145. Scenes of Italy

One of the beauty parts of travel is that it stays with you, even long after you return home. The sights, the sounds, the smells — the adventures, the triumphs, the unexpected — are all to be savored in the months and years that follow. Even the catastrophes (one hopes) are not too catastrophic, and can be fashioned into a funny story when the pain, fear, embarrassment and hassle have faded. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed:

Alleyways: I love the narrow lanes and alleys, that can reveal a treasure, if you only think to look.

Tools of the Trade: It’s often said that some native Alaskan dialects have more that fifty words for snow, because it is so much a part of the experienced world that it is perceived and appreciated in all its minute variations. This can surely be said for the multiple forms of pasta in Italy: while the average American could probably name five or six varieties often used interchangeably, it is estimated that there are at least 350 varieties throughout Italy, each used with particular sauces in particular circumstances. I was charmed to see that this particularity extended to the pasta rolling pins — mattarelli — at the pasta factory we visited in Bologna. I wondered if a different tool was used for different pasta varieties, or whether each employee had her favorite. My cousin Joan tells me she remembers our grandmother rolling out pasta dough with hers.

Venetian Poles: Speaking of poles, I was charmed by the brightly colored poles seen along the Grand Canal in Venice. I learned that they are distinct markers of the palaces they stand in front of. In 1562, disturbed by the competition among the aristocracy to have the most sumptuous and ornate family gondola, it was decreed that all gondolas must be black, a practice that continues to this day. The rich families took that in stride, and transferred their conspicuous consumption to the hitching posts in front of their palazzi.

At church: It will come as no surprise that Italy is majority Roman Catholic, what with Rome in the Church’s official name and the location of its HQ. Various demographic accountings put the percentage who are “born Catholic” between 75 and 80. Yet in keeping with the rest of Western Europe, only a third of Italians report being observant, with those more likely to be female, older and in the South.

Yet, for all its lack of daily practice, Catholicism is in the air here: streets and civic plazas are frequently named for saints and popes, and you can’t go far without running into a church. A main square in Ferrara is dominated by a statue of native son Savonarola, a 15th-century friar who campaigned again clerical and social excesses of the Renaissance. The phrase bonfire of the vanities refers to his Shrove Tuesday 1497 collection and burning of thousands of objects of beauty and pleasure, including paintings, books, cosmetics, musical instruments, playing cards, fine clothing and mirrors. He himself was burned by the Church hierarchy a year later, after being excommunicated and hung on a cross, but that doesn’t stop him from having pride of place in the town square.

Nonetheless, I imagine that religious practice increases when the big life events roll around — baptism, First Communion, weddings and funerals — three of which involve elaborate white dresses, of which Savonarola would not approve.