Sua voce era un bisbiglio

Patrick declared a new record yesterday afternoon as he returned from a hectic tour of Pavia: eight churches, one cathedral, and three masses. We have very different ways of experiencing a city.

The must-sees of a city aren't necessarily must-sees for me. I prefer to walk the gardens, the back alleys and the leafy boulevards. I'll ask directions even if I know I am close or ask what interesting sights there may be to see even if I already have an inkling, just to interact with the people, to find the rhythms of the place. At the University of Pavia, one of the oldest in Europe. I walked through ancient cloisters, entered empty classrooms. I chatted with students about what was special there. 

I strolled down rounded-stone cobbled streets under spreading boughs, making eye contact with people walking their dogs, experiencing the city's hospitality. One man, seeing my backpack and the map I was holding, guessing correctly that I was a pilgrim, asked if he could help. I told him I was looking for San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro where the relics of Bothius lay and Saint Augustine is buried, the church mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy, Canto X. I knew I was close. I didn't really need his help. But he insisted and left his car running to walk me along the street to the church's entrance. This is the way I love to see a city. 

At San Michele Maggiore, a docent, one of two, approached me. Again it was evident I was a pilgrim. I'd like to show you something," she said. Sua voce era un bisbiglio. Her voice was a whisper, her movements a meditation, and there was no better picture of tranquility than she. Valerie spoke to me in a fluent but accented English, stopping only occasionally to ask how this or that might be phrased better than she thought herself able. I asked if she was Italian. She said she had lived here twenty years, but she was born in Germany and lived in Africa. An unspoken "it is complicated" seemed left dangling in the air. 

She walked to the high alter and unlatched a gate. I followed. We climbed up a few stairs to where Barbarossa has been coronated and Lombard kings acclaimed. The pattern on the floor was interrupted by a roughly five by three meter tessellated rectangle which had laid hidden beneath the alter until it was uncovered when the alter was moved toward the rear of the apse. "It is from eleven twenty, or would you say eleven hundred and twenty in English?" I replied that either would be fine. 

In each of eleven squares a human figure was engaged in the activities associated with the month written in Latin, from February to November, plowing, sowing, reaping, and the central figure, the king of all the others, ANNUS on his throne. January and December were missing, destroyed when the floor decoration was relaid with a regular, repeating, non-pagan motif, except for this remaining section, the part protected by and lying hidden beneath the alter for centuries. Below the representations of the months, there was a chord segment that depicted the upper fourth of a spiral labyrinth, a circular pilgrimage.

In the two triangular corners with arced hypotenuses abutting the round labyrinth on left and right, partial figures represented earth and water. In the corresponding lower sections would have been air and a dragon representing fire. A document in the Vatican library describes the complete design.

"There is something older I would like to show you." I followed Valerie as she floated down the stairs. She let me pass, latched the gate and guided me to her left. A golden Christ I guess to be six feet in height but not otherwise of human proportions spread across a gilded wooden cross. A long thin face, spaghetti hair in parallel strands and spindly-thin and stretched looked vaguely like a work by Giacometti gave the figure a modern look. "It is more than a millenium old, from about the year 900," Valerie added. As an objet d'art it was wondrous. Others are better suited to comment on it as a object of devotion.

I would have enjoyed another day in Pavia, sitting in cafes that shared centuries old church courtyards, wandering through ancient buildings repurposed for trade but retaining medieval architectural elements, watching and interacting. Extra days seem somehow hard to manage. We had checked out of our room, our packs were on our back, and we had a day's walk ahead of us. We left Pavia for the small town of Belgioioso where we enjoyed the hospitality of Signora Mara Baldini, a kind and giving woman, who made her lovely maisonette, complete with courtyard, garden, and fully stocked kitchen available to us on a pay-what-you-can-afford basis. 

Two days later we crossed the Po the traditional way, by small boat from ferry landings that connect the old Roman road, loaded with pilgrims –Claudio and Mirella, who we caught up with the day before, Marco, who we met and have been walking with for a few days, Patrick and me – our packs, and a boatman who for years has been registering the names of pilgrims he has carried and stamped their credentials. Tonight I rest in Piacenza, the first of Rome's military colonies and tomorrow I start making my way to the hills and mountains that eventually lead to the Toscano.

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