Pietro Pinti, born as he says "in the Middle Ages", worked the
land with hoe and plow from his earliest youth. Growing up under
Mussolini's Fascist regime on a farm near Florence, he and his
family lived under conditions of extreme poverty, as
sharecroppers to generally unscrupulous landowners. But during
World War II, when millions in towns and cities suffered untold
hardships, the hardy Tuscan peasants were well equipped to face
the rigors of the era. War or no war, work on the land went on,
and Pietro describes month by month a typical year in their
lives: how they made wine and olive oil, planted and harvested
the wheat by hand, made baskets and ladders from chestnut wood -
skills now lost. With sly wit and salty wisdom, Pietro, a
natural storyteller who played the trumpet, wrote poetry, and
grew famous for his tales of peasants, knights, and brigands,
recreates in colorful detail a world and peasant culture that is
fast disappearing. Jenny Bawtree, an Englishwoman long settled
in Tuscany, was so fascinat