Seeds of Renaissance

Piedmont, Italy. Early March. Bersano’s house faces the Nizza Monferrato railway station. Inside is the universe of the winegrower and poet Arturo Bersano: art, wine, food. Everything that makes life “alive”.

A few kilometres from Nizza, on a hill at the foot of Agliano Terme, lives Paolo Alliata. He calls this hill “Monsicuro” (safe mountain). Perhaps because that is how he feels there. Safe. Sitting under a tree, he tells the story of how he and the hill met. And of a prehistoric sea.

From prehistoric seas to streams. One in particular: the Belbo. Full of mud, fickle. Claudio Vaccaneo has no doubt: this is why the best Hunchback cardoon grows only here. Leaning on his hoe, he explains how a life can change over time, from oppression to vocation.

Some people swim in rivers, others make them resound, like the sculptor Piero Fogliati. With a kind of mechanical underwater orchestra of instruments called Liquimofoni. He came from Canelli: yet another hill surrounded by vine rows.