Seven Italian Postcards
Card 2: Piazza del Duomo
Outside and
just steps away, another marvel in stone begs bragging rights
on the piazza-the ornate Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II of
the 1860s, a cavernous arcade of shops and cafés
built to celebrate the new kingdom, its first monarch, and
the passions of the high bourgeoisie. Passing through the
triumphal arch and under a lofty glass sky one enters the
preserved world of La Belle Époque-a yellow monument
to mercantilism and leisure, beautiful and hectic but never
loud, and under the vaulted roof fur coats and silver tureens
are still sold, as are gold watches, pastries, fine shoes,
toys, Borsalino hats. Cocktails and cuisine hover as the
smart set and tourists alike gather for lively conversation,
shared space, glances, and plots. At this hour under the
central dome a foreigner enjoys the amazing fact of standing
in the middle of an Oriental Arabesque Italy-and the spirit
uplifts in the charmed, hushed light.
Giuseppe Mengoni,
architect of the Galleria and designer of Piazza del Duomo,
succeeded brilliantly in his quest to link the old cathedral
to his secular version (and thence to operatic Piazza della
Scala, to the immediate north), and here in Milan you can't
go far before running into this Gothic dreamscape of another
world. I doubt we'll ever be saved by apéritifs or
the promise of a gilded La Madoninna lifting her golden
staff atop the Duomo's tallest spire-Mengoni himself, two
days before the Galleria's inauguration, slipped from a
scaffold and died, so it goes to show you. Everyone's got
to believe in something, right?
Card 3: Plaza
of Death
