Again, Mrs. Meyer has posted her answers to a host (sic) of fan questions at her web site. As promised, they are mostly about New Moon, but, sadly, they are almost all about New Moon the movie. There are some good ones, though, amidst the cinema fluff and I am posting one relatively bookish or story related question every day this week along with my ‘Top Ten Things To Know about New Moon.’
Today: The Volturi. Just as with the names, Mrs. Meyer ducks the question but tells us something interesting along the way.
I was wondering what made you choose Italy for the home of the Volturi? Is there a special meaning about Italy in your life or was it a random setting? Thanks :] – Kerry K.
Mrs. Meyer: I chose Italy because I needed a place with a really long history. Choosing Volterra itself was a strange thing. I wrote the whole Volturi scene before I’d picked a location for it. For the first time, I was planning to create a fictional city, because at this point, I was starting to realize that people were actually going to read this book, and I was nervous about what the real life citizens of Forks would think, and more especially what the real life people of La Push would think—I’d taken some rather big liberties with their fictional history, and I wasn’t sure if they would find it amusing or irritating. So, to avoid similar moments of panic, I decided to set my clan of ancient ruling vampires in a made up place. I was going to call this place “Volturin,” and I knew it needed to be located in Tuscany about an hour or two from Florence—I’d already written the drive from the airport.
I’d also already written my descriptions of the plaza and clock tower and Volturi turret. So I pull up a map of Tuscany, trying to decide if Alice should drive north, south, east, or west, and look at that—there is a city named Volterra just about an hour from Florence. So I google image search Volterra, and the very first picture that comes up is the Volterra clock tower. Chills. I called my sister (who’d already read about my fictional Volturin) and told her to go look at Volterra. She freaked, too, because she’d pictured it the same way, too. It was actually a rather creepy moment.
After that, I gave up the idea of creating a fake city and just hoped the people of Volterra did not mind a few vampires. When I went to visit a few years back, all the people I talked to were totally fine with the vampires—what had upset them was the fountain. They don’t have one, and think their square is perfect without it.
Three quick notes:
(1) The question is, “Why are the Volturi in Italy?” Her answer is, “Because I needed a place with a really long history.” Take a second and think about that. When you think “ancient,” is Italy the first place that comes to mind? Me neither. This is a non-answer.
(2) Perhaps a better question, one which would take the time element out of the answer, would have been, “Why did you choose to put the Bad Guys of your books, the Volturi, in Italy? Is there something about Italy that you think resonates with Evil?” Consequent to her question, we might also ask “What was it important that the city be in close proximity to Florence?” Florence is not only the home of Dante but of hermeticism in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
(3) I’ll suggest two things here as my guesses to what the “real answers” are.
First, the proximity to Florence is important because New Moon is the nigredo of the Twilight Saga and Mrs. Meyer closes the books as a tip of the hat both to Shakespeare’s Verona, the setting of Romeo and Juliet, New Moon’s story scaffolding, and to the alchemists of Firenze.
Second, the bad guys are in Italy because, historically and in current LDS beliefs to some degree as a reflection of that history, the “Whore of Babylon” is the Roman Catholic Church. The Volturi are the ancient church or Roman Catholics in the Mormon allegorical “Everyman” play that is Twilight. Italy is the natural place for them to be located, because Italy is the home to the Catholic Church.
Your comments and corrections, of course, are coveted. (Yes, I know the Vatican is the home of the Papacy; you can keep that correction to yourself and share your more substantive ones!).
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They are rather mafia-like, too. The suits, rather than robes, that the movie people have chosen, really add to the effect that they are making Edward and Co. an offer they can’t refuse. ( Cue the Godfather music)
Perhaps just because I was teaching Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” recently, I see some real setting connections with Volterra: festival, subterranean tunnels, rock walls, unsuspecting doofuses being led to their doom for a “drink,” and a veneer of civility over murderous villany. -
Her answers are certainly vague, obfuscating just why it was so important that the Volturi be in Italy. I like the Mafia idea, Elizabeth.
I haven’t read Cask since my schooldays, so I don’t remember much about it. Good catch. It seems a rather Lovecraftian passage, too, as they’re led through the sewers, the growing horror; just the feel of the little I’ve read of him.
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I think the term “morality play” might be better than “Everyman play”: *Everyman* is a morality play, but all morality plays aren’t *Everyman.* *Everyman* isn’t even necessarily a typical morality play.
Evidently, there is also a connection with Stendhal’s *On Love.* Go figure. I didn’t even know Volterra was a real city.
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guys guys, take it easy.
When somebody thinks of a place with a long history (and a place that still exists) you have only a couple of choises, and Italy surely is among them (or do you think 3000 years of cultural history -not vampire history- is a short period?).
Leave the complot theory about mafia, catholic church, o yeah and the alchemist of Florence (haha) … puh … You´re really heavy, guys. -
Ah, the sweet, patronizing, dismissive voice of skepticism…
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I just saw the film and the sets for the Volturi section really supports John’s argument. The audience chamber looks like a Counter-Reformation church, the festival celebrants are dressed in cardinal red gowns, and they are carrying a heavily gilded statue on a platform.
I’m not so happy about the use of anti-Papist iconography. It bothers me, but you’d have to be blind not to see it there. There are some other things about the argument I don’t quite agree with, but I’d have to say that here, you are right on the money.
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Spot on, John. The Volturi / Catholic Church connection wasn’t even subtle. It jumped out at me immediately. She’s tip-toeing around with this answer and it disturbs me that she’s trying to pass it off as “creepy” coincidence.
I, too, can come up with many civilizations which are much more ancient than Italy. I’m not buying it.
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Tut Man…
I even didn’t have to think twice of the answer. The first thing that struck my mind was the resemblance of ‘Volturri’ and ‘Volterra’ to ‘Vatican’. When I read about Mormon, it’s almost describing about the ‘good vampire’, they are ‘new’ and they don’t suck blood. Don’t forget about the organization of ‘Vatican’ or ‘Voluturri’, and being the ‘largest’ coven.. or whatever….
And for civilization, I’d pick Egypt or China as places of thousand years old.
Such a shame if it turns out to be true..
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Do you suppose she actually named the Volturi after she found Volterra on a map then?? Just askin’…
Of course, the idea that vampires were chosen, with their distinctive feature of drinking blood, to be the monster of Meyer’s moment, leads one straight to the connection to Christianity. Anyone who knows anything about Christianity knows that drinking wine (or grape juice) as part of the ritual of Holy Communion is at the centre of Christian religious practice. Whether the Christian believes in transubstantiation or not, Holy Communion is still about drinking something symbolic of blood.
Meyer could have chosen to make Edward a werewolf and Jacob a vampire, or either of them a merman, or an elf (etc) but she didn’t. Why not? The most obvious answer is that the consumption of blood – and the connection of this with everlasting life – is central to the religious allegory as well as the surface-level story. Unless you believe the stories are only using vampirism to represent an illicit desire for sex. I don’t.
As an aside, the religious connection explains why Jasper, who has come to “Vegetarian” Vampirism from a Southern US inter-coven (denominational) war struggles so much with wanting to drink human blood still. He’s a convert to Mormonism, but he’s really only in it for Alice. It interests me how honest – within the protection of an allegory – Meyer is in her portrayal of the struggles of those who choose a life based upon religious belief. The character of Rosalie provides another example.
It is also interesting trying to work out which Protestant denomination is represented by each mini-coven in Breaking Dawn.
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Don’t forget that in the book in Edward’s house the very old cross was on the wall and in the movie Twighlight the cross was leaning on it’s side on the floor near/on the staircase!!! Yikes!!!!!
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