HISTORY

It was a land, deserted on the hill, Where the horror of hatred had passed, She was wilderness, deserted and the sun shone On earth alone and without harvest. The landing by the 5th Army Corps took place between Anzio and Nettuno, on January 22, 1944, a military operation carried out with amphibious vehicles conducted by the Allies on the Tyrrhenian coast during the Italian campaign in World War II. The troops landed in that strip of beach between Anzio and Nettuno would have occupied the Alban Hills, preventing the retreat of the German divisions: theirs. Destruction would have made it possible to conquer Rome. The battle line took place in the Roman countryside under Albano near the stations of Campoleone, Cisterna and Aprilia, penetrating 20 kilometers from the sea. The German and American troops fought in that triangle of land, along the railway route, right around and on the territory of Giannettola. It was then that it had been a land battered by the scorching signs of war. General Clark's 5th Army entered Rome on June 4, 1944 and was greeted with enthusiastic celebrations. The rush of enthusiasm congealed in the minds, the whole city felt liberation in the air and let itself be infected by the beginning of a new era of peace. At that time, grandfather Riccardo who was the last son of a wealthy family from the sea who fell from grace due to gambling excesses, it is said that his ancestors bet the lands among others, even with the poet D'Azeglio, and that so had sadly lost all their possessions. Riccardo always bitterly endured this state of affairs and as soon as the times allowed him to do so in 1944, perspicacious and strong-willed, he gradually regained all the lost land until the century created a large agricultural reality thriving with vineyards and orchards that gave work and bread to everyone the farmers of the surroundings. Creature went to the field, looked sadly at the moor and love took her to the motherland That the work is waiting to give back the bread. He saw a parched land, wounded by bombing, outraged by mines, infected by Ada was, but Grandfather was not frightened, nor did he retreat: that was his new redeemed Giannettola whom he looked at with a loving look. He went alone to mine the ground, to clear the ditches, to remove every remnant and reminder of the war with the courage of a lion; under a Roman arch he found the bodies of two soldiers who had fought their last battle. And now, from the heart of a grandfather, everything screamed at the resurgence of life, with a strong mood that only those who lived in that present could experience and understand. A sort of euphoria of existence, souls, exhausted by the times of war, had in the spirit the utopia of resurrecting all of life. Grandfather's was filled with the feeling of reviving the beloved land in those years in which everything seemed destroyed and annihilated by the bitterness of the war which, however, contained within itself the drive for renewal. Once cleared of any remnants of the war, that land already appeared to him beautiful, all his, that mother earth and he wanted to make it a land of peace. And here is the return of man in the furrow, with plowed to dig for hills, Here is the seed at the end and young branch marrying the earth. At the beginning of 1945, Grandfather sent workers to clear the earth and the work of tractors worked it, furrowing it, kneading it, and bringing it back to its natural warm reddish brown color at the golden sunset of the sun. Grandfather Riccardo gazed at her, her land was beautiful, he was in love with it like a beautiful woman, and where a still bare hill rose, he already imagined it green all dressed in branches. He was a great pioneer of agriculture and above all a limitless lover of the land that he sometimes brought to Rome in a handkerchief to make the rest of his family gaze at it. Now a deserted land up the hill, the earth is fragrant and all of it shines And the silence of a day ago has turned into song of the renewing life… Already at the beginning of 1948 Giannettola was cloaked in the green of the vineyards and the blond of the wheat that swayed in the wind. A bamboo cane shed was built, which remained historic in the company for the rest and the meal of the workers, then the first white cottages surrounded by young pine branches came, after seventy years they became very tall and shady trees. Since the 1950s there have been many prizes, the silver cups in clusters, conferred on the Martella Farm and on him, Grandfather, personally for the increase in production and agricultural work in the southern areas. I remember when, as an award-winning company, during the grape festivals, my younger brothers and I put us in a large basket all adorned with bunches of grapes and we had to smile at the photographers and the authorities.We had to be very nice because the people he smiled at us for the originality of the scene and Grandfather was proud and happy. Giannettola was getting richer and richer: its difficult access only through a dirt road was facilitated by three bridges to facilitate the transit of cars and agricultural vehicles; he called them by the names of my brothers, Ponte Paolo, Raffaele and Massimo, instead he dedicated a grove of eucalyptus to me, where I walked when I was a child and there was also a fountain full of goldfish around that I liked so much and I wanted to catch With the hands. He also had a tower built on the hill overlooking the lands, which he sentimentally gave to me, as a sign of great affection, to enjoy the whole view of the company from above with a gaze that stretched to the sea, but which he could also serve to see the workers work from above or otherwise if they were making love in the vineyard. Nothing escaped him. There was a somewhat mysterious Marinese called him who recited from time to time: "The broad beans no nod, the paws no nod, booo ...!" In the 1960s the company became a reference model for other medium and large companies in the Agro Pontino, for the results obtained, and for the passion and dedication of its founder Grandfather Riccardo who always followed it, like a jewel, until the last times of his life. The gentle ascent from hill to hill It is immense green that rises to the sky And among the leaves the gaze can aim Of the sweat of man admirable fruit Carla Martella Verses translated from Italian by Leone Ciprelli, Marino's poet.