A Valley in Italy

Tracing a year in the life of an Umbrian village, this book shifts month by month through the seasons and the social rites of people. Side by side with the celebrations of particular saints' days, the accompanying banquets, the dances, processions and the cultivation of the land upon which the area has long depended, the author describes the restoration of the huge, dilapidated palazzo she and her family occupy. Between the purchase of the villa and her daughters's wedding party a year later, there is an account of life in Umbria as it is lived by the Italians. This proceeds from the last weeks of February and March when the vines are pruned, through the sowing of the tobacco plants, capsicum peppers, sunflowers and corn and their harvest in October. Then there is the gathering of the olives and chestnuts which takes place before the winter feasts set in, followed by the bitter but beautiful winter, when so many villagers are unemployed until the farming begins again.