Italy’s top town? For number gurus, Bevagna (Umbria)

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zoomata.com staff

For the third year in a row statisticians wrote a love letter to Bevagna, a medieval hamlet in Umbria, naming it highest for standard of living in Italy.

Research institute Censis studied over 100 cities and towns throughout Italy, finding many of them like Milan and Rome growing and dynamic but choked by traffic and smog or small but drained of life in the city center.

Censis president Giuseppe De Rita says he fell for Bevagna in 2001, after attacks on the Twin Towers. “We were all expecting a world war and it occurred to me that this war would never come to a place like Bevagna, ” he commented in the cities report.

With good reason: many Italians would be hard pressed to locate it on a map, although Bevagna lies 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Perugia and about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Rome. This walled city with a population of 4,700 features Roman baths with mosaics, an arena, nearly a dozen historic churches and plays host to a medieval market in June.

De Rita coined the awkward term “bevagnization” to describe what Italian towns should strive for: a place where one can walk to work, let children play in the streets and leave the front door unlocked but with a vital trade in tourism.

Bevagna, close to where St Francis is said to have preached to the birds, made a rare appearance in the national news recently for allowing locals to shoot pesky pigeons cluttering up the city center.

? text 1999-2004 zoomata.com
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*image courtesy @ copyright city of Bevagna

Related resources:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer
Bill Thayer’s extensive photo journal of Bevagna (English)

Italian Country Hideaways: Vacationing in Tuscany and Umbria’s Private Villas, Castles, and Estates
Bevagna @ beyond…

Italians more passionate about pasta than sex

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Most Latin lovers prefer a plate of pasta to a paramour, according to a recent study. One-third of all Italian of both sexes indicated pasta as the main pleasure in life. According to the SWG poll, nearly half of them would never go without it.
Sex? L’amore as a life passion warrants a mere bronze, coming in after travel preferred by 27% and 21% of Italians respectively. Intellectual pursuits would seem to be of higher importance than rounding out a that plate of pasta with a glass of wine: reading was cited as a passion by 14% percent of Italians while wine only by 4% percent.

Passion for pasta may also lead to a national sense of guilt if another poll by SWG of over 1,000 Italians is to be believed. Half of all Italians feel they are overweight, when only 34% of them are in actuality. And low-carb diets won’t make much headway in Italy any time soon: 60% of those interviewed ate pasta or pizza at least five or six times a week and some up to twice a day.

Although about half of Italians can be considered overweight, they still boast trimmer waistlines than many Spanish, Greek, German and Belgian counterparts. Surgeons cited sedentary lifestyles and “American-style” fast food as plumping up the national girth, warning that in a few years Italian rates may catch up with U.S. obese averages, currently about twice as high. ?1999-2004 zoomata.com
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Related resources:
Marcella Says: Italian Cooking Wisdom from the Legendary Teacher’s Master Classes

Cindy Hayes, (Catania, Sicily)

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First Person: real life in Italy

Each month we introduce you to someone who has made the dream of picking up and moving to the Bel Paese a reality.
In their own words they share the good parts, the bad parts and the just plain absurd moments of day-to-day life in Italy.

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My name is Cindy Hayes; I am an American living in Italy. I am 48 years old, single and having a blast here!

I teach advanced levels of English to professionals and upper university students, which includes the American culture as well as the language.

I have a daughter that is in the US Navy, married and has just given me a beautiful new granddaughter. I have spent time exploring much of the world, including living in China for more than a year.

So I have a pretty good basis for my opinion of Italy! If any of you are planning to come to Italy, in particular Sicily, feel free to email me at: CindyinSicily@hotmail.com Continue reading →

Milan?s opera house La Scala restored to former glory

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zoomata.com staff Italy?s premier opera house La Scala has come out from under wraps after a three-year restoration.
Inaugurated in 1778, the theatre had to be renovated extensively to meet modern building codes and safety standards. The decision to make over other parts of La Scala during the restoration led to nearly-operatic and very Italian drama that began as soon as the ink was dry on the plans.

Both camps will be eager to view the new theatre on December 7, when the season opens with Antonio Salieri’s “Europa Riconosciuta,” the same opera that La Scala opened with in the 1700s.

After a smattering of performances in December and January, La Scala productions will return to the interim Arcimboldi theatre while technicians perfect the new set-changing equipment. A key feature of the renovation, these prototypes developed specially for La Scala are expected to double the number and variety of offerings per season from the current 80 operas and 40 ballets.

Visitors should keep a close eye on the schedule because throughout the spring some of the productions, including Giselle and The Barber of Seville, are offered at La Scala. In the interim the public can view the face lifted La Scala on organized tours. All the great Italian composers have written for the opera house, notably Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, Rossini and Donzinetti.?photo + text 1999-2004 zoomata.com
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Related resources:
http://www.teatroallascala.org/eng/sommario.htm#
2004- 2005 schedule in English

Italian scientists solve historical murder mystery

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by Nicole Martinelli

When fighting knight Cangrande della Scala of Verona buckled to the ground after drinking from a fountain in 1329, many called foul play.

Some 675 years later, scientists took out his perfectly-preserved mummy hoping to solve this ancient murder mystery. A team of experts lead by Gino Fornaciari, also in charge of digging up 49 members of the Medici clan in Florence, took him from the crypt for a 48-hour work up with state-of the-art technology. Archeologists, paleontologists and forensic specialists ran a battery of tests, including DNA tests and CAT scans, then spent months analyzing them.

The result? Cangrande was poisoned. The 38-year-old Lord of Verona died from an overdose of digitalis, a medicine made from foxglove leaves, commonly administered as a powerful cardiac stimulant and a diuretic. Even modern technology, however, can’t clear up whether he was murdered or simply a victim of medical malpractice.

Cangrande had just been handed the keys to conquered city Treviso when he fell ill. The physician examining his swollen belly may have mistakenly took the symptom for cardiac insufficiency when, in fact, experts now know that Cangrande suffered from a viral-induced cirrhosis. The digitalis given to jump start the knight made his liver collapse.

At the time, locals had little doubt: a year after Cangrande’s death, they hung the doctor as responsible for the killing though they never did ascertain whether it was an accident or part of a plot.

Cangrande, that’s ‘Big Dog’ in Italian, is alternately described as a typical tyrant and man of letters. He brought Verona to the height of its power and was also patron to Dante in exile who, in thanks, gave him a mention in the Divine Comedy.

Lest the townspeople forget him, a large equestrian monument with sarcophagus looms over the center of town. Cangrande’s enigmatic smile will continue to keep the secret of his death while visitors explore the results of modern scientific sleuthing in an exhibit at the Castelvecchio museum on until Jan. 23, 2005. ?1999-2004 zoomata.com
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Sexy calendars go bust, Italians prefer saints to pinups

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by Nicole Martinelli

The death toll for Italy’s sexy pinup calendars has sounded: even truck drivers are sick of them.

Marketing experts are worried: these nearly-nude calendars are a 10 million USD a year industry in Italy and magazines that feature them as an extra often sell astronomical quantities with the right starlet or TV host bearing all. So worried, in fact, that they commissioned a poll of 1,000 truck drivers about calendar preferences. The sordid truth? Pulchritude is out, sanctity is in.

“The vulgarity represented by nude porn stars is beautiful, up to a certain point,” said Vincenzo Iuzzolino, president of a national truck driver’s association. “But it’s not in vogue as much as it was a few years ago. Images of Padre Pio are very common, especially among the bulk of devout drivers from the South.”

According to the truck driver poll, 76% prefer to hang religious symbols or calendars over pinups. If pressed, more than half would choose the ‘classy’ pics of respected sports journalist Paola Ferrari, 44 and mother of two, over the go-go girls, models and former-reality show contestants on offer for 2005. The litmus test for whether respondents are telling the truth or only trying to appear virtuous is perhaps the low number of truck drivers who say they hang pictures of their wives and children: a paltry 18%.

Just what does a sexy calendar have to do to get a man’s attention? Quite a lot, if the ‘coffin calendar’ is any indication. For the second year running, a calendar from a coffin maker in Rome features 12 months of live models illustrating final resting places.
In a nod to propriety, the pinups are more clothed than most calendars — they all wearing black bras and panties — and some look slightly sheepish as they hold carpentry tools as props. It may well be the nail in the coffin for the genre.

Religious calendars have always sold well in this predominantly Catholic country. The almanac style and homespun wisdom of Frate Indovino, “brother fortune teller,” was a top seller for over 50 years but when the good father died 2002, it looked like the end of an era. The priest’s publishing house decided to keep going, though, and further interest in religious calendars was boosted when Padre Pio, a 20th-century mystic said to have borne stigmata, became a saint two years ago.

An unscientific poll of newsstands in central Milan, where calendars of both stripes crowded for attention, showed the race may be long.

“It’s not over yet, the rush to buy calendars hasn’t happened so far,” newsstand owner Rosina Casari said. “Last year, though, we sold more calendars of animals and angels than ones with models, it looks like the reign of the girly calendars is finally over.”?photo + text 1999-2004 zoomata.com
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Related info:

365 Days in Italy Calendar 2005

Caravaggio: the last masterpiece comes home to Naples

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zoomata.com staff

The last masterpiece painted in the short, violent life of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the recently-restored “Martyrdom of Saint Orsola,” comes to Naples as part of the exhibition Caravaggio: The Last Years. The exhibit travels to London’s National Gallery in early 2005.
Commissioned by prince Marcantonio Doria for his daughter who joined a convent taking the saint’s name, Caravaggio focuses on the young Orsola (or Ursula) who faces death by the Huns alone instead of with the 11,000 virgins returning from a pilgrimage as the legend recounts. (scroll to view the painting here )

Restoration of the painting made certain the attribution to Caravaggio and revealed a few other surprises as well, like Orsola?s hand first covered by her red cloak and later background add-ons.
The painting is the center of an exhibit of 25 works painted between 1606 and 1610, including ?The Flagellation? and ?The Crucifixion of Saint Andrea.? The maestro’s last four years were tempestuous: Caravaggio killed a man in a duel in Rome and fled the city to settle in Naples, where he continued to paint while hoping for a papal pardon. He also worked in Malta, was knighted then stripped of the honor and thrown in prison over a quarrel.

In the last year of his life he was pardoned for murder, only to die shortly after from a fever. His haggard, bewildered self-portrait in ?St. Orsola? reveals a tragic destiny.?1999-2004 zoomata.com
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The rub:
Capodimonte National Museum of Art
From October 24 2004 to January 24, 2005
Parco di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy
Free phone for information or reservations: 848800288
Tickets: 10 euro, for exhibit and museum

Italian cemeteries prepare first ‘memory gardens’ for ashes

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zoomata.com staff

Italian cemeteries are preparing special areas for people to scatter ashes of the dead after a long-awaited law allowing them to do what they wish with remains was enacted.

Cremation met with resistance from the Catholic Church, which had banned followers from being cremated until 1963. It became legal in Italy in 1987, though there were historic precedents such as the cremation of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley on the beach of Viareggio in 1822.

Even when cremation became legal, Italians were still forced to keep ashes in a cemetery for hygienic reasons.

A 2001 law abolished this, allowing them to keep or disperse ashes as they see fit. It came into force only recently, just in time for when Italians traditionally pay their respects on All Saints and All Soul’s days, Nov.1- 2.

The largest cemeteries in Rome and Milan are preparing ‘memory gardens’ to give friends and family members a place to disperse remains. Officials in Milan cited an increasing number of Italians preferring cremation, up to about 35% of total deaths, while in Rome cremations have risen 10% every year since 2001.

Lack of space may prove a determining factor in the popularity of cremation. If kin can keep remains, they don’t need to find place in what is probably an overcrowded, disorganized cemetery.
Italy’s problems surrounding the dear departed aren’t about just overpriced caskets, but what has been called a nationwide nightmare — from archaic laws that prohibit married women and their children being buried in the family plot, to loved ones gone ‘missing’ because relatives owe back rent for niches and kickbacks for finding precious space or getting the dead properly dressed.
Recent initiatives to get the trust back into hallowed ground include a non-profit cemetery and computer kiosks to help family members navigate the maze of graves often dating back centuries. ?1999-2004 zoomata.com
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Dianne Drew (Salerno, Campania)

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First Person: Real Life In Italy

Each month we introduce you to someone who has made the dream of picking up and moving to the Bel Paese a reality. In their own words they share the good parts, the bad parts and the just plain absurd moments of day-to-day life in Italy.

Looking to move to Italy? Try the reader-recommended Survivor Package

ID Card:
Dianne Drew has a post-secondary education in photography as well as sculpture and graphic arts. She has eight years experience as Shitasu Therapist and more recently Stone Therapy. She worked for a large company in the film industry — distribution
and legal affairs — until being downsized three years ago. Continue reading →

Rome traffic ‘electrified’ by microcars

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zoomata.com staff

Italians call it the ‘art of getting by,’ and the chaos of Roman traffic has made locals true maestros of that art.

Tough new driving laws passed by the Italian government last year — including a points license and the introduction of a license for scooters — have left many in the Eternal City without wheels. Public transportation, famously crowded and unreliable, simply isn’t a practical option.

The solution? Electric microcars. They require no license, are easy to park and are allowed to circulate in limited traffic areas — called ZTLs — practically the entire heart of the city.
Visitors are fast catching on to the fact that with these second cousins of the Smart car, thankfully blessed with automatic transmission, they can sidle up to the Pantheon or take spin around the Trevi fountain without the expense of a taxi. Prices range from 32 – 50 euro ($39-61USD) per day, comparable to compact rental car rates, but microcars can be rented by the day making them the choice for Romans on shopping jaunts. Electric cars can go 100 chilometers of in-town driving — they’re not allowed on the autostrada — before having to be recharged.

Golf carts, though they do require a driving license, are another option. Going golf in Rome costs more than a microcar – at 15 euro ($18 USD) an hour – but they are a valid option for those looking for a slower (they reach speeds of 25 kilometers/15 miles per hour) and wider means of transportation.
One caveat: electric cars are so popular it is worth making a reservation before arriving in Rome.?1999-2004 zoomata.com
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