A Historian's View from the Janiculum and beyond

Archivists are a historian's best friend (part II)

One of the exciting aspects of being a modern Italian historian is that you must deal with the peculiar relations between the papacy and the state, between the Vatican (that is the Roman Catholic Church's institutional bureaucracy) and the state, and between the Italian Catholic Church and the state. This peculiarity is owing to the way in which Italy was created between 1859 and 1870. This process of what the Italians call "unification" meant the undoing of all but one of the different kingdoms, principalities and dukedoms that existed on the Italian peninsula prior to 1859. The one that remained, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, served as the political root stock on which  which the new Kingdom of Italy was grafted. Only one of the losers remained: the pope-king of the Papal States -- a kingdom in the center of the Italian peninsula whose leader was also the head of the Roman Catholic Church.  However, although the Pope remained, he no longer had a kingdom, and his position in Italy remained an unresolved issue. In the diplomatic terms of the time this issue was referred to as "the Roman Question."  The question was, in effect, what should be done with the pope's claim to his lost kingdom that had been patched back together after the French Revolution of 1789 and Napoleon had suppressed it?  

By the 1920s the relations between church and state and decades of precedents allowed for a tenuous relationship between the papacy and the Italian state. There was now a desire on both sides to resolve the issue once and for all. Federzoni, a fervent Catholic from 1924 onwards, was in a position to work towards some sort of reconciliation. I have found evidence to suggest that, as Interior Minister, Federzoni worked hard to resolve the Roman Question but ultimately failed. This is nothing new. But, the details are lacking. 

Yesterday, before the Archive of the Foreign Ministry opened, I struck up a conversation with a person whom I had seen in the archive on a weekly basis since I started working there.  It turns out he is an archivist from the Vatican Archives.  We talked about our research, and he began to offer me suggestions about where to look for archival material in the Vatican Archives on Federzoni in the newly opened holding of Pius XI. He has also explained to me that he may be able to help me gain access to the Silesian archive. The Silesians are an order of Catholic priests who worked and still work in the education of boys and young men. I am anxious to gain access to the Silesian archive because one of Federzoni's cousins was an important person in the religious order who eventually became bishop of the city of Volterra. It was through this cousin that Federzoni became a devout Catholic. And, I hypothesize, that the two men had close relations during their lifetime.

So, while I thought that this summer might be the last for me to work intensively in Roman archives, I see that I must plan to come back next year. The Vatican Archive will close next week, and there is no time to even begin any research there. Moreover, I will just have enough time to complete the work I set out to do this summer. I cannot miss a day in my two archives if I am to get my work done this year.

All this brings me back to what I wrote in my last post. Another piece of my work depends on the help of an archivist. Sometimes, we see archivists and historians as two separate professions, and in one sense that is true. However, I would argue that archivists and historians are two sides of the same coin. 

Finally, one last note on archivists.  One of our alumna, Mary Gasper works at the Army Museum and Archive in Carlyle, PA.  An Italian historian I met here needed to go the Army Archive to consult Goerring's diary which is conserved there. I was able to put him in touch with Mary, who helped him out. Thanks Mary! Professor Giorgio Fabre told me how he is so very thankful for all you did for him.  

Archivists are a historian's best friend

Over the weekend, I had sent a letter to one of the archivists at the Central State Archives in Rome, asking if I could get permission to read the original copies of the diary of Mussolini's last mistress, Clara Petacci. Her diaries had been published in part earlier this year, and I had noticed something puzzling in them that I wanted to clear up by looking at the original. The archivist introduced herself to me this evening as I was working at my desk. She showed me how to gain access to the diary (which fortunately has been scanned into so many jpegs). We then began to talk about my research on Federzoni. As it so happens, her job is working on donations of single individuals to the Central State Archives -- usually donations of people who have worked for the national government in some form or other.  While some of her suggestions did not give me any new leads, she did give me some very valuable suggestions about new holdings where we found letters from Federzoni in the indices.  So, in addition to my work in the Colonial Archives and my work on the telegrams to and from the Interior Ministry, I will also follow through the different leads she has given me. 

I was able to return the favor in a small way.  I had been going through the correspondences of Emilio Bodrero, a leading academic and senator during the Fascist era.  I found one letter for which the Central State Archive had not been able to identify the author. I was able to prove that the letter had been written by Federzoni. And so, this letter that had previously been catalogued as "author unknown" will now be catalogued as having been written by Federzoni. Although I was able to help the Central State Archive (and future researchers), I am still much in the debt of the archivists there (and everywhere).  Archivists are truly a historian's best friend

Strike when the iron's hot

Okay... tomorrow, one of the largest unions is going on strike. So, it will be impossible to get to the two archives where I do my research. Then, Tuesday is the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the patron saints of Rome, so both archives are closed on Monday and Tuesday.  

Fortunately, I foresaw this slowdown and planned a trip to Aix-en-Provence to visit friends. It will be nice to be away from Rome, the archives and my work for a bit. I'll take lots of pictures and post the better ones. We'll return on Monday.  Tuesday will be a day of total relax.

One item still worries me. Italians have been in a rather cranky mood despite the propaganda that comes from Berlusconi's state-run news and his media empire. Everything is not rosy. And, while there was supposed to be a general strike this Friday (when everything and I mean everything stops as a protest), it has only been postponed until July 8. So, I'll get to see again the power of labor. Additionally, several unions seem poised to make July very uncomfortable for the government by creating more strikes. It's the only way workers (and most Italian workers belong to a union) have to show their disagreement with governmental policy between elections. However, I hope I don't run into too many strikes this July. I need all the days I can get in the archives! 

A trip to Orvieto

Orvieto is a small city with a population a little larger than Indiana (without counting IUP students) -- about 20,000 inhabitants.  It's roots go back to the Etruscans. Around 260BC, it was conquered by the expanding Roman Republic.  In the fifth century AD, it was the Goth's turn to conquer the city from the crumbling Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, it belonged to the Carolingian Empire and the Papacy before it won its freedom as a comune or free city-state. It's power derived, in part, from its strong defensive construction at the top of a enormous fortified hill that is still imposing today.  (I know, I walked down a less steep side of the cliffs...)

Like most medieval Italic city-states, Orvieto took part in the fight between the Ghibelline faction, which supported the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Guelph faction, which supported the papacy (If you want to know more about the conflict, why not take Dr. Moore's HIST 304 Mediev al Europe II, 1000–1300?) 

In 1494, Orvieto was again taken over by the Papacy. In 1527, when marauding Protestant mercenaries entered the city of Rome and began to pillage it, Pope Clement VII saved his skin by fleeing and holing himself up in Orvieto. (You can learn more about the events surrounding the Sack of Rome in Dr. Botelho's HIST 305 Renaissance and Reformation).  The city remained under the papacy as part of the Papal States until Italian unification, except for a brief period of French rule during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Period.  (Again, if you want to know more about these events on the Italian Peninsula, you can take Dr. Whited's HIST 322 French Revolution and Napoleon or my HIST 310 Making Italy Modern.) In short, like most modern Italian cities, there are many layers to local history which are intertwined with the history of the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean.  

One of the biggest artistic draws to the city is its gothic cathedral, begun at the end of the thirteenth century and dedicated to Mary the Mother of God. The façade has incredible detail that few (amateur) photographers can reproduce. Here's my feeble attempt--the piazza outside is sloping which accounts for the slant, lest you think I had a wee too much to drink :-)

The sides of the exterior play on the striated design that can be found to the north in Tuscany. Here's how it captured my imagination yesterday:

 

Inside, the church is incredibly tall.

One of the many reasons why this cathedral is so important is the chapel of Saint Brizio, built during the Renaissance and decorated by Fra Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Luca Signorelli.  Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed in the chapel. Although I saw many people taking them anyway, I refused to break the law. You can check out (literally) reproductions from our library in Enzo Carli, Il Duomo di Orvieto. Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, 1965. Call number: OVERSIZE NA 5619 .O7 1965.  I really think taking a look at the book is worth the while. The fresco entitled "The Final Judgement" is amazing for its interpretation of what the end of the world looked liked in the mind of Renaissance Italians.  

We also had a wonderful lunch in Orvieto. My favorite dish consisted of tortelli (pasta stuffed with cheese that are a little larger than tortellini) smothered in a cream sauce of black truffles. It was one of the most heavenly dishes I have tasted in a long, long time. 

Look how much truffle was on that plate! It almost prepared me for the end of of the world, which seemed to be upon us when the skies opened up and we had to sit out a summer thunderstorm of torrential rain and hail. After more than an hour, we could finally set out again, but by that time, we had little time left.  

My wife and I decided to climb down the steep road that takes you from the old city to the train station below.  It was pretty awesome. Here's the most level part of the street. You can see how far we are about to descend (over a very short distance) in the background. 

Then, a quick trip to Lake Bolsena before heading back to Rome. 

 

Oh... one last photo souvenir of everyone who made the trip with me (from left to right, me; my wife Professor Monica Calabritto of Hunter College-CUNY; Professor Giuseppe Gerbino of Columbia University; Matteo Agostini, jazz saxophonist and composer; Eliza Andretta, currently a Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Berlin). 

A presto!

What made the free press so dangerous then and not so dangerous today

As I analyze the importance the Fascist government gave to the free press in Italy in 1924 and 1925, that is during a period of intense crisis for the future of the Fascist government, I cannot help but reflect on what the free press means to many in the US today. After all, as the philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce reminds us, history is written in the present, it is shaped by the present and it makes us reflect on it.

For the Fascist government, there was an attempt to squash any evidence that might serve to contradict its claims or its montage that, as the slogan would become in the 1930s, Mussolini is always right. Many newspapers in Italy had engaged in what we call today in America investigative journalism. They fought for the right to be able to seek out and present all the possible evidence that could be brought to bear on claims made in the public and private arena. I am no historian of Italian journalism, but it seems to me that this idea of the purpose of Italian journalism was born during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, or at least, it found in this, Italy's first colonial war, a defining moment. At that time, the government, seconded by a pro-colonial majority, printed outrageous claims about the riches in Libya (no one knew about the petroleum deposits then), the supposed barbarism of the indigenous population (and the converse civility of Italian society), the welcome Italy would receive from the same indigenous population once the Italians had liberated them from Ottoman misrule, and the civil nature in which the Italian army and colonial administration treated local populations in war and peace. A group of journalists, intellectuals and politicians who saw things differently, presented, as best they could, the evidence they saw that contradicted these claims. In 1911-1912, their writings fell on deaf ears. Italy, like the US in 1898 in its war with the Spanish Empire, was too stirred up by imperial fever to listen to cooler heads. The intervening First World War made Italians forget their supposed paradise across the sea. In the post-war period, to the dismay of many, the opponents to the war had been right about the negative sides to colonialism, which  had been ignored by all abut a few Italians. Indeed, Italy now needed to re-conquere its colony. Even the government tacitly recognized this state of affairs when it called its operations (that lasted from 1920 to 1932) as the "reconquest" of Libya. 

In 1911 and 1912, at issue was the willingness of Italians to accept evidence that contradicted their pipe dream of colonial wealth and the welcome the Italians were supposed to have encountered from local inhabitants. It is not by accident that some of the very journalists who hyped the Italo-Turkish War now used tactics to squash the free press in 1924-1925. And, Federzoni was first among them. The idea was not simply to quiet those who disagreed with the government, but to stop those who could provide a larger body of evidence from presenting their findings to public opinion and parliament. The free press had to be stopped not because it provided discordant voices, but because it provided evidence that disproved Fascist claims and because it gave opponents the opportunity to present the facts demonstrating an alternative vision based on more data or information than what the Fascist government was willing to let Italians have. Without these additional facts, Mussolini was, indeed, always right.    

As I reflect on today, I can see that the notions of a free press like so many other terms change meaning over time, as well as across social and cultural boundaries. For so many today, the free press means allowing people to spout opinion. Journalists do not investigate facts. (Many today, both in and out of journalism would even deny that facts can or do exit). Many American journalists now present "the two sides to the story" as if there are only two opposing views, each with their own validity. That may be the case for opinions, but it cannot be for facts. Moreover, many American journalists do not try to test the validity of statements made to them. They want a quote they can use in their reporting. 

How many times do we hear "On the one hand, [insert person] said... and, on the other hand, [insert a person with a contrasting statement] said..."?  Okay, one should say, but what does the available evidence say about these statements? To what extent are they supported by the available evidence? And, do we even have all the relevant evidence? This conception of journalism is what makes for a dangerous press. But, I fear that the press has lost its bite and Americans have lost their appetite for fact-based journalism. We could learn something from Italian journalism during the first half of the twentieth century. 

Some snags

Today was one of those days... Don't get me wrong. The sun was shining brilliantly over Rome and the temperature fell to a merciful 80º at the sun's zenith around 5:00pm. My work in the Foreign Ministry went well.  I finished going through three boxes and copied some interesting documents that I will need to examine more closely when I get back to Indiana. Some deal with the creation of internment camps on the Italian islands of Ustica and Sicily for the leaders of an uprising in Libya and Cyrenaica (Italy's newly conquered territory in what is today the modern country of Libya). I also found an interesting tidbit. A mafioso who had been sent to the same internment area on the island of Ustica petitioned to be allowed to go to Libya. After a review by Federzoni, he was allowed to leave Ustica to become an Italian colonizer alongside his son who had been given confiscated land.  

I also was able to help out a young scholar from Princeton University who is writing his dissertation on the indigenous populations in Cyrenaica and, in particular, the treaty between Italy and the Senussi leader in 1925. (The Senussis lived in North Africa and straddled lands colonized by Italy, Great Britain and France.) I had found a cache of documents that I will use for my biography.  Since they guy did not think of looking in the series that I was working on, I gave him copies of the photos I took of the documents because they will be essential for his dissertation. It just goest to show how indices in archives can be very misleading.  I also think that my sharing my archival research is the type of sharing we all should do in academia. Had I not said anything to him and had I not provided him with the copies of the documents, he never would have found them or, if he had, he never would have had time to make copies of them.  He is leaving in a few days to go to London to continue his work.  

I left the Foreign Ministry in high spirits.  A quick call to my wife to see how her work was going in Bologna. (She's a Renaissance scholar and is working on a manuscript that is only located in the University of Bologna's library.) Then, I waited and waited, and waited for the bus to take me to the subway so I could get to the State Central Archive for the remainder of my 11-hour day. After 40 minutes one finally showed up. It was filled to capacity, but I managed, somehow, to squeeze in. Imagine a bus jammed with human cargo with tiny windows and no running air conditioning and you will know what that ride was like. I arrived at the State Central Archive  almost 2 hours later dehydrated and exhausted. I still had three hours before the archive closed. So, I immediately got to work. The boxes I asked for had nothing I could use, so I began working on the telegrams. Unfortunately, a volume I desperately need was missing from the shelf, and the staff was not motivated to do anything about it. I finally cajoled them into reporting the volume missing. At least they will pretend to make an effort to find the volume. But, I don't have much hope that they will do anything. I don't know what I can do. I'll have to put that one on the back burner for the time being.   

To make matters worse, all the leads I had on locating a series of diaries Federzoni wrote while in exile and upon his return have turned cold. It's as if they disappeared into thin air. Frankly, I am beginning to give up all hope of being able to read them this summer. What makes matters worse is that I have no other way of documenting his escape from Rome aided by Pope Pius XII and the future Pope Paul VI.  

Tomorrow, I will go with friends to Orvieto to meet up with Monica and visit a vineyard nearby.  If I can take some good photos, I'll post them. Some time away from the archives will allow me to recharge my batteries.  I need some rest. 

A smoking gun

One of the aspects of Federzoni's career I am trying to grasp this summer is the relationship between the Interior Ministry under Federzoni (1924-1926) and the Italian press. In 1924, Federzoni was brought in to shore up Mussolini's cabinet after Matteotti, a Socialist deputy was kidnapped and murdered by a Fascist hit squad under Mussolini's indirect orders. Federzoni had made impressive leeway as Colonial Minister by taking the initiative against a North African insurgency. Now, he was called in to quell the growing violence of Fascist squads and the growing opposition to Mussolini's government.  Federzoni also had the advantage of being close to Vatican and Italian Catholic political circles, to the armed services and to the royal family. 

I believe that the squashing of a free press is a key to understanding what Renzo De Felice, the preeminent historian of Fascism has called the "consensus" around Fascism. Like Richard Bosworth, Paul Corner, Vicky De Grazia, Marta Petrusewicz and others have argued, I do not believe one can claim there really was a consensus if there was coercion. And, boy was there coercion! My research on the Interior Ministry (which is the police arm of the state in Italy) in this period is leading me to understand how this process happened. 

Let me share one interesting piece of the puzzle. I have been looking at the application of new and existing press laws during the crucial period of 1924-1925, when even a charade of liberalism finally was extinguished in Italy. Unfortunately, the records dealing with the arm of the Interior Ministry that handled censorship during this period are either lost or have nothing pertinent to say about the matter.  So, recognizing that the prefects and the Interior Ministry in Rome used telegrams as the most common and quickest form of communication (kind of like email today), I decided to work my way through the thousands of telegrams between the prefectures throughout the country and the Interior Ministry. It is a tedious task, and I am still not done yet. But, I am beginning to see how (in part) the law was applied. Federzoni ordered the prefects to send telegrams explaining why they confiscated a newspaper and then to send a copy of the edition by mail (this second part is lost). 

As I began to find patterns, I did not find surprising that the opposition newspapers got hit the hardest. But, that's only part of the story. Federzoni was also using the prefects to ensure that pro-government newspapers (many of which were Fascist) did not come down on the wrong side. I have found so far several telegrams that suggest this stance. But, today I finally found a telegram in which, as the campaign against the free press grew more intense, Federzoni gave orders to the prefects to be sure to confiscate opposition newspaper that violated the vaguely and broadly written censorship laws; but towards the newspapers friendly to the government or ones run by Fascists, Federzoni gave orders to let editors know what positions not to argue so these pro-government newspapers would not be confiscated. So, in addition to having literally hundreds of telegrams that will show a pattern of using the state to suppress a free press in Italy, I have one in which it is clear that the government was consciously using the state to manipulate the press. Moreover, it is important to point out that at the end of 1924, a new press law stipulated that printing something that violated the law meant the confiscation of newspapers that were already printed, rather than just censoring offending passages. I have already found evidence that these confiscations eventually forced many of the opposition newspapers in to "voluntary" bankruptcy, which was the intent of the law. So, making sure pro-governmental newspapers did not violate the law had enormous economic consequences, as well as obvious political ones. 

What is important, too, is that Federzoni was working through the prefects, whose power, at that time, was similar to that of a state legislature and executive, as well as state and local police, all rolled up into one. Moreover, prefects were supposed to be show a modicum of impartiality. Another important point, though based more on conjecture, is that one reason Federzoni was relieved of his post in 1926 because, in addition to problems caused by a series of assassination attempts on Mussolini's life, Federzoni had become too powerful. He was well connected to the king, the armed services, the Vatican, the Catholic episcopacy and, to top it all, he had turned the prefects into a well-oiled political machine in the style of 19th-century Italian prime ministers like Agostino Depretis and Francesco Crispi, and Giovanni Giolitti--all of whom held the position of interior minister while serving as prime minister. These three liberal prime ministers were famous for their skill in using prefects to "manage" consensus in the pre-Fascist era.  Federzoni was engaging in an analogous management of consensus. I conjecture, then, that Federzoni did too good a job. Mussolini did not like anyone gaining too much power. Federzoni was so successful in creating the Fascist state that he had to be removed from the power center that he had created. When Mussolini asked for Federzoni's resignation, he never let anyone else assume the power that Federzoni once had. He held the position of Interior Minister until he fell in 1943. 

A challenge for a modern Italian historian

As a modern historian in Italy, I am often struck by how easy and how difficult it is to find primary sources. We modernists do not have to worry about the paucity of sources like, say, early-modern, Renaissance or medieval historians, to say nothing of historians and archaeologists who study earlier periods. For many topics, all one has to do is find a discrete collection of documents in one archive and get down to working one's way through the collection. For some topics, however, the modernist becomes a scholar, sleuth and negotiator all rolled up into one. This is the case for my topic, the life of Luigi Federzoni. Like many other modernists, I need to seek out primary sources in both public and private hands. Additionally, I need to convince those who control access that I should be granted permission to consult the historical evidence in these collections. Working on a period of Italian history that includes the Fascist period (1922-1945) presents additional complications. Many Italians understandably do not want historians to analyze documents relating to the period because of possible repercussions for people alive today. 

Luigi Federzoni was very conscious of the need to make the historian's work difficult. And, sometimes I almost take it personal. I understand, of course that, more than protecting himself, he wanted to protect others by hiding evidence that people (including historians) could use to construct a historical record. And, these efforts began at a very early stage in his political career. In October 1922, during the March on Rome, the king decided not to sign a royal proclamation creating a state of siege (tantamount to martial law). The proclamation had been drafted by then prime minister Facta who was trying to deal with Mussolini's threat to march on Rome with his Fascist paramilitary groups. The king decided not to sign the proclamation, but instead to invite Mussolini to form a government, as was the king's prerogative as head of state. Federzoni was the last person to speak to the king before he made his decision and people have speculated ever since that he said something to convince the king to change his mind. Federzoni always refused to say anything about the events and denied that he had any role in the king's decision -- even during the Fascist period when it would have been to his advantage to appear as the person who had changed the king's mind. I have found no evidence that might elucidate Federzoni and the king's action. I conjecture that whatever happened, Federzoni, a confirmed monarchist, wanted to protect the crown. He wanted to project the image that Mussolini's appointment was not a political decision, in the sense of a negotiated do ut des (I do something for you; you do something for me). Instead, the king had the greater interests of all Italians at heart when he appointed Mussolini. It meant avoiding a civil war and forcing the Fascists to enter the parliamentary arena as politicians where they would have to resolve the many problems facing Italy in 1922 through legislation rather than through the extraparliamentary use of deadly force. Moreover, implicitly, if the king had appointed Mussolini, he could remove him, as was his prerogative under the constitution. This, indeed, happened in 1943, and Federzoni played an important role in Mussolini's fall from fall from power--but that's another story. 

Documents relating to the monarchy disappeared shortly after 1943 and have never resurfaced. To make matters worse, Federzoni's extensive library (approximately 15,000 books), most of his diaries and personal papers after 1943 also disappeared, making it more difficult to find clues that might support or contradict Fedezoni's explanation of what happened in 1922. 

Fortunately, not all of his private writings were not lost. The Federzoni family has been very gracious in sharing with me precious letters, memoirs and diaries in their possession. One set of diaries I am particularly eager to read consist of Federzoni's diaries from when he fled to Portugal and Brazil and his return to Italy after his decision to try to topple Mussolini in 1943. The diaries were in the possession of one of his daughters.  Another historian was able to consult them. But, they then disappeared from view. When I asked the Federzoni grandchildren about where these writings ended up, my heart sank when one grandchild told me she thought that they had been destroyed by the last surviving daughter of Federzoni. Her aunt thought they were too private and she did not want them falling into the wrong hands. Yesterday, however, I got a call from the youngest of the Federzoni grandchildren. She has given me hope. She told me that her mother (the daughter who supposedly destroyed the documents) had decided just before her death to donate them to a cultural institution in Rome where the Federzoni family had already donated other documents belonging to Luigi Federzoni. 

This is both good news and bad. I spent months at the institution (which I will not name). The archivists never told me that there was a second collection in the archive even though they knew I was working on Federzoni. Now, maybe they did not know about the second donation. And, matters were complicated because I had trouble with the administrative head of the archive who did not want me working in the archive. She even tried to get me thrown out. Fortunately, I was able to get the then Cultural Minister to intervene in my behalf. Needless to say, I cannot now count on this administrative head's willingness to cooperate if I need to go back to the cultural institution. The government is in different hands, and I may not be able to find anyone with power to help me get access should this person try to stymie my efforts. To make matters worse, funding for archives has been cut drastically, and the archive of this institution has been forced to fire staff and to move several times. This may mean that the diaries may be in a box somewhere in a warehouse. 

Tomorrow, in addition to working in my two archives on opposite sides of Rome, I'll have to start making inquiries to see if I can locate these documents  and then get permission to view them. My work is cut out for me.

Potatoes, rice and mussel casserole (a Pugliese fisherman's dish)

The other day, I went to a friend of ours, Anna Maria Belardinelli, who is a professor of Classical Greek drama at the University of Rome (La Sapienza). She is also a great cook and has a vast repertoire of recipes from Puglia, her native paese. We had been planning for two years to cook a meal together, but with her schedule at the University of Rome (where they finish up as late as July with exams) and my intensive schedule of research in the archives, we never seemed to get it together.  This year, we decided to throw obligations to the wind and to set a date to cook a dish that has been traditional fisherman's fare probably since the early seventeenth century in her native Puglia. The dish is made from potatoes, rice, onions and mussels roasted in the oven--a sort of casserole, which in her own town of Foggia is made without mussels because it's too far from the sea.  

The recipe is quite easy, but also quite time consuming.  

First, you measure out about 100 grams of rice per person and mix it with fresh, chopped and pealed tomatoes. Set the mixture aside so that the rice will soak up the water from the tomatoes. You need to set this mixture aside while you prepare the rest of the dish. Then you slice a whole bunch of onions and potatoes rather thin. 

Then you steam the mussels, making sure to save the liquid.  Once the mussels are cool enough to handle, you take off one of the sides of the shells and discard them. 

Then you put olive at the bottom of a casserole dish.  Anna Maria told me that a metal pan is better than a glass dish, but since she did not have a deep enough metal pan, we used a glass one.

Next, you put a layer of potatoes, making sure you pick slices that are thicker than the others, as this will be your bottom to the casserole. No need to double up the slices.

Then, a layer of sliced onions.

  Followed by a layer of the mussels in the shell (face up).

Then, you fill the mussels in the half-shell with the mixture of rice and tomatoes.

Followed by another layer of potatoes, onions and mussels on the half-shell. This time add a bit of olive oil before adding the next layer of rice and tomato mixture. 

Which you then cover with a top layer of potatoes, seasoned on the top with black pepper.

Put the casserole dish on the rack in the stove and add the juices left over from steaming the mussels.  Add a bit more water, if needed, so that you have filled the dish 2/3 of the way up with liquid.

Let the dish bake in the oven at a medium high heat for about an hour.  You should cover the dish for about the first 30 minutes and leave uncovered for the second. If you have a broiler, you can crisp the top (if it is not already crisp). You can let sit for up to an hour before serving. 

The proud chef with her dish.

 

Which looks delicious up close -- and it is! I thought that it might be weird to eat potatoes and rice in the same dish, but they actually marry well together. And why not, the Genovese put potatoes in their spaghetti al pesto (that recipe will have to be for another day), so why not rice and potato in the same dish?  The mussels gave the dish a wonderful taste of the sea!

 

Anna Maria also regaled us with burrata, a wonderful mozzarella-like cheese that is made in such a way that the cream that makes the cheese is incorporated into the ball of cheese. The result is a wonderfully soft creamy cheese that you can spread on to bread. It is another wonderful food from Puglia.

Another high point consisted in fresh anchovies (no salt in these) cooked with olive oil, lemon and parsley. Monica's grandmothers used to make this for her in La Spezia (on the opposite side of Italy. (Puglia is in the south east; La Spezia is in the north west side of Italy -- which goes to show that anchovies are a Mediterranean food.  

Grazie Anna Maria for teaching me how to make riso con patate e cozze!  

Watching the oil spread from Italy

I seem to notice a perplexity among my European friends -- even bafflement -- over a perception that the US does not have the wherewithal to solve the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Or, perhaps, I should say that there is growing disbelief that the US does not have some super power that only super heros and super powers were supposed to have. It's as if I see the destruction of a myth before my very eyes.  The US is vulnerable not to terrorists but to a multinational company and to its own naiveté that companies left to their own devises will work for the common well being of the citizenry. We are vulnerable, but our weak spot is ourselves. 

The Italians are going through their own crises, but they have a much more comfortable feel to them. The Berlusconi neo-Fascist government is passing more laws to protect its leaders from doing what has been legal until now. This time, it's passing laws that will jeopardize the ability of the judiciary to carry out its work and for newspapers to report on legal proceedings against... you guessed it... politicians. One of the few remaining oppositions newspapers made a passing reference to the press laws of 1925 which muzzled the press until the fall of Fascism in 1945.  There might be something to these similarities. But, what I find more apparent is that there is a growing tendency of the Berlusconi government to take to extreme something I find in Italian political culture going back to the inception of the modern Italian state. Italian political cultural often sees the state as a means of attaining private aims of those in power. In other words, laws  passed are considered as an expression of those in power, rather than to an expression of (also) those without power. Despite the slogan in all Italian court rooms, the law is not equal for all. And, I don't mean it in the cynical way that the poor get an unfair shake (which is true in the US, as well). Instead, I get the feeling after years of studying Italian political culture and years of living in Italy that law is not understood in terms of a system that is applied over and above all (that is, the rule of law). Instead, laws are passed without considering that they could be applied against the very political classes that create them. Think of civil rights. In the US, we can be in favor of civil rights for a myriad of contrasting and even conflicting reasons. But, ultimately, we all recognize that we want to protect everyone's civil rights because ours could be placed in jeopardy by creating laws that take away the civil rights of others. Instead, in Italian culture (and now even in the culture of the populist right in America) the rule of law means instead the creation of order out of anarchy. Law is a tool used by those who feel entitled to exert power to keep those who disturb their peace from upsetting them. This tendency has not boded well for Italy in the past, and I don't think it bodes well for Italy, especially now that it a growing sense of unease is spreading and people are looking to the state to use the law to make things right by going after bogeymen and scapegoats.   

Time to call it quits for the day. A metro strike made it impossible to go to the two archives, so I worked on backing up files, translating the regulations of the Central State Archives into English as a favor to the archivists who have been so helpful to me over the years, and to writing.