A Positano Valley is Gianni Menichetti’s Home

A stroll down a Piano di Sorrento street is predictable with locals going to work or running errands. Unexpectedly, Gianni Menichetti, an Italian poet, artist and activist, was walking in my direction. He held a bag of food which was for himself and his animals di lui. He makes the trip weekly. 

Menichetti untraditionally lives on the Amalfi Coast near Positano. Not in the iconic village, but rather in a secluded valley. In under five minutes, he told me a simplified version of his long life story di lui, though he has many more chapters to share. To connect the dots of his fantastic life by him, I had to research elsewhere. 

In complete honesty, those brief minutes were the most fascinating. 

In Positano, the wild Vallone Porto has been Menichetti’s home for about 50 years. The valley represents a place of geological interest and environmental value in the whole Campania Region. Menichetti, born in Tuscany, was very young when he came to Naples to study oriental languages. He met a Tibetan llama at the university and was introduced to a friend of Vali Myers, an Australian artist, dancer, bohemian and muse who was the Queen of the wild valley for 40 years. He believes destiny and fate brought him to the valley in the beginning of 1971. 

The longtime companions and lovers lived at the isolated “Moorish Pavilion (Wildlife Oasis).” In 2003 Myers died in Australia, and Menichetti still lives in the wild valley, selling his art, books and poetry to pay for the dozens of dogs and himself. He also has chickens, ducks and turtledoves. Myers was his teacher, helping him learn English, poetry, literature and music. He wrote “Vali Myers, A Memoir,” where he told his story living with Myers, “The Land of Kali, A Tree of Tatters, and Poems to the Gypsies” and others on his website. Menichetti has acquired three distinguished awards at the International Gypsy Friend Arts Competition, Lanciano, Italy and has been represented in private collections in Europe, America and Australia. 

The self-proclaimed philosopher fights to keep Vallone Porto untouched and fights for the safety of the nature where animals and plants can flourish without the interruption of human beings.

His lifestyle is completely outside the norm – something that seems alienated to most of us.

The valley is his life and his place of solitude. The person passing by on the street could be one of the most captivating humans. . . all one has to do is find out.

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