Sir: Petronella Wyatt states categorically that the Italians are not
descended from the Romans, but from their 'slaves or from a ragbag of barbarian invaders'. I accept that women are generally best placed to speak authoritatively about who fathered their children, but surely this expertise in geneal- ogy declines somewhat after a millennium or two. Maybe a few Sabine ladies of quality escaped a fate worse than death. Could it be that the beautiful Petronella's politically incorrect bias against slaves is derived from the work of her eponymous literary ances- tor, Petronius, whose description of Greek and Oriental freedmen at the Banquet of Trimalchio borders on the vulgar?
Have the Italians really achieved nothing, except during the Renaissance or when they had the benefit of occupation by enemy Austrians? Excluding the Renaissance from European history is quite a mouthful. The Italians were the pioneers in painting, poet- ry, pillars and pediments and the leaders in star-gazing, sculpture, science and sailing off to discover the New World. Palestrina and Monteverdi, Moravia, D'Annunzio and Pirandello are well past the Renaissance. It is an insult in the lower classes in Italy to be called `maleducato', badly educated. Try that one on at a British soccer match. Can one really attribute Bellini, Puccini and Verdi to the benefits of the Austrian yoke, and Toscanini to that other Austrian occupier, Adolf Hitler? Maybe Hitler did give some unintentional impetus to the achievements of Enrico Fermi in nuclear science and to Primo Levi's achievements in literature.
The great art historian, Frederico Zen, is quoted in your feature. He is, fortuitously, an old friend of mine (pace A. Forbes), and I am sure that he would agree that there is still some hope for the aesthetic priorities of a nation where the entire male population would whistle appreciatively when they saw a beautiful writer, like Petronella Wyatt.
Claus von Bulow
109 Onslow Square, SW7
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