Culture – The shining success of Italian culture was highlighted in the foreign press last week, which reported on the record number of visitors to the Venice Biennial (El Pais, November 24 – Cerró la Bienal de Venecia, ahora llega el turno de los museos). In addition, according to the Financial Times, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia (whose home is the Auditorium Parco della Musica of Rome) is one of the European musical institutions that has best managed change over recent years (November 27 – Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Chorus/Antoni Wit, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome – review). Finally, New York Times ran an interview with Umberto Eco, master of historic fiction (November 28 – “Umberto Eco: A Master of Fiction Considers History’s Lies”*).
Change begins with business – The foreign press also talked about the signs of change seen in investors’ renewed interest in Italy. The major US economic paper, the Wall Street Journal , explained that private equity is once again looking at Southern Europe (November 24 – Private Equity Returns to Spain, Italy*) and underlined how some business signals – starting with the industrial plan of Generali – show that Italy “can change ” (November 27 – Generali Shows Italy Can Change). Concrete proof of this comes from the financial markets, which are turning towards one of Made in Italy’s most outstanding sectors: the luxury market. Thus, while the Milan stock market is preparing for the IPO of Moncler, the largest luxury firm on the market (Financial Times, November 27 – Moncler revives plan for Milan bourse IPO*), investors are also looking at buying the minority share that Versace is about to put up for sale (Wall Street Journal, November 27 – Versace Studying Bids for 20% Stake*).
Turism and cooking – The New York Times showed its readers Italy’s smaller neighborhoods (November 24 – Seeking Authenticity in Italy’s Tiny Neighbor *) and suggested an unusual trip through Venice in kayak (November 27 – Venice by Kayak ). Meanwhile Die Welt paid tribute to Turin (November 28 – Turin – Italien), and another two German papers discussed Italian cars. Sueddeutsche Zeitung explained how Alfa Romeo is reinventing itself (November 23 – Alles auf Anfang bei Alfa) and Die Ziet sang the praises of a myth of the Italian automotive industry, one that has little to do with supercars: the Fiat Uno, Europe’s best-selling economy car (November 24 – Sein Name war Programm). Finally, as always, there was interest in cooking. El Pais reported on the Amanita award, given in Spain to the Italian chef Massimo Bottura for his visionary dishes with mushrooms (November 25 – Bottura invita a aplicar la poesía en la cocina para crear platos visionarios), and the Financial Times published a recipe for fondue (November 22 – Recipe: fonduta*)
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