage, sodium nitrate injects flavor and live culture aids fermentation.

Traditional salumi should be made adding as little artificial flavorings as possible. You can easily tell the difference, he says; a deep red hue means plenty of meat with little additives, while a brownish hue contains great amounts of additives.

Galli’s humidity controlled cellar or what he calls his “laboratory”, is where the salumi are stored, cured with suppleness and supercharged flavor, fostering a complexity only long aging can achieve.  In ancient days, salumi could only be made in musty cellars and grubby attics during winter. Now, with modern refrigeration techniques, they can be aged in an optimum temperature and humidity for   prolonged periods.

“In the past, without refrigeration, it is difficult to make quality meat like the culatello, which has to be aged for at least a year before it can be served,” said the cure-master, pointing to a row of pear-shaped ham braced with twine. “It’s the best salumi there is.”

Culatello, Italy’s rarest ham, is prized for its elegant, silky textures and nuanced flavors. Taste it and the best prosciutto or capocollo seem like mere bacon. Besides this legendary ham, Galli produces other stellar salumi like pancetta, lonzina, prosciutto, salame and guanciale, all made from various parts of the pig.

Although the curing and storage of pork is the most crucial stage in the salumi making process, the manner in which the pigs are reared decides the quality of their meat. Along with age-old Italian pastoral traditions, the highest quality, all-natural pork must be used to create the finest salumi.

“It is foolish to try to make good salumi from the meat of industrial pigs. The taste will be inferior,” said Sergio who makes a small amount of salumi such as the prized lardo and prosciutto at his farm, selling both raw and cured meat to nearby specialty shops and restaurants.

Factory-farmed hogs live crammed in drab confinement. They are castrated to reduce aggression and are stuffed with growth promoters and antibiotic-laden feed. So naturally, their meat will not be ideal for making salumi, says the charming 50-year-old bachelor.

Here on his organic farm, there are pigs of wide-ranging varieties: wild hogs, black pigs, large-whites, and cinta-senese.  They live in bucolic bliss, pasturing freely on wide open forest spaces and munching on a steady and plentiful diet of grass and herbs. The idyllic lifestyle gives rise to meat which tastes sweeter, and is far more tender than any supermarket cut.

This place may be hog heaven for Sergio’s pigs, but it is a slice of culinary paradise one experiences when sampling salumi made from the meat of these free-range porkers. Cut with his electric meat slicer, these parchment-thin slices of salumi look like petrified petals of a pale summer rose.

Tasting it, one is stunned by its mellow, delicate flavor and obscenely rich and creamy texture. It even tastes better than it looks. They are usually perfect on their own. Sergio likes to serve them with hard crusted bread and a glass of Verdicchio, a local white wine from the Le Marche region that had a freshness which paired perfectly with the saltiness of the cured meat.

Performing the pork-preserving craft is not without its sacrifices. Living a solitary life on a farm reaps loneliness as the only conversations he has here are those with his pigs.

But like the hogs on his farm, Sergio is happy.

“I live for my pigs and for my salumi,” he says. “To make really good salumi, you need real passion and dedication. Nothing less.”

With that, he turned to his pigs and started squealing again.

A collection of reports and articles about the salumi:

http://johnlehndorff.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/2011-food-trends-u-s-vs-italian-salumi-private-brands-rising-lamb-rice-and-peace

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The spirit of secularization has dramatically diminished Catholic practice in Italy. But some say a modernized faith can speak to life’s most important questions.

URBINO, Italy – As the priest sets the bread of the Eucharist on Carlos Mascio’s outstretched tongue, the sound of contemporary jazz blares from outside into the ancient walls of the San Francesco Church.

It is Friday night and the daily Mass is far from the minds of most of the residents of Urbino. Just outside the church walls, hundreds of people are drinking and dancing as a few faithful Catholics stand in procession to take communion.

As Mascio, 23, makes his way back towards the worn wooden pews a different type of music joins the commotion. The modern sound of guitar and electric keyboard begins to fill the room from near the altar.

For more than 200 years, in the late Middle Ages, Urbino was under direct rule of the papacy. Walking through its tiny cobblestone streets, you can distinguish Urbino’s time as a papal state in its dozens of churches bearing the crossed keys of St. Peter’s See.

But in a town where Catholicism reigned supreme, secularization, atheism and Bible-centered evangelism are now growing in dominance at a steady rate.

“Urbino is full of students who are politically oriented on the left,” said Laura Severi, a 21-year-old language student at the University of Urbino,  “In Italy, there is left and right politically speaking, and usually people belonging to the left don’t really believe in God.”

Both sides of the aisle tend to agree that in Urbino, religious practice has severely diminished and that the majority of Urbino residents are no longer religious.

“I think that religion has lost its traditions and young people cannot recognize themselves in its principles,” said Alessandro Merli, a 23-year-old philosophy student at University of Urbino. “The number of people going to church is already low and nothing suggests that it will rise again.”

Urbino is not the only place in Italy seeing a growth of secularism. A number of social measurements indicate a nationwide secularization over the last 20 years. For example, the number of Italians taking part in rites of passage consistently dropped from 1991 to 2004, according to Vatican statistics and a study by the Critica Liberale Foundation, an Italian political think tank. The study found a steady process of secularization in Italy as well as a  “diminishing appeal of Catholic ideas as regards family life and children’s education.”

While secularization continues to gain a footing in this ancient Renaissance town, there are some who are trying to reinvigorate the religiosity of the local youth.

Mascio, a political science student, is co-president of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI), a university-based Catholic group with about 700 members throughout Italy. The University of Urbino’s FUCI is the largest chapter in Italy, with more than 40 members, according to Mascio. He says their membership is actually much larger then that.

“We have 40 card-carrying members, but we have many more people who participate in our activities regularly,” Mascio said.

Unlike other Italian Catholic groups, FUCI is a university-oriented organization that focuses on communicating the message of the Bible with students. The Urbino group works directly with friars from the local San Francesco Convent to organize weekly meetings, youth-oriented Masses and street evangelization.

A FUCI Mass is a little different from a traditional Catholic Mass. For a FUCI Mass the pews, which are traditionally in two straight rows, are moved diagonally so that they face towards the aisle and are closer to the altar. A three-person band plays music on a drum set, keyboard and electric guitar throughout the service and an animated priest often gives a sermon which brings the students to laughter.

Andrea Cannuccia is the friar appointed to working with FUCI from the San Francesco Convent and also works for FUCI’s national management. Cannuccia said he believes these new types of services are vital for keeping and reinvigorating religious youth.

“We must be modern in what we do to keep young people interested. When we meet, we speak about one existential question and help the discussion with video, PowerPoints, images and group work,” Cannuccia said.

But FUCI is not trying to change Catholicism. FUCI believes the message of the New Testament is always new and very much important and relevant to today’s youth and world.

For Mascio and FUCI, the most important method for bringing people to the word of God and of Catholicism is to use modern language and methods as a means to introduce people to the timeless values and truth of the Bible.

For FUCI members, the group is simply a means to an end.

“We see FUCI as a way to turn people from vagabonds to pilgrims,” Mascio said. “Our goal is not to make FUCI grow. FUCI is an instrument to bring the Christian message to people.”

While statistics point to a secularizing population, Cannuccia said he does not believe these statistics are a realistic reflection of today’s population.

“If on one end it looks like religious practice is decreasing, actually from what we see and experience it is increasing. This year the number of FUCI members went up in Italy. Religious questions are now more important then before,” Cannuccia said.

For FUCI, the injection of modernity is just right. Melding the ancient message of the Bible with modern language and methods, members believe they hold the key to keeping Catholicism and the Bible well within the hearts and minds of Italy’s youth.

When asked about the future of Catholicism, Mascio turned the question to “the present.” “The present, because it is in the reality of the present that you find the truth.”

As Mascio takes his seat, a slight smirk appears on his boyish face as he listens to the music outside. For the religious youth of Italy, the echo of the streets is not at odds with the ancient communion rite. In some ways, in fact, it fits perfectly.

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URBINO, Italy – As important as food is, most of us know little about where it comes from.

A family of organic farmers outside this Renaissance city is trying to change that.

“Children think that when you take milk of the cow, it is cold, not hot, because they always take cold milk from the fridge,” says Monserrat Podgornik, the mother of the family. She believes children should understand that when a calf drinks milk, “it has to be hot in the natural way like your mama, no?”

Concerned about this disconnect in today’s culture, the Podgornik family has created La Fattoria Dei Cantori, or “The Farm of the Singers,” an eclectic 15-acre operation that is not just a producer of quality food and art, but a center of learning.

La Fattoria Dei Cantori has two cows to produce milk and cheese, as well as two donkeys and one horse.

Dedicated to what they call “a simple life” centered on the philosophy of  spiritual leader Mohandas Gandhi, the farm teaches classes for children, hosts “WWOOFers” and holds a long list of activities not covered by the description “agriturism, beekeeping, farm classroom, and oven goods” in its brochure.

Roberto and Montserrat Podgornik began this farm 30 years ago with just one cow, a leaky old farmhouse, and a bicycle for transportation. Neither came from farming families, but were each deeply moved by books they read about Gandhi.

“When I was 19, I was looking for something important,” Monserrat says. After living in a farming community started by one of Gandhi’s disciples in France, her quest was over—she knew she wanted that simple life for herself.

Montserrat insists the decision to start La Fattoria Dei Cantori wasn’t courageous, but that she and her husband were simply “unconscious” of the magnitude of their task. A broken roof that made the house so cold a glass of water “became gelato” was just one of their earliest challenges. But by taking those challenges day by day, Montserrat says, they were able to overcome everything.

“You have to believe in what you are doing,” she says of the difficulties of organic farming.

The Podgorniks want to teach children from the beginning about natural processes.

They feel it is important to try to take part in the entire process of everything they produce. They were one of the first farms in the region to grow their own wheat as well as bake bread from the flour obtained.

“One of our favorite things is to teach the children, [because] we can change society from the beginning,” says Montserrat’s daughter Agnese, 24, who works on the farm full time.

Classes offered to children range from beekeeping to bookbinding to simply “walking in the woods.” To educate children on the origins of food and have them participate in the farm’s manual chores, the Podgorniks built a classroom separate from the house. There the children can safely observe bees through its large windows and take part in the bread making process.

The Podgorniks believe their “didactic farm” approach is increasingly important to teach children that, as Agnese said, “food doesn’t just come from the grocery store.”

The farm is a flurry of activity all day with the coming and going of family, friends and customers of all ages. “We never know how many plates to put on the table,” said Montserrat as she cut tomatoes for lunch.

Nobody seems to come without being fed, but also, as Agnese said, “Nobody comes to this farm without doing some work,” such as packaging crackers for the market. The family believes that through this work, people gain valuable knowledge.

There is a nonstop rhythm of creation on the farm, whether a family brings empty bottles to fill with milk from the two cows or Agnese and her sister, Irene, working together in the oven room to bake three types of bread.

In the small, hot space, through clouds of flour, the sisters’ fingers work quickly and nimbly with the dough, graceful from years of practice. They work hard for hours at a time, pausing to wipe sweat from their brows and drink a glass of their homemade apple juice.

Montserrat, right, and her two daughters, Agnese, left, and Irene, not shown, do most of the bread making.

To run smoothly the farm depends on volunteers to help out with this hard labor, some from organizations like Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF).

“I know I want this way of life, but I don’t have the courage to begin,” said Serena Vegna, one of the two WWOOF volunteers. Vegna and her husband want to start their own small organic farm for her 3-year-old daughter to grow up on. Learning on La Fattoria Dei Cantori is a first step toward their demanding dream, the same one that Roberto and Montserrat had 30 years ago.

Today, La Fattoria Dei Cantori is one of many organic farms in the Urbino- Pesaro area. A co-op of 20 of these farms and local crafters banded together to sell their products directly to customers in Galleria Dell’Altra Economia in Urbino.

This shop is one of many methods these small farms must use to survive on the small amount of product they produce.

Renato Radici works at the shop’s storefront and acts as a spokesman for these local producers, chatting enthusiastically with customers while slicing fresh salami on an automatic blade.

“It’s a hard fight against the big companies—they all have help from the government, but the little farms have a lot of difficulty,” he said. He harped on these “big companies,” suggesting cheaply made food is partly to blame for health problems such as obesity, celiac disease, and digestion problems.

Radici is optimistic, though, because of the rising demand for organic, high quality food. “The big companies see that people like this, and they are afraid of the damage,” he said.

Evidently, Radici believes that even large-scale food companies are learning something from small farms like La Fattoria Dei Cantori, if simply, he mentions, to repackage their food with “greener” looking labels.

In response to this “hard fight,” Montserrat says she prefers the small-scale method of change through teaching others. “I want to fight against something of myself that I don’t like, but not against others,” she says. “Yes, those words are important, but the example is more important.”

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URBINO, Italy – An elderly yet energetic woman backs through the curtain of wooden beads separating Machelleria Ubaldi, a butcher shop, from the sunny afternoon bustle of Via Rafaello near the center of town, still immersed in a loud and lively conversation with someone outside.  Ending that exchange with a sharp laugh, she  issues a quick buona sera while moving  into an equally dynamic conversation with the young man behind the counter.

Buying meat in Italy is not a pre-packaged affair.  Picking up steak, salami or prosciutto isn’t a case of reaching into refrigerated case and grabbing an anonymously shrink-wrapped package. It’s a trip to visit an old friend – the person who selects and cuts your dinner – as well as the line of local farmers he represents.

Davide Ubaldi in his shop, the Machelleria Ubaldi.

“In grocery stores it is cheaper but can be unsafe because it is often imported from somewhere like France,” said Davide Ubaldi as he slices meats behind the counter, “Butchers follow their animals from the farm to the shop, so they know where it comes from.”

For nearly a decade the Ubaldi family – Davide, with his parents and younger sister – has operated the only family-owned butcher shop inside Urbino’s city walls, the Machelleria Ubaldi. Standing behind the counter, Davide slices meats and making sausages to order with customers who are considered part of the family.

Still chatting with Davide, the older woman points to a certain cut of beef in the glass meat case, “no not that one the one in front of it,” and asks for it thinly sliced- “but not too thin like last time.”  But this isn’t just about business. She also asks the butcher slicing her meat various questions about his day and family. They share a rapport deeper than taking a number would allow. The niceties continue until the not-too thin slices have been paid for and carried out through the wooden curtain.

Like this lady, the vast majority of customers that come through Ubaldi’s beaded curtain door are regulars. Most come in around the same time and day every week, often crowding the store on Saturdays. Their purchases are the end result of a hand-on production line that finds Davide following his products from the start.

One of the farms Ubaldi follows his animals from is that of Paolo Ugolini. Ugolini raises his 15 head of cattle in a family-run ranch near Urbino. He makes sure each one of them ends up in a near by shop.

Ubaldi selects a cut of meat for a customer.

“They go to local butchers that I am friends with and have personal relations with,” Ugolini said through an interpreter, ”I have no economical agreements–just relationships. Being a farmer is not a good job because people don’t give me good prices, like my friends will do.”

Ugolini and Ubaldi both noted how many butchers in Italy are ceasing to personally buy meat from their farmers, but are instead turning to the cheaper and more anonymous alternative of buying imported meats.

Signs posted around the store verify the origins of the meat Ubaldi sells. He says all of the farms distributing to him are in Italy, and are all very small. One framed paper lists one of these farms as Ugolini’s.

“The difference between us [and the super markets] is not in the type of meat we sell,” said Ubaldi, “but that the meat we have is a better quality.”

Ugolini agrees. Although he it is not recognized by the Italian Bureau of Agriculture, he said he does not feed his cows anything non-organic.

“It makes a difference,” Ugolini said of the diet, “Otherwise I would feed them the cheap stuff.  But its more natural not to.”

Ubaldi points to another paper displayed on the wall with his farm verifications. It shows another difference between the family butcher and the meat counter. Ubaldi is certified to handle and sell his meats properly. This is a precaution not taken by the super market meat counter down the street.

This personal touch may be fading in Italy Food Network Channel and even the New York Times have all made note of the growing trend of “old-school butchers” in the U.S. Davide, however, has seen the opposite happen since his parents started their store roughly twenty years ago.

Rarely, he said, do any new customers even enter, a trend that has taken a toll on local butcher shops.  He gestures toward the storefront of a former poultry and meat shop across the street, the most recent to close.

“People can find meats in the super markets,” Ubaldi says through an interpreter, “so now real butchers are disappearing.”

But in the meantime, buying meat for many Italians remains a social affair.

In the city known as the “Jewel of the Renaissance,” young artists find inspiration, but little support.

The setting sun gleams off Raphael’s face. He stands 14 feet tall in bronze on a huge granite pedestal at the top of Via del Raffaello, the steepest street in the small Renaissance town of Urbino, his birthplace.  World-renowned as one of the most important painters of the Renaissance, he still influences the city and its current artistic culture.

Down the cobblestone street in Raphael’s restored childhood home, Elvis Spadoni wears a wrinkled shirt and khakis that complement his shaggy hair and gruff beard. It is his first art show, and the house is packed with viewers captivated by this new artist’s traditional charcoal works. Each piece contains an aspect of Spadoni, as well as traces of Raphael and Michelangelo.

Elvis Spadoni – 31

Four years ago, Elvis had never painted or sculpted. But thanks to the local fine arts academy, L’Academia di Belle Arti he has begun to master classical art. He is becoming increasingly well-known in Urbino, but it has been a struggle.

Spadoni was born in Urbino in 1979 and grew up in Casinina, a rural town close by. He was named after the King of Rock and Roll; his father wanted his child to have a unique name and his mother was a Presley fan. Elvis grew up drawing and sketching, but only as a hobby. He studied at a specialized school in Remini that concentrated on the humanities.

“We studied Greek, Latin, philosophy. . .nothing about art, very little,” he says. “But I found this background very, very useful.”

After high school, at 18, Spadoni attended seminary. For the next nine years he studied and served the Catholic Church in Remini and Bologna.

During his time in seminary, he was bombarded by ideas, thoughts that would eventually find themselves on paper.

“I felt that it was my best way to communicate, but only sketch,” he says.

Many of these sketches weren’t serious, but occasionally he produced a drawing that hinted at more than just lead on a page.

By the time Spadoni was 27, he realized he was not happy. Something was missing.

“My fear inside, fear to live life free, make me think that my way was to become priest, to serve the Church,” he says.

Within the course of two days of intense reflection, Spadoni left the seminary.

Elvis tries to include a self-portrait of some kind in all his works.

“We have to be what we are,” he says, referring to the inner turmoil he confronted at the end of his seminary days.  With that realized, he returned to Urbino to start anew.

After passing an application exam, Spadoni began his studies at L’Academia di Belle Arti. The fine arts academy, build around a renovated convent, focuses on traditional arts as well as new and evolving media like video. Students of the academy, who range in age from 19 to more than 50, have close interaction with the professors.

“The contact with the professors is much more immediate, much more personal,” says Sebastiano Guerrera, who has been at the academy for 28 years, as a student, professor of paint, and now as the director.

“I can remember all my students by name. It’s a much more direct personal relationship than somewhere like Rome or another big city,” he says.

Walking around L’Academia di Belle Arti, Spadoni appears completely at home. The hallways boast an impressive array of student work, but around every corner is one of Spadoni’s creations.

“This is mine,” he says, motioning to a small bronze statue of Hercules as he walks down the main hall of the academy.  Hunched over, the mythical hero stares from underneath the mantle of the Nemean lion that he famously hunted and slayed. Spadoni points to Hercules’s right index finger, which is missing its tip. Spadoni’s own finger is cut off at the same point, the result of a childhood accident with the gears of a honey-making machine.

“My favorite subject is myself. I’ve done a lot of self-portraits and even when I paint someone else I give him my likeness,” Spadoni wrote in a short essay about his artwork. “I think my style is narrative. My ambition, my desire is to use the painting, the drawing, the sculpture, to tell something.”

Continuing through the halls of the academy, he points out many more featured pieces along the corridors, until coming to a large canvas.

“This is my first painting for the academy,” he remarks nonchalantly. The image depicts Spadoni waking in a simple modern bedroom, and behind him is a replication of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.” The work is titled “Faithful to the Earth” and reflects the simultaneous distance and intimacy of man and God as a simple, everyday reality.

“To be faithful to the earth means to be faithful to the heart,” he says calmly. Spadoni resonates a similar simplicity and humility, yet the passion in his eyes is unmistakable.

“He’s a very diligent student,” says Marie Calajoe, a professor of technical languages at the Academy and the University of Urbino. “Whatever he does, he does it with maximum dedication. It’s as if he was born again and he’s discovering everything for the first time. He’s so open and absorbent in everything that’s around him.”

That diligence won him a six-week scholarship in New York through the Columbus Citizens foundation. He will be studying at various art schools around the state.

“For me, everything happens in New York; it’s like Disneyland,” Spadoni says.

Even though he is beginning to see the fruits of his labor, the past four years at the academy have not been easy for Spadoni. He continually struggles with whether he should work while studying at the Academy. Spadoni relates the burden of having a second job to the biblical story of David receiving Saul’s armor; David could barely move and so decided he could fight better without it.

“Someone give me an armor, I often take this, but in time I understand that I fall if I keep this armor.”

After having several jobs over the years, Spadoni has decided that the best way for him to learn and grow as an artist is to focus solely on his studies.

“The struggle is to follow your path,” Spadoni says. He has begun to forge that path.

Despite leaving the Church four years ago, Elvis says that he feels even more religious now. He sums up his decision as a “faithful experience of salvation.”

“I think God’s will is according to your nature,” he said.

That nature seems to be one of great potential, one that is only beginning in the town of Raphael.

“Urbino is like a big painting,” Spadoni says, of the beauty of the landscape and architecture. Although he derives a lot of his influence from Michelangelo, Spadoni says that as he has gotten older his appreciation for Raphael has grown.  He says “the presence of Raphael” is always around and even though they are centuries apart, the two artists of Urbino have much in common.

“When I draw something like a face and an eye is crooked or the shading isn’t right and I have to do it over again, I think that centuries ago Raphael had the same problems.”

Spadoni is also beginning to see the same successes as his art style continues to evolve.

“I’m very interested in discovering a new way to relate to art languages, really like an old man observing a young man that is living his life.”

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See Grant’s Video “The Barber of Urbino”

The C-1 Autogestita is a student-run political group at the University of Urbino. They take action on a variety of problems, from national, local and University issues.

URBINO, Italy – On a warm Sunday afternoon pedestrians  crowded into the Piazza Repubblica scattered as a small car screeched across the cobblestones, its horn blaring while scruffy students hung from the windows waving flags and screaming slogans.

They were the cheering section for one side of a controversial national election that had citizens across the country deciding three volatile propositions: privatizing the water supply, approving nuclear power, and ending the immunity of politicians like Prime Minister Silvio Burlesconi from prosecution while in office. The issues generated a huge turnout, with the water and power ideas failing miserably, and the politicians being held accountable.

Mattia Trusso wears his C-1 Autogestita shirt for their event. The group hosted a Palestinian rap group to create debate among the guests.

But while it was a big weekend for Italy it was just another day on campus for the screaming students. They were all members of C-1 Autogestita, a student-run political activist group at the University of Urbino.  A close-knit band of 50 young men and women from across the country, they manage to squeeze in studies and parties between what seems to be their main interest: The political issues of the day.

“This lifestyle makes you crazy,” laughed Mattia Trusso, a 26-year-old sociology major, “I think it’s harder than a job sometimes.”

C1 began in 2006, members said, when about 15 politically-minded students boldly invaded the university’s Magistrar Building and squatted in classroom ‘C1’, claiming it as their headquarters.  After a brief eviction, they squatted again, eventually gaining official recognition from the university.

Since then C-1 has grown to about 50 students who make the room their second home. Its walls are covered with posters and banners that tell the group’s history of activism, as well as its current events such as a recent trip to Rome to protest financial cuts to universities. Amenities are utilitarian; in one corner students can rest on couches or take a study break, while in another a coat rack and shelves store belongings.

Andrea Grassia, a 22-year-old Italian language and literature student, said he “did everything” in the C1 room.

C-1 members live like a family, sharing apartments, food and free time. Outside of their political life, they stay close to each other.

“I had fun, I (smoked), I had discussions for hours and hours about politics, I reorganized lessons and every kind of art and showings of pictures and films,” Grassia said. “I also remember sometimes we spent all our nights drinking.”

But the C-1 members have never forgotten their mission. Urbino’s student body hails from across the nation and represents a variety of political opinions, so the room serves as a community space, a headquarters to plan events and a resource for local residents as well as students.

“Lots of people refer to this room to get information, to be informed,” Trusso said. “When that (began to happen) it was the symbol that this room started to be like a house for us.”

The growth in membership is important, Trusso said, because it has allowed C-1 to expand their involvement from just university issues to local and national topics.

A few weeks after the national referendum – a resounding victory for the C-1 positions – the group hosted a Palestinian rap group to publicize the story of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, who was raped and killed in the Gaza Strip by Palestinians in April 2011.

“It was the first time a Palestinian people or organization has raped a person that was well known there to work and to help them,” Trusso said.

C1 members set up a stage for artists then manned stands to hand out information and to sell sausage and eggplant sandwiches to raise funds. But Trusso said the most important part of the evening was to create debate.

“If someone says ‘these crazy guys are bringing a group of terrorist singers,’ I will be happy, because it got them to listen for five minutes,” Trusso said.

And while the group doesn’t represent all opinions on the campus, as  24-year-old sociology student Mattia “Junior” Maurizi pointed out, they can unite the campus on  one burning issue issues:  a voice for the students in the community’s decision-making.

“The city … they don’t look at us as citizens, to have rights,” Maurizi said. “It’s a general trend of C1 — to try to let people understand that we are not a wallet to empty.”

One of C-1’s dreams, he said, is to convince Urbino’s city government to allow one student on the communal council.

“That way, this huge community of inhabitants and students starts to be connected,” Trusso said. “One of the effects of this no dialogue is the patrolling of (weekly) Thursday night with lots of police … because we’ve got five to six kinds of police.”

To the tourists that flock to this beautiful Renaissance city in the central Italian mountains, each day rolls by like a mirror image of the previous one, filled with beauty and art. But Trusso said those visitors don’t see the problems just beneath the surface, which is why these politically-minded students will continue to take a stand on the controversial issues and to inform the campus and community.

“If you don’t work with the society and talk with the people every day, you can be ruled in an easy way like every king has done in the past,” Trusso said. “You don’t have to be ruled, you have to rule.”

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