Today’s post isn’t about a place as such, sorry to disappoint, it’s about a person who I think is the living embodiment of country Tuscany.

The ultimo buttero

Last week I happened upon a book launch they were holding in a small town known as Manciano in country Tuscany.

My husband-to-be Giulio was intrigued when he heard the book was about the ‘ultimo buttero’- the last cowboy (buttero doesn’t literally translate as cowboy, but it’s the closest I could get!)

After a very long pre-launch meet-and-greet, what can I say? Italians love to talk. We sat down to listen to the journalist, Antonella Monti, who had written the book.

She spoke about this man as if he were the last of his kind.

Born in 1910, Giovanni Travagliati embodied what it was to be Tuscan when there were no cars, no technology, no tourists. When the land was king and life was spent herding cattle, often days at a time without returning home to your family.

Today he is 100 and when I saw him, he was simply stoic. Walking with only a small cane, he looked 70 if not younger and had this unbelievably commanding presence, surprised that anyone would make such a fuss over him.

I was impressed. He appeared a little deaf, but a healthy as a horse… and, as his son told me proudly, he’d never been to hospital, not once!

But we weren’t there to marvel over the fact that this man had made it to 100 and was healthier than most young people. We were there to hear about his life… and what a life.

Not only had he met Naomi Campbell and ex-princess Fergie. But he had at one point of his life been capo cowboy in all of Tuscany, rearing cattle and taking part in those stay-on-the-bucking-bull competitions right up until his 80s!!

But the thing that struck me as most profound was his way of thinking. Ok so he was a little sexiest, he kept making cheeky comments about the female journalist and said he wasn’t a fan of Campbell because she was “too dark”, but he was still inspiring.

Most of us can only hope to live to half of life span and the 20th century may be able to afford us many things, but it’s also taken away so much more.

No one respects the land like Giovanni used to. He is  a man who valued his family and his cattle above all else. Who never wasted a day watching television, but is always outside taking in his surroundings.

When he spoke about the Maremma, the region he’s from, his eyes filled with pride because, in his words, it was simply beautiful, untouched and free.

Unfortunately, halfway through the book launch, while a very stuffy historian was recounting the history of the area, Giovanni prompting he would much like to go to dinner and we ended the day there.

To my great sadness, there was not one young person in that room to hear that story. The room was filled with nonni who didn’t need to know about the traditions and love-of-the-land that were embodied by Giovanni… they’d lived it too…

Instead t’s the young people who don’t even know what a buttero is and who would care anyway. It’s the young who are constantly trying to be American rather than embracing their roots who need to know about this inspiring old man’s story.

Giovanni is the living history of this corner of Tuscany. Young people should be clambering to hear about the land they were born in, but they aren’t. And that’s a shame.

The book about Giovanni by Antonella Monti