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| From the passing train, north of Rome. Ripe for gentrification? |
Earlier this year, I read ‘The
Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South’, a history of
the love affair between northern Europeans (which for this purpose includes not
only Brits but also Americans) and Mediterranean life and culture (notably
Greece and Italy). An entertaining read. Recommended.
As author John Pemble says, in the 19th and early 20th
centuries the British were ‘familiar with Mediterranean history and infatuated
with Mediterranean art, landscape, literature and religion.’ The tradition went
back to the Grand Tour and earlier. The Germans and other northerners were equally
enthralled – Goethe is big on the subject. A more liberal moral atmosphere that
that of Victorian Britain was a further attraction to some. The mutual appeal
of north and south is centuries old, whatever the ancient Romans may have
thought of British weather …
I inherited an interest in Italy from my
parents. My father, a doctor, was in Italy during World War II, running a field
ambulance unit at the Battle of Monte Cassino, among other things. Despite that
unpleasant experience (it probably led to his increasing tinnitus and deafness
in old age), he was captivated by the country. He and my mother travelled to
Italy several times in the 1950s, leaving us kids at home. It wasn’t until 1960
that we got to go – a source of resentment and frustration at the time, as
several of my schoolmates made the trip before I did.
Anyway, since then I have missed no
opportunity to visit Italy. It has helped that an old friend of mine taught in
Rome for 16 years, a great host and guide. This year, we joined forces once
again, and spent a week in Florence, followed by another week in Rome.
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| Street life: further north, it might not look so picturesque |
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