Sotto lo Stesso Cielo: Italy and Spain Dig In at the Border as Etna Opens New Mouths

Italy Today

• Update: Spain answered Italy’s border checks with its own — neither government blinked. Madrid’s Aug. 7 ultimatum demanded Italy lift its Schengen suspension by Sunday; Palazzo Chigi refused, saying Italy “does not accept ultimatums or impositions from abroad” on border security. Spain imposed its own checks on travelers from Italy starting midnight Aug. 8, running through Sept. 7. Italy’s checks, per our Aug. 10 brief holding “at least until Ferragosto,” stay up over an expected fresh Ceuta wave that same weekend.

• Etna cracks open twice more; Catania eats a fifth straight day of disruption. Two new eruptive vents opened overnight in the Valle del Bove, near Monte Simone, joining the Voragine crater’s ongoing explosions. Catania’s airport is suspended again through 6 p.m. today, Comiso grounded until 10 a.m.

• A partial eclipse threads Rome’s dusk and Brooklyn’s lunch hour. Northwestern Italy will see the Moon cover over 90% of the sun as it sets tonight, part of the year’s only total eclipse — totality itself crosses Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. New York catches the same event at lunch, 9-13% coverage peaking near 1:54 p.m.

Brooklyn Dispatch

• Update: The Santa Rosalia feast has its faces now. Our Aug. 7 brief flagged the 52nd annual Feast of Santa Rosalia’s Aug. 20 start on 18th Avenue; grand marshals Rosemarie Sparacio and Sal “The Voice” Valentinetti will lead it, with Il Colosseo, Robert DeFalco Realty, and Villabate Alba Bakery again backing the cannoli-eating contest that closes the strip’s summer.

• Third Avenue’s Summer Stroll takes its last lap Friday. Bay Ridge’s 14th annual Summer Stroll — tracked since our July 24 brief — wraps Aug. 14 on its final stretch, 68th to 82nd Street.

Arts & Culture

• Venice picks its fights: five Italians for the Golden Lion. The 83rd Mostra’s 21-film competition lineup includes five Italian entries — Marco Bechis, Edoardo De Angelis, Andrea Pallaoro, Paolo Strippoli, and Nanni Moretti. Danny Boyle’s Ink opens Sept. 2; Giovanni Veronesi’s Dio ride closes it out of competition.

• Ferragosto’s real border dispute is fruit-based. North of the Apennines it’s anguria; south and center, cocomero — the Accademia della Crusca traces the split to anguria’s Byzantine-Greek roots against cocomero’s older, pan-Italian pedigree. Same watermelon, either way, on every Aug. 15 lunch table.

Parola del Giorno

Parola: rientro (dalle ferie) (noun, m.) — “return (from vacation),” a fixture of Italian political speech every September; from Latin redire, “to go back.” This week Meloni used it to promise a “lighter” comeback on taxes and prices. Usage: “Un rientro dalle ferie più leggero.”

Parola: bocca eruttiva (noun phrase, f.) — “eruptive mouth,” the opening lava or ash escapes through, distinct from the crater. Two new ones opened on Etna’s flank overnight, low on the Valle del Bove. Usage: “Si è aperta una nuova bocca eruttiva alla base della valle.”

Parola: eclissi (noun, f.) — “eclipse”; from Greek ékleipsis, “an abandoning, a failing to appear” — the sun quite literally going missing. Today’s eclipse is visible, at very different hours, from both sides of this brief’s beat. Usage: “L’eclissi di oggi sarà solo parziale in Italia.”

Parola: anguria / cocomero (noun, f./m.) — Italy’s great fruit-naming divide: anguria in the north, cocomero in the center-south, same fruit regardless. Usage: “Al Nord si dice anguria, al Centro-Sud cocomero — ma è sempre la stessa fetta rossa.”

Takeaway