This is a short yet sweet account of my site visit to the small Italian town of Celano for my Culture and Identity class. Celano is a small town built around a lake, except that there is no lake. It was drained in the 1950's and the land was sold to peasants. Celano has one famous landmark, which is the castle up in the hills. The head of the government wanted to live in the castle, but Celano wouldn't allow that. Thus Celano was neglected by the powers that be and today it is still a small town which strongly connects with its past. Apparently a lot of Celanese people live in Rochester, New York and many have left the sub-urban confines to other cities for better work. It is also worth noting that like most Italian towns, they speak in their own Italian dialect, which is slightly incompatible with standard Italian. It's often the opposite of formal Italian. My professor lived in Celano for a while and so visited some friends at a local bar where he had lunch and he translated for this old farmer friend of his who was telling us stories of the lake being drained. Apparently he told us in class later that the old man knew we were from Rome because my professor makes the same site visit from Rome every year and thus the old man was trying to speak to us in standard Italian by using the opposite of what he was saying. Instead of saying "I have hunger" as it is in standard Italian Celanese says "I am hunger", but in a shortened way that it would be said in standard Italian. And of course when the old farmer was speaking to us he tried to use standard Italian by saying the opposite of Celanese dialect, and he often spewed out completely wrong phrases. My experiences with Italian linguistics is a another blog entirely, but I found this amusing. And now some description of what I saw. They are slightly out of order but oh well.
1. This is a local university at Celano and also a symbol of government corruption. Apparently this university costs a lot of money to upkeep it but it gives out useless degrees and is only there because the mayor of Celano had political ties with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. I am not at all surprised at all by this.
2. This is the medieval wooden oak door to the local church.
3. This is a view of the former lakebed from the bus on the freeway heading to Celano. The lake wasn't that deep when it had water in it but it had a large area.
4. This is the view from inside the church.
5. This is a view from behind the castle.
6. This is a view from behind the castle as well.
7. This is a picture just to the left of the picture above.
8. This is a burial site inside the church, because of course churches were graveyards before the advent of cemeteries.
9.This is a view, albeit a bad one, of the castle. It is kind of big but not huge.
10. And this is a final vista from Celano. Italy has beautiful views....
Thanks for the pictures of my home town they're lovely. However as with many things in Italy you shouldn't put to much stock in stories you here. The dialect is not backwards, at all. The common words for many things are different or pronounced differently because these little towns were quite isolated until the advent of TV, telephone and internet. The old farmer was pulling your leg as he wasn't around when the lake was drained as it was drained in the mid 1800. A quote for you...A 6.3 km-long and 21 m-wide canal was begun in 1862 and within 13 years, the lake was completely drained. A swiss engineer drained finally after the romans tried twice, it's quite interesting the draining of Lake Fucino. Thanks and good Luck. Vincenzo
ReplyDeleteits not backwards. but according to them its culturally not as sophisticated as formal italian, according to my professor who is from Celano but teaches in Rome. And yeah the lake was drained in the mid 1800s but the 1951 Revolution was what I confused it with.
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