italY & SOUTH TYROL 

From: The Other Branch

Preface:
South Tyrol is a wonderful country. But even the most die-hard South Tyroleans would admit (...) that while the linguistic groups live prosperously side by side, they often lack real togetherness. In South Tyrol, the approval rates for the European Union are significantly higher than in other parts of Europe, yet political arguments are often sought in the nationalist grab bag, rather than in the pool of European experiences and visions—a pool that has become very rich in the course of the last seventy years.

(Silvius Magnago speaks in the novel as a lawyer; in reality he was the South Tyrolean governor 1960-1989 and a charismatic figure of integration).
"Can you see the Rosengarten out there through the window, the most beautiful part of the Alps?" he asked. "How did the Alps come into being? By Europe's North and South moving closer together. Tectonic movements that created our homeland. I am a son of the Alps. My father comes from their southern edge, my mother more from the northern edge, and I live in the middle of it. Here I got involved in politics, here I was fired from the local council and imprisoned for a few weeks, here I am now trying my luck as a lawyer. The tectonic plates are moving and it seems to me that their movement is accelerating. But how fast? Europe must grow together faster. That would be good for South Tyrol and good for someone like me, who sees himself neither as an Italian nor as an Austrian, and certainly not as a German, but as a European."

From: Stories between Italy and Germany (a collection of testimonials collected by the German Embassy in Rome, 2022).

I feel like Goethe in Italy. The further south I go, the greater the enthusiasm. Why? Of Italy's visible and invisible treasures (the human and the physical ones), I am most captivated by those that reveal themselves only at second glance—and I have encountered them primarily in the south.
           Visible treasures: During the time that I spent as a diplomat in Rome and Naples, I saw many architectural gems. They leave you speechless when they stand majestically before you: the Colosseum in Rome, the cathedrals in Milan, Florence, San Marco. I ate well, visited the opera in Verona, raved about Alfa Romeo—pieces of Italy's epicurean, exportable repertoire, like latte macchiato or the Cinque Terre coastline that adorns the concrete wall of a Stuttgart pizzeria to soothe the longings in the cold, damp winter months.
           And then the less visible treasures that want to be discovered. The catacombs of San Gennaro in Naples. The giant organ in the Chiesa di San Pietro in Trapani, assembled by an amateur. The little Calabrian mountain town of Santa Severina, not mentioned in any guidebook, as proud as it is melancholic. The German teacher in Crotone, who year after year inspires his students with something foreign and instills in them the courage to live. The pizza maker from Naples who defies the mafia. The Sicilian folk music group that performed with great talent a Sicilian-German version of the myth of Colapesce (or Schiller's The Diver), but showed less talent in marketing their skills. The citizens of the Campania town of Caiazzo, who partnered with the home city of the German officer responsible for a massacre in their town in 1943. My kind ex-driver in Naples, a simple man of great wisdom.
           The mystery of all these treasures is summed up by my favorite Italian song: Il Coyote by Lucio Dalla. In it, the coyote demonstrates that with willpower and imagination you can create something great from little. 'Perché vince il coyote? La vita è fantasia, è coraggio, è lotta dura con la voglia di inventare.' Yes, that's what I admire.