ROME LETTER:THE OTHER day, your correspondent was invited as a "special guest" on to a morning TV chat programme. This was one of those light-hearted affairs where matters of state give way to matters of lifestyle. The subject was Ferragosto, the August 15th Italian national holiday which traditionally signals the highpoint of summer, writes PADDY AGNEW
Catholics know all too well that August 15th marks the feast of the Assumption, the day when Mary was taken “body and soul” into heaven. Yet the feast day’s name goes back much further, since August 15th was a day when the ancient Romans honoured the gods with a celebration called Feriae Augusti (Augustus’s holiday), a sort of harvest thanksgiving day.
From Feriae Augusti to Ferragosto, the step was a short one. Yet again, the Catholic Church proved itself particularly adept at stealing a copyright that belongs not to Christ’s teachings but to ancient Roman tradition.
But not to worry: modern Italian man has taken the celebration further. Ferragosto, while it remains an important church celebration, has long since become a massively important holiday along the lines of Christmas Day or New Year’s Day.
Your correspondent was brought on to explain just how we Irish celebrate Ferragosto, just how we deal with high summer. Frankly, this is a bit like asking an Inuit how he deals with creeping desertification. The question reminded me of phone calls received last summer from our daughter, Róisín, now at the end of her second year at Trinity College Dublin. Born, raised and having lived all her life in Lazio, Róisín was perplexed by the Irish summer. Where was it? When does it come? Does it exist at all, she asked in increasingly desperate tones.
“That” season when the sun sometimes shines, when it maybe rains a bit less, when it definitely gets a bit warmer, does not pass for “summer” in these parts.
To make the point, I recalled one of those little quirks that much intrigued me when I first experienced the long hot Mediterranean summer, namely the cambio di stagione. This is a sort of spring-cleaning ritual which sees any self-respecting Italian change his or her wardrobe from winter to summer, replacing the woollen and heavy cotton with the light linen and light cotton that can manage to be cool but remain stylish and respectable.
I pointed out that, in Ireland, there is sometimes no cambio di stagione. If it is a “warm” day, you might just take off your coat and roll up your sleeves, but the same coat and the same sleeves do fine in January. To the delight of the presenter, I pointed out that those same robust, waterproof shoes that you wear through the February rain in Ireland can often come in handy in the rains of August. Mirabile dictu, the Inuit had spoken.
On the programme with me were two unusual female actors, Grazia Cesarini Sforza and Marina Cacciotti, both of whom starred in a terrific little film, Pranzo di ferragosto, made by Gianni Di Gregorio and winner of an award at last year’s Venice film festival. This is a film that deals not just with Ferragosto but with being “an elderly” in Italy.
The two actors in question – one of them was 93 years old – had not made a film before. They had been roped into a very low-cost production by Di Gregorio, who used friends and relatives (and himself) to make his magical little film. Both actors seemed to have had a great time making the film.
That, too, led me back to a reflection one often makes living in this part of the Mediterranean: that life for the elderly in Italy can sometimes be a lot less isolated than in northern Europe, and for a very banal reason. As an old person, if you can move at all, you are out on the street, in the bar, or sitting on the park bench, watching the world go by and blathering to whomsoever will listen. (Your correspondent will soon be moving into a similar mode.)
Being out and about means having to keep up appearances. Sitting on the Trevignano lakefront, watching the older folks out for the passeggiata, it is quite clear that the last thing to go is style. Just because you are 90-plus does not mean that you head out without your make-up on, the perm done and a matching handbag. And you might as well be dead as not wear your pearls. Here, you strut your stuff, right to the end.
The passeggiata, sitting around in the bar or on the lakefront are all, of course, made gloriously possible by the heat. When it comes to the nationwide celebration of a holiday like Ferragosto, one realises that Italians themselves instinctively realise this: namely, heat is good.