language developed as a means to facilitate memorization before the emergence and widespread understanding of written language. The conceit was elevated to an art form by traveling poets who used rhyme for the creation and performance of their epic poems (Homer). With the creation of the printing press (Venice, 1426), and by the time of the Renaissance, Nuovo Italiano had replaced its rhyming precursor as the official dialect of the educated, elite and city dwellers. By the sixteenth century, Etruscanato Antiquato was considered a quaint dialect spoken by rural peasants and eccentrics, commonly called rimatori (rhymers), and a sure sign of illiteracy.

In which We Learn

the Recipe for

Insalata di Pomodoro e Menta

“Cousins,” said Davido, abandoning the storytelling tone he’d just been using. He sat up and turned his head in the direction of what caught his eye. “Go tell Nonno a visitor approaches.”

Even at their young ages the children had inherited a suspicion of strangers and they sprang up like a five-headed hydra from between the rows of tomato plants. Each head popped up in order of age, from eight to three, and mimicked the sudden shift in countenance of their next elder kin. “Go on,” Davido snapped his fingers, “now.” Heeding their cousin’s charge, the five children sprang from the field and ran off toward the large stone and wood barn.

Davido stood, to better size up the odd sight advancing in the distance. At first glance he registered an equine lope and what looked like the brown cassock of an itinerant monk. He squinted and shaded his brow for better focus, but still couldn’t tell whether the man was upon a donkey or a mule, though from the ears, large and pointy, he knew it wasn’t a horse. That mattered to Davido greatly, as Ebrei were subject to a degrading law of the land that only permitted them to own and ride upon donkeys. Even the humble mule was off-limits. However, what really confused Davido, and what he thought must be an illusion of the late-afternoon sun, was the apparent skin color of the figure in the distance.

With the man still eighty paces down the driveway and presently waving, Davido turned and began to walk toward the barn. The handling of church envoys was something usually done by Nonno, and Davido thought it best to let his grandfather know that it looked as if a lone priest was approaching. A priest, who in the distance appeared the color of a late-summer eggplant—but Davido wasn’t exactly sure he’d mention that.

At just the moment he climbed into his tub and began to lower his old bones into the hot water for his Sunday afternoon bath, Nonno’s eardrums rang as all the grandchildren hollered his name from somewhere outside the barn. The old man’s peaceful sigh transformed into an obstinate grunt and Nonno paused for a moment to reconcile himself to the inevitable disturbance of his Sunday ritual. After the three-hour wagon ride from Florence, his old bones needed a good soaking.

Because the creature was nearby and seemed to have the emotional capacity to appreciate the sanctity of a Sunday bath, Nonno looked to the old donkey standing beside his tub. Signore Meducci was his name, called that because he seemed to have been left behind from when the Meducci wine-makers owned the property. Plus, the donkey treated just about everyone but Nonno the way a fallen monarch might treat his keepers—with equal parts disgust and disinterest. From the onset, the old beast had taken to standing in the barn during Nonno’s Sunday bath, apparently enjoying the fire’s warm embers and herb-scented steam. Nonno did not object to the donkey’s presence and felt a certain empathy for him, figuring that when one reaches a certain age he should be able to do whatever he likes. Knowingly, Signore Meducci returned Nonno’s gaze, as if the donkey also had no desire to see his Sunday respite disturbed. As the children’s voices grew closer, Nonno inhaled deeply and grinned at the donkey, and then submerged himself entirely underwater.

It should be noted that Nonno’s tub was not a traditional bathtub. It was an enormous cast-iron cauldron left by the Meducci winemakers that could easily hold a hundred buckets of water as well as a grown man. The cauldron had most likely been used in the production of jams and vinegar, where vast amounts of wine and/or grapes were boiled down; but with some repair and a good cleaning, Davido had managed to convert it into a fine