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Tours, continued

Continued from on our tours ...

Later in our stay, Filippo brought us to Di Sante Cantina (Di Sante Wine Cellar, location 8 on the map). Filippo is passionate about food and how it is produced (it is always fun talking to Filippo about food). Di Sante produces organic wine and olive oil which Filippo uses in his restaurant.

Roberto Di Sante and his wife Gigliola run the winery along with their son Tommaso. Tommaso gave us the tour. "Us" was Filippo, Eugenio (who works with Filippo), Paul, and Anne. The first part of our tour was the olive tree grove. In this next picture, that is Tommaso walking on the left.

Di Sante farm olive harvesting

To do the harvesting, they used some vibrating rakes with plastic fingers.

Olive harvesting rake

You can see the green netting on the ground. The men used the rakes to knock off the olives, which are then gathered up in the nets. This is not easy work, since the rakes are heavy, moving, and have to be held up high over your head. Here is the video version of the rake being used. It is a bit loud.

video link

From there we went over to where they process the grapes for wine. Tommaso, Filippo, and Paul are examining some equipment.

Tommaso, Filippo, Paul at Di Sante Cantina

They use a gravity-feed system to get the wine from the crushing tank to the fermenting tanks. These are state-of-the-art machines for use in vinification.

Grape crushing tank

On the top right in this next picture is the awning that is over the grape crushing system from the previous photo. We are looking into the lower area where tanks are filled, then brought into the temperature controlled area (off to the left). Tommaso and Filippo are in the photo.

Di Sante Cantina

And here are some of the stainless steel fermenting tanks. In the background are some oak tanks for oaked red wines.

wine fermenting tanks

We were delighted to be able to try some of the wine during which was still undergoing the fermentation, and later to contrast that with the finished wines. They produce a range of wines.

Di Sante wines

Camilla, Tommaso's wife, painted this lovely scene on the wall.

Wall Painting by Camilla

The 'cantina' (wine cellar) was started with a simple hand-crank device. They have it outside, now decoration. Paul and the Di Sante dog are checking it out.

Paul

Of course, most any tour of a vineyard is going to end with a tasting of some wines. In this case, however, Tommaso and Filippo had arranged for the tour to end at lunch time. The Di Sante family kindly included us in their meal, and took special care to have vegetarian foods with no garlic or onion available! Here is a sparkling wine we tried; Tommaso is in the background pouring some olive oil on bread for tasting.

Tommaso

For lunch, Gigliola, Camilla (who was mentioned above, Tommaso's wife), their son Francesco, their daughter Emma, and a friend or two joined us.(The young boy looking up, to the right of the olive oil bottle, is Francesco. The girl at the end of the table on the left is Emma.)

Lunch with the Di Sante family

It was thrilling for us to be included in this part of daily life in Italy. And yes, lunch was multiple courses.

 

We would like to share one final tour with you, which was not food related. Fano was a Roman town (then called Fanum Fortunae). Most of what we see in Fano today are more recent, dating from medieval times. But much of that was actually built ON TOP OF Roman ruins. So underneath the town are structures from Roman times. Paul and Anne had watched a Great Courses class onGreek and Roman Technology, which was very interesting. One of the lextures included a detailed discussion on the Basilica di Fano, attributed to Vitruvius. Although you might not be familiar with him, Vitruvius is extremely important because he wrote a very important multi-volume work entitled "De architectura" which outlined many aspects of Roman civil engineering. The Basilica di Fano is the only building actually attributed to Vitruvius. We would have had this on our short list of things we had to see if we thought there was anything left to see, but Fano has been built up on the Roman ruins and leaves little of them in view.

However, the Archeological Club of Italy (link to the Italian language website) is active in Fano. We read about an "underground Fano" tour that they run about once a month, and it was held while we were there. Francesco, Paul, and Anne all took the tour. Unfortunately, it was all in Italian. Fortunately, it turns out that the section of Fano underground being toured is thought to be the Basilica di Fano. This was a totally unexpected delight for us. This is not definite, and the mystery increases the interest. As Wkipedia says, "Mainly known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect. ... architectural engineers consider him the first of their discipline .... The only building, however, that we know Vitruvius to have worked on is one he tells us about, a basilica completed in 19 BC. It was built at Fanum Fortunae, now the modern town of Fano. The Basilica di Fano (to give the building its Italian name) has disappeared so completely that its very site is a matter of conjecture, although various attempts have been made to visualise it." As this excavation continues, the site might finally be confirmed.

A husband and wife team conducted the tour; they have obviously found a topic they are both interested in. Here is the woman just about to start the underground portion of the tour.

Fano underground archaeological tour

These ruins are underneath the former Convent of San Agostino. This next picture shows a mock-up of what they believe the buildings looked like in Roman times. On the top, in bright red, is the part that they have excavated so far. 

Fano in Roman times

You can see that they have those walls that fan out excavated.

Underground in Fano

It is considered good luck to touch this Roman-era rock. (Sorry about the blurry picture.)

Paul on the underground tour

One of the spots that has been excavated was the bathroom. It had modern sanitary conveniences such as running water to wash yourself with, but it also had graffiti on the wall.

Poster of Roman era bathroom

This next picture has the husband of the team, above the tunnels that are depicted in the post as carrying the water away.

underground in Fano

Just a bit more about why the Basilica di Fano was so important. The basilica, as a building type, was a Roman public meeting hall, and provided covered space for business transactions. They featured a vast covered central hall, unimpeded by columns. As the name implies, Christian basilicas were inspired by this design. However, making a large open space is not as easy as it sounds. It wasn't until the "tie-beam truss" was invented that this was possible. Before that, the spaces had many columns so that the roof didn't fall down. The Basilica di Fano is considered the most famous Roman basilica, and we have a lot of information on it because of Vitruvius' documentation. Even then, his descriptions are not complete both because original diagrams are no longer available, and Vitruvius would not have written down some "obvious" facts that of course aren't obvious to someone living over 2000 years later. As the Great Courses course states, "Vitruvius's basilica represented a monumental leap forward in both structural engineering and construction technology. The fact that the Romans could erect 50-foot monolithic columns and 60-foot timber trusses in a routine, small-town construction project suggests that they brought a new spirit to the engineering enterprise -- a spirit  of innovation, informed by a strong appreciation for structural principles and greatly enhanced by a cultural predisposition toward pragmatism and organization. Here, we see the roots of a construction revolution -- one that will reach its climax in the grand public works of imperial Rome."

It was very exciting for us to be immersed in this historical site! We have a couple of booklets, in Italian, that we hope to read through someday.

 

Updated July 2020