Page 28 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italy

26  INTRODUCING IT AL Y

unemployment and organized crime. Some
of its areas rank among the most depressed
in Europe, although many southern towns
did benefit from an injection of funds from
the Millennium Project.
The historic divide between north
and south is a powerful factor in
contemporary politics. The federalist
party, the Northern League, owes its
popularity to this split. Those in favour
of sepa ration complain that the south
is a drain on resources: Milan is seen as
efficient and rich, while Naples is viewed
as chaotic, dirty and corrupt.
History and geography have both
contributed to the division. The north
is closer in both location and spirit to
Germany and France, while the south has
suffered a succession of invasions from A scooter parked in front of the Bar Duomo, Piazza Duomo in Cefalù
foreign powers: Carthaginians and Greeks
in ancient times, Saracens and Normans In southern Italy the landscape,
in the Middle Ages and, until the middle architecture, dialects, food, and even
of the 19th century, the Bourbons from the appearance of the people have
Spain held sway. closer affinities with the Eastern
Mediterranean and North Africa than
Tradition with northern Europe. In the far south,
Distinctive variations in Italy’s regions study of the local dialects has revealed
have much to do with the mountainous traces of ancient Greek and old Albanian,
landscape and inaccessible valleys. Tuscan preserved in tightly knit communities
and Ligurian hill-towns, for instance, isolated by the rugged geography.
have quite different silhouettes, and the Christianity and pagan ritual are
farmhouses in Puglia, the famous trulli, closely linked; some times the Virgin is
are unlike those found in the landscape portrayed as a thinly disguised Demeter,
of Emilia-Romagna. the Earth goddess.

Café-goers relaxing in Marina di Pisa, Tuscany

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