Italian journalist Beppe Severgnini entertained a large audience with his quips about the idiosyncrasies of the Italian psyche Wednesday night.
"Italy is bewildering," he said. "Italy is a country that could produce both Botticelli and Berlusconi. They both have a passion for blondes, but that's the only thing that they share."
Severgnini also read passages from his latest book, "La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind," to the group of local fans and students crowded into Smith-Buonanno Hall 106.
Severgnini drew the biggest laughs when he described American stereotypes of Italy. "American ladies love Italy," he said. "In their Italy, it's perfectly legal to have fantasies about anything."
American women tend to flock to Tuscany, he added, where their "main occupation is to drink white wine at sunset with a young Italian man who looks like George Clooney in his 30s."
Severgnini said he tried to shed this romantic stereotype in his book by giving outsiders a glimpse of the authentic Italian mindset.
"My publisher was horrified," he said, "He said to me, ‘You're trashing every single American fantasy about Italy.'"
Severgnini then drew two columns on the chalk board, one for troublesome traits and another for good things — represented by the letters "I" and "G," respectively.
The first "I" was "intelligent." "To be intelligent at all times is a problem," he said. "The intelligence I mean is what the British call ‘cleverness.' There is a cleverness that keeps us down all the time."
Severgnini launched into a critique of Italian politics with "improvise" and "iniucio," a Neopolitan slang term referring to under-the-table dealings. Italian politicians "think because they are intuitive, they can do without what you in America call ‘homework,'" he said, adding that the Italian people's perception of its government leads them to distrust authorities.
"You accept the fact that whoever is in power will sort of care about his own interests and you hope that he will care a little about yours," he said.
Severgnini countered some negative traits with Italians' more positive qualities, particularly their generosity.
"Their first reaction is to be generous," Severgnini said. "You instinctively trust people," he said. At the same time, he also referred to Italians as gutsy. "If you're not gutsy in Italy, you have a nervous breakdown," he said.
Proceeding through the positive terms, he wrote down "gusto," or taste. "We have a kind of flawless sense of beauty," he said.
Severgnini then moved on to "genius." Severgnini liberally praised Italian talents such as Michelangelo and Galileo, but added that the country needs "a little emergency to get going" and is "not entirely convinced it can do and change things."
"Political life is based on announcement," he said, "In politics, often they use this trick of declaring what they want to do in two, three years' time."
Severgnini said he is worried about Italy primarily because of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, whom he views as a poor leader.
But "Italy will never fail," he said. "We are too old, we've seen it all."
