Risorgimento Reflected

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Italian Journal volume 20. number V. 2011

Risorgimento Reflected

Giacamo Puccini. Courtesy Puccini Foundation.

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on the cover Francesco Hayez. the meditation (italy in 1848) (detail), 1850. oil on canvas. 36 x 28 inches. Galleria d’Arte, Moderna, Verona.

Courtesy Scuderie del Quiriniale, Rome.

4 publisher’s letter

from the chairman

to our members, readers and friends The Italian Academy Foundation has enjoyed an upbeat year in its activities and collaborations, fulfilling our 64-year-old mission of cultural diplomacy between Italy and the United States.

During this past year, we have established a collaboration with Maestro Andrea Bocelli, Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi of New York and Dr. Franco Mosca of Pisa to create a documentary film “The Healer’s Art”, reflecting the focus of the Art of Medicine initiative we began this year with Maestro Bocelli. Major talents from several professions have stepped up and will help us bring this to fruition.

Parallel, the Italian Academy Foundation (IAF) has negotiated the rights to a dramatic opera on the life of Caravaggio, based upon playwright Richard Vetere’s original off Broadway play “Caravaggio.” We have engaged and are working with gifted young composers and designers on the work, anticipating a Fall 2012 premiere.

On April 3rd, we signed an agreement to partner with the illustrious International Festival of Bergamo, Italy, an annual monthlong series of performances and art installations in this beautiful medieval city in Lombardia. Through this exchange, the IAF will select and sponsor an American artist whose art or whose performance will be featured there, and the Festival will award an Italian artist to be introduced here in New York. Each party will bring the very best to the stages in New York and Bergamo.

Our Winter 2011 issue of the Italian Journal raised eyebrows and raised our number of subscribers with its theme: “Design Save Italy?” I commend the Italian Journal to your careful attention and wish to take a moment to express my delight in this excellent product. The current issue addresses the Risorgimento, and our summer issue will explore the world of contemporary Italian art and artists, a key evolving market at the head of the newest of new waves.

publisher’s letter 5

iaf marks the 150th Anniversary of Italy

Our customary performances at Merkin Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall and at the Casa Italiana at New York University continue apace. This year, we presented a series of musical evenings focused on Franz Liszt in honor of his anniversary, on the works of Tosti and on verismo opera. Sandro Russo, Lawrence Harris, Dina Pruzhansky, Rosa D’Imperio, Michele Fiammardente and many other great artists have collaborated with us in offering these prized programs.

When Crescenzio Cardinal Sepe of Naples visited New York, the Italian Academy Foundation was pleased to receive him at a leaders-only reception at the Church of Sant Jean Baptiste, where a concert delivered by Michael Fiammardente, Rosa D’Imperio and Cosette Carlomusto was considered a highlight of his trip to the United States.

We have collaborated on an ongoing basis with the Dante Society of Long Island, the American Society of the Italian Legions of Merit, the office of the Consul General of New York, with New York University’s Casa Italiana and, this past summer, with the Italian Trade Commission, whose leader, Aniello Musella, has taken Italian products and interests far off the New York State Thruway into communities such as Saratoga, to raise recognition of Italianità throughout the northeast.

We have had the privilege of hosting several social events in favor of great Italians and Americans of Italian extraction who articulate our mission of cultural diplomacy, during the past year.

From political and opinion leaders and advocates to the top medical minds here and in Italy, our work has brought together lasting, meaningful relations.

On a practical level, we have added to our staff Vincenza Restiano, who has completed a successful political career, and now serves as director of public relations, working together with our office in Rome – which is itself now fully staffed – to advance the work of the Italian Academy Foundation, Inc. May I thank all of you and ask for your continued support, given without our solicitation, the nicest aspect of all. Look to us when you are feeling generous; we depend strictly upon your good will, of which we are grateful to have had an abundance.

God bless you all and thank you.

S Acunto Chairman

Father Scheuller, Cardinal Sepe, IAF Chairman Acunto

Andrea Bocelli with Chairman Acunto, Dr. fabrizio michelassi and Consul General Talò

IAF Vice Chair Claudia Palmira acunto awards the IAF-NY Award in Bergamo to Andrea Mastrovito

Vincenza Restiano of the IAF

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Italian Journal

IN THIS ISSUE

Editor’s journal contributors NOTABLE

Claudia Palmira Acunto Editor Laura Giacalone Contributing Editor nona tepper Editorial Assistant Mauro benedetti Vito Catalone Photography Genny di Bert Columnist federico Accorsi vincenza restiano Advertising and Promotions

Printed in the United States.

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Risorgimento Reflected Making Italy Italy in Bocca Overcoming the Appenine Divide Il Corpo dello Stato Music for a Revolution Bread and Games Inside Support Interview with Fred Plotkin Fashion: wearable 150

18 20 22 25 28 30 32 34 38 40

Literature: clash of civilizations Photography: Hidden gem of umbria Social journal Face file: riccardo muti

41 43 45 48

Stefano ACUNTO Chairman The Italian Academy Foundation, Inc. (IAF), established in 1947, is a non-for profit 501Š(3), tax-exempt corporation that pursues a unique form of cultural diplomacy, presenting Italian realities to U.S. audiences. The Italian Academy Foundation, Inc. produces concerts, symposia and special events year-round in the United States and Italy.

Hudson Cliff House 131 Alta Avenue Yonkers, NY 10705 914 966 3180 ext.110 Via Marcantonio Colonna 60 Rome 00193 +39 06 325 05 490 www.italianjournal.it

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EDITOR’S journal

all for...all T

he very land whose ruins, art, architecture and traditions date from antiquity, seems far too mature to have such a young birthday–150 years. Yet “Italy” is, in its way, this young.

The country’s history and people elude a narrow characterization. To be “Italian” is, in a sense, to espouse principled nonconformity, and show loyalty only to the most local and familiar entities (beginning with family and extending to region). These deeply entrenched characteristics bind the nation at its core.

On the pages of this edition, Italy is seen through various lenses: historical, culinary, musical, artistic, topographical, athletic and photographic.

The Risorgimento was the result of a unique confluence of conditions and an extraordinary leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who united the Peninsula’s self-governing territories under one banner. Since then, despite collapsed governments, the devastation of several wars and a political, sociological split between the North and South, the cry for unification is ever-present.

That said, Italy can still feel like a collection of proud, diverse territories and pronounced individualists—Tuscany, Veneto, Lombardy, Campania, Sicily, Umbria, Piedmont, Calabria, Apulia, Lazio, Molise, Abruzzo, Marches, Trentino-Alto Adige, Aosta, Emilia-Romagna, Basilicata, Friuli, Liguria, Sardinia—the delectable and colorful opposite of neutralizing globalization.

I cannot help wondering, in light of renewed recent political tensions between the North and South, if Italy circa 2011 could give rise to a new Garibaldi, one who could mobilize this eclectic and beautiful mass towards a successful, enterprising and cohesive 150 years ahead.

Claudia Palmira Rome, Italy

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contributors

Contributors Eugenio BIAGINI Eugenio Biagini teaches modern European history at Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. His work include The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy (2000, with Derek Belaes) and Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalization of Democratic Nationalism (2008, edited with Chris Bayly) and British Democracy and Irish Nationalism 1876-1906 (2011, paperback edition).

Giovanni BIETTI

Giovanni Bietti is a composer, musicologist and pianist. He works as an Art Consultant for the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. His compositions have been played at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Konzerthaus of Berlin, the Kuhmo International Chamber Music Festival (Finland) and the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, by interpreters such as violinist Thomas Zehetmair and pianist Boris Berezhovskij. He taught Composition at the Conservatory “V. Bellini” of Catania, and Ethnomusicology at the University “Carlo Bo” of Urbino. He is widely reputed as one of the best lecturers of music, and has brought his “Lecture-Concert” formula to the most important Italian music institutions. He hosts very successful programmes on Rai-Radiotre and is the promoter of the “Music Lectures” held at the Auditorium of Rome, which attract large audiences of music lovers. As a musicologist, he published essays and score revisions for Ricordi, Longanesi, Skira, the National Academy of Santa Cecilia and the main Italian musicology magazines. He worked for Philips Classics Records for over ten years.

Don H. DOYLE Don H. Doyle, is McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He is currently a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. and next year will be a fellow at the National Humanities Center. The article published in this issue draws on his book Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Georgia, 2002). Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, and took his Ph.D. at Northwestern University. He taught at Vanderbilt University for many years before moving to South Carolina. Professor Doyle was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Rome in 1991, the University of Genoa in 1995, and at Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2004. He is currently writing a book on “America’s International Civil War,” which will examine the important role of foreign opinion and foreign soldiers in the battle of ideas and propaganda abroad.

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contributors

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Contributors John FOOT John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History in the Department of Italian, UCL. His recent publications include Calcio. A History of Italian Football, Harper, 2007 (published in the US as Winning at all Costs, Nation Books), Italy’s Divided Memory, Palgrave, 2009 and Pedalare! Pedalare! A History of Italian Cycling, Bloomsbury, 2011 (to be published in the US in September 2011).

Msgr. Daniel GALLAGHER

Monsignor Daniel B. Gallagher is a priest of the Diocese of Gaylord (U.S.A.) currently serving in the Latin Section of the Vatican Secretariat of State in Rome. Prior to this assignment he taught philosophy and theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. His recent articles have appeared in Sacred Architecture, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, New Oxford Review, Josephinum Journal of Theology, and other scholarly publications. Cultivating a keen interest in aesthetics, Msgr.

Gallagher frequently reviews art exhibitions in Rome and throughout Italy for The Berkshire Review. He regularly contributes to the “Philosophy and Popular Culture” series and edits the “Values in Italian Philosophy” (Rodopi Press) series which is dedicated to offering the English-speaking world works by classic Italian thinkers as well as books in contemporary Italian philosophy.

Laura GIACALONE

Laura Giacalone is Project Editor for the Italian quarterly publication Filmaker’s magazine, and works as a Contributing Editor and Editorial Consultant for various art magazines and publishing houses. In London she has worked as a writer and Editorial Assistant for Phaidon Press, contributing to the three-volume book Phaidon Design Classics. She has translated into Italian the novel Paper Fish, by Tina De Rosa, and a variety of academic papers, film subtitles, screenplays and feature articles. Her world is made of words, and she loves it.

John MARIANI

John Mariani is an author and journalist of 30 years standing, having begun his writing for New York Magazine in 1973. Since then, he has become known as one of America’s premiere food writers (a three-time nominee for the James Beard Journalism Award) and author of several of the most highly regarded books on food in America today. He has been called by the Philadelphia Inquirer, “the most influential food-wine critic in the popular press.” His renowned books include: The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Ticknor & Fields, 1983), Eating Out: Fearless Dining in Ethnic Restaurants (Quill, 1985), Mariani’s Coast-to-Coast Dining Guide (Times Books, 1986), and America Eats Out (William Morrow, 1991). Mariani co-authored annual editions of Passport to New York Restaurants (Passport Press) and was editor of Italian Cuisine: Basic Cooking Techniques (Italian Wine & Food Institute). He has written the food and restaurant sections of the Encyclopedia of New York City (The New-York Historical Society and Yale University Press, 1995) and contributed entries to Chronicle of America (Chronicle Publications). Mariani’s other books include The Four Seasons: A History of America’s Premier restaurant (Crown, 1997; revised 1999); Vincent’s Cookbook (Tenspeed Press, 1995), with chef Vincent Guérithault; The Dictionary of Italian Food & Drink (Broadway Books, 1998) which was nominated for an IACP award; and, with Marie Rama, Grilling for Dummies (IDG Books), which first appeared in 1999 and was revised in 2009. His new book is How Italian Food Conquered the World (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2011).

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Notable Maritime Think Tank for Italy’s Future Sails to NY T

he seven seas can be windy, wild and weather-beaten, but certain adventurers want to be stirred.

From April 25, Italian Liberation Day, to June 2nd, Italian Festival of the Republic, a sailboat from Genoa to New York has a unique mission: a search for truth in the form seven ideas that will help improve Italy.

Giovanni Soldini is the captain of this journey. The crew consists of writers Alessandro Baricco, Giorgio Faletti, Simon Perry, and Antonio Scurati. Mathematician Pierre Odifreddi, entrepreneurs Riccardo Illy. Matteo Marzotto, and musician Mario Brunello will also be joining them, as well as actress Lella Costa, and chairman of

Alpitour, Daniel John Winteler.

These thinkers will be flanked by world-renowned chefs, including Mario Batali.

“With the mobilization of sea dogs, great chefs, artists, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, the ‘ship of Italy’ will be straightened,” Soldini said.

The idea for the cruise was developed

by Oscar Fatrinetti, the creator of Eataly, an organization that supports the use of quality, local Italian food in restaurants.

“The applicants are here to discuss and decide on seven clear proposals to improve the nation,” Fatrinetti said. “For example, I believe Italy can more than double the export of raw materials. It is time to make our contribution, and we

are practical people who can finish what we start—we’re going to combine reason and determination to create seven positive solutions.”

Soldini also agrees that the crew of thinkers can generate ideas to improve Italian life.

“It’s appropriate to say that Fatrinetti and I are on the same wave,” Soldini said. “I talked to the company and said ‘This is not an escape from Italy, nor is this a cruise: this is all work.’”

The journey is exclusive to those attending, but suggestions are welcome from all. The “ark of Italy” established a website that accepts suggestions, complaints and proposals from every man. z To submit an idea go to www.7mosse.it.

Aboard the 7Mosse: Captain, Crew (and one of the Chefs) giovanni soldini captain

Alessandro Baricco writer, music critic

mario brunello guitarist

Lella Costa actress

Giorgio faletti actor, musician, writer

Maria Pierantoni Giua singer, painter

riccardo illy entrepreneur

mirella levoni executive

matteo marzotto entrepreneur, civil servant

teo musso brewer

piergiorgio odifreddi mathemitician, essayist

simone perotti writer

francesco rubino illustrator

Antonio scurati writer, novelist

Danny winteler president, Alpitour

Mario batali chef

notable

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President Napolitano Speaks at NYU T

Photo Courtesy of 1.bp.blogspot.com

MoMA-Picked Designers Replace Concrete with Green in Rome T

he piazza of the Museum of 20th Century Art in Rome (MAXXI), is going green. The flat, concrete foundation is being replaced by a grassy lawn, and the reforestation results are expected to be completed in June.

The landscape design was created by the Young Architects Program (YAP) of New York.

YAP is an association aimed at inspiring young designers. It brings two-dimensional drafts to three-dimensional form, and allows any artist to submit their work. The program was established in 2000 by New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Jury representatives from both MoMA and Maxxi worked to select the blueprint for the square.

The design is the finished product of Simone Capra and Claudio Castaldo of WhatAmI study at stARTT Roma.

The foundation of the square alternates between flat concrete sections and grassy hills. A giant map details the concrete pieces, and was inspired by both Alighiero Boetti’s maps and the first 700-piece puzzle. The juxtaposition between the green and the gray divides the museum entrance into visual levels.

“The purpose of the project is to de-write the territory and transform it,” Capra said.

The new design invites the viewer to question the nature of both industrial progress and decline.

Beyond the mental inspiration, however, is the physical, and the Maxxi piazza will be used as an outdoor concert venue.

Giant, red flowers will “bloom” from the grassy sections and act as speakers. These flowers are bell-shaped and futuristic, with water spouting from the ends. On warm summer nights, these flowers will also offer light to patrons, and allow them to enjoy the open-air music flowing throughout the Maxxi piazza. z

he true problem of Italy is the aptitude of the politics to be divided.”

This is how President Giorgio Napolitano, the man who has lived the Italian political history since the inception of the Republic, began his special public appearance at the New York University Casa Italiana ZerilliMarimò.

Professor Joseph H.H. Weiler hosted the April event, interviewing the President about politics, culture and his personal life in front of a packed auditorium.

“You represent the best of Italy,” Professor Weiler said. “It’s not an easy moment for Italy, nor for the work of the President of the Republic,” he continued warily.

Napolitano affirmed that the Italian and European political scene raises some concern, but that it is necessary to understand that the European Union has existed for “only” 60 years, and that the road ahead is long and complex.

“The biggest problem for Italian politics is the hyper-partisanship that creates a daily guerrilla [war] by making dialogue impossible and establishing a mutual delegitimization of the political opponents. Italy experiences a situation where no one listens to one another, and the risks of serious divisions and strong weakening of the country are widening.”

He touched on delicate issue of the role of the President of the Republic in the Italian parliamentary system, which is dominated by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: “I may give some advice and express my opinion, but if the Prime Minister insists, I can’t help but saying that he has full responsibility for his choices, regarding his ministries,” said the President.

The debate got even more serious when the President criticized Germany’s neutrality regarding Libya, stating that he doesn’t comprehend Angela Merkel’s stance on non-intervention.

“Lampedusa is not only the Italian border, but it is the European border, so the problem is European.”

Napolitano later revealed an unusual side, his private one.

He spoke about his passion for art, in particular for the music of Mozart and Beethoven, the theater of Ibsen and Czechov. He shared personally about some dramatic events he lived through during the Second World War. The event concluded with an award; a moved Napolitano received the Presidential Medal of New York University. The last answer of the President brought laughs and gave a little hope: Are you optimistic? “Pessimism is a luxury I can’t afford.” z

by Luca Delbello, courtesy of i-Italy.org

Photo Courtesy of i-Italy.org

Notable

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Notable Woody Allen to Film in Rome

W

Photo Courtesy Toronto Film Fest

oody Allen will film his next movie in Rome this summer, according to an interview in La Repubblica.

The upcoming The Wrong Picture (working title) is the second movie Allen has filmed in Italy since 1996, when he created Everyone Says I Love You in Venice. Allen will play a small role, but Italian-born Robert Benigni, star of Oscarwinning Life is Beautiful, will star in it.

The majority of Allen’s latest films have been filmed in Europe: Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra’s Dream and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger in London; Oscar-winning Vicky Cristina Barcelona in Spain; and Midnight in Paris (which includes French First Lady Carla BruniSarkozy in the cast) in France.

“I love these sophisticated and civilized metropolises,” said Allen, who performed with his New Orleans jazz band at Rome’s Auditorium Conciliazione theater in late March. His performance coincided with his announcement to film in the Eternal City. “ I project onto the big screen my feelings for places which count a lot in my life. I hope to do the same thing with Rome.”

woody allen

before and after restoration

A

fter an eight-year restoration project to clean and adjust its tilt, the Leaning Tower of Pisa resembles its former 14th-century glory. Using chisels and laser technology, restorers scrubbed grime from the 24,000 blocks of stone that make up the 184-foot tower.

“The stones were in an appalling state, mainly due to air pollution, though tourists and pigeons played a part,’’ said Anton Sutter, the Swiss-born leader of the restoration effort. Sea salt had also taken

Brighter, Slightly Less-Leaning Tower of Pisa its toll on its facade. Engineers worked to straighten it by 18 inches from the vertical, where it had been c. 1838.

Even while the tower was being built in 1173 it began to lean, thanks to soft sand and clay beneath its foundations.

In 1990, when its angle was measured at almost 15 feet off the vertical, the tower was closed to visitors. Since reopening in 2001, tourism and restoration have coexisted simultaneously, the former helping make the latter economically feasible. z

South America Destination for Many Italian Students of Business I talian business students are headed south: for salsa, sunburn and study abroad. Many of Italy’s best-known business schools have organized opportunities across the Atlantic.

“Some students choose South America because they’ve never been,” Stefano Ronchi said, in an interview with the New York Times. “And some of them see these countries as an opportunity to develop not just their knowledge, but also their business.”

Ronchi is the M.B.A. program director at MIP-Politecnico di Milano. Until this past month MIP did not have M.B.A. students studying abroad.

“A school whose rankings keep rising in country with great growth and growth potential—what more could a business student want?” Luca Silva Calamasi said.

Calamasi, 31, was the first MIP business student to study at Instituto Pana-

mericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa, Ipade, Mexico. The job market in Southern and Central American countries, places like Ipade, attracts Italian business students.

“Argentina is a country with staggering growth rates,” Gavino Lisa Bianco, a former finance student at Luiss University, said. “I was there just for three months and I even got a job offer.”

Rosario Cannata was also offered a job abroad. Cannata studied finance at Milan’s Bocconi University, and spent six months as an exchange student in Venezuela. Now, he is the senior analyst at the Schahin Group in São Paolo.

“I am 26, and my salary is comparable to that of a 31-year-old analyst in Italy,” Cannata said.

Both the salaries and long-term contracts of these overseas positions are enticing to Italian business students.

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Notable Renowned Italian Chef Caters to Kitchen-less Children F

or six years, Bruno Serato has commuted to his restaurant by “Boys and Girls Club” bus. And each night, these past six years, Serato has served pasta to so-called “motel kids” who otherwise would go to bed hungry.

Owner of the Italian restaurant White House, Serato regularly serves Gwen Stefani, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush as customers. But its his steady clientele of “kitchenless” children that earned him CNN’s “Top 20 Heroes of 2011.”

He credits both his mother and, his Italian heritage to this achievement.

“In Anaheim there are more than 1,000 families living in motels, without a kitchen where they can cook,” Serato

Bruno Serato

said. “When my mother found out she said: “They don’t eat? Bruno, prepare a plate of pasta!’”

And Serato did. He has served over 250,000 pasta dishes, and consistently donated $2,000 a month to this cause.

“With the crisis, the rate of my customers has fallen by 30-40 percent—I have a mortgage, the White House and the children to keep up,” Serato said.

The amount of people going out to dinner fell, but unemployment—and mo-

tel living—has went up.

“I remember one night a pale, blonde girl came three times for a plate of pasta,” Serato said. “I knew she had not eaten for days.”

Once, Armando, a 15-year-old, asked Bruno for a job.

“I told him to come back when he was 18. I gave him my card. Three years later he knocked on my restaurant door with the note,” Serato said.

Each night, Serato serves these children either pasta or spinach ravioli with tomato sauce. He keeps in mind their physical development when preparing the food.

“I serve them pasta with salmon, turkey or ingredients rich in Omega 3,” Serato said.

“Obesity is already a problem in the lifestyle of these poor Americans.”

Serato also works to improve these childrens attitude and quality of life through these meals.

Olympic volleyball and hockey players, celebrity patrons of the White House, sometimes join these kids for dinner.

“When they see these athletes they are amazed,” Serato said. “I say, see you guys, grow quickly, and you can become a champion too.”

Some “motel-kids” have already done that.

“One of them is now a renowned researcher at Oxford University,” Serato said. “I just want them to understand that life is more than a motel or some welcome center.” z

Italian Artist Receives 2011 IAF-Bergamo Award I

n the packed concert hall of Teatro Sociale in the ancient medieval quarter of Bergamo, a young Italian visual artist was the first recipient of a new award: The New York Italian Academy Foundation Award, presented by the International Cultural Festival of Bergamo in early April, 2011. IAF vice chairman Claudia Palmira Acunto presented the award to artist Andrea Mastrovito. The award is a collaboration between the International Cultural Festival of Bergamo, directed by Stefano Miceli, and the IAF to offer an exchange between Bergamo and New York through their respective up and coming young talents.

The winner Andrea Mastrovito will travel to New York in Winter 2011, where he will be introduced to the members and friends of the IAF in a series of events, including an exhibit of his artwork. z above: Andrea Mastrovito, Come realizzare un Mastrovito Colorato, 2007 (DETAIL). collage and aniline, paper on canvas.

40 x 60 inches.

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Notable ‘Lady Oscar’ Adorns la Scala’s Tosca

M

ilena Canonero doesn’t like her nickname “Lady Oscar.” She doesn’t like interviews and is so reserved that many call her “mysterious.” But, after winning her third Oscar and solidifying her status as an internationally renowned costume designer, it looks like the name ”Lady Oscar” is here to stay.

Canonero’s career began in 1976, designing costumes for A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. The provocative looks she created for these films won her an Oscar. She received a second Oscar in 1981 for her work in Chariots of Fire. In 2007 Sofia Coppola’s elegant film Marie Antoinette won Canonero a third Oscar.

Now, after working on the silver screen, Canonero is waltzing down the red carpet to tunes from Puccini’s masterpiece: Tosca.

Directed by Luc Bondy, the show ran at Milan’s La Scala Theatre. The final product marks Canonero’s transformation from film to theatre.

“I’ve worked with Bondy before so,

when he proposed I design costumes for Tosca, I didn’t hesitate,” Canonero said.

“He likes to direct Opera in the modern world, and his interpretation of traditional works is lively, expressive and new.”

Canonero wanted the character’s costumes to reflect Bondy’s modern adaptations.

“I felt I had to revise the early 1800s.

I mixed traditional and modern fabrics in order to remove the dust from the times—both in costumes and hair, I made it contemporary,” Canonero said.

“I chose waxed cotton for the Secret Police’s long coats and paired them with dark glasses, modeling them from bodyguards in American films. For Tosca, I wanted a minimalist silhouette: rigorous yet dramatic, sexy yet elegant, something that was more than a soprano.”

Canonero’s biggest difficulty with this

project wasn’t a question of sizing or hairspray: it was one of perspective.

Reconciling the difference between movie chair and theatre balcony, Canonero had to adapt her designs for the panoramic view of the stage.

“On stage you have to think about the entire silhouette on the set, while the attention is focused on close-ups,” Canonero said. “This was my first experience with Italian theater and, though it was as prestigious as La Scala, it was pretty difficult.”

But, however difficult, Canonero masterfully integrated the traditional set and character styles with modern lines for La Scala. Her touch helped transform the beloved Puccini classic into a contemporary performance while acknowleding the work’s 19th-century context, a combination perfectly suited for current operagoers and fans. z

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Notable Exhibitions of Particular Note Rome

Florence

Nerone Through September 18, 2011 Anfiteatro Flavio, Rome

Figures, Memory and Space: Drawings from Fra’ Angelico to Leonardo Through June 12, 2011 Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Poussin and Moses: From Design to Tapestry Through June 5, 2011 Villa Medici, Rome Italian Coins from the Lira to the Euro Through July 3, 2011 Pallazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome Mirko in Time and in Myth Through July 17, 2011

Vasari, the Uffizi and the Duke June 14- October 30, 2011 Water, Stone and Fire—the Sculpture of Bartolomeo Ammannati May 11- September 18, 2011 Bargello Gallery, Florence

Turin

Guercino Rediscovered: When Love Stops War Through June 12, 2011 Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome

Art and Identity of Italian Capital Cities Through September 11, 2011 Reggia di Venaria, Turin

Caravaggio Through October 15, 2011 Palazzo Venezia, Rome

Paris

Onoranto Cariandi: Nature’s Poet Through July 3, 2011 Museo di Roma, Rome Lorenzo Lotto May 16- June 12, 2011 Le Scuderie Quirinale, Rome The Many Faces of Roman Power Through September 25, 2011 Musei Capitolini, Rome

Milan Hayez, Manzoni and Verdi in Milan Through September 25, 2011 Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan The Eyes of Caravaggio Through July 3, 2011 Museo Diocesano, Milan

Arnaldo Pomodoro Through June 18, 2011 Tournabouni Art, Paris

Alessandro Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli. Nymph accompanied by cherubs (allegory of the abundance of autumn), 1480-1485. Pen and ink. 12.5 x 10 inches. collection british museum, london.

Pietro da Cortona and Ciro Ferri Through June 6, 2011 Musée du Louvre, Paris

Chicago

New York

What’s Greek about a Roman Copy?

Ongoing

Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York Through July 4, 2011 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Passion in Venice: Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese Through June 12, 2011 Museum of Biblical Art, New York Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe Through May 15, 2011 Walters Art Museum, New York

Philadelphia Roberto Capucci: Art into Fashion Through June 5, 2011 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Through July 2011

Washington D.C. Italian Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection (1525- 1835) May 8- November 27, 2011 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Armin Linke. Sen

Risorgimento Reflected

A look at Italy on the 150th anniversary of its unification through various lenses –– photographic, artistic, musical, political, geographic, athletic and gastronomic.

design save Italy

19

nato della Repubblica, Palazzo Madama, from Il Corpo dello Stato, 2002-2009. PHotograph. Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI.

Making Italy,

Il Corpo dello Stato,

Inside Support,

Italy in Bocca,

Music for a Revolution,

Interview with Fred Plotkin,

Overcoming the Appenine Divide,

Civil Games,

by Don H. Doyle, page 2

by John Mariani, page 22 by Daniel Gallagher, page 25

by Armin Linke, page 28

by Gianni Bietti, page 30

by Eugene Biagini, page 34

by Laura Giacalone, page 38

by John Foote, page 32

Unless specifically noted, the works of art throughout this section are from the exhibit “1861: Painters of the Risorgimento,� courtesy of the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome.

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Making Italy How the disparate North and South decided to give “Italy” a try

by Don H. DOYLE

“We have made Italy, now we must make Italians.” attributed to Massimo d’Azeglio

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taly began its modern national existence as the newly united Kingdom of Italy in the same troubled spring of 1861 that witnessed the break up of what some Europeans began calling the “disUnited States.” The Italians called their struggle for national independence and unification the Risorgimento, implying that modern Italy was to be a “resurgence” of something that came before, something destined to live again once foreign intruders were cast off. America won independence from British rule, and then, by way of treaties, wars, and expulsion, between the 1780s and 1840s the new nation wrested control of the hinterland from Spain, France, Britain, Native Americans, and Mexicans. The Italians had to dislodge several different “foreign” rulers between 1859 and 1870: Austrians in the North, Spanish Bourbons in the South, and finally the French troops defending Rome and the Papal States in central Italy.

The Risorgimento involved the unification of regions profoundly divided by customs, dialects, and enmities that had developed during a long history of separate city-states, foreign rule, and isolation from one another. Only a small fraction of the population living in the Italian peninsula spoke modern Italian; the rest spoke regional dialects that were often completely incomprehensible to one another. Even romantic Italian nationalists such as Giuseppe Mazzini were all too aware of the legacy of hatred and divisiveness among localities. Domination by foreign powers that had invaded from all directions for centuries was as much a product as a cause of Italy’s internal fragmentation. “Each city detests its neighbours, and is mortally detested in return,” one Italian explained to the French novelist Stendahl. “Brothers of Italy,” the national anthem composed

in 1847 implores, “For centuries we have been downtrodden, and derided, because we are not a people, because we are divided.” “Let’s gather around one flag, one hope.”

In 1860, just as America’s South was preparing to secede, Italian forces under Giuseppe Garibaldi invaded, conquered, and annexed the Italian South to the new Italian nation. Known as I Mille (The Thousand), Garibaldi’s rag tag army of volunteers landed in Sicily and won stunning military victories against a Bourbon army that vastly outnumbered them. Isolated from others on the Italian peninsula and exposed to a series of invasions and conquests by foreign powers, the South had existed in a very different historical realm from the rest of Italy.

Most northerners saw the Mezzogiorno as a backward, barbarous region enslaved by feudal society and superstitious religion.

The annexation of the South aroused a mix of nationalist optimism at forging L’Italia Unità and xenophobic horror at mixing with alien peoples.

In Sicily Garibaldi’s soldiers were astonished to find peasants in bare feet, dressed in goatskins, bowing and kissing hands, feudal acts of humility they now bestowed upon their saviors from the North. These peasants had no idea of the Italian Risorgimento, nor of Italy for that matter. As Garibaldi and his Thousand marched across Sicily they held up one finger to signify “one Italy” and shouted, “Viva L’Italia.” Many Sicilians had it in their minds that Garibaldi was the king and that “La Talia” was the name of his queen. For their part, most northerners were equally ignorant of the southern people they came to unite with Italy.

There was remarkably little travel and commerce between northern and southern portions of the peninsula and almost no effort to bridge the gulf of mutual ig-

Risorgimento Reflected 21 Foto Saporetti, Milano

Risorgimento

Gerolamo Induno. The departure of the drafted soldiers, 1866-1878. Oil on canvas. 53 x 79 inches. courtesy Museo del Risorgimento, milan.

norance between the two.

Northerners viewed the Italian South as a “paradise inhabited by the devil,” a land blessed by nature with warm climate and abundant crops but cursed by a people who were barbaric, anarchistic, and morally flawed, a people who could be ruled only by force. “We have acquired a very bad country,” one northerner wrote from the South after unification, “but it seems impossible that in a place where nature has done so much for the land, it has not generated another people.”

To many it seemed the southern people they had “acquired” were something altro che Italia (other than Italy). Conquered and occupied by Greeks, Arabs, and others who were alien to Christian civilization and isolated from it for so long, the South of Italy was frequently compared to Africa. “Here we are amongst a popu-

lation which, although in Italy and born Italian, seems to belong to the primitive tribes of Africa,” was one typical northern reaction.

The South did not join Italy voluntarily or happily. A long civil war involving guerilla bands and unspeakable atrocities on both sides coincided with America’s own struggle during the 1860s and 1870s to subdue its South. Known as the Brigands War, it caused more bloodshed than all the Italian wars of independence and witnessed the rise of the Mafia as mediators between the southern peasants and the government. It is an episode that is usually neglected in the romantic narrative of Italian unification.

“We have made Italy, now we must make Italians.” It is a phrase memorized

by Italian school children and attributed by many to Massimo d’Azeglio, the Ital-

ian statesman of the Risorgimento era.

But d’Azeglio was actually warning Italians about the task of nation building that lay ahead; what he actually wrote was “Fatta l’Italia bisogna fare gli Italiani,” which translates “Having made Italy requires making Italians.” Italians and Americans would learn that making a nation involved much more than conquering territory and people. z

This is extracted from Professor Doyle’s book, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (University of Georgia Press, 2002). He is currently writing a book on America’s international Civil War.

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italy in bocca The origin and nature of what we call Italian food

by John MARIANI

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imply put, there was no Italian food before there was an Italy. There was Tuscan food and Ligurian food and Sicilian food and Sardinian food, but for 2,000 years there was no Italian food.

Not until 1861, when most of its 20 regions were unified as a kingdom under Victor Emmanuel II, was there a country called Italy. Even then, city states like Venice and Rome, which was declared the new capital, and part of the Papal States, remained separate from the new country. Before 1861 and for a century afterwards, what people ate in Rome had little to do with what they ate in Bari, and when Florentines dined, it was not on the same food and wine enjoyed by Neapolitans or Venetians. There was regional food, but for 2,000 years there was no Italian food. Especially in the kitchen, Italians have always resisted being mere Italians. ... fter the Unification, Italy saw the slow but certain rise of its own middle class, and housewives had more consistent access to good, fresh products.

These they used not in slavish imitation of French culinary models but to refine their own traditional regional dishes and to create new ones expressive of their evolving status. Most urban Italians, of course, ate at home and with the rise of the middle class, many preferred to do so. By the last quarter of the 19th century something that could be called la cucina italiana was beginning to coalesce. All it needed was someone to make sense of it all.

The man to do so was a Florentine silk trader, a bachelor named Pellegrino Artusi (1820-1911), who, upon retiring in his late sixties, wondered how he would live out his remaining years, spending his time going between his home in Florence and his seaside estate in Viarreggio. For

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his amusement, he decided he would write a little cookbook based on his experiences and travels through Italy.

The research and writing pleasantly occupied his time, and he hoped his opus might have a readership outside his circle of friends. But upon submitting it to publishers, none believed enough people would be interested in such a collection of recipes. So, in 1891, dedicating his book to his cats, Biancani and Sibillone, he privately published La Scienza in Cucina e L’arte di Mangiar Bene: Manuale Pratico per Le Famiglie (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well: a Practical Manual for Families), printing just 2,000 copies. He was going to need a lot more.

Artusi’s book went on to become one of the two best-selling books in Italy of that or any other era, going through 14 editions by 1910, by which time it had sold an astounding 283,000 copies. (The other bestseller was Alessandro Manzoni’s 1827 novel of northern Italy, I Promessi Sposi, The Betrothed.)

The success of Artusi’s work was due not only to its being the first cookbook aimed at an emerging middle class and that treated of a cuisine that could truly be called Italian, but to his writing in the Tuscan dialect then being adopted by educated people as the lingua franca of their new country. As a result, the housewives of Italy found in Artusi not just a guide to the running of a modern Italian kitchen but how to read and speak Italian itself.1 Along with Scappi’s Cooking Secrets of Pope Pius V, the best-known cookbooks of the Renaissance were De honesta voluptate et valuetudine by Bartolomeo Sacchi, known as Platina, which appeared in the 1470s, and Martino de Rossi’s Libro de arte coquinaria, appearing from 1456 to 1467 in sections, and from which Sacchi

admitted he took scores of recipes. Sacchi embraced good health in cooking, while discouraging the overuse of spices and the dissipation of essential flavors with too many elaborations. Both books were published in Latin, for royalty, Church dignitaries and men of high rank.

Artusi’s book was not written for aristocrats’ kitchen staff, so he dismissed the overwrought, French-based briconella (frippery) of previous recipe books.

When he did include a French dish it was clearly because he thought it was a good one, like béchamel sauce, but tweaked it to be more Italian, less complicated, renaming it balsamella.

By the same token, writing for and being of the upper class himself, Artusi snobbishly avoided dishes he felt had “a whiff of the folkloric” or those so regional as to be “limited to particular environments or social levels.” He did not, however, ignore regional dishes, though those from the South are few and far between in the book. Thus, the reader finds tortellini alla bolognese, anolini alla parmigiana, tagliatelle all’uso di romagna, risotto alla milanese, maccheroni alla napoletana, ravioli alla Genovese, Triestian presnitz and scores of other regional recipes. Not surprisingly, given Artusi’s station, he gives only a very few recipes for polenta, so associated with lower class kitchens.2 Beyond Artusi’s extraordinary achieve-

risorgimento Reflected 23

Risorgimento Opposite: La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene by Pellegrino Artusi. right: uknown author. Macaroni seller, Naples, Italy, ca. 18901900. photo mechanical print. Detroit Publishing Company, 1905.

ments in terms of book sales and use of accessible language, he approached his subject of food science and the art of eating well by embracing the kind of foods more and more Italians were eating, owing to their access to more diverse ingredients. The book covers fried artichokes, a specialty of Rome’s Jewish populace, though he says they are also a Tuscan specialty; couscous, introduced to Italy by the Arabs, for which Artusi gives a recipe given to him by two Italian Jews; black risotto in the Florentine style; macaroni with sardines in the Sicilian style; and meatballs (polpette), which were in Artusi’s day, shaped in “the size of an egg.”

Of meatballs he writes, “Don’t think I’m pretentious enough to tell you how to make meatballs. This is a dish that everybody knows how to make, including absolute donkeys,” a statement that indicates just how ubiquitous polpette were in the Italian kitchen. He does not, however, connect them with spaghetti, as in the Italian-American dish that became the icon of the early twentieth century.

Single chapters cover soups (including those for “days of abstinence”), starters, sauces--salsas, which denoted condiments rather than a sauce for pasta, called sugo--eggs, fried dishes, entremets, stews, chilled dishes, greens and legumes, fish, roasts, and desserts, broken into pastries and torte e dolci al cucchiaio (cakes and sweets to be eaten with a spoon), syrups, preserves and ice creams, including sorbets.

Artusi also included sample seasonal menus for “an elegant dinner for each month of the year,” which showed his disdain for the extravagance of courtly excess by trimming service to a mere seven or eight courses, beginning with soup, usually containing pasta, a simple appetizer like figs and prosciutto, a fish dish, entremets like stuffed zucchini, a roast,

dessert, fruit and cheese. While this may seem like a great deal of food, it was not being recommended for everyday meals and, overall, the dishes are light, based on the seasons and never elaborate. Artusi was a great believer in fresh, healthy food and disdained the richness and heaviness considered a virtue in the past.

His fish and roasts are served simply, perhaps with a light sauce of the meat drippings.

He also insisted that “Those who do not do physical labor should eat more sparingly than those who do,” and “Unless you lead an active life, you should forgo the use of wine at lunch, because red wines are difficult to digest, while white wines, which contain more alcohol, cloud the mind.” Most important, he lectures, “Guard yourself from gluttony.” He also advocates exercise and temperance and warns that to be “overrun by wine [is] to commit a hideous sin.”

Artusi did not always provide strict measurements for recipes, in the assumption that home cooks would have a grasp

of such details, but he offered a great deal more than did most cookbook authors of his time. Thus, in a complex dish like calf’s tongue in spicy sauce, Artusi instructs the reader to mince a 6-inch stalk of celery and small carrot, a quarter cup of olive oil, 2 anchovies, 7 tablespoons of “well-rinsed capers,” a quarter cup of breadcrumbs sprinkled with “just a drop of vinegar,” a piece of onion the size of a hazelnut and “less than half a clove of garlic.”

Artusi recommended the use of garlic, in moderation, but acknowledged its notorious reputation for its strong odor and its association with the lower classes. “The ancient Romans left garlic to the down and out,” he writes, “while King Alfonse of Castile abhorred it to the point that he would punish anybody who dared appear at court with its odor on his breath.” Artusi was familiar with long-held claims for garlic’s medicinal and health benefits, repeating claims that “it provides relief to those suffering from hysteria, promotes the secretion of

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unknown author. Marco Polo travelling, c. 1254 January 8, 1324. Miniature from the Book The Travels of Marco Polo “Il milione”.

that are simply cooked and run through a food mill. At the most, you may add a small rib of celery and a few leaves of parsley and basil to tomato sugo, if you feel you must.”

There was regional food, but for 2,000 years there was no Italian food. urine, bolsters the stomach, aids in digestion and, since it cures worms, is a preventive against endemic and epidemic diseases.” He wags a finger at those who would banish it from their kitchens as a social stigma of the lower classes, insisting, “this fixation deprives them of tasty, wholesome food.”

Perusing Artusi’s book, one can only come away with the notion of how modern it seems and how remarkably it reflects what became the staples of 20th century Italian food on menus, not just in Italy but around the world. Look on any page and you’ll find dishes like minestrone, vitello tonnato, fried zucchini, baccalà, chicken alla cacciatora, bistecca alla fiorentina, saltimbocca, risotto with cuttlefish, potato gnocchi, Tuscan cacciucco seafood stew, zabaione, babà with rum and zuppa inglese. Not so surprising is his omission of Ligurian pesto sauce made from basil, garlic and olive oil, since that condiment was of fairly recent vintage, having been first mentioned in a cookbook, Vera cuciniera genovese, only as recently as 1863.

He also includes a recipe for pizza libretti (“little book pizza”), which he says a lady

sent to him, insisting it was not to be called schiacciata, “squashed”-- “because it should come out anything but flat.” Indeed, the puffy pizza libretti he describes bears no resemblance to what we know of as Neapolitan pizza alla margherita, topped with mozzarella, tomato and basil; instead, it is merely dough made with eggs, cognac, or meat broth, folded over, cut into triangles and fried in oil.

It is even possible that Artusi may never have tasted or even heard of Neapolitan pizza, or that he included it among the foods he said were “limited to particular environments or social levels.” In fact, pizza alla margherita was of very recent origin, created to celebrate the new Queen’s visit to Naples in 1889. Its fame had not yet spread north from Naples.

Artusi does include sugo di carne, a meat sauce simmered for five or six hours, but it contains no tomato. And then there is but a single recipe for sugo di pomodoro, but he seems dismissive of the whole idea, writing, “I will speak anon about tomato salsa, which must be distinguished from tomato sugo, as the latter is simple, i.e., made from tomatoes

And that is all. He included no instructions, no recipe at all for a sauce that was soon to become the foundation of what would be known and beloved around the world as Italian cooking.

Artusi’s achievements in publishing La Scienza in Cucina e L’arte di Mangiar Bene were momentous for Italy itself, though he was hardly aware of it at the time. He had found a rewarding way to live out his retirement years, donating his fortune to a home for the elderly and dowries for poor girls; bequeathing the royalties from his book to his servants.

Artusi died at the age of 91 in 1911, a year after publishing the last edition of his famous cookbook, in which he wrote his own epitaph, at the end of a recipe for gnocchi alla romana: “I hope you will like these as much as my guests have. If you do, toast me if I’m alive, or say a Rest in Peace if I’ve gone to push up cabbages.” z

Endnotes 1 As Gillian Riley writes in the Oxford Companion to Italian Food (New York, 2007), p. 28, “Artusi’s book made a greater contribution to the unification of Italy than all the efforts by politicians and linguists to bring a century of separate entities with their own dialects into a coherent nation.”

2 The best English translation of Artusi’s book is by Kyle M. Phillips III (New York, 1996), from which these quotations are taken.

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Risorgimento

transcending the appenine divide Italy’s mountainous terrain affects its socio-political history

by Daniel B. Gallagher

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merican high-school students often come away from a basic course in European geography believing that the Alps are the only major topographical feature to note in Italy’s landscape. Having studied the epic crossings of Hannibal and Napoleon, they are left with the impression that it is “all downhill from there.”

I was reminded of this recently while helping some friends arrange a road trip from Rome to San Giovanni Rotondo.

Much to their chagrin, they discovered that there is no “direct route” from point A to point B since a mountain range – namely the Apennines – runs down the middle of the country.

Notwithstanding their majestic beauty, the Apennines are a major complicating factor in the story of Italian unity. In fact, only about one fifth of the land is classified as plain (pianura), and most of that area is concentrated in the North

Lowland. While the Alps and surrounding seas constitute natural boundaries that clearly designate Italy as a geographical entity, the Apennines subdivide her into a collage of regions and peoples.

They form a single, serpentine chain, varying in width and running over 1,300 miles from the extreme northeast to the west, curving to Liguria, extending southeast, heading south through the peninsula, and finally stretching from east to

Left, Italy 1815-1859, Right, Italy, 1861. excerpt from the book I MIlle (1874) by Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 1807-1882.

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italy’s geography is more than an expression; it is an integral part of her identity. west across northern Sicily. While this tortuous course has been the cause of disagreement among geologists about how best to divide Italy into physiographical regions, it does explain why the peninsula has rarely served as a bridge for travel between northern Europe, Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean.

The mountains have not been without their political effects. From the collapse of the Roman Empire in 410 until the Risorgimento, Italy was a myriad of loosely connected communes frequently subjected to invading powers. A general division began to emerge in the 12th century, corresponding roughly to the frontier between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Sicily. Beginning in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the feudal character of the south was solidified while the north enjoyed spectacular agricultural development, a burgeoning industry, healthy trade and an urban culture. Although economic expansion in the north slackened during Spanish and Austrian domination, the south was never able to catch up. Moreover, the administrative structures of the AustroHungarian Empire left an indelible mark on the north – especially Lombardy and the Veneto – while the south retained traces of social stratification bequeathed to it by the Spanish Bourbons whom Garibaldi finally sent away in 1860.

Rome, relying on a long pedigree of papal rule, remained aloof to both.

For many centuries the Apennines thwarted communication between east and west, stymied trade and discouraged the use of common currency, weights and measures. This makes Italy’s story of unification quite different from a nation

like Germany, whose economic unity paved the way to political unity. Having no such basis, Italy had to rely on the avant-garde aspirations of Mazzini, Cavour and Garibaldi, all of whom were ultimately disappointed by the people’s lack of readiness to embrace republican values. Neapolitan historian Luigi Blanch foresaw the difficulty in 1851 when he wrote, “the patriotism of the Italians is like that of the ancient Greeks, and is love of a single town, not of a country; it is the feeling of a tribe, not of a nation.”

This sense of apathy greatly abated during the economic success of the postwar period, convincing many citizens that the country was free to write its own history by relying on the ingenuity, entrepreneurship and work ethic of its own people. Italy quickly attained the status of a functional, centralized modern state, relegating regionalism to local traditions and social attitudes. Indeed, despite her topographical variety, Italy’s population is evenly distributed and highly aggregated. In Apulia and Sicily, most people live in demographic centers numbering over 10,000 inhabitants.

Unfortunately, the influence of the Apennines on Italian history has not been written by Mother Nature alone.

Deforestation has had a devastating effect on agrarian sustainability in the south. When the Greeks first arrived in the eighth century, they encountered rich forests stretching for miles across the peninsula. Oak, ilex, laurel and myrtle on the heights of Calabria’s mountains still give us a sense today of what they must have found. Chopped for cash and fuel, these trees once drew throngs of settlers to the peninsula. Depletion of forestland eliminated a natural defense mechanism against landslides and erosion, exacerbating the effects of heavy rain and earthquakes. Whereas wheat and corn cannot

withstand erratic weather patterns, trees thrive. The swamps resulting from deforestation also gave new breeding ground to the anopheles mosquito, spreading malaria until the use of DDT in the 1940s.

How a country’s topography affects its history is not beyond human control. Deforestation is but one example. The anniversary of Italy’s unification is an occasion to reflect on her unique geography and the impact it has had on her social and political life. At the turn of the 19th century, a political realist like Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859) could easily say that “Italy is only a geographical expression”. Yet as we enter the 21st century, it is clear that Italy’s geography is more than an expression; it is an integral part of her identity. Seas both separate and connect. Mountains distinguish and bind. The former has created Italy, and the latter “Italians.” It is no accident that family and town continue to be primary reference points for understanding who one is as an Italian.

At the same time, to be an “Italian” increasingly means to live with and among “Italians” who are neither from your family nor from your hometown. In a recent video-teleconference, I connected with colleagues from Milan, Bergamo, Brindisi, and Taranto. We exchanged ideas on a nation-wide pastoral initiative from four different perspectives based on experiences in four different local churches.

We then discovered that young people from all four dioceses were in need of lodging in Rome for the May 1st beatification of John Paul II. Once connection led to another, and we were able to make arrangements within 24 hours. That was all I needed to convince me that unity-indiversity – created by the Apennines – remains Italy’s greatest challenge for today and promise for her future. z

risorgimento Reflected 27

Risorgimento

above: Gerolamo Induno.

L’imbarco a Quarto del Generale Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1860. oil on canvas. 42 x 57 inches. Museo del Risorgimento, milan. right: Alessandro Puttinati Masaniello calling the people to revolt, 1846. marble. 83.5 x 20 x 41 inches. Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan. far right: Francesco Hayez the meditation (italy in 1848), 1850. oil on canvas. 36 x 28 inches. Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Verona.

28 risorgimento Reflected

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il corpo dello stato body of the state, 2002-2009 photography by Armin LINKE

The private studio of the president in the state quarters, Palazzo del Quirinale. Courtesy Palazzo del Quirinale.

Opposite page, top: Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI and Senato della Repubblica, Palazzo Madama. opposite page, Bottom: Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI and Ministero per i Beni e le AttivitĂ Culturali, Palazzo del Collegio Romano. all images in this series Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI, ROME.Â

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Risorgimento

Giacamo Puccini. Courtesy Puccini Foundation.

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music for a revolution – c. 1860 The natural role of opera and composer Verdi during the age of the Risorgimeno

by Giovanni BIETTI

As many scholars have pointed out , before being politically united, Italy had already been musically unified by opera. Nothing could be truer: it is enough to scroll through the list of the main theatres active in the first half of the 19th century (La Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, San Carlo in Naples, just to mention the three most famous ones, but also the Roman theatres, such as Valle, Argentina, or the now closed Apollo Theatre, as well as the opera houses of Bologna, Florence, Genoa, and so on) to realize that operas circulated throughout the Italian peninsula, constantly crossing the borders between the various States.

Opera is actually a typical, peculiar, Italian cultural phenomenon. No wonder that “national operas” always developed in the various European countries in opposition to the ubiquitous Italian opera: Schumann, for example, used to dedicate a daily prayer to the birth of German opera, and hurled cutting remarks at the “levity” and virtuosity of Italian musicians, against the German solidity and solemnity. Italian opera spread not only thanks to its captivating, beautiful melo-

dies, but also because, since the first half of the 18th century, many Italian composers emigrated abroad in search of fortune. So it clearly had a strong national style and identity.

However, the “Italian unification” performed by opera is actually more articulated and profound. Apart from its musical style, opera had in fact a precise linguistic, literary style. The knowledge and diffusion of the Italian language therefore passed as much through the opera librettos by Felice Romani, Francesco Maria Piave or Salvatore Cammarano, as through the poetry and prose by Manzoni and Leopardi. As a “mirror of the world”, theatre was universally available for all social classes (the structure itself of the Italian-style theatre was intended to allow different social classes to simultaneously enjoy the show: the bourgeoisie from the stalls, the nobles from the boxes and the proletarians from the galleries), but it could obviously reach wider audiences, and in a much more immediate way, thanks to the music. It is not surprising that opera librettos often shared the same plain, rhythmically uniform metrics as the poetry of the Risorgimento by Manzoni: six-syllable, octosyllable, decasyllable. It is perfectly possible to sing, for example, the beginning of Manzoni’s poem March 1821 on the chorus of Va’ pensiero sull’ali dorate [“Fly, thought, on golden wings”]: Soffermati sull’arida sponda, Volti i guardi al varcato Ticino, Tutti assorti nel novo destino, Certi in cor dell’antica virtù…

Lingering on the dry bank Looking back to the Ticino river All absorbed in the new destiny [With their ancient virtue in their heart…

In the same way, Dagli atri muscosi, dai fori cadenti [“From overgrown courtyards, from derelict forums”] perfectly fits with the notes of Fratelli d’Italia [“Brothers of Italy”].

The language of Melodrama is obviously highly stylized, and sometimes quite unrealistic, so much so that it has often been mocked and derided in a variety of satirical plays. In opera librettos, for example, we find temple instead of church, consort instead of husband, accents instead of words; if a character is out of the country, it is said that he is in a foreign soil, and so on. As Luigi Dallapiccola noted, “opera is very likely to sound ridiculous, we have known that for a long time, but we have also known (and even for a longer time) that, in some cases, in art as well as in life, this is the risk that needs to be taken in order to achieve the sublimity of style”. That is what happens in the operas composed

by Rossini, Bellini and Verdi. Otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to explain the popularity, the sense of belonging, the attachment Italians felt for Melodrama in the first half of the 19th century. Due to their style and the universal sentiments conveyed through their music, the great opera composers became the symbol of the fight against foreign oppression. As proved by a number of anecdotes, the ideals and events of the Risorgimento are strictly interwoven with opera: from the case of the Bandiera brothers, who followed the platoon that was about to execute them singing an aria from Mercadante’s Donna Caritea, to that of Garibaldi, who, before leaving from Quarto, stirred the souls of the Thousand by singing opera arias.

This strict relationship is perfectly embodied by Giuseppe Verdi, who is regarded as the “Italian national composer” and the emblem par excellence of the

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above: Giovanni Fattori. french soldiers of ’59, 1859. OIL ON BOARD. 6 X 12 INCHES. COLLECTION Istituto Matteucci, Viareggio, ITALY. Below: C. Gatti. Viva V.E.R.D.I. from Verdi nelle immagini, Milan, Garzanti, 1941.

Risorgimento, so much so that his name was used as an acronym to secretly praise Victor Emanuel (“Viva Verdi”, i.e.

“Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia, which means “Long Live Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy”). As soon as he knew about the Five Days of Milan, Verdi rushed back to Italy from Paris, saying that the hour had come for Italy to be a “free, united, republican country”. In 1848, prompted

by Mazzini, Verdi also composed the music for the hymn of Mameli, Sound the Trumpet, which he hoped would became “the Marseillaise of the Italians”. Lastly, Verdi composed the one opera that, for its theme, the tone of its libretto, the mode of representation, is regarded as the very opera of the Risorgimento, The Battle of Legnano. First staged in January 1849, in the Republican Rome that had temporarily chased the Pope, this opera, more than other masterpieces, definitively established Verdi’s fame: every time it was staged, such was the enthusiasm that the entire last act had to be repeated.

After the failure of the Republican ideals in 1849, Verdi wrote one last opera that somehow recalled the spirit of the Risorgimento: The Sicilian Vespers, which was staged in 1855 in Paris, far from the Restoration climate that was pervading Italy.

The authorities were perfectly aware that Melodrama talked to the heart of the

Italians. It is not surprising that, in the 1850s, censorship became stricter than ever. Even such a poet as Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, who, in his Sonnets, was perfectly – and secretly – aware of the conditions of the Roman people, in 1852 made a harsh criticism of Rigoletto, claiming that “the rotten drama by Victor Hugo couldn’t help but produce such a filthy forgery”, and suggested that “such a ugly word as revenge, which sounds very bad, especially today and in the mouth of the plebs” be removed from the text every time it was repeated (which happens quite often in Rigoletto, as any opera lover knows).

Nine years later, Italy paid the debt of gratitude to its greatest composer, recognizing and the role played by his music in

awakening the conscience of the Italians: on the 6th of February 1861, Verdi was in fact elected in the first Italian Parliament, at Cavour’s insistence. This way, the active power of music in the Italian political and social life was officially recognized. We all wish this power might still continue to live today, after 150 years. z

32 risorgimento Reflected

civil

Games

Reflected

How the sport of soccer reflects the state of Italian nationalism

Photo courtesy ANSA

by John FOOTE

W

hen a number of intellectuals were asked, in the 1990s, what it was that held Italians together, a fair number cited the national soccer team. When Italy play in international tournaments, Italian flags – normally so rare – suddenly spring up on windowsills and on rooftops. In Naples in 2002 I witnessed an enormous Italian flag – which had been paid for by a door-to-door collection – being hung across a small urban street.

Within days, Italy were out, and the flag came down. In a young and regionally divided nation, soccer has formed a powerful glue around which national identity has been able to form. La Nazionale – the national team – has always inspired classic nationalist sentiments, flag-waving,

celebration and discussion. Italians are united when Italia is playing, at least in their support for the team itself.

The party that followed the 1982 World Cup victory is remembered as a joyous moment of collective celebration.

That match still holds the record for an Italian TV transmission, with 32 million viewers, while 17 million Italians watched the celebrated 1970 semi-final, a figure that almost doubled to 28 million for the final. This support has rarely been seen as a political issue, and has rarely divided Italians into left and right factions.

It is quite normal for extreme left and extreme right-wing Italians to be united in their backing of la nazionale.

Not all Italians agree. At times, the

national team has been booed, and antinational feeling increased in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of regionalism in the north. Italy were greeted with hostility when they played in Verona in the 1990s, and again in Florence in the same decade. Leaders of the regionalist Northern Leagues openly declared their hostility to the national team, saying that they would back any team against them. The reaction to this has sometimes been a festival of nationalism, as with the world cup qualifier in Milan in November 1993 (when the Lega was at the height of its influence) replete with thousands of flags.

‘For one night’, wrote the centre-left La Repubblica, “la nazionale reunited Italy”.1 With the right-wing domination of Ital-

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opposite: 1982 world cup parade, Rome. right: Michele Cammarano. The charge of the gunners at Porta Pia ,1871. oil on canvas. 114 x 184 inches. useo di Capodimonte, naples. courtesy Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico, Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della Città di Napoli.

ian stadiums in the 1990s, the singing of the national anthem by fans before or during league matches – sometimes complete with fascist salutes – became commonplace. Nationalism had made inroads into groups of the most fanatical spectators.

Unlike England Italy has never had travelling national team supporters. Italy play all over the country, as a matter of policy, and fans watch them when they come to town. At international tournaments, there have never been organised national fan groups (and consequently no hooligan problem). There were no national ultrà. In the early 1990s, however, a small organised group of right-wing fans began to follow la nazionale both abroad and within Italy, complete with extremist slogans and stiff-arm salutes.

Their presence sometimes led to tension with other Italian fans, and clashes were seen in 1991 at Parma and in 2005 (during a match against Scotland) in Milan.2

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he national sentiments of Italy’s players have often been called into question. A long and frequently hilarious debate dragged on throughout the 1980s concerning the singing of the national anthem before games. Why were the players not belting out the anthem? One explanation was simple. They didn’t know the words. In fact, many Italians don’t – as the lyrics are so difficult.3 Soon, the players began to get their act together, learning the whole thing from start to finish.

Whether this made them more “nationalist” is open to doubt. Once again, however, the question of national identity in Italy – as it had been so often throughout

Italian history – was played out around symbols and superstructures. The core of Italian national sporting identity only really awoke – and then only very briefly – during world cups: once every four years.

Specific soccer matches involving Italy have become part of her national history, and identity, and memory. These range from epic victories - the 4-3 semi-final against West Germany in 1970, the victories against Brazil and West Germany again in 1982, and against Germany (again!) and France in 2006 – to even more epic defeats – for example in 1970 (the final), 1986, 1990 and 2010. Some of these games have inspired books, films and innumerable newspaper articles; and can be told and re-told, in detail, by almost any fan you meet.

But soccer is also a source of regional identity, and of division. With the rise of the regionalist Lega Nord in the 1980s, a party hostile to the south that frequently referred to southerners in racist terms, regionalist sentiments proliferated on the terraces. The Lega often called for Italy to be separated into northern and southern nations, and attacked the very basis of the nation-state. In 1993, Milan fans displayed a banner which read “Garibaldi infamone” (Garibaldi, who had united Italy, was a disgrace) and southerners were attacked for not being “Italian”. Northern fans depicted the south as a hostile land, inhabited by thieves and Mafiosi, which was not a worthy part of the Italian nation. Hence the “Welcome to Italy” banner displayed by Verona’s curva (at home to Napoli) in 1985, or references to dirty and smelly southerners, to “Those with Cholera” or even “Earthquakers”.

Milan-Roma games were especially tense.

Roma fans loved to sing, to the tune of Il sole mio – “I have only one dream/ Milan in flames”. Milan’s fans replied with irony: “Milan in flames? And where will you work?” In recent years, in an increasingly divided society and nation, the national team has begun to lose its grip over Italian national consciousness.

In the 2010 world cup a party which was in government – the Lega Nord – openly supported the teams playing Italy, and cheered when Italy lost. They even have their own team – Padania. Are we seeing the decline of a great national passion, and final victory of individual club fan identity and regional identity, over that of the nation? Only time will tell. z

Endnotes 1 “Milano tricolore”, La Repubblica, 18.11.1993.

2 See http://nucleodoria.tifonet.it/nazionale.htm.

3 Here, for example, is the first verse: Fratelli d’Italia L’Italia s’è desta, Dell’elmo di Scipio S’è cinta la testa.

Dov’è la Vittoria?

Le porga la chioma, Ché schiava di Roma Iddio la creò.

Stringiamci a coorte Siam pronti alla morte L’Italia chiamò.

34 risorgimento Reflected

Reflected

Inside support The representation of patriotic women in the visual art of the Risorgimento

by Eugenio F. Biagini

The following excerpt is Part Two of a threepart essay, entitled “Women and the Risorgimento.” he surviving written evidence, for both patriots and reactionaries, predominantly concerns upper-class women. Of course, this reflects the nature of the evidence studied so far, and the interests of the historians who have examined it. Both are likely to change in years to come. One primary source increasingly used by historians is provided by contemporary paintings and prints. Although Banti has devoted considerable attention to “historical” paintings as an expression of the Nazione del Risorgimento in its making, he has restricted his attention to early Romantic artists such as Francesco Hayez (1791-1881). Hayez specialized in portraits and “heroic” paintings of medieval and Renaissance episodes, and appropriated for nationalistic purposes themes from the older regional patriotisms. Such is the case for I Vespri Siciliani (1844-6), which celebrated a Medieval rising of the Sicilians against the French invaders.

Here women are presented as the priestesses of the violated patria: they suffer, die and incite their men to avenge the national honour. The construction of femininity in Hayez’s paintings reproduces classical notions of maternity and “national sacrality.” To Hayez, women were the custodians of the heart and the honor of the “nation.” Together with the priests – equally idealized by this artist, and generally perceived as a sort of “third sex” – women represented the link

T

between the nation’s historic and biological past and its future. Action, however, was the prerogative of men.

A later generation of radical painters, collectively known as the Macchiaioli, took a different approach. Born in the 1820s and “30s and predominantly Tuscan, the Macchiaioli approached Risorgimento themes with youthful irreverence and eagerness to experiment and discover reality “in its essence.” A more complete contrast with Hayez’ lyrical solemnity is hard to imagine. Yet, it is important to bear in mind that their irreverence did not originate from lack of ideological sympathy with the “national cause”: indeed, many of them served in the campaigns of 1848-66, often in the Garibaldian armies, which, as Lucy Riall has shown, were more open to female participation.1 Their radical departure from classical canons reflected a new sensitivity to social realities and life, an approach influenced by French Positivism

and Impressionism. They developed new manners of figurative representation, continually striving to refine the results they had already achieved, without any presumption of “definitive truths.” This is the main reason why their work can provide the historian with such a rich and sophisticated survey of social and political responses to the Risorgimento, or lack thereof, among both men and women. While theirs was merely one of many possible perceptions of female attitudes – a quintessentially male middle-class reflection on reality – it was an interesting one. They abhorred the rhetorical constructions and stereotypes which then dominated official nationalist rhetoric.

The Macchiaioli devoted a surprising number of their paintings to women – all classes of women, from aristocrats to prostitutes. Some of these paintings are portraits, others represent groups at work or leisure. Their subjects include intellectuals – surrounded by books and art-

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Risorgimento

Odoardo Borrani. left: The seamstresses of the red shirts, 1863. Private collection.

Opposite page: The 26th of april 1859, 1861. oil on canvas. Istituto Matteucci, Viareggio.

already emphasized by the woman’s total absorption in her service to the cause.

works – but also unsophisticated women enjoying simple feminine pastimes. At least one represents an illiterate woman dictating a letter to a friend, who writes it up for her. Fattori’s celebrated Italian camp at the battle of Magenta focuses on the ambulance service: nuns nurse the wounded on a wagon. One of them instructs the soldiers assembled around the wagon – perhaps she needs more water or bandages. This painting is a powerful remainder of the crucial role played by women – not only nuns, but also many local, predominantly middle-class,2 volunteers – in mid-19th century formal warfare.

less revolution. A young woman sits at a table, on the top floor of what must be a prosperous city home. She is sewing the tricolour flag. One half of the window is open, the other half is closed, and so is the shutter – obviously to prevent neighbours from seeing this woman intent on her revolutionary preparations. A halbard with a tricolor can be seen in the corner – perhaps to symbolize the continuity between the ancient Florentine freedom (the halbard of the militia of Machiavelli’s republic) and the new national liberty. The woman is well dressed and sits on an ornate Renaissance-style armchair.

There are three Macchiaioli paintings representing obviously patriotic women.

In 1861 Odoardo Borrani painted Il 26 aprile 1859 – the eve of Florence’s blood-

The light of the evening sun reflects purple and orange colours onto this woman’s face and white blouse: this adds to the tension of the patriotic moment,

In 1863 (one year after Garibaldi was wounded at Aspromonte, in his unsuccessful attempt to liberate Rome from the papal monarchy) Borrani painted another scene of patriotic women, the Cucitrici di camicie rosse. Four ladies sit in an elegant room, silently sewing red shirts for the volunteers. The revolution is now being fought elsewhere: obviously, in Tuscany there is now no longer any need to seek refuge in the attic. Instead, these ladies sit comfortably in their drawing room. There is a Biedermeier desk, rich white linen curtains let in the light of the sun through a long window – typical of bourgeois city homes – and a portrait of Garibaldi adorns the wall next to the desk. The elegance of the interior contrasts with the almost religious austerity on the faces of the women, who have eyes only for their patriotic work. It is a typical feminine operation, but is full of political connotations and prescriptions: these women know what they are doing, and do it with zeal, commitment and devotion. Garibaldi looks down on them from the picture on the wall, like a sort of democratic icon: it is almost as if his spiritual presence inspires and comforts the ladies in their labours.

Another interesting painting of “political” women is also by Borrani: Il bollettino del 9 gennaio del 1878 (1880).

Three women – representing the classical theme of the three ages – sit around a table. It is dark, but an oil lamp reveals the sorrow on their faces, as the youngest of the three reads to the others from the newspaper of the day. The “bulletin” concerns the death of Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy. A large book lies open in front of the eldest of the three.

She has put down her reading glasses and listens intently to her granddaugh-

36 risorgimento Reflected above: Francesco Hayez. I vespri siciliani, scene 3, 1846. Oil on canvas. 88.5 × 118 inches. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. below: Giovanni Fattori, the ITalian camp during the battle of Magenta, 1859. opposite page: Odoardo Borrani. The 26th of april 1859, 1861. oil on canvas.

Istituto Matteucci, Viareggio.

class women. The only possible exception is Odoardo Borrani’s Il richiamo del contingente (1869).

per in the hands of the youngest of the three, symbolise the patriotic women’s new mental universe, shaped by education, political information, and a more scientific vision of the world. These Italians are emancipated from the habits of the “superstitious” past.

ter. Her daughter sits in between, leaning on the table. Other lamps on the walls cast a dim light over the rest of the room, revealing a few comfortable armchairs, shelves full of books and a globe. These are educated, middle-class women who participate in the nation”s mourning with intense but dignified grief: no tears in their eyes, but a deep pain borne with stoicism. They sit in sad contemplation, as if at prayer. There are, however, no religious symbols in the room – except perhaps the books (the one which lies open on the table could be a Bible). The books and the globe, together with the newspa-

Though Borrani and his colleagues loved to paint women “of the people,” there is no working-class equivalent of the above political women. The many scenes of peasant women painted by the Macchiaioli show them at work or play with their children. Like their bourgeois sisters, they seem to be in control of their “world.” In most of the relevant paintings there are no men; or, if there are, they are represented at the margins of the painting, outnumbered by women and children, and often fading into the background and the blinding light of the summer sun. However, none of these paintings gives any hint of political consciousness among peasant or working-

It shows a group of Tuscan peasants: men, women and children bid farewell to a relative, a reservist is being recalled for national service. He is already wearing his uniform, ready to go. On his tunic a military medal is visible, indicating service during previous campaigns: however, neither he. nor any of the other characters show any signs of patriotic or warlike demeanour. Some of the women are in tears, but there is much dignity in their behavior: in this at least they are not dissimilar from their upper-class sisters pictured in Borrani’s other patriotic paintings. The most important consideration is perhaps that now the historical context is different: Italy has been unified, the most important battles of the Risorgimento are over, and so is the enthusiasm of 1848-61. This man is not a volunteer, but a conscript. The reality of the new Italy is less exciting than the events that brought it about, but the people, both men and women, face the new challenge with equanimity and fortitude. z

Endnotes 1 Lucy Riall, ‘Eroi maschili, virilità, forme della guerra’, in Banti and Ginsburg, Storia d’Italia, Annali 22, p.279.

2 Many working-class women served as vivandiere: usually the wives or partners of non-commissioned officers, sometimes uniformed, they followed the armies and helped with the distribution of supplies (hence their name), doubling-up as nurses when necessary.

risorgimento Reflected

37

38 risorgimento Reflected

Reflected

Passion all’Italiana An interview with Fred Plotkin

by Laura GIACALONE The New York Times described Fred Plotkin as “a New Yorker, but with the soul of an Italian” who is a legend for “his renaissance mastery” of Italian music and food. He attended the Universities of Bologna and Pavia, worked at La Scala as a Fulbright Scholar and is the Italy expert that others turn to for definitive and complex answers about everything in his favourite nation. He lectures all over the world on topics on which he is passionate, including how we can live the life of the Renaissance Man in modern times. www. fredplotkin.com

ITALIAN JOURNAL: You have recently taken part in the celebrations of Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò (NYU) for the 150th anniversary of the Italian Unification with a lecture on the art of singing the works of Giuseppe Verdi, the most representative composer of the Italian Risorgimento. In your opinion, what was Verdi’s main contribution to the making of the Italian nation?

FRED PLOTKIN: Verdi greatly admired political entities that spoke to his republican sentiments. He had a particular feeling for Genoa and spent 40 winters there drinking in the noble yet egalitarian spirit of that city, which has always been a centre of free thought, hard work and progress. It is not an accident that one of the operas he held closest to his heart was Simon Boccanegra, about the

Genoese doge who gains power and then governs warring factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines. Verdi knew that the future Italian nation would combine the brilliance and diversity of regional and local cultures along with the fractiousness that often goes with them. He could, with early works such as Nabucco, I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, Attila and La Battaglia di Legnano, stir emotions for the expulsion of foreign domination. Later works such as Rigoletto, Un Ballo in Maschera and Don Carlo, explore the corrupting nature of the abuse of power. Verdi’s main contribution to Italy, apart from being the unsurpassed composer of operas in the Italian language, was to use his 26 operas to hold up a mirror to an evolving society from 1836 to 1901, reflecting its struggles and dreams and then serving to caution leaders of the young nation. Remember that the last word of Aïda (1872) is pace (peace), which is repeated many times. In that year Italy was a young nation with a capital newly established in Rome, but Verdi felt that many things were already going wrong. I love that the last words of his final opera, Falstaff (1893) are “tutto il mondo è burla” (“all the world is a joke!”).

How Verdi’s Risorgimento sentiments continue to speak to the modern ear?

I think his sentiments speak more to the heart than the ear, which is merely a conduit. We perceive Verdi’s operas, and all operas, with numerous senses, including eyes and ears. As someone in Calabria once said to me, “Verdi was our national composer when Italy became Italy.” So his operas serve as essential reminders of what it means to be Italian, to believe in genius and fate as twin phenomena in national life. Italians, in their deepest thoughts, understand that Italy is a great nation but resist feeling a part of it. This

was the case in 1861 and it is the case in 2011. They would rather belong to a town or city or province or, at most, a region, but they don’t see themselves as part of the nation. But in Verdi they see the best yearnings of an Italian nation and connect to it on that level.

Among the most celebrated Italian operas, which one is your favorite and why?

I would hate to have to limit myself to only one opera -- what good is there in that? I can name three and we will have to leave it at that. First is Verdi’s Don Carlo, which is both perfect and complex. It is the story of public versus private obligations and morality and pulls no punches on how certain religious institutions can do more harm than good. It has six major characters in all vocal categories, each with his or her own important role in the larger picture. In this way, Verdi was different from Puccini, who usually focused on one character. With Verdi we have a rich tableau, not a portrait. And the music in Don Carlo is simply glorious, dramatic and heart-rending. I also love Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, which has perhaps the most beautiful music for tenor in any opera. Because it is about the life of a French poet, the libretto is much more poetic than most. It speaks of the importance of an individual taking a moral, principled stand in society, no matter the consequences. And then there is Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, a comedy I think is funnier than Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The character of Isabella inspired Italians to think of themselves as a nation when they were not. Her aria, “Pensa alla Patria,” told Italians all over Italy to think of themselves as resourceful, talented and divertente, and to think of these qualities as reflections of their homeland.

risorgimento Reflected

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Risorgimento

You are also a profound connoisseur of Italian wine and cuisine. How did this passion develop?

I grew up in New York, where there were many Italians in my neighbourhood. I tasted food in their homes, mostly recipes from Naples or nearby with just a few from Sicily and elsewhere. When I went to Italy in 1973 I learned that every ingredient has a history, a passport and ways that it should be treated. When I moved to Bologna in 1975, it seemed to me the most sophisticated food place in the world. People shopped once or twice a day for food for the next meal, always preferring what appealed to the palate, nose and eye at that moment. Everything had to be fresh and of highest quality. I lived there for almost 3 years and learned all of the city’s classic dishes. I traveled all over the peninsula and learned things even most Italians did not know about their national cuisine. In the 1970s and early 1980s, many young people in Italy accepted what I call a culinary blackout in which foods of the tradition, the past or the countryside, were hard to locate and were threatened with extinction.

They wanted to be like other Europeans who ate fast food. So I saw it as one of my responsibilities to absorb and document the nation’s culinary knowledge and history so that, when the day comes when Italians want to know about their food heritage, there would be someone around to teach it to them. It is important to point out that I see the whole nation as worth documenting. Most people who take an interest in Italy focus only on one region and would like to think it is the best. How would they know if they have not diligently studied and explored all 20 of Italy’s regions? I have written 6 books on Italian food that really are history books and biographies that also con-

Fred Plotkin (left) interviews Tenor Marcello Giordani (2008) for his “Adventures in italian opera series,” in its fourth season at the New york university casa italiana zerilli-marimò

tain recipes. And I go back all the time to learn more. That is why I always update my book, Italy for the Gourmet Traveller.

Italy is not a museum, but is the guardian of more creativity than any other nation, and that includes its food and wine.

What do you think are the symbols of the Italian unity today?

It is said that Italians feel most Italian when they national football team plays other nations. But this really about sport and not identity. The symbols of Italian unity are the products designed and manufactured in Italy, where the people retain a pride in work, in quality and the belief that this cheese or that shirt that is made in Italy is an ambassador for a way of life. I wish Italians would recognise how wonderful and unique their nation is, and they might do more to preserve it.

What would you recommend to a traveller who goes to Italy for the first time?

Accept that Italy must be visited slowly and often. It has 40% of the world’s artistic patrimony, 450 cheeses, 2000 wines and more than 100 cities that are worth an extended stay. Pick one major city to stay in on your first visit and discover it well. [Don’t even think of “doing” Rome, Florence and Venice on one visit.] Then pick a smaller city or town in another region and live there for a week, discovering the rhythms of the place and using it as a base for visits to nearby towns and to places in nature. You will

find that you start to fit in, that people recognise you, and you take joy in feeling as if you have made this place a part of you. And, if you are very lucky, it might turn into a place that you will return to often. Otherwise, there are always new places in Italy to discover. I have been doing this since 1973 and still ache if I am away from there for more than a few months.

If you had to imagine Italy in the next 150 years, what would you see? How would you like it to be?

What I hope for Italy is that it does not become swept up in globalisation, a movement that seems to require a low common denominator. Italy should be the nation that conserves all of the human arts and crafts and teaches them to the world. How to make a shirt that flatters the physique. How to clean that shirt so that the fabric remains beautiful. How to make a violin. How to play that violin.

How to make a wine that pairs well with food. How to know what food pairs with that wine. Where Italy still is unrivalled in the world is in understanding these simple but essential things. If the nation attempts to compete with mass production in other countries, it will fail. But if it reasserts its position as the crucible of culture and creativity, if it trains its citizens in these arts, if it is the unmatched guardian of memory of human creativity and potential, it will remain a singular nation that every other one will admire and want to visit. z

40 fashion

Photo by searchingforstyle.com

Risorgimento-era styles and nationalistic colors inspire designers for 2011 Collections

Photo courtesy of moda.pourfemme.it

Wearable 150 tricolore dress by gio

Viktor and Rolf, Wedding Dress, Spring-Summer 2011 Collection

stefano pilati for Yves St. Laurent, ruched “bo-peep� dress.

Photo courtesy of milano.repubblica.it

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2011 Miss Italy Fransceca Testasecca wearing a Gattinoni dress

Gherardini bag styled with a commemorative anniversary ribbon.

Robert di Camerino, unificationinspired bag for Bagonghi.

literature

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new italians A murder set in a Roman palazzo reveals the surprising diversity of its neighbors

by Laura GIACALONE Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio,

by Amara Lakhous (2006, European Editions)

Despite a heritage of the glorious history of Italian unification, the sense of national identity is, however, a never-ending process that is today enriched with unprecedented meanings and new forms of complexity. United when it comes to soccer or spaghetti, Italians actually seem to have more things that separate them than bind them together, starting from regional accents to political beliefs, lifestyle, consumption habits, geographical landscapes and cultural references. To make things even more complex, this extraordinary variety in the ways of being Italian is today integrated and amplified by an ever-growing presence of immigrants and foreign cultures throughout the country, which makes the contemporary Italian identity even more fragmented, multi-faceted and difficult to frame. The development of Italy as a multicultural and multiethnic society therefore calls for a redefinition of the Italian national sentiment, in the light of the challenges and opportunities

for economic and cultural growth offered by the presence of the new “Brotherhood of Italy”.

To better understand what being Italian really means today, it is particularly interesting to dwell on one of the most promising voices of the Italian literary scene, Amara Lakhous. As the name immediately suggests, Amara is a one-of-akind Italian: his personal story, as well as his books, can be considered as a snapshot of the Italian contemporary society, with all its cultural contrasts and complex geographical stratifications. Born in Algiers in 1970, he has been living in Rome since 1995, where he graduated in Cultural Anthropology and recently completed a PhD thesis entitled “Living Islam as a Minority”. His life story and personal experience in Italy make him an Italian to all intents and purposes. His most famous book, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, published in Italy in 2006 (E/O) and translated into English in 2008 (Europa editions), won prestigious literary prizes and has recently become a film.

Written in a darkly humorous vein, the novel is set in an apartment building of the most multiethnic and colourful neighbourhoods in Rome, Piazza Vittorio. When one of the tenants, the so-called Gladiator, is mysteriously murdered, the inhabitants of the building are called to tell their “truth.” So we get to know the gossipy Neapolitan porter, the Milanese Professor who has it in for the Romans, the Iranian cook who hates pizza, the lonely old lady obsessed with her little dog, the young Dutch filmmaker, the Peruvian housemaid mistaken for a Philippine and, above all, Amedeo, an educated, melancholic Algerian exile, who is a profound connoisseur of the history and topography of Rome and is the prime suspect of the murder. The novel

takes the form of a polyphonic chorus, with each character speaking in the first person in each chapter of the book, thus producing a picturesque, subtly ironic collage of prejudices, misunderstandings, solitude, marginalization, indifference and fears.

The elevator, as a narrow space forcedly shared by strangers, therefore becomes a powerful metaphor for a multilayered, sometimes claustrophobic, society where people from different backgrounds live side by side, without really seeing each other. In a country where “the greatest player of all time, Paulo Roberto Falcao, [was] a foreigner,” and an immigrant “speaks Italian better than many Italians,” the boundaries between national identities become blurred, and all inhabitants of such a chaotic building apartment as Italy can rightfully have their truth about it.

The question posed by one of the characters at the beginning of the book therefore remains an open question: “But then who is Italian? Only someone who was born in Italy, has an Italian passport and identity card, knows the language, has an Italian name, and lives in Italy?”.

The building of the national identity of a country passes through an endless process of contamination and crossbreeding, which moves our mental and cultural barriers a little bit further. In this sense, Amara Lakhous’ novel contains a gem of a lesson that any Italian worthy of this name should learn. z

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44 Social journal

Social Journal La Scuola d’Italia Annual Gala at Cipriani’s

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Among the many luminaries present were: 1 Consul General Francesco Maria Talò (right). Prof. Raffella Cribiore (center).

Ornella Fado who served a master of ceremonies (left); 2 Honoree Antonio Monda, noted film critic, La Scuola Chairman Steve Madsen (center) Dott sa Anna Fiori, head mistress of the school; 3 Assembled for the evening, together with Olympic champion Igo Cassina were several decorati. Each year the Cavalieri in attendance assemble during the Gala for a photograph; 4 Ambassador Giulio Maria Terzi di Sant’Agata; 5 Dott sa Fiori; 6 Dott. sa Emma Bonino.

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Social Journal IAF Concert Celebrates Italy’s 150th Birthday The Italian Academy Foundation held a Gala Concert attracting more than 500 to New York University’s Skirball auditorium. The concert features the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Europa Unita, Maestro Rossana Tomassi Golkar performed on the piano, and the orchestra was conducted by Tiziano Severini

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1 (Left to Right) Quintino Cianfaglione, Chairman COMITES; Min. Plen. Francesco Talò Consul General of New York; Ing Nicola Barone, Consiglio della Presidenza della Repubblica; Comm. Stefano Acunto, Chairman of the Italian Academy Foundation; 2 Minister Francesco Talo addresses the group; 3 Rosanna Golkar at the piano as Maestro Tiziano Severini conducts the 52 piece orchestra; 4 Ing. Nicola Barone presents a Commemorative 150th Year Medal to the Italian Academy Foundation; 5 More than 500 attended the function, a first for the IAF to be held at New York University’s new Skirball auditorium on Washington Square.

6 In Box 1 were the Baronessa Maria Zerilli-Marimo (right) who endowed New York University with its famous Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. With her are: Mrs. Carole Haarmann Acunto (center) and Ornella Talò

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46 Social journal

Social Journal President Giorgio Napolitano Visits New York President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy met leading New Yorkers and Americans of Italian descent on his April trip.

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1 President Napolitano (Center) with Lucio Caputo, President of ASILM (Center) and (Left to Right) Quintino Cianfaglione, Chairman of COMITES, Joseph Sciame, Chairman, Council of Presidents of Italian Organizations, Hon. Dominic Massaro, Mr. Frank Fusaro, President of the Columbus Club, Claudio Bozzo, President of the Italian American Chamber of Commerce; 2 (Left to Right) Dott sa Antonella Cinque, Rosemarie Gallina Santangelo, MC Maria Bartiromo and Ornella Talò; 3 President Napolitano addresses 200 leaders during a special reception held at the Saint Regis Skylight Ballroom in Manhattan; 4 The chorus from LaScuola d’Italia entertains the President and the assembled guests; 5 President Napolitano is greeted by former Governor Mario Cuomo; 6 A special cake designed for the occasion was cut by President Napolitano

IAF and the International Culture Festival of Bergamo The Festivale Internazionale della Cultura Bergamo and the Italian Academy Foundation, Inc. presented the first IAF-NY Award to artist Andrea Mastrovito, who will exhibit in New York.

1 IAF Vice Chair Claudia Palmira Acunto and awardwinner Andrea Mastrovito; 2 President of the Bergamo Festival Casto Iannotta with Mastrovito and Acunto.

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Riccardo Muti Photo by Sébastien Chambert, Courtesy Festival de Saint-Denis

by Nona TEPPER

O

n April 15th, at Carnegie Hall, the crowd listening to Othello shouted repeatedly, “Bravi!”, and Riccardo Muti took a deep bow. This certainly wasn’t the first time Muti, the current Musical Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has received a standing ovation, and surely it won’t be the last.

Once this Naples-born conductor puts down his baton, listeners inevitably rise to their feet, moved by the emotional force of his music, clapping without inhibition for more.

Born in 1941, Muti studied piano with Vincenzo Vitale, and graduated with honors from the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella.

In 1967 he received his first big break. In a conducting competition, the jury of the prestigious Cantelli Orchestra of Milan awarded Muti first prize, and Austrian orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan rushed to the stage to invite Muti to the Salzburg festival. Muti saw the audience, saw Karajan, and said yes.

“I felt I could free myself through the music that day,” Muti said. “There was a pact established between me and the orchestra, an act of love.”

This monumental day struck a tradition in Muti’s life. Each year Muti celebrates his birthday as a participant at the Salzberg Festival, with 2011 marking both his 40th anniversary at Salzberg, and his 70th birthday.

Recent health concerns have critics and fans on edge. In February, Muti had surgery on his jaw. In January, Muti fell from the podium at rehearsal. Movement in his left arm is limited.

“Next time I’ll fall in a different section!” Muti joked.

Despite these recent injuries, Muti continues to keep his baton going. Prior to his Chicago post, Muti conducted for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the La Scala Theatre in Milan. Muti attributes his time at La Scala to his early worldwide success.

“I worked on international projects, like the Mozart- Da Ponte trilogy and Wagner’s tetralogy,” Muti said. “But I also produced lesser-known authors as well: the 18th century works of Gluck, the Neapolitan works of Cherubini, and Spontini, and the Dialogues des Carmelites.”

In 2003, Muti was promoted in France with a 14-hour radio program, “Journey of Riccardo Muti” (pictured above right during recording). In 2008, Queen Elizabeth II of England knighted Muti. In 2011 his recording of Giuseppi Verdi’s Messa da Requiem won two Grammy Awards, and the Birgit Nilssion Foundation awarded Muti $1 million for his “enormous influence in world music.” Most recently, Muti was awarded the Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts—the most

“You have to be able to enthrall and persuade at the same time.”

-Riccardo Muti important cultural award in Spain. In September 2011, his autobiography, entitled First the Music, Then the Words (Rizzoli), will be released.

According to Muti, conducting is about more than entertainment. It is about giving back to the world of culture. In 2004, he founded Luigi Cherubini—a youth orchestra consisting of more than 600 Italian instrumentalists. This orchestra produces concerts under “The Way of Friendship,” an organization that honors cities with extreme historical conflict.

The last concert was held in Triest, Italy. Muti looked to a landscape of mountains and valleys, of land and sea, as a way to promote cultural acceptance.

“The life of a conductor is not a normal life. I don’t want to die as the conductor that had success,” Muti said, in a recent interview with NewCity Music. “I want to die like the person who saw this,” and then pointed to a picture of his recently purchased castle in Naples, Italy.

At 70-years-old, the indisputably great conductor plans to spend his days just rehearsing and relaxing, between Chicago and Naples, podium and patio. z

48 Strapline

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