Chiara C. Rizzarda's Blog, page 9

Ornaments in Transit: Tracing Milan’s Art Deco Echoes

Do you remember last month, when we took a stroll through Milan in the wake of Casorati’s new exhibition at Palazzo Reale? I would be amiss if I didn’t follow up with another walk inspired by another, great show, closing this month, so here we are. Are you ready to dive into Art déco echoes of a bygone era?

Art Deco in Milan?

Yeah, I know. Milan’s built identity is often narrated through its Liberty masterpieces, the experimental optimism of Futurism, the ideological mass of Novecento architecture, and the international clarity of Italian modernism. Yet between these well-defined chapters, deco lies as a more elusive layer.

Never codified into a movement, Milanese Art Deco unfolded as a visual undercurrent—less flamboyant than Paris, less doctrinaire than Vienna. It whispered through thresholds, glinted in iron scrollwork, shimmered across mosaic floors, and surfaced in the rhythm of tramlines and department store windows. Deco in Milan was not just a style, but a texture of urban life: sensual, transitional, syncopated.

The show closing doors in Milan was strongly connected to the city, linking with a special opening of the Royal Pavillion in the Central Station. And trust me, Milan is full of art deco jewels, both in plain sight — like the Central Station — and hidden from the main flow.

As I did with Casorati, my tour is organised by walkable itineraries and flows through 5 themes where we’ll try to use all our senses.

The ThemesThe Tactile City: Surfaces and Light in Deco Milan. Art Deco in Milan is not just seen—it’s touched. A city of cool marble thresholds, brushed brass elevator doors, velvet-lined interiors, and frosted glass panels. Surface becomes narrative, and light becomes collaborator: glinting off chandeliers, dulling into golden shadows at dusk, or flickering through tram windows onto terrazzo floors.Syncopations: Art Deco as Rhythm. Deco’s visual language is deeply musical—ornamented but ordered, like syncopated jazz or Futurist poetry. Milan’s Deco rhythm plays out in façades, in the stutter-step of balcony shadows, in the repetition of tram tracks, and in the signage of an era that believed in the beauty of movement.Glamour and Escape: Art Deco as Desire. Art Deco in Milan embodied dreams of speed, beauty, eroticism, and freedom—especially for women stepping into new social spaces. Think of dressing rooms, mirrors, lingerie boutiques, cafés with glistening glass—fantasy and autonomy wrapped in ornament.The Shadow of the Machine: Industrial Elegance. Milan filtered Art Deco through its industrial soul and tempered it with the mechanical: precise geometries, reinforced materials, and a restrained use of ornament. It surfaces in stations, factories, and headquarters where function embraced grace.Thresholds and Transitions: The Liminal Deco. Art Deco reaches its most poetic peak when defining in-between spaces: lobbies, staircases, elevator cages, vestibules. In Milan, these are not mere connectors—they are slow thresholds where the ordinary becomes ceremonial, where the public becomes private with all its anxieties and hidden drama. Their design suggests pause, transformation, and entry into another rhythm.Itinerary 1: Stone, Iron, Silence. A Walk through Milan’s Tactile Core

From Porta Venezia to Via Malpighi, through surfaces that speak and thresholds that listen

This itinerary traces a curated path through Milan’s Quadrilatero del Silenzio and its immediate surroundings—an area where Art Deco, Liberty, and early modernism converge in a quiet choreography of materials. Focused on the themes of The Tactile City and Thresholds and Transitions, the walk invites you to explore architecture not as spectacle, but as experience—something to be felt with your hands, feet, and skin as much as with your eyes. It’s less about grand landmarks and more about moments of contact—where walls feel alive, iron curves like penmanship, and thresholds aren’t crossed, but inhabited.

Length of the Route: 1.8 km (net time by foot: 25 minutes)

Themes touched: The Tactile City (Casa Barelli, Villa Necchi Campiglio, Casa Berri Meregalli in Via Mozart, Casa Berri-Meregalli in Viale Majno, Casa Galimberti), Sincopations (Palazzo Fidia), Thresholds and Transitions (Palazzo della Società Buonarroti-Carpaccio-Giotto and Villa Necchi Campiglio), Glamour and Escape (Villa Necchi Campiglio, Casa Galimberti).

Casa Barelli (Corso Venezia 7) — Wrought iron rhythm;Palazzo Fidia (Via Melegari 2) — Cubist stone in motionVilla Necchi Campiglio (Via Mozart 14) — Velvet, marble, quiet luxuryCasa Berri Meregalli (Via Mozart 21) — Brick and fresco tactilityPalazzo della Società Buonarroti-Carpaccio-Giotto (Corso Venezia 42–44) — Ceremonial urban thresholdPalazzo Berri-Meregalli (Viale Majno 42) — Ornament in full bloomCasa Galimberti (Via Malpighi 3) — Painted lives, iron lacework1. Casa Barelli

Where: Corso Venezia 7
Theme: The Tactile City

A transitional gem between Liberty and early Deco, Casa Barelli is a tactile manifesto rising discreetly along Corso Venezia near Piazza San Babila. Designed by Cesare Mazzocchi, its five-level façade weaves together asymmetry, relief, and ornamental ironwork into a rhythmic play of surfaces. Wrought iron dominates the lower levels, introducing a horizontal band that reads as both threshold and ornament, while iron pilasters thread through the second and third floors and punctuate the elevation. Iron balconies and balustrades, each slightly different, create a serial rhythm under the touch of light and weather.

2. Palazzo Fidia

Where: Via Melegari 2, corner of via Mozart
Theme: Syncopations.

Built in 1932 on a project by Aldo Andreani, this is one of Milan’s most expressionist Deco buildings, full of sculptural play. Its façade seems to dance: alternating window depths, cubist volumes, carved decorative frames. A syncopated masterpiece—complex, surprising, full of improvisation. It’s considered one of the most bizarre buildings in the city, and of course I love it.

3. Villa Necchi Campiglio

Where: Via Mozart 14
Theme: The Tactile City, Glamour and Escape, Thresholds and Transitions

Set in a quiet, leafy enclave just off Corso Venezia, Villa Necchi Campiglio is the pinnacle of Milanese Deco domestic refinement—a residence where material becomes atmosphere, and every surface is a decision. Commissioned by the wealthy Necchi family and realised by the beloved Piero Portaluppi, the villa offers a total artwork of surfaces: lithic, metallic, textile, and glass. Light glides across marble floors, lingers on bronze fixtures, and diffuses through etched glass, creating a shifting tactile landscape with every step.

4. First Casa Berri Meregalli

Where: Via Mozart 21
Theme: The Tactile City

Tucked into the elegant quiet of Via Mozart, the first Casa Berri Meregalli is a masterclass in textural orchestration. Designed in 1911 by Giulio Ulisse Arata, the building weaves Liberty softness, eclectic dynamism, and early Deco gravitas into a façade that pulses with material depth. It’s not smoothness that defines it, but grain: from the jagged bugnato rustico of the base to the shifting dimensions of brick and stone above, it invites the eye—and the body—into a terrain of touch. Its layered use of stone and brick, the coarseness of rusticated basework, and the warm rhythm of exposed laterizio give the building a strong material voice—speaking not in line or light alone, but through grain, weight, and surface texture, with the frescoes surrounding the balcony giving a cool break to the touch.

5. Palazzo della Società Buonarroti-Carpaccio-Giotto

Where: corso Venezia, 42-44
Theme: Thresholds and Transitions

An iconic presence along Corso Venezia, the palace is a masterful exercise in architectural transition, conceived by Piero Portaluppi—Milan’s maestro of modern elegance. Completed between 1926 and 1930, the building is a monumental U-shaped structure organized around two symmetrical wings, and it encapsulates the fusion of Secessionist geometry and Art Deco rhythm.

Its central feature is a grand full-height arch: a commanding portal that leads into a covered passageway, creating both a visual and physical threshold between the public city and the semi-private world within. This passage is not merely a corridor—it’s a moment of pause, framed by lesenes, Doric columns, sculptural cornices, and carved stone statuary that elevate the act of entry into a ceremonial experience. The building rises seven stories, with commercial activities at street level, offices on the piano nobile, and luxurious residences above. The top floor opens onto a vast panoramic terrace, a private stage overlooking the city’s green heart.

6. Palazzo Berri-Meregalli

Where: Viale Majno 42, corner with Via Cappuccini
Theme: Syncopations, The Tactile City

Designed by Giulio Ulisse Arata, this 1911 building isn’t Art Deco but I find it forms a fascinating prelude to what will be the full bloom of the style, with its eclectic style and the esoteric rumours surrounding it. Its asymmetrical composition, wrought iron balconies, and stone ornamentation give it a syncopated facade—like a building caught mid-movement by some futurist painter. The repeated arches and detailed stonework foreshadow the Deco vocabulary.

7. Casa Galimberti

Where: Via Malpighi 3, corner with Via Sirtori – Porta Venezia
Theme: Glamour and Escape.

Built in 1903 by Giovanni Battista Bossi, Casa Galimberti is a technically masterwork of Milanese Liberty—but it resonates deeply with Deco sensibilities: the calculated repetition of balconies, the graphic stylisation of floral motifs, and above all, the narrative quality of the facade, which reads like a mural of elegant lives. It celebrates femininity, sensuality, and spectacle—a canvas of painted muses in flowing gowns and languid poses—and the façade stages everyday glamour in full view of the street.

Itinerary 2: A Symphony in Iron

If you’re not in the mood for walking, I’ve got the thing for you: start at Casa Donzelli, a quiet jewel nestled in Via Revere where Vienna Secession lines meet Milanese ironwork, and then hop aboard Tram Line 1, a moving remnant of Milan’s Deco age, direction: Greco. As you ride toward Piazza Cavour, count the 14 stops. Slide through piazza Cairoli, parade in front of La Scala, and salute Montenapoleone to your left.

Feeling adventurous? Hop down and take the underground from Montenapoleone to Stazione Centrale and book a historical train out of here. Bye bye.

Length of the Route: 1.8 km (net time by foot: 10 minutes + 29 minutes by tram)

Themes touched: Syncopations (Casa Donzelli, Tram Line 1), The Tactile City (Casa DonzellI) and The Shadow of the Machine (Tram Line 1, Stazione Centrale, the Historical Train).

Casa Donzelli — ironwork whispers;Tram Line 1 — art deco in motion;Stazione Centrale — rhythm and elegance;Hop on a Historical Train.1. Casa Donzelli

Where: Via Revere 7
Theme: Syncopations, The Tactile City

This building, designed in the early 1900s by the same Ulisse Stacchini—who would go on to design the Central Station—is a fine example of the Vienna Secession and shows a more flourished Deco rhythm—three vertical stripes of windows, symmetrical elements on the sides of the central balconies, and sculpted reliefs. The decorative elements are in cast iron, designed by master Alessandro Mazzucotelli, who is very dear to me for family reasons. It’s a quieter, measured beat—like a shift from allegro to andante.
The facade also reads like a woven tapestry of stylised decoration: floral panels, squared rhythms, carved cornices, and the exquisite wrought iron. It’s rough to the eye and to the touch, and gentleness is left to the ironwork.

2. Tracing Tram Line 1

Where: hop on at Arco della Pace, ride toward Piazza Cavour
Theme: Syncopations, The Shadow of the Machine.

This old-style tram (the Carrelli 1504 model from 1928 in iron and wood) is an architectural experience in motion. The tram’s windows frame changing rhythmic patterns—façades, balconies, trees, signage—all flickering past like film frames. Interior details like wood panelling and brass rails echo the Deco love for crafted mechanics.

If you’re not in the mood to take public transportation, there’s also a car in the local QC Thermal station, Piazza Medaglie d’Oro: placed in the outside garden, it hosts a Finnish sauna.

3. Central Station

Where: Piazza Duca d’Aosta
Theme: Syncopations, The Shadow of the Machine.

While built in a transitional style that blends Art Nouveau, Deco, and the political monumentalism of the 20s, its vertical bays, sculptural rhythm, and grand entrances are well-developed and studied for specific effects. Interior elements—like the sequence of ticket halls and signage—reinforce a cinematic progression from the small porch of the entrance, through the grand staircase climbing up, under the entrance gates and then again, opening up to the grand lineup of the 24 tracks.

4. Lomellina Express

Where: from Stazione Centrale
Theme: The Shadow of the Machine.

The Lomellina Express is a vintage train experience organised by Fondazione FS, running through the Lomellina region—a landscape of rice paddies, canals, and historic villages in western Lombardy. It usually departs from Milano Centrale and includes stops in places like Mortara, Vigevano, or Pavia. The train itself (often hauled by a steam locomotive or historic diesel) fits beautifully with the narrative of machine-age elegance and early 20th-century industrial aesthetics. It’s a ride back into Milan’s transport identity. A journey from Milan into the countryside echoes the bourgeois escapism of the 1930s—urban elegance meets rural romance.

Check out the website until the operation lasts.

Itinerary 3: Mirrors, Perfume, and Arcades

Slip into Milan’s theatrical core—where shopping becomes choreography, coffee a ritual, and architecture a mirror of desire. This itinerary glides through spaces born from the city’s early 20th-century longing for modernity and escape. Begin in the hidden elegance of Galleria Mazzini, a passage once scented with patisserie and whispers. Let yourself be drawn into the mirrored mosaic of Camparino, where aperitifs glitter under Liberty flourishes. Cross into La Rinascente, the cathedral of curated desire coined by D’Annunzio, then pause in Piazza del Liberty, where the ghost of Teatro Trianon still lingers beneath new façades. End your promenade in Galleria del Corso, where shopfronts and cinema screens once promised spectacle to all of Milan. This is a path of urban desire performed in stone, light, and glass.

Length of the Route: 1.1 km (net time by foot: 15 minutes, not considering the time for coffee)

Themes touched: Gamour and Escape (Galleria Mazzini, Camparino in Galleria, La Rinascente, former Teatro Trianon in Piazza del Liberty, Galleria del Corso) and Thresholds and Transitions (Galleria Mazzini, Galleria del Corso).

Galleria Mazzini — Discreet elegance and bourgeois retreatCamparino in Galleria — Liberty glamour and aperitif cultureLa Rinascente — Curated desire and consumer theatrePiazza del Liberty (former Teatro Trianon) — Faded splendour and theatrical memoryGalleria del Corso — Popular spectacle and cinematic escape1. Galleria Mazzini

Where: Connecting Via Mazzini 20 and Via dell’Unione 7
Theme: Thresholds and Transitions

A hidden urban corridor nestled in the heart of Milan, Galleria Mazzini is a whisper of Art Deco elegance, layered with soft Barocchetto flourishes and infused with the muted glamour of interwar bourgeois life. Built between 1925 and 1928, it was originally named Galleria Carlo Alberto, but came to be known as Galleria Motta after the iconic pastry entrepreneur Angelo Motta, who established his atelier and elaborate display windows here. Its polished confectionery beginnings gave way to decades of elegant quietude, continued by the Pasticceria Bindi and maintained through cafés, barbershops, and portinerie that preserve its vintage soul.

2. Bar Camparino

Where: at the corner between Piazza Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Theme: Glamour and Escape.

Founded in 1915 and remodelled several times, this bar encapsulates early 20th-century Milanese elegance, and it’s an obligatory stop for an aperitif before the theatre. The Liberty-to-Deco transition is evident in its mosaics, counters, and reflective materials. It evokes whispered gossip and discreet admiration.

3. Bonus Stop: La Rinascente

Where: Piazza Duomo, corner with Corso Vittorio Emanuele II
Theme: Glamour and Escape.

While there’s hardly anything deco in this department store, aside from the mirrored hall of perfumes and make-up stalls, it’s worth mentioning that La Rinascente was conceived as a cathedral of consumption—a place where fashion, modernity, and beauty converged into a theatrical experience. Its name was coined by Gabriele D’Annunzio, who envisioned it not as a shop, but as an idea: the rebirth (rinascita) of style, desire, and national elegance after World War I. While the current building was redesigned post-WWII, its philosophy was deeply Deco-adjacent: a total experience, curated and ornamental, offering visual pleasure, self-transformation, and escape to the Milanese bourgeoisie, especially women.

It’s also worth mentioning that La Rinascente is involved in the renovations of what would be another landmark of art deco in Milan for glamour and fashion: the former cinema and theatre Odeon, with its spectacular two historical rooms. The place has been closed for years, but it’s under renovation to become an annexe of the department store, and they’re promising to preserve the original decorations. You can read about it here. Fingers crossed.

4. Former Trianon

Where: Piazza del Liberty, 8
Theme: Glamour and Escape.

Once a symbol of Liberty-style sophistication and urban escapism, the former Teatro Trianon embodied the Milanese joie de vivre of the early 20th century and it’s a fine example of how my city reinvents itself, passing from theatre to hotel and now to headquarters of an insurance company. With its rose-colored interiors, innovative balconies, and underground Pavillon doré, it became a playground for actors, futurists, and fashionable spectators alike. Renamed Mediolanum under the infamous 20s, later bombed in WWII, it ultimately vanished—except for its façade, now reincarnated in the Palazzo della Reale Mutua.

5. Galleria del Corso

Where: connecting Corso Vittorio Emanuele with Piazza Cesare Beccaria
Theme: Glamour and Escape.

This 1930s commercial arcade was developed as the beating heart of Milanese popular glamour—home to shops, beauty salons, and early cinemas. Though it has changed significantly through many ups and downs, its architecture still suggests a world of mirrored interiors, soft lighting, and flânerie.

Out of Town: Officine Meccaniche (OM) / Former Falck Industrial Complex

Where: Sesto San Giovanni
Theme: The Shadow of the Machine.

This industrial archaeology site preserves remnants of Milan’s massive 20th-century machine production hubs. Though partially demolished, portions of industrial sheds, offices, and auxiliary buildings survive—where factory meets façade. A walk through this 1906-born complex becomes a dialogue with ruins, memory, and urban entropy, and the loss of our manufacturing industry.

I like walking through Milan in search of Art Deco because it’s not simply an architectural pursuit—it is an act of attentiveness. Deco in this city does not dominate the skyline or announce itself in textbook flourishes. Instead, it lingers in door handles and vestibules, glimmers in mosaic floors, and pulses in the rhythm of façades seen from the window of a passing tram. It thrives in thresholds, in transitions, in surfaces that catch the light and ask to be touched.

To trace Art Deco here is to discover a Milan that is intimate rather than monumental, elegant rather than opulent, layered rather than loud. It reveals a city that has always balanced industry and ornament, rigor and desire, restraint and invention. A city where the glamour of the everyday lives not in spectacle, but in surfaces smoothed by use, iron curled by craft, glass cut to hold the afternoon sun. Deco in Milan does not tell us what the city was; it shows us how it moved, how it touched, and above all, how it shimmered—quietly, and in transit. And, in my opinion, it still does.

Pride Month 2025: Story of the Day

Wallada bint al-Mustakfi: the Caliph’s Daughter Who Loved Women and Lived Free

Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (Córdoba 1001 – 1091), daughter of a deposed Umayyad caliph, was not merely a noblewoman—she was a poet, provocateur, and cultural icon in the intellectually radiant courts of Al-Andalus. Refusing to live within the confines of her class or gender, Wallada established her own literary salon, wore men’s clothing in public, embroidered her verses into her robes, and engaged in romantic relationships with both men and women.

Her most famous affair was with the poet Ibn Zaydun, but lesser-known texts suggest her intimate companionship with women—relationships filled with desire, wit, and defiance. In a society that oscillated between religious conservatism and poetic license, Wallada carved a space for queer autonomy through language, performance, and visibility.

She is said to have worn a robe inscribed with the verse “I am made for greatness and walk proudly.” And on the hem: “Forsooth I allow my lover to kiss my cheek / and bestow my kisses on him who craves it.“

Wallada’s life was not without danger—her choices were scandalous even by the standards of a cosmopolitan court—but she never sought invisibility. Instead, she offered a pansexual model of unapologetic self-expression, where love and literature intertwined in acts of personal and political resistance. Wallada reminds us that queer history isn’t just about survival—it’s about brilliance, power, and self-fashioning. Her poetry and presence prove that queer women have long claimed space in the public eye—not in spite of their gender and desire, but through it.

Pride Month 2025: Words of the Day

Love and Lament in the Songs of Jonathan and David

“I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me.
Your love to me was wonderful,
surpassing the love of women.”
— Samuel 1:26

Spoken by David upon the death of Prince Jonathan, this lament is one of the most emotionally charged expressions of same-gender love in ancient scripture. Though traditionally framed as fraternal, the language of intimacy, exclusivity, and surpassing affection has prompted centuries of interpretation and debate, especially as it comes from a figure as central and valorised as King David.

In a world where male friendship and affection often coexisted with hierarchy and violence, this poetic grief stands out. David’s song isn’t about duty or camaraderie—it’s about loss, beauty and love. The Hebrew terms used (ahava for love, and the description of souls being knit together) indicate a strong bond, possibly covenantal and with emotional depth beyond mere political alliance.

Even in canonical, religiously authoritative texts, there are spaces where deep emotional bonds between men are exalted without shame. The fragment reminds us that queer readings are not modern impositions—they are recoveries of silenced resonances that once moved openly through public ritual and poetic mourning.

Workshop of Rembrandt, David and Jonathan (1642)

Pride Month 2025: Art of the Day

7th-century icon of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai (Egypt)Saints and Soldiers: the Embrace of Saints Sergius and Bacchus

One of the oldest surviving icons from the early Byzantine world, this image depicts two Roman soldiers and Christian martyrs standing side by side—clad in military garb, halos touching through the depiction of Christ.

Sergius and Bacchus were Roman officers, executed around 303 CE for refusing to partake in pagan rites under Emperor Galerius or Maximian. But for centuries, especially in Eastern Christianity, they were also celebrated as intimate companions, referred to in early manuscripts as erastai—a Greek term connoting deep, same-sex romantic affection. This icon portrays their bond not only as saintly, but as sanctified—their closeness is both spiritual and physically expressed through proximity, symmetry, and shared sanctity. Some modern scholars and theologians interpret their veneration as an example of adelphopoiesis, or “brother-making”—the liturgical rite for a same-sex union ceremony.

This artwork reminds us that queer love has not only survived within religious contexts—it has been venerated, ritualized, and immortalized in sacred art. Even in traditions that later enforced heterosexual norms, there were spaces where love between men was publicly honoured. Sergius and Bacchus were removed from the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar in 1969, officially due to questions about historical evidence that never bothered the Catholic church before (nor, at any rate, afterwards).

Pride Month 2025: Story of the Day

Brothers in Arms, Lovers in Death: the Sacred Band of Thebes

In the 4th century BCE, the Greek city-state of Thebes forged one of the most extraordinary fighting forces in history: the Sacred Band, an elite military unit composed of 150 pairs of male lovers. Yes, you heard me right. Generally dated around 379–378 BCE, often attributed to Gorgidas or Epaminondas as founders/reformers, led by Pelopidas and celebrated by ancient historians like Plutarch, the Band was built on a radical idea — that romantic and erotic bonds between men could strengthen loyalty, discipline, and courage in battle.

Unlike the hierarchical and age-structured model of some other infamous Athenian habits, the Sacred Band was made up of adult, consenting male couples, warriors who trained, lived, and fought side by side. Their intimacy was institutionalised as a foundation of military excellence. In the heat of combat, it was said, a soldier would fight more fiercely to protect his beloved than for any state or command.

The Band achieved legendary status after their victory at the Battle of Leuctra (371 BCE), where they shattered the long-dominant Spartan army, a feat thought impossible. For decades, they defended Thebes, until they were surrounded and killed to the last man at Chaeronea (338 BCE), resisting the armies of Philip II of Macedon. Their burial site, discovered in the 19th century, holds 254 skeletons laid side by side, a silent testament to the valour and love they shared in life and death.

Pierre-Jean David d’Angers, The Death of Epaminondas (1811)

Yūko Tsushima, Territory of Light

Nothing happens in this book, and yet everything happens. Just like life. An ordinary story of an ordinary woman: her husband left for no apparent reason, he seems to think he has a right to her life even if he provides no support for their daughter, and she’s trying to navigate the pressure of everyday life. Her sole guidance? Light. Light is a supporting character, a material, and the woman needs it like air, even when it’s menacing, even when it’s a source of threat.
This book will resonate hard if you know Jun’ichirō Tanizaki‘s In Praise of Shadows, in which the author theorises that women are meant to stay in the shadows. It’s a soft act of rebellion against what’s expected and a soft cry on the difficult lifespan of a child between two and three, the age of tantrums and sudden cries, piled on top of the challenges of settling without a child.
Read reviews on Goodreads, and you’ll see how books like these — normalising a woman’s human struggles and sufferings — are sorely needed.

Andate a votare

Questa domenica 8 e lunedì 9 giugno si voterà su tutto il territorio nazionale per 5 referendum, 4 dei quali legati alle leggi sul lavoro e uno che propone la riduzione a 5 anni del tempo necessario per poter richiedere la cittadinanza italiana a chi vive e lavora nel nostro paese.

Il presidente fascista del consiglio e il governo di estrema destra in generale, la cui posizione indicherebbe di default una preferenza per il NO, sta invitando a non andare a votare. In particolare il presidente del consiglio ha affermato che si recherà alle urne — per non sembrare quella che non è andata a votare per andare al mare — ma non ritirerà le schede, cosa che di fatto la qualifica come non votante.

Astenersi è un diritto? Questo è quanto ha affermato il nostro presidente del consiglio, ma questa affermazione è falsa. In Italia il voto è definito dalla Costituzione come un diritto e un dovere civico (art. 48 Cost.), ma l’obbligo giuridico di votare e le relative sanzioni sono stati aboliti nel 1993. Da allora, quindi, il voto è un diritto che può essere esercitato liberamente, senza obblighi o conseguenze legali per chi si astiene.

Quando ci si astiene? Di solito ci si astiene, anche se io preferisco non farlo mai, quando ci si ritiene non sufficientemente informati sull’argomento su cui si sta andando a votare e, detto quindi in altre parole, l’argomento interessava così poco che non ci si è nemmeno presi la briga di informarsi. La Corte costituzionale ha anche chiarito che la scelta di non partecipare alle elezioni o ai referendum non può essere interpretata come manifestazione di una volontà politica in senso stretto, ma ha piuttosto un significato sociale. Un grande sticazzi agli argomenti su cui si vota, insomma.

Ma cosa succede per chi non ritira le schede? Semplice: non viene conteggiato, quindi è esattamente come essere andati al mare ma senza l’abbronzatura. La possibilità di non ritirare le schede è stata introdotta perché, ad esempio, potrei voler votare solamente in merito alla cittadinanza ma ritenere di non essere sufficientemente informata riguardo alle leggi sul lavoro. Per i quesiti di cui non si ritira la scheda, l’elettore non viene conteggiato come votante e quindi non contribuisce al raggiungimento del quorum per quei quesiti specifici, ma viene lasciata la possibilità invece di esprimersi selettivamente.

È questo il caso? No. La posizione del governo è chiara ed estremamente polarizzata sul NO a tutte e cinque le schede, ma il premier ha affermato che non ritirerà nessuna delle schede perché la speranza è quella di non ottenere il quorum, che l’art. 75 della Costituzione fissa alla maggioranza (50% più uno) degli elettori. Alle scorse amministrative, ha votato il 63,9% degli aventi diritto al voto, segnando così la più bassa affluenza della storia repubblicana italiana. Questi partiti sono al governo anche grazie a quell’astensione, quindi è poco sorprendente che vogliano continuare a coltivare una cultura del non interesse alla cosa pubblica.

Per quanto io detesti avere dei fascisti al governo, potrei accettarlo con calma dignità e classe se davvero fosse la preferenza della maggioranza dei miei concittadini. Ma essere governati da individui tanto polarizzati, le cui decisioni sono destinate a essere tutt’altro che morbide nel normale condursi della vita civile, è inaccettabile sia frutto del disinteresse collettivo.

Andate a votare. Riguarda anche voi. Votate NO, se siete contrari. Ma andate a votare e diffidate sempre di chi vi invita ad astenervi.

Pride Month 2025: Words of the Day

In a Kiss, a World

“Sweet boy, with honeyed eyes,
if I could kiss you as many times as I wish,
I’d kiss you three hundred thousand times —
and not once would I be satisfied.”
— Gaius Valerius Catullus, Poem 48 (1st century BCE)

Catullus, the Roman poet whose work straddled personal confession and biting wit, is best known for his turbulent relationship with “Lesbia” — but his poems also include unambiguous expressions of homoerotic desire, written with both candour and lyricism. In Poem 48, he speaks to a beautiful male youth nicknamed Juventius not as a mentor, conqueror, or satirist, but as a lover overwhelmed by longing. Same-gender desire is not coded in metaphor nor couched in apology. The speaker is direct: he wants to kiss his lover again and again, with no shame, only hunger. The intensity of his repetition — “three hundred thousand times” — transforms a kiss into a ritual of desire, obsession, and joy. He brings us into the immediacy of touch, gaze, and longing.

Catullus’s poem reminds us that queer desire in antiquity wasn’t always tragic or allegorical. It could be flirtatious, physical, even playful — a moment suspended between lips, not burdened by shame. In this fragment, we are given not only a kiss, but a glimpse into the long continuum of a queer tenderness preserved in verse.

Pride Month 2025: Art of the Day

Marble relief of a Galli priest (1st–2nd century CE) – from the Temple of Magna Mater, possibly in Ostia or RomeThe Galli of Cybele: Queerness in Roman Religion

The Galli were priests of Cybele (Magna Mater), whose worship was introduced at Rome from Phrygia. Often dressed in feminine garments and jewellery, they underwent ritual castration during the Dies sanguinis (“Day of Blood”), on March 24, and occupied a liminal gender role that defied Roman binary norms, wearing flowing robes and adorned with elaborate hairstyles and earrings. Their initiation rite and gender-fluid appearance scandalised Roman elites, and yet they are consistently depicted in temple settings, processions, and altars. They performed ecstatic dances, spoke in tongues, and mediated divine will, especially during festivals like the Megalesia.

Though often derided in Roman satire, their very visibility reminds us that gender variance was part of public religious life, not an aberration, but a form of sacred embodiment. Even in their time, the Galli challenged the idea that ancient Rome was uniformly patriarchal or cisnormative. They were not an exception: they were a whole social category, and yet they had no place in civil rights. They begged for alms and told fortunes, no different from other priests, but they were generally non-citizens and were barred from inheritance rights. Still, the cult of Cybele and the Galli were officially incorporated into Roman state religion from 204 BCE and remained influential until Christianization.

Werewolves Wednesday: The Wolf-Leader (15)

A werewolf story by Alexandre Dumas père.

Chapter XV: The Lord of Vauparfond

Thibault, on arriving at the Dauphin d’Or, ordered himself as fine a dinner as he could think of. It would have been quite easy for him to have engaged a private room, but he would not then have enjoyed the personal sense of superiority. He wished the company of ordinary diners to see him eat his pullet, and his eel in its delicate sauce. He wished the other drinkers to envy him his three different wines, drunk out of three different shaped glasses. He wished everybody to hear him give his orders in a haughty voice, to hear the ring of his money.

As he gave his first order, a man in a grey coat, seated in the darkest corner of the room with a half bottle of wine before him, turned round, as if recognising a voice he knew. And, as it turned out, this was one of Thibault’s acquaintances it is scarcely necessary to add, a tavern acquaintance.

Thibault, since he had given up making shoes by day and, instead, had his wolves about at night, had made many such acquaintances. On seeing that it was Thibault, the other man turned his face away quickly, but not so quickly but that Thibault had time to recognise Auguste Francois Levasseur, valet to Raoul the Lord of Vauparfond.

“Halloa! Francois!” Thibault called out, “what are you doing sitting there in the corner, and sulking like a Monk in Lent, instead of taking your dinner openly and cheerfully as I am doing, in full view of everybody?”

Francois made no reply to this interrogation, but signed to Thibault to hold his tongue.

“I am not to speak? not to speak?” said Thibault, “and supposing it does not suit me to hold my tongue, supposing I wish to talk, and that I am bored at having to dine alone? and that it pleases me to say; ‘Friend Francois, come here; I invite you to dine with me?!’ You will not? no? very well, then I shall come and fetch you.” And Thibault rose from his seat, and followed by all eyes, went up to his friend and gave him a slap on the shoulder vigorous enough to dislocate it.

“Pretend that you have made a mistake, Thibault, or you will lose me my place; do you not see that I am not in livery, but am only wearing my drab great-coat! I am here as proxy in a love affair for my master, and I am waiting for a letter from a lady to carry back to him.”

“That’s another matter altogether, and I understand now and am sorry for my indiscretion. I should like, however, to have dined in your company.”

“Well, nothing is easier; order your dinner to be served in a separate room, and I will give word to our host, that if another man dressed in grey like me comes in, he is to show him upstairs; he and I are old cronies, and understand one an other.”

“Good,” said Thibault; and he there with ordered his dinner to be taken up to a room on the first floor, which looked out upon the street.

Francois seated himself so as to be able to see the person he was expecting, while some distance off, as he came down the hill of Ferte-Milon. The dinner which Thibault had ordered was quite sufficient for the two; all that he did was to send for another bottle or so of wine. Thibault had only taken two lessons from Maitre Magloire, but he had been an apt pupil, and they had done their work; moreover Thibault had something which he wished to forget, and he counted on the wine to accomplish this for him. It was good fortune, he felt, to have met a friend with whom he could talk, for, in the state of mind and heart in which he was, talking was as good a help towards oblivion as drinking. Accordingly, he was no sooner seated, and the door shut, and his hat stuck well down on to his head so that Francois might not notice the change in the colour of his hair, than he burst at once into conversation, boldly taking the bull by the horns.

“And now, friend Francois,” he said, “you are going to explain to me some of your words which I did not quite understand.”

“I am not surprised at that,” replied Francois, leaning back in his chair with an air of conceited impertinence, “we attendants on fashionable lords learn to speak court language, which everyone of
course does not understand.”

“Perhaps not, but if you explain it to your friends, they may possibly understand.”

“Quite so! ask what you like and I will answer.”

“I look to your doing so the more, that I will undertake to supply you with what will help to loosen your tongue. First, let me ask, why do you call yourself a grey coat? I thought grey-coat another name for a jack-ass.”

“Jack-ass yourself, friend Thibault,” said Francois, laughing at the shoe-maker’s ignorance. “No, a grey-coat is a liveried servant, who puts on a grey overall to hide his livery, while he stands sentinel behind a pillar, or mounts guard inside a doorway.”

“So you mean that at this moment then, my good Francois, you are on sentry go? And who is coming to relieve you?”

“Champagne, who is in the Comtesse de Mont-Gobert’s service.”

“I see; I understand exactly. Your master, the Lord of Vauparfond, is in love with the Comtesse de Mont-Gobert, and you are now awaiting a letter which Champagne is to bring from the lady.”

“Optime! as the tutor to Monsieur Raoul’s young brother says.”

“My Lord Raoul is a lucky fellow!”

“Yes indeed,” said Francois, drawing himself up.

“And what a beautiful creature the Countess is!”

“You know her then?”

“I have seen her out hunting with his Highness the Duke of Orleans and Madame de Montesson.”

Thibault in speaking had said out hunting.

“My friend, let me tell you that in society we do not say hunting and shooting, but huntin and shootin.”

“Oh!” said Thibault, “I am not so particular to a letter as all that. To the health of my Lord Raoul!”

As Francois put down his glass on the table, he uttered an exclamation; he had that moment caught sight of Champagne.

They threw open the window and called to this third comer, and Champagne, with all the ready intuition of the well-bred servant, understood at once, and went up stairs. He was dressed, like Francois, in a long grey coat, and had brought a letter with him.

“Well,” asked Francois, as he caught sight of the letter in his hand, “and is there to be a meeting to-night?”

“Yes,” answered Champagne, with evident delight.

“That’s all right,” said Francois cheerfully.

Thibault was surprised at these expressions of apparent sympathy on the part of the servants with their master’s happiness.

“Is it your master’s good luck that you are so pleased about?” he asked of Francois.

“Oh, dear me no!” replied the latter, “but when my master is engaged, I am at liberty!”

“And do you make use of your liberty?”

“One may be a valet, and yet have one’s own share of good luck, and also know how to spend the time more or less profitably,” answered Francois, bridling as he spoke.

“And you, Champagne?”

“Oh, I,” replied the last comer, holding his wine up to the light, “yes, I too hope to make good use of it.”

“Well, then, here’s to all your love affairs! since everybody seems to have one or more on hand,” said Thibault.

“The same to yours!” replied the two other men in chorus.

“As to myself,” said the shoe-maker, a look of hatred to his fellow creatures passing over his face, “I am the only person who loves nobody, and whom nobody loves.”

His companion looked at him with a certain surprised curiosity,

“Ah! ah!” said Francois, “is the report that is whispered abroad about you in the country-side a true tale then?”

“Report about me?”

“Yes, about you,” put in Champagne.

“Oh, then they say the same thing about me at Mont-Gobert as they do at Vauparfond?”

Champagne nodded his head.

“Well, and what is it they do say?”

“That you are a were-wolf,” said Francois.

Thibault laughed aloud. “Tell me, now, have I a tail?” he said, “have I a wolf’s claws, have I a wolf’s snout?”

“We only repeat what other people say,” rejoined Champagne, “we do not say that it is so.”

“Well, anyhow, you must acknowledge,” said Thibault, “that were-wolves have excellent wine.”

“By my faith, yes!” exclaimed both the valets.

“To the health of the devil who provides it, gentlemen.”

The two men who were holding their glasses in their hand, put both glasses down on the table.

“What is that for?” asked Thibault.

“You must find someone else to drink that health with you,” said Francois, “I won’t, that’s flat!”

“Nor I,” added Champagne.

“Well and good then! I will drink all three glasses myself,” and he immediately proceeded to do so.

“Friend Thibault,” said the Baron’s valet, “it is time we separated.”

“So soon?” said Thibault.

“My master is awaiting me, and no doubt with some impatience … the letter, Champagne?”

“Here it is.”

“Let us take farewell then of your friend Thibault, and be off to our business and our pleasures, and leave him to his pleasures and business.” And so saying, Francois winked at his friend, who responded with a similar sign of understanding between them.

“We must not separate,” said Thibault, “without drinking a stirrup-cup together.”

“But not in those glasses,” said Francois, pointing to the three from which Thibault had drunk to the enemy of mankind.

“You are very particular, gentlemen; better call the sacristan and have them washed in holy water.”

“Not quite that, but rather than refuse the polite invitation of a friend, we will call for the waiter, and have fresh glasses brought.”

“These three, then,” said Thibault, who was beginning to feel the effects of the wine he had drunk, “are fit for nothing more than to be thrown out of window? To the devil with you!” he exclaimed as he took up one of them and sent it flying. As the glass went through the air it left a track of light behind it, which blazed and went out like a flash of lightning. Thibault took up the two remaining glasses and threw them in turn, and each time the same thing happened, but the third flash was followed by a loud peal of thunder.

Thibault shut the window, and was thinking, as he turned to his seat again, how he should explain this strange occurrence to his companions; but his two companions had disappeared.

“Cowards!” he muttered. Then he looked for a glass, but found none left.

“Hum! that’s awkward,” he said. “I must drink out of the bottle, that’s all!”

And suiting the action to the word, Thibault finished up his dinner by draining the bottle, which did not help to steady his brain, already somewhat shaky.

At nine o’clock, Thibault called the innkeeper, paid his account, and departed.

He was in an angry disposition of enmity against all the world; the thought from which he had hoped to escape possessed him more and more. Agnelette was being taken farther and farther from him as the time went by; every one, wife or mistress, had someone to love them. This day which had been one of hatred and despair to him, had been one full of the promise of joy and happiness for everybody else; the lord of Vauparfond, the two wretched valets, Francois and Champagne, each of them had a bright star of hope to follow; while he, he alone, went stumbling along in the darkness. Decidedly there was a curse upon him. “But,” he went on thinking to himself, “if so, the pleasures of the damned belong to me, and I have a right to claim them.”

As these thoughts went surging through his brain, as he walked along cursing aloud, shaking his fist at the sky, he was on the way to his hut and had nearly reached it, when he heard a horse coming up behind him at a gallop.

“Ah!” said Thibault, “here comes the Lord of Vauparfond, hastening to the meeting with his love. I should laugh, my fine Sir Raoul, if my Lord of Mont-Gobert managed just to catch you! You would not get off quite so easily as if it were Maitre Magloire; there would be swords out, and blows given and received!”

Thus engaged in thinking what would happen if the Comte de Mont-Gobert were to surprise his rival, Thibault, who was walking in the road, evidently did not get out of the way quickly enough, for the horseman, seeing a peasant of some kind barring his passage, brought his whip down upon him in a violent blow, calling out at the same time: “Get out of the way, you beggar, if you don’t wish to be trampled under the horse’s feet!”

Thibault, still half drunk, was conscious of a crowd of mingled sensations, of the lashing of the whip, the collision with the horse, and the rolling through cold water and mud, while the horseman passed on.

He rose to his knees, furious with anger, and shaking his fist at the retreating figure:

“Would the devil,” he exclaimed, “I might just for once have my turn at being one of you great lords, might just for twenty-four hours take your place, Monsieur Raoul de Vauparfond, instead of being only Thibault, the shoe-maker, so that I might know what it was to have a fine horse to ride, instead of tramping on foot; might be able to whip the peasants I met on the road, and have the opportunity of paying court to these beautiful women, who deceive their husbands, as the Comtesse de Mont-Gobert does!”

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the Baron’s horse shied, throwing the rider over its head.

…to be continued.