Martin waited about thirty minutes and was having another espresso when a thin, wiry man about twenty-five years old stepped in front of him, threw his leg over the chair and slid into the seat. He had a broad smile, a stubble of beard, and perfect white teeth. A cigarette dangled from the first two fingers of his left hand as he offered his right hand to shake Martin"s.
“Good morning,” the man said cheerily with only a trace of Italian accent. “I am Santo, and I understand you want to learn about the Sassi. Many men, they lived there for many centuries. Probably the first men to live in Italy. Even before the Greeks came here,” he said.
According to Santo, the Romans settled the area in the 3rd century B.C., but it was overrun by the Lombards in the 7th century. During the Middle Ages,
