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BBC News – Mussolini’s bunker: Il Duce’s futile search for safety
The extensive air-raid shelter that Benito Mussolini had built under his home gives a flavour of the fears that must have haunted the Italian dictator’s final days.
The Via Nomentana is an avenue like many others in Rome. Taxis and motorbikes hurtle along it in the summer heat but, half-way down, through a set of iron gates, lies another world – the cool and the calm of the gardens of the Villa Torlonia.
A lawn, shaded by palm trees, rises up a slope and a path lined with flowers leads to the villa itself – grand and imposing. For 18 years, this was the home of Benito Mussolini, his wife and their children.
In this beautiful place, Italy’s dictator, Il Duce, lived out his rise and fall.
The villa is a museum now and, as you wander through its marble halls, it is easy to see that – for a time – life here for the Mussolinis was very good indeed.
The ballroom is lit by low-hanging chandeliers and above them, on the ceiling, painted angels go gliding through the heavens.
Mussolini’s bedroom is still much as he would remember it. You can almost see him throwing open the tall green shutters on a summer night, letting in any breeze that might emerge from the trees beyond the balcony.
Black-and-white photographs show how Mussolini spent his days at the villa.
Out on the fine white gravel of the driveway, you see him pictured as a swordsman, practising his fencing – Il Duce’s stocky frame presenting a rather large target for his coach.
In one photo, he is on a white horse, easily clearing a jump on a riding track in the grounds.
Another shows the dictator on the tennis court wearing a cap to protect his bald head from the sun. But he is much more smartly dressed when we see him welcoming to his home an Arab diplomatic delegation.
via BBC News – Mussolini’s bunker: Il Duce’s futile search for safety.
Strange Random Safety Quote:
“Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.” ― Lemony Snicket
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Paris plane crash spurs cultural growth in Atlanta – Yahoo! News
ATLANTA (AP) — Fifty years ago, a group of 106 influential cultural and civic leaders from Atlanta traveled to Europe to visit famous museums and demonstrate the ascendant southern city’s commitment to culture.
The Atlanta area’s population in 1962 had recently hit a million people, but political and business leaders worried the growth wouldn’t continue if the city didn’t improve its museums and venues for theater and music. The city’s cultural development would be altered forever by the trip, but in ways that had to do more with its tragic end.
The group was on its way home June 3 when its chartered Air France plane crashed on takeoff at Orly Field in Paris, killing all but two flight attendants. It had been the worst single plane crash to date.
“The community was just in shock,” said Joe Bankoff, outgoing president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta. “I mean, to lose over 100 people in a moment was just unbelievable. But to lose such a cross section of Atlanta was particularly important.”
On the flight were artists, company leaders, the first woman elected to the city’s school board and other leaders. Among the sites on their packed agenda were the Louvre in Paris, the Coliseum in Rome and London Bridge.
Out of the city’s grief grew a sense that something needed to be done to memorialize them, to improve on its tiny art museum in an old house and struggling art school.
“These people were heads of companies in Atlanta. They were the wives who did a lot of the volunteer work at the art association,” said Susan Lowance, who had traveled with the group but had decided to stay in Europe longer to visit friends.
She believes the development of the arts center is a fitting tribute to her friends.
“These were people who had a stake in what was going to happen, and what happened was wonderful,” Lowance said.
Atlanta is now home to a world-class art museum that has collaborated with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Louvre, a Grammy-winning symphony orchestra and other top-notch cultural institutions.
via Paris plane crash spurs cultural growth in Atlanta – Yahoo! News.
Strange Random Culture Quote:
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future. – Albert Camus
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Ekberg and Mastroianni in Fellini’s L’Intervista (1987)
Today we have a departure from our regular language(s) to feature a couple of Italian videos (and some French subtitles for free!).
The actress Anita Ekberg will be 80 this week and has given an interview to the Italian paper Corriere Della Sera. In it, she claims that La Dolce Vita was not a great movie and that she was essentially the best thing in it, while Mastroianni was a nobody who smoked and drank too much.
In fact, this is not the first time she has made this kind of comments, as this interview from 2010 on Italian TV shows.
After all that bad blood, we thought it might be nice to go back and look at happier times between the two, and not so long ago, either, namely, the meeting in Fellini‘s L’Intervista from 1987. The subtitles are in French, which may or may not help you …
Strange Random La Dolce Vita Quote:
You are the first woman on the first day of creation. You are mother, sister, lover, friend, angel, devil, earth, home. – Marcello Rubini
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Unesco World Heritage in Google Street View
Image via Wikipedia
If you’re one of those people who thinks that Google Maps and Street View are only useful for looking up your hotel for your next holiday or following your neighbours, then you’re right, of course, but from now on, you’ll also be able to use them to see some of the greatest sights in the world, as listed by Unesco. In all, 890 properties, including many in France, Spain, China or the USA, make up the World Heritage List, considered “as having outstanding universal value.”
Here’s a full list of the Heritage Sites
Among the latest additions to Google Street View are the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Stonehenge, Prague, Paris and Segovia. Try a visit below; click on the top right corner (or on “View Larger Map”) to open full screen for the best effect. Don’t forget to wave to the tourists 😉
Link: Your guide to Stonehenge and the nearby Avebury
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Link: An article on why Herculaneum may actually be more important culturally than Pompeii
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The making of … (subtitled)
and the main page for the Heritage / Google collaboration where you can choose the site you’d like to visit.
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Strange Random Language Fact:
No word in the English language rhymes with“month”.
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