Nicholas Farrell is the author of Mussolini: A New Life (Weidenfield & Nicolson/Orion Phoenix)
My teenage self was right. Brigitte Bardot, who died this weekend, symbolised sex and freedom. It’s why I had a poster of her on my study wall at school in which she was topless in a white cowboy hat and faded blue denims with the zip undone to reveal that she had no knickers. Needless
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The unseasonably warm wind blowing in across the fields from the brooding Adriatic caused my wife Carla to announce ‘Tira aria da terremoto’ (‘earthquake air’). She feels our family lives on a knife edge, encircled by omens and demons. And who can blame her? Looked at one way, we have had it
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I was in the Land Rover Defender with Rita, my youngest daughter (16), parked up near Dante’s tomb in the old city as we drank coffee from paper cups before she began her day at art school. On a wall in front of us that had possibly been there since the Romans,
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna ‘Welcome back, signore!’ said the woman in uniform at the all-seeing security doorway which passengers must walk through to be allowed on a plane, as if it were the Holy Door of St Peter. I was about to fly from Rimini on the Adriatic coast, not far south of my home, to
I would like to ask readers for help. My Italian wife and our six children, aged 10 to 22, believe that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza and that Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is complicit in this genocide. I do not. What should I tell them? Once again, I am forced to
Claudia Cardinale, who died this week aged 89, was one of few Italian actresses to achieve global stardom along with Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. Whereas Lollobrigida and Loren embodied the beauty of Italy, Cardinale – I always feel – embodied the beauty of the Mediterranean. Her face and physique were the irresistible but perilous
Those in charge of Sicily have at last swung into action after a quarter of a century of inactivity to cleanse the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli in the Ionian Sea of its plague of goats. There are well over 2,000 extremely agile, stubborn and aggressive, semi-wild goats on Stromboli (human population 500) whose active
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I went up to her and got straight to the point: ‘What are you using for bait?’ I say ‘her’ but you never know round here. We live a mile inland from one of the last unspoiled stretches of Adriatic coast, part of which was stolen several decades ago by highly trained
France is taking the place of Italy, it seems, as the basket case of Europe. The turn-over of prime ministers in France – five now since the start of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term in 2022 – is worse even than Italy has ever managed. Since the fall of fascism in 1945 Italy has notoriously
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On Sunday the Catholic Church will acquire its first millennial saint, when Pope Leo XIV canonises someone who, if he were alive today, would be young enough to be his son. Carlo Acutis, a ‘computer geek’ from a prosperous Italian family, died aged just 15 in 2006. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson talks
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has won what looks like a significant victory in her quest to eradicate squatting. About 250 carabinieri and police officers took possession this week of a former paper mill in Milan which had been occupied by numerous groups of squatters for 31 years. The 4,000 square metre building was a
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The Feast of the Assumption began for me just after midnight with a WhatsApp message from my eldest son, Francesco Winston, 20, which said: ‘Papà don’t come, the police are everywhere.’ He and my eldest daughter, Caterina, 21, had invited me to a party on the beach organised by their group of
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna News that Italians now enjoy a higher standard of living than the British made me think: my God, life must be truly awful in Britain. Yes, the Italians do have much to feel good about in terms of the quality of their lives thanks to the beauty of their country, the splendour
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna All seven chickens we recently acquired are now laying eggs – except the one called Giovanna, which is walking with a limp thanks to our youngest child Giuseppe, who is ten. The other day, Giuseppe somehow shut Giovanna’s right foot in the back door as he shooed her out of the house.
A woman crying elicits sympathy – even if, à la Rachel from Accounts, she is some kind of nightmare soap-opera figure from the suburbs of south London. When a woman we do not know bursts into tears in public our gut reaction is to assume she must have a good reason for doing so. She
Giorgia Meloni has emerged as one of the most significant politicians in Europe since she became Italy’s first female prime minister in October 2022. I Am Giorgia, already a bestseller in Italy, is her account of how a short, fat, sullen, bullied girl – as she describes her young self – from a poor, single-parent
The global left and their many friends in the media are insisting with increasing hysteria that Donald Trump is imposing fascism on America. Their apocalyptical narrative is as simple as it is false: President Trump has begun the transformation of the USA into a fascist state. But the feverish intensity with which this tall story is
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I often feel as if I know what it was like to be a member of La Résistance in Nazi–occupied France because I have three disco-age daughters. Last week, the call-to-action stations flashed up on WhatsApp at 03.06, just as the cockerels were beginning to crow and the enemy was setting up
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The youngest of our six children, Giuseppe, nine, received the Eucharist for the first time on Sunday. He and the other 12 new communicants looked angelic in their white robes. They all had impressive wooden crosses hanging from their necks and the five girls had wreaths of tiny flowers in their jet-black
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new ‘far right’ mission to lock up asylum seekers in distant countries yesterday suffered an embarrassing setback on live television. The former human rights supremo – who cancelled the Tory Rwanda scheme on day one in office – was in Tirana, less than one year later, to discuss setting up a
