Becoming Italian Word by Word

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.

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.

 

 

 

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!

Book News from Dianne Hales

Since La Bella Lingua was published almost a decade ago, people have often asked me what drew me to Italy. Over the years, I've realized that what intrigued and enthralled me most wasn't its language, food or art—as marvelous as each is—but la passione italiana.

I've dedicated the last three years to the pursuit of its secrets and sources. This summer my editors at the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, and I put the finishing touches on the manuscript for La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World. The official publication date is April 16, 2019, but the book is now available for pre-orders at Amazon in the United States, Italy and England, Barnes & Noble and many independent book stores.

Here is the official online profile for my new book:

"From the New York Times bestselling author knighted by the President of Italy for her writing, a jubilant exploration of how Italy transformed the Western world's most vibrant passions—from literature to art, music to movies.

No country has matched Italy's impact on culture. Just think of painting without Leonardo, opera without Verdi, fashion without Armani, food without the signature tastes of pasta, gelato, and pizza. The first universities, first banks, first public libraries? All Italian.

Dianne Hales attributes these landmark achievements to la passione italiana, a primal force that stems from an insatiable hunger to discover and create; to love and live with every fiber of one's being. This fierce drive, millennia in the making, blazes to life in the Sistine Chapel, surges through a Puccini aria, deepens a vintage Brunello and rumbles in a gleaming Ferrari engine.

Our ideal tour guide, Hales sweeps readers along on her adventurous quest for the secrets of la passione. She swims in the playgrounds of mythic gods, shadows artisanal makers of chocolate and cheese, joins in Sicily's Holy Week traditions, celebrates a neighborhood Carnevale in Venice, and explores pagan temples, vineyards, silk mills, movie sets, crafts studios, and fashion salons. She introduces us, through sumptuous prose, to unforgettable Italians, historical and contemporary, all brimming with the greatest of Italian passions—for life itself.

A lyrical portrait of a spirit as well as a nation, La Passione appeals to the Italian in all our souls, inspiring us to be as daring as Italy's gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties  and as irresistible as its lovers."

Like any parent, I care deeply about all of my literary "children," but I am especially excited to share the wonderful stories of the Italian passions that shaped all our lives.

I write about a particular passion—for Venice, the most seductive of Italian cities—in a newly published collection of first-person accounts: First Spritz Is Free: Confessions of Venice Addicts, edited by a sister appassionata, Kathleen Gonzalez. I've thoroughly enjoyed seeing Venice through the eyes of artists, artisans, writers, gondoliers, musicians, teachers, tour guides, photographers, poets, historians, and more. You can order the book here to share in their adventures.

Another of my books, Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, popped up recently on NBC Nightly News—part of the backdrop for an interview with the delightful sisters Natalia and Irina Strozzi, the last living descendants of Leonardo's iconic model. Click here to see for yourself if they've inherited her alluring smile.

                                                                                                            

 

Wine in the Italian Language

Il linguaggio del vino

The Language of Wine

The warm days of early November –- known as Indian summer in the United States –- are called “l’estate di San Martino” (the summer of St. Martin) in Italy. Wine producers (produttori di vini) celebrate the  saint's feast on November 11 by uncorking the vino novello (new wine) from the recent vendemmia (grape harvest) and getting the first preview of the year’s vintage (annata). As an Italian saying puts it, “Per San Martino, cadono le foglie e si spilla il vino." (For St. Martin, the leaves fall, and the wine is tapped.)

In September my husband and I visited several wineries (cantine) as the grapes were being picked. At the NostraVita winery in the gorgeous Val d’Orcia, we spent a day with Annibale Parisi, a true Renaissance man whose passions extend from art to natural history to wine. As we walked through his vineyard (vigneto), he told me that  he “listens” to every vine (vite) and responds to its needs. The results show in the robust health of each grape (uva) -- thick skin (buccia dell’uva), moist pulp (polpa) and  firm brown seeds (vinaccioli). Annibale hand-paints every label (etichetta) in four colors: reddish-brown for the earth, black for hard work, red for passion, white for the sun.  

We arrived at Poggio Grande  in nearby San Quirico d’Orcia  just as bunches (grappoli) of freshly picked grapes were going through the first steps of sorting, trimming of stems (raspi) and maceration (macerazione). “We do everything by hand,” says Giulitta Zamperini, the fourth generation of her family to make wines.  She offered us a special treat: glasses of must (mosto), the grape juice that will eventually be  transformed into wine, straight from the vat.

At Le Chiuse (above), an azienda agricola (an estate that grows grapes and produces its own wine) in Montalcino, another family--Nicolo' Magnelli, his wife Simonetta and their son Lorenzo--balances innovation with tradition, including long soaks before and after fermentation (fermentazione) in stainless steel vats. The aging process (invecchiamento) for its signature Brunello continues in barrels (botti) for three years until the wine is ready to be poured into bottles (bottiglie) and sealed with corks (tappi).   

Farther north in the Chianti region, at Lorenza and Marco Pallanti's fairy-tale tenuta (estate) of Castello di Ama, we found lush vineyards and a dazzling collection of contemporary art. Over the last fifteen years distinguished artists from around the world have  captured their sense of this special place in striking creations -- including a wall of mirrors overlooking the countryside, a neon light installation in a wine cellar and a cauldron of iridescent red light in a centuries-old chapel.                                    

 “There’s a kind of competition with the artists,” says Marco, a French-trained winemaker (enologo) whose vintages have earned spectacular ratings and reviews. “They  inspire me to make wines at the same level as their art.   Wine and art have the same judge: time.   It’s relatively easy to make a wine or a piece of art that seems good because it’s new. But we want to create something that will last beyond us and carry the Castello into the future for centuries to come.”

Every visit ended with a tasting (degustazione) that taught us another aspect of viticulture (viticoltura): how to describe the wines we were sampling. Here are some of the terms we learned:

    Amabile -– semi-sweet

    Ampio -– ample, rich, complex

    Corposo –- full-bodied

    Dolce -– sweet

    Frizzante –- effervescent, fizzy

    Intenso –- intense in aroma, color or flavor

    Leggero –- lightweight, low in alcohol

    Pieno –- full-bodied, rich

    Robusto –- robust, full-bodied

    Secco -– dry

    Tannico –- rich in tannins

    Vinoso –- fresh and fruity  

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 brief tour of Castello di Ama:

CASTELLO DI AMA ART COLLECTION