Italy

The BBC’s Meloni problem

Here is a quote from the BBC Europe Editor, Katya Adler’s, very short piece on the BBC Radio 4 Six O’Clock News this evening, concerning the electoral victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italy: Millions of Italians didn’t vote for her. They say they do not recognise themselves in her nationalist, protectionist proposals, her anti-immigration rhetoric and her conservative family mores. Isn’t that remarkable? Can you imagine the awful Adler, or indeed any correspondent, commenting on the victory of a left-wing candidate:  Millions of people didn’t vote for her. They say they do not recognise themselves in her mentally unbalanced identity politics, ranting support for cripplingly high taxation, foreign policy characterised

Will Meloni be able to govern Italy?

Mario Draghi’s national unity government lost badly in yesterday’s Italian election – worse even than the polls predicted. Fratelli d’Italia, the main opposition party, was the big winner. Five Star, which pulled the plug on Draghi’s government, also gained. What we did not see is a big shift between left and right. The right coalition of Fratelli d’Italia, Lega, and Forza Italia, got 44 per cent. The really big movements occurred within the coalition. Giorgia Meloni’s FdI ended up with 26 per cent – way ahead of the published polls. Lega got only 9 per cent. The coalition is on course to secure a majority in both houses of parliament,

Second chances: The Marble Staircase, by Elizabeth Fair, reviewed

To reject ‘in rainy middle age the poignant emotions that belonged to youth and Italy’ is the lesson learned by the heroine of Elizabeth Fair’s last novel. More than 60 years after its author consigned the typescript to a black tin trunk, following her literary agent’s failure to find a publisher for this, her seventh novel, The Marble Staircase finally sees the light. This is thanks to Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press, the company responsible for reprinting the six light, romantic comedies that, in the 1950s, earned Fair an appreciative following and commendations from writers such as Compton Mackenzie, John Betjeman and Stevie Smith. Literary rediscoveries are always potentially

Pre-Mussolini, most Italians couldn’t understand each other

Towards the end of Dandelions, Thea Lenarduzzi’s imaginative and deeply affecting memoir, the author quotes her grandmother’s remark that there are tante Italie – many Italys. ‘Mine is different to hers, which is different to my mother’s, which is different to my father’s, and so on down the queue,’ she writes. These Italys – of fascismo, of Garibaldi, of emigrants living in Sheffield and Manchester, of 31 dialects – are not far-flung historical oddities confined to documentaries or textbooks but are, in Lenarduzzi’s account, the patchwork story of one family. Sitting at her Nonna’s (grandmother’s)table with ‘the blinds pulled down against the morning sun and the rest of the family

Europe’s new migrant crisis

Earlier this month I spent a week in Sicily, driving south from Palermo to Agrigento and then east to Syracuse and Messina. It was my first visit to Sicily in 17 years and, given the media reports, I had expected to find the island crowded with migrants from Africa. In fact, I saw none, other than those I glimpsed in a fenced-off processing centre at the quayside in Agrigento, the first port of call for many migrants who arrive in Sicily. Last week the local paper in Agrigento drew on official government figures to reveal that so far in 2022, 45,664 migrants have landed on Italian territory, an increase of

Dark days in Hollywood: Mercury Pictures Presents, by Anthony Marra, reviewed

Summer is a time for blockbusters and Anthony Marra has delivered the goods with Mercury Pictures Presents, a sweeping book about 1940s Hollywood, Mussolini’s Italy and America’s entry into the second world war. The action opens in the executive offices of Mercury Pictures International, a struggling film studio run by Artie and Ned Feldman, two brothers modelled on Jack and Harry Warner. It’s late summer 1941, and as well as fighting each other, the Feldmans are fighting the isolationist senators accusing Hollywood of pushing America into war. The battle to get the script for Devil’s Bargain approved is ‘shaping into a pivotal confrontation between campaigners for free speech and crusaders

How Italy’s most famous coastline stays crowd-free

A five-minute taxi journey costs €50, a single drink can set you back more than €20 – and if you want to avoid shelling out €60 for a plate of pasta, you might struggle to find a supermarket. But the Costa Smeralda offers one luxury that’s hard to put a price on at the peak of the summer holiday season – a surprising lack of crowds. Back in the 1960s, this 20km stretch of beaches and pine forest on Sardinia’s northern coastline was uninhabited and deemed of little value to the country’s farmers. But the Aga Khan spotted a business opportunity. He purchased the land and began the process of turning it into a

Why Italy’s Emilia-Romagna beats Tuscany

The guidebooks will tell you that Emilia-Romagna is Tuscany without the crowds. It’s generally true, though at the moment – in the peak summer season and when all the world seems to be descending on Italy after years of Covid-imposed separation from la dolce vita – there’s really tourists everywhere in Italy. But yes, with a savvy itinerary, Emilia-Romagna does offer the prospect of lesser crowds than Tuscany or the Amalfi Coast while still getting all the sun, sea, sightseeing and sensationally good food that Italy is all about. Bologna Italy’s culinary capital, Bologna is a city in which you can eat exceedingly well. And, in part thanks to its

Where to invest on Italy’s islands

A world away from TV dating reality shows, raucous party boats and the VIP areas of nightclubs in the Balearics, the Italian islands are hard to beat when it comes to understated chic. Harder to reach too, and generally more arduous places to purchase a home in, the islands can offer property hunters something special. TV and film producers know this well: picture the Baroque palazzos of Inspector Montelbano’s Sicily, the private beach of Ischia or the winding cobbled streets of neighbouring Procida used in The Talented Mr Ripley. For wild empty beaches, secret coves and quaint fishermen’s houses lining ancient quaysides, the islands in the Gulf of Naples are

Italy’s hostility to Nato is building

Ravenna, Italy The war in Ukraine has caused an unholy convergence of the left and right in Italy. While there is nothing formal so far about this alliance of enemies, it nevertheless threatens to destroy the unity of Nato. The most high-profile participant is -Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega – the party with the second-highest number of MPs in Italy’s parliament – which is invariably defined as ‘far right’. Salvini, who has been one of Vladimir Putin’s strongest supporters outside Russia, condemned the invasion of Ukraine and has now come out as a pacifist. He opposes Finland and Sweden joining Nato, or sending more arms to Ukraine, on the

How to spend 48 hours in Turin

This May Turin’s stately boulevards and grand piazzas will be flooded with sequin-clad divas and flag-brandishing fans, as it gears up to host the 66th edition of the Eurovision song contest. This is only the third time ever that Italy has hosted the competition, following Rome in 1991 and Naples in 1965. The country’s first ever capital (from 1861 to 1865) and the urban hub of the stunning Piedmont region (a foodie haven) – Turin is an under-appreciated gem among European city breaks. There’s no better to time to discover the best of what the city has to offer ahead of the Eurovision Grand Final on 14 May. What to do With

The horror of gluten-free beer

I was reminded of the worst liquid that I have ever consumed. It was the last occasion on which I drank Coca-Cola, nearly 50 years ago. To be fair to Coke, this bottle was at room temperature, and the room was in the Anatolian peninsula, during the ferocity of high summer. A group of us were travelling in a battered old bus, still four hours by bad roads from Izmir, hot water and cold beer. Having run out of bottled water, we needed something to stave off dehydration. The village offered a choice: well water or parboiled Coke. An aristocratic French leftie was moved to a declamation: ‘Moi, j’ai un

A taste of la dolce vita in Tuscany

Amid the grandeur of old Edinburgh, in the lee of the castle, is one of the finest buildings in Scotland: George Heriot’s School. But Heriot’s is more than an architectural gem. It is an epitome of Scotland as it used to be, before the Scottish esprit de corps succumbed to kailyard grievance-mongering under the rule of Sturgeon the tricoteuse and her Nationalist administration. George Heriot, ‘Jingling Geordie’ as he was nicknamed after the coins supposedly jingling in his pockets, was one of many Scotsmen who went south to make their fortune after the Union of the Crowns in 1603. ‘The noblest prospect a Scotsman ever sees is the high road…

The relentless march of Europe’s zombie centrists

Journalists rarely had it so easy as when it came to writing up the final result of the French presidential election on Monday morning. The copy almost wrote itself: the triumph of moderation, demonstrated by a convincing win for centrist Emmanuel Macron over his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen; the clear defeat of disruptive extremist politics that might otherwise have threatened European stability; and the return to EU business as usual, with euroscepticism once again off the table and the re-establishment of a stable Franco-German axis in charge of Brussels. Easy, but ultimately unconvincing. Centrists who can be trusted not to be too radical may indeed be in power in

The secret to buying in Italy

The best recent advert for the bella vita is surely actor Stanley Tucci sampling regional cuisines in CNN’s Searching for Italy exclaiming ‘oh my god’ at least four times an episode as he swoons over risotto Milanese or Sicilian pasta alla Norma. It’s these sun-soaked visions of a foodie paradise that persuade scores of Northern Europeans and Americans to buy a home there. Around 30,000 Britons have moved there – mostly to Lombardy, Lazio or Tuscany – but a raft of incentives is helping draw many buyers to southern Italy, where rural properties are more affordable. During 2021, the most popular regions in Italy for searches during 2021 were Tuscany, Sicily,

The story of Tuscany’s all-female winery

The inhabitants of Tuscany and Umbria can claim to be the most civilised beings on the planet, even exceeding the Afrikaners and the Ulster Prods. In the farms, villages and hill towns, there is an easy understanding of life’s pleasures, naturally including food and drink. One might describe it as prelapsarian, except that Adam and Eve did not drink wine – which surely justifies the Fall. Well done, that serpent. It is easy to imagine the course of events on a typical morning in a typical village. Lorenzo has decided to visit the dottore. His wife has been nagging him about his liver, insisting he cuts back on grappa. What

The pointless tyranny of Italy’s Covid pass

While most European countries, especially Britain, are relaxing their Covid restrictions, Italy which has the toughest of the lot, this week made them tougher still – even though the data shows they are futile. Perhaps it is because Italy is a country where fortune tellers and faith healers are a multi-billion pound industry that it has the most draconian vaccine passport regime in Europe. Either way, mass psychosis blinds its politicians and people from the truth. In the UK, bogus claims by government scientific advisers about the need for, and benefits of, lockdowns were in the end convincingly demolished and The Spectator played a significant role in the process. It

How to combine skiing and wine tasting in the Dolomites

When planning a food and wine tour to Italy, the first ideas that spring to mind might be a road trip through the Tuscan hills or feasting at a sun-soaked villa in Puglia. Few would imagine themselves hurtling down a red slope amid rugged snow-capped scenery. And yet, unbeknownst to many, the Dolomites is arguably the gastronomic (and viticultural) capital of Italy. South Tyrol, the local region, has 19 Michelin-starred restaurants (24 stars in total) – making it the most decorated province in Italy. In the small resort of Alta Badia alone, there are four Michelin stars –all attached to one restaurant, the St. Hubertus. Up till recently it had

Are wolves stalking us on the school run?

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The other morning, my wife Carla was driving home after the school run in her battered old Renault Trafic people-carrier when through the fog she saw what looked like a wolf. It was ambling across the fields, which were covered in white ice. The wolf was only about 50 metres away, so she pulled over and took a picture, which she texted to the local dog rescue centre. She then followed the animal as it continued on its way, parallel to the road, in the direction of our house. Eventually it vanished in the fog about half a mile from our front door. ‘Yes, it’s a young

Mario Draghi and the murky quest to find Italy’s next president

In ancient Rome, a diviner called a haruspex would observe the entrails of sacrificed sheep and poultry, especially their livers, to deduce the will of the gods. But even the finest haruspex would have a hard time deducing the will of the 951 parliamentarians and 58 regional delegates – the so-called grandi elettori – whose task this week is to elect Italy’s 13th president. Italian presidents, who serve for seven years, have largely ceremonial powers and their election is normally of little importance. This time, however, depending on the result, there could be at least one and possibly two seismic knock-on effects. First, the presidential election could force a snap general