ABOUT CITTADELLA
La Cittadella dei Sibillini has been our creative home for some eight
years now,
although I'd discovered it 35 years ago when I'd decided to leave
Tuscany for this mysterious province I'd heard about on the other side
of the peninsula
Le Marche.
It was then that new friends took me one Sunday lunchtime to the
Sibillini mountains to meet Silvio, the owner of Cittadella, his guest
house nestling in a valley beneath Mount Vettore. It had a restaurant
and a wine cellar stocked with an
astonishing variety of wines and we were offered endless aperitifs
during a long
afternoon of celebration of nothing in particular, except simply life itself.
By the beauty of the landscape
By the fascinating history of it's original Piceni peoples and the
subsequent Roman conquest of them
The legends and stories which still abound of fairies and witches and to
discover that the old nature religions still thrive here,
And the seductive charm of Cittadella itself, not to mention its enigmatic
owner who embodies in his character the lakes, the rivers, the trees
and forests
and the very essence of nature in these parts.
There is something the American artist and teacher Robert Henri wrote
over a hundred years ago 'The objective isn't just to make art, but
rather to been in that state of mind where art becomes inevitable'
And yes, Cittadella is a state of mind and to do Tai Ci and Chi Kung of a
morning;
to open all our senses to the wind and the sky, to birdsong and to dip
our hands in rushing streams.
This indeed is where creativity finds us.
Where it flows through us
And when we make paintings, write poetry and prose, make music, and
laugh at our good fortune to be here, at this time, at this place