Two years ago, performing the ritual sightseeing trip to Norcia, we were awed by the mountains and the plain of Castelluccio. And I was drawn to the quaint little town, which seemed to circle around an unreachable center, in what struck me as of a piece with the non-Euclidean universe I kept finding in these hill towns.

With camera in hand, as every self-respecting tourist insists on burdening himself (and others?), I added to the collection of my door series. But I was especially fixated, as I now remember, on a construction site in Castelluccio that we passed by on the first leg of our journey up the hill.

Little did I know. This wasn’t just your ordinary episode on the HGTV network. Engaged in what passes for research these days (i.e., surfing on the Internet), I stumble upon the rubble of our ignorance: back in 2014, just before we visited, an earthquake brought down some buildings in this lovely mountain town

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