I want to live in Ortygia someday; when will this happen? Maybe after my kids are in college (which is disturbingly a real thing that will happen soonish)? It’s part of my life plan. I must live there. More than Rome even. My family is all about Tuscany which is fine, but… Well, we have family in Lucca and it is lovely. They live in a house from which our cousin’s husband’s family hunted in the winter, a forbidding 16th century square tower, the interior severe and plain though comfortable. He is a count I guess? He thinks everyone who lives south of Rome is a useless layabout, and Roman people only just make it over the bound of scrutiny. Sicilian people are not even worth talking to. People have regional prejudices in the states, so it’s not too surprising, but I am struck by the vehemence of the “the further south you go, the more useless everyone is” theory of Italy. My friend’s Milanese husband practically wants to defect to Switzerland as far as I can see.
Belle, I know a Sicilian who vehemently denies she is “Italian” but also denies that northerners are, on the grounds that they are “really” French or German.
A strikingly patterned monochromatic image, a juxtaposition of shadows, one of an unseen intricate filigree, the other the even sawtooth of a staircase.
{ 6 comments }
rea 11.22.15 at 4:54 pm
Plato used to hang out in Ortygia, but those steps are probably newer.
Belle Waring 11.23.15 at 1:29 am
I want to live in Ortygia someday; when will this happen? Maybe after my kids are in college (which is disturbingly a real thing that will happen soonish)? It’s part of my life plan. I must live there. More than Rome even. My family is all about Tuscany which is fine, but… Well, we have family in Lucca and it is lovely. They live in a house from which our cousin’s husband’s family hunted in the winter, a forbidding 16th century square tower, the interior severe and plain though comfortable. He is a count I guess? He thinks everyone who lives south of Rome is a useless layabout, and Roman people only just make it over the bound of scrutiny. Sicilian people are not even worth talking to. People have regional prejudices in the states, so it’s not too surprising, but I am struck by the vehemence of the “the further south you go, the more useless everyone is” theory of Italy. My friend’s Milanese husband practically wants to defect to Switzerland as far as I can see.
Chris Bertram 11.23.15 at 8:12 am
Belle, I know a Sicilian who vehemently denies she is “Italian” but also denies that northerners are, on the grounds that they are “really” French or German.
magari 11.23.15 at 8:28 am
Northerners often refer to Sicilians as Africans. Also, I’m not really sure what that photo has to do with Ortigia.
bad Jim 11.23.15 at 8:58 am
A strikingly patterned monochromatic image, a juxtaposition of shadows, one of an unseen intricate filigree, the other the even sawtooth of a staircase.
Chris Bertram 11.24.15 at 2:50 pm
Also, I’m not really sure what that photo has to do with Ortigia.
It was taken there.
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