The 'Ferragosto' Effect
The timeless art of doing nothing -- and getting away with everything
Every year on Ferragosto, Italy fakes its own death.
When I first came to Italy, typical August vacations lasted the whole month; now they’re two weeks. But Ferragosto -- this Friday -- refuses to change. It’s the one day of the year when Italy still shuts down completely.
Offices locked. Streets silent. Shutters drawn. Available parking is everywhere.
It’s the annual victory of dolce far niente -- the sweetness of doing nothing -- elevated to a national imperative.
But Ferragosto is more than a day off. For me, it’s the most Italian of all holidays: born in ancient Rome, claimed by the Church, repurposed by politics, and refusing to adapt to modern life.
And, as history shows, it’s also a good time to assume people aren’t paying attention.
To steal a treasure
The theft of the Mona Lisa took place in broad daylight.
In 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian decorator working part-time as a cleaner at the Louvre in Paris, walked into the Renaissance gallery, lifted the Mona Lisa off the wall, removed the glass display case, wrapped his work smock around the wooden panel, and then strolled out into the streets of Paris with Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece tucked under his arm like a baguette.
It took 28 hours for anyone to notice. The museum director was on vacation. The French Minister of Arts and Culture could not be found. Police eventually acted, arresting the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, reducing the Spaniard to tears during his interrogation.
Peruggia had a police record, and his thumbprint was found on the display case. But nobody followed up.
Naturally, all this happened in August.
