Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
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Further reading
Della Porta, D. (1995) Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lumley, R. (1990) States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978, London:
Verso.
Melucci, A. (ed.) (1984) Altri codici. Aree di movimento nella metropoli (Alternative Codes: Social
Move ments in Metropolitan Areas), Bologna: Il Mulino (especially chapters by Grazioli and
Lodi, and Melucci).
Tarrow, S. (1989) Democracy and Disorder, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
MARIO DIANI
Studio Alchimia
Established in 1976 by Alessandro Guerriero, Studio Alchymia (as it was first called) was
an attempt to provide a forum for members of the anti-design movement of the late
1960s together with a new generation of radical designers who sought to use design as a
form of cultural commentary and criticism rather than a hand-maiden for the capitalist
status quo. As such, it allied itself to the world of fine art by using the gallery as a site for
display. Early members included Donatella Biffi, Pier Carlo Bontempi, Carla Ceccariglia,
Stefano Casciani, Tina Corti, Walter Garro, Bruno Gregori and Patrizia Scarzella, and the
first years were spent on experimentation around the theme of the mass replication of
images.
The studio first made an impact through two exhibitions, held in 1979 and 1980,
which were called, ironically, BauHaus 1 and BauHaus 2 and which made use of kitsch,
recycled objects and popular imagery to make its critique of modernism. It also exhibited
a show in Linz. Famous icons from these years included Alessandro Mendini’s ‘Poltrone
Proust’, which made visual reference to a painting by Seurat, and a number of pieces by
Andrea Branzi which referred to classic Italian designs from the 1930s. These pieces
shocked the Milanese design establishment and were published widely in the
international press.
Studio Alchimia (as it later called itself) acted as an open forum, as well as an active
studio, allowing several designers to associate themselves with it. In 1981 Mendini
launched his ‘Mobile Infinite’ (infinite furnishing) at a ‘happening’ which coincided with
the annual Milan Furniture Fair. Collaborating with fine artists, he attempted to remove
the designer as all-powerful manipulator in the design process by developing pieces of
decorative detailing which could be moved about by the consumer/user of the pieces.
Michele de Lucchi also collaborated with Alchimia, showing his maquettes for a series of
electrical domestic appliances which looked more like toys than tools.
Among other active collaborations, including ones with the designer Daniela Puppa,
Paola Navone and the older architectural duo, the Hausmanns, perhaps the most
significant one was with Ettore Sottsass, who saw the opportunity to start making radical
design statements again. The second half of the 1970s had been relatively quiet ones for
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Sottsass, but he had an active spurt from 1979 onwards, producing a range of furniture
pieces for Alchimia which used plastic laminate decorated with imagery derived from
popular culture, especially that of the 1950s, the heroic period of Italian design. Alchimia
faded from view in the later 1980s, eclipsed by the spin-off studio, Studio Memphis.
Further reading
Bontempi, P.C. and Gregori, G. (1986) Alchimia 1977–8, Turin: Allemandi.
Sparke, P. (1981) Ettore Sottsass Jnr, London: Design Council.
Studio Alchimia (1980) Bauhaus Collection 1980–1, Milan: Alchimia Editore.
PENNY SPARKE
Studio Memphis
Memphis was the name given to a group of designers working with Ettore Sottsass in
Milan who presented a show in conjunction with the Milan Furniture Fair of September
1981, which shocked the international design establishment and influenced the course of
‘anti-design’ through the rest of that decade. Based upon ideas that Sottsass had already
developed during his long career (a rejection of ‘Italian chic’, anti-modernism, the
importance of decoration and symbolism and the use of design in a gallery setting to
provoke and challenge the status quo), a group of young designers who were all attached
to him in one way or another—Aldo Cibic, Marco Zanini, George Sowden, Nathalie du
Pasquier, Michele de Lucchi and others—presented a group show of furniture, fabrics,
ceramics and glass. The name Memphis was chosen by Sottsass because it was both the
birthplace of Elvis Presley, the father of pop culture, and the home of the Egyptian gods,
the root of spirituality and mysticism, and therefore evoked all of his preoccupations in a
single word. Memphis was a reaction to the intellectual approach of Studio Alchimia
inasmuch as it stressed the roles of intuition and of the preconscious and prelinguistic
associations that are suggested by images, colours, patterns, forms and so on. Thus the
items on display emphasized image over object. To this end, craftsmanship was of
secondary importance, as was the object’s function which was vestigial rather than pre-
eminent.
From the outset the annual Memphis shows, which continued until 1988, stressed the
internationalism of the New Design movement, as it came to be called. This was
represented by the inclusion of work by the Austrian, Hans Hollein; the American, Peter
Shire; the Japanese, Arata Isozak; the Englishman, Daniel Weil (although of Argentinean
and Israeli origin); and the Spaniard, Javier Mariscal. Thus Memphis signalled a shift in
design thinking that was initiated by Italians but experienced globally as well.
The fame of Memphis spread through the agency of the glossy international design
press, and its visual influence was soon felt in a wide range of design media, especially
popular graphics where its patterned surfaces were widely reproduced. Only a few
people, among them the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who furnished his house in
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Memphis items, and museum curators, actually purchased pieces. It remained a gallery
exercise for the most part, but one which had enormous impact in the world of popular
style. Exhibitions of Memphis pieces were held in a number of international venues,
among them London (1982) and New York. It served to make its collaborators
international successes overnight and individuals, such as Michele de Lucchi and George
Sowden, went on to become internationally significant designers in the 1980s and 1990s.
Further reading
Memphis Milano in London (1982), London: The Boilerhouse Project.
Radice, B. (1984) Memphis, New York: Rizzoli.
PENNY SPARKE
Sturzo, Luigi
b. 26 November 1871, Caltagirone; d. 8 August 1959, Rome
Priest and politician
After a long involvement in the Christian Democracy movement at turn of the century
and in social activism in his native Sicily, Sturzo founded the Partito Popolare Italiano
(PPI, Italian Popular Party) in 1919, which quickly mobilized all sections of the Catholic
movement and as a result won 20 per cent of the vote in the national elections of 1919.
However, the PPI was unable to govern alone and in November 1922 was forced into a
coalition with the Fascists. Sturzo strongly opposed this and the Vatican, under pressure
from Mussolini, forced him to resign as leader of the party in 1923. A year later he was
sent into exile in England and later America, from where he continued to campaign
against fascism. He returned to Italy in September 1946, but was unable to play an active
political role until 1952, when he led an operation to prevent Rome from swinging to the
Left. He is frequently evoked by present-day Catholic politicians to support their varying
positions.
See also: DC
Further reading
De Rosa, G. (1977) Luigi Sturzo, Turin: UTET (the standard Italian biography of Sturzo).
Molony, J.N. (1977) The Emergence of Political Catholicism in Italy: Partito Popolare, 1919–
1926, London: Croom Helm (the first and the last chapters provide a concise biography of
Sturzo).
JOHN POLLARD
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Superstudio
An Italian architectural and design group based in Florence in the late 1960s, which
played a key role within the ‘anti-design’ movement of those years, Superstudio was
established in 1966 by Adolfo Natalini and Cristano Toraldi di Francia. Between 1970
and 1972 they were joined by four other architects, who were involved in teaching at the
University of Florence. They allied themselves with the student movement of those
years and sought to develop a strategy for what they called ‘evasion design’. Their 1969
project ‘Il monumento continue’ (The Continual Monument), for example, moved
architecture into the realm of the conceptual rather than the real, thereby allying it with
contemporary fine art practice. The group was active until the late 1970s.
See also: anti-design
Further reading
Raggi, F. (1973), ‘Radical Story’, in Casabella, no. 382.
PENNY SPARKE
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T
Tabucchi, Antonio
b. 23 September 1943, Pisa
Professor, writer and translator
While pursuing an academic career as professor of Portuguese literature at the University
of Genoa and contributing as literary and cultural critic to La Repubblica and
L’Espresso, Antonio Tabucchi published several novels and short stories which were
critically acclaimed both in Italy and abroad. In his inventive and exuberant fiction,
characterized by intricate plots, contrasting narrative voices and unpredictable twists of
fate, Tabucchi not only represents the mutability of reality with playful subtlety, but also
ironically comments on Italian contemporary culture and society. Among his most
successful works are Piazza d’Italia (Piazza Italia) (1975), Notturno indiano (Indian
Nocturne) (1984) and Piccoli equivoci di poca important (Little Misunderstandings of No
Importance!) (1985). His widely-acclaimed novel Sostiene Pereira (Pereira Declares)
(1985) was made into a film by Roberto Faenza in 1996 and starred Marcello
Mastroianni in one of his last roles.
FRANCESCA PARMEGGIANI
Tadini, Emilio
b. 5 June 1927, Milan
Artist and writer
A novelist and art critic, Tadini took up painting in the 1960s, though writing and
literature remained important elements in his art. In his use of flat colour, precise
drawing, heavy outlines and silhouetted figures, Tadini’s early painting was influenced
by the pop art movement, and it had a certain advertising feel to it. However, in contrast
to the popular subject matter and figures of pop art, Tadini chose to focus on literary
themes and figures, and his work shares some similarities with that of Valerio Ad ami,
another artist working in Milan at the time. Tadini’s paintings often explore the ways in
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which images and words co-exist and inform each other. His novels similarly mix
literariness with the painterly and the everyday. L’Opera (1980) is a giallo (see detective
fiction) based on the death of a painter, and La tempesta (1993) is a reworking of
Shakespeare’s The Tempest, set on the outskirts of contemporary Milan.
LAURENCE SIMMONS
Tafuri, Manfredo
b. 4 November 1935, Rome; d. 1994, Venice
Architectural historian
Tafuri achieved international prominence from the 1970s onwards as one of the most
compelling and innovative historians in any field. His Marxist diagnosis of the historical
avantgardes in Architecture and Utopia (1976) was bleak but rigorous, as was his critique
of subsequent attempts to extend or refute the language of modernism in The Sphere and
the Labyrinth (1987). His Modern Architecture (with Francesco Dal Co, 1979) and the
History of Italian architecture, 1944–1985 have become standard reference works.
Thereafter he turned his main attention to the Renaissance, with the intention of allowing
the unresolved problems of the past to live on, and hence trouble the present.
Tafuri’s complex intellectual constructions and writing style are elaborated from a vast
array of sources and presented in a spirit of total disenchantment. As he put it: ‘The real
problem is how to project a criticism capable of constantly putting itself into crisis by
putting into crisis the real’ (Tafuri, 1987:9).
Further reading
Tafuri, M. (1987) The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avantgardes and Architecture from Piranesi to
the 1970s, trans. P. d’Acierno and R. Connolly, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
ROSS JENNER
Tamaro, Susanna
b. 12 December 1957, Trieste
Writer
Tamaro, who declared in 1997 that she could live on 600,000 lira (about $US 500) a
month, has earned billions of lire with her best-selling novel Va
’
dove ti porta il cuore
(Follow Your Heart). Between 1994 and 1997 the book sold over two and half million
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copies in Italy and five and half million abroad, a success matched only by Umberto
Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Like Eco’s work, Follow Your Heart was also soon made
into a film. While some prominent Italian literary critics accused her of writing populist,
sentimental mush rather than literature, others praised her for reaching a public that
seldom reads books as well as for her delicate portrayal of the generation gap. After such
an unbridled success, her following novel, Anima mundi (1997) was closely scrutinized
and again there was much division of opinion, especially over its ideological content,
resulting in it being both condemned and praised for being staunchly anticommunist and
conforming to Catholic orthodoxy. Ignoring her critics, Tamaro wrote a song for the 1997
Sanremo Festival.
PIERA CARROLI
Tambroni, Fernando
b. 25 November 1901, Ascoli Piceno; d. 1963, Rome
Politician
A member of the Christian Democrats (see DC), Tambroni was Interior Minister between
1955 and 1959, replacing Mario Scelba, and he became, briefly and notoriously,
President of the Council of Ministers in 1960. By the late 1950s the centre-based
government coalitions had become difficult for the DC to maintain. The Vatican and
business interests vetoed co-operation with the Socialists (see PSI) while the DC’s left-
wing opposed initiatives on the Right. The impasse came to a head when Tambroni
appeared to be constructing an authoritarian populist government supported by the neo-
Fascist MSI. Strong police reaction to street demonstrations left several people dead, and
Tambroni was consequently forced to resign, the clear lesson for the DC being that right-
leaning governments were impossible. The government of so-called ‘parallel
convergence’ which followed was based on the abstention in the government’s inaugural
vote of confidence of both the PSI and the monarchists, i.e. part of both the hitherto
‘anti-system’, Left and Right now converged on the democratic centre. The brainchild of
Aldo Moro, the new government smoothed the path to the opening to the Left in 1963,
and subsequently Tambroni was only remembered for the violent events over which he
had presided.
MARK DONOVAN
Tangentopoli
The term Tangentopoli, translatable as ‘Bribesville’, was coined to describe the networks
of systematic corruption linking businessmen, politicians and public administrators in
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which the payment of a bribe (tangente) was a standard requirement for the award of any
kind of public contract. Milan, where extensive corruption was first uncovered in 1992
(see Mani pulite), was the original Tangentopoli. However, as judicial excavation
revealed identically illegal foundations for politics in many other cities and areas of
public activity, Tangentopoli ceased to refer to Milan alone and became the generic term
for all large-scale corruption institutionalized in the 1980s throughout most of Italy
See also: clientelism
Further reading
Hine, D. (1995) ‘Party, Personality and Law: The Political Culture of Italian Corruption’, in P.
Jones (ed.), Party, Parliament and Personality: Essays Presented to Hugh Berrington, London:
Routledge.
Sassoon, D. (1995) ‘Tangentopoli or the Democratisation of Corruption: Considerations on the End
of Italy’s First Republic’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 1 (1): 124–43.
DAVID MOSS
Tango
In an attempt to lighten the tone of the PCI daily L’Unità in 1986, cartoonist Sergio
Staino was allowed to produce a four-page weekly supplement of satire and cartoons,
called Tango. With the active collaboration of writers like Michele Serra and Gino and
Michele, and cartoonists like Vincino, Angese and Pazienza who had all earlier been part
of Il Male, the pink-coloured insert became a popular fixture as it irreverently lampooned
all politicians and public figures, including those in or close to the Communist Party.
Although this helped to increase sales, it also provoked considerable hostility from some
members of the party, who professed to be appalled at what was happening in the pages
of the paper that had been founded by Antonio Gramsci. Nevertheless, in early 1988
Staino was able to expand it to eight pages. However, by October of that year, in part as a
result of internal criticism and in part due to the death of Pazienza, who had been one of
its major contributors, the magazine was discontinued.
GINO MOLITERNO
tartufo
The tartufo (truffle) is an underground fungus of a large family (Tuberaceae), which
includes around thirty varieties. It grows in clayish-calcareous soil, in symbiosis with
other plants. There are two highly valued varieties among the edible tartufi. The first,
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tartufo bianco, grows under oaks, poplars, hazel and lime trees. It is lumpy in shape, pale
ochre in colour and characterized by an intense scent. It is found predominantly in
northern Italy. The second, tartufo new, is mostly found in the central regions, Tuscany
and Umbria. Its dark brown colour presents purple reflections, and its surface is irregular
and lumpy. Tartufo bianco is at its best when eaten raw, very finely sliced, for instance
on a white risotto, or tagliolini (fine noodles), polenta or eggs gently fried in butter.
Tartufo bianco should be layered on food, so that its flavour is not suffocated. Tartufo
nero must be eaten cooked: its delicate aroma develops in the cooking process.
MARIELLA TOTARO GENEVOIS
Taviani brothers
Vittorio Taviani was born on 20 September 1929, and his brother Paolo on 8 November
1931, in San Miniato. Having gained international recognition in 1977 with Padre
padrone (My Father, My Master), the Taviani brothers have since emerged as leading
film directors, putting their stamp on a cinema which fuses realism, fantasy, myth and
commitment.
Their early documentaries, San Miniato luglio ’44 (San Miniato, July ’44), dealing
with a Nazi atrocity in the directors’ native village, and a full-length documentary on the
Italian South, L’ltalia non è un paese povero (Italy is Not a Poor Country) (1960), were
greatly influenced by neorealism; but even by the time of their first feature in 1962, Un
uomo da bruciare (A Man for the Burning), they were using flashbacks, stylized
choreography and self-reflexive techniques which transcended the neorealist canon, and
had more in common with contemporary French directors than with the Tavianis’
national forebears. Tracing the career of a Sicilian trade unionist murdered by the mafia,
the film incorporates the themes of idealism, destiny and resistance to authority which
characterize the brothers’ later films.
Over the next twelve years, the Tavianis explored a number of social issues. I
fuorilegge del matrimonio (Matrimonial Outlaws) (1963) is a playful and sometimes
grotesque take on the absurdities of Italian divorce law. Sovversivi (The Subversives)
(1967) ironically traces four personal stories against the background of Palmiro
Togliatti’s death and the crisis of the Italian Left. The violent clash between
conservatism and utopianism is the theme of the mythical parable Sotto il segno dello
scorpione (Under the Sign of Scorpio) (1969). San Michele aveva un gallo (St Michael
Had a Rooster) (1971) examines the difficulty of maintaining individual faith in social
revolution, while Fulvio Imbriani, the spineless protagonist of the uneven Allonsanfan
(1974), epitomizes political vacillation and treachery.
At Cannes in 1977 the Tavianis won the Palme d’Or and the International Critics’
Prize with Padre padrone, a confronting film which charts the itinerary of a Sardinian
shepherd from a state of brutalized inarticulacy through the liberating trauma of military
service on the mainland, to a professorship in linguistics. While the film tells one
particular story, it remains a general reflection on, and critique of, a disabling patriarchal
system.
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After the 1979 failure of Il prato (The Field), a confused film about the struggle for
utopia, the Tavianis returned to relative form with La notte di San Lorenzo (also released
as The Night of the Shooting Stars) (1982), which tells of the flight from Nazi reprisals of
a village community in 1944. Kaos (1984), a film based on Pirandello stories, is also
stylistically accomplished, and found popular if not critical favour, while the would-be
homage to cinema and Italian creativity, Good Morning Babilonia (titled Good Morning,
Babylon in America) (1986), is disappointing for its lack of fluency and character
development.
Il sole anche di notte (Night Sun) (1990) draws on familiar themes: self-sacrifice and
the pitting of individual destiny against historical forces, a thread also woven through
Fiorile (1992), a fable about the simultaneously liberating and damning consequences of
wealth, told through several generations of one family’s history. The Tavianis’ 1996
adaptation of Goethe, Le affinità elettive (Elective Affinities), is their first love film
proper, and suggests the impossibility of rationalizing emotional attraction.
Further reading
Malavolti, F. and Ugolini, K. (eds) (1994) L’utopia, la poesia, il silenzio. Il cinema dei fratelli
Taviani (Utopia, Poetry and Silence: The Cinema of the Taviani Brothers), Rovigo: Tipografia
La grafica.
Ranvaud, D. (ed.) (1987) Good Morning, Babylon, London: Faber & Faber.
DAVE WATSON
tavola calda
Tavola calda, in the Italian context, identifies a snack-bar. More accurately, tavola calda
can be a section of a restaurant, bar or rosticceria (a takeaway food shop), where meals
can be also eaten while standing at the counter. Generally at the tavola calda food is
served all day, without interruption, with no closing hours over the lunch break or a rigid
8 p.m. closing. As the adjective calda (hot) indicates, at the tavola calda, hot food is
available for clients. They may eat it standing or sitting on stools, at high benches placed
along the walls or even at tables: people come in and out and the turnover is rapid. The
concept encompasses fast meals, without long delay, and is not necessarily restricted to a
bread roll with filling (panino imbottito) but the enjoyment of something tastier, more
elaborate, and, of course, hot. Among foods found at the tavola calda are arancini di riso
(stuffed rice balls), pizzette (little pizzas), omelettes, legumes, cotolette (cutlets) and
many others.
While the most notorious icons of fast food have not spared Italy (for example, the
Piazza di Spagna in Rome, embellished by McDonalds), Italians so far seem to prefer
tavola calda food. Even the most likely clients of the fast food industry, teenagers living
predominantly at home, appear less prone to fall captive to American-style fast food.
MARIELLA TOTARO GENEVOIS
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