I knew I was going to like Benedetta before I properly knew her. I met her through Riccardo, who was already one of my friends and had only just started seeing her. I remember hosting a dinner at my parents’ house in Rome and him talking about this girl he had met. He told me, almost immediately, that he thought we would get along because we had similar taste.
Naturally, we stalked her Instagram. I remember looking at her and thinking: yes, this girl is cool. I think Benedetta and I followed each other before we had even properly met, and somehow I already knew we were going to become friends. Not long after, we spent a holiday together at my then-boyfriend’s house. I remember that period as one of the happiest of my life, and Benedetta is inseparable from the memory of it.
She is the most British Italian girl I know. She is from Florence, went to French schools, speaks perfect French, and has one of those voices I could listen to indefinitely: considered, precise, soft, with an accent and way of speaking that feel completely her. She studied politics and human rights, and there is something I love about the contrast between how gentle she is and how serious her mind is. I have always had the feeling that she is going to do something extraordinary with it.
Her taste feels similarly considered. Classical, elegant, polished, never cold. She is a cat mother, an aunt to a little girl she adores, and one of the most naturally caring people I know. The last time I visited her in Milan, I was eating gluten-free and she had already thought about where I could eat. It was such a small thing, but those are often the things I remember most about people.
With Benedetta, conversations tend to become deep without much effort. She is incredibly sweet, but there is also a seriousness and intelligence underneath that sweetness that I have always admired. She feels a little like a fairy to me, if fairies went to French school, studied human rights and had impeccable coats.
She’s calling me from her bedroom apartment in Padova, that she’s about to leave forever. She shows me the things she’s packing away. We’re on Facetime.
BENEDETTA: Okay. This… let me show you. I am packing my shit away because I am leaving this hellhole. I mean, it’s not that bad. There’s Santa Giustina over there. It’s cute.
YASMINA: It is cute.
BENEDETTA: Yeah. But anyways, I’m packing everything away because I have to leave the room on September 1st. But on Saturday… I mean, September 1st is a Tuesday, but I’m leaving on Saturday because by Tuesday I need to be in Milan for the new job.
YASMINA: Okay, so you’re moving to Milan.
Benedetta is moving back to Milan
BENEDETTA: I’m moving back.
Moving back to Milan because, studying politics and human rights, Milan is basically where you go if you want to work with companies or institutions in Italy. At most you go to Rome, but even there there isn’t exactly that much going on.
I’m going to work with Fondazione Francesca Rava, which is the foundation I went to Honduras with and the one I used to volunteer with.
I’m going to work on a project called In Farmacia per i Bambini, where basically you connect individual pharmacies in a certain area with an organization, so maybe a foster home, a community, or one of those places where women who are victims of violence go with their children.
Basically you organize this kind of collection through the pharmacies, and the goods are then donated to the community. Everything is centered around November, around November 19th, which is when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed.I’ll be working on this project until December. Then, who knows. I’m looking at Brussels, so fingers crossed.
YASMINA: You want to move to Brussels?
BENEDETTA: I don’t know, yeah. Mostly because if I want to do institutional affairs, Brussels and the EU are probably the best option.
I would love to work with the United Nations, but it’s not exactly easy, and there isn’t exactly that much money either, so, amazing.
No, honestly, I want to make money. That’s something I’ve realized. Is it ugly to say? Yes. But it’s true.
YASMINA: No, it’s important.
BENEDETTA: I mean, what am I supposed to do?
YASMINA: I was stalking you on LinkedIn because I needed to remember your parcours for this interview, and I saw that you wrote something about being interested in the intersection of healthcare…
BENEDETTA: Exactly.
YASMINA: And I was like, “Oh, this is new.”
BENEDETTA: But I think you don’t remember this. I wanted to… Okay, from the time I was four years old, I wanted to be a cardiac surgeon.
YASMINA: Okay, yes, I remember that. Yes, yes.
From the time I was four years old, I wanted to be a cardiac surgeon
BENEDETTA: Like, imagine a four-year-old…
YASMINA: What does a four-year-old know about cardiac surgery?
BENEDETTA: I knew everything I needed to know.
Back when YouTube still let you watch certain things, I used to watch operations.
YASMINA: How old were you?
BENEDETTA: From around seven onwards, I was genuinely studying it. I knew the whole structure of the heart. I was sure that was what I was going to do.
Then from cardiac surgery, I wanted to become a trauma surgeon and work in the army. I wanted to be a military doctor, in the military branch of the Red Cross.
That was my dream.
When I went to Rome for the June 2nd parade, every day for about a week we were rehearsing alongside basically every possible branch of the Italian military.
And all the guys and girls that I saw there, mind you…
YASMINA: Why?
BENEDETTA: Because they’re hot. They’re attractive. They’re so hot.
YASMINA: Because they’re in uniform?
BENEDETTA: Because they were in uniform. But also…
YASMINA: Yeah, there’s something hot about a uniform.
DIFFERENT LEVELS OF UNIFORM - HOT
BENEDETTA: There are different levels. There are different types of hot.
Like, there’s Carabiniere hot, but then there’s also riot police hot. You know? Different kinds of hotness. Different levels.
Every type was there.
Anyway, I kept seeing the military corps of the Red Cross and I… Oh my God, I could cry again.
I saw them every single day, and whenever they passed in front of me, because everyone had to march past for inspection, I would start sobbing.
I had always imagined myself doing that job, even though I’d never actually seen those people in real life.
Because who sees people in those roles in everyday life?
You see a police officer walking around and you can think, “Oh, it would be cool to be a police officer.”
But that role is so niche that you just don’t see those people around a city.
I thought I had moved on from that dream, but seeing them…
And it was beautiful because the military corps of the Red Cross would march in front of the volunteers from the Italian Red Cross, and whenever one group passed the other, they would salute each other.
There’s such a level of respect between them as healthcare colleagues.
And then there were also dogs doing CPR.
YASMINA: No fucking way, what?
BENEDETTA: Yes.
YASMINA: CPR? By dogs?
BENEDETTA: Yes.
YASMINA: On who? On a human?
BENEDETTA: On a human.
YASMINA: How does this happen? I love this. Wow.
BENEDETTA: It’s crazy.
So that was when I realized that the medical side had really stayed with me.
Then, because of some life circumstances, I ended up getting so behind with school that everything became kind of a mess. I did the last three years of high school in an Italian school, a normal Italian scientific high school.
I did biology, chemistry and all of that, had an absolutely insane teacher. I don’t know whether it was her fault or what, but biology became so awful for me that I gave up on that path.
I was already preparing for the medical school entrance exams, because back then there were still entrance tests.
But then, no medicine.
Human rights
And so, human rights.
It became my way of helping people, even if it wasn’t from a medical point of view.
Then, while studying, I realized that I could actually connect human rights back to medicine.
That’s where the intersection between the two worlds comes from.
My master’s thesis was about how neonatologists and physicians, so basically the medical field, contribute to advancing the recognition of newborn rights.
Rights that are specific to newborns, because legally they’re a bit marginalized. They’re not really considered that much.
They get put under this umbrella of children’s rights, but “children” is just too broad as an umbrella term.
So I realized that the medical world and the human rights world, and especially children’s rights, actually connect really well.
And it more or less reflects this intersection I’m interested in.
YASMINA: It’s true that you did a very specific master’s compared to a more general bachelor’s. When did you realize during your bachelor’s that this was what you wanted to focus on? Or had you actually already realized it before, from what you’re telling me?
BENEDETTA: International Relations is obviously very generic, but actually Human Rights is also incredibly broad.
There’s humanitarian law, refugee rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, the rights of people with disabilities… It’s so much.
I studied a bit of everything, but you really do have to specialize a lot.
I’ve seen master’s programs that, ignoring the cost because they obviously cost at least twenty thousand a year, connect the right to health with business analysis and things like that.
That could actually be really interesting.
We digress a bit over what I’m doing in Paris and my job. She asks me about how it’s like working in fashion.
BENEDETTA: Do you think you can actually stay healthy while working in an environment that toxic?
YASMINA: Yeah, I think I can. For now.
But you need to stay super alert. It’s so easy to fall into things.
I had a period this winter where I was starting to fall into certain things, but now I’m much, much more careful.
The dog really helped me, I have to say, because it’s like having a child.
BENEDETTA: Yeah, yeah.
YASMINA: You have a cat too.
BENEDETTA: Yeah, Teddy.
Teddy
YASMINA: But Teddy doesn’t live with you, does he?
BENEDETTA: No, he lives in Florence.
YASMINA: With your mom?
BENEDETTA: And my brother. He’s back in Florence from London.
YASMINA: Your older brother?
BENEDETTA: He’s the middle child. Then there’s my sister with Squishy.
YASMINA: Righ! You’re also an aunt to your sister’s daughter.
BENEDETTA: Yes, Beatrice, also known as Squishy.
YASMINA: Squishy.
BENEDETTA: Squishy is very squishy.
But no, Teddy doesn’t live with me. There were different periods where I was much sadder. And I thoguht about bringing Teddy to Padua, but he loves my mom, so I couldn’t do that to him.
And when you have to take care of someone, it’s like the airplane thing: make sure you put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others. The same applies when you have to take care of animals or people.
I always say that, honestly, I think Teddy got me through some extremely difficult times.
Even moments where I thought, “Okay, whatever. That’s it. Bye. I’m done,” if you know what I mean.
And then I would think, “No, but Teddy would stop seeing me come home. What would he think? That I abandoned him?”
YASMINA: No, I get that so much.
They’re these little beings, and there’s this part of the relationship where they really do feel like children to us. Paloma genuinely pulled me out of the shit. I was like, “Okay, now I have a daughter.”
I’m scratching my mosquito bites because that’s my worst habit ever.
BENEDETTA: I remember.
YASMINA: I forgot to put the mosquito repellent on and now, whatever. The Vape.
BENEDETTA: You call it Vape? I call it Vapé!
YASMINA: Anyway. So you’re leaving Padua. You’ve been in Padua for two years.
BENEDETTA: Yeah. Actually, I think some of the questions you prepared were about Padua.
YASMINA: I put some questions about Padua because it’s not a city I know. I’ve never been to Padua.
I had a “Veneto moment” in my life a couple of times, but now I’m very far removed from Veneto.
And I know you have some sort of connection to Veneto.
BENEDETTA: The connection is biological.
Both of my parents are from Padua.
YASMINA: Oh, I didn’t know that.
BENEDETTA: Both my parents are from Padua, but none of us children had ever actually lived in Padua until I moved here when I was twenty-two.
When I was little, my grandparents lived outside Padua, in these two small towns called Battaglia Terme and Monselice.
So when I came here in the summer to visit my grandparents, my idea of Veneto was basically those little towns where there is nothing. Literally nothing.
To me it was like that scene in the Hannah Montana movie where she’s like, “Hello, New York!” except she’s standing in the countryside.
That was me in Veneto.
Then I met Riccardo.
And my mom said, “This is karma, because you’ve spent your whole life talking shit about Veneto and now you’ve ended up with a guy from Veneto.”
He showed me completely different sides of Veneto: its history, the architecture, the art, even the culinary side.
And I was like, “Wait, so it’s not just countryside and cicadas?”
Wait, so it’s not just countryside and cicadas?
I absolutely did not move to Padua because I liked Veneto.
I absolutely did not move here because I liked Padua or because I wanted to connect to my roots.
Fuck the roots. I don’t care about them.
I moved because, at the time, Padua was the only university in Italy offering a master’s in this field.
I think now they’ve opened another one in Pisa. It was an extremely niche course, and Padua is a good university, with a very strong scientific approach.
Personally, I had a fairly bad experience here because it isn’t a stimulating city.
I’m kind of lazy by nature, so I need to be in an environment that pushes me, in a healthy way, to improve myself.
To go to the gym, to go after promotions…
YASMINA: I remember once we were talking about workouts and you told me you were struggling to find a good workout in the city.
BENEDETTA: Eventually I did find one.
But I’m used to more intense things, like HIIT workouts.
I did a lot of Pilates, even four times a week, but it doesn’t scratch my brain where I need it to be scratched, you know?
YASMINA: What’s your go-to workout, or your go-to movement?
I prefer the word movement to workout.
I’ve had really toxic relationships with the concept of working out.
So I don’t really “work out.” I run, but to me that’s movement.
I go running because my body needs it.
BENEDETTA: I like doing at least two intense workouts a week.
Usually it ends up being two because I’m pretty lazy and I don’t have much time.
I like more intense aerobic things, whether that’s running or kickfit, which is basically a fake boxing class.
YASMINA: What? It’s a class?
BENEDETTA: Yes. I love classes. I only go to classes.
I never go to the weights room, even though the gym I’m currently signed up to has this tiny, tiny little weights area with machines.
There’s always some girl in there. It’s a women-only gym, which I love because I hate men when they work out. They disgust me. I can smell the testosterone coming out of their pores.
YASMINA: You would love Paris. There are so many cool workouts.
BENEDETTA: I basically only do classes.
Twice a week I’ll do something more intense. Maybe another two times a week I’ll do Pilates.
In particular, I found an instructor who actually taught me how to use my core properly.
After ten years of doing Pilates, I finally understood how to actually engage your core even when you’re just sitting down. I like the contrast between working a muscle slowly and deeply versus using it quickly and pushing your heart and lungs. The human body needs to be able to do both.
I’ve also had ups and downs with this stuff. Now, instead of thinking about working out for aesthetic benefits, I think of my muscles as something that is there to be used. I need to work them. Otherwise, what’s the point of having muscles? But also, if you work out and train your muscles, those muscles need to generate new cells.
So you need protein. Have your protein. Don’t be afraid of eating that extra thing, and don’t be afraid of becoming too muscular because you need your muscles!!!
The same applies to all the other macronutrients, which I personally don’t track or anything. I’m more in this phase of thinking: you work out because it helps your body do what your body was meant to do.
It helps you live.
You need to put your body in the best possible conditions to help you live.
You need to put your body in the best possible conditions to help you live.
Classes also make me forget that I’m working out.
They detach me from that side of it.
It feels more like I’m doing something social that is good for me and also good for the people around me.
Milan
YASMINA: How do you feel about going back to Milan?
BENEDETTA: Milan shaped me in some way. I think it also helped me feel less sorry for myself, if that makes sense. It helped me grow up and realize that I am my own independent person, separate from what I’ve lived through. My past obviously shapes me, but it is not all of me.
In Florence, those dynamics were much stronger. I also think my relationship with Riccardo in Milan shaped me a lot. I don’t think Milan would have shaped me in the same way if Riccardo hadn’t been there.
I actually lived more like a Milanese person instead of like a student who simply happened to live in Milan. I think Milan shaped me much more than Padua did, even if the negative experience of Padua obviously had power too.
It definitely did something.
At the very least, it made me understand what I don’t like and what kinds of environments I don’t want to be in.
Elegance!!
YASMINA: For me, you’re one of the most elegant girls I know. And I don’t feel super elegant lately. Do you think elegance can be learned, or is it something inherent?
BENEDETTA: I saw that question and I was actually thinking about it. At first my answer was that it can be learned, it can be acquired. But thinking about it more, I think elegance is literally part of someone’s personality. Obviously, when it comes to personality, there’s the whole nature versus nurture thing.
One part of me thinks you’re born with elegance. Another part of me thinks that the environment you grow up in, your parents, your siblings, the places you go, where you travel, the schools you attend, the way you’re taught to sit at the dinner table, all shape your brain into having an elegant personality.
So I think it’s much more a personality trait and a way of being brought up than something you learn by watching some girl on Instagram explain etiquette.
Because that isn’t elegance.
YASMINA: I need to get off TikTok because I hate these girls who are like, “Here’s everything you need to know to become the classiest woman in the room.”
It’s not some blouse with lace details that’s going to make me classy.
BENEDETTA: No. That’s tacky.
That’s fake elegance.
I think a lot of people now confuse elegance with the whole old-money trend.
They think being elegant means going to watch a polo match. No.
You can be elegant in the middle of the countryside. It isn’t just about upper-class activities or the brands you wear. It’s about how you treat other people. How you present yourself to the world. How you speak to the shop assistant or the cashier at the supermarket. It’s also about respect.
You respect the environment around you and you respect yourself. You respect the way you treat yourself, how you treat others, how you present yourself, how you are reflected back to the world. You even care about, I don’t know, what materials are touching your skin because you’re aware that one thing might be better for you than another.
But it’s also about not being stuck-up. It’s about being down to earth, but with a specific kind of attention to detail.
And I think simplicity, elegance and attention to detail go hand in hand.
They complement each other.
So yes, I think it’s much more a question of personality and upbringing than something you can learn by reading a guide on how to become the most elegant woman in the world.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with money.
YASMINA: We’re almost at the end because I’m trying to keep the interviews around an hour long….
At the end there are two sections that need to be very quick because they’re rapid-fire questions.
BENEDETTA: Oh, which I hate.
YASMINA: Yes.
The first part is this or that, and then I’ll ask you a few things and you just have to say whatever comes into your head first.
Pastel colors or primary colors?
BENEDETTA: Primary colors.
YASMINA: Red or green?
BENEDETTA: Green.
YASMINA: Black or white?
BENEDETTA: White.
YASMINA: Cotton or silk?
BENEDETTA: Cotton.
YASMINA: Perfect or imperfect?
BENEDETTA: Perfect.
YASMINA: We’re very fashion-oriented.
New or vintage?
BENEDETTA: New.
YASMINA: Flowers or fruit?
BENEDETTA: Flowers.
YASMINA: Dinner for two or dinner for ten?
BENEDETTA: Dinner for two.
YASMINA: Florence, London or Milan?
BENEDETTA: London. Milan.
YASMINA: Croissant or cornetto?
BENEDETTA: Croissant.
YASMINA: Cooking or being cooked for?
BENEDETTA: Being cooked for.
YASMINA: What’s the best thing someone has ever cooked for you?
BENEDETTA: Oh my gosh. Help.
Something pretty simple: Riccardo makes these little rolls for me.
I think it’s chicken. Yes, I think it’s chicken.
He takes individual slices of prosciutto and individual sage leaves and prepares everything one by one. [Unclear passage.]
Sage is my favorite herb.
I love it so much.
YASMINA: I never have it here. I’m so bad at cooking. It’s literally my worst thing.
But I want to work on it.
Okay. A book that shaped you.
BENEDETTA: I have two answers.
The Late Mattia Pascal, because it made me realize that this desire I had when I was younger to escape wasn’t some completely unique experience.
It’s something that has been documented and that other people have lived through.
That feeling that something is wrong with you, that you need to leave your life behind and create a completely new one, is something humanity has experienced before.
More recently, a book I feel very deeply connected to is The Song of Achilles.
YASMINA: I always think about you when I think about that book.
I have it here because I’m renting my friend’s apartment. She’s a huge reader and she studied philosophy, so you can imagine how many philosophy books there are here. You actually share a name. Every time I see it I think, “I need to start this.”
BENEDETTA: I love it.
YASMINA: Favorite smell.
BENEDETTA: Sage.
YASMINA: I asked smell rather than scent because I wanted literally any kind of smell to count.
YASMINA: Some photo evidence because objects can tell me a lot about you. What’s your favourite piece of furniture at home?
BENEDETTA
:
YASMINA: What’s in your bag?
BENEDETTA:
YASMINA: What’s something completely boring that you randomly love?
BENEDETTA:
YASMINA: OMG TINTIN ET MILOU MA VIEEEEE
Favorite hotel you’ve ever stayed at.
BENEDETTA: I think Gleneagles in Scotland.
It’s where I rode my first horse. It’s where I learned to ride a bike. And it’s where my sister went for her honeymoon.
YASMINA: Wow.
Milan in three meal spots.
One place for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner.
BENEDETTA: For breakfast, there was this really small pastry shop near Wagner, on one of the little streets around there.
I can’t remember the name, but I can find it.
They have the best cream brioche ever.
For lunch, I’d say a club sandwich at God Save the Food.
And for dinner, I’d say Trattoria della Pesa.
YASMINA: What was that place called where they made the cotoletta?
BENEDETTA: Consorzio Stoppani.
YASMINA: I love that place, but it’s low-key the only place I’ve actually been to in Milan.
Now that you’re going back to live there, I’m going to come more often because I seriously need to improve my Milan game.
BENEDETTA: It’s really nice.
YASMINA: They make the cotoletta with lemon or orange zest, right?
BENEDETTA: Orange.
YASMINA: Favorite pasta shape?
BENEDETTA: Short penne.
YASMINA: Your coffee order.
I live in Paris, where there are fifty different coffee options. I know in Italy it’s usually more straightforward…
BENEDETTA: Espresso.
Also because I’m lactose intolerant.
YASMINA: Your favorite plant-based milk?
BENEDETTA: Usually oat milk, because I realized I can’t drink soy milk.
But if I’m having an iced latte, I like coconut milk.
YASMINA: Last question.
This is the same question I ask everyone: your favorite word in any language.
BENEDETTA: In French, it’s “coquelicot.”
YASMINA: I love the word coquelicot. I adore it.
In English it’s “poppy,” right?
BENEDETTA: Yeah. It’s so cute. I also love the way it’s written.
In Italian I’d say… I don’t know… “splendido.”
I love it.
YASMINA: We chatted a lot because we also needed to catch up.
BENEDETTA: Yeah.
YASMINA: Oh my God.
Okay. Love you, bye.
BENEDETTA: Love you, thank you so much.
YASMINA: Bye, bye.