Column: mad professor Sergio

It is the home of Juventus, the setting of the film classic The Italian Job and the hometown of Carla Bruni. Sounds like Turin is an ideal city to have my first Italy experience. However, since last week I only think about Torino with a terrible feeling. Thanks to Sergio Canavero.

Who might that be, you might think. Until recently I had never heard the name. For my part it was a mustachioed truffle farmer from Brescia. Or an unemployed gondolier. I wish it was true. Sergio is a neurosurgeon in Turin. In the city where Hannibal heroically marched through the Alps with his elephants, he is poking a knife into a skull. None of that had upset me. I don't turn my hand around for a brain stem more or less. Neither does Sergio, which is why he has a new plan: transplanting heads.

The best man didn't get this completely out of thin air, he says. After all, this was already done in the 70s. What he forgets to mention is that this was not about people, but about monkeys. And that after their awakening, these monkeys cried out in pain and confusion, could not eat and after nine days died because their little bodies knocked their heads. Small step towards humanity, according to Sergio.

In theory, it would be very welcome in a vastly aging Italy. In Turin, for example, more than thirty percent of the inhabitants are elderly. Still, it's hard for me. The body of a young well-trained god with something more like a huge raisin incarnate with hollow, dull eyes. I would also feel betrayed if that ancient pizza baker sprints over to me if I run away again without paying. Because yes, I choose my victims wisely.

No, the Turin of the mad professor Sergio Canavero wouldn't be for me. Just give me the charm of a drizzly home game of The old lady. In the stands with an extra strong espresso and a sandwich with pancetta and too much mozzarella. That seems like something to me. I want a Very Old Italian with a Very Old Body to try to show me the way to it Museo Dell'Automobile. I will listen to him and not understand a word of it. But the careful and fragile gestures he makes with his hands are the real Italy to me.