La Bella Figura • noun • (lah bell-ah fih-goo-rah)
Definition: The Beautiful Figure
Origin: Italian
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My book THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME was released last week on October 12, 2021!
The book has received glowing reviews and Publishers Weekly says that THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME is one of the top books of Fall 2021.
You can order the book—including the audiobook—and watch recordings of my book tour discussions at Eaton and the New York Public Library at thecrimewithoutaname.com.
When I was an undergraduate student at Furman University, I spent a semester abroad in France and at the end of my semester I visited Rome for about a week or so. This was my first time in Italy and I was immediately struck by the cadence of the people and culture there.
I obviously anticipated the difference in language, but the difference in culture and rhythm was the most noticeable. France, especially Paris, is known for its beauty and culture as is Italy. However, the Italian manifestation of beauty and culture was vastly different from France’s and I enjoyed being able to embrace these differences without having to say that one iteration was better than the other.
Hypothetically, I could prefer one aspect of Italian culture over France’s, but this would only be a matter of personal preference and not a judgment on an entire culture. While in Italy, I thought about the embracing and balancing of difference without stigmatizing or looking down upon things that are considered different. These thoughts countered American ethnocide long before I knew the word.
Through observing and continuing to explore Italian culture, it became clear that beauty and goodness have a distinct linguistic and philosophical connection that is specific to Italy. Essentially, the beauty of the Italian landscape has cultivated a culture that encourages Italian people to sustain and exude the beauty of their land. Exuding and sustaining beauty is interwoven with living a good life, and the personal expression of Italian beauty is often called La Bella Figura.
Beauty and Darkness
The Italian Renaissance brought Europe out of the Dark Ages, and many of the ideas of the Renaissance era have influenced the work of SCL. However, our focus has not been on simply rekindling the ideas of that era, such as embracing Stoicism and various Greek philosophies, but in understanding the interconnectedness of language, philosophy, art, philanthropy, and government to cultivate transcendent, sustainable change.
During the 15th century, the de Medici family invested the equivalent of $500 million in philanthropic works which eventually culminated in the birth of the Italian Renaissance. The foundation of their philanthropic investments derived from funding philosophical endeavors.
They supported philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino who traveled to Greece to study Plato and eventually translated Plato’s work into Latin and cultivated Neoplatonism. The de Medici’s believed that philosophy and language could encourage people to lead better, more fulfilling lives and that philosophy could also inspire art, architecture, city planning, and governing.
By investing in philosophy, the de Medici’s helped cultivate an Italian philosophical vision that connected beauty with goodness, and soon thereafter their investments funded projects that encouraged Italians to live beautiful, good lives.
The artists they funded created paintings and sculptures that exuded this philosophy. Powerful residents of Florence and the rest of Italy were encouraged to manifest this philosophy too. Cities were redesigned with an emphasis on surrounding people with beautiful images and structures so that they are—consciously and subconsciously—encouraged to live beautiful, good lives.
Italy’s new philosophy and language regarding beauty and goodness elevated their people out of the darkness of the Middle Ages and birthed the Italian Renaissance. And while the Renaissance may have ended centuries ago, millions of people still travel to Italy so that they can experience the beautiful cities and culture that were birthed from this transformational philosophical shift.
The remnants of the Renaissance still influence Italian culture today and la bella figura is a manifestation of Italy’s philosophy of beauty and goodness.
La bella figura literally means “the beautiful figure,” but this translation does not adequately define the phrase. Beauty and goodness are interwoven, so it is not merely the act of looking beautiful. One way to interpret the phrase could be a merging of internal and external beauty through consistently expressing both types of beauty.
La bella figura is not just dressing well, but also how you treat other people. It’s not just about owning nice things, it’s about sustaining a beautiful home and environment. It is a harmonious relationship between life and beauty. Italians are encouraged to exude la bella figura and avoid la brutta figura, or the ugly figure.
Despite the goal being a beautifully effortless appearance, La bella figura requires effort and so it is impossible to exude la bella figura all of the time. It is not perfection. Instead, it is a concise phrase with profound philosophical underpinnings that encourages an entire culture to become beautiful, good people.
When I first visited Italy, I felt la bella figura without even speaking the language or being a scholar of the Italian Renaissance. This is an example of how philosophy and language can change the world when interwoven within a culture.
La Bella Figura and the Façade of Beauty
La bella figura created a profound cultural shift and its expression requires an authentic cultural connection, but within our increasingly commodified and culturally destructive environment, people can be encouraged to express a façade of beauty instead of la bella figura.
Someone who appears beautiful, but is not a beautiful or good person on the inside is not la bella figura.
Unfortunately, beauty is far too often used as an act of deception and not as an expression of one’s philosophical commitment towards being a good person. Today, social media is one of the primary ways the appearance of beauty is used to deceive people. Far too often, it’s used as a way to cultivate the appearance of a beauty that does not exist, and social media users feel pressured to live up to impossible, non-existent standards of beauty.
This dangerous perception of beauty exists because these beauty standards are disconnected from reality.
The philosophical concepts of beauty and goodness cultivated during the Renaissance encouraged people to find their internal beauty and express it externally. Italy cultivated the expression of individual beauty by creating beautiful environments that empowered people to embrace and exude their individual beauty, and the collective beauty of their community and culture. By surrounding people with beauty and goodness, people naturally aspired to be beautiful and good.
You cannot expect people to become beautiful and good people without surrounding them with the wisdom and inspiration to become their best selves. Tragically, this philosophical lesson from the Renaissance is often overlooked, and some people choose to believe that beauty and goodness come from divine or religious sources instead.
La bella figura might be a phrase unique to Italy, but its lesson remains universal. In order to become our best selves so that we can express beauty and goodness, it is imperative that our environment exudes beauty and inspires us to lead a good life.