AS ITALY RECOVERED FROM THE PANDEMIC: 1/4: Italian Lessons: Fifty Things We Know About Life Now by Beppe Severgnini (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Italian-Lessons-Fifty-Things-About/dp/0593315634/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1652479747&sr=1-2
Is there an Italian way to deal with life? Can we all learn something from the Italians?
Italy often arouses in Americans a unique mix of attraction and bafflement, moderate disapproval and incredible allure. From the Italians' love of poetry to an innate desire to socialize to the regional differences between the north and the south, BeppeSevergnini, who has dedicated his career to the meticulous observation of his compatriots, embarks on an enthralling quest to identify a core Italian identity and explore how that identity has evolved since the global pandemic.
1780 ROME
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:10.0 | Italy, March 2020, the plague, the pandemic, the virus. It's in Italy, it's in the United States, and in response, Italy locks down. But I welcome Bepi Severini. He is a |
| 0:28.7 | columnist at Corre de la Serra but he's also the author of a new book, Italian Lessons, 50 things we know about life now, |
| 0:38.3 | after the pandemic, during the pandemic, reflecting upon hundreds of years, thousands of years in Italy. |
| 0:46.2 | Beppi, congratulations and good evening I take you to a moment in March of 2020 when you |
| 0:51.8 | were looking down from your office and crossing the Piazza Duomo in your hometown |
| 0:58.5 | Krama, you inadvertently or on purpose or serendipitously pushed open the side door of your |
| 1:06.1 | cathedral Duomo de Kreme and inside was one worshipper and then a |
| 1:12.2 | crucifix a crucifix that you date to the 13th century. |
| 1:16.4 | What does that crucifix represent to the people of Kremo? |
| 1:19.4 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:21.6 | Good evening. Well thank you for starting with an image and a symbol and it is also a piece of art, but it's part of our life and it's been part of the life of people in Kremen for centuries. |
| 1:38.0 | It's a crucifix and it's got a story attached to it and back in 1448 can imagine the |
| 1:48.4 | crucifix is older than that but in 1448 some soldiers were besieged in the cathedral and tried to set fire to it in hopes of getting warm. |
| 2:00.0 | And the crucifix supposedly pulled up its leg assuming its |
| 2:05.9 | present a position and and it's a legend okay but it's something that Krema people not only people necessarily to religious attach a lot of a lot of sort of affection to and when in times of trouble people in |
| 2:28.0 | Krema tend to refer to the crucifix so it was a terrible time at the time in Krema and because the virus, the COVID, starting in China, we all know about it. |
| 2:42.0 | Not many people know that the first place in in Europe and in the |
| 2:46.2 | Western world where it struck was my area with southern Lombardy, with Cordonio, Crema, Cremona, and so it was devastating. |
| 2:57.2 | You know, I could hear ambulances every day all day and in my office, which is right under Piazza del Duamon, it was completely empty, |
| 3:06.9 | we were not allowed to go out. |
| 3:08.8 | I could walk to my office, I'm a journalist and I could walk back home. |
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