Orientation

Monculi di Sopra can be found within the magic triangle Florence - Siena - Arezzo. Here every hill top is fortified, every valley lined with poplars, and the in between is marching lines of cypresses, silver-green olive groves, and eye-watering numbers of industrial estates.

Monculi has one of the highest per capita incomes in the whole of Italy; it has gold factories and Prada (farming doesn't count, that is merely the nature of being). A resident population of rather more than 2000 and jobs for twice that number helps too.

Monculi is rare in red Tuscany for its steadfast political commitment to the Right. Here beats the heart of Christian Democracy (whatever it is being called these days) and the Church has an unvarying and 99% adhesion. Monculi di Sopra is magnificently self-interested and self-forgiving.

The heart of unreconstructed Communism beats here too. Christian Authoritarianism stands shoulder to shoulder with Christian Democracy when it comes to it.

1200 voters are organized into extended families whose interests and loyalties crisscross ideological belief.

And every last resident knows every last thing about everyone and everything - and never hesitates to tell me why and how I am not doing it (whatever I am doing) right.