Botticelli Women, Italian Wives

On the benches along the Arno, their heads tilted against the sunlight, young women sit studying art and language books. Now and then they raise their eyes and watch a lone kayaker paddling by. When the wind blows, they gracefully brush a stray strand of hair behind an ear and go back to reading their books.

In the Boboli Gardens, I see young women dotting the landscape like flowers. On the bridges, on the buses, on the terraces, on the piazzas, at the stazione, in every pizzeria and trattoria, beautiful women abound. Many of them are students who come to study the David of Michelangelo, the beauties of Botticelli, the doors of Ghiberti, the madonnas of Cimabue, the dome of Brunelleschi. Like the young beauties, Maria and Patty, who live in the downstairs apartment, these young women come to Italy to enlarge their lives, to soak in culture, to have adventures, and, if possible, to fall in love.

But the ones I observe reading along the river, or sunning near the David on the Piazzale Michelangelo, or leaning over the wall of the Ponte alle Grazie to throw crumbs to the ducks are not the native beauties of Florence. Mostly, they are from France, America, Yugoslavia, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Brazil—they are often daughters of affluent families, education-minded parents who are happy to lend a hand with tuition, room and board while their daughters “go abroad” to soak up the glories of the Medici civilization.

The Florentine-born beauties are in another dimension. I see them working as waitresses in the trattorias, as agents in the government offices. They ride to work on their motor scooters, dressed in suits, high heels and with their leather purses on the floorboards. Many of them, with tendrils of hair curling about their faces in the wind, could have stepped straight from “The Birth of Venus,” or “La Primavera.” They are not in such a hurry to fall in love as the visiting girls are. A young American male student told me, “American men have it the worst. The Italian girls want nothing to do with us, and the foreign girls, including the American girls in my classes, love Italian men. So that leaves us nowhere!”

“Why do you think Italian women aren’t interested in you?” I asked him.

“They’re stuck-up,” he said. “They want to marry money; they want a nice house and good furniture. They don’t want a poor guy in torn jeans from California.”

Patty, the girl downstairs, the corn-fed blue-eyed, redhead from Kansas is in love. Maria, the dark-haired Brazilian girl is in love. One of the girls in Joe’s class is in love with an Italian who stopped her in the street and said “I love you,” in three languages, till he found the right one.

“How can you love me? You don’t even know me,” she said.

“But I do. You will see. I love you with all my soul.”

Marta, the singer, is in love with an Italian. “He doesn’t talk much,” she told me, “but there’s something about him. Those brooding eyes.”

When I receive an invitation from Sara, who was one of the guests I met at the Jewish New Year’s Dinner, I agree to go with her to a meeting of a group called “Network.” Its members are all English-speaking (mostly American) women who came here as students, fell in love, and married Italian men. Now they have children, speak fluent Italian, and tangle with the government bureaucracy about matters they took for granted in the US. (Sara tells me that foreign-born married women in Italy have to sign a yearly affidavit that their husbands support them and under no circumstances will they become a ward of the state.) She says the women formet “Network” in order to meet once a month for support, sympathy, and encouragement.

“Encouragement?” I ask.

“Mainly for dealing with their husband’s parents,” she says. “Italian grandparents are very pushy. They know exactly how they want their grandchildren raised and they’re not bashful about saying so.”

The meeting is at Piazza Savonarola, in the building owned by Syracuse University, one of many American universities that maintain campuses in Florence. The sound of women chattering in English feels like home to me. Inside, about thirty women are gathered around a buffet table, holding paper plates on which they have piled snacks of a highly recognizable sort—crackers and cheese, carrot and celery sticks, salted peanuts, potato chips. (Notably lacking are Italian appetizers such as crostoni and prosciutto e melone.)

Sara introduces me to a few people who at once ask where am I from, what am I doing here, am I going to live here? Do I need some advice?

They are very anxious to give advice—those that have been in Italy a long time have important news for the newcomers. They know the best hospital in which to have babies, the best doctors (especially those who are familiar with the American style of practicing medicine), the best place to buy bagels, the best way to deflect the unwelcome advice of the in-laws.

Do I need anything to read? They have a private lending library, and pass around precious paperback books from the USA, some sent by relatives, others brought by friends. They exchange names of baby-sitters and recommend good places to get cheap clothes. (The American Church has a thrift shop in its basement.)

Knowing I am a writer, Sara introduces me to a group of women, all of whom are aspiring novelists. One of them tells me her husband is a construction worker. “Marko couldn’t care less that I have my Master’s Degree, and I couldn’t care less that he hacks away at the insides of old buildings. Our real life is wonderful—we drive to the beach or the mountains or go skiing, and we cook magnificent food and we make love. We even visit his parents every weekend; it’s not so bad. In the US, I would have had to marry an academic, and join the PTA. Here, I make risotto, and write mystery novels set in Pisa or in Siena.”

“I’d like to write about Italy,” I tell her.

“Be our guest,” she says. “There’s nothing better to write about than Italy!”