The Italians (51 page)
Transparency International, 238, 239, 247
Trentino, 10, 279
Trento, 139, 264
truth, as subjective and ambiguous, 44–55
Turin, 6, 9–10, 63, 98, 127
n,
205, 207, 213, 214
Turkey, Turks, 30, 228
Tuscany region, 8, 25, 28, 92, 97, 99, 102, 117, 126, 159, 184, 188, 216, 253
n,
274, 275
Typhoon Haiyan, 282
ultras
(soccer fans), 211–12
Umbria region, 8, 11, 94, 126, 184, 257
unemployment, 84
unification, 3, 22, 30, 37, 67, 125, 271
n
Church and, 121, 126–27
and corruption, 239–40
Mafia as reaction to, 236
and national identity, 269–72, 274–75
Piedmont in, 9, 213, 236, 271–72, 275, 277
see also
Risorgimento
United States, 31, 64
n,
74, 80, 85
n,
98, 100, 123
n,
125, 144, 221, 242, 262
Italian immigration to, 276, 289
Italy compared with, 64, 85, 87, 91–92, 94, 95, 110, 114, 130, 147, 157, 160, 170, 171
n,
174, 178, 179, 180, 195, 201, 220, 257, 258, 264, 272
Italy’s relations with, 30, 35, 290, 291
Valle d’Aosta region, 10, 19, 26, 117, 235, 277
Vatican, 92, 119, 127, 194, 258
n
veline,
146, 152
Venetian Republic (Serenissima), 11, 17, 21, 76, 271, 273
Veneto region, 9–10, 100, 166, 197, 272, 273, 285
Venice, 4, 6, 9, 10, 22, 26, 28, 64, 66, 67, 122, 197, 218, 243, 275
MOSE lagoon project for, 45–46
Verdi, Giuseppe, 3, 66–67, 269
verità
(truth), as subjective, 46, 47, 50
Vesuvius, Mount, 7, 107, 146
violence, 32, 107, 133, 182, 257
in Italy’s history, 12–22, 31, 107, 203
organized crime and, 68, 230, 235
political, 104–5
religious, 125, 126
soccer-related, 211, 212
terrorist, 52–53
in unsolved mysteries, 52–54
verbal vs. physical, 32, 38–39
toward women, 32, 150–51
Virgin Mary, 93, 126, 135, 229
as role model for women, 143, 152, 154, 166
Vittorio Emmanuele, king of Italy, 269, 274
volcanoes, 5, 7, 106–7, 136
Waldensians, 124–25
war, Italian abhorrence of, 31–32
wealth, 9–10, 277
Weisz, Árpád, 206
welfare, 48, 277, 286
family vs. government as provider of, 177, 179
wills and inheritance, 175, 261
wine, 10, 97, 99
wiretapping, 63–64, 264–65
women, 26, 77, 193
beauty and, 26, 87, 93
changing role of, 139–54
domestic violence against, 32, 150–51
legal rights of, 174
sexual exploitation of, 145–46, 148, 152, 210
sexual myths about, 157–58
subjugation of, 142–43
in workplace, 144, 147–48, 152–53, 177–78
in World War II, 139–41
see also
feminist movement
women suffrage, 142, 143
workplace, 94–95, 113, 145
women in, 144, 147–48, 152–53, 177–78
World Bank, 222, 238
World Economic Forum (WEF), 146, 153, 239
World Values Survey, 130, 173, 195, 282
World War I, 9, 10, 35, 128, 219
World War II, 38, 59
n,
97
n,
101, 107–8, 115, 117, 123, 125, 126, 127, 139–41, 143, 165, 184, 203, 205
n,
206, 209, 240, 254, 272, 279, 290
Italian Allied support in, 34–35, 58
Yakuza, 228–29
Yugoslavia, 11, 174, 284
Zapatero, José Luis, 149, 167
Zingari
(“Gypsies”), 284–85
*
Michelangelo may have taken subtle revenge. In the middle of the tower, above the gate and to either side of the entrance, there is an odd motif that looks suspiciously like a basin draped with a towel. It has been taken by some as a reference to Pius’s origins. He was said to be descended from a line of Milanese barbers.
*
Il Risorgimento, or “The Resurgence,” was the movement that led to the ejection of Italy’s foreign rulers and the unification of the country in the nineteenth century.
*
The Mezzogiorno refers to the southern one-third or so of mainland Italy, although it is often taken to include Sicily and Sardinia as well.
*
After Byzantium, the name of the ancient Greek settlement on the same site.
*
The most important monument to survive from Rome’s Byzantine period is the half-ruined Church of Santa Maria Antiqua on the edge of the Forum. Long closed to the public to allow for the restoration of its frescoes, it was reopened for a brief period in 2014.
*
From its official title, La Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia (“The Most Serene Republic of Venice”). No one who has looked across the lagoon on a windless day can fail to understand how appropriate it was.
*
He was wrong about the cuckoo clocks, though. They were invented not in Switzerland, but in southern Germany.
*
Even Russian troops have fought on Italian soil, in 1799–1800, against the invading French revolutionary army.
*
It is noteworthy, I think, that the English terms evoke respect for a much wider community—“the public” or “society”—whereas
civismo
derives from
civis
and
civitas,
the Latin words for “citizen,” “citizenship” and the inhabitants of a city-state. Arguably the only unit bigger than a family for which Italians feel an effortless and instinctive respect is the town or city they regard as home.
*
Francesco Crispi, one of the heroes of the Risorgimento and one of Italy’s earliest prime ministers, was of Albanian descent. The academic and politician Stefano Rodotà, who became the first head of Italy’s data protection authority, is from an Arbëreshë village in Calabria. His daughter, Maria Laura Rodotà, is a well-known
Corriere della Sera
columnist and sketch writer.
*
Not the least remarkable thing about the Italian national anthem is that Goffredo Mameli was a mere twenty years old when he wrote it.
*
Little known outside Italy, Totò remains one of the country’s best-loved comedians, along with Alberto Sordi and Roberto Benigni. Like Chaplin, he specialized in playing the “little man,” but he was in fact an aristocrat—the illegitimate son of a marquis, who adopted him. De Curtis’s titles included “Imperial Highness,” “Palatine Count,” “Knight of the Holy Roman Empire” and “Exarch of Ravenna.”
*
In modern times, there have been at least two attempts by neo-Fascists to seize power. In 1961, then head of the military police Giovanni De Lorenzo hatched a plot known by the name
Piano Solo
. The other, planned for December 7 or 8, 1970, was led by Prince Junio Valerio Borghese. However, doubts have been expressed about the seriousness of both these attempts to seize power, and especially
Piano Solo
.
*
Italy’s constitutional arrangements exaggerate the extent of the instability. Prime ministers cannot reshuffle their cabinets without forming a new government. By the reckoning of most other democracies, Depretis was prime minister three times.
*
Depretis was out of office for thirty-one months in eleven years; Berlusconi for twenty-four months in ten and a half years.
*
The word he used was
negri,
which, unlike
neri
(“blacks”), nowadays has clearly pejorative overtones.
*
The comparison is somewhat unfair, however, since many of Italy’s law enforcement officers fulfill duties that elsewhere fall outside the scope of police work. This is certainly true of the Carabinieri, who are a branch of the armed forces and take part in overseas peacekeeping missions; the members of the Guardia di Finanza, who act as tax inspectors, customs officers and border guards; and the Polizia Penitenziaria.
*
Ostensibly, this is an acryonym: MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico. But Mosè is the Italian version of Moses, and the name of the project also alludes to the biblical prophet’s parting of the Red Sea.
*
It should be noted that Prodi’s own government did no more than others to clear up the confusion over supposed expulsions.
*
In March 2013, the Court of Cassation, Italy’s supreme court, upheld an appeal by the prosecution, quashed the acquittals of both defendants and ordered their appeals to be reheard in Florence. In January 2014, Knox and Sollecito were again found guilty of murdering Kercher. Sollecito’s twenty-five-year sentence was reinstated. Knox’s sentence, of twenty-six years, was increased to twenty-eight years and six months. Lawyers for both defendants said they would lodge a fresh appeal with the Court of Cassation.
*
In the 1980s, the Rome prosecutors’ office, which oversees investigations in the capital, won the nickname of
il porto delle nebbie
(“the misty port”) because of the way so many sensitive inquiries disappeared into a dense judicial fog, never to be heard of again. The phrase comes from the title of the Italian translation of Georges Simenon’s 1932 novel
Le port des brumes
(translated into English as
Death of a Harbormaster
).
*
The case dragged through the courts for seventeen years. In 2014, Dell’Utri was arrested in Lebanon ahead of a definitive ruling by the Court of Cassation on his appeal against a seven-year jail sentence. His appeal was subsequently thrown out and a request was made by the Italian authorities for his extradition.
*
Uncle of murder victim Sarah Scazzi, who disappeared on August 29, 2010.
*
Most recently, in the Second World War the retreating German army renounced military action to defend first Rome and then Florence. Orvieto was saved by a pact between the local British and German commanders.
*
Collodi was a pen name. He was born Carlo Lorenzini.
*
It could be argued, however, that the figures for Britain and the United States are no longer an accurate reflection of the extent of official snooping. As the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has since revealed, Britons and Americans are under close surveillance through other means.
*
One of the Camerata’s most influential members was Galileo Galilei’s father, Vincenzo Galilei, who proposed the decisive leap from polyphony to monody in the accompanying music.
*
Verdi’s own surname was coincidentally symbolic. It could be understood as a coded reference to the king under whom Italy would eventually unite: an acronym of “
Vittorio Emanuele, Re d’Italia
.” So when audiences joined in chanting
“Viva Verdi,”
they could feel they were doing more than just praising the composer.
*
Technically, his fourth because of a reshuffle in 2005. See footnote
here
.