Of Pigs and Boars: Rome's Problem with Cinghiali--and Swine Flu

 

There was a time, not so long ago, when a story about a cinghiale (a wild boar) showing up in Rome  brought a smile to one's face. How unusual. Cute critters. 

A wild board in Piazza Verbano

No more. The boars are more common now. Just in the past week, a boar was seen rooting around in a flower bed and a garbage bin in Piazza Verbano (near where we lived one of our times in Rome), in the heart of the neighborhood Trieste/Salario. Police arrived and closed the piazza for 20 minutes. A woman walking her dog in Villa Glori, in toney Parioli, was threatened by cinghiali (and folks are now being warned to keep their dogs away from the animals). Wild boars have also been sighted in the southern suburb of EUR, on the busy thoroughfare Cristoforo Colombo, in Piazzale Pio XII, in Piazza Vescovio (Trieste), on Monte Mario (one of our favorite close-in hiking venues and featured in our guidebook, #11 on RST's Top 40), and around a children's playground in Prati, near the Vatican. According to a veterinarian expert on the subject, the boars are not generally aggressive but will defend themselves, and they may become aggressive if people have food with them. His advice: drop the food and leave. 

A family of cinghiali at a children's playground in Prati. 

A genuine sense of crisis has emerged only in the last few days, when a boar was found dead with the swine flu virus in the Insugherata Reserve, an enormous, largely undeveloped area northwest of the city center. The disease is highly contagious among wild boars and regular pigs, and deadly 98% of the time (ok, we've hiked there as well - and came out on one of the farms ringing it). Now we're learning that there are some 12,000 small pig farms in the region, with all their 43,000 pigs in danger from the virus, which is lethal for the pigs. Although it seems clear that the virus does not spread to humans (and one always worries about when a virus will "jump" to humans), it is a resistant virus, able to survive for up to 100 days in the outdoors (and several months in salami or frozen meat), and it is spreadable by human contact--on one's clothes, for example. 

Now there's at least one article a day in the newspapers about the "la peste suina" (the swine flu, referred to in the papers here as psa [swine flu africana]). It's no secret that the major cause of the problem is Rome's horrendous, decades-old garbage problem. In every section of the city, the garbage bins in which residents throw their refuse are overflowing, to the point where frustrated citizens put their garbage outside the bins, on the ground, where it often remains for days. The boars love these easy pickings, and come into the city to eat. They eat and multiply. Estimates differ, but it's likely there are about 20,000 wild boars in and around Rome--especially, but not entirely, in the areas to the west and north.

There are plans to deal with the problem. The Lazio regional government (in which Rome is located) has created a "red zone" (see map above) where picnicking and other events, and the feeding of animals, will be prohibited. The red zone is bounded on the west and north by the GRA--a super highway that circles the city, and on the east by stretches of the Tiber River. But there is no "natural" barrier to the south, where the red zone will be marked by city streets, including via di Boccea and via Cipro (see the numbers on the map - we were living 2 blocks from via Cipro last month).  And, as a glance at the map reveals, wild boars have been sighted in many areas of the city that are outside the red zone and on the east side of the Tiber (Piazza Verbano is one example). 

The Commune of Rome will fence off some of the garbage bins. Medical authorities will check the farm pigs for disease (not a simple task). Some of the larger green areas will be closed, though which ones and to what extent has not been revealed. And the plan includes efforts to close off the migratory avenues (the "green channels") that the boars use to come into the city proper. How that will happen is not clear.

Dealing with the boar invasion won't be easy. The last half dozen of Rome's mayors have sworn they'll get the city's garbage collected, and, no matter the political party in charge, the problem has only gotten worse. The city's northwest is the site of several enormous parks. Some are heavily used and cared for, including Villa Ada (the source of some of the boars in that area of the city) and Villa Borghese. But others are quite primitive spaces--Monte Mario, Parco del Pineto, and the Insugherata Reserve among them--and it will likely be impossible to find the boars in these areas, let alone remove them or change their migratory patterns. 

In the meantime, we're thinking of staying out of the more remote parts of Monte Mario--for years, a favorite haunt--and leaving Parco del Pineto to the cinghiali. 

Bill 

P.S. Two days after I drafted this account, the papers reported 16 dead wild boars in the Insugherata, 2 of which had swine flu (only 2? why did the others die?), and that 650 pigs would have to be destroyed to keep the disease from spreading. The day before, it was reported that, because of the small number of cases, pig farmers were not required to register with the authorities. Today, May 11, the word was that a woman in the suburb of Bufalotta couldn't leave her house because there were 20 boars outside; a 4th case of swine flu was reported; and residents who live inside the affected area--presumably the "red zone," were asked to disinfect their shoes whenever they left that area. Good luck on enforcing that one!. 

Audrey, Shopping in Rome

Yes, that's Audrey Hepburn, maybe at her skinniest, which is saying something, and in era bellbottoms, and sporting the oversize sunglasses that would again be in style in 2012.  Accompanied, we were told, by her grandson.  It's 1972, and they're in Piazza Fiume, in front of the famed and architecturally significant (still extant and newly remodeled - and - the subject of an earlier post) department store, la Rinascente.  We saw the photo for the first time just months ago, when we were in an underground bookstore (accessed by the stairs beyond Audrey).  When we admired the photo, the proprietor insisted on printing us a copy.  (It's a good bookstore, btw, and has Roman ruins within it.)

As RST regulars know, Audrey is iconic in Rome and environs. 

Here (and now), she's selling a purse (E25, about $33)



And here, her image is used to market beauty services in the
upscale Trieste quartiere.  (A permanent is
E60, or about $90).



With the photo in hand, we reenacted the Audrey shopping scene, with Dianne as Audrey and minus the sullen teen. 

                        

The Trieste Quarter: Home to Modernism and Postmodernism

The quartiere of Trieste, to the north of Rome's center, between via Salaria and via Nomentana, is best known to tourists and architectural enthusiasts for the extraordinary collection of electicism known as Coppede', after the architect, Gino Coppede', who designed the unusual structures in the 1920s.

But there is more to Trieste than Coppede'.  As a relatively young and wealthy quartiere, Trieste also has a number of worthy modernist--and postmodernist-buildings.  Indeed, we found two at one intersection, where via Salaria crosses via Adige (on one side) and via Bruxelles (on the other).  We call it Trieste, but to be precise, one side is in Trieste, the other in Parioli. 

On the southeast corner of the intersection is a 1930s-era modernist building, architect unknown, but worthy of Luigi Moretti.  It's a narrow, asymetrical structure, sited on an oddly-shaped piece of land. 

An unusual round open loggia

It now houses the Sri Lankan embassy, which recently installed a Buddha in the white loggia, above.

The building makes substantial use of the open logia, including an unusual round open loggia.

Even more unusual, and doubtless more controversial among architects and architectural historians, is an apartment building on the intersection's northwest corner.

Built in the 1960s or 1970s (we would guess), it's modern but not modernist,  playful in a postmodern, experimental way: the vortex-like stanchion at the corner (left), the hole on an upper floor, a projecting cap at roof level, the intersecting of unusual shapes. 

Postmodernist play with shapes and forms

When you've seen Coppede'--and don't miss it (it was number 20 on RST's Top 40)--have a look at this intersection.  It's only a 5-minute walk.

Bill

The Gates of Rome: The Postwar Era

Some of these gates are best seen--and photographed--at night. 

A window barred--but elegantly, c. 1910

From the point of view of crimes against the body, Rome is a safe city, with very low numbers of assaults, rapes and murders.  Property crime--things like thefts on the bus, breaking and entering with intent to steal the television set--is more frequent.  Romans--and Italians generally--are understandably anxious about property crimes and eager to protect their homes from invasion.  Hence Romans prefer the upper floors of apartment buildings, where they feel--and are--less vulnerable, and those who must live on the ground or first floor commonly install bars on windows. 

Fenced in, completely

Some have been known to fence in an entire terrace or balcony (right).  Portieri--the guys who sit in little rooms ready to jump out and prevent you from snooping around in that lovely interior courtyard--are less common than they once were, but they're still at work here and there, and they still serve as a deterrent to crime in many buildings.   If a thief does manage to get to your front door, he must deal with multiple sets of multiple-bolt locks on an order that even a hardened New Yorker would have trouble imagining.  Opening one of these doors with the keys requires not only a good memory--for which key fits which lock,  which of the locks, if any, is a fake, which lock to unlock first, how many turns to make--but also a non-arthritic wrist and some time to waste. 



A fanciful gate, in Coppede'

This concern for home safety has one benefit (well, maybe more than one): the iron gates that guard many buildings--the first line of defense, especially in the absence of a portiere--are works of art.  Some are centuries old, veritable masterpieces of the Italian renaissance.  Others, as in the Coppede' neighborhood in the quartiere of Trieste, evoke the medieval sensibilities of Gino Coppede', the architect who built the area, or offer a touch of the "liberty"/art nouveau style that was in vogue in the decades before and after 1900. (The Coppede' neighborhood came in at #20 on RST's Top 40.)

Then there are the modern gates of the between-the-wars Fascist period, with their strong vertical and/or horizontal lines.  No nonsense. 










Here's another, from the 1920s, with touches of the medieval: that spear to the right, the grate-like general appearance.  Nestled in the center, the modernist letters CP (Case Popolari/Public Housing).  This gate is in the planned community of Garbatella (RST's #16 on its Top 40), south of the center. 







And after the war?  Nothing worth looking at, right?  Wrong.  We (and that really means Bill, that master of the perverse perspective) have been enjoying the gates and doors of the 1950s and 1960s.  Yikes!  At least that's when we think they were made; they don't come with dates. 

Angles, colored glass, lovely shadows.  Note the floor.  This
gate is "busier" than most.  You can see it in Piazza Vescovio.

They're easy to recognize: they're "modern" in the sense that they (usually) aren't busy with detail, and they don't resemble Victorian wallpaper.  But the designers of these postwar examples have moved on just a bit from the stark lines favored in the Fascist era.  Lines are bending (photo at top).  New angles.  Playfulness.  One senses a search--not always successful, we admit--for something beyond the stark order of modernism.









Playful, yet bold and powerful.  Straight out of the 1950s, and strong and masculine.  In postwar, modern Garbatella, not far from the Metro. 

Sensational.  Gorgeous.  You could be in Miami Beach.  But it's Monteverde. 

We found this gem in the quartiere of Trieste, while walking to our
apartment from Piazza Bologna.  Wasted on a parking lot, but dazzling.
We're thinking Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic Dome. 

There's Fuller with his dome. 

Bill






 

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"