Christ Stopped at Eboli

“There should be a history of this Italy, a history outside the framework of time, confining itself to that which is changeless and eternal, in other words, a mythology. This Italy has gone its way in darkness and silence, like the earth, in a sequence of recurrent seasons and recurrent misadventures. Every outside influence has broken over it like a wave, without leaving a trace.”

So wrote Carlo Levi—doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of conscience—in describing the land and the p…