L'Italo-Americano

30 www.italoamericano.com L'Italo-Americano peared by the mid-19th century. Some blamed the bishops, who were scandalized by the festival's excesses. Students hung hunchbacks by the waist from lampposts for selling unlucky lottery tickets, while drunken THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 push their baby carriage without a Gatling gun disrupting the brass band. Gabrielle D'Annunzio, then a curly-haired gossip columnist from Pescara, loved to ogle young married women as they took the mild October air. A perfumed satyr in a dove-grey frock coat, he stalked them from ten to four. Between their morning mass and their afternoon promenade, these bourgeois Junos— large-eyed, slow-paced, full-figured—would lunch at an osteria. Drunk from the October sun, they forgot all propriety. They devoured buttery cacio e pepe, osso buco smothered in onions, lemony carciofi alla giudìa, and honey-soaked figs, all washed down with three or four glasses of Frascati. But la vita comoda came with a price. Behind these lazy scenes, Rome scrambled to raise its standard of living. Even the aristocracy caught the fever from England and America. They renounced centuries of arrogance, pomp, and solitude and professed the new faith of snobbery, etiquette, and commerce. Neglecting their traditional duties, they held fewer October concerts and tournaments at Villa Borghese. Instead, they lurked between the Borsa di Roma's Corinthian columns and played at investment. Most ruined themselves. October has never recovered. How can Romans enjoy its sights and sounds when they text from their Ipads and listen to their Ipods? At Ristorante Pasquino, fifty paces from where I stand, a business party passes around a truffle the size of a man's fist. Nobody sniffs it. Nobody shuts his eyes in ecstasy as if savoring the scent of autumn. Without interrupting their conversation or making eye contact, they return the truffle to the waiter, who shaves slices onto their pasta. The waiter hovers, sighs, and shuffles away. I feel as if I have witnessed a crime. Pasquino's secretary is Anthony Di Renzo, associate professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@ithaca.edu. ed, and nothing of commercial interest, they made their way to the Gambia River. This time they were not attacked, and were able to communicate with the natives, who said they were warriors of one of the Mandinka kings who had small realms along the river and were part of the Empire of Mali. They went to the court of one and stayed as welcome guests for over a week, did some trading, but contracted malaria and headed back to sea to escape the unhealthy environment. Determined to continue their explorations, they headed further south, discovering more rivers along the way, finally anchoring in the largest of them, the Geba, in what is now Guinea-Bissau, just a little north of the Equator. They conducted what trade they could with the inhabitants, but finding nothing of much value, and still suffering from malaria, they returned to Portugal. Usodimare, who made enough from his expeditions to regain his wealth, returned to Genoa where he died in 1462. Cadamosto remained in Portugal where he engaged in trade and commerce, returned to Venice in 1463, continued in business, rose in prominence, served as a diplomat, and eventually became captain of a fleet. Of more importance to posterity was his book, Il Navigazioni (The Navigations), the first account of the exploration of West Africa. In it, he accurately described the land, rivers, people, places, flora, fauna, trade, customs and a host of other details, which made it an invaluable contribution to the knowledge of that then mostly unknown part of the world, and a guide for future explorers. Before the book itself was published, his accurate maps of West Africa were printed in 1468 in an atlas by Grazioso Benincasa. Although there is no way of knowing, perhaps they were used by Columbus, who before his epic voyages, sailed along the African coast to learn firsthand about the currents, winds and positions of the stars. Cadamosto died on a diplomatic mission in 1483. The Age of Discovery, like too many human discoveries, certainly had its negative consequences, which sadly seem to be all that is emphasized of late, but the world and life as we know it would not exist otherwise. Alvise Cadamosto and Antoniotto Usodimare earned their place of honor among those who made it so. a sonorous echo and stilted plaques. Giosuè Carducci, the bard of the Risorgimento, deplored the electric tram wires in the Corso, but on Sundays in the Pincio Gardens the bank clerk and his prim wife could Ottobrata Pasquino savors Rome's Indian summer ANTHONy dI RENzO October in Rome is its own season. During this fleeting Indian summer, morning mist begins to rise from the Tiber, moss traces veins in ancient marble, and the pines on the Janiculum become more fragrant. But the most miraculous thing is the light. At noon, the sky is the color of blue Sambuca. As the shadows lengthen, it mellows and turns golden until it becomes fine Soave. By dusk, the Eternal City is awash in Vino Santo. Bathed in a mellow glow, the Coliseum seems less cruel, Palazzo Montecitorio less pompous, Piazza Guglielmo Marconi less creepy. October also marks the local grape harvest. During the 18th century, Rome's most joyful holiday was the Ottobrata, the festival of the wine press. Women trimmed their bonnets with feathers and flowers and wore costume jewelry, silk gowns, velvet jackets, and embroidered stockings. Men peacocked in plug hats, open-necked shirts, bandanas, and britches. The more prosperous rented pumpkin-shaped carriages, hired singers, dancers, musicians, and jugglers, and took their families on a scampagnata, a country outing. The first stop was Monte Testaccio. Beneath this mound of ancient pottery shards was the city's best wine cellar, flowing with Trebbiano, Cesanese, and Malvasia. Loaded with bottles, the revelers headed for the outskirts and suburbs: out to Ponte Milvio, Porta Pia, Porta San Giovanni, or Porta San Paolo; up to Monte Mario or Monteverde. The orchards and vineyards were perfect for setting up a bocce court and a swing set. The man played morra, the women mosca cieca, the children ruzzola. The winded revelers sat in the shade and feasted on gnocchi, capon, tripe, and abbacchio, milk-fed lamb. Then as the musicians strummed guitars, rattled tambourines, and clattered castanets, everyone danced the saltarello. These pagan customs disap- The "carrettella", the eggshell shaped carriage pulled by two horses. In that carriage used to sit the "minenti" (usually seven or nine), who were the representatives of the low middle class and of the working-class, dressed up for the occasion matrons awoke the next morning to find strange men in their beds. Others blamed the brokers, who built the new stock exchange in the Temple of Hadrian and minted gold coins that outshone the sun. Still others blamed Giuseppe Mazzini, who scolded Romans into abandoning frivolity and mounting the barricades. Whatever the reason, the October sun shone on a different Italy. Rome was no longer a city of ruins, landscapes, and museums. Now the capital of a modern democracy, Rome was staid and Victorian. The heroic age was over. Nothing remained but The forerunners of Columbus Continued from page 1 It was on a voyage to the latter that his role as one of the great explorers was to begin. In 1454 his ship put in at Portugal to wait out a prolonged storm. At the time that nation was just beginning to venture down the unknown coast of Africa. Learning of this, Cadamosto was eager to join in, and was immediately given command of a vessel by Prince Henry the Navigator. He set out the next year and eventually anchored off what is now northern Senegal, essentially the limit of that part of the then known world. There he met Budomel, the king of the region, and was invited to travel inland to stay with his nephew, prince Bisboror, and thus became one of the first Europeans to explore the interior of sub-Saharan Africa. He spent a month there carefully noting local politics, customs, ceremonies, food, plants, animals and numerous other details of this new world. Upon returning to his ship, he decided to venture into the unknown and sailed south. Shortly after, he met up with two other Portuguese ships and teamed up with the commander of one, Antoniotto Usodimare of Genoa. The latter had been a prominent merchant and banker, but fell into debt after some failed business ventures, and went to Portugal to remake his fortune. They eventually put in off the coast of southern Senegal, and sent an interpreter ashore to greet of the world on this voyage, Cadamosto also contributed to navigation and astronomy. That far south, the all important Pole Star, key to finding direction at sea, was almost invisible, but a new constellation, the Southern Prince Henry the Navigator the natives, who immediately murdered him. Wishing to avoid hostilities, they set sail and soon discovered the Gambia River. Despite being constantly fired upon with arrows from the natives there, they went up it around 60 miles, but had to turn back to save themselves from a massive canoe attack, and returned to Portugal. Besides expanding knowledge Cross, appeared. He was the first person to record and draw it and thus guided future sailors. In 1456 he and Usodimare led three ships back to Africa. They soon enough encountered a storm and sailed over 300 miles out to sea to escape it, probably further than anyone had ever gone from there before, and made another discovery, the Cape Verde Islands. Finding them uninhabit-

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