The Essay: Italy Outdoors

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The Essay: Italy Outdoors: The Piazza

Italy Outdoors

The Piazza

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Writer Polly Coles reads The Piazza, her first essay on the life of Italy’s public spaces.

Writer Polly Coles reads her first essay about Italy’s public spaces. The Piazza is the social, political and emotional heart of Italian communities, from hamlets to great cities.

Much of life in Italy takes place in shared outdoor spaces. From business to social life, religion to politics, Italians have been conducting their affairs in public for two millennia and more. In the past months, all this came to an abrupt halt. A people famed for their evening passeggiata in the piazza, for their outdoor café culture, for their flamboyant appropriation of their town centres for public and private business, have been confined to their homes. As Italy takes its first steps back outside into its magnificent shared spaces, ‘Italy Outdoors’ takes us on a journey around the culture and history of what has always been an exuberantly public nation. 

Beginning with the piazza, the beating heart of Italian identity, writer and reader Polly Coles suggests the space reflects a very Italian need to be together in public. 


Written and read by Polly Coles
Produced by Melanie Harris of Sparklab Productions

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Writer Polly Coles reads a selection of essays about the life of Italy's public spaces.

Writer Polly Coles reads a selection of essays about the life of Italy's public spaces, revealing them as places of rich and ancient cultural diversity.

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