More from Puglia con amore
Part two of my love affair with Puglia
To everyone new here, welcome. I’m Elizabeth, the writer of The Delicious Bits Dispatch, a weekly missive for the curious, blending discovery, reflection, and musings, always wrapped up with a seasonal recipe worth lingering over.
Among twisted olive trees and the whiteness of the masserie, Puglia appears both ancient and young at the same time.
—Guido Piovene, Viaggio in Italia
By the time RAI, Italy’s national radio broadcaster, commissioned him to travel across the country in 1953, Guido Piovene was already an established novelist, foreign correspondent, and cultural critic. He was chosen not because of his travel writing credentials, but rather as an astute and thoughtful observer. Piovene had the sensibility to capture through a discerning lens the atmosphere, contradictions, and regional identities of a nation rapidly transforming in the aftermath of war.
Over more than three years of travel, Piovene documented an Italy suspended between tradition and modernization as it emerged from wartime devastation and began a fragile economic boom. Originally conceived as a series of radio reports, the project evolved into a book, Viaggio in Italia, now considered one of the defining works of modern Italian travel literature.1
But Piovene was not just cataloguing monuments or history. He was trying to answer a broader question: What kind of country was Italy becoming after the war? And what kind of legacy would be left after decades of Fascism, in a country still in so many ways not a single nation?
That perspective makes Viaggio in Italia much more than a travelogue. It became a cultural portrait of Italy at a transitional historical moment.
As I’ve travelled along this magical stretch of Italy from calf to heel, Poivene’s characterizations of Puglia are as true and timeless as they were when he wrote them more than 70 years ago.
May I offer some of his beautiful words and images we’ve captured during our time here to invite you to discover it for yourself? (All quotes from Guidi Piovene’s Viaggio in Italia).
A white region, dissolved in light
The olive tree here is not decoration but destiny.
There is in the towns of Puglia an ancient, almost eastern calm.
Time here seems slower and more remote.
The wind shapes everything: trees, walls, even character.
The sea enters daily life like a continuous light.
I hope you have enjoyed this taste of Puglia.
Ciao for now, ragazzi. I’m off to soak up more of Puglia before I go.
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