By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, winedestination, Fattoria del Colle Trequanda, Casato Prime Donne Montalcino

Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s family displays two contrasting approaches: some cover the walls with inscriptions and commemorative phrases, while others do not even affix plaques to their most significant achievements. Donatella’s great-grandfather, Pio Colombini, placed his name everywhere at the Universities of Cagliari and Modena, where he served as Rector. Her grandfather, Giovanni Colombini, did not put up even a small plaque at the Fortress of Montalcino, which he restored in 1940, rescuing it from a state of severe disrepair (at the time, there were even graves inside).

DONATELLA AND HER HABIT OF WRITING NAMES EVERYWHERE

Donatella likes to make names and dates visible, yet she dislikes the rhetoric often associated with commemorations. That is why, in various spots around Fattoria del Colle, one finds actual lists of names—just names, without commentary—which has led to some misunderstandings. The oldest list is in the restaurant’s fireplace room. It bears the date 1998, the year Donatella carried out her first restoration project after receiving the property from her father. There are only 13 names, belonging to the people who transformed a former ox stable and pigsty into the restaurant’s dining room and kitchen. Issues arose when tourists, failing to grasp the meaning of the inscription, assumed it was a memorial; “Was there a massacre here?”…

L'articolo FATTORIA DEL COLLE AND THE LISTS OF NAMES OF THOSE WHO BROUGHT IT BACK TO LIFE sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

My mother Francesca was born in Modena where her grandfather, Pio Colombini, eminent dermatologist, was rector at the University. A prestigious role, in the second oldest university in Italy (that Pio Colombini filled with self-celebratory plaques), in a small but cultured and rich city, where all the family lived very happily. To confirm these feelings my mother has hanging in her bedroom, a photograph of the building where she was born, but she remembers with pride that <<in our Montalcino home we got electricity way before in our house in Modena>>. From the period in Emilia still today lingers in our family an unbelievable love of homemade tortellini.

FRANCESCA COLOMBINI IN MONTALCINO IN THE BOOK “IL VINO FA LE GAMBE BELLE” (WINE MAKES FOR BEAUTIFUL LEGS)

An only child my mother was brought up practically as if she were a man: she would go hunting and could drive tractors and trucks. Before and during the Second World War my grandfather Giovanni Colombini would allow her to take part in everything that happened. Most of her memories are found in the book Il vino fa le gambe belle (2005). A tale that also regards the metamorphosis of Montalcino, from being a small, florid, rural and warrior hamlet, to being a poor settlement because of the farmers abandoning the countryside and finally to becoming the city of Brunello.…

L'articolo My mother Franceca is 90 today sembra essere il primo su Cinelli Colombini.