How Not To Come Off Monte Mario

 

We 2 "pilgrims" reflected in the glass of the now-closed Lo Zodiaco cafe'

at the top of Monte Mario. Great views still available.

Never ones to shy away from hard truths, your RSTers went last year to mourn at the site of the now-closed Lo Zodiaco cafe' (the bar also is closed). Not long ago, it was a lovers' (and families' and anyone liking a good view) hangout (- he path along the front of it is called "vialetto degli Innamorati" ["Lovers' Lane"]).

We walked up our usual way, from via Gormezzina, near Piazzale Maresciallo Giardino (admitttedly around a closed gate - but the "herd path" was clear), enjoying the wide switchbacks on sampietrini (cobblestones) mostly maintained by the non-profit RomaNatura (the informational boards along the way now are mostly destroyed). (Monte Mario came in at #11 on RST's Top 40, and is an itinerary in our guidebook, Rome the Second Time.)

We checked out the usual cafes in Piazzale delle Medaglie d'Oro (at the end of it, you can see signs for the via Francigena--St. Francis's way, now tantalizingly close to its Vatican destination). Then, in hindsight foolishly, we decided to take the paths that ran down and across the winding, very curvy, not always well-banked road we had scootered down several times, but also had walked down: viale dei Cavalieri di Vittorio Veneto, just below the Hotel Rome Cavalieri.

MAP AT END OF POST

Except the paths seemed to be nonexistent, and we found ourselves plastered against the retaining walls in an effort not to be run over.

Left photo, paths in bad shape.

Friends to whom we described our trek later that night said, "oh, you mean K-2"--that's the name for this outrageously speedy and dangerous separated "highway."

Right photo, Dianne hesitates as any shoulder is about to disappear.

Left photo. No shoulders - or even ditches or brush - wide enough to feel safe.

On closer inspection, the road we just came down on still sports a slogan to the Lazio Ultra (generally right-wing) Gabriele Sandri, killed in 2007 (hence the "Vive"), about whom Bill posted in 2011 here.

We finally got off this road on via Romeo Romei, which skirts the back of (more like a parking lot for) the national Appeals Court. It was under heavy scaffolding on the day we walked by.

All of which is to say, we won't do this one again!

Map below shows Piazzale delle Medaglie d'Oro at top left, Lo Zodiaco (as if it were still open) top center, and the walking path switchbacks leading up to it going off at right.

The big curvy dark stuff in the center was "our path," i.e. the road, leading down to the Corte d'Appelo.

No, don't try this yourselves.

Dianne

Diablo Vive: The Life and Death of a Lazio "Ultra"

Diablo. Diablo, face and name, are all over the in-the-city Tuscolana neighborhood, around Piazza Re di Roma, where we're living on this trip to Rome. 

And who is Diablo? Diablo, aka Diabolik, is (that is, was) Fabrizio Piscitelli, the "capo"/head of the Lazio Ultras, a far-right organization of fans of the Lazio football team, the arch-rival of AS-Roma (both teams play in Rome, Lazio being the name of the province). In the photo below, Diablo is closely associated with Gabriele Sandri, also an Ultra fan of the Lazio team. In 2007, while on the road to a game with rival Milan, Sandri was shot and killed at an Autostrada service area by a highway patrol police officer. (We wrote about the latter, "Gabbo," in 2011.)

Diablo was shot, twice, in the back of the head, on August 7, 2019, while sitting on a bench at Parco degli Aquedotti (Aqueduct Park - #2 on RST's Top 40!), off via Tuscolana, southwest of the city center. (It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if wall-writing says "X vive" ("X lives"), X is dead.) 

Diablo's killer, disguised as a jogger, was later identified by video surveillance cameras. In the newspaper photo below (published April 15, 2023), Diablo, having just been shot, is circled in red. The presumed shooter, Raul Esteban Calderon (circled in blue as he flees the scene), was found guilty of a second shooting (of another person) and sentenced to 12 years in prison. 

Piscitelli had risen to prominence within the Irriducibili, an extreme group of fringe fans of the Lazio team. In 2015, he was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison for trading in drugs. 

Bill 

From Dianne - why are such lowlifes revered?

Piazza Vescovio: the Anni di Piombo and the Murder of Francesco Cecchin



Posters honoring the memory of Francesco Cecchin, on via Tembien in the Trieste quarter.
The words above, "Raido e' Militanza" (Raido is Militance), refer to the militant group
Raido, founded in 1995. 

Italy's "Anni di Piombo" (Years of Lead) were marked by acts of terrorism carried out by extremists on the political right and left; some 2,000 persons were killed between 1969 and 1981, including the centrist Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro, who was murdered by the left Red Brigades in 1978. 

There are several places in Rome where one can feel something of the intensity of the era, and all, curiously, are sites involving killings carried out by the left.  One is in the Jewish ghetto, on via Caetani, where an official plaque marks the spot where, on May 9, 1978, Moro's dead body was found in the trunk of an automobile; the former prime minister had been kidnapped and held prisoner for 55 days.  Another, perhaps more evocative, is on via Acca Laurenzia, a small street in the quartiere of Tuscolano.  There, on January 7, 1978, a man on a motorcycle shot and killed two members of the neofascist Fronte del Gioventu'.  This site is maintained by an organization of the far right.  (See Paul Baxa's guest post.)

Francesco Cecchin

The third site, in and around Piazza Vescovio on the northern edge of the Centro, in the quartiere of Trieste, is arguably the most significant, and not only because it contains a particularly rich collection of right-wing graffiti.  Like the site on via Acca Laurenzia, this one remembers a young neofascist:  Francesco Cecchin, also a member of the Fronte del Gioventu', thrown to his death from the apartment building at the west end of the piazza on the night of 28/29 May, 1979; he lay in a coma for 17 days before he died on June 16.  But the commemoration at Piazza Vescovio is exceedingly controversial because it is in part an official and political one, presided over by the city's right-wing mayor, Gianno Alemanno.

Mayor Gianni Alemanno (right) attends a
ceremony at the site he created, June 2012

In June 2009, while leaving a wreath of flowers to mark the anniversary of Cecchin's death, Alemanno proposed naming a street after the neofascist icon and building a monument to him.  The idea evolved.  The street became a small park in the center of the piazza and, at the suggestion of the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napoletano (a former Communist and still a leftist), Cecchin was to be identified as a victim of terrorism.  Even so, construction of the park in 2011 took residents and others by surprise. 

A wreath decorates the sign/marker for the park.  The
marker reads: Giardino Francesco Cecchin/
Vittima della Violenza Politica (1961-1979)

Opponents--politicians, intellectuals, trade union leaders, Partisan associations--joined in an open letter, asking that the area be dedicated to "all the victims of political violence."  The monument became a small plaque.  The garden was opened in June, 2011. 

Francesco Cecchin was a rather ordinary 17-year-old: not much of a student, a fan of Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath.  He had found a political home with the Fronte della Gioventu', and in the days before his death he had been putting up posters for the organization.  In the 1970s, postering was a competitive and territorial activity, and it brought Cecchin into conflict with the via Montebuono section of the CPI (the Communist Party). 

The building

On the evening of May 28, Cecchin, on foot, was followed by 2 men in a Fiat 850.  When they emerged from the car, he ran, taking refuge in a building--the one at the end of the piazza--where a friend lived. 

A closeup of one of the Cecchin posters,
depicting his murder. 

Depending on the account, he was found unconscious either in the courtyard of the condominium or on a small terrace, clutching a pack of cigarettes in one hand and keys in the other.  Authorities concluded that he had been beaten and, in all likelihood. thrown from a higher floor.  Stefan Marozza was arrested for the crime on July 1 but was released for insufficient evidence.  In retaliation for Cecchin's death, 2 hand grenades were thrown into a section of the PCI, wounding 24 persons.   A website dedicated to Cecchin concludes with these words: "Camerata Francesco Cecchin, Presente!" (The word "camerata" can be translated "comrade" or "chum"; "Presente," a military term, invokes the heroism of Italian soldiers in World War I, as well as Mussolini's Fascism).

When we visited the site in June, 2012 (soon after the anniversary of Cecchin's death), the quartiere was heavily postered with images of Cecchin, and area buildings were covered with graffiti messages. 

Indepence, Unity of the People, Tradition!
Below, a schematic fascii. 

Some of these messages are about Cecchin.  One reads "Pizza Vescovio" with a schematic fascii, symbol of Mussolini's Fascist regime (left).  The letters "NTS" likely refer to Nucleo Trieste Salario.  On the poster above,
the letters "T" and "S" refer to the quarters of Trieste and Salario.




Another has Cecchin's dates of birth and death, the words "Francesco Vive!" and a Celtic cross with the letters T and S. And another reads "Lui Vive/Lui Combatte/Cecchin Presente!" (He Lives/He Fights/Cecchin Present!). 

The drawing is of Gabriele Sandri, not Cecchin

Interestingly, most of the messages on the building where Cecchin was beaten and thrown to his death do not refer to him.  The face in the elaborate drawing belongs not to Cecchin but to Gabriele Sandri, a hard-core fan--one of the many "Ultras"--of the Lazio soccer team who in 2007 was shot and killed on the autostrada by a police officer while on the way to an away game in Milan.  

Other writings also refer to Lazio fans.  "Band Noantri" is a particular Lazio fan group, founded about 2000.  "Toffolo, Diabolik, Yuri, Paolo Liberi!" refers to Fabrizio Tofolo, Yuri Alviti, Pablo Arcivierid, and Fabrizio Piscitelli, key members of another particular Lazio fan group, the "Irriducibili" (the uncompromising ones), founded in 1987.  In 2006 they were charged with making threatening calls and jailed for various periods.  In 2007, Tofolo was shot 3 times in the legs at the entrance to his home in Rome.   

For insight into the Anni di Piombo and how that era continues to shape the politics of today's Rome, we recommend a visit to Piazza Vescovio.  It's a safe, middle-class neighborhood--with a unique history.

Bill

"Honor to a Revolutionary"

Gabbo: The Death and Life of Gabriele Sandri

"GABBO SEMPRE CON NOI!"   Written on a wall in the Centro.  But who was Gabbo? 

A few days later, in our Tuscolano neighborhood:

i nostri colori                 our colors
ci dividono...la              divide us...
mentalita ci                    mentality
unisce, "GOBBO"         unites us, "GOBBO" 

Was Gobbo "Gabbo"?  And who was Gabbo?

We learned that Gabbo was short for Gabriele, and Gabriele was linked to another name.  This in Tivoli:  "Gabriele Vive...Spaccarotella Muori!"  Gabriele lives...Spaccarotella dies!"  And on a wall in Monteverde Vecchio: "Spaccarotella infame!"   Spaccarotella infamous!



In a small piazza near Piazza Bologna, stickers had been placed on road signs:

Spaccarotella      Spaccarotella
Pisceremo           We piss on        
Tua Tomba         Your grave

Gabriele "Gabbo" Sandri and Luigi Spaccarotella were protagonists in a deadly drama played out on L'Autostrada del Sole (the Highway of the Sun), otherwise known as the A1.  It was the morning of November 11, 2007, a Sunday, and all over Italy soccer fans were traveling to root for their favorite teams. 

Gabriele Sandri

Gabriele, 26, was a professional DJ and a Lazio "Ultra"--a hard-core Lazio fan--and he was traveling with buddies to Milan for a game with the Inter team.  The young men had pulled off the highway into the Badio al Pino service area near Arezzo, and a scuffle or fight had broken out with a group of supporters of Juventus, a Turin squad.  From the service area on the other side of the highway--divided by a chain-link fence--a highway patrol policeman, Spaccarotella, had observed the quarrel across the way.  Pulling his gun, he ran to the fence and fired a warning shot into the air.  The young men scattered, and Gabriele and his friends jumped into their car and headed for the entrance to the highway.  According to a video [below] (apparently shown later in the courtroom), Spaccarotella ran along the fence, then stopped, aimed, and fired his gun twice, hitting Gabriele--sitting in the middle of the front seat--in the neck, and killing him.  The "action" in the video begins after about 15 seconds. 

As the case worked its way through an inquiry and the court system, the tragic death of Gabriele Sandri--"Gabbo"--came to represent not just police violence but the inadequacies of the Italian judicial system.  Spaccarotella had claimed that his gun had gone off by accident, while he was running, and so the original inquiry was based on a manslaughter charge.  The prosecutor was unconvinced, and so was Gabriele's father, Giorgio Sandri, who appeared at the March, 2008 hearing, angry at Spaccarotella's absence and convinced that he had aimed and fired his gun with intent.  "He doesn't have the courage to look us in the eyes," Sandri said, adding, "he knows well that what he did he didn't do because he was inciampato (stumbling).  In us the emotion is strong, and the anger stronger still." 

The court eventually found Spaccarotella guilty of "culpable homicide" and sentenced him to 6 years in prison; the prosecution had asked for 14 years, partly on the grounds that Spaccarotella had made a fraudulent claim.  Reached soon after by telephone, Spaccarotella said "I cried with joy.  I have done well to believe in justice."

Many Italians didn't see it that way.  No sooner was the verdict and sentence announced than outcries filled the courtroom and the hallways outside.  Giorgio Sandri was once again outraged, and his wife, Daniela, bitterly remarked, "Now they've killed me a second time.  A shame for all of Italy."  Lazio Ultras considered the verdict "against all of them" and attacked two police facilities, including one at Ponte Milvio in Rome.  Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno--a former bad boy and probably a Lazio fan--expressed his dissatisfaction with the sentence, noting that the crime had affected the entire city.  He hoped the sentence would be reconsidered on appeal "so as not to leave the Roman sporting world with a deep sense of injustice." 

Spaccarotella had vowed to appeal the verdict and sentence, and it seems he did so; RST could find no evidence that he was actually serving his term. 

The sentence was reconsidered.  Based on a finding of "intentionality," in December, 2010 a Florence appeals court increased the sentence to 9 years 4 months.  The court argued that even if Spaccarotella's goal had been to stop the vehicle and its occupants from fleeing, he took an excessive risk in shooting at the car.  Hence the result--the death of Sandri--could not be understood as the product of "pure chance."

Gabbo's memory lived on, as the graffiti reveal. 
He was remembered in 2009, at the final of the Champions League game between Manchester United and Lazio.  Fans displayed a huge poster at one end of the field--the Lazio curva/curve, where the team's fans congregated.  Lazio players wore "Gabbo" t-shirts under their game jerseys.  Although Gabriele was a Lazio Ultra--on principle, reviled by fans of the Roma team--on this occasion even Roma supporters, who always sit on the curva sud, the south curve, when their team plays at Rome's Olympic Stadium, lent their support.  One banner read, "Gabbo: Uno di Noi!  Curva Sud."  Gabbo: One of Us! Curva Sud." 

A video, "Ciao Gabbo," tells the story of that day's tribute, which included a most extraordinary act of inter-team solidarity.  Before the game, Lazio's captain accompanied Roma's captain, Francesco Totti, as Totti placed flowers below the poster of Gabriele:  the famed leader of AS Roma, the symbol and idol of the Curva Sud, honoring a SS Lazio Ultra--at the Curva Nord. 

Bill