The Days of Abandonment, or I giorni dell’abbandono, while being the title of a captivating, strange and disconcerting novel by Elena Ferrante (soon to be reviewed in Three Moneys Online), is also an apt description for The View from Bologna of late.

It’s not that things have been uneventful in this part of the world. Far from it. Recent weeks have seen news from the world of high finance (Parmalat and Banca Italia both worth a mention), politics (efforts by the government to change the electoral system mere months away from an election), and culture (there’s a crop of outstanding movies, books, records released in recent weeks).

On top of all, that the continuing tension between the sacred and the secular is worth a mention. The Church has been far from quiet in recent weeks, pronouncing on political support for PACS (Patto Civile di Solidariet