Recordando a D.Ernerst......

The Dry Character of Italian Social Life

By FRANCIS X. ROCCA in Rome

News reports from Pamplona's annual festival of San Fermín, which ended yesterday at midnight, have triggered one of my periodic bouts of nostalgia for Spain. It's a longing that has less to do with bulls than booze: the Dionysian revels immortalized by Hemingway in "The Sun Also Rises," known in Britain under the fitting title of "Fiesta."

I have never actually attended San Fermín, nor ever tossed it back like Hemingway's characters, who seemed so glamorous when I read the book in my late teens. Yet some of my most cherished memories from a youthful year in Spain are bound up with drinking: late nights of endless talk over beers and tapas in Madrid, or over chilled Manzanilla along the banks of the Guadalquivir. When I moved to Italy a dozen years ago, I expected some semblance of the conviviality I'd experienced on that other Mediterranean peninsula. One of my biggest surprises has been the relatively subdued—and dry—character of Italian social life.

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Illustration by Brett Ryder
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Italians have an international reputation for spontaneity and warmth, a reflection of southern Italians' penchant for extravagant emotional display. But in social encounters with strangers, Italians of all regions are typically reserved and circumspect. Small talk is perfunctory and formal, the fulfillment of an obligation rather than a form of entertainment. At gatherings of those not already well-acquainted, awkward silences are common till it's time to eat, and then the most enthusiastic conversation is usually about the food.

There are no doubt complex socio-cultural explanations for this, but I'm convinced a key factor is simply the relative absence of alcohol. Dine at an Italian home and even the most generous host is unlikely to offer you a drink before you sit down at the table. Once the wine is poured, your fellow diners dose themselves as if with highly potent medicine. Even the recent Milanese fashion for cocktails seems mostly an excuse for sampling elaborate buffets of appetizers.

This is not just my experience; statistics back me up. According to a 2010 report by the World Health Organization, Italians drink less than any other major European nation. Excluding teetotalers, the average Italian man consumes 17 liters of pure alcohol per year, while his Spanish counterpart puts away almost 25—nearly 50% more. (The overall champs among the major nations are, surprisingly, the French. But that's chiefly because 92% of them drink at least a little, compared with 82% of Italians and 55% of Spaniards. Germans are the least abstinent nation, with 95% of adults drinking, but their preference for beer over wine or spirits means they take in less pure alcohol.)

Most Italians probably find they have little need for social lubrication. With one of Western Europe's lower rates of geographic mobility, they tend to spend their leisure time with extended family, or friends they made back in school, leaving little room in their lives for new acquaintances. Yet Italy's society is hardly less dynamic than Spain's, so other factors must explain its comparative abstemiousness.

Drunkenness is a disgrace in Italy, and even tipsiness deemed embarrassing. People here hold an ideal of personal dignity, known as la bella figura, which rules out public loss of self-control. Italians are also extremely cautious, one of the archetypal "low-trust" nations described by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama, and inebriation is obviously unwise if you feel you need to watch your back. Whereas letting go, at least a little, is practically the point of drinking.

Hitting the bottle might not be the most prudent recommendation to Italians or Spaniards in the current economy. Nor is it one that this expatriate, now happily burdened with fatherhood and a job, is in much of a position to follow. Nostalgia, on the other hand, is a harmless indulgence—not to mention a very Italian one.
Anteing Up for Art

Milan is Italy's undisputed capital of finance and fashion, yet hardly a rival to Rome, Florence or Venice as an art lover's Mecca. Hence the ambition to expand its greatest art gallery, the Brera, in preparation for the city's hosting of the Expo 2015 world's fair. Such an undertaking would have traditionally enjoyed state subsidies for at least some of the €150-million budget. But in these straitened times, the government says it's the private sector's turn to pay. Noting the example of Tod's chief executive Diego Della Valle, who recently donated €25 million to restore Rome's Coliseum, Milan is now hoping for similar largesse from its own business world.
Competing in Style

However many gold medals Italian athletes pick up at next year's Olympic Games in London, they're already clear favorites to win the prize for style. Italy's Olympic Committee announced this week that Giorgio Armani will design the national team's uniforms, apparently the first time such a prominent designer has been given this kind of job. For ordinary Italians, many of whom don fancy tracksuits as leisure wear, the sight of their top athletes wearing high fashion in actual competition could prove disconcerting. Who knows? It might even inspire a switch to other forms of casual attire—an achievement for which Armani and the Olympians would deserve the highest honors.

Next week, Lennox Morrison in Paris