We went to Italy... and bought our own village
After a life in Scotland, emigre returns to roots to revive region
HIS family escaped the povertystricken Italian region along with thousands of others to build a new life in Scotland.
But now a pensioner is reviving the derelict village his grandparents abandoned more than a century ago after he returned to restore its fortunes.
Cesidio Di Ciacca, 65, and his wife Selina, 58, set up home in the crumbling ruins of the 500-year-old mountain-top hamlet seven years ago, becoming its first inhabitants in 50 years.
Located in the mountains between Naples and Rome in central Italy, I Ciacca is today home to the couple’s boutique hotel in a restored farmhouse, with its own winery and olive grove.
Mr Di Ciacca, a former solicitor from Edinburgh, has also restored part of the nearby village of Picinisco, established by shepherds and farmers.
It was visited in 1919 by writer D H Lawrence, who described it as ‘staggeringly primitive’.
Mr Di Ciacca, a father of two, whose family took their name from the hamlet, said: ‘I first came to I Ciacca when I was nine years old. I can remember my grandmother giving me butter, bread and prosciutto, all made here.’
He added: It took me a year to acquire 200 bits of land from 140 people, all relations of 11 families. They had refused to sell to each other but they agreed to sell to me.
‘Lots of people came to Scotland from Italy, but not many go the other way around.’
Mr Di Ciacca, whose younger siblings run restaurants in Edinburgh, grew up above an ice cream shop in Cockenzie, East Lothian. The shop was founded by his grandfather in the 1920s.
Following his migration, Mr Di Ciacca has launched his first wines using grapes from the reinvigorated vineyards.
Records from the 16th century describe Picinisco, in the Comino Valley at the border of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park south-east of Rome, as the producer of some of the best wines in the country.
The region is also where many other well known Scots-Italian families originate – Crolla, Gizzi, Porelli and Tamburrini are among them.
Glaswegian Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi can also trace his roots to the area.
However, at the turn of the century Picinisco became an area of unrest, its remote streets plagued by bands of criminals in the wake of the unification of Italy. Much of the region was claimed by rich landowners.
Under central rule, known as the Mezzadria system, local peasants struggled to feed their families, resulting in a mass migration to Britain and the United States.
Mr Di Ciacca, who lives with his wife and son, Giovanni, 20, said: ‘With the success of our precious maturano vines and our olives, we have been given hope.
‘Now we are trying to give that hope back to the valley, just as Scotland did to Picinisco’s people all those years ago.’