Becoming Italian Word by Word

Italian for Travelers: Swimming in a Sea of Words

nuotare, fare il bagno

 to swim, to go swimming

The first time that an Italian sharing a hotel elevator asked if I had “fatto il bagno,” I was taken aback. Was she really asking if I had taken a bath? And if so, why?

“Si,” I replied tentatively. As she chattered about the sun and the sea, I realized that “fare il bagno” also can translate informally as “to take a dip” or nuotare (to swim). 

“Sa nuotare?” (Do you know how to swim?) a lifeguard (bagnino) asked one day as I prepared to dive (fare un tuffo /tuffarsi) into the sea. “Si, si, sono una buona nuotatrice” (Yes, I’m a good swimmer), I assured him. In fact, my husband says that I can “nuotare come un pesce” (swim like a fish)--although I aspire to glide through the waves like a more alluring marine creature, such as a sirena (mermaid) or ninfa di mare (sea nymph).

Because the waters of northern California are too cold for una nuotata (swimming), I take advantage of every moment of the stagione balneare (bathing season) in Italy. I pack several costumi da bagno (bathing suits), occhialini da nuoto (goggles), ciabatte da piscina (pool slippers) and plenty of protezione solare (sunscreen),

In una piscina (swimming pool), I do vasche (laps) of various stili (strokes): a rana (breast stroke), nuoto alla marinara libero (side stroke) and dorso (back stroke). Sometimes I simply faccio il morto (play dead or float) or sguazzo (splash around).

However, I much prefer to head to la spiaggia (the beach) or a stabilimento balneare (bathing establishment) for some bagni di mare (sea bathing). (You can barely see me as a tiny dot in the middle of the photo above.) I’m not much of a subacqueo (diver), but if I have the chance, I enjoy snorkeling (nuotare con boccaglio e maschera). Sometimes I even pack my own pinne (flippers).

In Italian, you don’t have to entrare in acqua (get in the water) or immergersi (immerse yourself) to find yourself in alto mare (in high seas or all at sea). You might tuffarsi negli affari (plunge into business) and quickly end up in un mare di guai (in a sea of troubles). Then you would have to cercare per mari e per monti (search for the seas and mountains, or look high and low) for the equivalent of a salvagente (life preserver).

Italians might invite you to bagnare un avvenimento (celebrate an occasion, such as a graduation or baptism) with them. The event could turn out to be so moving that you might avere un tuffo al cuore (feel your heart dive -- or swell -- with emotion). You also don’t need lezioni di nuoto (swimming lessons) to nuotare nell’abbondanza or nell’oro — literally  to be so rich that you're swimming in wealth or gold.

Words and Expressions

balneare –- anything pertaining to swimming, seaside

tutto bagnato -- soaking wet 

divieto di balneazione –- no swimming

spanciata –- belly-flop (dare una spanciata –- to belly-flop)

bracciate –- strokes

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. Click here for more information on her "writer's studio" in Capri this fall. 

 

Celebrating Mamma in the Italian Language

La festa della mamma 

 Mother's Day 

Every year as the dark, cold winter gave way to the bright rebirth of Spring, the ancient Romans paid tribute to their gods of fertility. One holiday, Matronalia, was dedicated to Juno, the queen of the gods, and children gave gifts to their mothers on this day.  

Traditionally la festa della mamma in Italy fell on May 8. The current practice of celebrating Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May (la seconda domenica di maggio) started in 1957.  

La mamma italiana is part of her family’s life every day of the year--as was mine (above), even though she was 100 percent Polish. Men may hold the highest political offices, but the person at the helm of the family—the strongest Italian institution—is Mamma. Grown men called mammoni (big mama’s boys) remain at home well into their thirties (and sometimes beyond). Mammismo (“momism”), some contend, stems from a son’s belief that nothing could ever compare with amore materno (motherly love). 

Mothers inspired the most common—and versatile --expression in Italian: Mamma mia! You can translate it as “My God!”, “How great!”, “Oh no!”, “Incredible!” and hundreds of other ways—depending on context and inflection. A wide range of human emotions--from surprise to shock, delight to disbelief, joy to horror--can be conveyed in these two words. 

To help children of all ages express their love for Mamma, Italian websites post “auguri” (best wishes) for la festa della mamma. Here are some exampes: 

*”Le rose sono rosse, le viole sono blu, e tu sei la mamma migliore di quaggiù.” (Roses are red, violets are blue, and the best mamma down here is you.) 

*”Mamma, sei la mia vita, sei come un raggio di sole che al mattino mi sveglia con felicità e come la dolce luce di una stella, che la sera accompagna il mio sonno.” (Mamma, you are my life. You are like a ray of sun that awakens me with happiness in the morning and like the sweet light of a star that accompanies my sleep in the evening.) 

*”Mamma, sei la cosa più bella e dolce che la vita mi potesse donare. Ti voglio bene!” (Mamma, you are the most beautiful and sweetest thing that life could give me. I love you!) 

Words and Expressions 

“come mamma l’ha fatto” -- literally as his mother made him: completely naked, in his birthday suit 

casa madre -- mother or head office 

scena madre -- main scene, the most dramatic and revealing scene in a movie or play 

cocco di mamma --mama’s boy, mammone

madre in affitto -- surrogate mother  

le gioie della maternità -- the joys of motherhood 

Dianne Hales  is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ITALIAN,THE WORLD'S MOST ENCHANTING LANGUAGE. Click here for information on her "Writers' Studio" in Capri this fall.  

Here is a classic tribute to an Italian mamma: 

The Year of Italian Language and Culture: Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

As part of its celebration of "The Year of Italian Culture," Italy is commemorating the 500th anniversary of the writing of a classic work: Machiavelli's  Il Principe (The Prince). Although completed in 1513, the treatise by the man who "put the science into political science" wasn't published until 1532, five years after his death. Machiavelli's name since penetrated  the global vocabulary as an international byword for  political cunning and pragmatism. However, no one,  as T. S. Eliot observed, “was ever less Machiavellian than Machiavelli.” 

After fourteen years as a civil servant and diplomat in the Florentine Republic, Niccolò Machiavelli was tried, tortured, and exiled  after the Medici reclaimed power.  Frustrated in his forced retirement to his modest country home, Machiavelli began work on The Prince in the hope that a clear-eyed, no-nonsense tactical handbook would  display his political acumen and win him a government position. 

His  dreams, personal and political, never materialized. He died—“of a surfeit of failure,” one historian stated—before the printing of his masterwork. But by analyzing affairs of state dispassionately, with logic and objectivity, Machiavelli put the science into political science. 

Five centuries after Machiavelli’s time, The Prince still compels and shocks readers for two reasons: what its author says and how he says it. What if a prince acts so ruthlessly that he loses the adulation of his people?  Better to be feared than loved, shrugs Machiavelli. Since men are generally ungrateful, vacillating, cowardly, and greedy, he observes, they might promise their souls to a prince yet  desert or betray him because love is fickle, while fear is not.  Machiavelli never agonized over whether the ultimate end might justify any means.  He was sure it would.   

Just as remarkable as The Prince’s unflinching pragmatism is its language. Considered by some the finest Italian stylist of the Cinquecento (1500s),  Machiavelli wrote in a clean, stiletto-sharp  vernacular that echoed the everyday speech of his fellow Florentines (including, in some of his more ribald works, their earthiness). 

Machiavelli, whose satiric play The Mandrake is still revived and performed around the world,   couldn’t resist mocking the pretensions of some of his  newly prosperous countrymen.  In his own twist on bella and brutta figura, he recounts the story of a character named Castruccio.  A man from Lucca invites him to dinner at his house, which—thanks to a recent windfall--he has just remodeled in the most ostentatious manner possible. During the meal Castruccio suddenly spits in his host’s face. Rather than apologize, he explains that he did not know where else to spit without damaging something valuable.

Shortly before his death, the heart-broken political strategist wrote to a friend,  “I love my country better than my very soul.”  His country, which ignored him in life, didn’t know quite what to say of him in death. His  monumental tomb in Florence's Santa Croce, the burial site for Italy’s titans of history, reads simply, “To so great a name, no epitaph can do justice.”

Words and Expressions

machiavellismo –- political cunning

machiavellico –- crafty

machiavellicamente –- in a crafty manner

vivere da principe –- to live like a prince

principesco -– princely, prince-like 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. Click here for more information on her "writer's studio" in Capri this fall. 

How a Chocolate Kiss Is Like an Italian Mamma

Il Bacio Perugina e una mamma italiana

The Perugina “Kiss” and an Italian Mom

How is a world-famous chocolate made in Perugia like an Italian mother?

In a delightful essay published in a collection called Italianità, the author Alessandro Guerriero explains that Il Bacio Perugina is like una mamma italiana because:

*non cambia mai (it never changes).

*è un po’ troppo dolce (it’s a little too sweet), ma non priva (but not lacking) a certain tartness.

*come una mamma italiana d’altri tempi (like an old-style Italian mamma), it is ricca di sentenze (rich in sayings) che non servono assolutamente a nulla (that serve absolutely nothing) but make you smile. (Click here for some samples of frasi dei baci Perugina.

*come una mamma Italian d’altri tempi con gli abiti della festa (like an old-style Italian mom dressed in Sunday clothes), it is un po’ sognante (a little dreamy), un po’ futile (a little frivolous), un po’ fane’ (faded) but you become fond of these things because they make her stand out tra migliaia di altre mamme italiane (among millions of other Italian mothers).

*come una mamma italiana di altri tempi vestita con gli abiti della festa (like an old-style Italian mom  dressed in party clothes), it’s nice to encounter her ma non tutti giorni (but not every day).

*come tutte le mamme italiane è da prendere a piccole dosi (like all Italian moms she should be taken in small doses), altrimenti provoca “maldipancia” insormontabili (otherwise she provokes an insurmountable tummy ache).

Of course, there are many other types of kisses, including a mother's baci affettuosi (affectionate kisses). Friends might exchange a bacino or bacetto (little kiss), but you'd reserve a bacio sulla bocca (kiss on the mouth) or a baciozzo (slang) or bacione (hearty kiss or smooch) for a romantic partner. A date usually ends with a bacio della buonanotte (goodnight kiss). Lovers say goodbye with a bacio d’addio (parting kiss). But there's one type of kiss everyone want to avoid: il bacio della morte (the kiss of death).

Words and Expressions

mandare un bacio -- to throw a kiss

sbaciucchio -- continual kissing, smooching

sbacciucchiarsi -- to be always kissing one another,  to smooch, to canoodle (if anyone remember this word)

baciamano -- hand-kissing

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

Click below for a tribute to an Italian mamma:

April fool--or fish--in the Italian language

il pesce d'aprile

April fool 

According to legend, a raven on Noah’s ark set off on April 1 to search for a sign that the flood waters had receded, but it never returned. Others trace the madcap holiday back to the year 1564, when Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar that changed the beginning of the new year from April 1 to January 1. Some people who didn’t believe or wouldn’t accept the change kept celebrating New Year’s Day on the first of April. Others tried to show how silly these original April fools were  by sending them on pointless errands or tricking them into thinking something false was true.

Somehow the fool came to take the form of a fish in Italy.  Children try to tape a paper cutout of a little fish  (pesciolino) to the back of a schoolmate. “Have you seen it?” they chant. “Who?” the unwitting child asks.  “Il pesce d'aprile!”

In a country of pescatori (fishermen), and marinai  (sailors ), il pesce swims through daily life—and language.  In Italian you’re sano come un pesce  (healthy as a fish rather than an ox).  A big shot is un pesce grosso (big fish).  But be wary: I pesci grossi mangiano i piccini. The big fish eat the small fry. 

You don’t need a pole and bait to go fishing in Italian. Buttarsi a pesce (literally throw yourself like a fish) means to dive into an activity headfirst or with enthusiasm. Non sapere che pesci pigliare (not know which fish to pick) refers to being at a loss and not knowing which way to turn. Rather than the early bird catching the worm, in Italian chi dorme non piglia pesci (he who sleeps doesn’t catch the fish.) 

But in Italy, as everywhere,  “L’ospite è come il pesce; dopo tre giorni puzza.”  (Guests are like fish, after three days they stink.)

 
Words and Expressions

*trattare a pesci in faccia — to mistreat, to humiliate, to mortify

*un pesce fuor d'acqua — a fish out of water

*un pesce lesso — a boiled fish (boring person)

*prendere un granchio -- to take a crab (make a blunder, overshoot the mark)

*pescivendolo -- fishmonger

*pescheria -- fish 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:

Words of Love in the Italian Language

Frasi d’amore

Expressions of Love

Valentine’s Day isn't the only time to whisper some Italian paroline dolci (sweet nothings) in your partner’s ear. The classics never go out of style: “Amore”(Love). “Tesoro” (Darling). “Cuore mio” (My heart).  “Bella” (Lovely). “Gioia” (Joy). “Stella/stellina” (Star/little star). “Luce dei miei occhi” (Light of my eyes). But why not try some more creative nomignoli affettuosi (affectionate nicknames)? 

Many Italian endearments convey the same meaning as English ones, except with masculine (“o”) and feminine (“a”) endings. “Little one,” for instance, is piccolo/a; “dear,” caro/a; “dearest," carissimo/a.

Other English terms don’t translate well into Italian—and vice versa. “Sweet pea” definitely loses some appeal when it turns into “pisello dolce.” "Nasone mio” (my great big nose) and microbino (little microbe) -- both of which I found on Italian websites -- won’t make any English speaker swoon.

In any language nicknames come in a variety of categories, including:

*Sweet: "Sweetheart”  translates as “innamorato/a,” which sounds too formal in Italian. "Sweetie" is better, but  rather than “dolcezza," you might say “ciccia,” "ciccina” or “cicci”--words that I, like many foreigners, mistakenly thought meant “fatty.” Or you could call your sweetie caramellino (little caramel), Babà (the name of a Sicilian cake), sorbettino (little sherbet), pasticcino (little pastry), cioccolatino (little chocolate) or biscottino (cookie)

*Animal: cucciolo  (little puppy), pulce (flea), tigrotto (little tiger), pulcino (chick), topino (little mouse), gattina (kitten), farfallina (little butterfly) or grillo (cricket)

*Tasty: patatina (little potato), cipollina (little onion), fragolina (little strawberry), merendina (little snack), polpetta (croquette) or formaggino (little cheese)  

*Playful: bambola/ bambolina (doll or little doll), gnomo (gnome), streghetta mia (my little witch), angioletto (little angel), fatina (fairy), scarpetta (tiny shoe) or fiorellino (little flower)

Click here to find many more examples, some more spicy than sweet.

A few Italian nome vezzeggiativi (terms of endearment) don’t have any specific meaning. So if you just want to express warmth and affection, try “tato” or “tatina” or "pucci." They can mean whatever you want them to.  

But don’t stop with a pet name. Follow up with a frase d’amore, such as Vieni qui e baciami, amorino!  (Come here and kiss me, my dear little love!) It's guaranteed to work every time.

Romantic Expressions:

Ti voglio bene -– I like you, I love you, I want the very best for you.

Ti amo tanto -– I love you so much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click below for a delightful song about lovers and their nicknames.

A Year of Italian Language and Culture: Carnevale

Carnevale
Carnival

For centuries the pre-Lent festivities of carnevale sumptuously celebrated “carne,” a word that translates as both "meat' and "flesh," 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 and Liguria, they’re bugie (little lies); in Tuscany, cenci (rags); in Emilia-Romagna, lattughe (lettuce leaves); in Milan, chiacchiere, the same word Italians use for gossip or chatting.  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.   

Carnevale also inspired some pithy Italian axioms. "A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale," revelers often say. "Anything goes at Carnival time." But don't get carried away with the romance of the moment. "L’amore di Carnevale muore in Quaresima,"  wise souls caution,  "A love that starts during Carnival dies in Lent."

The allure of Venice, however, outlasts the days of Carnevale. You can stroll its calle (streets), linger in its splendid piazze, savor its specialties, drink its wine, ride in a gondola (or even learn to row one), watch the glass-blowers on Murano island—and immerse yourself in the languages, both Italian and the Venetian dialect, of its residents.

This April my friend Melissa Muldoon, creator of the exuberant Diario di una Studentessa Matta (Diary of a Crazy Student), and Diego Cattaneo, director of the Venice Italian School, are offering all these experiences and more during a magical ten-day immersion in language and culture. Click here for details.

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

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

 

 

A Year of Italian Language and Culture: Renaissance Networking

 

La Nascita del "Social Networking"

The Birth of Social Networking

Italians invented the Renaissance (from “rinascita” for rebirth), which as Mary McCarthy observed in The Stones of Florence, “is the same as saying that they invented the modern world.” They also pioneered the phenomenon we know as social networking (more commonly used in Italy than "rete sociale").

As far back as the sixteenth century, young men (women weren’t allowed in universities or professions) would create nicknames (pseudomini , soprannomi, nomi di battaglia, nomi di comodo, nomignoli) for themselves, develop emblems (stemmi) and mottos (motti), and form groups or “academies” (accademie) for lively exchanges of ideas, information, and clever, often ribald battute (spirited remarks).

In a four-year million-dollar-plus research project, British scholars are documenting 500 such groups—the first intellectual networks of early modern Europe. “Just as we create user names for our profiles on Facebook and Twitter and create circles of friends on Google plus,” one investigator explains, Renaissance Italians “shared—and commented on—topical ideas, the news of the day, and exchanged poems, plays and music.” And they did so with wit and style.

Consider L’Accademia della Crusca (Academy of the Bran), devoted to separating the literary fior di farina (flower of the wheat) from the crusca (chaff or bran). The self-styled Crusconi (Crusty Ones) playfully gave themselves names related to farming, cooking, baking, and bread, such as Lievito (yeast or leaven) and Macinato (milled into flour).

La Crusca’s members set themselves the goal of creating the first great dictionary of officially recognized words in any European tongue. This was no dry scholastic venture. The academy’s voluminous archives teem with menus, skits, plays, puns, jokes, and rhapsodic odes. Among its traditions was an annual stravizzo, a term members defined with understatement as “eating that happens together with pleasant conversation.” 

The jocular gourmands took their mission seriously. Over decades of discussion and debate, they created the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, published on January 20, 1612. Its 960 oversized pages contain the genome of la bella lingua italiana.

Crusconi also created less august works, such as “Il Bacco in Toscana” (“Bacchus in Tuscany,” a poetic ode of praise for Tuscan wines by Francesco Redi (1626-98). Its verses deride “he who drinks water” (chi l’acqua beve) and conclude with a rousing: “Wine, wine is your only drink!” (il vino, il vino e’ l’unica bevanda).

Undoubtedly Redi’s peers found their own ways to “like” (mi piace) his poem with the equivalents of a thumbs-up, a tweet (literally cinguettio but Italians say un tweet) or an Instagram image (un’immagine su Instagram) But how did they handle the timelessly tricky task of “defriending” (rimuovere l’amicizia) someone?  I hope with a pen rather than a sword.

Words and Expressions 

An Italian teacher shared this ode to the vocabulary of virtual communication:

Io posto (I post)

Tu commenti (you comment)

Lui tagga (he tags)

Noi condividiamo (we share)

Voi pubblicate (you all publish)

Loro ridono (they smile) -- 

Nessuno studia  (no one studies)

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

 

 

Celebrating a New Year in Italy--and Italian

 

Buon Anno! 

Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve as we know it was an invention of the ancient Romans. In 153 B.C. they moved the start of the new year from the Spring equinox to January 1 and dedicated the first month of the year to Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings, who looks back toward the old year and ahead toward the new one. 

For six days, Romans celebrated by hanging lights, preparing lavish banquets, and decorating their houses with boughs of greenery, including holly and mistletoe (considered magical plants because they bore fruit in the dead of winter). The Romans gave each other glass jars filled with dates and dried figs in honey so the new year would be sweet and full of good fortune. These offerings, called strenne from the Sabine goddess of prosperity, Strenia, were the predecessors of the presents we now exchange at Christmas. 

Italians refer to New Year’s Eve by its liturgical name, la Festa di San Silvestro, the feast of St. Sylvester, a fourth-century pope. Traditionally families and friends share a huge dinner called il cenone (literally the big supper). Lentils, symbols of prosperity because they resemble coins, are almost always on the menu, often served with pork, another symbol of the richness of life. 

Tuscans eat lentils with cotechino, a big pork sausage cut like coins. Italians in Bologna and Modena eat them with zampone, or pig’s trotter.  In Piedmont, rice symbolizes money, so a cenone is sure to include risotto. Raisins, another symbol for coins, appear in desserts throughout the peninsula. 

In a relatively recent tradition, couples give each gifts of red underwear—a color that wards off the malocchio (Evil Eye) and a symbol of love, prosperity, and fertility. Traditionally Italians wear these special undies only once and throw them away after New Year’s eve.

That’s not all that Italians toss out. In order to make room for the new, they once literally threw old brooms, dishes, even furniture out the window. Regulations now prohibit this dangerous dumping, but the practice continues in some parts of Naples and the South. 

After the evening feast, most Italian cities throw a big party under the stars with music, dancing, and fireworks. Italy’s equivalent of Times Square in New York is the Piazza del Popolo in Rome. Huge crowds gather for an outdoor concert and a magnificent midnight fireworks display. The favored drink is spumante or prosecco, Italian sparkling wine, for a toast (brindisi) when the clock strikes twelve.

Whether public or private, il Veglione di Capodanno (the New Year’s party) typically lasts all night. As they head home at the dawn of Capodanno (New Year’s Day), weary revelers watch the first sunrise—and look out for the first person they see in the newborn year. According to ancient traditions, an old man or a hunchbacked person carries good luck, while a child or a priest brings bad luck in the upcoming year. 

Words and Expressions 

Il conto alla rovescia -- the countdown to midnight (meno 10, meno 9, meno 8, meno 7 ...) 

I botti di capodanno -- New year’s firecrackers and fireworks 

“Anno nuovo, vita nuova” -- new Year, new life (let’s make a fresh start)  

i buoni propositi per l’anno nuovo -- New Year resolutions, such as smettere di fumare (to stop smoking), mettersi a dieta (to go on a diet), and iscriversi in palestra (to join a gym). 

You can find a round-up of this year's celebrations from Italy magazine here.

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

Click below for new year's greetings in tutte le lingue (all the languages) of the world, accompanied by John Lennon's immortal "Imagine":