After months of very boring to- ing and fro-ing, the divorce between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his once principle ally, former Alleanza Nazionale chief Gianfranco Fini, currently Italy's Speaker of the House (presidente della Camera dei Deputati), now appears to be final and Italians, most of whom are understandably much more interested in a) their summer vacations, b) job opportunities and taxes in a struggling economy and 3) whether or not the national soccer team will ever recover from its embarrassing performance in South Africa, are now being told to worry about whether the government will fall or whether Berlusconi may call for early elections. If you read the papers, or listen to the TV news broadcasts, it would seem as if new elections or, at the very least, a cabinet re-shuffle, are inevitable. But are they? For although Silvio Berlusconi appears to be in a more vulnerable position than at any time since his party's victory at the polls in 2008, I wouldn't be counting him out any time soon. 

Anyway, here's the story. According to data released a couple of days ago by ISTAT, the Italian national statistics agency, in the last 13 years (no, I don't know why they chose 13 years as a reference point but there it is) have doubled and, what's more in 2008 the number of divorces rose by 3.4% and the number of legal separations by 7.3%. In 2008, there were 84.165 separations and 54.351 divorces. Put another way, that amounts to 179 divorces for every 1000 people and 286 legal separations although, as to be expected, the rate is twice as high in the Italian north than it is in the Mezzogiorno. Who knows what was going on in 2005 because in that year, the statistics tell us, there was a peak of

But that's not all. The data tell us that nowadays in Italy the length of the average marriage is 15 years, 18 years if you measure up to the time that a final divorce is granted. The average age fro those getting separated is at present 45 for men and 41 for women.

Curiously enough, fewer Italian marriages are breaking up before the five-year mark whereas longer ones are increasingly in trouble. In 1995, 24% of marriages ended before five years; today that has declined to 17% - still a hefty chunk). On the other hand, the number of marriages that end after ten years has doubled since 1995 and those lasting 25 years have tripled (there are no statistics on this, but how much do you want to bet that in the latter group it is mostly men seeking younger women?)

In most cases, the report adds, respectively 86.3% and 77.3%, the separations and divorces are consensual (or appear so). And in 78.8% of the dissolved marriages involving underage children the final solution involves joint custody. I would add that the statistics obviously do not take into account the huge number of couples who now live together without getting married at all although I suspect most of them (but by no means all) tie the knot after the bambini arrive.

Castel Sant'Angelo by night

Finally! After months of negotiations between the Superintendency of Rome's Archeological monuments and the relevant labor unions (who, as you will see, have not been particularly generous in making personnel available), this summer visitors to Rome will be able to take advantage of a special treat, nighttime visits to some of Rome's major sites such as the Coliseum, the Baths of Caracalla and Castel Sant'Angelo (originally known as Hadrian's Tomb as it was built to house the earthly remains of the Roman emperor of the same name.)

The first two will be open until midnight every Saturday night between August 21 and October 23, while starting now Castel Sant'Angelo regular hours will be extended to midnight every Friday and Saturday. The visit, to what is officially called the Museo Nazionale di Castel S. Angelo, can include a tour of the Passetto del Borgo, the once secret passage built in 1277 that linked the Castle to the Vatican.

However, that part of the visit, which costs €10 must be reserved in advance by telephoning to 06/32810 weekdays until 6p.mp. and Saturday mornings until 1p.m.. History tells us that Pope Clement VII used it in 1527 to escape from the German mercenaries who participated in the 1527 Sack of Rome on orders from the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, whereas rumor has it that Pope Alexander VI used it to allow his mistresses to arrive in secret in his apartments. The passage is mentioned in Dan Brown's awful book, Angels and Demons, although he had it lead to the Pope's private library. The passage was walled up at the end of the 16th century by Pope Pius VI.

The Superintendency also announced that starting August 21st, two new monuments will be open to visitors. One is Livia's House on the Palatine Hill. The second is the Temple of the Divine Romolo at the Roman Forum. This circular structure, which was originally an entrance to a forum and then, for centuries served as the entrance vestibule to the church of Sts. Cosma and Damian, still has its original work bronze door.

Judith Beheading Holofernes

The Borghese gallery has five Caravaggios on permanent exhibition, to which four major paintings from other Roman galleries will have been added for the occasion: Judith Beheading Holofernes; Narcissus; and two of the Baroque painter's eight John the Baptist canvasses.

In addition, three major Roman churches will be keeping their doors open all night so that visitors can view their precious Caravaggio paintings: San Luigi dei Francesi where the Martyrdom of St Matthew, St Matthew and the Angel and the Calling of St Matthew are located; Sant'Agostino with the Madonna di Loreto painting; and Santa Maria del Popolo with the Crucifixion of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul.

As Italian families head for the seashore and the mountains for this year's summer vacations (the so-called "exodus" begins on the first weekend of July), stores throughout most of the country were allowed to put clothing and other goods on sale. Unlike in the U.S., sales in Europe - winter and summer - are generally government regulated, usually by regions or local municipalities.

There are still no statistics indicating whether or not the current economic crisis is likely to curtail the vacation plans of Italian families; most Italians take their vacations in the summer and summer vacations have become something of an obsession. On the other hand, available data does show that clothing sales were off by as much as 20% in the first half of 2010 and shopkeepers may be hoping to recoup some of their losses by lowering prices.

Last week, the first sales were authorized in Naples and Potenza in the South, followed on Saturday, July 3rd, by Rome, Milan and Turin. Sales in Tuscany begin on July 7th, in Liguria on July 10th and in the Veneto on July 17ty. This year they are scheduled to last for all of July and August and in some cases into the first or second week of September.

According to the business organization, Confcommercio, Italians will spend something like 4.2 billion euros to take advantage of the lower prices. The organization said that on average families will spend €282 on bargains (in Milan the figure will be closer to €425), the equivalent of 12% of the year's sales of clothing, bags and shoes.

Confcommercio also reminded Italians of the rules of the sales: the original price must be shown next to the discounted one and the percentage of the discount. Credit cards cannot be refused but the policies regarding returns and exchanges policies are, instead, up to the store owner.

Okay. So he wasn't quite that explicit. But he did say (and I head him with my own little ears) that governing under Italy's postwar Constitution - its "institutional architecture" was how he put it - was an "inferno", ( a "hell") making it clear that the Italian prime minister, whom many suspect of subliminal dictatorial tendencies, does not understand the concept of checks and balances which is, after all, the essence of a democratic system.

On Thursday, addressing Confartigianato a business association, Berlusconi described lawmaking in Italy as intolerable, with draft bills going from Senate to House and back, with stops in this or that committee, until final approval (just like happens in any other democracy). He won applause when he said all this took too much time (although he neglected to mention that this is probably also because of poor parliamentary leadership and the fact that Italian MPs, who make more money than most of their European counterparts, only work two and a half days a week) and, added that, even worse, there was always the risk that after all this frustrating to-ing and fro-ing, something even more outrageous might happen: the Constitutional Court (manned by the magistrates he blames for all of Italy's troubles) might strike down the "laws it doesn't like". In other words, he also does not understand the idea of constitutionality and the importance it has for a democratic nation.

The premier, who stopped short of saying he'd prefer one-man rule, claimed that the 1946 Constitution's apportionment of power between the various institutions reflected the negative influence of the postwar period when Communists and Christian Democrats here carried on their own little Cold War and didn't trust one another. Things are different today, he insisted, and so the Constitution should be changed.

Of course, he totally failed to mention another salient fact. That the men and women of the Constituent Assembly that wrote and passed the Constitution after Italy was finally liberated by Allied forces and anti-fascist partisans, were also trying to make sure that down the line Italy would not have another 20 years of Fascism. The "ventennio", as it is called here, ended only when dictator Benito Mussolini was deposed after taking the country into war on the side of Nazi Germany.

Berlusconi's comments were roundly attacked by opposition leaders and pundits.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his estranged wife, Veronica Lario, have reached an agreement on the terms of their legal settlement, and what terms they are!!!!! The former Signora Berlusconi (well, actually, for now they are still married; divorce still takes five years in the home of the Vatican) gets to live forever in the luxurious Villa Belvedere in the Maccherio suburb of Milan that she has inhabited - together with Eleonora, Luigi and Barbara, the thee children she had with Berlusconi,ever since informally separating from him several years ago. In addition, she will get a monthly stipend of €300,000 to enable her and her family to live in the style to which she is accustomed. Sounds like a lot, right? But Berlusconi, the second richest man in Italy, has so much money that probably it is only fair that Veronica gets so hefty a chunk.

Veronica and Silvio met in 1980 when, struck by her beauty and talent, he called on her at her dressing room in Rome's Teatro Manzoni where she was starring in a production of the 1921 play, The Magnificent Cuckold (how fitting!). Who knows if it was love at first sight but Berlusconi left his first wife, the mother of his first two children, Marina and Pier Silvio, and in 1984 Barbara was born. In 1985, Berlusconi's divorce from Carla Dall'Oglio became final and the rest is (was) history.

Veronica and Berlusconi had been living separately for a few years when his wife became enraged by several events and announced her anger publically. Once was when Berlusconi said on television that if he could he would marry Mara Carfagna, a young attractive former TV starlet who is now a cabinet minister, and second when it became known that last March that he had attended the birthday party of an 18-year old Neapolitan girl. On May 3, Veronica announced she was filing for divorce, asking for a monthly stipend of three million euros. That she did not get but she certainly cannot complain.

By the way, it may interest my Catholic readers that a few weeks ago many eyebrows (but apparently not the papal ones) were raised when Berlusconi, in church for some occasion, lined up at a church service to take communion and received it. As I understand it Roman Catholics who are separated or divorced they should not be given that sacrament but the officiating prelate mayhave been too embarrassed to refuse.

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Exactly 150 years ago (plus two days), Giuseppe Garibaldi - the Italian general and patriot - set sail from in Northern Italy with 1162 armed volunteers on his way to Sicily where he planned to take advantage of local uprisings in Messina and Palermo to take Sicily from the Neapolitans and consign it to Savoy monarch, Victor Emanuel, of Piedmont as a first step in the conquest of the Italian South first and, eventually, Rome. It was here, during the battle of Calatafimi, that he was said to have pronounced to his lieutenant, Nino Bixio, the famous words, "Here either we make Italy, or we die".

Garibaldi did not die and many of his one thousand red shirts survived but despite a series of new battles and wars during the 1860s, it was not until September 20, 1870 when Piedmontese crack infantry troops breached Rome's Porta Pia gate to defeat Vatican and French forces that Italy was truly unified.

But for today's Italians, a unified Italy was born on May 5, 1860 and the celebrations that are to last through next year were set off on Wednesday with a moving speech by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on the premises of a well-known Genoa high-tech company, Ansaldo.

This being Italy, however, there had to be complications and these came when, earlier in the week, Roberto Calderone, a cabinet minister hailing from the ranks of the Northern League, which at times has espoused patriotic alliance to a northern area they have dubbed, Padania, rather than to Italy said that unification meant nothing to the Lega and should not be celebrated. This led to several days of intense debates in the press and to a sharp retort by Napolitano. But despite the fact that much regionalism still exists here, it was interesting to note that most of the Italians queried - north, center and south - agreed that there was indeed something important to commemorate.

Seen from the ruins of Pompeii

It looks peaceful enough, for now. But although there hasn't been a peep out of the Mount Vesuvius volcano since March, 1944 (24 dead), the silence may not last. It is unlikely that if it does erupt again - and volcanologists in Italy say that given the usual cycles of volcanic activity, Vesuvio is dragging its feet - dealing with the event is going to be a real headache.

No one, of course, is expecting the kind of tragedy that the Naples area saw back in 79AD when Herculaneum and Pmpei were wiped out by a gigantic eruption with the consequent deaths of from 10,000 to 25,000 people. The problem is that the area surrounding Vesuvius is (unlike that surrounding the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull) today so densely populated that the chief of Italy's Civil Protection Department, Guido Bertolaso (who despite a recent major scandal has been able to hold onto his job), says an eruption would represent a major problem requiring the evacuation of as many as one million people.

At the moment, the so called "red zone" around the dormant volcano includes 18 towns and cities with a population of between 650,000 and 700,000. But the effects of an an eventual eruption, which would be preceded by a series of earthquakes, would probably reach to parts of Naples itself. "we'd probably have no more than three to four days, possibly a week, to evacuate the area", Bertolaso said recently.