Profile of Anna Marezza

Four generations of one family live together in a big Tuscan farm-house in an open valley south of Greve in Chianti. For many years Anna Marezza, who became a grandmother at forty-seven, her husband Giuliano, and their parents were mezzadri, sharecroppers, essentially indentured farm workers living in the country. Scarcity shaped their lives. They worked extremely hard and had nothing. To this day both husband and wife are spare with their words and their gestures. They remember the time they call la miseria nera, “the black misery.”