Book review
The Waldensian Trunk , by Dario Castagno ( 2020 ). ISBN : 979-8684858963 . Available from Amazon in Kindle format or paperback ( 224 pp .)
A little less than a year ago , on our way to Italy via France , just after Laon I received an intriguing message on my mobile phone from someone I didn ’ t know , but who didn ’ t sound like an impostor ! A few minutes later I was reading this fascinating book and by the time , hours later , we arrived at our second destination ( Macon ) I had finished it !
Dario Castagno lives in the countryside in Tuscany , near Siena . Apart from writing and producing his own wine and olive oil , he takes small groups of tourists , mainly Americans , around his favourite spots in the Chianti area .
The Covid lockdown breaks his routine and to keep sane he starts cleaning and tiding up the farmhouse where he lives with his beloved English Setter . In the process he suddenly remembers that he has never opened the old trunk inherited from his grandmother and where he had placed the television set the day he moved . Having now all the possible time to check if there is anything interesting inside , he opens and …
Like a genie … the trunk is a revelation ! Not just for its amazing content of old photographs , letters , documents but for what it tells Dario about his family , their origins , and his belonging to some very prominent members of the Waldensian Church and community , such as Pastor Jean-Pierre Meille , among other things right hand of General Beckwith . And who in turn were descendants from the Waldensians who for nearly 850 years fought for their right to witness and preach the true Gospel , were bitterly persecuted for many centuries as heretics and discriminated against until recent times .
Dario Castagno has sewn together the results of his research in the archive of the Waldensian Church in Florence and in the General Waldensian Archive of Torre Pellice with family snippets and some Waldensian history — starting from the Middle Ages !— in a very pleasant and readable way .
Erica Scroppo
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