In Italy we know how to celebrate, but the past month was almost too much. April concluded with Easter and Easter Monday which by landing on the 25th was already the national Liberation Day; then followed a week later the 1st of May. Four holidays in eight days must be a record.
Previously there was another holiday, a new one, a one-time event. It was over a month ago on the 17th of March but it will be spoken about for some time. It commemorated the unification of Italy 150 years ago. However, this was a strange celebration because not everyone was in a celebrating mood. The Lega Nord refused to take part because they consider Italian unification at least a failure and especially for themselves a terrible event. If they could, they would cut Italy above Rome and drop the South into the Mediterranean; after all, the Southerners only waste the taxes paid by the hard-working North Italians with the complicity of the corrupt politicians in parliament. Of course the Southerners don’t always have much good to say about the hospitality in the North to where they migrated to build up Italy on the ashes of World War II. Et cetera!
The point made in these times by many authors and commentators is that Italy’s unification has not worked or that it is still a struggling process, perhaps doomed from the beginning. After the fall of the ancient Roman empire, the regions of the Italian boot developed in drastically different ways. It is generally thought that this was due to the effort of the other European powers to keep Italy weak in its division. In Tuscany one only has to feel the animosity today between Pisa and Livorno or between Siena and Florence to realize the challenge of putting of trying to put Veneziani and Palermitani under one roof, or Genovesi and Pugliesi.
Italy is well worth observing and studying. The diversity, the cuisine, the fine art (really 75% of that in the world, as one hears?), the layers of history, emigration-immigration, church, interesting characters like Silvio Berlusconi. Many books have appeared on the unification of Italy. These two give a good overview:
Gilmour, David. The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2011.
Duggan, Christopher. The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2007.
Previously there was another holiday, a new one, a one-time event. It was over a month ago on the 17th of March but it will be spoken about for some time. It commemorated the unification of Italy 150 years ago. However, this was a strange celebration because not everyone was in a celebrating mood. The Lega Nord refused to take part because they consider Italian unification at least a failure and especially for themselves a terrible event. If they could, they would cut Italy above Rome and drop the South into the Mediterranean; after all, the Southerners only waste the taxes paid by the hard-working North Italians with the complicity of the corrupt politicians in parliament. Of course the Southerners don’t always have much good to say about the hospitality in the North to where they migrated to build up Italy on the ashes of World War II. Et cetera!
The point made in these times by many authors and commentators is that Italy’s unification has not worked or that it is still a struggling process, perhaps doomed from the beginning. After the fall of the ancient Roman empire, the regions of the Italian boot developed in drastically different ways. It is generally thought that this was due to the effort of the other European powers to keep Italy weak in its division. In Tuscany one only has to feel the animosity today between Pisa and Livorno or between Siena and Florence to realize the challenge of putting of trying to put Veneziani and Palermitani under one roof, or Genovesi and Pugliesi.
Italy is well worth observing and studying. The diversity, the cuisine, the fine art (really 75% of that in the world, as one hears?), the layers of history, emigration-immigration, church, interesting characters like Silvio Berlusconi. Many books have appeared on the unification of Italy. These two give a good overview:
Gilmour, David. The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2011.
Duggan, Christopher. The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2007.
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