The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples- An Audio Book Review and Giveaway. Part II

Please see last week’s blog for the first part of my review of the audio CD of The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions, and the People. What follows is only a sampling of what Gilmour covers in this comprehensive history of a country he obviously loves. You have to read (or listen) to the book to glean all that I’ve left out.

The glorious revolution of 1848 marked a new beginning for Italy. General Giuseppe Garibaldi, a self-declared freedom fighter who is considered to be Italy’s George Washington, was one of Italy’s “father of the fatherland.” Along with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II and Giuseppe Mazzini, this generation of giants carried out the unification of the eleven states, kingdoms, and duchies. Although the revolution was lost and Italy continued to be divided with Austria dominating the north, the stage was set to build a nation. Under Garibaldi and Mazzini, attempts were made to improve the lives of the poor, provide secular education, and give freedom to the press. Interestingly, Garibaldi declined the invitation to fight for the Union when he realized he wouldn’t be made commander-in-chief and thus could not abolish slavery. 

Italian nationalism was not easily won and actually came about after the state was formed. In 1899 Giustino Fortunato declared that unification was “A sin against history and geography” because it ruined the south. “We are too long a country! The head and the tail will never touch each other. If made to do so, it would mean the head biting the tail.”

Verdi became a symbol of Italian aspirations. Although he was acclaimed as the great unifier, this was only a mystic fusion of his music with longed for unity of the nation. In fact, this was political revisionism: Verdi was not the great hoped-for unifier.

Gilmour is convinced that liberals, Catholics, and socialists underestimated fascist Mussolini. As prime minister, he ruled the country from 1922-1943 and didn’t need a revolution or coup to gain power. He took it constitutionally. No one seemed to take notice when he started taking over positions and squads began beating and killing political opponents. Fascism was like a religion which became equated with Mussolini. It was a technique to acquire power, and along the way, promote virility and maternity. Having just learned the word pastiche, I was interested in Gilmour’s description of Mussolini’s architecture as a pastiche of classism and fascism. 

No history of Italy is complete without the inclusion of the Mafioso. Begun in the mid-1800’s as a secret society in Sicily- an island that wanted autonomy for centuries--no one wanted to admit that the Mafia existed. Under Mussolini, he declared that the Mafiosi was destroyed. As a result, the press couldn’t report their rampant murders and robberies. Mussolini didn’t realize that the Mafia was a way of life, not just a sinister organization that could be extinguished through oppression.

During the latter part of the 20^th century, the Mafioso grew stronger as their tentacles reached further into the government. Laws to criminalize the Mafioso were difficult to enforce. The Cammora rivaled the Mafia in its scale of violence. Between the two of them they were murdering on average over 500 people a year—lawmakers, journalists, and anyone who got in their way. “The Italian state had helped make its citizens prosperous, but it failed to provide security or to protect its officials. Politics, prosperity, and corruption seemed to mix very easily.”

Industrialization in the second part of the 20^th century made Italy as prosperous as in the Middle Ages, exporting furniture, clothing, glass and ceramics. But it left scars of deforestation, cementing over olive and citrus groves, and damaging the landscape of the country which the author quite obviously deplored.

Silvio Berlusconi, who served as prime minister from 2008-2011, was a self-created politician. He did not help the economy as he promised, ignored Parliament, used his own television stations as his pulpit, and surrounded himself with a gaggle of young women. The Italian people forgave his sexual indiscretions because, after all, he was Italian. He advised women to marry someone as rich and seductive like him. He advised Italian men they could be like him if they tried. He routinely laughed off criticism and blamed everything that went wrong on the communists. He bowed to Rome although he was neither chaste or observant. Uneducated about Italian history or philosophy, he denied Mussolini’s terrorism. It was no surprise that the Mafia’s resurgence in the early 21st century coincided with Berlusconi’s ascendency as it became more invisible, but more invasive.

Gilmour often questions if Italy is truly a nation. As recently as 1994 the two main political parties- Communist and Christian Democracy--dissolved and in 1996 there was a short-lived attempt by northern Italy to secede. In recent years Spain’s GDP surpassed Italy. In 2010, China rivaled Italy in the production of spectacles, glass, shoes and clothing. Lethargy often predominates a country where, in 2008, only 16% of Italians trusted their politicians. In 2011, the 150st celebration of unification, the division between the poorer south and the rich north was still present. 

Despite bureaucracy and corruption, Gilmour admits that there is a distinct vibrancy to Italy. His last chapter, “Resilient Italy” discusses the ever-present importance of the family and the provincialism of small towns where Italians still enjoy their local piazzas and churches. 

Gilmour concludes that Italians have created some of the world’s greatest art, architecture, music, and one of its finest cuisines, but it has never been as good as the sum of all its parts.

The narrator, Napoleon Ryan, has an authentic British accent which fits the book, since David Gilmour was British and lived in Italy for many years. Ryan pronounced the Italian names perfectly which added authenticity to this audio book. Click here for an audio clip of the book.

Leave me a comment by January 12th (with your email address if you are new to my blog) to enter the giveaway. 

The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples- An Audio Book Review and Giveaway. Part I

Thanks to so many of you who visited last week's blog on Joyce Hostetter's cover reveal of DRIVE. The post had  1067 opens--which makes it the third most viewed post on my blog!

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If you are a secret Italophile or dream of touring Venice, Florence, and Pompeii like I do, then this book is for you. Although the talented author, Sir David Gilmour, says that this is not an academic work and is suitable for tourists and amateur historians, the depth and breath of this work is stellar. Almost 20 hours of audio (480 pages) provide the listener with everything you ever wanted to know about "the peninsula." As mentioned before when I review audio books, most of this material is paraphrased.

Audio book provided by Tantor Media. 

The author opens with the geography of the peninsula providing insight into the role the mountain ranges and rivers (which are less navigable then France or England) to the country’s agriculture and economy. 

From there he delves into mythology as well as ancient Italy including Cicero, Anthony, and other political leaders in the years before Christ. Immigration from other countries brought a variety of peoples to the peninsula including Greeks and Celts.

The Roman Empire was brutal in conquest but granted privileges of Roman citizenship, protection, tax advantages, and the right to stand for office. Around 91 BC the army was the chief agent of the process of Romanization of Italia with the hopes of creating a peaceful, united country. In fact, Italy was a land of city states, not a federation with a national ethnic identity. Empire building was the priority resulting in slavery, corruption, crucifixions, and commonplace murders.

The barbarian and Byzantine period which stretched from 330-1453, was colored by the presence of foreign rule, the memory of the pagan past, and the overwhelming force of the Catholic tradition. This era was marked by wars over territories, vying emperors, the territorial dominion of popes, and struggles for power and control between popes and emperors. Secular rulers who disobeyed the pope were commonly excommunicated. One example was Emperor Henry 4^th who dismissed Pope Gregory and called him a false monk. In retaliation, the pope excommunicated the emperor and encouraged subjects to rebel. Although Gilmore didn’t spend much space on origins of papacy, he did comment that the papacy “didn’t care about religion until the reformation.” 

In Gilmour's opinion, Italy's system of city states was predestined to fall. Although the town centers were well preserved, small towns that were close together led to suspicion, anxiety about spies, and large predatory neighborhoods. Fears led to alliances and endless progression of little wars and "endemic factionalism." 

Conflicts with the Hapsburg Empire during the Middle Ages was a history of wars, conquests, divided republics and states. Italy tried to be a great nation and made alliances with France, Prussia, and Austria in attempts to be great.  

At the end of the 18th century, Napoleon led several campaigns to conquer Italy. Although Napoleon successfully carried off many works of art, he was  unsuccessful in conquering the country. Instead, Italy became more unified because the people were disillusioned with his unmet promises. 

Gilmour discusses the origins of words and organizations. The word ghetto was used in Venice to put Jews and other races in separate parts of the city for their protection. Jew wore particular clothing, but were bankers and doctors in a city known to be tolerant of various ethnicities. Caesar led to the Russian word Czar. The International Red Cross was founded because Henry Dunant’s reaction to a bloody battle in Solferino, Italy in 1859.

Gilmore incorporates Italy’s long history of love for written, visual, and musical arts. Virgil’s poetry had impact on Dante and Milton. In fact, Virgil’s description of the Italian countryside has had an enduring visual impact. Over time, art was often a window into politics. 1848, Italian operatic tradition gained a reputation no one would have predicted. The re-emergence of Italian opera was accomplished almost single handedly by Rossini.  

It is difficult to review a book of this length all in one post. Leave a comment this week as well as next when I post Part II and I'll enter your name twice. I'll pick a winner on January 12th. 

Leonardo the Florentine- A Review and a Giveaway

If you have a middle school reader who enjoys history and art, then this novel which fictionalizes the early life of Leonardo da Vinci will be just the book for him or her. 

This is the first in "The Life and Travels of da Vinci" series and it is obvious that the author, Catherine McGrew Jaime, has researched well a beloved topic. She expertly interwove facts about Leonardo's tense relationship with his father, his apprenticeship to master Verrocchio, Florence's architectural details, and information about the Medici family into a quick-reading narrative. 

In this section, Leonardo has lived in Florence for only six months. He grabbed his drawing utensils--sketching paper and a charcoal stick.

What he really wanted to do was to draw--to draw the buildings that he was seeing here, and to put some of this amazing architecture down on paper where he could study it in the evenings. He had seen a church before he came to Florence, certainly, and yet he had never imagined this many churches in one location before. Church spires punctured the sky above Florence at every block. (p. 53)

When Leonardo wasn't busy helping Verrocchio mix paints, create colorful banners, jeweled robes, and beautiful blankets for the Medici family; or run errands for him, he learned Latin and hovered around other workshops. Alongside Antonio Pollaiuolo, he helped perform autopsies and studied muscles and joints. Other times he visited Paolo Toscanelli, a famous mathematician and mapmaker where he learned elements of astronomy, geography and optics.

At twenty-years-old, six years after being apprenticed to Verrochio, Leonardo was accepted into the Painters' Guild and given the title, Maestro (Master). Although he was entitled to open his own workshop he stayed another five years so he could continue to learn from Verrochio. 

Once on his own, he began receiving small commissions. Although he was a masterful painter, inventing and science were his first loves. Even when money was tight, he "continued his scientific and mechanical work, with designs for screws, drills, mills, and machines for waterworks." (p. 148)  Eventually Leonardo got tired of Florence and decided to apply to the Duke of Milan for work. He wrote a letter to the duke suggesting his defensive plans could be a help to him, packed his belongings, some of his favorite drawings, and his prized silver lyre. With only a few coins to his name he started out on the two hundred mile journey that would take him to his next adventure.

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For the next chapter in Leonardo's life, you'll have to read Leonardo: Masterpieces in Milan. If you wish to enter the drawing for this book, please leave me a comment by 6 PM July 1. Make sure you leave your email address if I don't have it. Follow my blog or share this on social media and I'll enter your name twice; just make sure you tell me what you do. 

You might also want to check out Catherine's overview of Da Vinci's life in her book, Leonardo Da Vinci: His Life and His Legacy.