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In a recent post about an afternoon spent in Val Melaina and Serpentara, I included the above photograph, of a piece of graffiti by a supporter of the Lazio soccer team linking Roma fans with Jews. At the time, I thought it was just another example--and a simplistic one at that--of the anti-Semitism that appears regularly on Rome's walls. I was wrong--wrong to see it as simple.
The posting coincided with a widely-reported story (featured in theNew York Timesand the Los Angeles Times, and of course in the Italian and European press): During a recent soccer game in Olympic Stadium--where the Roma and Lazio teams play on alternate Sundays--Lazio fans left
postcard-size stickers displaying an iconic image of Anne Frank, but wearing a Roma jersey (above right). Like the Serpentara graffiti I published, the idea behind the stickers was to associate the Roma club and its fans with Jews, suggesting a mutual insult.
From there things get more complex. It seems that the city's Jewish community has historically leaned toward support of the A.S. Roma team. In fact, as a Roman friend wrote us about the Val Malaina post, "Roman wealthy Jews in 1927 were part of the founders and initial supporters of the new team." But it is also true that A.S. Roma's fans have at times taken an anti-Semitic stance, writing "Anne Frank roots for Lazio" on city walls, according to the New York Times. Even so, that's a false equivalency. In one infamous display at a game against Roma 2001, Lazio fans displayed a banner reading, "Auschwitz is your homeland/The Ovens are Your Homes."
It didn't take long for soccer officialdom to speak out against the Anne Frank postcards. The Lazio
club president, Claudio Lotito, laid a wreath of white and blue flowers (the team's colors) at the Rome synagogue on the Tiber (the city's chief Rabbi called it a "publicity stunt"; the wreath was soon seen
floating in the river). Lazio players (above) showed up for practice wearing shirts with Anne Frank's picture and below, the words "No all' antisemitismo." New Anna Frank stickers appeared, this time with the words "Siamo Tutti Anna Frank" (we are all Anne Frank). Around the league, team captains held copies of Primo Levi's holocaust memoir while others listened to readings from Frank's diary.
There are all sorts of conclusions to be drawn. I have only two thoughts. First, this won't be the last time that Anne Frank plays a part in a soccer drama. Second, a simple piece of graffiti may have a complex context.
At the 16th-century "monster park" - Bomarzo, near Viterbo, in Etruria
We now
have a ready answer to "What's a good day trip from Rome?" - and it's
Etruria... so let us explain what that is and why we have picked it.
The day
trip question is one we're often asked, and we often have multiple answers,
depending... on whether one likes beaches or mountains, small towns or urban
museums, a day without tourists or the hottest spot in a large town, etc.
The covers to Mary Jane Cryan's latest book on Etruria in Northern Lazio, for day trips from Rome
Our easy
answer now for those who want an authentic Italian experience and no or minimal
tourists: Mary Jane Cryan's
Etruria. Etruria is the area north of
Rome once inhabited by Etruscans, and others before them. Cryan draws a line between the towns of
Vetralla, Tarquinia and Tuscania to form what she calls the Etruscan Triangle -
a stunning area. She has done us all a
huge favor by covering the area in the kind of detail and enchanting stories
one rarely finds in travel guides - no doubt because she has lived in the area
for more than 20 years, and in Italy more than 50.
One way to enjoy Tuscania (and, it's in Lazio, not Tuscany) -
from the patio of a hotel on the "new" side of town, looking over to the old.
Lago (Lake) Bracciano and the eel-dominated (in a good way)
town of Anguillara Sabazia
Her most
recent book, hot off the press, is Etruria: Storie e Segreti (Etruria - Stories
[Histories] and Secrets), as of now, only in Italian. For those of you who don't want to slug it
out in Italian, she has several other guidebooks. I hesitate to call them guidebooks, because
they are so much more than that. But
guide you they will, through Etruria, and they will lead you to much more than
what most people go for - the Etruscan sites.
Most accessible, for those who are looking for a day or two in the
region, is Cryan's, Etruria: Travel, History and Itineraries in Central
Italy. You will find wonderful itinerary
chapters, such as "Mysterious Sites of Northern Lazio," or
"Connoisseur's Guide to Viterbo," as well as personal stories, such
as "An Old Palazzo in Etruria - the sequel."
Her other
books about Northern Lazio are intriguing as well: Travels to Tuscany and
Northern Lazio, Vetralla - the English Connection, and Affreschi - Exploring Etruria. All are based on her own, in-depth travels and original scholarship. At least one of these books is a "must have" if you are traveling in
this area - and you should travel in it, imo.
Mary Jane Cryan's info can lead you to Italian spas where
you will find no tourists. She "takes the spa" at least weekly,
she says. So she oughtta know!
Check out
Cryan's in-depth Web site, www.elegantetruria.com for ordering the books if
you're not in Rome. In Rome they are
available at the few remaining English language bookstores, including Anglo-American, on via delle Vite, and Almost Corner, in Trastevere. Or most Feltrinelli's.
"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.
“Good fences make good neighbors.” Robert Frost’s line came to mind as I was preparing this post.
I was thinking of appropriating and corrupting the line so it reads: “Good walls make good neighbors.” But in finding and re-reading Frost’s poem, in which this line appears twice, my college English class came back to me. The poem is really about a wall that is a fence. The title of the poem is “Mending Wall,” and the first sentence, which is in the poet’s voice is: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” The more famous line, “Good fences make good neighbors,” is actually said by his neighbor. So, Frost, the poet, does not like walls; it's his neighbor who does - and Frost is criticizing him in the poem.
The first 4 lines of the poem read:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The polygonal walls in central Italy seem to defy Frost’s notion that they will crumble and fall. There may be gaps, and spills in the upper boulders, but what’s astounding about these walls is how much of them still is standing, anywhere from 5,000 to 2,000 years later.
Some recent dating shows these walls – made of variously shaped (hence “polygonal”) stones and stacked with NO mortar – pre-date the Romans and even the Etruscans; they could be as old as the 3rd millennium before Christ, or 4,000-5,000 years-old.
We first noticed these walls in Segni, a small hill town about 1 hour outside of Rome where we (finally) had found a hotel after hiking all day (this story may sound familiar to some of you). Taking a walk through the town before dinner, we discovered these amazing walls surrounding a good portion of the city (photo above). We began reading a bit here and there and discovered for the first time the polygonal walls and how old they are. Fortunately for us, at the same time in Rome there was a fascinating exhibit on the Lazio (Rome’s province) cities that have enormous stretches of these walls remaining. [Note the exhibit used "megalithic" - which refers to structures made of large stones and without mortar - tho' usually we see "polygonal" in references in English.]
We realized there are polygonal walls at the base of Circeo (which we’ve hiked), in Orbetello (where we’ve put our feet in the water), in Norba, and many other places. But, we were a little like the Stupids Go to Italy on this one… we had no idea what we were seeing. Sometimes we don’t read ahead, because we like to discover things for ourselves, but this time we were missing something because we were uneducated about these marvelous walls.
I’ve listed a few websites below that have a bit more information in English about the walls, as well as a link to all of Mending Wall and some analyses of the poem, one of which traces the poem’s activity of two neighbors mending their joining wall back to, guess who, the Romans! See also our earlier blog that includes Segni. Also, for you who need shelter and sustenance, we heartily recommend the hotel we found. Hotel La Pace, which caters to international business people from nearby towns and has a very good restaurant ("famous in the area," says scooter rental guy linked below).
Central Italy offers wonderful hikes, full of history and flora and fauna - wild and not so wild.
Because Lazio's hiking pleasures seem unknown, we recently published an article in the Adirondack Peaks magazine to encourage English-speakers to try out the hills of Lazio and other provinces of Central Italy. "Under the Lazio Sun" is linked here, in pdf download, or directly.
The Peaks magazine, btw, is published for Adirondack "46Rs" - those who have climbed all 46 of the Adirondack peaks over 4,000 feet high, and, yup, we must admit, that's us.
While we're at it, an update for Rome the Second Time in our sidebar on joining an Italian hiking group. Cammina Natura is has changed its website, but even their latest website is "under construction. They also have a Facebook page, but that lists the very old website. For information, you might try emailing the group at: 3928296421@tre.it - yes, that's the email. Most of the Italian hiking groups also sponsor winter treks, snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing.
floating in the river). Lazio players (above) showed up for practice wearing shirts with Anne Frank's picture and below, the words "No all' antisemitismo." New Anna Frank stickers appeared, this time with the words "Siamo Tutti Anna Frank" (we are all Anne Frank). Around the league, team captains held copies of Primo Levi's holocaust memoir while others listened to readings from Frank's diary. 
