VicenzaPiù - Notizie, Inchieste, Analisi su Vicenza e provincia

Temperatures plummet - and according to local folklore they should be rising. Traditionally the last three days of January, the 'giorni della merla', or the days of the blackbird, during which a white bird took her children into a chimney to keep warm, are the coldest of the year. And of course, when she came out, she was covered in soot. Immediately after is the church feast celebrating the meeting of St. Simeon with the infant Jesus when the Madonna presented Him at the temple. The Candelora in Italian.

And this joyous event led the faithful Veneti to say: 'Con la Candelora dall'inverno semo fora.' With Candlemas, we're out of the winter. 'Però, se tira vento, nell'inverno semo ancora rento'. If it's windy - and it isn't particularly - then we're still in winter, the adage goes.
If the failure of this proverb were not enough to lower our spirits along with the temperatures, then think of the children in the council playschools who have been deprived of their teachers, who in turn have been deprived of their meagre wages. The mayor in his wisdom has seen fit to save money by sending home those teachers without a permanent contract. Whilst his cronies Jacopo Bulgarini, Diego Fontana et al, continue to enjoy the life of Riley: his patronage and our money. As Domenico Pittarini wrote in the 'Politica dei Villani' in 1870: 'I siuri xe siuri, e nantri Bas-cian Sem mone pì grande del monte Siman..'
Roughly translated as: 'It's the rich wot gets the pleasure, it's the poor wot gets the blame'.
Pittarini wrote a tongue-in-cheek comedy about the disappointment of Veneto rustics following the transfer of Veneto to Italy from Austria. Like Mr. Coviello, our editor, he also started a local newspaper challenging the powers that be, but one hopes that Mr. Coviello will not finish as an impoverished émigré in Argentina as Pittarini did!
It's perhaps not surprising that Variati's council is financing, in Palazzo Cordellina, presided over by Fontana, a sumptuous exhibition about Pittarini's rich contemporary, the patrician Fogazzaro. Unlike Fogazzaro, who got the wind up when he was about to join the pro-Italian rebels, and stayed at home, Pittarini was actually arrested for his activities. As the library's finances are being cut to the bone, with reduced opening hours in some of the outlying branches, the Fogazzaro exhibition stays religiously open six days a week. And for how many visitors?
Speaking of Fogazzaro, I am a one-time visitor to his birthplace. 'Casa Fogazzaro' is a restaurant on the ground floor of the building where our noble citizen saw the light of day. Last spring, and hopefully this one too, it was a meritorious addition to the places where you could get a one-euro glass of wine. What was particularly pleasant was to sit outside, and enjoy the street life of Corso Fogazzaro over a meditative 'goto' of fizzy white. Exhaust fumes, too, of course, along with the window-shoppers staring languidly at the expensive shop windows. Whilst I'm on the subject, I must give you an update about the Drive-In, the bar in Via Volta I mentioned last week. There is a young Ethiopian couple from Eritrea contemplating taking it over, and starting an ethnic restaurant there. Considering the large number of immigrants, I feel we lack ethnic restaurants here. I've nothing against kebabs, but some 'slow food' ethnic variety would enrich life for those with enough money to partake of it. Chinese, Mexican, Greek exist, but as far as I know, nothing South Asian, Balkan or African, at least in the centre.
As for the one-euro wine, this week's suggestion is L'Osteria del Vicolo in Stradella Santa Barbara, near Piazza dei Signori. Walter and Chiara have an excellent fruity Traminer on tap, and being in the centre, you get some 'taralli' thrown in with it. Unless you want to shell out another euro and have a meatball, or a piece of polenta with dried cod Vicenza style, to name but a couple of their varied selection of homemade snacks. It's a shame Walter can't read English, because I feel I deserve a free glass for this plug!
Last Tuesday, I enjoyed another of Vicenza's free pleasures. A lovely piano concert at the conservatory, in the context of 'I martedì del conservatorio'. There were two grand pianos, and the programme was mainly Russian. This is an excellent initiative, giving young emerging musicians the chance to display their talents to those who can't afford to fork out 25 euro or whatever to go to the 'Comunale'. You can usually find the programme in the free version of the GDV, 'Città'. As we say in English, 'a penny saved is a penny earned.'

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