As I’ve mentioned a few times, once I find a place I like, I keep going back there. Bars, cafés, stores, and cities. Pisa is one of those cities. And I like it very much. I’ve been trying to count how often I’ve been there—at least six times, but maybe more. By contrast, I’ve only spent a couple of half-days in Florence, Bologna, or Siena, and I’ve never been to Urbino, Lucca, or Arezzo.

The first time I came to Pisa (and Florence) was when I was nine or ten, and my father brought me to Italy for a week. At the time, I was obsessed with Hannibal, and besides a couple of day trips, we stayed mostly in Rome, visiting all things Roman and eating every day in the same restaurant. La Forchetta d’Oro is nothing special, but I think I’ve been there every time I’ve passed through Rome. As you can see, it’s true that I keep going back to the same places.

Anyway, I don’t think Pisa impressed me much when I was ten. I only have a vague memory of seeing the Leaning Tower.

Much later, I was invited to give a talk there. Stefano, Brunito, Roberto, and a bunch of other people were in Pisa at the time, and I enjoyed my visit enormously. They showed me around. Now, although I can’t be sure, I bet Stefano studiously avoided the Leaning Tower. He definitely brought me to la casa del popolo instead. That, I remember. And the pride contest between him and Francesco/Francois over who could eat some incredibly spicy peppers. They were crying. Stefano also took me to an unforgettable lunch with his father, after which I thought of Stefano as being mellow. Anyway, I guess it must have been Roberto who felt the pang of obligation to show me the tower. In my human geography, Roberto is clearly the responsible Italian. I suppose the essence of the “mountain Italian” variety remains unchanged after half a life in Tuscany and a mother-in-law from Puglia.

For me, Pisa is these people’s city. Even if, as he texted me the other day, it’s been 15 years since Stefano left. When I asked if he was becoming a Romagnolo, he answered, No me lo recuerdes. I guess that if one is Tuscan, moving 90 km away, to the edge of the Po plain, feels like going into exile.

Funny, although he probably never said it, I can hear Stefano claim that Brazil is home. I suppose that sometimes distances are just relative. Sometimes they’re absolute. I mean, if il professore Martelli got a job in Princeton, he would first wonder what Proust would do in his place, then, after talking to his spiritual advisor—his mother—he would end up accepting it but insist that commuting every week from Arezzo would be absolutely reasonable. Italiani facendo l’italiano.

When I lived in Germany, I had the impression there was a clear class divide: 80% of people wanted to be Italian, and the rest French. And yes, while some might want to be Parisian or from Burgundy, most of the French-wannabe Germans dreamed of the Italian part of France. This “would-like-to-be-Italian” feeling isn’t as strong elsewhere, but I believe that, in some way, it’s pretty much universal. Italians don’t seem to have that cultural angst. At the height of Berlusconi’s time, Bruno might have been lobbying for Italy to declare war on Switzerland, walking five meters across the border, and then, in a surprise strategic move, show the white flag so that governing Italy became the winners’ problem. Now, he might have been really calling for this action, but he knew he wasn’t risking anything. First, because the Swiss—no morons—would see through the game, hold a referendum, and unanimously decide to give away those five meters. Then, even if, against all odds, they voted to annex Italy, Bruno knew nothing real was at stake. Maybe some minor things would change—for example, Rai 1 would start broadcasting in Hochdeutsch—but I’m sure he knew in his heart that it wouldn’t take long for the Swiss to be the ones explaining to the world that traffic rules are just suggestions.

Now, you might think I’m contradicting myself by claiming that not even all the Stefanos in the world could change Roberto’s good-natured mountain Italian heart, while suggesting the Swiss would rapidly become Italians—Italians who just happen to like buckets of molten cheese. You’d be wrong. There’s no contradiction here. Italia, la riserva spirituale dell’umanità, is just the place where the most unexpected things happen at the same time. The fancily dressed guy carrying an expensive-looking leather document bag, unlocking a rusty ancient bike with wheels too small. Unbelievably expensive cars driving on the worst roads in the world. Way too bright cafés, where the coffee is invariably great and the counter is full of boxes of shitty candy advertised with signs reading Provalo con il caffè. People who look stylish in sweatpants. People who hold doors open for you but park on every pedestrian crossing. A mostly pacifist country with really martial-looking policemen, and where you see a surprising number of soldiers not doing anything at all. A place where, walking around the streets of a random beach village—nothing ancient around—you find peacocks, and people explain that yes, there are many of them, nobody knows where they came from, they normally live in some random military installation by the beach, they run free around town without anyone giving a fuck. Except when they shit on a car, of course. Italy is a place where the automatic answering machine of an insurance company plays Christmas music in August, but where the trains seem as punctual as the Swiss ones. A lot of flags, Italian and Palestinian. A place that voted for Berlusconi and neo-fascist parties, but where you get the feeling that, if it’s night and people are minimally drunk, all you need is a spark and any sufficiently large group might start singing Bella Ciao. A bit later, l’Internationale. Plenty of bookstores and people reading physical newspapers. Really loud TVs everywhere. A country where my brother-in-law was baptized with a real name, plus the names of the four evangelists in some order nobody remembered—a situation solved by the mamma and the nonna going to ask the local priest. Maybe the same priest rumored to take his holidays on cruise ships with his girlfriend, with some people even claiming he’d been on the Costa Concordia. The most and least Catholic country at the same time. Some time ago, Bruno—again—was bitterly complaining that it’s unfair the host of the papacy is fixed in Rome instead of moving around according to the country of the previous winner, like Eurovision. A country of absolutely amazing buildings covered in graffiti. A place where you feel people are evidently ignoring you, but at the same time, you can speak whatever the fuck you want because you can be sure people will try to communicate with you. A place where you don’t see many kids around—fewer than in Spain—but where random children, like my daughter, get a lot of attention from everyone. In the nicest possible way. My sister told me yesterday that at some point, a guy they’d never met before paid for their lunch because he’d enjoyed the conversation with my niece so much. At the time, she was four. A country where taking life at its own rhythm seems like a religion, while competitive activities like chess, bridge, fussball, baking panettone—last year, my brother-in-law baked 26—or slow-smoking a pipe are taken very seriously. I’m not making anything up: I know a guy, a physics professor from Naples, who was one of the 600 participants in an international slow-smoking pipe competition.

I know everything I write here is pretty orientalizing, that this is a very partial description full of stereotypes. So let me be clear: when it comes to working, the Italians I know are surprisingly responsible and serious. Much more than me, but we probably agree that’s a pretty low bar. Anyway, if I’m stereotyping, I’m just reflecting how Italians stereotype themselves. I would never have had enough imagination to invent these people. A group of Italians, whether at a wedding, a conference, or just traveling around, is something to behold—impossible to describe other than by comparing it to a theater. A theater mostly played for the other actors. Italiani facendo l’italiano.

Now, when it comes to food, Italian dishes are much weirder and more basic than people think. There are regional differences I can recognize—really bad Tuscan bread without salt, bread whose only justification is to be eaten with that lump of salt they call ham over here—but the subtlety of pasta escapes me. De Gaulle famously wondered how to govern a country with 258 kinds of cheese. What would that poor soul have thought about governing a country where you can find up to 600 shapes of pasta, each probably right for one and only one dish?

Now, despite my generalizations, I know the human capital here is as varied as the cuisine. I mean, I might not be a connoisseur; I might not see much difference between the two sides of the Apennines, or between the Pisani and the Livornese, but even I can see the Swiss influence on the mountain Italians. I suppose that for Stefano, who has much finer senses than me, the Swiss influence probably becomes oppressive once he’s left Barberino di Mugello behind.

Anyway, every time I come to Italy, I have a fantastic time. Then I leave, happy the Alps are between me and these people because there’s no way I’d survive here. It seems to me that unless one is especially talented or has been trained from childhood, one can only take Italy in homeopathic doses. Although you adapt incredibly fast: after two days here, it was me explaining to my daughter that traffic rules are just suggestions.

Coming to Italy and watching these people, you have to shake your head in disbelief when you remember J.D. Vance’s talk about civilizational erasure. Here, it feels rather like l’Italia eterna. A nuthouse. La riserva emotiva dell’umanità.

Now, dear Italians, remember that Spanish is a language where love and appreciation are shown through insult and abuse. This was a love letter to you all.