The mysteries of Italian shutters

I’ve noticed that in Italy most shutters are always closed—even in houses where people are living and seem to be home. I’ve wondered why so many shutters are closed so much of the time, and how people live with them shut, so I asked some Italian friends.

One friend thinks that it is an artifact from an earlier way of living and happens more in small villages like ours with an older population than in larger, more age-diverse cities like Milan. Traditionally a house would have only one room that was heated and the whole family would gather there to stay warm whenever they were in the house. You’d cook, eat, and basically live in this room and the shutters would be open. Bedrooms were used only for sleeping and shutters were always closed. Closed shutters help to insulate from the cold (and the heat in summer) and also protect expensive windows from weathering.

Another friend confirmed that she thinks of rooms as divided between light rooms and dark ones. The dark ones are only for sleeping, and the light ones are where you go once you get up.

With central heating it was no longer necessary to gather in one room close to a heat source, but old cultural habits are slow to die. In many families it is considered rude to hang out in a room by yourself—when home everyone needs to be in the same room. This habit even extends to my friend, who is in his early 30s, and lives with a woman who is a couple years younger. He finds it amusing that she feels that they need to be in the same room together when they are home. Quite a difference with our American tendency to all be off in our own rooms, only coming together at meals, or for a movie.