Becoming Italian Word by Word

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.

 

How Italy Seduced the World

Italy has been seducing foreigners since its history began. Century after century, in peace and war, over perilous passes, stormy seas, and rutted roads, they have come—explorers, adventurers, traders, sailors, soldiers, writers, musicians, poets, painters, sculptors, penitents, pilgrims of every sort—to the promised land of their imagination.

For a veritable Who’s Who of Western civilization, Italy served as the essential finishing school, a required destination for any person of refinement. Yet even cultural acolytes who came to learn from dead Italians found themselves enchanted by living ones—and infected with la passione italiana. “At last—for the first time—I live!” Henry James wrote in his diary when he arrived in Italy in 1869. “Who has been in Italy can forget all other regions,” the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol gushed. “Who has been in Heaven does not desire the Earth.” The bequally besotted Robert Browning declared, “Open my heart and you will see / Graved inside of it, ‘Italy.'”

Even if you have never set foot on its soil, Italy has so profoundly permeated our collective unconscious that 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. Leonardo’s Mona Lisa outranks all other masterpieces as the world’s most famous painting. Ferrari’s Cavallino Rampante (Prancing Horse) outshines other brands as the most recognized logo. Italian itself has become trendy, ranking as the world’s fourth-most-studied languag

From Boston to Berlin, Sydney to Singapore, people nibble on biscotti, sip capuccino, drive Fiats, stream Italian films, and zip up Diesel jeans. The Mediterranean diet—practically a synonym for the cooking of southern Italy—has won over legions of fans and foodies. Even mainstream supermarket chains stock Italian pasta, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and peeled tomatoes. Italian fashions have become just as ubiquitous. The upscale salons of big-name designers line the chicest shopping streets of major cities on every continent. The “Made in Italy” label lures millions of customers with a sophistication that blends elegance with exuberance.

Yet “Italy fever” reflects more than the popularity of Italian products. “People around the world are attracted to what’s inside these objects– to the universe of values that they sense,” observes the distinguished author Federico Rampini, US bureau chief for La Repubblica. “Wherever I’ve traveled, I’ve met people who aspire to live like Italians. What seduces them is the culture of knowing how to live that Italy has raised to a level of perfection.”

At the heart of this culture pulses la passione italiana –- especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Imbued with its fire, we might all become as brave as Italy’s gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties, as beguiling as its suitors. At the very least we can savor more fully the greatest of Italian passions—for life itself.

What could be more seductive? Read more in my new book: LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World,available to preorder here or on sale everywhere 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.

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!

50 Romantic Phrases in the Italian Language

“How do I love thee?” Elizabeth Barrett Browning asked. She counted the ways in English, but the passionate Italophile may well have chosen Italian when she whispered words of love.  Why not? Like love itself, a dichiarazione d’amore (declaration of love) is lovelier in Italian.

Keep in mind that Italians reserve the words "ti amo" (I love you) only for the loves of their lives. Italian parents and children as well as boyfriends and girlfriends express affection with “Ti voglio bene,” which translates literally into “I want you well,” but conveys an entire universe of best wishes: “I want the best for you.” “I want all good things for you.” “I want what you want because I care so much for you.”

Here are some Italian phrases that may help you in the gioco dell’amore (game of love).

1. Sei la mia anima gemella -- You are my soulmate.
2. Ti penso ogni giorno -- I think of you every day.
3. Senza di te la mia vita non ha senso -- Without you my life makes no sense.
4. Vieni qui e baciami -- Come here and kiss me.
5. Sei il mio universo -- You are my universe.
6. Non posso vivere senza te -- I can’t live without you.
7. Ti voglio –- I want you.
8. Mi piace tutto di te –- I like everything about you.
9. Sono pazzo (pazza, if female) di te -- I am crazy about you.
10. Mi fai stare bene -- You make me feel good.
11. Siamo fatti l’uno per l’altra -- We are made for each other.
12. Sei irresistibile -- You are irresistible.
13. Mi sto innamorando di te –- I’m falling in love with you.
14. Mi rendi felice — You make me happy.
15. Sei l’amore della mia vita — You are the love of my life.
16. Ti adoro — I adore you.
17. Voglio stare con te per sempre — I want to be with you for always.
18. Ho bisogno di te — I need you.
19. Abbracciami — Embrace me!
20. Non potrò mai smettere d’amarti -- I could never stop loving you.
21. Sei la regina del mio cuore —You are the queen of my heart.
22. Sei il mio / la mia –- You are mine.
23. Voglio stare con te — I want to be with you.
24. Non posso più vivere senza te — I can’t go on living without you.
25. Voglio fare l’amore con te — I want to make love to you.
26. Sono tuo (tua) — I am yours.
27. Sii mio (mia) — Be mine!
28. Senza te non sono nulla —Without you I am nothing.
29. Sei il mio raggio di sole — You are my sunshine.
30. Voglio soltanto te — I want only you.
31. Tesoro mio — My darling!
32. Farei di tutto per te — I would do everything for you.
33. Mi manchi -- I miss you
34. Hai conquistato il mio cuore — You have won my heart .
35. Rimani sempre con me — Stay with me always.
36. Non lasciarmi mai — Never leave me.
37. Al cuor non si comanda -- You can’t rule your heart.
38. Siamo fatti l’uno per l’altra –- We are made for each other
39. Finchè morte non ci separi -- ‘Til death do us part.
40. Ti do il mio cuore  — I give you my heart.
41. Voglio invecchiare insieme a te — I want to grow old together with you.
42. Sei tutto ciò che voglio —You’re everything I want.
43. Resta sempre al mio fianco — Stay always by my side.
44. Voglio passare il resto della mia vita con te –- I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
45. Mi sono innamorata di te a prima vista –- I fell in love with you at first sight
46. Solo tu mi capisci — Only you understand me.
47. Ho trovato il paradiso nei tuoi occhi — I have found paradise in your eyes.
48. La nostra è una vera storia d’amore — Ours is a true love story.  
49. Mi vuoi sposare? -- Will you marry me?
50. Vivremo felici e contenti — We will live happily ever after.

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 new website: www.diannehales.com.

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Secrets in Translation

Secrets of Limoncello
A guest post by Margo Sorenson

For my newest young adult/crossover adult novel, SECRETS IN TRANSLATION, set in la bella Italia, I had to do a lot of research, even though I spent my early childhood there and have visited often.

"Well!" you may be thinking, "Italy! Why not?  Of course, you'd want to research that!"

But besides researching the beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous location of the town of Positano on the Amalfi Coast, I had to find out a lot more about limoncello, the lemony liqueur with the piquant tang and a powerful punch. In Secrets, seventeen-year-old Alessandra's new boyfriend, Carlo, is the son of a renowned limoncello-producing family.  Carlo and Alessandra drink it (there is no legal drinking age in Italy, and a chapter takes place in the factory (fabbrica).

Ah, what a great research project! You're probably  imagining my downing multiple glasses of limoncello. Well, if I'd done that, the book would never have been finished! But I was surprised to find there are many unusual aspects about limoncello.

Limoncello is an inextricable part of life on the Amalfi Coast (Costiera amalfitana). Complimentary chilled glasses of the golden liqueur, "con i nostri complimenti," are served in many restaurants after your delicious meal. Often it is the restaurant's own recipe, made in the kitchen. The perfect answer to such an offer: Why not? (Perché no?)

Commercial limoncello production is carefully controlled by the Italian government. Its quality is based on the very specific lemon varieties known as IGP (similar to DOCG in wine) that are licensed to produce it, such as Sfusato Amalfitano and Massa Lubrense lemons. Limoncello producers closely guard their secret recipes, but if you have Italian friends, they may be willing to share their family recipe with you, often passed down from a grandmother (una nonna). The forty days of steeping are worth the wait!

“In this area we used to make limoncello at home,” my friend Carmela tells me, “so it is natural and savory, prepared with natural ingredients.” Here is her old family recipe:

*Marinate lemon peels (you need about 13 lemons) in about 4 ¼ cups of alcohol (95% alcohol, 190 proof) for 48 hours in a tightly closed jar. In the meantime, prepare a syrup by boiling about 3 ¾ cups of sugar in a quart of water. Let the peels sit for 48 hours.

*Let the syrup cool before adding it to the lemon peel mixture after its 48-hour rest.

*Strain and bottle, discarding the lemon zest.

*Let it steep in the well-closed bottle for 40 days—yes, 40!

Commercial limoncello factories have to respect specific rules about the ingredients, which must be local “IGP" (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) lemons, as naturally grown as possible, to meet strict hygiene regulations during production. There are also rules regarding shipping outside the country.

The only danger from drinking limoncello? Getting drunk. My advice: Sip slowly.

Cin-cin, everyone!

Words and Expressions

Limoni – lemons

Un ottimo digestivo – an excellent digestive

Ricetta—recipe

Limoncello è il popolarissimo liquore -- Limoncello is the most popular liqueur.

Author of twenty-eight books, Margo Sorenson spent the first seven years of her life in Spain and Italy, devouring books and Italian food. A former middle and high school teacher, Margo has won national recognition and awards for her writing. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and her publisher.

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered. \ LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language and  LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World (coming in April). 
 

Celebrating Valentine's Day in the Italian Language

La festa degli innamorati 

The Feast of the Enamored  

The Roman empire  began with a tale of love—or, more accurately, lust—almost three millennia ago. The libidinous god Mars, smitten by the beauty of a Vestal Virgin, snuck into her temple in the town of Alba Longa to sleep with her.

When the disgraced Vestal gave birth to twin boys, remarkable for their size and beauty, the evil tribal king ordered the infants thrown in the Tiber. The cradle containing the babies drifted downstream and washed ashore at the base of the Palatine hill.

According to legend, a lupa (she-wolf) suckled the twins Romulus and Remus. However, their nursemaid may well have been human. Lupa was slang for prostitute, a nickname that, some say,  referred to the wildness of their love-making. Several years ago archaelogists unearthed the lupercale, the sacred cave, decorated with seashells and colored marble mosaics, that may have sheltered the twins and served as a shrine for their worship.

For centuries in this cave, on every February 15, Romans celebrated a fertility festival called the Lupercalia with the sacrifice of a goat. Priests sliced the goat’s hide into strips and dipped them in the sacrificial blood. Boys would run through the streets, gently slapping women with the goatskin strips to enhance their fertility in the coming year.

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

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

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

Lovers around the world have been using the same phrase ever since. In Italy, which has not commercialized Valentine’s Day as much as in the United States, couples celebrate with una cenetta intima (a romantic or intimate dinner), flowers--or a soft red pillow to hug!  

Words and Expressions

Carissimo (masculine), carissima (feminine) –- dearest


Anima mia –- my soul


Vivo per te –- I live for you


Ti amo tanto –- I love you so very much

Dianne Hales is the author of  MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

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Buon compleanno a Giulietta!

Happy Birthday to Juliet!

Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet may have lived in Verona and died there in 1303. On September 12 her hometown celebrates Juliet’s birthday with a grand party, featuring a parade, musicians, period costumes, street artists, dancers and, of course, refreshments. But how did two kids from a medieval Italian town become the world’s most famous lovers?

The oldest known written version of their story dates back to 1476, when Masuccio Salernitano  recounted the tale of two infatuated teenagers named Mariotto and Ganozza of Siena in Il Novellino. The author swore “heaven to witness, that the whole of them (his novelle) are a faithful narrative of events occurring during his own times.”

A more stylistically sophisticated writer, Luigi da Porto renamed the lovers Giulietta and Romeus (later Romeo) in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti (Newly Found Story of Two Noble Lovers), published about 1530. Da Porto relocated the tale to Verona and insisted that he had heard the story as a soldier in Friuli from an archer as they marched along a desolate road.

Da Porto ends his account with a dramatic twist: Romeo, discovering Juliet’s seemingly lifeless body, drinks a vial of poison and wraps his arms around her—just as her sleeping potion wears off. In what would have made a hell of a theatrical finale, Juliet, realizing that it is too late to counter the poison he swallowed, beats her breast, tears her hair, throws herself upon Romeo, all but drowns him in tears and imprints desperate kisses on his lips.

“Must I live a moment after you?” she cries. Romeo, already dead in Shakespeare’s script, begs her to live. Then in a made-for-the-spotlight moment, Juliet, “feeling the full weight of her irreparable loss in the death of her noble husband, resolute to die, draws in her breath and retaining it for some time, suddenly utters a loud shriek and falls dead by her lover’s side.”

The British writer Arthur Brooke translated the Italian tales into English verse in 1562; William Painter retold the story in prose in 1582. Shakespeare plucked his plot from these translations when he wrote The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (La tragedia eccellentissima e lamentevolissima di Romeo e Giulietta) in 1595-96.

In all versions, the hatred that had torn the couple’s families apart dissolves in the mingled blood of their dead children. But Shakespeare’s final lines deserve to be the last word on the tearful tale:

    "For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

    "Ché mai vi fu una storia così piena di dolore come questa di Giulietta e del suo Romeo.”

Words and Expressions

Drammaturgo –- playwright

Letteratura –- literature

Capolavoro -- masterpiece

O Romeo, Romeo, perché sei tu Romeo? –- Romeo, Romeo, whereforth art thou Romeo?

Cosa c'è in un nome? Quello che chiamiamo una rosa / Con ogni altra parola avrebbe l'odore dolce –- What’s in a name? That which we call a rose would smell sweet with any other word.

Dianne Hales is the author of Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered  and  La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.   

Click below for a scene from Franco Zeffirelli's classic film:

Carnevale in the Italian Language

 

   

Carnevale
Carnival

For centuries the pre-Lent festivities of carnevale sumptuously celebrated “carne,” a word that 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. Charlemagne reportedly sentenced Lenten meat-eaters to death. 

According to le Monnier's Dictionary of the Italian Language, Carne Levare (Remove Meat) 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.

An almost pagan spirit of enjoyment and transgression is evident in the traditional recipes for this time of year. Southern Italians prepare a migliaccio di polenta made with corn meal, sausages and grated cheese. Neapolitans savor lasagne di Carnevale, a dish so rich that poorer families could afford to prepare it only once a year.

Throughout much of the peninsula, Italians enjoy sweets such as castagnole (sponge balls, plain or filled with ricotta cheese, custard, or chocolate), tortelli with raisins and cinnamon and cicerchiata (pastry balls coated in honey).

The delicate fried pastries Americans might call fritters take different names in different regions. 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 add ingredients such as raisins and anise and call them nastri delle suore (nuns’ ribbons), galani, frappe or sfrappe.

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 Italy's pre-Lenten merry-making has inspired some pithy 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.

This year I attended Carnevale's opening parade in Venice. Click here for the official video of an event that captures the creativity, the commitment and the artistry of Venetians, but even more, their love for their beautiful city.

Buon Carnevale!

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 MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and  LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.