Black script lettering reading La Vita è Bella with flourished guillemet ornaments at each end, shown as a tattoo design on a plain white background.

La Vita è Bella script lettering

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

The image shows the Italian phrase La Vita è Bella written in flowing black cursive script, with decorative swirl flourishes at both ends framing the words. The linework is smooth and of even weight, with tapering loops on the capital letters L, V and B. The design sits centred on a plain white background with no shading or colour.

Lettering Script Phrase Flourish

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sandro, the tomatoes came up on Tuesday, all eleven plants, though the goat got into the row by the wall and ate the two best ones, so do not write to me about goats. Your father's boat is still on the slip at Monopoli. The varnish has gone grey, but Vito Lacerenza says it will float again by the feast if somebody paints it, and I have decided that somebody is you when you come home.

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Filomena's boy married the baker's girl on Saturday. The bell rang so long that old Nonna Caterina said the sea had heard and was jealous. Afterwards we ate at the long tables in the square, and I thought of you on your side of the world, wondering whether anybody in Bradford has ever eaten an octopus. You wrote that the rain there goes on for a month and nobody sings in the street. Father Benedetto asked me what kind of well you are, since a man in the north might be cold and not say so.

So I am sending you the words you used to shout at six years old when you wanted the last biscuit and had already made up your mind to take it: la vita è bella. Write it on the wall above your bed, where you will see it through the fog when you wake.

I have pressed a dry fig leaf into the envelope with it. The clerk at the post office read the address twice, then pressed his thumb on the stamp so hard the ink came out smudged. It arrived softer than it left, and I hope it has crushed nothing that matters.