Becoming Italian Word by Word

Little Easter in the Italian Language

 
Pasquetta

 After the grand religious rituals and elaborate feasts of Easter Sunday, Italians celebrate il lunedi dell’Angelo (Angel’s Monday) with a picnic in the countryside beyond the walls of their cities.  This national holiday is called Pasquetta, or little Easter.

Like so many words with diminutive suffixes, it implies something more personal and appealing.  “Pasqua di rinascita, Pasquetta di festa,” Italians say.  “Easter for rebirth; Pasquetta for party.” The simple picnic dishes feature endless variations on eggs, including frittatine (small omelettes) and tortini (small torte or pies).

I’ve come to think of endings such as –ino, -ello, and –etto as the linguistic equivalent of the heaps of sugar Italians add to a thimbleful of espresso to sweeten its taste.  A bambina (baby girl), like the little angel above, inevitably elicits cries of "Carina!" "Bellina!" "Tesorina!" "Bambolina!"  (Cute! Pretty! Little darling! Baby doll!) Almost everything to do with piccolini (little ones)  merits a diminutive, right down to culetto for a sweet little baby bottom. 

Many diminutives simply signify size or shape.  In contrast to an albero (tree), an alberino is a shrub; an alberello, a sapling; and an alberetto, a dwarf tree. Trousers are calzoni; calzoncini, shorts.    The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi coined the term neutrino  (little neutral one) for a particle even smaller than a neutron.  In music, prestissimo means a little faster than presto;  andantino, not as slow as andante. 

Thanks to diminutives, a sign outside a rustic osteria (a tavern serving simple food) can summarize its entire menu in three variations:

    Pranzo (lunch): 15 euro
    Pranzetto (lighter lunch): 10 euro
    Pranzettino (bite to eat): 5 euro.

Diminutives also can add a clever twist to common words. An especially endearing form of amore is amorino.  Doctors refer to the patient information insert that accompanies a prescription medication as a bugiardino (little liar).  A horse has a coda (tail), but Italian men and women may sport a codina (pony tail). Vento (wind) melts into venticello (a nice little wind), but gentler still is a brezzolina (soft little breeze). 

But not every little thing is a good one.  My Italian friends warn me to beware of people asking for a little anything, whether it’s a tiny little moment of your time (attimino), a peck of a kiss (bacino), or a bit of help (aiutino).  Usually they’re after much more.

Words and Expressions

Figlioli piccini dolore di testa, fanciulli grandini dolore di cuore -- young children, headache; older kids, heartache 

stellina di mogliettina  -- little star of a little wife (literally), a wonderful wife

capellini  (from capelli for hair) -- fine or thin hair (or spaghetti)

casetta (from casa for house) -- little house, cottage

negozietto (from negozio for shop) -- small shop

Dianne Hales is the author of La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Celebrating Women in the Italian Language

la donna

woman

Italy celebrates la giornata della donna (woman’s day) on March 8, when husbands, boyfriends, and bosses present the women in their lives with bouquets of yellow mimosa. This international celebration is a relatively recent invention, created in 1911, but la donna has always played a complex, critical role in Italian life -- and language.

No one may have understood this better than Nicolò Tommaseo, a nineteenth-century essayist and iconoclast  whose passions included women and words. He demonstrated his devotion to the latter by compiling the Dizionario dei sinonimi, an encyclopedic narrative dictionary of Italian synonyms, published in 1864, and unmatched in any other language and literature. 

Italian alone, he contended—and in particular the Tuscan dialect that shaped the language—captures sfumature (nuances), the same word Italian uses for the subtle brush strokes of artists like Leonardo da Vinci.

 In Italian, for instance, a donna can also be a:

    *donna allegra or donna di facili costumi -- a woman of easy virtue 
    *donna di casa -- housewife (also called a casalinga)
    *donna di mondo -- worldly, sophisticated woman
    *donna di servizio –-housemaid, domestic help
    *prima donna -- leading lady
    *donnina -- clever or sensible girl
    *donnino -- womanly or mature girl who takes on adult responsibilities despite her young age
    *donnetta -- common or ordinary woman, also an old maid or a woman of no value
    *donnaccia -- bad-tempered woman, tart, prostitute
    *donnone -- tall, imposing or large woman
    *donnicciola -- simple or stupid woman.  gossip, or if used for a man, sissy or coward 

    A donnaiolo, however, is no lady, but a ladies’ man or womanizer.

Tommaseo further distinguished between una donna cattiva and una cattiva donna (English speakers would translate both as a bad woman).  However, the phrases do not have the same meaning in Italian. Una cattiva donna dresses badly and presents herself poorly, while una donna cattiva is spiteful and full of malice. Either could be una cattiva moglie (bad wife), who isn’t good at running a household and caring for a family, or una moglie cattiva, with a mean or wicked spirit.

Words  and Expressions:

fare la primadonna -- to act like a primadonna

"Chi dice donna dice danno" -- who says woman says damage (women are synonymous with harm)

"Quel che donna vuole Dio lo vuole" -- what woman wants, God wants.

"Né donna, né tela a lume di candela" -- Choose neither a woman nor linen by candlelight (to avoid  a nasty surprise the next morning)

Dianne Hales is author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

One thing is certain: La donna, by any and all names, has always enraptured the Italian uomo (man). Here is the legendary Pavorotti singing Puccini's lyrical tribute from Manon Lescaut:

Celebrating Carnevale in the Italian Language

Carnevale
Carnival

Thanks to my Catholic childhood, I could easily follow the Sunday mass in the tiny stone church of the Borgo Monte Vibiano Vecchio in Umbria.  Then the white-haired priest began to preach in ever more impassioned tones about the evils of “i peccati della carne,” which I translated literally into “the sins of the meat.”  

Had the Church reinstated its Friday ban on meat?  Had the dreaded mucca pazza (mad cow) returned?  I glanced at the dozen or so townspeople in attendance. Most were averting their eyes and looking embarrassed—or guilty. An Italian friend later explained why:  “carne” also means flesh, and a sermon on the sins of the flesh could discomfit almost anyone.

For centuries the pre-Lent festivities of carnevale sumptuously celebrated “carne” in every sense. However, the name comes specifically from the Latin for meat (carnem) and “take away or remove” (levare).  A church decree dating back to 653 declared that anyone who ate meat during the forty days of Lent (Quaresima in Italian) could not receive communion on Easter. Charlemagne reportedly sentenced Lenten meat-eaters  to death. 

The prospect of  long months without meat or merriment inspired Italians to gorge themselves  throughout -- and often long before -- la settimana grassa (the fat week) before Ash Wednesday. It also inspired a luscious vocabulary for the culinary treats of this festive time, such as the delicate fried pastries we might call fritters.  In Piedmont, they’re bugie (little lies); in Tuscany, cenci (rags); in Milan, chiacchiere (gossips); in Emilia-Romagna, lattughe (lettuce leaves).  Cooks elsewhere may call them nastri delle suore (nuns’ ribbons), galani or sfrappe and add ingredients such as raisins and anise.

The sin-drenched Venetian Republic was famous for indulgences of carne in its more sensual sense. During Carnevale, which lasted for months,  party-goers of all classes hid their identities behind elaborate maschere (masks).

Artisans known as mascherari gained fame for their exquisite creations, which came in three varieties.  The bauta covered the entire face but had no mouth opening and a lot of gilding.  The oval-shaped moretta was worn by women, often along with a veil. The full-face white larva (from the Latin for mask or ghost) was made of fine wax cloth.  For a dazzling display  of Venice’s Carnevale finery, click on this video:

 

Words and Expressions:

fare le frittelle –- literally, to make the fritters; to celebrate Carnival  
carnevalone –- the four extra days of Carnevale celebrated in places like Milan
carnevalata –- Carnival revelry
A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale –- Anything goes at Carnival time.
L’amore di Carnevale muore in Quaresima –- a love that starts during Carnival dies in Lent.

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Be My Valentine in the Italian Language

 

il tuo Valentino

your Valentine

On every February 15, the ancient Romans would celebrate a fertility festival called the Lupercalia with the sacrifice of a goat in the sacred cave dedicated to Romulus and Remus, the city’s legendary founders. Priests sliced the goat’s hide into strips and dipped them in the sacrificial blood. Boys would run through the streets, gently slapping women with the goatskin strips to enhance their fertility in the coming year. 

Later in the day, all the young unmarried women in the city would place their names in a large urn.  Rome’s bachelors each selected a name and became that woman’s sexual partner for the year in a sort of trial union that often led to marriage.

As it grew in power in the centuries following the birth of Christ, the Catholic Church abolished this pagan practice. In its stead it created the most romantic of saints’ days on February 14 to honor a martyred Roman priest named Valentino.  Although historical accounts differ, Valentino seems to have served in Rome in the third century A.D., when the Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men because he believed that bachelors made better soldiers. Valentino, sympathetic to young lovers, defied the decree and continued to perform weddings. 

Arrested and tortured, the tender-hearted priest developed a friendship with a young girl—perhaps his jailor’s daughter—who came to visit him. Some say they fell in love; others claim that he cured her blindness. Before being beheaded, the priest sent her a note that he signed, “il tuo Valentino.”  Lovers around the world have been using the same phrase ever since.

On Valentine’s Day, which has not been as commercialized in Italy as in the United States, Italian couples celebrate with dinner out, flowers, or the famous Baci Perugina, small, chocolate-covered hazelnuts wrapped with a poetic quote in four languages.

However you celebrate this happy day, I wish  you and your sweetheart a buona festa degli innamorati!   

Sweet Sayings for Your Valentine  

Mi sto innamorando di te -- I’m falling in love with you 

Sei l'amore della mia vita -- You are the love of my life 

Ti amo da impazzire/morire/alla follia -- I love you to go crazy, to die, to madness 

Sono pazzo di te -- I’m crazy about you 

Ti adoro -– I adore you

Voglio soltanto te –- I want only you

Sei l'amore della mia vita –- You are the love of my life

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Click below to hear a perfect song for lovers: "Ho voglio di te" (I want you):

Il Pellicano: A Place for Lovers in the Italian Language

Kathy McCabe asked me to write about my favorite place in Italy for her ever-informative “Dream of Italy” newsletter. Her headline for the article: “Il Pellicano: The Love Resort.” It truly is—and here’s why.

Un nido d'amore

A Love Nest

It was love at first sight (amore a prima vista). My gaze swept from majestic cliffs to terracotta roofs to flower-strewn terraces to sun-dazzled water. Il Pellicano took my breath away (ha mozzato il fiato).

“I want you to bring me here every year for the rest of my life,” I said to my husband Bob. That was 1990—and we have indeed returned annually. “Come gli uccelli in primavera,” (like the birds in spring) I joke. How could we not? No place on earth may be more romantic.

Love is in the DNA of this renowned Relais & Chateaux resort. In the 1960s Michael Graham, a dashing British pilot and war hero, stole the heart (ha rubato il cuore) of the beautiful American heiress Patsy Danzel. After marrying, they travelled through Europe to revel “in the intensity of their love” ("nell’intensità del loro amore"), as one biography puts it).

A remote hillside on Monte Argentario in western Tuscany inspired the Grahams to develop a true nido d’amore (love nest). They named it “Il Pellicano” in honor of Pelican Point, where they’d met. Rather than a standard hotel, the sprawling compound consists of a main building (una struttura principale), stone cottages (cottage in pietra), gardens (giardini) of herbs and wild rosemary, beds (aiuole) of bright flowers, and groves of olive trees and cypress (olivi e cipressi). The glitterati of Europe made themselves at home at the posh but unpretentious resort.

When we discovered Il Pellicano in 1990, it had settled into a quiet, rustic inn. Over the years we’ve witnessed its stunning transformation into an exclusive resort (un resort esclusivo) under the astute management of its second owner, Roberto Sciò. Every part of Il Pellicano has been updated, renovated and polished to a five-star sheen. The main restaurant has won two Michelin stars under its wizardly chef Antonio Guida. A ristorante all’aperto (an open-air restaurant) offers typical Tuscan cuisine (cucina toscana).

Many guests spend the day lounging around the elegant pool (pigramente sdraiati intorno all’elegante piscina), but I rush to the crystal-clear sea, so intensely turquoise that Italians call it azzurro-azzurro (blue-blue). Early morning swims are my favorite. Except for a few fishing boats, I have the entire Tyrrhenian sea to myself.

Il Pellicano, regularly named to Travel & Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler’s lists of top hotels, offers every possible amenity, but nature provides its most magical moments. The first time that I saw a full moon rise above the dining terrace, I gasped. Within minutes a river of moon light turned the sea to silver. A waiter told me this is why the peninsula is called “Argentario” (from argento for silver). If his story isn’t true, it should be. The sight is magical. So is the atmosphere.

“I don’t believe you’re married,” The maitre’d would tease us. “You laugh too much. You must be lovers (amanti).” Even after 21 years, that’s exactly how we feel at Il Pellicano. Come with someone you cherish for una fuga d’amore in riva al mare (a love escape at the sea shore), and you’ll feel the same.

Words and Expressions

uno tra i migliori alberghi del mondo -– one among the best hotels in the world

vista mare –- sea view

una cena a lume di candela –- a dinner by candle light

la cucina raffinata –- refined or sophisticated cuisine

lusso, lussuoso -- luxury, luxurious

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

10 Reasons to Fall in Love with Italian -- and Italy (Part 2)

 
 

innamorarsi 

 to fall in love

Italian embodies its native speakers’ greatest genius: the ability to transform anything—from marble to melody, from the humble noodle to life itself—into a joyous art While other tongues do little more than speak, Italian thrills the ear, beguiles the mind, captivates the heart, and enraptures the soul. 

Here are five more reasons to fall in love with Italian. 

6. You can immerse yourself in an Italian masterpiece. You can’t sculpt like Michelangelo, paint like Leonardo or design like Armani. But you can read and speak the language that 14th century poets—Dante first and foremost—crafted from the effervescent Tuscan vernacular. Handpicked by writers and scholars in the first official Vocabolario in any Western tongue, Italian words represent “i più bei fiori” (the most beautiful flowers) in the language.

 7. Speaking Italian may be the closest many of us get to singing. What makes Italian so musical are its vigorous vocali (vowels): An Italian “a” slides up from the throat into an ecstatic “aaaah.” Its “e” (pronounced like a hard English “a”) cheers like the hearty “ay” at the end of hip-hip-hooray. The “i” (which sounds like an English “e”) glides with the glee of the double e in bee. The “o” (an English “o” on steroids) is as perfectly round as the red circle Giotto painted in a single stroke for a pope demanding a sample of his work. The macho “u” (deeper, stronger and longer than its English counterpart) lunges into the air like a penalty kick from Italy’s world-champion soccer team, the Azzurri (Blues). 

8. Italian may be our universal mother tongue. Dating back almost three millennia, its primal sounds—virtually identical to those that roared through Roman amphitheaters thousands of years ago—strike a chord in our universal linguistic DNA. According to some scholars, Italian may come closer than any other idiom to expressing what it means to be human. 

9. You’re never too young—or too old—to learn Italian. As brain scans have shown, groping for even the simplest words in a different language sparks new clusters of neurons and synapses. Within weeks in an all-Italian class, preschoolers understand everything happening around them. It takes longer as we get older, but learning a second language later in life provides a different advantage: It helps stave off dementia. 

10. Italians. The more you know of their language, the more you’ll realize how right the British author E.M. Forster was when he urged visitors to drop “that awful tourist idea that Italy’s only a museum of antiquities and art.” His advice: “Love and understand the Italians for the people are more marvelous than the land.” Indeed they are. And if you’re of Italian descent, cherish Italy’s language as a marvelous part of your heritage. 

This may be your last chance to enter our "Fall in Love with Italy" contest, which runs through Monday, February 28, until midnight Pacific time.  Click below to hear me talk about how I fell in love with this luscious language.

10 Reasons to Fall in Love with the Italian Language (Part 1)

 
   

L'Italiano

Italian won me over at first "Ciao!" Over the last quarter-century, I have devoted countless hours and effort—enough, if applied to more practical pursuits, for the down payment on a villa in Umbria—to the wiliest of Western tongues. I have studied Italian in every way I could find—from Berlitz to books, with CDs and computer drills, in private tutorials and conversation groups, and in what some might deem unconscionable amounts of time in Italy.  

Such passion is nothing new.  “In our present times,” observed the Florentine playwright Giovan Battista Gelli in 1551, “many diverse people of intelligence and refinement, outside Italy no less than within Italy, devote much effort and study to learning and speaking our language for no reason but love.” 

Why fall in love with this luscious language? Here are the first five of my top ten reasons: 

1. Italian is “beautiful, fun and sexy.” That’s how people perceive Italy and its language, Stephen Brockman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, observes in an essay called “In Defense of European Languages.” “Why not?” he adds. “I can’t see anything wrong with that.” Neither can I. 

2. No other language is more romantic. All the Romance languages evolved from the volgare (vernacular) of ancient Rome Yet none may have so many seductive ways of expressing amore: Ti amo, mio tesoro (I love you, my darling) for l’amore della tua vita (the love of your life). Ti voglio bene (for all others). Voglio soltante te (I want only you). Vieni qui e baciami (Come here and kiss me.) Ti adoro (I adore you). 

3. Everything sounds better in Italian. An ordinary towel becomes an asciugamano; a handkerchief, a fazzoletto; a dog leash, a guinzaglio. Garbage isn’t mere trash. In Italian, it’s spazzatura. Italian’s linguistic pantry is stuffed with words delicious enough to eat, such as cappellacci di zucca (pumpkin-stuffed pasta shaped like caps), ciambellone (ring cake), sospiri di monaca (a nun’s sigh), tiramisù (pick-me-up) and lacrime d’amore (tears of love), candy sugar pearls filled with sweet syrup. 

4. You can use your hands—a lot! In Italian speaking without gestures is like writing without punctuation. Hands become commas, exclamation points and question marks. Who even needs words when a tug at a bottom eyelid translates into "Attenzione!" ("Watch out! Pay attention!"), a straight line drawn in the air as “Perfetto!” and fingers flicking upward from the neck past the tip of the chin as "Che me ne frega" ("I don't give a *&#@!").  

5. Italian has become the new French. With only an estimated 60 to 63 million native speakers (compared to a whopping 1.8 blilion who claim at least a little English), Italian barely eclipses Urdu, Pakistan’s official language, for nineteenth place as a spoken tongue. Yet Italian ranks fourth among the most studied languages—after English, Spanish, and French, which Italian now rivals as a language of culture and refinement. 

Dianne Hales is the author of La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language. To enter our Fall in Love with Italy contest, click here. The contest closes February 28.

 Italian may be the only language that has inspired una canzone d’amore (a love song). Click below to hear this lyrical tribute:

Ten of the Most Romantic Sayings in the Italian Language

frasi d'amore

 phrases of love

Despite their romantic reputation, Italians reserve “ti amo” (I love you) only for the loves of their lives. English-speakers love everyone and everything with the same wanton word—a lack of precision (and imagination) that confused a friend when she moved here from Italy. “People were always telling me they loved my hair, my eyes, my spaghetti alla carbonara,” she explains. “How could it feel special when a man said he loved me?”

Italian parents and children as well as boyfriends and girlfriends express affection with “Ti voglio bene,” which translates literally into “I want you well,” but conveys an entire universe of best wishes: “I want the best for you.” “I want all good things for you.” “I want what you want because I care so much for you.” This phrase echoes in the lyrics of hundreds of love songs. Smitten teenagers end their text messages with TVTB for “ti voglio tanto bene” (I love you so much). I found the phrase embroidered on a heart-shaped pillow (above) in a store in Rome last February.

This Valentine's Day--or  any time you are invaghito di qualcuno (infatuated with someone), looking for un amore appassionato (a passionate love), or innamorato (head over heels in love)-- nothing is more romantic than an Italian dichiarazione d’amore (declaration of love). Here are some of the most irresistible frasi romantiche (romantic phrases):

1. Sei la mia anima gemella -- You are my soulmate.

2. Ti penso ogni giorno -- I think of you every day

3. Senza di te la mia vita non ha senso -- Without you my life makes no sense.

4. Vieni qui e baciami -- Come here and kiss me.

5. Sei tutto per me. Sei il mio universo -- You are everything for me. You are my universe.

6. Non posso vivere senza te -- I can’t live without you.

7. Non pensavo di poter provare un sentimento così profondo prima di incontrarti –- Before meeting you, I didn’t think I could experience such a profound feeling.

8. Non potrò mai smettere d’amarti -- I could never stop loving you.

9. Voglio passare il resto della mia vita con te –- I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

10. Siamo angeli con un'ala sola, solo restando abbracciati possiamo volare -- We are angels with only one wing; only embracing each other are we able to fly (from writer-director Luciano De Crescenzo).

I hope your storia d’amore (love story) ends the same way that Italian fairy tale romances do: with the phrase “e vissero felici e contenti” (and they lived happily thereafter).

For the sheer fun of un gioco d'amore (a love game), click here to enter our "Fall in Love with Italy" contest. For more phrases and a lovely song about le più belle frasi d'amore, click below:

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

 

Celebrating Lovers in the Italian Language

La festa degli innamorati 

The Feast of the Enamored  

On every February 15, the ancient Romans would celebrate a fertility festival called the Lupercalia with the sacrifice of a goat in the sacred cave dedicated to Romulus and Remus, the city’s legendary founders. Priests sliced the goat’s hide into strips and dipped them in the sacrificial blood. Boys would run through the streets, gently slapping women with the goatskin strips to enhance their fertility in the coming year.

Later in the day, all the young unmarried women in the city would place their names in a large urn. Rome’s bachelors each selected a name and became that woman’s sexual partner for the year in a sort of trial union that often led to marriage. 

As it grew in power in the centuries following the birth of Christ, the Catholic Church abolished this pagan practice. In its stead it created the most romantic of saints’ days on February 14 to honor a martyred Roman priest named Valentino. 

Although historical accounts differ, Valentino seems to have served in Rome in the third century A.D., when the Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men because he believed that bachelors made better soldiers. Valentino, sympathetic to young lovers, defied the decree and continued to perform weddings. 

Arrested and tortured, the tender-hearted priest developed a friendship with a young girl — perhaps his jailor’s daughter—who came to visit him. Some say they fell in love; others claim that he cured her blindness. Before being beheaded, the priest sent her a note that he signed, “il tuo Valentino.” 

Lovers around the world have been using the same phrase ever since on the holiday Italians call la festa degli innamorati. The town of Vico del Gargano in Puglia celebrates Valentino, its patron saint, by inviting people in love to drink the juice of the local oranges, considered an elixir for love and happiness. Young couples make their way through the famous “Vicolo del bacio,” (the alleyway of the kiss), a tiny pathway only nineteen inches wide, where they exchange kisses and sweet nothings. 

Throughout Italy, which has not commercialized Valentine’s Day as much as in the United States, couples celebrate with una cenetta intima (a romantic or intimate dinner), flowers, or the famous Baci Perugina, small, chocolate-covered hazelnut “kisses” wrapped with a poetic quote in four languages. Some examples:  Un cuore che ama è sempre giovane -- A heart that loves is always young. L’amore è come la luna: se non cresce, cala -- Love is like the moon. If it doesn’t get bigger, it wanes. 

As Susan van Allen recounts in  100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go, the candies were invented by the wife of the famous Perugia chocolatier, who fell for a much younger worker and wrapped the chocolates sent to him for inspection in love notes.

You can win some "Baci" chocolates, along with other fun prizes, by entering our February "Fall in Love with Italy" contest here. 

 Sweet Sayings for Your Valentine: 

Mi sto innamorando di te -- I’m falling in love with you 

Ti amo tanto, tesoro mio -- I love you so much, my darling 

Sei l'amore della mia vita -- You are the love of my life 

Ti amo da impazzire/morire/alla follia -- I love you to go crazy, to die, to madness 

Sono pazzo di te -- I’m crazy about you 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Click below to hear a popular contemporary love song: "Ho voglio di te" (I want you):

Updating Divorce, Italian Style in Today's Italy

 

Lo stato delle unioni matrimoniali in Italia 

 The State of Italian Marital Unions

Classic Italian love stories end with the words, “E vissero felici e contenti” (And they lived happily thereafter). Times have changed. An Italian marriage now lasts an average of fifteen years. According to a new report on the state of Italians’ unions. more people are becoming divorziati (divorced). From 1995 to 2008, separations increased by 61 percent and divorces raddoppiati (doubled).   

"Il divorzio,” no linguistic newcomer, entered the Italian language in the 14th century, according to my etymological dictionary, which defines it as “scioglimento legale del matrimontio durante la vita dei coniugi” (the legal termination of a marriage during the life of the spouses). But it wasn’t until 1974, after decades of controversy and despite stiff opposition by the Catholic church, that Italians voted for il Referendum sulla legalizzazione del divorzio (the referendum on the legalization of divorce). 

The plight of unhappy couples trapped in miserable marriages prior to this vote inspired the delectable 1961 movie Divorce, Italian Style. Played by the marvelous Marcello Mastroiianni, Ferdinando (Fefé) Cefalù, a Sicilian baron, longs to rid himself of Rosalia, his insufferably suffocating wife, and fantasizes about her dying (see clip below).  Desperate to marry his nubile young cousin, Fefé plots to lure his spouse into the arms of a former lover so he can murder her in a justifiable effort to save his honor.  

Italians no longer have to resort to such extreme measures. For every thousand marriages, 286 end in a separation (finiscono in una separazione) and 179 in un divorzio. Like everything else in Italy, separation rates vary regionally—from a low of 186 per 1,000 marriages in the South to a high of 363 per 1,000 in the Northwest. 

Generally, couples are required to be legally separated for three continuous years before their divorce is finalized.  The median age (l’età media) at separation is 45 for men and 41 for women; for divorce, 46 and 43, respectively. 

So what leads to divorce in Italy? According to the University of Rome's "Grounds for Divorce and Maintenance Between Former Spouses," 98 percent of divorces stem from “a breakdown in the material and spiritual areas formerly shared between a legally joined couple” (la cessazione della comunione di vita materiale e spirituale tra i coniugi). Many couples simply cite irreconcilable differences (differenze inconciliabili) or incompatiblity (incompatibilità). 

So what could help marital unions last longer?  Here are some classic Italian sayings:

    *Moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi. Wives and cows from one’s own village.  

    *Nel marito prudenza, nella donna pazienza. A husband needs to be prudent, his wife patient. 

    *Dio li fa e poi li accoppia. God makes them, then couples them. 

     *Tra moglie e marito non mettere il dito.  Between a wife and husband, don't  put a finger. 

My personal favorite is the first expression I taught my husband of thirty-two years to say in Italian:  Mia moglie ha sempre ragione. (My wife is always right.)

Words and Expressions 

divorzista --divorce lawyer 

separazione consensuale –- separation by mutual consent 

annullamento del matrimonio –- annulment of marriage 

abbandono del letto coniugale –- abandonment of the conjugal bed