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photo by ajay singh |
10 Questions for Massimo Ciavolella
Massimo Ciavolella, chair of the Italian Department, has spent the past 35 years exploring the historical relationship between medical, literary and philosophical ideas about human passions, especially love. He talked to UCLA Today Staff Writer Ajay Singh about lovesickness, food and the European way of life.
Are we what we think?
I don’t really know if we are what we think, or if the way we think is because of what we are, but certainly what we are and what we think is determined by many factors: family, education, even by factors such as what we eat.
How did you get interested in the subject of love?
While writing my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of British Columbia, I came across a treatise by a renowned 14th-century Florentine physician, Dino del Garbo, on a poem about the nature of love by a Florentine poet, Guido Cavalcanti, one of Dante’s closest friends. The more I read, the more I realized this was a topic you simply couldn’t put down.
What were you most fascinated by?
Cavalcanti wrote an extremely scientific poem about love — how it is born, how it develops, what is its symptomatology. This was at a time when just about every medical book had at least a brief chapter each on melancholy, madness and love as a disease. Some of the most popular of these books were designed like medical guides that people could bring along.
Why?
Suppose you’re a pilgrim who falls in love with someone on the way, and you feel anguished and cannot eat and sleep. These books told you what it is you suffer from and how you can cure it.
A medical approach to love?
Love is passion. And because the nature of love is one of the most intriguing and complex passions, it makes sense to study it scientifically.
What are the consequences of excessive love?
Within a Christian context, excessive love can destroy everything around you, including the state, as well as, of course, the soul.
What do you make of books like “The Selfish Gene,” which has been enormously influential in arguing that our genes fool us into emotions like love to perpetuate our species?
All I can say, without having read the book, is that there seems to me a great divide between Anglo-American and European ideas of emotions. Anglo-Americans tend to rely much more on a system based on biochemistry and neurology, while Europeans feel attached to a system that stems out of psychoanalysis.
Speaking of differences, in Europe food is a way of life.
In France, food is still a way of life. In Italy, too, although not as much — the American example (of fast food) has been fairly negative. But in North America, things have improved greatly, by the way.
Why is appreciating good food so important?
We don’t always enjoy a business lunch. We enjoy food with friends, family and people we want to know. And food is connected, at least in Italian culture, with the pleasure of conversation.
What’s the secret of youth and longevity?
In 1558, a Venetian author, Alvise Cornaro, wrote a book, “The Sober Life,” which has been reprinted ever since. He recommended two things: good-quality food and moderation in eating. It is exactly what good dietitians suggest today.
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