Ask Battista Minola 1616 Anything - One

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

"Celebrating" 2,000 posts and 2 months.

Go!

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What’s the location of your signature picture? It’s pretty.

The harbour and part of the hills in La Spezia, my city.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What's your opinion of major Italian parties?


Which places in Italy would you suggest visiting? Maybe besides Rome and Venice, which are special anyway.

My take on Italian major parties:

PD - a party full of problems but which comes closest to my political opinions, I suppose.
M5S - such a laughing stock that I have to pity them just because I have heard enough people ridiculizing them already. In my experience there are three types of people who vote or have voted M5S. 1. "The establishment sucks ass" 2. "I know nothing about politics. They sounded cool" 3. Hard left tankies holding their nose.
Forza Italia - now that its vote percentage is fallen so low is kind of a joke, but historically it's a personalistic party based on a billionaire media tycoon who rails against the Left, political correctness, the judiciary and the media, is an extreme womanizer, has authoritarian tendencies, tries to pander to religious conservatives, has been subject to many trials and is known for his emotional appeal and tendency to speak gaffes. Reminds you of anyone?
Lega - have you ever heard of a regionalistic, kind of independentist party for a region that does not even exist? Well that was Lega before Salvini. Now it's a standard right-wing "populist" party (populist my ass, they wanted to introduce an - unconstitutional - flat tax) but I still find their origins pretty odd. I generally dislike them and find their rhetoric massively irritating.
FdI - a nationalist conservative party which should have become the main right-wing party but alas Italian party politics is stupid and so Lega exists. I see no great difference between the two parties' platforms re: 2020 but maybe true believer party insiders hate each other. IDK



Now for the good part:
I would definitely suggest coming here to La Spezia and visit the Cinque Terre and the Gulf of Poets but of course I am biased.
Other than that, Florence, Naples and the Amalfitan Costiera, Turin and Trieste are the first that come to my mind.
As far as canals go, Grado and (especially) Chioggia are like mini-Venices not too far from the real one. There is also an interesting lagoon in Orbetello in Tuscany.

When eating out in Italian restaurants, would you recommend each person has all four courses, or ordering fewer of each and sharing them among one another?

It's your choice. I am used to eat a first course and a second course almost always, but for example my mother rarely eats both. As for sharing dishes it varies. Pasta, most meat and most fish are not usually thought as things to be shared between people. Antipastos and certain second courses yes.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I like reading foreign novelists (or even American ones) where their city or region is practically a character in the book.  I've read "Twenty Days in Turin" and have picked up a book by Massimo Carlotto that i haven't read.  Any recommendations?  The big caveat being that they have to be available in an English translation.  

First off, I have no idea what "Twenty Days In Turin" is or who Massimo Carlotto is hahahahaha.

Anyway, as for books where the city or region is very relevant the first that come to mind are the recent success of the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante; "Ragazzi di vita" by Pier Paolo Pasolini (has been translated with diverse titles apparently); possibly some of the short stories in Primo Levi's The Periodic Table; also I would say that most novels by Sicilian authors feel "very Sicilian".

Although I don't know if I would say that the place is "practically a character" in any of them, that expression makes me think of songs most of all, and among songs I have Milano by Lucio Dalla; Napule è by Pino Daniele; many songs by Fabrizio De André; and many others.
(or Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers to stay in the USA haha)

To be honest I should mention poetry too.
Trieste by Umberto Saba; many poems by Eugenio Montale which are set in the Cinque Terre; are what comes to mind first.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Who's your favorite artist of the Italian Renaissance?

I don't think I have one, but my favourite artwork is probably The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio.

How does your locality and state feel about Malta?

I don't think many people feel in any particular way about Malta here.
I, personally, find Malta and Maltese language fascinating and would like to visit there.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Off the very top of your head, what do you know about India?

India is one of the vastest countries in the world. I think 3 million something km²?
India is the second most populous country in the world at roughly 1,300,000,000 people.
India has twenty-something national/official/whatever languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Manipuri (?). Most of them are Indo-European. Tamil, Telugu and some others are Dravidic. Some are neither (Manipuri I think is Sino-Tibetan).
India has a Hindu plurality (majority?), and sizable Muslim, Sikh and Christian minorities.
Not all of India was technically a British possession before 1947 because it was full of semi-autonomous so-called "princely states".
India has had religious riots, including one in Mumbai in I think 1992 (or was it 1993?)
India's prime minister is called Narendra Modi and to my knowledge is sort of a Hindu nationalist.
The capital of India is New Delhi.
The "film capital" of India is Mumbai (Bollywood).
The most famous thing in all of India, the Taj Mahal, is I think in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is also the most populated subnational entity in the world.
I have heard very ugly stuff about rape culture in the state of Haryana.
Etc.


I swear I did not search any one of these things on Google while writing my post.
I have an Indian "pen friend" or to be more precise message friend. She is 25, has just graduated from university in New Delhi, comes from Manipur, is Christian and speaks Paite as her mother tongue.
I also watched "Slumdog Millionaire" like 3 days ago.
Ah and I am a geography geek.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What's your opinion of Italian melodic hardcore?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2UbcqlV254
And Italian post-rock?
https://youtu.be/71k3uZ4S1j4
And Italian screamo?
https://youtu.be/vChT4_Py9Wk

I had no idea any of that even existed.

The first and the third are ugly. The second is interesting.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What are you passionate about?

My girlfriend.

1,000 posts a month = spam

I'll take it as a badge of honour, as it comes from the person who uses "fascist" as a badge of honour.

Who's your favorite all-time Italian Prime Minister?

Probably Giovanni Giolitti.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Off the very top of your head, what do you know about India?

India is one of the vastest countries in the world. I think 3 million something km²?
India is the second most populous country in the world at roughly 1,300,000,000 people.
India has twenty-something national/official/whatever languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Manipuri (?). Most of them are Indo-European. Tamil, Telugu and some others are Dravidic. Some are neither (Manipuri I think is Sino-Tibetan).
India has a Hindu plurality (majority?), and sizable Muslim, Sikh and Christian minorities.
Not all of India was technically a British possession before 1947 because it was full of semi-autonomous so-called "princely states".
India has had religious riots, including one in Mumbai in I think 1992 (or was it 1993?)
India's prime minister is called Narendra Modi and to my knowledge is sort of a Hindu nationalist.
The capital of India is New Delhi.
The "film capital" of India is Mumbai (Bollywood).
The most famous thing in all of India, the Taj Mahal, is I think in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is also the most populated subnational entity in the world.
I have heard very ugly stuff about rape culture in the state of Haryana.
Etc.


I swear I did not search any one of these things on Google while writing my post.
I have an Indian "pen friend" or to be more precise message friend. She is 25, has just graduated from university in New Delhi, comes from Manipur, is Christian and speaks Paite as her mother tongue.
I also watched "Slumdog Millionaire" like 3 days ago.
Ah and I am a geography geek.

https://www.flare.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/giphy-2-1.gif

I am not kidding at all.

What do you know about Italy?  

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Your English is very good. Is this the general quality of English-speaking/writing among middle-class Italians?

Thank you.
Absolutely not, Italians generally are bad at English.
Also did you just infer my social status? Classist.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I am not kidding at all.

What do you know about Italy?  

Well to make things more interesting and in the context of our two nations, India and Italy just recently re-established semi-friendly relations after Gentiloni and Modi met in 2017.  As you know, India has been pretty pissed at Italy for the Enrica Lexie affair.  

I know that. Italy was pretty pissed too, although I think by now many Italians have even forgot that story.
Funnily my Indian pen pal referenced above had never heard anything about it until I told her.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Do you like cooking Italian?

I am not able to cook that much.

Your English is very good. Is this the general quality of English-speaking/writing among middle-class Italians?

Thank you.
Absolutely not, Italians generally are bad at English.
Also did you just infer my social status? Classist.

You're certainly better than your Foreign Minister

I am better than many Italian politicians sadly.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Opinion of the Italian Communist Party and Euro communism.

The original one for right or for wrong was the main force on the left and probably got less than what it deserved.
The current party with that name is a joke as are all the other dozen parties the Italian far-left is split into.

Eurocommunism was an interesting idea that never went anywhere.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Would you have voted for DC, PC, PSI, or one of the smaller parties between 1948 and 1992?



Also, is there any meaning to your username? Just wondering...

As for politics, I don't know. I think I might have been a casual left-leaning swing voter.
A very interesting party switch history is that of Antonio Giolitti.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Giolitti


Now for the good part:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew

And now you know where I took my username from. It's not because I like the character particularly, but because I like very much the idea of a Shakespeare character with an Italian name and also surname. Yes, I guess I could have chosen Romeo Montecchi but that is too obvious.

Not mentioned in the original thread, but I played Gremio in that comedy in high school.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Bump.

Just because things are befalling me and I want to see if there are new topics.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

How do you feel about Giorgio La Pira, Aldo Moro, and other "Red Catholic"/DC Left figures from the First Republic?

I have always found Aldo Moro a massive freedom fighter bar his original (though brief) opposition to the centre-left ca. 1958/1959.
Giorgio La Pira seems to have been a great mayor but I am not too knowledgeable about him.

A person who really knows everything about this is my grandfather. He has been a lifelong DC/successor parties member and while I don't think he was in Moro's current he has always been much warmer towards the left than towards the right. He knows a very lot about the political history of Italy. He also knows a lot about the history of the Church and other religious topics by the way.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What do you think of current Italy-US relations?

Do you support Conte?

That's all I got.

Well I don't know what to think, they seem to be good and non-controversial.

I think Conte is an empty suit. I prefer his new government to the previous one for partisan reasons, but I am no great fan. Also, there will be some regional elections plus a constitutional referendum in two weeks, after which all sorts of things could happen.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What are your thoughts on the US role in Italian politics between 1947 and the end of the Cold War?

And is it common for Italians to regard various instances of intrigue in their Cold War-era politics as the result of US intelligence operations?

The US role in Italian politics during the Cold War was on some level understandable but generally pretty shady and with possibly lots of shenanigans.
Of course tons of respect to Craxi for kicking the crap out of Reagan at Sigonella, by the way.

I don't know how common it is really, and likely it is highly dependent on which party one comes from. I'd note that the discover of Gladio in 1991 sparked lots of outrage.
Personally I am ambivalent, like I don't really buy that the CIA orchestrated the Moro affair or something.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Why do you think Italy hasn't legalized same-sex marriage yet?

Because we passed civil unions four years ago and I am not sure same-sex marriage is on anyone's agenda, although according to polls a majority of Italians are in favour.

Who would you have voted for in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 US Presidential elections?

I don't know. Presumably Perot in 1992 and not sure about 1996 or 2000. To be honest I would probably vote very irrationally if I lived in a safe state.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Was Gabriele D'Annunzio really that bad in his capacity as a political actor, or was he more of a heavily implicated fellow-traveler?

Gabriele D'Annunzio was obviously a massive piece of shıt insofar as his political views are concerned and had an obvious influence on fascism and in some way contributed to its rise.

However D'Annunzio semi-retired from public life roughly at the same time as Mussolini came to power, and Mussolini continually made sure that he keep quiet by covering D'Annunzio with honours and money (roughly the same applies to futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti), since of course he had no interest in heterodox intellectuals potentially outshining him.
For the record D'Annunzio never actually became a member of the PNF, even though he signed the Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals in 1925.

Also, D'Annunzio mysteriously fell off his villa's window and injured himself in 1922 and there are people who speculate it was an attempted murder (and also people who speculate it was an attempted suicide).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

IIRC, weren't there those hoping to invite D'Annunzio into government to "save" the state from Mussolini--at which point the aforementioned fall happened?

I don't think D'Annunzio was part of any such plan.
The people who wanted to save the state from Mussolini I think were pushing for some kind of socialists + populars + liberals governement chaired by Giolitti, which could not happen for all sorts of reasons.

Do you know if the invasion of Italy by US troops was viewed as a realistic possibility should the Italian left win control of government? I was reading a paper on US-Italy relations in the 70s and apparently this was viewed with some fear by Italians, who received very mixed signals from the Carter administration regarding the US' stance on--I believe--the PCI.

In said same paper, apparently then-US ambassador Volpe (think the Nixon-Ford term of '73 to '77) hung out with both mobsters and members of the Italian far right. Fairly ironic that a liberal Republican in the US suddenly shifted several steps once overseas, even if not entirely surprising given how foreign policy was run. I guess there's no question in there, but w/e.

I am not sure how much people feared a US invasion. Probably a small but sizable minority. I'd argue that an equal number feared a USSR invasion.
Of course it depends on the exact scenario, a hypothetical Historic Compromise government would not have been the same as a hypothetical "hey, PCI broke 40% and mopped out DC" election.


Yes, it's clear that some people of power in the United States hung out with whomever was an ally against the Communists, including the Mafia and neofascists, which is part of what I referred to as "shenanigans".
Ironically there was a minority current in the MSI that emphasized the anti-imperalist, anti-plutocratic part of fascism and preferred Communists to Christian Democrats (see: Pino Rauti).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

As a Catholic, do you believe that premarital sex is immoral?

As a Protestant, do you believe that Marian devotion is a bunch of nonsense? Because my sister is convinced it is.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

As a Catholic, do you believe that premarital sex is immoral?

As a Protestant, do you believe that Marian devotion is a bunch of nonsense? Because my sister is convinced it is.

Is your sister straight? I think there's an element of psychosexual sublimation to a lot of Marian devotion that people who aren't attracted to women sometimes have a harder time seeing the point of. Everyone I know with a really intense Marian devotion is either a straight or bisexual man or a lesbian or bisexual woman.

My sister is heterosexual. I don't think she has ever interacted with someone with a really intense Marian devotion. And she seems to have a problem exactly with the "psychosexual sublimation" element, together with standard "muh not in the Bible" Protestant concerns.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

As a Catholic, do you believe that premarital sex is immoral?

As a Protestant, do you believe that Marian devotion is a bunch of nonsense? Because my sister is convinced it is.

Is your sister straight? I think there's an element of psychosexual sublimation to a lot of Marian devotion that people who aren't attracted to women sometimes have a harder time seeing the point of. Everyone I know with a really intense Marian devotion is either a straight or bisexual man or a lesbian or bisexual woman.

Not your AMA, but might this be a way that certain folks who don't really know their own sexuality, or deny it, find a way of expressing themselves?

And is this all (both your post and mine) a way of saying that it's similar to the Winona Ryder fandom?

Answered in my AMA to avoid derailing this one.

Nah. Since my September 5th bump, this thread has already basically become a nerdfest between me, you and Cath, so I don't really care.

And she seems to have a problem exactly with the "psychosexual sublimation" element, together with standard "muh not in the Bible" Protestant concerns.

The former is definitely an understandable qualm to have, although it's not always clear to me what alternative people who have it would suggest.

I have no idea.
Anyway, now try to picture her conversations about religion with her Muslim boyfriend.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

As a Catholic, do you believe that premarital sex is immoral?

As a Protestant, do you believe that Marian devotion is a bunch of nonsense? Because my sister is convinced it is.

I'm not a Protestant, I was raised atheist and consider myself to be agnostic. Sorry if my question came across as overgeneralizing about Catholics, I was being genuine and am curious as to how young Catholics such as yourself feel on this traditionally important issue.

You should ask someone else, because I am starting identifying again as Catholic only around right now.