Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.
My name is Desy.
Mi chiamo Desy.
And in this video, we're going to talk about legends in Italy.
cinque leggende in Italia
I'm going to tell you about cinque, cinque, five legends in Italy.
cinque leggende italiane
Actually, there are plenty, but I thought these five in particular are really interesting.
The first one is about the foundation of Rome.
la leggenda di Romolo e Remo
Romolo and Remo's legend.
You probably know about this already, but let's see what happened in details.
So since Rome came after this legend,
here we're talking about the city called Alba Longa, Alba Longa,
founded by Enea's son, Enea's son, il figlio di Enea, Ascanio, Ascanio.
Many descendants had the power until the throne was passed to two brothers,
Numitore and his brother Amulio.
I don't think you really care about the name, but anyway,
one of them took power with violence
and forced his brother's daughter to take a vow of chastity
so that there was not hair that could actually oppose him.
However, Mars, Marte, Marte, the god, fell in love with this girl,
Rea Sidia, she was called,
and from this love, two twins were born.
Romolo and Remo, of course.
Guards were ordered to kill them, but they pitted the babies
and just left them in the forest without killing them,
but then later on saying that they did kill them, even though they didn't.
So the two babies left by themselves were actually taken care of by a wolf,
una lupa, lupa.
They grew up and later on founded what today we know as Roma, Rome.
It's interesting to notice how this legend may be based on real facts,
because lupa, so the word wolf in ancient Rome,
was also used in ancient Alba Longa, was also used to refer to prostitutes,
so it may be possible that actually some girl, some woman,
really did take care of the kids that were abandoned,
but the legend says that it was a real wolf.
Number two, il fantasma di Azzurina, Azzurina's ghost.
Azzurina is just the name or actually the nickname
that was given to a girl that disappeared in 1375,
when she was only five years old.
So the legend says that this baby girl was born albino
and it wasn't a good sign for superstition at that time,
so the population didn't really like her,
and because the father was afraid something would happen to her,
he always made her be followed by two guards.
One day there was a storm and she was playing with a ball
and that fell into the ice cell, the ice box of the house,
and she went to catch it.
Guards say that they heard the scream and when they went in,
mind you there was no window or other door where she could escape from,
they didn't find her anymore.
Why the name Azzurina?
That's because the mother, because she didn't want people to just discriminate her,
tried to dye her hair with natural pigments,
but that didn't really work well at that time,
so it just became light blue and she also had blue eyes,
so that's why her name became Azzurina,
even though she was supposed to be called Guendalina.
And people say that every five years during that day,
which was the solstice of summer,
you can hear screams and voices in the castle and that's Azzurina.
There's also a painting that was actually made after she was dead
because people said that that's what they saw in the castle.
By the way, the castle is in Montebello, Romagna.
On a lighter note, let's move to legend number three,
La Principessa Sicilia, Princess Sissidy, Sicilia.
So it's said that once upon a time in a far, far country of the east,
a girl was born, a princess.
Everyone in the country was really excited for this new girl to be in the country, to be alive,
but an oracle said that when she turned 15,
she would die eaten by a monster if she didn't go away taking the sea.
So when she turned 15, she did that in order to escape death,
and even though she thought she was about to die because it was a long, long trip,
she then landed in what today we call Sicily, Sicilia,
a beautiful land with trees, fruits, sun.
However, she found herself alone, so she started crying
because she was just alone in an unknown country, unknown land, right?
And a guy came to her telling her that everyone on the island was actually dead
because of a plague, and it was then them who populated the island.
And this is the legend of Princess Sissidy, Principessa Sicilia.
From the south, we move to north for the fourth legend, which talks about Hell's Door.
La Porta dell'Inferno, a Torino, in Turin.
Piazza Statuto, it's a square in Turin,
and it has a statue of an angel with his palms down, facing down,
and also he's looking down.
People say that he's Lucifer when he was kicked out from Heaven,
so he's just looking down where he is supposed to be now in Hell because he's going there.
And this is also because on his head of this statue,
there was once a pentacle upside down, which disappeared in a mysterious way.
Talking about Hell and not moving from Piemonte,
the fifth legend is about Il Ponte del Diavolo, Satan's Bridge.
So the name of this bridge comes from the fact that according to the legend,
it was Satan himself who built the bridge,
because it happened that the bridge fell down twice,
so the third time it was Satan himself who came on Earth and was like,
look, I'm going to do it for you, okay?
Just give me the soul of the first being that crosses the bridge.
Population was so smart that they sent a dog, actually,
so he couldn't in the end take anybody's soul, not from humans at least.
He got really angry and he stomped his feet on the ground,
making what today is called Marmitte dei Giganti,
Giant's Pot, which the legend says it's basically Satan's feet.
Something else that is said to justify this geological phenomena,
which is not only under the bridge but nearby as well,
is that the Giant's Pot is where Satan cooked meal for his helpers
that did actually help him to build the bridge.
So either way, Satan was there, the legend says.
As I was saying, there are plenty of legends in Italy,
a lot of them with gnomes, elves and fairies, gnomi, elfi e fate,
but I hope you liked my selection of legends.
Let me know in the comments which one you liked the most
and remember, if you haven't done it yet,
to sign up for your free lifetime account on italianpod101.com.
I'll see you soon, thanks for watching, ciao ciao, bye bye.

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