A pun on the words prati (meadows) and pascoli (pastures), surnames of two Italian nineteenth-century poets. Pascoli, a bachelor, lived with his sister.
The soldiers of the bersaglieri (sharpshooters) regiments wear hats with special plumes of cock tail-feathers.
In Northern Italy proper names, in indirect reference, are often preceded by the definite article. Pestalozzi thought he heard her say la Camilla.
Gaetano Filangieri (1752-88), enlightened political thinker and author.
The spinone is an Italian hunting dog; the Maremmano is a large white sheepdog.
Delagrange was a French aviator who gave flying exhibitions in Italy. "Will Delagrange fly?" was the headline of his publicity poster.
Paolo Ignazio Maria Thaon di Revel, Mussolini's Minister of Finance, 1935-43. "Gadfly" is a play on the words tafano (gadfly) and Thaon.
Cf. Dante, Purgatorio, XX, 54: "Save one, who gave himself to the grey dress" (Binyon translation, a reference to the last of the Carolingians, who became a monk).
A Gaddian private joke. Originally the phrase went, "like the daddy of Vittorini" (the novelist Elio Vittorini is, in fact, the son of a station-master). Then, afraid of offending a fellow-writer, Gadda changed the name to the mysterious "Lucherino."
The Palio is the famous Siena horse race, where different sections of the city are represented, each with a special name and device: Torre (tower), Tartuca (turtle), Oca (goose), etc.
Angelo Inganni (1807-80), a painter from Brescia.
The prince would be Prince Torlonia, owner of much of the land in this area.
Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Rome's market square, has in its center some Roman ruins that resemble the famous faraglioni, tower-like rock formations near the shore of Capri.
Tullus and Ancus, third and fourth kings of Rome.
The word "Cacco" is close, in sound, to several Italian obscenities (see footnote, page 57), unsuited to the lips of Sora Margherita.
One feature of Fascist nationalism was the banishing from Italian usage of all foreign words: "ouverture" became "apertura," for example, and—in this case "chauffeur" became "autista."
The "battle of grain" was Mussolini's campaign to increase the production of wheat in Italy.
That Awful Mess On The Via Merulana Page 35
