It’s a truth of travel that exploring or eating what’s hyped-up, hot and new often ends up being the least memorable part of a trip. But it’s one that’s easy to forget in the era of glossy Top 10 lists, hotshot chefs and immaculately filtered Instagram posts.
An article recently published in The New York Times, however, served as a good reminder of what's worth seeking out: Tom Downey’s feature “In Tokyo, Skipping the Hot and New for Enduring Haunts” highlights the author’s experience of using The Tokyo Q Guide, printed in 2001 and not updated since, as a litmus test for quality when exploring the titular city on a recent trip. Instead of asking where the Michelin cognoscenti were heading to dine and drink, Downey wondered, what’s lasted?
Inspired by Downey’s guiding question, we asked a handful of Italy Magazine contributors if they have any seemingly “outdated” texts they still find themselves dipping into when exploring the Boot — for reasons practical, sentimental or perhaps both. Though no one name-checked a traditional “guidebook” — no dog-eared, marked-up Baedeker Guides nor first-edition Frommer’s — the yellowing texts they cited all share a common ethos of highlighting the tried-and-true over the trendy.
Toni DeBella
Yellowing Italian travel text: On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal by Mary Taylor Semeti
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First published in 1986, On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal is a gorgeous book by American-born author Mary Taylor Semeti. Totally mesmerizing, it reads like a diary and a travelogue at once. Semeti’s prose makes even the most mundane, everyday thing feel exciting (and like you’re standing right there next to her). It’s such a charming and affectionate portrait of life in the writer's adopted home of Sicily and should be required reading for anyone planning their first trip to the island. While it’s sadly out of print, you can find used copies if you poke around online booksellers.
Amy Gulick
Yellowing Italian travel text: Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World by Peter D’Epiro and Mary D. Pinkowish
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Peter D’Epiro’s and Mary Desomond Pinkowish’s Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World was gifted to me in 2001, the year it was published. In the two decades since, I have revisited this book many times, for pleasure, information or inspiration, yet never tired of its brilliant, slightly enigmatic concept: a study of Italianness through the lens of sprezzatura, or the “art of effortless mastery.” Though presented in chronological order spanning the foundations of Rome to contemporary Italian business (Ferrari, Armani and so forth), Sprezzatura presents its chapters as self-contained snapshots, each a mini-journey into alluring depths of biography, art, science, politics, design and more.
To travel Italy with a copy of Sprezzatura is to hold a powerful key to its places and people in one’s hand, from the Florentine primer offered by Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio in Chapter 19 to the section dedicated to Siena’s beloved patron saint, Catherine, or to the powerful role of the peninsula in medicine (Salerno) and higher education (Bologna). Plus, a 10-page cultural-historical summary of Venice will reignite awe and passion in the hearts of even the most crowd- and cost-jaded visitors.
Laura Itzkowitz
Yellowing Italian travel text: Italian Chic by Daria Reina and Andrea Ferolla
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Whenever I'm planning a trip within Italy, I pull down my copy of Italian Chic by Daria Reina and Andrea Ferolla. Technically, it's a photography tome published by Assouline, but I know that if Daria and Andrea have chosen to feature a place in that book, it's because it's an enduring spot that has stood the test of time, like Le Sirenuse in Positano and Baratti & Milano in Turin. There's a directory with all their favorite addresses at the back of the book, which I like to consult. Daria and Andrea are the husband-and-wife team behind Rome's cult concept shop Chez Dede and they have impeccable taste, always preferring historic haunts to trendy new ones.
Laura Morelli
Yellowing Italian travel text: Etruscan Places by D.H. Lawrence
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A well-worn first edition of D.H. Lawrence’s Etruscan Places is my go-to. Though he was better known as a poet and novelist, Lawrence was a gifted travel writer. His 1927 explorations in Tarquinia, Cerveteri and beyond resulted in a posthumously published book that captures the sense of awe we feel when visiting these evocative places. His writing also connects us to the ancient Etruscans’ lively spirit, which I believe endures in Italian culture today. It’s remarkable that a book written nearly a century ago holds the power to transport us into the heart of Italian origins in a way that feels as vibrant as the Etruscans themselves.
Dick Rosano
Yellowing Italian travel text: Italy: Dish by Dish by Monica Sartoni Cesari
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I have long relied on Monica Sartoni Cesari's Italy: Dish by Dish, which highlights familiar and traditional preparations according to each Italian region.
Maria Pasquale
Yellowing Italian travel text: La Bella Figura by Beppe Severgnini
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My copy of Beppe Severgnini’s La Bella Figura still holds pride of place on my bookshelf. I bought it on one of my trips to Italy almost 20 years ago. While I’d grown up in an Italian family in Australia, this deep dive into the Italian psyche helped me to understand so many things about how the Italians tick and even about my own behavior. Being able to understand the beautiful intricacy that is Italy has been helped by navigating the idiosyncrasies he explains so well. To understand Italy is to understand la bella figura — making a good impression or putting your best foot forward. It underpins just about everything about Italian culture.
Mary Gray
Yellowing Italian travel text: Eating in Italy: A Traveler’s Guide to the Gastronomic Pleasures of Northern Italy by Faith Willinger
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Oddly, I didn’t come across this hybrid guidebook-gastronomic glossary, now very dear to me, until traveling to Trieste for the first time, even though I live near its Florence-based author, Faith Willinger. I discovered Eating in Italy in the breakfast nook of what might be the coziest place in Trieste, L’Albero Nascosto. The owners, seeing how taken I was with it, insisted on letting me keep their rumpled copy, unwittingly reinforcing Willinger’s statements about the kindness of folks in Friuli Venezia Giulia (which she describes as the region where she left her heart).
Eating in Italy offers a rundown of northern Italian dishes, rituals and restaurants, in a tone that doesn’t give orders, but simply whets the appetite. In Trieste, it steered me toward institutions like Antica Trattoria Suban, going strong since 1865. The most recent edition hasn’t been updated since 1998, and the one I inherited is from even earlier. But, much like the guidebook featured in the Tokyo story, it cuts through the clutter and gets to the souls of places, revealing not the spots and dishes that look good on paper (or in glossy press releases), but the ones with a point of view.
