A Glass Town

Most towns in Italy have thier specialty craft, and Piegaro is a glass town.  When you enter the first piazza, there in the center are lovely scultures of a man blowing glass, with a woman and girl weaving fiaschi, the familiar basketry of chianti bottles.  The current glass factory is huge, and puts out over a million bottles a day.  When you are in any part of the world and order a beverage from the Martini company, it will be in a Piegaro bottle, likewise when you enjoy a refreshing bottle of San Peligrino water it is from this sweet village.  The sculptures welcome people to the village with a sense of history and place, glass is their identity.

The Museo del Vetro is amazing, it is in the second glass factory and has everything from models of the factory, to examples of the glass that has been produced in the village over the last 7+ centuries.  It also tells the unique history of this glass village through its craft.  Where I sit to write is in the oldest glass factory, now a residence villa, appropriately named L Antica Vetreria between the two they encircled the village for hundreds of years, providing a place of work for men, women and children alike.  The first glass makers were brought to Piegaro under the cloak of darkness from the Maurano glass works of Venice.  But unlike Maurano, the makers here in Piegaro specialized in bottles, bottiglia, which identifies the nature of the town, and its spirit.

This is not the town of artistic glass sculptures, but rather a partner in the local trade of wine, a very practical industry, and yet....the bottle styles were beautiful, and the woven fiasci simply lovely.  Even though this is "common" work, it has been done with grace and skill with loving craftsmanship.  It speaks much of the heart of the people I have met here, very earthy people with creative souls that sing and dance.

The greatest heartbreak of Piegaro in recent history was World War II and the time leading up to it.  As one friend here told the story, first the fascists came and closed down the l' antica vetreria, and then the Naziss invaded.  As the war ended the Nazis blew up the town hall and left the community in ruins.  Yet the soul of the people maintained, the townsfolk worked the smaller glass factory until the early 1960's when the newest glass factory was built to provide the needs for the region.  It is hard to imagine that the town was nearly 20 years just one small glass factory, I can only imagine the struggle.

Today I have a wonderful friend, Maria, who worked in the newer - old factory as a child and still occasionally teaches fiaschi weaving.  She has gifted me with the beautiful work of her hands, and it makes me happy to have such a piece of fine workmanship, a loving craft, a symbol for a community that has survived in the hardest of times to return to its heritage.

Next week a new business opens in town, the Bar-Pub Botteglia the owners recognize the importance of Piegaro, its rich heritage and what has been such a part of the people.  It is good to know history and the story of the people, for in these stories lie the soul of a community.  To embrace a community when you visit is to move beyond tourist, to move into sharing heart, and to seek to know where our common story is as humans...and that is what moves hearts!