Italian Culture

Speak the Culture

Italy

I BE FLUENT IN ITALIAN LIFE AND CULTURE HI S T ORY , S OC I E TY A N D L I F ES TY L E • L I T E R A T U R E A N D P H I LO S OP HY AR T A N D A R C H I T E C T U R E • C I N EMA A N D F AS H ION M US I C A N D D R AM A • FOO D A N D DR I NK • M E D I A A N D S PO R T

The Italian Cultural Institute, London, supports and encourages understanding between people and cultures worldwide and endorses this book’s aim of contributing towards a greater cultural awareness of Italy. www.icilondon.esteri.it

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Italian Cultural Institute, London.

Speak the Culture

Italy

Speak the Culture

Italy

I B E F L UEN T IN ITA LIA N LIFE AND CUL TURE H I S T O RY, S OCI E T Y A ND L IF E S T Y L E • LIT E RATURE AN D PHIL OSOPHY A RT A ND A R C H IT E C T U R E • C INE MA AN D FASHION M U S I C A N D DR A M A • FO O D A ND D R IN K • MEDIA AN D SPORT

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All has been done to trace the owners of the various pieces of material used for this book. If further information and proof of ownership should be made available then attribution will be given or, if requested, the said material removed in subsequent editions. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 1 85418 628 0 / 978185418628-7

Thorogood Publishing Ltd 10-12 Rivington Street London EC2A 3DU Telephone: 020 7749 4748 Fax: 020 7729 6110 [email protected] www.thorogoodpublishing.co.uk www.speaktheculture.net © 2010 Thorogood Publishing Ltd

Publisher

Editor in chief

Design & illustration

Acknowledgements

Neil Thomas

Andrew Whittaker

Editorial Director Angela Spall

Additional editorial contributors Lisa Kramer Taruschio David Banks Johnny Bull Amy Wilson Thomas Patrick Carpenter Jonathan Schofield

Phylip Harries Richard Grosse falconburydesign.co.uk

Special thanks to: Denise Bianchini John and Pauline Davis Matt Rendell, Mariella Scarlett Carlo Presenti at the Italian Cultural Institute

Johnny Bull plumpState plumpstate.com iStockphoto Printed in the UK by Ashford Colour Press

Rome, as seen from Castel Sant’ Angelo

Contents

3. Art, architecture and design p87 3.1 Art and design p89 3.1.1 The eternal template: Ancient Italian art p90 3.1.2 Killing time ’til Giotto arrives: medieval art p93 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture p3 1.1 Geography p5 1.1.1 Italy: where is it and what does it look like? p6 1.1.2 Local colour: the Italian regioni p9 1.2 History p19 1.2.1 Did you know we used to rule the world? Ancient Italy p20 1.2.2 From the Dark Ages into the light p26 1.2.3 United in name at least: the making of modern Italy p33 1.3 Language and belonging p43 1.3.1 Speech patterns: language in Italy p44 1.3.2 Being Italian: identity and psyche p48

3.1.3 Master strokes: the Renaissance in Italian art p98 2. Literature and philosophy p53 2.1 Literature p55

3.1.4 Back to reality: the power of Baroque p107

2.1.1 A book shy nation p56

3.1.5 To the avantgarde and back: modern Italian art p110

2.1.2 Classically trained: the Roman authors p58

3.1.6 Style and substance: modern Italian design p113

2.1.3 The Three Crowns of the early Renaissance p61

3.2 Architecture p117

2.1.4 The anti-climax of the High Renaissance p65

3.2.2 Classical leanings: the medieval builds p121

2.1.5 Telling it like it is: literature in the modern era p68

3.2.3 Designing harmony: Renaissance architecture p124

2.2 Philosophy p79

3.2.4 The high drama of Baroque p128

2.2.1 The greatest hits of Italian philosophy p80

3.2.1 Built to last: Ancient architecture p118

3.2.5 In the shadow of greatness: modern Italian architecture p131

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy p137 4.1 Music p139 4.1.1 The sounds of tradition: Italian folk music p140 4.1.2 Life in opera’s shadow: classical music p143 4.1.3 Italian by design: opera p148 4.1.4 Rock, pop, rap, hip hop, dance and the rest… p154 4.2 Theatre, dance and comedy p161 4.2.1 Dramatis personae: the key figures of Italian theatre p162 4.2.2 Italy on the dancefloor p169 4.2.3 Laughing matter: Italian comedy p173

8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy p271 6. Media and communications p209 5. Cinema and fashion p177 5.1 Cinema p179 5.1.1 The importance of Italian cinema p180 5.1.2 Epic tastes: from silent classics to noisy propaganda p182 5.1.3 Grit and determination: Neorealist cinema p186 5.1.4 The golden age of Italian cinema p188 5.1.5 The era of false dawns: modern Italian cinema p195 5.2 Fashion p201 5.2.1 Made in Italy p202

7. Food and drink p233

6.1 Media p211

7.1 Food p235

6.1.1 Best of the press: newspapers and magazines p212

7.1.1 Home advantage: the culture of Italian food p236

6.1.2 Thinking inside the box: Italian television p217

7.1.2 Regional tastes: the flavours of Italy p238

6.1.3 Radio: an Italian passion p220

7.1.3 Food rituals: eating and buying p246 7.2 Drink p253

8.1 Upsetting the old order: class, race, family and women p274 8.2 Issues of faith: religion in Italy p278 8.3 Rule benders: politics, the Italian state and green issues p282 8.4 Money matters: the economy, wealth and social security p288

6.1.4 New media: Italy online p222

7.2.1 The culture of Italian wine p254

8.5 Law and order: the police, the Mafia and the legal system p292

6.2 Communications p225

7.2.2 The Italian wine regions p257

8.6 Class struggles: the education system p297

6.2.1 Staying in touch: sending letters and making calls p226

7.2.3 Thirst for knowledge: beyond wine p264

8.7 Time out: holidays, festivals and free time p300

6.2.2 Italy on the move: transport types and habits p228

7.2.4 Drinking habits: when and where to indulge p268

8.8 Passion plays: Italian sport p303

First, a word from the publisher… This series of books and this book are designed to look at a country’s culture – to give readers a real grasp of it and to help them develop and explore that culture. The world is shrinking – made smaller by commerce, tourism and migration – and yet the importance of national culture, of national identity, seems to grow. By increasing your cultural knowledge and appreciation of a country, be it your own or a foreign land, you reach a genuine understanding of the people and how they live. We’re talking about culture in all its guises: the creative arts that give a country its spirit as well as the culture of everyday life. Speak the Culture books sit alongside guidebooks and language courses, serving not only as a companionable good read but also as an invaluable tool for understanding a country’s current culture and its heritage.

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2 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

2. Literature and philosophy

3. Art, architecture and design

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy

5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

7. Food and drink

8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

1 Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

1.1 Geography p5 1.1.1 Italy: where is it and what does it look like? p6 1.1.2 Local colour: the Italian regioni p9 1.2 History p19 1.2.1 Did you know we used to rule the world? Ancient Italy p20

1.2.3 United in name at least: the making of modern Italy p33 1.3 Language and belonging p43 1.3.1 Speech patterns: language in Italy p44 1.3.2 Being Italian: identity and psyche p48

1.2.2 From the Dark Ages into the light p26

3 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

2. Literature and philosophy

3. Art, architecture and design

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy

5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

7. Food and drink

8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

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3. Art, architecture and design

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy

5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

7. Food and drink

8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

1.1 Geography The Italian landscape can be as varied and stirring as any; it has peaks, plains and more volcanoes than the rest of mainland Europe combined. However, it’s the breadth and diversity of culture – the traditions and the sense of campanilismo – that shape the real identity of each region.

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1.1.1 Italy: where is it and what does it look like? Grain drain

If the boot fits

Half of Italy’s beaches are disappearing, deprived of sand by natural erosion and human interference. As sea levels rise, the prognosis looks bleak. Shrinkage is already causing friction: in 2008 Lecce and Brindisi, both in Puglia (where 65 per cent of beaches are losing their sand), fell out when Lecce tried to dredge for new sand offshore from its near neighbour and longtime rival.

The Italians sometimes call their prong of southern Europe lo Stivale, the Boot, for obvious reasons. It’s an iconic physique, from the muscular Alpine thigh right down to the bony Calabrian toe that punts Sicily eternally towards Africa (Sicilian capital Palermo is closer to Tunis than Rome). Running clockwise from Trieste in the north-east, the country is bordered by the Adriatic, Ionian, Tyrrhenian and Ligurian Seas, all of them a part of the Mediterranean Sea. Land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia in the north are dominated by the Alps. Italy has a number of islands out in the Med, of which Sardinia (120 miles adrift from Rome in the Tyrrhenian Sea) and Sicily are by far the largest.

Lie of the land: the hills are alive The hills and mountains that cover two thirds of Italy comprise two chains: the Alps and the Apennines. The Alps formed when the African tectonic plate slid north millions of years ago, collided with the Eurasian plate and pushed up the peaks. These shifting plates still affect Italy more than any other European country, initiating earthquakes and giving vent to three active volcanoes, Etna, Vesuvius and Stromboli. The same tectonic clash also shaped the Apennines, the peninsula’s spine, curving all the way from the Ligurian Alps to the toe tip of Calabria. The northern Pianura Padana forms Italy’s largest lowland plain, the Po River (Italy’s longest) draining its fertile soils. The other large Italian plain is the Tavoliere delle Puglie (Chessboard of Puglia) down in the boot heel. Lakes Garda, Maggiore and Como sit in steepsided northern valleys (when people talk about the ‘Italian Lakes’ they mean these), while smaller lakes to the north of Rome inhabit old volcanic craters.

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What is the weather like? The coastal lowlands of southern Italy enjoy a Mediterranean climate of hot summers and mild winters, and the warm weather stretches north up the western coast bringing uncomfortable heat in summer. Elsewhere, the norm is cooler, particularly in the north-east where the cold winds can blow in from central Europe. By consolation, east tends to be drier than west. The Po Valley experiences harsh winters and warm, humid summers, and is known for prodigious winter fogs. The Alps have their own climate of bitter winters and mild summers. When the Sirocco wind comes up from North Africa the whole country bakes. Italy’s undulating topography creates some intriguing microclimates (and correspondingly fine wines). Despite Lake Garda’s northerly position, for instance, the surrounding mountains provide enough shelter to grow palms and lemons. Climate change is already having a serious effect on Italy – summers in southern Italy are 0.7 degrees warmer than they were 20 years ago. Forces of nature Earthquake: Italy’s worst quake (indeed, modern Europe’s worst) and the attendant tsunami killed as many as 200,000 people when it hit Messina in 1908. The most devastating recent event came in April 2009, when a quake in Abruzzo killed nearly 300. Flood: When the Arno River flooded Florence in 1966, it killed over a hundred people and destroyed or damaged thousands of works of art, Donatello’s Magdalene sculpture included. The so-called ‘Mud Angels’ helped clean the city up. Volcano: Vesuvius’ most famous outburst came in 79AD when it buried Pompeii and killed as many as 25,000 locals. A more recent eruption in 1906 claimed more than a hundred lives.

Boughing out, Tuscan style Few sights evoke the Italian landscape, Tuscany in particular, like the tall, slim cypress tree. Cupressus sempervirens (if you’ve got dining companions to impress) probably came to Italy from the eastern Med with the Etruscans. Despite being darkly green, longlived (they can grow for a thousand years) and sweetly pungent, the tree has strong associations with death. In Metamorphoses, Roman poet Ovid described the tree being born from the body of Cyparissus, the grief-stricken youth who accidentally speared Apollo’s pet deer. Convinced of a connection to the underworld, the Romans would lay their dead on a bed of cypress branches and place a tree at the front of the house during periods of mourning.

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Vital statistics Area: 301,338 sq km (116,356 sq miles) (roughly the same size as Arizona). Population: 58 million. Length: Around 745 miles (1,200 km), depending on where you measure from. Width: 380 miles (610km) at its widest point. Life expectancy: 77 for men, 83 for women.

Where do the Italians live? Almost three quarters of Italians now live in towns and cities, a preference for urban life that only developed in the post-war economic boom (see section 8.4 for more). The population density is relatively high (almost 200 people per sq km – the fifth most densely peopled country in the EU) although the distribution of people is unbalanced. Over a third of Italians live in the Pianura Padana, while the lands south of Rome can be quite empty. It’s a north/south split connected to prosperity, to the divide between industry and agriculture and to a clash in attitudes and culture. Rome may be the biggest city by population (2.7 million), but the metropolitan areas around Milan (up to 7.4 million by some estimates) and Naples (4.4. million) embrace more inhabitants.

Average age: Early to mid 40s (and rising every year). Highest mountain: Monte Bianco di Courmayeur, 4,748m (15,577 ft) (smaller, conjoined sibling of Mont Blanc). Tallest surviving Ancient statue: Colossus of Barletta, 5.11m (16.7ft).

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1.1.2 Local colour: the Italian regioni

The 20 regions of modern Italy may have been formally created in 1960, but each has much older origins, a preUnification identity usually based on subservience to a duke, king, city or pope. Each has a distinct culture, a mode of life with its dialect, customs and rivalries, to which the inhabitants subscribe and which, typically, eclipses any loyalty to the Italian nation. In fact, pride in the locale often only extends to the immediate community. They call it campanilismo, that connection to your birthplace, your hometown or village; the word derives from campanile, or bell tower, recognising a loyalty to your own corner of civilisation with the church in its midst. Five of the 20 regions (Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily and Sardinia), the regioni autonome, are more ‘separate’ than others, enjoying a degree of autonomy that brings the power to levy and spend taxes.

i. Northern Italy Italy abuts its northern neighbours at the Alps. The mountain chain has given the country a natural frontier, and yet, in places, languages and customs still lap over from other cultures. Northern Italy is richer in industry and agriculture than the regions to the south; its resorts are slicker, its cloth better cut and the people, perhaps, more taciturn. Valle d’Aosta. The Romans, Hannibal and his ensemble, St Bernard and Napoleon – they’ve all passed through Italy’s high north-eastern limits, a small region of prodigious peaks (including Monte Bianco, Monte Rosa and Cervino (also known as the Matterhorn). Today, some here speak Italian, others French or Walser German; many still use a Valdôtain patois. Under Mussolini the region was ‘Italianised’ with encouraged migration and language curbs, but today it’s allowed a measure of autonomy. Skiing, cows, hydro electricity and metalworking pay the bills. 9 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Something in the water The Ligurian resort of Sestri Levante exerts quite a pull on romantic creative types. Danish author Hans Christian Andersen enjoyed a long stay in 1835, and the town now holds a children’s literature competition in his name. Similarly, Richard Wagner took refuge in the town one night after being harried off the sea by a storm. Local hotels now claim, rather hopefully, that the event inspired parts of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Duce in disguise Mussolini was caught in Lombardy; discovered in Dongo, Lake Como, by a partisan checking German troop lorries in retreat in April 1945. The accompanying soldiers tried to pass Mussolini off as a drunken comrade, disguised with glasses, a greatcoat and Nazi helmet. The resistance fighter who spotted him, Urbano Lazzaro, subsequently became something of a celebrity as Partisan Bill, writing about his role in the demise of Il Duce.

Piedmont Sit up straight; Italy’s second largest region is a place of business and industry, the dynamic doer of French influence that initiated Italian Unification in the 19th century. Turin is the hub, an undemonstrative (by Italian standards) city of cars (it’s home to Fiat), Baroque porticoes and breadsticks (grissini). Piedmont’s alpine landscape softens south and east of Turin, flattening to paddy fields alongside the widening Po River. Liguria Liguria, with its forested, scented hills, crowns the warm Gulf of Genoa like a luxuriant head of green hair. Most are drawn here by the stretch of Riviera, a less uptight affair than its French counterpart. Genoa, the sole sizeable city, is a hard modern port with a soft medieval centre. A once powerful republic, it bore confident characters like Columbus and Garibaldi. Cliffside villages like Portofino have inspired artists and writers for centuries – just ask Guy de Maupassant, Lord Byron and Truman Capote (if you can rouse them). Lombardy Italy’s most self-assured region envelops the Alps, the flat Pianura Padana and the country’s finest lakes (Como, Maggiore and Garda are all here). Milan has fashion houses and fiscal clout (location for Italy’s stock exchange, the Borsa), while the environs sprawl with industry, closing in on architecturally blessed old towns. Southerners talk of a superiority complex; the Lombards don’t care. Their name derives from ‘long beards’, recalling Germanic occupants of old. Trentino-Alto Adige No really, we are Italian. It’s just that we speak German, eat schnitzel and some of us want to be independent from Italy. Trentino (the more Italian half to the south)Alto Adige (the fundamentally Austrian bit to the north, also called Süd Tirol) is a two-faced tease. Tour guides describe a harmonious meeting of cultures, but it can 10

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8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

feel more like a skirmish. When Mussolini compelled Süd Tiroleans to chose one camp or the other in the late 1930s, most chose the other, and moved north to Austria, under Nazi rule at the time. Scenically, the western end of the Dolomites distract from the identity crisis. Friuli-Venezia Giulia Italy and Central Europe meet in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, an autonomous, ethnically mixed north-east region of mountains, plains and coastline. It got the worst parts of the 20th century; blood-soaked in the First World War then bled dry by the Fascists, Nazis and Communists. The main city, Trieste, a large port, encapsulates the different flavours: built by Austrian Habsburg overlords in the 18th century, today it’s an Italian city hemmed in by Slovenia. All parties unite in moaning about the region’s freezing north-easterly wind, the Bora.

Veneto The wealthy Veneto lands reach from the Austrian border in the Dolomites to the Adriatic coast. Venice, once the hub of a republic that dominated Mediterranean trade for centuries, merits its reputation as a breathtaking city of canals, medieval palazzos and artistic treasures. Inland, across the rice fields, vineyards and patches of industry, lie Padua, where Giotto redirected European art 700 years ago with naturalistic, reverent frescos, and Verona, with its Roman amphitheatre, so well suited for staging fullblooded opera.

Respecting the old landlord North-east Italy is sometimes referred to as Venetia, a region that includes much of modern day Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, bits of Lombardy and Trentino, and harks back to the territories of the once robust and ‘Most Serene’ Venetian Republic.

“V EN I C E I S LI K E EATI N G A N EN TI R E B O X O F C H O C O LATE LI Q U EU R S I N ONE GO.” Truman Capote

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Five cultural icons from the north Umberto Eco (Piedmont). Apparently ‘Eco’ is an acronym of ex caelis oblatus (a gift from the heavens), given to Umberto’s grandfather, a foundling, by a creative civil servant. Dario Fo (Lombardy). The playwright helped his father smuggle Allied soldiers through Lombardy to Switzerland during the war. Pier Paolo Pasolini (Emilia-Romagna). The inveterate lefty was born in Bologna to a father who distinguished himself by saving Mussolini’s life. Niccolò Paganini (Liguria). Took up the mandolin, aged five, in Genoa under his father’s tuition, and conquered the violin two years later.

Emilia-Romagna Straddling northern Italy, the old, frequently foggy provinces of Emilia and Romagna used to form bits of the Papal States, which may explain a 20th century leaning away from the Church to the left (Communists held power here in the 1970s and 80s). Under-appreciated Bologna, the big city, has delicate arcades and some of the finest food in Italy. Modena has a leaning tower (up yours Pisa) and its balsamic vinegar, while Parma enjoys its prosciutto and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. All three cities are on the Via Aemilia, a Roman road named for consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 187BC.

ii. Central Italy Central Italy is the prime guardian of Italy’s cultural heritage (whatever northerners might tell you). In Florence and Rome it has the finest Renaissance cities in Europe, each with its trove of art and architecture. And with its hills, cypress trees and medieval villages, the landscape is more powerfully ‘Italian’ than anywhere else on the peninsula. Tuscany Tuscany’s legion foreign (and Italian) fans will attest to its beauty, to the rolling vineyards, hilltop towns and marbled cathedrals. Artists, architects and writers made this the

Italo Svevo (FriuliVenezia Giulia). When the writer was born in Trieste, it was still in Austro-Hungarian hands.

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Campanilismo on horseback

centre of the Renaissance world: Dante and Boccaccio ensured the national tongue had Tuscan roots; and Michelangelo, da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Botticelli et al did the decorating. When the crowds in Florence, Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano get too much, seek out Apennine tranquillity or untroubled medieval villages. Umbria Or ‘Tuscany in waiting’ if the hype is believed. Umbria has the Renaissance art, the architecture and the medieval hilltop towns, but, as yet, not the hubbub of its neighbour. A certain humility, born perhaps of aged piety (it was another Papal State), has settled over the green landscape: St Francis (Assisi, his home patch, is the region’s prime tourist town), St Benedict and St Valentine were all Umbrian. All this and mountains, the River Tiber and the largest lake south of Garda, Lago Trasimeno.

Siena’s famous Palio, the biannual breakneck horserace around the city’s broad Piazza del Campo, is among the most celebrated expressions of Italian campanilismo, of civic pride. It’s all about supporting the horse from your own contrade (city ward), of which there are 17 (at one time there were over 50). In Siena the riders began on buffalo, later moved to donkeys and finally settled on horseback in 1656. Today only ten horses run, with the contradas represented on a rotating basis. The ‘palio’ originally referred to the piece of silk cloth given as a prize to the race winner. The Palio d’Asti, a similar, even older race dating to the 13th century, rides round a town in Piedmont each September.

Marche With Adriatic to one side and Apennines on the other, Marche feels sequestered. All the ingredients of central Italy are here – sleepy hilltop towns, snow-capped mountains (the Monti Sibillini range), monasteries, Etruscan remains, Renaissance cities (Urbino, Raphael’s hometown is the finest; Ascoli Piceno, the quietest) – but there is little of the potential for mania, perhaps a reflection of the region’s former role collecting taxes for the pope. 13 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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“N E VE R, IN ITS BLOODIEST PRIME, CAN T HE SIG HT OF T HE GIGA NTIC C OLISEUM, F UL L AN D RUNNING OVE R WITH THE LUSTIEST L IF E, HAVE MO VED ONE HE ART, A S IT MU ST M OVE AL L WHO LOOK UPO N IT N OW, A RUIN.” Charles Dickens

Abruzzo’s got talent Abruzzo’s brooding, empty feel has much to do with the landscape, but the fact that locals migrated in droves in the 20th century didn’t help. Many went to America. In particular, the ‘musical’ gene pool upped and left: Madonna, Dean Martin, Perry Como and Henry Mancini all had Abruzzan parents.

Lazio Italy often pokes fun at Lazio, at its relative poverty, slow development and lack of identity. The region has to contend with Rome in its midst, overshadowing the parched farmland, hills and volcanic lakes that form the landscape. But the Latin story began here, as the outlying region proves with Etruscan necropolises and wellpreserved Roman remains, notably at Hadrian’s Tivoli villa and Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient port. For foreigners, rural Lazio has the lure of being largely untroubled by other visitors. Not so Rome of course. But Rome is worthy of its crowds. The city’s prime talent is to make you feel part of a living process, part of the cultural evolution that deposited the Romans’ Pantheon, Michelangelo’s Renaissance ceiling and Bernini’s Baroque fountains, rather than a visitor at the world’s biggest museum. Abruzzo This is central Italy at its most feral; a wild region of mountains (the Apennines reach their height in the Gran Sasso massif) and silent valleys that still shelter bears, chamois and wolves. Ski and beach resorts bring a share of visitors, but most come for the large national parks. A tradition of folklore and mysticism (and a reputation for witchcraft) add to the Middle Earth ambience. L’Aquila is the earthquake prone capital, but the medieval hill villages around (some abandoned), all but bypassed by the 20th century, are more interesting. Molise In 1963 Molise parted company with Abruzzo (or the Abruzzi as Molise and three provinces in Abruzzo are collectively known) and went solo. Scenically it’s in the untamed Abruzzo mould, albeit with lower hills, but culturally it’s distinct: many here descend from medieval Balkan settlers. It has its Roman remains, notably at Saepinum, a little visited walled town, but also boasts Europe’s oldest human settlement at Isernia (700,000 years old). Such delights haven’t stopped the region’s population dwindling: fewer people live here now than 150 years ago. 14

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Five cultural icons from the centre Alberto Moravia (Lazio). The author from Rome began writing during a five-year childhood stint confined to bed with TB of the bone. Monica Bellucci (Umbria). The multilingual model and actress was born in Città di Castello, once home to Pliny the Younger. Gabriele d’Annunzio (Abruzzo). Son to the mayor in Pescara, young Gabriele was already publishing poetry at the age of 16. Gioachino Rossini (Marche). Spent his childhood years in theatres, where his father scraped a living playing the trumpet. Sandro Botticelli (Tuscany). Like his fellow Florentine master, Donatello, the young Botticelli was apparently apprenticed to a goldsmith.

iii. Southern Italy

Southern Italy, the Mezzogiorno as it’s frequently labelled, is still regularly written off. Too often, the tales of unemployment, poverty, corruption and neglect are true; almost everything south of Rome, the islands of Sicily and Sardinia included, has suffered centuries of hardship. But this ignores the south’s charm, its inherent lust for life (insouciance was always a luxury too far down here), unparalleled cuisine, multi-ethnic culture and largely unspoilt scenery, all of which, finally, is starting to get the attention it deserves. Campania Campania gathers around Naples and its sweeping bay. The city is dense and lively; its art treasures, Renaissance buildings, fine food and atmosphere of disobedience creating a real cultural buzz. Nearby lies Mount Vesuvius, and Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Roman towns it buried. The Campi Flegrei (Fiery Fields), a steamy patch of craters west of Naples, include Lago d’Averno, pinpointed by Virgil as the entrance to Hades. South of Naples, the Amalfi Coast is renowned for dramatic towns and large, knobbly lemons. Venture inland and Campania becomes quieter, poorer and rockier.

The oldest and the smallest: nations within a nation San Marino. A tiny throwback to Italy’s pre-Unification days, the republic shouts loud about being ‘Europe’s oldest state’ (apparently established by Marinus, a stonemason, 1,700 years ago). It’s a collection of small settlements on top of a big rock sandwiched between EmiliaRomagna and Marche. Vatican. The smallest independent state in the world (now, that is something to shout about), ensconced in Rome, is the HQ of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican wrestles to reconcile its dazzling cultural heritage with the demands of modern life: not so long ago archaeologists stumbled across a Roman necropolis while excavating an underground car park. Among the remains, they found terracotta tubes once used by mourning families to feed honey to the dead.

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Trulli strange The roofs of the whitewashed, windowless stone trulli of Puglia are often daubed with symbols. Some are ancient, paying homage to Jupiter, Saturn or Mercury; others are Christian or Jewish.

Puglia Italy’s hot heel stretches 400km (250 miles), from the Tavoliere plain (a former sea bed) of the north, a sea of corn in summer, to the Salento peninsula in the south, its reddy-brown dust broken by olive groves and vineyards arranged in family plots. A centuries-long cycle of invasion deposited Germanic castles, Romanesque cathedrals and Spanish Baroque frippery (at its best in Lecce). Pointy trulli houses and whitewashed hill towns on the Salento peninsula recall Greek connections. Basilicata Inaccessible and rocky, Basilicata has been held in check by grinding poverty for centuries. Finally, the shackles are loosening. The hilltop town of Matera, with its sassi (dugout caves), has gone from malarial slum to UNESCO World Heritage site in 30 years, while Maratea, on the Tyrrhenian coast, now draws tourists. Basilicata’s isolation was such that ‘agitators’ were exiled here under the Fascists. One such figure, Carlo Levi, famously described the region’s daily struggle for survival in Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (1945). Calabria Like Basilicata, Calabria is Mezzogiorno proper, a world away from slick Turin or Milan. Poverty has been virtually endemic since Magna Graecia declined under the Romans. Elements of the Greek heritage survive, although earthquakes have reshaped the once great classical cities (often in dull concrete), regional capital Reggio di Calabria included. Calabria is mountainous (there’s even a ski resort in the toe tip Aspromonte highlands), bordered on three sides by long, unspoilt beaches. The slow pace of progress is hampered by the pervasive Calabrian Mafia, the internationally powerful ‘Ndrangheta.

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Sicily Strange to think that Italian unity launched from Sicily (with Garibaldi’s Red Shirts (see section 1.2.3 for more)), a region so close to Africa. A succession of foreign overlords – Greek, Arab, Norman, Spanish, Bourbon – left their mark on the ethnic mix, the food and the language. Palermo, the capital, is intense, a city that’s monetarily poor but culturally rich. The Mafia still has an impact on life, although few will mention it (the culture of omertà also runs deep). Etna, the volcanic giant, is the high point of mountains that stretch across the sparsely populated interior. Sardinia Like Sicily, Sardinia has a multicultural past featuring a similar cast of invaders and traders. Carthage, Rome, Pisa, Genoa, Madrid: all set up camp here and left elements of their culture behind, although the most distinctive buildings, the basalt-built fortresses of the native Nuraghic culture, predate them all. Modern Sardinia mixes glossy, expensive resorts with fine empty beaches and an interior of restful, wooded hills. The Sardinians have a reputation as a hardworking, dogged (somewhat un-Italian) bunch.

Draw me ten Hail Marys When restorers began chipping whitewash off the walls of a university building in Palermo, Sicily, in 2006, they found graffiti left by prisoners awaiting interrogation by the Spanish Inquisition in the early 17th century. A life-size St Andrew and a crying Mary Magdalene were among the drawings, sketched by inmates either in a bid to prove their Christian credentials or under duress from their captors.

Five cultural icons from the south Salvatore Quasimodo (Sicily). The Modica-born poet moved to Messina, aged eight, where the aftermath of a devastating earthquake informed his early verse. Sophia Loren (Campania). Sired by cats (not really, mum was a piano teacher) in Pozzuoli, near Naples, the young Loren was hit by shrapnel when the local munitions factory was bombed in the war. Gianni Versace (Calabria). Reggio di Calabria’s famous fashion designer began helping out his mother, a dressmaker, at an early age. Rudolph Valentino (Puglia). Born to a vet who died of malaria soon after, the actor Valentino himself died young, from peritonitis contracted after surgery on a perforated ulcer. Pier Angeli (Sardinia). The starlet from Cagliari dated James Dean and Kirk Douglas in the 50s, and was lined up for a part in The Godfather when she overdosed on barbiturates in 1971.

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1.2 History Italy is spoiled for history of the kind you can walk amongst, the sort relived through architecture, paintings or even old sewerage systems. More recent history, from the years of Fascism to the Years of Lead, can be harder to unearth yet equally relevant to Italian culture.

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1.2.1 Did you know we used to rule the world? Ancient Italy The iceman cometh, eventually Europe’s oldest human mummy was found in the Italian Alps. Ötzi (because he was discovered in the Ötztal region) poked his leathery physique out from a glacier in 1991 after 53 centuries of hibernation. Analysis of the body showed that Ötzi died, aged 45, from an arrow strike to the shoulder about eight hours after he finished a last meal of red deer. It also revealed 59 small tattoos on his back, knees and ankle, possibly related to some form of acupunctural treatment. Perhaps in tribute, actor Brad Pitt appears to have a tattoo of Ötzi on his own arm.

Key dates Tenth to fifth century BC The Etruscans and Magna Graecia dominate the Italian peninsula. 753BC Romulus (allegedly) founds Rome, becoming its first king. 510BC to 27BC The Roman Republic rises to dominate Italy and the Mediterranean. 44BC Gaius Julius Caesar, ‘dictator for life’, is killed. 27BC Augustus (né Octavian) becomes the first de facto Emperor of Rome. Early second century The territory and powers of the Roman Empire reach their apogee. 324 Constantine adopts Christianity as the official state religion. 476 German general Odoacer declares himself king of Italy as the Empire falls apart. 568 The Lombards swarm into Italy. Some refugees find safety across a lagoon, where they establish Venice.

It began, as these things usually do, with rocks Palaeolithic and Neolithic settlers in Italy left behind the usual array of Stone Age graffiti when the last ice age retreated. In the Valle Camonica, Lombardy, they excelled themselves; the Camunni etched over 140,000 petroglyphs into the rock 8,000 years ago. Alongside the staple hunter-gatherer scenes, they also left cosmological and ritual images, and scenes of bestiality. Bronze Age tribes arrived on the peninsula from all directions 4,000 years later and deposited more than artwork and piles of stone (at their best in the nuraghe buildings of Sardinia): the Ligures (Liguria), Veneti (Veneto), Latins (Lazio), Sards (Sardinia), Umbrii (Umbria) and their like also began shaping the Italian regions.

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Temples and tombs: the heady days of Etruria and Magna Graecia By the seventh century BC, two cultures had pushed their way to the top. Greek trading posts and colonies gathered in the south forming Magna Graecia, or ‘Greater Greece’. To the north, from a powerbase between the Arno and Tiber rivers, the enigmatic, iron-mining Etruscans controlled trade and tribes as far north as the Alps. Both cultures were governed by powerful city states. Magna Graecia had Taras (now Taranto) on the mainland and Syracuse on Sicily, the rich trading centres whose profits built the chunky, stately temples that survive in southern Italy 2,500 years on. Cities in Etruria (as Etruscan territory was named), such as Tarquinii (now Tarquinia in Lazio), with their kings and ruling noble magistrates, were relatively self-contained, although they did trade (and sometimes war) with each other and with foreign states. Very little of the Etruscan cities survives today. What does remain suggests they threw a good wake – murals depict dancing, feasting and games at funerals. The arrangement of Etruscan tombs and the primacy they gave to the female ancestral line also suggest a pioneering equality between the sexes. Alas, for Greeks and Etruscans alike, the good times couldn’t last. War with northern tribes and mainland Greeks weakened the Etruscans while Magna Graecia was damaged by infighting. By the fourth century BC, both were being shoved around by Italy’s rising city star, Rome.

Tuscans from Turks Recent DNA testing confirmed the assertion by fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus that the Etruscan civilisation found its way to Italy across the sea from Turkey. The scientists made the connection by testing the DNA of modern Tuscans from old Etruscan towns.

I saw it in a goat’s kidneys…your Sharon’s having a boy It seems the Etruscans had a fairly formalised code of religion based on divination. Lightning, flying birds, the entrails of freshly killed animals – all were studied for clues on what the future might hold.

Republican Rome: let the good times roll… for some So, wrote historian Livy, the twins Romulus and Remus were sired by Mars, abandoned next to the Tiber and then suckled by a she wolf. And one, Romulus, grew up to found Rome in 753BC, killing his brother along the way. A good story, and perhaps only fanciful in parts: the lineage of Rome’s Etruscan kings may have descended from a certain Romulus. That lineage came to an abrupt end in 509BC when power was handed to two elected Latin consuls, advised by the old senate, and the Roman Republic was born. 21 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Roman birthday Rome still celebrates the purported date of its founding, 21 April. Museums and archaeological sites let people in free of charge, mock gladiatorial battles are held and locals throw on a tunic or maybe even a toga to process through the streets.

Courtship, Roman style One event in Rome’s early history has proved particularly emotive for artists ever since. In the eighth century BC, women of the Sabine tribe were snatched by Roman men after being invited to Rome for a festival in Neptune’s honour. Apparently there was a shortage of childbearing women in the city. As Livy tells it, after the initial grab, the women were won over by the romantic entreaties of the men. The ‘Rape of the Sabine Women’ (with rape usually interpreted as kidnap rather than sexual assault) has been depicted by countless artists, from Renaissance sculptor Giambologna to the French Classical painter Nicolas Poussin and Cubist maestro Pablo Picasso.

Rome, wedged in relative obscurity between the old realms of the Etruscans and the Latins, grew rapidly in strength. By the early fourth century BC it was mopping up rivals, the remnant tribes around central and northern Italy, defeating, absorbing and taxing the Etruscans (Tuscany), Volscians (southern Lazio) and Samnites (southern Apennines). Magna Graecia folded next, speeded by the acquisition of Sicily by Rome in the First Punic War. Victory over Celts in the Po Valley brought virtually all of Italy under Roman rule circa 200BC. Macedonia, Corinth, bits of Asia Minor, Spain and Africa were added to the portfolio soon after. The conquered lands helped nourish a new Roman aristocracy (drawn from both patrician (noble) and wealthy plebeian (common) ranks) that indulged in slaves, hedonism and large country estates. Impoverished Italian farmers gave up their land (which was recycled into those country estates), unable to compete with cheap foreign grain imports, and, with nowhere else to go, flooded from the land into Rome and its insulae (apartment blocks), expanding the plebeian ranks and creating the biggest city in Europe.

Life in the Roman Empire While Rome’s far-flung territories grew, trouble brewed at home. The aristocracy entered moral meltdown and the growing, poor multitude took umbrage at the nobility’s excesses. A string of political figures tried to assuage their annoyance and were assassinated, before a military general, Sulla, established himself as dictator and crushed any popular resistance to the oligarchy in 83BC. The ‘people’ were avenged, mildly, by the arrival of Gaius Julius Caesar, a reforming consul who initially shared power in a triumvirate but ultimately, after military successes in Gaul and the defeat of his rival, General Pompey, became sole governor. Caesar’s job spec is usually headed ‘dictator for life’, but it’s somewhat misrepresentative: he brought welcome reform to Rome, bolstering the economy and cleaning up the aristocracy. 22

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Caesar made enemies with his new broom and was murdered by Brutus, Cassius and friends on the Ides of March, 44BC. Civil wars followed as various pretenders vied for control of the Empire. The power struggle ended in 31BC when Caesar’s great-nephew Octavian (confusingly, adopted as a son by Caesar) defeated consul Mark Antony, who then famously committed suicide with his Egyptian queen, Cleopatra. Octavian took the title of Augustus, as offered by the now servile senate, became effective emperor and established the lineage of rulers that presided over the Empire, and got through several imperial dynasties, until its stuttering demise five centuries later.

The Punic Wars

In the early second century the Empire reached its height. Territories that stretched from northern Britain, encircled the Mediterranean on all sides and spread east to Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) fed Rome with fiscal revenue, food, precious metals, slaves and cultural diversity. While Rome remained imperial master, as the centuries passed its territories became more like a rainbow collective than brutalised dominions (unless you were a slave of course), urged to adopt the mechanics of the Roman state but allowed to retain an indigenous cultural identity.

Second Punic War (218-201BC). Having lost naval supremacy, Carthage sends General Hannibal up through Spain and over the Alps to the gates of Rome. His defeat transfers control of the western Med from Carthage to Rome.

The good, the bad and the homicidal: five Roman emperors

The Punic Wars of Rome’s republican era were pitched against Carthage (Punic means ‘of Carthage’), a North African city that dominated trade in the Mediterranean: First Punic War (264241BC). Rome wins its first foreign territory, Sicily, and becomes established as a maritime power.

Third Punic War (149-146BC). Rome finishes the job with the complete destruction of Carthage.

Caligula (ruled 37-41AD). If Suetonius’ (probably biased) biography is to be believed, Emperor Caligula was wildly popular for the first six months, giving out tax rebates and the like, but ruined it all by becoming a rotten tyrant who murdered family members, slept with his sisters and watched people being tortured or beheaded whilst he ate dinner. Some now think mental illness pushed him off the rails. Caligula was killed, aged 28, after less than four years as emperor.

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Good times bard times Augustus’ relatively stable, long reign as Rome’s first emperor ushered in a ‘Golden Age’ of culture in the first century BC. Wealthy patrons funded artists and writers, with Maecenas, Augustus’ trusted adviser, doing most to promote the new talent that glorified the achievements of Rome. The poets Virgil, Horace and Ovid all wrote heroic stuff, inspired, like so much Roman culture, by lessons learned from the Greeks. The Golden Age extended beyond the bounds of culture; it was a period of financial stability, of legal and social reform and the Pax Romana, a relative peace throughout the Empire. A Silver Age followed Augustus’ rule, a less original affair in both title and deed than its Golden forebear (see section 2.1.2 for more on the Golden and Silver Ages).

Nero (54-68). Rome’s fifth emperor stepped into the role aged 17. Five years in, after a generous, tolerant start, he murdered his mother. He also killed his first wife, may have killed his pregnant mistress, took an interest in religious sects, was laughed at for acting on stage and, contrary to the legend, didn’t fiddle while Rome burned (he actually helped rebuild it). When a coup forced him out he committed suicide; four different emperors ruled in the subsequent year of chaos. Vespasian (69-79). An ordinary boydone-good (his dad was a tax collector), Vespasian won his imperial title through military skill. Once in charge, he stabilised chaotic frontiers and public coffers, put Judaea and the German Batavian tribe in their place and built the Colosseum (then named the Amphitheatrum Flavium in honour of the dynasty he established).



Hadrian (117-138). Hadrian, a respected poet, acquired a fondness for the arts while serving in the army in Greece, and when the same army proclaimed him emperor he put up some fine buildings (including a rebuilt Pantheon in Rome and the villa at Tivoli). He reined in the Empire’s undisciplined expansion, secured its borders (with a famous wall in Britain) and displayed tolerance if not affection for his subjects. Always keen to try a new look, he made beards the big thing in second century Rome.

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Diocletian (284-305). By the time former soldier Diocletian became emperor, Rome wasn’t the force it was. Battered on all sides by angry tribes, he did, however, shore it up for a few years, splitting the Empire into East and West, ruled by emperors in Milan and Nicomedia (now Izmit, Turkey). Diocletian is also remembered for being beastly (as in burned, decapitated and even slowly boiled) to the Christians, and for being the first emperor to voluntarily ‘retire’.

All good things… After Diocletian, the victimised Christians didn’t have to wait long for salvation. In 324 his successor, Constantine, ditched traditional Roman polytheism and adopted Christianity as the state religion. He also, briefly, patched the Empire’s two halves (East and West) back into a single entity before moving the hub from Rome to Byzantium on the Bosphorus, or Constantinopolis as he modestly renamed it. However, the formal East/West division soon returned and the Italian half of the Empire withered over the next century, eaten away from the north by Barbarian attacks and from within by infighting, a bloated bureaucracy and overstretched resources. As rival factions fought for control, civil war became common, reducing the ability to fend off external attacks. Talent and money ebbed from Rome (often moving north, contriving the north/south split that remains in Italy today) and the once grand city became marginalised and weedy. With the army now stocked by foreign recruits, ‘barbarians’ included, their loyalty to Rome wasn’t a given. When Germanic general Odoacer invaded and declared himself king of Italy in 476, the Western Empire was effectively over. Justinian, ruler of the Eastern Empire that sustained in one form or another for a thousand years, briefly reclaimed the Italian peninsula in 536 but the Germanic tribes (weirdly, now more ‘Italian’ than the Roman ‘invaders’) soon regained control, led by the Lombards.

Celebrating Caesar Modern day Romans retain a fondness for Caesar. They lay wreaths at the feet of his statue beside the Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome each year on 15 March, and flowers on the site in the Roman Forum where his body was cremated, now just a muddy pile of rocks.

What have the Romans ever done for us? Perhaps the Roman Empire’s greatest legacy, “apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health” (to quote Reg in Monty Python’s Life of Brian), was the Catholic Church. Constantine’s adopted religion ensured the survival of Latin and maintained Rome’s role as a cultural centre well beyond Italy.

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1.2.2 From the Dark Ages into the light

The rise of the popes

Key dates 754 Frankish king, Pepin the Short, marches in and helps to establish the Papal States. 800 Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III. 877 Saracens begin the slow process of conquering and culturing Sicily. c.1080 The first comuni, town or city states, emerge as a political force. 1130 Norman ruler Roger II unites southern Italy as the Kingdom of Sicily. 1309 The papacy relocates to Avignon, France, where it remains for 67 years. 1334 Artist Giotto is made director of public works in Florence; the Renaissance is underway. 1348 Plague wipes out as much as half of the population. 1512 Michelangelo finishes work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 1542 Pope Paul III speeds the CounterReformation, establishing the Inquisition in Rome.

An array of small states evolved from Italy’s fractured Western Roman Empire, emerging and receding in a Dark Ages merry-go-round of alliances and disputes. Throughout, the papacy grew in strength. Pope Gregory and his considerable personal wealth beefed the Church up with land in the late sixth century, before Europe’s rising superpower, the Franks (yes, of France), started doing deals with the papacy in the eighth century, offering land and conquered pagan souls in return for Catholic sponsorship and a role in government. Officially, Rome was still under the authority of Byzantium, but when Pope Stephen II rummaged around behind the sofa in the mid eighth century and found the Donatio Constantini, the situation changed. The document, apparently written 400 years earlier by Constantine (but now assumed a forgery), appeared to transfer power over Rome and the Western Empire to the pope. Stephen then asked for Frankish help in clearing Lombard and Byzantine influence from Rome and its surrounds, a mission accomplished by King Charlemagne in 774. It all contributed to the establishment of the Papal States, ruled temporally by popes with the assistance of the Carolingians (the line of Frankish kings). On Christmas Day 800, Charlemagne, king of a sizeable Carolingian territory, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III.

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Halcyon days for the Muslim south

The first pope

While the papacy and the Franks got their teeth into northern Italy in the Middle Ages (only Venice escaped with relative autonomy), the post-Roman south stayed more loyal to old masters. Calabria and Puglia remained loosely in Byzantine and Greek hands while other regions, notably Benevento, a mountainside duchy inland from Naples, were kept by the Lombards. Kings, dukes and lords in the south paid nominal homage to Carolingian kings but effectively did their own thing. Throughout, the culturally capable Saracens (some Arab, some Berber) of North Africa and Iberia attacked southern cities, even looting Rome in 746. On Sicily they put down roots, capturing all the main towns by 877 and establishing a cultural milieu that outstripped anything on the mainland. They brought learning, a degree of tolerance (Christianity was permitted, although its followers were heavily taxed), irrigation and big bags of oranges.

St Peter, the first Bishop of Rome (which is what the pope is), in the job for 30 years in the first century AD, was actually called Simon before Jesus renamed him. ‘Peter’ means stone, apparently emblematic of the rock on which he established the Church. Nero supposedly had Peter crucified upside down, a scene rendered by Caravaggio in 1601.

Crusades, Normans and the rise of the comuni Charlemagne’s empire crumbled rapidly in his descendants’ hands and, by the late ninth century, northern and central Italy was a squabbling seigniorial mess. Local lords were at the mercy of the northern Europeans who fought for control of the peninsula and the coveted Holy Roman Emperor title. In 936 Otto, a Frank, finally won out, but the bloodline didn’t last long. The papacy was similarly contested and weakened, pulled this way and that by noble families hoping to gain control. However, in the late 11th century, Pope Gregory VII rebuilt papal power and demanded that he, not the emperors, had the power to appoint Church personnel – this, the so-called Investiture Controversy ended with humbling defeat for the Emperor in the 1122 Concordat of Worms.

It’s a dirty job…but someone’s got to do it Popes used to be allowed to marry. The last Vicar of Christ with a bride was Adrian, who died in 872. Some also, notoriously, fathered children by the dozen. Perhaps the most famously scurrilous, Alexander VI, pontiff from 1492, was accused of incest with his illegitimate daughter, Lucrezia Borgia.

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Sicily ahead of the learning game The importance attached to education by the medieval Muslim world ensured that Sicily had a relatively high literacy rate during its years under Saracen rule. Some estimates suggest as many as 45 per cent of the population could read in the 11th century. Shocking to think that 800 years later, in the 19th century, only 30 per cent of Sicilians were literate.

Flush with power, Rome ploughed men and money into the First Crusade, helped by a third emerging Italian power base, the comuni, the independent town or city states like Milan, Pisa and Venice that were flourishing on trade and pushing northern Italy’s feeble feudal lords around (in contrast to the rest of Europe, the rurally based feudal system never gripped Italy, where the Roman fondness for city living survived). Southern Italy maintained its cultural superiority, this time spurred by Normans who captured land south of Rome and pushed out Lombards and Byzantines before moving over to Sicily in 1060 to oust the Saracens. Under Roger II, the Normans united the whole of southern Italy as the Kingdom of Sicily in the early 12th century. Where the Saracens had built latticed Moorish palaces, the Normans added Romanesque cathedrals and castles, and nurtured Sicily as one of the wealthiest, most tolerant and cultured societies in Europe.

In the red corner, the pope… Successive Germanic emperors (the Hohenstaufen dynasty, of Swabian origin) continued their efforts to dominate northern Italy in the later 12th century. Frederick I came unstuck at Legnano in 1176, defeated by the Lombard League, an angry consortium of northern cities who added to their power and independence. Frederick II had more success, thanks in part to a marriage that added the Normans, and therefore, control of southern Italy, to his stock. The rift between emperor and pope grew and famous political factions emerged behind each: the progressive(ish) Guelphs cheered for the pope, while the conservative Ghibellines got behind the Holy Roman Emperor.

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Don’t let the fighting fool you: we’ve never had it so good

Feud for thought

By the late 13th century, the oligarchic comuni of northern and central Italy had grown powerful on trade. With growing autonomy, they paid little attention to the pope and even less to the Holy Roman Emperor. Florence, Genoa, Milan, Venice, Bologna and other comuni (in all there were around 300) flourished, establishing their boundaries by force when necessary. Many evolved a mildly democratic system of government, forming town councils led by wealthy families. Within each city, the old factions of Guelph and Ghibelline usually vied for control, often calling on other city states for support. Wars were frequent and alliances short-lived as the factions jostled for power and territory. As a consequence, the shoots of democratic rule soon withered. Absolute rulers, the signori, assumed control on the pretext of ending the constant squabbles and soon the Guelph and Ghibelline identities became less relevant. The cities continued to prosper, ruled by hereditary and frequently despotic elites. Smaller states were assimilated into larger ones until, by the late 1300s, Venice and Genoa, both maritime republics, Milan, a duchy, and Florence, with its city council, had risen to the top.

The Ghibelline faction adopted black as their colour; the Guelphs chose white. For further clarity, the Guelphs shaped the battlements on their castles to be square, while the Ghibellines employed a fishtail design. Tuscany saw the worst violence between Guelph and Ghibelline factions: in 1260 the triumphant Ghibellines demolished 103 Guelph palaces in Florence, and six years later, when the Guelphs decisively regained power, they created the now famously open Piazza dell Signoria by flattening a block of their rivals’ housing. Dante was a politically active Florentine Guelph (although he was eventually exiled by his own side) and duly portrayed various Ghibellines in the Inferno.

While the city states grew in the north, the papacy struggled to control lands in the centre. Things got so bad that the pope, reliant on French help, relocated to Avignon for a period in the 14th century. To the south, the old Kingdom of Sicily fell to the French House of Anjou in

The Windsor connection The Guelph faction of medieval Italy took their name from a princely German clan, aligned, like them, against the Holy Roman Emperors. The Swabian Guelphs (or Welf in Middle High German) are antecedents of the British Royal Family. 29

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Extreme measures in Milan When the Black Death moved through Italy in 1348, Milan suffered less than elsewhere. Perhaps Giovanni Visconti, the city’s archbishop, made the right decision when he ordered the first three houses where plague struck to be bricked up with the occupants, sick or healthy, left inside to die. Incoming wounded If the reports of Gabriele De’ Mussis, a lawyer from Piacenza, are to be believed (and perhaps they shouldn’t be), the first Italians to catch the Black Death were Genovese merchants besieged by a Mongol lord, Janibeg, in the Crimean town of Caffa in 1347. When Janibeg’s troops were struck down by a virulent plague, he fired their dead bodies into the city using catapults; the disease spread amongst the Genoese traders and was carried back to Italy.

1266 but rose up 16 years later during the ‘Sicilian Vespers’. It began with an angry mob in Palermo (on cue when the bell rang for vespers) slaughtering French overlords, and led to rebellion across the island. Pedro III, king of Aragón, stepped in and established the Kingdom of Naples, under Spanish control. For all the power shifts, fights (which usually took place, by clever convention, beyond city walls) and factions, Italy’s mercantile society, the most urbanised in the world, flourished between the 12th and 16th centuries, eclipsing the rest of Europe with its wealth and civilisation.

Yes, ‘Brainfest’ is good, but what about ‘Renaissance’? In 1348, just when things were going so well, the Black Death arrived on the peninsula, coming ashore at Genoa in the north and Messina in the south. For a century the disease swept back and forth: Siena lost half its population, Florence and Venice more than half. And yet culturally it seemed Italy barely broke stride. Indeed, some contend that the plague and its attendant recession put wealth into the hands of figures more likely to patronise the arts. The intellectual vibe initiated by the Moors on Sicily, attaching increasing significance to human reason, fed a wider appetite for Classical learning in central and northern Italy. The trade routes to the Levant, Spain and Africa that brought wealth to northern cities, particularly Florence and its trade guilds, also gave passage to Arabist and Greek scholars, escaping re-Christianised Spain and newly Turkish Constantinople respectively. They inspired Italy’s new, politically strong intelligentsia. Rich patrons like the Medici, a family of Florentine bankers, funded the corresponding explosion of cultural activity that artist, architect and biographer Giorgio Vasari first labelled

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Rinascita, Renaissance. Initially the Church was less enthusiastic about self-determination, about Humanism, a key tenet of the Renaissance, but was making fine use of the movement’s artists by the 16th century, redecorating Rome along Classical lines. The Renaissance spread throughout Europe from the 14th to 17th centuries, building a bridge from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age.

Spain moves in, and brings the Inquisition By the 16th century, Italy’s once-powerful states were stalked by foreign armies, often invited in by the states themselves to get one up on the neighbours (for example, Milan asked for French help to snatch Naples). The Habsburgs (uniting the Austrian and Spanish thrones) and the French fought for control of the peninsula, and the Habsburgs won out with Spain, under Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (a title he bought), taking charge. As the Reformation moved through northern Europe, Rome’s omnipresent papacy liked the look of Spain’s hysterical response, and in the later 16th century the liberal Humanist ideas of the Renaissance were crushed as Rome embraced the Inquisition. Galileo Galilei, astronomer and physicist, was imprisoned; Giordano Bruno, a philosopher expounding on the infinite universe, was burned at the stake.

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The long fall from grace The 17th century was one of decline. Economic strength had moved to the new colonial powers in northern Europe, away from Mediterranean cities like Genoa and Venice, while political and social growth was stifled by tax-happy popes and foreign overlords. There were some causes for celebration: despite the strong-arm suppression of Renaissance ideals, Catholic cardinals still managed to sponsor Bernini and other artists and architects to build and decorate sumptuous Baroque churches. Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Theresa

However, by the 18th century even the artwork had fizzled out. The country languished, held in docile submission by northern Europeans. Spain lost most of its Italian possessions to the Austrian Habsburgs in the War of Spanish Succession in 1713. In Lombardy and Milan the new rulers brought a slow upturn in fortunes, but southern Italy, where control passed to the French House of Bourbon in 1731, remained shambolic. A third force, the Duchy of Savoy, grew in strength in the early 18th century; it won Sicily in the Peace of Utrecht after the War of Spanish Succession (although swapped it for Sardinia soon after) but more importantly nurtured its control of Piedmont, bolstering the new kingdom that would lead Italy to unity 150 years later.

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1.2.3 United in name at least: the making of modern Italy Key dates 1871 Unification is completed, with Vittorio Emanuele II as king. 1915 Italy joins the First World War on the Allies’ side. 1922 Mussolini and the Fascists take power. 1940 Italy joins the Second World War on Hitler’s side. 1945 Mussolini is shot dead shortly before Italy surrenders to the Allies. 1946 Referendum makes Italy a republic; the monarchy is shown the door to Switzerland. 1957 Italy is among the six founder members of the EEC. 1978 Former PM Aldo Moro is murdered by left-wingers amid the anni di piombo (Years of Lead). 1992 The political establishment falls apart under corruption charges. 2006 Longest serving post-war government (five years), led by Silvio Berlusconi, ends.

“I O FFER N EI TH ER PAY, N O R Q U A R TER S , N O R FO O D ; I O FFER O N LY H U N G ER , TH I R S T, FO R C ED M A R C H ES , B ATTLES A N D D EATH . LET H I M W H O LO V ES H I S C O U N TR Y W I TH H I S H EA R T, A N D N O T M ER ELY W I TH H I S LI PS , FO LLO W M E. ” Hmm, tempting. Garibaldi’s call to arms

Nearly Italy but not quite Italy had a first taste of unity under Napoleon when he declared the Kingdom of Italy in 1805, establishing a band of regional puppet rulers operating under French control. But any semblance of unity evaporated with the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which reallocated Napoleon’s territories (he’d come unstuck fighting Russia) and left Europe’s old guard – Austria and the papacy included – fighting over Italy’s constituent but un-unified parts. The regions changed hands frequently during Europe’s turbulent mid 19th century. Between the 1820s and 50s, numerous independent uprisings

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Blood group Garibaldi’s famous team kit for invading Sicily, the Red Shirts, was apparently inspired by the outfits of South American slaughtermen.

New York humility Garibaldi is the only figure to turn down a ticker tape parade through Manhattan. He declined the honour for fear of stirring up New York’s Irish Catholics.

Vittorio Emanuele II

occurred, many led by secret societies like Giovine Italia, a nationalist movement instigated in exile by patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. None achieved their ultimate aim of national unity. In 1848 Mazzini joined forces with military man Giuseppe Garibaldi and pushed the papacy from the capital. Again, however, the Republic of Rome they established was short-lived, and France soon seized control for the Pope.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Italy, it’s a bouncing baby boot It took an initiative from outside mainland Italy, from Sardinia, to finally bond the nation together. The liberal king of Sardinia, Piedmont and Savoy, Vittorio Emanuele, created a kind of safe haven on the island for the growing rabble of malcontents pushing for Italian unity. His shrewd Piedmont prime minister, Camillo Cavour, did a deal with the French, who fought and beat the Austrians and handed Vittorio Emanuele sections of Lombardy in 1859. And with that, il Risorgimento, as the movement for Italian unity (the Resurgence) was dubbed, was on. The central northern belt around Romagna and Tuscany decided to join up with Sardinia by referendum in 1860. Garibaldi and his Red Shirts (armed volunteers) then enlisted covert help from Cavour to kick the Bourbon rulers out of Sicily; mission accomplished he moved on to Naples before trying his luck in the Papal States, at which point Cavour stepped in to make sure Vittorio Emanuele, not Garibaldi, was in control. The pope had to make do with Rome. As Umbria joined up with the king so, on March 17 1861, Vittorio Emanuele II declared himself ruler of the new Kingdom of Italy. Cavour was given the post of prime minister. It took ten further years to bring Venice (wrested from Austria in 1866) and Rome (abandoned by Napoleon III in 1870) into the fold. Finally, by July 1871, Italian unification was complete, and the capital moved from Florence to Rome. 34

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Factions, social strife and land grabs: Italy’s difficult teenage years The morning after the Risorgimento romp was always going to be something of a let down. Admittedly, by the late 19th century Italy had a relatively liberal constitutional monarchy, but the same old landed gentry still held most of the power. The south, as usual, had it worst: corruption increased and the peasants tried to rebel – Rome sent 30,000 troops to quell the farmers in Sicily. Right and left fought vociferously in Parliament. One figure, the progressive Giovanni Giolitti brought some stability as well as social and political reform (alongside the usual quota of corruption) in five separate shifts as prime minister between 1892 and 1921, nudging Italy (particularly its industrialising northern regions) towards modernisation. He gave men over 30 the vote in 1912 (women would have to wait until 1945). Despite being a liberal, Giolitti couldn’t suppress new Italy’s greed for colonialism (‘why not, the rest of Europe’s doing it’): the humiliating failure to capture Ethiopia in 1896 was followed, to general international condemnation, by the more successful annexation of Libya and a few Aegean Islands in 1911.

Fighting in the streets Italy was on the winning side in the First World War but felt more like it had lost. Perhaps it should have stuck with the gut instinct of 1914 and remained neutral; instead, tempted by the promise of new territory to the north and east, Italy joined the Allied cause in 1915. In 1918, with more than 600,000 dead, it received much of the land pledged (Trentino, Trieste and Süd Tirol included), but saw the main prize, Dalmatia, go to Yugoslavia. The loss of face fuelled a growing nationalism, while a powerful socialist movement emerged amid post-war economic, social and political trouble. Polarisation was swift. Armed gangs, the Fascisti and the Communists, fought pitched battles in city streets. Parliament limped

Garibaldi: an Italian hero Giuseppe Garibaldi is still revered in Italy. Every town has its piazza or street named for the military leader of the Risorgimento, the great Italian patriot who was actually born in Nice. Condemned to death for his Giovine Italia activities as a young man, he escaped to South America and honed a talent for military leadership. He fled to the USA for three years after the failed 1848 Rome occupation, settling down in Staten Island, New York, where he worked making candles. After the famous assault on Sicily and Naples he was roused from semi-retirement on various occasions, employed to piece the Italian jigsaw together. Garibaldi is traditionally seen as a selfless figure, apparently unconcerned for personal power, although dissenting voices have been raised in recent years, notably among the Lega Nord, a political group seeking autonomy for northern Italy (Garibaldi brought false unity they say) and similarly separatist elements in Sicily.

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on under old favourite, Giolitti, but the Biennio rosso, the two red years of 1919-20, in which revolutionaries seized factories and farms, found the nationalist, predominantly Catholic brigade looking round for a stronger antidote to the left. It appeared – bull-necked, uncouth but charismatic – in the shape of Benito Mussolini.

Black days with the Black Shirts Mussolini started his political life as a red, editing Avanti, a well-thumbed Socialist newspaper. But the First World War reoriented his politics to the right, to a rabid (but rarely racist) nationalism, to a belief in the rule of a single, central figure (namely him): it was dubbed Fascism. Mussolini founded the Fascists in 1919, and their black-shirted Squadre d’Azione, action squads (or thugs-for-hire), won support from influential landowners, industrialists and military figures keen to see socialists and communists beaten down. Mussolini quickly became a force in Italian politics. By 1922 he was threatening to march on Rome to seize power. When King Vittorio Emanuele III refused to call in the army, there was little option but to offer Mussolini the prime minister’s job. Initially, the Fascists governed with some respect for the constitution, but by 1926, via rigged elections, bullying and legislative wangling (new laws criminalised trade unions and censored the press), Italy had become a single party state run by a dictator, with all the brutal human rights abuses and restrictions on personal freedom which that entails. Mussolini wooed the Catholic Church in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, establishing Catholicism as the state religion and securing papal recognition for the Kingdom of Italy in return. The Fascist state had its fingers in everything, from industry (which 36 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Symbol of power The term Fascist comes from the Latin fasces, a ‘bundle’ of rods tied together and attached to an axe head. In Ancient Rome the fasces symbolised a magistrate’s power; Mussolini duly adopted the axe as an emblem of authority.

Beware the lies of march

fared comparatively well in the global economic gloom of the early 1930s) to sport to family life (Mussolini gave out medals to fecund mothers). Behind it all, controlling in their own ways, lay propaganda and an expanding military.

Losing on all fronts: Italy’s Second World War Fascist Italy fell out with Britain and France (its allies) by invading and annexing Ethiopia in 1936, the same year that Italian forces helped General Franco’s Nationalists out in the Spanish Civil War. Adolf Hitler, in need of European friends, commended Mussolini on his African acquisition and the Rome-Berlin Axis began to bloom. By 1939 Italy and Germany had signed a pact of military agreement (of course, they couldn’t call it that; Mussolini suggested the suitably belligerent Pact of Steel).

Propaganda maestro Mussolini built the myth of the Fascists’ glorious ‘March on Rome’ in October 1922. He recalled 300,000 black-shirted devotees following their leader, who rode on horseback triumphant into the city. In truth Mussolini and a handful of Fascists travelled to the capital by train, first class, and didn’t march anywhere, power having been already handed over.

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Mussolini and the Jews Prodded into action by Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies, Mussolini’s government passed the first in a series of race laws in September 1938. Jews, a minority with a long-established place in Italian life (many actually supported the Fascist party in the 1920s), were barred from all public office, expelled from schools and denied marriage with non-Jews. Around 7,000 Italian Jews were later deported, most of whom died in Nazi concentration camps. How the treasures of Rome were spared In July 1943, British planes dropped leaflets on Rome, warning of their plans to bomb the city but pledging to spare the city’s cultural landmarks. Bombers then targeted strategic points – airfields, factories and so on – in and around the city. When Allied soldiers fought their way to Rome’s edge almost a year later, Hitler ordered the withdrawal from the city, apparently to prevent its destruction. Pope Pius XII addressed the cheering, liberated crowds under his balcony on June 5 1944: “Today we rejoiced because, thanks to the joint goodwill of both sides, Rome has been saved from the horrors of war.”

the British, and then invaded Greece, looking for kudos (of the Hitler kind) and new territory. Neither move went well. It was all typical of Mussolini’s vanity. He excelled at bluster, at image building, but rarely backed it up with substance: the Italian army was poorly trained, equipped and coordinated. Mussolini had to call Hitler for help, and by 1941 Italy was a German pawn, its troops sent off to fight (and flounder) against the USSR. Back in Italy, rationing, the routine of life in a dictatorship and Allied bombings made for a miserable time. With the Allied invasion of mainland Italy imminent, Mussolini, now aged 60, was confronted by the king and his own Fascist Grand Council in 1943, asked to resign and then locked up. His successor, Pietro Badoglio, commander-in-chief of the army under Mussolini, signed an armistice with the Allies, but the majority of Italy now fell to the Nazis who rushed south to grab land. Along the way they liberated Mussolini from incarceration at Gran Sasso in the Apennines, and set him up as head of a Republic of Salo, governing from Lake Garda. Two years of bitter fighting followed as Allied forces crept north, helped by growing bands of Italian partisans. The German retreat left burning towns and misery in its wake. In April 1945, partisans caught up with Mussolini as he attempted to flee for Switzerland. He was shot along with his mistress and their bodies were strung up in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto. A month later the Germans surrendered Italy to the Allies.

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Cultivating la dolce vita On its beam-ends in 1945, Italy slowly began to recover. America’s Marshall Plan (a financial aid programme) got the economy moving again, while elections brought the first taste of democracy in two decades. In April 1946 the public (or 54 per cent of them) voted for a republic and King Umberto II abdicated. The Christian Democrat governments that ruled (in coalition with myriad elements from left and right) for the next four decades were usually flawed and short-lived, but in the north it didn’t seem to matter – industry boomed in the hands of Fiat, Olivetti and others. Many of their staff were migrants newly arrived from southern Italy, where the post-war desperation was slower to shift. This was the period, the 1950s and early 60s, when Italian culture found modernity, when its cinema, fashion and cars became internationally important.

Facing up to the fascist past Italy worked hard to forget Benito Mussolini and the Fascists after the war. Schools only taught history up to the First World War and fascist political groups were banned. To be labelled a fascist, particularly in the political arena, was the ultimate insult. And yet the perceived threat of communism and the reluctance to root out old offenders meant that elements of the far right remained (and still remain) an important political force. On an emotional level, Italians have only begun risking a collective look back in the last decade. Mussolini’s old homes are being restored and opened as curios, notably the Villa Torlonia, his state residence in Rome. As Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome, said on the Villa’s unveiling after years of restoration: “…a true democracy has no need to discard a part of its history”. Silvio Berlusconi, in particular, seems keen to address the difficult recent past. His move to grant veteran status to 200,000 volunteer soldiers who fought for Mussolini during the Republic of Salo, suggesting parity with partisans, brought lively debate.

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The trouble with Italy’s royals There’s no enduring royalism in Italy, no hankering for the monarchy’s return. The vote for a republic in 1946 reflected public disgust at the royals’ support for Mussolini and the way in which they fled Italy when the wartime going got tough in 1943. After the vote, a ban was placed on any male from the House of Savoy (the royal Italian house) from entering Italy. It was only lifted in 2002, as per a Berlusconi election promise. Vittorio Emanuele (son of King Vittorio Emanuele III), the last crown prince of Italy and still referred to as the Prince of Naples, hasn’t done the restoration cause many favours. He’s been tried (and acquitted) for murder, investigated for corruption and hasn’t been as condemnatory as he might when asked about Mussolini’s antiSemitic laws. In 2007 he demanded Italy pay him 250 million euros in damages for the royals’ loss of assets after abdication.

The Years of Lead In the late 1960s, the factionalism in politics – long held at bay by self-interest and double-dealing (compromise was easily bought) – bubbled out beyond the corridors of power. Students and workers began protesting and striking for reform, reaching a crescendo in the autunno caldo (hot autumn) of 1969. In the same year, neofascists bombed Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people and further stretching the tension between right and left. The ensuing period of violent terrorist activity, lasting through the 1970s and 80s, was dubbed the anni di piombo (Years of Lead).

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The left had the most notorious faction, the MarxistLeninist Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) that kidnapped and killed former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978, but the right committed the worst atrocity when they bombed Bologna train station in 1980, killing 85. Mass arrests and public revulsion helped end the worst of the violence by the early 1990s. Mainstream politics remained laughably corrupt, until finally, in the early 1990s, a series of mani pulite (clean hands) judicial investigations attempted to unravel the web of tangentopoli (kickbacks) with exhaustive trials. As the big historic political parties – the Christian Democrats and the Socialists – fell apart and the politicians went on trial (although few of the big names actually went to jail; indeed, many were acquitted), a new crop of characters filled the void.

Different millennium, same issues Rising from the wreckage of the mani pulite investigations came Silvio Berlusconi, a media mogul (and one of the richest men in Italy) with a talent for whipping up popular support. His and Italy’s story have been intertwined since 1994 when he first became prime minister heading a rightist coalition. In 2008 he became premier for a third time, having overcome numerous corruption scandals. On Berlusconi’s watch, Italy gave the USA its help in Iraq (despite massive public protest), endured a continuing economic gloom, adopted the Euro and said goodbye to Pope John Paul II (see section 8.3 for more on Berlusconi and Italian politics).

Leaden legacy Unanswered questions about the Years of Lead still hang in the air. Conspiracy theories abound. Did the police collude with the CIA and Gladio, the covert NATO ‘stay-behind’ operation in post-war Italy, to exaggerate the left-wing threat in the Cold War era? Why didn’t the Government do more to save Aldo Moro (i.e. compromise with his captors)? Groups claiming a connection to the old Red Brigades still sporadically commit murder, helping to keep the bad old days fresh in the collective psyche, as does the enthusiasm for pursuing figures like Cesare Battisti, a leftwing extremist wanted for murders in the 1970s but living as a ‘refugee’ in Brazil (he’s now a successful thriller writer).

“I A M TH E J ES U S CHRIST OF PO LI TI C S . I A M A PATI EN T V I C TI M , I PU T U P W I TH EV ER Y O N E, I S A C R I FI C E M Y S ELF FO R EV ER Y O N E. ” Silvio Berlusconi

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1.3 Language and belonging Nothing speaks of Italy’s regional variation like language, even while the creeping national tongue threatens the dozens of local dialects still in everyday use. Similarly, Italian identity, such as it exists, appears to resist the call to national unity, preferring instead the ties of family and community. 43 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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1.3.1 Speech patterns: language in Italy

“I LOVE TH E LAN GUA GE, THAT SOFT BA STA RD LAT IN, W HICH ME LTS L IKE KISSES FROM A F EMAL E MOUT H, AND SOUN DS AS IF IT SHOULD BE WRIT ON SAT IN, WITH SYLLABL ES WHICH BREATHE O F THE SWE E T SO UTH .” Lord Byron pondered the Italian language in Beppo

It’s official: Italians speak Italian Italian only acquired official confirmation as the national language in 2007, when Parliament added a new statute to the constitution. Seventy-five MPs actually voted against the move, complaining about ‘cultural imperialism’. One Lega Nord MP who spoke up in Venetian to protest had his microphone turned off – MPs are only allowed to speak standard Italian in the chamber.

Language, like much else in Italy, is complicated (and enriched) by regional variation. Virtually everyone in Italy can speak Italiano commune, standard Italian, the sort used in government, in education and in phrasebooks for foreigners. However, most Italians also speak a local dialect – half of them as a mother tongue – of the sort you’re unlikely to understand unless you were born and raised in the corresponding region, district or even town.

Oh, the vulgarity: where does Italian come from? Of all the languages derived from Latin, Italian retains the closest ties to its ancient forebear. The basics emerged in the Middle Ages, born of vulgar (spoken) rather than written Latin. From the 14th century onwards, a ‘standard’ written Italian, based on Florentine Latin (the language of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio (see section 2.1.3 for more)) remained constant, even while most people on the peninsula were speaking one of numerous bastardised local versions of Middle Ages Italian. Florentine won out as ‘Italian’ because it was close to old Latin, offered a rough linguistic bridge between north and south and had the influential sponsorship of wealthy, culturally aware merchants. Throughout, the Church plodded on with old school Latin. When Italy unified in the 19th century, the new nation looked to the Florentine ‘standard’ as a national tongue. As Italian was assimilated by the regions in the 20th century (a process helped by industrialisation, migration and the growth of national media (God bless TV) as much as centralised education), they nudged it around with their own dialects, and so each region today has (aside from a dialect) its own version of Italian.

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Brogue states: Italian dialects

Minority report

Italy abounds in regional dialects. They are sister languages to standard Italian, rather than variants, with their origins in the devolved Latin of the Middle Ages. Despite the shared ancestry, the differences in grammar and vocabulary between, for example, the Ladin dialect of the Dolomites and the Calabrese of the far south make mutual understanding almost impossible. Italian dialects are preserved orally; when they do find their way into literature, it’s usually on a limited scale. And most are in decline, or becoming more ‘Italianised’, despite the post-war Republic’s assurances of protection after years of suppression (the state now takes a relatively relaxed, passive stance on the use of local dialects). Today, around 70 per cent of Italians speak a local dialect alongside standard Italian, and dialect mixing (within a single sentence as well as a conversation) is frequent.

Italian linguist Tullio De Mauro has estimated that only 2.5 per cent of Italians could actually speak Italian in 1861. Two thirds of them lived in Tuscany.

Turns out he was talking about someone called God all along… The Catholic Church in Italy finally began conducting Mass in Italian (rather than Latin) after the Second Vatican Council, held between 1962 and 1965.

The dialects are often grouped into three portions (north, centre and south), within which common phonetic and grammatical characteristics are found. A line is drawn from La Spezia on the Ligurian coast to Rimini on the Adriatic: north of this the dialects are divided broadly between Gallo-Italic styles, including Piedmontese and Emilian, and those spoken in the Veneto. In the centre grouping, Tuscan is usually set apart from neighbouring tongues like Osco-Umbro and Marchigiano. Another line, this one from Rome to Ancona, separates centre from south. To the south, dialects group around a Neapolitan type (Pugliese, Campano) and a Sicilian type (Calabrese, Siciliano). Confused? If in doubt, just use Italian. As you might expect, the more geographically disparate dialects share fewer common factors. Similarly, the closer a dialect is to the national border, the further removed it will be from standard Italian. Three dialects, Sardo (spoken on Sardinia), Friulian (widely used in the north-east) and Ladin (Trentino-Alto Adige) are deemed separate languages by the federal government, such is their deviance from the Italian standard and the large number of speakers. 45 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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The perfect delivery

Accents speak volumes

The modern usage of dialect in Italy varies according to certain socioeconomic factors. In short, if you want to hear the local burr at its broadest, seek out an old, working-class, rural, modestly educated, excitable male (the language flows better when emotions are roused) in an informal setting (i.e. at home).

Accent or dialect can play an important role in how Italians judge each other, particularly on a first encounter. Speaking in standard, ‘accentless’ Italian engenders an aura of good education and relative prosperity but also, perhaps, a certain stiff reserve. A regional accent won’t convey the same air of intellect but people are more likely to warm to you. But it’s a fine line: go overboard on the accent and they’ll assume you’re a poorly educated rustic. The origin of your dialect and that of whoever you’re speaking with will, of course, colour any snap judgements: a Milanese accent usually commands respect, while a Sicilian brogue may elicit condescension or even mistrust.

Happy hour in dictionary corner The best efforts of the Accademia della Crusca, the body charged with safeguarding standard Italian (see section 2.1.4 for some history), don’t stop Italians enthusiastically adopting English words (babysitter, smog, happy hour etc). Dropping some Anglo-Saxon in your conversation is still considered cool. Certain academics are perturbed, but Italy doesn’t generally display the same hysteria as, say, France when it comes to protecting the language. They’ve seen it all before, adopting bits of Greek in the late Roman Empire and embracing various Germanic words when the Barbarians arrived soon after. Similarly, the Italians are keen on slang and neologisms, mashing old words together to create something new, as in the case of tagentopoli, or bribesville, coined in the early 1990s to describe a particular brand of political corruption.

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Making conversation

The minority languages

The Italians talk like no one else in Europe. Conversation is not only constant, but also always accompanied by gesticulation, adding nuance and meaning to the words. Beyond the ubiquitous improvised flailing, certain gestures have established meaning: the fingers upturned in a cone to signal impatience, or flicked from the chin to say ‘I don’t care’ (or something ruder). Occasionally the gestures don’t even have a verbal accompaniment. Don’t be alarmed if you see a man patting his genitals (unless, perhaps, they’re exposed) outside a football ground or cemetery; it’s supposed to ward off bad luck. As for protocol, the Italians maintain eye contact throughout conversation (looking away implies you have something to hide), love discussing their culture (or at least professing some knowledge of it) and avoid the universal minefields (religion, Mafia, death etc) unless in very close company.

Aside from the three Italian dialects of Sardo, Friulian and Ladin, various other languages within Italian borders (used collectively by two-and-a-half million people) enjoy official minority status. German dialects pepper the Alpine regions, as does Provençal, which also crops up in the south thanks to medieval migrants. FrancoProvençal is still spoken around Turin. Slovene is used by some in the north-east, and Albanian by a few towns in the central and southern highlands. Finally, a smattering of Greekspeaking communities cling on in Puglia and Calabria. All of the above are in decline, and all were brought to Italy by migrants centuries ago.

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1.3.2 Being Italian: identity and psyche

Green, white and red

Identity begins at home

The Italian flag, Il Tricolore, with its vertical line-up of green, white and red, was first waved in 1798 by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Cisalpine Republic of northern Italy. Milanese militia uniforms apparently inspired the colours. Vittorio Emanuele II, the Risorgimento king, adopted the flag for Sardinia in 1848 and for the new Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The royal coat of arms was removed when Italy became a Republic.

Italians don’t expend much energy contemplating a collective, national identity. Unless they’re screaming for the national football team, they view life in a much narrower frame. Italian society is based on individual social cohesiveness – loyalty is to family or at most the local community, not to the nation, democratic ideologies, a belief in intellectual, logical or rational behaviour, any abstract expectations of justice or, indeed, society at large (an explanation, perhaps, for why Italians are sometimes perceived as aloof or rude when dealing with strangers).

Just smile and pretend you care: a collective disobedience The Italians live in spite (not because) of governments, institutions and authority. The distrust of all authority, so deeply embedded in the psyche of Italians, governors and governed alike, stems from centuries of exploitation by ruthless, despotic rulers, both native and foreign. Participatory democracy, the idea of the self-made man and a sense of civil rights and the common good: Italians had little truck with such ideas when Unification came along in the 19th century. Not even a ‘new’, unified Italy could change man’s ancient human nature and condition: those in power would keep the rest in ignorance. Mere survival – putting a good face on the bad game of life – had been and would remain the Italian struggle. The ‘struggle’ has ebbed for most in the modern era, but the Italians still rely on a combination of wits and gut instinct, using l’arte di improvvisare (the art of improvisation so refined in Italy).

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Easy on the eye: the individual outlook Italy is reputedly the place where everything looks incredible and nothing works. Certainly the Italians’ own love affair with their lifestyle resounds in one Italian proverb: l’occhio vuole la sua parte (the eye claims its due). Life is about seizing the day and ensuring its memorable moments are clothed in beauty – beauty affording a necessary illusion of control over one’s own fate. The Italians’ slavish attention to personal appearance and their talent for posturing, loud performance (even if it’s only in the queue to buy bread) and even flattery, fall within this commitment to la bella figura, to maintaining at least the veneer of beauty.

“I TA LIA N S C O M E TO R U I N M O S T G EN ER A LLY I N TH R EE WAY S: W O M EN , G A M B LI N G A N D FA R M I N G. ” Pope John XXIII

Most Italians practice tolerance even if, on occasion, it may only be the tool of opportunity. Furthermore, they assume that consistency and logic are as superfluous as they are unachievable, and that it is madness to believe that anything beautiful should be functional, human nature consistent or democracy a two-way street.

Regional rhetoric Most of the elements that define the Italian character – the flamboyance, preoccupation with beauty, insincere deference to authority and love of culture – are nationwide. Similarly, the famous chauvinism towards their roots, the campanilismo that narrows loyalty to one village or locale (and encourages rivalry, even hatred towards neighbouring boroughs), can be described, paradoxically, as a national characteristic. Place of origin remains very important in Italy, even while psyche and character may not be noticeably different from one place to the next. Each region shouts about its heritage, about the pre-Unification escapades that, they say, shaped its modern character, whilst also taking time to disparage the other regions: Romans are laid back but deluded about their imperial lineage, the Milanese are hard working but self-obsessed, Neapolitans are flamboyant but shiftless. Rhetorical discussions about these and other regional 49 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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The sound of patriotism Goffredo Mameli wrote the words to Fratelli d’Italia (also known as Inno di Mameli) in 1847, setting it to music by Michele Novaro not long after. While it served as a rallying call for the Risorgimento, Fratelli d’Italia didn’t replace the House of Savoy’s tune as the national anthem until 1946 (a provisional arrangement that was finally made permanent in 2005).

identities (often simply stereotypes) account for miles of newsprint, endless hours around the dinner table and abidingly popular comedy routines. None of this, of course, denies the wholly genuine variations in culture – in customs, food, media and wealth – between the regions, or the desire in some for greater autonomy. Nor does it dismiss the serious, long-held identity gulf between north and south. Even secondgeneration settlers born in Milan or Turin to parents who moved north in the post-war era can suffer the slur of being dubbed terroni, southern peasants (see section 8.4 for more on the north/south split).

How Italy sees the rest of the world There is no word in the Italian language for ‘selfconscious’. Hardly surprising, then, that most Italians are blissfully unconcerned with outsiders’ opinions of their lifestyle or persona. If pressed to consider what others think of them, the Italians seem fleetingly flummoxed, unable to understand why others devote their lives to ideals or principles outside themselves, their families or the local community. And yet, when the question is reversed, the Italian self-confidence wavers a little; they seem eternally fascinated by anything foreign. Indeed, the Italians cast an envious glance at other Western countries that appear to make things ‘work’ with improved legislation, speedy justice or public services. With childlike awe, they consider the balanced budgets and seemingly widespread wealth of neighbouring modern, industrialised and democratic nations, and lament their own systems upon reading media reports of corrupt bureaucracy, cronyism and nepotism. Italy’s persistent, popular enthusiasm for the European Community since its post-war inception reflects the belief in improvement by association.

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Finally, though, with every effort and impeccable circular reasoning, the Italians can dismiss the seeming sanity of other nations with an equanimity that verges on pity. The childlike foreigners, poor things, are the naive ones after all, striving and anguishing, suffering guilt, remorse and nervous breakdowns. To most Italians, the foreigner can’t accept life’s limitations or their own fate; they can’t enjoy what they’ve got.

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2 Literature and philosophy

2.1 Literature p55 2.1.1 A book shy nation p56 2.1.2 Classically trained: the Roman authors p58 2.1.3 The Three Crowns of the early Renaissance p61 2.1.4 The anticlimax of the High Renaissance p65 2.1.5 Telling it like it is: literature in the modern era p68 2.2 Philosophy p79 2.2.1 The greatest hits of Italian philosophy p80

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2.1 Literature In the land governed by aesthetics, literature slips under the radar somewhat. It’s a shame, because Italy has a long and distinguished literary tradition; one that began with the authors of Classical Rome, flourished through the early Renaissance with Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, and continues today with a raft of good modern authors. 55 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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2.1.1 A book shy nation

There seems to be an innate Italian apathy towards the written word. Recent stats from the Italian Publishers’ Association reveal that more than half the population fails to read a single book in the course of a year. Only 3.2 million get through a book each month. Of those that do read, the majority are females and are far more likely to live in the north of Italy than the south. According to Mondadori, Italy’s biggest publisher, an elite six per cent of the adult population is responsible for half of all book sales. Throw in the fact that one in every five books sold is a foreign work in translation and the gloom thickens. On a more positive note, at least young Italians appear to be reading more than their parents. The five Italian classics to read first La divina commedia (c.1321) by Dante Alighieri. The most famous Italian book of them all, detailing the poet’s journey from hell to heaven, with a stopover in purgatory. Il decamerone (1353) by Giovanni Boccaccio. A hundred, often bawdy, novellas told by ten different people over a ten-day period in plagued 14th century Florence. Il canzoniere (c.1368) by Petrarch. A collection of 366 poems to the author’s beloved Laura. No pressure Laura… Il principe (1532) by Niccolò Machiavelli. The treatise on statecraft and power that shaped Machiavelli’s uncompromising posthumous reputation – free velvet glove with every copy. I promessi sposi (1827) by Alessandro Manzoni. A classic from the Romantic era: a novel set in 17th century Milan, a city under Spanish rule.

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Five foreign classics set in Italy The Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry James. Isabel Archer is rich and unhappy, mainly in Rome. A Room with a View (1908) by EM Forster. The room in question is at the Pensione Bertolini in Florence. Death in Venice (1912) by Thomas Mann. The story of Gustav von Aschenbach’s obsessive love for a Polish boy on the Lido island, Venice. The Enchanted April (1922) by Elizabeth von Arnim. Four women escape the British weather and talk a lot in Portofino on the Italian Riviera. A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway. Semi-autobiographical tale set in Milan and on the Italian front line during the First World War.

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2.1.2 Classically trained: the Roman authors

The Etruscans almost certainly had their own literature. Maybe they even had bookshops with cafes and ‘3 for 2’ deals. Alas, none of it survives. Instead we look to the Classical Latin texts of Ancient Rome for the beginnings of Italian literature. Although much of this too has been lost, a considerable body of work does survive, the most significant portions of which were produced in late Republican and early Imperial Rome during Latin literature’s so-called Golden (first century BC – mid first century AD) and, somewhat inferior, Silver (mid first – mid second century AD) Ages. Disappointingly, a Bronze Age of Classical literature didn’t follow. Each era bore its share of poetry and prose (more epistolary and historical than potboiler in style). Inspired by earlier Ancient Greek works, the most significant Classical Latin literature, especially in terms of its influence on later Italian Renaissance writers, was produced by the poets. However, both formats, poetry and prose, threw up names and works that, remarkably, still find a readership 2,000 years on.

Latin prose: the magnificent seven Cicero. The eloquent, detailed letters (epistulae) and political writings of the great orator and statesman established a model for Latin prose. He was put to death by Mark Antony in the power struggle after Caesar’s demise. Julius Caesar. The dictator’s Commentarii de bello Gallico (c.50BC) gave a good account of nine years spent fighting the Gallic War. Livy. The main man of Golden Age history, full name Titus Livus, came up with Ab urbe condita (c.9BC) – literally ‘from the founding of the city’ (that city being Rome) – a work of considerable length (he squeezed the original into 142 books) and literary merit.

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Pliny the Younger. Among his letters he gave an eyewitness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, the big bang that destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and also killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Elder. Before choking on Vesuvian ash, the elder Pliny spent years compiling his massive Naturalis historia (77AD), a kind of ‘guide to everything’ that found popular use for centuries afterwards. Tacitus. Another historian, Tacitus brought a slice of wit to his writing on the governance of various Roman Emperors in his Historiae (105AD) and Annales (117AD). Suetonius. De vita Caesarum (121AD) was a biography of the ‘Twelve Caesars’ that began with the reign of Julius Gaius.

Latin poetry: the famous four Catullus. Known for his 116 carmina (‘songs’), especially the erotic and obscene ones. Horace. The writer of many odes and also of Ars poetica (18BC), a treatise on poetic theory. Ovid. Best remembered for his love poems and for Metamorphoses (c.8AD), an opus on mythology that would resonate throughout Europe for centuries. Had a charming way with an elegiac couplet.

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“I SIN G O F ARMS AN D T HE MA N.” Opening line of Virgil’s Aeneid No faith in the future The phrase carpe diem, still given as advice today by annoyingly decisive people, was coined by the original dead poet, Horace, in the Ode 1.11 (23BC). The full line, carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, translates as ‘seize the day, trusting the future as little as possible’.

Virgil. The greatest Ancient Roman poet followed his early works, the farming-inspired Bucolics (c. 37BC) and the Georgics (29BC), with a masterpiece, the Aeneid (19BC). Taking Homer’s epics as a model, the 12-book Aeneid, written in dactyllic hexameters, told the story of Trojan prince Aeneas, whose wanderings led to the founding of Rome. Virgil spent the last ten years of his life writing the Aeneid but was never entirely satisfied with it. Fortunately, his deathbed instruction that it be burned was disregarded on the orders of the Emperor Augustus. You Lesbia, me frank Catullus has always been the schoolboy’s favourite Latin poet. The erotic poems about his idealised lover, Lesbia, and her metaphorical ‘pet sparrow’ have caused many a spotty snigger over the years. He also wrote frankly obscene invective poems that have never found their way onto any school syllabus, including his infamous Carmen 16 (c.60BC), censored in both Latin and in translation for many years. In its opening and final line, “Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo”, Catullus graphically invites two male critics of his poetry to come and be sexually demeaned by him.

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2.1.3 The Three Crowns of the early Renaissance

The path to Florence From the fall of the Roman Empire until the early 13th century, the literature of Italy continued to be written in Latin. Much of it comprised unremarkable hagiographies, chronicles and histories such as Paul the Deacon’s Historia gentis Langobardorum (a history of the Lombards), written in the late eighth century. Poetry continued to trickle forth, some of it religious, some of it chivalric, relaying tales of Charlemagne in the French dialect of the trovatori, the Occitan troubadours. Some of the earliest literature written in Italian (or something close to it) came from Saint Francis of Assisi, whose Laudes creaturarum, a rather fawning missive to God about the wonders of creation, was written in the Umbrian dialect in about 1224. The same tradition also produced the sacred songs (laudi) of Jacopone da Todi later in the century. The earliest secular literature written in Italian was produced by the Sicilian School of poets – notably Giacomo da Lentini, who is credited with having invented the sonnet – at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II.

St. Francis of Assisi talks to the birds, probably in Umbrian

Later in the 13th century the centre of literary activity moved north to Tuscany, and to Florence in particular, where, it could be said, the real story of Italian literature began. In these, the nascent years of the Renaissance, three big writers stood above the rest: Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Each has had an immense influence on Italian and European literature, an influence that still resonates today. In Italy they’re celebrated as Le Tre Corone (The Three Crowns) and remain required reading in schools. Many Italians can still quote whole passages of their work.

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“ABAN D ON AL L HO P E , YE WHO E N T E R H ERE.” Inscription on the gate of Hell, La divina commedia

A very suspended sentence The sentence passed on Dante in 1302, forcing him into exile, stipulated that he would be executed if he ever set foot in Florence again. The judgement was only revoked in 2008, and even then only by a majority decision – five members of the Florentine council voted to keep it in place.

Dante: three steps to heaven Almost 700 years after he died, possibly from malaria, Dante Alighieri remains the most important figure of Italian literature. Indeed, in his use of the Tuscan vernacular, he’s often regarded the founder of the Italian language itself. Born into a fairly noble Florentine family in 1265, Dante addressed his early poetry to his beloved Beatrice (a woman it seems he never actually spoke to) in La vita nuova (1295), written in the dolce stil novo (sweet new style), a mode of writing, pioneered by Guido Guinizzelli, which added a spiritual dimension to love poetry, painting the adored woman as an angel of salvation. As well as being a poet and scholar, Dante was also deeply involved in the turbulent political life of Florence. His involvement in the power struggles between the rival Ghibelline and Guelph factions, and then just between the Guelphs themselves, led to him spending the last 20 years of his life in exile from the city (most of it in northern Italy, although he did stray as far north as Paris, and possibly even England). It was in exile that Dante produced his masterpiece, the epic narrative poem La divina commedia (c.1321). ‘The Divine Comedy’ (‘comedy’ meaning it doesn’t have a tragic ending as opposed to being in any way funny) is a huge work of over 14,000 hendecasyllabic lines (of eleven syllables) written in terza rima (a three-line rhyming pattern of Dante’s own invention: aba, bcb, cdc etc). It describes Dante’s Easter weekend journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in search of his and mankind’s goal – a vision of God. For the first two parts, the Ancient Roman poet Virgil guides the way before Beatrice takes over because Virgil, being pagan, isn’t allowed into Paradise. The work succeeds on many fronts: it’s poetic, dramatic, allegorical and moral. He wrote in the vernacular 62

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language so that more of his contemporaries could understand the story’s connection to their own lives and the medieval society in which they lived. Incidentally, the author called it simply La commedia; the divina bit was only added in an edition of 1555.

Petrarch: more than just a sonnet Petrarch, full name Francesco Petrarca, a poet and scholar from Arezzo but of Florentine stock, is a towering figure in the history of Italian literature. He’s deemed the father of Renaissance Humanism, an intellectual movement that emphasised the dignity and worth of the individual, and encouraged the rediscovery and study of Classical pagan Latin and Greek texts. Not content with launching Renaissance Humanism, Petrarch added various other firsts to his name: in 1341 he became the first writer since Ancient times to be crowned Poet Laureate; he was the first poet to perfect the sonnet form; he’s been called the first Italian nationalist; and has been credited as the first ever tourist and the first mountaineer. Beat that.

Perhaps he just had delicate features… It’s clear from his poetry that Petrarch’s heart was stolen by a young girl named Laura; what remains a mystery, however, is the identity of whoever stole his head. In 2003 the poet’s body was exhumed from his tomb in Arquà Petrarca, Veneto, in order to create a computer-aided facial reconstruction for the 700th anniversary of his birth. However, while the body was certainly his, the attendant skull belonged to an unknown woman.

Inspired by the writings of Virgil and Cicero, Petrarch produced many scholarly works and letters in Latin such as De vita solitaria (1346), Epistulae familiares (1325-66) and Seniles (1361-73), but it’s poetry written in the Italian vernacular that gives the author his true importance. Il canzoniere (literally, Song Book) is a collection of 366 poems mainly in sonnet form written between 1327 and 1368 and addressed to Laura, the object of his agonising and unsatisfied love. Petrarch wrote of the power and pain of love with an intensity and introspection that would make Il canzoniere one of the most influential works in European poetry.

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Boccaccio: the power of ten The third great literary figure of the 14th century was Giovanni Boccaccio. The son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Boccaccio was possibly born in Paris, almost certainly illegitimately, and was an admirer of Dante, a friend to Petrarch and was another Renaissance Humanist. His most celebrated works include De mulieribus claris (1362), a biographical study of 106 mythological and historical women written in Latin; Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (c.1343), a novel narrated by an unfaithful wife; and his masterpiece written in the vernacular, Il decamerone. Set in the summer of 1348, Il decamerone is a collection of 100 novellas narrated by ten young Florentines, seven female, three not, who take refuge in the hills to escape the Black Death that ravages the city below. They amuse themselves by each telling one story a day for ten days (decamerone means the work of ten days). Through the novellas, Boccaccio gave a vivid picture of 14th century society, discarding established literary models and drawing instead on human experience for earthy, sometimes bawdy, tales, the themes of which were often revealed in their title. An example: Masetto da Lamporecchio pretends to be a deaf-mute and becomes the gardener for a convent of nuns who all compete to lie with him.

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2.1.4 The anti-climax of the High Renaissance

We’re only human Under the patronage of the wealthy Renaissance courts, scholars and poets in 15th century Italy further indulged the Humanist taste for Classical writing. However, after Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio there was, perhaps inevitably, a dip in the quality of new literature, and much of what was written turned away from the vernacular and back to Latin. Only in the later 1400s did writers emerge who, in addition to their scholarly offerings in Latin, produced works of merit written in Italian. Their growth was due in part to the influence of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ‘Magnificent’ Florentine ruler and patron of the arts. Aside from Lorenzo’s own, not undistinguished, vernacular poetry, a handful of 15th century poems are worth tracking down: Morgante (1483) by Luigi Pulci. Irony-infused epic chivalric poem about a giant. La giostra di Giuliano de’ Medici (1475) by Angelo Poliziano. Weaves mythology into a Medici jousting victory. Orlando innamorato (1495) by Matteo Maria Boiardo. An unfinished romantic epic charting the exploits of Roland, heroic French knight.

Machiavelli: not really that Machiavellian as it happens By the 16th century, Italian literature had managed to extricate itself from the Humanist obsession with Classical texts, and the writers of the period displayed a greater awareness of the age in which they lived. Among them was one of the most significant writers of the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli, a Florentine statesman and scholar who wrote histories, plays and songs but whose greatest achievements were in the field of political theory. He famously wrote Il principe (1532), a posthumously published and much maligned treatise

How Italian became the peninsula’s written language Two hundred and twenty years after Dante advocated the use of the vernacular in literature, Pietro Bembo, a Venetian scholar and poet, tried again in his treatise Prose della volgar lingua (1525). Bembo’s effort was more successful and by the time the Accademia della Crusca had published their Vocabolario, the first dictionary of Italian, in 1612, the Italian vernacular (derived largely from the Florentine dialect; a connection that spoke of the region’s cultural prominence) had finally been established as the literary language of Italy. Accademia della Crusca actually means Academy of Bran, so called because they cleaned up the language in the same way that grain is cleaned by discarding the bran (obviously…). It’s still going strong, dutifully protecting the purity of the Italian language.

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“IT IS MU CH SAF ER TO BE FEA RED THAN TO BE LO VED WHE N ONE OF THE TWO MU ST BE LACK IN G.” Niccolò Machiavelli Il principe

Dear Sir or Madam When he wasn’t making statues or decorating the Sistine Chapel, the Renaissance artist Michelangelo found time to write 300 or so impassioned homoerotic sonnets addressed to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, a young nobleman 34 years his junior. When they were published posthumously in 1623, they were altered by his grandnephew, Michelangelo the Younger, to make them sound like they were written to girls.

concerning the acquisition and maintenance of political power by whatever means necessary, regardless of all moral and religious considerations. Although the work was intended as a clear, scientific study of statecraft, it’s often been regarded as a kind of tyrant’s handbook. Aside from Machiavelli’s Il principe, the 16th century deposited a few other notable works of Italian prose, including Il Cortegiano (1528), a guide for training the perfect Renaissance gentlemen, by diplomat Baldassare Castiglione. It also gave us the ‘father of modern history’, Francesco Guicciardini, whose Storia d’Italia (1561-1564) was lauded for its objectivity and use of official records as source material. Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (1550) left more details (some highly spurious) about the lives of the great Renaissance artists than any other source, while the notorious, posthumously published autobiography of the sculptor (and probable murderer, rapist and thief) Benvenuto Cellini, is an engaging, impressively frank read.

Brace of bards: the two major 16th century poets Ludovico Ariosto was known for his majestic and imaginative verse, which, while conforming to classical models, reflected the secular spirit of the time. Orlando furioso (1516) was his masterpiece, a lengthy epic recounting the adventures of the paladins of Charlemagne, including the one where Astolfo flies to the moon to find the bottle that contains Orlando’s sanity. Torquato Tasso is considered both the most influential and the final poet of the Italian Renaissance. He had to deal with the constrictive atmosphere of the Counter Reformation and also with his own deteriorating mental health, yet he wrote with a flowing grace and melancholic beauty, as evidenced in the pastoral poem Aminta (1573) and his greatest work, the verse epic on the First Crusade, Gerusalemme liberata (completed in 1581).

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Loss of form In Italy, the Renaissance had ebbed by the 17th century. The subsequent 200 years saw the nation’s creative spirit crushed by Spanish and then Austrian rule, engendering one of the dullest periods in the history of Italian literature. The predominant literary style in the 17th century was Baroque, characterised by extravagant ornamentation and very little substance, and typified by the poetry of the most popular writer of the period, Giambattista Marino. In his best-known work, L’Adone (1623), a massive poem of more than 40,000 lines, he tells the story of Venus and Adonis and countless other mythological characters while employing every literary device he can think of. Towards the end of the century, in reaction to the affectations of Baroque, the Academy of Arcadia (official title Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi) was founded in Rome by a group of writers who took the pastoral poetry of Ancient Greece as their model. However, while the Academy was well respected, its effective contribution to the story of literature was negligible. The creative vacuum remained until the end of the 18th century when the independent spirit of the French Enlightenment and the French and American Revolutions rippled out to Italy, stirring a national pride and sense of identity that would permeate the coming years. Two writers of particular note emerged. The first, Giuseppe Parini, famously satirised the aristocracy in his poem Il giorno (1763), detailing a pointless day in the life of a pointless gentleman. The second, Vittorio Alfieri, wrote the influential odes L’America libera (1784) and Parigi sbastigliata (1789) and a treatise on the overthrow of tyrannies, Della tirannide (1789).

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2.1.5 Telling it like it is: literature in the modern era

The fervent nationalism of the Risorgimento movement that spread throughout Italy in the first half of the 19th century had a profound effect on the country’s literature, both for the Classicists, who employed classic stylistic models, and the Romantics, who concerned themselves with sentiment and cared little for style.

The Classicists The key Classical writers in the early part of the century were the poets Ugo Foscolo and Giacomo Leopardi. An ardent patriot (who was born in Greece and died in England) and soldier, Foscolo’s most important work, Dei sepolcri (1807), urged readers to remember heroes past, to take inspiration, in particular, from their graves. Leopardi is one of the greatest and best loved of all Italian poets. Although his purity of style was technically of the Classical school, the majestic desolation and nostalgia of his poetry made him an unintentional Romantic. He’s best known for his patriotic poems, All’Italia (1818) and Sopra il monumento di Dante (1818), and for later, deeply pessimistic poems such as L’infinito (c.1821) which concludes: ‘And to shipwreck is sweet for me in this sea’. In the second half of the 19th century, a more vehement Classicism appeared in the poetry of Giosuè Carducci, whose zeal for mother Italy was equalled only by his hatred for the Catholic Church. He achieved great notoriety with his anti-clerical and blasphemous poem Inno a Satana (1865) which ends, ‘Great Satan passes by, oh people, bringing blessing from place to place upon his unstoppable chariot of fire’. However, his best work lay within the three volumes of classically themed Odi Barbare (1877-1889). Carducci won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1906, the first Italian to do so.

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The Romantics

Manzoni’s Requiem

The major figure of the Italian Romantic school, and one of the most important names in Italian literature, was the poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni. Like most Italian Romantics of the time, he was both a loyal Catholic and a fierce nationalist. He achieved great fame with a book of religious lyrics, Inni sacri (1810), and an ode written on the death of Napoleon, Il cinque maggio (1822), but is best known for the historical novel I promessi sposi (1827). The Betrothed, as it translates, was a veiled social critique set in Milan whilst under Spanish rule. Today it’s regarded as a masterpiece and has become one of the most famous and widely studied Italian novels.

Of the many tributes paid to Alessandro Manzoni, the greatest came from Giuseppe Verdi. In memory of Manzoni, Verdi, despite his own atheism, composed one of the most famous pieces of sacred music, Messa da Requiem. It was first performed on 22 May 1874, marking the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death. The piece is also sometimes referred to as the Manzoni Requiem.

The Realist and the rebel The mix of styles and movements infiltrating literature in the late 19th century threw up two interesting characters. The first, Giovanni Verga, was a leading figure in the Verismo (Realist) movement that emerged in reaction to both Classicism and Romanticism. His best-known novel, I Malavoglia (1881), depicts the hardship and poverty of a Sicilian fishing community in a stark, realistic way. Verga would prove an important influence on the post-war Neorealist writing of the 20th century. By contrast Gabriele D’Annunzio, soldier, journalist, all-round agitator and favourite author of Benito Mussolini, rejected Realism, alongside Classicism, Romanticism and pretty much anything on offer in favour of the beauty and irrationality associated with the Decadent movement. Among his works are the novels Il piacere (1889) and Il trionfo della morte (1894), and, considered his best, a collection of verse, Alcyone (1904), evoking the sensorial delights of a Tuscan summer.

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“T HOU P A RA DISE OF EX ILES, ITA L Y!” Percy Bysshe Shelley Oh it’s all too much… I’m off to Venice Over the years, perhaps because of the climate and the wine, Italy has served as a cultural refuge for numerous foreign writers: poet Lord Byron left England, where he’d been accused of sodomy and incest, and had sex all over Italy, breaking off when necessary to write Don Juan (1823); John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley both lived and died in Italy, the former in a house on Rome’s Spanish Steps; the Russian novelists Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote their respective classics Dead Souls (1842) and The Idiot (1869) while in Italy; James Joyce lived and taught English for many years in Trieste where he wrote (most of) his masterpiece Ulysses (1922); and D.H. Lawrence fled England accused of being a German spy, making his home near Florence where he wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928).

Turn of the century tumult The instability of Italian society in the early 20th century, the turmoil of political unrest, of war and dictatorship, seeped into the country’s literature. When the Fascist era arrived, with its constraints on cultural and intellectual life, many authors were censored, forced into exile or even imprisoned. Of the writers at work in that period, three in particular live on in the popular consciousness: Grazia Deledda. Deledda is remembered for Verismo novels of love, pain and death among the Sardinian peasantry. Elias Portolu (1903), Cenere (1904), and La madre (1920) are all fine examples. In 1926 she became the first – and so far the only – Italian woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Italo Svevo. Now regarded as among the most important in modern Italian literature, Svevo’s work was almost totally ignored until championed by Irish novelist James Joyce. Svevo had a gift for capturing human psychology in print. Titles include Una vita (1893), Senilità (1898), and his most famous contribution, La coscienza di Zeno (1923), a thoroughly modernist novel about psychoanalysis and cigarettes. Luigi Pirandello. Although he’s known best as a playwright (see section 4.2.1 for more), Pirandello also pushed his talent for questioning objective truth and the nature of identity into short stories and the novels Il fu Mattia Pascal (1904) and Uno, nessuno e centomila (1926). Nobel rewarded Pirandello in 1934. 70

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String him up Pinocchio (1940), the Disney cartoon with the wooden puppet that had no strings to tie him down, was based on the most famous Italian children’s story Le avventure di Pinocchio (1883) by Carlo Collodi. The tale began life as a series of stories published in the Giornale dei bambini, a children’s newspaper. However, Collodi never intended the story, which concludes when the puppet becomes a boy, to have such a happy ending: if it hadn’t been for a public outcry, the serialised stories would have concluded with little Pinocchio hanging by the neck from the bough of a tree.

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Trieste in Bloom

Key figures of 20th century poetry

Novelist Italo Svevo (real name Aron Ettore Schmitz) was Jewish, had a Hungarian father, and provided the model for one of literature’s most famous characters, Leopold Bloom, the anti-hero of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). Joyce had been Svevo’s English teacher in Trieste where the two had formed a close friendship. When asked why he had decided to make Leopold Bloom Jewish with a Hungarian father, Joyce replied, “Because he was.”

Italian poetry in the early 20th century was dominated by groups of writers with tremendous collective names: Crepuscular Poets. Guided chiefly by Marino Moretti and Guido Gustavo Gozzano, the Crepusculars used subdued, commonplace language and subject matter with irregular metre and rhyme but had little idea of what they were trying to achieve and didn’t produce much of great note. Futurist Poets. Led by Filippo Marinetti, the Futurists knew exactly what they wanted – a literature born of speed and war that would explode visually and sonically, stripped of anything, verbs and adjectives included, that might slow it down. As a result, although Futurism was influential in the visual arts, it was somewhat disappointing in poetry. Marinetti would later cosy up to the Fascists. Futurist Filippo Marinetti wrote the poem Zang Tumb Tumb (1914); it was the sound of war, specifically the Battle of Adrianople

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Hermetic Poets. While the Hermetics often expressed their pessimism and isolation in illogical and cryptic verse, they were fortunate to have in their ranks the three great Italian poets of the 20th century. Giuseppe Ungaretti led with his vivid imagery and economy of language, finding worldwide acclaim with Allegria di naufragi (1919) and Sentimento del tempo (1933). The second star, Eugenio Montale, was renowned for collections like Ossi di seppia (1925), typical in its post-war pessimism and sparing, ‘hermetic’ use of words, funnelled here through impressions of the Ligurian coast. In 1975 Montale received the Nobel Prize for Literature, an award given 16 years previously to the third heavyweight Hermetic, Salvatore Quasimodo, author of Ed è subito sera (1942), a collection of verse that strove to capture the tragedies of modern life. Quasimodo later turned to Neorealism.

Realism, new and improved: post-war fiction Italian literature emerged from the disasters of the Second World War and the strictures of Mussolini’s regime with a new spirit of freedom and lots of source material. The novel was to become the predominant literary form, characterised initially by the social awareness and stark language of Neorealism, a genre that had its roots in the pre-war Verismo but which took on new impetus after the ordeals of life with the Fascists. As the century progressed, literature became directed more by personal and existential concerns.

Post-war fiction: the ten authors to read first Carlo Levi. Levi’s most famous work, and perhaps the best known text of Italian Neorealism, Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (1945), told of the plight of peasant farming communities in the south of Italy, to where the author had been internally exiled by the Fascist regime for his political activism. The title, Christ Stopped at Eboli in English, was taken from a local saying suggesting that Christianity, modernisation and money hadn’t made it that far south.

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“N O ON E EVER LACKS A G OO D RE ASON FOR SUICIDE .” Cesare Pavese

Cesare Pavese. Pavese, another Neorealist, is a tragic figure for whom isolation, disillusionment and betrayal were central themes in both his writing and his life. The novella Il diavolo sulle colline (1949) looked back to his youth in Turin, while La luna e i falò (1950), a novel, framed betrayal, sex and death in a post-war Piedmont town. Pavese committed suicide in 1950 following a failed love affair with American actress Constance Dowling. Among the unpublished poems found in his desk was his now famous Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi (1951), or in English, Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes. Alberto Moravia. Moravia, whose early novels (he published his first aged 23) were banned by the Fascists, wrote prolifically in unadorned Neorealist prose about social, moral and emotional dilemmas. His many novels include Il conformista (1947), a scything, clever appraisal of repression under Fascist rule, and, most famously, La ciociara (1957), about a mother and daughter in war torn Italy. Typically of Moravia, both novels deal frankly (and often) with the subject of sex. Giorgio Bassani. Remembered primarily for Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1962). Set in Bassani’s native Ferrara, it’s an unrequited love story placed amid a Jewish-Italian family’s struggles under fascism. Natalia Ginzburg. A poet and novelist who examined personal relationships, family life and the place of women in a society in flux. Tutti i nostri ieri (1952) and Le voci della sera (1961) both feature ordinary folk living through the Fascist era and the war. Ginzburg’s first husband, an antiFascist, had died after being tortured in Rome in 1944.

“PRIM O L EVI DIED AT A USCH WITZ 40 YE ARS EA RL IER.” Elie Wiesel, on hearing of Primo Levi’s death (usually assumed a suicide) in 1987

Primo Levi. A unique voice in Italian literature, Levi was a chemist and Holocaust survivor who used his learning and experience to produce highly regarded memoirs, poetry and fiction. Se questo è un uomo (1947) is based on his imprisonment in Auschwitz during the war. Novels include La chiave a stella (1978) and Il sistema periodico (1975) in which each of 21 stories is linked to a chemical element. 74

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Italo Calvino. Among the most widely read and translated of Italian authors, Calvino used imaginary worlds and fabulous plots to present his version of modern life. Titles include Fiabe Italiane (1956), the first comprehensive collection of Italian fairytales, Le città invisibili (1972) and Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (1979) which (brace yourself) is about someone reading the same book you are reading, but which then changes into the beginning of a different book by a different author, and which then does the same thing again and again. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. The aristocratic Tomasi (11th Prince of Lampedusa no less) only wrote one novel, Il gattopardo (1958), centred on a wealthy Sicilian family in the 1860s, which was published to international acclaim a year after his death.

Prose prize Italy’s most prestigious literary prize is the Premio Strega, awarded each July to the year’s best work of prose fiction. A group of literary types initiated the award in 1947; one of their number, Guido Alberti, owned the company that produced Strega, the herbal liqueur from Campania which lends the award its name.

Leonardo Sciascia. Sciascia set his crime fiction in his native Sicily, his major themes being the Mafia, corruption in high places and the frequently unfulfilled quest for justice. Il giorno della civetta (1961), Il consiglio d’Egitto (1963) and Il Mare Colore del Vino (1973), a collection of short stories, were among his best. Umberto Eco. Philosopher and expert in medievalism and semiotics (see 2.1.1 for more), and perhaps the most celebrated Italian novelist of the late 20th century, Eco made his literary fortune with a medieval murder mystery, Il nome della rosa (1980). Il pendolo di Foucault (1988), usually described as a ‘thinking man’s Da Vinci Code’, enjoyed similar commercial and critical success. Eco has stated that his 2004 novel, La misteriosa fiamma della Regina Loana, will be his last. 75 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Scene of the crime

A love of crime

The best-selling Inspector Montalbano crime novels of Andrea Camilleri are set in the fictitious Sicilian town of Vigàta, modelled on the author’s hometown, Porto Empedocle. In 2003 Porto Empedocle officially changed its name to Porto Empedocle Vigàta.

If Italians are going to pick up a book, invariably they reach for crime fiction. The nation’s favourite genre is generally held to have begun in 1929 when publisher Mondadori issued mysteries, often translated from English, called Gialli after their garish ‘yellow’ covers. It’s a name that stuck; the genre is still referred to as Gialli today. Early on, Italian Gialli writers found their work banned by the Fascist regime, but after the war the genre flourished, helped along by the eagerness of cinema to adapt new books. Important authors include Leonardo Sciascia (see previous page); Carlo Emilio Gadda, whose Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957), set in the Fascist 1920s, made a considerable impact; Giorgio Scerbanenco, best known for Venere privata (1966) and Traditori di tutti (1966); and Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, the crime writing duo par excellence responsible for La donna della domenica (1972), a ripping yarn of rape and murder among the Turinese bourgeoisie.

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Crime fiction remains as popular as ever in Italy, its traditions maintained by a clutch of very good writers including Massimo Carlotto, author of the popular series featuring Alligator (a private dick), Il maestro di nodi (2002) being one of them; Gianrico Carofiglio, whose Testimone inconsapevole (2002) was a huge seller; Niccolò Ammaniti, author of Io non ho paura (2001), a disturbing tale of child kidnap in the anni di piombo; and the most successful crime writer of them all, Andrea Camilleri, author of the Inspector (Commissario) Montalbano series. Camilleri’s books have been a publishing phenomenon, achieving that hard to find mix of critical and public support. He published the first in the series, La forma dell’acqua (1994) at the age of 69.

Letters to America If the stats are to be believed, the bestselling book of post-war Italy is Va’ dove ti porta il cuore (1994) by Susanna Tamaro, with global sales of more than 14 million copies. It’s an epistolary affair: a series of letters from an old, dying woman in Trieste, imploring her granddaughter in America to ‘Follow Your Heart’. Have the tissues at the ready.

21st century best-sellers La rabbia e l’orgoglio ( 2001) by Oriana Fallaci. Controversial commentary on Islam and European Muslims, originally published as a series of articles in the Corriere della Sera. Io non ho paura (2001) by Niccolò Ammaniti. A boy finds a kidnap victim in an old farmhouse, and then discovers his parents are in on the secret. Senza sangue (2002) by Alessandro Baricco. A young girl hides from the murderers of her parents, but grows up to avenge their deaths. 100 colpi di spazzola prima di andare a dormire (2003) by Melissa P (Panerello). Blockbuster diary of a schoolgirl’s sexual odyssey. La pazienza del ragno (2004) by Andrea Camilleri. The eighth in the wildly popular Inspector Montalbano series of crime novels. Gomorra (2006) by Roberto Saviano. A frightening ‘non-fiction novel’ about the Camorra, the Naples mafia. The author lives in hiding following death threats.

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2.2 Philosophy The Italians were pondering the stuff of life when the rest of us were concerned simply with animal husbandry. And since the days of progressive Roman thought, Italy has produced a consistent roll call of philosophers, figures who spent much their time trying to reconcile science, nature and religion.

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2.2.1 The greatest hits of Italian philosophy

Mention Aquinas or Machiavelli to most Italians and they’ll give a nod of recognition. Some may even know the key tenets of their respective philosophies; others will pretend they do. However, more generally, if you find yourself in a bar confessing your ignorance of Logical Positivism you won’t be alone. Italians don’t pride themselves on any great knowledge of abstract thought or its proponents, nor do they strive for intellectual credibility over the dinner table, in the manner of, say, the French. Debate usually focuses on more tangible matters. And yet, Italy does have its list of significant philosophers, stretching right back to the days of the Roman Republic.

Stealing ideas from the Greeks The philosophy of Ancient Rome was in fact the philosophy of Ancient Greece with some of the trickier theories removed; the Romans simply selected the parts that suited their more practical approach to life. Little of any great originality emerged, and the importance of Roman philosophers lies more in their translation and preservation of Greek texts. Certain figures stood out: Cicero picked and chose what he liked from the Sceptics and the Stoics, using it to try and prop up the principles of the dying Republic in the first century BC; and Seneca the Younger (a Roman born in Spain) was firmly in the Stoic camp a century later, urging people to simplicity, virtue and reason. Heavy reading: two Roman works of philosophy De rerum natura (c.50BC) by Lucretius. An epic philosophical poem ‘on the nature of things’ deemed the most complete example of Greek Epicurean thought, advocating a simple, pain-free life in a universe ruled by chance. Lucretius advised that we should have no fear of death – and then he killed himself. Meditations (c.170) by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. A monumental work of Greek Stoic philosophy, which regarded the avoidance of both pain and pleasure as the key to a happy life.

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Adding God to the equation When the Western Roman Empire fell in the fifth century, Christianity became the defining influence on Italian thought, and remained so for a thousand years. The major Middle Ages school of philosophy was Scholasticism, an academic approach to reconciling Christian faith with Ancient Greek reason (particularly the logic peddled by Aristotle). Two figures stood above the rest: Boethius. One of the last great Roman statesmen was a Christian (although not a Scholastic) and an influential translator and advocate of Aristotle and Plato. In the Consolatio Philosophiae (c.524), written in prison while awaiting execution for treason, Boethius trawled through Ancient reason (rather than Christian belief) for an answer to his predicament. The work also popularised the Rota Fortunae, the Wheel of Fortune (sometimes called the Boethian Wheel) representing the vicissitudes of life. Saint Thomas Aquinas. The ‘Angelic Doctor’, a Dominican priest, was the most important figure of medieval Scholastic philosophy. He developed the synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian logic that effectively became the Roman Catholic Church handbook. Aquinas’ best-known work is the Summa Theologica (left unfinished on his death in 1274), in which you can find, if you wish, his Quinque Viae, five very complicated arguments to prove the existence of God.

“‘ I N C O N S TA N C Y I S M Y V ER Y ES S EN C E, ’ S A Y S TH E W H EEL. ‘RISE UP ON MY S PO K ES I F Y O U LI K E B U T D O N ’ T C O M PLA I N W H EN YOU’RE CAST BACK D O W N I N TO TH E D EPTH S . G O O D TI M ES PA S S A W A Y B U T TH EN S O D O TH E B A D . ’ ” From Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae

Is that a poker in your hand or are you just displeased to see me? Saint Thomas Aquinas’ family apparently tried to prevent him from becoming a Dominican monk by locking him in a room for two years. They even hired a prostitute to help change his mind, but Thomas chased her out of the room with a red-hot poker.

Renaissance Humanism: what was it? The dominant philosophical school of the Italian Renaissance was Humanism. Inspired by the writings of Petrarch (see section 2.1.3), the Humanists moved away from the cold logic of Scholasticism, preferring rediscovered Ancient texts, especially those of Plato, for exploring the importance of the individual (and individual expression) and the relationship between the human and the divine.

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The major philosophers of the Italian Renaissance Lorenzo Valla. His treatises on pleasure, De voluptate (1431), and free choice, De libero arbitrio (1439), pushed individual happiness, achieved through measured virtue rather than Stoic abstinence. Valla, something of a pedant, also spent considerable time criticising the standard of Latin used by his contemporaries. Marsilio Ficino. Fifteenth-century Florentine thinker whose translations of Plato proved highly influential. He saw the universe in layers (from God downwards), and in line with Renaissance values, gave humans a starring role. Ficino coined the phrase ‘platonic love’. Giovanni Pico della MirandolaA handsome chap whose study of free will and human perfection, Oratio de hominis dignitate1486), is considered the manifesto of Humanist philosophy.

The theological backlash The Counter Reformation, beefed up by the muscle of the Roman Inquisition (see section 1.2.2 for the full story), sought to expunge the Humanists’ suggestion of balance between man and God, and to reassert Catholic authority. Three brilliant ‘heretics’ had a bit of trouble: Giordano Bruno. The Dominican monk, philosopher and astronomer was tried and executed for his pantheism (the idea that God, nature and the universe are essentially the same thing) and the conviction that our universe is infinite and filled with numerous worlds moving about in space. He wrote it all down in De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584), before being burned alive in 1600. Giordano Bruno stand grim watch over Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori 82 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Galileo Galilei. The ‘father of modern science’ had a profound effect on philosophical thought. Like Bruno, he was tried by the Inquisition for supporting the heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus, in which the sun, not the earth, forms the centre of the universe. His Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632) was banned until 1835, almost 200 years after he died, aged 70, under house arrest. Tommaso Campanella. He tried to reconcile Renaissance Humanism with Catholic theology and duly spent most of his life either on trial or in prison. Campanella’s best-known work, Civitas Solis (1623), is a Utopian affair advocating a universal theocratic monarchy.

Waiting in vain for Enlightenment The Counter Reformation proved disastrous for free thought in Italy. Whilst other parts of Europe spent the next 200 years deep in debate, most notably during the Enlightenment, Italy only produced a handful of original, significant philosophers. Giambattista Vico emerged in the 18th century, best known for the principle of verum factum (truth is deed) – mankind creates society and therefore shapes what it believes to be the ‘true’ world. Vico also concluded that history is cyclical – it begins with barbarism, becomes civilised and then eventually returns to barbarism – as detailed in Principi di una scienza nuova (1725). Later in the 18th century, Cesare Beccario’s influential treatise, Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), called for penal reform, argued against the death penalty and was perhaps Italy’s closest brush with the Enlightenment. The 19th century brought minor contributions from 83 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Roberto Ardigò, the leader of Italian Positivism (knowledge is derived from what can be scientifically observed), and Antonio Rosmini-Serbati with his notion of the ‘ideal being’, a reflection of God found in every man.

Ideological differences: the early 20th century philosophers Like their predecessors, Italian intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century were both shaped and restricted by prevailing political and social factors. Three stood out: Benedetto Croce. The most important Italian philosopher of the modern era worked in the Idealist tradition but developed his own theories, notably maintaining that thought constitutes the only reality and that all history and artistic activity are forms of thought, as outlined in Filosofia dello spirito (1902–17). Croce opposed fascism and was under constant surveillance as a result. Giovanni Gentile. In Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro (1916), Croce’s one-time friend and fellow Idealist stressed how important the act of thinking is to articulating experience. Unlike Croce, Gentile was a fascist; he took a ministerial post in Mussolini’s government and became known as the Philosopher of Fascism, tarnishing his academic reputation in the process. “FOR T WENTY YEARS WE M UST STOP THIS BRAIN FR OM FUN CT IONING.” Prosecutor at the trial of Antonio Gramsci (who then proceeded to write his best work in prison)

Antonio Gramsci. The Sardinian was a Marxist and leader of the Communist Party of Italy at almost precisely the wrong time and in almost exactly the wrong place. Whilst imprisoned by Mussolini he wrote his acclaimed Lettere dal carcere (1929-35) in which he developed his theory of Cultural Hegemony – how the capitalist state keeps revolution at bay by making bourgeois values the norm in society.

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Signs and sex appeal: the post-war philosophers Italian philosophy has continued along its rather unremarkable path in the years since the Second World War. The key characters have included Luigi Pareyson and Nicola Abbagnano, each with his own version of Existentialism, and Norberto Bobbio, who wrote extensively on the philosophy of law and politics. Among the current crop, Umberto Eco is the most popularly received, a best-selling novelist whose Trattato di semiotica generale (1975) argues that all intellectual and cultural activity can be interpreted through the systems of signs (see section 2.1.5 for more on Eco’s novels). Another philosopher still at work, Mario Perniola, has written radical stuff on art and aesthetics, including Il sex appeal dell’inorganico (1994). Five sticky philosophical ends Lucretius. St Jerome tells us that the Roman philosopher killed himself after being driven mad by a dodgy love potion. Seneca the Younger. Nero commanded Seneca to commit suicide (or else be executed) following a failed plot. It proved a lengthy procedure: wrist and leg slashing, poisoning and suffocation in a steam bath were all involved. Boethius. He was arrested and imprisoned on charges of treason, suffered days of excruciating torture and was then clubbed to death. Giordano Bruno. The Roman Inquisition’s trial of Bruno on charges of heresy lasted for seven years, after which he was stripped, his tongue was bound and he was burned at the stake in the Campo de’ Fiori, Rome, where his statue now solemnly stands. Giovanni Gentile. After actively supporting both the Italian and German fascists, Gentile was shot by communist partisans in Florence, in 1944.

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3 Art, architecture and design 3.1 Art and design p89 3.1.1 The eternal template: Ancient Italian art p90 3.1.2 Killing time ’til Giotto arrives: medieval art p93 3.1.3 Master strokes: the Renaissance in Italian art p98 3.1.4 Back to reality: the power of Baroque p107 3.1.5 To the avantgarde and back: modern Italian art p110 3.1.6 Style and substance: modern Italian design p113 3.2 Architecture p117 3.2.1 Built to last: Ancient architecture p118 3.2.2 Classical leanings: the medieval builds p121 3.2.3 Designing harmony: Renaissance architecture p124 3.2.4 The high drama of Baroque p128 3.2.5 In the shadow of greatness: modern Italian architecture p131

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3.1 Art and design Italy has the richest artistic heritage in the world. Enter a church, palazzo or museum anywhere in the country and you trip over the stuff. The heroes of the Renaissance – Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael – are undimmed, 400 years after they left the stage, to be followed rapidly by Titian, Caravaggio, Bernini et al. Inevitably, modern Italian artists feel the pressure. 89 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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3.1.1 The eternal template: Ancient Italian art

Copying the Greeks: Etruscan and early Roman art The Etruscans were inspired by the urbane flair of the Greeks with whom they shared Italy for long periods during the first millennium BC (see section 1.2.1 for more), and duly decorated their walls, floors and tombs with figurative frescos and mosaics. For a time, early Republican Rome took this Greek style second hand from the Etruscans before eventually going direct to the source, having conquered the Mediterranean and founded an empire on the ruins of ancient Greek kingdoms in the second century BC. Many of the artists at work in Rome were Greek, and the steady trickle of looted Hellenistic statuary being sent back by victorious generals helped develop the style. Efficiently and with great ingenuity, they took the bits they liked; indeed, often we have the Romans to thank for copying Greek originals that have long since disappeared. Three great Ancient works of art from Italy Apollo of Veio. An expressive, life-sized Etruscan statue of Apollo in attack mode, created in painted terracotta in the sixth century BC. On show in the National Etruscan Museum in Rome. Roman husband and wife. An early naturalistic sculpture from the late Republic (c.63AD), depicting a couple we all know: he, scowling slightly, dying for a drink, having just arrived at a dinner party; she trying to ignore him. It’s in the Louvre. Bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. The oversized statue from c.173AD survived destruction in the later Empire after being mistaken for the Christianising Constantine. The original is in Rome’s Palazzo Nuovo.

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Warts ’n’ all: sculpting faces the Roman way

Caracalla’s airbrush

The flourishing art of the Roman Empire took Greek models and topped up the naturalism. While the idealised statuary of the Greeks flattered their Gods, its Roman descendant happily sculpted the warts on an emperor’s face – truth took precedence over beauty. The bust of Emperor Vespasian in Naples’ Museo Archeologico Nazionale, while it carries the somewhat distracted look of a hung-over accountant at a golf club bar, is a fine example.

The painted Severan Tondo (c.200AD) panel (held in the Antikensammlung, Berlin) depicts Emperor Septimius Severus with his family. The head of one of the sons has been scratched out; he was murdered by the chubby, beaming little beast next to him, his brother, Caracalla. He became a fairly disgusting emperor by all accounts, and it was he who ordered the damnatio memoriae (damnation of memory), taking the Roman airbrush to his brother’s portrait. Gratifyingly, Emperor Caracalla was eventually murdered while urinating by the side of the road.

Sculpture was treated with religious awe (the Christians’ refusal to burn incense in front of the emperor’s bust became the original cause of their persecution), and artists were permitted to make it more lifelike than the Greeks had ever done. It’s also worth noting that realism was usually limited to the face; it wasn’t unusual to find a rather sardonic, unromantic Roman head glued to the torso of a beefy Greek god. The best-known statue of Augustus (the ‘Augustus of Prima Porta’) shows him looking youthful on a torso that’s copied from the fifth century BC Greek sculptor, Polykleitos.

Floor to ceiling: Roman paintings and mosaics The Romans were prodigious portrait painters. Alas, little of what they hung on the wall survives, save the odd encaustic painting (mixing pigment and hot wax), daubed on wooden panels. Thanks in no small measure to Mount Vesuvius, Roman frescos (in which paint is applied direct to wet plaster) survive in far greater number. The wall paintings of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae were created as decoration by decorators – practitioners were seen as tradesmen rather than maestros. Similarly, commissioning a fresco or a sculpture was an assertion of wealth and status as much as patronage of the arts. Subject matter included scenes of daily life (the maiden gathering flowers on the wall of a house in Stabiae is achingly lovely), landscapes, mythology, still life (a wonderful couple of lemons and a glass of water) and post-watershed naughtiness, usually in a brothel or a 91 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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decadent villa. Mosaics were usually used as floor art, although there are extant examples on walls. Military escapades and historical events were often portrayed, and geometrically arranged motifs were also popular. Pieced together with coloured stone, Roman mosaics never quite achieved the lustre of Byzantine examples made from glazed stone or glass fragments. ‘So, yes, this is you burning in hell. A good likeness I think?’ The fresco from the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome showing three men in a fiery furnace, their arms outstretched beseechingly, and the dove – the symbol of Divine help – hovering reassuringly above, was typical of early underground Christian art and its undecorative urgency.

Gloating in stone: triumphal art Wealthy Romans used art to announce their social standing and, similarly, politicians and emperors used it for propaganda. Several accounts of Roman triumphal painting exist (if not the paintings themselves), made after military victories. They captured episodes from the war and the conquered, devastated landscapes. Similarly, sculpture embellished triumphal arches and columns, often with a documentary frieze carved in stone. Trajan’s Column, dating to 113AD and still standing in central Rome, commemorates the emperor’s victory in the Dacian Wars with a spiralling 30-metre bas-relief of the wars’ events.

The underground art of the early Christians The catacomb paintings of ancient Rome, none of which predate 200AD, are the earliest surviving examples of Christian art. Families were keen to see their loved ones (and later themselves) off with an image or two of the afterlife. When Emperor Constantine converted in 313, an edict of toleration was issued and, with imperial favour and protection, Christianity – and in turn Christian art – was allowed to move above ground and to flourish. While early Christian art maintained the realistic Classical representation of figures, the Greek-led idealisation of beauty was rendered irrelevant. God and death became the main themes of work that was unheroic and modest. Sculpture was now utilitarian, crude and typically unfussy, yet had an intensity and focus that portrayed people who had witnessed, and finally accepted, the onset of Christianity. 92 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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3.1.2 Killing time ’til Giotto arrives: medieval art

When West met East: Byzantine art in Italy When the Roman Empire split in the fourth century, the focus of art moved from Rome to the small Greek city of Byzantium. Here, the expressive, instructive early Christian art of the Roman catacombs clashed with the contemplative icons of the Orthodox Church. The latter won out, and by the sixth century the prevailing taste in the Empire was for stylised, impassive figures, for enigmatic reflections of a supernatural world. Despite the restrictions, Byzantine art, in the hands of several unknown geniuses, deposited some stunning work in Italy. Sculpture was largely abandoned (the spirit, not the body, was all important), replaced by wall paintings and mosaics. Ravenna was the centre of activity. Here, in the new capital of the Western Empire, mid-sixth century Greek craftsmen revived the sumptuous decoration of ancient Oriental art. The best mosaics (perhaps the finest ever laid) were completed in the Church of San Vitale in 547, where stylised nature, biblical scenes and the emperor were made kaleidoscopic. As Italy felt its way through the Dark Ages in the following centuries, the best Byzantine art was created elsewhere. However, the artistic meld of East and West did periodically return, notably in the mosaics of Monreale Cathedral, Sicily, created by Byzantine craftsmen some time around 1190. Byzantine style, particularly Ravenna’s, also appeared in the art and buildings of early medieval Venice, notably inside St Mark’s basilica.

“PA I N TI N G C A N D O F O R TH E I LLI TER A TE W H A T W R I TI N G D O ES F O R TH O S E W H O C A N R EA D . ” Or so said Pope Gregory

No pictures please In the eighth century, Italy was about the only portion of the now distinctly un-Roman Roman Empire to seriously resist the Iconoclasts, a destructive group spurred on by Emperor Leo III’s demands that all human images in religious art be smashed. Italy’s noncompliance ensured the survival of Ravenna’s mosaics.

What a relief: Romanesque and Gothic art The Romanesque (a rather misleading term for the art of the period; the ‘Roman’ element was confined largely to architecture) and subsequent Gothic styles that took root in northern and central Europe from the tenth century struggled in Italy, where the jumble of territories produced only isolated successes. Ecclesiastical architecture usually led the way (see section 3.2.2 for more) and art followed up with the essential 93 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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The family stone The Cosmati were a Roman family famed for geometrically patterned church floors, tabernacles and altarpieces in the 12th and 13th centuries. Four generations of Cosmati mixed small segments of coloured stone with large stripes and discs of marble in the churches of Rome, although one of their best patterns turned up in Westminster Abbey, London.

accoutrements: carved reliefs, wall paintings, illuminated manuscripts and mosaics. Gulielmo da Modena’s simplistic but significant narrative carvings on Modena’s Romanesque cathedral were a high point. In the south, the Saracens’ Sicilian adventure turned up in the island’s geometrically decorated churches and lived on through the Norman’s tenure to blend with both Romanesque and Byzantine elements. Puglia was similarly pleased with Norman design; Otranto cathedral has the largest Norman mosaic in existence, a 700foot ‘tree of life’ design dating to c.1163. The Gothic style of the 13th and 14th centuries, its figures less stiff than Romanesque’s, struggled to impact on Italian art, although it appears in chunks of northern sculpture and decoration, particularly in the lavish medieval palazzos of Venice.

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What’s that up ahead? It’s the past While Gothic design was doing its best to penetrate Italy, certain painters and sculptors began looking back to the animation and naturalism of Classical art. The seeds of the Renaissance were being sown. Nicola Pisano, a Puglian sculptor, was the first key figure to take inspiration from Roman statuary, basing his sensuous 1260 nude Fortitude, for Pisa Cathedral’s new pulpit, on a Roman model of Hercules. Pisano’s son, Giovanni, and his pupil, Arnolfo di Cambio, moved things along, blending the physicality of Roman sculpture with Gothic’s growing interest in drama and expression.

“A FTER TH E D A R K N ES S H A S B EEN D I S PELLED , OUR GRANDSONS W I LL B E A B LE TO W A LK B A C K I N TO TH E R A D I A N C E O F TH E PA S T. ” Petrarch urges rebirth

“IN M Y OPINION PAINT E R S O W E T O G IOT T O, T HE F L OR E N TI N E PA INTER, EXA CTL Y THE S AM E DE B T T HE Y O W E T O NAT U R E, W H I C H CONSTA NTL Y SERVE S T HE M AS A M ODE L AND W HOS E FI N ES T AND MO ST BEA UTIF UL AS P E C T S T HE Y AR E AL W A Y S S T R I VI N G TO IMITATE AND REPRODU C E .” Giorgio Vasari

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So he was quite good then?

Giotto the proto-Renaissance man

There are lots of stories about Giotto’s genius. He was apprenticed to Cimabue (aka Cenni di Pepo) – himself experimenting with greater realism in art – and had his master shooing a fly off one of his paintings, such was Giotto’s realism. Later on in his career he reputedly demonstrated his talent to the pope (who’d sent a messenger to uncover evidence of the painter’s skill) by drawing a freehand, but perfect, circle – Giotto’s O as it became known.

Fifty years after the Pisanos put Classical fluidity back into sculpture, a Florentine artist did the same for painting. Giotto di Bondone was the first genuine hero of a beckoning age, a proto-Renaissance man. He was applauded in his own lifetime as a radical artist; as a true revolutionary who wrested art away from flat and formulaic Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic modes and made it three-dimensional, realistic and dynamic. In truth, Byzantine and Gothic art were already moving towards greater authenticity in their depiction of the human form, but undeniably, Giotto made the big, celebrated leap. His most acclaimed frescos, a cycle celebrating the lives of the Virgin and Christ, belong to the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Completed c.1305, the stunning work fills the chapel. In emphasising the human rather than the divine (his figures looked more like real people in real landscapes than the stylised, over-coloured embodiments of virtue), Giotto chalked up one of the most important achievements in art history.

Damned by Dante’s praise

The Giotto comedown and the Sienese School

Giotto, a man of lively wit, bore a certain self-deprecatory charm where his alleged lack of prettiness was concerned. When Dante, who knew Giotto well, saw him at work in the Scrovegni Chapel, he remarked on the beauty of the frescos just completed, a quality, he felt obliged to point out, the painter’s children, scattered underfoot, lacked. After such devastating, poetic rudeness, Giotto simply replied that he shouldn’t be surprised since he’d made them in the dark.

Nobody followed on Giotto’s heels exactly, although a slew of pale imitators known as the Giotteschi did their best. Taddeo Gaddi, apprentice to Giotto, seemed content to produce good work that was in no danger of marking out another big change. Even though Giotto was revered and his work understood, it would take another century before other artists furthered his exploration of naturalism. It was as if Giotto had done too much, too quickly.

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At the same time that Giotto was breaking boundaries in the Veneto, his best contemporaries were gathering in Siena to give Italy its most vibrant, colourful encounter with Gothic. Duccio di Buoninsegna was the leading figure. His great success was the Maestà (1308-11) in Siena Cathedral, an exquisite painting often likened to detailed and opulent Persian miniatures. Movement and space became more important in the beautiful, though still somewhat static work of Simone Martini in the early 14th century. This Sienese School also produced the Lorenzetti brothers, Pietro and Ambrogio, who gave a nod to Giotto’s naturalism but were more important for their increasingly secular subject matter.

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3.1.3 Master strokes: the Renaissance in Italian art

What the Renaissance was and why it centred on Florence The Renaissance now seems like a nicely rounded burst of creativity spanning the 14th to 17th centuries, providing a bridge between the Middle Ages and the modern era. In some ways it was, but it’s also worth remembering that ‘Renaissance’ only became a fashionable term in retrospect. Its suggestion of light after centuries of darkness shouldn’t be taken as read. The work of Giotto, the Pisanos and later Byzantine and Gothic artists all helped feed the key Renaissance theme: reviving the culture of Antiquity. In Florence in the 15th century (confusingly called the quattrocento), fortuitous circumstances collided: Petrarch’s Humanism (see section 2.1.3 for more) had initiated a revival of all things Classical; Florentine rulers were championing the city, a republic (in name at least), as the protector of Roman values and culture; and the city’s wealth, accumulated from textiles and banking, created rich patrons keen to buy the artwork that would confirm their association with those Classical, Humanist values. The major players of the Renaissance all worked in Florence at some time or another. It was home to the fabled Medici dynasty, and in particular Lorenzo di Medici (il Magnifico) who, while not commissioning personally, made life easier for Botticelli, Leonardo and Michelangelo by recommending their services to private patrons. The Uffizi, the ‘offices’ designed by Brunelleschi, and the countless churches, museums and piazzas littered with the most famous artistic heritage on earth, all attested to Florence being the centre of the new universe.

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Five key figures of the early Renaissance in Florence Filippo Brunelleschi. Not only was Brunelleschi the extraordinary genius behind the vast dome of Florence Cathedral (see section 3.2.3 for more), he also codified the laws of perspective some time around 1415, providing painters with a foolproof formula. Donatello (born Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi). Brunelleschi’s friend, the finest quattrocento sculptor, went through three phases: from realism, through Classical idealism and back to realism and the portrayal of character. The lifelike qualities, particularly the apprehensive, alert face of concentration, on his statue of St George, completed early in his career, in 1416, and stood in a niche outside the church of Or-San-Michele in Florence, marked a real break with the past. Perspective, better than sex Paolo Uccello’s Rout of San Romano (c.1450) is artfully littered with lances, dead soldiers and bits of armour, all expertly foreshortened. Indeed, it was as if perspective took over the Florentine painter’s life. He loved it. So much so that his poor wife, calling him from bed, would often hear him answer, glued to his easel, “What a sweet thing perspective is”.

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Painting in the background A clever and industrious man, Ghiberti was a collector and writer as well as an artist. His written Commentarii, a mix of autobiography and observation, spread ideas on Humanism and left a revealing account of the man and his times.

Messy Tom’s messy end If the standard line is to be believed then Masaccio died by poison, killed by a rival artist when he was just 27 years old. The more likely story is that he succumbed to the plague.

Lorenzo Ghiberti. A contemporary of Donatello, sculptor Ghiberti made two sets of bronze baptistery doors for Florence cathedral, produced over a 40-year period. The first set had the grace of International Gothic, the second, all the new depth, verve and perspective of the Classical Renaissance. Ghiberti’s Baptism Of Christ relief on the font in the Baptistery of Siena Cathedral (also featuring Donatello’s Herod’s Feast) was another milestone. Masaccio (meaning Messy Tom – he was born Tommaso Cassai). The most important (albeit dishevelled) Florentine painter of the quattrocento reacted against medieval artifice, creating depth and drama with a profound understanding of perspective. His paintings celebrated Humanism – their figures existing as solid bodies in space. His Trinità (c.1427), in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, is a breathtaking example. Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro). A Dominican friar from Fiesole, near Florence, Angelico painted natural, unforced religious pictures of motion and depth, in perfect understanding of the new rules introduced by Brunelleschi and Masaccio. The wall paintings in the monastery of San Marco, Florence, completed in the 1430s, are among his best.

The early Renaissance outside Florence A generation after Donatello, Masaccio and co lit up Florence, the preoccupation with perspective and Classical realism seeped out to other regions. Rome, relatively slow on the uptake, only began searching out the Renaissance style in the later 15th century. Further north, the Veneto produced a fine artist in the shape of Andrea Mantegna, a Paduan painter who achieved a heightened sense of drama using perspective and Classically solid, anatomically correct figures. From southern Tuscany came Piero della Francesca, creating paintings that, like Mantegna’s, were dramatic and truthful but relied on light as well as perspective for their potency. His Dream of Constantine (c.1460) fresco in Arezzo’s church of San 100 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Francesco, reputedly the first nocturnal scene in Western art, delivered dazzling illumination and compositional perfection. Della Francesca also expressed his passion for geometry in various mathematical treatises.

Venus envy: Botticelli and friends Back in Florence, artists like Antonio del Pollaiuolo, painter and sculptor, moved closer to Classical form. Fra Filipo Lippi started out painting in the style of his tutor, Masaccio, before turning to a more informal, decorative style, expert in its grasp of perspective (apparently after he abandoned the clergy to get married). However, the later quattrocento in Florence belonged to Sandro Botticelli, pupil of Lippi and cohort of Pollaiuolo. He painted his best work for the Medici family. Botticelli overcame the problem of presenting a complicated knot of people in a tight landscape, employing a kind of elongated Classicism to do it. Part of his unique skill lay in selecting just what he needed to convey a story, as Fra Angelico had done before him. Much of Botticelli’s painting was religious, but his most famous work, The Birth of Venus (c.1485), rendered a classical myth. As Florentines urgently tried to recapture the splendour of Ancient Rome, such mythology, formerly discarded, achieved a renewed and potent power.

Vasari gets its all down Giorgio Vasari, born in the midst of the High Renaissance, was the great Florentine critic and chronicler of the period. The Lives Of The Artists (1550) is still considered essential reading, however biased and spurious some of its biographies may be. His great hero, Michelangelo, was also his friend. Vasari was an accomplished painter in the Mannerist style himself, although his work was more admired then than now. Principally he was renowned as an architect, constantly engaged by the Medicis in Florence, Rome and Naples.

If you can remember it, you probably weren’t there: the High Renaissance As the 16th century (cinquecento) began, the Renaissance went into overdrive. Artists were becoming celebrities, although not immediately the sort of people who would be invited to rich dinner tables. Snobbery still dictated that intellectuals, writers and poets were superior to the artists who (ugh, how horrible) worked with their hands. Even so, for numerous small courts in need of honour and prestige, commissioning a tomb, a fresco or a building from a well-known maestro could secure a place in posterity. Subject matter broke out, expressing more than just godliness (although this

Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo’s biggest fan

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Da Vinci in code Da Vinci made conceptual notes (multiple notebooks’ worth of which survive) about double-hulled ships, tanks, helicopters, solar power, plate tectonics and blood circulation (which he almost figured out). Most of his writing was completed in mirror script (i.e. the mirror opposite of normal writing); no one’s quite sure if he wanted to keep his thoughts hidden, was left-handed, and therefore trying to avoid smudging the ink, or was just showing off.

Mona on the move Da Vinci was as impressed with his Mona Lisa as the rest of us. He carried it around with him for years, taking it on trips to Rome and France. Incidentally, in Italy they call it La Gioconda because the sitter was married to Francesco del Giocondo.

remained the prime theme). Some artists even got a say in what they painted. The geography of the Renaissance shifted slightly too, moving with the flow of wealth and power. Florence remained important, but Venice and Rome (with its strengthening papacy) grew to rival its creative output, each with its own, subtly regional version of Renaissance art. In common, the key figures of the brief High Renaissance (it was over by 1525) combined the Classical realism of the early Renaissance with an eye for idealised grandeur. They made some monumental works of art.

The big three of the High Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci. The Florentine elder of the High Renaissance was a quicklearning apprentice whose powerful, enquiring brain strove to understand the world and its wondrous workings, both artistic and scientific. He started much but finished little; few of his paintings (and none of his sculpture) actually reached completion. Da Vinci’s large masterpiece, The Last Supper (1497), painted during a long spell in Milan, broke new ground in its composition with a calm Christ flanked by agitated, richly characterised apostles. If only he hadn’t experimented with painting it in oil on dry plaster (it began to deteriorate within three years of completion). A later work, Mona Lisa (1504-5), innovated with sfumato, the gradual, almost imperceptible, blurring from one tone or colour to another, and also with chiaroscuro, the use of light and shade for dramatic emphasis. The work is a deliberate picture-riddle; the eyes and mouth either betraying a smirk, a slight sneer or a very calm look of recognition. 102

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An artist to look up to Michelangelo was so used to standing on scaffolding and looking up whilst working on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel that he would instinctively read letters held above his head.

Michelangelo Buonarroti. The poet, painter, sculptor and architect of unprecedented fame – who came a generation after Leonardo – was fascinated with earlier masters, Masaccio in particular, and the Ancient sculptors who captured the human body in motion. He was attracted by the challenges that awkward poses and funny angles threw at him. Michelangelo, who spent most of his career in Rome in the employ of popes, grudgingly accepted a commission on Pope Sixtus’ Sistine Chapel; he considered painting beneath him – sculpture was his passion. The four years of work (he shut himself away after getting rid of his assistants) resulted in a colossal, brilliant painting of the Genesis story complete with muscular, emotive and complex figures. It was the apogee of the High Renaissance. Michelangelo finished the ceiling in 1512, aged 37. A year later his Dying Slave 103 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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(1516), for the tomb of Pope Julius, was a sculpture of almost supernatural skill. The artist’s later work, which played an important role in the emergence of Mannerism (see overleaf), substituted poised grandeur for writhing distorted shapes, possibly coloured by Charles V’s attack on Rome and its Renaissance treasures in 1527. Raphael Sanzio. By all accounts the painter known simply as Raphael was as sweet natured as Michelangelo was terse. He sauntered into Florence from Urbino, Marche, in 1504, to soak up the spirit of Leonardo and Michelangelo, and completed his Madonna del Granduca a year later. The graceful work, one of many of the Virgin and Child by Raphael, displays a stunning control of paint and use of sfumato. His most important paintings came later, in Rome. Summoned by Pope Julius II, he was commissioned to paint frescos in the Vatican offices and produced The School of Athens (1509-11), a work that embodies the best Renaissance art with its balanced composition, perspective, mastery of the human figure and Classical gravitas. He wasn’t a slave to nature, unlike his quattrocento predecessors; his beauty was more idealised and imagined, as seen in the beautiful figures of another masterpiece, The Nymph Galatea (1512-14).

Three Venetian masters of the Renaissance Giovanni Bellini initiated the Venetian trend for painting with far richer colours than those used in Tuscany. He borrowed a sculptural style of painting from his Paduan brother-in-law, Mantegna, albeit creating more human, less idealised figures. Bellini painted his best, Madonna with Saints (1505), towards the end of his long life, mastering the harmony of figures and surroundings; it sits above the altar in the little church of San Zaccaria, in Venice. Giorgione, or Giorgio Barbarelli, didn’t live very long, dying aged around 32 in 1510, and he didn’t leave many paintings behind (only a handful, all unsigned, are

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assumed to be his), but he did exert a great influence on the Venetian style with moody, hazy and imagined landscapes supporting the figures, often female nudes, in his work. His Sleeping Venus (c.1510) has been called the first painting to make a female nude the uncontested centre of attention. Titian, full name Tiziano Vecellio, official painter to the Venetian Republic, drew on Bellini’s colour and Giorgione’s nudes and smoky landscapes (some of his work directly copied, or perhaps even finished off, Giorgione’s). He brought drama to religious and mythological scenes and portraits with a faultless sense of colour and light; Madonna with Saints and Members of the Pesaro Family (1528) was an amazing work that broke the unwritten rules of symmetrical composition. He fulfilled every bit of promise in a great, long life before succumbing to the plague in Venice, rumoured to be 99 years of age, and had a profound influence over the Baroque painters who followed.

Correggio: how on earth? Antonio Allegri, better known as Correggio, bathed his subjects in light. His style was well suited to Italy’s renewed taste for religious art in the 1520s. The Assumption of the Virgin (1530) ceiling fresco in Parma cathedral took foreshortening and illumination to breathtaking new heights, depicting Mary ascending to heaven through a vertical tunnel of angels perched on clouds. At first glance it looks like a huge celestial sauna. His paintings prefigure both Mannerism and the Baroque style.

What and who were the Mannerists? Elongation, compositional strangeness (ignoring the rules established to lead the eye through the painted narrative), discordant colours, cryptic subject matter: all became grist to the mill of the Mannerists towards the end of the High Renaissance. Sculptors and painters, most of them in Rome, twisted their figures, some elegantly, some with a hint of the grotesque, and created confused, crowded compositions. They grew from the Classical tradition of realism but moved it on, inspired by 105 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Colourful character Jacopo Robusti earned the nickname Tintoretto, the little dyer, because his father worked colouring fabric. Later in his career the artist was referred to as Il Furioso, such was the rapid pace at which he produced paintings.

Raphael and Michelangelo. It’s as if the Mannerists were saying, “I can do anything, it doesn’t have to look real, it’s just got to look brilliant.” In truth, some weren’t quite good enough; as art historian E.H. Gombrich put it, their pictures didn’t so much record a religious experience as a roomful of squabbling athletes. Mannerism lasted until the end of the 16th century and, in a way, became a template for Modernism. Three Italian artists stood out: Jacopo da Pontormo, from Florence, stretched his figures and crowded the canvas, instilling emotion in works like Visitation (1528-29), a painting that defies its time, glowing with charm and eloquence. Tintoretto, the Venetian-born Jacopo Robusti, studied briefly with Titian before the pair fell out. The Finding of St Mark’s Remains (1562), with its strange sanguine colours, unusual viewpoint and contrasts between gloom and bright light, typified his style. Parmigianino, the ‘little one from Parma’ who also answered to the name of Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, eschewed ‘natural’ beauty in favour of something radical and unexpected. The Madonna of the Long Neck (c.1535), an image of sophisticated distortion, is true to its title, with the addition of a stretched, disquieting baby Jesus.

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3.1.4 Back to reality: the power of Baroque

Art of the people for the people The expression and flexibility of Mannerism fell from favour near the end of the 16th century. Instead, amid growing ardour for the Counter Reformation, patrons (i.e. the Church) demanded truth, or at least a Catholic version of it. The return to naturalism revived a High Renaissance spirit, yet often ditched the idealised Classical interpretation of reality for something more visceral and tangible, something people could actually relate to and, the Church hoped, learn from. It was the beginning of Baroque. Two Early Baroque painters rose above the rest: Annibale Carracci. The best painter in a famous family of Bolognese artists, Carracci was a big fan of Raphael’s work and sought to capture its simplicity and essence. His was the more idealised form of Early Baroque style, best seen in frescos painted for a ceiling at the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, between 1597 and 1604. The mythological narrative was placed within painted, illusory statuary and picture frames, recalling the High Renaissance but also pre-empting the elaborate decoration of High Baroque. Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Where Carracci’s art was pretty, almost sentimental, the painter from Caravaggio in Lombardy (he was born Michelangelo Merisi but became known by the name of his hometown) produced gutsy, emotional pictures appealing directly to the senses. Famously, he painted biblical figures like they’d been plucked from the poor back streets of Rome (which his models had – he didn’t simply sketch classical statues as per contemporary fashion). His Doubting Thomas (16023) with its workaday-looking Christ and three apostles, dressed in contemporary clothing, was typical. The Church often found his work a bit too real – his truth was considered ugly, even disrespectful, at the time – and he was obliged to repaint a number of commissions. However, this very intensity, the hyperrealism bolstered by a brilliant use of chiaroscuro, made his work as devout as Carracci’s.

When artists attack: the enigma of Caravaggio Caravaggio’s life was as famously wilful as his paintings. Born to a Lombardian administrator in 1571 (or possibly 1573), he arrived in Rome in 1593 after a four-year apprenticeship in Milan. He became known (perhaps erroneously) as a thug – albeit one with a God-given (so they said) talent for painting – and rapidly accrued quite an arrest record. In 1606 he went too far and killed a tennis opponent in a dispute over the score. With a price on his head, Caravaggio fled to Naples, found new commissions and painted increasingly dark pictures. Moving on to Malta he was made a knight, before being arrested again. He escaped and fled to Sicily where he painted several seminal works, notably David with the Head of Goliath (c.1609) in which the stricken giant’s face is Caravaggio’s own, before, in 1610, he died, probably of typhus. Famed in his own lifetime, Caravaggio was all but forgotten for 300 years, until his stock rose again in the 20th century.

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Caravaggio’s camera

High Baroque: Rome recovers its mojo

British artist David Hockney has speculated that Caravaggio achieved his trademark expressive accuracy by projecting his intended image onto the canvas using a lens. Before the lens, artists used a concave mirror to reflect and project the subject matter. An Italian researcher has gone further, suggesting that Caravaggio used light sensitive chemicals to ‘fix’ an image on the canvas, and then painted in the lines.

A band of lesser, imitative artists followed and worked with Carracci and Caravaggio. The latter’s were called the Caravaggisti, naturalistic painters who featured Artemisia Gentileschi in their ranks, the first female painter to gain any real recognition in Italy. Carracci’s corner included Guido Reni, a fellow Bolognese who arrived in Rome in 1601 and worked closely with the master. His Aurora (1614) fresco, painted for the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi in Rome, shows an idealisation of nature, but more importantly an evocation of the Classical past. Rome rapidly became the centre of the Baroque world, attracting artists from abroad, notably French Classicist landscape boys, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain. Caravaggio’s naturalism slipped from favour in Italy 20 years after his death and Baroque took a turn for the fancy. Grand, illusory painting and sculpture became fashionable, executed by artists like Pietro da Cortona who painted vast frescos packed with movement, colour and illusion. This, with all its florid bombast, was High Baroque.

Superstar sculptor When he wasn’t making sculptures or designing buildings, Bernini found time to paint, write plays (a scribbled text was discovered in the 1970s), design stage sets and even orchestrate firework displays. On the few occasions that he left his beloved Rome he was recognised as a genius; in Paris they mobbed him in the streets in 1665 (well, maybe not mobbed exactly, but perhaps looked at him quite intently in that knowing Parisian way…).

Bernini: no friend of restraint The high priest of High Baroque was Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Neapolitan son of a Mannerist sculptor, Bernini shot to fame in Rome in the 1620s and remained busy as a sculptor and architect for the rest of his life, working for seven different popes in all. Bernini was all about drama. He had the striking ability to render emotion and movement faithfully in stone. His figures, like Caravaggio’s, had a fleshy reality; they weren’t the idealised humans of Michelangelo. Bernini’s sculptures are dotted through the public spaces and buildings of Rome, from St Peter’s to Piazza Navona, but his most famous work resides in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria: The Ecstasy of St Theresa (1635) is an astonishingly complex, expressive creation. It recreates Theresa’s mystic vision of an arrow-wielding angel of the Lord, with the eponymous, swooning saint in a tumble of 108

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drapery and light (from a hidden skylight). Some modern observers question whether Theresa’s rapture comes from spiritual enlightenment or more earthly satisfaction, such is the realism.

Spluttering embers: Rococo and Neoclassicism Baroque’s final, 18th century flourish, the French-led flamboyance of Rococo, found few significant Italian practitioners. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, like other Rococo artists, was akin to a brilliant decorator. The Banquet of Cleopatra (c.1755), painted in Tiepolo’s native city, Venice, was typical in its colourful, dramatic, showy and fun style. Other Venetians were more concerned with landscape. Giovanni Antonio Canale, known better as Canaletto, painted colourful, literal scenes of Venetian waterways, traders and festivities that were snapped up by Grand Tourists. Francesco Guardi brought a delicate Rococo touch to the Canaletto style, showing a mastery of brush strokes that would interest the Impressionists years later. Despite the best efforts of Tiepolo, Canaletto and Guardi in Venice, the fires of Italian art were becoming spluttering embers. By the time Rococo’s gingerbread style provoked the austerity of Neoclassicism in the later 18th century, the best artists at work in Italy were foreign, drawn to Rome by its Ancient and Renaissance art. Only Antonio Canova won international fame as the leading sculptor of Neoclassicism. The Three Graces (1817), amongst the most celebrated of Canova’s delicate nudes, shows how Bernini’s intense freeze-frame style had been replaced by the old, considered elegance of Ancient sculpture.

Italy’s pre-Impressionists A small group of painters from Tuscany formed the Macchiaioli school in 1850, with similar aims to the more famous and enduring French Impressionists. Macchie means patches or spots – areas of light and dark – the elements that gave the group’s paintings their strength and radiance. Giovanni Fattori and Silvestro Lega were two of the prime adherents. Many of the Macchiaioli took part in the 1848 uprisings; they were politically engaged and sought a return to the boldness of the old masters. Alas, the majority died in poverty, misunderstood and reviled.

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3.1.5 To the avant-garde and back: modern Italian art Out with the old

I’ve seen the future and it’s sort of blurred looking

The key artists of Futurism, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, Luigi Russolo and Gino Severini, all signed the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting in 1910. First up on its list of declarations was: ‘All forms of imitation must be despised, all forms of originality glorified’.

The most dynamic force in early 20th century Italian art was Futurism. Poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (see section 2.1.5 for more) was the chief founder and polemicist of a movement that launched in 1909 intent on celebrating the energy and movement of the modern, technological age at the expense of traditional forms. Parisian Cubism was an influence, as was the now largely forgotten late 19th century Italian Divisionist movement with its social realist style and love of light.

Aerial perspective Aeropittura (aero painting) was a vital component of the second wave of Futurism, in the interwar period. The technology and excitement of flight, directly experienced by most aero painters, offered up aeroplanes and aerial landscapes as new subject matter.

Giacomo Balla was an important Futurist painter; his Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) was typical of the school’s efforts to render motion, in this case with the frantically blurred legs of its sausage dog star. Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913), its figure slurred by speed, was Futurism in sculptural form. Futurism had largely died out by 1918 (they were less celebratory about the mechanised age after the big industrial war), although re-emerged briefly under the Fascists, notably with the state-sponsored art of Mario Sironi. Although Futurism was short-lived, its components – movement, the celebration of youth, speed, technology and power – emerged not only in Art Deco and the conceptual work of Marcel Duchamp but also influenced much of today’s modern culture, from Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner to the comics of Manga and Anime.

Introspection selection: the Metaphysicals While the Futurists were busy ripping up the order, glorifying the external, mechanised world, another group of artists quietly turned their gaze inwards, to the subconscious. The Metaphysical school painted dreamlike scenes that would prove highly influential to the Dada and Surrealist movements. Giorgio de Chirico, a Greek born of Italian parents, was the big name, famed for strange, haunting images of colonnaded piazzas. He studied philosophy in Germany and loved the “Nietzschean squares” of Turin. Belgian painter René Magritte described 110 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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de Chirico’s Song of Love (1914) as a “complete break with the mental habits of artists…a new vision”. Giorgio Morandi and Filippo De Pisis were other important Metaphysical artists, as was Futurist defector Carlo Carrà.

Why the long face? Ask Modigliani Although the Expressionism that grew in early 20th century Europe struggled to make a significant impact in Italy, the nation did produce one of the movement’s most thrilling exponents, albeit one who spent most of his working life in France. Livorno-born Amedeo Modigliani had a short and tragically shambolic life, curtailed by ill health (aged 35) and aggravated by various bohemian addictions. And yet his work, influenced by Romanian sculptor Brancusi, is instantly recognisable and idiosyncratic: heads were painted flat and mask-like, with almond eyes and long necks, their form vaguely reminiscent of ancient Egyptian painting, or the African masks, exhibited in Paris, that had nudged a thrilled Picasso towards Cubism. Modigliani also produced sculpture, adopting the same approach as he did to painting.

Devoted companion Upon hearing of Modigliani’s death in 1920, his 21-year-old muse and mistress, Jeanne Hebuterne, eight months pregnant with their second child, committed suicide by jumping from a fifthstorey window in Paris. It does what it says on the tin In 1961 Piero Manzoni created an artwork of 90 small, sealed tin cans labelled ‘artist’s shit’. One of the cans sold for $80,000 in 2007.

Art on a budget It was the critic Germano Celant who first used the term Arte Povera (impoverished or poor art) in relation to a small group of Italian artists producing radical work in the 1960s and 70s. The radical, unrestrained manner in which they expressed a politically charged standpoint (in the era of student protests and anti-war demos) would shape the art of the later 20th century with its ephemeral modes of performance, installation, interaction and assemblage. They were inspired by Marcel Duchamp and by Piero Manzoni, a brilliant, ironic conceptual Italian artist who died, aged 29, a year or two before Arte Povera got started. The ‘poorness’ of the Arte Povera clique related to the cheap materials they used, from newspapers to vegetables. By using rudimentary ingredients they hoped to cross the divide between life and art, to trigger a reaction from the viewer and also subvert the

United nations of art The Venice Biennale, the most famous festival of international art (dance has recently been added to the menu), is held every two years. It began in 1895, and has struggled to maintain a truly representative showcase of world art ever since. Attending countries get their own pavilion to show in, aided by a central exhibition space and numerous fringe activities and displays.

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Seven contemporary Italian artists Luca Trevisani. Conceptual artist creating multimedia meditations on beauty and energy. Vanessa Beecroft. Arranges (and films) tableaux of (mainly) nude women. Luisa Lambri. Filmmaker producing simple light-fixated work in modern, empty buildings. Nico Vascellari. Punk rocker turned performance artist. Diego Perrone. Conceptualist and image-maker inspired by Arte Povera. Rosella Biscotti. Filmmaker documenting ‘ordinary’ lives. Paola Pivi. Photographer and film-maker; often puts animals in unexpected landscapes.

commercialisation of art. Arte Povera produced a number of significant figures, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giovanni Anselmo and Alighiero Boetti among them.

Beyond the avant-garde After the Arte Povera storm came the Transavanguardia calm. Meaning, literally, ‘beyond the avant-garde’, the movement arose in the late 1970s and survived well into the 80s as part of a wider neo-Expressionist movement. They reacted against conceptual art, adopting a more figurative, joyous approach, using traditional methods (painting and sculpture) if not traditional styles. The themes chosen by Transavanguardia artists were always eclectic, poaching subject matter from both Antiquity and the modern world. Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola de Maria and Mimmo Paladino (all still at work) were among the key figures.

Niche work if you can get it: contemporary Italian art Although plenty of contemporary artists are providing the modern curatorial scene with challenging, arresting and ironical post-modern work, Italian art suffers from a lack of cohesion. There is no ‘It Pack’. The Italian public would be hard-pressed to know what Italian modern art is. Or who Vanessa Beecroft is, for example – she’s a Genoese performance artist, working in America in a style that still references Classical art, usually through the grouping of static nude bodies.

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3.1.6 Style and substance: modern Italian design

A genetic blueprint: la linea Italiana Italy seems to have an innate sense of design, a natural affinity with aesthetics. Maybe the origins lie somewhere in the architecture of Ancient Rome, although the modern Italian talent for design only really emerged in the 1930s, led by American ideas and money. Italian architects (all the key designers of this formative period trained in architecture, and most favoured the simple Rationalist style (see section 3.2.5 for more)) applied a restrained, unadorned touch to the streamlined, industrially made consumer products of the period. After the war, this Italian style became internationally renowned, dubbed la linea Italiana amid the excitement of the economic miracle. Because it began in architecture and industry, before crossing enthusiastically to interior design, the Italian style has always come from within the established order; it hasn’t had to rely on avant-garde outsiders in the same way that, for example, British design has. As such, it’s more ingrained in Italy than it might be elsewhere. However, it’s also worth noting that while Italy retains

Taken for a ride by Giugiaro In 1999 Giorgetto Giugiaro was named Car Designer of the Century by a cabal of the industry’s great and good. He’s designed dozens of cars since the 1960s. Many of you will have ridden in the more utilitarian triumphs, the VW Mk 1 Golf (1974) or the Fiat Panda (1980); some may even claim a ride in the shark-nosed Maserati Ghibli (1966) or the Lotus Esprit (1972).

Who begat Bugatti? Bugatti, perhaps the most famously elegant of all Italian motor manufacturers, was actually founded in Alsace (then part of Germany), France, in 1909. However, the man behind it all, Ettore Bugatti, was Milanese, the son of an Art Nouveau designer. A Bugatti car, the Type 35B, won the first Monaco Grand Prix, held in 1929. Bugatti went out of business in the 1960s, although the name lives on today under Volkswagen ownership.

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Three designers who shaped Italian style Marco Zanuso. Zanuso loved a chair: the Antropus (1949) and Lady (1951) were designed for the Arflex company using foam rubber upholstery. Gio Ponti. The founder of the influential Domus design magazine also designed a certain gleaming La Pavoni coffee machine (1948) and the robust Superleggera chair (1957), so light you could lift it with one finger.

Flaminio Bertoni. His best work went into two iconic French designs: the Citroën 2 CV (1948) and the long, sleek Citroën DS 19, unveiled at the 1955 Paris Motor Show and soon dubbed ‘The Goddess’.

its reputation for design, and Milan continues to be the centre of the design universe, the majority of Italians aren’t hooked on contemporary style. The small scale of most Italian design manufacturers – such as Cassina furniture, Artemide lighting or Alessi utensils – reflects the wealthy niche market for which they cater. Design talent on show Compasso d’Oro. An internationally recognised prize for excellence in Italian industrial design since 1954. Triennale di Milano. One of the most important (permanent) exhibitions of design and architecture around; first set up in 1923. Salone Internazionale del Mobile. The most important interior design show in the world has been held annually in Milan for nearly 50 years.

Pop culture, plastics and the Memphis collective Pop culture collided with new production processes and materials (in the age of plastics and fibre glass) in the 1960s. Consumerism and a growing affluence spurred design on (interior design in particular), fostering iconic items created in Italy and enjoyed the world over. Vico Magistretti was designing plastic furniture for Cassina, blending utility with smooth lines. Joe Colombo, with his stackable polypropylene Universale chair (1965), the first chair moulded from a single material, followed a similarly unfussy mantra. Another iconic seat of the Pop era, Blow (1967) by Jonathan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino and Paolo Lomazzi, was the first mass-produced inflatable armchair. By the late 1960s, the simple Rationalism that had informed so much Italian design fell victim to its own success; detractors called it irrelevant and capitalistic. So-called Anti-Design groups emerged advocating individual creativity and the use of ornamentation for its own sake. The most important were the Memphis collective founded in Milan, in 1980, by Ettore Sottsass, a key figure in modern Italian design (he produced Olivetti’s

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bright red plastic Valentine typewriter (1969)). They replaced the sleek but sensible styling of Rationalism with lurid colours, kitsch motifs and cheap materials, winning international acclaim. Shape shifters: five contemporary Italian designers Mario Bellini. Architect and designer (from typewriters to taps) since the 1960s; his Cab chair (1976) (four legs, a back and a seat) is sublimely simple. Alessandro Mendini. Veteran post-Modernist; you’ll recognise his Anna G corkscrew (1994), designed for Alessi. Alberto Meda. Known for his furniture and, among other designs, the Titania lamp (1989). Won the Compasso d’Oro in 2008 for Mix, an LED table lamp. Antonio Citterio. Renowned for furniture, notably Spoon (2002), a bar stool that looks like a bent – yes, that’s right – spoon. Andrea Branzi. A theorist and designer, acclaimed for his Revers chair (1993), its beechwood arms curving over a utilitarian frame.

Italian design classics Vespa scooter. Designed by Corradino D’Ascanio in 1946 for the Piaggio firm, the Vespa (Italian for wasp) is the epitome of Italian design with its simple, functional elegance. Initially D’Ascanio, an aeronautical engineer, made the scooter from leftover fighter plane starter motors and based its front wheel fork on the design of aircraft landing gear. Olivetti Lexicon 80 typewriter. The Olivetti company produced several stylish typewriters over the course of the 20th century, beginning with Camillo Olivetti’s robust and elegant M1 (1910), but none became as iconic as the sculptural Lexicon 80 (1948) designed by Marcello Nizzoli. Arco floor light. You know the one: square marble base with a looping stainless steel stem and shining upturned bowl. It was designed by Achille Castiglioni with his older brothers Luigi and Pier Giacomo in 1962.

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3.2 Architecture You can’t help but notice the standout feats of Italian architecture, from Rome’s Pantheon to Pisa’s baptistery, but the staggering physical heritage is more often woven, unceremoniously, into the fabric of everyday life, whether the buildings are Ancient, Baroque, Rationalist or Fascist.

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3.2.1 Built to last: Ancient architecture

Vitruvius’ DIY manual

All in order: the Roman style of building

The oldest surviving book on architectural theory was written by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman architect and engineer. The ten volumes of De architectura (first century BC) reveal how extensively the Romans borrowed from earlier Greek models.

The Romans’ most obvious, not to say startling, achievements came in civil engineering and architecture. The world that was once theirs is still littered with aqueducts, public baths, roads, theatres, temples and houses (both grand and humble). Their early architecture took its cue from the Etruscans who enjoyed a rectangular colonnaded temple as much as the Greeks (although none survive), before that same Greek influence, with its Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders (each with its own column), became the overriding style of the later Roman Republic era. Embellished by Latin ingenuity and swayed by local tastes throughout Rome’s vast territories, the Classical Greek style dominated during the Empire period. Although several cities in Asia Minor and the Middle East rivalled Rome for the quantity of its large structures, none could match its complex variety in size and scale.

Set in concrete Perhaps, though, we should marvel more at the Romans’ construction techniques than their styling (however artfully they borrowed and absorbed). They were very big in concrete. The mixture of aggregate, lime and a volcanic ash called pozzolana enabled Roman architects to take the Greeks’ rectilinear buildings and to add huge arches and domes (the Greeks had used arches, but the Romans took them to new heights). Concrete provided the solidity required for large-scale projects like the Colosseum or five-storey insulae (apartment blocks). Bricks, or marble if the client’s pockets were deep enough, usually covered the concrete. In some instances, most memorably the dome of Rome’s Pantheon, the raw material was cast into a coffered pattern. It all had (and continues to have) a far-reaching effect on architecture. 118 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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The big circus

Five structures of Ancient Italy Paestum. The best-preserved city of Magna Graecia, in Campania, contains three monumental, podgy-columned Doric temples, the oldest dating to 550BC. Colosseum. Rome’s amphitheatre has a complex but utilitarian centre and a fine Greek-inspired exterior, its arches telling a mini-story of Greek temple building: the ground floor columns in Doric style, the second in Ionic and the third in Corinthian. Begun by Emperor Vespasian in 75AD, it once held 80,000 spectators, all braying for blood. Pantheon. The most complete extant temple of Ancient Rome (a temple to all the Gods), resident in Piazza della Rotonda since 126AD, remains staggering with its vast dome and portico. The architect Palladio would be inspired, like many others, in the 16th century. Forum baths, Pompeii. Wander through dressing rooms, the cold room, the slightly less cold room (the tepidarium), building up to the hot room complete with marble fountain, all with barrel-vaulted ceilings. Villa Adriana. Hadrian’s second century residence in Tivoli, near Rome, partly of his own design, broke through the opulence barrier with porticoed pools, a ‘maritime theatre’ and steam baths.

The Circus Maximus in Rome, a 600-metre-long hippodrome dating back to the Etruscan era, once held 300,000 spectators, more than Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana (200,000 in its heyday) and the current world’s biggest, the Rungrado May Day Stadium in fun-filled Pyongyang, North Korea (150,000). Nearly all of the Circus Maximus’ structures are long gone, but the open space remains a place for Roman celebration – in 2006, 700,000 squeezed in to celebrate the football World Cup victory.

TH E C O LO S S EU M W A S N A M ED A F TER TH E ‘ C O LO S S U S ’ O F N ER O TH A T O N C E S TO O D N EA R B Y

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Having it large: the birth of the basilica The first Christian churches built in Rome were authorised, and mostly financed, by Emperor Constantine. They were vast colonnaded halls, simply built in spite of their size. Little use was made of vaulting, except over the apse, where the main altar stood. Churches weren’t modelled on pagan temples – there wasn’t room enough inside for the congregation. Instead, they imitated the large Roman assembly halls known as basilicas, a word that meant, roughly, ‘royal halls’. In Rome’s Forum, the remaining northern aisle of the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine (completed in 312), its concrete barrel vaults intact, hints at the enormous scale these new churches took. The simple basilica style spread to the Eastern Roman Empire and bounced back to Italy with lavishly decorated Byzantine interiors that belied the bare, sombre (although now multi-sided) exterior. Ravenna’s three sixth-century Christian basilicas are the best preserved in the country (see section 3.1.1 for more).

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3.2.2 Classical leanings: the medieval builds

A twist on Romanesque The Romanesque style of architecture that prevailed in Western Europe from the tenth to the 13th centuries was fleetingly important in Italy. Where it did emerge, the motifs of Romanesque – thick columns, round arches and small windows – were tweaked by local tastes. The Lombard style, which actually had its finest hour south of Lombardy in Modena’s 12th century cathedral, stuck closest to the solid Romanesque standard. As you might expect, in Rome the style rubbed up against Classicism, in monumental basilicas lined with Corinthian columns. Florence and Siena brought a flourish to their buildings with layers of coloured marble, but Tuscany’s Romanesque experience reached its apogee in Pisa where the cathedral (begun in 1064), baptistery (1153) and campanile (1173) – with its famous lean – all drew heavily on Classical pomp. Pisa’s ensemble included the odd Islamic ingredient (notably the cathedral dome), but in southern Italy this exotic influence enjoyed greater leverage, mixed with Byzantine, Classical and Norman elements (much of southern Italy was in Norman hands) in a number of fine cathedrals. Three sublime Romanesque buildings Pisa’s campanile. Italy’s most famous Romanesque building, bell tower to the adjacent cathedral, has marble band after marble band of arcading. It was leaning by the time three of its eight tiers were completed – see what happens when you build on sand? Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio, Milan. A humble, brick-built church begun c.1080 that became the model for the Lombard Romanesque style with its repetitive arches. Monreale Cathedral, Sicily. Built in the decade after 1174, Sicily’s most stunning Norman build blends an austere Romanesque exterior (towering bronze doors aside) with a dazzling, golden Byzantine interior. The builders even threw in pointy Arabic archways.

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Getting all defensive: castles, hill towns and towers Petulant medieval rulers built fortresses across Italy, some featuring the basic elements of the local architectural brand, be it Lombard, Byzantine or Arabic. The Normans left the most enduring structures, depositing castles across southern Italy. They began as simple stone boxes, but by the reign of Frederick II, King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor (who married into the Norman dynasty), had become increasingly aesthetic. Frederick’s Castel del Monte, an octagonal, Puglian wonder of 1240, is perhaps the most impressive fortress in Italy. At the other end of the land, notably in the Valle d’Aosta region, dozens of feudal castles were built to control alpine valleys in the 13th century. Elsewhere, fortified towns, most famously on the hills of Tuscany and Umbria, helped shape civil architecture. Many of the grand town halls built in this period, such as the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, have the look of fortresses. In central and northern Italy, where local lords felt threatened by neighbours, they built intimidating stone towers. As alliances and hierarchies were established, the height of a tower spoke of wealth and status. One survivor, the Torre degli Asinelli in Bologna, reaches up 97 metres.

Dabbling in Gothic In northern Europe, Gothic had superseded Romanesque by the 13th century. French master builders used flying buttresses and pointed arches to give buildings soaring new height. Italy, remaining faithful to its solid Classical roots, didn’t pay that much attention. The buildings that

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did go up (most of them ecclesiastical), like the fine green and white layered cathedral in Siena, were selective with their Gothic features. They didn’t race to reach the heavens like French churches, so flying buttresses weren’t required for support. Instead they incorporated pointed arches and the odd piece of rib vaulting into tried and trusted Classical shapes. In Venice, where Gothic met Byzantine and Arab influences, architects added facades to older structures and bits of Gothic style to new ones, notably the arches lined up along the Doge’s Palace in St Mark’s Square. Only Milan did Gothic in its full, flamboyant northern mode. The city’s huge duomo, commissioned in 1386 (and only completed 400 years later), had soaring archways, fine stone tracery and over 100 spires.

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3.2.3 Designing harmony: Renaissance architecture

Brunelleschi’s wet dream

Brunelleschi starts something big

Not only did Brunelleschi come up with Florence’s famous dome, make the first one-point linear perspective paintings and design theatrical machinery, he also devised and built a huge ship, Il Badalone (The Monster), to carry marble from Pisa to Florence on the River Arno. It sank on its maiden voyage in 1427. Even genius has its limits.

Unlike art, the architecture of the quattrocento didn’t evolve gradually from Gothic. Rather, its instigators sought a deliberate change of direction, recalling the symmetry, proportion and harmony of Classical buildings. Gothic’s pointed, ill-disciplined shapes were updated with semi-circular arches, Classical columns and, if at all possible, a whacking great dome. Even so, in his finest hour, the Florentine genius who initiated the change, Filippo Brunelleschi (he of the artist’s perspective – see section 3.1.3), introduced Classicism to an essentially Gothic building. He designed the dome for Florence Cathedral (1418-36), solving the old problem of how to span the cavernous space between the building’s pillars. In researching the past (he patented a hoisting machine for the masonry based on Vitruvius’ texts), and adding his own 15th century ingenuity, Brunelleschi set the standard for Renaissance architecture.

“IT’S AS TH OUGH THE SKY IS E NV IOU S, AS IT K E E P S ON S HO O TI N G TH U N D ER B O LTS D O W N AT IT , BEL IEVING THA T ITS HE IGHT HAS AL M OS T E XC E E DE D T H E H EI G H T O F A I R . ” Giorgio Vasari on Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral

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Another Florentine, Leon Battista Alberti, was Brunelleschi’s most notable immediate successor. He was faithful to Classical forms, but like Brunelleschi modified the principles to suit contemporary requirements. His masterly facade for the Palazzo Rucellai (1446-51) in Florence mixed Gothic window forms and Classical proportion without the slightest hint of awkwardness. It was one of various Renaissance palaces built in Florence in the mid 15th century.

Three key architects of the High Renaissance In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the focus of Renaissance architecture moved from Florence to Rome, drawn by the popes’ deep coffers. Three architects stood out:

Karma by design Bramante’s original designs for St Peter’s swallowed up so much money that the pope was forced to sell indulgences to maintain cash flow. This, apparently, led somebody called Martin Luther, in Germany, to his first public protest. Whoops.

Donato Bramante moved on from the pick ’n’ mix of Brunelleschi and Alberti to unadulterated Classicism, intent on creating perfect structures to mirror the ambitions of the age. With its dome and Doric colonnade, the Tiempetto (first decade of 16th century) of San Pietro in Montorio Church, Rome, is small but perfectly formed; the high point of the High Renaissance no less. Bramante’s most famous designs, commissioned for St Peter’s Basilica in Rome by Pope Julius II in 1506, were on a different scale altogether – the eventual build was actually a scaled down compromise. Bramante’s plan for a church with a dome resting on gigantic arches was too expensive, even for the papacy. Antonio da Sangallo, the youngest in a family of Tuscan architects, became chief designer on St Peter’s Basilica after the death of his tutor, Bramante. Like Bramante, da Sangallo employed a simple, monumental Classicism, as seen in the church of Santa Maria di Loreto, Rome. His fanciest build was the Palazzo Farnese in Rome; his most beguiling, a well, 62 metres deep and surrounded by a double spiral staircase, cut into the rock of Orvieto, Umbria.

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Three great Renaissance buildings outside Rome Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419-27), Florence. Brunelleschi’s best secular building was an orphanage. After the years of Gothic, here was an elegant loggia of ordered proportion, with semi-circular arches, round columns and pediments. Unwanted children were deposited in a basin at the front of the building. Santa Maria della Consolazione (begun 1508-1607), Todi, Umbria. Probably the work of Bramante (although some credit an architect called Cola da Caprarola), this simple but large-scale church, a dome atop a serene and ordered Greek Cross, may well be how St Peter’s in Rome was originally supposed to look. Villa Capra (or La Rotunda) (1566-71), Vicenza. The exemplar Palladio building. Inspired by Roman temples, with a portico on each of four facades, the villa is completely symmetrical.

Michelangelo took over the St Peter’s job in 1547, when he was 72 years old (12 successive designers, painter Raphael among them, worked on the building in all). He didn’t dismiss his predecessor’s designs but drew on them, and the basilica, with its massive, confident sense of order (it’s the biggest in the world), became a signal precursor of Baroque grandeur.

Stretching the Classics: Mannerist architecture Bramante’s honest simplicity was overtaken by the manipulation of Mannerism in the 1520s. While Michelangelo stuck closely to the Classical rules for St Peter’s (albeit contorting the dome slightly), his earlier buildings often joyfully disregarded convention in pursuit of capricious invention. The vestibule he designed for the Biblioteca Laurenziana (c.1524) in Florence messed around with the order and spacing of Classical motifs, grafting false windows and columns onto the interior. Giulio Romano did something similar in Mantua, using blind windows and stretched, irregular columns in the Palazzo del Tè (1524-34). Giorgio Vasari (see section 3.1.3 for more), president of the Michelangelo fan club, also used Mannerism’s exaggeration in his design for the Uffizi (1560-80) buildings in Florence.

Palladio goes in search of perfection Like other Renaissance masters, Andrea Palladio dallied with Mannerism, lining up the columns for purely aesthetic affect, but his was a cooler, more assured approach, one that trusted to knowledge (no one studied Roman architecture, the temples in particular, so intently) and built on Bramante’s sense of serene Classical order. He lived and worked chiefly around Vicenza, near Venice, where his palaces and villas, symmetrical and perfect, soak up the light of northern Italy and the praise of generations of architects.

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Palladio was the most persuasive architect of the Italian Renaissance; some say the most influential Western architect of all time. Although his work is concentrated on a few Italian acres – including the Venetian island on which he squeezed the large Church of San Giorgio Maggiore (1566-1610) – his reputation spread, helped by the publication of his architectural treatise I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1570). Palladio set the Neoclassical standard that would dominate European architecture for centuries; his influence can be seen in London’s St Paul’s Cathedral and in the Louvre, Paris.

Palladio’s Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

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3.2.4 The high drama of Baroque

Pearl of wisdom

Praise be, it’s Baroque

The term Baroque (barocco in Italian) has its origins in the Portuguese word for a misshapen pearl. Like ‘Renaissance’, the term was only applied years after the period it describes was over.

The decoration that began appearing on buildings in Michelangelo’s day – the embellished facades, faux windows and coloured marble – became the industry standard by the 17th century. In Italy, at least, Palladioderived restraint would have to wait its turn. This was Baroque, a dazzling, unrestrained assault on the senses designed to reinforce the majesty of heavenly pageantry. Curvy and audacious, Baroque architecture was the Catholic Church Counter-Reformation PR drive realised in stone. Rome was the epicentre. Indeed, the Rome of today is fundamentally a Baroque city. The rest of Italy struggled to keep up (even while Baroque journeyed around Europe and the New World with remarkable success), although certain regions produced their own version, from the showy style of Naples and Lecce, in Puglia, to the elegant palaces and hunting lodges of Turin.

The key Baroque architects Giacomo della Porta. He got the Baroque ball rolling with an action-packed facade (1584) for Il Gesù, the first Jesuit church in Rome. It brought a new fluidity to Classicism with its large volute scrolls on either side, and was duly copied the world over. As the prime architect in late 16th century Rome, della Porta also completed the dome for St Peter’s after Michelangelo’s death.

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Gianlorenzo Bernini. The theatrical genius of Baroque sculpture (see section 3.1.4 for more) was also a fine architect. He worked extensively on St Peter’s, from the baldacchino (altar canopy) (1624-1633), a twisting bronze marvel, to the tombs of successive popes and the vast, colonnaded Piazza San Pietro (1667) that still grabs worshippers approaching the basilica like a pair of giant forceps. However, the small elliptical church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (begun in 1658), its facade bending this way and that, was Bernini’s Bernini’s church of Sant’Andrea al Qurinale personal favourite.

This town ain’t big enough for both of us Where Bernini was good looking, charming and popular with women, his rival Borromini was terse, depressive and possibly homosexual. Bernini’s growing fame was a contributory factor as Borromini slid into despair in the 1660s. He became housebound and was advised to give up work. Eventually, one torrid Roman night in 1667, it all got too much and he fell on his own sword. He did a good enough job to kill himself, but it took some time; during which he was able to repent and write a will. He was buried anonymously, as per his wishes.

Francesco Borromini. The prime architect of Italian Baroque did more to shape the look of Rome than any other. He didn’t quite share Bernini’s sense of theatre (nor his personality – they didn’t get on at all), but he did rival his talent for bending the rules, designing complex, curving, agitated buildings that smudged the distinction between sculpture and architecture. Despite the busy pediments, elliptical domes and tongue-like scrolls, each Borromini building was underlain with a strict geometrical plan. His facade for the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone (1653-66), in Piazza Navona, is quintessential Baroque, but Borromini’s masterpiece is the petite church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1638-67), on the Quirinal Hill.

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Guarino Guarini. He was born in Modena, but the priest, mathematician and architect Guarini made his impression in Turin. He built churches and palaces with complex domes, windows and arches almost Moorish in their delicacy. At the Palazzo Carignano (1679) he took Borromini’s love of a rolling, wavy facade to new levels. Guarini’s texts on architecture would help push Baroque out around Europe in the 18th century. Going down with the shop Giuseppe Mengoni designed the poised Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade in Milan. It was whilst he was on a platform at the top of the building, making final checks shortly before the building’s grand opening in 1877, that he slipped and fell to his death.

Been there, done that: Italy’s brush with Neoclassical building Despite a love of both Palladio and good old Roman form (Pompeii had been recently discovered), Neoclassical architecture didn’t make the impression on 18th century Italy that it did elsewhere, perhaps because the movement’s Republican spirit was a long way from most Italians’ thoughts. When Neoclassicism did appear in the 19th century, urged on by the Napoleonic ‘Empire style’, it emerged in oversized trophy buildings. Giuseppe Mengoni’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (18651877), a polished shopping arcade in Milan, showed how modern construction methods (namely glass and steel) could work with Classicism. Another building named for the king, the giant colonnaded marble monument, Il Vittoriano (18851911), leering over Rome’s Piazza Venezia, has endured decades of general derision. A medieval neighbourhood was cleared to make room for it.

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3.2.5 In the shadow of greatness: modern Italian architecture Dipping a toe in Art Nouveau Industrial age architecture blended with the organic shapes of Art Nouveau at the turn of the 20th century. In Italy they called it Stile Floreale or Stile Liberty (after the London store that stocked Art Nouveau designers). Stile Floreale was concentrated in Italy’s northern cities. Turin set the pace with the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna of 1902, an exhibition of modern design resolute on killing off the past. The pavilions were designed by Raimondo D’Aronco, a key Italian exponent of Art Nouveau. In truth, Art Nouveau made only a modest impact in Italy (most of D’Aronco’s work unfurled in Turkey). The buildings that did appear in Milan, Genoa and Turin featured stone and wrought iron decoration (of lithe tendrils and listless women) rather than great architectural leaps. Giuseppe Sommaruga’s Palazzo Castiglioni (1903) in Milan is usually cited as Italy’s finest Stile Floreale building.

Function rooms: Italy does the International Style The Modernist International Style, with its simple lines, functionality and craving for reinforced concrete (as championed by foreign ‘form follows function’ heroes Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius), appeared to Italian architecture after the First World War in the shape of Rationalism. The ‘rationale’ was that design should be based on the logical requirements of living. Seven Rationalist architects, led by Giuseppe Terragni, formed the Gruppo 7 in Milan in 1926 to pursue the aims. The movement got sucked into the rise of fascism and its members designed buildings for Mussolini.

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Terragni left out in the cold Giuseppe Terragni may have been the Fascists’ architect of choice – a number of commissions came from one of Mussolini’s mistresses – but it didn’t stop the regime packing him off to the Russian front as an artillery officer in 1941. He returned to Como in an ambulance two years later, broken in all senses, and died soon after, aged 39, apparently after renouncing fascism. Cousin Ernie The revered British architect Richard Rogers had an elder Italian cousin. Ernesto Rogers was also an architect. He was involved in the design for Milan’s famous Torre Velasca (1954), a top-heavy Brutalist tower block. The Fascist behind Watergate Luigi Morreti, who devised various monumental buildings and plans for the Fascists (he helped design Rome’s Foro Italico (1934-40) sporting complex, stocked with athletic Classical statuary), designed the Watergate complex in Washington after the war.

Two important Rationalists Giuseppe Terragni. The most celebrated of the Gruppo 7 clique designed Casa del Fascio (1932-36), a study in minimalism and the new modern aesthetics of the International Style. Tainted by its Fascist links, the building was later renamed Casa del Popolo. Adalberto Libera. Another of the Gruppo 7 Fascist gang, Libera designed the vast Palazzo del Congressio (1938-54) in Rome, but is perhaps known best for Villa Malaparte (1938), the red box house on a Capri cliff top which starred in the Brigitte Bardot film, Le Mépris (1963).

Buildings you’ll love to hate: Fascist architecture Widely mocked or ignored in the 50 years after the war, Fascist architecture is receiving a more balanced appraisal in Italy these days, amongst some at least. Indeed, say it quietly if you’re in company, but the Fascists put up some rather interesting buildings. Terragni, Libera and co’s mixture of International Style and Mussolinian grandeur (however deluded) generated a certain harmony between Modernist and Classical elements. The famous E42 suburb of Rome, now called EUR (after the Esposizione Universale Roma for which it was built but which it never staged), includes the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, or ‘Square Colosseum’, and also proved a highly successful out-of-town business district.

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The Pantheon – what a load of rubbish When Bruno Zevi died after a coughing fit in 2000, Italy lost its greatest architectural historian and theoretician. His was a passionate voice of dissent. For Zevi, the Pantheon, being symmetrical, was ‘catastrophic’. He deplored Classical architecture as the language of repression, but he also hated post-Modernism. Fragmentation, dissonance and rupture were, he felt, modern virtues to be upheld. His 1945 book, Towards an Organic Architecture, brought worldwide fame. “I F R O M E C A R R I ES O N I N TH I S W A Y , I T W I LL B EC O M E A B EA U TI FU L N EC R O PO LI S , B EA U TI FU L F O R TH E J A PA N ES E W H O C O M E F O R TH E S H O PPI N G A N D TH E A M ER I C A N S W H O G ET D R U N K I N TH E C EN TR E. B U T I T C ER TA I N LY W O N ’ T B E A M O D ER N C I TY . ” Roman architect Francesco Coppari

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Nervi, the concrete king One figure outshone all others in the post-war period. Pier Luigi Nervi wasn’t so much an architect as an ingegnere edile (building engineer), whose mastery of reinforced concrete (echoing the Romans) generated memorable and beautiful buildings. His talent became obvious early on with the Giovanni Berta Stadium (1932) in Florence, typical Nervi with its aesthetic solution to a structural conundrum. Latticed concrete roofs became a Nervi motif, as seen on the glass and concrete Turin Exhibition Building (1949). Later in his career, he collaborated with designer Gio Ponti (see section 3.1.6 for more) on Milan’s Pirelli Building (1958), the structural embodiment of 50s Italian chic.

Three other interesting post-war architects Carlo Scarpa was inspired by the historic architecture of his native Venice, mixing its craftsmanship with modern functionality for an organic mode of architecture. Not many of his designs came to fruition; the most celebrated is the concrete, rectilinear Brion-Vega cemetery near Treviso, in which Scarpa himself is entombed, standing up. Aldo Rossi presided over a Neorationalist movement in the 1960s and 70s. Unlike their inter-war predecessors, they enjoyed Neoclassical style (mixed with the bare Rationalist functionalism). The Spartan Gallaratese II (1969-73) housing development in Milan made flesh the Rossi philosophy, as described in the influential L’architettura della città (1966) treatise. Paolo Portoghesi, still working today, pursues an organic architecture blending new ideas with the stylistic achievements of Baroque (he’s a big Borromini fan). Rome’s luminescent Central Mosque (1974-95) is his best work.

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The state of contemporary architecture in Italy In renown at least, one figure looms above the rest. Renzo Piano’s international reputation was first built in collaboration with Richard and Sue Rogers on the exoskeletal, colour-coded Pompidou Centre in Paris. His style has matured quietly over the intervening 30 years and his buildings, commissioned from San Francisco to Sydney, have highly original structures. The Parco della Musica (2002) complex of concert halls in Rome reflects Piano’s idiosyncrasy, shaped, as it is, like a family of giant armadillos. Another contemporary figure, Massimiliano Fuksas, grows in stature; the Fiera di Milano exhibition centre, with a large, flowing canopy of glass and steel, is one of a handful of Fuksas works completed in Italy. Some of the most exciting architecture unfurling on Italian soil is being set down by foreign designers. The steel and glass loggia extension to the Uffizi in Florence, for instance, designed by Japan’s Arata Isozaki, is due for completion in 2013. And the government response to its imminent arrival says much about attitudes to modern architecture in Italy, where there’s a reluctance to mingle modern with ancient. Culture Minister Sandro Bondi questioned how Isozaki’s structure would “live alongside the adjacent loggias designed by Giorgio Vasari without shocking Florentines and visitors from all over the world”.

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4 Music, theatre, dance and comedy 4.1 Music p139 4.1.1 The sounds of tradition: Italian folk music p140 4.1.2 Life in opera’s shadow: classical music p143

4.1.3 Italian by design: opera p148

4.2.2 Italy on the dancefloor p169

4.1.4 Rock, pop, rap, hip hop, dance and the rest… p154

4.2.3 Laughing matter: Italian comedy p173

4.2 Theatre, dance and comedy p161 4.2.1 Dramatis personae: the key figures of Italian theatre p162

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4.1 Music ‘Opera’ translates from Italian as ‘labour’, and to the outsider it might seem like Italy labours rather over its music, particularly the modern stuff. Not that Italians care what we think of their efforts – listen to Calabria’s mournful canto di malavita or the gruff emotion of Paolo Conte and you’ll hear why they delight in home-grown sounds.

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4.1.1 The sounds of tradition: Italian folk music

The assortment of regions, city states, dialects and cultural traditions that made up pre-Unification Italy (and which still exert a strong influence today) bequeathed each portion of the country its own work songs, love songs, dance tunes and lullabies, passed down through generations in the oral tradition. There is no common national character to Italian folk music. However, divide the country into north and south and there are discernible, if rather broad, trends to be found. In the north, the music displays Celtic and Slavic influences. Usually it’s polyphonic (having two or more lines of melody) and choral in nature with clear, deep-pitched, harmonised voices. In the south, the influences are Arabic, Greek and African. Solo performance predominates, with highpitched, often strangulated singing. Certain regional folk music traditions are more noteworthy than others. Piedmont’s valleys stand out with the medieval songs of the trovatori (the Occitan troubadours) and Sicily has its share of extant styles, notably the friscaletto (flute music), baride (brass bands), and the ancient ottava rima (the improvised singing of eight-line stanzas) of the poeti contadini (peasant poets). Few traditions have gained much attention beyond the limits of their own region, although three particular forms are well recognised in much of the country: Tenores of Sardinia Sardinia is home to the ancient tradition of cantu a tenores (tenores singing), a polyphonic chant for four male voices. The quartet form an intimate huddle, the lead voice (boghe) introduces the chant and the other three, the middle voice (mesa boghe), the counter (contra) and the bass (bassu), respond aggressively in harmonised overtones with meaningless words such as ‘ba’, ‘bom’ and ‘bam’. The best-known contemporary performers are the Tenores di Bitti and the Tenores de Oniferi, both of whom have attained some international recognition. In 2005, UNESCO designated tenores singing

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‘A Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’, which means it is a joy to behold but could soon go the way of the dodo. Trallaleri of Genoa The trallalero singers of the Genoese dockyard taverns were traditionally longshoremen, gathered in groups of between five and nine. Each group features a tenor, a baritone, a bass (sometimes as many as five), a voice that weirdly imitates a guitar (la chitarra) and another that imitates (even more weirdly) a woman (la donna). Considered by Alan Lomax, the American song collector of the 1950s, to be “the most perfect choristers in western Europe”, the trallaleri sing in intricate and largely improvised harmony and counterpoint, producing a haunting and sometimes disturbing result, as heard on the best-known trallalero song La Partenza. Contemporary groups include La Squadra (Compagnia del trallalero) and La Squadra di Canto Popolare Valpolcevera. Canto di malavita of Calabria You want folk music with an edge? Go to Calabria. In recent years, the controversial canto di malavita (songs of a life of crime) and canto di carcerato (songs of prison life) have emerged from a century or more of secrecy. They’re the folk songs of the ‘Ndrangheta, the powerful Calabrian mafia. The music was released on three albums under the title La Musica Della Mafia (2000-05) featuring songs like Sangu chiama sangu (Blood Cries for Blood), Cu sgarra, paga (Who Fails, Pays) and the terrifying U ballu da famigghja Muntalbanu (The Dance of the Muntalbanu Family). The albums are only available in Italy as a German import, as it seems no Italian record company has quite got round to releasing them yet…

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How to play the launeddas It’s not easy. There are three differently sized cane pipes involved. Hold the longest one, the tumbu (the one with no holes), in your left hand. Grapple with the second longest, the mancosa manna (five holes), in the same hand, before taking the third – and shortest – pipe, the mancosedda (also five holes), in your right hand. Place all three in your mouth and blow, producing a drone with the long pipe and playing simultaneous melodies with your fingers on the pipes with holes. If you’re doing it right, the launeddas should now be making a sound similar to a swarm of bees attacking a guinea pig. The sound must be continuous and, since there is no air bag, you must use circular breathing, a tricky technique that effectively involves breathing in and breathing out at the same time. Oh, and each tune lasts for over an hour.

Hit it with a stick and see what happens: instruments of Italian folk The instruments of Italy’s folk music include all the usual flutes and guitars, alongside some more offbeat devices including the organetto (an accordion), of which Riccardo Tesi is the best-known modern exponent, the zampogna (a type of bagpipe), which comes in different shapes and sizes, some the size of a grown man, and the ancient launeddas (the Sardinian triple pipes), reputedly once made from the legs of the pink flamingo. Italy also boasts numerous percussion instruments, notably the friction drum. Called the putipu in Naples and the cupa-cupa in Puglia, the friction drum consists of a long stick attached to a membrane stretched over a terracotta or tin pot. The player rubs the stick with wet hands causing vibrations that resonate inside the pot, producing a rhythmic, distinctly lavatorial sound.

Too niche for its own good: modern folk The Sardinian tenores singers occasionally appear on TV, and bands such as Fiamma Fumana and Gai Saber have achieved a degree of acclaim on the World Music circuit by combining tradition folk elements with modern beats. However, folk music in modern Italy has a rather weak pulse. Ethnomusicologists made field recordings of Italian folk music in the 1950s, and the Instituto De Martino was set up to document and preserve the traditions a decade later, but documenting and preserving doesn’t necessarily equate to popularity – not many people actually listen to the music. There are folk festivals, notably the Appennino Folk Festival held in the north-west each summer, but most cater for tourists searching for an authentic taste of a cultural heritage very few Italians care – or even know – about. 142

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4.1.2 Life in opera’s shadow: classical music

Is that classical music? It just sounds like you’re chanting… The origins of classical music in Italy lie in the monophonic (containing a single line of melody) liturgical plainchant of the Roman Catholic Church. You know the stuff: the haunting, unaccompanied male voices found in Gregorian chant (named after Pope Gregory, although he had little actual involvement) and Ambrosian chant (a similar but separate tradition), typical of music before the 11th century, before the simple polyphonic organum and motet (plainchants with more than one melodic line) forms stormed the charts. In the 14th century, the French ars nova (new style) began to influence Italian polyphonic music, as evidenced in the richer harmonies of surviving secular ballate and madrigals (both are types of song) by the blind Italian composer Francesco Landini.

The Do Re Mi man Guido of Arezzo was a Benedictine monk from, not coincidentally, Arezzo in Tuscany. He was also a music teacher, theorist and, as detailed in his Aliae regulae (c.1030), the inventor of modern musical notation. An earlier system used a series of unhelpful squiggles and blobs known as neumes, but Guido’s had a staff with lines and spaces – and that made all the difference. Guido was also responsible for the words Do Re Mi etc being used in the teaching of music, a practice still common in classrooms and Julie Andrews movies. He taught his students using Ut queant laxis (c.774), a plainchant hymn to John the Baptist written by Paul the Deacon (another Benedictine monk), giving the first syllable of each line a successively higher note in the scale: UT queant laxis REsonare fibris MIra gestorum FAmuli tuorum SOLve polluti LAbii reatum, Sancte Ioannes

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The Albinoni Adagio mystery Albinoni’s Adagio, as it’s commonly called, is one of the most popular and oft recorded pieces of Italian Baroque music. Famously, it was used in the closing sequence of the Peter Weir film Gallipoli (1981), while American rock band The Doors released a version on the album An American Prayer (1978). Tomaso Albinoni, the 18th century Venetian composer, is also known today for his oboe concertos, notably the Concerto in D minor (1722), but primarily he’s celebrated for that famous Adagio in G minor. All of which is fine, except that the piece was actually written in 1958 by an Italian musicologist named Remo Giazotto. A large number of Albinoni’s manuscripts were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden State Library during the Second World War, but Giazotto claimed to have reconstructed the Adagio from a surviving fragment. However, expert opinion has since deemed the work to be Giazotto’s alone.

(In translation: ‘In order that your servants might, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, wash the guilt from our stained lips, Saint John’.) A Ti was added later and then the Ut was changed to a Do.

Setting Renaissance trends As the Renaissance found its stride in the 16th century, Italy became the centre of European music. Polyphonic sacred and secular music had continued their development, aided by the appearance of new musical instruments like the clavichord and the viol, and patronage from the Church and the wealthy courts in the north colluded with the development of printed music using movable type – as invented by Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice – to give Italy its primacy. Three particular composers emerged: Giovanni Gabrieli of the Venetian School of music pioneered advances in instrumentation and is often labelled ‘the father of orchestration’. Claudio Monteverdi published revolutionary collections of madrigals and would become an influential figure in Italian opera (see section 4.1.3 for more). Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina of the Roman School was the leading composer of Renaissance music, and is sometimes credited with saving polyphony in the mid 16th century. When the Church was considering banning polyphony in favour of Gregorian chant, in the belief that the increasingly elaborate music was becoming a distraction from the sacred words, Palestrina came up with his masterpiece of simple, restrained beauty, Missa Papae Marcelli (c.1562), a mass for six voices, and the Church changed its mind.

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It was all going so well… damn that new fangled opera By the 17th century, when music entered the flamboyant and ornate Baroque era, Italian ears and eyes were being drawn away to opera, as they would be for the next 300 years (see section 4.1.3). Those that remained faithful to the instrumentation of classical music were rewarded with the work of Gregorio Allegri, whose masterpiece, the Miserere mei, Deus (c.1630), was so well regarded it was forbidden to perform it anywhere other than in the Sistine Chapel. Arcangelo Corelli was another important Baroque composer; his posthumously published 12 Concerti Grossi (1714) would prove a strong influence on the most famous Italian Baroque composer of the lot, Antonio Vivaldi.

A man for all seasons: Antonio Vivaldi Vivaldi, the son of a Venetian barber, was a gifted violinist and composer, imaginatively known as il Prete Rosso (the Red Priest) on account of his red hair and the fact that he was a priest. He turned his back on the priesthood early in his career (apparently for health reasons), opting instead to school hundreds of young orphan girls in music at the Ospedale della Pietà, where, as part of his duties, he had to compose two concertos a month for his students to play. Although Vivaldi also wrote many operas and sonatas, his importance lies in these concertos. He took the concerto (a three-part musical work for one solo instrument accompanied by other instruments – and later by an orchestra) to a level near perfection, employing a simple clarity and imaginative melodic themes stripped of all unnecessary pomposity. The finest were Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, a set of 12 concertos, the first four of which are known as Le quattro stagioni (1725).

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For a while Vivaldi drew widespread fame and no small fortune from his music. But it didn’t last, and, with his popularity declining and his profligate spending rendering him flat broke, the composer left Venice for Vienna in search of new patronage. The plan failed, and he was buried in Vienna in a pauper’s grave. After his death Vivaldi was largely forgotten, but in 1926 over 300 unknown works by the composer were discovered in a monastery and his legacy was reassessed. It transpired that Vivaldi had composed a staggering 500 concertos. The critical re-evaluation has been almost universally complimentary, although a rather ungracious Igor Stravinsky concluded that Vivaldi didn’t write 500 concertos, he just wrote one, 500 times. Today, Vivaldi is more popular than he’s ever been. His music is in almost constant performance in Italy, especially in Venice, and violinist Nigel Kennedy’s recording of The Four Seasons (1989) has become one of the best-selling classical music albums of all time.

The Niccolò Paganini experience

“I A M N OT HAN DSOME, BUT WHEN WOMEN HE AR ME PL AY, THEY COME C RAWLING TO M Y FE E T.” Niccolò Paganini

Classical music in the first half of the 19th century (when it was ingesting the Romantic tastes of the age) was illuminated by a strange young man from Genoa called Niccolò Paganini. Paganini was the original rock ’n’ roll star: a compulsive gambler, drinker and womaniser by the age of 16, he was also the most charismatic of performers and reputedly the greatest violinist the world has ever seen. Playing his own compositions, written to show off his talent, he embarked on lengthy tours on which he would astonish his audiences with his ability and showmanship. A favourite trick was to play with three deliberately distressed strings that would break one by one, leaving Paganini to complete the piece using just the one remaining string. His importance lies not only in his considerable contribution to violin technique, but also in creating the cult of the solo performer and the notion of the instrumental virtuoso. Franz Liszt would later state

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his desire to become “the Paganini of the piano”, while Liszt, Schumann, Brahms and Rachmaninov would all write variations on Paganini themes. He’s remembered best for his 24 Capriccio per violino solo (18017), of which Capriccio No. 24 in A minor, an almost impossible piece to play, is the most famous.

The Devil has all the best tunes

Struggling to be heard: modern classical In the 20th century, Italy’s classical music made several attempts to crawl out from beneath opera’s shadow. Works such as Giuseppe Martucci’s Symphony No.2 in F major (1904) and Ottorino Respighi’s Roman Trilogy (1915-28) were critically acclaimed, as were the atonal compositions of Luigi Dallapiccola, and the experimental music of Luciano Berio, notably his Sinfonia (1967-69), but they only ever achieved limited popular appeal. Today, most Italians who like instrumental classical music will always prefer the more traditional works, which usually means Vivaldi.

Niccolò Paganini’s virtuosity was so astounding that some believed he had sold his soul to the devil in return for musical prowess, and in some quarters they called him Hexensohn, the ‘son of a witch’. Paganini cultivated his Faustian image with his long black hair and black cloak, and on occasion he would arrive at concerts in a black carriage pulled by four black horses. His diabolic credentials were further enhanced by refusing the last rites on his deathbed and by the fact that his body was denied burial in consecrated ground. In truth, the circumstances of Paganini’s interment were rather mundane: the Archbishop of Nice denied him a Christian burial because he had refused the last rites, and Paganini had only refused the last rites because he thought he was going to get better.

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4.1.3 Italian by design: opera

An accident waiting to happen Opera as we know it today, with its striking stage decor and dramatic text set to music, was conceived largely by accident in late 16th century Florence. A group of musicians and intellectuals known as the Florentine Camerata used to meet up and discuss the burning issues of the day, the main one apparently being how best to recreate Ancient Greek drama. There was evidence that the Greek tragedies had been staged with some musical accompaniment, but the Camerata had no idea what it sounded like. All they knew for certain was that it didn’t sound like the overblown polyphony that characterised Italian music in their own era. So, they came up with monody, a single vocal part with an instrumental accompaniment that follows the rhythms and inflections of the words. The development of this new style culminated in a performance of Jacopo Peri’s Dafne, the first opera ever produced, at the palace of Jacopo Corsi in Florence in 1597 (maybe 1598). The success of Dafne, the score of which has been almost entirely lost, was followed in 1600 by Peri’s Euridice, written for the marriage of French King Henry IV and Maria de Medici. Euridice is the earliest opera for which a score survives. The new form of entertainment, with singers enacting the entire drama to musical accompaniment, delighted its aristocratic audiences. Opera’s popularity duly began to spread among the noble courts of Italy and Europe.

Monteverdi takes over The first genuine genius to try his hand at opera was Claudio Monteverdi, a composer who’d already found fame with the madrigal. Being a genius, his first attempt at opera was, of course, a masterpiece. La favola d’Orfeo was composed for the court of Mantua in 1607 and is the earliest opera still in regular performance. With its lavish staging, sophisticated orchestration and coinciding musical and dramatic climaxes, La favola d’Orfeo was a coherent whole that demonstrated the true potential of 148 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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the form. Monteverdi’s second opera, Arianna (1608), was similarly well received, although only the famously sad Lamento d’Arianna survives from it. In 1612 Monteverdi moved to Venice, the city that soon became the centre of opera in Italy. Although Monteverdi wrote at least 18 operas other than La favola d’Orfeo, only his final two survive and they, of course, are both masterpieces as well: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (1641) and perhaps his finest work, L’incoronazione di Poppea (1642), delving into the ancient love story of Nero and his wife Poppea.

The first first night The first public opera house anywhere, the Teatro San Cassiano, opened in Venice in 1637. The building was demolished in 1812, five years after holding its last performance.

Quantity over quality: opera in the 18th century Many followed in Monteverdi’s footsteps, notably Stefano Landi, Francesco Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti, further developing Baroque opera. They established a clearer differentiation between the arias and the recitative, made greater use of the chorus and introduced comic elements into the plot. By the mid 18th century, opera had become hugely popular across Italy, but, unfortunately, most agree that the quality had nosedived. There was too much choice, and composers had yet to become the dominant figures they soon would. Instead it was all about the performers: opera had been reduced to a showcase for the vocal abilities of the castrati (grown men with little boys’ voices and no testicles) and the prima donnas (grown women with the same), who attracted large audiences and were paid a fortune in return. The predominant form of opera in the 18th century was opera seria (serious opera). Historical or mythological plots extolling the virtues of friendship and loyalty, and relieved of all comic elements, were the norm. Although hundreds of operas were being written, almost all of them with a libretto by the poet Metastasio, hardly any are worthy of mention. In the latter 18th century, opera buffa (comic opera), which used comic plots involving everyday characters sung by tenor and bass parts, began to rival the popularity of its ‘serious’ counterpart. The great composers of the next century would write in both forms. 149 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Play it Again Dom

Return to form: Romantic opera

The première of Il matrimonio segreto (1792) by Domenico Cimarosa witnessed the longest encore in the history of opera. It was performed for Emperor Leopold II, who enjoyed it so much that he called for a rerun of the whole damn thing.

The good times returned in the 19th century. Most of the great Italian operas that make up the modern repertory emerged in this period. The early part of the century has been called the bel canto era, named after a smooth style of singing (literally ‘beautiful singing’). Three composers dominated:

“GIVE ME A LAUN DR Y L IST AND I’LL SET IT T O MUSIC.” Gioachino Rossini

Gioachino Rossini. Born into a musical family (although his father also inspected slaughterhouses to bring in some extra cash), Rossini composed his first opera at the age of 14. He achieved great fame, writing 40 operas in all, the best remembered of which are Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816), a comic opera, and his last effort, Guillaume Tell (1829), with that famous overture. Rossini composed his final opera at the age of 37, and spent most of the remaining 39 years of his life in Paris, mainly eating. Vincenzo Bellini. Born in Sicily in 1801, and apparently able to sing arias at the age of 18 months, Bellini died aged just 34 but was the undisputed master of the bel canto style. His best known operas include La sonnambula (1831), Norma (1831) – featuring the famous aria Casta diva – and I puritani (1835). Gaetano Donizetti. Donizetti’s was a veritable rags to riches story. Born in a windowless cellar in Bergamo, Lombardy, in 1797, he became a prolific bel canto composer, writing 75 operas in all, achieving great success with Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), with its famous ‘mad scene’, La fille du régiment (1840), featuring the aria Ah! Mes amis, quel jour de fête! with the dreaded nine high Cs in quick succession, and Don Pasquale (1843). Alas, the rags to riches story didn’t have a happy ending: his wife died of cholera, he caught syphilis and then he went insane.

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The personification of Italian opera: Giuseppe Verdi

Verdi goes up the wall

As bel canto gradually gave way to a more robust and forceful style in the second half of the 19th century, Italian opera became dominated by one figure, Giuseppe Verdi. A staunch nationalist, Verdi came to prominence with his third opera, Nabucco (1842). The work demonstrated his growing musical prowess but also caught the mood of many Italians with its perceived political statement – the famous chorus of the Hebrew slaves in Babylon, Va, pensiero, became an anthem for those demanding selfgovernance for Italy. Four years on, at the première of Verdi’s Attila, when the Roman general refused an alliance with the invading Hun – “You may have the universe, but leave Italy to me” – the nationalist sentiment brought the house down.

Nationalist activists in pre-unified Italy apparently used to scrawl Viva Verdi! on walls in a coded show of defiance, the letters of Verdi’s surname being an acronym for Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia (Vittorio Emanuele King of Italy), under whom the nation would be (relatively) unified in 1861 (see section 1.2.3 for more on Italian Unification).

By the early 1850s, Verdi was at the height of his powers, producing a hat trick of masterpieces – Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853) and La traviata (1853) – each of which showed off his dramatic mastery and melodic gift to the full. In all he wrote over 30 operas, including the later works Aida (1871), Otello (1887) and, his last, the comic opera Falstaff (1893). Despite being an atheist, he also composed an important piece of instrumental sacred music, Messa da Requiem (1874). At the time of his death in 1901, Verdi was regarded as the personification of Italian opera.

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“I A M A MIG HTY H UN TER OF WIL D FOWL, OPERA TIC LIBRE T T OS AND ATT RAC TIVE WOMEN.” Giacomo Puccini’s success brought him great wealth. At the time of his death he was worth, by today’s standards, about 175 million euros. His almost constant adultery has led several people over the years to try and get their hands on the family fortune: Nadia Manfredi is the latest claimant, convinced that she’s an illegitimate grandchild.

The other personification of Italian opera: Giacomo Puccini Verdi’s final opera premiered in February 1893. Eight days later, Giacomo Puccini, the only composer to rival Verdi’s place in history, premiered his first truly great work, Manon Lescaut. Born into a musical family in Lucca, Tuscany, in 1858, Puccini was a talented but lazy student; only on seeing a production of Verdi’s Aida in 1875 was he inspired to take his studies more seriously. He formed a lasting relationship with the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa and, following the success of Manon Lescaut, went on to write some of the most popular and widely performed operas ever produced. In a relatively short period, Puccini wrote three masterpieces: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). The operas fed on the late 19th century taste for verismo (realism) in the arts; in contrast to the historical and mythological themes of opera seria, Puccini’s verismo opera depicted the crime and violence of real life. His final opera, Turandot (1926), was left unfinished on his death, and the final two scenes were later completed by Franco Alfano. Although some critics have dismissed Puccini’s work as overly melodramatic and sentimental, his indelible, luxuriant melodies are unsurpassed – any list of ‘The Five Best Italian Arias Of All Time’ could easily be stocked purely by the work of Puccini. If you only ever hear five Italian arias…make sure it’s these Nessun dormafrom Turandot (1926) by Giacomo Puccini. La donna è mobile from Rigoletto (1851) by Giuseppe Verdi. Che gelida manina from La Bohème (1896) by Giacomo Puccini. Largo al factotumfrom Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) by Gioachino Rossini. Una furtiva lagrima from L’elisir d’amore (1832) by Gaetano Donizetti.

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Living on past glories: opera in the modern era Puccini was the last great composer of Italian opera and Turandot (1926) was the last opera to enter the main repertory. The work of composers in the 20th century, notably Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero (1949) and Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960 (1961) and Prometeo (1984), found critical acclaim but little popular appeal. Gian Carlo Menotti wrote some of the finest opera of the 20th century but did so largely in America, having left Italy aged 16. Despite the contemporary drought in creativity, opera remains an enduring symbol of Italy and continues to play a large part in national culture. The opera houses are full (albeit often with tourists), and even the Italians who don’t like opera are happy to declaim its international status and to hum you an aria or two.

Italian opera singers: five legends Farinelli. The most famous 18th century castrato. For obvious reasons, usually only poor families had their sons castrated, but strangely Farinelli’s family were loaded. Faustina Bordoni. A renowned 18th century mezzo-soprano whose great rivalry with soprano Francesca Cuzzoni apparently led to a fist fight on stage during a production of Bononcini’s Astianatte (1727). Enrico Caruso. Legendary tenor and defendant in the Monkey House Case. In 1906 he was fined $10 for pinching a lady’s bottom in Central Park Zoo, New York. His claim that a monkey did it was rejected. Luciano Pavarotti. The great tenor was born in Modena in 1935. His career high came 37 years later, in a performance of Donizetti’s La fille du regiment in New York. Andrea Bocelli. The Tuscan tenor is blind, suffers from stage fright and has sold over 65 million records.

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4.1.4 Rock, pop, rap, hip hop, dance and the rest… Yesterday once more

Naples: cradle of pop

At least one famous pop hit from the 1960s was based on a 19th century Neapolitan song. It’s Now or Never (1960), a song that sold over 25 million copies for Elvis, was simply ‘O sole mio with a new lyric. Some have also commented that The Beatles’ Yesterday (1965), a song covered by over 3,000 different artists, bears a resemblance to another Neapolitan effort, Piccere’ che vene a dicere’ (1895).

If we’re looking for the beginnings of ‘popular’ music in Italy, perhaps we should start with La Canzone Napoletana, the songs that first echoed round Naples in the mid 19th century. The songs were melodic, sentimental ballads written and performed in the Neapolitan dialect for an annual songwriting contest at the Festival of Piedigrotta. Composer Gaetano Donizetti won the first competition. By the early 20th century, the songs’ popularity had spread across Italy, and went on to reach the rest of Europe and America thanks to the Italian diaspora and, in particular, to the performances of Enrico Caruso, the famous tenor. A number of Neapolitan songs entered the standard repertoire of popular music, including ‘O sole mio (1898), Torna a Surriento (c 1903) and Funiculì, funiculà (1880). Alas, when rock ‘n’ roll arrived in Italy in the 1950s, the Neopolitan song became passé.

A love for jazz Despite placing an effective ban on the ‘foreign rhythms’ of jazz in the 1930s, Mussolini’s Fascist regime couldn’t dent Italy’s enthusiasm for the music. Even today, jazz clubs can be found in every Italian city, and there are several festivals dedicated to the genre, the annual Umbria Jazz Festival held in Perugia being the most famous. Post-war jazz guitarist Franco Cerri was an influential figure, while it seems a sweet irony that Romano, Mussolini’s son, went on to become a wellrespected jazz pianist; in particular, the album Jazz allo Studio 7 (1963) by The Romano Mussolini All Stars received widespread acclaim. Of the current jazzers, trumpet player Enrico Rava, drummer Aldo Romano and pianist Stefano Bollani are perhaps the most prominent characters.

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The Sanremo sing-off

The Mussolini menagerie

The Festival della Canzone Italiana (Sanremo Music Festival) is a very, very popular popular song contest that has been held on the Italian Riviera every February since 1951. For decades, success at the festival – usually awarded to a syrupy balladeer – meant credibility and a week or two at the top of the Italian charts. Italian singers and songwriters always took the contest very seriously, throughout the rock ’n’ roll 1960s and on into the era of the singer-songwriter a decade later. Luigi Tenco took it a little too seriously: he apparently (although not definitely) committed suicide after Ciao amore ciao, his entry for the 1967 contest, was eliminated from the competition. Alas, Sanremo isn’t the force it was; indeed, the fact that it inspired the Eurovision Song Contest says much about its contemporary quality.

Jazz pianist Romano Mussolini was 17 when his father, Benito the dictator, was hung upside down and dead from a meat hook. The musician always refused to criticise his father, preferring instead to recall a playful figure. He spoke of the childhood home in Rome, the Villa Torlonia, with its pet jaguar, gazelles, lions, monkey and tortoises. These days, the grounds of the villa host a memorial to the Holocaust.

Italy does the 60s Like most European countries, in the late 1950s and 60s Italy eagerly embraced American and British rock ’n’ roll music, and, also like most European countries, produced predominantly pale imitations of the anglicised original. Male and female solo stars took centre stage, known in Italy as the urlatori, the screamers, although a handful of beat bands heavily influenced by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones also became popular. Certain Italian acts defined the era: Domenico Modugno. The original Italian crooner won Sanremo in 1958 with Volare, nel blu dipinto di blu and changed the course of Italian music. He later became an MP. Mina. The ‘Queen of the Screamers’ was more than a mini-skirted starlet; hits like Il cielo in una stanza (1960) revealed a voice ranging over eight octaves. In 1963 she was briefly banned from the airwaves after falling pregnant by a married man.

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Success out of the blue Domenico Modugno began his career in film but became better known for music. His first big (and subsequently unsurpassed) success came with Volare, nel blu dipinto di blu, written in 1958 with Franco Migliacci. Initially Modugno suggested the song was inspired by a Marc Chagall painting, but later claimed the words came to him in a dream. Whatever the case, Volare won two Grammy Awards and sold 800,000 copies in Italy and 22 million worldwide. Everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to David Bowie recorded their own version. Screaming success Adriano Celentano and Mina have sold 200 million records between them.

Adriano Celentano. Italy’s most famous rock ’n’ roller sold a million copies of 24,000 baci (1961). Gianni Morandi. The parentally acceptable face of rock ’n’ roll mixed the new sound with traditional Italian balladry, selling 25 million records along the way. Equipe 84. As close as you’ll get to the ‘Italian Beatles’, the Modena four-piece launched in the mid 60s, enjoying chart success with songs like Ho in mente te (1966). Rita Pavone. A balladeer and actress who, despite being distinctly Italian, found success overseas too. Cuore (1963) was among the biggest of her hits.

Words and music: the cantautori The Italian cantautori, or singer-songwriters, emerged in the 1960s and 70s. The catch-all term is generally used to refer to the socially and politically aware artists influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Luigi Tenco, he of the Sanremo suicide (see previous page), was a founding father. Prominent among the cantautori were Francesco De Gregori, known as Il Principe Poeta (The Poet Prince); the reclusive Lucio Battisti, whose Il Paradiso became an international hit for Welsh band Amen Corner in the guise of If Paradise is (Half as Nice) in 1969; and Fabrizio De André, whose 1968 album was the marvellously titled Tutti morimmo a stento, All of us Died in Hardship, and whose most celebrated work is the 1984 release Creuza de mä, sung in his native Genoese dialect. Lucio Dalla was another popular cantautori, at work for many years before finding popular success with an eponymous album in 1978; his best-known song, Caruso (1986), sold millions of copies when Luciano Pavarotti offered to do the vocals. Another noteworthy Italian singer-songwriter, although not always considered one of the cantautori, is the timeless Paolo Conte, an artist who delivers his melancholic songs with dry wit and a gritty offkey voice. Conte, in his 70s, is considered something of a national treasure; his 2008 album Psiche was a top five hit. 156

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Love affair built on solid rock In the 1970s, Italy took a particular shine to progressive (prog) rock. A number of the bands involved were actually 1960s beat combos who shed the jingle jangle in favour of something moodier, inspired by the likes of British band Pink Floyd. Among the prog rockers, Le Orme produced concept albums including Felona e Sorona (1973), all about two contradictory planets, and achieved some success outside Italy, as did PFM (or Premiata Forneria Marconi in full). Pooh, another 1960s outfit that went progressive in the 70s, are still going in one form or another; the success of Ancora una notte insieme in 2009 proved their enduring popularity. Punk was also popular in the 70s, most of it made in Emilia-Romagna, a connection that suited the region’s subversive left-wing leanings. The best-known punk band, Skiantos (still going strong), have never taken themselves too seriously; indeed they’re more like a parody of punk rock. By contrast CCCP, formed in 1981, were a militant bunch, using punk to push a socialist agenda. Mainstream rock has maintained an enduring Italian popularity for the past three decades. Homegrown artists such as Vasco Rossi, Ligabue and Eros Ramazzotti pack out stadiums and shift albums by the truckload. On the softer side, Al Bano paired up with his one-time wife Romina Power for much of his career, selling millions of albums and winning at Sanremo in 1984. Zucchero has been a rarity in Italian rock, selling

“TH EY W E RE TH E R E A L PR I S O N ER S , NOT I.” Singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André shows his hippy solidarity with the Sardinian bandits who kidnapped and held him captive in their mountain hideout in 1979.

A flavour of modern Italian music: ten albums Per Un amico (1972) PFM. Felona e Sorona (1973) Le Orme. Rimmel (1975) Francesco De Gregori. Paris milonga (1981) Paolo Conte. Creuza de mä(1984) Fabrizio De André. Profumo (1986) Gianna Nannini. Oro incenso e birra (1989) Zucchero. Tutte storie (1993) Eros Ramazzotti. Gli spari sopra(1993) Vasco Rossi. Buon compleanno Elvis! (1995) Ligabue.

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He ain’t heavy Fratello Metallo are an Italian heavy metal band whose name translates as ‘Metal Brother’. They’re named so because Cesare Bonizzi, the lead singer, is a Capuchin monk. Watching the 62-yearold Bonizzi strut his heavy metal stuff on the stage with his long white beard and wearing his monk’s robes is enough to test your faith in…well, everything really.

well in English-speaking countries as well as his own. In 1990 he released an album of his previous hits sung in English (to avoid any confusion it was titled Zucchero Sings His Hits in English), which featured his best-known song, Senza una donna, a duet with British singer Paul Young. Another collaborative Zucchero album, Zu & Co (2004), reads like a who’s who of world music, featuring Sting, Miles Davis, Pavarotti and, oh, Ronan Keating. More alternative rock comes from bands like Marlene Kuntz, influenced by the American grunge scene, and Massimo Volume.

Big noises in contemporary music Hip hop and rap Italy took to rap and hip hop with enthusiasm in the late 1990s, using it as an expression of national (or often regional) identity that was rare in modern Italian music. Even while the stylistic influences were clearly American, the language and themes were homespun. Articolo 31 and 99 Posse got the genre moving, and Gemelli Diversi and Fabri Fibra, the Italian answer to Eminem whose 2006 album Tradimento was an acclaimed hit, have maintained the momentum. On the lighter side of rap, Jovanotti is a versatile singer-songwriter who has added rock and ethnic elements to his music to great effect; the albums Buon sangue (2005) and Safari (2008) both reached number one in the Italian charts. Electronic Italy doesn’t shy away from electro music, and the national charts usually feature a lightweight techno track or two with vocoded lyrics and an irritatingly catchy chorus (for a while the genre was labelled Italo Dance). The prominent DJs behind Italian dance music in the last decade include Gigi D’Agostino, Benny Benassi and Alex Gaudino. Dance ‘bands’ like Livin’ Joy and Eiffel 65 have found it harder to get past the ‘one-hit wonder’ phase.

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Pop The Italian music chart divides its time fairly evenly between native and foreign (usually American) artists. Most of the Italian stuff falls within the bounds of pop, usually made by solo artists. Modern Italians, it seems, still have a weakness for the romantic ballad. Old rockers like Eros Ramazzotti and Vasco Rossi continue to loom large, supported by younger solo artists like Tiziano Ferro, a man who’s sold seven million albums of inoffensive pop, and Grammy-winning Laura Pausini. Solo singer-songwriter Elisa, R&B (in the modern sense) duo Zero Assoluto and Giusy Ferreri, an Italian X-Factor finalist, all fall roughly within the bounds of contemporary Italian pop. For something more alternative, seek out indie bands like Settlefish or Disco Drive, both of them singing in English. Five 21st century Italian albums you should hear Fuego (2002) Gemelli Diversi. Buon sangue (2005) Jovanotti. Tradimento (2006) Fabri Fibra. Things to Do Today (2008) Disco Drive. Sotto una pioggia di parole (2009) Zero Assoluto.

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4.2 Theatre, dance and comedy After the success of Roman theatre, Italy waited roughly 1,800 years for a second coming. When it arrived, the work of Pirandello and those who followed in the 20th century brought a distinctly Italian brand of drama: innovative, uncompromising and subversive.

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4.2.1 Dramatis personae: the key figures of Italian theatre Italy doesn’t have a Shakespeare or a Molière, and the country’s theatre tradition hasn’t left a bountiful (or even average) legacy of notable dramatic works. There’s no golden age, no era of great playwrights, but rather a scattering of isolated hits. Why? Various theories have been offered: the suffocating popularity of opera, pushing theatre to the margins; the pre-Unification absence of a common language or cultural identity; and the Italian primacy of actor over playwright. However, while Italian theatre can’t call on a rich back catalogue of work, there are numerous theatres in towns and cities all over the country, and the plays of their few theatrical heroes, Goldoni and Pirandello in particular, are regularly performed.

Greek lessons: Ancient theatre The story of Italian theatre begins in Ancient Rome, where drama was heavily influenced by Classical Greek models. All of the surviving Roman plays, tragic or comic, are translations or adaptations of earlier Greek works. If there was a golden age of Roman theatre it came in the later years of the Republic and early stages of the Empire, when theatres were built throughout Europe. They had a wooden platform at the front, usually a ‘street’ in which the action unfurled, backed by a building which, decorated with columns, porticos and doorways, served as houses lining the fictional street. By the first century BC theatres were being built in stone. Many remain remarkably intact today, arrayed from Orange in southern France to Bosra in Syria. While drama played its part in Roman life it was only one of the many public entertainments on offer during the ludi (festival games) held each September, and the average Ancient Roman preferred the wordless theatre of pantomime artists or the blood and guts of gladiatorial combat. As the Empire grew, theatre became increasingly bawdy and bloody, moving away from thespian niceties to something more like ‘extreme’ circus.

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The Roman playwrights

Oh yes he did

Ancient historians recorded the importance of theatre in Roman life and also the names of various playwrights, even if few of the actual plays have survived. We know that they did tragedy and comedy (like the Greeks), usually employing a cast of stock, sometimes masked, characters, from the eloquent slave to the cocky legionnaire and randy old man. The work of three writers, two comedians and one tragedian, has survived:

Don’t confuse the c-list stars of the formulaic Christmas entertainment served up in some parts of the modern world with the Ancient Roman pantomimus (pantomime artist), who was a highly skilled and respected performer. They didn’t speak; instead, wearing masks, they used movement and gesture to act out scenes of love and hate, and sometimes to mock the gods, all to the accompaniment of flutes and a chorus. The pantomimus could achieve great fame and move in the highest circles of society. The revered Paris was one such figure; or he was until Emperor Domitian had him killed in 83AD for having an affair with his wife.

Plautus An Umbrian who wrote comedies in the early second century BC, Plautus based all 21 of his extant plays (he actually wrote over 100) on Greek works, but added song, dance and ‘in jokes’ for his Roman audience. Outlandish stock characters, fantasy and farce took precedence over reality. Plautus’ plays would inspire the likes of Shakespeare, who took inspiration from Menaechmi (perhaps Plautus’ best) for The Comedy of Errors. Terence Terence, a freed slave, pre-empted the modern comedy of manners, satirising Rome’s ruling elite with a subtlety and realism of wordplay, plot and character that moved theatre on from the farce and slapstick of Plautus. Six of his plays survive, written between 166 and 160BC, all of them based on Greek originals. Eunuchus (161BC), complex in its portrayal of the titular Eunuch, was typical of the Terence style. Seneca Ancient Rome’s great tragedian, the Stoic philosopher Seneca (the Younger), was at work in the first century AD. His nine surviving plays were written in verse (they may not have been intended for performance); their titles, Oedipus and Agamemnon among them, give the Greek origins away. Seneca’s use of soliloquies and the division of plays into acts would have a big influence on Renaissance drama in France and England, on writers like Corneille and Shakespeare. 163 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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What Renaissance? After the fall of the Roman Empire, drama fell largely into the hands of the Church and, from the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance, a variety of morality, miracle and mystery plays formed the main course of the theatrical diet. By the 16th century, the intellectual elite of the Renaissance courts were busy rediscovering the dramatic works of the Ancient Greeks and Romans with the result that very little new material of note was produced, apart from the vernacular commedia erudita (learned comedy) of Ludovico Ariosto, such as I Suppositi (1509), and Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s La Mandragola (1518), a bitter critique on Florentine politics in the early 16th century played out in the story of a cocky young man and a virtuous married woman, is considered the finest comedy of the Italian Renaissance (see section 2.1.3 for more on both Ariosto and Machiavelli).

Played for laughs: the commedia dell’arte From obscure beginnings, the commedia dell’arte (comedy of artists) became wildly popular in Italy in the 16th century. Performances were given in public squares and later in theatres by professional touring companies of ten to 15 actors who improvised within a set scenario – stage directions were along the lines of ‘Someone enters and does something funny’. Each performer wore a mask and played one of the genre’s stock characters, typically an old man, a doctor, the lovers, a soldier and so on. The comic elements were provided by a collection of zanni (foolish servants), some of whom we still recognise today: Arlecchino (Harlequin), Pedrolino (Pierrot), Pulcinella (Punch) and Scaramuccia (Scaramouche). By the late 18th century, the popularity of commedia dell’arte was waning, but its influence had spread far and wide (well beyond Italy), to be felt, in particular, in the development of opera buffa (see section 4.1.3 for more on opera buffa).

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What a fantastic stage… if only we had some decent plays Although little drama of note was produced in 17th century Italy, important advances were made in theatre and stage design, innovations that would be adopted across Europe. Sophisticated scenery painting techniques brought a greater sense of perspective to the stage, while Giovanni Battista Aleotti’s new Teatro Farnese, opened in Parma in 1618, enhanced the illusion of distance and depth with the first permanent proscenium arch. Scene changes improved in the 1640s with Giacomo Torelli’s invention of the ‘chariot and pole’ system, featuring sliding flat wings that slotted through the stage and moved on wheels along a rail. Other new stage machinery allowed for the illusion of clouds and for flying; an influential text, Nicola Sabbattini’s Pratica di fabricar scene e macchine ne’ teatri (1638) (Manual for Constructing Theatrical Scenes and Machines), explained the mechanics behind the magic.

Goldoni goes it alone in the 18th century Opera was all the rage in the 18th century, to the extent that it obscured any great development in theatre. Almost anyone who could spell was writing librettos, not least Carlo Goldoni, who also wrote several plays of importance. Goldoni had already devised a few scenarios for the most popular dramatic fare of the age, the improvised comedy in the commedia dell’arte tradition, before he presented Antonio Sacco, a leading improv actor, with Arlecchino, servitore di due padroni (1745), a partly scripted, partly improvised comedy. It led to Goldoni’s attempted reform of the crude, self-obsessed improvised comedy he’d long detested, with a series of completely scripted, realistic comedies that featured a previously unseen depth of character. La vedova scaltra (1748) and La famiglia dell’antiquario (1749) were two of the best. Goldoni’s comedies were a great success with audiences but his peers and the actors weren’t so enthusiastic and, unfortunately for Italian theatre, no other writer followed his lead. 165 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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“I HAVE TRIED TO TE LL SOMETH ING T O OTHER MEN, WITHOU T ANY AM BIT ION, EXCEPT PE RHAP S THA T OF AVE N GING MYSE L F FOR HAV ING BEEN BORN.” Luigi Pirandello on a good day

The two Pirandello plays to see first Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore. Widely acknowledged as Pirandello’s masterpiece, it features a collection of half-finished characters who, without a story of their own, interrupt the rehearsal of another play hoping to find their destiny. The play was revolutionary for the intimacy and immediacy it brought to theatrical production. Hecklers at the premiere shouted ‘madhouse’ but the play quickly found a more sympathetic audience. Enrico IV. An actor concussed on stage playing Henry IV awakes believing himself to be the character. As his madness grows, so do the questions about whether it’s better to reside in reality or fantasy.

Italian theatre’s lead act: Luigi Pirandello Italian theatre’s dry spell wasn’t really sated in any way until the 20th century, when a handful of playwrights stirred interest both at home and abroad. The first – and best (indeed, without doubt the most important and influential dramatist in the history of Italian theatre) – was Luigi Pirandello. Pirandello was a novelist and short story writer before he turned to the plays that lifted Italian theatre from centuries of stagnation. The themes of isolation and illusion explored in his work (often with grim humour) were born of tragic personal experience. In 1904, his wife, Antonietta, suffered a mental breakdown from which she was never to recover. Despite her increasingly violent paranoid episodes, Pirandello cared for her himself for more than 15 years before finally handing her over to an asylum. He was a prolific writer: his two best plays, Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (1921) and Enrico IV (1922) were written within a five-week period, and many of his earlier plays were completed within a week. Pirandello was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934 for “his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art”.The two Pirandello plays to see first

State-sponsored mediocrity: modern Italian theatre Theatre had a tough time in post-war Italy, starting as it did from a very low ebb – the Fascist approach to culture hadn’t left room for creativity. Good intentions abounded in the 1950s and 60s, the key aim being to create socially, politically aware ‘theatre for the people’, but the small theatres that took up the task, the stabili (the first, the Piccolo Teatro, was opened in Milan in 1947 by Giorgio Strehler), tended to undermine their own progressive intent by being reliant on state funding. However, they did help enlarge the role of directors like Strehler (perhaps at the writers’ expense) in Italian theatre.

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Led by foreign influences, experimentation dominated theatre in the 1960s and 70s. It left the masses cold, despite the efforts of writers like Carmelo Bene, the enfant terrible who produced a troubling version of Pinocchio (1961). Throughout, the most popular theatre portrayed everyday people who spoke in local dialects, which, understandably, didn’t progress much beyond a regional stage. Small collettivi, left-wing theatre groups, emerged in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, fostering talent like Dario Fo (see below) and pushing decentralisation. Their social themes touched a nerve and finally Italian theatre, led by alternative ideas yet still heavily subsidised by the state, began attracting a wider audience, a slow trend that continued through to the 21st century. However, any progress hasn’t assuaged the feeling that Italian theatre continues to underperform.

A Nobel cause? Luigi Pirandello was a well-known Fascist and supporter of Mussolini. He even donated his Nobel Prize medal to the Italian Government to be melted down for the campaign in Abyssinia.

The post-Pirandello scene: three playwrights Eduardo De Filippo was a singular talent, a playwright and actor who often wrote in the Neapolitan dialect of his home city. Typically, his plays shed light (some of it comedic) on the daily concerns of the poor and middle class in mid 20th century Italy. Filumena Marturano (1946) was a fine example. Ugo Betti produced theatre of some importance in the same period as de Filippo. He was a qualified judge and often set plays in the law courts, confronting the psychology of justice, guilt and atonement; Corruzione al palazzo di giustizia (1944) provides a fine introduction. Diego Fabbri, another important mid-century playwright (although somewhat forgotten now), created existential theatre in the likes of Processo a Gesù (1955).

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First Lady of Italian theatre Dario Fo’s wife, Franca Rame, was an important playwright and stage actress in her own right. She and Fo set up Nuova Scena, a left-wing theatre company, in 1968; often she co-wrote with her husband, writing monologues with a feminist, occasionally blackly comic approach. Stupro (1983) took rape as a theme, while Una madre (1980) told of drugs and violence. Rame herself was abducted and raped by a neo-fascist gang in 1973. “IT’S TRUE WE’R E IN THE SHIT RIG HT UP TO OUR N E C KS, AND THAT ’S PRECISELY THE RE A SON WH Y WE WAL K WITH OUR HE AD S HEL D HIGH!” From Morte accidentale di un anarchico by Dario Fo

The Fo show The most significant contribution to theatre in the last 50 years has been made by Dario Fo, a playwright from Lombardy. Fo gained national recognition in the 1960s for left-wing political satire, notably L’operaio conosce 300 parole, il padrone 1000: per questo lui é il padrone (1969) (or, in English, The Worker Knows 300 Words, the Boss 1000: That’s Why He’s the Boss), before more openly revolutionary plays in the following decade brought him international success. The best known among these are Non si paga! Non si paga! (1974), the tale of an everyday man’s victory against bureaucracy, and his most famous work, Morte accidentale di un anarchico (1970), about the mysterious death of a political activist in police custody (a play based on events that followed the notorious Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan in 1969). Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997 for “emulating the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden”. He’s still an active force in Italian life; in 2006, aged 80, he ran a failed campaign in the Milanese mayoral elections, not long after he raised eyebrows with L’anomalo bicefalo (2003), a play in which Vladimir Putin’s brain is transplanted into Silvio Berlusconi’s body.

Ticket trends In 2007 almost 36 million theatre tickets were sold in Italy, up nearly nine million from 2001.

Alessandro Baricco. Cultural polymath Baricco has authored novels, directed films and, when time allows, written for theatre, most famously creating Novecento (1994), a monologue that begins with an abandoned baby discovered on board a ship.

One in five Italians go to the theatre at least once a year.

Marco Paolini. Another one who directs, writes and acts, Paolini’s politicised theatre first came to prominence in 1995 when he was lauded for Il racconto del Vajont – 9 Ottobre 1963, about an Alpine dam disaster.

Two contemporary Italian playwrights

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4.2.2 Italy on the dancefloor

Forgotten but not gone: folk dancing The varied, regional traditions of Italy’s folk dances echo the diversity inherent in the nation’s folk music (see section 4.1.1 for more). And, similarly in tune with folk music, folk dancing has little popularity in modern Italy, although the tarantella (see below) is often enacted at wedding celebrations or on less formal occasions, usually after a certain quantity of alcohol has been ingested. Many of Italy’s folk dances, usually performed to a tune of the same name, have fuzzy pagan roots. Some are more famous than others: the furlana is a courtship dance from the north of Italy; the saltarello, a lively dance featuring a fair share of leaping, is found in many areas; and the tammurriata is a southern erotic dance for couples who simulate having sex and being exorcised at the same time, while playing castanets to the improvised accompaniment of the tammorra (a large drum).

Bitten with the dance bug One Italian folk dance is more famous than the rest. There are many versions of the tarantella, but essentially it’s an up-tempo affair, danced by a group moving round in a circle, clapping or playing tambourines and taking turns to dance in the middle, either in a couple or alone. The origins of the tarantella are unclear, although a popular myth ties it to Taranto, a port in Puglia. Legend declares that in the 16th century the city witnessed an outbreak of tarantism, a fatal malaise brought on by the bite of the tarantula spider (named after the city). The victim, known as a tarantata, was almost always a woman and could only be cured by dancing in a frenzied manner for days on end. The dance was known as the tarantella. Of course it’s all nonsense – the bite of the local tarantula is no worse than a bee sting. It seems more likely that these ‘victims’ were merely looking for a way to get round a Church ban on pagan ritual dancing.

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A brief affair with ballet The early footsteps of classical ballet can be found in the Italian Renaissance courts of the late 15th century, where dance formed a part of the lavish entertainment on offer. In fact, Italy can claim credit for what is considered to be the first ballet. Le Ballet Comique de la Reine, a five-anda-half hour spectacle, was staged by the Italian Baltazarini di Belgioioso (Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx to the French) in Paris in 1581. Catherine de Medici had taken Baltazarini with her as chief musician when she left Florence to become queen of France in 1547. However, having begun with a flourish, Italy’s input into the development of ballet soon dwindled to minimal, until the 19th century when it rose to being marginal.

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Those who can’t do, teach…ballet Opera took centre stage in 19th century Italy, and although ballets were performed and produced, notably Luigi Manzotti’s Excelsior (1881), the nation’s contribution to the form lay chiefly in providing ballet teachers and dancers. Italians played an important role in the development of ballet technique, beginning with the publication, in French, of Traité élémentaire, théorique, et pratique de l’art de la danse (1820) by choreographer and teacher Carlo Blasis. Later on, Enrico Cecchetti, formerly a famous dancer, became a highly sought after teacher, instructing the legendary Anna Pavlova. His ballet instruction, which involved a strict but apparently inspirational training regime, known as the Cecchetti Method, is still in use today.

A right performance in Umbria In June and July, the small Umbrian town of Spoleto comes alive for Italy’s chief performing arts festival. The Festival dei Due Mondi (or the Spoleto Festival more commonly) has been mixing dance, opera, music, cinema and theatre since composer Gian Carlo Menotti launched the inaugural event in 1958.

The dancers Over the years, Italy has cultivated some of the world’s finest ballerinas, including Carlotta Grisi (19th century), Carla Fracci (20th century), Alessandra Ferri (retired in 2007) and Mara Galeazzi (still dancing with the Royal Ballet in London). It’s a shame that they’ve spent most of their time abroad, dancing foreign ballets for foreign ballet companies. In the pantheon of Italian ballerinas, two stand above the rest: Pierina Legnani Born and instructed in Milan, Legnani was the first dancer awarded the rank of prima ballerina assoluta, an extremely rare ‘best of the best’ title given for lifetime achievement. In 1892 she became the first ballerina to perform the famous series of 32 fouettés en tournant (a dizzying spin), a sequence she perfected to great acclaim in Cinderella (1893).

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“WILL T H AT L ITTL E HUN CHBACK EVER LEARN T O DA NCE?” Ballet teacher instructing Marie Taglioni, aged six

Parmesan? Black pepper? Marie Taglioni was so revered as a dancer that a group of Russian fans bought a pair of her ballet shoes for 200 roubles in 1842. The shoes were then cooked in a sauce, garnished, and eaten.

Marie Taglioni Taglioni never let her looks get in the way of a dancing career; despite (or perhaps because of) her unusually long arms and legs, she became one of the most famous ballerinas of the 19th century. Her role in La Sylphide (1832), created by her father Filippo, is regarded as a defining moment in Romantic ballet. It was in La Sylphide that Taglioni popularised the now iconic tutu, although they weren’t quite so short in her day.

The modern dance scene Ballet has never enjoyed the same status as opera in Italy and its popularity remains limited. However, there are regular performances throughout the country, and the major opera houses all have their own resident ballet companies, the Corpo di Ballo del Teatro alla Scala in Milan being the best known. Modern dance is in a similarly stable condition, with a handful of companies performing contemporary work, notably the Balletto di Toscana, Movimento Danza and Aterballetto, which gives acclaimed performances around the world under artistic director and choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti. Performers such as Fabio Grossi and Simona Lisi have helped extend the scope of Italian modern dance in recent years. Festivals devoted to modern dance include Di Seconda Mano, held annually at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples.

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4.2.3 Laughing matter: Italian comedy

Comedy plays a significant role in Italian culture. The tradition of staged humour reaches back to the comedies of Ancient Rome and the improvised commedia dell’arte of the 16th century (see section 4.2.1 for more). Much of that was about buffoonery, and the Italian taste for a fool remains (they often laugh loudest at the bloke in a dress tripping over a dog). However, there has always been a healthily satirical element to Italian comedy too, a cynicism that blended with the clowning around in the early 20th century in the satirical cabaret sketches of avanspettacolo, or ‘curtain raiser’, the stuff that often warmed the audience up before a film or a play. The most famous avanspettacolo performers were solo caricaturists like Ettore Petrolini and Totò, the mimic with a dextrous face and funny turn of phrase who became the nation’s favourite comic actor in a stream of movies in the 1940s and 50s, most of which had his name in their title, and most of which are still making regular appearances on Italian TV. Film was the prime vehicle for comedy from the 1950s, found largely in the genre known as commedia all’Italiana. From the 1970s, the emphasis switched to television, where Roberto Benigni was the prime star. He came to prominence in the 70s show Onda Libera before going on to make the Oscar-winning film La vita è bella (1997) (see section 5.1.5 for more).

Cut out for comedy There’s nothing funnier than a man in a cardboard outfit imitating Tina Turner. Agreed? It certainly worked in the 1980s for Ennio Marchetto, a Venetian comedian who drew on the masked entertainment of the Ancient Roman pantomimus and the commedia dell’arte of the Renaissance. Known as the ‘One Man Living Cartoon Factory’, Marchetto enjoyed acclaim at home and abroad for mime shows involving quick changes of the aforementioned cardboard costumes whilst aping everything from a Benedictine monk to Eminem to the Titanic…and, of course, Tina Turner.

A little bit of politics The Italians have always had a hearty appetite for political satire, a reflection, no doubt, of the governments they’ve had to suffer over the years. In the press, there is the comic tradition of the vignetta (political cartoon), like those found on the front page of Italy’s leading national daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera. Similarly, television has hosted many, often short-lived, satirical shows. Frequently, they provide a launch pad for the new, edgy stars of Italian comedy. In recent years, three figures in particular have emerged to raise a laugh, stirring up the establishment along the way: 173 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Beppe Grillo. A comedian and political activist who came to prominence in the 1980s attacking the Government’s foreign policy on the television show Fantastico 7. Grillo’s Internet blog is the most visited in the country (see section 6.1.4 for more) and among the top ten blogs in the world. In September 2007 he staged his own V Day (Vaffanculo (Fuck Off) Day) calling for MPs with criminal convictions to be removed from office, a demand that found support across the country. Rosario Fiorello. A Sicilian showman who sings, mimics and acts, Fiorello first entered the public consciousness on Karaoke, a TV show. More recently Fiorello has built a loyal following hosting a daily radio show, Viva Radio 2, on which he impersonates everyone from Carla Bruni to Kim Jongil. He even popped up singing in The Talented Mr Ripley alongside Jude Law. Sabina Guzzanti. A comedienne who also upset Berlusconi on TV, but is more famous for winding up the pope and nearly landing in jail. At a political rally held in Rome’s Piazza Navona in July 2008, she proclaimed that, because of the Church’s treatment of homosexuals, the pope would soon be going to Hell where he would be “tormented by great big poofter devils – and very active ones”.

Keep on smiling Comedy in contemporary Italy is in rude health. Television is the main outlet, hosting satire and straight comedy shows in large numbers; the country also has its own cable cousin to the American Comedy Central channel, dedicated solely to mirth. For the live stuff, every city in the country has its own (usually small) club hosting cabaret and comedy evenings, while the more famous comedians like Beppe Grillo, Antonio Albanese, Paolo Rossi and Paola Cortellesi all regularly tour larger venues. Comedy festivals are also popular, including the annual Faccia Da Comico at the Teatro Ambra Jovinelli in Rome, as are competitions for new talent like La Zanzara d’Oro (The Golden Mosquito) at the Teatro delle Celebrazioni in Bologna. 174 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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5 Cinema and fashion

5.1 Cinema p179 5.1.1 The importance of Italian cinema p180 5.1.2 Epic tastes: from silent classics to noisy propaganda p182 5.1.3 Grit and determination: Neorealist cinema p186

5.1.4 The golden age of Italian cinema p188 5.1.5 The era of false dawns: modern Italian cinema p195 5.2 Fashion p201 5.2.1 Made in Italy p202

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5.1 Cinema Some of Italy’s most rewarding encounters with modern culture have come in the movie theatre, from the silent epics to the Neorealists and the golden age of Fellini and co.

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5.1.1 The importance of Italian cinema

Three Italian film festivals Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia. That’s the Venice Film Festival, second only to Cannes in the roll call of European fests. Held on Venice Lido in late summer every year since 1932, it claims to be the oldest film festival in the world. The main prize is the Leone d’Oro, descendant of what used to be the Coppa Mussolini. Strappami le Lacrime. Festival dedicated to the tearjerker; held in Rome in late February and early March. Le Giornate del Cinema Muto The largest festival in the world dedicated solely to film from the silent era. Held in Pordenone, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, every October.

Italy has a distinct cinematic tradition. Guilty pleasures aside (there’s a weakness for pulp horror and sex comedy), the best moments of Italian cinema have often been characterised by naturalism, by an honest (and regularly cynical) appraisal of contemporary Italian life. Even in the silent era, when effusive flailing was considered imperative in American cinema, Italian actors were giving nuanced, intelligent performances. In the short but influential post-war Neorealist period, directors shaped a new genre of candid film-making, before subtly adapting a decade later to pass comment on society and money when the good times arrived. Even today, the best Italian cinema pokes around in murky truths, unflinching in its dramatisation of corruption and crime.

Taking on Hollywood Cinema-going remains a popular Italian pastime. The figures for attendance have remained relatively steady through the first decade of the 21st century (around 115 million tickets sold each year). However, most filmgoers (around two thirds) are paying to watch dubbed Hollywood blockbusters. Around a hundred native films get made every year, and there’s an almost annual discussion about the ‘resurgence of Italian cinema’, but the heady days of the 1950s and 60s are a long way past (a regularly made comparison that itself probably holds modern Italian cinema back). The best-sellers tend to be lightweight comedies rather than auteur affairs. For example, in 2008, the year of Gomorra, Matteo Garrone’s acclaimed film about the Neapolitan Mafia, the Italian box office charts were topped by Natale a Rio, the latest in a series of screwball comedies, this one about a Christmas holiday in Brazil (Gomorra was tenth on the list).

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Italian film-makers apply to the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities for funding (repaid if box office receipts reach a certain level), and many are successful, as long as the project’s staff and content are sufficiently ‘Italian’. However, additional cash is usually required from a TV company to get a film made. In recent years many films have secured funding by working as co-productions with other European countries, although this process appears to be in decline. The growth of multiplex cinemas and their preference for ‘reliable’ American blockbusters isn’t helping the situation.

Celebrate with a Dave The Premi David di Donatello are Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars. Handed out each spring since 1955 by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, the gongs, as the name suggests, are miniature copies of Donatello’s David statue.

On location: three films shot in Italy The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). The adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s thriller used various Italian backdrops, from the Caffè Florian in Venice to the beach of Bagno Antonio on the island of Ischia. The Italian Job (1969). The crime caper starring Michael Caine unfurled in the narrow streets of Turin (although the famous tunnel drive was actually filmed in a Coventry sewer) and ended teetering on the edge of a cliff at Ceresole Reale in the Alps. The Godfather (1972). The real Sicilian town of Corleone, ancestral home of Mario Puzo’s fictional crime dynasty, was too developed to use for filming; the village of Savoca stood in.

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5.1.2 Epic tastes: from silent classics to noisy propaganda Romantic hero to die for

So that’s what the Romans looked like

The most famous Italian figure of early cinema didn’t actually make any Italian movies. Rodolfo Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla (Rudolph Valentino) moved from Italy to New York aged 18, in 1913, unable to find work in his native Puglia. He lived rough before getting a job as a ballroom dancer, which led to acting and romantic leads in some memorable films, The Sheikh (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922) among them. When Valentino lost out to peritonitis, aged 31, some female fans apparently committed suicide.

Italy took to cinema like a natural. After getting over the simple wonder of creating moving images – a smiling Pope Leo XIII, blessing anything in sight, was filmed in 1896 shortly after the Lumière Brothers reported making the first film in Paris – early film-makers turned to narrative, seemingly inspired by the grand spectacle of Italy’s operatic tradition. Historical epics prevailed in the nascent industry, hugely popular in Italy and similarly successful when exported to the USA where they set the standard for early cinema. Ancient Rome was plundered for storylines: grand sets, swarms of sandaled extras and muscled torsos did much to shape the ‘epic’ cinematic tradition. The first Italian movie (or film with a plot at least), La Presa di Roma (1905), actually celebrated more recent history – the capture of Rome by the new Italian army in 1870. When they weren’t cutting historical epics, early film-makers made melodrama.

IT ALY’S F IRST CIN EMA IS STIL L IN BUSINESS; TH E C IN EMA L UMIÈRE IN PISA OPENED IN 19 0 5 .

Giovanni Pastrone was a leading figure early on; a director and producer who wrote screenplays, set up cinemas and invented new equipment, not least the carrello, a camera that could move with the action. Italy’s silent films also produced the first real stars of international cinema, reared as such by the industry’s budding film companies and directors. It was the divisimo culture, built around well-paid actresses who became known as dive – divas. Francesca Bertini and Lydia Borelli were among the early female stars. Bertini’s fame was transatlantic (she apparently earned $175,000 in 1915) and long-lived – her final screen appearance came in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1976 epic, Novecento.

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Three Italian classics from the silent era Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (Mario Caserini 1913). The last days of Pompeii, caught with impressive flair and unexpected subtlety. It’s silent, of course, so remember to go ‘boom’ at the appropriate moment. Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone 1914). The best of Italy’s silent epics was written by nationalist poet and all-round show-off Gabriele D’Annunzio. Bartolemeo Pagano, a Genoese docker, found stardom playing Maciste, a muscular Roman slave, in the story of a damsel’s distress in the Second Punic War. Cabiria was a hit well beyond Italy; the American premiere was held in the White House.

Francesca Bertini

Assunta Spina(Gustavo Serena 1915). The finest of the early Italian melodramas starred Francesca Bertini (who also helped out with the writing). She brought an impressive realism to the titular role, a Neapolitan washerwoman with a murderously jealous fiancé.

Letting the Americans in The Futurist movement (see 3.1.5 for the details), with its taste for modernity and movement, was impressed with the new medium of film. However, whilst the collective published a manifesto on Futurist cinema in 1916 (they were big on manifestos), they didn’t make many films. Thais (1917), directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, author of the aforementioned manifesto, probably got most attention. The Futurists’ contribution to cinema lay more in championing new technology. Unfortunately, Italy’s post First World War governments didn’t pay much attention: they didn’t regulate the flow of foreign films into Italy and the formerly vibrant Italian industry was swamped by cheap American movies, a situation made worse by Italy’s post-war economic discomfort.

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“CIN EMA IS THE M OST PO WERF UL WEAPON.” Cinecittà slogan, 1937

Film with the Fascists The Italian film industry recovered somewhat in the 1930s. The arrival of ‘talkies’ helped (audiences had a new reason for choosing Italian over American) and so did the Fascist government: financing studios, encouraging directors and limiting the influx of foreign films. Like Hitler, Mussolini used newsreel for propaganda, but the regime’s cinema wasn’t as blatant as it was in Nazi Germany; in Italy, they used historical parallels to glorify the Fascist party. For instance, the Fascists paid accomplished director Carmine Gallone to make Scipione l’Africano (1937), set in Ancient Rome but commissioned to bolster public support for the shameful campaign in Abyssinia. Figures like Alessandro Blasetti, whose 1860 (1934) anticipated Neorealist cinema with its commonplace hero, showed how directors could make very good films and still satisfy the regime (in this case with stirring stuff about the Risorgimento). Other films were inevitably more plodding, diluted by the restrictions on subject matter. Many fell into the telefoni bianchi genre: moralising, derivative (of American) movies made in the late 1930s and named for the white telephones found in the living rooms of their affluent characters. Il Signor Max (1937), a comedy about a newspaper salesman done good, was typical.

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Europe’s biggest film set Mussolini spent a considerable sum building Cinecittà, the sprawling film studios on Rome’s south-eastern fringe. Unveiled in 1937, it became the hub of the Italian film industry after the war (but not before briefly serving as a refugee camp). Cinecittà’s cheap post-war rates enticed American film-makers over in the 1950s: Charlton Heston went hell for leather sandals here in Ben Hur (1959) and Liz Taylor met Richard Burton for the first time on the set of Cleopatra (1961). Italian director Federico Fellini made all his films at Cinecittà. After some lean years in the late 20th century, Cinecittà (now privatised), still the largest film studios in Europe, is back on the filmic map, attracting directors like Martin Scorsese, who shot Gangs of New York (2002) there.

Gangs of New York set at Cinecittà

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5.1.3 Grit and determination: Neorealist cinema

“I’VE LOST AL L MY M ON E Y ON THESE FILMS… BU T I ’M GLAD T O L OSE IT T HIS WAY.” Vittorio De Sica

Is that the postman at the door? No dear, it’s Neorealism Critics rarely agree on what the first film of Italian Neorealist cinema was. Some cite Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta (1945); others point to Ossessione (1942), Visconti’s unglamorous adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which moved James M. Cain’s story of murderous passion from California to northern Italy. Mussolini allowed the film’s release, even though his son Vittorio famously walked out of a screening shouting “This is not Italy”. However, the Fascists would later sentence Visconti to death for hiding Partisans in his villa. He escaped prison, and the capital sentence, with the help of his jailors.

Shooting from the ruins A new strain of Italian film-making took shape in the Second World War. Neorealism was born in part of necessity: the wartime sacking of Cinecittà compelled new directors to shoot on location, amid the rubble, in a documentary style, whilst a lack of funding often gave the lead roles to non-professional actors, with mixed results. There was also an urge to purge the artificiality of telefoni bianchi (the genre in which many Neorealist directors and actors got their first break), to capture instead the real social (usually-working class) concerns of the times, often in real language. All these factors gave Neorealist cinema a rawness that articulated Italy’s post-war pain.

Who were the important Neorealist directors? Neorealist cinema was largely confined to Rome, where three key directors were at work. Roberto Rossellini took the most documentary, guerrilla approach, invariably using wartime as a theme. Vittorio De Sica, a matinee idol in the Fascist era, was a more conventional directorial talent. He took Cesare Zavattini’s scripts and made emotive, engaging films that used the personal stories of betrayal and love to comment on social themes ranging from crime to the elderly. The third great director, Luchino Visconti, an aristocrat, made more overtly political films on the plight of the poor – most memorably of Sicilian fishermen. All three directors made significant films in later decades, reinventing their style, but each remains closely associated with Neorealism. It was a short-lived genre (and never a formal ‘school’), essentially over by the early 1950s. Its end was speeded by poor box office receipts (most post-war Italians wanted escapism not grim reality), and by the easing of the socioeconomic strife it portrayed. Despite the abrupt end, Neorealism would prove hugely influential on subsequent Italian cinema.

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What a Cary on

The five Neorealist films to watch first Roma, città aperta (Roberto Rossellini 1945). An early milestone in Neorealist cinema, shot on Roman streets six months after the Nazis left. It told the tense story of partisans fighting Germans. Anna Magnani emerged as Neorealism’s leading lady. Sciuscià(Vittorio De Sica 1946). Two shoeshine boys, played with impressive subtlety by a couple of untrained actors, come unstuck in unsympathetic post-war Rome. La terra trema (Luchino Visconti 1948). Another cast of non-professionals, here using Sicilian dialect, rendered the lives of poor, exploited fishing folk in a film commissioned by the Italian Communist Party. Ladri di biciclette (Vittorio De Sica 1948). A destitute man and his son (non-actors) scour Rome for the stolen bike on which his job hanging posters depends. Bleak but utterly compelling: the best film you’ll ever see about a stolen bike (probably). Riso Amaro (Giuseppe De Santis 1949). Two jewel thieves hide out amid tough migrant workers in the paddy fields of the Po Valley. Silvana Mangano’s feisty, busty character helped sell the film.

Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di biciclette has become the most acclaimed of the Neorealist films, combining, as it did, critical and commercial success. The plausibility of its central father and son characters, played by amateur actors, is key to its authenticity. However, it could all have been very different. Iconic American producer David O. Selznick offered to fund the film so long as De Sica placed Cary Grant in the role of the father. De Sica suggested Henry Fonda instead, before deciding on his cast of amateurs and other sources of funding.

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5.1.4 The golden age of Italian cinema

In the pink As Neorealism waned in the early 1950s, a new golden age of Italian cinema developed in tandem with the nation’s ‘economic miracle’ (see 8.4 for more). One genre was dubbed neorealismo rosa (Pink Neorealism), which kept the location shoots and working-class characters of Neorealism but swapped edgy social critique for matters of the heart, usually tinged with comedy. Pink Neorealism rapidly withered, being superseded by the popular commedia all’italiana genre in the late 1950s. It wasn’t as lightweight as it might sound: the films were bittersweet, finding humour in mocking the posturing of Italy’s newfound prosperity. Commedia all’italiana made repeated use of the same actors, notably Vittorio Gassman, star of the genre’s first big hit, I soliti ignoti (1958), a Mario Monicelli-directed effort about a gang of bungling crooks.

The age of the auteurs While commedia all’italiana was the commercial success story of the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, critically the period is better remembered for its auteur directors, figures who drew on different genres and themes to produce distinctive, highly personal cinema. Some used the cynicism of commedia all’italiana, pointing the finger at Italy’s new consumerist society; others used sex or the ideological clash of the era as themes.

Five legends: the auteurs and their films Federico Fellini. Recognised by many as the greatest of all Italian directors, Fellini began writing scripts in the Neorealist era (he worked on Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta) before turning to direction. In 1956 he won an Oscar for La strada (1954), in which Anthony Quinn played a callous circus strongman, before producing La dolce vita (1960), a satire on celebrity that broke new ground with its unusual structure (a series of set-piece episodes) and themes. Fellini stretched reality. His

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characters were extreme, used to parody the excess and superficiality of modern life – La dolce vita was typical with Anita Ekberg’s voluptuous actress and Mario Mastroianni’s shiftless journalist trailing rather pointlessly around decadent, modern Rome. Another Fellini masterpiece, 8½ (1963), came soon after, before his allegorical style became increasingly surreal and the narrative looser, spoiling the legend somewhat. Michelangelo Antonioni. A clutch of stylish early 1960s films cemented the Antonioni brand. He shunned traditional structure: plotlines fizzled out or didn’t exist at all; the editing was intentionally abrupt and jarring; and the characters were cool and undemonstrative, revealing little of themselves as they struggled with psychological angst. Why explain when you can stare moodily out of the window making vague existential comments? It was demanding stuff, but audiences and critics responded positively. The first big hit was L’avventura (1960); a missing young woman, frustratingly, is never found but the disappearance sheds light on her friends.

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Pasolini, the movie The furore generated by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s films, cited for blasphemy and obscenity but also greatly admired, mirrored the director’s own turbulent life. His brother was murdered by Yugoslav communist partisans in the war, and yet Pasolini became a staunch leftist. He took a teaching job after the war but lost it after being convicted of obscene acts and corrupting minors. By the time the conviction was reversed and Pasolini cleared of all charges, he’d spent two years living in the slums of Rome. He was arrested again in 1963, this time charged with blasphemy over La ricotta, a short film starring Orson Welles as a director making his own film about the Crucifixion. Pasolini’s death in 1975, aged 53, was suitably nonconformist; he was found dead on the beach at Ostia, near Rome, after being run over several times by his own car. A 17-year-old male prostitute pleaded guilty and was convicted of murder, but has since retracted his confession. Conspiracy theories abound.

Antonioni’s first colour film, Il deserto rosso (1964), is often considered his masterpiece. Later films were made in English, notably Blow Up (1966), set in swinging London. Francesco Rosi. Like Fellini and Antonioni, Rosi cut his teeth on Neorealism, helping out Visconti on La terra trema, but unlike his contemporaries kept the focus on social and political misdeeds in the 1960s. In the golden age, he made movies about the corruption of power, laying out the evidence in documentary style, waiting for the public to draw its own conclusions. Il caso Mattei (1972), perhaps his best work, explored the demise of an oil tycoon in a plane crash. Pier Paolo Pasolini. The Catholic Marxist homosexual Pasolini threw his religious, ideological and sexual concerns into his films. His directing career began with Accattone (1961), a realist slice of the rough lowlife Rome he knew well, and his talent was confirmed with Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964), a rendering of the Gospel according to Matthew. Pasolini is best remembered, however, for the scandalising trilogy of Decameron (1971), I racconti di Canterbury (1972) (in which Pasolini himself played Chaucer) and Il fiore delle mille e una notte (1974), sexed-up classics that voiced a disdain for modern life. Bernardo Bertolucci. His first job in film was working for Pasolini, and he shared some of the older director’s taste for allegorical commentary even while developing more psychological themes and a much slicker cinematic style. In La strategia del ragno (1970), his first major success, a young man searches for answers about the murder of his father by Fascists. Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972), starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider as the intimate strangers, brought worldwide renown as well as notoriety. Bertolucci’s subsequent films grew more epic and visually impressive.

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Classics on a plate: the spaghetti westerns It’s a derogatory title, but one that has stuck and which lacks an alternative. The Italian westerns made in the 1960s eschewed the clean-cut cowboys of Hollywood for mean, dirty gunslingers. Around 400 were made, many of them co-productions between European and American companies, as reflected by the mixed line-up of Italian and American actors, among whom the memorably reticent and ponchoed Clint Eastwood stood out. Sergio Leone was the key director, shooting five westerns in all; the music of Ennio Morricone did much to sharpen Leone’s long, sparsely dialogued sequences. Try Per un pugno di dollari (1964) for starters (better known to millions as A Fistful of Dollars). Damiano Damiani and Sergio Corbucci also made thoroughly watchable spaghetti westerns. Water with your vodka, Marcello? The famous Trevi fountain scene of Fellini’s La dolce vita was shot one March evening in 1959. Anita Ekberg apparently had no problem with wading through the chill waters for hours on end; Marcello Mastroianni, so Fellini said, wore a wetsuit under his clothes and was only tempted into the fountain after warming up with a bottle of vodka.

“I T W A S I W H O M A D E F ELLI N I FA M O U S , N O T TH E O TH ER W A Y AROUND.” Anita Ekberg

Princely performer Antonio de Curtis, stage name Totò, was the Italian film comic of the 20th century. He made over a hundred movies between the 1930s and 60s, starring in both original work and parodies of other films. He brought his talents to a wide range of roles but was at his best as a commedia dell’arte style character: the Neapolitan underdog who sticks it to the Establishment with his devious wit. He always claimed to be the illegitimate son of a marquis, and apparently liked to be addressed as Principe (Prince). Towards the end of Totò’s career, Pasolini gave him a role in Uccellacci e uccellini (1966), bringing the actor the serious appraisal he’d always craved. Watch Guardie e ladri (1950), a cops and robbers caper, for a taste of the Totò magic.

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Sorry, no, espadrilles won’t do… Peplum movies (or ‘sword and sandal’ if you prefer; the peplum was a loose Greek tunic) had been around in one form or another since the days of silent Italian film, but found new life in the early 1960s. They took Ancient mythology as a (very rough) base, placed a musclebound (often American) actor in the midst and then proceeded morally towards a happy ending. Le fatiche di Ercole (1958), starring American actor Steve Reeves as Hercules, was the first big box office hit. There were no standout film-makers, although spaghetti western auteur Sergio Leone did make his directorial debut with Il colosso di Rodi (1961), a better peplum film than most.

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Five golden age actors Sophia Loren. A sex symbol with considerable talent, Loren won an Oscar for La ciociara (1960), one of five films she made with Neorealist director De Sica. Vittorio Gassman. Theatre actor who got his film break playing the criminal in De Santis’ Riso Amaro, and became a golden age legend in the likes of Il Sorpasso. Monica Vitti. Vitti’s alluring, understated style contrasted with the demonstrative Loren and Lollobrigida. Antonioni got the best from Vitti in L’avventura, La notte (1961) and L’eclisse (1962). Marcello Mastroianni. The leading man of the golden age is forever tied to Fellini. Excellent in 8½ but at his best as the shallow, manipulated journalist in La dolce vita. Alberto Sordi. The comic star of numerous commedia all’Italiana films played the puerile male with aplomb, but also worked for the auteurs, notably in Fellini’s Lo sceicco bianco (1952).

Directors’ cuts: the giallo films The low-budget giallo (yellow) films of the 1960s and 70s took their lead from a literary genre of the same name (see section 2.1.5), bringing crime fiction to the big screen. However, the style soon bled out towards horror and, eventually, full-on gore. Flesh became a key theme in the 1970s, either for slashing or titillation (giallo directors were unashamedly misogynistic), and in some instances for both. Mario Bava was the accomplished directorial force: his La ragazza che sapeva troppo (1963) helped launch the genre, whilst Ecologia del delitto (1971) brought inventive new types of death to film (in one scene a couple in the throes of passion are skewered with a single spear) and proved highly influential on the American slasher movies of the 1980s and 90s. Dario Argento, one-time scriptwriter to Bertolucci and Leone, was another important giallo director; Profondo rosso (1975) was amongst his best films.

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“THERE WERE T HREE MEN IN HER LIFE. ONE TO TAKE HER...ONE TO L OVE HER...AND O NE TO K ILL HER.” Tag line for C’era una volta il west

The ten golden age films to watch first La dolce vita (Federico Fellini 1960). Seven episodes in the week of Mastroianni’s bored, fickle journalist, used to comment on the shallowness of Rome’s post-war party set. Le mani sulla città (Francesco Rosi 1963). Damning portrayal of corrupt construction practices during the economic boom; Rod Steiger plays the lead. Better than it sounds. Il gattopardo(Luchino Visconti 1963). Sweeping Risorgimento drama adapted from Lampedusa’s novel (see section 2.1.5), starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale. Il sorpasso (Dino Risi 1963). A fine commedia all’Italiana film (in which Risi specialised) about a road trip, expertly satirising Italy’s new economic success. 8½(Federico Fellini 1963). Mastroianni stars for Fellini again, this time in a dreamy, disorientating and critical stab at the art of directing and its attendant distractions. Il deserto rosso(Michelangelo Antonioni 1964). Ravenna’s foggy industrial backdrop fits perfectly with Monica Vitti’s depressed housewife. A lipsynched Richard Harris is her husband.

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C’era una volta il west (Sergio Leone 1968). The best of Leone’s westerns pitched Charles Bronson (and his incessant harmonica) against Henry Fonda’s ruthless killer. Better known outside Italy as Once Upon a Time in the West. Il conformista(Bernardo Bertolucci 1970). Sex and violence (and the links between) in a psychological drama; a closet homosexual gets drawn into killing for the Fascists. Il decamerone (Pier Paolo Pasolini 1971). The first of Pasolini’s ‘trilogy of life’ caused a stir with its sex, but offered an entertaining run through Boccaccio’s bawdy original (see 2.1.3 for more). Mimì metallurgico ferito nell’onore (Lina Wertmüller 1972). Tragicomedy set in the 1968 student uprisings, with a Mafia twist. From a rare female Italian director.

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5.1.5 The era of false dawns: modern Italian cinema Screen angst The word ‘crisis’ crops up a lot in analyses of Italian cinema in the 1970s and 80s. They were lean years. Italian films struggled against the country’s new-found obsession with TV and the dominance of Hollywood. The auteurs of the 1960s continued working but produced little of great merit. Antonioni’s Identificazione di una donna (1982), about a film director searching for a leading lady, was typical – it was good, but not as good as it used to be. The successful films that did appear were unconnected by any consistent theme or style. Some directors, notably Bertolucci, made English-language films. Of the new directors to emerge, the Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio, were well received. Padre Padrone (1977), the (true) story of a Sardinian shepherd boy and his barbaric father, was their breakthrough film. Other cinema was less erudite. This was the era when giallo films reached their height, and also the period when director Tinto Brass found success (and heavy censorship) with a series of ‘sexploitation’ films.

Padre Padrone

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Scenes of crime From the late 1960s through to the 80s, Italy had its own pulpy version of the American crime film. The poliziotteschi, often categorised as an offshoot of giallo films (see previous section), were heavy on car chases, shoot-outs and moustachioed cops. The Italian problems with political corruption and the Mafia, which wasn’t glamorised on film here like it was in America, provided an endless fount of subject matter. Fernando di Leo was the key director; Il boss (1973) and I padroni della città (1976) amongst his best films.

A taste of the 1970s and 80s: five films Salon Kitty (Tinto Brass 1976). Ever wondered how you make a box office smash about Nazis and sex? Here you go. (The Salon Kitty brothel did actually exist in 1930s Berlin, filled with hidden microphones and used by the Nazis to gather secrets.) L’albero degli zoccoli (Ermanno Olmi 1978). Three-hour Grapes of Wrath-style epic about Bergamo peasants at the turn of the 20th century, inspired by stories Olmi heard from his grandmother. Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Francesco Rosi 1979). Rosi made a good fist of filming Carlo Levi’s book about southern destitution (see section 2.1.5 for more). Otello (Franco Zeffirelli 1986). Zeffirelli’s fast-moving take on Shakespeare, channelled through Verdi. Placido Domingo blacked up for the lead role. L’ultimo imperatore(Bernardo Bertolucci 1987). The most successful of Bertolucci’s English-language productions, depicting the last days of China’s Manchu dynasty, won nine Oscars.

New Italian Cinema A resurgence of sorts occurred in the late 1980s. New Italian Cinema, as the flowering was called, began with Giuseppe Tornatore’s Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988),

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an internationally acclaimed (and undeniably mawkish) period piece about a fatherless boy who finds succour at the local cinema. Similar sentimentality flowed from Il postino, directed by Michael Radford, a Brit, characterising the New Italian Cinema as one pining for the values of a bygone Italy. Other films tackled this sense of disappointment about modern Italy more directly. Gianni Amelio was an important director, reigniting the social conscience of Neorealist cinema with Il Ladro di bambini (1992), a depressing but engrossing child’s eye view of modern Italy. Marco Risi did something similar with Mery per sempre (1989), set in a Palermo reform school. A third director, Daniele Luchetti, turned the spotlight on corruption with Il portaborse (1991), a satire on the kickbacks and favours endemic in the Italian establishment. New Italian Cinema did produce some interesting, highly individual work. Nanni Moretti’s eccentric, amusing films covered a range of themes, the most diverse appearing in Caro diario (1993), a documentary-style film in three sections, in which Moretti (kind of) plays himself, first on a Vespa in Rome, then journeying through the Aeolian Islands and, finally, seeking treatment for a strange, itchy illness. Like Moretti, Roberto Benigni has often starred in his own films, although his comedy is more direct, largely reliant on a rather surreal slapstick. Johnny Stecchino (1991), about a school bus driver who gets entangled with a Mafia boss, did well at the box office. However, Benigni has become best remembered for a later work, La vita è bella (1997), the most acclaimed Italian film of the last 30 years.

Lip service Virtually every foreign film shown in Italy is dubbed. The demand is such that the people doing the dubbing become stars in their own right. The king of dubbing, Oreste Lionello, died in 2009 after a long career lip-synching everyone from Bugs Bunny to Dr Strangelove. He was known best as the Italian voice of Woody Allen. In one Fellini film, Prova d’orchestra (1978), Lionello dubbed the parts of eight separate actors. Troisi’s last post Massimo Troisi, the writer and star of Il Postino (he plays the postman whose one daily delivery is to Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet exiled on a Sicilian island), postponed heart surgery in order to complete the film. The day after filming finished, he suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.

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“THE I TA L IAN FILMS I’ VE SEEN OVE R T H E PA ST FE W YEARS A L L SEE M THE SA ME. A LL THEY TAL K ABOUT IS BOYS GROWING U P, GIRLS GR OWING UP , COU PL ES IN CRISIS AND HOLIDAY S F OR T HE ME NTAL L Y DISABLED.” Quentin Tarantino

Five films of New Italian Cinema Mediterraneo(Gabriele Salvatores 1991). A group of Italian soldiers posted to a remote Greek island in 1941 get forgotten about and become slowly absorbed into local life. Un’anima divisa in due(Silvio Soldini 1993). A shop security guard falls head over heels for a gypsy girl who steals on his watch. Once they marry, the cultural differences begin to grate. Il grande cocomero (Francesca Archibugi 1992). Arturo, a psychiatrist, establishes an intense and revealing relationship with a young female patient whose epilepsy may be psychosomatic. Archibugi’s restraint sidesteps sentimentality. La scorta (Riccardo Tognazzi 1993). A new judge in Sicily, filling a dead man’s shoes, tries taking on the local Mafia; a film very much of its time, coming in the era of the mani pulite investigations (see section 1.2.3) La vita è bella (Roberto Benigni 1999). Shot, admittedly, after New Italian Cinema’s prime-time, but essential viewing nevertheless. Benigni won a best actor Oscar, rising above critics who questioned using humour in a story set in the Holocaust.

The modern movie scene The promise of New Italian Cinema, such as it was, receded in the later 1990s. Today, Italian film is in reasonable health, helped by moderate public funding (although 2009 cuts have hit hard). Good movies are released every year, even if the rest of the world rarely sees them. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to success is that not enough Italians see them either; the top-selling films in Italy are nearly always American productions, a fact not helped by cinemas’ reluctance to show homegrown work. Directors like Moretti, Amelio and Olmi continue to make good personal films, and Benigni had a crack at an Italian blockbuster in the shape of Pinocchio in 2002. Other directors make films about politics (the political biopic in particular), or tackle Italy’s ongoing relationship with organised crime. Some, like Vincenzo Marra with his story of Neapolitan fishermen, Tornando a casa (2001), attempt a return to the tenets of Neorealism, shooting in regional dialect.

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The ten 21st century films to watch first Baaria (Guiseppe Tornatore 2009) A lush epic following the 20th century life of a Sicilian village. Communists, Fascists, Mafioso, priests – they’re all in there.

La stanza del figlio (Nanni Moretti 2001). Moretti’s film (in which he stars) about a family coping with the death of their son won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. L’ultimo bacio (Gabriele Muccino 2001). Superior rom-com in which the prospect of being a first-time father brings the lead man out in a cold sweat.

Vincere (Marco Bellocchio 2009). Tells the littleheard story of Mussolini’s first wife, and the child that he refused to acknowledge.

La finestra di fronte(Fezan Özpetek 2003). A married woman falls in love with a stranger in a nearby apartment; delicate film from an acclaimed TurkishItalian director. Io non ho paura (Gabriele Salvatores 2003). A boy’s disappearance in the anno di piombo (see section 1.2.3), takes a sinister turn; but who exactly wants him dead? La bestia nel cuore (Cristina Comencini 2005). A disturbing nightmare awakens memories of sexual abuse for a young woman, who goes in search of answers. Il caimano (Nanni Moretti 2006). The left-wing director launches his assault on Silvio Berlusconi, albeit with a light, witty touch. Il divo(Paolo Sorrentino 2008). A dark, intricate look at the career of former prime minister Giulio Andreotti (see section 8.3 for more on Andreotti). Gomorra (Matteo Garrone 2008). Naples’ Mafia 21st century style, stripped of any possible glamour, as adapted from Roberto Saviano’s book.

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8. Living culture: the state of modern Britain Italy

5.2 Fashion Fashion has become ingrained in modern Italian life – few nations are as committed to looking good. However, fashion here is more about style than invention. It’s rarely ephemeral – they don’t throw perfection out on a whim, scrabbling for the next big thing.

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5.2.1 Made in Italy

“T HE DIF F ERENCE BET WE E N STYL E AN D FASHIO N IS QU ALIT Y.” Giorgio Armani

Getting high on shoes Practicality rarely directs an Italian woman’s shoe collection. However cobbled the street, however big the puddles, a stiletto will be worn (in Italian the word means ‘little dagger’) and tottering or wincing will not be allowed. The high heel was apparently popularised by the diminutive Italian Catherine de Medici who, aged 14, wore two-inch heels on the occasion of her marriage to the future King Henry II of France in 1533.

For goodness sake, don’t go to the shops in your tracksuit… The Italian sense of style is well documented; to fare bella figura (make a beautiful figure) is important to the daily ritual for most. The volume of Italian names in the fashion industry and the enduring quality of Italian clothes and accessories speak of this omnipresent concern for appearance. But there’s more at work here than simple aesthetics. The understated elegance that has defined Italian fashion since the economic boom of the 1960s is as much about exuding prosperity, confidence and control (all of which may be only cloth deep) as slavishly following the latest trends. The label is often as important as the garment, which is why so many Italians are happy to buy counterfeit clothes – making the right impression is more important than authenticity. There is, of course, the simple pleasure of looking good too, and the Italians have indeed mastered sleek, timeless fashion, aware that trends come and go but that style, born of good tailoring and wearing the right clothes for your frame and age (the Italians have a ‘uniform’ for each age bracket), will never fade. New Italian trends tend to maintain this reserved, industry-led approach; fashion doesn’t come up from the streets, or if it does, it comes from an American or British street and appears in Italy with a designer label attached.

How Italy became a world leader in fashion Milan’s function as a hub of not only Italian but also international fashion is a relatively recent phenomenon. The city has long been renowned for its textiles industry and luxury accessories, and its inhabitants for cutting a certain, jaunty figure (the term ‘milliner’ derives from Milan’s talent with hats), but the fashion industry as we know it, with its mass market and ready-to-wear collections, only set up shop in Milan in the 1970s. Before, the industry, such as it was, centred on Florence, and had done since the 12th century when the city grew wealthy on its fine textiles. There, in 1951, Giovan 202 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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Battista Giorgini, an entrepreneur, gathered Italy’s disparate designers together to show Italian haute couture to foreign buyers and journalists, recalling the sartorial opulence of the city’s Renaissance heyday and, hindsight now suggests, launching Italian fashion on the international stage. A second event, held by Giorgini the following year, was equally revolutionary in introducing separate shows for ‘boutique’ (ready-to-wear) and ‘haute couture’ clothing. In the 1960s and 70s the focus of Italian fashion moved to Milan, nudged by various factors: the country’s newfound love of consumerism, the economic boom of the northern cities (where the textile mills grew in size) and the emergence of designers willing to lower themselves to prêt-à-porter clothing, Armani, Versace and Prada amongst them. And there it remains, with the biannual Milan Fashion Show (held in spring and autumn) helping to maintain the city’s primacy. Italy has become globally renowned for the elegance of its ready-to-wear fashion, while the flamboyance of haute couture has dwindled, reduced to a handful of exclusive designers producing more accessories than clothes. Various levels exist within the Italian ready-to-wear market, from Benetton, Miss Sixty and Max Mara, accessible to most, up to Missoni and co, producing small lines for big budgets.

The Roman bikini Whilst Frenchmen Jacques Heim and Louis Reard introduced modern culture to the bikini, named in 1946 after the nuclear weapon test site in the South Pacific (Jacques and Louis claimed similar explosive properties for their new outfit), the frescos of gymnasts in bandeau tops and bikinilike bottoms unearthed in the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily, would suggest the two-piece has its origins in the Ancient Roman world.

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Knock-off Gucci By the time Maurizio Gucci got his hands on his grandfather’s famous fashion house it was a bloated empire made weak by family feuds and greed. He reined the business in, closing shops and re-orientating Gucci back to its accessory-led roots, but profits suffered and he ended up selling the family stake in the firm in 1993. Two years later he was shot dead. Various suspects were rounded up but no one was charged until 1997, when the investigation turned its sights on Maurizio’s ex-wife, the notoriously grasping Patrizia Reggiani. When her former husband stopped making a profit from Gucci so did she, and so she decided to have him killed. Convicted of Maurizio’s murder, Patrizia received a 26-year prison sentence.

Label conscious: ten mighty Italian fashion houses Gucci. Former dishwasher Guccio Gucci started selling luxury distressed leather bags stamped with a double G logo in Florence in 1906. From the 1930s, his son, Aldo, made Gucci a global brand, defrauding the US tax office of $7 million along the way; one of various family scandals that plagued the Gucci brand. Creative director Tom Ford saved Gucci from the abyss in the 1990s. Prada. Founded to sell leather goods in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada and revitalised in 1978 by his granddaughter Miuccia. Miu Miu, a lower-priced Prada line, launched with garish colours in 1992 earning the nickname Prada Ugly. Max Mara. The first Italian company to design good but affordable ready-to-wear women’s clothes, founded in Reggio Emilia by Achille Maramotti in 1951. The business remains in family hands, although none design for the brand. Instead, they get well-known designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac to moonlight for them, only revealing their identity after they’ve left the company. Valentino. After learning the tricks of the trade at Guy Laroche in Paris, Valentino Garavani dressed the Hollywood greats of the 1960s from his shop in Rome. Jackie K became Jackie O in a Valentino gown in 1968. Like his designs, Valentino’s life has been grand, colourful and luxurious. The perma-tanned designer (he spends a lot of time in St Tropez) staged his last show before retirement in 2007.

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Giorgio Armani. Giorgio began his career dressing windows in Milan’s La Rinascente department store before founding the Armani Company in 1975. He gave men’s jackets narrow lapels and large pockets while the traditional padding and stiffness of suit tailoring was ripped out. Today you can dress in Armani, smell of Armani, sleep in Armani sheets, carry an Armani bag, kick back in Armani sunglasses and stay in an Armani hotel. Bottega Veneta. The purveyors of hand-woven leather accessories coveted throughout the world. British designer Giles Deacon initiated something of a renaissance for the brand in recent years. Not one for splashing the logo, Bottega Veneta usually only labels its bags on the inside. These days the company is owned by Gucci. Roberto Cavalli. On the wilder side of Italian fashion, Cavalli began designing one-off pieces in the 1970s, claiming a love of “dangerous dressing”. His collections have always been heavily influenced by animal prints and exotic fabrics. Dolce & Gabbana. Partners in business (and love until a recent break-up), Domenico Dolce (Sicilian) and Stefano Gabbana (Milanese) met working as assistants in a Milan tailor’s shop in the early 1980s. Their primary aim has always been to design flattering clothes, closely followed by the desire to shake up fashion trends. D&G trademarks have included underwear as outerwear, pinstripe gangster suits and fending off frequent accusations of tax evasion.

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“DON ’T BE INTO T RE N DS. D ON’T MAKE FASHIO N OWN YOU , BUT YOU DECIDE WH AT YO U ARE , WHA T YOU WAN T TO EXPRESS BY T HE WAY YOU DRESS AND THE WAY TO L IVE.” Gianni Versace

Versace. Tailor’s son Gianni Versace sold his own designs in the family store in Reggio di Calabria before setting up on his own in Milan in the 1970s. His sexy, colourful style contrasted with the androgyny of Armani in the 1980s. Gianni was gunned down outside his Miami home in 1997, after which his sister, Donatella, upheld the firm’s reputation for bright colours and feminine dresses. Diesel. A younger, moderately more affordable face of Italian off-the-peg fashion, Diesel was founded 30 years ago in Molvena, Veneto, by Renzo Rosso. The scruffychic style is perhaps as close as Italy gets to original ‘street fashion’; the core business is based on jeans, but has branched out to include apparel of all sorts and the inevitable range of fragrances.

The naughty boy of fashion photography Oliviero Toscani was the photographer behind the infamous United Colours of Benetton marketing campaign of the 1990s. He began shooting for the likes of Vogue and Elle in the 1960s and went on to work in Andy Warhol’s Factory in New York. However, it was the Benetton campaign that won Toscani, son of a Corriere della Sera photojournalist, his enfant terrible tag. Shots for the campaign included a nun kissing a priest (eyes closed in rapture), a family sitting bedside with a dying AIDS patient and a newborn baby with umbilical cord still attached. More recently Toscani’s advert for Nolita clothes, featuring a naked anorexic model, was banned by Italy’s advertising watchdog. Some say it’s social commentary, others that it’s a cheap trick for selling clothes – “All I’ve done is put a news photo in the ad pages,” says Toscani.

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If you have to ask, you can’t afford it

Five Italian style icons Sophia Loren. Elegant, glamorous and genuinely curved, actress Loren embodied Italian femininity in the 1960s. Carla Bruni. Supermodel, singer and First Lady of France who keeps it simple with understated elegance, as per the Italian uniform. Marcello Mastroianni. The unfussy archetype of an Italian in a suit, Mastroianni, star of more than 170 films, helped shape the slim-cut Italian look. Anna Piaggi. The antithesis of cool Italian reserve, fond of outrageous colour, multiple layers and blue hair, and yet the fashion writer is an undoubted style icon. Monica Bellucci. The most guiding of Italian cinema’s contemporary lights when it comes to fashion adheres to the shaped elegance of classic Italian style. A modernday Loren.

Bulgari, a jewellery manufacturer, was founded in Rome in 1884 by Sotirios Voulgaris, apparently descended from a line of Greek silversmiths. It took nearly a century for the first Bulgari shop to open overseas, in New York, by which time the company’s chunky jewellery had become highly prized. Today, the exclusive brand also incorporates perfumes, hotels and accessories. Sotirios’ son, Constantino, distinguished himself by hiding Roman Jews in his house during the Second World War.

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6 Media and communications 6.1 Media p211 6.1.1 Best of the press: newspapers and magazines p212 6.1.2 Thinking inside the box: Italian television p217 6.1.3 Radio: an Italian passion p220 6.1.4 New media: Italy online p222 6.2 Communications p225 6.2.1 Staying in touch: sending letters and making calls p226 6.2.2 Italy on the move: transport types and habits p228

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6.1 Media The Italian media isn’t renowned for balance: it has an eminent press that few people read and a distinctly un-eminent TV diet that almost everyone devours. Behind it all, as in other countries, powerful moguls, rich and politicised, add to the sense that things aren’t as even-handed as they might be. 211 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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6.1.1 Best of the press: newspapers and magazines

Lines of enquiry

The bad news

The tradition of investigative in-depth reporting in Italy is commonly referred to as the inchiesta giornalistica.

It seems strange that a people as politically savvy, passionate and opinionated as the Italians can be so blasé about their national press. Only ten per cent read a national daily paper; compare that to almost 40 per cent of UK residents and 50 per cent of Scandinavians. Instead, four out of five Italians get their news from television and the Internet. Some see the low readership as a blow for democracy. Perhaps the problems lie with content: while some applaud the Italian taste for broadsheets (they don’t really have sensationalising tabloids), the rather dry intellectual tone of Italy’s main papers excludes many. A tradition of intricate commentary, of long and complex analysis by big name journalists, means that comment and opinion can obscure (or become confused with) the actual ‘news’. Increasingly, anyone in search of a ‘straight’ story goes to the burgeoning number of free dailies, such as Leggo, Metro or City, handed out in the major cities.

…and the good news The country’s regional press, especially newspapers in the major cities, does better, no doubt thanks in part to the Italians’ staunch regional pride. Most regional papers carry the major national and international news stories alongside the important local stuff. Papers such as Il Mattino in Naples and Bologna’s Il Resto del Carlino outsell many national titles. Milan in particular is home to a large number of dailies, including Italia Oggi and La Padania. Southern Italy is covered by various editions of the historic La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno. In common with the regional press, the big sports papers in Italy remain enduringly popular, particularly on a Monday when the nation catches up with its football reports.

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The best of the national press

Hack attack: the journalists who wound up the Mafia

On the left Corriere della Sera. First published in 1876, the venerable ‘Evening Courier’ is the most widely read broadsheet in Italy. Over the years, the intelligent content has drawn some of Italy’s greatest intellectuals and novelists to its reporting ranks. Publishing one national and four regional editions, Corriere della Sera currently sells about 600,000 a day. La Repubblica. A relative newcomer which first hit newsstands in 1976, the Rome-based paper blends general interest content with centre-left politics, and battles it out with Corriere for the highest sales. Like Corriere it prints regional editions. Total sales amount to around 580,000 a day. La Stampa. A centrist, mildly left-leaning daily first published in Turin in 1867 (and originally titled Gazzetta Piemontese). Circulation hovers around 330,000.

On the right Il Giornale. Launched in 1974 in reaction to the left-wing parties of the era, the Milan-based paper (with regional editions) sells around 200,000 copies a day. Il Messaggero. Essentially a Roman newspaper but with sister publications in other regions, Il Messaggero sells a conservative line to more than 200,000 readers daily. Il Foglio. The low-circulation ‘Sheet’ is best described as a neo-conservative, pro-Vatican newspaper.

Mauro de Mauro. A celebrated investigative journalist (so good they named him twice) who disappeared suddenly in Palermo in 1970 whilst investigating the Mafia. He was never found. In 2007 a supergrass claimed de Mauro had been dissolved in acid. Roberto Saviano. L’Espresso reporter who developed his undercover horror stories about Naples’ Mafia into a best-selling book, Gomorra. These days he lives under 24-hour guard in a secret location. Lirio Abbate. News editor for the ANSA press agency in Sicily who’s published books on the Mafia. He steadfastly remains in Palermo, protected by the police, who found an undetonated bomb under his car not so long ago.

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Who controls the press? Many Italian newspapers trace their origins back to the 19th century when political parties and businessmen used print to extend their influence across the nascent state. Not much has changed since: negotiate your way into the boardroom of a large Italian newspaper today and you’ll invariably end up at the desk of a wealthy industrialist. The Fiat group has a controlling interest in the biggest daily, Corriere della Sera, and owns the third biggest, La Stampa. Sandwiched between the two, La Repubblica is controlled by Carlo de Benedetti, founder of the CIR Group (Compagnie Industriali Riunite). As for Silvio Berlusconi, his interference is more vocal than financial, although his brother, Paolo, does own Il Giornale, the largest centre-right daily.

Sports bulletins The Italian passion for sport, football in particular, is fed by various well-thumbed sports dailies. Two stand out: La Gazzetta dello Sport. It’s big, pink, sensationalist and ingrained in Italian culture. With a circulation that dwarfs many regular dailies (sometimes three million a day read it), the Milan-based Gazzetta was launched in 1896 to cover the first modern Olympics but devotes the majority of its pages today to football. The paper did much to expose the corruption scandal that shook Italian football in 2006 (see section 8.8 for more). A limited Englishlanguage edition of the newspaper is available online. Il Corriere dello Sport. The second biggest selling sports daily does something similar for Rome and the south to what the Gazzetta does for the north.

The other papers Financial Il Sole 24 Ore. Italy’s biggest selling daily business paper with a circulation of just under 400,000. First published in 1965, the liberally minded Milan-based paper focuses on all matters financial, but also carries weekend supplements. Milano Finanza. Provides a similar daily business digest.

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Rabble-rousing Il Manifesto. Thoroughly left-wing but still independent Roman daily that has outlived communism’s role in modern Italian life. Scathing headlines and wicked cartoons are the norm, as is the paper’s proximity to financial collapse. Umanità Nova. An anarchist newspaper that traces it roots back to the early 20th century. Closed down by Mussolini in 1922, it regrouped after the Second World War and still continues its weekly assault on capitalism, the state and much more.

Godly L’Osservatore Romano. The semi-official Vatican mouthpiece, first sold daily in 1861, is widely read across Italy and is published in nine different languages, including an English edition distributed to 129 countries. Today, it claims more objectivity than of old in its role of reporting on the pontiff’s daily comings and goings. Avvenire. Another daily Catholic affair, one of the few newspapers in Italy with a growing circulation – it recently topped 100,000.

No, no… I think you’ll find it happened like this Historians have described fascist Italy as “the reign of the journalists”, and it’s true that Mussolini did everything he could to control the press. His sizeable press office sent out the “correct” version of daily events. Any mention of the dictator had to reference his masculine presence or his ability to work through the night. By the late 1920s, newspapers were forbidden to report crime and disorder to the extent that many Italians believed Mussolini really had brought order to the nation. Newspapers that opposed the regime were forced underground.

Backward steps on freedom In a recent study on the freedom of the press around the world, the Freedom House organisation downgraded Italy’s media from “free” to “partly free” (on a par with Albania and Mongolia), blaming the courts’ restriction on free speech, the intimidation of journalists by criminals and the constraints on pluralism brought by the dominance of certain media moguls.

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Film script

Sex, religion and politics: Italian magazines

The term ‘paparazzi’ derives from the name of a character, a photographer, in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita.

Italian magazines more than compensate for the newspapers’ reluctance to print celebrity gossip. Many of the best-selling titles – Oggi, Novella 2000 and Chi (which famously printed photographs of Princess Diana in her final moments) – build their copy around paparazzi photographs. And yet, Italy also has some of the best current affairs magazines in the world. Two are legendary: Panorama, a right-of-centre mix of thorough journalism and scantily clad women, which has the highest circulation at 300,000 copies a week; and L’Espresso, which has similar content but takes its stance on the left, and numbers Umberto Eco (see section 2.1.5) among its former contributors. A raft of women’s titles (from native efforts like Grazia to international giants Vogue) are also on sale, but none sell more than Famiglia Cristiana, the Catholic mag founded in 1931 and owned by the Paulist Fathers, which still circulates around a million copies a week (and regularly falls out with Silvio Berlusconi). Only television listings magazines generate similarly massive sales, most of them for the weekly TV Sorrisi e Canzoni.

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6.1.2 Thinking inside the box: Italian television

The drug of the nation The Italians are gripped by television. On average they watch four hours a day (only the Americans turn on the tube more). You could argue that it’s the prime cultural force in many Italian lives. But that raises a troubling question: how can Italian culture be led by something so consistently banal? Game shows, dubbed American soaps, chat shows with male compères fringed by semidressed dancing girls – these are the tried and tested constants of Italian TV. In fairness, the news coverage can be OK, even whilst subject to accusations of bias. Italian television has been like this since the 1970s, when the system was deregulated. Before 1976 the nation had one state-owned black and white channel, its content heavily influenced by Catholic mores. The free-for-all that followed deregulation created a thousand (largely unwatched) regional channels virtually overnight. At a national level, Radiotelevisione Italiana (Rai), the state broadcaster (it isn’t an independent trust like, for example, the UK’s BBC), found itself up against an emergent mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, and his company, Mediaset. Today, the Rai/Mediaset duopoly, with its audience share of 85 per cent, remains in place. Rai (public) and Mediaset (commercial) control three channels each. Another channel, La7, a relatively recent creation, is independent. Italians can also buy into satellite TV, with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky the only large scale provider.

“I N TH E B U I LD I N G TR A D E Y O U PLA N S O M E TH I N G T O D A Y A N D S EE I T R EA LI S ED I N T E N Y EA R S . I N T V Y O U TH I N K O F I T I N TH E MORNING AND IN TH E EV E N I N G I T’ S A LR E A D Y O N TH E S C R EEN . ” Silvio Berlusconi Paying for Rai Each Italian household pays a licence fee to the state broadcaster, which still shows adverts to make up its funding. The current licence fee is slightly over 100 euros.

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Terrestrial TV: the main stations Public stations Rai Uno. The most popular channel in Italy provides general programming, with news, films, football, soaps, game shows, dubbed American drama and the occasional lightweight documentary. Rai Due. Predominantly broadcasts dubbed American shows. Rai Tre. The most highbrow channel on Italian TV (although the competition isn’t fierce) broadcasts news, current affairs and history programmes, alongside films and children’s TV.

Commercial stations Canale 5. The Mediaset channel that brought Grande Fratello (Big Brother) to the land of Botticelli sets its sight on family audiences with a mix of entertainment and news. Italia 1. Mediaset’s second offering captures a younger audience with a somewhat chaotic mix of dubbed American drama, cartoons, reality shows, music and sport. Rete 4. A bit of everything from Mediaset’s third significant channel – North American imports, news and soaps. La7. The lone terrestrial channel free of state or Mediaset control, owned by Telecom Italia, dubs American comedy and also carries news programmes, sport and bits of MTV.

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The dubbed generation

Crowd pleasers: five Italian TV shows Incantesimo (Rai Uno). A soap opera set in a Rome hospital that has been broadcasting since 1998 and currently airs five times a week. MPs on all sides of the Italian parliament spoke up for the show when it faced the axe in 2007. Che tempo che fa(Rai Tre). From George Clooney to Carla Bruni, if a big star is going to do an Italian talk show, it’s usually this one. Fabio Fazio asks the questions. Ti lascio una canzone (Rai Uno). A variety show in which amateur contestants sing Italian classics aided by a special guest singer with a modicum of genuine talent. Grande Fratello (Canale 5). The Italian version of Big Brother is the most popular version of the worldwide franchise. Striscia la notizia (Canale 5). Perhaps the best indicator of recent Italian TV, this satirical show ‘strips the news’, investigating corruption and playing amusing outtakes. Includes a couple of veline, attractive young women, in shot whenever possible.

Italian TV doesn’t do subtitles; the public don’t want to be busied with reading whilst trying to watch foreign soap operas or films. The daily diet of foreign telly proceeds with what sounds like (but surely can’t be) the same set of voices; men are commanding and resonant, women are fixed with a silky, sexy, slightly vulnerable tone. Some commentators have suggested TV dubbing is changing the way Italians talk, cultivating a hammy, clipped speaking style.

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6.1.3 Radio: an Italian passion

Nice invention, shame about the black shirt It was an Italian (born in Bologna to an Irish mother), Guglielmo Marconi, who sent and received the first radio signal in 1895. He travelled to England to secure backing for further development, and the first transatlantic radio telegraph message was sent from Cornwall to Newfoundland in 1901. Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909, sharing it with fellow wireless boffin, Karl Braun. He later joined the Fascist party and was made president of Mussolini’s Accademia d’Italia in 1930, receiving membership of the Fascist Grand Council as a fringe benefit. Mussolini even performed best man duties at Marconi’s wedding to Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali in 1927.

We’re all ears Almost 40 million Italians tune in to the radio every day, a higher proportion of the population than in virtually any other country. Many are there for the music, for the background noise, but a significant proportion rely on the news services regarded as more impartial than their TV equivalent. Radio was deregulated here in the same year as television, 1976, and grew in an equally unrestrained, organic way. As a consequence, more than 2,500 stations now clutter the airwaves. The overwhelming majority are commercial, listened to by a handful of devoted followers (most are specific to region; some are specific to just a street or two). Rai operates as the state broadcaster on radio (as it does on TV), and its three prime stations still regularly clock up the highest listener figures. Indeed, Rai captures more than 50 per cent of the total radio audience. A dozen or so additional stations – some of them public, like Rai GR Parlamento (a live feed from Parliament); others commercial – have a national reach.

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Six national radio stations Rai Uno. Italy’s first radio station, launched in 1924, mixes pop with chat, news and a regular dose of football commentary. Rai Due. The second state station has a light entertainment base with music, news, talk and comedy shows. Rai Tre. Italy’s most ‘cultural’ station, with classical music, plays and weighty discussion. Radio Deejay. The nation’s most listened-to station plays pop to more than five million people a day. It’s owned by the same group controlling L’Espresso magazine and La Repubblica newspaper.

BBC’s Bari story The BBC in the UK launched its first foreign language radio service, broadcast in Arabic, in 1938, in a bid to counter Italy’s Radio Bari, which was broadcasting antiBritish propaganda to the Middle East. Frequency jungle A standard receiver in a major city like Milan can pick up more than a hundred radio stations. The glut is such that stations will operate on the same channel from locations just a few miles apart.

Radio 24. A radio station linked to the financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore (see section 6.1.1), focussing solely on news and discussion. Radio Vaticana. DJ Pope in da house. It’s news, music and reportage from the Holy See. Correspondents are located the world over and broadcasts can be heard in 40 different languages. Three popular radio shows Lo zoo di 105 (Radio 105 Network). A comedy show with impersonations and prank phone calls, led by Marco Mazzoli. Subtlety isn’t a strong point, but the show is wildly popular with younger audiences. Tutto il calcio minuto per minuto (Rai Uno). A venerable football show (on air since 1959) with commentary, analysis and opinions from pundits, players and fans. Viva Radio 2 (Rai Due). Light-hearted programme hosted by Rosario Fiorello and Marco Baldini. Amusing chat, satire and impersonations fill most of the airtime.

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6.1.4 New media: Italy online

Slow starters Italians took their time going online. The factors that got most of us on the Net early in the 21st century, most significantly ‘buying stuff’, didn’t control behaviour here in quite the same way. Italians are less inclined to buy on credit cards and still prefer the old face-to-face mode of shopping; factors that both hindered the growth of e-commerce. However, ten years on, they’re catching up; almost half of all Italians are now regularly online, broadband usage is spreading and Internet cafes are dotted throughout towns and cities. Recent polls suggest that Italians now spend more of their leisure time (around a third) surfing the Internet than other Europeans. A high number use it for reading the news: some hundred newspapers and countless magazines have full or partial online versions. Surprisingly, the enthusiasm for social networking isn’t that strong, and a wariness about online shopping still remains. Italians are more inclined to use the Internet for blogging or chatting in a forum. Downloading TV programmes is also popular. In line with modern Italy’s wider development, Internet usage is significantly higher in the north of the country than in the south.

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Three popular Italian websites Beppe Grillo (beppegrillo.it). One of the world’s most visited blogs no less, from crusading comedian Beppe Grillo, the man who calls Silvio Berlusconi ‘Psychodwarf’ (see section 4.2.3 for more on Grillo). Panorama (panorama.it). Italians can now go online for all the gossip (and a fair stab at the news) from the leading magazine. Corriere della Sera (corriere.it). Italy’s biggest newspaper has made the online transition successfully. An English version is also available.

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6.2 Communications Whenthe Italians connect with each other on the roads or the rails, through the post or down the telephone line, they don’t stray far from the old stereotypes. At times it’s all very slick, elegant and precise; but more often than not it’s slow, chaotic and emotional.

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6.2.1 Staying in touch: sending letters and making calls Heaven sent

Waking the beast: the Italian postal service

Nothing draws attention to the failings of the national postal service quite like the smooth efficiency of the Vatican’s (admittedly much smaller) operation. The Holy See’s delivery service is famously competent, and Romans apparently go out of their way to use it. Tourists are similarly keen to use the service, hoping to impress the folks back home with a postcard franked by the Vatican. As a result, proportionally more mail is sent from the Vatican’s 00120 postcode than from anywhere else in the world.

In 1998 the Italian postal service, a giant slumbering beast of inefficiency, was poked with the stick of liberalisation. More than a decade later it’s still waking up. Today, the service, managed by Poste Italiane S.p.A (the government still owns the majority), remains amongst the slowest and most expensive in Europe, although, remarkably, it has already advanced significantly since partial privatisation occurred. Modernisation is underway: the service has finally been computerised and the chances of spending an entire morning queuing in the post office have been reduced. Poste Italiane’s infamous torpor stems partly from the range of services it deals with; Italians can pay utility bills, buy life insurance and do their banking at the local post office. In its favour, the service appears eager to retain its vast network of branches, an important feature of community life in small villages.

It all started so well

Poste Italiane employs 150,000 people in 14,000 offices.

The Romans had the most developed postal system of the Ancient world, the Cursus Publicus, delivering mail across the Empire via relay. The service continued for a time after the fall of Rome, adopted by the Ostrogoths, before slowly fizzling out. Italy wouldn’t see its like again for a thousand years, when the national postal system was established in 1862.

Post stats Each Italian send 120 pieces of mail a year (on average) (Americans send more than 700).

The national postal service delivers around four billion items of mail a year.

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Blah, blah, blah: Italians and their phones

Addressing a letter

The age of the mobile phone indulges an Italian enthusiasm for both chat and performance. Cell phones – they seem to prefer the flip variety – have become as essential to the Italian look as sunglasses or the satchel (most children under the age of ten have a mobile, apparently in case mamma calls). There are more mobile phones in use in Italy than there are people; around 70 million at last count – more than anywhere else in Europe. If they’re not talking on them they’re texting, revealing a love for the electronic written word that’s spilling over into email – a 2009 survey by TNS Global suggested that Italians are as likely to converse with friends via email as they are face to face. Mobile phone network coverage, dominated by Vodafone and Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) but with other operators doing their best to muscle in, is extensive. By contrast, the old landline network is heavy footed. It was privatised in the late 1990s but the old state monolith, Telecom Italia, still owns most of the infrastructure, keeping costs high and ensuring the multitude of new service providers struggle to get a foothold in the market.

House numbers come after the street name; postcodes are written before the town name, and the double letter province code is placed at the end of the line in parentheses. Press one for deliverance, two for damnation… In 2008 Father Paolo Padrini launched the Vatican-approved iBreviary, a free application for the Apple iPhone that provides daily prayer updates. The iRosary was launched soon after.

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6.2.2 Italy on the move: transport types and habits

Scooter culture

He who hesitates is lost: life on the roads

Italy’s passion for the scooter is undimmed, 60 years after Enrico Piaggio designed the Vespa. Anyone over the age of 14 can ride a 50cc scooter, and usually does; no licence or test is required. They have their own speed limit – 40km/h – and aren’t allowed on the autostrade. At 16, Italians can move up to a 125cc engine, which requires a licence. Unlike other nationalities, the Italians don’t really buy old scooters to restore, they don’t worship them as the motorised deities of Mod culture; they do what they’ve always done – they use them for getting around town.

Few cultural experiences in Italy are as intense as driving. It’s a vibrant, nerve-jangling manifestation of the Italian approach to life. Timidity is punished and rules are flouted. Drivers pull out unexpectedly, push in, crowd the road around you (white lines are there to be ignored) and regularly jump red lights. Because nearly everybody drives like this (dangerous as it might sound), the Italians are primed for trouble and duly have the reflexes to avoid it (in town centres at least – the motorways are more prone to carnage). The battle scars on Italian cars are more often incurred in the scrimmage of urban parking; the reluctance of offenders to own up and the stress of filing an insurance claim leave damage unrepaired. As for road rage, it’s rare: hand gestures and shouting are common but rapidly forgotten – it’s all part of the show. Pedestrians are expected to be as pushy as drivers: step firmly (although not suicidally) into the road if you want to cross – waiting patiently at the crossing is a fruitless experience.

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If you make it out of town alive, you’ll find Italy has a good network of autostrade connecting the main cities. Most have tolls (only Calabria and Sicily escape), and are well maintained as a result, with good lighting and service stations at regular intervals. Congestion is a regular, accepted feature of life (car ownership here is amongst the highest in the world) on motorways, strade statali (the toll-free A roads) and in and around towns and cities, but on strade provinciali (B roads), although the tarmac deteriorates, there’s usually ample space to be had. Speed limits Motorway 130km/80mph Dual carriageway 110km/68mph Provincial roads 90km/55mph Built-up areas 50km/31mph

On the rails

Road to redemption The death toll on Italy’s open roads is high. In Europe, only France loses more people in traffic accidents. An apparent indifference to seatbelts doesn’t help. In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI issued ten new commandments to motorists in a bid to change behaviour on the roads; rude gestures and the use of cars for sinful purposes were both off limits. The Vatican also suggested making the sign of the Cross before setting off on a journey and having a passenger recite the rosary to calm everyone’s nerves.

Italy’s rail network is pleasingly comprehensive (particularly in the north), punctual and cheap to use, even while most Italians would sooner brave the congested roads. The only grumbles involve overcrowding, which may occur at peak times but can be avoided by reserving a seat (mandatory on some services). As you might expect, the further you get from urban areas, the older, slower and emptier the trains become. The Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), a state-owned body, run the railways. Within FS, the main duties are split between Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, which manages the track and infrastructure, and Trenitalia, responsible for trains. A handful of other lines are run by private operators.

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Italian railways: an express history 1839. Italy’s first railway, from the royal palace in Naples to the sea at Portici, ensured royalty could take to the waters without the riffraff getting in their way. 1871. After Unification began the laborious process of marrying the private regional railway networks, with their varying track sizes and stock. 1905. The messy slew of rail companies were bought out by the state and the FS took control of the nation’s 13,000km of track. (In the same year, railwaymen staged Italy’s first national strike). 1920s and 30s. Mussolini invested heavily in the rail network. The disputed notion that ‘Mussolini made the trains run on time’ may not actually be so far from the truth – by 1939 the ETR 200 was travelling from Milan to Florence at over 200km/h. However, much of the new infrastructure was destroyed in the Second World War. 1960s. The rebuilt Italian railways improved greatly; the network was reorientated on a north to south axis, lines were electrified and trains got quicker. 1980s. Despite post-war mainline improvements, the neglect of regional and goods services and an oversized, inefficient workforce dogged the Italian railways. Modern era. Streamlining and partial privatisation helped the network into the 21st century. Showpiece lines and trains, like the ETR 500 AV that reached 355 km/h on the Milan to Bologna line in 2008, help distract from the archaic state of other bits of the system.

Slow, medium and quick: train types Regionale, Interregionale and Diretto. Essentially commuter trains. Slow and local, they stop at every platform along the line but give some great views of scenic Italy. Intercity. A decent service running the length of Italy, stopping at all major towns and cities. Eurostar. The high-speed pride of the fleet, unconnected to the inter-Europe trains of the same name (Italy’s came first), connect Italy’s main cities (Milan to Naples in six and a half hours, for example).

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Get it stamped

Going underground: three Italian subways Rome. The Metropolitana di Roma has just two lines, running, cruciform, over 38km of track. The city’s glut of archaeology has long proved an obstacle to further expansion, although a third line is in construction. The subway here has always been more about getting in from the suburbs than getting around the city. A vast bus and tram network fills in the gaps. Milan. The three lines (red, green and yellow) of Milan’s slick metro cover 76km between 86 stations. The first two lines opened in the 1960s; the third began operating in 1990. Further lines are in the offing.

Tickets for travel on Italian public transport generally need stamping. You have to do it yourself; on the platform before you board a train, or onboard if it’s a tram, bus or subway car.

Naples. One original (rather scruffy) line is about to be complemented by the addition of another. Elsewhere in the city there are three funicular railway lines.

Italy in the sky Italy’s length, its two large islands and the relative cheapness of tickets have made internal flights a popular means of travel. Two airports, Malpensa in Milan and Fiumicino in Rome, are international hubs, but dozens of smaller airports also take passengers abroad. Not that Italians fly long haul very often, preferring to stay on home soil or to travel overland in Europe. Italy’s national carrier, Alitalia, established in 1946, finally applied for bankruptcy protection in 2008 after years of poor performance. The Alitalia brand was kept in the skies after being bought from the state in the following year by a consortium that includes Air France-KLM.

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7 Food and drink 7.1. Food p235 7.1.1. Home advantage: the culture of Italian food p236 7.1.2 Regional tastes: the flavours of Italy p238 7.1.3. Food rituals: eating and buying p246 7.2. Drink p253 7.2.1. The culture of Italian wine p254 7.2.2. The Italian wine regions p257 7.2.3. Thirst for knowledge: beyond wine p264 7.2.4. Drinking habits: when and where to indulge p268

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7.1 Food Italians don’t love food; they love their food.And ‘their food’ doesn’t mean the nationalcuisine; it’s the food specific to their home region, their home town even.

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7.1.1 Home advantage: the culture of Italian food

“IT WILL BE M ACCHERONI, I SWEAR TO YOU, THAT WIL L UNITE ITALY.” Giuseppe Garibaldi

Gradually, the uniformity of modern life is making Italian regional foods more ‘national’, but the subtle, creeping homogenisation defies the usual trend in Italian society – the south is outstripping the north. Southern ‘peasant’ food, as easy on your wallet as it is on your health with its multiple vegetables and cheap cuts of slowly cooked meat, has become fashionable. Insalata caprese and Mozzarella di bufala are, for example, both simple Campanian efforts that can now be had anywhere, while the perfumes and tastes of Sicilian food pervade Italy’s top restaurants. Similarly, the regional notion of pasta shape (there are dozens), and increasingly of pasta sauce, is less defined than of old. Tagliatelle alla Bolognese isn’t eaten solely in Bologna anymore and trenette pasta drenched in pesto alla Genovese is found well beyond Genoa. Ingredients and dishes vary with location, but Italians share a common love of simple, nourishing and colourful cuisine. While the food is sometimes deceptively simple – dishes may require time and effort to prepare – it is rarely, if ever, complex in the French sense. Anything more radical – nouvelle cuisine or molecular cooking – has made little impact in a nation content with its centuriesold recipes. Indeed, over-elaboration is frowned upon. Key moments in Italian food Ninth century. Muslims introduce almonds, rice, spinach, ice cream (made with snow from Mount Etna), aubergines, spaghetti, oranges, lemons, apricots, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, rice, raisins, couscous and saffron to Sicily. 1492. Genoese merchant Christopher Columbus brings the tomato, potato, capsicum and chilli pepper (peperoncino), cocoa, squash (whence zucchini), corn and maize (whence durum wheat and polenta), vanilla (for ice cream) and turkey back from the New World. 1570. Publication of Opera by Bartolomeo Scappi, chef to Pope Pius V, listing over a thousand recipes. 1891. Pellegrino Artusi makes the first record of a recipe for pasta with tomato sauce in La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene. Late 19th century. Mass emigration, particularly from Campania and Sicily, introduces pasta and pizza to the Americas. 1989. Slow Food movement launched in protest at the opening of a McDonald’s burger restaurant in Rome. 236

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Standard bearers: DOP, IGP and STG DOP, the Denominazione di origine protetta, or Designation of Protected Origin, is the EU-sponsored label assigned to protect the authenticity of Italian foodstuffs. It’s the food equivalent of Italian wine’s DOC mark (see section 7.2.1). Italy also has the similar, slightly looser denomination called IGP, the Indicazione geografica protetta, or Indication of Protected Origin. Italy has 164 DOP/IGP food products, about 20 per cent of the European total (France has 152 and Spain 105). A third denomination, the Specialità tradizionale garantita (STG), or Guaranteed Traditional Speciality, has been introduced recently. At present, only Mozzarella cheese is covered by the STG, although Naples’ pizza is up before the selection committee.

Bringing it all back home Whatever regionalism may be at work on home soil, internationally ‘Italian’ food has become widely known and lauded. The global appreciation went unnoticed in Italy itself for many years. A lot of exported ‘Italian’ food was made purely for overseas markets and wasn’t available at home. An Italian would have given you a blank stare if you asked for pesto rosso ten years ago (‘there’s nothing red in pesto’), a foodstuff on sale overseas. However, today the exports are coming home to roost. Pesto is sold in Italy in all its forms: red, yellow, with parsley, rocket or even coriander, with all forms of nut and all forms of cheese. Similarly, ciabatta (meaning slipper) bread was hardly known beyond Naples 25 years ago, but it became popular abroad and has returned to Italy, embraced across the land as panciabatta.

Worshipping the Red Prawn When reaching for a restaurant bible, Italians are more likely to choose the Gambero Rosso than the Michelin.

The last supper Historian John Varriano recently asserted that the meal in Leonardo da Vinci’s epic, flaking portrayal of the Last Supper is grilled eel garnished with slices of orange, not, as previously assumed, bread and lamb. Oranges and eel were eaten by the wealthy in da Vinci’s era.

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7.1.2 Regional tastes: the flavours of Italy

Pig spittle: the elixir of love The smell of Piedmont’s Alba truffle – a musky, gamey fragrance reminiscent of the great local red wine Barolo – attracts certain animals, especially boars, which eat the tuber and then spread its spores in their droppings. Sows are often used to hunt out truffles, chosen because the fungus apparently emits a pheromone similar to that found in the saliva of a male pig. Human sweat contains the same pheromone, lending credibility to claims about the aphrodisiac properties of the truffle.

“T HE TRUF F L E IS NOT EXACTLY AN AP HRODISIAC BUT IT TE N DS TO MAKE WOMEN MORE T E N DE R A ND MEN MORE LI KEABL E.” Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French gastronome

i. Northern Italy Valle d’Aosta’s hearty meat broths fit its alpine setting, but the region is better known for fontina DOP, a characterful cheese akin to a rich, creamy Gruyère. Ripened in the local caves, the cheese is used in fonduta, similar to neighbouring Switzerland’s fondue but incorporating egg yolk (rather than wine) and mopped up with crostini. A luxury, seasonal Piedmontese version of fonduta incorporates white truffles. In Piedmont, the quest for gastronomic excellence, for refinement and for the official categorisation and control of its finest products reflects a close affinity with French traditions. The greatest prize in the Piedmontese larder is the tartufo bianco, the most expensive truffle in the world. Unlike black truffles (worth ten times less), the white Alba truffle (named for the Piedmontese town) is used raw; grated over fresh pasta, fried eggs or risotto. Piedmontese beef is also renowned, often served up in stews like bollito misto, a dish common to much of northeastern Italy and featuring multiple types of meat and veg. The Ligurians’ preference for coastal living prioritises fish over meat (when they’re not eating vegetarian). Pesto is the iconic dish, a crush of basil, olive oil, garlic, grated pecorino or parmesan cheese and pinenuts, apparently invented to keep scurvy at bay on long sea voyages. It’s added to Liguria’s long flat pasta, trenette, stirred into vegetable soup, minestrone alla Genovese, and can also appear on the local focaccia bread. Other staples born of the region’s seafaring traditions are baccalà (salted cod) and stoccafisso (dried cod), still popular today but often imported due to overfishing locally.

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Lombardy’s professional spirit often precludes the long leisurely lunches found elsewhere in Italy, and yet Milan has many of the country’s most feted restaurants. The region’s famous dish is risotto alla Milanese (see overleaf). Mostarda di frutta from Cremona is similar to British piccalilli but uses fruit rather than vegetables; it often accompanies bresaola, a thinly sliced air-dried beef with Swiss origins. Lombardy is spoilt for cheese, producing Gorgonzola (blue-veined crumbler), Mascarpone (soft, mild and creamy), Taleggio (semi-soft and stinky) and Grana Padano (hard, milder relative of parmesan). Cross-border influences sway the diet in Trentino-Alto Adige where many dishes have an Austro-Hungarian flavour. Potatoes, dumplings (canderli) and pickled cabbage (crauti) are regular staples and even goulash makes it on to the menu on Sundays. The speck hams work well with local beers (Italy’s brewing industry is based here), while apfel strudel or sachertorte are popular desserts. Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s most famous foodstuff is prosciutto di San Daniele, a ham to rival Parma’s. Matured in barns around the eponymous town, the ham’s notable sweetness benefits from a combination of cold Alpine air and warm Adriatic sea breezes. Fresh figs often partner prosciutto di San Daniele when in season. Polenta here comes in three colours, white, yellow and black, the latter made from buckwheat and served with sardines. The sea and coastal lagoons provide ample varieties of fish to accompany the region’s fresh and fruity dry white wines. Love for the cold stuff The Italians are the doyens of ice cream. Gelato, as they call it, has origins in Antiquity, when northerners used snow from the Dolomites to produce a refreshing flavoured foodstuff. Emperor Nero apparently sent slaves to collect snow from the Apennines so that he might dine on fruit flavoured ice, although it was the Arabs who later brought something resembling sorbet to Italy. In the medieval period, with the addition of cream or milk, gelato evolved. Some credit the Neapolitans with the first true Italian ice cream, produced in the 18th century. Today you’ll find gelato all over Italy, sold in small parlours (gelateria) in a range of fruit and sweet flavours.

Bashing the basil Pesto takes its name from the action used in its preparation: pestare means to pound or crush.

Polenta, making stodge interesting since Roman times Polenta, an old peasant staple in the north, is corn or maize flour boiled up into a kind of porridge. It can be as bad as it sounds, but if made with care and combined with other ingredients (which it usually is) polenta can be a great catalyst for other flavours. Venetian merchants brought the dish home from Mexico in the 17th century, although the Romans had an undoubtedly mouth-watering pearl barley mush that they called polenta. A later recipe made with chestnut flour also took the name, and on Corsica (now French but once Italian) they still make their polenta, or pulenda, with chestnut flour. A type of crostini is made from cooled, solidified polenta cut into wedges and fried.

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Going against the grain Southern Italians sometimes still pejoratively label northerners as polentoni, polenta eaters.

Love, you’re flaking into my gruel Polenta’s lack of nutrition used to contribute to pellagra (from pelle agra, or chapped skin), a vitamin deficiency disease once endemic among Italy’s northern peasantry.

Venice, star of the Veneto, consumes a tremendous amount of fish, often in a risotto coloured black with squid ink. Inland the emphasis is on vegetables (again, often eaten in a risotto); the region is famous for asparagus from Bassano, radicchio salads from Treviso and peas, eaten in risi e bisi (literally, rice and peas). Beans are mixed with pasta for pasta e fagioli, a dish that has its equivalent in most Italian regions. Most Veneto households have a copper polenta pot and a long wooden spoon for stirring (in a clockwise direction only please); the dish is a traditional accompaniment to small birds such as quail and to baccalà. Tiramisù, Veneto’s famous pudding (it translates as ‘pick me up’), may be a relatively recent invention, apparently first conceived in a Treviso restaurant in 1969. The region’s fine pastries have older roots. The four grades of Italian rice

Raw talent Carpaccio, thinly sliced raw beef dressed with a mustard and Worcestershire sauce flavoured mayonnaise, was named after Vittore Carpaccio, a 15th century Venetian painter with a gift for using red pigment. Various sources have claimed the invention of the dish, notably Harry’s Bar in Venice. “ RICE IS BO RN IN WATE R B UT DIES IN WINE.” Italian proverb

Superfino. Includes arborio, carnaroli, baldo and roma; all used for risotto. Fino. Also used for risotto. Semifino. For stuffing vegetables. Commune. For soups and puddings.

Cream of the crop: Italy’s favourite risottos Risotto alla Milanese. Italy’s iconic risotto is bright yellow with saffron and flavoured with beef marrow. Often made to accompany osso bucco (veal shin stew). Risotto al nero di seppia. A deep black dish from Veneto, coloured and flavoured with cuttlefish ink. Risotto al Barolo. A bright red risotto from the eponymous wine region in Piedmont. Risotto al funghi Another Piedmont variety, this one made with wild mushrooms.

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EmiliaRomagna and its cities, Bologna (or La Grassa, the fat one), Modena and Parma, comprise Italy’s gastronomic heartland. Ingredients here resonate around the world: parmigiano reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, aceto balsamico di Modena and pasta fresca. Famous dishes include pasta with ragù, the superior parent of the spaghetti bolognese that the rest of the world enjoys but Bologna doesn’t recognise; zampone, a Modena sausage encased in a boned pig’s trotter; and various stuffed pasta including tortellini filled with cheese or mortadella sausage. Five certified foods from the north of Italy Basilico Genovese DOP. Ligurian basil used to make pesto sauce. Bresaola della Valtellina DOP. Seasoned and cured lean beef from Lombardy. Asparago bianco di Bassano DOP. White asparagus of Veneto. Mortadella di Bologna IGP. Pink, fatty Emilia-Romagnan sausage popular at Christmas. Laghi Lombardi DOP. Extra virgin olive oil from the lakes in Lombardy.

The northern debt to China: Italian rice Before all Italy became smitten with pasta, the northern regions, particularly Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont, were more likely to eat rice. Brought back from China by Genoese and Venetian traders in the 15th century, the grass flourished in the fertile soils of the Po Valley. Even today, the region produces and consumes more rice than anywhere else in Europe. The short, stubby, hard-centred grain typical of the Po – absorbent of large quantities of flavoured broth yet still al dente – lends itself to risotto, often served as a first course in its northern homeland. Leftover risotto is sometimes rolled into balls, dipped in breadcrumbs and fried to produce arancini, (meat, tomato and peas) and suppli (tomato and mozzarella), both delicious snacks.

Vinegar so good you can drink it After 25 years of aging, aceto balsamico di Modena DOP, the finest vinegar in the world, is actually sweet and smooth enough to drink or add to puddings. This DOP version (extravecchio) is traditionally aged in the cellars and attics of Modena; an industrial, un-aged version (graded as a condimento) of the sort used in salad dressings, doesn’t have DOP status.

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8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

Epicurean delight Food festivals are an important part of culinary life across Italy but in Umbria they’re an obsession. Every village in the region makes some form of annual paean to food, from ice cream to gnocchi.

ii. Central Italy The diet in Tuscany is simpler than elsewhere. Vegetables, spelt and pulses are commonplace, often turned into thick soups like ribollita or zuppa di farro. Bread features more than pasta; the stale leftovers made into bruschetta, rubbed with garlic and drizzled with Tuscany’s aromatic olive oil. Beef is simply grilled, as in bistecca alla Fiorentina. While Tuscany fights Sicily for the provenance of ice cream, it claims sole ownership of cantucci, the almond-flavoured biscuits taken with coffee and a glass of vin santo after a meal. Landlocked Umbria likes its meat, particularly game, although the lakes and rivers teem with fish, including the fattest carp south of the Alps. The pork butchers of Norcia are famed throughout Italy for their hams and salami; the same town is also Umbria’s black truffle capital. Tighter budgets can feast on the lentils of Castelluccio. Like Umbria, Marche is big on sagre – the food festivals that celebrate specialities like porchetta (whole, boned, roast suckling pig), brodetto (fish broth), and campofilone or vincisgrassi (both egg pasta). Meat, fish and vegetables stuffed with various fillings are also popular in the region; even the olives in Ascoli are painstakingly filled with forcemeat before being breaded and fried. Lazio has traditionally dined on frugal peasant food. Little is wasted in the preparation, and offal is still widely eaten in dishes like coda alla vaccinara (oxtail stew) and trippa alla romana (tripe). Rome is enamoured with pasta, variations of which include spaghetti alla carbonara (with eggs and bacon) and penne all’ arrabbiata (with tomatoes and chillies).

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Dishes in Abruzzo and Molise are often spiced with the locally grown chilli peppers, peperoncini. Crocuses are cultivated around L’Aquila and the saffron produced finds its way into both savoury and sweet dishes. The iconic dish is maccheroni alla chitarra, in which the pasta is made by being flattened and then rolled against metal strings stretched over a wooden board rather like the fingerboard of a guitar.

Little devils Peperoncini or hot chilli peppers are called diavoletti, little devils, in Abruzzo.

Five certified foods from central Italy Lenticchia di Castelluccio di Norcia IGP. Italian equivalent to puy lentils, from Umbria and Marche. Marrone del Mugello IGP. Chestnuts grown to the north-east of Florence. Chianti classico DOP. A single estate Tuscan olive oil (and also a wine), produced between Siena and Florence. Lardo di Colonnata IGP. Strips of cured pork fat aged in Carrara marble tubs, Tuscany. Vitellone bianco dell’Appennino Centrale IGP. Meat from young cows reared in the central Apennines.

iii. Southern Italy Campania, Naples in particular, cherishes its food like nowhere else. The mantra of refined simplicity inhabits dishes like spaghetti alle vongole (with clams), spaghetti alla putanesca (with anchovies and capers – the name means ‘whore’s pasta’) and pizza (native to Naples). The marinara is the most authentic pizza; made with a slightly puffed crust, baked in a very hot wood-fired oven and simply topped with tomato, garlic and oregano – there’s no cheese topping, even while the countryside around Naples produces Italy’s finest mozzarella di bufala. Pizza, often sold here as street food, also comes fried (pizette) and folded (calzone). Campania also enjoys prodigious seafood and its taralli, sweet or savoury bread snacks.

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Gluttons for gluten: Italians and their pasta There are more than 350 varieties of Italian pasta and yet the basic ingredients number just two or three: flour and water plus the occasional egg. Eaten as a first course, before the meat or fish, pasta in Italy isn’t heavily sauced (the sauce should stick to the pasta, not submerge it). By law, dried pasta can only be made from durum wheat, the hardest wheat containing the most gluten (durum means ‘hard’ in Latin), ideal for producing firm, al dente (to the tooth) pasta. Fresh pasta, made with eggs for extra richness, is still considered a luxury foodstuff. Emilia-Romagna claims ownership of the original (and best) version of pasta all’uovo (pasta made with egg).

Puglia is Italy’s breadbasket, producing 80 per cent of the durum wheat used in the nation’s bread and pasta. It also makes more olive oil than all the other regions put together, and vegetables grow easily in the fertile, sunbaked soils. Pasta combined with vegetables, drizzled with olive oil, is a mainstay of Puglian cooking. Fish, mussels and oysters (both farmed) from the long Adriatic coastline bring variety to the diet. Basilicata’s famous sausage, the lucanica (after the region’s ancient name, Lucania), is now produced nationwide. It’s one of many products here and in neighbouring Calabria drawn from the pig, an animal well suited to the inventive local cooking that stems from generations of poverty – they’ve always extracted the most from land and animal. Simple vegetable (typically broccoli or aubergine) and pasta dishes, often spiced with fresh peperoncino or dried black pepper, are the norm. The seas surrounding Sicily dominate the island’s diet with abundant tuna, swordfish, anchovies, octopus and sardines (a quarter of Italy’s fish comes from Sicily), while the long history of foreign rule can be seen in fennel and orange salads, couscous and sticky sweets featuring marzipan, pistachios, lemons and figs. As in Sicily, fish looms large in Sardinia’s diet, here adding rock lobster to the mix. They have their own version of bottarga, a pressed grey mullet roe with roots in ancient Tunisia (Sicilians eat a tuna variety). However, Sardinians have always been more at home shepherding than fishing; a third of Italy’s sheep graze here. Lamb is popular grilled over open fires, while the ewe’s milk cheese, pecorino sardo DOP, is ubiquitous.

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Calabrian cake

Five certified foods from southern Italy Soppressata di Calabria DOP. A slightly flattened, seasoned Calabrian salami. Pomodoro di San Marzano DOP. The finest sauce tomato in the world; produced near Naples.

The use of the word gatò for cake, from the French gateau, reflects the legacy of Napoleonic rule in Calabria.

Fagiolo di Sarconi IGP. Basilicata’s fine canellino-type bean; used fresh or dried. Agnello di Sardegna IGP. Sardinian lamb grazed on wild mountain herbs. Arancia rossa di Sicilia IGP. Seedless blood oranges at their best in the Sicilian climate and soil. The bloody business of tuna For generations, Sicily’s tuna were caught using the mattanza, a practice with long-lived cultural resonance. Huge nets corralled the fish, which were then dragged to the surface and grappled with spears. It was a bloody business. The word mattanza has since found use as a description for Mafia kills. Today, as tuna stocks dwindle, the mattanza only occurs in a few places off Sicily’s western coast.

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7.1.3 Food rituals: eating and buying

Slowing food down The Slow Food movement launched in Bra, Piedmont, in 1989, reacting to a decreasing awareness of food provenance and the spread of burger bars and supermarkets. It promotes ‘good, clean and fair’ food and has spawned the world’s first University of Gastronomic Sciences (with campuses in Piedmont and EmiliaRomagna) and the biennial Terra Madre gathering of food experts in Turin. Slow Food also helps to set up farmers’ markets and to educate children (and teachers) on nutrition.

Italian food may be pleasingly bound to regional tradition, but it’s not immune to the pressures of 21st century life. The lengthy evening meal isn’t quite the universal certainty it once was, a consequence of more women working, greater constraints on time and, perhaps, the rising popularity of American-style fast food (no doubt connected to a growth in obesity). However, most families still sit together to eat and talk. Any change in eating habits is a predominantly urban phenomenon; rural diners take more time over their food. Most of the food consumed in Italy is still very Italian (they won’t attempt a stir-fry or a curry) and still very seasonal. For example, an Italian will only eat fresh tomatoes in the summer, turning instead to the tinned or bottled variety at other times. Most meals at home are freshly prepared, although the absence of a nonna (grandma) in the kitchen might mean some food will be bought ready prepared from a rosticceria or salumeria (again, this is more likely in the north than the south). The Italian mealtimes Prima colazione (taken between 7am and 10am) Breakfast is a sweet affair, usually taken standing in a bar on the way to work. Coffee, often cappuccino, might accompany a cornetto (croissant) or brioche filled with jam (marmellata), confectioner’s custard (crema) or chocolate (cioccolato). The old habit of taking a caffè corretto as a sharpener (‘corrected’ with a shot of liquor) is on the wane. Pranzo (taken anytime from 12.30pm to 2.30pm in urban areas; at midday in the countryside) In towns and cities, lunch, traditionally eaten at home, is increasingly taken in the workplace, restaurant or snack bar, where a panino (sandwich) or tramezzino (triangular, crustless sandwich) is common. Rural Italians still rush home for lunch. When time allows, the typical Italian lunch has at least four instalments: Antipasto – appetiser or hors d’oeuvre, typically of olives, cheese, veg or cold meat. Primo piatto – minestra (soup), pasta asciutta (pasta, usually with a sauce) or risotto. Secondo piatto – meat and/or fish served with contorni (side dish) of vegetables. Formaggio o dolce – cheese or pudding (often simply fruit). Cena (taken between 8pm and 10pm) Dinner, usually taken at home, follows a similar pattern of courses to lunch.

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Give us this day…

Table manners: three tips on etiquette It’s customary to take a gift – wine, a cake or flowers – when invited to dinner. Using a hunk of bread to mop the juices on a plate is fine when dining with the family but frowned upon in front of strangers. Don’t cut your spaghetti with a knife; instead roll it around the prongs of a fork (but not against a spoon).

Feast foods Christmas. The main meal, taken on Christmas Eve, is usually fish. Regional variations find the Romans favouring spaghetti with clams or tuna and the Modenese eating tortellini followed by bollito misto. Dessert is panettone or pandoro cake. Carnevale (the week before Lent). Sweet food, much of it deep-fried, is the norm. Sit down for fritters and cakes, including chiacchiere, sweetened pastry fried and then dusted with icing sugar. Easter. Tortellini in broth or lasagne are followed by lamb (often kid goat in the south) with artichokes or potatoes. The traditional pudding is shaped like a dove; the colomba cake symbolises peace and the Holy Spirit.

Bread, the universal staple, has always been more than a simple foodstuff in Italy. The significance of the daily pane to Catholic doctrine, with its starring role in the Eucharist, has borne superstitions that outlive Italy’s peasanty past: bread shouldn’t be placed upside down nor thrown away (breadcrumbs and bruschetta are both culled from stale bread). Bread is still taken (usually unbuttered) with virtually every Italian meal, breakfast included. Each area of Italy has its own shapes and tastes, from Liguria’s oil-soaked focaccia to Piedmont’s grissini bread sticks, some of which are now eaten nationwide.

New Year. After an evening of dancing (and drinking), on New Year’s Day Italians eat zampone sausage with lentils; the more lentils you eat the happier and more successful you’ll be in the coming year (lentils being representative of money).

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Five Italian breads Pane carasau. Sardinia’s best-known bread (sometimes referred to as carta da musica) looks more like a tortilla; it’s thin and crisp and lasts for weeks – ideal for the itinerant shepherd. Pane di Altamura. A large, heavy, brown-crusted, slow-cooked bread with strawcoloured flesh and DOP status. Comes from the Puglian town of the same name. Panettone. The rich, dome-shaped sweetbread (it’s actually more cake than bread) native to Milan is prepared with eggs, fruit and butter, and traditionally given as a gift to workers by employers at Christmas. Pane Toscano. Tuscany’s flat, white loaf has been cooked without salt since the 13th century when local rulers imposed a salt tax. Coppia Ferrarese. Made from soft wheat flour, pork lard, olive oil and sourdough, rolled into two twisted lengths knotted together to form an X-shape, as per medieval statute. Native to Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna.

Going out for an Italian Restaurants in Italy are popular and affordable but rarely prescribed the same reverence as in France, Spain or the UK. There are Michelin-starred restaurants, especially in Piedmont and Lombardy, but many of the patrons are foreign tourists and the food they serve isn’t typically Italian. Some chefs do buck the trend. Gualtiero Marchesi imported nouvelle cuisine techniques from France to his Lombardy restaurant in the 1980s and lightened some of Italy’s heavier classics while also championing quality ingredients and regional identity. Marchesi’s disciples, Carlo Cracco in Milan, Enrico Crippa in Alba and Paolo Lopriore in Siena, have introduced some elements of ‘fusion’ into their cooking. However, ‘fusion’ in the Italian sense tends to mean marrying ingredients and cooking styles from different Italian regions, say Lombardy and Sicily, rather than mixing Italian and foreign cuisines. Similarly, molecular cooking, eulogised in Spain and the UK, hasn’t caught on in Italy.

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As the number of migrants to Italy has grown, the quantity of ethnic food takeaways and restaurants has multiplied. Most are kebab shops. However, the majority of customers are immigrants themselves; the Italians remain quite parochial about food. And while burger bars can be found easily in Italian towns and cities, they don’t enjoy the same patronage as in other European countries.

Where to eat Ristorante. Sophisticated eatery likely to be serving national or international cuisine. Trattoria. Serving local dishes for a full meal of multiple courses. Osteria. A simple, informal restaurant serving local dishes that can be ordered individually. Enoteca. Wine shop or bar serving snacks like salumi (charcuterie) and cheese. Pizzeria. Pizza restaurant that will often serve pasta too. Spaghetteria. Simple bar-cum-restaurant serving pasta. Paninoteca. Sandwich bar. Rosticceria. Snack bar. Pizzerie al Taglio. The original fast food joint; pizza is made by the metre and cut to order.

Prison food Don’t be tempted to ask your waiter about ‘al fresco’ dining when in Italy. Englishspeaking nations might have adopted the phrase to describe eating outside, but in Italy the term is slang for being in prison (the ‘cooler’).

Gelateria. Ice-cream parlour. Bar/caffè. For breakfast or to grab a sandwich with a drink. Tavola calda. Bar serving ready-prepared food often displayed in a cabinet.

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Small is beautiful: food-buying habits Italians haven’t been seduced by hangar-sized supermarkets in quite the same way as other Europeans. They do have them, used predominantly for buying longlife foodstuffs, quick meals like pre-cooked risotto or prepared ingredients such as frozen grilled vegetables or tinned roast peppers. For finer ingredients – fresh pasta, cheese, charcuterie, fish or fresh meat – Italians still prefer small, specialist shops or street markets. Growingyour-own remains an important element of Italian culture, so grocers’ shops, although still essential, aren’t as prevalent as might be expected, particularly in the south.

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252 1. Identity: the foundations of British Italian culture

2. Literature and philosophy

3. Art, architecture and design

4.4.Performing Music, theatre, arts dance and comedy

5. Cinema, 5. Cinema photography and fashion and fashion

6.6.Media Mediaand and communications communications

7. Food Foodand anddrink drink

8. Living culture: the state of modern Britain Italy

7.2 Drink Italy is mature with its drinking. Wine, produced in almost every region, is appreciated with food, and, like food, retains an umbilical attachment to its home province. Excess is reserved instead for coffee (and the odd digestivo): innumerable varieties and rituals reflect its role in the daily routine.

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7.2.1 The culture of Italian wine

Italy is the most complex, diverse and potentially confusing wine-producing nation in the world. Almost every region has its vines and has made wine since Roman times (some since the Etruscan era) and in most years Italy makes more wine than anywhere else, only occasionally being outperformed by France. But where the French, with their innate sense of order, have imposed a classification system (Appellation d’origine contrôlée, AOC) that makes sense of the myriad styles and qualities of wine, controlling origin and production, the Italian approach (Denominazione di origine controllata, DOC) is intrinsically flawed. Many of Italy’s best wines have fallen foul of a system routinely abused, ignored or bypassed; labelled as table wine because they couldn’t match strict DOC criteria. Efforts have been made to refine the system, but choosing an Italian wine, particularly outside Italy, can still be a struggle. The Italians, of course, are less confused than foreigners, not least because they’ve always taken a regional approach to wine; local was (and often still is) considered best, whatever its classification. Most Italians will know something of the wines in their region but little about those beyond. Similarly, whilst wine is ingrained in the culture, taken as nourishment (rather than stimulant) with almost every meal, there’s a gratifying absence of wine snobbery in either home or restaurant (they’re as likely to order a quarto or mezzo litre carafe as anything from the wine list).

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Understanding the wine classifications Vino da tavola (VDT). Table wine, the humblest classification, had a reputation for rule-flouting, international-style wines made using forbidden, often French, grape varieties, but has now been largely superseded by IGT (see below). The label won’t mention geographic origin, vintage or grape variety. Many old VDTs have been reclassified as IGT or absorbed into the DOC system. Indicazione geografica tipica (IGT). Introduced in 1992 because so many good wines could only get VDT status, IGT wines, functioning rather like French vin de pays, usually disclose geographic origin and grape variety. Some IGT wines (there are about 120) can fetch a higher price than their DOCG cousins.

Words you might find on an Italian wine bottle Spumante. Sparkling. Frizzante. Semisparkling. Classico. Wine from a limited, historic core within a DOC zone. Riserva. Wine aged for longer in the cask before bottling. Superiore. Aged longer and/or with a higher alcohol content than the DOC standard.

Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC). Introduced nationally in 1963, the DOC standard controls geographic origin, production methods, grape varieties (not mentioned on the label), yields and maturation techniques. A DOC wine should only come from the region, town or vineyard on the label. Progressive growers ignoring DOC rules in the 1970s and 80s created the Super Tuscan VDT boom (see page 259). Denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (DOCG). DOC with bells on, DOCG is subject to more stringent testing, is usually produced from lower yields and comes ‘sealed’ around the neck with the government’s tag of authenticity. The classification, introduced in the 1980s, has successfully improved the image and quality of some old DOC wines, notably Chianti.

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PG tips

The main grape varieties

Pinot Grigio has stepped into Chardonnay’s shoes as the fashionable white grape. The dry wine it produces is often bland and innocuous (partially explaining its popularity) but can, in the best hands, be full and velvety. White wines made from Vermentino in Liguria (Riviera Ligure di Ponente DOC), Arneis (Roero Arneis or Langhe DOC) and Cortese (Gavi DOCG) in Piedmont and Greco in Campania (Greco di Tufo DOCG) may well have more character.

Italy has more indigenous grape varieties than anywhere else, most of them used in blends. Few are mentioned on the labels of DOC and DOCG wines. Red varieties have historically been more interesting, although the quality and character of the whites has improved of late. The late 20th century fashion for using international (mainly French) varieties in Italian wine has waned. In spite of their rich diversity, few Italian varieties are exported, with the increasingly notable exception of Nebbiolo.

A grape by any other name An Italian grape variety may have multiple names. Barolo’s Nebbiolo, for example, becomes Spanna at Gattinara and Chiavennasca at Valtellina, and Chianti’s Sangiovese becomes Morellino at Scansano and Brunello at Montalcino. Primitivo, from the south, is thought to be Zinfandel in disguise, a grape that thrives in hot and sunny California, while Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio and Trebbiano all have their French equivalents (Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Ugni Blanc).

Red Grape

Region

Characteristics

Barbera

Throughout Italy

Almost black, berry fruit, acidic

Dolcetto

Piedmont

Fruity and fresh, similar to Beaujolais

Lambrusco

Emilia-Romagna

Fizzy red, at its best dry though much is sweet

Montepulciano Abruzzo

Dark, savoury, zesty, spicy

Nebbiolo

Piedmont

Dry, tannic, perfumed, very long-lived

Primitivo

The south

Alcoholic, coarse, related to Zinfandel

Sangiovese

Tuscany

Pale, savoury, fresh, variable, can age

White Grape

Region

Characteristics

Arneis

Piedmont

Dry, grapefruit, fragrant

Cortese

Piedmont

Dry, lemon, mineral

Garganega

Veneto

Mineral, Chablis-like, but often bland

Greco

Campania

Dry, full-bodied

Moscato

Throughout Italy

Always sweet and grapey, sometimes fizzy

Pinot Bianco

North-east

Dry, mineral

Pinot Grigio

Throughout Italy

Variable, usually dry, crowd-pleaser

Prosecco

Veneto

Usually dry, frizzante or spumante

Trebbiano

Throughout Italy

Usually very bland

Verdicchio

Marche

Variable, can be lemony or almondy

Vermentino

Liguria, Sardinia

Rich, full, but dry

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7.2.2 The Italian wine regions

i. Northern Italy

Butch Barolo

Piedmont Italy’s finest wines are produced in Piedmont. They’re big, ‘chewy’, black reds, aged for years in Slovenian oak casks and left on their skins for maximum extraction. Piedmont’s best vineyards surround Alba, where Barolo and Barbaresco, both DOCG wines, face each other on the Langhe hills. An autumn mist, the nebbia, gives its name to the local grape, the Nebbiolo, which ripens late for dark, tannic and acidic wines that demand 20 years in the bottle. White, sparkling Asti Spumante DOCG, made from Moscato grapes, is another Piedmontese legend.

At 13 per cent, Barolo has the highest stipulated minimum alcohol level for an Italian wine. Its style is sometimes described as majestic, or ‘masculine’, and contrasted with Barbaresco’s more ‘feminine’ charms.

Lombardy Wealthy investment in Lombardy’s vineyards has bred some fine wines inspired by leading French appellations, not least Champagne. Franciacorta, one of the latest Italian zones to win DOCG status, makes outstanding Champagne-style wines (bottle-fermented using the metodo classico) from Pinot Bianco, Pinot Nero and Chardonnay grapes. Bellavista (Gran Cuvée Brut) and Ca’ del Bosco (Cuvée Annamaria Clementi) are the leading firms.

Trentino-Alto Adige Italy’s northernmost wine region grows grape varieties by the dozen, many used in varietals (wines pressed from a single grape type). The relatively cool climate is apt for aromatic whites – Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Bianco are all ubiquitous – but the star here is Teroldego Rotaliano DOC, an abundantly fruity, low tannin red with a bitter edge. Alto Adige is the original home of Gewürztraminer, while another indigenous grape, the Nosiola, has been dried and pressed into strong sweet Vino Santo for centuries.

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Serve chilled

Friuli-Venezia Giulia

So-called vino da meditazione, wine to ‘meditate’ over, is made for sipping without food. It’s a sweet affair, usually produced from dried grapes; sweet white Picolit from Colli Orientali del Friuli DOC in Italy’s north-eastern corner is one of the best.

Friuli has been making modern style whites for 40 years (other regions are only just catching up). It’s a region of varietals rather than blends, a place where modern techniques like cold fermentation allow the grapes’ ‘primary’ flavours to sing. The wines are fruity and aromatic, often made from the Friulano grape (aka Tocai), although a plethora of other French grapes, notably Pinot Grigio, are grown (if you’re looking for an Italian Sauvignon this is where to find it). The best catch-all DOC whites are Colli Orientali del Friuli and Collio.

Rush job

Veneto

The Veneto has a talent for drying grapes on rush mats to concentrate the sugars, making intense, alcoholic, dry and bitter (amarone) or sweet (recioto) red and white wines.

Italy’s most prolific wine-producing region grows vast tracts of DOC vines. Soave, made principally from Garganega grapes, is the big white name, but the permitted yields are very high. For quality you have to head to the hills. The best Soave comes from Soave Classico and Soave Superiore DOCG where the permitted yields are lower and the land less fertile: two producers shine – Pieropan and Anselmi. Similarly, the best Valpolicella DOC (not necessarily classico or superiore) originates on pebbly slopes with low yields. Nearer Venice the big wine is Prosecco DOC, the dry or off-dry white with a tang, produced either frizzante or spumante. The best Prosecco has prolonged lees (sediment) contact (labelled charmat lungo) to add the kind of complexity found in Champagne. Masi and Dal Forno are notable among Veneto’s reds, producing cherryish, appetizing wines.

Ruminating with a Ripasso When red Amarone della Valpolicella wine is re-fermented on its skins it becomes fuller (over 15 per cent alcohol), more complex and longer lived, gaining the name Ripasso along the way. Perfect for post-meal rumination, Ripasso doesn’t have spirit alcohol added and is therefore less likely to give you a hangover than port. Top up?

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ii. Central Italy Emilia-Romagna The land here is too fertile for quality wine on any grand scale: only 15 per cent of the region’s output has DOC status. Lambrusco is the big name; traditionally a frothing zesty red, dry or off dry, but now also produced in white, pink, sweet and low alcohol versions made on an industrial scale. The best dry Lambruscos (DOC di Sorbara, Grasparossa di Castelvetro or Salamino di Santa Croce) sometimes receive secondary bottle fermentation as per Champagne. The leading quality producer is Cavicchioli, near Modena, whose best cuvée, Lambrusco di Sorbara, is modestly subtitled Vigna del Cristo.

Tuscany The main vine is Sangiovese, a fickle character with several clones producing numerous styles of red wine, not all of them terribly attractive. At their best, they’re strong, full-bodied (if pale) and expert at aging. Chianti DOCG, clustered around Siena, is the most famous; others include Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, which contends with Barolo as Italy’s best wine, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG. Sangiovese also contributes to several highly prized but unclassified Super Tuscan wines.

“ LO A M O B R U S C O . ” Or, ‘I like it sharp’, the possible origin of Lambrusco’s name What are the Super Tuscans? Super Tuscan wines emerged in the 1970s, marketed as such by progressive growers fed up with the credence given to poor Sangiovese clones and the use of inferior white grapes in blends whilst foreign ‘improving’ grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon were banned. A great wine like Tignanello, selling for ten times the price of a Chianti, was classified as mere vino da tavola because it contained too much Cabernet and not enough Sangiovese (today it’s an IGT wine). The rules have been revised to officially recognise some of the Super Tuscans. For example, Sassicaia, perhaps the most super of Super Tuscans, now has a DOC all of its own. Pass the passito Passito is wine made from dried grapes. The most famous is Tuscany’s honey coloured Vinsanto, or ‘holy wine’.

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Umbrian rotter

Umbria

Orvieto in Umbria is one of the few places in Italy where muffa nobile (noble rot) occurs naturally. The mould attacks ripe grapes in humid autumnal conditions, shrivels the skins, evaporates the water content and concentrates the sugars to produce sweet, luscious (but not cloying) white wines. Castello della Sala produces the most notable Umbrian variety.

White wine predominates in Umbria, where Tuscan makers like Antinori have moved in, invested, and begun producing top wines, not least Cervaro at Castello della Sala, potentially Italy’s greatest white wine. The region’s most famous white is Orvieto, traditionally sweet but increasingly produced secco to suit modern tastes. Umbria’s most characterful whites have increased Grechetto and reduced Trebbiano in the blend. Super Umbrian reds are produced from Sangiovese grapes at Torgiano, near Perugia.

The shape of things past Verdicchio is traditionally bottled in an amphora-shaped container, introduced to boost sales half a century ago by the area’s biggest producer, Fazi-Battaglia. Today, the Grecian touch makes the wine look frivolous; more serious producers have ditched the nostalgic amphora shape.

Marche As Tuscan and Umbrian wines grow in price, the improving Verdicchio whites of Marche offer an interesting alternative: Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi and Verdicchio di Matelica, both with DOC status, stand out.

Abruzzo and Lazio Abruzzo produces mostly red wine and Lazio mostly white, but in common their wines share a certain mediocrity, the odd exception noted. Abruzzo’s Adriatic red, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, is spicy, low in tannin and fresh in acidity, while the hills around Rome produce Frascati, the white whose fame can belie a paucity of taste and character. Frascati uses Malvasia and dreary Trebbiano grapes; only wines eschewing the latter can claim any real taste, although the DOC limits Malvasia content to 30 per cent, a requisite frequently ignored by more conscientious growers. Lazio also produces Est Est Est!, another white, apparently named after a 12th century German bishop awarded it the vinum est bonum (‘Est’) standard not once but three times.

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iii. Southern Italy

Late developer

Campania The sleeping giant of Italian wine, producing relatively little of DOC standard but possessing all the right physical and climatic qualities to do so. The local grape pool is varied and interesting: the best red grape (and DOC), Aglianico, of Greek origin, is best in Taurasi DOCG; the white Greco di Tufo grape (also of Greek origin) produces crisp, long-lived, appley whites; and Fiano, regarded as southern Italy’s best white grape, goes into Fiano di Avellino DOCG. The leading growers for all the above are Mastroberardino and Feudi di San Gregorio.

Late to ripen, Campania’s excellent Aglianico vines are often planted at altitude to mitigate the southern heat. Harvesting in the snow isn’t unknown.

Puglia Grape yields in Puglia are high but the quality is often poor; most grapes are destined for vermouth production, distillation, blending (sometimes with thin French wines) or grape concentrate. Quality can be found in Salento, where cooling sea breezes give the vines some relief from the torrid climate. The local grapes are Negroamaro, thought to have originated in Greece, and Primitivo, which is identical to California’s Zinfandel but originates in Croatia. Both produce dark, rich and powerful reds.

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The clue’s in the name

Basilicata

The town of Barile, in the lee of Monte Vulture, an extinct volcano in northern Basilicata, is famed for wine barrels hewn from oak and chestnut felled in the surrounding forests.

Italy’s central southern region uses altitude to defy grapewithering heat, planting its better vineyards between 400 and 600 metres up. It has one DOC, Aglianico del Vulture, a red from the vineyards of Monte Vulture. The high acidity and tannin of the Aglianico grape make for excellent, long-lived wines in the right hands; some have called it the Nebbiolo of the south. D’Angelo and Paternoster are the best producers.

The land that wine forgot Calabria lags behind in the production of quality wine, and yet it was the region’s proficiency at viticulture in ancient times that led Greek colonisers to call Italy Enotria, the land of wine.

Calabria Even while good fresh wines can be made on Calabria’s mountainous terrain, the region still produces an ocean of plonk, apparently untroubled by recent advances in oenology. One beacon of hope exists: the DOC of Cirò where strong reds are made from Gaglioppo grapes, and fresh, fruity whites from varied Greco vines. Dried Greco grapes are used to make a good dessert wine around the village of Bianco. The region’s one outstanding producer is Librandi.

Sicily The island’s climate, topography and volcanic soils lend themselves to a multitude of wine styles, and until recently Sicily produced more wine than anywhere else in Italy (indeed, it made more wine than Australia). Most quality-conscious producers work outside the DOC system, which accounts for just two per cent of Sicilian wine. Having flirted with foreign grapes in the 1990s, enjoying some global success, today the emphasis is back on indigenous varieties. Sicily’s best-known wine, sweet golden or brown Marsala, has slipped from fashion; these days Nero d’Avola is the grape of choice, producing strong ripe reds.

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Sardinia Sardinia’s subjugation to Aragón in the Middle Ages explains the Spanish origins of some of its grape varieties. Cannonau (Garnacha in Spain and Grenache in France) accounts for 20 per cent of the island’s production, used in a variety of styles including sweet and fortified (as in France). Carignano (Cariñena in Spain and Carignan in France) is particularly good in the Sulcis DOC. The island’s best dry white, and its only DOCG, is Vermentino di Gallura.

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7.2.3 Thirst for knowledge: beyond wine

Good measure

Beer

Italians usually serve their draught beer in 20cl (piccola) or 40cl (media) glasses. The pitchers and pints of other nations don’t make an appearance.

Although beer is consumed throughout the country, Italy isn’t a great brewing nation. The historic hub of any production is Alto Adige, where the brewing traditions of Austro-Hungarian and German neighbours spilled over the Alps. Germanic-sounding brewers (Forst, Dreher, Splügen, Theresianer, and Wührer) still operate, but the biggest fish today are Moretti and Peroni (neither of them Italian owned). When the Italians do reach for a beer it’s usually of the lager variety, although darker beers, variously described as birra nera or birra rossa, are produced in small quantities, often by microbrewers. Beer consumption in Italy is gradually increasing (although wine is still the norm at home), especially amongst younger drinkers who will often order foreign brands.

Beer blues Peroni’s Nastro Azzurro beer was launched in 1963. The name means ‘blue ribbon’, chosen in honour of the SS Rex, an Italian ocean liner that held the ‘blue ribbon’ record for the fastest transatlantic crossing in the 1930s. Today it’s consumed worldwide.

Aperitivos Many Italians still drink an aperitif to stimulate the appetite and enhance conversation before a meal. There are two old favourites (see below), although sparkling spumante wines like Prosecco are gaining in popularity: their lower alcohol content may reduce the need for an after-lunch siesta. Vermouth. A Piedmontese legend made from white or red plonk, with added herbs, spices and bitter flavourings. One of the additions is wormword, the digestive aid from which the drink takes its name via the High German, werimouta. Unlike French versions, white Italian vermouth is off-dry and red is sweet, although they all have a balancing savoury tang. Famous brands include Martini & Rossi, Cinzano and Carpano, who make Punt e Mes, a classic red. Vermouth-based cocktails like the Dry Martini, Americano, Negroni and Manhattan attract American tourists but few locals.

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Campari. A refreshing Milanese pick-me-up also drunk as an aperitivo; usually taken neat on the rocks, with soda or with orange. The recipe is secret but we know that much of the tang and flavour derives from cinchona bark. The bright red colour comes from cochineal.

Digestivos If the appetite has been over-stimulated and then overindulged, the Italians believe in the restorative properties of a digestivo, taken after the meal or even the following morning. Amaro. Meaning ‘bitter’, amari come in many forms, all of them wine or spirit based. Most are flavoured with herbs and roots that can include cinchona, angelica, anise, wormwood, and gentian. The most bitter of all are called fernet, of which Fernet Branca, invented by 19th century spice trader Bernadino Branco and containing 27 herbs and spices, is the most famous. Fernet is drunk neat or added to coffee. In the 18th century, it was thought to combat cholera and tapeworms. Other amari include nocino, a bitter liqueur made from unripe walnuts in Emilia-Romagna, carciofo, made from artichokes and taken before or after dinner (the biggest brand is Cynar), and tartufo, produced from black Umbrian truffles. Amaretto. A sweet liqueur usually made from almond kernels. The biggest brand name, Disaronno, actually uses apricot kernels along with a secret mix of 17 herbs and spices. Sambuca. A sweet aniseed-flavoured digestivo often served with coffee as an ammazzacaffè (coffee killer). Restaurateurs sometimes serve it con mosca (with flies), meaning they float three coffee beans in the glass: one to represent health, another happiness and a third prosperity. Excitable tourists inevitably opt for a flaming sambuca, in which the neat liqueur is set alight. The leading brand is Molinari.

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Rags to riches: the grappa story Grappa used to be made in travelling distilleries towed from village to village by horse, and could duly be quite rough stuff. Today the drink is taken more seriously, with gourmet restaurants serving a range of versions in fine tulip glasses. Some of the pricier grappas are made from individual, perfumed grape varieties such as Moscato or Traminer or, in Veneto, Picolit.

Limoncello. Another sweet ammazzacaffè, especially popular in the south, limoncello is made by macerating lemon peel in alcohol. The best comes from the Sorrento lemon, a fruit with its own IGP label no less (see section 7.1.1 for more on food labels). Grappa. The superstar of digestivos is made by distilling pomace (the residual grape skins, pips and stalks of wine making). It’s usually a clear liquid, although some grappas, labelled riserva, take on a golden hue from a year’s cask aging. Grappa is often drunk with or in coffee (caffè corretto) or swirled around an empty coffee cup (rasentin). Nardini is the leading brand.

The soft options Italians are the biggest consumers of mineral water in Europe – drunk fizzy (frizzante) or still (naturale) – even though their tap water is wholly palatable. Around 600 regional brands fight to compete with the big producers like San Pellegrino and Ferrarelle. A glass of tap water is normally served with coffee. Sicily is the prime source of Italy’s citrus fruit, which is freshly squeezed (spremuta) and served in bars across the country. Chinotto, a small, bitter orange-coloured citrus fruit grown all over Italy, is used in various soft drinks of the same name. The fruit is thought to hail from China – hence the name.

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Coffee for one

Hot dark matter: coffee types in Italy Caffè. Ask for a caffè and you’ll get an espresso in a small, heated cup. The caffeine content isn’t dramatic, and Italians will often drink espresso coffee after dinner. Don’t be fooled by the size, the Italians are reverential about espresso. Caffè doppio. A double espresso. Caffè lungo. Espresso diluted but with a higher caffeine content. Also called an Americano, after the American servicemen who found a standard espresso too strong. Caffèlatte. A lungo mixed with plenty of hot milk. Asking simply for a latte, as you might in the UK or the USA, will get you a glass of milk.

The origins of the word espresso are somewhat murky. It doesn’t mean ‘express’, or ‘fast’, but rather ‘pressed out’ (as in hot water through ground beans) or an individual cup made expressly (espressamente) for you.

Cappuccino. Caffè lungo mixed with frothy hot milk and powdered with chocolate. Traditionally taken as an accompaniment to breakfast pastries in a café, where the espresso machine has a special nozzle for frothing the milk. Usually only a morning drink, and never taken after a full meal (the milk would hinder digestion). Caffè ristretto. Gulp-sized espresso and consequently stronger in flavour. Drunk in a single draught, often by people rushing to work. Caffè corretto. An espresso with added grappa. Caffè macchiato. Espresso with a mere dash of milk; macchiato means flecked. Caffè freddo. Chilled espresso served with ice in a tall glass. Granita di Caffè. A coffee fuelled dessert sometimes taken instead of coffee after a meal.

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7.2.4 Drinking habits: when and where to indulge

One for the road?

Something to wash that down with?

Digestivos remain popular but the authorities’ clampdown on drink driving has pushed more to imbibe a limoncello than a powerful grappa. Even so, alcohol consumption remains a contributory cause in 30 to 40 per cent of road accidents in Italy.

Italians don’t often drink alcohol without food. They don’t share the northern European enthusiasm for bouts of heavy drinking; for whiling away evening hours in a pub or a bar. Italian bars are actually quite utilitarian neon-lit places where drinks are cheaper taken standing at the bar and where visits are usually brief; why hang around when dinner is waiting at home? Women are far less likely to venture into a bar for alcohol than men, especially in rural areas. Drunkenness, or to fare una brutta figura, is still frowned upon and rarely public. The best thing you can do if drunk is to try and conceal it. Alcohol is usually mopped up with food – an aperitivo may well be accompanied by olives, nuts or mini pizzas, and wine still forms a familiar part of the evening meal. Wine is also often drunk at lunchtimes, although in smaller quantities than used to be the case.

Changing drinking habits Most Italian children taste their first alcoholic drink aged 11 or 12, a couple of years younger than the European average. Usually they’re given watered down wine with a meal by a parent, inculcating a responsible attitude to drinking by the association with food. However, a recent rise in binge drinking, a malaise from which Italy was previously considered immune, has been recorded amongst a minority of youngsters. Girls are the worst offenders in the mid-teen age bracket, but are overtaken by boys in their late teens. The binging seems to tail off at around 25, and appears to be a largely urban phenomenon. A recent government move to raise the public drinking age from 16 to 18 failed; although they did succeed in making the sale of alcohol after 2am illegal.

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Still going to the café for a coffee

Viva il vino

When merchants from Venice and Trieste traded with the Yemeni port of Moka in the Middle Ages they brought coffee back to Europe. Today, the average Italian drinks more coffee (usually seriously sweetened) than anyone else in Europe, preferring a heavily roasted bean for that characteristically strong, bitter flavour. Attempts at domesticating the espresso machine (the snorting silver Gaggia that brought steam pressure and a crema froth to the espresso in the 1930s, balancing the inherent bitterness of the coffee) haven’t succeeded in Italy like they have elsewhere; Italians, particularly sociable southerners, still prefer coffee from the café. As for tea, it’s always come a distant second to coffee. However, there is a growing trend for tea supping among young, middle-class northern Italians, either at home or in tearooms. Tea automatically arrives with lemon (con limone) unless you ask for milk (con latte). Herbal teas (infusioni) are growing in popularity.

In the 1990s, Italy replaced France as the world’s biggest consumer and producer of wine in terms of actual volume. However, as wine consumption gradually falls in both countries, the USA looks on course to overtake. In terms of consumption per capita, Italy (28 litres per person per year) takes third place behind Switzerland (29 litres) and Portugal (33 litres).

Hitting the bottle In 1996, 19,000 Italians were receiving regular treatment for alcoholism. A decade later that figure had grown to more than 50,000.

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8 Living culture: the state of modern Italy 8.1 Upsetting the old order: class, race, family and women p274 8.2 Issues of faith: religion in Italy p278 8.3 Rule benders: politics, the Italian state and green issues p282 8.4 Money matters: the economy, wealth and social security p288 8.5 Law and order: the police, the Mafia and the legal system p292

8.6 Class struggles: the education system p297 8.7 Time out: holidays, festivals and free time p300 8.8 Passion plays: Italian sport p303

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Enjoyment appears to come easily to Italy. Sport, festivals, family, food – the finer thing in life are celebrated with an undisguised passion. However, turn to the sober stuff of 21st century life, to politics, religion, immigration and economics, and the nation wrestles with the big issues of the day.

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8.1 Italian society: class, race, family and women 650,000 PEOPLE FROM EUROPE, N ORT H A MERICA AN D AUSTRALAS IA LIVE IN IT AL Y.

The Italian class structure Rigid stratification was the hallmark of Italian society for centuries. Italians were born, lived and died in the peasantry, bourgeoisie or (for the fortunate few) aristocracy. Today, social mobility, so slow to arrive, is a key facet of life. The stereotypes that define class in other countries don’t really exist in Italy any more; social status is dictated almost solely by wealth. Accents speak only of regional origin, not class, and Italians are as likely to be judged by their clothes as by which school they attended or what job they’re in. The inequality of wealth distribution in modern Italy is stark. Around ten per cent of the population still lives in poverty, the south (as usual) faring far worse than the north. The majority of Italians now belong to the growing middle class, the borghesi, rising above the traditional lower class of poor farmers, the contadini.

Struggling with multiculturalism As a nation that knew only emigration for decades, Italy wasn’t prepared for the mass immigration of the 21st century. Immigrant numbers have risen rapidly to four million, seven per cent of the total population (still one of the lowest proportions in the EU), in a short space of time. The majority, over a million, have come from Albania and Romania. Another half million have arrived from North Africa, often illegally via the small Italianowned Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. In 2009, a temporary centre for migrants on the island, built for 850 people, was found to have more than 2,000 boat people crammed inside. The unprecedented scale and pace of immigration has created various tensions within Italian society. In summer 2008, a state of emergency was declared and troops deployed on the streets of Rome, Milan and Naples

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as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants. A year later, amid fervent media headlines about immigrants committing rape, the Government gave official backing to the formation of citizens’ street patrols. Certain political parties, not least the Lega Nord, have drawn clear, inflammatory connections between economic problems and the new arrivals. Becoming an Italian has never been an easy business. Until 2006 it took ten years of uninterrupted residence before first-generation migrants could apply for citizenship. Their Italian-born descendants had to wait 18 years. The 2006 Bill of Naturalisation improved the migrants’ lot. The children of migrants now automatically become Italian citizens as long as their parents can prove long-term residence and an adequate income. Even so, the bill received criticism for introducing language and integration assessments.

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People leakage

Keep it in the family

Many see immigration as the only way to reverse the country’s negative population growth and the prospect of there being six million fewer Italians by 2017.

Family remains the solid foundation of Italian life but the pressures of modernity are taking their toll. The numbers of divorcees, single parent families and people living alone are all increasing. Falling birth rates (at about 1.3 children per female it’s well below the EU average) have further eroded the traditional image of the large Italian family. By 2033, a third of the Italian population will be over 65. What is unusual (in the context of western Europe) about Italy, however, is that these older generations are cared for within the family, remaining in the familial residence with their adult children rather than put out to pasture in a retirement home. The value and sense of identity attached to ‘family’ in Italy therefore remains central to everyday life, maintaining a centuries-old commitment to immediate kin that overshadows any loyalty to community, region or state.

“(IT WOU L D BE) A SERI OUS MISTAKE TO OBFU SCATE THE VA L UE AND FUN CTIONS OF THE LE GITIMATE FAM ILY BASED ON M ARRIAGE BY AT T RIBU TING L EGAL RECOGN ITION TO OT HER FO RMS OF LE GAL U NION FOR WHICH THERE IS N O RE AL SOCIAL DEMAN D.” Pope Benedict XVI explains why same-sex marriages should remain illegal in Italy

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Mamma’s boys Some blame the current lack of innovation and economic growth in Italy on blokes. An astonishing number of Italian men, the Mammoni (mummy’s boys), stay at home until well into their thirties. Indeed, the average Italian doesn’t fly the nest until aged 36. They don’t just stay for the cooking and home comforts; the average wage for Italians aged between 25 and 30 is very low – their peers in the UK, for example, earn double. To help cut the apron strings, the Government plans to offer up to £700 in tax relief for Italians under 30 earning less than £10,500. The state will also pay 19 per cent towards rent costs for university students who study at least 65 miles away from home.

How Italy treats women It would be wrong to say that feminism missed Italy, but it was slow to gain momentum. While a rush of feminist activity brought legislative changes in the 1970s (legalising abortion, divorce and adultery), personal beliefs and attitudes have been harder to refine. Italian women are still a long way from achieving parity of pay with their male colleagues; they have the lowest representation in parliament of any EU country; only received the vote in 1946; and the laws on sexual violence were slow to move forward. Today, Italian women are marrying later than ever before, while low birth rates are no doubt indicative of changing roles. Young Italians have accepted equality between the sexes, even if Italy lags some way behind other EU countries. However, progress is regional: the greatest advances have come in the north and centre – the old stereotypes are taking longer to shift in the south. In common, though, men all over Italy still present women with yellow mimosa flowers on International Women’s Day, 8 March (perhaps hoping to compensate for the other 364 days in the year).

TH E A G E O F C O N S EN T I N IT A L Y I S 14 ( B ETW EEN MINORS). Contrasts of care Italian women spent more time caring for children and aged parents than women from any other EU country in 2004 – three hours 53 minutes a day according to the National Institute for Statistics. Not surprisingly, their husbands were at the bottom of the EU list when it came to helping out. Women on the march Fears about changes in abortion legislation brought more than 250,000 women out onto the streets of Milan in 2006 to defend Law 194, which decriminalised abortion in 1978.

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8.2 Issues of faith: religion in Italy

The angels’ share

There in spirit, if not in body

Italians can opt to give 0.8 per cent of their income tax, the so-called otto per mille, to the Catholic Church or one of six other religions (including Waldensians, Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists but not Muslims).

At first glance, Catholicism appears to drip from every facet of Italian life, from the almighty physical presence of St Peters in Rome to the statues of the Virgin Mary staring down from alcoves and balconies across the country. And with around 90 per cent of Italians claiming to be Catholic, the religious make-up of the country seems clear-cut. However, the reverence is somewhat part-time. Only a quarter of Catholics still regularly attend church, and a high proportion of those are getting on in years. In a country where abortion and divorce are legal and where contraception is widely used, the pope isn’t as powerful as he once was; religion is no longer a ritual to live by. And yet, while Italy secularises, Catholicism retains a vital cultural role. The majority may avoid church on a Sunday, but will still embrace the major rites of passage, from baptism to Holy Communion, wedding day to funeral. Like most aspects of Italian life, religion is subject to regional variation. Broadly, devotion is stronger in the south than the north. The ‘Red Belt’ of EmiliaRomagna, traditional stomping ground for communists, has long had a reputation for irreverence.

What is the Vatican? The Vatican, the Catholic Church State, was shaped in the Risorgimento when troops from northern Italy gobbled up the Papal States and then occupied Rome. Pope Pius IX declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican and the idea of a separate state within the city took hold. This city-state status was formalised by the Lateran Pacts of 1929. The word Vatican derives from the Latin Vaticanus, a hill in Rome.

Original man of the papal There have been 265 popes since St Peter, pontiff from AD30 to 67. He (maybe one day she?) doesn’t have the same hold over the Italian people he once did. In the privacy of the home or the local bar, the pope is no longer out of bounds for satire. The bond hasn’t been quite the same since 1978 when the charismatic and popular Albino Luciani, John Paul I, died just one month into his reign and the job went to a foreigner, John Paul II, for the first time in 455 years. Pope John Paul’s legacy is still warm, recalled not least for surviving a shooting and for canonising more people than any predecessor. The current pope, Benedict XVI, is German-born Joseph Alois Ratzinger.

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Doing a deal with il Duce Mussolini started his tenure in power describing Catholic priests as ‘black germs’, but had a change of heart when he spied the opportunity to tap Catholicism’s 400 million strong (a billion today) worldwide audience. The resultant Lateran Treaty of 1929 gave Pope Pius XI 109 acres in Rome to form the Vatican state with its own small army, police force, post office, train station and weekend retreat in the country. Perhaps most significantly, the concordat in the treaty cemented Catholicism as the state religion (this relationship was eventually broken by a revised agreement in 1984). The next pope, Pius XII, incumbent from 1939 to 1958, is still the subject of fierce debate: did he do enough to protect Jews in the Second World War? Recruitment drive The number of Italian men signing up to the cloth has been plummeting for years, and so the Catholic Church has been quick to mine Italy’s new migrant communities for staff. More and more priests are being recruited from Eastern Europe and Africa.

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Better late than never Buddhists and Jehovah’s Witnesses finally had their faiths recognised as formal religions by the Italian government in 1990.

Power over life and death? Piergiorgio Welby hit the headlines in 2006 when he refused medical treatment for the muscular dystrophy that had paralysed him, instead declaring his wish to die. Liberals aligned behind Welby, in opposition to the Vatican which, backed by rightwing politicians, tried to prevent doctors from withdrawing treatment. During the three months it took for the patient to die, the issues surrounding euthanasia, illegal in Italy, were hotly debated. The Vatican denied Welby a church burial on his death, asserting that he’d gone against Catholic teaching by choosing to die.

Italy’s other religious communities Jews Italy harbours one of the oldest, most integrated Jewish communities in Europe (the Romanim Jews identify themselves with Jews from Rome before the great Diaspora); indeed, there were Jews in Italy as far back as 161BC. The term ‘ghetto’ is an Italian/Jewish word dating back to early Jewish populations living in Venice, where the foundries were casting metal in a process known as gettare. Waldensians A core of European Protestantism tucked away for centuries in the Waldensian valleys of northern Italy. In the Second World War they helped hide Jews fleeing the Nazis. Muslims There’s been an Islamic presence in Italy since the Arab occupation of Sicily in the Middle Ages, although it was barely visible when the country unified in 1861. Since immigrants began arriving in Italy from Islamic countries in the 1970s, the population has steadily grown. The biggest mosque in Europe opened two miles from the Vatican in 1995. Greek Orthodox Communities are scattered along the Adriatic coast with bigger populations in Sicily. Recent migrants from southern central Europe have helped boost congregations.

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The key religious dates Epifania On 6 January, Befana, a warty old witch (but in a good way), visits children and leaves gifts if they’ve been good and a lump of coal if they’ve misbehaved (although these days solid fuel has been replaced by sweets). Carnevale Italy bids ‘goodbye to meat’ on Martedì Grasso, or Shrove Tuesday. In Venice they go overboard in the lead up with an intense ten-day festival of costumed events. Elsewhere folks just sit down to a nice plate of lasagne. Pasqua On Easter Sunday, Italians eat lamb and colomba, a dove-shaped cake, while the pope blesses us from his balcony. Around the country, the Virgin Mary is carried down the local high street in procession. On Easter Monday, Pasquetta, families hit the road for a day in the country and a picnic.

Have you heard the one about the pope, the rabbi and the… If you feel the urge to recite a joke about the pope, be careful where you do it. Under the Lateran Treaty, insulting the pope, even for a joke, can, in theory, result in five years behind bars.

Ferragosto The Assumption of the Blessed Mary is celebrated on 15 August with a day off. It’s one of various Catholic feast days borrowed from the Romans. Their version marked high summer and honoured the Gods, in particular Diana, goddess of the moon and hunting. Ognissanti/Giorno dei Morti All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, on 1 and 2 November respectively, are reserved for commemorating dead relatives. Flowers are placed graveside before everyone settles down to a meal, traditionally featuring fava beans.

Mysterious ways

Natale It’s Christmas, so marvel at the presepe (the nativity crib usually laid out on 8 December, L’Immacolata Concezione), open your presents and write a letter to your parents apologising for being naughty (usually left under their dinner plates). Tuck into fish on Christmas Eve (traditional day of abstinence) and all manner of dishes (tortellini in broth is about the most consistent) during the lengthy Christmas lunch.

More than ten million Italians pay for fortune telling, occult consultations or a session with a soothsayer every year.

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8.3 Rule benders: politics, the Italian state and green issues Get out the vote Article 48 of the constitution reminds Italians that to vote is a “civic duty”. The country has one of the highest turnout rates (often up to 90 per cent) in the democratic world. Even expats join in via post, and have their own representatives in the Italian parliament.

Modern Italy has a fraught relationship with politics. How can a Western democracy – a country with G8 membership and a founder member of NATO – have been through 60 governments since the Second World War? Corruption, factionalism, violence, mud slinging, stagnation – these have been the ceaseless themes of Italian political life. As a bipolar system of government evolves, so the political landscape begins to stablise. The key dates of post-war Italian politics 1946. Italy becomes a republic, chosen by referendum. A pattern of government rapidly develops: the centre-right Democrazia Cristiana (DC) party rule in coalition with various centrist factions, essentially operating as a buffer to the Partito Communista Italiano (PCI), a much stronger force in post-war politics in Italy than in other Western nations. 1969. A neo-Fascist bomb in Milan begins the Years of Lead, in which extreme elements from left and right bypass the usual (sleaze-clogged) channels of democracy using violence. Events reach a grim climax with the murder of former DC prime minister, the moderate Aldo Moro, in 1978. 1983. Bettino Craxi becomes the first prime minister from the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) in the post-war era, finally (and briefly) wresting government from the DC. 1992. The post-war status quo implodes amid arrests and trials for corruption. The DC and PSI dissolve (the conjunction with communism’s international demise wasn’t coincidental). Italians declare an unofficial ‘second republic’, hoping for a new start. 1994. The Freedom Alliance, a rightist coalition that includes Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) party, the separatist Lega Nord (LN) and the neo-Fascist Aleanza Nazionale (AN), wins power. These – and the former Communists – are the new players in Italian politics. 2001. Italians vote for greater autonomy for the country’s 20 regions in a referendum on the constitution, increasing regional control over taxation, education and the environment. 2008. Silvio Berlusconi returns for his third term as prime minister, his popularity with voters apparently unaffected by ongoing media criticism about public and private affairs.

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The structure of power Italy is a democratic republic comprising 20 regions (each with its own, popularly elected council), which divide further into 109 provinces and 8,101 municipalities. The Presidente della Repubblica is the head of state, elected by a two-thirds majority of parliament for a seven-year term. While the president heads the armed forces and can disband parliament, the real power lays with the Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri (prime minister) and his cabinet. Usually (but not always), the PM is drawn from the political party with the most seats in parliament. Italy has a bicameral parliament. The lower chamber, the Camera dei Deputati, serves a five-year term (although full-term governments are virtually unknown), elected by all adult Italians. The chamber’s 630 MPs are voted in using a complicated combination of proportional representation and ‘prizes’ for the coalition securing most votes; a system, introduced in 2005, which appears to have exacerbated the difficulties of fragmentation, placing increased, disruptive control in the hands of smaller parties. The upper chamber, the Senato della Repubblica, contains 315 senators. Most are elected by citizens aged 25 and over, but some are there for life (old presidents and the like).

M O R E T HA N 1 5 0 PA R TI E S W E R E ON T H E BAL L O T F O R T H E 2 0 0 8 I TA L I A N E L E C TI O N .

Defection imperfection The multiple governments that characterised the early years of Italian unification led many politicos to switch sides, to change their stance and set up new parties to ensure their own survival. Transformismo, as it became known, continues to blight Italian politics; discredited figures from the left or right regularly reappear in government with a new outlook.

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The main political forces While the political scene in the ‘second republic’ has always been a splintered affair, the factions have also always been defined along clear left/right lines. The last coalition government of the left, led by Romano Prodi, contained nine political parties; the last from the right, Silvio Berlusconi’s, embraced eight, although ultimately slimmed down to two. Both sides seem keen to initiate a more workable, two-party system, steadily gobbling up factions to create large, broader parties less reliant on coalition allies and therefore better braced for government. The emergent Partito Democratico (PD) and Popolo della Libertà (PDL), on the centre-left and centreright respectively, work towards the aim. However, a centrist coalition, the Unione di Centro (UDC) born of old Christian Democrats, hopes to offer voters a third way. Of the myriad political forces in Italy, these are the ones to watch:

Right Popolo della Libertà (PDL). Created in 2009 when Forza Italia, Italy’s largest centre-right party (launched by Silvio Berlusconi in 1994 as a shiny centre-right replacement for the crippled DC), merged with the Alleanza Nazionale (AN). The AN’s old leader, Gianfranco Fini, a former neo-fascist, had been seen by many as the natural successor to Berlusconi, until the pair fell out in 2009. Franco Frattini, Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Popolo della Libertà government elected to power in 2008, is among the key figures of contemporary Italian politics.

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Lega Nord (LN). Under the leadership of Umberto Bossi, the LN has won votes with an anti-central government, anti-immigrant ticket. In the 2008 election, the party won eight per cent of the vote. Political commentators suggest the Lega Nord have capitalised on the left’s failure to represent the working class, although the party also receives significant white-collar support.

Left Partito Democratico (PD). Born in 2007 from various centre-left factions, the main ones being the Democratici di Sinistra (DS) (heirs to Italy’s communist heritage) and La Margherita (DL) (a more centrist strand), the PD covers social democrat ground, pushing a pro-European, socially progressive and green agenda. Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (PdCI). Created in 1998 when it split from Italy’s other surviving communist faction of note (there are many on a smaller scale), the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). In common, they advocate a more even distribution of wealth and oppose any military support for the USA. Federazione dei Verdi. The Italian Green party first entered parliament in 1987, becoming one of the few dissenting voices against the treatment of Roma people and immigrants in general. The party has fared badly in recent elections; coalitions with the communists haven’t really helped their popular appeal.

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“P OWER I S A DISEA SE I HAVE N O DE SI RE TO BE CURED OF.” Giulio Andreotti

Five memorable Italian prime ministers Alcide De Gasperi. DC leader who signed the peace treaty with the Allies, secured Italy’s place in NATO and generally hauled Italy from post-war devastation. Died within a year of losing the 1953 election. Aldo Moro. Another two-times DC prime minister, Moro worked hard to broker agreement with the left. His attempt at a ‘historic compromise’ got him kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades in 1978. Giulio Andreotti. Italian PM seven times between the 1970s and 90s, the wily Andreotti is emblematic of postwar Italian politics. All attempts to convict him on alleged Mafia connections (including implication in the murder of journalist Mino Pecorelli) have failed. He still sits in the upper chamber of parliament, despite being in his 90s. The media once dubbed him the Prince of Darkness. Bettino Craxi. As leader of the socialist PSI in the 1970s and 80s, Craxi impressed with his moderation, intitiating social and economic reform during two periods as PM, and foreshadowing the wider European movement of the left toward the centre. However, he’s become better remembered as the biggest scalp of the early 1990s bribery investigations. Sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison, Craxi died in Tunisia in 2000. Craxi’s political legacy is still being assessed. Silvio Berlusconi. The key figure of Italian politics since the early 1990s meltdown has established an enviable reputation for longevity in office after three periods as PM. He’s a self-made man, a bank worker’s son who began selling vacuum cleaners, moved on to property and then built a media empire. Critics say he controls too much of Italian life, but his popular support is undeniable.

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How green is Italy? The volatile political landscape in Italy has held back a consistent environmental policy and the country, despite recent investment in onshore wind farms, is unlikely to hit its green targets. The ineffectiveness of Italy’s Green party hasn’t helped. Green issues have taken longer to concern the Italian public than other Europeans, although they appear to be catching up – 65 per cent of Italians described themselves as ‘green’ in a recent survey, second only to Germany at 70 per cent. Municipal and regional administrations are pushing green building initiatives, while central government used the 2008 budget to approve plans to protect bio-diversity, clean up contaminated industrial sites, reduce waste and finally comply with EU rules on pollution control. By 2013, Milan should have completed a two million square metre ‘green village’, complete with apartments, schools, shopping centres and sports facilities all powered by sustainable energy sources. Private industry is getting involved too, not least Fiat with their hydrogen-powered Panda (the car not the large mammal). Meanwhile, supermarkets have been charging for plastic bags for years. In the home, waste is increasingly bagged into separate bins while recycling points for paper, plastic and glass are appearing in apartment blocks.

The smell of corruption in Naples In 2008, landfill sites in Naples reached capacity and the city became strewn with uncollected rubbish; around 250,000 tonnes of waste was left festering on the streets. The ensuing health hazard, not least rat infestations, caused riots across the region. Water sources were poisoned and air pollution soared when people began setting fire to the waste. The crisis was blamed on decades of weak political leadership in the region, leadership that allowed the Mafia’s control of waste disposal. After activity from Silvio Berlusconi’s administration, sites were reopened, although thousands of tonnes of rubbish were shipped to Sardinia and set ablaze while other parts of the country were forced to receive Naples’ garbage.

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8.4 Money matters: the economy, wealth and social security Foreign power Italy imports more than 80 per cent of its energy. Where Italy makes its money Agriculture: 2 per cent Industry: 27 per cent Services: 71 per cent Small is beautiful Major companies like Fiat might grab the economic headlines, but small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), many of them family run, comprise the backbone of the Italian economy. The backstreets of Italian cities and towns are packed with people making things – from fine foods to bespoke suits, glassware and decorative tiles – and the stats on employee numbers reflect this: 99 per cent of companies employ fewer than 250 people. The average company employs between three and eight people (the European average is 15 people). 23 per cent of workers are employed by a company with fewer than ten staff (in England and the USA it’s seven and three per cent respectively).

The Italian economy underwent a miraculous transformation in the second half of the 20th century. It needed to. Flattened by war, stripped of its colonies in North Africa and forced to pay huge reparations after backing the wrong side, by 1945 Italy was economically shattered. The Marshall Plan (American aid) initiated dramatic recovery in the post-war period, fuelling the switch from a largely agrarian economy to a manufacturing one, and helping to secure Italian membership of the fledgling European Community just 12 years later. The so-called miracolo economico between 1958 and 1963 placed Italy in the top ten of world economic powers and, despite some bleak years in the 1970s and 80s, there it remains, currently in seventh place (it duly has membership of the G8). The miracle was fed by the large-scale migration of workers from rural regions to cities, and in particular from the impoverished south to the dynamic north. Famous Italian companies, from Fiat to Olivetti, Vespa to Zanussi, grew in strength and began to export their products. Today, behind the stylish brands, the metallurgical, engineering and textile industries give modern Italy its economic clout. Tourism also plays an important role: nearly 40 million visitors come each year, making Italy the fifth most popular tourist destination in the world. While Italy was far from immune to the recent global recession (GDP began shrinking fast in 2008 and into 2009), it has the potential to emerge less bruised than other nations – the country already had one of the lowest annual growth rates in the EU (about one per cent), individuals don’t adhere to the culture of credit found in other Western nations (they don’t borrow to the hilt) and Italian banks aren’t as entrenched in the international marketplace and are thus less likely to feel the global pinch.

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The north/south split

Home economics

The economic divide between north and south in Italy has been stark for generations. The industrial, urbane north can seem like a different country to the predominantly agricultural south, which, despite Italy’s economic standing, is one of the poorest regions in Europe. Even the ‘agricultural’ label is misleading: poor soil and baking temperatures make farming the Mezzogiorno a frequently subsistence affair, barely sufficient to sustain a family. Only wine, olive oil and a few other products really push Italian agriculture forward in the export market. No wonder five million southerners emigrated to North America in the early 20th century. The history of poverty and neglect in the south colludes with its physical isolation and a reputation for corruption and organised crime to dissuade industry from moving in.

Between 1997 and 2007, Italian house prices shot up by 100 per cent. Despite a 15 per cent annual growth in mortgages during the same period, outstanding mortgage debt was just 19 per cent of GDP, compared to the EU average of 50 per cent. The low level of borrowing stems from the Italian banks’ reluctance to overextend loans, an approach that doesn’t seem to hinder home ownership – almost 85 per cent of Italian households own the properties they live in.

The economic disparity has left a bitter taste on both sides of the divide: the Lega Nord’s growing popularity as a political party is stirred by its calls for secession for the north and a tougher anti-immigration policy, while southerners believe the northern industrial base was built with their blood, sweat and tears after the great migrations north in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

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The submerged economy Some estimates claim that 15 per cent of Italian GDP is produced by the economia sommersa, the ‘submerged economy’ (or black market), much of it centred on construction, agriculture and the service sectors. More worrying is the success of Italy’s crime syndicates, jovially referred to as ‘Mafia Inc’, whose economic muscle grows as the world economy withers (they don’t have the same reluctance to loan as the banks). Government think tank Eurispes estimates that, in 2008, Mafia Inc earned 126 billion euros, almost eight per cent of Italy’s GDP, half of it from drug trafficking.

The health of health The longevity and general good health of most Italians probably has more to do with a balanced diet and strong family support than with its health service. When the national health service, the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN), was introduced in 1978, the aim was an all-encompassing health system covering the entire population. Essentially, that’s what it does today. However, the system seems dogged by excessive bureaucracy, funding shortfalls and mismanagement. Italy comes about halfway down the table of European healthcare, but within the country itself there is significant regional disparity; generally, you’re better advised falling ill in the north of the country than in the south. The SSN is funded by central government through the IRAP tax (Imposta Regionale Sulle Attivita Produttive). Everyone, including all EU residents, is entitled to free or subsidised healthcare in Italy.

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Feeling the benefits: pensions and unemployment

Tax matters

The unemployment rate in Italy hovers around seven per cent, although a far greater proportion of people are out of work in the south than the north. Any Italian losing their job must have worked for at least a year to claim indennità di disoccupazione (the basic unemployment benefit), and can only then claim for six months. If they resigned from their job or haven’t worked before, there’s no support on offer. The high proportion of young adults living at home with their parents undoubtedly reflects the expectation that families, rather than the state, will look after the unemployed.

Income tax in Italy operates on a sliding scale, kicking in at 23 per cent and rising to 43 per cent for the top earners. In addition, each region (up to 1.4. per cent) and municipality (up to 0.8 per cent) levies a tax on income. Tax evasion is seen something as of a national hobby in Italy, and those that avoid paying tax are even admired.

Until recently, Italy’s ever expanding legion of retirees had it good, able as they were to give up work aged 57, assuming they’d worked for 35 years and paid the right contributions (in some sectors workers could retire after less than 20 years of service). However, the good times are coming to an end. High life expectancy levels, an aging population and a growing national budget deficit have raised the retirement age. In 2009, the Italian Government brought in a draft law to ensure the new retirement age of 60 is introduced in 2010. By 2018, the goal is a retirement age of 65 for both men and women. Today just 19 per cent of Italians aged 60-64 are still working compared to 45 per cent in the UK and 60 per cent in Sweden.

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8.5 Law and order: the police, the Mafia and the legal system Shutting out the draft Mandatory National Service for men ended in Italy in 2005.

Short arms of the law The Carabinieri, Italy’s oldest (1814) and most visible police force, are named for the carbines (short rifles) they once carried.

Italy is a relatively safe place. Murder and assault rates are lower here than in much of the EU and cases of rape and sexual assault are well below average. Crimes against the person are more likely to involve stealing, and the worst felony rates are tied to car theft. As you might expect, crime is worse in urban areas; indeed, rural Italy can feel like a crime-free zone. There is, of course, a conspicuous antidote to the good news about individual crime, and that’s the ongoing role of the Mafia in Italian life. Organised crime still sucks billions of euros from the economy through racketeering, intimidation and extortion.

The police Italy has one of the largest police forces in Europe, employing twice the manpower of the UK, France or Spain. Italian police have traditionally been perceived as more militaristic than civilian – seemingly better trained and equipped for combating civil unrest than chasing down bag-snatchers – perhaps because the ministry of Defence oversees certain sectors of policing. There are three main national police corps, whose jurisdiction and activities sometimes overlap: Polizia di Stato. The standard Italian state police, a civil (rather than military) force, responsible for dealing with theft and patrolling the autostrade. Look out for navy blue shirts, grey trousers, a white belt and powder blue cars.

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Carabinieri. Answerable to the Ministry of Defence, but dealing with everything from drug busts to international terrorism (sometimes on foreign soil), they’re a familiar sight in Italian cities, seen on street corners, gun in pocket, enjoying the slick uniform of redstriped dark blue trousers and white leather chest strap. Guardia di Finanza. Another wing of the armed forces but controlled by the Ministry of Finance, the grey-uniformed Guardia di Finanza deal primarily with tax evasion and money laundering but also help maintain public order and patrol Italy’s coastal waters. Aside from the big three, Italy has a series of other policing outfits working at municipal or provincial levels. The Polizia Provinciale operate in some (but not all – they’re optional) of the country’s provinces, whist Italy’s five autonomous regions have their own Polizia Regionale forces. Traffic cops, the Polizia Municipale, hand out tickets and direct the chaos in their dark blue uniforms and pristine white gloves. Other groups are responsible for national parks (Corpo Forestale dello Stato), the prison system (Polizia Penitenziaria) and the coastline (Guardia Costiera).

Leave it to the amateurs In 2009, a law was passed allowing Italian towns to maintain private night time vigilante patrols. It came amid a flurry of new legislation targeting illegal immigrants. The patrols are allowed to wear uniforms but don’t carry weapons or have the power of arrest. 0 to 60 in a heartbeat Road patrols by the Polizia di Stato were given a boost in 2004 when Lamborghini donated two of its Gallardo cars. Today the top speed of 310kmph is used to deliver plasma and vital organs for transplant operations.

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Femmes fatale With many of the old guard locked up, women are beginning to exert their authority as gang leaders in the Mafia. In 2002, in the valleys near Naples, three women were killed and dozens seriously injured in one of numerous power struggles springing up across the south.

Sicilian syndicate: the Mafia story The Mafia materialised in the 19th century (although they probably have medieval roots), initially intent on protecting Sicilians from foreign invaders and corruption. The noble aims were soon replaced by the organised crime staples of racketeering and protection, and by the time Mussolini came to power the Mafia had infiltrated every layer of Sicilian life. He tried to wipe them out, cutting off towns to flush out the gang members and throwing thousands of suspects in jail. He had some success, but the Mafia disappeared underground, into the fabric of society, setting a now well-known trend: attempts to purge the Mafia find them shrinking away, disappearing into the towns and villages of rural Italy. A concerted effort to smash the Mafia in the 1980s made headway when a team of magistrates handed guilty verdicts to 344 defendants, but the clans struck back in 1992, killing two of the prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in a brutal show of strength.

The Mafia today ‘Mafia’ has become a catch-all label for Italy’s organised crime clans. The Cosa Nostra is the prime outfit on Sicily, while the mainland is dogged by the Camorra of Campania, the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia. Each has an influence well beyond its region. They’ve moved into lucrative new markets, dealing on the stock exchange, trafficking drugs and trading arms with the Middle East, but for many Italians, particularly in the south, the Mafia is still about protection and intimidation.

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Government figures suggest that up to 80 per cent of businesses in Palermo, Sicily, are paying protection money to the Mafia. Every year brings new arrests and ‘landmark’ court cases. In 2006, Italy’s most wanted man, Bernardo Provenzano, presumed head of the Sicilian Mafia, was captured; a year later, his replacement, Salvatore Lo Piccolo, was brought in; and in 2009, 49 members of Lo Piccolo’s ‘family’ were jailed for running protection rackets. And yet the Mafia continues to function, even grow (see section 8.4 for details of Italy’s ‘submerged economy’).

Slowly does it: the legal system Italy’s judiciary is independent of the government, as set out by the Italian constitution. The Italian code of law can be traced all the way back to Roman law, which informed the Napoleonic Code adopted across Italy after Unification. Revision and reshaping have occurred in the years since, notably in 1990 when an accusatorial system replaced the old inquisitorial approach. The highest court in Italy is the Supreme Court of Cassation, the court of appeal, below which are the criminal, civil and administrative courts. The Italian legal system is renowned for being complicated, expensive and slow, and most agree that urgent reform is needed. Technicalities and the length of time between indictment and trial have saved many from prison under the statute of limitations – in 2009, Italian Justice Minister, Angelino Alfano, revealed that it took an average of 31 months to bring a case to court.

Lucky break for the Mafia Lucky Luciano (everyone forgot his real name, Charlie, after he survived having his throat cut), the pre-war New York Mafia boss, has been credited with establishing the Cosa Nostra’s stranglehold in Italy after the Second World War. When Allied troops prepared for the invasion of Sicily, the Americans reportedly sent Lucky in to favour good relationships with the locals and smooth the imminent assault. Lucky did a good job and set up close ties with the influential underground gangs in Sicily. The help offered up by certain Mafioso found them installed in positions of power (allegedly by the American authorities) after the war.

The boundaries between politics and the judiciary have become increasingly blurred in recent years, as judges pursue politicans, notably Silvio Berlusconi, on charges of corruption. In return, Berlusconi regularly attacks certain judges, branding them as left-wing extremists.

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Ripping yarns: three killing sprees The Monster of Florence. He (or maybe she?) preyed on courting Florentine couples in cars between 1968 and 1985, shooting 16 lovers with a Beretta pistol before hacking off the women’s vaginas. No one has been found guilty for the murders but theories abound, some featuring satanic gangs. The killings inspired Thomas Harris’ chilling novel, Hannibal. A bungled police investigation led to an innocent man (the first female victim’s husband) being imprisoned until, after six years, another murder took place. Olindo Romano and Rosa Bazzi. In 2006, the husband and wife were convicted of slaughtering their neighbours over a noise dispute in Rome. The unremarkable couple stabbed and slit the throats of a two-year old boy, his mother, grandmother and a female friend. During the investigation it emerged that the murders were planned over many months, carried out because Bazzi couldn’t stand the sound of the boy crying or the noise of his parents. Roberto Succo. He began in 1981 by stabbing his mother and strangling his father in the family home in Mestre, Veneto, when they refused to loan him the car. Captured, he was then adjudged insane and was out on parole after five years. He fled to France and went on a two-year spree of murder, rape and burglary. Finally apprehended, he committed suicide in 1988. His life has inspired a book, play and film.

296 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

2. Literature and philosophy

3. Art, architecture and design

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy

5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

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8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

8.6 Class struggles: the education system

The Italian education system isn’t without its problems. Schools have the highest teacher-to-pupil ratio in Europe but those same teachers are often forced to take a second job to make ends meet. Free education is guaranteed from the age of three but state school children spend their formative years in crumbling institutions in desperate need of repair and redecoration. The nation’s falling birth rate has brought additional issues, sounding the death knell for many rural schools. Typically, all of the problems surrounding Italian education are worst in the south of the country. Finally, under initiatives introduced by Silvio Berlusconi’s government, the ailing system is undergoing major reform. However, the restructuring, unveiled in 2008, is highly controversial. Like its buildings, education’s policymakers appear stuck in the 20th century. Schools are being offered greater autonomy from the traditionally rigid, centralised system, but the education budget is falling. Jobs are being cut (by not filling vacancies) and conduct marks are being reintroduced, as is the old system of one teacher/one class in primary schools, whereby the tutor must teach across all subjects. Teachers and students responded to the reforms with strikes and street protests; some 2.5 million people blocked the streets of Rome during the unrest. Berlusconi’s sweetener of promising the best teachers performance-related bonuses of up to 7,000 euros failed to soften the anger.

Doing the maths Education expenditure in Italy is around 4.5 per cent of GDP (lower than in France, Germany and the UK, but higher than in Spain).

Slow progress to literacy The Legge Casati (Casati education act), implemented in Italy in 1859, was heralded as the new education system for a progressive nation on the eve of Unification. The priority of reducing illiteracy rates and making primary education compulsory was slow to take effect, but 70 years later, when the act was finally reformed, nine out of ten Italian children were in school. The 80 per cent illiteracy rate that prevailed on Unification in 1861 was only halved 50 years later. By 1951 it was down to around 13 per cent and today, officially, it sits at 1.5 per cent, although some claim it’s much higher, particularly in the south. The most significant law in Italian education was enacted in 1923 with the Legge Gentile Reform Act. Under Mussolini’s instruction, his education minister, the neo-idealist Giovanni Gentile, brought in compulsory education to the age of 14 in an effort to raise standards and to demonstrate the academic prowess of fascism.

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2. Literature and philosophy

3. Art, architecture and design

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy

5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

7. Food and drink

8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

Oh Mum, do I have to? Grembiuli, the traditional smocks worn by Italian schoolchildren, are making a comeback. Government backed the reintroduction of the outdated school outfit in 2008, hoping it would bolster levels of discipline. Many headteachers, who get the final say on uniform in their schools, feel the move will create a more egalitarian school environment.

How the schooling system breaks down Scuola materna(pre-school) With a growing number of Italian mums entering the workplace, the optional scuola materna is filling up with three to five-year-olds. A free place is guaranteed to all, although a fee-paying private sector version does exist. Scuola primaria(primary) Compulsory education begins for children in their sixth year. For the next five years, infants follow a broad range of subjects including English and social studies. Primary is the best performing sector in Italian education. Scuola media (lower secondary school) Between the ages of 11 and 14, students have 30 hours of weekly classes, rising to 40 if they opt in for extra lessons. Exams are taken in the third year – if successful, students are awarded the diploma di licenza media. The secondary school system in Italy performs well below the European average. Scuola superiore(upper secondary school) When children reach 14 they’re faced with a wide range of further education options. Academic students will choose a liceo, a college that specialises in one area of study, be it classics, science, arts, teacher training or another field. Other students enrol in an instituto tecnico, which again divide themselves along certain lines of study, from agriculture to engineering or IT. In common with liceo students, those at technical institutes spend two years following a standard school curriculum before moving on to three years of study in their specialist subject. A third group of 14-year-olds head for the instituto professionale, vocational colleges that teach a trade, from car mechanics to carpentry, over a threeyear-course. They can top up their qualifications with two years at a liceo or instituto tecnico, should they want to go on to university.

298 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

2. Literature and philosophy

3. Art, architecture and design

4. Music, theatre, dance and comedy

5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

7. Food and drink

8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

Female in-tuition

Free vs fee Italy doesn’t have the wealth or class-driven division between state and private education that affects some other nations. Indeed, the state set-up is usually regarded as having a comparable (perhaps even better) standard of education to the private system. Parents tend to send their children to an independent school because they’re struggling academically, for reasons of faith (many private schools are Catholic) or for the single sex environment (all state schools are co-educational). Whilst state education is free to all, parents are expected to buy exercise books and to provide cash for schools’ equipment.

Women dominate the teaching profession in Italy at primary level. There are more male teachers in lower secondary schools but women still account for nearly 80 per cent of the teaching staff. Despite that dominance, fewer than half of lower secondary school principals are female.

Drop out nation: higher education If they pass their diploma di maturità at scuola superiore, Italian 19-year-olds can apply for any course at university, irrespective of their specialist subject at secondary school. Universities in Italy have a long and proud tradition – the University of Bologna is the oldest in the Western world, having taken its first students in 1088; Salerno (1173) and Padua (1222) weren’t far behind. University education is free to all, and most institutions are filled to bursting point. More young adults go to university in Italy than almost anywhere else in Europe, and yet far less than half of them graduate. The prohibitive cost of accommodation dictates that the majority of Italian students attend university near or in their hometown or city, ensuring they can remain living with parents. Investment in Italian higher education is among the lowest in the EU. The poor pay dished out to lecturers is blamed for the ‘brain drain’ of qualified staff heading overseas to work, particularly to America.

Days in the sun 299 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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8.7 Time out: holidays, festivals and free time Making the bridge Italian workers often save up saints’ days and bank holidays in pursuit of the threeday weekend, leaving businesses running a slimmed down staff on Fridays. If the holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, some will fare il ponte, taking a day either side of the weekend to ‘make the bridge’.

In a country where pleasure is one of life’s defining themes, time off is given its due. Italy observes more bank holidays and saints’ days than any other country in Europe, and, to the consternation of northern Europeans, still manages the month-long shutdown in summer. During la vacanza, Italians load up the car, abandon their homes and head for the seaside or the mountains. The unfortunate family member who still has to work may even commute from the holiday home or campsite. Rather than move up the housing chain, many Italians will persist with a city flat or modest house and spend any surplus money on a coastal or countryside property to escape to. Of the Italians that venture abroad (most prefer to stay on home soil), one in five makes the short trip to France; outside Europe the most popular destination is Egypt. Four state holidays Capodanno (New Year’s Day) 1 January. A day to recover from the previous evening, during which Prosecco will have been drunk, red underwear worn (for luck) and, in a few places, furniture thrown out of the window in preparation for a new start (as per an old tradition). Anniversario della Liberazione (Liberation Day) 25 April. Commemorating the day in 1945 when Nazi Germany surrendered its claim to Italy. Finds a balance between celebration and sombre reflection. Festa del Lavoro (Labour Day) 1 May. The trade unions get their banners out and go marching, not least to a huge free concert in Rome’s Piazza di San Giovanni. Most people simply enjoy a day off with a picnic in the park. Festa della Repubblica (Festival of the Republic) 2 June. The military and the police force go out on parade to celebrate the republic, as chosen by public vote in 1946. The biggest display marches down Rome’s Via dei Fori Imperiali.

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Any excuse for a festival Wherever you are in Italy, at whatever time of year, you won’t be far from a festival. Any event will usually be loud, colourful, occasionally dangerous and will last late into the night. Aside from state and religious dates (see section 8.2 for the main religious holidays), each commune in Italy celebrates the day of their particular saint (some towns even have more than one). Venice, for example, takes a day off to commemorate St Mark on 25 April, while Turin, Genoa and Florence pay homage to St John the Baptist on 24 June. In Rome everything stops for Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June. Not all local festivals have this religious base; some observe the changing of the seasons – and the attendant foodstuffs – or a long-held rivalry with the next commune, either of which may involve a protracted historical re-enactment.

Local colour: five Italian fests Scoppio del Carro in Florence. Reaches a climax on Easter Sunday when a mechanical dove plummets through the cathedral and out of the front doors, igniting a golden carriage packed with fireworks. The resulting explosion of colour symbolises the Resurrection. Festa del Redentore in Venice. On the third Saturday of July, boats form a bridge to Palladio’s Redentore Church, while Venetians row out into the Giudecca Canal to picnic and watch a vast firework display. The fest began in the 16th century, held in thanks that the plague had receded. Carnevale d’Ivrea. The streets of Ivrea, north of Turin, run with juice in February when nine teams of 3,000 braying fighters fling oranges at each other. Every one gets a free meal of beans to help build strength before the battle. The food fight may originate from a revolt of 1194 when locals expelled the Marquis of Monferrato. Masochists take note: in particularly cold years the oranges can freeze.

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2. Literature and philosophy

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5. Cinema and fashion

6. Media and communications

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Festival drama The Macerata opera festival was even more exciting than usual in 1995. A faulty bullet from the Tosca firing squad left the tenor playing Cavaradossi with a bloody hole in his leg (for more on opera see section 4.1.3).

It’s not how often, it’s how well… Maybe Italians had more time for love in the days of Giacomo Casanova, the 18th century Venetian adventurer said to have slept with more than 120 women. In a blow to national pride, a recent Durex Sex Survey placed Italy 20th in terms of frequency, at 106 times a year – way behind the winners Greece at 138 times.

Guardia Sanframondi’s Riti Settennali di Penitenza. Mercifully, the August penitential festival held in Guardia Sanframondi, Campania, only occurs once every seven years. It commemorates the discovery of a Madonna and Child statue in a nearby field with pious processions and self-flagellation, in which penitents beat their chests with a cork containing spikes to draw blood. Marostica Scacchi. A biennial game of ‘living chess’ that takes place in Marostica, north-west of Venice, in September. It commemorates the day in 1454 when two noblemen fought for the love of beautiful Lionora by having a chess-off. Today, a large cast in medieval costume acts the game out on a giant board at the foot of the town’s 14th century castle.

Italians and their hobbies Italians don’t pursue hobbies with quite the intent of other Westerners. Spare time is often simply spent with other people: chatting, eating and maintaining the bonds of friendship and family. When Italians do partake in more orchestrated pastimes, they do the things you might imagine of a country with such fine food and produce (garden and cook), rich heritage (visit galleries and museums – Italy has more UNESCO World Heritage sites than anywhere else) and culture (go to the opera or, more often, watch TV). Another Italian faithful, la bella figura, ensures they spend a significant amount of time in clothes shops. And then there’s the passeggiata, the still popular evening stroll through town; a chance to chat, flirt, gossip or simply parade around looking good. Cultural stimulation During April’s settimana della cultura, culture week, all state-run sights and museums in Italy are free to enter. In Rome the authorities have also initiated an annual notte dei musei, a day in May when museums open until 2am.

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8. Living culture: the state of modern Italy

8.8 Passion plays: Italian sport

It’s not life and death… it’s more important than that

Bend it like Totti

Sport is as important to modern Italian culture as art, music or literature. For spectators it can generate a passion bordering on hysteria, an expectation of success that inevitably brings despair in defeat. With its animation, temperament, corruption and weakness for the aesthetic (why head the ball when an overhead kick is on?), sport reveals much about Italian life.

One in five Italians regularly partake in sport and 60 per cent of the population will get involved on an intermittent basis. Men are more likely to play than women.

Participation is popular, although rarely invested with the aggressive passion of spectating. Towns and villages across the country have gyms, stadiums, tennis courts and swimming pools, often thanks to Mussolini. The dictator ploughed vast amounts of cash into sport in the 1930s in his quest to prove the athletic prowess of fascism. Winter sports are also popular with participants, taking full advantage of ski resorts in the Alps and the Apennines. The clamour for success in Italian sport, fanatical when it comes to football, brings its problems. In Italy, the beautiful game (and they do it more beautifully than most) has often been dogged by corruption, an affliction that reached new depths with the match-fixing scandals of the 2005/06 season, when the web of deceit between club owners, managers and referees saw champions Juventus, the Vecchia Signora (Old Lady) of Italian football, relegated from Serie A and deducted nine points while Milan, Reggina, Lazio and Fiorentina all received lesser penalties. And it isn’t just football that suffers from the win-at-all-costs mentality – numerous Italian cyclists have been banned for drug taking in the Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy) bike race.

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Football scandals are nothing new in Italy Mussolini was passionate about football, especially the fortunes of his own team Bologna. Numerous titles came their way during his time in power, accompanied by bizarre score lines and refereeing decisions. However, Mussolini’s investment in the national game paid off when Italy won World Cups in 1934 and 1938 – even Il Duce couldn’t influence that competition. The Fascists’ wider funding for sport also achieved second and third place respectively in the medals table at the 1932 and 1936 Olympics.

The key sports in Italy Football Football is a religion in Italy and everyone worships their particular club, although the fervent partisanship (at its most extreme with the Ultras, the diehard, flare-lighting and sometimes violent ‘firms’ of supporters) is briefly put aside when the national team play. Only Brazil have won more World Cups than the Azzurri, named for their azure blue shirts; the most recent win of four came in 2006. At club level, professional Italian football comprises a national league, the Lega Calcio, of two divisions, Serie A and Serie B, with 20 and 22 teams respectively. Below this, the Lega Pro has two regional Prima Divisiones and three Seconda Divisiones. Italian teams, the old guard of Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Roma and Lazio at their heart, have won more European titles than any others on the continent. Cycling The Giro d’Italia is second only to the Tour de France in world cycling, and the Italians watch it in their millions. You can spot the leader by his pink jersey. Some of Italy’s most iconic sportsmen have been cyclists. The vitriolic duels between Gino Bartelli and Fausto Coppi in the 1940s and 50s are still discussed with passion by cycling fans, no doubt inspiring the millions of amateur cyclists

304 1. Identity: the foundations of Italian culture

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who power over the hills and mountains of Italy each weekend. Even the frequent doping scandals in the Giro don’t seem to dent the sport’s popularity. Motorsport The love affair began with the Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles), an open-road endurance car race held in the years between 1927 and 1957. Drivers died by the dozen (often taking spectators with them), but legends like Clemente Biondetti were born behind the wheel of the two most successful teams, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari. In the years since, Italian cars have been a major force in motor sport, from Lancia and Fiat in the World Rally Championships to Ferrari in Formula One. On two wheels, the brilliant, controversial Valentino Rossi has dominated modern MotoGP. Rossi hasn’t let pit lane punch-ups or allegations of tax evasion hold him back, achieving 153 podium finishes – just a handful behind Giacomo Agostini who won 15 world titles back in the 1960s and 70s. Perhaps the greatest Italian racer of all was Tazio Nuvolari or Il Mantovano Volante (The Flying Mantuan), a legend of both car and bike.

Thanks to the English The cross of St George features in the badges of two Italian Serie A teams thanks to English workers who brought football to Italy in the 1890s. James Richardson Spensley established Genoa in 1896 and Alfred Edwards founded AC Milan three years later.

Rugby A sport growing in popularity (both for participants and spectators), boosted by the nation’s entry to the Six Nations Championship in 2000 and, more recently, with the proposed acceptance of two Italian club sides into the prestigious Celtic League of Irish, Welsh and Scots teams.

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The crash that ended a dream When the Fiat G-212 aeroplane carrying the all-conquering Torino football team crashed into a Turin hill in 1949, Italian football was torn apart. All 18 players perished. At the time, Torino were the best team in Europe and had won the Serie A title for five consecutive seasons. The national team was made up almost entirely of Il Grande Torino players. A year later, still traumatised, the surviving Azzurri refused to travel to the 1950 World Cup in Brazil by plane and so embarked on a long Atlantic sea voyage. Without their best players, the return trip came swiftly. As for Torino, they’ve only won the Scudetto (Serie A title) once since, in 1976, and have to live with the agony of seeing city rivals Juventus take all the glory.

The tragedy of Marco Pantani Bald, diminutive Marco Pantani was revered as a cyclist who could ride every other competitor off the road. In 1998, he won both the French and Italian tours – an incredible achievement. When his face was on a newspaper, sales soared; streets were named after him; monuments built in his honour; and his sponsors saw turnover triple. Loved for his intellect as much as his athleticism, he once explained what drove him to be king of the mountains: “I love the mountains, but in the moment of exertion, I’m filled with a deep hatred. So I try to shorten the suffering.” And then, in 2004, he was found dead in a cheap Rimini hotel room surrounded by empty booze and medicine bottles and evidence of the cocaine addiction that, it transpired, had plagued his life. The nation was plunged into despair.

Three Italian sporting legends Pietro Mennea was one of the great track athletes of the 20th century. In 1979 he ran the 200m in 19.72 seconds, a record that stood until 1996. He won gold in the same event at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Mennea later became an MEP and vociferous anti-doping advocate. Roberto Baggio, Il Divin Codino (The Divine Ponytail), scored more than 300 goals in his football career. When Fiorentina sold him to Juventus for a record fee in 1990, there were riots in Florence. A committed Buddhist, Baggio shunned the trappings of football stardom preferring to meditate after a game. He’s the only Italian to score in three World Cups: if only he hadn’t missed a penalty in the 1994 final against Brazil…

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Alberto Tomba or Tomba la Bomba (Tomba the Bomb) to his fans, was a slalom skier. Perhaps best described as ‘hulking’, he was a policeman in a suburb of Bologna before skiing to three Olympic golds, two World Championships and nine World Cup season titles. He described himself as the ‘Messiah of Skiing’, had a reputation for partying and once crossed the finish line screaming “Sono una bestia” (I am a beast).

“H I S LEG EN D H A S B EEN B U I LT N O T O N T ITLES B U T O N M O M E N TS . ” Sports Illustrated on Roberto Baggio

Two traditional Italian sports Calcio Fiorentino)ORUHQWLQH)RRWEDOO Originally played by aristocrats in the 1600s, teams of 27 proved their physical supremacy by getting the ball from one end of a huge sand pit to the other. It made a comeback in the 1930s and still draws huge crowds in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence each June. These days, head butting, elbowing, mild choking and the odd punch all seem allowed, although convicted criminals aren’t permitted to play. The winning side gets a cow. Bocce Every country seems to have its version of bowls or pétanque; in Italy, competitors traditionally play on a court of crushed oyster shells (although gravel will do), throwing their metal balls underarm to gain prime place next to the jack. In the 20th century, the sport had its own legend – Umberto Granaglia, world champion on 13 occasions.

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