A Portrait of Vatican City

"When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City", by Robert J. Hutchinson is a piece that discusses Rome and more generally Italians, it is also a piece that I did not agree with for the most part. Hutchinson opens the article, "One of the hardest things for a stranger to get used to when visiting the Vatican is the relentless, even obstinate Italianness of the place". The Vatican, a notorious Italian icon (even if it isn't truly "Italian" anymore), has long been a part of Italian heritage, so my feeling is that when people go there they would be expecting an obvious sense of "Italianness". Hutchinson includes an interesting fact though, informing us that Italians account for a mere six-percent of the total Catholic population. Hutchinson goes on to explain the hold that Italy has on the Vatican, which I don't entirely disagree with saying it has, "nothing to do with devotion and everything to do, like most things in Italy, with money and jobs and making sure that both stay in the family". While I realize he is talking about devotion to the religious aspect of the Vatican I do think there is clearly a sense of devotion there, even if it is more to the historic attachment that the Italians have had with the landmark place.

Hutchinson then goes on to say that Italians are actually the uninterested, unaware kind of people that Americans are typically accused of being saying, "I've discovered a group of people who make Americans seem like polyglot virtuosos: the Italians". While you will inevitably run into the people who don't speak a word of English and maybe even appeared annoyed, or even angry that you can't speak Italian, nowadays I feel like there are just as many who do speak or at least understand some English.

So far my experience in Italy has been that most of the Italians I deal with know more English than I know Italian, they apologize for not being so good with their English and struggle to communicate in the foreign language through a smile, a notion completely contrary to the picture that Hutchinson paints. Hutchinson says, "You need to know Italian in Italy like you need your liver". I disagree, if for no other reason you should try and learn the language to show the Italians that you are appreciative of being in their country, and you are making an attempt to recognize them and not just trample all over their sacred sites.

Hutchinson goes on to tell a story where he had to get himself an Italian assistant and the struggles he went through when dealing with the Italian police. He tells us that the typical language of the Romans is one of condescending lectures and complaining, this may be true but I don't feel that Americans are too far off from this description either. While he's walking to the metro station he tells us how, "A little old lady carrying La Republica under her arm elbowed me in the rib cage with a professionalism and precisions I found unsettling". For anyone who has ever walked the crowded streets of New York this would not be so much unsettling as it would be the norm, I say get over it. Overall, I got the feeling that Hutchinson was merely visiting Rome he wasn't trying to discover it or embrace it and that is what I attribute to the negative attitude he seems to carry throughout the majority of the piece.