The Italians (52 page)
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El Mahroug, who also styled herself
Ruby Rubacuori,
or “Ruby the Heart-stealer,” was above the age of sexual consent in Italy when she attended the Bunga Bunga sessions, but below the minimum age at which she could be paid for sexual services. Berlusconi was found guilty in 2013 of paying a juvenile prostitute and taking advantage of his official position to coerce the police. In 2014, he was aquitted of both charges on appeal. At the time of writing, it is unclear whether the prosecution intends to lodge a further appeal with the supreme court.
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In fact, Aristotle never wrote anything of the sort. He put it as a question: “Now the first thing which presents itself to our consideration is this, whether it is best to be governed by a good man, or by good laws?”
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This point can be overstressed. The same is true of German
schön
and of other adjectives in other languages. But it is nevertheless striking how often
bello
and
bella
are deployed in Italian. It is not perhaps strange that
bella
should be used in the same way as “love” or “honey” in addressing a woman. But the use of
bello
is worthy of remark. Whereas, in addressing another man, a Briton might use “mate,” an American “buddy” and a Spaniard “macho” or
“tío,”
an Italian will use the equivalent of “handsome.”
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Italians first developed a taste for whiskey in the
Dolce Vita
days of the early 1960s. Until the early 1990s, they were among the world’s most avid consumers of malts, notably Glen Grant, which was bought by the Campari group in 2005. By then, however, overall consumption had begun to fall. Italy remains the world’s fifth-largest market for malts, but the most recent figures show that sales are a third of what they were at their peak.
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From
me ne frego
(“I don’t give a damn”). See also
here
.
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It was never used, however, and was only prescribed as the sentence for the assassination, or attempted assassination, of a pope.
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Dr. Keys, who devised and gave the initial letter of his surname to the K-ration, the small but notorious food pack given to American soldiers in the Second World War, took his own advice. He lived for many years in southern Italy and died at the age of one hundred.
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Italy also spent the least of all developed countries on fixing the millennium bug. But that proved to be a shrewd decision.
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The actor in question was Franca Faldini, his wife.
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Catenaccio
was not, in fact, invented by Italians. It was first used by the Swiss national team and for several years was known by the French word
verrou.
It entered Italy by way of the Milan team Inter, which used
catenaccio
to win the league title, known as the
scudetto
(“little shield”), in the 1951–1952 season.
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The use of the Italian word
casino
is one of the subtler traps awaiting English speakers. With the accent (and stress) on the final syllable,
casinò
refers to a gaming palace. Without it,
casino
refers to a brothel.
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The Venetians did not, however, invent the concept. German rulers had been confining Jews to particular areas of their cities since the eleventh century.
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Two Italian Jews, Emilio Segrè and Franco Modigliani, also won Nobel Prizes after fleeing to the United States to escape Fascist persecution.
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Before Rome was occupied, first Turin and then Florence served as the seat of government.
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The choice has since been extended to include approved charities.
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See below, Chapter 19.
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The leader of the original group, Andrea Riccardi, went on to become a university professor. He was a minister in the nonparty government of Mario Monti from 2011 to 2013, responsible for overseas development and racial integration.
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The first tarot packs appeared in Italy in the fifteenth century. But they were used for playing games. It was not until more than three centuries later, in France, that they were employed for divination.
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Altogether, nineteen women partisans were awarded the Medaglia d’Oro al Valore Militare.
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“Witch” seems to have been a mistranslation into English of the Italian
versiera,
the term for the sheet or rope used to trim a sail and the one Agnesi used to describe the curve.
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Identified, though not by Goethe, as Princess Teresa Ravaschieri di Satriano.
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Magnani won the 1955 Academy Award for best actress for her performance in
The Rose Tattoo.
Loren was awarded the same Oscar six years later for her role in an Italian-language film, Vittorio De Sica’s
La ciociara
(shown in English-speaking countries under the title of
Two Women)
.
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The equivalent in Italian of “macho” or “male chauvinist.”
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The most famous former
velina
is Elisabetta Canalis, who had an unusually long run on
Striscia la notizia,
from 1999 to 2002, before embarking on a career as an actor. She became internationally famous when she was the girlfriend of Hollywood star George Clooney.
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Not that Italy is the only country in which women’s bodies are exploited in the media. No Italian newspaper has ever published anything similar to the topless “Page Three” shots in British tabloids.
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Born Madonna Louise Ciccone. Her grandparents Gaetano and Michelina Ciccone emigrated to the United States from Pacentro, a mountain village in Abruzzo.
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An archaic honorary title for a woman that was used in the same way that “Mistress” once was in English. Mona Lisa is correctly Monna Lisa.
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One of the few areas in which Italy was given a high rating was sex education. But, as several gynecologists and obstetricians pointed out, that was no thanks to the state. Their own professional body had taken the initiative to promote sex education in the classrooms. Italy remains one of the few countries in Europe where it is not a mandatory subject at school.
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Born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero.
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Weirdly, homosexual acts had until then been illegal in the north of the new kingdom, yet legal in the south.
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Her real name is Vladimiro Guadagno. Though physically male, Luxuria has long lived as a woman and prefers to be referred to as such. Her use of the women’s restrooms in parliament elicited protests from some of her fellow (if that is not too inappropriate a term in this context) women legislators.
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Italy has maintained its position as a mobile telephone operator’s heaven, notwithstanding the introduction of more sophisticated handsets. By 2010, according to figures compiled by the market research company Nielsen, 28 percent of Italians had bought a smartphone, compared with 17 percent of Americans and only 12 percent of Britons. Interestingly, the country with the second-highest level of smartphone penetration was Spain, another Latin nation with a largely oral culture and strong family ties.
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There are, however, two important exceptions here:
la mia mamma
and
il mio papà
(or
babbo)
, even though you say
mia madre
and
mio padre. The article is also used for plural constructions, such as le mie sorelle (“my sisters”).
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In the case of a couple with only one child, the proportions are one-third each for spouse and child, leaving the remaining one-third to be disposed of by will.
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The late Giulio Andreotti, a former Christian Democrat prime minister who wielded a vote in the upper house as a senator for life, cast the decisive ballot in a no-confidence vote. According to one version, Andreotti, arguably the Vatican’s most loyal friend in Italian politics, was given his instructions by an envoy from across the Tiber early one morning at Mass in a church in the center of Rome.
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In 1987 the Italian government claimed that Italy’s GDP had overtaken that of Britain in absolute terms—an event that came to be known as
il sorpasso
(“the overtaking”). Some economists challenged the claim at the time, but the dispute over the authenticity of the
sorpasso
gradually lost relevance as it became clear that Italy had fallen back in relative terms. By 2011, almost twenty-five years later, Italy’s GDP per capita at purchasing power parity as calculated by the International Monetary Fund was 16 percent lower than that of the UK.
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Giovanni was later made a cardinal—at the age of sixteen. He died of malaria two years later.
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A member of a uniquely Italian profession whose practitioners combine some of the attributes of surveyors and architects, but without having to attain anything like the same educational qualifications. If you have ever wondered why, in a country renowned for its beautiful architecture, there are so many hideous modern buildings on the outskirts of towns, it is because in many instances their design was entrusted to a
geometra.
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The colloquial term for the intelligence services, both military and civilian.
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“Favorite team” is the only—but hopelessly inadequate—translation into English of
squadra del cuore
. It does not even begin to convey the passion, anguish and blind, unquestioning loyalty that is wrapped into the Italian term, which translates literally as “team of the heart.”
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In a different context
stare insieme
means “to go steady.”
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See below, Chapter 16.
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If you have ever wondered why the national sporting representatives of a country with a red, white and green flag all wear blue, there is a reason: it is the color of the House of Savoy, which provided Italy with its kings until after the Second World War. Italy’s footballers wore blue shirts for the first time for a game against Hungary in 1911. Even after Italy became a republic, the
azzurro
uniform remained.
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Literally meaning “small shield,” the term refers to the league championship. The winners acquire the right to wear on their shirts a little shield bearing the Italian colors throughout the following season.
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The top division in the league—and another of Fascism’s contributions to Italian football—it was inaugurated in 1929.
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A petiole is the stalk that attaches a leaf to a stem. I leave it to the botanists among my readers to judge whether it can also be used in the context of fruit—or whether Brera was just using an obscure term because that was what was expected of him.
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A latecomer to the league, AS Roma was formed in 1927 by the merger of three existing teams. The capital had a special significance for the Fascists because it was the center of the empire they sought to emulate. It was felt its soccer team ought to be worthy of the heirs of the Caesars—an example of the way that politics and football entwine in Italy.
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The final
s
is correct. The term came from French.
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A rare exception, who inspired pride, respect and even a degree of affection among fans, was the charismatic, shaven-headed Pierluigi Collina, who refereed the 2002 World Cup final.
