Imaginarea Weekly

2022 is running along high-voltage cables, yet there was one writer who had no doubts whatsoever that this was going to be a dystopian year: the novel Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1953 and is set at an unspecified time after 2022, in a city which – despite being brightly lit up – is actually a very sad place to live in because the marching orders are to burn all books. Today both the Eiffel Tower and the Mole Antonelliana are having to turn their lights off early so as to save on electricity. Not even science fiction had gone quite so far… Come to think about it, everything our modern culture has accomplished, uninterruptedly since 1900 to date, is based on the glittering hustle and bustle of our cities as they rise higher and higher (see Boccioni’s painting “Città che sale”). Now it appears we are having to slow down a bit and even the world of design is changing accordingly. Nike, for example, is reducing the number of zips and seams on its sports clothes, the brand’s concept for the future being to streamline them more and more, thereby both simplifying its production cycle and cutting back on its energy consumption. Maybe, then, the fact that we have to decrease our volts at the present time isn’t such a bad thing after all: as falling apples (or should we say pears?) hit us on the head, they might indeed light up new ideas in there…

Whereas the adjective “coquettish” comes from the French word for cockerel, the Italian equivalent, “civettuola”, derives from the word for owl. The very sound of it makes one think of a light and swift movement, of the graceful flitting and swooping of a bird that often chooses the world of fashion as its landing pad. Paris Fashion Week came to a close last week. At one particular show, the set recreated a grotto in an Italian garden, reminiscent of the Boboli Gardens in Florence: lots of ‘extremely’ black dresses, embellished with lace galore, strutted on the catwalk. We’re talking about the Dior Show at which designer Maria Grazia Chiuri drew her inspiration from Catherine de’ Medici, the Florentine Queen of France who made waves and caused a huge sensation during the Renaissance. Catherine was responsible for introducing to France items such as forks, platform shoes and lace from the Venetian island of Burano, as well as a certain savoir faire in black. She was in the habit of wearing clothes that were blacker than soot, along with high heels so as to tower above everyone else. It is said that she ordered the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and had poisoned her mother-in-law using a glove laced with poison… finely-manufactured in Florence, of course. Meanwhile, during the same period in Tuscany, Cosimo de’ Medici’s wife Eleanor of Toledo, founded a textile factory and hired the painter Bronzino, who immortalised her in a brocade gown that was the acme of finery, as her publicity artist. It’s quite possible that the sumptuous gown never actually existed, seeing as Bronzino had simply been given a snippet of the fabric to work from. But the portrait sufficed to make the “Eleanor Style” the talk of Europe. With their arsenic and old – or, more likely, new – lace, Catherine and Eleanor were owls, rather than coquettes, sharing with those nocturnal birds (who have always been symbols of foresight) an ability to look beyond. They used to cut their (very fine) coats according to their (very fine) cloth and we can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the long ‘film’ of Italian fashion and style started rolling back in the 16th century .

This week the world’s oldest heart has been found preserved inside a fossilised prehistoric fish. The “ancient” often comes hand-in-hand with the “sacred”, but we must regretfully take note that it is not a human being that holds this particular record. We’re somewhere off the western coast of Australia, the protagonist of our story is a fish, known as the Gogo, that became extinct 380 million years ago. All that remains of this ‘placoderm’ is a fossil… yet its heart is intact. It all makes sense. For our ancestors, sacredness lay at the bottom of the deep blue sea and its awe-inspiring wonders never missed an opportunity to surface, perhaps disguised as art, with poets, artists and sculptors ‘splashing out’ on huge quantities of jellyfish, mermaids (sirens) or tritons. Electric moray eels exerted what one might term as shock fascination: a sort of otherworldly ‘touch-point’, they were bred in pools by the Romans. Not to mention the Koiné word for “fish” which eventually became the acronym for Jesus… In other words, it isn’t solely on terra firma that one finds sacredness. However, as we swim in these times of ours that seem to turn us inside out like a sock, we could at least look a little closer: fish never close their eyes. On the other hand, we humans want blind luck and blindfolded justice – and we enjoy happiness with our eyes shut! Could our mothers have been right when they warned us to keep our eyes wide open? Alertness will keep us afloat.

The tongue ever turns to the aching tooth, so it is said, and the Italian tongue endeavours to satisfy the taste buds of those who expect it to keep up with the times. Being an ‘old’ language, it requires a certain degree of introspection in order to find the right words. In the new Italian Treccani Dictionary, Dizionario della lingua italiana, the synecdoche “Man” (which was previously used collectively) has been replaced with “person” and “human being”. The new gender-sensitive dictionary will be available as from October. Valeria Della Valle and Giuseppe Patota are the two linguists who have been working on this project which also features another major novelty: for the first time gendered names and adjectives are to be listed in strict alphabetical order. In practice, this means that more often than not one will have to search for the feminine form in order to find the masculine, even when the latter has tended to be the umbrella word for both male and female. For example, the word “amico” (friend, noun m.) will come under the dictionary entry “amica” (friend, noun f.), and in order to find “medico” (doctor, noun m.) one will have to search under “medica” (doctor, noun f.), a neologism which with most Italians are still unfamiliar. Italian being a gendered language, all these words have a common prefix, followed by a suffix which changes according to the gender. As usual, we’re relying on an image to help us make our point. If we were to untie this floral knot, what would be left? It will no longer be a calla lily but, on the other hand, it won’t yet be a tie (insofar as it only becomes a tie when you actually tie – or knot – it). We’ve tried to say it with flowers. Language ‘dresses’ thought and, as it changes with the times, so too the budding landscape of human relations is constantly bursting into blossom in a never-ending process of transformation.

Last Wednesday the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, flew to Paris to present our city’s bid to host Expo 2030. Since we love challenges, we’ve taken a crack at the subject, and at rousing the media’s interest, with Luca Josi and Antonio Romano’s proposal of erecting a colossus beside the Colosseum. The real name of Italy’s most recognisable monument is in fact the Flavian Amphitheatre, but it came to be known as “Colosseum” for a reason that has largely been forgotten: because of the colossal statue of Nero that stood beside it. A statue of such awesome dimensions that although it hasn’t been there for centuries, its memory lives on in the name of Rome’s iconic landmark. If we think of other ultra-famous landmarks built for events such as this, the one that immediately springs to mind is the icon of France which was designed precisely for the Esposition Universelle of 1889 and named after Gustave Eiffel. Rather than metal, it shares the same symbolic mettle with our Amphitheatre, although its reputation as a work of modern engineering was hard won. Eugène Atget, one of the best photographers of the time, used to avoid it like the plague. In 1893 a cartoon depicted the Eiffel Tower as a “pedestal” for a statue of Victor Hugo; ah, the wretches, les misérables, he might well have exclaimed. As-yet unfocused eyes were perhaps viewing that gateway to the world’s goods, the Expo, as nothing but a heap of iron – which, as such, accomplished exactly what it is was meant to: in other words it became a cosmic magnet attracting attention. A comparison with the Eiffel Tower seems appropriate given that while the English-speaking world knocks on wood, in Rome it’s iron that we touch for good luck. The decision regarding our capital’s bid is expected in November and we are firmly convinced that sometimes, if an idea fits the context, it can become a colossal success.

It’s customary to wish one another bon voyage on the eve of the summer break, yet it’s actually September that brings with it the calendar of engagements, events, and (why not) leisure activities that await us in the “school year” ahead. At this point we can but wish one another the best of luck, or rather fortune, though in a narrow sense. Oh yes, because for our ancestors the meaning of this term was not wedged between the words money, wealth or chance. It was the winds that represented good fortune. Try going to Florence, specifically to the basilica of Santa Maria Novella, and looking up at the entablature on the right-hand side of the façade: this is where the merchant Giovanni Rucellai, a friend of the Medici family as well as a patron of the arts, had Leon Battista Alberti set his coat of arms. It features the billowing “Sails of Fortune”. How does one maintain the desired course when the winds are blowing against us? A sea merchant like Rucellai must have known a thing or two. Rather than the event itself, which may or may not be in our favour, it’s always our response that sets the pace. “Prudence, patience and magnanimity” was the recipe for having the wind in one’s sails and, hence, for smooth sailing. So let’s set sail today, ideally armed with a fountain pen, the white sails being the blank sheets of paper on which we’ll write the stories of the year now in the offing. May the wind always be at our backs!

This period of the year is always something of a crossover. The sun is still at a right angle, yet defining events of the year are already taking place and cast much longer (and far more interesting) shadows. The 79th Venice International Film Festival opens next Wednesday, 31st August. But even though it’s 90 years old (the first edition was held in 1932), the festival is fully aware of today’s challenges: screenplays written by a fast and furious ghost writer called algorithm and movie theatres substituted by tablets, to mention but a few. And yet, as we’re talking about late August, and hence about a period of transition, open-air cinemas come to mind. Again this summer, thanks to these modern-day arenas, films have been projected in both obscure or well-known piazzas for the enjoyment of holiday-makers and inhabitants alike. Whether to solitary film buffs or to fun-seeking cliques of friends, moving images have been dished out in generous portions. 82-year-old Francis Ford Coppola believes that films will survive the test of time, as has been the case with the plays of Sophocles and Euripides. In 1936 Walter Benjamin prophesied that in the future our homes would be supplied with images that one would be able to turn on “like water or electricity”. Bingo… the prophecy has indeed come true! Actually, Benjamin had been somewhat adverse to films, suspicious of their distractive nature and of stardom. Yet today we refer to filmmaking as the seventh art and in order to remain thus, i.e. a luminous art that leaves a shining trail behind it, it needs a medium and a message. Directors have the possibility of “drawing” freely. It’s up to us, as spectators, not to delete those images. As the action gets rolling, all that remains is for everyone to sit back and make themselves comfortable.

Extended periods of respite have existed since the dawn of time; the Romans used to call them Feriae Augusti. Probably because by the time we reach the eighth month of the year, we feel somewhat the worse for wear – and definitely in need of some invisible darning. One of our most natural desires is to go for a dip in the sea where what’s really fascinating is to see one’s reflection in the water, rather than gaze at the silently glinting fish. Scuba divers use the so-called buddy system to monitor one another and ascend together to the surface whenever they notice that, due to an excess of adrenalin or a lack of oxygen, their buddy diver might be in distress. In other words, buddy diving allows one to receive help without explicitly asking for it, at times without even being aware of it. That’s exactly what’ll take place down there, in our figurative August “underwater work shed”. Our batteries will be recharged discretely and subtly so that, come Autumn, we’ll be fighting fit and ready to deal thoroughly with all the problems that await us, examine them from head to foot, and turn them inside out like socks.

Multiple stories over the centuries have turned the Colosseum, with its multiple storeys, into an economic marker, as well as an urban landmark. Pillaging of the amphitheatre, built in 1st century A.D., was always, alas, the name of the game whenever construction materials were required. That is what happened in Late Antiquity, for example, when Rome lost its iron mines in Brittany. The price soared as the demand for this metal rose, similarly to that of several commodities today. Thus, it was not uncommon to come across individuals who, in order to steal it, would be hauled up in baskets all the way to the joints between the blocks of travertine; the gaps on the Colosseum’s façade, and a missing storey, testifies to this. But history had more in store for the iconic ‘leftover’ from ancient times… During the Renaissance, with the aim of providing a livelihood for the impoverished population of Rome, Pope Sixtus V who was a Franciscan, planned to convert the Colosseum into a wool factory (“Lanificio Colosseo”), with shops on the upper floors and living quarters and manufacturing plants on the lower ones. Thumbs down: the Pontiff’s death also resulted in the kiss of death for this somewhat woolly idea. This week Deloitte has estimated that the ‘social asset value’ of the Colosseum is around 77 billion euros, contributing 1.4 billion to Italy’s GNP. To put it bluntly: this is the living (or, rather, still-standing) proof that the Colosseum is a sharp, pulsating brand that can adapt to just about anything – and, thus, that it is an indelible one too.

The ice cream cone first appeared on the scene in 1896 thanks to the genius of an Italian, Italo Marchioni, who used to push an ice cream cart up and down Wall Street. It was imperative for him to find a means of transport for that frozen mousse, and to avoid having to wash, carry or break glass and metal containers. Thus, for more than a century, the conical-shaped wafer has doubled-up as both packaging and a design item at the same time – in the latter capacity earning itself a place of honour among other design items in the MoMA. A humble invention, it has ascended to the pinnacle of iconic effectiveness: you just need to close your eyes… and the cone will always appear a split second before the cup. Which goes to prove that it is undeniably the best ‘sock’ for ice cream scoops, at least according to the “cost-effective” way in which the mind organises its stocks (or socks) of icons and memories. It has remained intact for more than a century, nor does it melt away as fashions come and go. We could call it the ice cream i-cone.