Shepherds often improvise songs, called rispetti and stornelli, as they tend their flocks alone on the hills, and if their cadence chance to catch the popular ear they are sown on a hundred hills and meadows far and wide. Tigri records by name a little girl called Cherubina who made rispetti by the dozen as she watched her sheep, and the poetry of Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani was famous through the mountains of Pistoja.[12]

Alinari Della Robbia School

TABERNACLE FOR SACRED OIL

CATHEDRAL, BARGA

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Miss Alexander, in her "Road Songs of Tuscany," has given an appreciative and loving tribute to this pastoral singer, whom she calls "one of the most wonderful women" she ever saw. The daughter of a stone-mason who worked during the winter in the Maremma, Beatrice became his companion and helper, carrying on her head stones for the walls and bridges he was building. She had no education, never learning the alphabet even, but possessed a remarkable memory, and could recite long poems that she had heard.

YOU ASK ME FOR A SONG