WHY I LOVE ITALY

May 12, 2017

            Before my wife and I embark on our next trip to Italy (to the Amalfi Coast and the isle of Capri), I thought I would record for posterity, not to mention my reading public, a few thoughts devoted to the theme “Why I Love Italy.”

My first exposure to the Italian peninsula took place over four decades ago when I was a 17-year-old high school student traveling around Western Europe on a low-budget “Grand Tour” with the Foreign Service League.  The six-week tour, in the company of some 50 teenage students and a dozen chaperones, cost only $916.  It started in London and ended in Rome.  In between we toured Stratford-upon-Avon to see Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, Amsterdam and Rotterdam to compare pre- and post-WWII Holland, Normandy (with its unforgettable rows of white crosses at the American Cemetery), Paris and Versailles, Luzern and Bern, and Florence, which still showed evidence of the 1966 flood of the Arno that damaged or destroyed so many art works and killed over one hundred persons.

The trip overflowed with adventure.  In London I met up with my long-time Welsh pen pal Judith and walked with her through colorful Barnaby Street; hippies attired in psychedelic colors and high on marijuana wove in and out of the crowds.  Later, while crossing the Channel from Dover to the mainland, one of our group leaned over the edge of the ferry and a gust of wind blew the passport out of his shirt pocket into the water.  The all-important document was lost forever.  In Amsterdam we learned what “red light district” meant by inadvertently walking through it.  In France one of the female students shrieked during dinner when she found a snail crawling about in her salad; the waitress picked it up, shrugged her shoulders, and exclaimed, “Escargot!”  In Switzerland two of the boys were rough housing in the dorm, and one crashed through a pane glass window; the chaperones were displeased, but all was eventually forgiven.

The biggest adventures, however, transpired in what Dante called “il bel paese” (the beautiful land).  Italy proved to be the highlight of our tour for several reasons, including the incredible juxtaposition of the ancient with the baroque, the stately neoclassical with the chaotic modern.  In Rome we stayed in a convent run by non-English-speaking nuns, and we took a daily tram into the heart of the city.  We trudged in the heat around the Coliseum and through the Roman forum; we gaped with open mouths at the oculus at the top of the Pantheon and Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the dome of St. Peter’s.  One night, on the stage set in the Baths of Caracalla, I witnessed my first live opera performance:  Verdi’s Aida, with a live elephant walking across the stage.  A trip to Pompeii proved another highlight when, with the help of my high school Latin, I was able to decipher some of the ancient signs, such as “Cave Canem.”  (It helped that a mosaic of a ferocious-looking dog accompanied that particular warning.)  I also learned what ithyphallic art was when our guide requested that only the boys could see certain antique works, which he then delighted in showing us.  I was receiving an education that was surprising and perhaps more than I initially had bargained for.  What did not surprise me was that the food was glorious; I couldn’t seem to get enough of the pasta, pizza, and gelato.

Notwithstanding the glory that was Rome the city and Italy that was the geographical place, it was the Italian people who perhaps fascinated me the most.  They were intriguing; they seemed to find joy in every aspect of life. The first Italian we met was our bus driver, who spent a month driving us across Europe to Rome.  He was quite voluble in his native tongue.  Even though we couldn’t understand the individual words in his perorations against other drivers, we always recognized his displeasure through his virtuoso manipulation of the bus’s very loud horn and his dramatic hand gestures.  Once we arrived in his native land, he fairly glowed with pride and satisfaction.  By the time we settled into our convent abode, we teenagers had gained enough confidence that small groups of students were allowed to explore on their own.  I remember taking off to see Michelangelo’s Moses.  An elderly Italian gentleman approached me in the church and asked in broken English if I would like a personalized tour.  I said yes, and he spoke with pride as he pointed out the various art works that surrounded us.

Needless to say, after returning home from such a mind-expanding experience, I decided that I needed to learn much more about Italy and the Italian people.  I continued my study of Latin in high school and college and eventually, after reading Dante as a first-year college student, and then serving an Italian-speaking mission for two years, I formally studied not only the Italian language but also its rich literature and culture.  Italy became my life’s passion and my life’s work.  While I delight in accompanying students, friends, and family members back to the homeland of Virgil, Dante, Raphael, and Michelangelo,  to see and study its history, literature, and art treasures, I have come to realize that without the Italians, my love for the country would long ago have waned.  There is something about the Italians’ joy of living, their abiding appreciation for and loquacious commentary on every aspect of existence, from politics to soccer and from religion to art, from food to clothes, that I find exhilarating.  I love Italy in largest part because I love the Italian people.  My Italian friends have become my extended family.