La Bella Figura: The Function of Form in Italy

Maria Pappas

Dr. Drake Langford

FLIT 491: Capstone Project

Spring, 2016
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The novelist Salman Rushdie once wrote, “to unlock a society, look at its untranslatable

words”.1 For Italians, that includes fare bella figura, which literally translates as, “to make a good

impression”, and means having a good public image. It refers to the national “obsession with

outward appearance”2, revealing a fundamental quality of their society’s values and beliefs.

Simply put, it is the socially accepted degree to which one judges a book by its cover. “Only in

Italian does there exist an expression like fare bella figura… It’s an aesthetic judgment—it

means ‘to make a good figure’— which is not quite the same thing as making ‘a good

impression’”3, writes Beppe Severgnini, author of the self-proclaimed La Bella Figura: A Field

Guide to the Italian Mind. Our figura is our public image, the way that we present ourselves to

the world, and many Italians believe it is at least as important as who we are inside.

In a country whose Olympic team and police force are dressed by Armani and soccer

uniforms designed by Dolce & Gabbana, it is no question that appearances play a great role in

everyday life. As Luigi Barzini wrote in his book, The Italians, “[t]his reliance on symbols and

spectacles…must by no means by overlooked by anyone who does not want to delude himself. It

is the fundamental trait of the national character. It helps people to solve most of their problems.

It governs public and private life. It shapes policy and political designs”4. The idea of bella

figura serves as a useful lens with which foreigners can hope to better understand the Italians,

but also for Italians to understand themselves. This emphasis on aesthetics offers itself as more

than

1 Rushdie, Salman. Shame. (United Kingdom: Jonathan Cape, 1983). Print.

2 Jones, Tobias. The Dark Heart of Italy. London, 2003.
3 Severgnini, Beppe. La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind. (New York: Broadway Books, 2006). 6.
4 Barzini, Luigi. The Italians. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964.
 Pappas, 2

just one available venue for unification, it is the fabric which weaves together their decision-

making, ethics and well-being.

Form becomes function— fare bella figura has served as a tactic of survival and

success, an outlet for power throughout centuries of foreign oppression, and one of the few

things connecting the Italians’ divided population. Italy was unified with Rome as its capital as

recently as 1871, and before that the nation consisted of small, fragmented villages, thousands of

dialects, and no common language. This led to the creation of the idea of campanilismo, or “the

overwhelming spirit of local, parochial belonging, symbolically expressed by the campanile, the

bell tower of the parish5”, demonstrating how Italians associate more with their hometown than

their nation as a whole.

Because of this fragmentation, Italy became easy prey to many foreign invasions and has

struggled to define a concrete national identity. The nation is still quite divided among its own

people, and has yet to achieve true unification. Severgnini writes in 2005, “one hundred forty-

four years after unification, northern Italy and southern Italy still glower at each other and

recriminate”6. Consequently, the intimate setting of public life in small villages has helped

facilitate an emphasized value on one’s public image and a highly refined art of performance. As

Mario Mignone explains in his modern analysis of Italian culture, “Much of the attitude to

fashion and bella figura comes originally from village life where everything is personal, one

knows everyone, and one’s appearance and behavior are important”7.

5 Ferraiuolo, Augusto. Religious Festive Practices in Boston’s North End. SUNY Press, 2012. 52.
6 Severgnini, Beppe. La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind. (New York: Broadway Books 2006.) 179.
7 Mignone, Mario B. Italy Today. Peter Lang. New York, 2007.
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As far back as ancient Rome, between 509 BC to 476 AD, bella figura can be observed

through the importance of public life in society. The architecture and structure of Italian cities

helped facilitate a flourishing public culture that focuses on and inspires performance. It has been

set about Italians that, “Their cities are their stage, the piazzas and streets like movie sets, with

lights suspended over the middle”8. The piazza, an open, public, and pedestrian space usually

enclosed by buildings, and used for public meetings/events, theatrical performances, and

socialization, is a signature of Italian architecture that has it roots in the ancient Roman forum9.

The forum is where Julius Caesar was publicly cremated, where important

announcements were made, and where people of all different social classes were confronted with

one another. As Cicero said, “in three places the judgment and will of the Roman people can be

demonstrated especially: in the public meetings, the voting assemblies, and the seating for the

games and the gladiators”, further illustrating the significance of public life. Piazza Navona, built

in Rome in 1st century AD and still in use today, is an example of such public space. Today, the

theatrical performances that would have gone on there can be seen as our figura, or public image.

Street performances in many piazzas throughout Italy by Commedia dell’Arte literally keep this

tradition of performance alive to this day.

The ancient Romans were not only influenced by the metaphorical stage of their city

center, but also from the actual stage of the amphitheater. Emperor Vespasian’s (69-79 AD)

commission of the Colosseum in Rome was a grand display to the rest of the world of the wealth

and prosperity of the Romans, asserting that “the ruler’s power found recognition through its own

8 Facaros, Dana and Michael Pauls. Italy. 4th ed. Cadogan Guides, 2001. Print.
9 Canniffe, Dr Eamonn. The Politics of the Piazza: The History and Meaning of the Italian Square. Ashgate Publishing,
Ltd.,2012.
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visibility”10. On the other hand, it was also a way for the Romans to display their social status to

one another. Strict rules determined where people would be able to sit, placing the people of the

highest social standing in the most visible seats; “A good seat not only meant an excellent view

of the spectacle, it also allowed one to be seen by others and to show off one’s social status”11.

Emperor Augustus laws regarding seating in the amphitheater included prohibiting badly dressed

people from sitting in the middle, reserving the first row for senators only (lex Iulia theatralis),

and segregating soldiers to a certain area. In this way, the audience members were on just as

much of a stage as the gladiators down below, and visibility becomes a clear show of the power

one possesses.  It wouldn’t be surprising if Shakespeare was thinking of Italy when he said, “all

the world’s a stage, and the men and women merely players”.

Imagine living and moving everyday on a stage, observing and being observed, and

judged, by all. Research conducted by the Danish architect, Jan Gehl, shows that the role of the

Italian piazza actually influences the movement and behavior of public life. Using the

architecture of Italian cities as a model for the use of public space in Denmark, Gehl notes that

“[i]n Italian cities with pedestrian streets and automobile-free squares, the outdoor city life is

often much more pronounced than in the car-oriented neighboring cities, even though the climate

is the same”12.

In addition to the architectural structure of Italian society, the metaphysical beliefs of the

ancient Romans mark the foundation of the connection between appearances and ethics. Greek

and Roman gods were particularly marked for their immense and divine beauty; by associating

10 Zamponi, Simonetta Falasca. The Aestheticization of Politics: A Study of Power in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. Berkeley, 1992.
11 Jacobelli, Luciana. Gladiators at Pompeii. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2003. Print.
12 Gehl, Jan. Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. 6th ed. Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2011. Print.
 Pappas, 5

beauty with the gods, one is inherently linking ethics to aesthetics. At the same time, their gods

were subject to the same human flaws as the ancients: jealousy, rage, seduction, etc… The belief

and worship of gods who are flawed moralistically and still stunningly beautiful, while

celebrating the human experience, indicates the overwhelming power of aesthetics over ethics.

Philosophers of ancient Rome, such as Cicero, Virgil, and Plotinus, were greatly inspired

by Greek philosophers’ ideas on divinity, beauty and pleasure, and wrote numerous works that

draw connections between ethics and aesthetics, which become highly influential yet again when

they are rediscovered during the Renaissance. Cicero (106-43 BC), for example, affirmed that, “it

is understood that the gods are supremely blessed, and since no being can be blessed without

virtue, and virtue cannot exist without reason, or reason be found anywhere except in a human

form, it must be admitted that the gods have the outward aspect of man”13. Although the Roman

gods originally lacked the specifically defined appearances of the Greek gods (later to be copied

in art), Cicero shows how it was clear they were the most beautiful, whatever specific form that

may be. He notes that, “in the arts upon which judgment is passed by the eyes, in forms painted,

moulded, and graven, and also in the movement and action of the body, there are many things of

which the eyes of a man have a subtler discernment”, analyzing how all of our five physical

senses are critical to our understanding of the world.

Virgil (70-19 BC), famously stated, “Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore virtus”

(“Even virtue is fairer, when it appears in a fair body”)14, signifying that beauty enhances

morality. Plotinus (204-270) believed that, “it is necessary, if the whole is beautiful, for the parts

13 Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Natura Decorum (“On the Nature of the Gods”) XVIII. Rome, 45 BC.
14 Virgil. Aeneid: Book V. Rome, 29-19 BC.
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also to be beautiful; for beauty cannot arise from ugly things, but all its consistent elements must

have their own beauty”15. Following this hypothesis then, that which is ugly is made up of ugly,

or evil things. “Without beauty”, Plotinus asks, “what would become of being?”. Through the

early thoughts of Cicero, Virgil and Plotinus we can observe the roots of the value or belief

which connects ethics to aesthetics.

Even after the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of Christianity, this link between

goodness and beauty persevered. For example, the Christian bishop Augustine of Hippo also

describes physical beauty as being the harmonious unity of all parts of a whole, and “is but a

reflection of the highest beauty, the beauty of God”16. As eloquently stated by John Hooper

during an interview with Simon Worrall for National Geographic, bella figura can also be “the

ability of the Italians to put a good face on adversity”. Even though the value of appearances has

served as a tool of empowerment during times of oppression, it is marked by many weaknesses,

such as constant judgement, superficiality, deception and low-morality.

That which is beautiful is too often associated with goodness in Italian society.

Severgnini points out, “If this passion for beauty stopped at saleswomen, clothes, table lamps,

and automobiles, it would be no big deal. Sadly, it spills over into morality and, I repeat, induces

us to confuse what is beautiful with what is good”17. In politics, it is the reason that “relevance

[is] given to appearance rather than to the achievement of strategic and foreign policy goals”18. In

literature, it explains how in Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone di pensieri (“Hodge-Podge of

15 Plotinus. Ennead: 1.6. Rome, 250 AD.

16 Hick, Darren Hudson. Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art.
17 Severgnini, Beppe. La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind. (New York, 2006.) 6.
18 Beretta, Silvio. Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They?. New York, 2014.
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Thoughts”) “there is no purely aesthetic or artistic beauty in Leopardi: the moral or the utilitarian

aspect or element is inseparably bound up with it”19; or how in Il Piacere (“The Child of

Pleasure”) by Gabriele D’Annunzio, there is more of a poetic aesthetic than intellectual depth: “If

it is true, and we believe it to be as true as any generalization can be, that perhaps the most

recurrent element in English literature is a certain didacticism, and in French literature, clarity,

then in Italian literature the recurrent element is a perpetual striving for beauty of form”20.

In his famous epic Inferno, Dante Alighieri, the late Medieval poet, clearly distinguishes

both the deceptive and righteous qualities of beauty. He describes Lucifer, the devil, as “La

creatura ch’ebbe il web sembiante”, or (the creature who used to have the fair look” implying the

loss of beauty as the root of his evil. Conversely, Beatrice, Dante’s courtly love, is represented in

his works as most beautiful, pure, and just. By linking the two conflicting forces of deception

and goodness with beauty, “Dante in effect, makes aesthetics, by virtue of its inherent link with

ethics, a supreme theory of value”21. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1474), too, asserted the complex

duality of ethics and aesthetics. According to Alberti, “When you make judgements on beauty,

you do not follow mere fancy, but the workings of a reasoning faculty that is inborn in the mind”,

which, he claims, is obvious seeing as “no one can look at anything shameful, deformed, or

disgusting without immediate displeasure and aversion”22.

19 Singh, Ghan Shyam. Leopardi and the Theory of Poetry. Kentucky, 1964.
20 Altrocchi, Rudolph. Gabriele D’Annunzio: Poet of Beauty and Decadence. Chicago Literary Club, 1922. Print.
21 Mazzotta, Giuseppe. Dante’s Vision and the Circle of Knowledge. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014. Print.
22 Pearson, Casper. Humanism and the Urban World: Leon Battista Alberti and the Renaissance City. Penn State Press, 2011.
 Pappas, 8

As a result of the prominence of this fundamental aesthetic value, people found,

especially during the time of the Renaissance, that they could use appearances to their advantage,

whether to gain social status or political power, or simply to create pleasure during hardship.

Renaissance Italians were firm believers in “the power of art— to persuade, transform, preserve”,

and in the Italian culture, persuasion is an art in itself. Beauty and art were ways in which one

could give the appearance of being rich and prosperous to the rest of the world.

The manipulation of appearances to gain political power is perhaps best demonstrated by

the Medici family of Florence and Niccolò Machiavelli. The Medici family of Florence were a

successful lineage of bankers as well as great patrons of the arts. They commissioned artists such

as Michelangelo, Donatello, and Botticelli (“Birth of Venus”). By appearing to have money, the

family was first able to achieve its political goals and reach recognition for having good taste

across Europe. For example, when Cosimo I de’Medici sent his son, Francesco off to Austria to

marry Johanna, the Holy Roman Emperor’s daughter, he made sure that he take many lavish and

luxurious gifts, despite the fact they were going through major financial difficulties23. This

ultimately helped to strengthen the Medici’s rule.

“The Prince”, written by Niccolò Machiavelli in 1513 writes about how one can be the

perfect prince in Renaissance Italy. For Machiavelli, success is more about appearing to be the

perfect prince, rather than actually being him. For example, he writes, “it is not necessary for a

prince to have all of the above-mentioned qualities, but it is very necessary for him to appear to

have them. Furthermore, I shall be so bold as to assert this: that having them and practicing them

at all times is harmful; and appearing to have them is useful; for instance, to seem merciful,

23 Kaborycha, Lisa. “The Cost of a Bella Figura". The Florentine: Medici Archives. Jan. 10, 2008. Web.
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faithful, humane, forthright, religious, and to be so”24. Considering Machiavelli’s idyllic prince

was none other than Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentinois, who “employed thugs and murderers to

keep the city under his control”25. Machiavelli asserted in his work that, because most people do

not get to really know others on a personal level and judge others based on appearances, it is

more efficient to focus on one’s appearance. To exemplify this point, he states, “…[m]en in

general judge more by their eyes than their hands; for everyone can see but few can feel.

Everyone sees what you seem to be, few perceive what you are, and those few do not dare to

contradict the opinion of the many who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the

actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no impartial arbiter, one must

consider the final result”. Machiavelli’s book in itself was an embodiment of the use of bella

figura: by writing a book showing off his political knowledge and expertise, he hoped to win

back the good graces of the Medici family and return from his exile.

From the macro level of politics to the micro level of social status, appearances are

greatly connected to success. Michelangelo, for instance, used appearances (or the lack of them)

to control his status as an artist. It is little known that Michelangelo’s words “Se la gente sapesse

quanto duramente lavoro per raggiungere la maestria, la mia arte non sembrerebbe per nulla così

meravigliosa” (“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so

wonderful at all”) are supported by his own personal practice during his creations. Friends and

assistants of the artist reported that he would burn anything he created that he did not find

sufficient or well-done, so that today there is a great scarcity of his work and we are not able to

see any of

24 Machiavelli, Niccolò. Il Principe (“The Prince”). Florence, 1532.

25 Nickerson, Angela K.. A Journey Into Michelangelo’s Rome. Berkeley: Roaring Forties Press, 2008.
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his failures26. It is not doubt that Michelangelo’s possessed exceptional talents, however, perhaps

our tendency to view him as perfect and a genius has to do with the fact that he, too, used

appearances to enhance his status.

In “The Book of the Courtier”, written between 1508 to 1528, Baldassare Castiglione,

describes how to be the perfect courtier and lady in the Renaissance court, based on his own

personal experience at the court of Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro of Urbino. Castiglione

suggests that, “[o]utward beauty is a true sign of inner goodness. This loveliness, indeed, is

impressed upon the body in varying degrees as a token by which the soul can be recognized for

what it is, just as with trees the beauty of the blossom testifies to the goodness of the fruit”27. The

point here is that who we seem to be on the outside is representative of who we are within.

The proper courtier “ought to consider what appearance he wishes to have and what

manner of man he wishes to be taken for, and dress accordingly; and see to it that his attire aid

him to be so regarded even by those who do not hear him speak or see him do anything

whatever”. He also acknowledges the broken Italian identity by stating, “But I do not know by

what fate it happens that Italy has not, as it was wont to have, a costume that should be

recognized as Italian”, like the French, German or Spanish of the time. Castiglione demonstrates

how, to create an identity during the enlightenment, luxury and manners were accentuated in the

public culture of Italy.

Giovanni della Casa’s rulebook for dress and etiquette, “Galateo”, published in Venice in

1558, lays out guidelines for polite public behavior and appearance. Della Casa explains the col

26 Chapman, Hugo. Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master. Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2005. 27.
27 Castiglione, Baldassarre. Il libro del cortigiano (“The Book of the Courtier”). Venice, 1528.
 Pappas, 11

lectivist idea of how caring for our public image is a form of respect and good manners to our

society. In addition, the importance of what others think is highlighted. For instance, he writes,

“Everyone must dress well according to his status, because if he does otherwise it seems that he

disdains other people” and if someone should not follow these guidelines, Della Casa warns that

people will assume “either they have no conception that they could please or displease others, or

they have no conception of what grace and measure are”28.

Della Casa was not alone in his endeavors to describe the fashion and mannerisms of the

social scene during the Renaissance. Cesare Vecellio, in Venice in 1590, published his “Costume

Book”, where he illustrated and gave small descriptions of different classes of people throughout

the world, and especially in Italy. This book quite literally illustrates how entwined what one

wears had become with who one is, by portraying the attire of characters such as the

noblewoman at home, to the peasant on the streets. The impact of this ideology on society is

observed through the writing of the well-known courtesan and poet at the time, Veronica Franco

(1546-1591), who wrote in a letter to a friend who had recently given birth: “…joy

increases hand in hand with the life of the child, who, as he grows in beauty, will doubtless grow

as well in kindness and strength”29.

Sumptuary laws and indebtedness are also a prime examples of bella figura during the

Renaissance. In fact, it was in Genoa, Italy where the first official European sumptuary law

appeared in 1157, which attempted to restrict luxury items, especially for those who did not have

28 Della Casa, Giovanni. Il Galateo (“Galateo: The Rules of Polite Behavior”). Venice, 1558.
29 Franco, Veronica. Poems and Selected Letters. Venice, 1580.
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the social class to be wearing them30. Even in ancient Rome there were laws that aimed to limit

luxury and excessive gold jewelry, as well as enforce a dress code of the stola (toga) among the

people. Despite numerous laws prohibiting luxury, Italy’s obsession with the beautiful extended

to in-depth descriptions of the beauty of women by Agnolo Firenzuolo31 and a plentitude of

Caterina Sforza’s recipes to enhance one’s beauty32. Moreover, it is during the Renaissance that

we see mass loans taken out from the Florentine banks to keep up one’s appearances, and thus

promote an image of being wealthy or successful. Maintaining a public appearance of wealth

“disguised the private indebtedness”33, and personal appearance became demonstrative of

creditworthiness.

By the seventeenth century, “what mattered in Italy was not life but appearance”, and the

Italians had earned their perception abroad as “privileg[ing] beauty over verity”34. The Industrial

Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries permitted the rise in travel

around Europe and America and there were therefore a great deal of travelogues released by

foreigners to Italy during this period. In these travelogues, we can see observations of the Italians

made by many great, foreign writers such as Goethe, Mann, Dickens, Whiteside, and Burckhardt.

In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1816 publication of his diary entries during his stay in

Venice, he noted “I have not often seen more natural acting than that of these masks. It is such

30 Facelle, Amanda E. Down to the Last Stitch: Sumptuary Law and Conspicuous Consumption in Renaissance Italy.
(Middletown: Wesleyan University, 2009).
31 Firenzuolo, Agnolo. Delle bellezze delle donne (“On the Beauty of Women”). Florence, 1548.
32 Pasolini P.D., Caterina Sforza, vol. 3 [Rome:1893] 601).
33 Welch, Evelyn S.. Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400-1600. Connecticut: Yale University Press,
2005.
34 Baldoli, Claudia. A History of Italy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
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acting as can only be sustained by a remarkably happy talent and long practice”35. In his famous

novel, Death in Venice, German writer Thomas Mann also describes the Italians for their beauty,

and yet inefficiency in work matters.

Charles Dickens also recognized this prioritization of the beautiful among Italians, and he

warns in Pictures from Italy (1846), “lovers and hunters of the picturesque, let us not keep too

studiously out of view the miserable depravity, degradation, and wretchedness, with which this

gay Neapolitan life is inseparably associated! It is not well to find Saint Giles’s so repulsive, and

the Porta Capuana so attractive. A pair of naked legs and a ragged red scarf, do not make ALL

the difference between what is interesting and what is coarse and odious? Painting and poetising

for ever, if you will, the beauties of this most beautiful and lovely spot of earth, let us, as our

duty, try to associate a new picturesque with some faint recognition of man’s destiny and

capabilities”36.

By 1849, James Whiteside, after having spent two years abroad in Italy, affirmed that “a

stranger, judging from appearance, would conclude the Florentines to be a wealthy people, from

their dress, their finery, their equipages, and love of show. On a festal day the women, even in an

humble walk of life, are decked out with ornaments of gold in profusion. The men are also very

grand in their holiday attire, insomuch that a traveller would conclude that these people must be

very vain or very rich, or he might surmise that there was an affectation of wealth without its

reality, and likewise a trifling frivolity of manner without firmness or dignity of character”37. He

also notes that “Beggars are proscribed in the town, but abound in the suburbs. If money be plen

35 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Italienische Reise (“Italian Journey”) Frankfurt, 1816.
36 Dickens, Charles. Pictures from Italy. London, 1846.
37 Whiteside, James. Italy in the Nineteenth Century. London, 1849.
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tiful it must be easily made, for every man appears to be at leisure. Their mode of speech and

salutation, so exaggerated and pompous, at once strikes offensively on the ear of a reflecting

man; the love of such poor conceits would seem to be proof of the degradation of the people.

The lowest title lavished on a plain man in Italy is ‘Eccellenza’”.

The Swiss writer Jacob Burckhardt published a history of Italy in 1860, stating that,

“Outward appearance was in Italy the subject of an entirely different interest from that shown in

it by northern peoples…Something must be said here of that universal education of the eye,

which rendered the judgment of the Italians as to bodily beauty or ugliness perfect and final”. He

defines this phenomenon as “the national passion for external display”, and claims that, “It is

nevertheless beyond a doubt that nowhere was so much importance attached to dress as in Italy.

The nation was, and is, vain; and even serious men among it looked on a handsome and

becoming costume as an element in the perfection of the individual”38.

Contemporary Italians of the 19th and 20th century have started to produce more and

more literature regarding the bella figura in Italian culture. Luigi Pirandello, famous for his plays

dealing with the subject of reality and appearances, wrote “It Is So (If You Think So)”, which

premiered in Milan in 1917. The plays deals with how our reality is defined and molded by

others’ perception of us. For example, one of the main characters, Signora Frola says, “…io sono

colei che mi si crede” (“…I am she whom you believe me to be”), and Pirandello’s voice shines

through the lines, “Resta ora da vedere, o signori, se questo fantasma per l'uno o per l'altra sia

38 Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Zurich, 1860.

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poi realmente una persona per sé” (“It remains to be seen if what is a phantom for him and her is

actually a person for herself”)39.

Appreciating the pleasures of beauty is what has made Italy the capital of luxury that it is

today, with the prominence of car and fashion industries as evidence of this point. “Fashion

emerged as one of the economic and cultural forces that determined, through its new industrial

base, changes in the identities of several Italian cities”40. Some of the most famous fashion brands

in the world call Italy their home, such as Gucci, Armani, Versace, Valentino, Prada, and Fendi.

There are more fashion industry workers in Italy today than anywhere else in Europe (~700,000).

Last year alone, Italian fashion made up 40% of the total share of European fashion industry

revenue41.

Beyond fashion, bella figura is “one of the reasons why the Italians have always excelled

in all activities in which the appearance is predominant: architecture, decoration, landscape

gardening, the figurative art, pageantry, fireworks, ceremonies, opera, and now industrial design,

stage jewellery…cinema”42. From the popularity of their medieval weaponry, to luxury cars like

Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and Alfa Romeo, Italians are masters of making life appear more

beautiful than reality. Italian film is internationally recognized for its visual beauty, with the

cinematic masterpieces of Fellini, De Sica, Antonioni, Pasolini, Tornatore, and Benigni. In this

way, bella figura offers itself as one of the many venues that Italy can pursue in achieving a

unified identity in the future.

39 Pirandello, Luigi. Così è, se vi pare (“It Is So [If You Think So]”). Milan, 1917.
40 Paulicelli, Eugenia. Writing Fashion in Early Modern Italy: From Sprezzatura to Satire (London: Berg, 2014). 102.
41 Passeri, Elena. “Italy tops Europe for number of fashion industry jobs” US Fashion Magazine: World’s Fashion Business
News. 17 Nov. 2015.
42 Barzini, Luigi. The Italians. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964.
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At the same time, one should not forget the consequences that bella figura has on a

society. Even the famous dolce vita appears to be just a façade when one considers the fact that

Italy continuously scores among the unhappiest in Europe43. No stranger to tax evasion and

political corruption, Italy is notorious for its efforts to “solve” problems simply by brushing under

them under the rug. Italy was the birthplace of the aestheticized political structure of Mussolini’s

fascist dictatorship, and the home of the media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, who managed to get

elected as Prime Minister three times despite rampant corruption and vulgarity. Just in March of

this year, Enzo Napoli, the mayor of Salerno, introduced a new law which would attempt to

tackle the problem of the increase of prostitutes on the streets. Although prostitution is legal in

Italy, Napoli’s plan is to enforce fines for prostitutes who appear so too obviously, for example,

by “wearing skimpy skirts, high heels, or acting flirtatiously”44. The goal being to make these

women less visible, rather than to approach the issue with the intent to rid of it.

Bella figura may not be entirely bella in itself, and should be looked at subjectively as

one of many helpful tools for analyzing the national character of the Italians. For the prosperity

and happiness of a culture, it is necessary to recognize and celebrate cultural idiosyncrasies and

to form a spirit of unity and belonging among the people, while never failing to be aware of its

weaknesses. As Severgnini says, keeping up appearances and “theatrics are [the] charm and [the]

downfall” of Italy. All in all, bella figura offers itself as one of many venues for exploring what

it means to be Italian, from north to south and east to west, with the hopes of one day solidifying,

an agreeable national identity.

43 World Happiness Report. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). 2015. Web.
<http://worldhappiness.report>
44 Burrows, Thomas. “Salerno mayor clamps down on prostitutes wearing short skirts or high heels”. Daily Mail Online. 25
Mar. 2016.
 Pappas, 17

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