Alessandra Selmi, writer: “Mussolini came to power because of the rage of the poor”

Alessandra Selmi (Monza, 46 years old) arrives at the hotel near Crespi d'Adda - the town founded by the Crespi family for the workers of their looms - driving.

After the success of her novel

Her Dream of the Crespi Family

(Planet), she has become the best guide to the pioneering textile colony in Italy that is today a UNESCO heritage site.

She drags a large suitcase and waves apologetically: “It's just one night, but I didn't know what to wear.”

Is dreaming of a town for employees dreaming of a business or a utopia?

Many dreams in one.

For its founder, Cristoforo Crespi, it was the opportunity to rescue himself.

He was 44 years old, the age of an old man in the 19th century, and some businesses had not worked out for him.

He bought land next to the Adda River and saw what others did not see: a town for the workers of his looms.

Did he do it for money?

The difference between his way of getting rich and that of so many current businessmen is that he made money while maintaining care and respect for his 2,000 employees.

He wanted them to be happy so they wouldn't leave.

He assumed that, from a certain level of power, to take care of your interest you must take care of that of others.

He controlled them, but Google's control is greater than that exercised by any boss of the late 19th century.

Children and women worked on the looms in 12-hour days.

Yes. But his control, in part, benefited the worker: I control you by taking care of you and eliminating your worries.

He built a school, bathrooms and even a theater.

If I give you some comfort, you will not leave the town, you will not organize strikes.

At the beginning of the 20th century, in an Italy raised in protests that led to the assassination of King Umberto I, Crespi d'Adda was a happy island.

Or quiet.

No riots.

The workers went from a barrack to an apartment or a small house with a garden.

The key is that the Crespi gave a little more.

Not just the minimum.

They imported the idea of ​​the Manchester colonies and improved it.

Being well by doing well cannot be reduced to simple utilitarianism.

Was it a paternalistic stance?

Definitely.

Although our society is more infantile than that of the 19th century, we smell paternalism because we have higher schooling rates.

Entrepreneurs, throughout Italy, were a father figure.

They guided the workers.

Of course there were abuses, but it was a relationship of mutual interest.

At the end of the 19th century, 70% of Italy was illiterate.

It's not that they didn't know how to read, they didn't know what hygiene was.

They lived with mice and bedbugs.

They washed perhaps once a month, in the river.

So it's not philanthropy but mutual care.

But giving is always ambivalent, right?

Is it given out of generosity?

Out of interest?

Did religion have anything to do with that humanistic vision?

The Crespi were very religious.

They had a church built equal to that of the city they came from: Busto Arsizio.

Their bond with the town that bears their name was such that they are buried there.

His mausoleum presides over the cemetery.

The company paid the workers for the funeral and the cross.

How did you contrast the information?

The company's archives belong to the Capriate San Gervasio City Council.

There are essays about the town, but, incomprehensibly, the human story was missing.

"I spend two years researching. The framework and the data are real. Then I build the characters," says the Italian writer. Alessandro Grassani (Contact)

His books reconstruct a historical moment from people's lives.

It seems to me that it is the way to take the reader there.

Reconstructing a historical moment, what can be invented and what cannot?

I spent two years researching.

The frame and data are real.

Then I build the characters.

That Pope Julius II had a mistress named Lucrezia or feared Rodrigo Borgia is a fact.

That I told him exactly what I put in his mouth... In the end, each writer writes about himself.

When Cristoforo Crespi first saw his factory, did he feel very different from when Alessandra Selmi first saw his published novel?

The writer's effort consists of trying to understand without judging.

Silvio Crespi, the heir, had the first highways in Italy built and his uncle founded the Corriere della Sera.

Cristoforo, the father, was born poor and became rich, and he, lacking a sense of sacrifice or because he was building someone else's dream, took the opposite path.

Who was freer?

He who receives much has little choice.

Spain is still a monarchy.

Can the children of kings choose?

Can they choose to be honest or dishonest?

Maybe not even that.

The Crespi family's dream has become yours: a long-selling bestseller.

Our dreams pull us.

Before knowing how to write, she dreamed of being a writer.

When you have something like that inside you, it guides your decisions.

It is not far from the obsession that Cristoforo Crespi or Giuliano della Rovere had with building a textile colony or with becoming pope.

I live in books, the more I read, the more I know myself.

I have needed to live what I have lived to write this book.

He has dedicated it to his painful roots and the lush garden they have generated.

Why did they hurt?

My mother had the courage to give me the opportunity to choose.

It is natural to be afraid that children will make mistakes.

Leaving children free to develop as people requires strength, courage and generosity.

You have to trust.

And she did it while alone.

My parents separated when she was 30 days old.

Come on, he... she disappeared.

And she raised me making decisions like not baptizing me so that I would do it, or not, when I had knowledge.

Then you go and start writing about

Pope Julius II.

About the person who became that pope.

My mother saw me make a mistake and, far from arguing with me, she was prepared to help me get up.

what's is his mistake?

In many things.

I studied economics, I count on my fingers, to secure a job.

Did you experience financial difficulties?

No. My mother worked in the Public Administration.

And maybe that's why she wanted a freer life for me.

I believe that letting a person free is loving them.

Between parents and children and between couples.

It's hard because we tend to want to own and control.

But my mother let me fly.

That's why she talked about flourishing.

In his books there are characters who feel abandoned.

Traumatic events leave a scar that, paradoxically, allows you to see things that others do not see.

It gives you a sixth gear.

What do you share with the Crespi patriarch?

The desire to be able to achieve something you are proud of.

The pursuit of that achievement builds you.

He has written about the darkness of the papacy.

When it was something very different because the pope dedicated himself to waging war as an absolute monarch.

He has written about Julius II, who commissioned the Sistine Chapel frescoes from Michelangelo, without talking about Michelangelo.

I wanted to write about the man, Giuliano della Rovere, who, having taken a vow of poverty as a Franciscan, discovers that he has unbridled ambition within him.

I was interested in the path: more in the people than in the characters, more in the journeys than in the achievements, which is why the novel ends when he is elected pope.

Bringing out what we have hidden motivates me.

“Only the strongest, the most determined, the most evil survive in the swamp of the Roman curia.”

In the 15th century, the pope was a head of state who, with a dagger and a crucifix, defended the limits of his territory.

Julius II shouted: “Death to the invader!”

Today the Pope would talk about acceptance and tolerance.

However, the power dynamics and strategies are the same: the most ruthless rise to the top.

And Pope Francis?

Believers say that God has chosen him.

Did the devil choose those of the 15th century?

That would open up the issue of free will.

When man makes mistakes, does he do it because he is free or because God makes him make mistakes?

Faith has not found an answer.

Nepotism, simony..., in the 15th century the Church had no scruples.

They imposed rules that they did not respect.

Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI, humiliated Christianity.

He was the man furthest from God.

But at that time they were all similar: eager for power and money and ready to go as far as murder... Giuliano della Rovere fears that Alexander VI will kill him and wants to kill him.

Power knows no friends.

Has changed?

I believe that power always works the same: removing obstacles.

Sometimes they chose the most malleable pope to avoid a pope contrary to their interests.

In his essay The Sorrows of a Young Editor he claims that there are more Italian writers than readers.

It is sad, an error as contemporary as it is arrogant.

The hardest job of an editor is dealing with writers.

You must understand their susceptibility.

Are we a susceptible society?

We trust money more than people.

We distrust.

I'm lucky: I would put my life in the hands of my editor.

That is my level of confidence and, therefore, his professional capacity.

The only way is trust.

When one writes he has no distance from what he does.

It's like trying to get to know yourself: it looks clearer from the outside.

In the Crespi factory they worked 12 hours.

How many do you work?

I am my own boss.

That said, self-exploitation is exploitation with a wrong alibi.

Is your husband your reader?

He barely reads.

We don't share that.

But if I kept talking about books when I got home I would go crazy.

How did you know him?

In the gym.

Almost the only time I went I found a husband.

25 years ago.

He is patient and concrete.

We compensate each other.

He is the person who brings me down to the ground.

"Writing puts you against the wall, it asks you questions bigger than your own," says the author of 'The Dream of the Crespi Family'. Alessandro Grassani (Contact)

To be a writer is it necessary to be humble or ambitious?

For almost everything it is better to be humble.

That doesn't mean being passive.

But to write one must want to do it.

I would almost say I need to do it.

If you don't want it obsessively, it's difficult to get it.

Is there a formula to make a

best seller?

In theory there are ingredients: a story written with passion, that speaks to people and reflects an era... But best sellers are not laboratory products.

Success is elusive.

You can't write to be successful.

It is better to follow the story that follows you.

It was his case.

My grandmother visited Crespi d'Adda.

She advised me to go but I didn't.

When he died I remembered it.

I think that if I were younger I would not have been able to tell this story.

Is homosexuality still a problem in 21st century Italy?

In the 19th century they imprisoned you for being one.

Only the rich could buy intimacy.

Today that does not happen, but Italy is, with Romania, Poland or Hungary, one of the 11 countries, of the 27 European countries, that has not legalized homosexual marriage.

I am in favor.

And it seems that the Pope too.

The other day he warned to stop hypocrisy with homosexuals and denounce businessmen who exploit people.

At the time of Julius II, would they have already poisoned him?

It would have been a discordant note.

Today it is too.

In Italy the bishops bless new buildings.

I dont think is bad.

I am not Catholic, but if no one forces you to do something you don't want to do—like get married in the Church or wear a veil you don't want to wear—I believe in tolerance.

If we do not show signs of how different we are, it will be difficult for us to admit how different we are.

“I have learned to observe people.

It is one of the few consolations that God offers us when we begin to grow old.”

I am fascinated by studying people.

It's not gossip.

It is humanity.

Experience allows you to see.

My grandmother knew what was happening to me without me telling her.

It was age.

Life's disaffections may lead you to develop other interests.

It's a survival strategy, right?

Are all happy families alike?

The happy moments, yes.

But pain is the root that makes a garden grow in a person.

I also believe that happiness is a choice that is developed through willpower.

Life is easier with money, but not happier.

Does love not judge?

Does not accept.

Unconditional love doesn't mean anything goes, it means that pain is addressed while still loving.

Whoever wants to change the other does not love.

We all have positive and negative aspects, but to love you have to take the whole package.

In your novel, do women rule in silence?

At Crespi d'Adda, two-thirds of the workers were women and children.

They had the same working hours, they were paid a third of their salary, and when they got home they had to do housework and take care of the children.

It cannot be said that they were in charge.

But that effort gives authority.

The Benigno Crespi textile company was supported by women.

During the First World War they were the ones that not only prevented its closure, they multiplied profits by manufacturing fabrics for airplanes.

Despite this, power continues to be held by men: the owners, the bosses, the popes... are men.

Does the relationship with children define the seasons?

At the end of the 19th century they were laborers.

They advised having more than one in case they died or went to war.

Did the World War end the textile colony?

Yes. It was a closed world.

It was not necessary to go out.

There were social revolts and strikes throughout northern Italy, but not in the colony.

There was self-sufficiency and ignorance.

But the First World War broke the isolation.

The cost of living increased, there were increasingly poor people, more anger, and rage leads to protest and fascism channels that rage.

A little like now.

Mussolini came to power because of the rage of the poor.

Like populist movements.

The same recipe: playing with people's stomachs and fears.

Life changes very little.

History repeats itself.

They talk about homeland, but when soldiers die they think of their mother, not their country.

“What you give is what you keep.”

We don't own anything.

The sooner you learn it, the sooner you know how to live.

It's the theme of the novel I'm working on.

How have you learned it?

Writing puts you against the wall, it asks you questions bigger than your own.

What do you look for when you write?

A good book is a friend that you find at night, when you come home after a difficult day.

You put on your pajamas and you know that you have someone waiting for you on the table.

I don't think he can teach the readers anything because I myself study and learn every day.

But I would like to give them shelter, company.

When you are reading, you take a moment away from your own life.

That is the essential thing: accompany.

Books have saved my life.

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