A rambling history of Sgurgola & it’s people

Sgurgola. The first time I heard the name I thought it sounded like a stomach rumble, which is actually very appropriate when you take into consideration the mouth watering aromas that still waft out of hidden kitchens as you wander through the maze of crumbling alleyways winding around the ancient Rocca fortress on a Sunday afternoon.

This town has been here forever. Legend has it that Sgurgola was founded by Spartacus, the great rebel gladitator who led the Third Servile war c.71 b.c.. Many of the ancient names of landmarks within the town seem to imply that this claim has a grain of truth to it, for example the name of the ancient Fonte Capuani (Capuani Spring) found a few hundred meters below the towns walls. For the rebel slaves Sgurgola would have definitely been a choice spot in terms of defence as they battled up and down central Italy, and it is very possibile that at least a few of Spartacus’ many followers – known as the Capuani (it’s estimated there were over 100,000 of them!) – choose to put down roots here when the conflict came to a close. The slave army would have had women and children and livestock in tow, and perhaps they became the first refugees to Sgurgola to scrape out a life on the fertile slopes of the mountain after the uprising was done away with. This theory may also explain, at least in part, the rebellious fighting spirit that is still characteristic of the people of Sgurgola, rebels to a fault, sometimes even without a cause, ready and willing to discuss and debate with voices raised, ready to stand up and shout that black is blue if they have to.

There have been people living on the Lepini mountainside where Sgurgola stands since ancient times. Burial remains dating back to enolithic times have been found here, as are records of the mighty Italic tribe the Volsci who held dominion over the ground where Sgurgola lies. The Volsci were a proud, warlike tribe who were known for their agricultural skill and also their strength in battle. Their women fought too. Whereas other Italic tribes made pacts with the Romans, the Volsci chose to fight them tooth and nail. The Volsci waged war against the Romans for over two hundred years before they were finally conquored and assimilated into Rome, around 300 b.C.

The tribe was decemated and subjudicated, but those who escaped continued to live on the side of the Lepini mountain. The land was fertile and the mountain as always gave protection. Perhaps these were the people who were living on the mountain when Spartacus and his rebel gladiators from Capua took refuge in these mountains a couple of hundred years later. Perhaps what was left of the Volsci people still living on the mountainside found affinity with the rebel Capuani ex-slaves because they too resented Rome, and this hatred united a community that was to later become known later in history as Sgurgola.

One thing that is sure is that the community on this site continued on as the ages passed. Centuries after the Volsci, centuries after Spartacus, the young man who was to become the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius used to come to stay at Villa Magna (c. 140 a.d.) which spreads out below Sgurgola at the bottom of the mountain. The wealth of objects catelogued from the excavated ruins at Villa Magna pay testiment to the sites importance. Ironically, Marcus Aurelius came for the wine harvest and to eat wild boar, two things that are almost as important today in Sgurgola as they were then.

As time went on the settlement continued to grow, its value really coming to the fore during the Barbarian Invasions of the 4^th Century a.D., when people from the surrounding areas fled to Sgurgola for refuge. Again Sgurgola’s strategic vantage point, pinioned high above the Sacco Valley, was invaluable. Towns were sacked, people were slain, but Sgurgola (although it may not have been known by that name as yet) remained perched on the mountainside and its people survived.

The barbarian invasions saw the end of the great Roman Empire, and in its place came the Holy Roman Empire. The lands became dominon of the Popes of Rome who in turn appointed feudal Lords who used the surfs to work the land to make them, and Rome, rich.

By the medieval period the settlement had an imposing Rocca (fortress castle) which dominated the town. By now the settlement was known as Sculcola, which means “look out”. As always, the Rocca (fortress) gave an optium view of the countryside that stretched out below and of course any approaching threats. From little of the the Rocca that remains, with its 360 degree view, you can see most of the important towns of Ciociaria – Anangi, Frosinone, Alatri, Fiugi, Fumone, Morolo.

Around the fortress castle grew grew a garison town with all the vibrant chaos that came along with it. The peasants worked the feilds for the feudal Lords, and came home to roost in tiny row houses carved deep into the limestone rock. Narrow, winding walkways still ring around the Rocca, with vertical staircases that emerge through cracks in the city walls. These suggestive alleyways are called the “il buco peliccio” – literal translation is “the hole in the sieve” ie “the collander”, again very appropriate as this is where the handmade sagna pasta, fini-fini and gnocchetti were born. People worked the feilds all day and then would treck home up the steep slopes to the base of the towns’ wall with the produce strapped to their mules which were housed in the grottos below. Mules were more sturdy than horses, more willing than donkeys, and an essential part of working the land here in Sgurgola, much of which was inaccessible without.

It is very possible that Sgurgola’s name may also come from another source, quite literally. Like its neighbour on the other side of the mountain, Gorga, Sgurgola may have emerged from the term Sgorga (to gush, or flow), which seems very likely when you take into account the many springs that flow out of the mountain in Sgurgola, chilled and pristine, gushing straight out of the white limestone of the mountain. Sgurgola was one of the first towns to have public baths where the women would gather water and wash clothes. These “baths” were touchstones for the town. Women would gather there to wash and of course to gossip. They would cart the water back to their homes in large copper urns that they balanced on their heads. These were the formidable women of Ciociaria – strong, beautiful, unforgiving, immortilised in the romantic paintings of the 1800s of artists on the Grand Tour.

Fact is the people who called Sgurgola home, who lived and worked the land here, had to be strong to survive. Life was hard for the peasants who lived here. They toiled. They were born with nothing, and died with nothing. The soil was fertile, rich, black, abundant. The the people who owned the land made money with what it produced, always off the backs of the people who worked it. Anagni, the city you can see on the otherside of the valley, was altogether different. It was the City of the Popes. There were veneers of ‘society’ in Anagni and social heights to attain. Sgurgola however was a wild place, full of fiercely strong peasants who were full of heart and strength because they had to survive. Sgurgola was the place that fed the powerful. It sent wine, oil, grain, grapes to the tables of Rome. Sgurgola was even famous for providing the best wet nurses to suckle the children of the rich, voluptous, strong, beautiful Ciociarian women. But the rich and powerful didn’t come to Sgurgola. They didn’t build big manor houses or villas in the shaddow of the mountain. They just took the tributes of the peasants who lived here, and as such the culture of Sgurgola remained resoundingly and feircly working class. The people of Sgurgola were used to bankroll the excesses of the popes and their entourage, something that the people of Sgurgola perhaps were not too happy about, a fact that wrote Sgurgola into history. Legend has it that the uprising against Pope Bonifacio VIII, the last Pope whose court rotated between Rome and Anagni, was mounted from Sgurgola. The assault known as “the Anagni Slap” occured in September 1303 and ultimately changed the course of Papal history. Bonifacio VIII liked to meddle in politics, property and powerplays and his actions came back to bite him quite literally when Phillip IV of France, who the Pope had decided to extracommunicate because he didn’t toe the line, decided to send his men on a mission to bring the meddlesome Pope down. The consipirators found fertile ground for support in Sgurgola. The feudal lord of Sgurgola had been manipulated into ceding his feifdom to the Pope’s nephew for a pitiful price on pain of facing eternal damnation from heaven. He, his relatives, the Lords of neighbouring feifdoms and most importantly the peasants of Sgurgola were extremely angry about the Pope’s actions. The conspiritors gathered a lynching squad of nearly 2000 men to attack the Pope at his residence across the valley in Anagni, riding out from Sgurgola to attack at dawn and shouting “Death to the Pope!” “Long Live the King of France!”. The Pope survived the assault, but died a couple of weeks later after returning to Rome. The next Pope moved the Papal court to Avignon in France, and thus ended Anagni’s role in the story of the Papal states. It is in memory of these events that the main road that enters Sgurgola is called Pietra Rea (Guilty Stone) and Piazza dell’Aringo (for the call to arms in piazza to rally the troops).

From this point on the story of the people of Sgurgola continued on relatively unchanged for centuries. The Feudal lords changed as the power plays continued, the population grew and the settlement radiated out from the old part of town down the hill towards via Pietra Rea and the Carpine spring towards the cemetary.

Real change came for the population at the beginning of the 1800s in the form of the abolition of the feudal state. By this point in history the beginnings of the industrial revolution were being felt across Europe. The French Revolution played out and was followed by the Neopolonic wars. A time of massive social change and instability Garibaldi succeded in achieving the unification of Italy. The coming of the railway in the mid 1800s connected Sgurgola directly to Rome and Napoli, and also trade to Europe. Factories started to appear in the valley where grain had been grown for centuries, and the peasant people of Sgurgola began looking beyond for a better life. Many moved to Rome. Many immigrated abroad. Many worked for the state railways, which became a traiditon for people from Sgurgola. They took with them the proud and rustic working class Ciociarian culture. They worked hard and played hard. Amazingly for such a small population Sgurgola even became firmly embedded into the vernacular across Italy with the slightly insulting phrase “Sei della Sgurgola?” (“What, are you from Sgurgola?”) being used to make fun of a person when the display peasant like, uncouth, unsophisticated behaviour, a world away from the “cultured” world of Rome. Many Italians in fact know the phrase and its sarcastic meaning, but don’t know its actually based on a very real place! In fact, in todays day and age I think the phrase has become less of an insult and more of an affirmation. I know I for one would rather be a rebellious peasant than a slave to conformity!

The complex culture of the ‘common people’ in Sgurgola, the contradictory nature of the strength of the opressed, is in fact exactly what makes Sgurgola so facinating. It’s story is full of dramatic irony and the tragedy of life. Sgurgolani are passionate and bold, brave and hard working. There is resentment towards those who suceede in rising above, but also a feirce pride. They have a depreciating sense of humour and an inate distrust of flattery, but they passionately love their mountain and their town. They have been here – surviving – forever, and it will be part of them forever. Even if they leave it’s woven into their DNA and it calls them back. Perhaps because of this they are also a feircely political people, although they often lack diplomacy and strategy and tend to get bogged down in the infighting rather than finding sustainable solutions.

Sgurgolani have no qualms calling a spade a spade and are ready to defend their point of view at the top of their voice in the bar or the piazza. It’s common practice to pick fights and bicker – its part of the spice of life, as is recounting the ‘cazi degli altri’ (politely translated to other people’s business). On the flip side however Sgurgolani are always ready to band together to achieve a common goal when they need to defend themselves from an outside threat. and I’ve been surprised more than once by acts of humanity and generosity that emerge when it is least expected and most needed. It’s what jumps out at you when you listen to the stories here of WWII, when the German fascists set up shop in Sgurgola and there was widespread persecution of the local population. It was a complicated time, with right against left, blood against blood. But the people of Sgurgola stood together irrespective of all that and helped each other to survive. Together – for better or for worse.

Even today the Sgurgolani resent oppression, and they are fiercely proud of their heritage. The Festa Dell’Uva is the longest running public celebration of its kind in Italy, and young and old come together to celebrate Ciociarian culture for the three days of celebration. During la Festa all differences are forgotten. There is just food, wine, dancing and singing. Sgurgola knows how to throw a party for the people.

This is perhaps what I love the most about Sgurgola. It is a town in which you can still hear echoes of the true ancestors of Ciociaria. How they lived. How they ate. How they drank. How they fought. How they survived. The people here had very little, but because of that they were generous with what little they had, with each other and with strangers. Their history is remembered in their food, in the wine, in the olive oil, in stories and nick names passed down generation to generation. Sgurgolani were known for their food. Hearty, abbundant peasant food, made with the best produce. The best wine, the best meat, the best pasta made from the best grain. The people were proud, heads held high. They wanted to show their worth and their worth was exuberant. When you see pictures of the Cioccaria women, with their huge red coral earings and necklaces, full busts god created for suckling strong mountain children, their strong as steel expressions, you realise that it is no mistake that the symbol for Sgurgola is Bellatrix, the woman warrier. The strength of this place, its ferocity, comes from her ability to nurture and survive. Like the mountain that rises up beyond its essence is the fact that it has always been here and, dispite all attempts to subdue it, it will always remain.

Our tiny town Sgurgola, or as it is usually called La Sgurgola, etched into the mountain side of Monte Lepini, still stands like a sentinel keeping watch over the Sacco Valley stretching out below. From the Muraglione (the big wall) of Piazza dell’ Aringo you can see almost all the way to Rome, mountains stretching out beyond the hill towns dotting the slopes of the valley on the otherside. The feilds of grain and barley on the plains towards Anagni that once fed the Papal state have long been replaced by factories and international distribution centres which provide work and prosperity for the people who still call this place home. A stones throw from Rome by train or superstrada, a world away from everything with the wild mountain stretching up behind us to the sky, a place where you can still escape and find peace, untouched nature and a visceral connection with the history of the people.