so many workers and artisans. I promise you all these walls
have been done with a participation that's very touching
to see.
"Everything here has a sense of place. Like every hill
here, this one had a castle, a wall, a way to defend and
control the territory. And just as Venice was built on the
stones of Murano, and the Catholic churches of Rome on
the old temples, so it is here. We have to be obsessive in
choosing every single plant, every single stone."
The parents of Cioffi's father both arrived in the Unit-
ed States from Caserta in the early years of the last century.
"They were poor," he shrugs. "It's a common immigrant sto-
ry in America. Rich people don't tend to emigrate." But
the enlightenment of his own education, together with the
privileges of an American fortune, have enabled Cioffi to
heal grievous breaches in an ancestry we all share. Not
