Between history and memory

Everyone did what they could to make a bit of money or put something extra on the meagre dining table: the children captured birds that their mothers plucked and cooked, they hunted moles so they could sell their soft skin to the rich ladies, and they kept the pig bones to sell them to the soap and yeast factories. Even pig jaw had its use: it was a filter in the washing tub, a holed container, where the water owed out through the ‘gramola’ or jaw, while holding back the washing. Ash and boiling water were mixed together to make the detergent, which was filtered through a sheet before the washing was put in to soak. Scenes I will never forget, I could repeat the entire operation even now without forgetting a thing”. Beppino observed and learned, taking expertise from that rural knowledge with its sound pragmatic bases. After living a few years in nearby San Cipriano, his family moved to Mansuè in 1947. His father was born in Rigole and his mother in Baselghelle, while Beppino was born in Gaiarine in 1943. “Everything I love and I remember from my childhood is here, and it is here that I want to grow old. When my family and I moved to Mansuè we lived in the wing of an 18th century villa that had been owned by Count Marconi. I remember the spaciousness of that magni cent house, the Venetian terrazzo floors. I was inspired by the ancient residence when I built Villa Almé.