The Storm Before the Calm
Plus, some good news for Italian journalism, and a fresh take on Pinocchio
For months, international commentators have been fixated on the apparently inevitable far-right take over which Italy is said to be facing. Last weekend’s local elections, in particular, were billed to be a death-knell for the left and liberals, a prelude to the collapse of the Draghi government and, for some, a portent of the collapse of democracy itself. Thankfully, in the end, nothing of the sort happened. The Partito Democratico’s lists won in (almost) all of the major cities that went to the polls: which is to say Milan, Naples, Turin & Bologna. Indeed, in Bologna, Matteo Lepore, the left-wing candidate, won over 60% of the vote. In Naples, a PD-Five Star alliance stormed ahead, leaving the Lega+Fratelli d’Italia trailing at a humiliating 21%. In rural areas too, which often lean to the right, progressive movements performed well. Rimini, Ravenna, Siena, Assisi, Salerno and Gallipoli all elected PD-affiliated lists, as did numerous smaller comuni. Yes, there are exceptions. The centre-right won the Presidential race in Calabria, Veneto came out almost unanimously for the Lega and there were some awful neo-fascist rallies around and about. Generally speaking, though, these were low-key elections, with a high abstention rate. Their main impact - if anything - has been to disrupt Salvini and Meloni’s momentum. The fact, then, that the Guardian decided to lead their coverage with the headline “Rachele Mussolini wins most votes in Rome city council election” is baffling to say the least (she was not elected mayor, as it might sound at a glance, but obtained a total of 8000 votes for a minor seat). Please, let’s not give these people more airspace than they deserve — especially when, however tentatively, the political wind seems to be shifting.
More good news: this time for readers of Italian language journalism. On Monday, the weekly global affairs magazine Internazionale announced they will be launching a new publication dedicated specifically to Italian politics and culture. The magazine, which will be called l’Essenziale, will be edited by the same team that handle the international edition, with the support of a new network of freelance contributors. Obviously one of the main tasks of the venture will be to offer-up a regular (critical) overview of the news, but they’ll also - apparently - be providing ample space for original investigative pieces, long reads and reviews. There’s very little of this kind of thing in Italy (with the notable exception of L’Espresso) so it’s genuinely encouraging to hear someone is working to fill the void. According to the press release, the print edition will be on newsstands every Saturday, starting November, and there will be online subscription options too. I’ll almost certainly be translating some of their pieces or at the very least linking to their sources in the months ahead. So watch this space - and if you read Italian do check-out the editor Giovanni De Mauro’s presentation of the project here.
I would be remiss not to mention a more concerning nugget of news here. Last Friday Mimmo Lucano, the ex mayor of Riace was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the apparent crimes of “abuse of office, extortion, embezzlement, auction disruption, ideological falsehood and aiding and abetting illegal immigration.” For a decade Lucano was at the forefront of a social experiment in integration and community-building in which he provided houses and residency documents to non-EU migrants that moved to his isolated constituency in Calabria. The project was deemed sufficiently successful that Amnesty International and other associations even put forward a nomination for him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2018, however, during the days of the Lega-M5S government, when Matteo Salvini was Minister of the Interior, the mayor’s methods were called into question and a formal procedure opened against him. You can read more about the Riace experiment on Eurozine. It was by no means a perfect model. Whatever you think of it, though, it surely seems unjust that a man like Lucano now faces incarceration while Salvini - who is responsible for hundreds of deaths, and who has been accused of ‘kidnapping’ migrants - walks free. NGOs and charities have, understandably, expressed shock and outrage at the verdict, and I for one hope they succeed in their appeals for a reduced sentence as soon as possible.
Arts and culture: feeling bookish
I’ve got a couple of literary plugs to make this week: first I want to flag up a little racconto by the Roman author Palmira de Angelis which I translated last year and which has just been published in the latest edition of World Literature Today. The story ‘La Signorina Rubi’ is an intense, lyrical work of prose which explores the life, desires and modest artistic ambitions of a young woman living alone in the city. In a sense, though, Rubi is not alone at all, because her identity is so intimately and unusually entwined with poetic world of the hermetic-crepuscular writers (most notably Guido Gozzano who she has admired since she was a girl). De Angelis’s Italian is whimsical and breezy, but formally quite rigid. I tried not to disrupt that too much during the inevitable violence of the translation process. The result is an English text that perhaps feels a little unsettled - with quite dramatic jumps in tone - but I hope my rendering does justice to the original and that the reader will appreciate what she was trying to achieve with this technique. Check it out and the rest of the edition here.
Another translation story: this time about a new edition of Pinocchio by Anna Kraczyna and the Economist’s John Hooper. ‘Why would anyone need such a text?’, you might well ask, especially considering there are already over twelve English editions of Pinocchio in print. Well, according to the authors, the current canonical editions have, without exception, served to drain the original text of its Italianicity by Anglicising names, ironing out small Tuscan-specific details, sidestepping nuances of dialect and so on. Their project, then, is an effort to reclaim the spirit of the original; particularly as something distinct from the animated Disney cartoon that most are familiar with. As they write in this piece for LitHub, “The gap between the way Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio is perceived in the land of its origin and the view taken of it by speakers of English is vast. In Italy, critics regard it as a masterpiece: one of the greatest works in the literary canon; a book that has played a significant role in the development of the Italian language; one rich in subtle allusions and artful contrivances.” Their goal, in other words, is not dissimilar to that of Matteo Garrone in his wonderfully dark film adaptation: to demonstrate, once again, that Pinocchio is far more than just a children’s story.
Recipe: gnochetti with pesto bianco ligure
Bored of the usual pesto genovese? Worked your way through the most common variations, with almond or pistachio or tomato? Well, this might be up your street. Pesto bianco is a traditional recipe from Liguria, and one of the star dishes of an old peasant tradition once called ‘white cuisine’. The base of the sauce is ricotta and walnut, which might make it sound rather bland. In fact, it’s anything but. During the emulsion process the dairy and nuts combine in a magical fashion, giving the sauce an unexpectedly deep autumnal, woody flavour. The presence of fairly large quantities of fresh marjoram, meanwhile, ensures the pesto is fragrant and unusually perfumed. I tossed the sauce through some small gnocchetti for a quick midweek dinner, but it would also go well with short pasta like penne or trofie. Whatever you do I highly recommend sticking with Domenica Marchetti’s version over at Italy Magazine which is an absolute winner.
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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