Search - Fabrizio De Andre :: Buona Novella

The Gospel as seen by an anarchist

03/15/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This work, despite being based on non-official, popular versions of the Gospels and portraying Jesus Christ as a revolutionary and all-too-human figure, managed to get played -and praised- by the Vatican radio (in the early 70s) - and banned by the bigot Italian radio. If you listen to "Il testamento di Tito" - the imaginary last words of Tito, one of the two thieves crucified with Jesus, you can understand why. After criticizing, article by article, the strict and pharisaic application of Old Testament law that landed him in this situation, Tito sees in Jesus someone capable of teaching him love by not reacting to the violence inflicted upon him. Also remarkable "Maria nella bottega del falegname" (Mary visiting the shop of the man that his building the cross that is going to carry "two men that abandoned the army to steal and a man who teached always to desert war" i.e. Jesus) and the songs describing the infancy of Mary in the temple."