The perfect place to tell dangerous stories and survive to write another day. Francesco da Mosto, Shakespeare in Italy II: Land of Fortune
It was Italy that saved Shakespeare from the Tower of London. ibid.
The Merchant of Venice: the climax of the play is a trial at the Doge’s Palace. ibid.
Julius Caesar: these were treacherous subjects to explore. ibid.
The Tempest: he would question the very forces of Nature. ibid.
King James was pursuing a ferocious campaign against witchcraft. ibid.
Shakespeare’s genius was to make Italy his home whenever he needed. ibid.
The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy. Thomas Paine
That dark side of Rome was ruthlessly exploited by the fascist dictator Mussolini who openly styled his regime as a new Roman empire and him as a new Emperor Augustus. Rome: Power and Glory s1e6: The Fall, Discovery 2000
An emperor will be born near Italy.
Who will cost the Empire very dear:
When those with whom he allies are spoken of,
He will be found to be less prince than butcher. Nostradamus I-60
Men, I’m getting out of Rome. Anyone who wants to carry on the war against the outsiders, come with me. I can offer you neither honours nor wages; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Anyone who loves his country, follow me. Giuseppe Garibaldi
A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. Samuel Johnson
How beautiful is sunset when the glow
Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee,
Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy! Percy Bysshe Shelley, Julian and Maddalo
Oh, not to be in England
Now that April’s there!
R. B., you looked at England
Through a rosy pair
Of expatriate’s goggles,
Basking by the Med.
Imagination boggles
At the lies you spread!
You’re right: the leaves are tiny;
But you quite forgot
(Italy’s sunshiny)
That the rain is not!
Oh, you Apriliser!
So the thrush sings prettily!
Wise? But you were wiser,
Robert, warm in Italy!
Let the pear tree scatter
Blossom on the clover:
You were in the latter
Five hundred miles from Dover! Edward Blishen, Abroad Thoughts
You may have the universe if I may have Italy. Giuseppe Verdi
We are ready to proclaim throughout Italy this great principle: a free church in a free state. Count Cavour, 1810-1861
Lump the whole thing! Say that he Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo! Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1869
Italy and the Spring and First Love altogether should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy. Bertrand Russell
In Italy the concept of the family is very important. Monica Bellucci
Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On they sweet brow is sorrow plough’d by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh God! That thou wert in thy nackedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress. Lord Byron, Childe Harold IV XXXII-XXXVII
Oh Rome! My country! City of the soul!
The orphans of the heart much turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! And control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O’er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
Whose agonies are evils of a day –
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. ibid. IV LXXVIII
While stand the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls – the World. ibid.
Finally the Italians entered the war after the rapid German victory in the west. They were called Harvest Hands. Hitler’s Henchmen II: Von Ribbentrop: The Errand Boy, ZDF 1998
These are the remains of people frozen in last few second of their lives ... They are unique. Margaret Mountford, Pompeii: The Mystery of the People Frozen in Time, BBC 2013
On the morning of August 24th 79 A.D. just before midday a powerful earthquake rocked the quiet countryside around the mountain. ibid.
What did kill them and fixed their bodies in these strange positions? ibid.
Ten miles down the road is a place destroyed by the same eruption but for me is if anything more exciting ... Herculaneum. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum, BBC 2013
A series of shops and perfectly ordinary flats. ibid.
Running water, public fountains ... private houses have running water too ... eighty public latrines. ibid.
Casts of victims buried in the ash preserve their dying moments. Precious objects tell intimate details of their lives. And the writing of a young man who watched it happen expose the full horror of what killed them. Pompeii: The Last Day, BBC 2003
Pompeii lies in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. This volcano has been quiet for fifteen hundred years. The people don’t even know it’s a volcano ... Minor earth tremors plague the city. They are one of the signs that Vesuvius is stirring. ibid.
Around 1 p.m. on 24th August A.D. 79 Vesuvius roars back to life ... As the cloud of ash obscures the sun, day turns to night. ibid.
Thousands take to the streets and flee ... Pumice continues to bombard the city. ibid.
From surviving records we know that Admiral Pliny’s rescue mission was underway around 5 p.m. ibid.
Now heavier with denser rock, part of the column collapsed and cascaded down the mountain in a great wave. Superheated ash and molten rock churn down the volcano in a racing burning avalanche. It’s now known as a pyroclastic surge. ibid.
The final surge kills thousands who have fled into the countryside. ibid.
Good Italy, beautiful full of promise, has been knocked out by bad Italy, selfish and cruel. Good Italy, Bad Italy, BBC 2013
Once Europe’s most dynamic economy, its twenty-year decline has been horrifying. ibid.
The annual cost of Italy’s Parliament is more than that of the German, French, British and Spanish chambers combined. ibid.
During 2011, 83 members of Parliament were convicted or under investigation, nearly 10% of the total. ibid.
In 2011, Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset channels have 60% of TV advertising and 36% of the TV audience. ibid.
The violent era of forty years ago – many believe that in those days of the Cold War the state murdered its own citizens – sometimes supported by the West. ibid.
Not one of the official inquiries or trials of the alleged State-sponsored terrorism managed to convict any high level official. ibid.
Italy is the only country which has three global criminal organisations: Campania’s Camorra, Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta and Sicily’s Cosa Nostra.
There are many horrors in Italy ... jobs have been traded for human lives. ibid.
My beautiful girlfriend’s in a coma [cf. Smith’s] and it’s terrible to watch. ibid.
Pompeii: workers at this landmark site are coming forward with astonishing claims of disembodied voices. Destination Truth s4e1, Skyfy 2010