Brochure residency for artists

La Macina di San Cresci residence for artists Greve in Chianti

www.chianticom.com

La Macina di San Cresci via San Cresci 1 50022 Greve in Chianti (FI)Italy tel/fax . + 39 055 8544793 info@chianticom.com

We are located above Greve in Chianti in the heart of Tuscany, between two great cities of the Renaissance: Florence & Siena.

Here the work of nature and the work of man has shaped a unique landscape.

Vineyards and olive groves interspersed with farmhouses, turreted castles and fortresses and ancient hamlets: this is the typical Chianti landscape, possibly the best-known of all of Tuscany.

From the town of Greve in Chianti, we are on the road winding through the hills that connects the Greve Valley from the Pesa Valley, here is the parish of San Cresci which in the past was of noteworthy importance.

The Pieve of San Cresci is the oldest in the Chianti region, and is found in ecclesiastical documents as far back as the year 948. The Pieve is a part of an architectural complex composed of the Church, the Chapel of SS.Sacramento and the parish house. The cellars of the Pieve are part of the parish house with their entry directly on to the communal road.

They have been recently restored, following the rigid requirements of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali ed Architettonici and are blessed with a beautiful view of Tuscan hills and the medieval village of Montefioralle.The multiroomed cantine retain objects typical of country tradition and exude the charm of a place imbued with more than 1000 years of history.

During your stay you will have the opportunity to go on several outings and visit to the surrondings, which abound in places of special naturalistic and historical significance.

La Macina di San Cresci is a place for creation, presentation and documentation of contemporary art in all its forms.

View from the residence

The Architectural complex

Year 948

EVERYTHING BELONGS TO THOSE WHO IMPROVE La Pieve di San Cresci a Monte Ficalle Infinite Source of Surprise and Wonder Gianfranco Sanguinetti

“…I would like to be in Piazza della Signoria waiting for you, or in the garden of Pieve (di San Cresci) when you come to us…”

Guy Debord, Lettera a M.F., November 7, 1972 in Correspondence, Volume 4, Fayard, 2004

In beautiful or terrible weather, it is my habit, when I find myself at my house in Chianti, to go out and wander, either by motorcycle or car, in this vast countryside so well civilized since medieval times. History has left Chianti a perfect example of unitary urbanism, which is dispersed throughout the region and which we so often admire in Renaissance painting.

Two or three years ago I found myself wandering past the place where I had lived with Guy Debord and his wife years ago. The place is in the heart of Chianti. It is the rectory of the little Pieve di San Cresci di Monte Ficalle, maybe the oldest parish church of the region (9th century), not far from the village of Greve. While arriving in this manner at our former house, I saw a man come out of it. I told him that once I too had lived in this superb house. To my surprise, he invited me to enter! All remained as it had been before, but at the same time all had been perfectly and philologically restored, not reconstructed. It was as if I looked at a photograph-- time seemed to stand still here as a sign of respect to this august place. The courtyard, the cloister, the well, the garden, the house, the cantinas, the mill for the olives, the kitchen, the rooms, the bathroom, etc., all had maintained their own original historical character. It might well have been feared that an old construction so noble as this would have entered into the hands of a more vulgar circuit, of the Relais & Chateax type, to accommodate people who have nothing but to spend money. What a surprise, instead, to find the place even more beautiful than it had been!

I was giving compliments to my hosts about the beauty of this restoration, and told them that Guy Debord would often repeat a maxim of Bertolt Brecht’s: “everything belongs to those who improve.” I learned that the man who had just welcomed me into his house is great designer of the period in which Italy was still producing them: Duccio Trassinelli. And since I had with me a type of pecorino made by Sardinian shepherd friend, as well as a piece of pork cooked over wood, his wife Mimma improvised a tasty dinner. We quickly became friends.

It is thanks to this happy encounter that I am once again able to marvel at Pieve di San Cresci, while visiting the exhibition of inlaid furniture designed by Ettore Sottsass and built by celebrated artisan Andrea Fedeli. I had known Ettore in the mid-1960s, thanks to Fernanda Pivano. As it is known, Ettore Sottsass was part of the 1956 First World Congress of Free Artists, held in Alba, Italy. He participated with Asger Jorn, PinotGallizio, Constant, Wollman, Simondo, Baj, Fontana, Appel, Corneille, Matta, D’Angelo, Scanavino, etc. From the Bauhaus Immaginista and from the Internationale Lettriste, presented at this congress, there arose in Italy in the following years the International Situationists.

View from the studios

The Pieve di San Cresci remains a place of spirit and genuine encounters, perhaps one of the most singular in Italy. He who sees it is so amazed as to fall in love with it. This is just what happened to me in 1972, and led me to rent it from the parish priest in three minutes without thinking. Then, the same coup de foudre overtook Guy Debord and when I had to depart, I left la Pieve to him out of friendship.

Over the centuries, the succeeding parish priests continually improved the place, constructing also, in the middle of the countryside, a little garden in the image of Earthly Paradise, with a view like that of Ambrogio Lorenzetti over the hills, vines, olive groves, forest, and the Castle of Montefioralle. From here Amerigo Vespucci departed to discover that America was not India, and from Greve Giovanni da Verrazzano departed to discover the bay of New York and Canada. They had departed from here to land in place far away, and we, who come from afar, land here. In that paradise-like garden there were all kinds of fruit and flowers: palm, apple, vines, olives, almond, pear, fig, plum, chestnut. There was shade and sun, a luxury calm and voluptuous. In short, it was everything Epicurus wanted in his famous garden.

It would not be any other way but that the old name of the church (nomen omen), holds a great surprise: San Cresci a Monte Ficalle was the saint whom they recommended in medieval times to men who had erection problems, and Boccaccio said that this saint was also venerated by certain women, religious according to their own manner,” and that one of these heroines made a bold and salacious allusion, harsh and almost blasphemous: “along with the others, in great devotion I serve San Cresci in Valcava, to whom the women of this country wish very well” (Decameron, II, 7, 109). Whether in Valcava or at Monte Ficalle, thus San Cresci is venerated.(1) This Pieve is special for me as a synonym for surprise. It is known that for Montesquieu surprise is the very principle of beauty and pleasure that it gives us, because surprise generates this “invisible charm, this natural grace that we must necessarily call je ne sais quoi.” (Montesquieu, Essai sur le gout, 1757).

There is one thing, however, that we do not have to wonder at: why a place so beautiful and strong, able to resist the vulgarity and crimes of our century, is inhabited by Duccio and Mimma Trassinelli, and guards work so extraordinary as that of Sottsass and Fedeli. In this it is proven: everything belongs to those who improve.

----------(1) In Italian “crescere” means “to rise”—San Cresci therefore also becomes a synonym for the male sex. The old name of Monte Ficalle evokes the word “fica,” which indicates the female sex.

The Church

“L’ultima collezione di Ettore Sottsass, 1999” Exhibition, 2010

Exhibition/Concert Theater/Music Stages for organists

Activities: Projects/Exhibition Performance/Workshop Conferences/Meeting

This is an ideal situation to live and work: a place for meeting and discussion, a place of contemplation and creativity, a place of exhibition, a place which gives the opportunity to exchange experiences, in order to promote dialogue between different culture.

Studios space and gallery

La Macina di San Cresci offers artists an opportunity to work for an extended period of time in a social environment that is quite different from the urban milieu that is the usual context of production and distribution of the contemporary arts. This new experience provides artists with a major stimulus to experiment with new ideas, approaches and modes of production, encouraging artists to rethink and renegotiate their role in such unfamiliar social contexts. It also invites communities to be receptive to creative practices that don’t conform to traditional expectations.

Projects/Exhibition Performance/Workshop

The quiet, rural beauty of Chianti provides and ideal setting for intense studio work and contemplation.

Images cannot truly communicate the look, feel, and spirit of this place.

Design studios and exhibition

At our or partners’s workshop it is possible: realize prototypes/turning wood turning steel/laser processing water cutting/cast bronzes/carpentry

Workshop

In our center or at the teacher’s laboratories you have the opportunity to follow courses based on experimentation and direct practice of various techniques.

ART GLASS PAINTING PHOTOGRAPHY FRESCO TECNHIQUE ICON TECNHIQUE RESTORATION PLASTER CASTING

Yearbook As an archive of activities we publish a yearbook representative of the various experiences hosted and produced using photos and texts of artists and events.

It is possible browse and buy the Yearbook on our website.

Other Publications

The garden

Enjoy the beautiful landscape !

View from the garden

Duccio and Mimma are waiting for you!