What next for the PD?
Plus a postcard from Kenya’s Little Italy and a biography of Machiavelli
There’s no escaping Covid-19 news this week I’m afraid. Case rates, as you can see here, are now hovering at around 20,000 per day, and Italy’s politicians still seem unsure as to how to confront this worrying spike. According to the newspaper La Repubblica a few options are on the table: automatic localised red zones based on positivity rates; a new 19:00 curfew; stricter restrictions at weekends. A national lockdown is not off the table yet either, in order to get vaccination coverage up. Regarding this point, Roberto Speranza, the health minister, is still claiming that all Italians will be inoculated by the end of the summer. This seems an overly optimistic target to me (given the coverage is still only around 6 million). More importantly, though, when one considers the heavy toll lockdowns are taking on the economy, mental health, schooling, and the arts, to name just a few areas, I think the government must at least do more to explain how any such measures would tangibly benefit the vaccine rollout. A decision is expected tomorrow afternoon, though I’m afraid it’s unlikely to be conclusive.
Is Mario Draghi a vaccine nationalist? OK this might be taking it a little far, but it’s a fair question I think, especially given the new PM’s vocal opposition to the EU’s pandemic management strategy. Last week, on a conference call with Ursula von der Leyen, Draghi insisted that Italy will break rank with the Commission’s protocol and follow the UK’s example by administering a larger number of first doses than EU norms, while increasing the gap before follow-up appointments. Over the past week Draghi has also halted exports of 250,000 AstraZeneca shots which were due to go to Australia, in order to cover domestic shortfall. More controversially still he has approved an agreement which will allow the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to be produced in Italy starting in the late summer. To be absolutely clear, there is no immediate question about the efficiency of this vaccine compared with the US-European competitors. A study by the medical journal The Lancet, which is categorically not a Kremlin propaganda organ, states it has 91.6% efficacy and no unique or unusual side effects [source]. Nevertheless, the fact that Italy will be the first EU country to produce this drug within Europe’s borders does perhaps have some geopolitical significance given the country’s proximity to Russia in other areas (from oil and gas, chemicals, finance, tourism and luxury items). Watch this space...
Elsewhere in Italian politics Nicola Zingaretti, Secretary of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) stepped down from his position last week. His reasons, which he announced directly on Facebook, were rather damning for the party: specifically, he criticised his colleagues for being careerists who were unconcerned with the fate of the country itself and only with holding on to their personal seats. This might seem like fairly obvious stuff from the outside. Most Italians have known for years that the PD is no longer capable of representing real democracy, which, presumably, is why they are now polling at around 16%. Coming from Zingaretti, though, a man who has committed twenty years of work to the party, this was a historic intervention. It’s not clear what will happen now. Enrico Letta, who briefly served as PM in 2013-14 is tipped to step in (though, based on recent interviews, he seems reluctant to do so.) Meanwhile, the sardines, the pacifist and anti-sovereignist social movement who filled piazzas across the country in 2019-20, have set up a small, temporary, occupation in front of the PD headquarters demanding a clean-up. As Mattia Santori, the movement’s spokesperson, put it: “[Zingaretti’s] resignation was a cry for help. So we answered.” For more on the sardines, and why they are more than just a novelty act, check out my pre-pandemic interview with the historian Paul Ginsborg who insists, with some authority, that they represent a genuine means of revitalising Italy’s political system. I for one hope that he’s right…
Moving away from Italy briefly, at least geographically, my friend Ismail Einashe published a very interesting piece on the BBC website this week about a holiday he recently took to the Kenyan town of Malindi which, it turns out has been home to a sizeable population of Italians since the 1960s. Ismail’s piece is an interesting reflection on Italy and Africa, taking in multilingualism, the Broglio Space Centre and crab linguine. The community has its own supermarket selling imported chianti, parmesan, prosciutto and, I was amazed to read, even Grisbì biscuits! At the same time, though, Ismail also raises some troubling questions about racial politics and crime, concluding, somewhat cryptically, that the town is a “tropical paradise with its hint of noir.” You can check out the full essay here, along with some of the author’s other BBC Africa postcards. Another of my personal favourites so far has been about Sicily’s African music stars, such as Chris Obehi, an Italo-Nigerian singer whose cover of Cu ti lu dissi by Rosa Balistreri is perhaps the best I’ve ever heard. You can listen to Obehi’s rather epic performance here, filmed beneath a giant mural of the local saint, Santa Rosalia.
Arts and culture: Searching for Tucci
This is one for all the Renaissance aficionados out there. Alexander Lee’s book Machiavelli: His Life and Times is out in paperback next week. If you haven’t heard of this biography - which sadly got buried on release last year as a result of the pandemic - this is a great chance to catch up. Lee goes to great lengths, over 700+ pages, to redeem Machiavelli from his reputation as a sinister, shadow-faced villain. Lee, as you’d expect, looks in detail at the intricacies of Florentine politics; best of all, though, he really takes the time to focus on his subject’s lesser-known writings. Most people know The Prince, the notorious manual on statesmanship which infamously sought to separate politics from morality. The reality is, though, that Machiavelli himself was actually a pretty sanguine fellow; he wrote plays and poetry, and was actually best known by his contemporaries as being a comic author! After reading Lee’s study I guarantee you’ll be freed of any residual suspicion that Machiavelli was some kind of renaissance Dominic Cummings; in fact, as the author convincingly demonstrates, he was a humanist, with a diverse range of skills, and literary interests that tell us much about the era as a whole. If you’re interested in this book make sure to give Amazon a miss (for obvious reasons) and order directly from Pan Macmillan here.
I imagine I’m not the only person who’s been trying and failing to find links to Stanley Tucci’s new food-travel series ‘Searching for Italy’ this week. If you live in the U.S. there’s no problem, I know. You can access on CNN. The rest of us, though, are faced with Sling TV + VPNs, or other more nefarious methods which I won’t go into. I have, however, legitimately managed to find clips from the first two episodes, on Naples and Rome, and I have to say I’m enjoying the show more than I’d expected. Tucci, somewhat surprisingly, focuses on social justice issues: he goes genuinely off the beaten track in Naples to visit a kitchen run by Roma people who serve up some delicious looking cabbage rolls; he also presents pasta, quite correctly, as being a working class foodstuff, and looks at Mussolini’s unsuccessful attempt to ban it in the 20s. While the show is nowhere near as good as Andrew Graham Dixon and Giorgio Locatelli’s wonderful Italy Unpacked (but then how could it be?) it’s still pretty enjoyable to watch the ‘Big Night’ star strutting around some beautifully filmed cityscapes, in some impeccable suits, all the while reminding anyone who’ll listen that he is “Italian on both sides.” We know you are Stanley. We know you are…
Recipe of the week: Spiedini di carne
I’ll never forget the first time I tried this dish: it was lunchtime in a little restaurant called Trattoria dell'Orto in Florence’s San Frediano district. I ordered this, famished, without really knowing what would arrive. I can now confirm it is one of Tuscany’s best kept culinary secrets. Spiedini di carne are basically meat kebabs: made with fatty pork, chicken thigh, sausage, bread, bayleaves and sage. Rachel Roddy has a version in the Guardian which, I’m afraid to say, isn’t up to much. Instead I recommend Emiko Davies’s take which she published on her blog here (if you scroll down), and which is also included in her lovely book Tortellini at Midnight. Davies suggests barbecuing, which would be amazing I’m sure. Personally, I tend to just brown these in a pan and oven cook on a low temperature for 30 minutes and they’ve always turned out wonderfully. If you can’t get Tuscan sausages, go for something simple; just pure meat and herbs without any strange filler. Tuscan cooks often place a bit of blanched fennel under the kebabs during cooking so the vegetable soaks up the juices. I think that’s a great little trick to turn this into a full (almost) one-pot meal.
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!