Domenico Rizzo, a baker in Sicily, long sweated out the heat. Through years of stifling Italian summers, Rizzo (40) refused to install air-conditioning units in his bakery, fearing the cold air would make his muscles ache.Three years ago, he finally surrendered, setting up one wall-mounted air conditioner in the bakery, using the unit mainly to dehumidify the store rather than to cool it. (Air conditioning, he said, dries out the bread.)At home, he has also succumbed to the necessity of air conditioning at night to cool down after a day pulling bread rolls and loaves out of ovens. Rizzo complains that the air “hurts my shoulders, my neck, and I have all kinds of cramps”.But, he adds, “How can you live without it?”For generations, Italians shunned air conditioning as a threat to their health, amid scientific research that found people who live in air-conditioned environments reported more respiratory problems than those who don’t. Many Italians shared the belief that a “colpo d’aria”, or “blast of air”, could give you a crick in the neck, tonsillitis, headaches, muscle cramps and all kinds of respiratory ailments.Domenico Rizzo at his bakery in Agrigento, Italy. Photograph: Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times Air-conditioning units at an apartment building in Agrigento, Italy. Photograph: Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times