A spectacular style statement by Melania Trump at Jimmy Carter’s funeral 🌹
With impeccable elegance and mastery, she delivers a stunning moment that blends art, fashion, Italian designers, Rodin’s sculptures and a heartfelt tribute to love
Let’s explore why in this Thread 🧵
Everyone wondered what Melania Trump was wearing
Well, she was wearing a magnificent black coat by the Italian fashion house Valentino, embellished with a large white collar depicting a sculpture
It is a print from Valentino’s 2019 collection, depicting two lovers in a passionate kiss surrounded by flowers and butterflies
This marvelous 2019 collection featured this romantic, delicate, and passionate print on various designs, including the one chosen by the future First Lady 🌹
A tender, delicate, and appropriate tribute to Jim and Rosalynn Carter 🌹
But there’s more
The creative director of the fashion house at the time was the famous Italian 🇮🇹 Pierpaolo Piccioli ✨
Pierpaolo, an artist of extraordinary talent, incredibly poetic and virtuous, was inspired by the famous sculptor Rodin for this collection!
Bringing together art, fashion, sculpture, talent, and poetry 🌹
Moreover, at the end of the runway show for the collection, an excerpt by Scottish poet Robert Montgomery was included, reading:
“The people you love become ghosts inside you, and like this, you keep them alive.” 🤍
At this point in our analysis, would you agree with me on how wonderful and delicate Melania Trump was?
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The North–South Economic Divide in Italy: Historical, Economic, and Socio-Cultural Causes
The economic divide between Northern Italy (regions such as Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont) and the South (the Mezzogiorno, including Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia) is one of the most persistent structural problems in Italian history.
Despite the unification of 1861, today the southern per-capita GDP stands at roughly 58–60% of that of the Centre-North, with unemployment rates twice as high (over 20% in the South versus 6–8% in the North) and a dependence on state subsidies that has generated a vicious circle of welfare dependency.
This imbalance is not innate but arises from a complex interplay of historical, economic, socio-cultural, and other factors (geographical, political, institutional).
Below is an exhaustive analysis—based on historical and economic studies—showing how the gap pre-existed the Unification but dramatically widened in the decades that followed.
Explanation Part 2
Historical Causes
The roots of the divide go back thousands of years, accentuated by unification and by dynamics of “internal colonialism.”
Before unification (that is, prior to 1861), the North benefited from autonomous development: the Lombard invasion (6th century) fostered the rise of medieval city-states (10th–13th centuries), which developed a mercantile and proto-industrial bourgeoisie and became integrated into European trade routes.
By contrast, the South was dominated by foreign monarchies (Normans, Swabians, Angevins, Spaniards, Bourbons), which imposed a centralized feudal system marked by unproductive latifundia and a lack of local autonomy.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1816–1861) had a primitive agrarian economy plagued by endemic malaria, deforestation, and poor irrigation, despite abundant natural resources; per-capita GDP was similar to or slightly higher than that of the North (according to Daniele and Malanima), yet the infrastructural gaps were enormous: 14,700 km of roads compared to 75,500 in the North, and only 184 km of railways versus more than 2,300.
The unification of 1861 imposed the Piedmontese model (centralist and liberalist), treating the South as an “internal colony”: southern resources financed northern debt (which had risen by 565% before 1860) and the “industrial triangle” (Turin–Milan–Genoa).
This led to brigantaggio (1860–1870), a peasant revolt suppressed by 120,000 soldiers under martial law (the Pica Law, 1863), which alienated the South from the nascent state and perpetuated hostility.
In the twentieth century, the First World War (1915–1918) channelled industrial contracts to the North, while Fascism (1922–1943) invested in southern infrastructure (e.g. the Apulian aqueduct) but in a clientelistic manner, without structural reform.
The Second World War devastated the South (Allied bombings, mafia-US alliances), and the post-war economic boom (1950–1970) industrialized the North through the Marshall Plan, leaving the Mezzogiorno largely agrarian.