On 19th September
1974, I set out from University College London bound for the Mezzogiorno in
order to start my field research for a PhD in geomorphology. Hence, today marks
the 40th anniversary of my involvement with Italy, something that has grown and
diversified over the years.
I am now bilingual in
Italian and able to give as good as I get in three dialects. I am familiar with
147 of the 150 largest cities and towns of Italy, and the three I have never
visited (Vibo Valentia, Iglesias and Carbonia) are small and remote. I know all
20 regions and 109 provinces (my favourite place is Sabbioneta, followed
closely by Montepulciano—but don't tell anyone!). Twenty-four years ago I wrote
and published my first book in Italian, which appeared in hardback in Bologna.
I now have family and property in Italy and a long experience of working with
and within Italian universities, schools and other institutions from the far
North to the Deep South and islands. For five years I occupied the position of
Scientific Director in the Region of Lombardy's Advanced School of Civil
Protection. In past years I have had a (rather disjointed) dialogue with the
current Prime Minister and I have a rich but mixed experience of appearing in
Italy's mass media.
For the past 700
years there has been nothing on Earth quite like Italy. Italians regard their
nation with an odd mixture of pride and shame. It has given the world cultural
riches beyond anyone's wildest imaginings, but it has also consistently defied
logic. In short, it has disappointed as much as it has inspired. Nevertheless,
many of the stereotypes about Italy are no more than that. It is a country of
individualists, and one that tolerates individualism more than do most other
nations, but it is capable of extraordinary feats of organisation and
collective effort. In the applied part of my field, civil protection, it has
created the best models and produced the greatest synergies. Yet one consistent
trait in Italy is that it is nearly perfect, but, in the modern world,
the utter inability to remove that word 'nearly' leaves it hanging on the brink
of great achievement. A Swiss professor of pathology once told me that, in his
opinion, Italy is the place where genius is closest to madness. He was from the
German-speaking part of his country and his view was entirely consistent with
the Swiss love of order and predictability (Canton Ticino, where they speak a
sort of Italian, is regarded by some Swiss as the Alabama of Switzerland). But
perhaps he had a point.
One effect of the
individualism is that, more than any other country, Italy is the land of
diversity. It is usually amusing to watch the incomprehension between
northerners and southerners, at least if it is benign rather than unpleasant,
as they struggle unsuccessfully to understand each other's cultures. It is
disorientating to ask for directions in Val Venosta only to find that one's
German-speaking interlocutor pretends not to understand any Italian—and yet on
the other side of the valley they speak Ladin (a mountain language) and no
German. It is amusing to see the disdain that the people of Livorno have for the
inhabitants of nearby Pisa, and how that is represented in the Vernacoliere,
their monthly satirical magazine, or the haughtiness of the Florentines when
they regard the Sienese, and the reciprocation of the latter. Occasionally, the
safety valve lifts (on social media, perhaps) and out boils all the suspicion,
incomprehension, distrust and disdain that each city state, or
pocket-handkerchief territory, harbours for the rest of the country. I had an
early introduction to this when, in 1974, I was taken to see a self-proclaimed
'republic' in the hills of the Province of Matera founded by a man who fell out
with the administrations of the towns of Tricarico and Grassano and set up his
own fiefdom at the crossroads half way between them. None of the local inhabitants
thought this unusual.
It is always
interesting to see how Italians regard the British. The official ties between
the two countries are much less significant than the informal ones. The United
Kingdom is a sort of alter ego to Italy. It is not always admired, and not
always respected, but it is never ignored. Italian knowledge of Britain is
generally limited to London, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and Plymouth (perhaps
I should add the indigenous Italian community of Bedford, but it is in danger of
being eclipsed by Asian Britons). This represents a sort of colonisation
attempt, and the rest of the country is hic sunt leones. Indeed, Italian
journalists have written books to explain Britain to Italians, from which one
would think that there is no inhabited land north of the Severn-Trent
line—works that are almost as bad as the Brits' literary efforts to explain
Italy (it cannot be done). I once met an Italian in Dorchester, who was
completely disorientated and trying to act like some brave pioneer. I did also
once meet one who toured the Scottish Highlands in a Fiat cinquecento
(the original model), but that was regarded as equivalent to going the wrong
way across the Sahara Desert.
My grandfather worked
for Negretti & Zambra, the Clarkenwell instrument makers, which was
eventually swallowed up by another British company—Marconi. In 1944, my father
did a stint in the Italian Navy aboard ships such as the Reale Incrociatore G.
Garibaldi, and the minesweepers Indomito and Fenice. Fascism
had collapsed and they used these ships in British convoys. It all amounted to
a certain predisposition to italianesimo, acquired, I suppose, by
cultural osmosis. The dilemma of those of us who are propelled into new
cultural domains is that we can never completely abandon our roots and never
completely assimilate the new environment. For instance, I can never understand
why there have to be at least three chat shows on Italian television
every night of the year, nor why they always consist of a table full of people
shouting at each other and not listening to what anyone else says. After a long
sojourn in Italy, I once interrupted a speaker at a round table discussion in
Germany. The consensus was that I should abjectly beg forgiveness of all
participants. In Italy, he who shouts loudest wins—probably using a mobile
phone in a crowded place. And, by the way, on one occasion, I heard a phone play
a can-can during a benediction by the Bishop of Prato. Thank God it wasn't a
funeral!
In 40 years some
habits die hard. Weeks ago I overdid it on Amaro Lucano, an after-dinner
liqueur that my father once described as "alcoholic syrup of figs",
referring to the laxative he was given as a child. It was pure nostalgia, as I
did my PhD research on soil erosion that eats away at the ground around the
Amaro Lucano factory at Scalo Pisticci in the Basento Valley of Basilicata, southern
Italy, at least 86 km from the nearest city. Forty years of momentous change have passed, but at least Amaro Lucano
is the same, although possibly a little watered down compared to how it was in
1974, or 1894?
