Some individuals are blessed enough to look beautiful even when they’re having a bad hair day. That was, in a sense, Italy on a grand scale in 1947. The country was coming out of World War II and 18 years of the rule of dictator Benito Mussolini. A LIFE story surveyed the postwar Italian landscape and fretted that the country was “on the brink of Communist revolution.”
That revolution didn’t happen, but still, Italy—birthplace of the Renaissance—had seen better days.
For its 1947 story LIFE sent staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on a tour of the country, and many of his pictures documented scenes of distress, with Italians doing their best to carry on amid bombed out buildings.
But even its those hard times Italy still looked beautiful, and Eisenstaedt even captured livelier scenes, most of which did not make it into the magazine. Eisenstadt photographed a packed La Scala opera house in Milan, American sailors enjoying the Piazza San Marco in Venice, and people at work in pasta factories and Tuscan wineries.
And LIFE’s generally dire account of the Italy did acknowledge that, amid the political unrest and troubling poverty, there were still tourists visiting and good times to be had:
“….with her surging vitality, Italy is showing signs of recovery. In her delightful restaurants the tourist can choose from among countless delicacies, though most Italians still do not get enough to eat. In her factories the production lines are running again….Even among venerable remains of past glory, transformed into modern rubble by the war, scholars are working to change the ruins back to their original state. Slowly, painfully, Italy is trying to rebuild herself.”
Eisenstaedt ranged widely during his tour of Italy, capturing images in Rome, Venice, Siena, Naples, Milan and more, venturing from tony resorts to struggling regions where the difficulties are plain to see. One of the shots that captures the mix well shows children playing amid the ruins of the Theatre of Marcellus, broken and magnificent all at once.
LIFE’s plaintive final note to its story was: “For sensitive people with an abiding lust for life, the Italians’ tragedy today is that they have never learned to govern themselves.”
Young men working in a pasta factory carried rods of pasta to drying rooms, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Young men carrying rods of pasta for drying, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Man hanging pasta noodles, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock
An Italian boy stood on top of a US Army tank left on the edge of the beach at Salerno, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The La Scala Opera House in Milan was at capacity for a performance conducted by Antonio Pedrotti, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A cellarman at Giannino’s handed a bottle of wine to a waiter; the cellar had about 1,500 different wines and liqueurs. Chianti flasks were in the foreground, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chianti flasks in storeroom of the Baron Ricasoli vineyards in Siena, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Men fishing near the bridge in Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The archway was all that remained in 1947 of a block of buildings near the main plaza of an Italian city that was heavily bombed during World War II.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Children played among the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. In background, the Palazzo Sermoneta, built atop the centuries-old ruins of Caesar’s Theater of Marcellus in Rome. 1947..
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Naples, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Workers in an olive grove south of Monopoli took a siesta after lunch under a favorite tree, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Shoeshine boys in slum neighborhood near the waterfront in postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A woman carried a tray of dough on her head through street of hilltop town in postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Two American sailors in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Beside damaged statues of the Monte Cassino Abbey, a lay brother made sketches that were to aid in the restoration process, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Women worked at a fabric factory in Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Newsstand, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Customers buying bread in the streets in Naples, Italy, in 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Women sewed outside their Trulli homes. Trulli are made from limestone boulders and feature conical or domed roofs. Roofs of Trulli are painted with signs to ward off evil. Italy, 1947.
.Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Two women passed by a wayside shrine near Castellamare, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Laundry hanging in main square of Burano, Venice, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Portrait of a woman standing near a ruins, Italy, 1947
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Postwar Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
People relaxed at a swimming pool in a resort in Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A woman in heeled sandals, Italy, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
