A mixed feeling, something in between physical fear and aristocratic despice is inevitable, when one lives in fragile Venice and a menacing brutal monster enters the Canal Grande, offering the narrow strees and the delicate mosaics that pave its churches and palaces to the newly enriched masses of global tourism.
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The legacy of William the Bastard
Little seems to have changed since his time. Some two thirds of the British landmass remains in the hands of around 0.3% of the population that includes the Crown, various aristocrats and the Church of England. The social hierarchy is alive and well. And the psyche of the British masses remains deeply marinated in class consciousness, social distinctions and instinctive deference.
As a spectacle of pomp and circumstance the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton must surely have fulfilled every TV mogul’s wildest dreams. Hollywood could never compete. The setting was Westminster Abbey, founded by King Edward the Confessor in 1045 and the traditional place of coronation and burial for royalty down the ages. […]
La storia e il presente
A sessant'anni dal maggio 1952
Per aver ricordato l’europeismo di De Gasperi in contrapposizione agli entusiasmi mediterranei di Fanfani sono stato accusato, in un recente ed importante incontro italo-russo, di conoscere troppo a fondo la storia del mio paese. E anche se non mi pare un’accusa veramente infamante, ho dovuto ammettere che – di fronte all’ignoranza beota in cui la […]