DONATELLA AS A CHILD
I WAS A LONER, A TERRIBLE STUDENT, AND AN AVID READER. I WITNESSED THE TUSCAN COUNTRYSIDE TRANSFORM FROM A STATE OF ABANDONMENT TO A RENAISSANCE DRIVEN BY WINE AND TOURISM
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini, winedestination, Fattoria del Colle Trequanda, Casato Prime Donne Montalcino
Donatella and her mother Francesca Colombini
Many refer to the twentieth century as the “Short Century”—a term coined by British historian Eric Hobsbawm—due to the rapid pace of change; yet, in the early 1960s, it felt as though one were living in a nineteenth-century bubble. It was a world precariously balanced between the lingering past, the economic boom that was emptying the countryside, and social rituals that seemed destined to last forever—only to be swept away by the events of 1968.
As a young girl, I used to spend summers in Montalcino playing with the children of the neighbouring farmers, who would run around barefoot. In winter, back in Florence, boys and girls attended separate classes at the Ponte a Mensola elementary school; we girls wore white smocks with pink bows at our collars. Traffic and crime were low, and we children would walk home alone.