From the Cutting Room Floor 2018-191
Aliano (at 497 m) is spectacularly positioned on a hill between the River Agri and its tributary the Sauro, surrounded by deep gullies and chasms carved into the sedimentary rock.
Eeking out a living, farmers living in the town still town trek down to the valleys below to tend their small fields and gardens, returning every day up the same well trodden paths. The village is surrounded by olive groves and the wonderful giardini di Aliano - mostly peach and citrus orchards, which produce a wonderful airborne scent.
Between May 1935 and October 1936, Carlo Levi, philospher and polemicist, was sent into forced internal exile by the Mussolini's Fascist regime which he criticized to great effect. He wrote his seminal work, a kind of diary he titled Christ Stopped in Eboli about Lucania - this part of Basilicata - and his stay in Aliano, calling it "Gagliano". Levi was buried in Aliano, at his own request, after he died in 1975. The house he lived in stands at the entrance to the village.
From the Cutting Room Floor 2018-191
Aliano (at 497 m) is spectacularly positioned on a hill between the River Agri and its tributary the Sauro, surrounded by deep gullies and chasms carved into the sedimentary rock.
Eeking out a living, farmers living in the town still town trek down to the valleys below to tend their small fields and gardens, returning every day up the same well trodden paths. The village is surrounded by olive groves and the wonderful giardini di Aliano - mostly peach and citrus orchards, which produce a wonderful airborne scent.
Between May 1935 and October 1936, Carlo Levi, philospher and polemicist, was sent into forced internal exile by the Mussolini's Fascist regime which he criticized to great effect. He wrote his seminal work, a kind of diary he titled Christ Stopped in Eboli about Lucania - this part of Basilicata - and his stay in Aliano, calling it "Gagliano". Levi was buried in Aliano, at his own request, after he died in 1975. The house he lived in stands at the entrance to the village.