Profile of Andreina Pavani Calcagni

The minute she opens her front door, I know Andreina Pavani Calcagni is simpatica. She is seventy-three, a tall, good-looking woman with high cheekbones and extraordinarily fine posture. It is no time before she explains that her stately bearing owes a lot to the corset she wears for back trouble. It weighs something like 6 or 8 pounds—“See how well constructed it is,” she says, knocking knuckles against ribs under her silk blouse and getting a strong thudding echo in response. “I set off metal detectors when I go into the bank.”