Give peace a chance

 

Early '60's, in Rome the olimpic flame lights the souls, while in Trentino Alto-Adige one of the darkest pages of its history is about to be written. A group of young high school students decide to meet for an experiment of peace.

At the beginning of the '60s Italy rediscovered something that had been almost unknown for centuries, economic and social wellness. A wellbeing built with an imaginary that was not even it's, more likely coming from the dreamt, watched in movies,  sometimes listened on the radio, America. And the radio had to be listened carefully, as during fascism foreign words and jazz were forbidden.  Foreign words were so difficult to stand during Mussolini's regime that even a commission to italianize names was set, for instance in Trentino Alto-Adige, where a consistent part of the population doesn't speak Italian as first language. WWII was over while the cold war was moving its first steps. Steps that sometimes had the rythm of the runners, the sweating faces and the perffect bodies of the athletes that in 1960 met in Rome, the capital of that 'BelPaese' (Beautiful Country) that was re-starting to walk with the wind in the bouffant hairstyles and the happy laughter spreadiing from Lambrettas and brand-new Fiat. When the olympic flame crosses the Eternal City, the Open City because unanimously considered too beautiful so that could not be bombed nor damaged,  a shiver, a spine-chill, light electricity to affirm that the darkest moments of those horrible times were over. While in Rome the kaleidoscope of languages that could be listened in the Vatican during the international pilgrimages was multiplied by the olympic teams, in the North, two languages apparently have the intention to become the expression of incomprehensions. In the Bolzano province, a group of youngsters decide to challege the world, to get inspired by that olympic spirit that was in the air and attempt a simple, tiny experiment of peace.  Experiments of peace are never simple, actually, and those youngsters clean-cut as the mountain skyline in a sunny day, decide to gather for afternoon talks about culture, Dolomites, politics and sport. A politics intertwined with culture, best said with cultures, with ideas of a Europe without borders, of something vital to the acutal life of the future of humanity and of the natural wonder of the landscape. The spearhead of the meetings would have become the living icon of ecology and of the so-called intercultural dialogue, Alex Langer, while his region would have left behind one of the darkest pages of its history.

©2010.2020

Politics, also in Italy, is possible

Once upon a time ago, not much time ago, there was a nation, going out of a bad war, a bit damaged but with a great strenght and willing to stand on her legs. In that nation, where the borders where not even so defined, a man, a mountaineer, son of peasants, made his way on what once, not that much time ago, was the Italian Politics. This man had strong ideas and an even stronger soul, he was skilled, really skilled. and as often happens in this odd nation, he had the chance to go on, to become the number one. There was the entire Italy to set on foot and Italians, in hard times, exhibit their best, they can marvel, enchant the world with their extraordinary abilities, with their strenght of soul and thought. to go back to be the 'Italietta' that hides her beauty behind a finger. Alcide De Gasperi.

©2009.2022

A leaning cathedral in the heart of the Flemish Netherland

The distance between Delt and The Hague is covered by a tram ride, a few stops, a handful of minutes and you cross the interval between two different cities, calling it suburbia would be the equivalent of saying that Florence is the suburbia of Rome, for Australian, Chinese or Canadian standards. In Delft there is an entire square, complete with a cathedral that if compared to the Pisa tower the latter looks straight, but you barely notice it, even if royal celebrations are in that church and if the delftware, to be honest that are really nice but compared to the Italian pottery are a bit pale, even if it's true that the Delft blue is world reknowned. Cathedrals are indeed extraordinary, all leaning, wonkysh, one, the Oude Kerk (Old church) on the artificial canal, the other impressive in a typical European Flemish market square, the Nieuwe Kerk (New church, so to speak), that treasures the graves of the Orange-Nassau royal family.

Typical representative of Delft art scene is Vermeer, reknowned for the ante litteram photographic use of light, perspective, focus and colour so to be considered one of the undisputed masters of Flemish school,  famous his painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, better known for the novel and the film inspired by the painting. Even if, probably for the closeness with the world capital of international law, The Hague, also siege of the government and official residence of the Orange-Nassau, probably the name of the town is more easily associated with the name of Hugo Grotius, considered one of the 'creators' of modern international law, having foreseen a law of the sea not far from the one presently implemented worlwide. And how can't we recall, talking about this wonderful little city, also Anthony  Van Leeuwenhoek, self-taught discoverer of the protozoan and of the most celeb spermatozoa, ando of bacteria, but that's another story.

Going back to the small streets, the bridges, the small typically Flemish canaals you get definetely enchated by that delicate concreteness of a market square identical to itself during the centuries where the buildings are lightly leaning but you barely notice it in the maritime country par excellence, where between the seasickness and the earthsickness you don't know if the buildings are moving following the rythm of the waves or if it's us who got the typical sailors step. 

©2011.2021

Pina

A provincial place in Germany, the North-Rhine Westphalia region, world reknowned for the Ruhr industrial district, an important node for business and mainly for the heavy industry of the Teutonic giant. The region, though, is best known amongst culture buffs, to be the hub where the Pina Bausch tanz-theater, an absolutely unique form of performative art where everyday life is staged in the form of dance and dialoguing,  developed.

A form of art, even if I think it would much fitting to name it a form of unconditioned, absolute and pure love for life in all its gradations and its nuances.

In Wuppertal, Essen, a tiny woman, stubborn and strong, decided to build a dream of creativity, she actually made it, now she is not among us anylonger, not even if the 3D images realized by an extraordinary admirer of her, the German movie director Wim Wenders, tried to keep that memory alive.

©2011.2021

Happy 114th anniversary Madame Curie!

The day Marie Curie was born the entire world changed, she didn't know, her parents, friends and  relatives were not aware of that. Angels did not come to announce her arrival and there was not actually anything miraculous in her birth, if not the everyday miracle recreated each and every time a living being is born. But she, stubborn and with the desire of knowledge, would have loved that world, would have loved life in all its nuances, with passion, willingness and strenght, and one day, the twice Nobel Prize laurate Marie Curie would have invented also the stage lights for the Moulin Rouge performances where an American woman, Loie Fuller, was creating a new dancing visual imaginary.

©©2011.2021

Cassese

Atripalda is a town in the Irpinia province, best said, is a small town in the province of a provincial small city situated in a somehow provincial region of Southern Italy. 

In Avellino winter, on the contrary of what one could guess, does exist. Even the cold exists, and the heat, the sun, the 'caseificio's, cheese factories, the good ones, though, where, when you buy a mozzarella you want to drop any diet, dive into the pools with the tepid 'latticello' and gorge of rounded delicacies. 

As for many small Italian towns, Atripalda has a long story, rooted in Pre-Roman epoch, developing during the Middle Age and then in the following centuries ups and downs of country's history. As for many small Italian towns its history is long, complex and far from the appearances. The river, that in this case is named Sabato, Saturday in Italian, has a lots of stories to tell, stories of merchants and of monologuing dialogues between monotheistic religions, for instance. In Atripalda, though, the one who listened to the river's stories in order to remember History is nothing less than a great Italian historian, Leopoldo Cassese, director of the State Archives of L'Aquila and Salerno, and professor of archival, the very first in Italy.

Leopoldo is not a bookworm, is proficient, can read between the lines, and between the documents, the stories hidden behind the extraordinary evocative strenght of narration, he can listen to the sound of words. He loves life, he loves his wife and the kids who learn since they are really young how to repulse dictatorships listening to the tales trasported by the river waters, the sound of the wind in the trees and of the people that always say what has to be said, if you are able to truly listen. 

His sons learn how to understand, to listen beyond words, to read between lines the sound of the laughters and of the tears of people, also of the ones who can't read or write. Leopoldo's sons are Antonio Cassese and Sabino Cassese, lawyers and judges, but most of all men who can read the law to defend those who cannot even read their names. They start studying law almost at the same time, they're almost the same age, Sabino focuses on the administrative part, then works for the Italian gas and petrol company ENI, the Italian government and European institutions, while Antonio clings on listening to the moans of people that apparently the world want to forget, unless there's the prime time crime, for TV schedules needs. With stubborness, a deep culture, and a humbleness that only people of that calibre can afford, decides to believe in the realization of something that sounded impossible, an international judiciary system to demonstrate that world's peace starts also listening to the silent cry of a 'normal' person from a far end of the world, to whom the childhood, adolescence, adulthood or simply, just to say, the fundamental rights were denied. And together with a woman that faces everything resolutely, Carla del Ponte,  he makes a prototype of European tradition international criminal tribunal work, the UN former Yugoslavia Tribunal (ICTY), a weird object, a glimmer of justice for people whose stories are heard from those who are able to look beyond the appareances with the careful and aware glance of a man from the province who probably got tired of listening.
©2011.2020

TinTin, dauntless Belgian journalist agitates the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot

Hercule Poirot never gets angry, unless he is 'accused' of Frenchness. He's a Belgian! even if not at birth, his creator being Lady Mallowan Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, world renowned as Christie, from the British town of Torquay.

Another imaginary characther, the young journalist TinTin, is actually so, head on in the bargain. His cartoonist Georges Prosper Remi, Hergé, is from Ettebeek, provincial town in the bilingual Bruxelles-Capitale region, the Belgian newspaper that first published in 1929 the adventures of the dauntless fair-haired boy with the wisp, Le Petit Vingtième, was the supplement of the Vingtième Siècle and even is four-legged friend, the white terrier Milou, is Belgian. TinTin is froncophone and the Spielberg movie highlights this aspect, but notwithstanding during the Rome Film Festival the 'French comic-strip' was still in the conversations.  The 'little grey cells' of Hercule Poirot would have surely get stressed.

©2011.2021

Gianny Musy

Once upon a time there was a youngster with a childohood probably happy and  surely marked with the difficulties of the war; a city, Milan, a quite odd familiy and a 'sweet and blessed Country' where 'the most ancient people of the world live', a people that 'with two loonies of bread and hope, drinks a glass of wine and drifts along'. The boy follows the path drawn by his parents, almost without thinking on his future, learn a trade and save it for the rainy days, in his experience, for the early days. His parents are actually two actors, the father is one of the 'bad guys' face of the Italian cinema from the very beginning, and also a theatre actor. We can imagine that he must have been strong-spined.

After graduating in law during the '30s of the last century, when illiteracy was current affairs, decides to move to Paris, where he sets the Teatro degli italiani (Theatre of the Italians) and is encouraged by  Sacha Guitry and Pierre Chenal to take a stab at this prodigious technological and continuosly evolving novelty that was affirming its popular and artistic importance, where the white telephones just appeared. But that's another story, perhaps. The youngster is Gianni Musy, who learned playing under the spotlights even before learning his first words, coincidences and fate. The father Enrico migrates together with the mother Gianna Pacetti, actress, to the French capital in those years and the young Gianni couldn't not be amazed, enchanted and dazzled with all that lights, scenes, costumes and the words, the written words that become images, and the staged words reproduced for the first time just before his birth. 

Actually it's the same that happens when he plays kids games, with the difference that at the cinema the words become images identical for everybody and not only visible to the eyes of a child. Words that become imagination, that magic that make so many people dream worldwide, words that become dancing music, visual narration. While Gianni moves his first steps, cinema learns how to talk, even with the voices of his father and his mother, fate, perhaps. 

In 1940 Musy is turning ten and Charlie Chaplin uses for the first time in his filmography the sound to say something that cannot be unsaid anylonger; after the Modern Times' grammelot, the Great Dictator. 

Cinema for actors in not only cameras and photographer's flash, more actual actorial activity, beyond and together with the moving image there's the voice, and Musy learns the trade, among  the other cinema jobs, where the Italians are the best in the world, the art of the dubbers. And he becomes famous. More than a celebrity one of those 'cult' characthers of Italian cinema. Remembering the charachters and the actors he dubbed would be too long and would distract the focus from a story of the Italian provincia, best said of the Roman and Sabine province.

Gianni Musy lived indeed in the Roman Sabine, surrounded by his friends and neighbours, such as Sergio Endrigo, with whom he wrote the words of the song quoted at the beginning of this eventually provincial keepsake. And you almost have the impression to actually see him wandering in the small roads of the towns where his voice echoes, listened also during the events that are important for the locals without being under the heady spotlights of the seventh art, when he showed, causing a number of gossip and comments, sided by two young, beautiful girls, the  ones you never know if they have the brands label as their make-up and hair-style is always so similar to the cover picture of the season's magazine.

When I read the poster that announced his departure, on a simple and sober publication of the local funeral honours, I almost had the impression of seeing him there, skinny and standing tall,  between his personal body guards, to read unbelieving his name not scrolling on a movie screen  but in the sad glances of the locals, normal provincials who loved his ability to wonder them with a story, a novel, a movie.  ©2011.2020

Arts world masterpieces in the Rome churches, mini tour

During holiday months, if not busy with long trips, it's easy to find people from the provinces in the big 'città d'arte', cities of art, to visit, playing tourists in the homecountry, the immense treasures of the BelPaese without the city chaos, while the stressed inhabitants of the metropolitan cities massly direct to the Italian province looking for some relax and contact with a more human dimension of living nature and urban areas. When going to a city so rich in must-sees as, for instance,  Rome, it's just beautiful to wander around and get transported by the humourous fluxus of the moment, walking on paths and roads to discover art and culture, or delicacies that are for sure to be found in the city, or of shopping and restaurants. One of the many ways to get to know Rome and the big Italian cities is to venture on the streets looking for art and culture, of those wonders and treasures that Italy could, despite all, preserve during the centuries in the spectacular Catholic churches and basilicas or in the 'palazzi' of the powerfuls of all times.

Let's start with the path on the footsteps of Caravaggio, Raffaello and Michelangelo in the Eternal city, during holidays preferably, when the city get rid, for some kind of magic, of that stinky trafic that make the heat unbearable, the walking heavy and the trips difficult, always being keen on the opening times of the worship places, often closed on Sundays.

So, let's start with the absolute masterworks of Caravaggio, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Bramante. Artists with a quite different charachter and style, indisputable genius of world art. If Raffaello (1483-1520) and Michelangelo (1475-1564), together with Bramante (1444-1514) who provoked less interest on his private life during the following centuries, represented the diverse faces of the  inspiration during the papacy  (1503-1513) of Giulio II (1443-1513), pope who, luckily for humankind, loved art and wanted in his court the greatest artists of his times commissioning absolute masterpieces kept safe for centuries in the Catholic buildings, Caravaggio revolutioned the way of painting for the generations to come, passing as a hurricane at the crossroads of two centuries in the Rome  (1592-1605) of Pope Clemente VIII (1536-1605).

In the capital, with a bit of good will and sneakers, you can really enjoy these wonders just walking on the streets and entering some of the most breathtaking churches of the entire planet. 

Imagine a summer day, refreshed with the typical Roman 'venticello', wind, and let's start with the latest artist in chronological order, the unquiet Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), a bad guy with a complicated life, an awful quarrelsome and violent temper,  gifted with the talent of drawing, an extraordinary talent that simply revolutioned not only the way of painting in his epoch but the way of seeing the world, the visual imaginery of all the following generations, so to be considered the first movie director in history, even if cinema would have been invented three centuries later. And, seen that the French could always fully appreciate Italian beauties highlighting them in their most beautiful buildings, let's start this mini-tour from the national French church in Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi, closed on sundays, that treasures in the  Cappella Contarelli three of the most reknowned paintings of  Caravaggio, the Martirio di San Matteo (Martyrdom of Saint Matthew), San Matteo e l'angelo (The Inspiration of Saint Matthew) and Vocazione di san Matteo (The calling of Saint Matthew). 

Any description is useless, if we can't recall them just open any art history book to have a detailed analysis. Stepping out with the eyes full of the contrasting Caravaggio's light, we walk for some hundreds metres to the Basilica di Sant'Agostino, and the Madonna di Loreto o dei Pellegrini, one of the very few Virgin Mary with child where the focus is on the child and not on the mother. In this church of the Roman Reinassance also Raffaello Sanzio pokes out almost wanting to remember to tourists and pilgrims that Rome inspired most of his masterpieces or simply that life can be lived and looked at also from a different happier perspective, and that divine enlightment can be found also in the light-heartedness gaiety joie de vivre. Yep, because Raffaello Sanzio, was not only  an infant prodigy who, not even 17, was already considered a 'maestro', he also had a diametrically opposed lifestyle to his contemporaneous Michelangelo, a genius in the deepest meaning of the word, animated by unrestless ispiration. Raffaello was an artist and a 'bottegaio', 'bottega' being a laboratory craft shop where painters especially during the Reinassance learned the art, he could mix the pleasures of life with the research of the beautiful managing a group of collaborators who could keep in the bottega, a sort of small handcrafts industries of the time, thanks to the cospicous Vatican commissions. He suffered enough in his life to be willing to suffer for the art and, while his contemporaneous Michelangelo found true inspiration in the research of the the Beautiful, lavished this deeply rooted love for life in his works, without denying the pleasures and comforts of well living that the appreciation of his art gave him. A more quietness of soul is clear in his works that communicate to  the viewer the holy feeling more through grace of celestial enlightment than through the contrast with the rawness of the Caravaggio's everyday life seedily dense or via the imposing Michelangelo's strenght of the sublime. 

To keep on going with this imaginary dialogue between Caravaggio and Raffaello we have to pass through Piazza del Popolo and head to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, closed on Sundays, but if we want to keep on discovering Reinassance, a few steps forward crossing piazza Navona to Via della Pace, with the church Santa Maria della Pace, closed on Sundays and on most days of the week, but with the adjacent Chiostro del Bramante, open on Sundays from where it is possible to admire the  Sibille  of Raffaello at the sight of the arch from a wonderful window, enjoying a delicious aperitif in the cloister or a tasty pizza in the small piazza opposite the church.

The minitour  can continue on foot towards the  Galleria Doria Pamphilj,open on Sundays, an actual case of art in the street of mass shopping via del Corso, or by bus towards the lively and popular Rione Monti, crossing Via Cavour to the church, open on Sundays, of San Pietro in Vincoli where you can admire the relic of the chains with which Saint Peter was enchaned and the grave of  Giulio II built by Michelangelo, with the Moses that could never satisfy the genius and that actually delights the glances and the souls of visitors, tourists and pilgrims.

The tour can go on with a small deviation on the main  theme to dive into a different era, in via dei Fori Imperiali, pedestrian area on Sundays, and jump into centuries to admire the Coliseum and the Fora area, walking within the Michelangelo work of the Campidoglio square (that you can easily find in the back of the Italian 50 euro cents coins)  before going back to the provincia to taste the fresh summer dishes and plan the next raid to the city while Romans returns in rivers of trafic from the out-of-town trips.

©2010.2020

Summer exodus

When the inhabitants of the big cities overflow the streets heading towards the Italian provinces looking for refreshment and a taste of well living, provincials not employed in turistic activities go to the capitals to finally enjoy,  without the chaos and the everyday inconveniences, the city artistic beauties. Together with tourist of the entire world interested in the 'città d'arte' art's cities we venture in the exploration of some of the treasures of Italian culture in historical-artistic paths focused on the knowledge of the enormous Italian heritage. While the city dwellers crowd into more or less crowded seashores, or between contryside trees and mountain freshness after hours of trafic jams during holiday exodus to enjoy, paying crazy prices, some moments of the pleasures inherently part of living in the provincia, the naive provincials wander in wonderful streets and squares, brought back to a human dimension, in churches and archeological paths emptied from the ear-splitting and  rinky trafic to enjoy, with really cheap prices, the treasures of big capitals freed from, what for the province dwellers is unbearable chaos and for those who live in the cities is the electrifying heart-beat of the city. And then here we are brushing up history of art books, crossing ages and places looking for moments of pure intellectual joy. One of the many possible paths is the one on the traces of great painters, such as Caravaggio, whose works are literally spread around the Roman urban texture in churches that really deserve to be seen, or the ones in historically relevant 'quartieri', nieghbourhoods, where you can walk nose-up without fearing to be hit by a car while observing architectures and frescos, suddenly discovering a silent XVth century cloister in the chaotic Piazza Venezia, or following the footsteps of the ancient Romans in the extraordinary markets, forums, domus. True is that some of the most delicious 'pasticceria's (confectioners), 'gelateria's (ice-cream shops) and urban refreshment bars might be closed for holidays but a mental map of the places of gusto not to get knocked back by the summer heat or the mild winter cold might be of great help. So, ready to re-open the arts history books, wear confortable shoes and clothes, hats, a city map and a backpack with fruit and a bottle of water, ready to discover the Italian capitals of art and culture provincia style.

©2010.2020

The 'cunto', UNESCO world heritage

A relevant part of Western culture was handed down to our times thanks to the storytellers. Charachters wandering through the provinces and the cities, telling the romanticized deeds of great warriors and  leaders, the heart-beats of troubled loves and what was going on in the neighbouring towns and provinces.  During Internet and mass-media age the role of the storytellers slimmed down, to the point of becoming a treasure to be preserved and put under the wing of UNESCO. Well, at least that's what happened to a great storyteller, best said 'cuntista' rather than 'cantastorie', and puppeteer of the Sicilian  'Opra dei Pupi' (Pupi puppets theatre, note that it's not 'opera' as for the opera houses, but 'opra', more likely to resound the adventures of the heroes), Mimmo Cuticchio, an artist that can enchant and make the deeds of the chansons de geste come alive in pure Sicilian dialect incredibly absolutely comprehensible thanks to the ancient knowledge of the cuntisti. In 'cunto' there is the epic poem, the singing and a syncopated musical rythm similar to modern rap that make it an extraordinary instrument of artistic communication that can cross borders and barriers as it includes the most ancestral element of tales and of Western culture,  the narrative storytelling.

©2009.2022

Viva l'Italia and the giubbe rosse

"Viva l'Italia, l'Italia liberata,
l'Italia del valzer e l'Italia del caffè...            
viva l'Italia, l'Italia che resiste".  De Gregori

Songs can sometimes make us see more than words can say, sometimes we have the impression to find in musical synthesis of the great singer-songwriters, the pure essence of an emotion and of the popular sentiment. Sung, whistled, listened for hours or for just a minute, danced and imagined. Memories, come to the surface when one least expect.

De Gregori's song came back to my mind, immediate, when I took a walk in the centre of Mentana, Rome Province, and I bumped in the Garibaldi Museum. Mentana is one of those town you can find in dusty history books, flipping through the epochs from the bronze age to  the Italic history, from Roman kings and emperors to the prelates and the Hero of the Two Worlds, Garibaldi, who there struggled an uneven battle against French and their most technologically advanced weapons to defend the Papacy and the secular power of the highest Catholic religious authority. The red coats, attracted in a trap and armed with Prussian needle guns, had to fight against the fearful chassepot. Garibaldi and his soldiers remebered the day bitterly, so that the ossuary was later built in Mentana, for future reference. 

The museum was opened in the early XXth century. Forget a majestic celebration place for the people who unified Italy, creating a country from scratch.

But probably in Italy memory has a future only when it can keep intact the true and deep meaning of ideas and realities that inspired the great ideals of freedom. 

The ossuary is the 'monument', the little park where young twin and teen agers promise each other ethernal loves, almost looking for a confirmation to their first passions in the solemnity of the place, where youngsters  hide while learning how to smoke a sigarette far from their parent's eyes, probably trying to find there the courage to become grown-up teen-agers. On one side there's the citizen's band association, offices of the municipality and round the corner, in a square where from time to time some car pass trying not to bother and the drying racks are on the streets in front of the doors, there is a narrow iron gate, almost safe from prying eyes, that leads to a wooden portal shadowed by cypresses. 

When you enter that museum all of sudden everything  becomes visible to your eyes and  heart.

The small room, the stubborn stoutness of the attendant, kids playing around and the red coats, poignant beauty.

Shirts and jackets with the most diverse styles, varieties of reds that tell of young hearts, of hopes and freedoms. Those jackets, those so unequal coats and the rifles, the Garibaldi's and the French, make understand more than any history book.

It is possible to read simple emotions and purity of ideals in the pieces of textures wangled somehow, hidden in the markets booths, tables or stands and then hand-sewed, without being noticed, with a design that should approximately be that one but who knows, the trimmings obtained from curtain tiebacks hoping well, that some Bible's god or the spirit of a libertarian might protect and wanting to bring back that red wool coat and the skin of the brave risking for the creation of Italy.

Visiting the Garibaldi's museum is a balm for the heart, for the mind and for the ideas, especially to understand that Italy is a small country with many wonderful stories to tell, a country that resist.

©2010.2020

Cultural provincialism? Yes, please!

Paris, London, New York, New Dehli, Berlin, Rome or Milan are the big cultural capitals of the world,  cities that deserve a visit if one is interested in innovative and newsworthy artistic production. That's where culture is made.

This is a false statement. Actually this couldn't be more false. It is true, indeed, that capitals offer a varied cultural program and following all the events is almost impossible, but if one is really interested in research, innovation, culture and art, willing or not, after the ritual tour of the capitals, well there's no other place as the province.

I've heard so many times that Italian culture is 'provincial'. Thank goodness, I'd say! If I have to count on the fingertips the most beautiful books, movies, performances province wins over capitals.

Most of the greatest artists of all times were born and raised in the  provinces, not in London, nor in New York, they have nurtured their inspiration with that unique mix of practicality and imagination that in the case of Italy is spiced also with history: in Medieval burgs and in Reinassance villages one che actually 'dance on the world' and time-wise.

Those are the  dances, real incursions in contemporary culture, that we want to write about in this blog.

©2010.2022
Special thanks to WR community and WP