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Searching For Bernini

~ Musings on the Ecstasy of Italian Art and Culture

Searching For Bernini

Monthly Archives: April 2013

What a Mess! Understanding Italian Politics (Or Trying To)

20 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Politics, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Barack Obama, Beppe Grillo, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Giorgio Napolitano, Hillary Clinton, Italy, jorge mario bergoglio, la repubblica, Pier Luigi Bersani, politics, Politics of Italy, President of Italy, Rome, Silvio Berlusconi, United States

La Repubblica Website April 20, 2013

La Repubblica Website April 20, 2013

Bernini would probably shrug and say, “Eh? Che ci voi fare?”

Just before I arrived in Italy earlier this month, the country held an election that ended in chaos. From what I understand (and it’s no simple task to comprehend the machinations of Italian politics), no candidate or party received enough votes to win the majority, and so Italy hasn’t had a functional government for two months. (Yes, it took only two days to elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new pope, but a new head of state is another matter.)

 Beppe Grillo on the tribune of the Five Star Movement at Piazza Dante in Trento during the collection of signatures for the presentation of the lists for the political elections in 2013. (by Niccolò Caranti)

Beppe Grillo on the tribune of the Five Star Movement at Piazza Dante in Trento during the collection of signatures for the presentation of the lists for the political elections in 2013. (Photo by Niccolò Caranti)

I’m not going to pretend to be any kind of expert on this, so please forgive any errors, but here’s my attempt to figure out what the heck is going on.

An “Occupy Wall Street”–like anti-establishment group, the Five Star Movement, headed by comedian/actor Beppe Grillo, won a quarter of the votes in the election, and super-sleazemeister Silvio Berlusconi, incredibly, is still oozing and schmoozing around with his center-right coalition (called the People of Freedom…seriously).

Berlusconi (© Presidenza della Repubblica)

Berlusconi (© Presidenza della Repubblica)

This week, 1,007 electors in Parliament voted to pick a president, which apparently, in Italy, is kind of a ceremonial position. The real power of the government rests with the prime minister (most recently Pier Luigi Bersani, who resigned, so as of now there is none). The governmental process here is going just about as smoothly as the recent U.S. Senate non-vote on stricter background checks for gun buyers.

Obama and Napolitano

Obama and Napolitano

Today, on April 20, the vote stumbled through its third day; a number of candidates had withdrawn; some lawmakers had declined to vote or said they’d cast empty ballots in protest; and more than 100 lawmakers from the center-left refused to recognize their own candidate. The newspapers here said the country is “suspended in a void.” Ma aspetti! (But wait!) As I’m writing this, (almost 88-year-old) Italian president Giorgio Napolitano agreed to run again: Once more unto the breach! And he got elected. But what does that mean? (He was named a Life Senator in 2005, so, maybe now he’s a Life President.) Um….

During all of this, I’ve had several charged political conversations (or attempts at conversation, in Italiano) with my language teacher, Eva, at I Love IT school in Orvieto. She tried to give me some insight into Italian politics through the years after she pulled out magazine pictures of Berlusconi and Barack Obama for us to discuss as a speaking exercise.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speak together sitting at a picnic table April 9, 2009, on the South Lawn of the White House. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speak together sitting at a picnic table April 9, 2009, on the South Lawn of the White House. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

I stated that while it’s great that America elected an African-American president, I hoped that Hillary Clinton would decide to run in 2016. I told Eva I wasn’t surprised that we, in America, elected a black man before we elected a woman president—after all, black men got the vote in 1869, long before women—of any color—did in 1920. And I sincerely hope it won’t be 50 years before we elect a woman president.

Suffragists at the 1920 Republican convention.

American suffragists at the 1920 Republican convention.

Eva pointed out that Italian women couldn’t vote until 1946, when the end of World War II prompted the decision by the interim government (after the fall of Mussolini and Fascism) to hold a nationwide vote (introducing universal suffrage for the first time). Mussolini_wine

Italian provinces were united in 31 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates. Along with the election, voters were asked to decide if they wanted the country to become a true republic, or if they favored the return of a monarchy and Umberto II of Savoy, the last king of Italy.

Hanging chads in Florida during the presidential "election" 2000.

Hanging chads in Florida during the presidential “election” 2000.

Northern Italy voted for a republic. Southern Italy voted for a monarchy. According to Eva, the Republic won the referendum because votes from Sicily (aka the home of the Mafia), which would have tipped the decision over to the monarchists, mysteriously didn’t make it to Rome in time to be counted. (Hanging chads, anyone?)

At any rate, Italy became a democracy with elections held, er…every so often. Technically, members of parliament serve a maximum of five years. But a president (or maybe a prime minister?) can dissolve parliament and hold new elections if he chooses. Capisci? I don’t!

But ever since the February election ended essentially in a draw, the lawmakers have been haggling over whom to elect as president. Now that Napolitano has stepped up, who will be prime minister? And who’s really calling the shots? Uh….

Italian bread

Italian bread

Of course, things weren’t any better in Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s day, when the Popes ruled like royalty and the church’s power kept the people dependent on them, even for loaves daily bread. Voting by the people? Fuhgeddaboudit!

So, what did I discover during my search to understand Italian politics? In a week during which I read numerous articles and Facebook posts about the mess in Washington, D.C.—about how the U.S. Congress remains clutched in the grip of the NRA and won’t choose the sane path regarding stricter gun control (and that’s only the latest in a painfully long list of non-action and partisan rifts)—I learned, as someone who is trying on a new country for size, that there is a place like home. Governmental dysfunction seems to be universal.

As Tony Soprano—or Bernini—might have said, “Che ci voi fare?” (What are you gonna do?) Ciao!

Tony Soprano

Tony Soprano

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Dissimulation: An Italian Tradition?

12 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Italian Life, Orvieto

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baroque, Bernini, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Giordano Bruno, Italian, Italy, Orvieto, Paolo Sarpi, Rome, Travel

Venetian Carnival Mask Venetian Carnival Mask

“I wear a mask, and indeed must do so, for without it no one could live safely in Italy.”—Paolo Sarpi

While enjoying an aperitivo on Orvieto’s Corso the other night, I ran into my friend Toni DeBella, who was chatting with some visiting Americans—a very cool couple, Benjamin Orbach and Ashley Kushner. (Ben is the director of America’s Unofficial Ambassadors, dedicated to increasing the number of Americans who volunteer in the Muslim world, and author of Live From Jordan; Ashley works for the State Department.)

vino Over a glass of vino and several small dishes of complimentary snacks (gotta love that Italian tradition), we talked about their work and time they’d spent living and working in Israel. Toni described to them a situation in Italy that has frustrated an Israeli friend of hers, who lives in Rome. “The Italians won’t just come out and say something straight to the point,” her friend has complained. “They talk ’round and ’round and you never get a straight answer or opinion.”

Welcome to the land of dissimulation. Webster’s defines the word as “hiding under a false appearance.” Apparently Romans practiced it in Bernini’s day—the 17th century—as well, and probably long before then.

ttp://searchingforbernini.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/book.jpg”> Bernini biography

[/caption]My Italian isn’t yet good enough, and I haven’t had enough time here to experience this myself, but as I was reading a biography of my 400-year-old boyfriend, Bernini: His Life and His Rome (by Franco Mormando, Univ. of Chicago Press, 2011) in bed that night, I came to a section called, “I Beg You To Dissimulate,” and it explains what Toni’s friend has been up against.

//searchingforbernini.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/drottning_kristina_av_sverige.jpg”> Chistina, Queen of Sweden from 1633-54

Mo

[/caption]Mormando writes that Queen Christina of Sweden, one of Bernini’s powerful friends, said, “To be unable to dissimulate is to be unable to live.”

In the courts of Europe, and especially in Vatican-controlled Rome, no one would say what they really thought or meant for fear of harsh reprisals (in 1600, Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in the Campo dei Fiori for his opinions). There were even treatises published about the art of hiding your true meaning: “On Honest Dissimulation,” writes Mormando, was “the Baroque handbook par excellence on the art of survival in an age of divine-right, absolute (but nonetheless insecure and paranoid) government.” That’s going on my list for my “Searching for Bernini” quest! (See About.)

chingforbernini.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/galileo-arp-300pix.jpg”> Galileo

The risk

[/caption]The risks of speaking one’s mind, especially if it went against the general consensus of the times, were great: Galileo was one famous victim—What? You say the world revolves around the sun? Basta! To jail with you!

And think of the Inquisition. So thinkers and artists, like Bernini, who dealt with powerful, rich patrons, had to guard their tongues. One wrong word could destroy a career or even end a life. So Bernini learned to keep his true opinions to himself.

He was a master of deception in his art, as well—hiding how difficult it actually was to make marble look as pliable as flesh. His deception in his work resulted in an appearance of effortlessness.

But regarding speech, Mormando quotes from The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, by the artist’s son, Domenico, who wrote, “When it was not possible to praise a work [of art, Bernini] preferred to remain silent. When it was absolutely necessary for him to comment about a painting, he found ways to say nothing even while saying something.”

rnini.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/david_bernini_1623.jpg”> Bernini’s David, biting his lip (instead of his tongue!)

Ecco la! There you

[/caption]Ecco la! There you have it: Toni’s friend was merely experiencing a true Italian tradition, part of a long cultural history in which the wrong word could wind up sending the speaker to jail, or worse. In Rome today that wouldn’t happen (although I wouldn’t cross the mafia dons just to find out), but the art of the practice—like Bernini’s own works—hasn’t been forgotten. Che ci voi fare? (What are you gonna do?). Just go with it. And have pazienza!

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Orvieto

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Orvieto

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Bernini, Italy, Orvieto, Rome, Thomas Aquinas, Trattoria del Moro-Aronne, Umbria

Orvieto

In my search for Bernini (see About), I’ve begun in Orvieto, where I’m staying with friends. Orvieto is a beautiful Umbrian city on a hill. Actually, on a “tuff”—a name for the volcanic cliffs out of which the town rises above the countryside. It’s got a rich history, having been around since Etruscan times. The city flourished in the middle ages and is where Thomas Aquinas taught before moving to Rome to serve Pope Clement IV.

What it’s best recognized for today is the magnificent Duomo.

Orvieto Duomo

Orvieto Duomo

I’ll write more about the cathedral in a later post.

In my first week here, I strolled the streets of the town just to get a feel of Orvieto in Spring. The gente (people) walk out in the mornings and evenings, running errands or taking a passeggiata (walk about). What did I discover on my first “searching” outing? A lovely town, beginning to stir to life after a cold, dark winter. The tourists are arriving in greater and greater numbers, but there’s still a sleepy sense of quiet that this New Yorker is struggling embrace. I’m searching for Bernini, my passion, but what I’m finding in Orvieto is a sense of calm. Which, after my frenetic life in Manhattan, is probably a good thing. It’s a way to cleanse my creative palate as I begin my search….

A passeggiata:

Bienvenuti ad Orvieto!

Bienvenuti ad Orvieto!

The Corso Cavour is Orvieto’s main street, running East/West through the town. It’s where the cittadini (citizens) go to see and be seen.

Corso Cavour

Corso Cavour

It’s lined with shops and cafés, especially Umbrian specialties.

Orvieto salami and cheese shop

Orvieto salami and cheese shop

Biscuits and other goodies

Biscuits and other goodies

You might occasionally get the feeling you’re being watched…

Cinghiale: wild boar that is a Tuscan staple.

Cinghiale: wild boar that is a Tuscan staple.

Il gato del'Orvieto

Il  gatto del’Orvieto

But you can always duck into one of the many quiet alleyways.

Orvieto alley

Orvieto alley

Orvieto street

Orvieto street

Wandering to the west end of town, there’s a beautiful view over the tiled rooftops:

Orvieto rooftops

Orvieto rooftops

And the occasional hidden garden…

Garden at Palazzo Filippeschi built by the Simoncelli family

Garden at Palazzo Filippeschi built by the Simoncelli family

Returning toward my friends’ house (I’m staying with Linda Martinez and Steve Brenner, owners of the delightful Rome budget hotel, The Beehive), you pass through the Piazza della Reppublica and catch a glimpse of the 13th-century Torre del Moro, rising high above the town, and the bells of which peal out across the countryside each hour.

Torre del Moro

Torre del Moro

The Torre can be climbed for a magnificent view of the Umbrian countryside. And after scaling the 300 steps, a delicious reward awaits at the Trattoria del Moro-Aronne. I recommend the Umbricelli al Tartufo!

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