Authors From Italy

"What is populism? In politics, it is the tendency of a person to appeal directly to an undefined ‘people’, whom they consider to be the bearers of positive values, in contrast to an undefined ‘elite’ (which we might call ‘the caste’, ‘the powers that be’, ‘the left’, sometimes ‘the right’, often ‘the politicians’, etc.), who are the bearers of negative values. From the populist's point of view, the people are obviously those who agree with their ideas, who applaud them and do not question them. Outside the people, and motivated by pernicious intentions, are those who do not follow the leader's ideas, or who in some way oppose or distort them, or simply doubt them."

"With Ballarò, I learned that there will always be someone who will describe what you do in a negative way. They say that video goes to your head. For me, it was a humbling experience."

"The web was born as an attempt to open up the world and everyone's minds, but it has been reduced to a world where each of us seeks confirmation of what we already think."

"Why do I look pissed off? – begins the young manager, glaring at his audience as he paces up and down the stage at the company convention – I look pissed off because I sense mistrust, I sense expectation, I sense those critical looks you get when you watch a football match and you can't believe what's happening... everyone's an expert, why?"

"When a colleague mentioned the phenomenon of early graduates during a dinner, we all thought he was referring to young prodigies who had managed to finish their studies in record time. In reality, early graduates are not prodigies, but rather individuals who, thanks to agreements stipulated by the institutions where they work or the professional associations to which they belong, were able to enrol directly in the second or third year of their degree programme. (p. 187)"

"On the sixth day, God, with a single command, produced all the species of land animals, wild and domestic, and commanded them to multiply; and so they have done, do, and will do until the end of the world. And although no one cares to preserve certain kinds of animals, such as wolves, snakes, foxes, and the like, and everyone strives to kill them and banish them from the earth, nevertheless they are always found in great abundance, and will always be found, because it is necessary that they obey the command of the almighty Creator. Finally, on the sixth day, God, wishing to summarise all his works, made man, in whom he placed the qualities of all the elements: the life of plants, the feelings of animals, and the intellect and free will of the angels."

"I say that, as you know, the Council forbids exposing the Scriptures contrary to the common consent of the Holy Fathers; and if Your Excellency wishes to read not only the Holy Fathers, but also the modern commentaries on Genesis, on the Psalms, on Ecclesiastes, on Joshua, you will find that they all agree in expounding ad literam that the sun is in the sky and revolves around the earth with great speed, and that the earth is very far from the sky and stands in the centre of the world, immobile. Consider now, with your prudence, whether the Church can tolerate that the Scriptures be given a meaning contrary to the Holy Fathers and to all Greek and Latin exegetes. Nor can it be answered that this is not a matter of faith, because if it is not a matter of faith ex parte obiecti, it is a matter of faith ex parte dicentis; and thus it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two sons and Jacob twelve, just as it would be heretical to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and apostles."

"N. was born in the year of our Lord 1542, on 4 October. He had pious parents, especially his mother, whose name was Cinzia, sister of Pope Marcellus II."

"(While he was Archbishop of Capua) Since it was customary for canons and parish priests to send the Archbishop rather ostentatious gifts during the Christmas season, he eradicated this custom, prohibiting it both because it was a burden on the canons and parish priests and because the rich could give, with greater merit, to the poor the gifts they would have offered to the Archbishop, who had no need of them. He often meditated on and inculcated in others the saying of Isaiah: ‘Blessed is he who has fulfilled his duty.’ (p. 69)"

"In the second conclave [8-16 May 1605. See Autobiography, note p. 72], he was very close to being elected Pope. And when a cardinal of great authority and seriousness promised him his influence [to get him elected], he urged him to desist without thanking him. He declared that, for his part, he would not pick up even a straw from the ground to be elected Pope. He bore no ill will towards those who opposed his election; indeed, he was not at all troubled by it. He said, in fact, that the papacy could be described as a ‘most dangerous job’ or a ‘most exhausting danger’. (p. 72)"

"At the Roman Court good Fortune generally prevails, and there is but seldom room for talent or honesty; every thing is obtained through intrigue or luck, not to mention money, which seems to hold supreme sway all over the world."

"Every man waits his destined hour; even the cities are doomed to their fate. Let us spend our leisure with our books, which will take our minds off these troubles, and will teach us to despise what many people desire."

"I think I should not omit to mention the place where most of the above tales were related, I might almost say, acted. That place is our Bugiale, a sort of laboratory for fibs."

"We are terrified of future catastrophes and are thrown into a continuous state of misery and anxiety, and for fear of becoming miserable, we never cease to be so, always panting for riches and never giving our souls or our bodies a moment’s peace. But those who are content with little live day by day and treat any day like a feast day."

"I do not think of the priesthood as liberty, as many do, but as the most severe and oppressive form of service."

"I am determined not to assume the sacerdotal office; for I have seen many men whom I have regarded as persons of good character and liberal dispositions, degenerate into avarice, sloth, and dissipation, in consequence of their introduction into the priesthood. — Fearing lest this should be the case with myself, I have resolved to spend the remaining term of my pilgrimage as a layman; for I have too frequently observed, that your brethren, at the time of their tonsure, not only part with their hair, but also with their conscience and their virtue."

"Ci sono delle donne, ma la donna non c'è."

"(on the Plato's andrgyn myth reported in the Symposium) Early humans belonged to three genders: the male, the female and the androgynous, provided with both reproductive organs. But the men angered the gods, and Jupiter decided to punish them by slicing them in two. Since then the androgyne has been wandering in search of his opposite-sex half. And the same thing is done - much to the monsignor's chagrin - by the halved male and female, who find peace only in reuniting with the missing half that is identical to them. The divine energy that moves the dance of all these halves is called love and is the same for everyone, straight and homosexual. Thus, perversions are not daughters of Jupiter's axe, but of the obsessive thoughts of certain men, mostly male and mostly bigoted."

"Et sumpto baculo, alterum illi dedi, inquiens, volo nunc pugnemus, uter nostrum femoralia ferre debet."

"And because she is not given as slave-girl or as one to lord it over him, in the beginning she was not formed either from the highest part, nor from the lowest, but from the side of man, for the sake of conjugal partnership. If she had been made from the highest, as from the head, she might seem created for domination; but if from the lowest, as from the feet, she might seem to be created for subjection to slavery. But because she is taken neither as mistress, nor as slave-girl, she is made from the middle, that is, from the side, because she is taken for conjugal partnership."

"The Italian nation rose, as did all the others in Europe, about the close of the Middle Ages; but its birth was different. Italy was not the creation of kings and warriors; she was the creature of a poet, Dante. The foreigners who identify Italy with Dante are essentially right. His character and work had a decisive influence which grew in the centuries, until they became paramount to the leading class of the Italian people. It is hardly an exaggeration to hold that he was to Italy what Moses may have been to Israel."

"Se aucuns demandoit porquoi ceste livre est escrit en romans selonc le patois de France, puis que nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie ce est por deus raisons: l’une que nos somes en France; l’autre por ce que la parleure est plus delitables & plus comunes a tous lingages."

"Positivist historiography defined the belief in witches as a mass psychosis that happened to mix Christian ideas and relics of ancient paganism. The premises rested on the one hand on fear-laden ideas about the Devil, who really existed for Christian culture, and on the other on fantasies such as the magical capacity for malefiction, the possibility of harm with the help of demons, flying, animal metamorphoses and sexual intercourse with demons in the famous Sabbath."

"Spiritualism opposes reasoning with the force of its conviction, its facts, its miracles, its supernatural. It is the religion of the 19th century, without rituals, without priests, and wrapped in an envelope of scientificity. Imagination and sentiment find their place there, and rituality is represented by invocations, prayers, evocations and continuous revelations."

"Eusapia Palladino's popularity went into crisis in Cambridge, where during a séance the medium was caught moving an object with her hand that should have levitated by occult force. Accused of fraud, she defended herself by declaring that she had only acted because she was driven by an unconscious and irresistible impulse."

"While Positivism was founding the social sciences (proclaiming the death of theology) and Marxism was instigating the proletariat to leave institutional religion branded as the ‘opium of the people’, thousands and thousands of people were attempting to communicate with the spiritual worlds through mediums and seers."

"The complex process that has led to the current spread of magic and esotericism is constituted on the one hand by secularisation and secularism, and on the other by the alternative gnosticisms heavily advocated by secular, ‘disenchanted’ and progressive thought. Such is the humus on which thrives the new magism, as weel as the "supermarket occultism" of our times that journalists and mass communicators ennoble and repropose in the dominant cultural vacuum."

"Italy, the unchallenged fiefdom of Catholicism until World War II, has gradually seen the emergence of a new religious landscape in which non-Catholic Christian sects occupy a considerable place."

"In the Hebrew language the letters of the word "Italy" mean "island of divine dew": do we also want to erase the name of our homeland so as not to offend atheists? And the national anthem that calls to God."

"Oriana Fallaci is not only a great journalist: for me she is "the" journalism. And I underline "is" (wasn't) for many reasons. One of which lies in the fact that its pages will long remain the best school of journalism, but above all a formidable breath of intellectual freedom, a vaccine against all idiots, variously placed in the hierarchies of power, and against the lazy cowardice of conformism."

"Agnostics or atheists or secularists who listen to Bergoglio feel confirmed in their non-belief and certainly not called to conversion. Indeed, these characters (Scalfari is an example) draw from Bergoglio's words new conviction in their hostility towards the Church, hearing themselves justified by the Pope himself... While the Catholics who listen to Bergoglio increasingly conform to dominant secularist culture. Bergoglio's "mission" is therefore in reverse: bringing the Lord's sheep into the mouths of the wolves, that is, worldly Power."

"Ratzinger would make anyone pale. He is a true Doctor of the Church, a man who from his precious participation in the Council to his brilliant academic activity and his theological production, from his episcopate in Munich to his memorable mission as guardian of the faith alongside Wojtyła, its true pillar, has become a giant in the last fifty years (also in the debate with secular culture). And all this associated with truly extraordinary humanity, simplicity, moral courage, humility qualities....We could continue with Montini, three degrees , precious collaborator of Pius XII in the Secretariat of State, therefore in the government of the universal Church, in crucial years; great theological preparation, friend of important thinkers for Christianity such as Jacques Maritain, later bishop of Milan capable of giving a vigorous missionary push to the metropolis, therefore protagonist of the Council."

"I pray for him (Pope Francis) as a Catholic, but for a living I have to rely on evidence. Just reread the interviews he gives, it's an extremely painful, dramatic situation. Saying that God is not Catholic means wanting a super religion purified of dogmas and sacraments, it's a shame that the monotheistic horizon thus understood then impacts the Trinitarian belief. And it's a big problem. Islam maintains that God does not have a son."

"His teaching (of Pope Francis) is as iridescent as Saruman's dress. I am thrilled by his evangelical freedom, his simplicity, his be outside the clerical mold. It is emotional when he talks about the gaze of Jesus or, as in recent days in Guadalupe, the maternal eyes of Mary. And when we remember that our Savior does not want to lose anyone and takes each of us on his shoulders."

"Never in the history of the Church has there been such a frightening concentration of prophecies that foretell a catastrophic time for Christendom and the world. And they are Catholic prophecies, i.e., related to saints, pontiffs and mystics or messages from Marian apparitions recognized by the Church."

"The encounter with nuraghe art takes place first in Cagliari, in the National Archaeological Museum. Here it can best be compared with foreign civilizations. In fact, the Roman department is also important, and even more so than the Punic one, with its sensual and cruel divinities. But the Nuragic department stands out from the rest and marks Sardinia better. There is the rare case of a museum without repetition elsewhere, embedded in this land like nature and customs. (p. 707)"

"Palermo The design of the mountains and rocks surrounding the port, tending to ochre and violet, on the waters of a deep blue, as contemplated by the Pilgrim, is less sweet, less tender, but purer than that of the mountains surrounding Naples. As in Greece, in Sicily nature has remained stuck in eternal models, and instead men have changed. Contrast makes nature even higher and farther away; The soul of the beholder is forced into a kind of perpetual seesaw. (p. 585)"

"The Lucania is a part of the South, which suffered acutely from isolation, from a very long decadence, from an ungrateful land. [...] Many villages received water and electricity only after C.E.1945, and others only in recent years the road; Recent statistics indicated that a good half of the population was illiterate. However, Lucania produced numerous geniuses, some of great importance. She possesses in abundance the virtues that we will call ancient, being industrious, strong-willed, quiet, with a deep feeling of family. (pp. 737-738)"

"On Calabria It is certainly the strangest of our regions. In its vast mountain areas it sometimes does not seem to be in the South, but in Switzerland, in South Tyrol, in the Scandinavian countries. From this imaginary North you jump to olive forests, along coasts of the classic Mediterranean type. It is wedged with canyons reminiscent of the United States, stretches of African desert and corners where the buildings retain some memory of Byzantium. It would seem that the debris of different worlds has collapsed together here; that an arbitrary deity, after having created the continents and seasons, amused himself by breaking them to mix their shining fragments. (pp. 559-660)"

"Ascoli Piceno [...] is one of the most beautiful small towns in Italy, and I don't see any other that resembles it. Gide preferred it [...] as beautiful as some cities in southern France, not so much for this or that monument in a special way, but for its whole, for its anthological quality, for an enchantment that comes from nothing and everything. More than any other, it must be defended from stupid disembowelment. You must have walked through it, starting from Piazza del Popolo, the Italian square that together with that of San Marco in Venice gives more of an impression of a hall, surrounded by arcades, closed by the stupendous apse of San Francesco; or along the Baptistery of the Duomo; or along the steep banks of the Tronto; and in the narrow streets, called "rue," where the palaces are countless; and that spread out into small squares [...] Ascoli is a city of towers, anthological as we have said, because there are many styles, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Renaissance, the Baroque. But the Romanesque remains the constant background, the color; stone-walled, windowless churches; a travertine of a warm, uniform grey, without plaster [...] That grey marble is all ornamented, worked, engraved [...] here, on every door and window, you see fruit, foliage, female caryatids, flowers, animals, stars, or even simply proverbs and carved sentences. (p. 534)"

"[...] the Arch of Trajan, perhaps the most beautiful and harmonious of the existing Roman arches, more beautiful than those of Rome. And it is also a strangely modern arch, since you can see Trajan in the bas-reliefs dedicated to social and welfare works. (p. 497)"

"Italy, with its landscapes, is a distillation of the world, the Marche of Italy. (p. 508)"

"After the fall of Rome, Benevento had another period of splendour under Lombard rule, and was the most important Lombard fief in the South. Under Rome, and in the Middle Ages, it was a great center of commercial traffic between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas. The people of Benevento care about that distant background of internationalism. The very names, scholars tell me, in the documents in the archives, show that the families came from all over; the population had an international composition, and Benevento something of the metropolis. (p. 496)"

"You can reach it from bare beaches, and suddenly you see a mushroom grove of tall modern buildings. Power is growing visibly, gripped by building fever. This cladding of tenements [...] surrounds the old core of the Bourbon town, which, however, is far from dead. As soon as you enter it, you find it again, with the main street narrow, and with the alleys arranged in such a way as to cut the wind; In fact, Potenza is a city in the middle of the mountains, with fine and windy air. The wide, modern streets are on the outskirts. The interior has its grace, and some beautiful churches, such as the cathedral, St. Francis, St. Michael the Archangel. (p. 738)"

"You climb the tawny yellow side of the mountain; at the foot there is the plain, the immense quadrilateral of the palace; Then you go inland, and the plain disappears. There exists in Provence a splendid and illustrious city abandoned among the rocks, Les Beaux; , Lombard, built in the eighth century, formerly the seat of bishops and counts, is its Italian equivalent. Only Les Beaux is of two styles, medieval and Renaissance, Caserta all medieval; and Les Beaux is celebrated in France, while old Caserta is almost unknown to us. Capable of accommodating many thousands of people, it contains about two hundred. It is a knot of dead and monochrome houses and alleys, the yellowish color of travertine; all around a landscape of barren, stony hills, sown with spikes of towers; A still and perfect landscape. (p. 494)"

"There is a greater civic and historical pride in Benevento than in the other provincial cities of Campania. (p. 496)"

"[...] about the Alpine municipalities, I will say in passing that one, Capracotta, is the highest of the Apennine municipalities, and therefore the winter is closed by snow and ice. (p. 575)"

"Today Benevento is largely a brand new city with oases of beautiful monuments. Even in the remnants of what was once the intellectual aristocracy of the South, alive although numerically restricted, I have noticed here a passion for art, a defense of the artistic and archaeological heritage, which are less common in the North of Italy. It is that humanistic passion that in the South of Italy now threatens to be shipwrecked, but which here is kept awake, as I said, also by civic pride. (pp. 496-497)"

"A trip to the Marche region, not hurried, leads to see wonders. (p. 513)"

"Benevento is not Naples, and he wants to let you know. Their character, the people of Benevento point out to me, is already very different from that of the rest of Campania: harder, more closed, more Alpine. Salerno has something Milanese about it as much as is possible in the South; I found in Avellino perfect specimens of a certain type of Southern intellectual, intelligent, pessimistic, who contemplates himself and his ailments as a chapter of history. The people of Benevento, on the other hand, carry, if anything, to the South some characteristics of the Trentinos. The climate itself is cold, not very Campanian; The beautiful views of the province are alpine. (p. 496)"