Sprezzatura – 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World

The term “sprezzatura” may not be familiar to everyone. The book Sprezzatura* – 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the Word even footnotes the definition on the front cover: * “the art of effortless mastery”. Of course our faithful 6 Travelmarx readers may recall that we have already mentioned this in previous posts Baby You’ve Got Some Sprezzatura and Child Sprezzatura. In those posts we defined it as a certain nonchalance that makes what one does seem uncontrived and effortless.

The book in question is by Peter D’Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish. It consists of 50 short chapters or passages on different aspects of Italian genius. Mostly the genius is a person or persons, but a few cases the chapters deal with an entity like the Roman Republic or Venice. The book pretty much goes in chronological order but each chapter can be read in any order. (At Travelmarx we prefer to read starting from the back of the book. And in this case, this works well.)

The book reminds me a lot of the series Connections, because each chapter is like the start of a detective story. There are enough names and dates dropped in any given chapter to keep you researching for days. One detective story stood out for me is Chapter #31 Catherine de’ Medici: Godmother of French cuisine where we start with Catherine de’ Medici (1519 – 1589), talk about Platina’s Book – an Italian cookbook from 1474, the Sicilian Francesco Procopio and what he was doing in Paris, Café Procope, Maria de’ Medici (1575 – 1642) – another Medici French queen, and finally La Varenne (1618 – 1678) who worked in Maria’s kitchen.

What’s the Difference Between the Italian and Mexican Flag?

Italian Flag (left) and Mexican Flag (right)
 

Recently, we hung an Italian-flag windsock on our deck as a prop for an upcoming party and realized that the colors of Italian flag looked a lot like the Mexican flag on first glance. (A neighbor dutifully noted the windsock and commented that she was surprised because we were not “windsock” people.)

So what are the differences between the Italian and Mexican flags? The Italian flag is a vertical tricolor (in Italian Il Tricolore) of green, white, and red. The Mexican flag on first glance is the same except the there is a coat of arms in the center white stripe. However, there are a couple of subtle differences. The Italian flag uses lighter shades of green and red and the Italian flag has an aspect ratio (width:height) of 3:2 while the Mexican flag is 7:4.

The Mexican coat of arms in the white band of the flag is an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus with a snake in its beak and talons.

The meaning of the colors for the Italian flag depend on who you ask. One common and poetic interpretation you might hear is that green is the countryside, white is the snowy Alps, and red is the blood spent during wars for Independence. A less poetic but more accurate explanation is that the Italian flag was first created in 1797 during the short-lived Cispadane Republic of Northern Italy. The red and white were already colors of the flag of Milan and green was based on the color of uniforms. The Italian flag was written into the constitution in 1947 as a tricolor: green, white and red in vertical bands of equal size.

The meaning of the colors for the Mexican flag likewise is not fixed, but can be taken to mean roughly: green = hope, white = purity and red = blood of national heroes (as pointed out by several comments below, in particular the comment August 26, 2017 at 5:53 PM).

The flags for Ireland and Côte d’Ivoire look similar to the Italian and Mexican flags, except they use orange instead of red.

Flag of Ireland (left) and Flag of Côte d’Ivoire (right)
 

If you are into more similarities, a few pointed out in the comments, there are also these:

• Monaco / Indonesia flag similarity
• Romania / Chad flag similarity
• Mali / Senegal flag similarity (very similar are Guinea and Cameroon)
• Netherlands / Luxembourg flag similarity
• New Zealand / Australia flag similarity
• Slovenia / Slovakia / Russia flag similarity
• Ecuador / Columbia Venezuela flag similarity

Biking To Work (Sort Of)

So I’m only biking about 8 miles a day, but it’s something. It makes the 2 hour (total) commute a little bit more palatable knowing that for half of it I’m getting a little exercise. I bike from Fremont to Montlake and then take a bus to the east side. I hope it doesn’t rain for the next year.

Most of the trip is on Seattle’s Burke-Gilman trail which was once part of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway.

I Can’t Believe I’m Working (Again)

Week two of a contract position at a large software firm on the east side. Uh, which would that be? So far so good. Good team, good people, interesting work. The weirdest part is seeing faces I recognize from years ago on past assignments. This if followed by the inevitable search through the address book to see what fabulous title they have now and you don’t, then a sigh, and back to work.

TravelMarx Music Recommendations: Watershed and Blame Sally

The first recommendation is K.D. Lang’s Watershed. By the second listen we were hooked. It’s laid back, restrained. The songs are deceptively simple and they are all similar in pace and delivery. This can have the effect of making the songs seem to blur together. For me the effect is dreamy – to each his own.

The second recommendation is Blame Sally’s Blame Sally. On the first play I was hooked. It’s the album I put on at work to pull me through the day. The opening strains of the wistful first track, Birds Fly South, let me know I can get through the rest of the day reasonably sane.

I Can’t Believe I’m Knitting

Knit 2, Purl 2. My new mantra. Hello knitting. We were taught by Noni. I’m making a scarf (how original) and Mark is making a pot holder that is knitted and then shrunk via washing (called felting). Knitting is actually very computer-like. The two knit stitches, knit and purl, are like ones and zeros. You can assemble them in endless patterns. A knit stitch on one side is a purl stitch on the other.

The toughest part about knitting for me is backing up when I made a mistake several stitches ago. Also, I hold my yarn too tight, so my stitches are quite dense.