IN THE 16'th CENTURY BORGO GIUSTO
WAS CALLED SOCCOLOGNORA

In the 16th Tuscany, names of cities, villages and hamlets sounded differently than today. So even Borgo Giusto, dating back from those days, bore a different name: Soccolognora; just as Lucca was Luca, Garfagnana was spelt Carfagnana, and Versilia was Versilla. Tuscany was named Tuscia as shown in this engraving on copper made by Ortelius in 1601, and found by us amoungst old documents. Today Borgo Giusto, named after the Giusti family, who settled there first, is a faithful rebuilding, stone by stone of old Soccolognora.

Well then, that morning it was Giobbe who lent his muzzle-loader to the future maestro, but in the general enthusiasm over the outing, Puccini, slinging his haversack over one shoulder and kidding around with the happy crew, fired off a shot from the sixteen-gauge shotgun that he was holding. Luckily this loud shot inside the house on the top floor did no more than make a big hole in the tile roofing! Although more than a century has passed, while the houses were being reconstructed we found the tile concerned, with the hole in it still stopped up by a rag (so that at least it didn't rain inside the house), because the Giusti boys had left it where it was in order to show it laughing to everyone and say "Take a look here at what that crazy Giacomo did!". Lena's house is where Puccini produced this performance of his, not actually musical, but anyway a loud one! The great musician in fact loved to spend his evenings in our Borgo too, where the Giusti family brought him to visit the families of the peasants who worked for them.

In the seventeenth century when the first houses began to be built one right next the other, a small settlement was formed criss-crossed by narrow alleys and flights of stairs that gave on the minuscule piazza.. All around, beyond the terraces formed from small plots of land where the peasants cultivated their grapes and olives, there were the chestnut groves, which existed then too, very green in the fine season of the year, and tending toward yellow and brown tones in Autumn, when the chestnuts in their burred husks had by then fallen. During the first few years of the century the calm and regular life of the Borgo began to undergo its first changes owing to emigration, in particular towards England and Scotland. Little by little, the village was almost wholly abandoned. Those who were the last to live there, some fifty years ago, while much of Italy was undergoing industrialization, definitively forsook it in search of jobs that were less hard and more remunerative than farm work, seeking too an existence that was more convenient and comfortable in the modern houses of the nearby towns. There are only a few who still today remember the village's original structure and the people who gave it life. When finally all the houses had been restored, using the characteristic light-colored stone with which the whole village had been built at the beginning, and baptized by the names of those who had lived in them up to the last, the Borgo came back to life, almost by magic. And thus it is that still today the simple old story goes ahead of those who lived there: Ettore Giusti, founder of the family that first installed itself there, and Giosy and Tosca and so many others.

The reclamation work, started in 1995, at once showed itself to be an exhilarating challenge: the relatively short time that had passed from when the houses had been abandoned had not succeeded in inflicting any irreversible damage on the small settlement and the discovery of a spring of water in the woods was at once taken as an optimistic augury for the life that was being taken back up. It was decided to outfit the dwellings with all the by now obligatory modern comforts without modifying the originality of the arrangement of the interior spaces. This is one reason why the baths presented among the biggest technical problems; but, where cost was not considered, in some dwellings they were set up in real rooms, even if at the price of some loss of space. Another enterprise was to restore the houses' stone sinks and their braziers and fireplaces, keeping them original but making them perfectly functioning. Whole interior walls of fair-face stone were conserved, they being treated with highly advanced procedures. The foundations were strengthened using expensive technologies that left no visible trace of their operation. For the heating, the principle of the fireplace was not strayed from, a huge centralized hot water heater fired by wood but managed by a computer being installed, to
permit checking the data on each individual dwelling, yet at the same time in full respect for the environment.
And the history of Borgo Giusto village goes on.

GETTING MARRIED IN BORGO GIUSTO

Holding a wedding ceremony in our Borgo offers many great advantages both because of the originality of the "location" and because of the numerous services that advantage can be taken of. The wedding can be celebrated in the little church of Partigliano, particularly intimate and cosy; there is the entire seventeenth-century village with numerous apartments at the guests' disposal, an excellent luncheon can be served in the local hosteria, but most especially, there is the extraordinary setting provided by the nature of the place to act as backdrop to the photographer's shots.
Of course the car placed at the bride's disposal is a Jaguar from the fifties or sixties or a 1956 Mercedes Cabriolet or a 1934 four-gear Balilla. Best wishes!

The traditional gathering at Ca' di Giusto at vintage time took place again this year with our guests enjoying the goings on under the large gazebo, with tastings of local produce such as cheeses, Tuscan salami, and sweet olives. Available now are visits to the wine cellar to taste the "novello" of 2001 with homemade sweets. The next appointment is for the olive-harvest. When ripe, guests may take part in the harvest, and enjoy "bruschetta" (fresh country bread gently smudged with extra virgin olive oil) and other local specialties) Have fun!