The Piazza

Piazza Mazzini, Casale Monferrato

The heart of every Italian city is its piazza, and Casale Monferrato, a quaint little town tucked away in Piedmont where I lived for several months, is no exception. Overlooked by the imposing figure of the Duomo, Piazza Mazzini fills the classic Italian stereotype, functioning as a place to meet, talk and watch the world go by. White-haired men sit on benches by the newspaper stand and discuss politics and football, teenagers gather in clumps with their bikes and the women strut around elegantly with their dogs and cigarettes. Even the winter rain, cold and fog cannot get in the way of the Italian proclivity for outdoor socialising, so the piazza remains busy throughout the year.

The Krumiri Rossi biscuit factory

Casale also happens to be the home of the krumiri biscuit (created in 1878 by the Rossi family), which is still manufactured in the same tiny factory just off one corner of the square. Thus the city centre benefits from a near constant smell of butter, sugar and (though I’m not sure how, as it doesn’t feature in the biscuit) melted chocolate. It’s like living in a permanent state of Sunday evening baking.

Life in the piazza

Casale is a small and relatively well-off community; everyone knows everyone else and naturally gossip is rife. Fare la bella figura is essential, and the piazza’s elegant Bar Savoia is the ideal place to see and be seen, with tables spilling out on to the piazza. Open all day, this elegant establishment manages the transition from coffee to prosecco seamlessly, as waiters in waistcoats and starched white aprons glide from table to table, filling up the glasses of the well-heeled locals and Milanese tourists that form the clientele.

Like every bar in Casale, Savoia specialises in the northern tradition of aperitivo: a drink (usually Campari) enjoyed after work, accompanied by an assortment of snacks, from tiny squares of focaccia with salami to vol-au-vent style pastries, olives and cheese. Like tapas, plates are brought with every new round of drinks, and aren’t really meant to constitute dinner, though, speaking from personal experience, this would not be difficult. More than anything, these dainty amuse-bouches serve as a social tool, intended to stave off hunger so as to keep the conversation going. Not that anyone in Italy usually has a problem with that.

A wagon featuring traditional Sicilian imagery on display at the market

The piazza also forms the locus of any city festival or celebration, playing host to a number of specialty markets. During my stay I saw the space transformed into a Sicilian market, with characteristic red and yellow flags splashed across the walls and bunting strung between the shops. Delighted to find something that didn’t close between the hours of 12 and 3pm, I spent my lunch break winding my way through the stalls, gazing open mouthed at the vats of olives, almonds and coloured candied fruit on display, and the biggest loaves of bread I have ever seen. Vendors yelled incomprehensibly to the crowds, while spearing chunks of unknown cheeses onto knives and offering them to passers-by. On another occasion, closer to Christmas, a line of trestle tables was hastily arranged along one side of the piazza, from which local producers sold rice, torrone, panettone and classic gianduja chocolates– calling out to the residents who walked arm in arm through town in their expensive, identical padded coats.

Slabs of bread and traditional preserves at the Sicilian market

However, the piazza is at its most evocative on Sunday evenings in winter, when the characteristic fog of the Po Valley descends upon Casale, obscuring the landscape and plunging the city into bone-numbing cold. On these evenings the square is deserted but for a few night time dawdlers, the huddles of people bundling out of evening mass and the chestnut sellers. Sheltering under a weathered piece of tarpaulin, their hardened digits poking out of fingerless gloves, a man and a woman spend the evening scooping handfuls of scorching chestnuts into paper bags for those brave enough to venture out, the smoky perfume from the stove adding to the general fug carpeting the town. It is profoundly eerie watching these vendors and their customers, their faces in darkness but for the flicker of the light from the stove, but also somewhat magical. It is an aspect of the city that only winter brings out, when people find joy in the simple pleasure of a rustling paper bag filled with soft chestnuts, if only to keep their hands warm.  

The deserted piazza on a rainy Sunday night.

I appreciate that these images of the piazza are picturesque and Dolce Vita-ish, and I hasten to add that Italian life is not all gelato in the sunshine and Vespa rides with devilishly good-looking men. There are supermarket queues, political scandals, wifi blackouts and frozen ready meals, teenagers addicted to video games, and a rise in junk food and obesity, as in all European nations. The economic crisis hit Casale like any other Italian town, impacting on wages (my colleague Barbara once commented in passing “soon we will struggle to feed our children”) and causing an increased fuga dei cervelli (brain drain), as young graduates flee for America and the UK, hoping to find better opportunities, or (more likely) a barista job. But despite the upheavals, the Berlusconi years and the crises, the piazza lives on. All the troubles in the world could not keep residents from gathering there, drinking their coffee and setting the world to rights. There are some rituals that social media can never replace (you can be sure that no one in Bar Savoia is instagramming their morning cornetto), and for that I am thankful. Despite everything, the piazza does remain a symbol of la dolce vita – people gathering together, sharing a drink and something to eat, and celebrating what is good in life. And I think we could all use a bit more of that.