Walla Walla-Cannara, Italy, sister city ties strengthened with gift of bronze statuette

A little statue of St. Francis of Assisi, approximately 13 inches tall, traveled 5,584 miles as the bird flies from Cannara, Italy, to make its home in Walla Walla, a symbol of the two communities’ sister city connection.

Representatives from the Walla Walla Italian Heritage Association, as well as an IHA-sponsored group of local travelers who visited Italy on a grand tour in September and others attended a welcoming ceremony at Walla Walla City Hall on Feb. 24.

The event was recorded to share with the Cannara community. Go to shorturl.at/Fs8Tf and use passcode 2m$x%6nz.

Mayor Tom Scribner addressed the contingent and accepted the gift named “Go and Fill the Sky With Chants” by its creator, Antonio Luigi De Paoli, which bolsters the bond between Walla Walla and its Italian sister city.

From the prototype, three copies were made for presentation purposes, said Italy trip member Rick Tuttle of Walla Walla. “One resides in the Cannara mayor’s office, one was donated to the Pope and the third came to Walla Walla.”

Local organizer Nancy Barcenas of Walla Walla also spoke, recognizing the IHA for its trip sponsorship and acknowledging Valley resident Judith Johnson for her dedication in fostering Walla Walla’s connection with Cannara through the sister city program.

“Our partnership with Cannara is a testament to the enduring ties between our two communities, rooted in history, culture and friendship,” Barcenas said.

“Through exchanges, shared traditions and moments like this, we continue to strengthen the bridge between Walla Walla and Italy.”

Third-generation Walla Wallan Bob Castoldi presented the bronze statuette to the city. Bob, brother Paul and families grow the Walla Walla Sweet Onions their grandfather, Italian immigrant Andrea Castoldi, started back in 1925.

When Castoldi and fellow travelers visited Cannara in September, they delivered gifts of wine to their hosts, donated by Mike Locati.

A third-generation farmer of Walla Walla Sweet Onions and asparagus, Mike in 2005 founded Locati Cellars where he focuses on Italian varietals.

Johnson said the seeds of the sister city developed when Antonio Baldacini first sampled Walla Walla Sweet Onions at the Italian company Umbra Corporation’s manufacturing facility in Everett, Washington.

Making a connection with Walla Walla and Cannara’s onion growing and festival Baldacini explored the possibility of a cultural exchange that led to the sister city compact.

Returning from a visit to Cannara for the onion festival, several Walla Walla City Council members formed a committee to explore possible cultural exchanges with Cannara.

Johnson chaired the new group, which opted for a high school-age student exchange. From 2018 the committee raised funds for two students from Walla Walla to travel to Cannara and stay with families there and two students from Cannara were sponsored by the Umbra Corporation to stay with Walla Walla families. With COVID-19 in 2020 they skipped a year. In some cases funds were raised to help students make the trip.

Later on, “… the lack of interest and ability to fund students from there to travel to Walla Walla has caused a hiatus in the student exchange,” Johnson said.

At the time the sister city friendship was fresh in people’s awareness, Wallan Wallan Mike Locati visited Cannara.

“… Seemingly all one had to do is say, ‘I’m from Walla Walla,’ and a place at a crowded eatery table was made available.

“Not a member of a biker group visiting Cannara but want to buy a special T-shirt? No dice, initially. But uttering the magic words, ‘I’m leaving and going home to Walla Walla,’ made that happen,” Locati said at the presentation in Walla Walla City Hall.

Cannara Parish organizers decided to commemorate St. Francis’ enduring mark in Cannara and Assisi with a sculpture. The “Place of St. Francis’ Preaching to the Birds” competition in 2017 drew 60 submissions from around the world and De Paoli won.

De Paoli, of Pavia, northern Italy, envisioned “an ecstatic San Francesco that on tiptoe lets two birds fly as if at that moment he would be on the verge of losing gravity and surging from the ground to help the birds fly toward the four cardinal directions.

“The birds become an element to communicate with God and spread his evangelic message of love to the world. The up-in-the-air arms represent a symbolic hug with creation,” De Paoli said.

The Consilium Internationale Secular Franciscan Order in 2020 reported the field where St. Francis preached to a flock of birds would become an outdoor sanctuary and a place for the nearly 6-foot tall bronze statue DePaoli made. A campaign was launched to raise 120,000 euros for the project.

Francis’ “miraculous preaching took place circa 1220 in Piandarca, near the community of Cannara, where Francis had just been preaching to the people at a castle. In fact, Cannara was where he decided to start the Third Order now known as the Secular Franciscan Order,” according to a CISFO article.

Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar living in the 13th century who founded the Franciscan religious order. He was inspired to lead a Christian life of poverty and became a beggar and itinerant preacher.

With a population of about 4,448, Cannara is sited 7.8 miles south of Assisi by the Topino River in the floodplain of central Umbria region, Perugia province.

The similarities shared by Walla Walla and Cannara include growing wheat, grapes and onions and producing wine.

The Italian town’s main annual celebration is its weeklong Cannara Onion Festival/Festa Della Cipolla held at harvest time. The festa features onion-based dining al fresco, concerts, exhibitions and shows, draws more than 10,000 visitors and is one of Umbria’s main food and wine events.

The Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policy considers Cannara's onion a traditional foodstuff with ancient roots.

In the 16th century a municipal statute declared, “’the garden is meant to be the place where vegetables of all kinds are cultivated, excluding garlics, onions and anise,’ meaning that garlics, onions and anise had to be cultivated in bigger land fractions.”

Onion farmers today still hand down cultivation techniques from older to younger generations and just like the Walla Walla Sweet, the Cannara onion’s authenticity is linked to that area. In the Italian orb’s case, it’s grown in a clay composition soil rich in potassium and water.

Ad hoc interpreter Federico Bibi, a wine and olive oil distributor, met the Walla Walla tour group when it reached Cannara, said tour member Cyndi Asmus of Walla Walla.

Bibi led them along a cobblestone street to the municipal building where they met the mayor and vice-mayor.

“A highlight of the visit was when the mayor presented the small statue of St. Francis to Ashley Locati Castillo as our Italian Heritage/Walla Walla representative,” Asmus said. “That was a very emotional moment for all of us.”

They toured a small church and a museum in Cannara, which has ties to pre-Roman times and St. Francis.

“My favorite exhibit was the large mosaic floor with images of African animals like a hippopotamus, a crocodile, ibises, cranes and snakes. The mosaic was part of a large thermal bath building, typical of Roman towns. It was a reminder that Africa is not that far away from Italy,” Asmus said.

One by one, members of the group were allowed into a stone room noted as a place St. Francis visited for rest and quiet contemplation away from nearby Assisi, Asmus said.

“We had to bend down to go through the narrow passageway into the tiny room with a small stone alcove where St. Francis got away from the madding crowds,” she said.

The group also dined at Perbacco Vini e Cucina, which served them from the onion-centric menu they used during the onion festival.

Despite diminished interest and lack of funding for the sister city exchange, “Fortunately, the tour this past fall has provided new energy for exploring possible other cultural exchanges between the two towns,” Johnson said.