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| “Cipolline di Tropea: dolci come labbra di donna” (Tropea onions: sweet like a woman's lips) | “Peperoncino potente per olio piccantissimo” (Powerful pepper for very spicy oil) |
From the last food fair in “Piazza XX Settembre”: donkey and wild boar “coppiette”, which are strips of aromatized meat that has been doubled on ropes for drying.
“Formaggio ubriaco” (drunken cheese) is a typical dairy product of the Veneto countryside. Local farmers used to wash their rounds of cheese with pomace, giving to their product a unique flavour.
“Ricotta salata al pistacchio” or salted ricotta cheese with pistachios. These and many other treats for sale at a food fair in “Piazza XX Settembre”.
The “Mercato del Pesce” (Fish Market) seen from the top of the “Mastio di Matilde”. In background the Venice quarter and, on the left, the “Ponte della Venezia”. In foreground the terrace we have seen in “Piazza dei grani” and the new “Santa Trinita” bridge.
The market was built on a project by the architects Beata di Gaddo and Pietro Barucci, winners of a design contest organized in the late 1950s by our Municipality.
Looking like a pagoda and, as they say, inspired by the shape of a sail, it was built in the early 1960s using the béton brut technique.The building looks more like a tent to me, never had many fans in town and teaches us the wonders a good coat of paint can do.
The church of “San Benedetto” was built between 1817 and 1819 on a project by Gaspero Pampaloni with the means provided by a bequest from the merchant Benedetto Fagiuoli. I am not really sure if the name of the church was chosen to honor the Saint or the munificent donor. A bell tower was added in 1860, when the rectory behind the church was enlarged.
The church dominate one end of “Piazza XX Settembre”, now reclaimed as a public square after decades of occupation by the shanty town of the “Mercatino Americano”. The young Pietro Mascagni practised the organ in this church.
Exactly a month after the “Mercatino Americano” left “Piazza XX Settembre”, and after weeks of polemics about the abandoned stalls, the old shanty town is being torn to pieces.
Like many Livornesi of my age or younger, I have never seen this square as it was: a tree lined “piazza” in front of the church of “San Benedetto”. In the meantime many trees were lost, but we gained a statue of an unlucky Grand Duke.
Several ideas were floated for the reborn square: residents would like more parking space, while some brilliant minds would like to transform it in a place d'Italie “like the square in Paris”.
A lone stall keeper has, since now, refused to move and is still displaying his merchandise amidst the ongoing demolition.
The “Mercatino Americano” (american market) changes location. It has been in “Piazza XX Settembre” for almost sixty years and today open its new stalls inside the port area. These absolutely fresh photos show that, the day first of the opening, works are still in progress.
The market thrived soon after the last war with the opening of Camp Darby, the large American base in Tombolo, between Livorno and Pisa. In the first years much stuff arrived straightly from the base, in a way or the other, or from the port, usually in the other way. Some contraband was sold here, along with counterfeit tapes.
In the 70's people came from all over Italy to buy stuff there, the most frequent question a Livornese was asked by a tourist was: where is the “Mercatino Americano”? Gradually the market specialized in army surplus, camping gear and clothes, with the late addition of electronics and cell phones.
Its glory days were way over and many stalls were already closed, the rest are reopening today afternoon in this new area.
Last week on a balcony in “Via Grande”: it looks like a butterfly of sorts, but it has rotating petals around its “head”.
In our post Fair Wares about Sant'Antonino Fair, writing of windmill toys, we announced the existence of a “wheeled cow speeding in the breeze”, which is now time to show you.
