Italy by Numbers: Soccer Fans

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30 million (circa) soccer fans
35% are women
6% have a university degree
27 million (circa) "irritated/indifferent" to soccer

Italians "swear loyalty" to a soccer team at around age 6 and by age 8 there’s little changing sides — they are faithful to the team for life. A revealing study of the national sport, conducted by AC Nielsen of 9,100 Italians between from ages 6 and up, predicts soccer clubs will be scrambling for grade-school supporters with more and more marketing aimed at children.

Italy’s favorite team, with fans across geographical and age lines, is undoubtedly Juventus from Turin with some 29% of total supporters. Everyone likes to back a winner — with 26 championships in their belt, Juventus dwarfs the number of fans for other teams — coming in second and third with about half the number of fans are the two Milan teams, Inter followed closely by Milan. Teams from Southern Italy trail behind — Naples has around 2.5 million fans and Roman teams Roma and Lazio check in at 1.7 million and 985,000 fans respectively.

Not all Italians are interested in soccer, however. While around half the population consider themselves soccer fans, an almost equal number could care less — 14 million are indifferent to the sport and 13.3 million are annoyed by it.

Related resources:
www.zoomata.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=592
Soccer-inspired vocab — how it permeates every day Italian life…

Web Wise Oct. 15 -22

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Royal House of the Two Sicilies — online • Dig into the Eurochocolate Fest • (Another) Italian Discovers America • Oriana Fallacci’s Rage & Pride in English

Oriana Fallacci’s Rage & Pride in English
The 72-year old journalist has translated into English the post-Sept. 11 hard-hitting essay that has caused much debate in Italy and Europe. Amateur translations were all over the Internet, the bound version is published by Rizzoli..

The Rage and The Pride

www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher101002.asp
Why all the fuss? Read this review…

Royal House of the Two Sicilies — online
With all the brouhaha over the return of the Savoia, the Bourbons have picked a good time to launch the official web site of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies. The site is an official organ (history, news, nice photo of handsome Duke of Calabria) of the ruling in Southern Italy from 1734 -1861. The archive offers a small but fascinating look at historical documents…
www.realcasadiborbone.it

Dig into the Eurochocolate Fest
Just thinking of the 70 tons of chocolate ready to be consumed as Eurochocolate hits Perugia (Oct. 19 – 27) is enough to ruin even the trimmest waistline. The 9th annual chocolate festival is shaping up to be a good one — the film theme weds Roberto Benigni’s "Pinocchio" with the whole cast fitted out in, what else, chocolate. Slightly more controversial is the identity card — with chocolate fingerprint — which reminds us of the hotly debated issue of fingerprinting immigrants.
www.eurochocolate.perugia.it

(Another) Italian Discovers America
Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo wrote the script for this intriguing little cartoon movie — Johan Padan is a bumbling if inventive lad from Bergamo who ends up living happily among the native. A little too Disneyesque at turns, it is taken from real accounts of Italian sailors. Take a look at the trailer & photos for "Johan Padan a la descoverta de le Americhe" …
www.raicinema.it/go1.htm

Auctioning a Bit of Tuscany

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Recognizing an overwhelming desire to own land under the Tuscan sun, the regional government has decided to auction off over 250 farmhouses and villas — some starting at 49,000 euro.

Although agricultural councilor Tito Barbini pointed out that the 264 lots aren’t of particular historical value and many are in need of restoration, leagues of Toscana lovers would probably be interested in snapping up an abandoned mill in the hills surrounding Arezzo.
In Casentino, province of Arezzo, an entire village is up for grabs starting at 300,000 euro while in the Mugello region near Florence, bidding for the Villa al Giogo with surrounding woods will start at 210,00 euro.
When properties go on the block at the end of this month, it will be the second auction the region has held in two years. Villa Tegoni is undoubtedly the jewel of the auction, near Radicondoli (Siena), with a stunning mosaic courtyard, well, chapel and 60 hectares of farmland.
Rumor has it that the Villa, for which bids start at 2 million euro, has attracted the attention of a member of the English royal family as well as reigning rock king Bono.

Related resources:

www.regione.toscana.it

The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany

Italy by Numbers: Potency Kings

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12% Italian men have erectile problems
35% English men have erectile problems
42% French men have erectile problems

Italians win the potency prize — suffering considerably less from erectile snafus than European counterparts. The data comes from the congress of the International Society for Sexual and Impotence Research held in Montreal recently.
Skeptics assert that Italians may be less open about admitting such an intimate problem but Vincenzo Mirone, president of the Italian Andrology Society, disagrees: "They don’t suffer in silence like other nations: over half Italian men solve the problem by talking to their general practitioner, the rest seek out a specialist."
The news comes after recent dents to the myth of the Latin lover — in which studies carried out by condom company Durex showed that Italians had fewer and quicker sexual relations than Americans.

Web Wise Oct. 8 -15

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Hear Mina’s New Single • View Giotto Restoration • 40 Years of Diabolik Comics • Meet Nobel Prize Winner Riccardo Giacconi

Hear Mina’s New Single
The tiger from Cremona is getting by with a little help from her friends — rocker Zucchero penned the lyrics to her latest song, already in heavy rotation on Italian radio stations. Here’s the MP3 of "Succhiando l’Uva."
www.minamazzini.com/nuovo_disco_2002/audio/01_succhiando_l_uva.mp3

View Giotto Restoration
Five years after an earthquake risked shattering forever the frescoes of the ceiling of St. Francis Basilica, restorers have pieced back together the paintings of St. Jerome — managing to fit some 50,000 fragments. Seeing is believing:
www.ilnuovo.it/inserti/slideshow/assisi_basilica_20020927/home.html

Celebrating 40 years of Diabolik Comics

Gentleman thief Diabolik & sweetheart Eva Kant, created by sisters Angela e Luciana Giussani are celebrating an important birthday — almost half a century of stealing and still never getting caught by police inspector Ginko…
http://www.diabolikclub.it

Meet Nobel Prize Winner Riccardo Giacconi
The Italian press is reporting another sad case of brain drain as it announced that Giacconi was awarded the Nobel in physics — he’s lived in the US since 1977. Born in Genoa, educated in Milan, he adds to the long list of Italian scientists who have left the country (another Nobel winner in physics, Enrico Fermi comes to mind), despite holding an American passport. Here’s more about him:

In Italian:

http://news2000.libero.it/primopiano/3250.jhtml

In English

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,806891,00.html

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20021008_488.html

Italian House Husbands Association Born

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Armed with dishrags and vacuum cleaners, some Italian men are hoping to dispel the myth of the lazy Latin male by forming a National House Husband’s Association.
An informal movement, started some 15 years ago, has already been busy giving intensive seminars on house keeping for Italian men.

"Our objective is to change this chauvinist mentality that considers men who help around the house as somehow less virile," said just-named President Fiorenzo Bresciani. "Even though in reality it is women who often judge a man who darns socks as less ‘macho’. We believe that a man at home can help make the most of women’s role in society."

The Association, which already counts 2,000 members has a hard road ahead, since a recent study placed Italian men as the least helpful around the house in Europe. First on the agenda for house husbands, who have working pasts as managers, construction workers, butchers and firemen, when they converge today on Pietrasanta (Lucca) will be a discussion about ecological tidying up.

Italy by Numbers: Alternative Medicine Boom

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10 million Italians use alternative cures
23.7% of these use homeopathy
74.4% Italians want these cures ‘legitimized’ by health care system

Visitors to Italian pharmacies have perhaps noticed the herbal cures and Bach flower remedies along side the aspirin and cough syrup — and over the last two years lobbyists have been trying give patients who prefer alternative medicines the right to do so with government money.
However, current health minister Girolamo Sirchia, while promising to avoid cuts in national expenditures for medicine, is one of the most skeptical opponents: "Homeopathic cures will be paid by the National system only when safety and effectiveness can be demonstrated."
His stern view hasn’t discouraged some Italians from using these age-old remedies on children: 8.9% of them between the ages of 3-5 were treated with homeopathic methods.

Italian Language Watchdog Offers Online Help

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The oldest language watchdog in Europe finally entered the Internet age. L’accademia della crusca, whose very name implies separating the wheat from the linguistic chaff, can now help students of today’s Italian clear up doubts on the language in real time.
Even some of the more tricky questions, such as how to deal with foreign words used in Italian find a prompt answer. (According to the language arbiters, no matter the quantity, they remain invariable. Examples: “i film, gli sport, i computer.”)
If you’ve got some nagging doubt, take advantage of the ‘consulenza linguistica’ section where you can view frequent questions, ask one of your own or just browse the forum. Another fascinating feature is dedicated to new words — find out why "girotondo" "badante" and "giftshop" have made it into Italian and find references and reasons for use.
For scholars, the virtual library is of sure interest — they can consult the first Italian vocabulary from 1612 online as well as other historic publications before trying to drag them out of some dusty library.

www.accademiadellacrusca.it
The English version is still under construction.

Secret Restoration of the Holy Shroud

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The Shroud of Turin, one of the most sacred objects of the Catholic Church, has been liberated from centuries-old patches and backing cloth in a top-secret restoration.

Restoration efforts were carried out in secret by Mechthild Flury Lemberg and Irene Tomedi from June to July of this year with approval from the Vatican.

Custodians of the cloth said the restoration had to be carried out in secret to avoid security risks after Sept. 11. Patches had been tacked onto the cloth by nuns in 1534, after a fire had blackened parts of it.

The gauze, said to show the imprint of Christ’s face and body after he was taken down from the cross, has been called both a religious artifact and a medieval hoax. Housed in the Turin cathedral, the linen strip spans around 14 feet long and 3 1/2-feet wide. Remnants of the cloths removed have been catalogued and kept for future study.

"There is no mystery. The interventions and new tests on the Shroud have been carried out in agreement with the Holy See," Marco Bonatti, spokesperson for the Shroud’s custodian, cardinal Severino Poletto, told reporters.

To get a closer look at the shroud, which has been on display only five times in the past century, believers and skeptics are in for a long wait: it isn’t likely to be on public view again until 2025.

Related Resources:
For a closer look at the work — the photo gallery & video

http://sindone.torino.chiesacattolica.it/it/scient/restauro_gallery.htm

www.sindone.org/it/scient/restauro_filmati.htm

Boycotting the Pizza Strike

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Go ahead and protest — but hands off the sacred pizza. The latest consumer strike against price hikes touched Italy’s most famous dish met and sparked vehement protests from Naples, birthplace of the pizza Margherita. Consumer association Aduc declared Sept. 21 as a day of abstinence from pizza after calculating that the average pie swells 920% in price by the time it reaches the plate.

According to calculations made by Aduc, ingredients for a seven- ounce pizza Margherita – made from good-quality flour, tomato, mozzarella and basil – costs .49 euro but customers shell out at least 5 euro for the end product. The exhorbitant mark up was also due to the intrucdution of the euro in January — according to official statistics Italy’s inflation in August was 2.4 per cent, but consumer associations calculate the actual increase is at least 8%.

The association was inundated with email threats from angry pizzeria owners as well as a formal letter from Antonio Pace the president of FIPE (the Italian Federation of Bars and Catering) which accused them of "acting in bad faith to procure a moment of glory."

News of the strike recieved a ton of media coverage but didn’t stop tourists and residents alike from shovelling away the fare at the Naples Pizzafest — organizers said attendance was up by 6% over last year.

Related Resources:
Pizza Napoletana!
Make the true Italian pie in your home, with cookbook author and Italian resident Pamela Sheldon-Johns…