Italy’s changeable landscape is as much a character in her history as the people who live within her. Repeatedly, earthquakes are written into that history. Yet Italy often appears as a garden of Eden, full endlessly of the good things of the Earth: ancient olive groves, vines, fields of wheat, and much more; a bounty elicited by human industry and knowledge over many generations. Even the most apparently barren and uncultivated rocky slope may abound with edible plants and herbs of all kinds. From the sea, fishers still harvest. Everywhere potable water springs from Italy’s permeable limestone.  This gentle and generous Mother Earth is at times savage. For Italy lies…