This happened in the context of our memorial initiatives for the tenth anniversary of our mission to Chicago, Illinois.
The report was first aired on July 9, 2017, in the “Sport Café” show by TV9 in, presenting a training session by players from Torniella, Piloni, and Scalvaia, as well as details on the construction of the ball. The report was then repeated on July 10 and 11 luglio.
Three pages written just after the September 2016 Artificial Light at Night conference for Nuovo Orione, one of the two reference magazines for amateur astronomers. The article was eventually published just in May, and some of the presented issues have been developed, but the article still has its points of interest.
This article makes a good pair with the other one I published on “the January issue of Le Stelle”. The latter was actually written after the article published in May, and it approaches the issue of light pollution from a slightly different angle.
The new issue of “Le Stelle”, one of the two main Italian magazines about astronomy and related topics is available.
If you regularly follow the blog posts and the announcements from the BuioMetria Partecipativa project, you will not find breaking news in the article. However, it is an interesting summary of our activities, plus you might be enticed by some of the other topics proposed by the magazine..
Below is the abstract of the article, translated from the magazine’s website :
BuioMetria Partecipativa: environmental monitoring going from Southern Tuscany to Europe and back. The results of the “Loss of the Night” European Project, conducted by common citizens over four years.
Last October the “Loss of the Night” European project was concluded. It was funded by the COST programme of the European Commission, and had started in Fall 2012. The article proposes a summary of the results of the project, with a specific angle on aspects concerning Italy. The scientific community has been acknowledging for years the fact that artificial light at night, if used in excess or inappropriately, will create light pollution and will represent a problem for its effects on human health, fauna, flora, landscape (also the starry sky is part of the landscape) and energy consumption.
…in attesa della versione online…copie del Tirreno esaurite a Torniella entro le 8.30…commissionate copie cartacee a Follonica e Gavorrano.
NB: la foto grande in copertina è associata al titolo SOTTO la foto, e non al titolo SOPRA…
L’edizione di oggi contiene un articolo di sintesi dopo il Festival d’Inverno e un articolo con un’intervista a Elisabetta Vainigli, presidente della Banda di Torniella, nell’imminenza del concerto del 30-12 a Scalvaia e dell’avvicinarsi dell’anno che vedrà ricorrere il 140mo anniversario di questa realtà musicale che raccoglie attualmente elementi da Torniella, Piloni, Scalvaia, Roccastrada, Massa Marittima (e la presidente mi correggerà se ho dimenticato il domicilio di qualcuno).
This is the translation of an article published on page 23 (Culture) of Il Tirreno on Dec. 17, 2016. Il Tirreno is one of the two main newspapers published in Tuscany (the other one being La Nazione). This article was requested as a sidebar post to the main article about the Farma Valley Winter Fest by Giovanna Mezzana.
Andrea Giacomelli, creator and founder of Attivarti.org, explains how the three-day event hosted by the Farma Valley was born
by ANDREA GIACOMELLI*, MS in Environmental Engineering, PhD in Hydrology
A three-day event with a foundation of music and pillars of science and culture is an idea we were thinking about since 2010. This was the time of the first New Year’s Eve party in Piazza del Popolo.
Back then we hired a psycho-garage-beat band to commemorate three years of stories, which had started with the Palla a 21 in Chicago project, and to give a meaning to a turning point in a journey which is continuing since then. In addition to several residents, some forty people from out of Tuscany attended: these were not just fans of the band, but also people who were following our initiatives and was curious of getting to know our base camp.
Once the group had left, the first question by Antonella Pocci, who was at the time the owner of the bar la Combriccola in Torniella, was: «When are we re-doing this?». The answer was the idea of a three-day festival, to be called Bosco Riserva. This name on one side represented the intentional mis-translation of the word Woodstock, and on the other side hinted to the vastness of the woodlands in the Farma Valley, and to the natural reserves it hosts. Once the project was written, we just needed to find the right opportunity to perform it.
The conditions appeared three weeks ago. We found ourselves with: a birthday party shifted by two weeks to wait the arrival of a colleague who could not miss the event; the lack of a secretary for Etruschi from Lakota, so that a date originally set for Dec. 17 needs to be moved to Dec. 18 because Simone Sandrucci [lead guitar]forgot about his students’ end-of-year performance in Pontedera; the urge to go live by some folks in Chiusdino (but with a keyboard player from Torniella); an evening scheduled with a photography association in Grosseto, which always proposes events on Mondays; a draft map compiled by Enzo Panerati from Torniella and Paola Bartalucci from Piloni, laying there since months, which we wanted to share with folks from the villages more or less during Christmas time.
In case of rain, the Valley has premises to host a group of friends, so we said: «This looks like our festival». Some see in this a line of serendipity, others an upstream journey going on for ten years and counting. It would be really interesting to know what you think about the case: write to mappare@attivarti.org, and the most original answer will receive a gift from “the Valley that’s not there”.
The Farma Valley Winter Fest was launched by Il Tirreno (one of the two newspapers published in Tuscany) on page 1, with a clip inviting people to read the article on page 23 (Culture). The translation of the full article is provided below, with some added hyperlinks and notes to provide some context to the reader.
Come to measure the dark skies in the “Valley that’s not there”
Half way between Grosseto and Siena, in the hamlet of Torniella, the Winter Festival about mapp(ear)ing – by Giovanna Mezzana
GROSSETO. Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016 a Winter Fest is starting in the “Valley that’s not there“. This may be found, provided you have the right map. The key is m(’)appare [an Italian neologism created by the pibinko in 2008, combining mapping and beholding], i.e. to look with an eye going beyond geographic, social or cultural conventions. The Valley that’s not there is the Farma Valley, which is no more in the province of Siena, but not quite yet in Maremma.
The Band of Torniella during the traditional First of May celebrations in Torniella (photo by Andrea Giacomelli)
If you take a map of Tuscany and you draw a line joining Grosseto to Siena, half way you will find Torniella. This is a tiny hamlet, part of the municipality of Roccastrada. It all starts from here. The first reunion is today, but the Festival will continue tomorrow and Monday in Piazza del Popolo. The main premises for the festival are the Torniella Band headquarters, because in this event musicians provides a soundtrack, but also significant organizational support. WHERE IS IT. One life ago, travellers could reach these places by following the old State Road connecting Arezzo to Siena and proceeding South to Grosseto. Nowadays [following the opening of the new state road in 1974, which bypasses the hamlets] tourists come here by accident.
Besides: why delve in this desolate moor, where orientation is provided by hand-painted signs made by residents, when close by you have San Gimignano? Still, somebody decided to hold in this spot, and in full Winter, a festival. All the events unwind between Torniella, Piloni, and Scalvaia – three hamlets where hunting and ancient traditions have not been lost. These settlements all lie in the range of a few kilometers, but the Valley covers approximately 120 square kilometers.
The hamlets of the Farma Valley. The photo is taken from Piloni. Torniella is in the centre and Scalvaia at the horizon (photo by Andrea Giacomelli)
THE FESTIVAL. There will be three days of live music, with five sets including a concert by Etruschi from Lakota (Sunday, Dec. 18); hiking around the valley, and meals with local delicacies. The closing of the festival will be an evening lecture on photography, on Monday Dec. 19 in Grosseto. Hosted by the Riflessi Photo Club there will be a presentation on “40 anni of shooting environment and territory”, i.e. “m(’)appare” Maurizio Bacci.
In addition, the festival will have more presentations and ceremonies a little out of the box. For instance, on Sunday Dec. 18, at 10PM, in Torniella you will find the handover of the dark sky meters. Wanna monitor some dark skies? You couldn’t find a better place: the Valley that’s not there is one of the darkest locations in Bella Italia, or -if you prefer- the place where the sky reveals all of its firmament given the very low levels of light pollution compared to other locations.
For more information, you may visit www.attivarti.org, the site of the association promoting the three-day event, and check out the Farma Valley Winter Fest section. Reservations can be made on +39 351 133 7020, or you may write to mappare@attivarti.org. This also applies in the case that you may not be able to attend, but are interested to past and future activities of this type. BEHIND THE SCENES. The three-day event is a birthday party. It celebrates ten years of activities by a team active since 2006, whose non-profit operations have converged into Attivarti.org, aka the m(‘)appare association, created in 2011 in Torniella. The creator and founder of the association is an environmental engineer with a PhD in hydrology: Andrea Giacomelli.
Let us rewind the tape: in 2006 Andrea Giacomelli has an idea spinning in his mind: to bring to Chicago, Illinois, the game of Palla a 21 (or palla eh!), an ancient game still played in the hills South of Siena and in the northern fringes of the Tuscan Maremma. He calls his uncle, Augusto Cerreti -from Torniella- and asks him to help him to set up a team. On January 4, 2007, at La Combriccola (the bar in Torniella), we find: Mario Straccali, electrician at Lucchini in Piombino, Claudio Spinosi aka Bob, construction guy, both from Torniella. We then have Alessio Serragli, 25, anni, surveyor from Scalvaia; Andrea Bartalucci, the bartender, from Piloni. And Palla 21 will eventually land in the US of A.
This is the model of all activities by Attivarti.org è questo: the expertise of engineers, ICT specialist, geographers, and archaeologists merge with traditional knowledge and local heritage, in this case from the three Farma Valley hamlets. The result is amazing.
The shadow of the Torniella bell tower cast in the sky, captured by Zoltán Kolláth, a Hungarian astronomer. The picture was taken during the 2015 intercomparison campaign of the Loss of the Night Network.
M(’)APPARE. The association has created and distributed digital content, photo exhibitions, citizen science campaigns, ottava rima workshops, and coverage of events. This is how it investigates with an “alternative” eye the dynamics of areas unknown to most, and it promotes their cultural and environmental assets. It recognizes the “breath” of a place, somebody might say its Genius loci.
An example? At 9PM, on Sunday Dec. 18, in Torniella there will be the presentation of the Farma Valley community map. The official cartography of the area has been given to hunters and mushroom seekers of the Valley, who have been asked to integrate the maps. This has led to a bottom-up mapping exercise, where place names which were precisely known just by a handful of people are now documented and available to all the community and future visitors of the Valley.
Andrea Giacomelli, creator and founder of 
A three-day event with a foundation of music and pillars of science and culture is an idea we were thinking about since 2010. This was the time of the first 
