How My Image of Italy Has Changed

Growing up in a family with an Italian heritage, my impression of Italians were loud people with a love of pasta and Frank Sinatra. I have always picture Italy as a romantic picturesque country where the only thing that matters is following your heart. Largely this image was derived from the media. Movies set in Italy always seemed to have a carefree vibe, with love being the main focus of the film. As silly of an example this maybe, the one movie that comes to mind is “The Lizzie McGuire Movie”. Directed by Jim Fall in 2003, the movie follows a young girl on her class trip to Rome. While in Rome the main character not only falls in love with a boy but receives the opportunity to conquer her fears and live her dream of becoming famous. In my mind Italy was a country where anything was possible.
Finally during high school did I start to realize that Italy was a “real” country, Italians were not people that were able to do whatever their heart desired, they too had to deal with reality. A pen=pal from Milan helped me form this realization. My correspondent, even though she lived in Italy, still faced many of the hardships that I faced. Although I still liked to picture Italy as a form of an utopia, I knew that the image I had of Italy was not real.
After reading the chapter by Foot, my image of Italy changed even more. I began to realize that like any other country, Italy has had many political struggles. I never realized how violent Italy’s past has been. It seems as if Italy had spent much of last half of the 20th centaury of the brink of a Civil War. Never before was I aware of the great divide between the North and the South. Not only over cultural differences, but economic differences as well.
What I found most interesting in the reading was the feelings of Italians towards the Catholic Church. With the Vatican being located in Rome I had always assumed that all Italians were Catholic. The thought that there could have been rifts between the Church and the State had never crossed my mind. For example, I was not aware of the fact that the Pope was exiled from the Vatican for over fifty years. I would like to learn more about how the Church has affected politics in Italy and the relationship between the Church and the state.