Piazza delle Erbe in the immediate post-war period was truly and daily the destination of numerous customers, especially from the historic center, who bought various vegetables, fruit, eggs, "osei to peel or xa spelà" and sometimes, on the occasion of feasts, for the richest, hens whose necks were "pulled" on the spot. The street vendors each had their place and the impromptu were placed by lottery, early in the morning, by the Sanitary Brigade.
However, no one dared to say something to grandmother Maria called Pisèta, who with her basket of flowers occupied the corner of the pharmacy every day where the funnel-shaped staircase leading to the rear of the monument of Andrea Palladio begins. They were wildflowers gathered who knows where and placed in small bunches in the wicker basket. Grandma Maria collected very few coins but I remember that my mother often bought a bunch of flowers to decorate the kitchen table. Nonna Maria became an institution above all because it was repeatedly painted by Guerri da Santomio who portrayed the historic center everywhere with his easel. Guerri was retired by Signora Cabiatti in Contrà Dò Rode, 31 where I also lived and I often helped him to carry the easel and the stool right next to his grandmother Maria because he asserted that the painting was in great demand. Then in the center of Vicenza, in addition to Guerri da Santomio, you could meet "sketching" on sheets and albums but not on canvases, Otello de Maria, a famous watercolorist teacher at the schools of Arts and Crafts and the master Falaguerra who with his "chine" he then opened and managed a permanent exhibition in San Biagio. Grandmother Maria and her basket of flowers are still a memory that I will never be able to forget and even today, when I pass through Piazza delle Erbe, my gaze goes to that corner and I seem to see again those wild flowers that are not...