IX.ii. A view through the trees

"St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. 'I would finish hoeing my garden,' he replied."
- Louis Fischer

The pre-modern imagination considers nature antithetical to civilization. In this same spirit, Bologna remains completely urban in its character. The few square meters within the city walls that are given over to plant life are either nineteenth century incursions or the result of systematic neglect. A select few are able to afford small terraced gardens, becoming ever more Babylonian in their appearance as spring progresses. Private courtyards, too, when they can be glimpsed fleetingly from the street through an iron gate or closing door, are often alive with palms and colonies of ferns, though this can often be an illusion, propagated by one of Bologna's many trompe l'oeil murals.
    Bologna, though almost claustrophobically civilized itself, is surrounded by greenery. To the east, west and north it is ringed by the underappreciated expanses of Emilian countryside, and to the south a string of parks and, further, semi-wild hills surround it. Not as spectacularly backdropped as certain other cities, the green mass of gardened hills is still visible from most neighbourhoods, and beckons as May exacerbates the annoyances of the inner city.
    On the lawns of the Giardini Margherita, Bologna's largest public park, every sector of society comes to play. Children, so rare on the streets of the city proper, rub shoulders with seniors, fashionistas, and punks. A circle of Rastafarians join in an impromptu drum beat session, a child looses a kite to the springtime air, and an elderly couple walks noiselessly, all in this playground of green on the fringes of the red city.
    Further afield, more aloof, is the convent and park of San Michele in Bosco, Saint Michael in the woods. Here, atop a crest of towering pine trees, a terrace looks out onto the city below, but is obscured by the conifers grown too high. From this spot, in younger days, Stendhal looked out over Bologna. Now, only a few patients from the nearby Rizzoli institute pause to point out the city beyond the trees. Continuing along, the mogul-like Colli Bolognesi begin, some planted with vines, others almost completely wild. Hiking an unpaved road, the city becomes somewhat like a distant memory.
    I spent an entire afternoon walking these paths, whiling away the lull of early May, preparing for more eventful days to come.


A view from the terrace of San Michele in Bosco