In 1278 the King of England came up with a new plan to raise money and land, as leaders are fond of doing. Certain that historic privileges had been usurped by uppity subjects, King Edward sent royal officers around to prominent individuals demanding by what legal right – quo warranto – they held their honours. However when Edward’s men arrived at the home of one John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, the ageing aristocrat pulled out his rusty sword and proclaimed: “My ancestors came with William the Bastard, and conquered their lands with the sword, and I will defend them with the sword against anyone wishing to seize them.”
Archives For italy
What unites the two countries often seems far more substantial than what divides them—an innate sense of elegance, a passion for gastronomy and proud histories of artistic and intellectual attainment. But all that, says Franco Venturini, is precisely what bedevils their relations. France and Italy both consider themselves the cultural superpower of Europe and the result is reciprocal jealousy. For Mr Venturini, who is a columnist on an Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, but French-educated and an officer of the Légion d’Honneur, the links between the two countries are “very close, yet not characterised by any great love. We’re like two cousins, each of whom thinks she is the prettier.”
However, like most countries in Europe (or around the globe for that matter), Italy has a large number of local or regional languages that are actively spoken.
Often erroneously referred to as dialects, most of these regional languages take root in Vulgar Latin (the nonstandard form of Latin spoken after the classical Roman Empire) and are thus considered Romance Languages.
These languages are not simply dialects of Standard Italian. Most of them are quite distinct. Instead, they developed long before the spread of the standard Italian language in the 20th century.
Lauren Southern an omnipresent right leaning journalist activist was recently caught doing some questionable activities off the coast of Italy. Southern along with other vigilante groups from Europe appear to be taking the law into their own hands by attempting to interfere with boats entering and leaving Italy. To me this is crossing a line which ought not to be crossed. First and foremost its extremely dangerous to be going around aggressively trying to impede boats passage and endangers the lives of those on both vessels. Secondly this to me equates to the vigilante Greenpeace activists who sail down and attempt to disrupt the Japanese whaling operation. Its extremely dangerous and when met with violent action the natural response is to return with violence which eventually causes the situation to escalate. I don’t wish to see some dangerous acts occur which dissuades the public from empathizing with the positions of right leaning groups over something entirely preventable. I feel that Southern would be doing infinitely more good if she were to produce a hard hitting documentary in Italian which chronicled the voyage of these migrant vessels and the ineptitude or nonchalant stance of the government officials. This I feel would have far more reaching potential and persuasion power over the common voter. The whole charade of attempting to stop boats in dangerous ways is incredibly foolish.
Basilica Sancti Petri (St. Peter’s Basilica)
