Dolphins on the Canal Grande
Plus Vatican homophobia and a Tuscan stew
You might remember a year ago, at the start of the pandemic, people were circulating photos and videos of the pristine transformation of Venice’s canals. There were drone shots of glistening clean water, of birds flying and octopi nesting by the Rialto bridge. One of the most widely shared images professed to show dolphins. Without naming any names I definitely received a message from a close friend which said ‘Look at the dolphins! Look at the dolphins!’ and I shared it around myself. When it turned out the images were actually from Cagliari, the Sardinian capital, I did feel pretty silly, as I imagine my primary source did too. Well, if you haven’t seen already, I’m pleased to inform you there’s a pleasant coda to that tale. Dolphins have actually made their way to Venice, and yes, they’ve gone all the way up the Grand Canal. It’s uncanny isn’t it? Almost as if those pesky water mammals were in on the joke the whole time…
Venice has been on my mind a fair bit this week, not least because today is apparently the city’s 1600th birthday. I say birthday but, truth be told, nobody actually knows when the city was founded. It all took place around the turn of the 4th-5th century, when, as I understand it, groups of refugees fled from rampaging armies into the lagoon where, using rafts and sticks, they began building structures on and around the marshy islands. Venetians themselves date the city’s origins to 25 March 421 AD, when the first stone of the oldest church, San Giacomo di Rialto, was laid down. Unsurprisingly, given Venice is currently in lockdown, things have been pretty subdued this year. There was a digital mass at 11:00 am today apparently, and if you’re in Italy you can watch a documentary on RAI (check out Italy magazine for full details). Really, though, I just want to take the opportunity to make an obligatory plug for Jan Morris’s 1960 book about the city which is, easily to my mind, the best book about Italy ever written and where I got most of my half-baked history from. While we’re doing this, and for a taste of where Venice is at right now, I also recommend this short video, which was shot in April 2020, and which really captures the haunting beauty of the empty city.
With the exception of the ongoing vaccine wars - which I’m deliberately tuning out of for the time being - it has been a pretty slow news week. One story that did catch my eye, though, was this: a Vatican think tank called the Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has declared, once again, that they will never bless a homosexual marriage. I’m neither gay or a christian, but I do find the idea of the church actively encouraging discrimination within its own congregations an insult to LGBTQI+ people and to all other religious believers that have have a more progressive idea of community values. Back in 2013 I was pleased to see Bergoglio appointed as Pontiff. He seemed to me like a genuine reformist. His comments on this matter, though, that the ruling was “not intended to be a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite”, were, frankly, depressing at best. So much, alas, for the “cynicism busting pope.”
Arts and culture: The Wound
I don’t know about you but I’m dying to get to an art gallery. I guess it’s one of those things that you don’t realise is that important when there’s so much else going on, but which you immediately miss when that option’s taken away. Obviously, we’re lucky here in Florence, at least as far as renaissance art goes. Having said that, I do think the city has a better contemporary scene than it sometimes gets credit for. A few days ago I was reminded of this when I encountered the latest piece by JR, the French-born street artist, which is called ‘The Wound.’ It is, essentially, an enormous ‘slash’ along the side of the Palazzo Strozzi which reveals an ‘interior’ collage of the city’s most famous (currently closed) galleries. I’ve read a few interviews about this piece now, and JR has said he meant to intervene to create a fun reflection on our current state of separatedness; capturing both the pain of the lockdowns but also their emancipatory potential. Alexandra Korey, aka ArtTrav has written a good, in-depth review of the work, including a nice little profile of the mysterious artist himself, so do check that out. Her photos are great too.
The new releases in Italian translated fiction just keep coming this year, which is great to see. Personally, I’ve always had a suspicion that the language and culture here are better suited to short stories and poetry than longer prose fiction, but there are always exceptions. Natalia Ginzburg is one of them. Born in Palermo in 1916, Ginzburg was was one of the most important writers of the WWII era and perhaps the greatest critic of fascist machismo. She captured the spirit of that time, I think, like nobody else, and turned the domestic novel, the so-called kitchen sink drama, into art of the highest kind. Her masterpiece is, undoubtedly, Lessico famigliare (Family Sayings), which Jenny McPhee recently translated, though I must confess I haven’t read ‘Family’ or ‘Borghesia’ which are out in a dual edition next month. Being a NYRB release, though, it’s bound to be great. Here’s the link to pre-order.
Recipe of the week: Peposo dell'Impruneta
I wanted to cook a final stew this week before the weather gets too warm. I don’t eat beef often, so when I do I want to make sure it’s worth it. This dish is always worth it. Peposo is a massive chunk of meat, seasoned with a bucketload of pepper and cooked for hours, and I mean hours, in an entire bottle of wine until it falls apart. It’s old school Tuscany, by which I mean the recipe goes back to at least the 13th Century. In her book Florentine Emiko Davies claims Brunelleschi may have eaten this dish baked from the same kilns he and his workers used to make their raw building materials for the Duomo. I, for one, am ready to believe it. If you don’t have Davies’s book, you’ll see from this version by Rosemarie Scavo that there’s really nothing to it. You do need to get the absolute best quality beef, and the wine should really be chianti, which has a unique acidity that’s key to the final result. Other than that, though, if you can source those ingredients, you’re home and dry. Oh, and don’t even think of adding carrot or onion or celery or herbs. The pot is bubbling away for so long it really doesn’t need it.
That’s it for this week - as ever I do hope you enjoyed this instalment. If you haven’t already, please do follow the ‘Week in Italy’ Facebook page, or my twitter, for a few extra links and easy-access to the substack archive. If this email was forwarded to you, or you’re accessing on the web and would like to receive further updates, you can subscribe using this link below. Thanks!
About Me
My name is Jamie Mackay (@JacMackay) and I’m an author, editor and translator based in Florence. I’ve been writing about Italy for a decade for international media including The Guardian, The Economist, Frieze, and Art Review. I launched ‘The Week in Italy’ to share a more direct and regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds.
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