Italy is invariably reckoned to have half of the world’s cultural heritage within its borders. This would include everything from palaeochristian rock engravings to Grecian temples, Etruscan cities, Roman amphitheatres, Byzantine basilicas, mountain fortresses, renaissance palaces, palladian villas, rococò hunting lodges and neo-classical pleasances….and we haven’t even started on the ever-unfolding heritage of industrial archaeology, stile liberty mansions and rationalist thirties architecture.
That’s just the buildings record. When the majestic length of Italy’s artistic record is added there is absolutely no doubt that even a fortnight’s journey through the peninsula will reveal more marvels of humankind’s creativity than a year travelling in most other corners of the globe.
Why should Italy have this supreme cornucopia of cultural goodies. Clearly the main reason must be to do with the natural creative virtuosisism of its native people. Undoubtedly there are wonderfully creative people’s elsewhere. I recollect the astonishing Hindu temples of the south Indian Pallava kings, the extraordinary temples of the Khmers and the beautiful ceramics of Middle Eastern mosques, for instance.
Perhaps more monuments of past ages in Italy have survived unscathed. But how could this be so? Of all European countries Italy has the newest geology underlying its surface; hardly a year goes past in our part, for example, without some major disaster afflicting the landscape. It could be a large-scale landslide or an earth-tremor or a river bursting its banks for the umpteenth time. So the earth’s surface is hardly kind to the treasures which have been built upon it. Since we’ve decided to live here two entire cities (l’Aquila, Amatrice) and several borghi (villages)have been in large part levelled by mammoth earthquakes. If it’s not earthquakes then mini-tsunamis, avalanches and the collapse of entire mountains (such as occurred in the dolomites) have done their worse.
(Santa Trinità bridge Florence after it was blown up by the Germans).
And if natural forces have not wreaked enough vengeance upon even the finest of man’s endeavours then man himself has done his worst in a seemingly endless sequence of wars and guerillas. From the plundering of the imperial capital of Rome by the Huns and Goths to the sack of the same city by Teutonic forces to Napoleonic pillage to perhaps the worst conflict to date of all, the 1943-5 civil war which among its worst casualties destroyed the Mantegna frescoes of Padua’s Eremitani church and obliterated the art once decorating Pisa’s camposanto walls.
So how is it that so much still survives in the gorgeous country inhabited by the italic peoples?
It could, of course, be just a fluke but I recognize three main causes:
- Building material.
Parts of Italy were as heavily bombed as Germany in the last war. However, what chance do attractive half-timbered wattle-and-daub buildings have against bombs when compared with granitic stone walls and marble precincts? Italy’s historical buildings are made with far longer lasting material than that used in many other countries. What chances do those fabulous mud edifices of Yemen have against even the smallest of terrorist bombs? Moreover if a palazzo gets hit and walls fall down it’s still possible to reconstruct it using the salvaged material. A famous example of this is Florence’s Ponte San Trinita blown up by Jerry in 1944 but rebuilt ‘come e dove era’ (‘how and where it was’) reclaiming the stones thrown into the Arno by the explosion. - Historical and Religious devotion.
Italians are particularly devoted to the ‘centri storici’ of their towns. For most of them those words striking terror into conservationist: re-development and renewal have no place. The town centre must remain the same from its mediaeval city palace to the local bar.True, Florence suffered the effects of these misguided words in the nineteenth century when its centre was either ‘rinnovato da squallore’ (renewed from squallor) or ‘sventrato’ (disembowelled) – depending on one’s point of view. However, I doubt if even the most philistine citizen could have tolerated the ghastly things done to the Victorian architecture of the great English industrial cities. To this day I remain shocked at the horrific transmogrifications of even the sedatest of English country towns by the hands of the town planners and urban ‘architects’. Pick your own sickening example. I do not have to go further than Peterborough or Guildford. Slough eat your heart out!
As for all those myriads of religious buildings including churches, chapels, abbeys, cathedrals, convents and monasteries although the number of practicing Roman Catholics has greatly diminished in the last fifty years, especially since the rise of secularism, the abandonment of Catholicism as the state religion and the decline of rural population, no Italian would gladly see the demolition of their old parish church and its replacement with a concrete multi-purpose ,ecumenical centre’ a third of the size and a millionth of the interest of the former building. Worst if that church were converted into a bar, billiard hall, temple or mosque (as often happens in countries like Brexitania).That’s why even in the remotest corners of Tuscan hills and forests we can come across a chapel which, although it might be open for religious service only once a year, is still lovingly bedecked with flowers and prayers by the local populace.- International cooperation.
- At least there is an international community of artistic people who appreciate the unique aesthetics of Italy. The country’s miraculously preserved cultural heritage is not just a national asset, it’s a world asset. Hence international funds go into saving Venice as they went into saving Florence after that city’s disastrous 1966 flood. Long may this cooperation continue and long may the world’s fine arts departments have their presence in a country which has given so largely their raison d’etre.
Italy is indeed the mirror into which a world may look and say ‘these are some of the most precious objects mankind has created. May these beautiful things be offered to the supreme creator as tokens both of enduring apologies and everlasting thanks.’
You raise an interesting questions here, indeed why? I would probably argue that Italy’s fame still largely rests on its wealth of renaissance art and architecture, and that much of this had to do with the early rise of capitalism and artistic patronage, as well as the promotion of Italy’s grandeur through the propaganda of the humanists. There is also a theory that geographically unstable places, those with earthquakes and the like, are more fertile, and this fertility leads to more creativity. I forget where I read this. Conversely, along with Italy’s fabulous cities, piazzas and built environment, comes a terrible desecration of the land, the orange mustard clouds that hang over the industrial north, which is another topic, and a digression. I always feel drawn to Italy, and then when I arrive, I feel the need to escape. At times it’s claustrophobic. At least in your neck of the woods, nature is wonderful and the roads fairly quiet.
Thank you for your comment. Yes the pollution in the Po valley can be insupportable. Having lived considerable chunks of my childhood in Milan I sadly remember the industrial smogs and smells afflicting this otherwise fascinating city. I also find the placing of large factories side by side with domestic housing without proper zoning rules unacceptable. Our own area although it is considered to have some of the best air quality in Italy is near paper mills (a traditional feature here because of fresh river water) which spout out a lot of smoke by night and which, according to a doctor friend of ours, has given high rates of lung cancer among those living along the valley floors because the pollution gets trapped by the steep mountain sides. (At least our House is at 2,000 feet height and well above any trapped pollution clouds. Ps looking forwards to your next foody post.