tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/italy-1047/articlesItaly – The Conversation2024-03-13T14:57:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257142024-03-13T14:57:43Z2024-03-13T14:57:43ZAbortion rights are featuring in this year’s European election campaign in a way we’ve not seen before<p>The recent landmark decision in France to inscribe the right to abortion in the constitution serves to protect the law that first legalised abortion in the country in 1975. This law – the so-called Veil law – was championed by Simone Veil, one of France’s most admired and respected political figures, and an icon of the women’s rights movement.</p>
<p>In 1974, Veil, a magistrate who had been asked by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to serve as health minister in his government, delivered a momentous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45MOc6PYoY8">speech</a>. She presented the public health case for the decriminalisation of abortion to the National Assembly, which at the time was composed almost entirely of men. </p>
<p>The speech was met by fierce opposition and hostility, especially by those on the political right. Veil nevertheless managed to convince a majority of the deputies to vote in favour of her proposal. Once approved by the Senate, the law entered into force in 1975. Veil thereby became a symbol of women’s empowerment and emancipation.</p>
<p>Following her political success at national level, Veil stood in the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979. Once elected, the parliament chose her as its president, and she became the first woman to head any of the European institutions.</p>
<h2>An election ahead</h2>
<p>Political parties are now gearing up for the latest round of elections to the European Parliament in June, more than 40 years after Veil first entered the institution. And issues of reproductive rights are on the agenda once again. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white portrait photo of Simone Veil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Simone Veil, legend of the women’s rights movement and European politics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Veil#/media/File:Simone_Veil_bij_uitreiking_Four_Freedoms_Awards_in_Middelburg,_Bestanddeelnr_933-0124_-_Restoration.jpg">Wikipedia/Anefo photo collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2022, the European parliament felt the need to issue a <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0243_EN.html">resolution</a> strongly condemning backsliding in women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health rights. </p>
<p>This came in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which had guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion for 50 years. But it was also a response to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/abortion-right-europe-vary-widely-getting-squeezed/">developments</a> in some EU member states. </p>
<p>The resolution highlighted in particular the de facto ban on abortion that has come into force in Poland in recent years but also mentioned Malta, where abortion is illegal, Slovakia, where access is restricted, Hungary, where procedures are “not available” and Italy, where rights are being threatened. </p>
<p>Importantly, the resolution also calls for the right to abortion to be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which would mean all women in the European Union would have the right to access reproductive healthcare of this kind, thereby offering them some protection from restrictions in their home nations. </p>
<p>This call was echoed by French president <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240308-france-s-macron-to-seal-abortion-becoming-constitutional-right">Emmanuel Macron</a> during the ceremony marking the new constitutional right to abortion in France.</p>
<p>Yet, the parliamentary resolution masks internal divisions between, and sometimes within, the political groups of the European parliament. As these political groups are launching their campaigns and election manifestos, it is clear that the issue of abortion has become part of the wider political polarisation seen across Europe.</p>
<p>Many far-right parties, which are predicted to <a href="https://ecfr.eu/publication/a-sharp-right-turn-a-forecast-for-the-2024-european-parliament-elections/">make significant gains</a> in the upcoming elections, call for restrictions on abortion rights. The European Conservatives and Reformists, a right-wing group that brings together parties such as Brothers of Italy and Spain’s Vox, says it wants to “<a href="https://ecrgroup.eu/campaign/family_and_life">defend life, from its conception until its natural end.</a>”. </p>
<p>The political parties within the Identity & Democracy group do not share a common position on the issue, but several adopt a restrictive approach. For example, the Alternative for Germany recently <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-parliament-bundestagvotes-to-remove-ban-on-abortion-advertising/">voted against</a> a proposal to ban a law preventing doctors from providing information on abortion procedures in Germany.</p>
<p>The centre-right European People’s Party, the biggest political group in the Parliament, remains <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/abortion-debate-european-parliament-division-hatred/">divided</a> on the issue, but most of its MEPs agree that abortion should remain a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcms.13378">matter of national competence</a>. </p>
<p>Groups on the other side of the political spectrum, meanwhile, are making explicit reference to the need to safeguard and expand reproductive health and rights in their European election manifestos. They include <a href="https://left.eu/mon-corps-mon-choix/">the Left</a> group, <a href="https://www.datocms-assets.com/87481/1708539548-egp_manifesto-2024_courage-to-change.pdf">the Greens</a> and the <a href="https://pes.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024_PES_Manifesto_EN.pdf">Socialist & Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, the liberal group Renew Europe is pushing for greater alignment on abortion rights across the EU. It it is behind the recently launched <a href="https://www.simoneveilpact.eu/">Simone Veil Pact</a>, which calls for greater pan-European effort on gender equality.</p>
<h2>A new parliamentary term</h2>
<p>Veil considered the European parliament a key institution in the democratic development of the European Community. She saw the right given to Europeans to vote for the parliament as a <a href="https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/174d384d-d5c7-4c02-ad78-b1f6efc9740a/publishable_en.pdf">milestone</a> and a springboard for increased parliamentary involvement in European integration and decision-making. Under her leadership, the European parliament gained greater recognition and transformed into a real political actor.</p>
<p>Veil held the post of president for three years, and she remained a member of the European parliament until 1993. During her three terms as an MEP, she continued to support issues relating to women’s rights.</p>
<p>The arguments once made by Simone Veil, who in 2018 was honoured with a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180629-liveblog-france-women-rights-abortion-simone-veil-holocaust-pantheon">burial in the Panthéon</a> (the Parisian mausoleum reserved exclusively for France’s most eminent citizens), are surfacing once again ahead of the hotly contested European parliament elections. </p>
<p>When the 720 newly elected MEPs meet for the next parliamentary term, discussions and debates around abortion and women’s rights are bound to continue. They may well take a different tone and occupy a higher position depending on the outcome of the elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Magdalena Frennhoff Larsén does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Legendary European parliament president Simone Veil fought for women’s reproductive rights in France and in Brussels. Is her legacy about to be re-opened?Magdalena Frennhoff Larsén, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2243342024-03-12T18:53:02Z2024-03-12T18:53:02ZAncient scrolls are being ‘read’ by machine learning – with human knowledge to detect language and make sense of them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580263/original/file-20240306-30-3x4aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1040%2C0%2C1253%2C379&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vesuvius Challenge incentivizes technological development by inviting researchers to figure out how to ‘read’ ancient papyri excavated from volcanic ash of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. Columns of Greek text retrieved from a portion of a scroll. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Vesuvius Challenge)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A groundbreaking announcement for the recovery of lost ancient literature was recently made. Using a non-invasive method that harnesses <a href="https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/machine-learning-explained">machine learning</a>, an international trio of scholars retrieved 15 columns of ancient Greek text from within a carbonized papyrus from <a href="https://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/about-us/story-of-herculaneum">Herculaneum</a>, a seaside Roman town eight kilometres southeast of Naples, Italy.</p>
<p>Their achievement earned them a US$700,000 grand prize from the <a href="https://scrollprize.org/">Vesuvius Challenge</a>. The challenge sought to incentivize technological development by inviting public participation in the research. </p>
<p>It emerged from collaboration between computer scientist Brent Seales — who has <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2304.02084">a long-standing interest</a> in non-invasive <a href="https://www2.cs.uky.edu/dri/the-scroll-from-en-gedi">technologies for studying</a> manuscripts — and technology investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. </p>
<p>While the developments are exciting, technology is only part of the progress of scholarship. The work of reading and analyzing the new Greek and Latin texts recovered from the papyri will fall to human beings.</p>
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<img alt="Painting showing a mountain with a volcano erupting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580261/original/file-20240306-28-umf4ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘An Eruption of Vesuvius,’ by Johan Christian Dahl (1824).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(The Metropolitan Museum of Art)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Buried in ash</h2>
<p>Like Pompeii, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5b8igA644o">Herculaneum</a> was buried by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. </p>
<p>Much of the ancient town remains underground. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-will-let-us-read-lost-ancient-works-in-the-library-at-herculaneum-for-the-first-time-223583">in 1752</a>, excavation uncovered hundreds of papyrus scrolls in the library of an elaborate Roman villa. The Herculaneum papyri <a href="https://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/research-and-publications/papyri">are the largest surviving example of an</a> intact ancient library preserved in the archaeological record: the library was found as it actually existed in 79 CE. </p>
<p>The precise number of books is unknown, says Michael McOsker, a research fellow in papyrology at University College London, and different methods of estimating give different results. </p>
<h2>Carbonized papyri</h2>
<p>Starved of oxygen, the intense heat of Vesuvius’ <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/pyroclastic-flow/">pyroclastic flow</a> carbonized (but did not ignite) the papyri. Resembling lumps of coal to the eye, 18th-century excavators did not immediately recognize them as ancient books.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three dark grey rectangular objects seen in a box." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578769/original/file-20240228-16-sc89zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Three unopened papyri from Herculaneum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Bodleian Libraries/University of Oxford)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The papyri are so brittle that many were destroyed by early attempts to access their texts. Studying them has therefore always required ingenuity. In 1754, a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/buried-ash-vesuvius-scrolls-are-being-read-new-xray-technique-180969358">conservator and priest at the Vatican library</a> devised a machine for slowly unrolling them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dark grey scroll." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7027%2C4995&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578666/original/file-20240228-7839-doqnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portion of an unrolled Herculaneum papyrus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/cac4db6a-8af5-4234-%20acb8-4b1ce819ef14">(Bodleian Libraries/University of Oxford)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://www.imaging.org/common/uploaded%20files/pdfs/Papers/2001/PICS-0-251/4625.pdf">multispectral photography</a> has dramatically improved their legibility. But until now, a non-invasive method that would leave the scrolls intact remained out of reach. Its development marks a significant breakthrough.</p>
<p>McOsker notes there are 659 items in the catalogue listed as “not unrolled,” but some of these are parts of scrolls. </p>
<h2>Sparking innovation</h2>
<p>To kick-start the challenge, Seales <a href="https://scrollprize.org/data">made public</a> an array of high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans of two scrolls as well as similar scans of detached fragments with visible ink. The latter are essential as a reference point (or “control”) for innovative approaches. </p>
<p>The competition’s design encouraged transparency and collaboration: data published in the pursuit <a href="https://scrollprize.org/winners">of smaller goals</a> benefited all competitors. Additionally, transparency enabled the independent verification of results. Teams coalesced around shared ideas and approaches to the problem.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-will-let-us-read-lost-ancient-works-in-the-library-at-herculaneum-for-the-first-time-223583">AI will let us read 'lost' ancient works in the library at Herculaneum for the first time</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Text mentions music, taste, sight</h2>
<p>The challenge made news in <a href="https://scrollprize.org/firstletters">October</a>, when the first letters were read: πορφυρας (a noun or adjective involving “purple”). </p>
<p>By the end of 2023, the criteria for awarding the grand prize were met: four passages of 140 characters, with 85 per cent of the letters recovered. <a href="https://scrollprize.org/grandprize">A PhD student studying machine learning, an engineer studying computer science and a robotics student</a> were declared
the victors.</p>
<p>According to McOsker, the text they retrieved mentions music twice, as well as the senses of taste and sight. He thinks it is likely a work about sensation and decision-making, in the tradition of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/ENTRIES/epicurus/">the philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE)</a>. The challenge’s papyrological team is still analyzing it.</p>
<h2>Hundreds of rolls to be studied</h2>
<p>This year brings with it new goals: after five per cent of one scroll was read in 2023, the challenge set a <a href="https://scrollprize.org/2024_prizes#2024-grand-prize">2024 grand prize goal</a> of reading 90 per cent of four scrolls. With hundreds of rolls yet to be studied, the new method of recovering the contents of the Herculaneum papyri is only getting started.</p>
<p>But several obstacles remain. The production of scans at sufficiently high resolution can’t be done via ordinary equipment, but requires access to a facility with a particle accelerator. Access to the right equipment is limited and costly. To date, four scrolls and numerous detached fragments <a href="https://www.diamond.ac.uk">have been processed at a facility</a> near Oxford, England. </p>
<p>Most of the unopened scrolls are housed in Naples, and getting them safely to a facility will be complicated, as will reserving and paying for the beam time required to scan them.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the technology for unrolling and flattening out a papyrus by virtual means — a process the challenge calls “segmentation” — is slow and expensive. Via current techniques, which involve a fair bit of manual manipulation, fully segmenting one scroll would cost US$1–5 million. Segmentation needs to become much more efficient to avoid a bottleneck.</p>
<h2>Critical minds needed</h2>
<p>Technology is only part of the equation. Essential to the challenge’s work is an international team of papyrologists. Their role is to analyze the model’s output of legible ancient Greek — and in so doing determine which approaches are most effective.</p>
<p>Papyrology is thrilling work, but also challenging and painstaking. It requires mastery of ancient languages and ideas as well as the puzzle-solver’s ability to fill in the inevitable gaps. Papyrology is a niche specialization: in the larger world of classics, papyrologists are rare birds. The number of Herculaneum specialists is even fewer. </p>
<p>For the challenge truly to succeed, we’re going to need critical minds as well as whizbang technology. There’s potentially a fair bit of new ancient philosophy headed our way, but it needs to be pieced together into a coherent text — letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence — before it can be studied more widely. That’s going to require scholars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>C. Michael Sampson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for 'the Books of Karanis,' a project that studies fragmentary Greek literature from the Egyptian village Karanis. </span></em></p>However exciting the technological developments may be, the task of reading and analyzing the Greek and Latin texts recovered from the papyri will fall to human beings.C. Michael Sampson, Associate Professor of Classics, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235062024-03-08T13:35:33Z2024-03-08T13:35:33ZCenturies after Christine de Pizan wrote a book railing against misogyny, Taylor Swift is building her own ‘City of Ladies’<p>In her work, Taylor Swift has taken inspiration from women of the past, including actress <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/lyrics/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-clara-bow-family-reacts-1235607902/">Clara Bow</a>, socialite <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/the-outrageous-life-of-rebekah-harkness-taylor-swifts-high-society-muse">Rebekah Harkness</a> and her grandmother <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-marjorie-song-video-evermore-album-sheffield-1103100/">Marjorie Finlay</a>, who was an opera singer. </p>
<p>But sometimes I wonder what the 34-year-old pop star would think of the life and work of Italian-born French writer <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/christine_de_pisan">Christine de Pizan</a>. </p>
<p>Back in the 15th century, Christine – who scholars customarily refer to using her first name, because “de Pizan” simply reflects her place of birth, and she may not have had a last name – dealt with her share of “<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article282745283.html">dads, Brads and Chads</a>,” just as Swift has in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Thought to be the first French woman to make a living as a writer, Christine compiled “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667679/">The Book of the City of Ladies</a>” in 1405 to challenge the negative stereotypes of women in the Middle Ages. In it, she offers dozens of examples of accomplished women found throughout history, including queens, saints, warriors and poets. </p>
<p>Christine’s writings continue to resonate – especially with women – and are used widely in college courses on women and gender. I recently used excerpts from “The Book of the City of Ladies” in my course on women and gender in early modern Europe.</p>
<p>In reflecting on Christine’s writings from over 600 years ago, I am struck by how she recognized the pernicious effects of attacks on women’s intellect and accomplishments – the ways in which they could be internalized and accepted if women did not challenge the stereotypes. </p>
<h2>Building the ‘City of Ladies’</h2>
<p>Christine de Pizan was born in Italy but spent much of her life in the royal court of France during the rule of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valois-dynasty">the House of Valois</a>. </p>
<p>Her father, a court physician and astrologer, encouraged her education alongside her brothers. She had three children with her husband, a French royal secretary named Etienne de Castel, who died when Christine was just 25 years old.</p>
<p>Widowed and facing the prospect of raising and financially supporting children on her own, she turned to composing works that appealed to elites, resulting in commissions from patrons. She wrote on a variety of topics, including <a href="https://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html">a poem celebrating Joan of Arc’s success on the battlefield</a>.</p>
<p>But her most ambitious and enduring work is “The Book of the City of Ladies.” </p>
<p>Discouraged by all the misogyny she had read, Christine whimsically claimed that she had received a vision from three ladies: Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who tasked her with the project.</p>
<p>By gathering stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from the insults and slander of men. </p>
<p>In “The City,” she specifically referenced “<a href="http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/matheol.html">The Lamentations of Matheolus</a>,” from 1295, a lengthy essay written in Latin by a cleric from Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Its French translation from the late 1300s would have been the version Christine read. </p>
<p>It is full of hateful views of women, but Matheolus saves most of his ire for wives.</p>
<p>“Anyone who wishes to immolate himself on the altar of marriage will have a lot to put up with,” he writes, adding that the torture of marriage “is worse than the torments of hell.” He derides women as “always quarrelsome … cruel, and shrewish” – “terribly perverse” individuals who have “deceived all the greatest men in the world.”</p>
<p>Matheolus was not alone in his low views of women. Other popular writings of the time included Jean de Meun’s “<a href="https://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html">The Romance of the Rose</a>,” which portrayed women as untrustworthy and jealous, and an anonymous treatise, “<a href="https://pius.slu.edu/special-collections/?p=4037">On the Secrets of Women</a>,” which offered misinformation about the biology of women. </p>
<p>With so much misogyny coming from so many sources, Christine acknowledged how easy it was for women to believe what was said about them: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s no wonder that women have been the losers in the war against them since the envious slanderers and vicious traitors who criticize them have been allowed to aim all manner of weapons at their defenseless targets.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Christine recognized the reasons behind this widespread misogyny: Women who were smarter and kinder than men were seen as a threat and a challenge to <a href="https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/women-in-medieval-literature-and-society/">the established patriarchy</a> of Western society. </p>
<h2>Taylor Swift’s ‘big ole city’</h2>
<p>Like Christine, Swift is a gifted writer who began making a living with her pen when she was a teenager. </p>
<p>She has built her own city of sorts to protect her reputation, her music and her self-esteem.</p>
<p>In her 2020 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11388580/">Miss Americana</a>,” Swift opens up about her struggles with media scrutiny, which contributed to an eating disorder. In it, she describes herself as “trying to deprogram the misogyny in my own brain.”</p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/arts/music/taylor-swift-trial-jury-verdict.html">sued a DJ that groped her and won</a>, leading to her being featured as one of the “silence breakers” <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/6/16742166/taylor-swift-time-magazine-person-year-2017-silence-breaker-me-too">on the cover</a> of Time magazine in 2017 at the dawn of the #MeToo movement. And in 2021, she began reclaiming her words and music <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/music/taylors-version-meaning-swift-rerecording-albums-rcna98513">by re-recording her older albums</a> as “Taylor’s Versions” after the original masters were sold by her first record label without her consent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tattooed arms peruse vinyl records featuring a young woman on the cover." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An employee of an Ohio record store stocks a shelf with copies of ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ in 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/OhioDailyLife/23ee9d50617546c092a62ec7a51c301f/photo?Query=taylor%27s%20version&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=138&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Aaron Doster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In her songs, Swift also repeatedly confronts the men who have discounted her talent and intellect. Her song “<a href="https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-mean-lyrics">Mean</a>” is widely believed to be about the critics who questioned her talent, such as <a href="https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2010/02/01/grammys/">Bob Lefsetz</a>, who wrote that Swift clearly couldn’t sing and had possibly destroyed her career after <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/taylor-swifts-out-of-tune-grammy-performance-defended-by-label-201042/">a shaky performance</a> at the 2010 Grammys.</p>
<p>“Someday, I’ll be livin’ in a big, ole city,” Swift retorts in the track, “And all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”</p>
<p>At the conclusion of “The Book of the City of Ladies,” her mission to record the achievements of women accomplished, Christine de Pizan invites her female readers to join her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“All of you who love virtue, glory and a fine reputation can now be lodged in great splendour inside its walls, not just women of the past but also those of the present and the future, for this has been founded and built to accommodate all deserving women.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though the City of Ladies was built centuries ago, I have a feeling that Taylor Swift would be right at home in that big, ole city.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill R. Fehleison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By compiling stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from sexist insults and slander.Jill R. Fehleison, Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies, Quinnipiac UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226652024-03-07T15:00:05Z2024-03-07T15:00:05ZFemicide in Italy: A modern phenomenon deeply rooted in country’s cultural past<p>“Femicide is not a crime of passion, it is a crime of power,” wrote Elena Cecchettin <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/25/anger-across-italy-as-killing-of-student-highlights-countrys-femicide-rate">after her sister</a> was killed in November 2023.</p>
<p>Italian student Giulia Cecchettin, 22, was killed allegedly by her controlling ex-boyfriend, Filippo Turetta, a fellow student at a university in Padua. Not being able to handle the breakup, Turetta <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67530529">lured Giulia into one last shopping trip together</a> before killing her, prosecutors claim. Her body, <a href="https://www.ilmessaggero.it/en/life_behind_bars_filippo_turetta_s_new_routine-7910899.html">with more than 20 stab wounds</a>, was found at the bottom of a ditch. Turetta fled to Germany, was caught <a href="https://www.ilmessaggero.it/en/life_behind_bars_filippo_turetta_s_new_routine-7910899.html">and is now behind bars awaiting trial in Italy</a>, according to the latest reports from Italy. </p>
<p>Cecchettin’s case has grabbed headlines in Italy <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/01/06/opinion/stop-ignoring-violence-against-women-in-italy/">and worldwide</a>. But it is not unique. Femicide – <a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/femicide#:%7E:text=%2F%CB%88fem%C9%AAsa%C9%AAd%2F-,%2F%CB%88fem%C9%AAsa%C9%AAd%2F,girl%20because%20she%20is%20female">the act of killing women on account of their gender</a> – is worryingly common in Italy. At least <a href="https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2023/12/11/109-women-murdered-in-italy-so-far-in-2023-study_b1b82904-4d40-47e6-8758-ed3450567548.html#:%7E:text=As%20of%20December%203%2C%20109,criminal%20police%20presented%20on%20Monday">109 women were killed in Italy in 2023</a>; more than half were murdered by a partner or an ex-partner.</p>
<p>International <a href="https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/cp_data_news/in-italy-femicides-are-not-decreasing-like-homicides/">comparisons on femicide rates can be difficult</a>, but those who do track such numbers suggest that Italy’s femicide problem has been persistent. So much so that cultural organization <a href="https://inarea.com/en/case-study/treccani/">the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia Treccani</a> chose “femicide” as <a href="https://www.unionesarda.it/en/the-word-of-the-year-for-2023-treccani-chooses-quot-femicidequot-ozm95r5j">2023’s word of the year</a>.</p>
<p>In an attempt to address the high rates of femicide, on Dec. 12, 2023, a new law went into effect in Italy titled <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2023-12-27/italy-new-law-to-combat-violence-against-women-and-domestic-violence-enters-into-effect">Provisions for Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence</a>. Although the law strengthens protection for women by broadening the definition of unlawful conduct related to domestic violence and by increasing penalties for offenders, the legislation has its limits.</p>
<p>One of the ministers who proposed that law, Eugenia Maria Roccella, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/world/europe/italy-giulia-cecchettin-violence-against-women.html">emphasized how laws had failed to protect Giulia Cecchettin</a>, or “any other women who did not suspect the violence brooding in the heart of the man who claimed to love them.” </p>
<p>Indeed, Elena Cecchettin pointed at a cultural factor in the killing of her sister and other women in Italy: a patriarchal society in which male violence and control has long been accepted. “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67514334">Monsters are healthy sons of the patriarchy and rape culture</a>,” she said.</p>
<h2>The Roman rule</h2>
<p>Femicide is a cultural phenomenon with deep roots that go back millennia.</p>
<p>Many premodern societies were patriarchal and violent, but Italy is in many ways unique. The legacies of the Roman Empire, Italian Fascism and Roman Catholicism still loom large. Each, I would argue, has contributed to a modern Italy in which male violence has been normalized. </p>
<p>The history of Rome is <a href="https://www.thefrenchhistorypodcast.com/metoo-and-roman-rape-culture-with-darah-vann-orr/">inseparable from misogyny and rape</a>; it is present in the city-state’s origin story. When Romulus found his newly born city bereft of women, he trapped unmarried girls and women from the neighboring Sabine tribe and kept them as Roman concubines. By the time the Sabines sought revenge, many of the tribe’s daughters and sisters were either carrying or had given birth to Romans. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sabine">The women</a>, so the story goes, ran onto the battlefield as live shields to <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359809">secure peace between their fathers and Roman captors</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting depicts women being abducted by Romen men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580308/original/file-20240306-18-2g9zim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pietro da Cortona’s painting ‘Rape of the Sabine Women.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Cortona_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women_01.jpg">Wikmedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roman women were treated as second-class citizens. During <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Colosseum">gladiator fights</a>, women were allowed to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/please-find-your-seats-evidence-seating-plan-discovered-colosseum-180954023/">sit only in the worst seats</a>, next to the slaves. Women’s disobedience resulted in severe physical punishment, with instances of Roman women being <a href="https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2022/06/01/domestic-violence-and-the-law-in-ancient-rome/">kicked to death, drowned and thrown from windows</a>. </p>
<p>Higher social status did not protect women. Emperor <a href="https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-research/2022/06/01/domestic-violence-and-the-law-in-ancient-rome/">Nero’s first wife and his mother were murdered on his orders</a>; Nero’s second wife was kicked to death while pregnant. Even <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vestal-Virgins">Vestal Virgins</a>, holy Roman priestesses, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vestal-Virgins">were buried alive</a> if they violated their vow of chastity or let the eternal flame die. </p>
<p>While prostitutes and actresses <a href="https://www.focus.it/cultura/curiosita/che-cose-la-suburra">were traded</a>, <a href="https://www.focus.it/cultura/storia/diritto-di-bacio-antica-roma">raped and killed</a>, noble women were subject to “<a href="https://historicaleve.com/right-to-kiss-in-ancient-rome/">the right to kiss</a>.” Through that law, male relatives were allowed to “test” women to make sure they had not drunk wine. Violating that “right to kiss” and the no-alcohol policy <a href="https://www.focus.it/cultura/storia/diritto-di-bacio-antica-roma">was punishable by death</a>.</p>
<p>Misogyny was so endemic that Roman law <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-rome-didnt-have-specific-domestic-violence-legislation-but-the-laws-they-had-give-us-a-window-into-a-world-of-abuse-179460">focused on preserving a woman’s chastity</a> rather than on punishing the perpetrator in the case of rape. Roman centurion <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/libertatis-virginia-killed-by-her-father-to-protect-her-from-appius-claudius-221779">Lucius Verginius killed his daughter</a> to protect her chastity from an abuser, Appius Claudius. </p>
<p>This misogynist culture has been celebrated through art, education and cinematography. For example, works by Giambolognia, Rubens, Poussin and Picasso all depict the rape of Sabines, with pieces <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359809">on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art</a> and in <a href="https://www.theflorentine.net/2022/06/14/new-summer-opening-hours-at-the-accademia-gallery/">Florence’s Accademia Gallery</a>. </p>
<p>Roman patriarchal legacy is prevalent in pop culture, too. From “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043949/">Quo Vadis</a>” to “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052618/">Ben-Hur</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/">Gladiator</a>,” movies have glorified a violent time in which strong men were venerated. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many contemporary men are – as it has been recently claimed – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/style/roman-empire-men-tiktok-instagram.html">obsessed with the Roman Empire</a>. </p>
<p>So too are cultural industries. Cinecittà film studios’ gladiator series “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/14/hollywood-on-the-tiber-cinecitta-stars-return-to-rome-studios-heston-fellini">Those About to Die</a>” has become <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/global/roland-emmerich-those-about-to-die-prime-video-1235684470/">an international hit</a>.</p>
<p>For a certain type of modern man, Rome represents an escape from <a href="https://www.genderspecialist.com/blog/whymenareobsessedwithrome">egalitarian norms</a>, allowing them to reclaim a perceived loss of male power. </p>
<h2>The Fascist touch</h2>
<p>Italian society also continues to be influenced by fascism, an ideology <a href="https://phillipian.net/2023/12/15/hypermasculinity-and-the-rise-of-fascism/">steeped in male violence</a>.</p>
<p>Fascism, introduced to Italy by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, held <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1394751">procreation as the main woman’s duty</a>. Women were defined in terms of their full subordination to men and in regards to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/026569149302300103">their role in the family and in motherhood</a>. </p>
<p>Nearly 100 years later, the legacy of fascism is alive in Italy. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised Mussolini in her youth, and her own right-wing political party, Fratelli d’Italia, is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/giorgia-meloni-the-political-provocateur-set-to-become-italys-first-far-right-leader-since-mussolini-190116">descendant of the Italian Social Movement party</a> that was <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-mussolini-denies-rehabbing-fascism-after-army-calendar-outcry/">founded by former fascists</a>. </p>
<p>And as a new TV show about Mussolini’s rise, “<a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2023/12/21/in-rome-cinecitta-studios-embraces-new-golden-age_6365899_117.html">M: Son of the Century</a>,” shows, the fascist leader remains in the national consciousness. So too does the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/04/what-do-incels-fascists-and-terrorists-have-in-common-violent-misogyny">toxic “masculinism</a>” that became associated with fascism, finding a new audience among incels as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432221128545">rationale to legitimize anti-woman violence</a>. </p>
<h2>The Catholic grip</h2>
<p>Catholicism has also, I believe, helped <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=71987">normalize patriarchy and misogyny</a> in Italy. </p>
<p>Catholicism is at the core of the so-called “<a href="https://www.modernintimacy.com/the-psychology-of-the-madonna-whore-complex/">Madonna-whore complex</a>,” in which women are seen as being either chaste and virtuous or promiscuous and immoral. Theorists have long explored how that dichotomy is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1831">steeped in misogyny</a>. Stereotypes based on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2013.832088">that dichotomy</a> have been used to justify perpetrators’ violence against women.</p>
<p>Take the example of Roman baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/past/artemisia/artemisias-rape-trial">was raped by her painter-mentor</a>, Agostino Tassi, in 1611 at the age of 17. She gave testimony in court, was physically tortured during the trial and treated as a promiscuous seductress. </p>
<p>Tassi was protected by the pope and set free; Gentileschi, despite being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/05/artemisia-gentileshi-painter-beyond-caravaggio">a brilliant artist</a>, was shamed and erased from public memory for centuries.</p>
<p>The influence of Catholicism has also contributed to customs and a legal system that can make women more vulnerable. Italy’s abortion laws allow Catholic doctors to “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8106580/#:%7E:text=Data%20from%20the%20Italian%20Ministry,increased%20over%20the%20last%20decade.">conscientiously object</a>” to performing a termination, forcing women seeking the procedure to <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/23/the-difficulties-of-getting-an-abortion-in-italy">travel across the country or abroad</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Catholic <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/grace-margins/church-must-face-its-own-role-violence-against-women">doctrine on contraception and abortion</a> has forced women – even those made pregnant through rape or facing high-risk pregnancies – to give birth.</p>
<p>Research also suggests the Catholic Church’s teachings on divorce may <a href="https://doi.org//10.4236/psych.2016.713155">cut off a route of escape</a> for women trapped in violent relationships. </p>
<h2>The deadly passion</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, Italy’s patriarchal traditions have bled into law and society in other ways.</p>
<p>The mandating of extreme leniency to those implicated in <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-giulia-cecchettin-confronts-its-toxic-culture-of-violence-against-women/">the killing of “spouses, daughters and sisters caught in illicit sex</a>” was written into the country’s penal code until 1981. And even today, public figures refer to “<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-giulia-cecchettin-confronts-its-toxic-culture-of-violence-against-women/">crimes of passion</a>” and “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/how-italy-has-changed-its-view-on-murdering-women/2016/11/02/8f22d42a-930b-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_story.html">honor killings</a>” in reference to the killing of women involved in “illicit” sexual relations. </p>
<p>Femicides do not occur in a vacuum; they are the outcome of a society that legitimizes violence against women. And while I believe changes to the law to better protect Italy’s women are welcome, looking at the country’s culture – both past and present – may also be a necessary step. Until then, Italy’s daughters will not be safe, or fully free.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A spate of recent high-profile murders has put focus on the role of patriarchy and misogyny in persistent rates of anti-woman violence in Italy.Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, Associate Professor of Critical Cultural & International Studies, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225902024-02-09T13:33:14Z2024-02-09T13:33:14ZSome of the Renaissance’s most romantic love poems weren’t for lovers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574483/original/file-20240208-16-27mgyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C5%2C750%2C552&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sonnets still have a reputation for being about the unrequited love of a man for a woman.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Codex_Manesse_Bernger_von_Horheim.jpg">AndreasPraefcke/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As poets have demonstrated for centuries, a sonnet for your beloved never goes out of style. The gift of verse may carry extra cachet this Valentine’s Day, on the heels of Taylor Swift’s announcement that <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-track-list-1234962007/">her next album is poetry-themed</a>. </p>
<p>But in carrying out <a href="https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463720274/petrarch-and-the-making-of-gender-in-renaissance-italy">my research on Renaissance literature and gender</a>, I’ve been struck by how many of that period’s love poems were not for lovers.</p>
<p>These sonnets, composed for friends and family, are not just beautiful; they’re also a reminder that love and Valentine’s Day aren’t exclusively for couples.</p>
<h2>The love sonnet is born</h2>
<p>The sonnet was invented in 12th century Italy as a 14-line poem with 11 beats per line and various rhyming patterns. Its originator, Giacomo da Lentini, was a poet in the Kingdom of Sicily who had been inspired by <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-heretical-origins-of-the-sonnet/">older Arabic and French poetry</a>.</p>
<p>But it was the Italian poet <a href="https://poets.org/poet/petrarch">Petrarch</a> who put the form on the map. In the 14th century, he wrote a collection of 366 poems, mostly sonnets. He penned the collection for a woman named Laura, whom he loved from afar in life and after her death.</p>
<p>Petrarch died in 1374, but his poetry became the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Petrarch/tkbVMQEACAAJ?hl=en">most widely published</a> literature of the Italian Renaissance. It was so popular that it inspired generations of poets, imitators known as “Petrarchists.” Petrarchism became a global phenomenon in the 16th and 17th centuries, spreading to Spain, France, England <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo3645653.html">and even the Americas</a>. </p>
<h2>Playing with sonneteering stereotypes</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-wyatt">Thomas Wyatt</a> is thought to have written the first English sonnets, in the early 16th century. His poems strongly relied on Petrarch; some of the best known, like “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/aug/10/poem-of-the-week-thomas-wyatt">Whoso list to hunt</a>,” are quasi-translations of the Italian poet’s work.</p>
<p>Writing <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-poems/#:%7E:text=While%20he%20may%20have%20experimented,writing%20sonnets%20seriously%20around%201592.">a half-century later</a>, Shakespeare changed the form, ending his sonnets with a rhyming couplet, giving birth to the “Shakespearean sonnet.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Title page of a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets featuring a colorful illustration of Shakespeare, flowers and two cherubs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574458/original/file-20240208-18-z1gp8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many of Shakespeare’s sonnets were addressed to an unnamed young man.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~1189282~187533:-Songs--Songs-and-sonnets--manuscri?qvq=q:112125&mi=0&trs=1#">Folger Digital Image Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More than four centuries after the first printing of Shakepeare’s sonnets in 1609, his poems are still oft quoted. Many valentines will find themselves <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/read/18/">compared to a summer’s day</a> or swearing there can be no impediments between <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/read/116/">the marriage of true minds</a>.</p>
<p>Less well known, however, is the fact that half of Shakespeare’s poems were addressed to a young man, an unnamed “<a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/mysterious-identity-fair-youth/">Fair Youth</a>.” Depending on which Shakespeare scholar you ask, the gesture is either platonic, romantic or a little of both. In any case, it introduces an element of queerness, in that there’s homoeroticism and a <a href="https://huntington.org/verso/queerness-shakespeares-sonnets">challenge to what society deems natural</a>.</p>
<p>Yet today the Renaissance sonnet still has a reputation, even among scholars, for being about the unrequited love of a man for a woman. But even before Shakespeare, in Renaissance Italy, the sonnet was a lot more varied than that.</p>
<h2>For friends and lovers</h2>
<p>For starters, even Petrarch wrote about more than just his love for Laura. </p>
<p>A number of his poems were composed for friends, with several of them for the Florentine poet <a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/petrarchs-plague/#p-3-0">Sennuccio del Bene</a>. In <a href="https://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=113">poem 113</a>, Petrarch writes about returning to the region where Laura was born, but he opens by describing his love for his friend, saying he is only “half” himself without Sennuccio, and that both men would only be “whole” and “happy” if they were together.</p>
<p><a href="https://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=287">Poem 287</a> is a sonnet on Sennuccio’s death, in which Petrarch’s mourning is only mitigated by the knowledge that his friend is in heaven with other great poets, like Dante, and the now-deceased Laura. The short poem mixes his love and grief for both people, his beloved and his friend.</p>
<p>Today’s “<a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a26052713/galentines-day/">Galentine’s Day</a>” – a celebration of female friendship – has yet to spawn a male-friendship-centered “<a href="https://theconversation.com/galentines-day-has-become-a-thing-why-hasnt-malentines-day-130862">Malentine’s Day</a>.” </p>
<p>But platonic love between men carried no stigma in the Renaissance. Take the verses of Venetian writers <a href="https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/orsatto-giustinian_(Dizionario-Biografico)/">Orsatto Giustinian</a> and <a href="https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/celio-magno/">Celio Magno</a>, who published their poetry in a single book in 1601. </p>
<p>Magno and Giustinian portray their friendship with the vocabulary of Petrarchan love. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rime_di_Celio_Magno_et_Orsatto_Giustinia/SI81w2hdFcMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA160&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22tu%20non%20viui%22">In one sonnet</a>, Magno describes how he hates being separated from his friend, which is almost like being severed from himself: “You do not live, I do not live; together we are far from ourselves in this bitter state.” </p>
<p>At the risk of being the <a href="https://archermagazine.com.au/2021/03/heteronormativity-popular-history/">“and-they-were-roommates” historian</a>, I’ll note that the book also contains passionate poems from Giustinian to his wife, Candiana Garzoni. </p>
<p>That doesn’t cancel out the homoerotic tension in the men’s poems to each other, but it does make classifying their sexuality challenging. And maybe this shouldn’t be the point. If anything, their <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a46410977/broad-city-10th-anniversary-loving-your-best-friend/">romantic friendship</a> seems to skirt simple categories of sexual orientation. </p>
<h2>Sororal sentiment</h2>
<p>Most published writers in Renaissance Italy were men, but a not-insignificant number <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Five-Women-Shaped-Italian-Renaissance/dp/0367533995">were women</a>. Existing in a single copy in a library in Siena, Italy, is a joint poetry collection written by two sisters, Speranza Vittoria and Giulia di Bona. They lived with their mother and four other sisters.</p>
<p>Their sisters Lucrezia and Cassandra both died at a young age. The sonnets that Speranza and Giulia <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=ahDhW3sAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=ahDhW3sAAAAJ:Zph67rFs4hoC">composed for them</a> take the sort of heartbreaking imagery used to describe a lost partner, but is repurposed to portray their grief: the swan song, the sun gone dark, the poet’s wish to die in order to be near the object of their love. </p>
<p>In one melancholic poem about Lucrezia’s death, Speranza weeps for the “strange place, dark earth, and bitter stone” that “possess” her sister, and thus her own happiness.</p>
<p>The poems traded between Speranza and Giulia are brighter, exhibiting an abundance of love and admiration. In one pair of sonnets, written playfully yet impressively with matching rhyme words, the two liken each other to white ermines, <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/lady-with-an-ermine/HwHUpggDy_HxNQ?hl=en&ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5%2C%22y%22%3A0.5%2C%22z%22%3A8.872019804523145%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A2.7206646564529637%2C%22height%22%3A1.2375000000000012%7D%7D">an animal considered a symbol of moral virtue</a>. </p>
<h2>Love is big</h2>
<p>There are so many other Renaissance Italian poems written for friends, parents, children and grandchildren – not to mention fiery love poems dedicated to Jesus and the saints, some by clerics, like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv15d81vf?turn_away=true">Angelo Grillo</a>.</p>
<p>They serve as reminders of what the love poem can be. They push back against narratives that champion heterosexual relationships or that tout <a href="https://medium.com/the-sundial-acmrs/teaching-premodern-asexualities-and-aromanticisms-908cc375af12">romantic coupling and sexual attraction</a> of any orientation as the most important relationship in a person’s life, <a href="https://theconversation.com/single-on-valentines-day-and-happily-so-155191">minimizing the importance of other loving relationships</a>.</p>
<p>These poems also encourage everyone to think more expansively about their own love and home lives. As an unmarried mother of a 5-year-old – and as someone who has only ever lived with friends or siblings – I have benefited immensely from <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/12/01/1216043849/bringing-up-a-baby-can-be-a-tough-and-lonely-job-heres-a-solution-alloparents">alloparenting</a>, the care provided for my son by all of the nonparents in his life.</p>
<p>I ended up in these living situations in part because of the pandemic, which, in a way, was a form of luck: Sometimes it takes a disruptive event <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-rhaina-cohen.html">to break cultural expectations</a> for the nuclear family and childrearing.</p>
<p>If writers could describe different types of love during the Renaissance, why limit what we can envision for ourselves?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon McHugh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These moving poems are a reminder that on Valentine’s Day, it’s OK to celebrate a broader definition of love.Shannon McHugh, Associate Professor of French and Italian, UMass BostonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209122024-01-31T18:29:04Z2024-01-31T18:29:04ZSome EU countries use the eurozone as a credit card, with Germany picking up the tab – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572293/original/file-20240130-25-mfonz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C73%2C5365%2C3563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mapped out.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/euro-banknotes-on-europe-map-concept-1924905488">Oleg Elkov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe is home to many languages, varied geography and different cultures. And until fairly recently, it was also a place where almost every country had its own currency.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5038955_The_Launch_of_the_Euro">arrival of a common currency</a> in 1999 changed all that. Now <a href="https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/euro/countries-using-euro_uk">344 million citizens</a> in 20 of the 27 EU member states use the euro, making it the world’s second most used international currency after the US dollar. </p>
<p>One purpose of the euro is to simplify cross-border payment transfers between eurozone member states. This is achieved <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/target2/html/index.en.html">using a system</a> called “Target 2” (T2) which settles private sector bank-to-bank and commercial transactions between EU countries. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm16120506">my research</a> shows that this apparently innocuous settlement system is effectively being used to save the eurozone from imploding. </p>
<p>The problem is that some eurozone members – Italy and Spain, for example – import much more from other members than they export, particularly from Germany, the economic engine that has kept the eurozone economies going since 1999. </p>
<p>This results in a trade deficit, also known as a negative balance of trade. And this in turn creates a debt owed by Italy and Spain to Germany. </p>
<p>Luckily for them though, T2 converts this potentially risky debt into an apparently risk-free loan owed by the central banks of Italy and Spain to the central bank of Germany. The trouble is that there is no legal requirement in T2 to ever pay ot back. </p>
<h2>United in debt?</h2>
<p>Part of the reason for this imbalance is that the eurozone <a href="https://www.eurrec.org/ijoes-article-117074">does not satisfy</a> the economic conditions for being an “optimal currency area” (OCA) – that is, a geographical area over which a single currency and monetary policy can operate on a long term basis (in contrast to the UK and US, for example).</p>
<p>The different business cycles within the eurozone (with some countries booming economically, while others are in a slump) mean that trade surpluses and deficits will build up because inter-regional exchange rates can no longer be changed. </p>
<p>The normal way for a country to deal with a trade deficit is to devalue its currency, but this is not possible in the eurozone, since exchange rates between members were fixed in perpetuity in 1999. The most economically efficient countries, like Germany, accrue surpluses, while the more inefficient countries, like Italy and Spain, build up deficits. </p>
<p>To rectify this, surplus regions would have to recycle their surpluses back into deficit regions via transfers to keep the eurozone economies in balance. This is what happens in OCAs like the UK when the national government transfers tax revenues collected in England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to correct regional imbalances. </p>
<p>But the largest surplus country in the eurozone, Germany, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07036337.2021.1877690">refuses to accept</a> that the EU is a “transfer union”. This is because the eurozone was set up on the explicit basis that market forces, not fiscal transfers, would be used to remove productivity differences between member states – and Germany was determined that it would not cross-subsidise inefficient members. </p>
<p>Yet deficit countries, including Italy and Spain, are using T2 for this very purpose. For them, T2 has effectively become a giant credit card. But unlike a regular credit card, neither the debt nor the interest that accrues on the debt ever needs to be repaid. </p>
<h2>Silent European debt mountain</h2>
<p>My research also shows that the size of the deficits being built up is causing citizens in those countries to lose confidence in their banking systems, leading them to transfer their funds to banks in surplus countries. T2 is being used to <a href="https://www.bis.org/publ/work393.pdf">facilitate this capital flight</a> to Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Large blue euro sign in front of skyscraper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">European Central Bank HQ is in Frankfurt, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/european-central-bank-euro-administers-monetary-1269309565">Yavuz Meyveci/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Then there is the fact that no member state individually controls the European Central Bank. This implies that they do not (and cannot) stand behind their government debts or currency in the way genuine sovereign nations do – by printing more money to repay their debts when their tax base proves to be insufficient. Eurozone member states are therefore “sub-sovereign” states, since they are effectively using a “foreign currency”. </p>
<p>The present situation is not viable in the long term. And my research suggests only two realistic outcomes. </p>
<p>The first is a full fiscal and political union, with Brussels determining the levels of tax and public spending in each member state. The second is that the eurozone breaks up. Either way, it will cost German taxpayers well over €1 trillion (£854 billion). </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanys-economy-must-be-fixed-here-are-three-top-priorities-221464">faltering of the German economy</a> – in part, due to the massive increase in energy costs following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in part, due to China <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-engineers-under-pressure-from-china/a-48173351">no longer needing</a> German machine tools for its factories – could mean that Germany does eventually capitulate to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41253-022-00203-y">French demands</a> for fiscal and political union. </p>
<p>But if it does, it will be a union based on the protectionist model favoured by France, with much greater state intervention and regulation in the economy and with large state subsidies for favoured sectors and firms. </p>
<p>This is very different from the “ordoliberal” (or “ordered liberal”) model preferred by Germany which supports free markets but seeks to prevent powerful private interests from undermining competition. </p>
<p>However, there are no examples in history where a country – let alone a continent – has regulated its way to economic success. For now, T2 is the silent bailout system that people rarely talk about – but upon which the very survival of the euro depends.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Blake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>German economic power is propping up the euro. But this cannot continue indefinitely.David Blake, Professor of Finance & Director of Pensions Institute, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212832024-01-17T13:37:30Z2024-01-17T13:37:30ZIceland battles a lava flow: Countries have built barriers and tried explosives in the past, but it’s hard to stop molten rock<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569684/original/file-20240116-25-6bp82a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=158%2C22%2C1637%2C996&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lava flows from a fissure near Grindavik, Iceland, on Jan. 14, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/Almannavarnir/">Iceland Department of Civil Protection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fountains of lava erupted from the Sundhnúkur volcanic system in southwest Iceland on Jan. 14, 2024. As the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqudj0x0POA">world watched on webcams and social media</a>, lava flows cut off roads and bubbled from a new fissure that invaded the outskirts of the coastal town of Grindavík, burning down at least three houses in their path.</p>
<p>Nearby, construction vehicles that had been working for weeks to <a href="https://www.constructionbriefing.com/news/the-construction-teams-working-to-hold-back-a-volcano/8033447.article">build large earthen dams and berms</a> in an attempt to divert the lava’s flow had to pull back.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The glow from lava lights up the sky with a town nearby in front of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569683/original/file-20240116-19-avqjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The lava flow on Jan. 14, 2024, with Grindavík in the foreground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/Almannavarnir/">Iceland Department of Civil Protection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Humans have tried many ways to stop lava in the past, from attempting to freeze it in place by cooling it with sea water, to using explosives to disrupt its supply, to building earthen barriers. </p>
<p>It’s too soon to say if Iceland’s earthworks will succeed in saving Grindavík, a town of <a href="https://guidetoiceland.is/travel-iceland/drive/grindavik">about 3,500 residents</a>, and a nearby <a href="https://www.visir.is/g/20232488946d/um-thrjatiu-vorubilar-notadir-til-ad-saekja-efni-ur-stapafelli">geothermal power plant</a>. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9NUvHX4AAAAJ&hl=en">a volcanologist</a>, I follow these methods. The most successful attempts to stop or reroute lava have involved diversions like Iceland’s. </p>
<h2>Why lava is so hard to stop</h2>
<p>Lava is a <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP/lava-flows-destroy-everything-their-path">sluggish, viscous fluid</a> that behaves somewhat like tar. It is subject to gravity, so like other fluids, it will flow downslope along a path of steepest descent.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C9etIuS5hBg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Images of Grindavik and the barrier being built to try to protect the town and geothermal power plant. Insider News.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the temperature of its molten rock often <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-how-do-lava-flows-cool-and-how-long-does-it-take">well above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit</a> (1,000 Celsius), not much can stand in its way.</p>
<h2>Freezing lava in its tracks</h2>
<p>In 1973, Icelanders attempted the <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-724/methods.html">most famous “lava freezing” experiment</a>. They used water hoses from a flotilla of small boats and fishing vessels to protect the small island community of Heimaey from the Eldfell volcano’s lava.</p>
<p>The lava flows were threatening to close off the harbor, which is critical to the region’s fishing industry and a lifeline to the Icelandic mainland. The eruption ended before the success of the strategy could be properly evaluated, but the harbor survived.</p>
<h2>Fighting lava with explosives</h2>
<p>Hawaiians used <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02600367">explosives dropped from planes in 1935 and 1942</a> to try to disrupt lava flows from Mauna Loa volcano that were threatening the town of Hilo on the Big Island. </p>
<p>The idea was to disrupt the channels or lava tubes in the volcano that were supplying lava to the surface. Neither attempt was successful. The explosions created new channels, but the newly formed lava flows soon <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1801/downloads/pp1801_Chap10_Tilling.pdf">rejoined the original lava channel</a>.</p>
<h2>Lava barriers and diversions</h2>
<p>Most recent efforts have focused instead on a third strategy: building dams or ditches in an attempt to divert the lava’s flow toward a different path of steepest descent, into a different “lavashed,” a <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/watershed.html">concept similar to a watershed</a> but where lava would naturally flow.</p>
<p>Results have been mixed, but diversion can be successful if the lava flow can be clearly diverted into a distinct area where lava would naturally flow – without threatening a different community in the process.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An earthen berm with black lava along the one side of it. The lava broke through along a highway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569688/original/file-20240116-17-hi8it9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lava breached one section of the earthen barrier near Grindavík after the Jan. 14, 2024, eruption, but it largely followed the effort to divert it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/drone-is-capturing-the-town-of-grindavik-during-the-news-photo/1928389535?adppopup=true">NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many attempts to divert lava have failed, however. Barriers built in Italy to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-0273(93)90048-V">stop Mt. Etna’s lava flows</a> in 1992 slowed the flow, but the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-what-does-it-take-successfully-divert-a-lava-flow">lava eventually overtopped each one</a>.</p>
<h2>Iceland’s diversion efforts</h2>
<p>Icelandic authorities evacuated Grindavík’s residents in November 2023 <a href="https://theconversation.com/volcanic-iceland-is-rumbling-again-as-magma-rises-a-geologist-explains-eruptions-in-the-land-of-fire-and-ice-217671">after swarms of earthquakes</a> indicated a reactivation of the nearby volcanic system.</p>
<p>Shortly afterward, construction began on protective barriers for the town and some nearby critical infrastructure – notably, the Svartsengi geothermal power station. Construction had to be put on hold in mid-December, when a <a href="https://theconversation.com/volcanic-eruption-lights-up-iceland-after-weeks-of-earthquake-warnings-a-geologist-explains-whats-happening-220193">first volcanic eruption</a> occurred about 2.5 miles northeast of Grindavík, but work resumed in January. Work was still underway when magma reached the surface again on Jan. 14.</p>
<p>Diverting lava in this region is difficult, in part because the land around Grindavík is relatively flat. That makes it harder to identify a clear alternative path of steepest descent for redirecting the lava. </p>
<p><a href="https://en.vedur.is/about-imo/news/a-seismic-swarm-started-north-of-grindavik-last-night">Icelandic officials reported</a> on Jan. 15 that most of the lava from the main fissure had flowed along the outside the barrier, however a <a href="https://guidetoiceland.imgix.net/1322526/x/0/grindavik-2.jpg">new fissure</a> had also opened inside the perimeter, sending lava into a neighborhood. Unfortunately, that implies that Grindavík remains at risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loÿc Vanderkluysen receives funding from the National Science Foundation</span></em></p>Iceland, Hawaii and Italy have all tried to control lava to save cities in the past. A volcanologist explains the methods.Loÿc Vanderkluysen, Associate Professor of Earth Science, Drexel UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2163722023-11-16T10:12:57Z2023-11-16T10:12:57ZInsects are spreading a devastating plant disease in Italy – Britain must keep it out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559575/original/file-20231115-27-9hc0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C486%2C3954%2C2134&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olive trees that have died after becoming infected with _Xylella fastidiosa_.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dead-olive-trees-xylella-fastidiosa-1471805759">Fabio Michele Capelli/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since 2013, over 20 million olive trees in Italy have succumbed to a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230111-the-super-sniffer-dogs-saving-italys-dying-olive-trees#:%7E:text=With%20its%2060%20million%20olive,which%20were%20several%20centuries%20old">devastating plant disease</a>. The same disease now threatens many more plant species, across several countries, with the same fate. </p>
<p>Our recent <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291734">research</a> shows that the insect responsible for inadvertently transmitting the bacteria that cause this disease can feed on a vast number of different plant species. These include many herbaceous plants and trees that are commonly grown in gardens, parks and across the wider countryside in Britain.</p>
<p>During spring, gardeners will often wonder why blobs of spit-like foam have suddenly appeared on their favourite plants. Many will think them unsightly, perhaps even taking time to wash them off, only for the foam to appear again the next day. </p>
<p>This “spittle” is produced by an insect, unimaginatively called a spittlebug, whose juvenile stages immerse themselves in the foam in order to stop drying out and to protect themselves from predators.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Meadow spittlebug spittle on the branches of Salix." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559572/original/file-20231115-23-8e67h5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spittle produced by a spittlebug.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aphrophoridae-spittlebugs-family-insects-belonging-order-2000372249">Ihor Hvozdetskyi/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are several species of spittlebug. But one in particular has been shown to smash several entomological records.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philaenus_spumarius">meadow spittlebug</a> (<em>Philaenus spumarius</em>) can jump with such force that it accelerates faster than any other animal, equivalent to an extraordinary <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/209/23/4607/16474/Jumping-performance-of-froghopper-insects">550 times</a> that of the Earth’s gravity. Even the toughest astronaut will die if faced with an acceleration <a href="https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/whats-the-maximum-speed-a-human-can-withstand">more than eight times</a> that of gravity.</p>
<p>These insects feed by sucking the sap out of plants. A typical adult meadow spittlebug will drink in and then excrete up to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/science/spittlebugs-bubble-home.html">200 times its body weight</a> of fluid per day: another record, and the equivalent of an average human excreting 13,000 litres each day. </p>
<p>Most recently, our research has found that this insect has far broader tastes than any other insect known to science; it can feed on over 1,300 species of plant.</p>
<h2>Why does this matter?</h2>
<p>The meadow spittlebug can transmit a bacterium called <em>Xylella fastidiosa</em> that is potentially deadly for the plants on which it feeds. When the spittlebug uses its syringe-like mouthparts to suck out the plant’s sap, the bacteria can get into the tubes that draw fluids up from the roots. Once there, the bacteria proliferate and block these tubes, starving the plant of water. </p>
<p>The symptoms of infection include scorched or stunted leaves. But, as these symptoms can be confused with several other plant problems, such as dehydration, a definitive diagnosis is difficult. To complicate matters further, some infected plants do not show any symptoms, at least not immediately, making them undetected reservoirs of the bacteria.</p>
<p>The bacteria have caused problems on an epic scale in <a href="https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/epdf/10.1094/PHYTO-08-18-0319-FI">Apulia</a>, Italy’s premier olive-growing region. Entire groves of ancient olive trees have died or have been deliberately destroyed to stop the spread of this devastating plant disease.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://food.ec.europa.eu/plants/plant-health-and-biosecurity/legislation/control-measures/xylella-fastidiosa/database-susceptible-host-plants_en">list of plant species</a> that are known to be susceptible to this disease is long and growing. It already includes 690 species across 88 plant families, encompassing not just trees, but many popular garden plants, important horticultural crops and even some arable crops.</p>
<h2>Spittlebugs in Britain</h2>
<p>As part of our research, we asked members of the British public to send us their sightings of spittle. We received over 17,000 responses. Our results suggest that the insect is widespread in almost all British habitats, including gardens, and on an enormously diverse range of plants.</p>
<p>Fortunately, Britain and most of northern Europe are not yet in the grip of this plant disease. But the ubiquitous distribution of the spittlebug vector and its fondness for such a variety of different plants means that if the bacteria were ever accidentally introduced to Britain, it would be able to spread rapidly with potentially devastating consequences.</p>
<p>Scientists in Britain are anxiously watching for signs of any northward spread of the disease on the European continent. It originated in the Americas and was first detected in Apulia, Italy, in 2013, but it has since been <a href="https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/xylella-fastidiosa#:%7E:text=Official%20surveys%20carried%20out%20by,How%20do%20plants%20become%20infected%3F">reported</a> in southern France, Spain and Portugal. Certain strains of the disease could certainly tolerate cooler northern temperatures, and their spread may be facilitated by our warming climate. </p>
<p><strong>The global distribution of <em>Xylella fastidiosa</em></strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A world map showing the distribution of xylella fastidiosa bacteria." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559561/original/file-20231115-19-64hcev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Xylella fastidiosa has not yet been detected in Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gd.eppo.int/taxon/XYLEFA/distribution">EPPO Global Database</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stopping the spread</h2>
<p>Spittlebugs don’t fly very far so are unlikely to bring the disease into Britain themselves. The most likely entry route would be through plants brought in via the horticultural trade. </p>
<p>Historically, Britain has imported both lavender and olive trees from Italy. However, these plants now have to go through strict importation and quarantine <a href="https://planthealthportal.defra.gov.uk/assets/uploads/UK-Trade-Letter-Feb21-.pdf">controls</a>.</p>
<p>It is critically important that British holidaymakers in Mediterranean countries do not bring home live plant material of any kind. <em>Xylella fastidiosa</em> has not been detected in Britain so far, but the spittlebug’s extraordinarily broad taste in food shows that it would be extremely hard to control if it ever did arrive.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Stewart received funding from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Harkin received funding from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vinton Thompson receives funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. </span></em></p>The meadow spittlebug can transmit a deadly bacterium – many plants in Britain could be at risk.Alan Stewart, Professor of Ecology, University of SussexClaire Harkin, Research Associate in the Department of Evolution, Behaviour and Environment, University of SussexVinton Thompson, Research Associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural HistoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2119952023-11-14T13:26:24Z2023-11-14T13:26:24ZMusic painted on the wall of a Venetian orphanage will be heard again nearly 250 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557160/original/file-20231101-23-zmwffr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C3024%2C2240&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The music room of the Ospedaletto is known for its remarkable acoustics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine Lady Gaga or Elton John teaching at an orphanage or homeless shelter, offering daily music lessons. </p>
<p>That’s what took place at Venice’s four <a href="https://imagesofvenice.com/ospedali-grandi/">Ospedali Grandi</a>, which were charitable institutions that took in the needy – including orphaned and foundling girls – from the 16th century to the turn of the 19th century. Remarkably, all four Ospedali hired some of the greatest musicians and composers of the time, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Vivaldi">Antonio Vivaldi</a> and <a href="https://guides.lib.fsu.edu/composerofthemonth">Nicola Porpora</a>, to provide the young women – known as the “putte” – with a superb music education.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2019, while in Venice on a research trip, I had the opportunity to visit the Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Derelitti, more commonly known as the Ospedaletto, or “Little Hospital,” because it was the smallest of the four Ospedali Grandi. </p>
<p>As a musicologist <a href="https://arts.psu.edu/faculty/marica-tacconi/">specializing in the music of early modern Venice</a>, I was especially excited to visit one of the hidden gems of the city: the <a href="https://www.gioiellinascostidivenezia.it/en/the-jewels/complesso-dell-ospedaletto/">Ospedaletto’s music room</a>, which was built in the mid-1770s.</p>
<p>I had heard about its beauty and perfect acoustics. So when a colleague and friend, classical singer <a href="https://venicemusicproject.it/en/liesl-odenweller/">Liesl Odenweller</a>, suggested we go together, I was delighted. I also secretly hoped Liesl would feel inclined to sing in the space, so I could experience the pure acoustics of the room. </p>
<p>Little did I know that I would encounter music that hasn’t been performed in nearly 250 years.</p>
<h2>Clues on the walls</h2>
<p>As we entered the stunning music room, I was immediately struck by its elegance and relatively small size. In my mind, I had envisioned a large concert hall; instead, the space is intimate, ellipse-shaped and richly decorated.</p>
<p>Overshadowed by <a href="https://www.exploreclassicalmusic.com/vivaldi-and-the-ospedale-della-piet">the more prominent Ospedale della Pietà</a>, not much is known about the music-making that took place for centuries behind the walls of the Ospedaletto. But one of the greatest clues to its venerable history as a music school is literally on one of its walls. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Colorful painting of women performing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552861/original/file-20231009-15-1jj80a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacopo Guarana’s fresco ‘Concert of the Putte’ (1776-77).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S.Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A fresco on the far wall of the room, <a href="https://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/ospedaletto-sala-musica-favaro-tiziana/libro/9788885087071">painted in 1776-77 by Jacopo Guarana</a>, depicts a group of female musicians – likely portraits of some of the putte – at the feet of <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/apollo/">Apollo</a>, the Greek god of music. Some of them play string instruments; one, gazing toward the viewer, holds a page of sheet music.</p>
<p>Call it a professional quirk, but when I see a music score depicted in a painting, I have to get up close and try to read it. In this case, I was lucky: The music notation was quite legible, and the composer’s name was inscribed in the upper-right corner: “Sig. Anfossi.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close-up of a painting of a sheet of music." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552862/original/file-20231009-29-54ha7a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The musical score depicted in Jacopo Guarana’s fresco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I took several photos of the fresco. I wanted to learn as much as I could about that piece of music painted on the wall.</p>
<p>The sound of Liesl’s singing snapped me out of my music detective mode. As I had hoped, her beautiful soprano voice filled the space with a tone so pure that it sounded almost ethereal. I turned around, but my friend was no longer in the room. Where was her singing coming from? </p>
<p>Liesl, it turns out, was perched in the singing gallery. With the permission of a clerk, she had climbed up to this partially hidden loft and was singing through a grille. It was here that the putte of the Ospedaletto performed in public concerts, their features partially obscured from the prying glances of the male listeners below.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Silhouette of woman singing from behind a cage above a grand room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552864/original/file-20231009-15-25i1yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Liesl Odenweller sings from the gallery of the Ospedaletto’s music room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women rally behind their beloved institution</h2>
<p>Armed with those clues on the wall, I continued my research in the days following the visit to the Ospedaletto. I learned that the music by “Signor Anfossi” shown in the fresco was drawn from the opera “Antigono,” composed by <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095412866">Pasquale Anfossi</a> (1727-97) on a libretto by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pietro-Metastasio">Pietro Metastasio</a>. The work premiered in Venice at the <a href="https://www.artnet.com/artists/francesco-guardi/the-interior-of-the-teatro-san-benedetto-venice-1UqjxTVRZT2LyYjJdQa0cg2">Teatro San Benedetto</a> in 1773.</p>
<p>The text of the solo song – known in opera <a href="https://www.operacolorado.org/blog/opera-explained-what-is-an-aria/">as an aria</a> – is legible in the excerpt on the wall. It reads, “Contro il destin che freme, combatteremo insieme” – “Against quivering destiny, we shall battle together.” </p>
<p>Like many works from the 17th and 18th centuries, the entire opera is lost. I was determined to find out, however, if that particular aria had survived. Sometimes, the “hit tunes” of an opera were copied or printed separately and performed as “arie staccate” – arias that were “detached” from the rest of the work. </p>
<p>Luck was on my side: To my delight, I found <a href="https://www.internetculturale.it/jmms/iccuviewer/iccu.jsp?id=oai%3Awww.internetculturale.sbn.it%2FTeca%3A20%3ANT0000%3AFR0084-01A07_04d&mode=all&teca=MagTeca+-+ICCU">a copy of the aria in a library in Montecassino</a>, a small town southeast of Rome. Why was that particular excerpt chosen to be displayed so prominently on the wall? </p>
<p>Like other institutions in Venice, the Ospedaletto faced financial hardship in the 1770s. Evidence suggests that <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Nel_regno_dei_poveri/ojgtAQAAIAAJ?hl=en">the putte of the Ospedaletto were likely involved in raising the funds</a> for the decoration of the music room. The new hall enabled them to give performances for special guests and benefactors, which brought in substantial donations. Together with Pasquale Anfossi, who was their music teacher from 1773 to 1777, they rallied behind their beloved institution, saving it – at least temporarily – from financial destitution. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two girls, one holding music, the other depicted in a side profile, and a man holding sheets of music gazing down at them from behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557295/original/file-20231102-29-c3sj0z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Italian composer Pasquale Anfossi, holding rolled up sheets of music, makes an appearance in the fresco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marica S. Tacconi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Against quivering destiny, we shall battle together” may well have served as a rallying cry for the putte of the Ospedaletto, who literally “battled together” to preserve their splendid music conservatory.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the putte may also have wanted to honor their teacher, as Pasquale Anfossi, too, is portrayed in Guarana’s fresco, directly behind the young woman holding up his music. </p>
<h2>From wall to concert hall</h2>
<p>One of the aspects I find most rewarding about the study of older music is the process of discovering a work that has been neglected and unheard for hundreds of years and bringing it back to modern audiences.</p>
<p>Inspired by the Ospedaletto’s music room, Liesl Odenweller and I have embarked on a collaborative project that brings back not only the aria on the wall but also other music from the institution that has gone unheard for centuries. Thanks to a generous grant from the <a href="https://www.delmas.org/grantees-venetian-program">Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation</a>, the <a href="https://venicemusicproject.it/en/">Venice Music Project</a> – the ensemble Liesl co-founded in 2013 – will perform this music in a <a href="https://venicemusicproject.it/en/concert/hidden-treasures-of-the-ospedaletto/">concert in Venice on Dec. 2, 2023</a>.</p>
<p>Our program will include “Contro il destin” as well as other excerpts from “Antigono” – essentially, all that survives from that opera. In addition, we will include works by Tommaso Traetta (1727-79) and Antonio Sacchini (1730-86) who, like Anfossi, taught the young women, in some cases launching their international music careers.</p>
<p>Because the music of the past was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/musical-notation/Evolution-of-Western-staff-notation">written in a notation</a> that’s different from that used today, it’s necessary to translate and input every mark of the original score – notes, dynamics and other expressive marks – into a music notation software to produce a modern score that can be easily read by today’s musicians.</p>
<p>By performing on period instruments and using a historically informed approach, the musicians of the Venice Music Project and I are excited to revive this remarkably beautiful and meaningful music. Its neglect is certainly not a reflection of its artistic quality but rather likely the result of other composers, such as Vivaldi and Mozart, taking over the spotlight and overshadowing the works of other masters. </p>
<p>This music deserves to be heard – as does the story of the young women of the Ospedaletto.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This project received funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.</span></em></p>On the wall of an orphanage in Venice, a musicologist encountered a fresco featuring an aria written for an opera. She’s since embarked on a project to bring this forgotten music back.Marica S. Tacconi, Distinguished Professor of Musicology and Art History, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2160282023-10-26T10:39:21Z2023-10-26T10:39:21ZFive witchcraft myths debunked by an expert<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555782/original/file-20231025-29-zmv3lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C3000%2C1706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/three-women-executed-witches-derneburg-germany-237235090">Everett Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>About 400 years ago, the European witch hunts were at their peak. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, an estimated <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810872455/Historical-Dictionary-of-Witchcraft-Second-Edition">50,000 people</a>, mostly women, were executed for witchcraft across Europe. They were accused of devil-worship, heresy and harming their neighbours by using witchcraft.
The 1620s was the most intense phase of persecution in places like <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstätt</a> in Germany, where almost 300 witches were executed between 1617 and 1631. </p>
<p>The witchcraft trials have endured as a matter of curiosity, entertainment and debate. But despite this interest, popular understandings of the European witch-hunts are riddled with error and misconceptions. So, given it’s the season of the witch, it’s time to dispel some myths.</p>
<h2>1. Witchcraft is a medieval idea</h2>
<p>It isn’t – it’s modern. The Christian church was <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/witchcraft-and-magic-in-europe-volume-3-9780485891034/">sceptical</a> about the reality of witchcraft until the 15th century. Even then, many theologians and clergymen did not believe that witchcraft was a threat. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/263689">first trials</a> of people who were believed to be malevolent worshippers of the Devil who actively caused harm happened in the 15th century. The most intense period of witch hunting ran from about 1560 to about 1630. </p>
<p>Before that there were very few witchcraft trials, because acts of witchcraft were believed to be an <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/witchcraft-and-magic-in-europe-volume-3-9780485891034/">illusion</a> caused by the Devil with the permission of God.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woodcut of witches on broomsticks cavorting with the Devil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C1507%2C1264&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witches on broomsticks, featured in The History of Witches and Wizards (1720)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/abkab8tq/images?id=hbe9wc8m">The Wellcome Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Witchcraft trials occurred everywhere</h2>
<p>Most witchcraft trials happened in central, western, or northern Europe. These were the areas which were the cradle of the Protestant and Catholic <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/115/2/351/10371?searchresult=1">Reformations</a>, which saw the transformation of the religious geography of Europe. And the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/abs/witches-of-durer-and-hans-baldung-grien/5839650C1787984F1CAA1A9CD1B4B06E">northern Renaissance</a> and the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300260953/the-decline-of-magic/">scientific revolution</a> had transformed how the world was understood. </p>
<p>More than 50% of all trials in Europe happened in Germany. But even there, witch persecution was limited to a few of the very many autonomous and semi-autonomous territories of which it was comprised. </p>
<p>In places like <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/early-modern-european-witchcraft-9780198203889?q=Early%20Modern%20European%20Witchcraft%20Centres&lang=en&cc=gb">Iceland</a> and <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/a-history-of-magic-and-witchcraft-in-wales/9780752428260/">Wales</a>, there were very few witchcraft trials at all. It seems that local beliefs about magic and witchcraft, alongside the attitudes of clergymen and judges, may be the reasons for this. </p>
<h2>3. The Inquisition tried and executed most witches</h2>
<p>The Roman, Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, established in the 16th century, were responsible for dealing with matters of heresy. They have become notorious for their rigour in rooting out opposition to Catholic orthodoxy. Yet, they burned very few witch suspects. Across the whole of the <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/8436?language=en">Iberian</a> and <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3515/">Italian</a> peninsulas, the inquisitions executed fewer suspects than were hanged in England.</p>
<p>The Spanish Inquisition put a stop to the witchcraft trials that had spilled over from France in the early 17th century by assuming jurisdiction over witchcraft accusations.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="An illustration of witches being burned while a man stokes the fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The execution of alleged witches in central Europe, 1587.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Wickiana3.jpg">Zurich Central Library/Wikimedia</a></span>
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<h2>4. Only women were tried for witchcraft</h2>
<p>It’s true that 80% of those tried and executed for witchcraft were women. Many witch hunters, like those in <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstätt</a>, also selected female suspects over male ones, even though the evidence could be very similar. </p>
<p>However, in some places, like <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/male-witches-and-gendered-categories-in-seventeenthcentury-russia/F9FA9F79E0576D4F0AC5EA29E3EFF59A">Russia</a>, it was men who formed the majority of witch suspects. This was primarily because Russians conceptualised gender very differently to people in western Europe.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether the witch suspects were accused before magistrates or denounced under torture, their female neighbours were the ones most likely to accuse them. </p>
<p>In England, women on the margins of society were more vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft when things went wrong for their neighbours, such as inexplicable deaths or harm. This was the case with Ursley Kemp, one of the two witch suspects of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/136/578/26/6121677">St Osyth</a>, Essex, who were hanged in 1582. Kemp was a marginal figure in the town, a woman with an illegitimate son making ends meet through her healing skills. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstatt</a>, it was a product of the processes of torture. When the suspects (more than 90% of whom were women) had to name names under torture, they gave those of their neighbours. The suspects’ networks were founded on their sex; women named women and the few male suspects named men. </p>
<h2>5. Witches were really the followers of a pagan fertility cult</h2>
<p>This myth was promoted by the Egyptologist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587X.1994.9715877">Margaret Murray</a> in the early 20th century and was then <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Witchcraft_and_Demonism/Tm12ngEACAAJ?hl=en">debunked</a> by the historian C. L'Estrange Ewen almost as soon as it appeared. It was founded on a partial reading of the available witchcraft evidence. </p>
<p>It persisted because Murray wrote the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on witchcraft that remained in print for 40 years, until 1969, and actively supported the new <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-triumph-of-the-moon-9780198870371?q=triumph%20of%20the%20moon&lang=en&cc=gb">Wiccan religion</a> in print in the 1950s. This new religion was founded by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27782244">Gerald Gardner</a> who revived what he believed to be ancient pagan witchcraft in the 1930s. But it has no material connection to any form of historic witchcraft.</p>
<p>Most witches were ordinary Christian women who found themselves accused of witchcraft by their neighbours, or denounced by other suspects under torture.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Durrant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Witchcraft is an enduring source of fascination but also prone to popular misconceptions.Jonathan Durrant, Principal Lecturer in History, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161972023-10-24T09:41:38Z2023-10-24T09:41:38ZGiorgia Meloni: how the realities of office trumped the Italian prime minister’s radicalism<p>A year ago many pundits feared that Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s government would turn out to be a radical one. This was not just because of her party’s roots in the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/22/europe/giorgia-meloni-italy-new-prime-minister-intl-cmd/index.html">extreme right</a> but also because she came to office promising big change.</p>
<p>A year in, Meloni has certainly not refrained from igniting culture wars. The bitter row over <a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-parents-are-being-removed-from-their-childrens-birth-certificates-in-italy-heres-whats-behind-this-disturbing-trend-208241">adoption rights for same-sex couples</a> is a case in point. However, in other respects this government’s term has so far been much less eventful than expected. The need to project a certain image to international partners and the lack of fiscal wriggle room at home have seen her attempt to move away from her image as an extreme right-winger.</p>
<p>As far as foreign affairs and security matters are concerned, Meloni’s government has been treading the same path as its predecessor – the administration led by Mario Draghi. Meloni has stuck to a firmly pro-US and pro-Nato line, whether concerning <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italys-meloni-ready-risk-unpopularity-over-support-ukraine-2023-03-21/">Ukraine</a> or the conflict between <a href="https://www.governo.it/en/articolo/president-meloni-s-telephone-conversation-prime-minister-state-israel/23829">Israel and Hamas</a>.</p>
<p>Sooner or later (and generally sooner), every post-war Italian government has reached the same conclusion that the country’s interests are best served by keeping close to the US and Nato, as well as remaining <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/draghi-says-italy-must-remain-heart-eu-international-alliances-2022-08-24/">“at the heart of Europe”</a>. In this sense, Meloni’s executive is no exception.</p>
<p>Meloni has worked to reassure her American allies of her credentials as a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/07/27/joint-statement-from-president-biden-and-prime-minister-meloni/">“moderate”</a>. And, closer to home, she has cultivated a friendly relationship with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission. It’s a position that makes good financial sense since Italy is the recipient of the largest share of the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/eu-borrower-investor-relations/nextgenerationeu_en#:%7E:text=NextGenerationEU%20is%20the%20EU's%20%E2%82%AC,digital%20and%20more%20resilient%20future.">NextGenerationEU</a>.</p>
<p>Politically, Meloni also needs to keep the commission onside if there is ever to be any hope that the EU will take on a greater role in managing migration and asylum-seeking at its southern border. In other words, Italy simply cannot afford a conflictual relationship with EU institutions right now, and Meloni understands this.</p>
<p>And then there are the international financial markets. Being seen as an irresponsible and extremist leader carries with it real risks for the prime minister of a country that relies heavily on foreign investors to help service an overall debt burden of over 140% of GDP. Memories of a previous right-wing government losing its parliamentary majority in 2011 due to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/08/world/europe/italy-economy/index.html">considerable financial turmoil</a> are still fresh in Italy. Meloni’s first experience of an executive role (as youth minister) was as a member of that government – which was led by one Silvio Berlusconi – so she is not likely to have forgotten either.</p>
<h2>On a collision course?</h2>
<p>However, Meloni’s apparent prudence and restraint are at odds with the promises she made to voters ahead of her election, potentially putting her on a collision course with her own supporter base. </p>
<p>She had pledged, for example, to set up a “naval blockade” to repel the boats carrying would-be migrants and asylum seekers who <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/23/europe/meloni-italy-migrants-politics-intl/index.html">travel to Italy from northern Africa</a>. This was replaced with a deal committing the EU to effectively paying Tunisia to tighten its border to prevent departures in the first place. Now even this deal is <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/tunisia-hands-back-60-m-eu-funding-migration-deal">no longer on the cards</a>. Meanwhile, Meloni’s Ministry of the Interior reports that the number of arrivals by sea has almost doubled since 2022, <a href="https://www.interno.gov.it/it/stampa-e-comunicazione/dati-e-statistiche/sbarchi-e-accoglienza-dei-migranti-tutti-i-dati">and almost tripled since 2021</a>.</p>
<p>Nor do things look any easier for Meloni on the economic front. Many of her voters were led to believe that her government was going to reverse a reform of the pension system implemented in 2011, and that they would be able to retire earlier. But Giancarlo Giorgetti, the finance minister, now says there will be no comprehensive reform of the pension system <a href="https://www.fiscoetasse.com/approfondimenti/14178-riforma-pensioni-2024-giorgetti-frena.html">after all</a>. On the contrary, he has warned that with overall expenditure on pensions predicted to rise by almost 8% in 2023, strict control of public spending has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/imperative-italy-control-public-spending-economy-minister-says-2023-10-10/">become essential</a> instead.</p>
<p>Populist radical-right parties are increasingly parties of government across Europe. However, they are subject to the same external constraints as any other administration. In Italy’s case, the country’s government needs to show fiscal restraint in order to keep the financial markets happy, and it knows that a good relationship with the EU Commission is essential to its success.</p>
<p>However, given the extent and speed at which the promises made during the 2022 electoral campaign are now being shelved, Meloni’s government risks giving right-wing voters the impression of being all talk and no action. This poses a conundrum for Meloni. Given the levels of electoral volatility in Italy, the last thing she can afford to do is take her recently acquired supporters for granted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniele Albertazzi has received funding from The British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).</span></em></p>Even the most firebrand politicians find they need allies when they reach office, and Meloni’s predicaments make that even more true.Daniele Albertazzi, Professor of Politics and Co-Director of the Centre for Britain and Europe, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2146502023-10-04T17:06:15Z2023-10-04T17:06:15ZWhat’s happening on Lampedusa – and what Europe needs to do now to manage migration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551146/original/file-20230928-27-lizydy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C11%2C3828%2C2144&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants in the port of Lampedusa on 15 September 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/lampedusa-agrigento-italy-15-september-migrants-2362458119">Alessio Tricani / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: “This is an adapted version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/crisis-migratoria-en-la-ue-que-sabemos-sobre-lo-que-ocurre-en-lampedusa-213952">article originally published in Spanish</a> on the 28th of September, 2023. It takes in an EU policy development that occurred subsequent to the publication of the first article.</em></p>
<p>In barely two days, between 12 and 14 September, more than 7,000 people arrived in around 120 small boats on the Italian island of Lampedusa, taking the number of <a href="https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20230916/acnur-lamenta-critica-situacion-lampedusa/2456124.shtml">arrivals up to 10,000 people</a> by the middle of the month. This was a record-breaking figure for an island of around <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/50069/lampedusa-more-than-3000-migrants-fill-hotspot-to-eight-times-its-capacity">6,000 inhabitants</a>. Migrants are kept separate from the local population and identified before being transferred to Sicily or other centres in Italy. </p>
<p>A joint statement was issued in mid September by more than <a href="https://sea-watch.org/en/arrivals-in-lampedusa-solidarity-and-resistance-in-the-face-of-europes-reception-crisis/">80 NGOs</a> condemning the overcrowded conditions in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/ten-years-after-tragedy-tiny-lampedusa-at-centre-of-migration-crisis-again">reception centre</a>, as well as its inability, with only 389 places, to adequately accommodate people.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/50688/unhcr-and-unicef-urge-more-efforts-on-lampedusa-visit">InfoMigrants</a>, more than 84,300 people arrived in Italy by sea between 1 January and 23 July, an increase of 144% on 2022. Of those, over half landed in Lampedusa. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency <a href="https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news/news-release/central-mediterranean-accounts-for-half-of-irregular-border-crossings-in-2023-G6q5pF">(Frontex) estimates</a> that the central Mediterranean route accounted for half of the 232,350 "irregular border crossings” into the EU in the first eight months of 2023, the highest number for this period since 2016. However, the president of the Italian Red Cross Rosario Valastro, said the key challenge is <a href="https://cri.it/2023/09/12/migranti-valastro-basta-con-la-gara-dei-record-di-sbarchi-a-lampedusa-dare-risposte-a-unumanita-che-soffre/">not a matter of tallying up arrivals</a>, but rather how to respond “to a humanity that is suffering”.</p>
<h2>Who is arriving at Lampedusa?</h2>
<p>The island of Lampedusa is situated a little over 100km from the Tunisian coast. On board the boats arriving in Lampedusa from Tunisia, there are refugees and migrants from <a href="https://sea-watch.org/en/arrivals-in-lampedusa-solidarity-and-resistance-in-the-face-of-europes-reception-crisis/">various African countries</a>. The majority are young men or unaccompanied minors, but there are also women, some of them pregnant, and children. </p>
<p>In previous years, <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/48185/irregular-migrant-arrivals-to-italy-up-56-in-2022#:%7E:text=The%202022%20peak%20in%20arrivals,">the majority came from Libya</a>, and were rescued by boats belonging to Italian rescue or humanitarian NGOs before reaching the island, according to the International Organization for Migration. It is likely that these numbers will increase again in the wake of recent <a href="https://apnews.com/article/libya-floods-derna-storm-daniel-mass-graves-21b1a195d261a642e12dac13f0d19431">catastrophic flooding in Libya</a>.</p>
<p>There are contextual factors that lie behind the high number of arrivals. <a href="https://dtm.iom.int/reports/libya-storm-daniel-flash-update-2-13-september-2023">Storm Daniel</a>, which also caused disaster in Libya, forced smugglers to suspend their operations for several days, creating a bottleneck in the coastal Tunisian city of <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/07/13/fears-stranded-black-african-migrants-tensions-boil-over-tunisia">Sfax</a>. And the end of the summer is normally the time that sees the highest number of boat crossings before conditions worsen.</p>
<p>The socioeconomic situation in Tunisia has also worsened, with high inflation and a lack of jobs hitting residents hard. <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/07/13/fears-stranded-black-african-migrants-tensions-boil-over-tunisia">Hostility and violence</a> towards sub-saharan African migrants have been evident. Earlier in 2023 the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/feb/23/tunisia-president-kais-saied-calls-for-halt-to-sub-saharan-immigration-amid-crackdown-on-opposition">country’s president was condemned</a> for comments about migrants from elsewhere on the continent. Many people who had lived and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/migrants-tunisia-africa-europe-7186b742643a77e5b17376c7db7dac60">worked in Tunisia for years have left</a> for Europe.</p>
<p>However, these factors do not explain why most people embark on migratory journeys. Many leave their countries fleeing persecution, or cannot return because their lives are in danger. Others who arrive in Lampedusa have found themselves forced to migrate due to climate change, political instability and lack of access to basic amenities or services. The term <a href="https://ipsnoticias.net/2014/08/los-tiempos-de-la-migracion-de-supervivencia/">survival migrants</a> is used to refer to these migrants who do not fit the definition of refugee according to the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees</a>.</p>
<h2>The Commission’s 10 point plan</h2>
<p>The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_4503">10-point plan</a> the day after her visit to Lampedusa. Of the 10 points, some aim to help Italy manage the situation: these include; providing the support of the European Union Asylum Agency (EUAA) for registration and reception; aiding the transfer of people from Lampedusa; and consideration of alternatives such as enabling safe routes to discourage migrants from resorting to <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean">more dangerous ones</a>.</p>
<p>Other measures include increasing returns, prevention of departures through the establishment of anti-trafficking partnerships in countries of origin and transit, and taking action against traffickers. There are also measures such as supporting fast-track classification and expulsion procedures and issuing entry bans.</p>
<p>Two measures of note in the plan are those on implementing the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/es/latest/news/2023/07/eu-tunisia-agreement-on-migration-makes-eu-complicit-in-abuses-against-asylum-seekers-refugees-and-migrants/">EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding</a> and on exploring options for expanding naval missions in the Mediterranean.</p>
<p>Since von der Leyen’s visit to Lampedusa on 17 September, rumours have been circulating that the EU is considering <a href="https://euobserver.com/migration/157434">a naval blockade</a> of dubious legality to prevent the arrival of migrants. This is a very different approach to the increased ship capacity that <a href="https://www.hrw.org/es/news/2023/08/03/lo-que-hay-que-saber-sobre-el-naufragio-de-pylos">NGOs</a> have repeatedly called for in response to the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/es/news/2023/08/03/lo-que-hay-que-saber-sobre-el-naufragio-de-pylos">Pylos shipwreck</a> – the biggest tragedy in the Mediterranean in recent years– and to combat the continued refusal of certain states to fulfil their search and rescue (<a href="https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Facilitation/Pages/UnsafeMixedMigration-Default.aspx">SAR</a>) obligations.</p>
<p>To this end, a new regional mechanism is much needed. This would be done via agreement with coastal states on the division of responsibilities for landing and disembarkation, and with non-coastal states on the issue of relocation. It has been reported that in 2023 most member states <a href="https://euobserver.com/migration/157423?mc_cid=9ce760de10&mc_eid=d49bf6123a">have not relocated a single refugee</a>.</p>
<p>The implementation of the agreement with Tunisia, which the European Commission wants to turn into a model for other countries, has attracted <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/17/tunisia-talks-eu-should-privilege-human-rights-over-politics">strong criticism</a>. The agreement has generated <a href="https://elpais.com/internacional/2023-07-26/el-pacto-migratorio-de-von-der-leyen-con-tunez-incomoda-a-algunos-paises-de-la-ue-por-la-falta-de-consulta-previa.html">unease among EU member states</a>, both because of the procedure leading to its approval and its content. The European Parliament has <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/agenda/briefing/2023-09-11/13/eu-tunisia-meps-to-quiz-council-and-commission-over-migration-deal">raised doubts</a> and concerns about the extent of cooperation. Tunisia´s president Saied has also <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20231003-tunisia-s-saied-rejects-eu-financial-aid-casting-doubt-on-an-immigration-deal">shed doubt</a> on the immigration deal, saying that the amount is small and does not reflect what was agreed.</p>
<p>On 4 October, EU representatives finally reached an <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/10/04/migration-policy-council-agrees-mandate-on-eu-law-dealing-with-crisis-situations/#:%7E:text=The%20pact%20consists%20of%20a,and%20the%20asylum%20procedure%20regulation.">agreement on the final component of a common European asylum and migration policy</a> adopted in June 2023. The agreement has been under discussion for the last three years and was opposed by Hungary and Poland. </p>
<p>The regulation addressing crisis situations and force majeure in the field of migration and asylum is part of the <a href="https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/new-pact-migration-and-asylum_en">New Pact on Migration and Asylum</a> proposed by the Commission on 23 September 2020. In a situation of crisis or force majeure, member states may be authorised to apply specific rules concerning asylum and return procedure. A member state that is facing a crisis may request solidarity contributions from other EU countries. Although EU states claim that the measures are in full compliance with the fundamental rights of third-country nationals and stateless persons, the agreement actually reduces protection standards in Europe according to <a href="https://ecre.org/editorial-migration-pact-agreement-point-by-point/">analysis by ECRE, (the European Council on Refugees and Exiles: an alliance of 117 organisations)</a>.</p>
<p>Whether it will meet its other objectives of deterring arrivals, rapid returns or reducing so-called secondary movement remains to be seen.</p>
<h2>The required response</h2>
<p>The short term priority for the EU needs to be supporting Italy so it can take in people who arrive and manage the situation better. The principle of <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/06/08/migration-policy-council-reaches-agreement-on-key-asylum-and-migration-laws/">mandatory solidarity</a> which was agreed in June is fundamental to this, as it establishes a system for allocating asylum seekers among all EU member states.</p>
<p>Expanding legal routes into Europe is also a matter of urgency. Restrictive policies and fortified borders only lead to more irregular migration. Legal migratory routes will help governments to predict flows, and make pragmatic decisions about quotas, the needs of the labour markets and the costs and benefits of welcoming people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristina Churruca Muguruza no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.</span></em></p>The migratory crisis in Lampedusa prompts us to look beyond the media frenzy and reflect on the real causes and consequences of what is happening on the island.Cristina Churruca Muguruza, Investigadora senior del Instituto de Derechos Humanos, Universidad de DeustoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114652023-08-14T15:40:07Z2023-08-14T15:40:07ZContested memory in Giorgia Meloni’s Italy: how her far-right party is waging a subtle campaign to commemorate fascist figures<p>Since coming to power, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and her party Brothers of Italy have repeatedly raised the question of who and what is remembered in Italy. They have paid particular attention to how the experience of Italian fascism is told.</p>
<p>Writing on the front page of newspaper <a href="https://www.governo.it/it/node/22468">Corriere della Sera,</a> Meloni questioned the way the nation marks April 25 – the day Italy remembers its liberation from Nazi-fascism and honours the victory of the Italian resistance. She implied that those with rightwing political views are effectively locked out of the commemoration. She suggested that “the category of fascism” is used as a “weapon of mass exclusion” so that certain groups or people are not included on the “list” of those allowed to celebrate the anniversary. </p>
<p>The implication was that people associated with fascism should also be recognised for their contribution to the democratic republic. Referring to the Italian Social Movement, founded in 1946 by people who wanted to revive fascism and fight communism, Meloni wrote: “those who were excluded from the constitutional process for obvious historical reasons undertook to lead millions of Italians into the new parliamentary republic, shaping the democratic right wing”. Several Brothers of Italy leaders cut their teeth in the party’s youth group, including Meloni.</p>
<p>Meloni’s letter, published on a day intended to mark freedom from fascism, was remarkable for its failure to mention “antifascism” once.</p>
<p>Since its foundation a decade ago, Brothers of Italy has made the memory of the Italian far right and commemoration of its victims a priority. The party advocates for a broad national memory culture that even honours former fascists, dissolving the fascist-antifascist binary upon which the democratic republic was built. </p>
<p>It is behind <a href="https://www.thelocal.it/20160523/jewish-community-angered-by-rome-mayor-hopefuls-vow-to-name-road-after-fascist">longstanding calls</a> to dedicate a road in Italy’s capital to Giorgio Almirante, founder and leader of the Italian Social Movement. Almirante was a minister in the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-23893-4_8">Italian Social Republic</a> – the second incarnation of the fascist state between 1943 and 1945 – and an editor of <a href="https://museoebraico.roma.it/en/rivista-la-difesa-della-razza/">The Defence of the Race</a> magazine, which promoted biological racism. </p>
<p>Most recently, Brothers of Italy co-founder Ignazio La Russa, <a href="http://ttps//www.liberoquotidiano.it/video/liberotv/35369883/terraverso-ignazio-la-russa-immigrazione-arma-puntata-contro-italia.html.">president of the Italian Senate, asserted</a> that the partisans involved in the 1944 Via Rasella attack – an attack by the Italian resistance in Nazi-occupied Rome – had killed a “semi-retired band” of musicians. The real victims were Nazis. Casting partisans as villains, these historical inaccuracies poke at the moral foundations of the antifascist republic, distorting and confusing the past.</p>
<h2>The original contested memory</h2>
<p>Fascists recognised the significance of gaining control of commemoration as early as 1924. This is when Benito Mussolini introduced a series of restrictions designed to banish the memory of antifascist victims. His move came in response to antifascists leaving red carnations in memory of socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti at the site in Rome where he was kidnapped in 1924. Matteotti was a staunch and vocal opponent of Mussolini and was murdered by Mussolini’s henchmen. His body was found on August 16 1924 just outside the city. </p>
<p>In the six weeks between his disappearance and the recovery of his body, tributes were laid, removed and replaced at the kidnap site, creating a grassroots site of memory. A cross was drawn on an embankment wall and red wreaths and carnations laid – material symbols of an emerging antifascist memory culture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo of a man bending down to take a close look at a huge pile of flowers placed in memorial." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542590/original/file-20230814-27-7vutg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A makeshift memorial emerges at the site of Matteotti’s kidnap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Giacomo_Matteotti#/media/File:1924_13_giugno_-_Roma,_lungotevere_Arnaldo_da_Brescia_-_on._Bruno_Buozzi_reca_l'omaggio_della_CGdL_a_Giacomo_Matteotti.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mussolini responded with a ban on flowers, commemorative ribbons and gatherings within ten metres of the site. He even tried to force Matteotti’s family to adopt a new name. In January 1925, he accepted “political, moral and historical responsibility” for Matteotti’s murder in a <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/benito-mussolini-declares-himself-dictator-of-italy">pivotal speech</a>. He then introduced a series of laws that banned opposition parties, curtailed press freedoms, introduced a secret police force and made the head of government accountable only to the King. It was the cementing of a dictatorship.</p>
<p>Mussolini’s ban pushed memory into private space in Italy. But commemoration of Matteotti abroad was public, persistent and popular. It occurred as far away as Australia, the United States and Venezuela and closer to home in Paris, London and Vienna.</p>
<p>Monuments to Matteotti went up as far away as Buenos Aires, where a statue of him is dedicated to all workers and emigrants. His name was visible in urban space: the social housing complex in Vienna named <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/matteotti-hof-vienna--345651340122558362/">Matteotti Hof still stands today</a>, and there are several streets named after him in France. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration of Mussolini and other fascists murdering people with bodies floating through a river of blood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542375/original/file-20230811-35944-ygvzgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Swiss anarchist publication illustrated the violence of the fascist regime after Matteotti’s murder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Giacomo_Matteotti#/media/File:Guerre_et_Fascisme_%E2%80%93_Rome_1924.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Mussolini resigned in July 1943, Matteotti’s name returned to Italian public space. As Allied forces and Italian partisans fought to free the country from fascism city by city, streets dedicated to fascist heroes were renamed. Matteotti’s name became more visible – a marker of the progress of Italy’s liberation. Today, more than 3,200 sites bear Matteotti’s name in Italy.</p>
<p>Far from being the decision of a few gatekeepers, this overwriting of fascist heroes was official policy in the new, democratic republic. With Brothers of Italy in power, the names of far-right figures could return to public space. Earlier this year, the centre-right city council in Grosseto laid out its plans for a new district of the city. Its main road – National Pacification Street – will fork with a road dedicated to Enrico Berlinguer on the left, honouring the longstanding leader of the Italian Communist Party, and another honouring Giorgio Almirante on the right. </p>
<p>There is more at stake than just political wins. This is a dangerous attempt to undermine the values on which the republic was founded by reframing the way Italy remembers its past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brothers of Italy want streets named after fascist figures and the far-right’s ‘contribution’ to democracy recognised on national days of memory.Amy King, Lecturer in Modern European History, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2054402023-07-18T21:11:35Z2023-07-18T21:11:35ZOur perception of wine has more to do with its commercial history than we think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525691/original/file-20230511-19-w9pz4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C2%2C1905%2C1276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some of our cultural conceptions of wine, including its authenticity, stem from the commercial nature of the product. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Consumers tend to think of wine as a product of culture and authenticity. Because of this, they see it as distinct from other manufactured commercial goods. </p>
<p>As an agricultural product, we think about wine as linked to a place and sometimes to an individual producer. After that it is considered a historical product rooted in the traditions of a region. And finally, wine is treated as an aesthetic product, in a similar way to the arts, with its key consumers, terminology, prominent producers and specific media attention. </p>
<p>But is wine really distinctive?</p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/09/08/2089700/0/en/Global-Wine-Industry.html">value of the global wine market</a> was over $53 billion, with global production around 260 million hectolitres, the equivalent of 34 billion bottles. Of this, about half is exported and therefore consumed outside its place of origin. The <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wine-producing-countries">main producing countries</a> by volume are Italy, France, Spain, the United States and Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523623/original/file-20230501-14-4s1z98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vineyards in Cafayate, Argentina. The South American country has joined the top five wine-producing countries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet wine has been a commercial product for 3,000 years. And paradoxically, many of the cultural ideas which shape how we perceive wine today actually stem from its history as a commercial product. </p>
<p>As an anthropologist and professor in the department of social and public communication at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), I see wine as a cultural object. That is to say, wine carries meanings that are socially constructed and through which both producers and consumers think about it in unconscious ways. </p>
<p>I carried out my first anthropological research fieldwork on wine in Calabria, in southern Italy, in 2000-2001, and have returned there three times. I conducted a second anthropological investigation in British Columbia, in the Okanagan Valley, in 2017-2018. I will present some of the results of this research later in <em>The Conversation</em>. </p>
<p>I am also a wine lover and have been running the website <a href="https://www.sommeliervirtuel.com">sommeliervirtuel.com</a> with my brother Mathieu for over 10 years. Through this activity we have become recognized as wine influencers in Quebec, and I have been able to deepen my knowledge of the wine market and its consumer culture. </p>
<p>In this first article, I demonstrate how some of our cultural conceptions of wine actually arose from the commercial nature of the product. </p>
<h2>The importance of place</h2>
<p>A central element of wine is that it is attached to place. We can talk about a Bordeaux, a Burgundy or a Chianti without having to add that we are talking about wine. Yet as far back as ancient Greece, and later in the Middle Ages, it was different elites that created a market for <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203013267/wine-vine-tim-unwin">wines from recognized, distant regions</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523621/original/file-20230501-344-oupm3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tasting a Chianti, in the Chianti region of Tuscany. The name of the region is associated with its flagship product.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, the wine that was produced and consumed locally had no specific identity and <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahess_0395-2649_1996_num_51_6_410925_t1_1383_0000_000">was considered a common agricultural product among others</a>. </p>
<p>It was through trade, especially over long distances, that the place of origin of wines became important and significant.</p>
<h2>The utopia of terroir versus the realities of trade</h2>
<p>Trade also helps explain why wine production became concentrated in certain regions and not others. </p>
<p>Official speeches (guidebooks, wine books, laws) claim that this is because of the quality of a specific region’s terroir, according to the idea that wine production is concentrated in the places most suitable for quality production. In fact, <a href="http://delbussoediteur.ca/publications/le-vin-comme-performance-culturelle/">trade is what explains how vineyards came to be concentrated in certain regions, but not others</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/histoire/histoire-de-la-vigne-et-du-vin-en-france/">French geographer and historian Roger Dion</a> has shown how wine production became concentrated in France because of the country’s vanguard position vis-à-vis the markets of northern Europe. He points to how the wine-producing regions were concentrated around rivers, which were essential for the transport of heavy cargoes before the arrival of the train.</p>
<p>So it was actually France’s <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/reae_0755-9208_1990_num_17_1_1247">geographical position</a> that explained the <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/anami_0003-4398_1989_num_101_187_7467_t1_0335_0000_2">development and historical renown of its wine regions</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523619/original/file-20230501-20-g47ltu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vineyards in Saint-Émilion, France. Wine production would be concentrated in France because of the country’s vanguard position vis-à-vis the markets of northern Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historically, regions that specialized in wine production were able to do so because they had the possibility of selling their production in other markets. That’s because a <a href="http://delbussoediteur.ca/publications/le-vin-comme-performance-culturelle/">peasant family could not subsist on wine</a>. The utopic concept of terroir, however, has been used to conceal these origins, attributing <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3631680">the renown of wines to regions and nature, while, historically, their reputations were actually built through trade</a>.</p>
<h2>From agricultural to luxury product</h2>
<p>With the development of wine consumer markets in what were then non-producing countries, such as England, Northern Europe and America, a specific conception of wine emerged. </p>
<p>In these markets, wine was not considered an agricultural product. Wine was a luxury product, reserved for certain social groups. Even when wine spread throughout society, it remained a rare and occasional product. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523630/original/file-20230501-22-fr3cui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wine tasting in Worns, Germany. In the northern European and US markets, wine is still an exceptional product, to be drunk on special occasions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This view of wine remains the dominant one today, even in the wine-producing countries themselves, <a href="https://www.editions-larousse.fr/livre/histoire-sociale-et-culturelle-du-vin-9782035841766">where the habit of daily wine consumption has yielded to one of occasional consumption</a>. </p>
<h2>Bordeaux and the English market</h2>
<p>The case of the Bordeaux region is instructive and has played a key role in the development of several contemporary notions of wine.</p>
<p>The Bordeaux vineyard developed in response to demand from the English and Dutch markets, which, in turn, controlled the region and its trade starting in the 17<sup>th</sup> century. In this context, it was the English market that drove consumers and merchants to pay specific attention to vintages, as well as growths, and the <em>crus</em> of Bordeaux, that is to say the “Châteaux,” such as Ho Bryan (Haut-Brion) or Margose Wine (Margaux) whose first mentions are in English.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523631/original/file-20230501-14-ld7s5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Château and vineyard in Margaux, in the Bordeaux region. The Bordeaux vineyard developed in response to demand from the English and Dutch, who in turn controlled the region and its trade starting in the 17th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/bordeaux-wine-producer-profiles/bordeaux/1855-bordeaux-classification/">famous classification of Bordeaux wines of 1855, still in force today</a>, was created at the universal exhibition in Paris on the basis of wine prices that were established by the English market.</p>
<p>The emergence of new consumer markets, particularly in Asia, is now putting upward pressure on the wine market and driving up the prices of specific wines from the most sought-after areas or regions. At the same time, <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/geohist/2287?lang=en">China</a> has started to produce and export its own wine, increasing the already strong competition between <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/geocarrefour/13442">different wine-producing regions of the world</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523628/original/file-20230501-18-8re5rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A shelf full of wine bottles in a supermarket in Shanghai, China. The country has started producing and exporting wine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Asian markets, wine remains a prestige product, especially as a gift, for example in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146735840000200405?journalCode=thrb">Japan</a>. If the conceptions of wine so far are mainly Western, perhaps the Asian markets will influence the way we think about wine in the medium or long term.</p>
<p>These are just a few examples of how the commercial nature of wine, through its long history, has influenced our perception of the product. Is wine perhaps hiding its true nature behind the rhetoric of its authenticity? Because objectively, wine is only fermented grape juice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205440/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincent Fournier ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Wine has been a commercial product for 3,000 years. Paradoxically, many of the cultural ideas we have about wine today actually come from its commercial history.Vincent Fournier, Professeur au Département de communication sociale et publique, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096532023-07-14T10:26:37Z2023-07-14T10:26:37ZEuropean heatwave: what’s causing it and is climate change to blame?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537471/original/file-20230714-26-ttindx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5250%2C3596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blistering temperatures are spreading across southern and eastern Europe.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tourist-refreshes-his-head-water-fountain-2187538929">Massimo Todaro/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe is currently in the midst of a heatwave. Italy, in particular, is expected to face blistering heat, with temperatures <a href="https://www.meteoam.it/it/home">projected to reach 40°C to 45°C</a>. There’s even a chance that the current European temperature record of 48.8°C, set in Sicily in 2021, could be surpassed.</p>
<p>Searing temperatures have spread to other countries in southern and eastern Europe, including France, Spain, Poland and Greece. The heat will complicate the travel plans of those heading to popular holiday destinations across the region.</p>
<p>Heatwaves, <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/wmo-has-no-immediate-plans-name-heatwaves">which are defined</a> as prolonged periods of exceptionally hot weather in a specific location, can be extremely dangerous. Europe has experienced its fair share of devastating heatwaves in the past. </p>
<p>In 2003, a heatwave swept across Europe, claiming the lives of over <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069107003770">70,000 people</a>. Then, in 2022, another heatwave hit Europe, resulting in the deaths of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02419-z">almost 62,000 people</a>. </p>
<p>The current heatwave is being caused by an <a href="https://ecn.ac.uk/what-we-do/education/tutorials-weather-climate/anticyclones-and-depressions/anticyclones">anticyclone</a> named Cerberus after the three-headed monster-dog that guards the gates of the underworld in Greek mythology. An anticyclone – or high-pressure system – is a normal meteorological phenomenon in which sinking air from the upper atmosphere brings about a period of dry and settled weather with limited cloud formation and little wind. </p>
<p>High-pressure systems tend to be slow moving, which is why they persist for days, or even weeks at a time. They often become semi-permanent features over large areas of land. When high pressure systems form over hot land, in regions like the Sahara, the stability of the system generates even hotter temperatures because the already warm air is heated even more. </p>
<p>Eventually, the anticyclone will weaken or break down and the heatwave will come to an end. According to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/10/italy-heatwave-temperatures-european-record-forecast">Italian Meteorological Society</a>, the Cerberus heatwave is expected to persist for around two weeks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing scorching temperatures across Europe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537473/original/file-20230714-23-dcw8rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">July 10 2023: land surface temperatures across Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/">ESA/Copernicus Sentinel data (2023)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What role does climate change play?</h2>
<p>High pressure systems, like the one currently affecting Europe, have been expanding northwards in recent years. It’s difficult to ascribe a single event, such as a heatwave, directly to climate change. But as temperatures continue to warm, we are seeing <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31432-y.epdf?sharing_token=htzOD3_IxFByNII1xKKbu9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NZB4mVVJx48b3OYyN0FB4TtSpM6vNgwOVqCswO_4qi7R7ahx93uxCizPKL-UhdF0hyqN-mMfXkfXPXdJ19qFSbcxhuB9YPGUewA-TS4I_FHyHRsmGnf0z3nh3FS_m93pA%3D">changes in atmospheric circulation patterns</a> that can lead to increased occurrences of extreme temperatures and drought in Europe. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf">Research</a> by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms this trend. Its data shows an increase in the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events since the 1950s. A <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EA002567">separate analysis</a> of European heatwaves revealed an increasing severity of such events over the past two decades.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2022, southern Europe experienced higher temperatures than usual for that time of the year. <a href="https://www.copernicus.eu/en/news/news/observer-wrap-europes-summer-2022-heatwave">Spain, France and Italy</a> saw daily maximum temperatures exceed 40°C. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service <a href="https://climate.copernicus.eu/record-breaking-european-heatwaves-role-climate-change-and-weather-patterns">attributed these unusually hot conditions</a> to climate change and suggested that such events are likely to become more frequent, intense and last longer in the future – indicating a concerning trend that may continue this year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close-up of a digital thermometer reading 38 degrees Celcius." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537474/original/file-20230714-21-ymm8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Heatwaves will become more frequent, intense and last longer in the future.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-digital-thermo-heater-outdoor-temperature-1722166657">ddproimages/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The dangers of extreme heat</h2>
<p>Heatwaves and extreme temperatures <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32290-X/fulltext">impact human health</a> in a number of ways. These conditions can cause heatstroke, leading to symptoms like headaches and dizziness. Dehydration resulting from the heat can also affect respiratory and cardiovascular performance.</p>
<p>There have already been reports of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66183069">heat-related health incidents</a> in Europe during the ongoing heatwave. An Italian road worker died, and there have been numerous cases of heatstroke reported across Spain and Italy. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-13/italy-issues-emergency-warnings-as-europe-s-heat-wave-takes-hold?leadSource=uverify%20wall">Italian Ministry of Health</a> has advised residents and visitors in affected areas to take precautions like staying out of the sun during the hottest part of the day, remaining hydrated and to avoid alcohol consumption.</p>
<p>But the effects of heatwaves go beyond individual health. They have broader <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/heatwaves-europe-climate-change/">social and economic consequences</a> too. Extreme heat can damage <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/90321/html/">road surfaces</a> and even <a href="https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Asset-management-WRCCA-plan.pdf">cause railway tracks to buckle</a>. </p>
<p>Heatwaves can also lead to reduced water availability, affecting electricity production, crop irrigation and drinking water supply. In 2022, scorching heat meant French nuclear plants were <a href="https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Heatwave-forces-temporary-change-to-water-discharg">unable to run at full capacity</a> as higher river temperatures and low water levels affected their cooling ability. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26050-z#:%7E:text=During%20the%20analysed%20years%2C%20heatwaves,2010%20due%20to%20extreme%20heat">Research</a> indicates that extreme heat has already had a negative impact on economic growth in Europe, lowering it by up to 0.5% over the past decade. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man drinking water from a public water fountain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537475/original/file-20230714-25-864izn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents and visitors in affected areas are being advised to take certain precautions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rome-italy-july-16-2022-man-2184272509">Henk Vrieselaar/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As temperatures continue to rise, heatwaves will become more severe. It’s crucial that governments worldwide take swift and decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately. </p>
<p>However, it’s important to note that even if we were to completely halt global greenhouse gas emissions today, the climate would still continue to warm. This is due to the heat that is already <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/can-we-slow-or-even-reverse-global-warming">absorbed and retained by the oceans</a>. While we can slow down the rate of global warming, the effects of climate change will continue to be experienced in the future.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Europe is gripped by a heatwave called Cerberus - it may be a sign of things to come.Emma Hill, Head of Apprenticeships Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores UniversityBen Vivian, Assistant Professor in Sustainability & Environmental Management, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2085452023-07-06T07:46:50Z2023-07-06T07:46:50ZHow ‘La Grande Bellezza’ captured Italy’s Berlusconian era<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535363/original/file-20230703-212535-54j063.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1920%2C1077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jep Gambardella, the narcissistic and excessive central character in Sorrentino's allegory of Silvio Berlusconi.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allociné</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Silvio Berlusconi, a leading figure on the Italian right, died on 12 June. His career was marked by a series of public and private scandals and by the school of thought that it gave rise to, <a href="https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/berlusconismo/">“Berlusconism”</a>. Many an Italian film <a href="https://www.rollingstone.it/cinema-tv/film/silvio-berlusconi-il-cinema-del-caimano-i-film-che-lo-hanno-raccontato/755244/">has attempted to capture it</a> since the 1990s.</p>
<p>One director in particular has distinguished himself in exploring the stigma left by Berlusconi on Italian society: Paolo Sorrentino. His 2018 film <em>Loro</em> (“Them”) is perhaps <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/transalpina/448">his most direct rendition</a> of the sulphurous figure of the <em>Cavaliere</em>. However, the major themes associated with the right-wing leader are already broadly sketched out in <em>La Grande Bellezza</em> (Oscar for best foreign language film in 2014), which follows the existential upheaval of protagonist Jep Gambardella, a worldly and disillusioned sexagenarian who eventually regains his lust for life by delving into his past.</p>
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<h2>Entertainment as “categorical imperative”</h2>
<p>Of the four salient features of Berlusconism shown in <em>La Grande Bellezza</em>, the most striking is that of the pursuit of individual pleasure. In an interview, Sorrentino said that Berlusconi raised entertainment during his tenure to the level of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/life-among-italys-ruins-20140122-318zw.html">“categorical imperative”</a>.</p>
<p>Take the sweeping, Fellinian scene of the night club in the first part of the film, for example. It is a perfect allegory of the Berlusconian pleasure principle, calling to mind various sex scandals that took place in the years prior to the film’s shooting. One thinks of the <em>Cavaliere</em>’s relationship with a then-18-year-old aspiring model, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/24/silvio-berlusconi-noemi-letizia-italy">Noemi Letizia</a> in 2008; the escort <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/02/patrizia-daddario-silvio-berlusconi">Patrizia D’Addario</a> in 2009, or <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-23034167">the underage Moroccan prostitute, Karima El Mahroug</a> in 2010, an affair which went on to become known as the Ruby sex case. The scene’s excesses are but a hyperbolic copy of the hedonistic parties held at Berlusconi’s villas, pictured in great detail by the Italian press at the time.</p>
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<p>The film’s characters embody respective facets of Berlusconism, namely, the desired and the desiring. On the one hand, we have Jep Gambardella, the party host and target of its dancers’ lustful glances; on the other, his friend Lello Cava, a businessman with a towering sex drive, seen shaking with excitement at the feet of a young woman dancing on a cube. Like many young women gravitating around Berlusconi, she’s there to <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-vacarme-2017-4-page-88.htm">make it as a showgirl</a>.</p>
<h2>Television and the cult of the self</h2>
<p>The second feature of Berlusconi’s life is television, a medium inextricably linked to his financial success and political rise. The party is held under the aegis of “Lorena”, an opulent woman who emerges from Jep’s enormous birthday cake, played by none other than Serena Grandi. One of Italy’s sex symbols from the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared on several TV entertainment shows in the 1980s and 2000s. Her character is somewhat of a caricature of her public persona, merging two themes – sex and television – dear to Berlusconi.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Serena Grandi plays herself as a former party girl.</span>
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</figure>
<p>The third grand Berlusconian theme is narcissism. In the first half of the film, we find it personified by Orietta, a woman who spends her time photographing herself and sending selfies to her admirers. This obsession with beauty and youth is also captured by the extraordinary scene in which a Botox guru administrates expensive injections to patients who revere him as their spiritual leader. It’s no secret that Berlusconi relished cosmetic surgery. The Cavaliere not only resorted to it extensively on himself, but also touted its merits to others, claiming women who had subjected themselves to the needle were “more beautiful”.</p>
<h2>Corruption at every level</h2>
<p>The last major feature of Berlusconi’s life to stand out in the film is corruption. From falsifying business accounts to bribing lawyers, the former Prime Minister has been charged with almost every offence under the sun. His right-hand man, Marcello Dell’Utri, has also been indicted for <a href="https://lejournal.info/article/berlusconi-et-la-mafia-le-pacte-impuni/">complicity with the Mafia</a>.</p>
<p>This aspect of Berlusconi’s persona, which still contains grey areas, is reflected in the character of Giulio Moneta, an enigmatic businessman and neighbour of the protagonist, who appears from his high balcony but in reality, serves the interests of the underworld. Arrested by the police at the end of the film, he says, handcuffed, that he is one of those “moving the country forward” – a defence strategy typical of Berlusconi and his defence lawyers.</p>
<h2>Historical perspective</h2>
<p>The strength of Berlusconi’s depiction also lies in its historical perspective. Tapping into a range of images, Sorrentino helps viewers understand that Berlusconi’s triumph was made possible by the decline of the two major ideologies that shaped Italy’s 20th-century history: socialism (and its derivative, Marxism), and Catholicism.</p>
<p>The decline of Marxism is depicted in a scene that is at once solemn and grotesque, in which a famous body artist, her pubic area dyed red to reveal the sickle and hammer crest, comes crashing headlong into a Roman aqueduct. Through this spectacular, bloody performance, she represents the dead end to which the Soviet interpretation of Marxist thought has led.</p>
<p>At the same time, the protagonist is confronted with religion on a daily basis in the city of Rome, from the myriad of religious figures he sees in the streets or from his balcony, to the monuments dotted around the Eternal City. Yet Jep Gambardella’s view of religion, imbued with nostalgia and strangeness, is typical of a secularised society in which religion no longer plays the primary role of organising authority.</p>
<p>The idea that Berlusconi could flourish in an ideological vacuum created by the decline of these two great ideologies is expressed in the transition from the first to the second sequence of the film. <em>La Grande Bellezza</em> opens with a stroll on Mount Janiculum, offering a series of images that alternatively evoke socialism – i.e., the statue of Garibaldi on horseback, or the busts of Garibaldi supporters on display in a public garden – and Christianity. We are taken to the fountain “Acqua Paola”, commissioned by Pope Paul V in 1608, while the film’s first shot shows the cannon shot at midday from Janiculum Hill in Rome, a practice initiated by Pope Pius IX in 1948 to allow the Roman bells to ring in unison.</p>
<p>The transition to the second sequence, that of the nightclub, is a guest’s hysterical scream filmed in close-up. It acts as a cry of distress to express the transition from strong but bygone ideologies to the ideology of seemingly carefree, narcissistic enjoyment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The cry of</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>La Grande Bellezza</em>, which began filming in August 2012, is imbued with a pungent whiff of decadence that harks back to the end of Berlusconi’s political reign. Beset by sex scandals and Italy’s dramatic finances – “on the brink of a precipice” is how the business newspaper <em>Il Sole 24 ore</em> put it a few days earlier – the <em>Cavaliere</em> stepped down as prime minister on 12 November 2011. In the last part of the film, the protagonist can indeed be seen staring in silence at the capsized hull of the <em>Costa Concordia</em>, the cruise ship that sank on 12 January 2012.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fabrice De Poli ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The Oscar-winning film sketches out the broad themes of Berluconist hedonism, all against the backdrop of the decline of ideologies that shaped 20th-century Italy.Fabrice De Poli, enseignant-chercheur en Etudes Italiennes (poésie, prose et cinéma de l'Italie - XIX-XXème s.), Université Savoie Mont BlancLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082412023-06-28T14:57:12Z2023-06-28T14:57:12ZLGBTQ+ parents are being removed from their children’s birth certificates in Italy – here’s what’s behind this disturbing trend<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534033/original/file-20230626-15-gxzlyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C7%2C2485%2C1654&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstration in Piazza Della Scala, in Milan (Italy) for the rights of children of same-sex parent couples.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/milano-lombardy-italy-march-18-2023-2276836109">Shutterstock/Federico Fermeglia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A public prosecutor in the Italian city of Padova is attempting to <a href="https://espresso.repubblica.it/politica/2023/06/20/news/famiglie_arcobaleno_guerra_diritti-405159363/">challenge</a> the legitimacy of 33 birth certificates of children born to same-sex couples <a href="https://www.ilpost.it/2023/06/20/padova-impugnati-atti-nascita-coppie-omogenitoriali/">via insemination</a> by a donor. The prosecutor, Valeria Sanzani, also seeks to remove the names of the mothers considered “non-genetic” from the birth certificates.</p>
<p>This motion is one of the broadest within more widespread, though still patchwork, efforts in Italy that have emerged in the past six months to annul the birth certificates of children conceived through the use of reproductive technologies abroad, particularly in cases concerning “rainbow families” – families with same-sex parents. </p>
<p>This includes another <a href="https://milano.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/23_giugno_23/tribunale-di-milano-trascrizioni-padri-mamme-f9b18bcb-c9a4-4679-8617-e93bd8983xlk.shtml">case</a> in Milan, in which the birth certificate of a child born abroad via surrogacy to two men was annulled. </p>
<p>Such action should be seen in light of the Meloni government’s policy aims, which are being interpreted and enacted in a way that particularly targets rainbow families. </p>
<h2>Going back a few months</h2>
<p>In January, Meloni’s Minister of the Interior issued a <a href="https://associazionelucacoscioni.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/circ-dait-003-servdemo-19-01-2023.pdf">circular</a> ordering all Italian Mayors to stop automatically registering the births of children born or conceived abroad via assisted reproductive technologies. </p>
<p>The circular cited a case from Italy’s Court of Cassation, which ruled on December 30 2022, that the birth certificate of a child of a gay couple who used a surrogate abroad to conceive should not be automatically recognised and transcribed in Italy.</p>
<p>Although the court case and circular related to surrogacy, a practice which is illegal in Italy for both heterosexual and same-sex couples as well as single people, in its interpretation and enactment by Prefectures and Municipalities, it has specifically targeted rainbow families, including those who don’t use surrogacy.</p>
<p>In April, the Milan prefecture <a href="https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/30/905x2560/1680186579-prefetto-milano.jpg?x57999&x82864&x82864">extended the logic</a> of the circular to same-sex couples who conceived abroad via insemination by a donor. This cited Italian law, which states that insemination by a donor is only legal for heterosexual couples, and specifically argued that birth certificates of children born to same-sex parents should be targeted. </p>
<p>At the time, the Mayor of Milan agreed that he would not automatically transcribe birth certificates moving forward, but <a href="https://www.ilpost.it/2023/04/12/famiglie-omogenitoriali-annullamento-tribunale/">declined</a> to retroactively revise the ones he had already signed. Also in April, the birth certificate of one child born to two mothers was annulled in the city of Bergamo. </p>
<p>The events in Padova are noteworthy as they suggest a growing, and worrisome trend. The prosecutor has challenged the legitimacy of many more birth certificates, and going as far back as 2017 (the year after civil unions for same-sex couples were legalised in Italy). </p>
<p>Such a move would have consequences for both children and parents. The children, some as old as six, would have their names and parental status <a href="https://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/701563/la-procura-di-padova-dice-stop-ai-figli-con-due-mamme-intervista-a-nicola-fratoianni">forcibly changed</a> by an act of the state. The non-genetic parent would <a href="https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2023/06/19/news/coppie_gay_due_mamme_padova_atti_di_nascita_cancellazione-405074842/">lose parental rights</a>. They wouldn’t be able to pick up their children from school, take them to the doctor or leave the country without an official note from the legally-recognised parent.</p>
<p>Within Italy, motions like the ones enacted in Padova, Milan, and Bergamo are being seen as acts that <a href="https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2023/06/19/news/coppie_gay_due_mamme_padova_atti_di_nascita_cancellazione-405074842/">punish</a> LGBTQ+ individuals and their children. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.lastampa.it/editoriali/lettere-e-idee/2023/06/17/news/gestazione_per_altri-12862736/">opinion piece</a> for La Stampa, lawyer Filomena Gallo writes, “Children will be estranged (<em>allontanati</em>) from their legitimate families just to satisfy the ideological whims of the proponents (of these efforts).”</p>
<h2>Moves from the Meloni government</h2>
<p>While campaigning, Meloni made clear the stance that her government could be expected to have regarding LGBTQ+ rights. In a 2022 rally in Spain, Meloni <a href="https://video.corriere.it/politica/meloni-andalusia-sostenere-vox-palco-arringa-folla-spagnolo/8ce5509e-eb15-11ec-b89b-6b199698064a">exclaimed</a>: “Yes to the natural family! No to the LGBT lobby!”</p>
<p>The January circular marked the beginnings of the Meloni government’s actions to make good on such positions. Currently, her party, the Brothers of Italy, is pursuing legislation that could result in an almost total ban on state recognition of rainbow families. These actions focus on surrogacy – making surrogacy abroad illegal, which would affect heterosexual couples and singles as well. However, the behaviour of public officials, together with the rights of same-sex couples under current Italian law, mean that the consequences for LGBTQ+ individuals hoping to start families would be drastic. </p>
<p>While a total ban on surrogacy would affect heterosexual couples seeking to conceive as well, these couples have a right to adopt or to use artificial insemination through a donor that same-sex couples do not have in Italy. </p>
<h2>Problems with citizenship</h2>
<p>A serious concern is the impact that such policies could have on the citizenship status of the concerned children. Should Sanzari’s challenge be successful in court, the question will become: what to make of the children whose Italian citizenship derives from the non-genetic/gestational parent? </p>
<p>Though same-sex unions have been <a href="https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/2016/05/21/16G00082/sg">legal</a> through civil partnership since 2016, these unions don’t provide the same rights as official marriage in Italy, notably the right to adopt as a couple. In current cases, adoption rights for the non-genetic parent are not guaranteed, only result from a long and arduous process, and are only considered when circumstances have been deemed exceptional.</p>
<p>As such, for bi-national, same-sex couples in Italy, recognised partnership in Italy does not necessarily mean that their children will have Italian citizenship. With the removal of non-genetic same-sex partners on birth certificates, there is a potential loss of citizenship for the children. Some are already into their primary school education and have not necessarily known any other country as home.</p>
<h2>‘Protecting the children’</h2>
<p>In mobilizing public sentiment against LGBTQ+ people, opponents often invoke the need to protect “the child”. From <a href="https://www.dragstoryhour.org/">drag queen story hour</a> to gay marriage, many elements of LGBTQ+ inclusion have been framed as a threat to children. </p>
<p>Meloni’s government ran on a platform of protecting the family, attempting to connect conservative policies on LGBTQ+ inclusion and migration through the frame of defending a homeland and family. One of her campaign slogans was “God, homeland, family.” An unfortunate irony, then, that this policy is proving so destructive to families.</p>
<p>With these moves, the Meloni government further establishes itself as a new force for anti-LGBTQ+ politics in Europe, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/lgbt-rights-eastern-europe-backsliding/31622890.html">alongside the governments of Poland and Hungary</a>. </p>
<p>The Hungarian government has passed a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/15/lgbt-rights-under-renewed-pressure-hungary">series of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation</a> over the past few years, banning LGBTQ+ content in schools as well as in books and television programmes geared toward young people, ending gender recognition by the state and embedding a ban on gay marriage and adoption in the constitution. </p>
<p>Poland has also recently passed a <a href="https://www.thepinknews.com/2022/02/10/poland-lgbt-propaganda-bill-andrzej-duda/">ban</a> on LGBTQ+ content in schools and denied <a href="https://www.ilga-europe.org/news/rainbow-families-have-the-right-to-move-and-reside-freely-eu-court-reiterates/">recognition</a> to rainbow families. Since 2020, the government has supported local initiatives to establish <a href="https://gcn.ie/eu-legal-case-poland-anti-lgbtq-zones/">“LGBT-free zones”</a> in municipalities throughout the country. </p>
<p>Concerned by this alliance, the European parliament passed an <a href="https://www.unionesarda.it/en/world/lgbt-the-european-parliament-condemns-italy-with-poland-and-hungary-quot-too-much-anti-rights-rhetoricquot-qnai6hcq?amp=1">amendment</a>, strongly condemning “the spread of anti-rights, anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric by some influential political leaders and governments in the EU, as in the case of Hungary, Poland and Italy.”</p>
<p>If successful in Italy, then it is possible that we could see these efforts adopted elsewhere in Europe. As we’ve seen, anti-rights legislation is proliferating in certain parts of Europe. Should other governments follow in the footsteps of what they perceive as a successful effort in Italy, then even more children in Europe will be at risk of denaturalisation just for having same-sex parents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.</span></em></p>The Prosecutor’s Office of Padova (Italy) has asked a local court to remove any same-sex non-biological parent on birth certificates, denying same-sex families the right to State recognition.Samuel Ritholtz, Max Weber Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University InstituteMargaret Neil, PhD candidate in International Development, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057922023-06-20T16:18:49Z2023-06-20T16:18:49ZThe Good Mothers: Disney’s groundbreaking drama tries to tell the stories of women in the mafia but important pieces of the puzzle are missing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531960/original/file-20230614-19-aaakle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=107%2C17%2C5883%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney+</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The music accompanying the opening titles of the new Disney+ series The Good Mothers is a lullaby in the Calabrian dialect:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Ninna, ninna, ninna, ninna, neda</em> The wolf eats the little lamb. Little lamb of mine, what did you do when you found yourself in the mouth of the wolf?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a dark and hidden message from a mother to her child before sleep. It serves as a reminder that the world is a dangerous place and your family are not always the people who will protect you. Sometimes, they are the ones who make it unsafe. </p>
<p>Disney’s latest contribution to the mafia genre, a six-episode TV drama series, is based on a book by British journalist Alex Perry. It’s a welcome and refreshing addition to the debate about the delicate role <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11133-018-9389-8">women play in Italian mafias</a>.</p>
<p>Italian mafias are strange, fascinating organisations. They combine both highly sophisticated, modern criminal activities and money laundering scams with internal traditional values and codes that dictate behaviour to members. </p>
<p>The series deals specifically with the fates of three young mothers in the notorious Calabrian <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ndrangheta-63937">‘Ndrangheta</a>, a violent mafia that is both deeply embedded in the local community and has international reach. It is made up of more than 160 independent <em>cosche</em>, or clans, that exist across Calabria within a hierarchical structure. Each revolves around families with tight blood ties. </p>
<h2>Women in Italian mafias</h2>
<p>One of the innovative aspects of The Good Mothers is that it is framed as a story of “how feminism was key to bringing down Europe’s most powerful mafia”. And it is indeed an important contribution to our understanding of Italian mafias in part because it is a story about women, which is rare. </p>
<p>It’s incredibly difficult to research the roles women play in criminal groups because there is hardly any information available. When data does exist, it tends to adopt “a male gaze”. Most judicial or police sources are collected by men using their male values and gender assumptions, which colours the depiction of the women involved (and will inevitably pervade the narratives of those who use them).</p>
<p>When investigating mafias, there is a tendency to focus on the male-centric elements of operations – the leadership, the violence and the business. Accounts of women describe them either as victims of crime or as irrelevant extras. </p>
<p>The Good Mothers puts women at the centre of the action. Here is a detailed account of Calabrian mafia women who rebelled against the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KJLBLxYBUysC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=mafia+women+&ots=HtzYnF-TMG&sig=9sXYl7nfZGG1xsZ7XUJVgufM66o&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=mafia%20women&f=false">patriarchal, oppressive and violent mafia system</a> by deciding to collaborate with the state to expose the perverse internal workings of their clans.</p>
<p>For one of the first times in English, we see the traumatic and painful life stories of real women – Lea Garofalo, Giuseppina Pesce and Maria Concetta Cacciola. All were born into but eventually escaped the mafia’s power. </p>
<p>The main theme of their testimonies is the sexism, misogyny and machismo that underpins the ‘Ndrangheta’s patriarchal framework. Gender dynamics, contradictions and power relationships are based on values such as family, honour, omertà (a code of silence), respect, violence and revenge.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5xyZ5Yt-Z2Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Good Mothers trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cacciola’s harrowing story illustrates how the mafia exploited her love for her children to get her to leave the witness protection programme. She then supposedly committed suicide by drinking acid in August 2011, a story no one believes. Her life represents the many dilemmas and difficulties involved in trying to extract oneself from the violent criminal underworld.</p>
<p>Pesce’s brave account adds complexity by underlining the way women in mafias can have agency – sexually, criminally, emotionally and socially. Pesce participated in the criminal activities of her clan, was outspoken and had an affair while her husband was in prison. </p>
<p>The character Anna Colace (who represents the real-life judge Alessandra Cereti) is another heroine. She is the brave anti-mafia prosecutor who takes on the mob by turning members and relatives into state witnesses. Through her investigations, she understands the power of the women in Calabrian <em>cosche</em> and how their desire to rebel can become a strength for the anti-mafia fight. </p>
<h2>The missing mothers</h2>
<p>The Good Mothers is a genuine attempt at explaining to an international audience how these real-life women and mothers sought to break free from the coercive control of the patriarchal Calabrian mafia system. Their decision became a historic moment that forced a change in the thinking around the ‘Ndrangheta. We learned that family structure, mothers and children are key.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, decades on from the events this series depicts, the ‘Ndrangheta is far from dead. Maybe, we are still missing a part of the puzzle. The Good Mothers missed an opportunity to denounce, highlight and analyse the role of Garofalo, Pesce and Cacciola’s own mothers, who endorsed the patriarchal values of the violent mafia system by manipulating these young women and by trying to stop them from rebelling. </p>
<p>This TV series only tells part of the story because it is based on a book that was itself a reconstruction of judicial investigations and interviews. A male gaze therefore remains. </p>
<p>While there are nuances, women are still largely depicted as victims of the mafia male patriarchy. Absent are discussions about the male victims of the ‘Ndrangheta or the powerful and determined matriarchs who <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12117-014-9223-y">reinforce the structures</a> that allow the ‘Ndrangheta <em>cosche</em> to flourish.</p>
<p>In the book and consequently in the TV series, the mafia’s coercive control is too often portrayed as male when to fully understand it, we must also include the other women who remain in the shadows. It is these women who are the foundation of the ‘Ndrangheta and who should not be overlooked. Mafia oppression is not only male but also female. The essence of the ‘Ndrangheta is not only the good mothers but all the mothers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felia Allum was a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow (2018-2022) and received funding from The Leverhulme Trust for a project on 'Women, crime and culture: transnational organised crime as an equal opportunity industry'.</span></em></p>The stories of women who escape the mafia need to be told but we also need to learn more about the women who stay and reinforce the structures of crime families.Felia Allum, Professor of Comparative Organised Crime and Corruption., University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2075912023-06-13T12:56:21Z2023-06-13T12:56:21ZSilvio Berlusconi had a complex relationship with US presidents: Friend to one, shunned by another<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531504/original/file-20230613-15-3b421j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C122%2C2048%2C1321&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Things looking up for the Bush-Berlusconi relationship.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-george-w-bush-and-italian-prime-minister-silvio-news-photo/119806434?adppopup=true">Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the administration of Geroge W. Bush needed an ally to help sell its <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war">proposed invasion of Iraq</a> to a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-crisis-in-the-alliance/">skeptical European audience</a>, Silvio Berlusconi stepped forward.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that the Italian prime minister was particularly concerned over the threat of Saddam Hussein’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7634313">imagined</a> <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-crisis-in-the-alliance/">weapons of mass destruction</a> to his country, or the region – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/31/italy.usa">he wasn’t</a>. But it was a chance for the former businessman to burnish his credentials as an international statesman and to draw the U.S. closer into Italy’s orbit.</p>
<p>Indeed, strengthening U.S.-Italian relations was the key driver of Berlusconi’s foreign policy, as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BEzB1hYAAAAJ&hl=en">I learned</a> while interviewing Berlusconi government officials for my 2011 book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Allies-War-Kosovo-Afghanistan/dp/0230614825">America’s Allies and War</a>.” The fact that Berlusconi couldn’t repeat the trick some years later when Barack Obama came to power was in large part entirely of his own making – he reportedly never recovered in the eyes of Obama from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/06/italy-barackobama">comments widely seen as racist</a>. Eventually, Berlusconi would again fall in line with Washington’s interventionist foreign policy – <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/04/12/everyone-says-the-libya-intervention-was-a-failure-theyre-wrong/">this time in Libya</a> – but by then the damage had been done. Fair to say, the legacy in regards to U.S.-Italian relationship left by Berlusconi – who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/former-italian-pm-silvio-berlusconi-has-died-italian-media-2023-06-12/">died on June 12, 2023,</a> at 86 – is mixed, a tale of two halves.</p>
<h2>A friend in need</h2>
<p>Italy never had the “<a href="https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/us-uk-special-relationship">special relationship</a>” that the U.K still claims to possess in regards to Washington. Nor did it have the clout of post-war France and Germany, whose economies were more central to the well-being of the European Union. Moreover, Italy’s political instability – it is currently on its <a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/21/italy-is-set-for-its-68th-government-in-76-years-why-such-a-high-turnover">69th goverment since 1945</a> at a rate of one every 13 months or so – makes it more difficult to establish lasting bilateral political relationships.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, by the time Berlusconi came to power for a second time in 2001 – following a one-year stint as prime minister between 1994 and 1995 – Italy had gone some way to ingratiating itself with successive U.S. administrations. In 1990, Italy <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64980565">supported President George H.W. Bush’s military operation</a> in the Persian Gulf, joining a coalition of 39 countries opposing Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and sending fighter jets to support the subsequent aerial bombing campaign.</p>
<p>Then in 1999, Italian jets participated in airstrikes and Italian bases served as the main launching site for U.S. and NATO jets during the alliance’s <a href="https://www.nato.int/kosovo/">military operations in Kosovo</a>.</p>
<p>But the war in Iraq was different. By fall of 2002, George W. Bush had <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/this-day-in-politics-sept-4-2002-805725">made it clear</a> that he intended to invade. But by then, the U.S. had lost some of the near-unanimous international support that it was afforded after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. </p>
<p>Europe was divided. The public was <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/185298">very much against invasion</a>. But governments had to weigh political consequences at home, with the benefits of supporting the world’s largest economy.</p>
<p>Outside of the U.K, Berlusconi was Bush’s biggest European ally. Shrugging off <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/world/threats-and-responses-italy-florence-wary-as-opponents-of-war-stage-a-huge-march.html">massive street protests in Italian cities</a>, the opposition of many within the Italian parliament and public opinion that put support for the invasion <a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_140583_smxx.pdf">as low as 22%</a>, Berlusconi went to bat for Bush’s war. </p>
<p>Unlike the U.K. – and to a lesser extent Australia and Poland – Italy did not directly participate in the invasion itself. But by April of 2003, Italy agreed to <a href="https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/italy-and-the-new-iraq-the-many-dimensions-of-a-successful-partnership-121530">send a contingent of 3,000 troops</a> to help stabilize Iraq. Explaining his rationale to the New York Times in 2003, Berlusconi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/world/berlusconi-urges-support-for-us-on-iraq.html">said it was “absolutely unthinkable</a>” to decline Bush’s request for an Italian military presence given how the U.S. had come to Europe’s aid after World War II.</p>
<p>Even sending that peace mission was controversial in Italy, especially after 17 Italian soldiers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/international/middleeast/at-least-26-killed-in-a-bombing-of-an-italian.html">were killed in a November 2003 attack</a>. in Iraq. Indeed, with elections around the corner, in 2005 Berlosconi announced <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7337476">Italian troops would withdraw</a> from the war-torn country.</p>
<h2>Surplus to US requirements</h2>
<p>Sticking his neck out for Bush’s war won Berlusconi friends in Washington. During the Bush’s administration, the Italian prime minister <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/visits/italy">visited the U.S. on 11 occasions</a> and was invited to <a href="https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/4da5ea3a0de9b336906cb83e3c71663a/ITALIAN-PRIME-MINISTER-BERLUSCONI-ADDRESSES-JOINT-SESSION-OF-CONGRESS/">address both houses of Congress</a> – a rarity for overseas leaders.</p>
<p>The deployment of Italian troops both in Iraq and also Afghanistan – where some 4,000 Italians were sent <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Davidson_AlliesCostsofWar_Final.pdf">and 48 died</a> – helped stabilize the U.S.-Italian ties.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a one-way relationship. In return for military support, Berlusconi benefited from his elevated role in trans-Atlantic relations, being able to sell himself as a major international player at home. And remaining friendly with the world’s biggest economy is also prudent for a country <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/business/italy-economy.html">prone to economic instability</a>.</p>
<p>So while he was ejected from office in Italy in 2006, he departed with a legacy of building up Italy’s standing with leaders in the U.S.</p>
<p>And then came the Obama years. Berlusconi <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/15/italy1">returned to power in 2008</a>, the same year that Obama was elected to his first term in office. But even before Obama could be sworn in, the Italian prime minister had soured the relationship, referring to the U.S. president elect as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/06/italy-barackobama">young, handsome and tanned</a>.”</p>
<p>It may have been meant as a compliment, but it certainly came across as at best off-key, at worst racist.</p>
<p>Such eyebrow-raising remarks were, of course, not uncommon for Berlusconi, who gained a reputation for <a href="https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/silvio-berlusconis-most-controversial-distasteful-101700715.html">saying at times outrageous things</a>. But the incident didn’t bode well for bilateral relations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A glum looking man looks off to the side next to a similarly downcast man shuffling papers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531505/original/file-20230613-29-awxc1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-meets-with-italian-prime-minister-news-photo/88501434?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conversations I have had with officials in Obama’s White House and State Department and others in Washington suggest that it wasn’t primarily about Berlusconi’s comments; there was a feeling that by the late 2000s he wasn’t reliable and had little to offer.</p>
<p>There was, however, one last U.S.-led foreign intervention that the aging Italian prime minister could play a role in. In 2011 a coalition of NATO countries were entrusted to implement a <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2011/sc10200.doc.htm">U.N.-sanctioned no-fly zone over Libya</a>, amid claims of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/18/muammar-gaddafi-war-crimes-files">civilian attacks by Moammar Gaddafi’s regime</a>. Berlusconi – mindful of Italy receiving a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-libya/gaddafi-hails-italy-for-overcoming-colonial-past-idUSTRE5593OO20090610">quarter of its oil from Libya</a> and reliant on the country to implement a deal aimed at preventing African immigrants arriving on Italian shores – resisted.</p>
<p>But after Obama threw his wholesale support behind NATO’s intervention, Berlusconi acquiesced and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13188951">joined Italy’s allies in the military coalition</a>. To Berlusconi, not being aligned with the U.S. was one thing; opposing Washington’s wishes entirely was a step too far.</p>
<h2>A precursor of the populist premier</h2>
<p>Much comment has been made over the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/berlusconi-italy-trump-president/587014/">similarities between Berlusconi and another U.S. president</a>: Donald J. Trump. No doubt, the pair share commonalities – businessmen whose forays into politics were marked by right-wing populism and many, many scandals.</p>
<p>But Berlusconi’s legacy as an Italian leader on trans-Atlantic relations is best seen through the lens of Trump’s two predecessors. And it is a very mixed legacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Davidson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The former Italian prime minister died on June 12, 2023, at the age of 86. Throughout his terms in office he cultivated closer ties with the US – with mixed results.Jason Davidson, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, University of Mary WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2036012023-06-12T10:59:05Z2023-06-12T10:59:05ZSilvio Berlusconi: the property developer who became a media tycoon – and Italy’s most flamboyant prime minister<p>Silvio Berlusconi, who has died at the age of 86, was born into a middle-class family in Milan, a city heavily affected by the second world war. He attended a private school belonging to a religious order, and eventually graduated with distinction in law in 1961, specialising in advertising contracts, an area that would of course prove extremely useful in his later careers.</p>
<p>As Berlusconi came of age, Italy was entering its postwar economic “miracle”. And immediately after his graduation, he started a series of successful entrepreneurial initiatives in a booming construction industry.</p>
<p>In his early 30s, Berlusconi conceived of a revolutionary and visionary project, the construction of a residential area in the northern outskirts of Milan called <a href="https://www.archilovers.com/projects/19955/milano-2.html">Milano 2</a>. The idea was to offer high standard, spacious homes in new areas on the outskirts of the city that contrasted with an increasingly crowded and polluted metropolis.</p>
<p>The project was ahead of its time in marketing “exclusive” property to a growing middle class looking to escape the inner city but remain close by. It proved a significant success, which quickly propelled Edilnord (Berlusconi’s construction company) into the big leagues and enabled it to diversify under the umbrella of a financial holding company, Fininvest.</p>
<p>By the 1980s, Berlusconi had received the Order of Merit of Labor and the informal nickname “Il Cavaliere” (the Knight) for his entrepreneurship.</p>
<h2>Building an empire</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, as video broadcasting was being commercialised for the first time in Italy in the mid-1970s (having previously been a state monopoly), Berlusconi started investing in TV.</p>
<p>He set up a media company that transmitted three channels across Italy (Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4). All this was supported by the company’s aggressive advertising arm, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1081180x96001001007?casa_token=Vv9z3UMWpNkAAAAA:Rfax3PVP1iWs3VgbIPsYmXEP3W5oxs7tv8FsjcjH5Jndjeq8Wtkw-LMYNJjKCMn9yjDUe79Swfo">Publitalia</a>. </p>
<p>Berlusconi’s media empire (complemented by the acquisition in 1984 of Arnoldo Mondadori, the most important publishing house in the country) became the sole real competitor of RAI, the state-owned television company. Berlusconi’s personal ability to attract the most popular TV stars of the time certainly helped, as did personal connections in the government. </p>
<p>This made him a pervasive figure in Italian society, but his popularity skyrocketed in the mid-1980s when a highly valuable jewel was added to his crown: <a href="https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/32459016/berlusconi_brand_cosentino_doyle-libre.pdf?1391104221=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DSilvio_Berlusconi_One_Man_Brand.pdf&Expires=1681304350&Signature=QO2mn516F4H7-6DztxorL-i4cFEXA5wkJ3K-HEsIdoZ0OwodR9xLVVrUTBdQrvYXmsLnQDYlGcKRif5Ub4knzpL3381pMT9i5KzCGK8zepxRl912dShRUdU5W2fAl2NtLdY4j%7EZcrMi4lkGOSNgLlMreKxS-BfMZx2LATxeFipd5HB74FOMA0ho2Ixi702Fi060IHGXO6Z%7ET8SFQBPyz8bMVw%7EFB1B1ddEqZRVTEEYI%7EhAK8vao0zSP%7ESBdZ9FGKFtSfx8qCaPOaP%7EoONT7s1fxcEAm4G08sGmIzwtXJ1GLwPsS7bDA9p7ced9wbE36synoeCMUxwffFdsuUz9hoSw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA">AC Milan football club</a>. This was already a highly strategic move given Italy’s national obsession with the game, but Berlusconi quickly set about turning Milan from a domestic team into an international brand. </p>
<p>In the 15 years that followed the successful project of Milano 2, Berlusconi had built a business empire that spanned construction, banking and insurance, TV and advertising, publishing, sport and even supermarkets. In just a couple of decades, Berlusconi had transformed Fininvest into Italy’s eighth largest company by turnover.</p>
<h2>From outsider to prime minister</h2>
<p>Despite this remarkable success – and his notorious business skill – Berlusconi was neither immediately nor eagerly welcomed into the drawing rooms of the country’s entrepreneurial elite, who tended to consider him at best a useful upstart. This is perhaps partially what drove an already individualistic character to seek a new level of primacy.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the 1990s, Berlusconi turned himself into a “political entrepreneur”. At the time, the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28117/chapter-abstract/212268180?redirectedFrom=fulltext">“Tangentopoli”</a> scandal had exposed deeply entrenched corruption among national and regional politicians. </p>
<p>Individual politicians and entire political parties were brought down by the revelations and the old party system was turned on its head, leaving an institutional vacuum. Berlusconi stepped in to fill that vacuum by creating a new political party practically overnight, leveraging his personal entrepreneurial prestige and the communication power of his media empire. </p>
<p>Having crafted a (sometimes precarious) <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402380500310600">alliance</a> with two different partners on the right and far right, Berlusconi was elected prime minister for the first time in 1994. It was the beginning of a lengthy spell in power as head of coalitions and alliances of the right. In the end, he was prime minister three times: from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011.</p>
<p>Berlusconi was recognised as a charismatic politician and the electoral campaigns that put him in government were inevitably centered on him personally. However, he was less convincing as a statesman. He lacked a long-term vision for Italy both in terms of statecraft and economic development. </p>
<p>In his two decades in power, Italy’s GDP remained in line with the rest of Europe but the country’s competitiveness, measured in terms of export, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43039816">declined consistently</a>. This was mirrored by a generous rise in public spending – despite the neoliberal leanings of Berlusconi’s governments.</p>
<p>Berlusconi’s politics always came down to personal relationships over institutions. This style as worsened by a persistent conflict of interest between his role as prime minister of the country and de facto monarch of a business empire largely built on commercial TV and advertising. </p>
<p>He acted no differently as a politician than he did in his entrepreneurial life, running his governments with incredible energy but with an extremely low propensity for delegation. </p>
<p>But while Berlusconi was able to slot his eldest sons Marina and Piersilvio into top jobs in his business empire, he hasn’t been able to find an equally charismatic successor for his political project.</p>
<h2>All is forgiven, again and again</h2>
<p>Italians gave the flamboyant Berlusconi a pass for many antics, particularly his sometimes <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64653128">unconventional behaviour</a> in his private life. He probably got more lenience from the public than he deserved, and certainly much more than the judicial system was willing to extend him, as was clear from his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/15/silvio-berlusconi-community-service-sentence-tax-fraud">conviction</a> for tax fraud. </p>
<p>While he fought off other legal cases over allegations of sex with a minor, others were convicted of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/silvio-berlusconi/11994528/Italian-businessman-and-glamour-model-convicted-of-recruiting-prostitutes-for-Berlusconis-parties.html">recruiting prostitutes for Berlusconi’s parties</a>.</p>
<p>Even now, after his death, it is difficult to land on a definitive view of Berlusconi and his role in Italy’s recent history. His own life story is certainly emblematic of a country endowed with many gifts – a creative place capable of sudden and unexpected revival. </p>
<p>But he could equally be said to represent Italy in a negative way too, unfortunately too often incapable of producing a vision of the future based on anything other than individual egoistic interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Colli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite his serving three separate terms in office, it’s still difficult to decide on a definitive view of the late Italian prime minister.Andrea Colli, Full Professor, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057612023-05-17T23:07:34Z2023-05-17T23:07:34ZIn Meloni’s Italy, young Black men are particularly at risk of ending up on the street<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526920/original/file-20230517-9960-anjh1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C11%2C3816%2C2752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Groups of refugees from war-torn regions gather in Milan's Central Station. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/milan-italy-november-10th-2016-groups-514008019">Alexandre Rotenberg/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Italy is in the grip of a housing crisis, and has been for years. It’s not as if the problem had gone unnoticed. There has been no shortage of articles in the <a href="https://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2023/05/04/news/ilaria_lamera_tenda_politecnico_protesta_caro_affitti_milano-398739819/">national</a> – or even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/italy-students-protest-over-cost-housing-high-rents">international</a> – media over students’ struggle to access affordable accommodation. Over the past days, they have taken to pitching tents outside university buildings, as part of a growing protest movement against high rents. Begun by Ilaria Lamera, an engineering student at Milan Polytechnic who found it impossible to find a room under 600 euros, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/italy-students-protest-over-cost-housing-high-rents">the demonstration has since spread to Milan, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Padua and Cagliari</a>.</p>
<p>In Bologna, where I am writing from, rising student numbers and Airbnb rentals have snatched away the prospect of a home for many. But young adults are also grappling with another, less publicised issue: that of the ongoing racism toward those construed as “foreign” or “other”. The phrase “no foreigners” is a common refrain when looking for rental accommodation in Bologna. This racial discrimination is normalised by estate agents. It is <a href="http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/9218/">presented as if it were a form of “eligibility” criteria for landlords</a>, like a requirement for an employment contract and references. As if it were totally normal and acceptable for landlords not to want to rent to “foreigners”, by which they mean those who are racialised, and not me, as a white British woman – also a “foreigner”. Sometimes, this is made even clearer. For example, when a housing volunteer at a <a href="https://www.centroastalli.it/rete-territoriale/centro-astalli-bologna/">local charity assisting migrants</a> arrived at a flat viewing together with a young Black African man, they were told by an estate agent: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Madam! You should have told me you were asking on behalf of an African! We don’t rent to Blacks here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Launched in 2022 and funded by the <a href="https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/">Leverhulme Trust</a>, my current research at the University of Bologna examines the longer-term fate of young men from West Africa who arrived in Italy as children seeking asylum, and hence are bureaucratically labelled as “unaccompanied minors”. While much ink has been spilled over the experiences of unaccompanied minors as <em>children</em>, less is known about what happens after they turn 18. Yet, it is at this moment that the rights they are accorded as children, including accommodation, may be lost. In my <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1440783321993918">latest paper</a>, drawing on my PhD research undertaken between 2017-2018, I analyse what happens after they become adults and must leave the reception centre that hosted them as children in a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12873">socio-political landscape that is increasingly anti-migrant</a>.</p>
<p>This is based on ethnographic participant/observation in a reception centre for unaccompanied minors in Bologna while working as a volunteer keyworker for eight months between May 2017 and December 2018. In-depth and repeat interviews were conducted with 12 young African young men (six Gambians, four Nigerians, a Ghanaian and a Somalian), aged between 16 and 21. My current research involves a return to my fieldwork site after four years and involves interviews with five of the young men (two Nigerians and three Gambians) to assess their longer-term outcomes as adults.</p>
<h2>On the record</h2>
<p>The local council has launched the <a href="http://www.comune.bologna.it/centrozonarelli/spad-sportello-antidiscriminazioni/">SPAD Anti-discrimination Help Centre</a> to deal with racial discrimination, but this is in its infancy and under-reporting remains an issue. The first <a href="https://www.comune.bologna.it/notizie/giornata-mondiale-contro-discriminazioni-razziali-2023">SPAD report</a> documents reports of discrimination, and housing is found to be the second most prevalent area in which discrimination occurs. The young men in my study present a weary resignation to the continuing racism they face in the housing sector (and elsewhere).</p>
<p>Innocent*, who is now 22 and arrived in Italy as a twelve year old from Nigeria tells me he has been looking for a place to rent for months. Frequently, he is told by estate agents things such as “the owner is elderly, they don’t want any foreigners”, or “They are afraid because you are Black”.</p>
<p>Innocent goes on to tell me he is regularly stopped for no reason by the police around the station when getting the train to work. They ask him for his residence permit. I ask him how this makes him feel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Really upset, also because of the housing situation. Us Blacks, we’re nothing here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Edrisa, a young Gambian who is now 22 came to Italy when he was sixteen, reflects on the difficulties of finding a place to live once outside the reception system. Playing on the Italian name for a residence permit (<em>permesso di soggiorno</em>, meaning a permit to stay), he tells me that many migrants, including him, have “a permit to stay but no place to stay, it doesn’t make sense. It is not right”. This seemingly <a href="https://www.ilpost.it/2023/02/18/senzatetto-lavoratori-bologna/">contradictory situation</a>, of migrants who are employed, paying taxes, and have the legal right to stay, but cannot find a house, is widespread.</p>
<p>Edrisa explains that despite having regular work on construction sites, as a qualified builder, he was homeless for nearly four months, crashing with friends, sometimes even sleeping in his work van.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is really difficult for a foreigner to find a house here, actually, not all foreigners but if you are Black… Italians don’t want to rent to Black migrants. It is so difficult.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Edrisa this is due to a combination of the housing crisis and the racism he faces as a young Black man in Italy. He maintains racism is due to the stereotyping of Africans as backwards and threat, compounded by the constant negative imagery of Black and Brown bodies arriving via sea. The <a href="https://series.francoangeli.it/index.php/oa/catalog/book/791">public discourse</a> on immigration in Italy is characterized by the stigmatization of racialised migrants who are framed as inferior and threat.</p>
<h2>Beyond landlords, racism has long tainted Italy</h2>
<p>Clearly, however, it is not feasible to suggest that racism merely pertains to landlords <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354066119858388">as an individual mentality or exception from the norm</a>. Rather, we must dig deeper into the ongoing colonial legacies of racism that become visible in the act of renting. As the anthropologist Bruno Riccio observed over ten years ago, “culturalist” readings of difference have led to <a href="https://www.editions-ulb.be/en/book/?GCOI=74530100426670#h2tabtableContents">residential segregation and discrimination in the Italian housing market</a>. This “rental racism” builds upon the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51391-7_3">“fertile soil”</a> of racism rooted in Italian colonialism and fascism and is then embedded within a historically rooted racial landscape. Rent should be understood not solely as an economic transaction, but a <a href="https://radicalhousingjournal.org/2019/editorial/">social relation embedded in emplaced social, cultural, political and material conditions</a>. </p>
<p>This is starkly evident in the recent declaration by Italy’s Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Minister Francesco Lollobrigida that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65324319">Italy’s low birth rate meant Italians are facing “ethnic replacement”</a>. Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, also a member of the far-right Brothers of Italy political party, has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65324319">made similar remarks in the past</a>. According to the OHCHR’s (2019) <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IT/ItalyMissionReport.pdf">“Report of mission to Italy on racial discrimination”</a>, the worst years for racially motivated attacks were 2009 and 2018; both periods in which the public discourse was particularly anti-migrant. During the far-right Lega’s election campaign in 2017-18, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/28/italys-intelligence-agency-warns-of-rise-in-racist-attacks">racially motivated attacks in Italy tripled</a>. The leader of the Lega, Matteo Salvini, is now a Minister in the coalition government.</p>
<p>The coalition government recently introduced a new immigration law, the Cutro Decree (decreto Cutro), named after the Calabrian town close to where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/protests-as-meloni-cabinet-meets-near-scene-of-deadly-shipwreck-cutro-italy">at least 72 people died in a shipwreck in February this year</a>. The new law is controversial and has received widespread criticism from <a href="https://ecre.org/mediterranean-controversial-cutro-decree-approved-by-parliament-as-italy-sees-continued-increase-of-arrivals-death-toll-of-2023-breaks-1000-as-ngo-struggle-to-save-lives-under-dramatic/">human-rights organisations, concerned about the increased precarity and irregularity that would be created</a>. </p>
<p>Naming a law which brings in increasingly restrictive immigration practices after a shipwreck that some <a href="https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2023/02/27">rights organisations</a> argue resulted from the very same government’s harsher laws, together with wider EU policies, is deeply problematic. While the law does not directly affect the young men in my study, its effects are pervasive and increase the ongoing hostility toward racialised migrants, just like <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/ill-wind-weathering-impact-far-right-government-italy/">previous immigration legislation brought in under a far right party</a>. The divide between “us”
(white Italians) and “them” (racialised migrants) keeps on widening.</p>
<p>In Bologna, like other gentrifying global cities in the Global North, the mobility of elites stand in stark contrast to those who are racialised, unable to access the city, which increasingly risks <a href="https://www.scielo.br/j/ts/a/wv4Pj5n9HJqNv7J7R3RpyWP/">becoming a spectacle of elite privilege and tourist consumption</a>. The local council recently launched a <a href="https://www.comune.bologna.it/notizie/giornata-mondiale-contro-discriminazioni-razziali-2023">“local action plan for an anti-racist and intercultural city”</a>, and has made attempts to regulate Airbnb; <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2018.1504899">recognised as a challenging</a> feat. However, for Bologna to become a city in which more than the porticoes are ‘open’ to young racialised migrants, what is really needed is a deeper conversation on racism in Italy, particularly as manifested at the political level.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>All names are pseudonyms.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Walker ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>As student protests against high rents unfurl across Italy, one academic points out one of the groups most likely to end up on the streets under a far-right government: young black men.Sarah Walker, Visiting postdoctoral researcher and adjunct professor, Università di BolognaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2032062023-04-20T11:54:33Z2023-04-20T11:54:33ZChatGPT: lessons learned from Italy’s temporary ban of the AI chatbot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521326/original/file-20230417-1137-ybj40m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5955%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Italian data protection authority used an emergency procedure to impose the temporary ban.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-park-holding-smartphone-chatgpt-artificial-2274805377">Shutterstock / Diego Thomazini</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In March 2023, Italy became the <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/31/openais-chatgpt-chatbot-banned-in-italy-by-watchdog-over-privacy-concerns">first western country</a> to block the advanced chatbot known as ChatGPT. </p>
<p>The Italian data protection authority, <a href="https://www.garanteprivacy.it/web/garante-privacy-en">Garante</a>, cited concerns over the <a href="https://www.garanteprivacy.it/web/guest/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9870847">protection of personal data</a> when making this decision. It has given <a href="https://openai.com">OpenAI</a>, the California-based company that created <a href="https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt">ChatGPT</a>, until the end of April to comply with its demands.</p>
<p>Garante said ChatGPT collects data in a way that’s incompatible with data protection law. Another reason given was the lack of age verification by the platform, which could expose children to harmful content. As a result, it used an emergency procedure to temporarily suspend the processing of personal data by OpenAI.</p>
<p>News about the temporary ban <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/chatgpt-ban-germany-ai-privacy-b2314487.html">spread across the world</a>, <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/04/04/chatgpt-italy-ban-openai-trouble-in-europe-eu-gdpr-data-privacy/">raising concerns</a> about the consequences of decisions like this on the development of new artificial intelligence (AI) applications. </p>
<p>The move also coincided with a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65110030">call by experts</a> and business people – including OpenAI’s co-founder Elon Musk – to place limits on the development of AI-based applications until the risks could be better assessed. </p>
<p>The temporary ban could offer some important lessons about the proportionality and effectiveness of bans on developing technologies, about coordination between member states at the European level, and how to balance access to services with the need to protect children from accessing harmful content.</p>
<p>The order, issued on March 30, was signed by Pasquale Stanzione, the president of the Italian data protection authority. It followed a notification about a data breach concerning ChatGPT user data that had been reported ten days earlier.</p>
<h2>Data processing</h2>
<p>Garante briefly justified its measures by underlining the lack of information available to users, and data subjects, about the data processed by OpenAI. It also cited the large-scale processing of personal data to train generative systems such as ChatGPT. </p>
<p>OpenAI’s terms state that ChatGPT is provided only to users aged over 13. However, this did not satisfy Italy’s data protection authority, which was concerned about the lack of age verification.</p>
<p>The reaction by OpenAI was, first, to block access to ChatGPT in Italy and, second, to demonstrate its availability to collaborate with Garante on complying with the temporary order. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Representation of data privacy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521652/original/file-20230418-28-hejoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In its decision, Garante cited the large-scale processing of personal data to train generative systems such as ChatGPT.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-use-laptop-interface-padlock-global-791823313">Shutterstock / Laymanzoom</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compliance would involve OpenAI implementing safeguards including the provision of a privacy policy, offering users the possibility of exercising individual rights over data protection, and providing information about the company’s legal basis for processing personal data. </p>
<p>Garante welcomed these commitments. It suspended the temporary order and requested that OpenAI implement these safeguards <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/chatgpt-italy-lift-ban-garante-privacy-gdpr-openai/">by the end of April 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>Harmonised framework</h2>
<p>However, the case highlights at least three key lessons – namely, the lack of European coordination in regulating this technology, the effectiveness and proportionality of this measure, and the protection of children. </p>
<p>First, more European coordination is needed around the general issue of AI technology. The <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52021PC0206">EU’s proposed AI Act</a> is only one step towards a harmonised framework for ensuring the development of AI technologies that are aligned with European values. And as Italy’s ban has shown, the EU regulatory model can potentially become fragmented if national authorities go in their own directions.</p>
<p>In particular, the connection between AI and data protection empowers national authorities to react to the development of new AI technology. It also underlines the need for more coordination between European member states on regulation of all kinds. </p>
<h2>Planning, not banning</h2>
<p>Second, the measures adopted by the Italian data protection authority raise questions both about effectiveness and proportionality.</p>
<p>Regarding effectiveness, it’s worth noting that there were reports of a 400% <a href="https://www.techradar.com/news/vpn-downloads-skyrocket-following-italy-chatgpt-ban">surge in VPN downloads</a> in Italy, potentially enabling users to get round the ban, following news of its introduction.</p>
<p>On the question of proportionality, a general ban does not seem to strike a balance between the conflicting constitutional interests at stake. The temporary measure does not mention how it takes into account the protection of other interests, such as the freedom of users to access ChatGPT.</p>
<p>Even though the ban is temporary, the situation might have benefited from the involvement at an earlier stage by other board members of the Italian data protection authority. A preliminary exchange with OpenAI could have avoided a ban altogether. This course of action could have anticipated the implementation of further safeguards to comply with data protection.</p>
<h2>The best ways to protect children</h2>
<p>Finally, the decision raises questions about the best ways to protect children from any harmful content created by these applications. Introducing an age verification system or alerts regarding harmful content could have been topics for discussion, had the parties been engaged in an ongoing dialogue.</p>
<p>This case offers an example of how general bans imposed on new technological applications are usually the result of quick reactions that do not involve a deep assessment of the effectiveness and proportionality of the measure. </p>
<p>Even if one argues that the decision tends towards protecting fundamental rights, primarily in data protection and safeguards for children, it leads to more uncertainty. </p>
<p>A preventative and collaborative approach with OpenAI would have minimised the risk of this service being blocked in Italy. Continued discussion between OpenAI and Italy’s authorities is critical.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oreste Pollicino acted as an Independent Honest Broker for the drafting of the new European Union code against disinformation online.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giovanni De Gregorio is PLMJ Chair in Law and Technology at Católica Global School of Law, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Lisbon.</span></em></p>The blocking of ChatGPT in Italy raises some important questions, including how to balance access to services with the need to protect childrenOreste Pollicino, Professor of Constitutional Law, Bocconi UniversityGiovanni De Gregorio, PLMJ chair in law and technology at Católica Global School of Law and Católica Lisbon School of Law and academic fellow, Bocconi UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040592023-04-19T16:44:39Z2023-04-19T16:44:39Z‘Esterno Notte’: Marco Bellochio’s series grapples with ghost of assassinated Italian prime minister Aldo Moro<p>Central Rome, 9 May 1978. A crowd of curious passersby spills out by an open car boot. There lies the bullet-riddled body of Aldo Moro, Italy’s Prime Minister, parked mid-way between the party headquarters of the Christian Democrats and those of the Communist Party. The scene concludes 55 days of kidnap and sequestration by the Marxist revolutionaries of the Red Brigades.</p>
<p>One of the darkest chapters in Italian history, the Aldo Moro affair continues to be revisited and written up to this day. Acclaimed film director Marco Bellocchio is the latest to add his take. In his mini-series <a href="https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-023478/esterno-notte/"><em>Esterno Notte</em></a> (“Exterior Night”), which was broadcast on French-German channel Arte throughout March, Bellochio walks us through the tortuous and often little-known history of Italian terrorism.</p>
<p>Bellocchio gives the floor to the tragedy’s protagonists: from the members of the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-outre-terre2-2014-4-page-433.htm">Red Brigades</a> to Aldo Moro himself, without forgetting his family and the representatives of the political class of the time. The assassination remains a national trauma closely linked to the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2003-3-page-196.html">“Years of Lead”</a> in Italy, which spanned the late 1960s to the early 1980s. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5G_AzeuyRbU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Against the backdrop of the Cold War, the period saw a steady rise in political, economic and social tensions, ultimately culminating in a spate of terrorist attacks from the far left and right. Then the head of the Christian Democracy party, Aldo Moro sought to rally the nation around a government of “historical compromise” that would have brought in the general secretary of the Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer. But the Red Brigades had other ideas, viewing the proposal as a sell-out from the communists.</p>
<p>From terrorist communiqués to official statements and letters written by Moro during his captivity, <em>Esterno Notte</em> exposes a tale of vengeful escalation in merciless detail. Each side intends to fight its corner at all costs, without compromise. The Red Brigades, a far-left terrorist organisation founded in the early 1970s that took up <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-outre-terre2-2014-4-page-433.htm">“armed propaganda”</a> in the name of the workers’ movement, are strengthened hour by hour in their vengeful resolve, just as the Italian authorities are strengthened in their resolve to annihilate them.</p>
<h2>The ruthless escalation of terrorist vengeance</h2>
<p>Was there ever any chance Moro could have escaped the “people’s prison”? Could he have exited the parallel proletarian justice system in which the Red Brigades “tried” him, as Bellocchio suggests when he brings him back to life in the introduction to his work? And, had the Italian government accepted their terms, could the Red Brigades have compromised by releasing him?</p>
<p>The argument that the Italian government could have negotiated with the Red Brigades is often put forward in certain academic literature, media and <a href="https://books.openedition.org/pur/49607">artistic intepretations</a>, and here reclaimed by <em>Esterno Notte</em>. However, this omits how tenacious the Red Brigades were in seeking revenge, and how an unfavourable historical and socio-political environment could corner all parties into the impasse of violence.</p>
<p>Often performative when it comes to revenge, discourse is central to this series, both in terms of the action it inspires and the events it reports. The first communiqué of the Red Brigades, which immediately follows <a href="https://perspective.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/servlet/BMEve/411">Moro’s kidnapping</a> on 16 March 1978, leaves no doubt as to the abductors’ bloody intentions. The talk is one of “annihilation”, posited by radical activists as the answer to a “bourgeois and imperialist counter-revolution” and to the “bloody policies” of which Moro would be the “political godfather and the most faithful executor”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aldo Moro looks wearily into the camera during his detention by the Red Brigades.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Aldo_Moro_br.jpg">Creative Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A state dragged into the mud of retribution</h2>
<p>Another problem that <em>Esterno Notte</em> tackles head-on is the reaction of the authorities to this ruthless progression of revenge in the terrorist camp, even though we know <em>a posteriori</em> at <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00322.x">what price this revenge will come</a> for the Red Brigades. Why did the state apparatus refuse to negotiate with Moro’s kidnappers, when he expressly asked the government to release him and when the political elites were divided over the best course of action? The line that eventually emerged was that any mediation with the Red Brigades would be tantamount to complicity with the terrorists’ negotiation strategy and thus legitimise their violence, in a sensitive context marked by the death of many policemen since Italy launched its “war on terror”.</p>
<p>Writing in <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315088914-2/prelude-long-preparation-dying-life-aldo-moro-1916%E2%80%931978-1-david-moss">the <em>Corriere della Sera</em></a>, the writer and columnist Indro Montanelli argued that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If the Italian State had yielded to blackmail and negotiated with the violent forces that had already caused the death of five of Moro’s bodyguards, then the State, as a State, would no longer have any reason to exist.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, power had no alternative but to freeze into a stance of counter-retribution.</p>
<p>Consumed by their revenge, the Red Brigades systematically rejected any genuine discussion with the authorities, opting instead to send the government a succession of murderous messages. Thus, no exchange of prisoners took place, while all the political parties ended up rallying behind the certainty that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26299800">no democratic state in the world could bargain with terrorism</a>.</p>
<h2>Terrorism’s unforgivable crimes</h2>
<p>Last but not least, what can we learn from <em>Esterno Notte</em> about the eminently complex relationship between terrorism and forgiveness, especially in relation to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1292116">the possibility, or not, of forgiving terrorists</a>? Is forgiveness even conceivable as a response to terrorism, a supreme crime in the eyes of all societies? Symptomatically, when it comes to terrorist acts, forgiveness is often absent and unattainable. While Moro evokes in one of his letters the forthcoming “moment of massacre” and implores the authorities to intervene, he also appears to have already relinquished the possibility by announcing that he will not forgive anyone and that no political party or government member will be able to attend his funeral.</p>
<p>If the character of Aldo Moro and his letters have inspired a great deal of interpretations since, it is important to question the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2023/03/14/esterno-notte-sur-arte-la-passion-d-aldo-moro-selon-marco-bellocchio_6165472_3246.html">quasi-“Christology”</a> that Bellochio’s <em>Esterno Notte</em> dubs its subject with from the beginning. It is true that the victims of terrorism can sometimes forgive. But in this case, and contrary to the imaginary resurrection of Moro and the <a href="https://www.la-croix.com/Debats/Ce-jour-la/9-mai-1978-Aldo-Moro-proche-Paul-VI-assassine-Brigades-rouges-2018-05-09-1200937656">sacrificial, if not martyrological picture</a> developed here, which tends to suggest a form of forgiveness on the part of the former leader, let us emphasise, once again, that he never forgave anything, either to his executioners, or to the authorities after they renounced saving him. This is probably the ultimate revenge that Moro could individually achieve.</p>
<p>In the end, Italian society has yet to assimilate this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/09/italy.worlddispatch">exceptionally brutal episode</a>. Moro’s assassination remains an indelible stain on local culture, marring not only political and media narratives, but also the very process of remembrance of terrorism. As the researcher Nicolas Demertzis points out in an <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-146">evocative contribution</a>, exorcising the shock of violence means forgiving its use in order to reconcile with the past. On the one hand, the Italian <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/mots/12032">“Years of Lead”</a> remain subject to controversy and are frequently instrumentalised by competing parties. On the other, the cycle of terrorist revenge and state counter-retribution tends to culminate, by nature, in the radical refusal of forgiveness. According to <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-146">Demertzis</a>, this ultimately amounts to “[defending][the integral subjectivity of the victim” and “[ethically protesting] against the unjustifiable evils and wrongs” inflicted by terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Myriam Benraad ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Marco Bellochio’s series is the latest interpretation of a murder that continues to haunt Italy.Myriam Benraad, Responsable du Département International Relations and Diplomacy, Schiller International University - Enseignante en relations internationales, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023122023-04-04T11:27:48Z2023-04-04T11:27:48ZItalian government wants to stop businesses using English – here’s why it’s the lingua franca of firms around the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519054/original/file-20230403-28-1mvwey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=151%2C103%2C6149%2C2682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teamwork-togetherness-unity-variation-support-concept-359246093">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Italian government has <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/04/03/ciao-hello-no-italys-right-wing-government-wants-to-ban-english-words-with-100000-fines">proposed new legislation</a> to crack down on the use of foreign languages in government, business and public life. The <a href="http://documenti.camera.it/leg19/pdl/pdf/leg.19.pdl.camera.734.19PDL0017640.pdf">draft bill</a> is particularly aimed at the use of English, which it says “demeans and mortifies” the Italian language. The proposed legislation would require employment contracts and internal regulations of overseas businesses operating in Italy to be in Italian. </p>
<p>Obeying such a policy would be difficult for many firms. France introduced a similar law in 1994, which has long been seen as unenforceable. Despite being in legislation for nearly 30 years, almost all multinational companies operating in France are thought to be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14664208.2014.858658">in breach of the law</a>.</p>
<p>English is indisputably the dominant language of international business and trade. Globally, more than half of all multinational companies <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175379/the-language-of-global-success">use English in their international operations</a>. Companies as far apart as <a href="https://rakuten.today/blog/englishnization-embracing-global-vision.html">Japan’s Rakuten</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170317-the-international-companies-using-only-english">France’s Sodexo</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2005.00510.x">Finland’s Nordea</a> and <a href="https://www.learnship.com/en/case-studies/cemex_x_learnship/">Mexico’s Cemex</a> have designated English as a <a href="https://hbr.org/2012/05/global-business-speaks-english">“common corporate language”</a>. This is a language chosen by the organisation to be the main vehicle for internal communications. </p>
<p>It’s estimated that approximately <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/#:%7E:text=In%202022%2C%20there%20were%20around,at%20the%20time%20of%20survey.">1.5 billion people globally speak English</a>, so its dominance in international business is not going away. </p>
<p>How did it come to be this way? One clue can be found in Oxfam’s recently published <a href="https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/inclusive-language-guide-621487/">inclusive language guide</a>. The charity has attracted attention for describing English as “the language of a colonising nation”. The guide notes that “the dominance of English is one of the key issues that must be addressed in order to decolonise our ways of working”.</p>
<p>It is impossible to deny that the reason that English has its current status is because of historical expressions of power. The colonial expansion of the British empire between the late 16th and early 20th century led to English being spoken widely across the globe. This was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance">often at the expense of local languages</a> which are now endangered or wiped out as a result of the imposition of English.</p>
<p>The cultural and economic dominance of the US since the second world war has led to the further proliferation of English. This is particularly true among younger generations who learn English in order to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/26/icelandic-language-battles-threat-of-digital-extinction">consume popular culture</a>. Additionally, global interest in business school education has meant that generations of managers have been taught the latest in business ideas and concepts. Often, these originate from the US – and are in English. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-english-language-is-the-worlds-achilles-heel-93817">The English language is the world's Achilles heel</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Companies who use English as their corporate language <a href="https://global.rakuten.com/corp/innovation/tag/30-109/">often portray it</a> as a common sense and neutral solution to linguistic diversity in business. In reality, it is anything but. </p>
<p>The concept of Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) suggests the English used in organisations can be separated from native speakers and the grammatical rules that they impose on it. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490605000086?casa_token=O1AKSORz60wAAAAA:pEFVCzwHD2O2M7oyrUO_8NTw904aQVLD2X7iqscMNymi3h9x8e6BWBhRNajd504gkqbgBX1hvOkQ">It emerged in the early 2000s</a>, as management researchers began to investigate how organisations manage language diversity in their international operations. They discovered that although English was frequently used, it was not the same English that is spoken by native speakers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Photo of a young woman against a grey background with an illustration of a stream of alphabet letters coming out of her mouth" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519056/original/file-20230403-166-5i7wr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Companies all over the world use English as their main language.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-talking-alphabet-letters-coming-out-297003296">Pathdoc/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The former CEO of Volvo, a Swedish company, once remarked that the language of his company was <a href="https://youtu.be/FTrA_tMTPO4?t=880">“bad English”</a>. BELF encourages us to think that there is no such thing. If communication takes place successfully, and the message that you wish to transmit is understood, then you have used BELF correctly, regardless of any idiosyncrasies in grammar or spelling.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?k=9781800415935">My own research</a> has shown that although BELF can be used effectively in international environments, when native speakers of English are involved in the communication, they claim authority over how the language should be used. This can exclude those whose use of English does not meet expectations.</p>
<h2>Why English?</h2>
<p>Clearly, organisations need to have some form of shared language to be able to effectively communicate to manage their operations. However, research suggests that there are particular benefits associated with using English, rather than something else, as a common corporate language. </p>
<p>For example, studies have shown that employees find it <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021943610377303">enriching to use English at work</a>. Due to its grammatical structure, which doesn’t distinguish between formal and informal “you” as in many other languages, employees feel that using English can reduce hierarchies and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951616301730">create more egalitarian workplaces</a>. </p>
<p>English undoubtedly has great practical utility – but rather than understanding it as something neutral, it is important to understand the mechanisms of power and subjugation through which English arrived at its current status. Without reflection, it can easily be used as a tool to exclude, and continues to reproduce colonial mindsets about status and hierarchies. Its ongoing use, however practical, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-downside-of-englishs-dominance-11637989261">continues that domination</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Victoria Wilmot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>English is spoken by over a billion people around the world, often at the expense of local languages.Natalie Victoria Wilmot, Associate Professor in International Business, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997562023-03-21T12:43:31Z2023-03-21T12:43:31ZIn a Roman villa at the center of a nasty inheritance dispute, a Caravaggio masterpiece is hidden from the public<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515929/original/file-20230316-466-6e6j4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C61%2C4475%2C3044&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Villa Aurora in Rome, which houses works by Caravaggio and Guercino, is up for sale. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photograph-taken-on-january-21-shows-the-casino-news-photo/1237878844?phrase=villa aurora rome&adppopup=true">Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://umass.academia.edu/MonikaSchmitter">I teach Italian Renaissance and Baroque art</a>, so when I was visiting Rome in January 2023, how could I not try to see a notorious villa that was up for sale and involved in a nasty inheritance dispute? </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.minorsights.com/2016/08/italy-villa-aurora-ludovisi.html">Villa Aurora</a>, named for the masterful fresco by <a href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1364.html">the 17th-century artist Guercino</a> that adorns the ground-floor salon, also happens to house a rare ceiling painting by <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/michelangelo-merisi-da-caravaggio">Caravaggio</a>, the 17th-century “rebel artist,” whose name makes the art market salivate. </p>
<p>I wanted to see the Caravaggio, and not just because its <a href="https://www.aboutartonline.com/la-vendita-di-villa-ludovisi-dubbi-sulla-metodologia-applicata-per-la-stima-i-precedenti-e-il-caso-degli-affreschi-di-tiepolo-a-palazzo-barbarigo/">assessed value of US$331 million</a> drove up the estimated price for the villa, apparently scaring off buyers. </p>
<p>Perhaps because of the difficulty in reproducing the work or even viewing it, the Caravaggio has received remarkably little attention from art historians. The villa, which has gone through <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/14/us-born-princess-vows-to-stay-in-rome-villa-despite-eviction-order-caravaggio-ceiling-fresco">five failed auctions</a> – the first one asking a cool $502 million – needs maintenance, and Italian law dictates that the Caravaggio and other art cannot be removed.</p>
<p>It is not easy to see privately held art, and given the ongoing controversy, I figured my chances were especially slim. But I duly wrote to the email address I found online. </p>
<p>A week later I got a response, and after some back and forth, on the day before I was to leave Rome, I was invited to come to the villa at 6 p.m. sharp. </p>
<p>A woman named Olga met me at the door: “The principessa will be with you in a moment,” she said.</p>
<h2>More than one masterpiece</h2>
<p>The current inhabitant of the villa is an American-born princess named <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/the-renovation-rita-jenrette-princess-italy">Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi</a>. </p>
<p>A former Texas GOP opposition researcher, she was once married to a congressman caught in <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/abscam">the Abscam scandal</a> and posed for Playboy twice in the 1980s. Her second husband, <a href="https://villaludovisi.org/2018/03/25/in-memoriam-hsh-prince-nicolo-boncompagni-ludovisi-rome-21-january-1941-rome-8-march-2018/">Nicolò Boncampagni</a> Ludovisi, was Prince of Piombino. He owned the villa and promised her <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/usufruct">usufructuary rights</a>, meaning she should be allowed to occupy the villa until her death. </p>
<p>But the prince’s three sons from his first marriage are forcing the sale because, <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/01/18/when-is-a-caravaggio-worth-zero-when-its-on-a-ceiling-and-you-may-not-remove-it-for-sale">according to Italian law</a>, inheritances must be divided between the surviving spouse and any descendants.</p>
<p>It’s a media story to die for: old-world aristocrats face off against a supposed bimbo and gold digger from Texas – with a Caravaggio thrown in for good measure. </p>
<p>The villa was historically known as the Casino Ludovisi, but it became famous among art historians for its ceiling painting by <a href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1364.html">Guercino</a>.</p>
<p>In a tour de force of illusion, the ceiling is painted to look as through the architecture opens up to the sky with the goddess <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eos-Greek-and-Roman-mythology">Aurora</a>, or Dawn, driving her chariot across the space above.</p>
<p>The Caravaggio, by contrast, barely registers in the voluminous scholarship on the artist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Image of a ceiling fresco." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516078/original/file-20230317-2393-ue4l9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guercino’s ‘Aurora on Her Triumphal Chariot’ at Villa Aurora.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photograph-taken-on-january-21-shows-the-ceiling-news-photo/1237880015?adppopup=true">Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Meeting the principessa</h2>
<p>I looked down in dismay at my sneakers, my corduroy pants, and my purple Eddie Bauer jacket that has seen better days: I hadn’t anticipated meeting the principessa herself. </p>
<p>Olga guided me into a second room and introduced me to the principessa. She is most definitely American – tall, blond and looking much younger than her age of 73. </p>
<p>After talking extensively about the villa and its works of art, Rita, as she calls herself, introduced me to a dapper Italian man from the Ministry of Culture, whom, she explained, could hopefully stop <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/01/14/princess-rita-jenrette-faces-eviction-from-rome-villa/">her imminent eviction</a> from her home. She then showed me the magnificent painting by Guercino.</p>
<p>Then a journalist from the Italian newspaper La Stampa appeared, and the principessa was whisked away for an interview. She told me, in parting, “Olga will show you the Caravaggio.”</p>
<h2>Encountering the Caravaggio</h2>
<p>Olga led me up a spiral stairway to the second floor: “Here is the other Guercino,” she said. I looked up to see <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guercino_-_Ceiling_painting,_Casino_dell%27Aurora,_11aurora.jpg">a second illusionistic fresco</a>, the same size as the one on the ground floor, this one depicting the figure of Fame flying through the sky.</p>
<p>I hadn’t known this one even existed.</p>
<p>Then Olga turned on the lights in what looked like a small hallway, its walls painted a bright, hospital white. I looked up to see Caravaggio’s painting, which depicts muscular nude men surrounding a translucent white globe.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ceiling painting of muscular men and mythological creatures surrounding an orb." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515928/original/file-20230316-1658-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since it’s located in a private residence, Caravaggio’s painting at the Villa Aurora has been difficult for the public to view.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photograph-taken-on-january-21-shows-jupiter-neptune-news-photo/1237878868?phrase=villa%20aurora%20rome&adppopup=true">Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The detail is intense, the colors bright and sharp in a way that is exceptional for a ceiling painting. </p>
<p>Caravaggio managed to make the three-headed dog <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cerberus">Cerberus</a> look as though it really existed – bringing to life the creature’s soft black and white fur, the red of its eyes, the pink ribbing of one upper mouth and the white glint of its teeth. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Painting detail of a three-headed dog." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515916/original/file-20230316-19-qc1ez4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A detail from Caravaggio’s ceiling painting depicts Cerberus, a mythical three-headed dog.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italy-lazio-rome-villa-boncompagni-ludovisi-detail-three-news-photo/132705020?phrase=caravaggio%20villa%20ludovisi&adppopup=true">Mondadori Portfolio/Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I later learned that the picture had not been painted <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/fresco-painting">in the traditional fresco technique</a>, on wet plaster, but with the unusual application of oil on dry plaster, allowing Caravaggio to execute the precision, color, detail and texture.</p>
<p>Although some art historians have <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=HXc2MNp7ffIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=onepage&q&f=false">questioned the attribution</a>, there is no doubt in my mind that this is Caravaggio. Only he would – even could – paint such a seemingly plausible Cerberus. </p>
<p>The composition works only in its original location, since the scale, height and curvature of the ceiling transform the work. The painting purports to show a rectangular opening in the ceiling through which viewers can see the sky and clouds. In the center, within a white globe depicting the universe, one sees the Sun, Moon and signs of the horoscope. </p>
<p>On each side of the globe are the nude, burly, he-men: on one side, Jupiter, awkwardly flying through the sky on an eagle, pushes the sphere; on the other, Jupiter’s brothers, Pluto and Neptune, stand as if at the edge of the opening in the ceiling, looking down.</p>
<h2>Suffused with impish subtext</h2>
<p>Given its lack of scholarly attention, the Caravaggio is much more compelling than I expected. </p>
<p>One 17th-century biographer, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095457632;jsessionid=F7F4BCEDD2540BB7CF63AFD4296936AA">Pietro Bellori</a>, claimed that Caravaggio <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Giovan_Pietro_Bellori_The_Lives_of_the_M/Lm9gs8mXwOUC?hl=en">painted the work to silence critics</a> who alleged that he lacked the technical skill to pull off the tricks in perspective required for ceiling art.</p>
<p>But I think Caravaggio was up to something more complicated. His aim was not so much to prove he could paint with foreshortened figures and receding architecture, but rather to make fun of the fad for illusionistic ceiling paintings that render scenes “as if seen from below” – “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/sotto-in-su">di sotto in su</a>,” as it is termed in art history.</p>
<p>Running with the concept of “di sotto in su,” Caravaggio cheekily gives onlookers a graphic view from below Pluto’s penis and testicles, not to mention a novel perspective on his buttocks. </p>
<p>Caravaggio didn’t stop there. </p>
<p>Jupiter’s pose is almost incomprehensible, his face concealed, his limbs flailing in different directions – very undignified, particularly for an oversize Olympian god. It’s an NFL linebacker riding an overmatched eagle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Muscular man riding an eagle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515918/original/file-20230316-386-o65sgt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jupiter riding an eagle in a detail of Caravaggio’s painting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italy-lazio-rome-villa-boncompagni-ludovisi-whole-artwork-news-photo/132705019?phrase=caravaggio%20villa%20ludovisi&adppopup=true">Mondadori Portfolio/Hudson Fine Art Collection via Getty Images.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From between Jupiter’s legs emerges the very phallic long neck and beak of the eagle with his bright, dark eye glaring down at the mortals below. (In Italian, “bird” <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/italian-english/uccello">is slang for penis</a>.) </p>
<p>Pluto and Neptune also have their pets, which are themselves rivals: Pluto’s snarling dog frightens Neptune’s seahorse. Neptune, who is Caravaggio’s self-portrait, in turn looks threateningly at Pluto. And then there is the juxtaposition of Cerberus’ bared teeth and Pluto’s very exposed “equipment.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two muscular nude men, a horse and a three-headed dog." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516080/original/file-20230317-20-skboj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A detail of Pluto and Neptune in Caravaggio’s painting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photograph-taken-on-january-21-shows-jupiter-neptune-news-photo/1237879028?adppopup=true">Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I consider the patronage of the painting, it all makes sense. </p>
<p>Caravaggio painted the ceiling in 1599 or 1600 when the villa was owned by his first important patron, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caravaggio/The-patronage-of-Cardinal-del-Monte">Cardinal Francesco del Monte</a>.</p>
<p>Caravaggio lived in del Monte’s palace in town, and there is evidence to suggest that <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bersani-caravaggio.html">they both enjoyed the company of young men</a>, and they <a href="http://www.glbtqarchive.com/arts/caravaggio_A.pdf">may even have been lovers</a>.</p>
<p>While it is difficult to confirm the men’s sexual preferences, there is no question that the ceiling is a product of their shared sensibility: locker room art for sophisticated, 17th-century cultural “jocks.”</p>
<p>The room was Del Monte’s “<a href="http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-4/essays/a-room-of-ones-own-the-studiolo/">studiolo</a>,” a type of small room usually used by members of the wealthy elite to get away from it all and “study” (whatever that might entail). </p>
<p>The ceiling was to be shared by a bon vivant, learned cardinal with a select audience of like-minded men. Caravaggio never painted another ceiling because tricks of perspective were fundamentally incompatible with <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02717-7.html">his realist inclinations</a>, but perhaps he did this one for his friend and patron as a kind of joke.</p>
<h2>Now what?</h2>
<p>I left the Villa Aurora that night with a new perspective on 17th-century art and full of thoughts about the role these works of art, created for members of an extraordinarily privileged elite of the past, play in our modern democratic society. </p>
<p>The same day as my visit, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/14/us-born-princess-vows-to-stay-in-rome-villa-despite-eviction-order-caravaggio-ceiling-fresco">the judge in the inheritance dispute ruled</a> that the principessa would be evicted from the villa to facilitate its sale. I suspect this is devastating for her, given how much effort she has put into <a href="https://villaludovisi.org/">preserving her husband’s legacy</a>.</p>
<p>But I also wonder what will happen to this villa and its unique collection of 16th- and 17th-century ceiling paintings. </p>
<p>I think it would be a travesty for them to remain in private hands, because everyone, including my students, should be able to see these works. Art historians know about the tensions between private property and cultural heritage, but this is a real opportunity for the new Italian Minister of Culture, <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gennaro-sangiuliano-italy-culture-minister-2200501">Gennaro Sangiuliano</a>, to set an example, as his predecessors have done with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/arts/venice-grimani-collection-sculpture.html">Palazzo Grimani at Santa Formosa in Venice</a>.</p>
<p>Once the residence of a wealthy and powerful noble family, Palazzo Grimani fell into disrepair until it was purchased in 1981 by the state. After many years of renovation, it opened as a public museum in 2008. </p>
<p>The frescoes in the Palazzo Grimani are not nearly as artistically significant as those in the Villa Aurora, but the museum today is one of the most interesting monuments in Venice.</p>
<p>I believe the Villa Aurora, restored and open to everyone as a museum of Renaissance and Baroque ceiling painting, could do the same for Rome.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monika Schmitter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What will happen to this villa and its unique collection of 16th- and 17th-century ceiling paintings?Monika Schmitter, Professor and Chair of History of Art and Architecture, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.