The confident girl in the picture was the younger daughter of Primo Bartolini and Maria Cardinale.
Francesca opened her house to me, a total stranger, when 'Primo Bartolini' was nothing more than a name that mysteriously came up during a tentative research visit at the Nashville Public Library.
Since our very first encounter in December 2012, when she allowed me to climb up to her and her husband Hugh's attic to fetch 'some of [her] Daddy's stuff', we immediately agreed on one main objective to be achieved; namely to make contemporary Nashvillians remember Primo for what he was: a proud Italian American.
Francesca's encouragement and relentless work to index the circa five-hundred poems and other assorted papers that had belonged to her father was instrumental for the whole research project.
Chatting with her helped me shed light on the fascinating and complex historical figure of Primo Bartolini. Without her help, the reconstruction of the poetic and human traits of such an inimitable life would not have been possible.
Sadly, Francesca passed away early in 2018, a few months before the Nashville Public Library agreed to stage an exhibit on the polymath that her father was.
I like to think that she would have been proud with the efforts of the organisers and the result obtained, just as she was brimming with pride when a (then) young scholar came from 'over there' to know more about her Dad's forgotten poetry and to visit a quaint-looking house South of Broadway.
Like Francesca, the building is no more. However, plans are in place to apply for an historical marker to be installed next to William Driver's. The signpost will restore a small piece of the collective memory lost by Nashville as a result of the inevitable cementification that has hit the booming Music City in recent years.
History should be all about making facts and figures of the past relevant for our times, and Francesca firmly wanted to make the life and poems of her father known and meaningful for contemporary Nashvillians.
She devoted the last years of her life to this cause, and now I wish to dedicate this online space on the adventurous life of Primo Bartolini to the memory of Francesca, her sheer selflessness and stubborn passion for life.
