del Trinoro. "You should go and take a look at this place,"
they said. "It's a medieval hamlet that's sort of slipping off
the face of the earth."
He followed the trail to 800 metres above sea level, ad-
miring the voluptuous swells and dips of hills that nursed
forgotten fires, literal and figurative: the brooding lava
dome of Monte Amiata and, closer to hand, the forested
flanks of heights sacred to the Etruscans. Cypress trees
stood sentinel along the white zigzags of road through
the vineyards and olive groves below, seamed here and
there by traces of the eerie, lunar clay desert that preced-
ed modern cultivation.
Then, reaching the top of the hill, Cioffi walked through
a surprisingly grandiose, Sienese gate in the wall girdling
the semi-derelict village—and his life changed forever.
"The place was literally fading from history," he recalls
