Becoming Italian Word by Word

Happy 10th Birthday to LA BELLA LINGUA!

Whether you're a parent or an author, your first born always remains close to your heart.

This month marks a landmark birthday for my first book on Italy and its culture: LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language. My publisher is celebrating with a not-to-be-missed offer: a digital copy for just $1.99 — less than the price of, well, almost everything —downloadable here or at other online book retailers until May 5.

A book that keeps selling long after publication is said to “have legs." I like to think that LA BELLA LINGUA sprouted wings that continue to carry it to new readers and to bring wonderful new people into my life. In its eventful first decade, LA BELLA LINGUA became a best-seller in the United States, Canada and Australia, the subject of an acrostic (as well as a best-seller) in the New York Times, and the topic of several dissertations by Italian graduate students. In 2011 the President of Italy awarded me the highest recognition the government can bestow on a foreigner: a knighthood, with the title of Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity) for the contributions LA BELLA LINGUA has made in promoting the Italian language. It is currently being translated into Italian—and Chinese!

Most gratifying to me has been the response of readers--from Vancouver to Paris to Sydney to Singapore. An artist who lives on a remote ranch in South Africa wrote that LA BELLA LINGUA  inspired her  lush paintings of Italian fountains and gardens.  A humanities professor in New York confessed that for two months he kept LA BELLA LINGUA in his  car, “bringing it out when I stopped at a wine bar for a drink or a bite to eat. And now that I have finished--what am I to do?”

A college student recalled choosing LA BELLA LINGUA from all the titles in a bookstore as a middle-schooler, reading it every year since, and learning Italian—first on her own, then in class. She based her college admissions essay on LA BELLA LINGUA’s being her favorite book and won a full scholarship to Northwestern. Still “wildly in love with languages," she wrote to say, “You changed my life irrevocably," and signed her note, "A grateful student."

LA BELLA LINGUA changed my life too. Through Italians I met while researching it, I discovered the largely unknown story of the real woman in Leonardo’s famous painting and wrote MONA LISA: A Life Discovered. This immersion in Renaissance Florence led to my most recent adventure: a quest for the secrets and sources of the fierce creative Italian  drive that has produced so many master works of art, music, crafts, food, wine, literature, cinema, fashion, and design. Just released, LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World  has been hailed as an " effervescent love letter to all things Italian” and a “delightful excursion into the heart of Italian culture.”

Whether you are Italian by birth or affinity, have visited or plan to visit Italy, are an armchair adventurer, or simply love pizza, pasta, or Prosecco, I invite you to get to know my literary “children.” But be forewarned: Like me and many of my readers, you might be swept away by la passione Italiana!

 

Why Travelers Fall in Love with Italy

This article originally appeared in forbes.com. Click here to read the complete post.

by Irene Levine

Most travelers who visit Italy return changed in some way, either subtly embracing one or more aspects of Italian culture (perhaps, food or style) or more fundamentally, by re-thinking their approach to life.

Dianne Hales’ just-released book, La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World (Crown Archetype, 2019), masterfully examines the multitude of reasons why so many people fall in love with Italy and the Italian lifestyle. In this book, she weaves a rich tapestry of legends and historical references coupled with interviews and first-person experiences to explain this phenomenon. She focuses on some of the most seductive aspects of Italian culture: its history, food and wine, art, music, cinema, cars and fashion and style.

Dianne previously authored two other seminal books about Italian life: La Bella Lingua, a New York Times bestseller and Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, which was named an Amazon best book of the year and translated into six languages. Prior to this Italian trilogy, she authored more than forty trade and textbooks on a variety of topics.

Forbes.com spoke to Dianne about her latest book and solicited her advice for travelers bound for Italy:

Can you briefly explain what you mean by La Passione?

Dianne Hales: English speakers think of passion as an intense feeling. La passione italiana is much, much more. Almost 2000 years ago, the early Christians in Rome fashioned the word “passio”
from the Latin for “suffer” to describe the torture and crucifixion of Jesus. Over the centuries Italian wordsmiths expanded its meaning to irresistible romantic love or any single-minded pursuit that combines challenge and rebirth. La passione italiana can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, the banal into the beautiful, food into feasts, sounds into songs, moments into movies.

Thanks to this fierce drive to discover and create, a scrawny peninsula smaller than California has touched every aspect of Western culture, blazing to life in the Sistine Chapel, surging through a Verdi chorus, preening in Valentino red, deepening a vintage Brunello, spicing a tangy penne all’arrabbiata. The world would be a far paler place without it.

When did you realize that you had been seduced by Italian culture? How did it happen?
DH: Italians talk about being struck by un colpo di fulmine (a lightning bolt) when they fall head over heels in love. That happened on my first trip to Italy—an unplanned detour after I gave a talk in Switzerland. I never expected to swoon for a country where I knew no one and could not speak the language, but I did.

Italy seduced me, as it has millions of visitors. Michelangelo’s David set the synapses in my brain on fire. Puccini’s arias stirred my soul. With a bite into homemade pasta in a silky sauce, taste buds I never knew existed sprang to life. My ears overflowed with sounds—choirs, Vespas, street musicians, children laughing.

I knew I was a goner the moment I left—and immediately started thinking about when I could return.

How did your two prior books lead to this one?
DH: I so wanted to communicate with the Italians I had met that I immersed myself in Italian and became enraptured by the music in its words. When my agent suggested I write a book on Italian “because you light up when you talk about it,” 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.

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.

In a sense, La Passione is also a tour guide to Italy. Can you offer any suggestions on how first-timers should approach travel to Italy if they only have a week or two abroad?

DH: Pick a passion and a place. Since Italy offers everything, focus on what attracts you and make that your starting point: Florence for Renaissance art, Piedmont for wine, Sicily for ancient ruins (and Inspector Montalbano), Rome for, well, Rome. Because of Italy’s rich history, every town offers a range of other treasures for you to explore.

If you can visit only a major city or two, I recommend hiring a local, English-speaking guide (check the Internet) who can provide an overview and background. Then download or carry a map, and explore an intriguing neighborhood on foot—ideally early in the day or later in the evening when you can feel yourself walking back in time.

For those who have already been to Italy’s iconic cities one or more times, what do you suggest next?
DH: Choose a region that appeals to you—mountains or seaside, city or hill town—and make yourself at home. Rentals are available in every price range (always read reviews and fine print carefully). Go to markets, restaurants, parks, and festivals. You’ll soon start living by a new rhythm, savoring your interactions with locals and enjoying Italy’s greatest gift: its way of life.

How should travelers prepare for a trip to Italy? Is it necessary? How much knowledge of the Italian language is essential for most leisure travelers?
DH: Open your senses. Open your mind. Above all, open your heart.

Learn enough Italian to be polite (please, thank you, etc.) and handle necessities (e.g. where is…my hotel, a bathroom, etc.). Listen to online conversation lessons (my personal favorite: ItalyMadeEasy.com). Stream Italian videos (available online with English subtitles) to accustom your ear to Italian sounds. Download a translation app, and don’t hesitate to use it.

I’d also recommend my books. La Bella Lingua doesn’t teach grammar or vocabulary but you’ll learn (painlessly, I promise) why Italians cherish their language. La Passione taps into something deeper—the zest for living that makes every trip to Italy memorable.

Is there one city (or region) in Italy to which you always yearn to return? If so, why?
DH: In 1990 my husband and I arrived at Il Pellicano, then a rustic inn by the sea in Porto Ercole. “I want to come back here every year for the rest of my life,” I declared. And we have—staying at least a few nights at what is now a world-class luxury resort and then renting places nearby. I’ve written drafts of my three Italian books in hillside houses overlooking the Tuscan coast. We also share food and laughter with friends, go swimming and boating, and delight in dolce far niente— the sweetness of doing nothing.

Is your relationship with Italy monogamous? Where else do you travel for pleasure?
DH: I’ve been married 40 years so I may be monogamous by nature. However, my husband and have had flings with other European countries, New Zealand, Australia, the South Pacific. Most recently we’ve loved exploring the San Juan Islands in the Northwest. And since we live in Bodega Bay, we have the magnificent California coast in our front yard and the Wine Country in our backyard for quick getaways.

How do you cope with re-entry after leaving the place you love so much? How do you manage to bring a little bit of Italy back home with you?
DH: That’s the true gift of la passione italiana: it becomes part of you. In many ways, we live an Italian lifestyle in the U.S. We eat Italian dishes, drink espresso and Prosecco, and listen to Italian opera. But more importantly, we’ve absorbed its deeper lessons: Appreciate your senses. Cultivate compassion. Hold family and friends close. Choose the bello over the brutto. Love without limits. Let the human spirit soar.

What could be more seductive than that?

7 Reasons to Discover La Passione!

I am thrilled to announce the publication of my new book: LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World.

Like any author, I’m eager for people to read my book. But with more than 8 million titles on Amazon alone, why choose mine? Let me offer seven reasons, based on my discoveries as I traveled through Italy in search of la passione italiana.

1.The places you’ll go:
The Aeolian islands, where I learned the danger of angering ancient gods. The food markets of Bologna in the “fat belly” of Italy. The rolling hills of Piedmont, home to Barolo and Barbaresco, the king and queen of Italian wines. The atelier of the Italian sisters who dressed the movies’ great beauties when Rome was “Hollywood on the Tiber.”

2. The people you’ll meet:
Venice’s premiere “erotic glass artist,” who breathes passion into molten glass. An archaeologist who has excavated through almost three millennia of ruins to the first settlement in Rome. The “flying baroness” who roared to international celebrity as Italy’s first female race car driver. The poor boy from Southern Italy whose passion for feet inspired him to become “shoemaker to the stars.”

3. The stories you'll hear:
The lace-makers of Burano who saved their island from starvation, stitch by stitch. The ghost of the young Florentine who escaped from her tomb to “live twice” with her true love. The history of Neapolitan pizza. The singers, castrated as boys to preserve their high voices, who sublimated passion into song.

4. The tastes you’ll enjoy (vicariously):
Wine from a vineyard on an Umbrian hillside cultivated since centuries before Christ’s birth. Hand-made chocolate confections invented in Perugia by clandestine lovers. Balsamic vinegar aged in Modena for more than sixty years and drizzled over gelato. Passatelli, a pasta of cheese and breadcrumbs that I learned to make in a Bologna kitchen.

5. The experiences you’ll share:
A pre-Carnevale parade on the oldest canal in Venice. A 24-hour Good Friday processions of mammoth altars crafted centuries ago and carried through the streets of a Sicilian town. Lunch of traditional bagna cauda with young wine-makers in the Langhe. A stroll through Cinecittà, the fabled “Factory of Dreams” that still inspires all who  “have cinema in their blood.”

6.The joy you’ll find:
An Italian-American woman’s inspiring campaign to save an abandoned chapel in the Tuscan town of Castiglion Fiorentino. Sleek road rockets and the roar of their engines at the Ferrari museum in Modena. Heart-shaped balloons on Valentine’s Day in Verona, home to Shakespeare’s Juliet and her Romeo.  Moonlight in Venice and fireworks over the Bay of Naples.

7. For the lessons you may learn:
La passione italiana imparts simple but profound life lessons: Hold family close. Appreciate your senses. Cultivate compassion.  Share food and laughter with friends. Honor the sacred. Choose the bello over the brutto. Love without limits. Let the human spirit soar.

Whether or not you are Italian by blood or aspiration, have visited or dream of visiting Italy, love pasta and pizza (and who doesn’t?), let yourself by seduced by a passion that resonates in all our souls.

I look forward to sharing my Passione with you!

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 on her and her Spring book tours, visit her website: diannehales.com. 

As of the end of April, I will not be posting at “Becoming Italian Word by Word.” Instead, I am debuting a new blog, "A Passion for Italy," which will be available on my website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts. To subscribe, click HERE, and  go to the top of the sidebar. If you are already subscribed via e-mail to my Typepad blog, your subscription will automatically transfer to the new blog. However, if you subscribed via RSS, you will need to do so again, using the same link as above.

 

A Passion for Italy

A New Blog for a New Book

I didn’t have a clue. I had never set up a website, written a blog, created a Facebook group, or composed a single tweet. All that changed ten years ago when I prepared to launch my first Italy-themed book.

La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language attracted readers around the world, earned for me the great honor of being knighted by the President of Italy, and garnered a spot on the New York Times best-seller list and as the subject of a Times acrostic. The companion blog that I created — "Becoming Italian Word by Word" — also took on a life of its own, attracting almost two million visitors and winning a “blogger of the year” award for “Best Arts and Cultural Blog” from Italy magazine.

Over the last decade readers have come from just about every country -- Italy, England, Ireland, Poland, China, India, Japan, Australia, Samoa, Russia, Morocco, Germany, Brazil, Chile. A woman on a ranch in South Africa wrote to say my blog had inspired a series of paintings of Italian gardens. A group of nuns doing missionary work followed it regularly. Many teachers used the blog to spark conversation in class. One woman translated and read  each post to her blind elderly brother, who had been born in Naples.

To all my readers and followers, grazie di cuore. I thank you from my heart. But after a decade of focusing on words and expressions in la bella lingua, I am changing gears. As of the end of April, I will not be posting at “Becoming Italian Word by Word.” Instead, I am debuting a new blog, "A Passion for Italy," which will be available on my website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts. To subscribe, click HERE and  go to the top of the sidebar. If you are already subscribed via e-mail to my Typepad blog, your subscription will automatically transfer to the new blog. However, if you subscribed via RSS, you will need to do so again, using the same link as above.

My new blog will go beyond the pages of LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World  to present more interviews with passionate Italians and more descriptions as well as photographs of the people I met and the places I visited.  I am excited about sharing the backstories of my research with you, and I hope you enjoy discovering more about  the Italian passions that seduced the world.

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 the upcoming LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information on her and her Spring book tours, visit her website: diannehales.com.

What is "la passione"?

“Of course, you are Italian,” a Roman friend insisted years ago, “You have something more important than blood: la passione.”

I accepted the compliment without fully comprehending its significance. Passion, after all, can bloom anywhere. Think of France, with its culinary cathedrals; Spain, with its bullfights; Argentina, with its tango—not to mention the millions of soulmate seekers pursuing passion online. Yet these pursuits now strike me as mere imitations. How could it be otherwise? The original, including the word itself, was made in Italy.

In the first century AD, newly minted Christians, constructing a vocabulary for their fledgling religion, chose the term passio for the agony that Jesus endured to redeem a world of sinners. Etymologists trace its roots to the Latin passus, past participle of pati (to suffer), inspired by the “sacrificio di Cristo e a quells dei prima martiri” (the sacrifice of Christ and that of the first martyrs).

Healers appropriated the word for maladies such as “passion of the liver”—a diagnosis that conjures an organ engorged with rage. Medieval writers—Dante foremost among them— recognized romantic love as una passione so compelling that it could not be resisted. The Renaissance extended the definition of la passione to any all-consuming quest, most often for beauty in its infinite variety. Romantics idealized the irresistible intensity of such ardor, even when it exploded into “crimes of passion.”

Although modern English-language dictionaries acknowledge the religious roots of “passion,” they define it as a state or an outburst of strong emotion, intense sexual love, or deep desire or enthusiasm. La passione is all these—and much more.

The Dizionario Affettivo della Lingua Italians (Emotional Dictionary of the Italian Language) describes la passione as a flammable material—volatile and dangerous. When it possesses you, it causes infinitesimal, voracious particles to pulsate in the blood. You risk burning like a torch, flaming bright, and then disintegrating into embers. When you are inside la passione, nothing else can enter your mind. When it flees, you search desperately for more.

Passion—and passion alone—lifts us above the ordinary. Without passion, there would be no literature, no art, no music, no romance, perhaps none of the wonders Italians have wrought. Beyond sentiment or emotion, la passione qualifies as a primal force of nature that cannot be ignored or denied.

You will find more--much more--about this fierce drive to explore, discover, create, pursue beauty, and love and live with every fiber of one’s being in my new book, La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World. You can preorder it here or find it wherever books are sold on April 16. 

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 the upcoming LA PASSIONE: How Italy  Seduced the World. For more information on her and her Spring book tours, visit her website: diannehales.com.

Cari amici, I will be moving my blog to my new website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts.  Click HERE  to subscribe (top of sidebar).  Note that if you are already subscribed (via e-mail) to my Typepad blog, your subscription will automatically transfer to the new blog.  However, if you subscribed via RSS, you will need to do so again (using the same link as above).  Thank you!

 

 

March News from Dianne

“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.”,

This is how LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World begins.

Western culture is indeed unimaginable without Italy. 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.

But why Italy? How did a scrawny peninsula smaller than California  leave such an outsize imprint on Western culture?

After  decades of searching for answers,  I credit la passione italiana. My new book, available now for pre-order and on sale wherever books are sold on April 16, explores this primal force and its impact on food, wine,  romance, literature, art, music, religion, film, fashion--and very fast cars.

I’m excited about sharing the story of how la passione italiana seduced the world—in print and in person. Here is the initial list of places where I’ll be speaking this spring.  You can find details on the Events page of my website, which will be updated as we firm up additional dates for the summer and fall.

San Francisco:

Italian Cultural Institute, 6:30 p.m., April 17 (with Frances Mayes)

Libreria Pino, 6:30 p.m., April 24 (with Lisa Engelken)

Il Cenacolo (members and guests), noon, May 16

Marin County

Book Passage, Corte Madera, 4:00 p.m., April 28

East Bay

Stanford Women’s Book Club (private), morning, May 2

Orinda Books, 2:00 p.m., May 2

Houston

Italian Cultural & Community Center, 7:00 p.m., May 7 (with Rita Richardson of Friends of San Filippino)

New Orleans

American Italian Cultural Center, 6:00 p.m., May 8 (with Rita Richardson)

Atlanta

Ciancia Conversation Club, 7:00 p.m., May 9 (with Rita Richardson)

If you’re in Italy this June, I’ll be presenting my book at an event sponsored by the Friends of San Filippino  on Sunday, June 9, in the lovely Tuscan town of Castiglion Fiorentino and in a lecture at the British Institute in Florence on Wednesday, June 12.

I look forward to meeting many of you in my travels. Come and discover la passione italiana!

                                                                                                                                                A presto,

                                                                                                                                                Dianne

Please note: I will be moving my blog to my new website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts.  Click here  to subscribe (top of sidebar).  If you are already subscribed (via e-mail) to my Typepad blog, your subscription will automatically transfer to the new blog.  However, if you subscribed via RSS, you will need to do so again (using the same link as above).  Thank you!

Carnevale in Venice

Carnevale

On a chilly night in February, a gigantic silver balloon rises above a Venetian canal like a moon lassoed from the sky. Dangling below, an acrobat gyrates into a spinning star. Sky ballerinas with huge butterfly wings flutter around her. Giant ten-feet-high anemones unfurl long filmy tendrils. Fire dancers on gondolas juggle flaming torches. This is not the Disneyfied Carnevale of elaborate costumes and expensive balls that draws tens of thousands of visitors but a simpler, smaller, sweeter celebration held in Cannaregio, the working-class neighborhood where the highest percentage of native Venetians live.     

During this magical evening, I hear no languages other than Italian and Venetian. Children scamper in Harlequin costumes (with a few galactic superheroes in the mix). Women swirl in the flowing robes of another age; men don the long-beaked masks of plague doctors. Confetti falls like snowflakes. This scene, which I describe in La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World, captures the particularly exuberant spirit of Carnevale in Italy.

For centuries the pre-Lent festivities of Carnevale sumptuously celebrated carne, which translates as both "meat' and "flesh." 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.

According to le Monnier's Dictionary of the Italian Language, Carne Levare was first used for the sumptuous dinner eaten the night before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Over the years "Carnevale" was gradually extended to cover the entire period from Epiphany to la settimana grassa (the fat week) before Ash Wednesday.

During Venice's Carnevale, which lasted for months, party-goers wore costumes and elaborate maschere (masks). 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.

Over the centuries Venice''s pre-Lenten merry-making has inspired some pithy axioms:  

    *Fare le frittelle –- literally, to make the traditional fritters; figuratively, to celebrate Carnival.

    *A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale -- At Carnival anything goes.

    *L’amore di Carnevale muore in Quaresima -- A love that starts during Carnival dies in Lent.                                                  

Wherever you may celebrate, I wish you Buon Carnevale!

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 the upcoming LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. For more information, visit her website: www.diannehales.com.

Win a pre-publication bound galley of LA PASSIONE from Goodreads! Click here to enter the raffle.  The giveaway ends March 13.

Happy New Year in Italian!

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 (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 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)  

Dianne Hales is the author ofLA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and the upcoming LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. Click here to preorder. For more information, visit her new website: www.diannehales.com

 

Three Days of Christmas Feasts in Italy

Le Tre Feste di Natale 

The Three Christmas Feasts 

Most families in Italy begin celebrating il Natale on the evening of December 24 (la vigilia di Natale) with a big dinner. Because Christmas Eve is a vigilia di magro (a day of abstinence on which the Catholic Church prohibits the consumption of meat), the centerpiece of the meal is fish. 

The traditional choice is eel, a favorite of the ancient Romans that appears in the earliest known cookbook, written by a gourmand known as Apicius. This symbol of life and immortality was sold alive and wiggling, then beheaded, chopped and dropped into boiling water, spit-roasted, grilled, stewed with white wine and peas  or pickled in vinegar, oil, bay leaves, rosemary and cloves.

In some regions the Christmas Eve feast has seven courses (for the seven sacraments); others serve nine (the trinity times three) or thirteen (for Jesus and his twelve disciples). Some of the fish dishes include fritto misto with lemon (mixed fried fish), calamari or pasta with anchovies.  

Families may go to midnight Mass (la messa di mezzanotte) in their local church or watch the Pope’s televised outdoor Mass at St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. At midday on Christmas the Pope again appears on television to deliver his annual “urbi et orbi” message to “the city and the world.”

Il pranzo di Natale (the Christmas day meal) usually starts with a rich pasta, such as cappelletti in brodo, little hats stuffed with chopped meats, cheese, eggs or pumpkin. By tradition everyone is supposed to eat at least a dozen. Depending on the region of Italy, the main course may be capon, pork or turkey. 

Everyone saves room for the special dolci (sweets). Many of the original recipes were created by nuns who prepared special types of sweets as gifts for prominent clergymen and noble families. They include: 

     *cartellate -- curly ribbons of dough that symbolize the sheets on which the baby Jesus lay 

     *calzoncelli -- the pillows for his head 

     *latte di mandorla -- Virgin’s milk 

     *calzone di San Leonardo -- trousers of St. Leonard, which represent the cradle. 

Among the various types of holiday bread (pane) are pangiallo (a round bread crammed with fruits and nuts--an ancient symbol of fertility), panforte (a fruitcake-like specialty of Siena)  and panpepato (peppery and dark, somewhat like gingerbread). 

The most famous is the tall cupola-shaped panettone, with origins that date back to ancient Rome. The term derives from panetto (loaf of bread) combined with “one” (a suffix meaning large and pronounced “oh-nay”), although some claim its name comes from the Milanese expression “pan di ton” (luxury bread).  

After the meal, families play a game called tombola, similar to bingo, with dried beans as markers. Players win coins or small prizes for covering two numbers (ambo), three (terno), five (cinquina) or the entire card (tombola). In towns and cities many Italians have started a new Christmas day tradition: going to the movies. 

December 26 brings Prima Festa (first feast) and another big family meal to honor Santo Stefano (St. Stephen), the first Christian martyr, who was stoned to death for his beliefs. This day gave rise to an idiomatic expression -- da Natale a Santo Stefano (from Christmas to St. Stephen’s Day) — to describe a very brief period of time. 

Words and Expressions

Buone Feste -- Happy Celebrations/Holidays

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo -- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 

I più cari auguri per un sereno Natale e per un anno nuovo ricco di soddisfazioni -- dearest wishes for a peaceful Christmas and a fulfilling new year 

I migliori auguri per il Santo Natale e per il 2019 -- best wishes for Holy Christmas and for 2019

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 the upcoming  LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. Click here to preorder. For more information, visit her new website: www.diannehales.com

Click below to listen to a beloved Italian Christmas song:

Christmas Markets in Italy

Mercatini di Natale 

Christmas Markets

In Northern Italy’s Trentino-Alto Adige, il Mercatino di Natale (the Christmas market) brings light, joy and cheer. As a local website describes it, “Il Mercatino è una festa per tutti (the Market is a feast for everyone) -- a place to ascoltare e poi ammirare (to listen and then admire), respirare e poi gustare (to breathe and then taste), toccare con mano la tradizione (see/experience something first-hand, get a feel of tradition),
 vivere il clima di festa che avvolge e riscalda (to live the climate of the festival that surrounds and warms) visitors.

Nelle piazze e sulle strade (in the piazzas and on the streets) you experience un'atmosfera di sincero calore (an atmosphere of sincere warmth) and feel il valore più vero e profondo del Natale (the most true and profound value of Christmas). Il profumo (the scent) of il Mercatino di Natale  is unique: quello di cannella e spezie (that of cinnamon and spices), di legno di montagna (of mountain wood), di dolci fatti in casa (of homemade sweets) and di abeti decorati a festa (of fir trees in party decorations).


La luce (the light) comes from le casette di legno addobbate (the little decorated houses) and dall'albero di Natale (from the Christmas tree). Among le dolci note (the sweet notes) of il Mercatino are canti natalizi (Christmas carols), tradizione in musica (traditional music), dishes made from 
le antiche ricette della tradizione trentina e tirolese (ancient recipes from the traditions of Trentino and the Tyrol), le candele decorate (decorated candles)—and gli occhi brillanti dei bambini (the shining eyes of the children).

Here are some popular town markets:

Bolzano

This Sudtirol town hosts a charming Christmas market combining both German and Mediterranean traditions. On the weekends, traditional storytellers, trumpeters and musicians gather in the Piazza Walther and in local churches. Area restaurants offer a typical Sudtirolean menu, which mixes German culinary traditions with Italian delights. The artists' market in Piazza Municipio showcases unique Yuletide ornaments, terracotta and ceramics.

Bressanone

The lovely little ski town of Bressanone, hidden in the Dolomites and dating back to the year 901, puts on the Weihnachtsmarkt (literally, votive night market, another common Christmas market found throughout Germany). Visitors can also tour the Museo dei Presepi (Crèche Museum) in the Palazzo Vescovile.

Merano

Merano, una splendida città termale (a splendid spa town), invites visitors to its Christmas market to abbandonarsi alla carezza del wellness (to surrender to the caress of wellness). In addition to le occasioni di benessere (opportunities for wellbeing), there is una casetta in legno (a little wooden house) tutta dedicata agli artigiani che lavorano legno, pietra, cuoio, cera e feltro (completely dedicated to artisans working in wood, stone, leather, wax and felt).

Trento

Set amidst le antiche mura cittadine (the ancient city walls), Trento’s Mercatino boasts famose decorazioni natalizie impossibili da trovare altrove (famous Christmas decorations impossible to find elsewhere). A special section presents local specialties such as strudel di mele (apple strudel) and steaming cups of vin brulè (mulled wine). Christmas choirs in typical costumes (costumi tipici) of the region sing canti alpini (Alpine songs) agli angoli delle vie (at the street corners).

Words and Expressions

Oggetti d’artigianato –- artisan-made objects

Addobbi tradizionali –- traditional decorations

Specialità locali -– local specialties

Magica atmosfera –- magical atmosphere

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 the upcoming  LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. Click here to preorder. For more information, visit her new website: www.diannehales.com.