What Every American Should Know About Europe

by Melissa Rossi

Tuscan wine estates ran on a quasi-feudal system started in Renaissance times. Called mezzadria, literally “halfers,” it relied on tenant workers whose wages were half of the wine, olive oil, and produce from the estate, where they had houses and small plots. Mezzadria was outlawed in the 1960s, and peasants moved to cities. Unable to afford laborers for their vineyards—and believing forecasts that predicted the Italian wine market was doomed—many nobles sold off their estates; many northern industrialists bought them up for a song and entered the wine game. Though outlawed, mezzadria is now making a comeback.

  In the violent 1970s, Italy was rocked by Gli Anni di Piombo, or “Years of Lead.” Mafia kidnappers and radicals from right and left (including the Marxist Red Brigades) assassinated politicians and bombed museums and trains. The Red Brigades alone are accused of killing 350 people, including Prime Minister Aldo Moro.

  Although officially denied, there is a persistent belief that NATO and the CIA were at least peripherally involved in assorted bombings and attacks of the period. A NATO program called Gladio, its existence confirmed by former prime minister Giulio Andreotti, was devised to keep power out of the hands of Italian Communists (and to a lesser extent Socialists), whom it was feared would open Italy to the Soviet Union. By blaming high-profile attacks on left-wing guerrillas, it was believed, Gladio could knock out support for the Italian Communist Party.

  Somehow, despite i molti problemi—the stinky politics, the nonstop scandals, the Mob, the disorganization that just seems to be the Italian way, and the illegal immigration that adds another dysfunctional thread to the social fabric—Italy just keeps chugging away, finding the meaning of life in a plate of good food and amazing the 30 million tourists who visit each year, and who can’t fathom the chaos hidden behind all the beauty.

  Hot Spots

  Mama’s House: Everyone within driving distance returns to Mama’s for Sunday dinner. The distance is getting shorter. Given the state of the economy and house prices, few Italians are moving out in their twenties; some never do.

  Italy has the highest “stay at home” rate in Europe: 95 percent of adults under thirty still live at home.10 The average age for an Italian to fly the coop: thirty-four years.11

  Roma: It’s said here in the city of seven hills that when Rome’s Colosseum falls, civilization goes with it. In the meantime, the capital awash with leftovers from Imperial Rome is still one of Italy’s liveliest. Visitors shuttle from the Pantheon and the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel to the Trevi Fountain, where they pitch coins to ensure return.

  Milano: The fashion and finance center was heavily bombed during the war, but has a few remaining bits of architectural heritage.

  Tuscany: With the red-capped Duomo, sculpture-filled squares, and the Uffizi—which celebrates the Renaissance both inside (with its museum) and out (with its long-columned loggias)—Florence grabs the spotlight in this gorgeous region, but the vineyard-covered countryside, where one awakes to crowing roosters and mist hanging over valleys, is one of the most serene places on earth. Golden-hued Siena holds the Palio, a much-hyped competition between neighborhoods, when horses race in the square as they have since da Vinci’s day. Florence and Siena have been feuding since then too; during one territorial standoff, a race between two roosters redrew the map.

  Mezzogiorno: The troubled, poorer southern half of Italy is known for half-built structures where people live; building owners don’t pay taxes until building is finished, so they delay completion permanently. It has higher unemployment rates, bigger families, and tends to be more religious than other regions. Among the charms: the Amalfi coast, with its hairpin roads, is dazzling; island Ischia draws jet-setters; and chaotic, crime-ridden Naples has a frenzied allure.

  Drivers in Naples often race through red lights. The reason, explains one Napolitano, is that traffic lights are usually broken and permanently red, so there’s no point in stopping to see if one actually works.

  Sicilia: Birthplace of the Mafia, Sicily bears the brunt of Italians’ prejudice, even though its cuisine—astoundingly fresh fish, handmade pasta, and flowery white wines—may be the country’s finest. Phoenician ruins stand among Arabesque palaces, palm trees line imperial squares, and, off the main drags, poverty runs rampant.

  Albania: When the Communist dictatorship fell in the country across the Adriatic, 24,000 Albanians appeared on Italy’s doorstep—in three days. The Italian government welcomed them, issuing work visas, and the president urged Italians to take them in as guests. Six months later, another 15,000 showed up. This time Italy sent out riot squads and the Albanians were herded into a stadium, where food was air-dropped to them. Five days later, they were airlifted back to Albania. During the previous six months, said Italians, crime had skyrocketed; the government issued a statement that Italy was not a land of immigration. However, some Italians and Albanians do get along. Albanian-organized crime and the Mafia in Puglia work together to smuggle cigarettes and Eastern European sex slaves.

  Puglia: The heel of “the boot” boasts some of Italy’s tastiest cooking (skip the horsemeat), but scummy port city Bari is smuggling central.

  Aviano air force base: This northern base, a center for NATO operations during the 1990 operations in Yugoslavia, is often in headlines. In 1998, a U.S. fighter plane sliced the wires of a cable car at a nearby ski slope; twenty died when it crashed. The base was previously embroiled in scandal when it leaked that the U.S. was transporting nuclear arms via Aviano, violating Italy’s law banning nuclear weapons on her land.

  The Vatican: Sure, you can visit the world’s smallest sovereign state that is home to 932 residents and has her own post office, police force, newspaper, TV and radio stations, and which generates, mostly through international Catholic donations, some $250 million a year. Millions of visitors each year take in the splendor of the dome at St. Peter’s Basilica; the column-lined St. Peter’s Square (watched over by Swiss guards in colorful Renaissance garb); and the beauty of Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. But what really happens behind the wall of this 108-acre state remains as much of a mystery as ever. Some are still trying to uncover the Holy See’s role in World War II. Some assert that the Vatican helped hide thousands of Jews; others believe the Vatican ran “ratlines,” sneaking Nazi war criminals out to Australia and the Americas. Other mysteries include the Vatican’s role in laundering money through its bank, and the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, who lasted only a month—some say he planned to tidy up the scandal-ridden financial institution.

  The dinner table: Mind the rules here. Nearly as important as food is the order of dishes, always beginning with antipasti and ending with the salad, an eating peculiarity that—along with the passeggiata, that after-meal stroll—may explain why Italians are so rarely fat.

  The Autostrada: Marriages suffer under Italy’s latest attempt to enforce speed limits. Using license-plate numbers, snap-the-speeder technology sends a photo of the offending vehicle straight to the offender’s house. The fines aren’t the problem; it’s who’s in the passenger seat. Wives aren’t happy to see it’s not them.

  ITALIAN FILM

  Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica, and Roberto Rossellini unleashed a new genre of dramatic postwar cinema with La Dolce Vita, The Bicycle Thief, and Rome, Open City. More recently, Roberto Benigni cowrote, directed, and starred in Life Is Beautiful. The film, about a father who tries to spare his son the horrors of the Second World War, swept the Cannes Film Festival and won Benigni an Oscar for Best Actor. Another heart-stirrer is Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore, which, like Mediterraneo, also won an Oscar.

  Runways: Gucci, Pucci, Prada, Ferragamo, Armani, Valentino, and Dolce & Gabbana help make Milan’s catwalks more daring than the runways of Paris.

  The Garden: The Italian obsession with food may be rooted in the country’s peasant past, but even wealthy Italians pride themselves on their green thumbs. Give a man a foot of land, and he’ll put in a small garden and vineyard, grind pesto from smashed basil, pine n
uts, and parmesan, and concoct honeyed drinks from white grapes he’s dried. A good Italian, even if living in the heart of the city, has found somewhere—balcony, rooftop, or windowsill—to grow tomatoes (one kind for salads, another for sauce) and to pluck fresh herbs. Genetically modified varieties have no place here, where antique seeds are saved and no gift is finer than olive oil straight from the cold press.

  VINITALY

  It sounds like a big Bacchanalian bash, but it’s serious biz when 2,000 wine producers uncork their stuff, some 30,000 buyers swarm around for a taste, and potential billions of dollars are up for grabs. That’s what happens every spring in Verona, where the concrete convention center is tarted up with plastic vines and wooden tables for VinItaly, the biggest wine sale of the year in the world. With the possibility for vintners to sell out that year’s entire stock in 120 hours, the five-day event of swirling, sniffing, and spitting is surprisingly sobering. Few Italians can be found flirting (not even with the lovely wine pourers hired for the event), interupting their coitus attemptus continuus inclinations for the business at hand—that’s how important it is.

  Hotshots

  Romano Prodi: Prime Minister, 1996–1998, 2006–present. Former professor Prodi is Berlusconi’s opposite: intellectual, left-leaning, calm, and somewhat dull. He probably can’t last long with Berlusconi barking from the sidelines and trying to pull the rug out before Prodi even steps in, but this former president of the European Commission will likely nudge Italy closer to the rest of Europe and distance her from George W. Bush.

  Giancarlo Fini: Head of the National Alliance, former journalist Fini is softening the image of the neo-Fascist movement moving closer to the center, and condemning Il Duce’s Fascism as “absolute evil.” Apparently it’s working; he’s one of Italy’s most popular politicians.

  WRITERLY SORTS

  Nobel Prize–winning storyteller Umberto Eco will never be accused of being a minimalist, given works such as the 800-page The Name of the Rose. Left-wing satirical playwright Dario Fo, part of Italy’s “laughter culture,” cracks his whip at corrupt society, and daring Oriana Fallaci was once was the world’s most unflinching journalist—she posed many a difficult question to world leaders, and occasionally had a romantic fling postinterview. Former leftie Fallaci has done an about-face; now she harpoons Europe for becoming Arabized—“Eurarabia,” she calls it. In her recent book The Strength of Reason and her post-September 11 diatribe The Rage and the Pride, racist statements, including a claim that Muslims “multiply like rats,” offset her insights about radical Islam’s growing hatred of the West. Her books sell wildly in Italy.

  Alessandra Mussolini: Italian parliamentarian in European Parliament, 2004–present. Doe-eyed, pouty-lipped, and hot-tempered Mussolini, granddaughter of Il Duce and niece of Sophia Loren, is a walking contradiction. A Fascist who protects women’s rights, Mussolini posed nude for Playboy’s centerfold in 1983. The former actress with a degree in medicine now heads her own party, having broken with the National Alliance when its leader apologized for her grandpap’s activities during WWII.

  Ms. Mussolini called for sex offenders to be chemically castrated, pushed for Italian mothers to give their last names to their children, and loudly protested a rape ruling in Italy The judge said it was impossible to rape a woman wearing jeans. Mussolini strode into Italian parliament with other female parliamentarians, wearing jeans and waving a banner that read “Jeans: an alibi for rape.”

  Licio Gelli: A former Blackshirt in Mussolini’s Fascist volunteer army who helped support Franco during the civil war in Spain, Gelli apparently worked with the SS, but his recent activities are more shadowy. He’s believed to have been part of NATO’s Gladio operations to block Communist support in Italy by agitating unrest, and was also linked to the CIA, perhaps as part of his illegal Masonic lodge Propaganda Due, whose members numbered among Italy’s most powerful and wealthy. Convicted in 1982 of fraud in the Banco Ambrosiano, he escaped to France before completing his sentence. After being rounded up, he was hauled before the courts for the murder of the head of the Vatican bank, and his name comes up in nearly every Italian scandal over the past thirty years. Among those he’s rumored to have worked with in the U.S.: General Alexander Haig and leading neocon Michael Ledeen.

  Alessandra Mussolini, a feminist Fascist

  Pope Benedict XVI: On April 19, 2005, white smoke puffed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, announcing the appointment of the 265th pope—one whom many had hoped would modernize the Church. Instead, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, aged seventy-eight, a hardliner from Germany, appeared at the Vatican balcony—and he may prove even more traditional than his conservative predecessor, John Paul II. The new pope opposes the ordination of women, stem-cell research, and gay marriage, and considers religions other than Roman Catholicism to be “deficient.” Some have raised questions about his past. As was common during the Nazi era, he was a member of the Hitler youth group. Some speculate that his ultraconservatism will polarize opinion within the Church. Many, however, supported his move to quickly canonize his predecessor.

  While Italians generally highly respect their pope, few adhere to the Church’s edicts on contraception and abortion. In Italy, abortion during the first trimester is provided free; a recent proposal that women pay after more than one termination triggered outrage.

  DRINKING MATTERS

  Briskly herbal Campari or bubbly Prosecco, start the meal; anise, astringent Cynar (made from artichokes) or citrusy limoncello often end it. Made from dried grapes, the adored honey-like Vin Santo from Avignonesi, released from nine years in oak during the waning moon, hails back to the Renaissance; the “mother yeast” has been “living” for 600 years. Seeking romance? Try clove-scented but puckerish Strega—aka “witch.” The yellow color comes from saffron, the recipe from covens’ love potions.

  News you can understand: Colors is the best magazine coming out of Italy—and surprise, it’s not owned by Berlusconi. Published by Benetton, the bilingual magazine innovatively covers the most basic of topics—food, water, shelter, drugs—and plugs readers into the distant corners of the world. Eye-opening, award-winning, and right-on: www.colorsmagazine.com

  5. BELGIUM

  (België, Belgique)

  Falling Apart

  FAST FACTS

  Country: Kingdom of Belgium; Koninkrijk België, Royaume de Belgique

  Capital: Brussels

  Government: Parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch

  Independence: October 4, 1830 (from Netherlands); monarchy since 1831

  Population: 10,379,000 (2006 estimate)

  Head of State: King Albert II (1993)

  Head of Government: Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (1999)

  Elections: Monarchy is hereditary; prime minister, leader of majority party in legislative elections, appointed by monarch, approved by parliament

  Name of Parliament: Parlement

  Ethnicity: 58% Flemish; 31% Walloon; 11% other

  Religion: 75% Roman Catholic; 25% Protestant/other

  Language: 60% Flemish (Dutch derivative); 40% French; 1% German

  Literacy: 99%

  Famous Exports: The Smurfs, Tintin, ecstasy

  Economic Big Boy: Delhaize Group (supermarket); 2004 total sales: $23.67 billion1

  Per Capita GDP: $31,900 (2005 estimate)

  Unemployment: 8.5% (December 2005 Eurostat figure)

  EU Status: Founding member (member of EEC since 1957)

  Currency: Euro

  Quick Tour

  With her charming medieval villages, thick forests, and swan-filled canals, België, at first glance, appears to be wholesome to the point of eliciting snores. Known for divine chocolate, sparkly diamonds, and comic books, Belgique—where the Smurfs were invented—is also headquarters for the European Union and NATO, which makes her sound snoozier.

  FUN IN BELGIUM

  The best things to do in Belgium are drink, eat, and sleep, and Belgians provide compelling
reasons to indulge in all three. The country serves up 400 beers—brewed by Trappist monks, spiked with sour cherries, white, gold, red, or syrupy black, and all of them best drunk in the country’s many cozy pubs. Fabulous eateries abound, from sleek oyster bars with waterfalls caught behind glass to homey inns with buckets of mussels served in creamy beer sauce; weight gain is inevitable in Belgium, particularly if one partakes in a multicourse, multihour Burgundian lunch—a blur of courses including white asparagus, lobster tarts in buttery sauce, partridge with port, and endless bottles of wine. Hotels may be marble-wrapped suites, fetching converted railway stations set deep in woods, or castles where peacocks wander the grounds. The combination of beer, feast, and deep snooze is more beneficial than it sounds: Belgians are considered the healthiest people on the planet. Well, they certainly aren’t the skinniest.

  Despite the initial goody-goody appearance, boring the country is not. Belgium is riddled with corruption, seediness, ethnic tensions, and hair-raising scandals, at least a few involving alleged pedophilia rings.2 Carcinogenic dairy products, bribe-greased arms deals, and hissing secessionists are just a few reasons why this odd little country appears to falling apart.

  BRUSSELS VS. WALLONIA VS. FLANDERS VS. WALLOONS VS. FLEMISH

  Brussels is Belgium’s capital and is bilingual: French and (Dutch-derived) Flemish are both official languages. The rest of the country is divided into two distinct regions. In Wallonia, the industrial south that boasts the wooded Ardennes, they speak French. In Flanders, the northern half that holds diamond center Antwerp and former mercantile capitals Bruges and Ghent, they speak Flemish. Differences between the Walloons and the Flemish, who are forever bickering, don’t stop there—which is one reason the country is served by seven different legislatures, some Flemish, some Walloon, some combined. The right-leaning Flemish are akin to the Dutch, while the left-leaning Walloons are more like French. Wallonia used to be rich, but the coal is gone, steel mills are closed, and unemployment is around 18 percent; now the wealthy Flemish complain about subsidizing unemployed Walloons. Language differences fuel their mutual dislike. Flanders won’t pay for libraries with many French books or let school buses with names written in French into their districts. Walloons construct pricey bridges to connect French-speaking neighborhoods, and French speakers in Flanders boycott local taxes because they’re written in Flemish. The only groups winning in the constant battles are the separatist groups, who churn issues up even more.