Umberto's Blog

Lunch with the Ambassador

The appointment with Alexis Lautenberg, the Swiss ambassador in London, is for lunch at his residence, 21 Brianston square. I take the train at the Gare du Midi in Brussels and thanks to the chunnel and to Greenwich time  I can take it easy for once. The near tropical heat in London is a surprise, especially this time of the year - as in Milan the weather was cold and rainy - so I manage to arrive a bit earlier and take a stroll in the park, avoiding the throngs of tourists waiting at the gates of Buckingham palace.
The last time I sat on the grass here was in August 1994 when I was travelling with Daria (8) and Veronika (5) after an adventurous two-months trek across Albania and Greece that would soon end in Nice, France. I was not worried, at the time, of being spotted by the police - there wasn't an international search for us - as I had been in Greece. I was worried about finding a place outside Italy where to settle with the girls. And also finding some money before I was totally broke. As my daughters spoke French (I had sent them to the French school in Milan), France was the logical place to travel. So, after some sightseeing, a couple of days later we embarked at Dover...
The ambassador's residence has a beautiful view of the square and rivals in elegance and space with the Swiss embassy in Rome - Alexis' post before London - in the Parioli neighborhood, where I also had lunch with him a couple of years ago. I think that much of the elegance of this embassy is due to Alexis' wife Gabriella, who even arranged a lovely "Roman terrace" with flowers, little trees and all the paraphernalia of a true "terrazza".
While I wait for Alexis, surely the most italianate ambassador Switzerland ever had, as well as one of the best, I remember, by opposition, the infamous Harry Lime impersonated by Orson Welles in "The Third Man" - a celebrated 1949 movie from a 1946 novel by Graham Greene, and his impromptu  self-helping little speech: "Don't be so gloomy - Welles tells Holly - After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly..."
The anecdote is funny, but misleading. To begin with, what the Swiss militias had to deal with was all but brotherly love. Just these days the Vatican Swiss Guard is celebrating the 500th anniversary since the foundation of the corps. Twenty years after that, they were massacred by Charles the 5th's Landsknechten during the sack of Rome, as Valentino Borgia had slaughtered the population of Capua a few years before. Swiss militias were known for their valour, admired among others by Niccolò Machiavelli who had used them during the siege of Pisa.
Besides, the cuckoo clock was first invented in Germany...
We have much to talk about, Alexis and I. Impeccable as usual with is pochette and the unlit pipe in his hand, Alexis talks about European politics and mutual friends/enemies. He also talks about retirement and we trade tips on locations in the Ticino and the upper Verbano. It will be fun to exchange visits once the ambassador and his wife will retire. We also talk about Italian politics, and politics in Ticino as well - presently in perpetual commotion after the "Masoni tax scandal". I had met Marina Masoni years ago, at a debate on federalism organized by Alexis in Bari. So we also talk about Marina and of how politics in Ticino are becoming dangerously close to those of Renaissance Florence...

The lunch is very good and refined.
A couple of days later I receive an sms "da una Roma effervescentissima" where Alexis is celebrating the Swiss Guard.