Mental Distortion

For 8 years, I spent a good portion of my summer vacations in a part of Italy not commonly visited by most tourists. Far from the vineyards of Tuscany or the city dwellings of Rome and Naples or the island region of Sicily is Molise, the agricultural heart of Italy. Molise is the forgotten part of Italy, and if any tourist guides devote any attention to the region, it is usually in the form of two pages at most. Even then, these guides will describe the area as forgettable with maybe the exception of its beautiful beaches and the Tremiti Islands. I think they are wrong.

Molise occupies an area formerly known as Samnium, home to the ancient Samnites, who settled in the region starging around 600 BC and lasting until 290 BC when the Roman Empire conquered Samnium in the Third Samnite war. Many people you meet in ancient villages throughout Molise will claim to be direct descendants of families that have lived in the region for over 1,500 years and longer.

Bonefro is a small town in the hills overlooking the Adriatic Sea that serves as an example of the hundreds of small towns that dot the landscape of Molise. This is a photo essay I took in the summer of 2004 of Bonefro.

At the heart of every village in Italy is the piazza, a place for people to hang out and talk with friends about anything from politics and the news of the day to the gossip of local neighbors. And most often the people that hang out in the piazza are men, usually retired or on break from their work in the fields. The women are usually not seen very often, as they are usually at home taking care of the family cooking.

Bonefro is both an ancient town and one filled with a largely older generation.  Since the end of World War II, many villages in these parts of Italy have dwindled in population, with many “dead” villages sprinkling the local landscape. Many of its young generation have moved onto larger cities or other parts of the world. For example, the Bonefrani population in Canada alone is much larger than the actual population of  Bonefro itself.

This is a picture from Termoli, one of the two largest cities in Molise. I have been spied upon many times from people sitting in their windows and observing those walking its narrow streets.

Not sure what to make of this picture, but it was taken in Termoli’s central piazza in the old town. These two kids had been playing around with me and my friends hollering in Italian. I caught this photo of them pointing toy guns at each other.

In Bonefro, the old buildings are somewhat crude yet somehow beautiful, with the rock tiled wall of this edifice.

Bonefro claims to have been founded over 2,000 years ago. While these steps are certainly no where near as old, they have certainly stood the test of time.

In 2002 a terrible earthquake struck Molise, with the epicenter located in Bonefro’s neighboring town of San Guiliano di Puglia. 25 children and 1 teacher died when the ceiling of their school collapsed on them, many of those children coming from Bonefro. In addition to the human tragedy of the earthquake, many of its buildings such as churches and other buildings were damaged beyond repair.

A typical street in Bonefro.

A popular past time in Bonefro, when not hanging out in the piazza, is to play cards in one of the town’s 4 pubs. Here three Bonefrani play cards in front of a mural of Bonefro from over 100 years ago. On the left side is the center of the piazza without the trees that decorate it today.

Children playing in front of the convent in Bonefro. Some of these kids will grow up and remain in Bonefro. Many others will move away when they are old enough.

On the way to the piazza!

UPDATE:

I have added a second photo essay on Bonefro & Termoli. Click here to view it.