Becoming Italian Word by Word

Animals in the Italian Language

A Guest Post by Valeria Biancalan

If you are learning Italian, you have probably studied the names of Italian animals, but you might not know that many animals (molti animali) are associated with a specific trait (un tratto distintivo) in the Italian language. For this reason, it is important, not only to know these words, but also the different situations in which they can be used. Here are some of the connotations they have:

• Bue (ox) -- Pazienza (patience)
• Cane (dog) -- Fedeltà (loyalty)
• Cavallo (horse) -- Pazzia (folly)
• Gatto (cat) -- Indipendenza (independence)
• Leone (lion) -- Coraggio (bravery)
• Lumaca (snail) -- Lentezza (slowness)
• Mulo (mule) -- Testardaggine (obstinacy)
• Oca (goose) -- Stupidità (stupidity)
• Serpente (snake) -- Falsità (falseness)
• Talpa (mole) -- Cecità (blindness)
• Toro (bull) -- Forza (strength)
• Volpe (fox) -- Furbizia (astuteness)

Here are some examples:

- Sei più lento di una lumaca! Forza, sbrigati, altrimenti arriviamo tardi! (literally: You are slower than a snail! Come on, hurry up, or we will arrive late!)

- Mario è sempre stato testardo come un mulo fin da quando era piccolo (literally: Mario has always been as stubborn as a mule since he was a child)

- Mia madre porta gli occhiali da tanti anni perché è cieca come una talpa (literally: My mom has been wearing glasses for many years because she is as blind as a mole)

In Italian the names of animals are also used in a huge number of idioms (frasi idiomatiche), such as:

• Meglio un asino vivo che un dottore morto (literally: a donkey alive is better than a dead doctor). This idiom means that it’s better to be a bit ignorant but healthy than getting sick because of studying too much
• Andare a letto con le galline (literally: to go to bed with the chickens). This is used to refer to somebody who goes to sleep very early.
• Avere i grilli per la testa (literally: to have crickets in the head). This refers to somebody who has crazy and strange ideas.
• Essere una mosca Bianca (literally: to be a white fly). The English equivalent of this idiom is “to be a rare bird,” and it refers to somebody who is exceptional.
• Ingoiare un/il rospo (literally: to swallow the toad). We use this idiom when we accept an unpleasant or humiliating situation without complaining.
• Sputare il rospo (literally: to split the toad out). In this case, the toad is  something that we have kept hidden, so the phrase means “to reveal a secret”.
• Prendere due piccioni con una fava (literally: to catch two pigeons with a fava bean). The English equivalent of this Italian idiom is “to kill two birds with one stone,” and we use it when we achieve two things in a single action.

Valeria Biancalani is the founder of BlaBlaLang, a language school that offers Italian lessons online with native and qualified Italian tutors.

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information,  visit diannehales.com.

The Geology of Italian Passion

La passione italiana dates back to a time before time when a geologic frenzy carved a boot in the middle of the Mediterranean. Convulsing and colliding, tectonic plates thrust an ancient seabed so high that tiny crustaceans were trapped and fossilized in the Italian Alps. Lava seething within the earth boiled and bubbled to form a chain of volcanic cones stretching from central Italy to what would become the island of Sicily.

Even today the Italian earth trembles. The Apennines, running like a spine through the peninsula, still undulate, sometimes with devastating consequences. Europe’s only active volcanoes—Vesuvius, Stromboli, and Etna—rumble and spew.

Eons of natural sculpting formed a countryside Renaissance artists considered the most magnificent of masterpieces, a mosaic of wind-blasted rocks, hills pleated with valleys, and mountains cresting into boundless blue. In the splendid Val d’Orcia, a plaque pays tribute to Italy’s first artists: the contadini (farmworkers) who tilled fields, terraced hills, and left behind rows of slender green cypresses climbing to crenellated towers silhouetted like paper cutouts pasted on an azure sky.

The symbiosis between the land and its people forms a bond as strong as blood—and older than Italy itself. At Selinunte, an ancient Greek settlement on Sicily’s western coast, my guide—a tiny, pony-tailed dynamo named Pina—presses my palm against the sun-warmed column of a temple built five hundred years before the birth of Christ.

“You can feel the passion of the people who built this place,” she says. “It’s in the stones!” In Florence, a street artist tells me to breathe deeply and inhale the heady oxygen that stimulated the genius of Renaissance masters. A Venetian glassblower talks of the water flowing like blood through the veins of an improbable city that seems spun out of fantasy. An olive grower in Campania gently sifts a fistful of soil through his fingers as he describes the land that nurtured the souls of his forefathers.

On a shuttle in Chianti, our driver suddenly pulls to the side of the road. I step out to view a titanic sunset not so much painted as carved, great cloud masses of deep rose, purple, and mauve, coupling and uncoupling as golden rays silhouette their shoulders.

“Sentite!” he commands, exhorting us not just to look but to take in this heavenly spectacle with every sense. And I do, lingering before this twilight tango until the darkness deepens into night.

“What mysterious emptiness in their souls is filled by merely standing on Italian soil?” the Italian writer Luigi Barzini mused in his classic The Italians. Perhaps the answer lies, at least in part, in the skies above and the earth below.

Excerpted from LA PASSIONE:How Italy  Seduced the World. Dianne Hales is also the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian,the World’s Most Enchanting Language  and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.  

 

An Italian Interview about LA PASSIONE

"Strano e difficile a crederci, ma è proprio così! “ Strange and hard to believe, but that's right!

This is how Italian journalist and blogger Veronica Triolo begins her post on an American writer who “con sorriso, grinta ed entusiasmo, si è appassionata al nostro paese” (with a smile, determination and enthusiasm, became passionate about our country).  This passion, she notes,“non è superficiale e non è basata sui soliti banali stereotipi” (isn’t superficial nor based on the usual banal stereotypes) but reflects years of study and research on every aspect of Italian culture: from history to art, music, fashion, cinema, food, wine and lifestyle.

When we met after a presentation of LA PASSIONE at the British Institute in Florence, Veronica wondered how her  "pazzo e disordinato paese" (crazy and messy country) was able to fascinate and inspire me.  You can read her complete interview in Italian at fragolosablog.com. Here is an English translation:

Your passion for my country is really flattering. Don’t you have the impression we take all we have -- history/art/cultural heritage/lifestyle/food/fashion -- for granted?

Italians grow up surrounded by cultural riches—in their churches, monuments, countryside, wherever they turn.  Rather than taking it for granted, I think that they accept and appreciate the beauty around them as a given, part of their heritage and birthright.  They may not realize how extraordinary their patrimony is until they get to know other  countries and cultures—or until foreigners like myself, looking at Italy through what one reader called “virgin eyes,” point out Italy’s unique contributions to Western civilization.

What are the main differences of attitudes towards life of an American, compared to an Italian?

Americans come from so many different cultures and countries that we have a broad range of attitudes so it’s hard to generalize.  However, many Americans focus on pursuing goals, whether educational or economic, so at times we strive so hard to achieve them that we lose touch with the everyday joys of living.

Many Americans are always on the go, rushing to appointments, wolfing down fast food, working all hours of the day and night.  Italians also work hard, but they take the time to savor a good meal, to chat with friends, to hold their families close, to stop and appreciate beauty wherever they may find it.  This is one of the important “life lessons” I’ve learned from Italians.

What is the most efficient way or method to promote Italy abroad? (Your book being a perfect example.)

I wrote all three of my Italy-based books—LA BELLA LINGUA, MONA LISA and LA PASSIONE—to share the richness of your culture with other foreigners.  The more that non-Italians learn and understand about Italy’s language, history, art, crafts, food, fashion and other cultural endeavors, the more they can appreciate them.

Italy has done a remarkable job in promoting its culture through the “Made in Italy” promotions. As I note inLA PASSIONE, people in every part of the world sip espresso, drive Fiats, buy Italian purses and clothes and relish Italian cooking. In my view, the world seems more Italian than when I first discovered Italy thirty years ago. I’m happy to play some small part in continuing to spread a passion for Italy and its wonderful, warm-hearted people.

An Independence Day Bridge in the Italian Language

 
 il ponte
 the bridge

The Fourth of July may be the most American of holidays, but this year it provides an opportunity to do something very Italian: fare il ponte (make the bridge). This is no architectural construction but an extension of a national holiday that occurs during the week through the next weekend. Since July 4  falls on a Thursday, many of us are stretching il ponte over Friday for a four-day weekend.  

The descendants of Rome's famed acqueduct builders are masters of such creations. Depending on the calendar, Italians may enjoy a ponte di Capodanno (New Year's bridge), a ponte di Pasqua (Easter bridge), or a ponte dei morti (bridge of the dead) for the November 1 holiday of All Saints Day  (Tutti I Santi). For Ferragosto, the quintessential Italian summer holiday, il ponte may stretch even farther to include the weekends before and after August 15.

Workers, often in the civil service, who are particularly adept at extending a holiday are called, with some admiration, pontisti (bridge makers).  Others have a different talent:  fare i ponti d’oro  (literally making bridges of gold — making things as easy as possible). This strategy works especially well for getting someone you don’t like to leave. “A nemico che fugge, ponti d’oro,” Italians say. “To fleeing foe, bridges of gold!”

Italy is famous for other ponti, of course. The picturesque Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s oldest bridge, has housed goldsmiths’ and jewelers’ shops for centuries.  The Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) in Venice connects the Doges’ palazzo with the dungeons. It owes its evocative name to the sorrowful sound of prisoners who caught their last glimpse of La Serenissima through its windows as they headed to their cells. 

Every Spring Venice hosts a non-competitive run, open to everyone without age or nationality restrictions. The name of this traditional race is “Su e zo per i ponti,” which in the Venetian dialect means “up and down the bridges.”

Italian and English also share a common bridge-based expression. We look back and say, “Ne è passata di acqua sotto i ponti!"  or "A lot of water has gone under the bridges."  Less literally, the past is past, and many things have changed. 

Words and Expressions

ponticello -- small bridge

ponte levatoio -- drawbridge

ponte sospeso --  suspension bridge

tagliare i ponti con qualcuno — to cut (burn) one’s bridges with someone 

“finire a vivere sotto un ponte” -- to end up living under a bridge (to become extremely poor and end up without a home)

 

Italy's Passion for Wine

My husband and I own a vine in Umbria. Not a vineyard, but a single vine (row 11, number 18), in Vigna Lorenzo at Monte Vibiano Vecchio.

Since centuries before the birth of Christ, grapes have grown in this field, sheltered from harsh winds, its soil rich and its air pure. As we perch on sun-warmed stones overlooking rows of vines in stately formation, Maria Camilla Fasola Bologna, whose family has lived in the hilltop castello for more than a hundred years, tells me its story.

More than two thousand years ago, a young widow named Vubia and her two sons cultivated grapes on this hill. In 218 BC, the fearsome Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps into Italy and pushed south, destroying everything in his path. Rome’s legions, marching north to confront the invaders, conscripted every male who could fight. Vubia’s teenage sons were forced into service.

At nearby  Lake Trasimeno, Hannibal’s troops charged out of the fog in a surprise attack, pushing the Roman forces into the water. Within hours, thousands of men died—some drowning in their heavy armor, some wounded in hand-to-hand combat. The water of the lake turned red with their blood.

When she heard the terrible news, Vubia ran to her vineyard to pray to Bacchus, the god of wine, vines, and those who tend them. “If you bring back my children,” she pleaded, “I promise to give you the other precious thing that I have, which is the wine from these grapes. I will never sell it again. It will go only to your temple.” 

For long days and nights, Vubia prayed. Then, on the little road that survives to this day, she saw two figures. Even at a distance she recognized her sons—bloody, dirty, tired, hungry, but alive. She rushed to fold them in her arms. Vubia kept her vow to Bacchus, built a protective wall with a gate around the vineyard, and consecrated its grapes to the god of wine.

Time and again Italy’s turbulent history touched this sacred space. In the third century AD, the two Roman emperors born in Umbria—Gaius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus and his son— cultivated its vines and drank its wine. Through the centuries after the empire’s fall, the vineyard survived despite violent clashes that pitted town against town and clan against clan.

After Napoleon annexed Umbria to his Kingdom of Italy in the early 1800s, a family with the genial name of Sereni took up residence atop Monte Vibiano. Their castello, with terraced lawns, a garden maze, an amphitheater, and a 360-degree view, still towers over the pastoral countryside. In 1900, two brothers brought bottles of Monte Vibiano’s best wine to the Paris Exposition Universelle, where  it won a gold prize.

In 2000  Andrea and Lorenzo Fasola  Bologna, Maria Camilla’s father and brother, planted 4,625 new vines. Honoring Vubia’s ancient vow, they chose not to sell the wines from Vigna Lorenzo with their other varietals, but to entrust the vineyard to investors like my husband and myself.

“I call the owners our gladiators, because they protect our land and our vision,” says Maria Camilla. “With the wine from this vineyard, you know you are drinking a nectar, and inside that nectar is the work of all the people involved in making the wine. There is history. There is tradition. There is love for life, for this beautiful place, a love so deep that it becomes a passion.”

Adapted from "The Grapes of Passion" in  LA PASSIONE:How Italy  Seduced the World. Dianne Hales is also the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian,the World’s Most Enchanting Language  and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.  

Visit http://montevibiano.it/en  to arrange an adventurous "eco-tour" of Monte Vibiano Vecchio's vineyards or to purchase its award-winning wines and olive oil.

LA PASSIONE in a Tuscan Hilltown

Two years ago I’d never even heard of Castiglion Fiorentino, a postcard-pretty town near Cortona, but when I arrived for my first visit, everyone seemed to know my name.  Posters featuring the cover of LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World dotted the streets.  

“Is that the American writer” a girl asked her mother as we walked by. “The one who wrote about San Filippino?”

A chapter in LA PASSIONE entitled “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told” highlights the story of  Rita Morgan Richardson, an Italian-American spearheading a campaign to rescue an abandoned baroque chapel in Castiglion Fiorentino. The Friends of San Filippino, the nonprofit organization that she created, has garnered support from Italophiles across the United States. But the response of the townspeople themselves has been even more dramatic.

Earlier this year teachers and administrators at the local middle school were so moved by the Save San Filippino project that they launched an initiative called “Only Steps Away: Discovering Nearby Treasures.” Students learned about their town’s cultural riches by studying the twelve churches within Castiglion Fiorentino’s medieval walls.

Classe Seconda Effe (2F) focused on San Filippino, dedicated to St. Filippo Neri, the patron saint of joy. Inspired by both the saint and the sad state of the endangered chapel,  they decided to “adopt” it.  On their own, the students  banded together to create artworks based on images from  San Filippino, which they sold to raise funds to preserve and restore the small church.

During the presentation of LA PASSIONE in Castiglion Fiorentino, five of the students read the story of the Save San Filippino campaign, translated into Italian from my book by Silena Faralli, a teacher at their school. I was deeply touched to hear them bring my words to life before a standing-room-only crowd of local residents in the splendid setting of the San Letucce chapel.

Also inspiring were the remarks of Mariarita Signorini, president of Italia Nostra, an Italian non-profit dedicated to preserving Italy’s cultural patrimony, and of the town’s Mayor Mario Agnelli, who invites visitors to come to Castiglion Fiorentino and discover its charms and history.

After the formal presentation, the padlocked doors of the chapel were opened for viewing.  Just like the town’s residents, my family and I were captivated by San Filippino’s still-splendid frescoes, cherubs and coffered ceiling.

During my visit, I met a local woman whose parents were the last couple to be married in San FIlippino in 1947. She radiated the newly re-ignited pride the people of Castiglion FIorentine feel for the architectural, cultural and spiritual jewel just “steps away” from their homes.

I extend heartfelt thanks to Rita Richardson and the Friends of San Filippino, to Italia Nostra, which co-sponsored the day’s events, to  Alfeo Tanganelli  of the charming Residence Le Santucce, to  Alberto Nocentini, owner of Nocentini bookstore,  and to the residents of  Castiglion Fiorentino, who embody la passione italiana.

 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information,  visit diannehales.com.

 

Honoring Fathers and Father's Day in Italian

 

In Italy La Festa del Papà  falls on March 19, the feast of San Giuseppe (St. Joseph), the husband of Mary and earthly father of Jesus. In the United States we celebrate  fathers on the third Sunday of June. I welcome any  chance  to honor the men we love so much--whatever the date and whatever we call them.

A father (padre) is a Babbo (Daddy} in Tuscany, Sardinia and several southern regions) but a Papà (pronounced pa-PAH) in other parts of Italy. The most famous Daddy of all is Babbo Natale (Father Christmas).  Il Papa (PAH-pa) is the pope or Santo Padre (the Holy Father), while God remains the eternal father (Padre Eterno or Padreterno).

The ties between fathers and children are strong. The English expression "like father, like son" translates as tale padre, tale figlio in Italian. Both fathers and grandfathers (nonni) have a long tradition of trying to fare da babbo a qualcuno (help or guide someone).

In the fifteenth century the esteemed  Cosimo the Elder, the Medici patriarch immortalized as  pater patriae  (father of the country), was meeting with foreign ambassadors at his palatial home. One of his grandsons came to him with some reeds and a small knife and asked him to make a whistle. Cosimo  broke off the conversation, fashioned a whistle and told the boy to run off and play. The ambassadors were indignant.

"Oh my brothers, are you not also fathers?" he laughed, "You marveled that I made him the whistle: it is well that he did not ask me to play it, for that I also would have done."

Fatherhood also implies authority. A padrone di casa is a landlord; a  padrona di casa, a landlady. Anyone can acquire  padronanza (mastery) and be  padrone di se (in control of one's self).

The master of the house, the owner of a business or the big boss is the  padrone. One of the pet phrases my husband has memorized to unfurl at the appropriate moment with Italian friends is Il padrone sono io, ma chi comanda è mia moglie. (I am in charge, but the person who gives the orders is my wife.)

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information,  visit diannehales.com.

 

A World Without Italy

Imagine a world without Italy: Painting without Leonardo. Sculpture without Michelangelo. Literature without Dante. No Verdi choruses or Puccini arias. No Fellini films or Ferrari roar. Heavens uncharted, vines unplanted, tables bereft of pasta, pizza, and a Sicilian cake so divine that its bakers swore it could make the dead breathe again.

Western civilization would surely have sprouted elsewhere, but the planet would have been a paler place, a rainbow stripped of its most vibrant hues: Raphael’s luminous blue, Valentino’s luscious red, espresso’s inky black. More than a country, Italy embodies a culture that has transformed art and architecture, language and music, food and fashion.

Its borders contain more of UNESCO’s designated cultural treasures than any other nation. Its inhabitants created the first universities, banks, public libraries, and law and medical schools; mapped the moon (in 1651); split the atom; produced the first modern histories, satires, sonnets, and travelogues; invented the first working compass, battery, barometer, microscope, radio, and thermometer; garnered twenty Nobel Prizes; and bestowed upon the world the eternal gift of music.

Humanity, Mussolini bragged, is indebted to Italians “for the majority of its accomplishments.” For once, he wasn’t exaggerating.

Alone among nations, Italy has conquered the world—not once, not twice, but three times. The Roman Empire extended its might over territories spanning a quarter of the globe. Christianity, with Rome as its capital and Italy its cradle, planted the seeds of a religion that now counts 2.3 billion members—about one of every three people on the planet. The Italian Renaissance transformed art, architecture, and philosophy in an explosion of creativity that ushered in the modern age.

Italy has so profoundly permeated our collective unconscious that even if you have never set foot on its soil, you’ve touched and been touched by its heritage. Musicians everywhere play the do-re-mi notes invented by an Italian monk. Italian paintings, sculptures, and buildings adorn cities on every continent. Italy’s food, arguably everybody’s favorite, nourishes souls as well as bodies. Its wines soothe and stimulate. Its films, cars, and fashions transport us above the mundane and the mediocre. Leonardo’s Mona Lisaoutranks all other masterpieces as the world’s most famous painting. Ferrari’s Cavallino Rampante (Prancing Horse) outshines other brands as the most recognized logo.

But why Italy? How did a scrawny peninsula smaller than California, home to less than 1 percent of the world’s population, leave such an outsize imprint on Western culture?  What sparked endless innovations and inspired a multitude of masterpieces? Was it a miracle? Serendipity? Luck? Destiny?

After decades of up-close but admittedly unscientific observation, I credit la passione italiana. This fierce drive, three millennia in the making, stems from an insatiable hunger to explore, discover, create, pursue beauty, feel deeply, love and live with every fiber of one’s being. It blazes to life in the Sistine Chapel, surges through a Rossini aria, preens in Bulgari jewels[ Jon: or “on a Milan catwalk”], deepens a vintage Brunello, spices a tangy penne all’arrabbiata(pasta with an “angry” sauce seasoned with chile peppers).

Discover more Italian passions in LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World.  Dianne Hales is also the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered. For more information, visit diannehales.com.

 

 

 

Celebrating a Nation and a Saint in Italy

Throughout Italy the Festa della Repubblica (Festival of the Republic) on June 2 commemorates the day in 1946 when the Italian people voted for a republic as their national form of government. Our adopted seaside town of Porto Ercole on the western coast of Tuscany has a double reason to celebrate.

June 2 is also la festa di Sant’Erasmo, the patron saint of the ancient fishing port and of all mariners. In addition to concerts, a rowing race, dances and a solemn mass, Porto Ercole honors its saint with a  procession of his relics to the sea, a lighted boat parade and a spectacular display of fireworks.

"Who was this Saint Erasmo?"  I asked a friend born on June 2 in Porto Ercole and, of course, named Erasmo. A bishop, he told me. Several of his fellow Portercolesi added that Erasmo was a martyr who once saved  a ship of local sailors from a tempest at sea.

To find out more, I went to Wikipedia, which presents the gruesome suffering of Sant’Erasmo  (known in English-speaking lands as Saint Elmo) as the stuff of legend. In the late third century, during the Roman persecution of Christians, Erasmo was jailed, "besprinkled...with foulness,” beaten with leaden mauls until his veins burst, thrown into a pit of snakes and worms and covered with boiling oil and sulfur. Through it all he remained calm, “thanking and loving God." Then lightning struck and electrocuted everyone around him.

Continuing to preach the Gospel, Erasmo was again captured and tortured, this time with burning oil poured into his mouth and a searing hot metal cloak wrapped around him. An angel swept him to safety. Other torturers plucked out his teeth with pincers, scraped his skin with an iron wool carder and pulled out his eyes with their fingers. In the grisliest account, Erasmo’s stomach was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass, a type of winch used to hoist an anchor on a ship. 

Finally Erasmo was burned alive. A bluish flame appeared on the top of the pyre  and was interpreted as the saint’s soul ascending to heaven. The electrical discharges at the mastheads of ships during storms came to be called "Saint Elmo's Fire” (fuoco di Sant’Erasmo), a sign of the martyr’s protection.

The nationwide festivities on June 2 commemorate a much more recent event.  After the end of World War II, the Italian people went to the ballot boxes to choose the type of government they wanted. On June 2 and 3, 1946, they voted to end the monarchy that had ruled their country for 85 years. The final tally: 12,717,923 votes for the Republic and 10,719,284 against.

King Umberto II of the royal house of Savoy was deposed, and the male descendants of the family were exiled. A new nation—la Repubblica d’Italia—was born.

Although the Second of June has since become a national holiday,  for the people of Porto Ercole, it remains, first and foremost, a day to honor Il loro santo patrono--their patron saint.  

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information,  visit diannehales.com.

 

An Interview on LA PASSIONE in English--and Italian

by Catherine Accardi

L’Italo-Americano had the opportunity to speak with Dianne Hales about her book and her “Italian-ness” at the presentation of LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World at the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco. (These articles originally appeared in L’Italo-Americano; the following is an excerpt.)

What was your inspiration for LA PASSIONE?  Is it a companion to, or does it differ from, the message of your prior books, LA BELLA LINGUA and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered?

At first I studied Italian simply to be able to communicate with the people I met on trips, but then I discovered its wonderful backstory—full of poets, princes and a rowdy group of young Florentines who compiled the first dictionary, made up of what they considered “the most beautiful flowers” in the “vulgar” or common language. This inspired LA BELLA LINGUA.

While in Florence, I became friends with an art historian who lived in the palazzo where Mona Lisa’s mother grew up. I was so taken by the notion of Leonardo’s muse as an actual Renaissance woman that I set out to reconstruct her story in Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered.

At a reading for that book, a man asked, “So are you done with Italy?” The question struck me as absurd. Italy wasn’t done with me.

I began looking for the common thread that could explain my quasi-obsession with all things Italian. And that’s how I found la passione.

Cosa ha ispirato LA PASSIONE? E' una guida o ha un messaggio diverso rispetto ai suoi libri precedenti?

All'inizio avevo studiato l'italiano semplicemente per poter comunicare con le persone che avevo incontrato in viaggio, ma poi ho scoperto la sua meravigliosa meravigliosa storia, piena di poeti, di principi e un chiassoso gruppo di giovani fiorentini che aveva compilato il primo dizionario, composto con quelli che consideravano ”i fiori più belli" della lingua "volgare" o lingua della gente comune.

Mentre ero a Firenze, sono diventata amica di uno storico dell'arte che viveva nel palazzo dove è cresciuta la madre di Monna Lisa. Sono rimasta talmente colpita dal concetto di musa di Leonardo come vera donna del Rinascimento, che ho deciso di ricostruire la sua storia inMonna Lisa: A Life Discovered.

Leggendo quel libro, un uomo mi chiese: "Hai chiuso con l'Italia?”

La domanda mi era sembrata assurda. L'Italia non aveva chiuso con me. Ho iniziato a cercare un filo conduttore che potesse spiegare la mia quasi-ossessione con tutte le cose italiane. Ed è così che ho trovato la passione.

Your enthusiasm for all thing Italian is captivating. To what do you owe your irresistible "Italian-ness"? 

Italians tell me that I remind them of what they love about their country but often forget as they cope with day-to-day frustrations, politics, bureaucracy, etc.

When I was interviewing a young prosciutto maker in Parma, I asked him if he felt a passion for his work. At first he was stumped, but then he became almost tearful talking about what it meant to be carrying on the tradition of his father and grandfather. Afterward, my guide, who also had tears in his eyes, came over and hugged me. “You see what we cannot because we live with it every day,” he said.

Non-Italians may respond, not so much to me, as to the Italy I represent—the semi-magical place that has enchanted millions for centuries. And I’m honored to do so and to celebrate the best of Italy.

Il suo entusiasmo per tutto ciò che è italiano è accattivante. A cosa deve la sua irresistibile "italianità"?

Gli italiani mi dicono che ricordo loro ciò che amano del loro paese, ma che spesso dimenticano di fronte alle frustrazioni quotidiane, alla politica, alla burocrazia, ecc.

Quando stavo intervistando un giovane che produce prosciutto a Parma, gli ho chiesto se provava passione per il suo lavoro. All'inizio era perplesso, ma poi si sciolto quasi in lacrime nel parlare di cosa significasse portare avanti la tradizione di suo padre e di suo nonno. In seguito, la mia guida, che aveva anche lei le lacrime agli occhi, si avvicinò e mi abbracciò.

"Tu vedi quello che noi non possiamo vedere perché lo viviamo ogni giorno", mi disse. I non italiani possono rispondere, non tanto a me, quanto all'Italia che rappresento, il luogo semi-magico che ha incantato milioni di persone per secoli. E sono onorata di farlo e di celebrare il meglio dell'Italia.

The fact that you are not of Italian descent makes your books even more remarkable. How do you explain to your fans this passione for all aspects of the culture? 

My father asked the same question when LA BELLA LINGUA came out in 2009 (when he was 90). He wondered how he and my mother—children of Polish immigrants—ended up with an Italian daughter.

I have been told that I have “an Italian soul.” Perhaps we all do. I agree with Luigi Barzini that there is a little part in every person that is Italian—just as there is some part of Italy in every realm of Western civilization. This is what gives us—regardless of genetic background—the potential to love deeply, pursue beauty, cherish family and friends, feel compassion and empathy with others. This is the timeless essence of our humanity.

From my very first trip more than three decades ago, Italy has touched me at every level—intellectual, spiritual, emotional, visceral. I feel that it added another dimension to my life and opened up a new chamber in my heart. And I’m very grateful that it did!

Il fatto che lei non sia di origine italiana rende i suoi libri ancora più notevoli. Come spiega ai suoi fan questa passione per tutti gli aspetti della cultura?

Mio padre mi ha fatto la stessa domanda quando uscì La Bella Lingua nel 2009 (allora aveva 90 anni). Si chiedeva come mai lui e mia madre -- figli di immigrati polacchi -- si fossero ritrovati con una figlia italiana.

Mi è stato detto che ho "un'anima italiana". Forse l’abbiamo tutti. Sono d'accordo con Luigi Barzini secondo cui c'è una piccola parte italiana in ogni persona,così come c'è una parte l’Italia in ogni luogo della civiltà occidentale.

Questo è ciò che ci dà -- indipendentemente dal background genetico -- la possibilità di amare profondamente, perseguire la bellezza, amare la famiglia e gli amici, provare compassione ed empatia con gli altri. Questa è l'essenza senza tempo della nostra umanità.

Fin dal mio primo viaggio più di tre decenni fa, l'Italia mi ha toccato a tutti i livelli: intellettuale, spirituale, emotivo, viscerale. Sento che ha aggiunto un'altra dimensione alla mia vita e ha aperto un nuovo spazio nel mio cuore. E sono molto grata che l'abbia fatto!

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information,  visit diannehales.com.