Visiting a villa built by Lorenzo de Medici outside Pisa, David
Gilmour fell into conversation about the unification of Italy with
a distinguished former minister: '"You know, Davide,"
he said in a low conspiratorial voice, as if nervously uttering a
heresy, "Garibaldi did Italy a great disservice. If he had not
invaded Sicily and Naples, we in the north would have the richest
and most civilized state in Europe." After looking round the
room at the other guests, he added in an even lower voice, "Of
course to the south we would have a neighbour like
Egypt."' These words stayed in the author's mind for a
long time. The dream of a unified Italy, how and why it has never
been more than a dream, became the subject of a book he has been
thinking about and writing for the last twenty years. Was the
elderly Italian right? "The Pursuit of Italy" traces the
whole history of the Italian peninsula since the Romans in a
wonderfully readable style, full of well-chosen stories and
observations from personal experience, and peopled by many of the
great figures of the Italian past, from Cicero and Virgil to
Machiavelli and the Medici, Garibaldi and Cavour, and the rather
less inspiring political figures of the 20th century. Gilmour gives
a clear-eyed view of the Risorgimento, the pivotal event in modern
Italian history, debunking the many absurd and influential myths
which have grown up around it but including a particularly
sympathetic portrait of Giuseppe Verdi, one of many cultural
figures he treats. Gilmour shows that the glory of Italy has always
lain in its regions, with their distinctive civic cultures,
cuisine, art and identities. Similarly, most of the people of the
peninsula have thought of themselves first as Tuscans, Venetians,
Romans, Neapolitans or Sicilians and as Italians second, if at all.
This, he argues, is where the strength of Italy lies rather than in
misconceived ideas of unity. This wise and enormously engaging book
explains the course of Italian history in a manner and with a
coherence which no one with any interest in the country could fail
to enjoy.
David Gilmour, Jg. 1949, lebt in Toronto, Kanada, und ist Buchautor, Fernsehmoderator, Journalist und Filmkritiker. Er wurde mit vielen Literaturpreisen ausgezeichnet, etwa mit dem renommierten Governor General's Award.
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