Recently, a small partner who has been often concerned about the global epidemic may find that the distribution of the confirmed population in Italy, the hardest hit area, shows a large difference between the north and the south. The northern regions of Veneto (representing the city of Venice), Lombardy (representing the city of Milan), and Piedmont (representing the city of Turin), which were the first to impose a blockade in Italy, were more severely affected, while the southern region south of Rome was much better. The reason for this difference is mainly because there is a large gap in economic size, population density and degree of development between the north and south of Italy, and this gap is not unrelated to Italy's thousand-year history of "bulk".
Image from Phoenix.com
It is said that the city of Rome was not built in a day, and Italy is not "bulk" recently. Historically, from the legendary founding of rome in 753 BC to 241 BC, when the First Punic War seized Sicily, it took the Romans 512 years to basically unify the Apennine Peninsula and achieve complete rule over the existing territory. Subsequently, the great Roman Republic and the Roman Empire experienced a rise and fall, and eventually the Roman Empire was divided into two, and the Western Roman Empire, which occupied the Apennine Peninsula, collapsed in 476 AD, and the darkest Middle Ages in Europe began.
Image from "Crusader King 2" by one of the five cute people of the P Society.
In the long Middle Ages, dozens of feudal kingdoms and trading city-states of different sizes emerged on the territory of Italy, forming a situation of division of princes, and the difference between the north and the south began to gradually appear. Because the Apennine Peninsula was located as a major transportation route connecting the Mediterranean sea with the European continent, the Lombards (a Germanic tribe) from the north and the Saracens (a branch of the Arabs) from the south invaded Italy many times, threatening the Papal States in Rome; the Byzantine Empire in the east, which regarded itself as Roman orthodox, also came to join in the fun from time to time, repeatedly trying to regain its homeland and rebuild the glory of the Roman Empire. Therefore, the pope in Rome had to often summon his powerful northern neighbors to "holy wars"; and the Germanic kings of the north also wanted to get the pope's canonization and wash themselves away the smell of barbarians, so the two hit it off. Notable among them were Pépin le Bref the "dwarf" from France and Friedrich I the "red-bearded" from Germany, who both helped the pope fight and gave the Italian territory they received to the pope in exchange for his coronation.
Frederick I, also known as Barbarossa. Hitler liked him very much and named the invasion of the Soviet Union after Barbarossa.
Under the strife and division, it was difficult for northern Italy to form a unified centralized state, and the convenient geographical conditions and relatively enlightened political system also gave birth to rich trading city-states such as Genoa, Venice, and Pisa. The free trade city-states depicted in A Song of Ice and Fire. That's where the inspiration comes from. These city-states fought for years for trade routes and maritime supremacy, and the struggle for supremacy between Genoa and Venice was protracted, even in the face of the threat of the Ottoman Empire. And Lombardy, Florence and other inland areas are not lonely, Italy's "bulk" gene has been fully diverged in the north. However, centuries of accumulated deep financial resources, a loose political system, and close personnel contacts with various places also brewed suitable soil for the germination of the Renaissance.
Marco Polo dictated the famous travelogue in prison after being captured in a naval battle on behalf of Venice and Genoa. Image from Glory of Kings
In the South, the situation is not so different. Due to the mountainous hills of southern Italy and the fact that it also has two of the largest islands in the Mediterranean, Sicily and Sardinia, these areas will be difficult to shake once a relatively stable regime is established. The Normans established the Kingdom of Sicily in Sicily and southern Italy in 1130, and in the following centuries, the Kingdom of Sicily became a bargaining chip between the heirs of various feudal dynasties on the European continent, although it changed hands many times, it always maintained a conservative and centralized political system, which not only limited the local economic development, but also led to the difficulty of copying the relatively free artistic atmosphere and ideological atmosphere of the North in southern Italy, and it was also a natural estrangement for the northern compatriots.
"Bulk" Italy has also contributed to the diversity of its cuisines, and Italy is not just pasta and pizza. Image by French illustrator Antoine Corbinea
During the Industrial Revolution, due to the smooth completion of the industrialization transformation of the North by virtue of its population, capital and transportation, Turin, Milan and Genoa became important industrial centers and always occupied a place in the world industrial pattern. Italy has maintained the world's advanced level in automobile manufacturing, aerospace, machinery manufacturing and biomedicine. On the other hand, the south missed the golden age for various historical reasons, and has been developing slowly, becoming a poorer and backward region in the whole of Italy. Even after the unification of Italy in 1870, the gap between the North and the South could not be bridged, and it was even more difficult to formulate a policy of relative equality and balance, and the north-south struggle added many political factors in addition to economic and cultural factors. Since the unification of Italy, most of the high-ranking officials and dignitaries have come from the north, and when they came to power, they naturally tilted their policies more towards their hometowns.
Giuseppe Garibaldi and his red shirts are old acquaintances in our history textbooks.
To this day, when people think of the north, they are all impressions of Milan, the fashion capital, the romantic water city of Venice, and the art temple Florence; but when it comes to the south, it is Naples that is popular and the mafia-ridden Sicily. Discrimination and prejudice against Southerners by Northerners is everywhere, and Southerners are scornful of Northerners. In the hot Serie A arena, the matches between Juventus and Milan in the north against Napoli and Palermo in the south were always full of conflicts with a strong regional atmosphere.
Without blowing up a few cars, you're embarrassed to say you're from Sicily. Image from The Godfather 2
In 2010, italians remade the Italian version of the French film "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" (Welcome to the South) as a metaphor for entrenched stereotypes. The film was directed by Luca Miniero and starred Claudio Bisio, Alessandro Siani and Valentina Lodovini.
"Welcome to the South" is about Alberto, a post office manager in the north, who hopes to be transferred to Milan to work, but because of the falsification of information, he is punitively "assigned" to the southern town of Castellabate. Alberto and the northerners around him had never been to the South, and the understanding of the South was that it was a mess, everyone even the cats and dogs were mafia, they couldn't understand the speech at all, the summer was so hot that there were infectious diseases everywhere, in short, it was worse than the most backward parts of Africa. Alberto reluctantly went on the road, was fined for driving too slowly on the highway, encountered a traffic jam halfway, but found that the southerners actually celebrated the traffic jam as a party, and it was difficult to reach Castellabatay and catch the rainy night, and the whole town could not be seen clearly in the haze. The subordinate who came to greet him, Wallebbe, was very enthusiastic, and because the post office dormitory was unfurnished, he took the initiative to invite Alberto to his house for one night. But Alberto thought that Wallebbe was ill-intentioned, nervous and full of vigilance, and made a lot of jokes. The next day, Wallebbe invited him to breakfast with his mother, giving Alberto his first close encounter with southern life.
Alberto, dressed in a suit and leather, is out of place with the local elderly people sitting in the sun on the side of the road.
With a sense of resistance, Alberto could not stand the laid-back lifestyle of southerners, could not understand the jokes told by southerners, and could not understand the rules and routines of southerners. Southerners in the post office also found northerners twisted and quirky and difficult to get along with, and always jokingly called Alberto "polentona". But in a series of funny contacts and run-ins, Alberto accepted the enthusiastic help of his colleagues in the South, and gradually knew, got used to and liked the South, and through his own way, let the relatives and friends in the North also begin to understand the real South. Even after Alberto inadvertently hurt the feelings of his southern colleagues, they also used exaggerated and self-deprecating ways to help Alberto bridge his relationship with his wife. At the same time, Alberto also used his life experience to help Wallebbe out of the emotional shadow, so that a pair of young southern lovers eventually became a family. Two years later, Alberto was transferred to Milan as he wished, and by this time he and his family had become friends of the Southerners, and the North and South families were close, and the perfect ending.
Exaggeration and self-blackening are the main funny ways of this film.
Although due to differences in language and culture, Chinese audiences may not be able to fully appreciate the laughter when watching this film, but this film won the Italian box office championship in 2010, which shows that Italians themselves are still happy about it. Similarly, the French version of "Welcome to the North" became the most popular french film of the year, and even broke the local box office record held by "La grande vadrouille", and it is conceivable that problems such as "bulk", stereotypes and regional discrimination are widespread all over the world. If someone can make a Chinese version of "Welcome to Northern Jiangsu", it will surely be able to catch fire - as long as it can pass the review.
In fact, I personally prefer this one
It is gratifying that whether it is China or Italy, in the face of great right and wrong, in the face of great disasters, whether it is southerners or northerners, whether white-skinned or yellow-skinned, whether football is played well or not, we are united and work together against the common enemy of mankind. Compared with these, the daily blackness of the region is just a slightly mean joke. May we work together to defeat the epidemic!
Image from Italian girl Aurora Cantone