Culture
Calafiori's Arsenal signing awakens a long-dormant Italian connection
San Daniele del Friuli was an atmospheric neighbourhood trattoria in Highbury that was once a regular destination for Arsenal’s players and management. It was located a five-minute stroll from the stadium’s marbled entrance.
On Champions League nights, it stayed open late and diners would clap warmly as manager Arsene Wenger came in for a bite to eat with vice-chairman David Dein. Players Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires, Sol Campbell, Freddie Ljungberg et al often arrived, showered and changed, to unwind with friends after the game. The owners, a pair of brothers who supported Udinese and Arsenal, treated everyone like family.
For a long time, that was about as strong a connection as could be found between Arsenal and Italy.
The signing of Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna in a move worth up to £42million ($54m) feels momentous for those of an Italo-Arsenal persuasion. It is the first time the club have signed an Italian with star quality, a player in that country’s best traditions of ‘calcio’ who has his best years ahead of him.
GO DEEPER
Why Arsenal signed Riccardo Calafiori
It is perhaps peculiar that so few Italian players of note have made their way to Arsenal.
Italy might not be an exporter of footballers to match France and more recently Spain, which have been dominant forces across the continent since the major leagues began to cross-fertilise their talent in the 1990s. But it is still quite high in the list of nations other than England represented in the Premier League since its inception.
Non-English nations by number of Premier League players
The Italian community in London has thrived since the 1800s, with the northern boroughs of Islington — the club’s heartland — and neighbouring Camden among the most populous areas for Italians who settled here.
Maybe it had something to do with never having an Italian manager, or maybe it’s just a curious quirk, but Arsenal have rarely gone down that footballing path.
Niccolo Galli was the first Italian to join Arsenal. A talented defender, he moved to Arsenal’s academy in 1999 and was part of the group that won the FA Youth Cup a year later. He was extremely highly regarded but, at a time when it was still relatively novel to move abroad as a teenager, returned to Italy for a loan period to continue his studies and football development. Tragically, he was killed in a moped accident on his way home from training aged 17.
Galli was Arsenal’s first Italian player (John Walton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Arturo Lupoli arrived in 2004 and fitted the mould for ‘project youth’ — a period when Arsenal intentionally headhunted young players with high potential to help the club cope with cost-saving measures as they paid for the building of the Emirates stadium.
GO DEEPER
Lupoli: ‘I was at Arsenal in maybe the best years of their history – it was a great time’
Cesc Fabregas was the pick of a bunch that included Nicklas Bendtner, Denilson, Carlos Vela and Philippe Senderos — teenagers who were coveted by scouts across the world as best-of-a-generation prospects. Lupoli was a talented forward who had broken scoring records as an under-17. But it never quite happened for him.
Then came Vito Mannone, a goalkeeper who was mostly a reserve during his Arsenal years. He spent eight years at the club and when he left was replaced for a season by Emiliano Viviano, who never played a competitive match. Arsenal then went almost a decade without an Italian until coach Mikel Arteta signed the Brazil-born Azzurri midfielder Jorginho from Chelsea at 31.
Pierluigi Pardo is a familiar voice on Italian TV as the primary commentator for Serie A matches on broadcaster DAZN Italy. He has strong roots in English football after living in London in his younger days, where he developed an affection for Arsenal.
“Italy is not traditionally a great land for football exports,” he says. “Italians are more comfortable at home. When players started to move more freely across Europe, Arsenal were dominant in France, and there was a greater Italian connection with Chelsea.”
Gianluca Vialli and Gianfranco Zola became beacons in blue for Arsenal’s London rivals. Together, with the craze around Fabrizio Ravanelli at Middlesbrough, they brought all the sparkle of established stars when they came to England in 1996. But Italian players in the Premier League have seldom been as dazzling in the two decades since that generation.
It is also notable that the most successful and high-profile Italians playing in England have tended not to be defenders — maybe surprising considering the hallowed status of the position in Serie A and for the Azzurri.
Andrea Rosati grew up in Parma, northern Italy, and first came across Arsenal when the two teams met in the 1994 Cup Winners’ Cup final.
Initially, mere mention of the club’s name sickened him after Arsenal did a job on a stylish Parma, winning 1-0. But, over time, Rosati grew to admire and adore Arsenal and they became his English club of choice. “The values of the club, particularly after Arsene Wenger came, glued to me,” he says.
He is fascinated by the cultural changes that see someone like Calafiori arrive at Arsenal with a worldly outlook, excellent language skills, and a capacity to adapt that is modern and exciting.
Calafiori, second-right, next to now-Arsenal team-mate Jorginho at Euro 2024 (Cesare Purini/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)
“When I was growing up, Serie A in the mid-1990s was the driving force of football and attracted the best players in the world,” he says. “It looked like the Premier League is now.
“There was no great appeal to leave Serie A. Italian players were not generally willing to leave and there were certain things about England that were not so inviting. Quite apart from the physical reputation of the football, there was also basic stuff like the weather and food!
“Then Vialli happened, and Zola happened, and that changed the entire image. The Premier League became a thing. Sky TV arriving in Italy opened up the window to other countries and leagues.”
Rosati observes that in the past decade, perspectives have been broadening. Language is no longer the barrier it once was, as the current generation pick up linguistics and ideas over social media. “The world is smaller,” he says. That Calafiori could express himself in his signing video in fluent English is significant.
Benvenuto, Riccardo Calafiori 🇮🇹
Meeting new teammates for the very first time ❤️ pic.twitter.com/JbUhqOBCMN
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 29, 2024
As an Arsenal fan, Rosati is thrilled by Calafiori’s signing. “It is stunning,” he says. “He is flying, and was particularly keen to choose Arsenal. He is a great match with what Arteta represents and wants. What impresses most is probably his character. When he suffered a bad injury as a teenager, he reacted with such courage to come back and to follow the path, in moving abroad, that would best help his football.”
That injury, and his choices afterwards, made a big impression on Pardo. “Going to Basel (Calafiori left Roma to join the Swiss team in 2022) was a brave, open-minded decision,” he says. “Not many in Italy would have made the same choice at 20 years old. Going to Switzerland, rather than staying in Italy to try to rebuild his career, challenged him personally and professionally but it was very good for him. It is like a student going on (European Union exchange programme) Erasmus, experiencing a different country and different habits. It is a sign of his personality.
GO DEEPER
Riccardo Calafiori, Arsenal’s new defender who got lifts from De Rossi and models his game on Stones
“Since then, Calafiori showed incredible growth in Bologna and then confirmed his quality with the national team during the Euros. He is in the tradition of great Italian defenders. Even aesthetically, he reminds us of Paolo Maldini or Fabio Cannavaro when he had hair. He has technical quality, physical strength, and consistency. Potentially, he is great.”
Calafiori helped Bologna reach the Champions League last season (Image Photo Agency/Getty Images)
The country’s official branch of the Arsenal supporters’ club, the Italian Gooners, are thrilled to have one of their own to support. They already had a banner at the Emirates — maybe it will be amended with some new visuals, or a hair transplant for decoration. Expectations are high.
“I like how he already has a chant to the song, ‘That’s Amore’, which is welcoming him with his Italian culture to north London,” says Cico Tagliavini, who lives in Highbury and has family roots in Bologna.
“I am even more happy because he is coming from Bologna, who propelled his career in a historic season (they reached the European Cup/Champions League for the first time since 1964), which is an extra source of pride. He is going from one of the teams I support to the other one. I am so excited to see him and he will be doing it on the biggest stages of all.”
As the legendary former Italy centre-back Leonardo Bonucci said, “He’s going to be a reference point for our national team for the next 15 years.”
Arsenal can only hope he achieves something similar for them.
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
EXCLUSIVE: Stefanik steamrolls top conservative opponent; GOP leaders hand her commanding edge in NY primary
4 dead, Detroit firefighter injured in slew of fires. What to know
What have San Francisco police been doing at 16th and Mission?
DA: Nick Reiner will be charged with first-degree murder in deaths of Rob & Michele Reiner
Packers star Micah Parsons heads to Dallas while awaiting ACL surgery
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
DA: Nick Reiner will be charged with first-degree murder in deaths of Rob & Michele Reiner
Video: Nick Reiner Talked Openly About His Addiction Struggles
Trump admin defends White House ballroom as national security matter
Venezuelan opposition leader Machado injured on covert Nobel Prize trip
Peace plans ready to be presented to Russia in days, says Zelenskyy
-
Washington1 week agoLIVE UPDATES: Mudslide, road closures across Western Washington
-
Iowa2 days agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Iowa1 week agoMatt Campbell reportedly bringing longtime Iowa State staffer to Penn State as 1st hire
-
Iowa3 days agoHow much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
-
Miami, FL1 week agoUrban Meyer, Brady Quinn get in heated exchange during Alabama, Notre Dame, Miami CFP discussion
-
Cleveland, OH1 week agoMan shot, killed at downtown Cleveland nightclub: EMS
-
World1 week ago
Chiefs’ offensive line woes deepen as Wanya Morris exits with knee injury against Texans
-
Minnesota1 week agoTwo Minnesota carriers shut down, idling 200 drivers
