I promised I would have avoided the usual commonplaces of those who, with a smirk or a loud laugh, after hearing “I come from Italy”, tries to mock Italians not-so-softly saying “pasta, pizza, pasta, pizza”. I feel sorry to let you know that I completely agree with these people. Italy is, in fact, pizza, pasta and mandolin. Behind those clichés there’s the hidden identity of a country whose extended culture, history, art, traditions, villages, views, people and deep divisions/communities are always prominent and shouted out all over the world.
I’m going to start from this; from people and places. I am going to talk about who, after being exiled, went all around Italy on foot, walking for 1028 kilometres, while mentally composing the well- known verses of one of the most magnificent works that humanity has ever held in her hand: The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia, in Italian). I’m going to recall and make you travel through some of the cities where Dante Alighieri found shelter, after being sent away from his beloved Florence (Firenze). So, while the poet walks away through the stony roads, I’m going to walk backwards through them and I will enter the unique treasure chest which is Tuscany. Whenever I think about this Region I immediately recall its sunsets over the multicoloured countryside and over the Island of Elba’s sea during summertime. I still feel the clear air you usually sense the day after a downpour, when you subconsciously have the raw feeling of reaching every single thing you can lay your eyes on thanks to the clearness around you. Anatole France, a famous French writer, used to say that there’s not in the world a more artificial-like and admirable landscape than the one surrounding Florence. He describes it as a masterpiece, the result of handmade wisdom; it took generations of architects, bricklayers, artists, woodsmen, gardeners to build such a perfect balance of villages, regal houses, vineyards, olive tree gardens and forests. It’s just a Tuscany’s intrinsic characteristic: the ability to harmonize contradictions. The deep blue of the sea intertwines with the green of the coast, the timid yellow and the chestnut brown signature of the earth. Dante stands as the doors of Francesco della Scala’s royal court in Verona slowly open in front of him. I won’t stop underneath Juliet’s balcony - illustrated by the extraordinary William Shakespeare - like Romeo used to do. I will just venture into the intersected alleys that, at some point, are divided by the river Adige and then reunited under the Ponte bridge, right before reaching the Arena. Verona’s greatness isn’t found in its geography, but in the core of the amphitheatre. Here, past and present times coexist and they tie people up through the most disparate art forms. Gladiators’ fights accompanied by their own shouts have been converted into the notes of the philharmonic theatre, of the opera and the concerts. The bleachers are encircled in an oval shape, which, during the night time, releases, from the arches, rays of lights that flood into the city and electrify it. After greeting Francesco della Scala, Dante goes back into the city that meant pure enthusiasm and curiosity to him, along with friendships and inspirations of any sort: Bologna. His presence under the Donkey Tower (Torre degli Asinelli) has been in the quality of university student first and then as an exile. The red, huge and erudite Bologna. The colour is conferred by the buildings’ small red bricks and the ones located on the roofs in the city centre. The shape is given by the flavours of her tasty cuisine. Her erudition is gifted by her millennial university tradition.
During his stay at Guido Novello’s, Dante will also go to Venice (Venezia) - as his messenger - where he contracted malaria, the one which brought him to death and to finding back the inner peace he had been chasing for so long. Venice, they call it the city-museum. It’s a city that lives just like all the others, that had to go through an unusual setting: the lagoon. There’s not a single activity or function she has to carry out that is not influenced by the presence of the water. It has to be observed and analysed as a concentration of answers to a set of problems due to the unique and characteristic environment, not like any other. It’s a city that dictates a clear hierarchy, defined by the canals’ cracks, alongside which the rivers’ flow interchanges the force of the seas. It owns two seas and two souls: the Adriatic and the tourists’ sea, that consume the city in the same way but with different outcomes. Then we can find the typical “shop window Venice” and the “Venetians’ Venice”. The second one is usually hidden, is more silence and neat, parallel and contemporary to the first more-chaotic-and-dispersive one. Both of them share an unique beauty.
After greeting Dante from his grave in Ravenna, I will move on to a last and beloved stop-over: Napoli (Naples). A huge shake given by the energy of the most chaotic, passional, difficult, bitter and amazing city I’ve ever been to. It’s not because of the four people on a motor scooter without wearing even one safety helmet or the almost stolen bags while someone’s walking; not even the trash or the traffic. These are not the right things to describe Naples, this is not Naples. These are just some of the dark points of view. My reality and my guilty pleasure is the Mergellina’s seafront, the morning after eating a babà (typical dessert from Naples) just bought on the street, walking until reaching Castel dell’Ovo and then climbing over the top to observe the Vesuvio, while it hugs the sea and forms a salty lake. It’s an espresso on the terrace of Miranapoli in Posillipo, peaking on the tuff coast, while a smiley face embraces the burning sun. It’s the scraped knees, during summer, on the paving made of petrified lava, due to the flat smooth sandals. It’s the queue at the pizza place at 10 pm. It’s the screaming and shouting coming from the fishermen’s wives at the fish market in the historic centre. It’s S. Gregorio Armeno, well-known for the Christmas cribs’ workshops. It’s the chaos spreading all around because of car horns and the following impossibility to cross the street. It’s the Circumvesuviana, who doesn’t follow any schedule and doesn’t have a timetable. But my reality might not be the same as everyone else’s. The volcano (Vesuvio) involves two different realities: the privileged one of the luckiest people and the devastated one of the unfortunate ones, who, for desperation, tie to organized crimes, obscuring the shiny part of the city. Here, my trip through some Italian locations, stops. There are many other places and cities we should stop by to get easily mesmerized, because the magic power my Country has is being able to leave you breathless.
Comments