The Patient Wait of the Stones

A poetic, personal, and historical narrative of a late in life move to a tiny Italian village and a reflection on time and memory in the shadow of a medieval castle borgo.

The Patient Wait of the Stones is a memorable meditation on the phenomena of place and the compelling force of history. First published in Italian, this hybrid narrative combines memoir with national and regional history. This literary work is an evocation of the stunning particularity to be found in a tiny medieval village in Northern Tuscany.

Antonio Romani, a former teacher and bookseller, discovers astonishing facts about his refuge built of stones and the castle at the center of his village (that once housed Dante in exile.) He finds a place for himself in the great sweep of history that touches both the dry stone walls he painstakingly repairs, and with the human inhabitants, past and present, who are the creators of a sustaining and continuing story. Co-translated into English with Marth Cooley, novelist and author the recently published My Little Donkey (Catapult, November, 2025)