Italy

Saturday

Jane Brown

Bella vistas

Many moons ago when I went to Sissinghurst to ask Nigel Nicolson (late of this parish) if I could write about his mother, Vita Sackville-West, he raised his hands, and eyebrows, in horror, ‘Oh! Not another book about my mother!’ These two titles on Italian gardens may provoke a similar reaction, for there has been a recent run of revisiting via Charles Latham’s vintage Country Life photographs, Edith Wharton’s Edwardian musings and Georgina Masson’s 1961 classic, now revived. Many moons ago when I went to Sissinghurst to ask Nigel Nicolson (late of this parish) if I could write about his mother, Vita Sackville-West, he raised his hands, and eyebrows, in

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Wouter Weylandt’s Cortege

There was no racing in the Giro d’Italia yesterday. Instead the peloton rode at a funereal pace to honour Wouter Weylandt, the Belgian sprinter killed in a crash on Monday. Then Weylandt’s Leopard-Trek team-mates came to the front to lead the field into Leghorn. With them was Garmin-Cervelo’s Tyler Farrar, Weylandt’s best friend in the peloton. Watch from the 25 minute mark if you like: Dignified. Emotional. Perfect. And something you never want to see again. As I said on Monday, however, it’s amazing how rare these deaths are (and Weylandt, the pathologist reported, almost certainly died instantly). By my back-of-an-envelope calculations* the peloton completes about a million miles of

Monday

Alex Massie

Wouter Weylandt, 1984-2011

I was all set to write a post complaining that, as usual, the Anglophone press never pays enough attention* to the Giro d’Italia but for the saddest of all possible reasons, that won’t be the case tomorrow. Wouter Weylandt, pictured above winning the third stage of last year’s Giro, died this afternoon after crashing on a descent some 20km from the finish of today’s stage in Rapallo. CPR and atrophine injections and the arrival of an air ambulance weren’t enough to save the young Belgian. A race designed to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italy’s road to unification will now be remembered for something else. Weylandt is the fourth rider

Saturday

Charlotte Metcalf

Heavenly simplicity

Borgo Egnazia in Puglia opened last year and immediately gained a reputation as one of Europe’s most spectacular holiday resorts, not least thanks to its cookery school under the tutelage of the resort’s executive chef, Mario Musoni. Until recently Musoni had his own Michelin-starred restaurant outside Milan. When I asked why he didn’t seem unhappy to be uprooted from his hometown relatively late in life, he grinned and replied: ‘This is where the best food is. Milan’s vegetables come from down here. Puglia is the garden of Italy.’ Indeed, Borgo Egnazia is surrounded by orchards, olive groves and vegetables thrusting up from rich soil. There is also a daily supply

Hattie Ellis

Keeping it real | 9 April 2011

Italian food is about simplicity and seasonality, and in Sicily spring brings the fragrant lemon harvest – eagerly awaited in one corner of Devon. Hattie Ellis takes a trip to the mother country with a pioneer of real lemonade Do you remember when lemonade used to be just that harshly fizzy clear stuff you bought in big plastic bottles? Now you can find a fragrant, sweetly-sharp drink that’s the soft yellow of a summer’s evening. Often called Sicilian lemonade, it is similar to what you’d make at home. Add a slosh of gin, vodka or rum and it’s something else again. One of the best Sicilian lemonades is made by

Monday

Peter Hoskin

The rebels press on in Libya, but questions remain

As Nato takes full military responsibility in Libya, the rebels surge onwards in the direction of Tripoli. According to one of the group’s spokesmen, Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte — some 280 miles east of the capital — fell to their attacks last night; although there are reports, still, of explosions there this morning. In any case, the tidal shift that took hold at the beginning of the weekend is continuing. The rebels are now seizing ground, rather than ceding it. All this is, if not vindication for the Western leaders who pressed for a no-fly zone, then at least encouragement. It suggests that the one-two combination of Nato air support

Sunday

Daniel Korski

The coming war with Libya

If the West is not ready to intervene decisively against Colonel Ghadaffi, it needs to get ready for a post-revolutionary Libya, where the dictator and his bloodthirsty family seek revenge on pro-democracy activists and countries like Britain. Think of Ghadaffi’s previous record: the Lockerbie bombing, targeted assassinations like in the 1970s, and attacks on US soldiers in Germany. Libya could in future represent a threat to Britain akin to al Qaeda. So, the British government needs to think how it will deal with Ghadaffi MK II. Its policy should draw on past examples of containment and isolation. Libya’s neighbours will have to be incentivised to bolster European – and especially Italian

Saturday

Barry Unsworth

A reluctant country

The unification of Italy 150 years ago was a terrible mistake, according to David Gilmour, imposing a national state on a diverse collection of people with little sense of patria. But Barry Unsworth thinks it’s too early to cry failure David Gilmour begins his pursuit of this most elusive of quarries where all such pursuits should begin: with a close look at the physical features of the country, which have from the remotest times determined the pattern of its history, the repeated waves of invasion and settlement. Few countries have been more vulnerable. The coastline is enormously long, impossible to guard effectively; the northern rampart of the Alps has never

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Across Europe, students are protesting against the end of their entitlements

A month ago I found myself in the space of one week in two different countries, yet in the midsts of what felt like the same phenomenon: the political awakening of a new generation. In both London and Rome, students took to the streets to protest against government policies in numbers and in ways that those who graduated just a few years before would have found anachronistic, odd even. Unsurprisingly, given the historical, political and even emotional differences between Britain and Italy, there were differences between the protests. But as I walked the packed streets, listened to the protests, read their slogans, I heard similar arguments – particularly about the

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Rome smoulders

I’m visiting a stylish but tense Rome today, just as the Italian legislature has voted down a non-confidence vote in Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s mogul-cum-leader. “Rome is at war” my taxi driver told me and numerous demonstrations are going on. Ill Cavaliere, as Berlusconi is sometimes known, put in a strong defence of his record in the Senate and managed to coax, cajole and, some claim, bribe enough parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies to secure a small victory. He pulled not a Full Monty but a “Full Andreotti”, using every trick and tactic in the book (and some scribbled in the margin too). For now, Berlusconi survives and can resume

David Blackburn

What now?

The BBC is reporting that the embattled Silvio Berlusconi has survived confidence votes in both of Italy’s Houses. The vote in the second House is understood to have been particularly close; apparently, there were just a couple of votes in it.   Theoretically, Berlusconi could soldier on. But his governing coalition is extremely fragile, and Berlusconi’s credibility is surely irretrievable. That said, the memory of Romano Prodi’s debacle of a government casts a long shadow and the opposition left remains totally disorganised by all accounts. Plus, Berlusconi was expected to lose both votes, particularly the second, so he now has a little momentum. Will it be a case of better

Saturday

Matthew Dennison

UnEnglish triumph

Sometimes an exhibition does what it says on the tin. The Pre-Raphaelites and Italy, the Ashmolean’s first major show post-revamp, is such an exhibition. Sometimes an exhibition does what it says on the tin. The Pre-Raphaelites and Italy, the Ashmolean’s first major show post-revamp, is such an exhibition. This fidelity is simultaneously its strength and its weakness. In a dazzling and far-reaching show, the exhibition organisers ultimately leave us questioning the nature and meaning not only of Pre-Raphaelitism but also of 19th-century concepts of Italy. This may be part of the exhibition’s achievement. It does not make for the easy ride exhibition-goers have come to expect from the Pre-Raphaelites. In

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Defending the Defence: Italian Edition

As the build-up to the World Cup continues, my latest item at Goal Post defends Italy and the Italian way of playing football. Some of this, I confess, is based on sentiment. If Scotland cannot prevail – and it seems that some techinicality has made that more than usually impossible this year – then Italy are the european team I tend to support. Perhaps it’s because I spent the first year of my life in Rome that this is the case. No memories of that time, of course, but some bond of sentiment nonetheless. Anyway, there’s a magnificent austerity to Italian football sometimes and, while one might not want to

Saturday

Alex Massie

The Nobility of Defeat

  As you know, it’s Ivan Basso in the picture here and on Saturday, for the first time and on the penultimate stage, in this year’s Giro d’Italia he will wear the race leader’s Maglia Rosa. He deserves it too. On the Zoncolan and then yesterday on the Mortirolo pass Basso has been the pride of the field in this year’s superb Giro. Increasingly I rather suspect that the Giro is a better and, in some ways, tougher race than the Tour de France. The frequently terrible weather conditions play a part in this but so too do the unforgiving Italian mountains. In any case this has been a Giro

Saturday

Alex Massie

Forza Evans!

Cadel Evans wins Stage 7 of the 2010 Giro d’Italia in Montalcino. Photo: Luk Beines/AFP/Getty Images. What with being deprived of, for various reasons*, Contador, Menchov, Valverde, Pellizotti, di Luca, the Schleck brothers, Armstrong and Cancellara you could have been forgiven for thinking that this year’s Giro d’Italia might be a disappointment. Not a bit of it. In fact, I wonder if these days the Giro doesn’t often provide better racing than the Tour de France. It certainly did today. On paper the stage from Carrara to Montalcino was interesting but not obviously threatening even though it included some 20km over the Tuscan strade bianche – that is, gravel and

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Who’s Afraid of a Hung Parliament?

So it seems you have to vote Conservative to accept the party’s invitation to join the government of Great Britain? Who knew? Tory warnings of the dire consequences of a hung parliament are understandable but, I suspect, unfortunate. There is little evidence that the electorate believes that a hung parliament will be a disaster, far less than they can be cajoled into thinking that they’re letting Britain down if they don’t vote Conservative. And that, my friends, is the underlying message sent by the Tories’ blitz against a hung parliament. A hung election might not be ideal but it might also be a fitting end to this exhausted, depressing parliament.

Saturday

Daniel Korski

The Vatican plays the “Jewish Card”

Speaking in a Good Friday homily, with the Pope listening, the Pontiff’s personal preacher, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, likened the drive by the victims of abuse to seek justice from the Vatican, whose priests committed the sexual crimes, with the persecution of Jews. Victims’ groups and Jewish organisations have said it was inappropriate to liken the discomfort of the Catholic Church to hundreds of years of violence and abuse. But it is more than inappropriate. It shows either an ignorance of the history of anti-Semitism; a desire to relativise the Holocaust; a near-pathological disregards for other people’s suffering; or a wilful aspiration to shift the blame away from the Vatican. The

Saturday

David Blackburn

The Italian Right prepares for life without Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi has said that he’s “the most persecuted man in the history of the world and the history of men”, despite having “spent millions on judges”, before checking himself and saying “lawyers”. Now I can think of several other candidates for this unfortunate accolade, but there’s no doubt that the loss of his immunity has left Berlusconi on the rack and facing imminent legal proceedings. Even if Berlusconi starts spending millions on judges it’s unlikely to save his political career. If Patrizia D’Addario’s more sordid disclosures are credible then Berlusconi is used to a little persecution, but the Right in Italy is not used to life without Berlusconi. Berlusconi’s success rested

Friday

Alex Massie

The Importance of Being Silvio

President Barack Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama welcome Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the G20 dinner on September 24, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. My latest piece for the Daily Beast takes a look at the grimly entertaining Silvio Berlusconi: Were you to be so unwise as to combine the political shamelessness of Mitt Romney, the personal morality of John Edwards, the ego of Rudy Giuliani, and performance art that is Sarah Palin’s career on the national stage, you would create a monster that approximates, but still cannot quite match, Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian prime minister, who arrived in the United States this week to

Wednesday

Juliet Townsend

Acute observations

In the 1950s, when I was 14, I spent a winter fortnight with my parents at the Villa Mauresque, which Somerset Maugham had lent to them to entertain the recently widowed Rab Butler and his daughter, Sarah. It was an uneasy holiday setting for two teenage girls. As I wrote a little apprehensively in my diary, ‘this house is lovely, but rather fragile,’ a concern which was borne out the next day when, during a pillow fight, I knocked over a full jug of orange juice with disastrous results for the immaculate upholstery. Never was a house more thoroughly permeated by the spirit of its absent owner, who looked down