History, Myth and Mystery through Italian Trail Markers

The best of trail markers - at the top.  Here, Monte Gennaro - "Rome's mountain," complete with cross, Italian flag, and
clear markers - once you are up there - of the various ways down.

Who would have thought trail markers would have turned into a debate about Italian war history, geology and hiking myth?

Here's a mysterious one - again, on Monte Gennaro - the
traditional trail marker has been replaced with... well, you
see what.

We shouldn't have been surprised.  Signed trails in central Italy can be more entertainment than guides much of the time.  Since we've hiked almost every peak within 50 miles of Rome - and there are probably 100 - we like to think we're experts.

Yet, getting lost is one of our fortes as well. It's partly us, it's partly the trail maps slapped over WWII maps and not updated, it's partly the vandalism of trail markers, and it's partly the inadequacies of central Italy's trail system.  Central Italians tend to prefer the sea to the mountains.  And, after all, it's not the Alps. Still, as I said, it can be entertaining.  So here are some of the markers we learned from, puzzled over, and laughed at so far this Spring.

First, we learned some history.  On our hike to Monti Gemma and Malaina, that Bill wrote about recently, one of our fellow hikers told the story he was told by a guide as they were hiking around Monte Cassino (where the Allies in February 1944 bombed the abbey to smithereens trying to drive out the Germans).  That story, as our fellow hiker reported to our group, was that some thought the markers were to commemorate the Poles who actually took Monte Cassino, after multiple attempts by multiple armies, 3 months later, on May 18, 1944. The Polish flag is red and white.

Polish flag

Austria-Hungary flag; the Austria-
Germany flag of 1918-1919 is pure
red and white.

No, he was told by this guide, the generally consistent red and white trail markers derived from the Austro-Hungarians in World War I marking their retreat line with the colors of their flag.  I don't think he meant to say they were around Monte Cassino, which is south of Rome, but just that this is how the system started.

A confused and confusing marker -
red and white? yellow and red? blue?

"No, no," said our guide, Domenico, that's a myth.  As Domenico told his version of the story, the marking system in central Italy--basically in all the Apennines which run lengthwise through the country--was red and yellow.  They did not use white because the rocks of the Apennines are limestone, which is white, and so white is not a good color to use.

CAI's red and white - no mistaking it here.

But, after World War II, the Europeans decided to use one coloring system.  The dominant Italian group maintaining the trail system is CAI (rhymes with "eye"), Club Alpino Italiano ("Italian Alpine Club").  The red and white was used in the Alps, and because the northern Italians dominate the hiking scene - their mountains are higher (though the Gran Sasso a few hours from Rome is 10,000 feet) - they won out. The central Italians clearly think to this day that white is just plain wrong.  BTW, I googled quite a bit, and it looks like Domenico's story is likely the correct one.

Look behind the cows and calves and you'll see blue markers.   So blue is still in use.
  On the high plain on Monte Gennaro.  Can't resist the animal shots.

First we saw just blacked-over markers.  Was the trail out of commission?

And then we discovered this Spring on our perhaps 5th hike up "Rome's mountain"--Monte Gennaro, the tallest that looms outside of the city--that the trail markers had been "cancellato," or blacked out, probably with spray paint.

First the CAI sign is spray painted over black, then
someone has written: "CAI? No! thanks"

We went back and forth on the trail a few times to see if there was some reason the trail might have been re-routed, but, finding nothing, kept going.  We thought perhaps someone wanted to turn the trails more back to nature, as has happened to some extent in the Adirondacks in New York.  By eliminating trail markers, fewer people take the trails and one route does not become eroded.

But then we saw the reason here.  Someone is having a feud with the hiking section maintaining the trails:  the Tivoli section of CAI (Tivoli is the closest 'large' town).   Soon we saw that CAI had come along and painted their red and white markers over the black paint, and then someone else had come along and written on the CAI markers various blasphemes at CAI (see the photos).  We haven't been able to figure out the source of the feud.  But there it is.

This one says "CAI section Tivoli - Mafiosi!" - more
blasphemous tree signs (who would've thought that was
even a concept) are at the end of the post.

 

This says "Path of the Partisans" and points a different
direction from the trail.  What's the politics here?
Still on Monte Gennaro.

On a recent hike on some nice mountains behind Tivoli 20 miles outside of Rome, we took an incredibly steep trail down (we had taken it up a few years ago).  It now has been marked with extensive stonework, by a mountain biking group.  How anyone can bike this trail - or run it (we saw a trail runner too) is totally beyond our comprehension.  One can barely keep upright hiking it.

Dianne with a "uomini"

But, this group has moved a lot of stones to put in large markers of stacked stones, what we call 'cairns' and are called "uomini" or "little men" in Italian - these are the largest 'little men' we've seen.  These, by the way, are useful where the white doesn't show up against the limestone. The group also put in some stone circles and other markers that some might argue are not consistent with the wild.  But since one is hiking amidst grazing farm animals, and ex-farm buildings and stone farm walls (as in the cow photo above), this is a different kind of 'wild.'  We haven't yet come down on one side of the debate.

Your guess is as good as ours.  

A couple other words to the wise trekker.  Often the signs have been vandalized.  One can have very clear signs, and then none at all.  If you see a map on a signboard (most of those have been demolished as well - by vandals, not because of feuds), take a picture with your camera or phone. We encountered a young German hiking behind Tivoli and he managed using this technique plus a GPS app.  Of course, even the pictures can be wrong and misleading.  But it's a start.  And, the two of us debate the use of GPS.  It seems like cheating.  One of us (that's me!) likes to haul out the iPhone now and then to see if we're anywhere near where we should be.  The other one (that's Bill) enjoys the pleasure following the anxiety of losing the trail.

The young German knew enough to fill up  his water bottle
at the Tivoli train station (nice 'statue' to symbols of
Tivoli, including the aqueducts).

Classic CAI  trail markers - this is trail #215 in Rome - on Monte Mario.
  These are great, until they disappear.  BTW, the numbers are hours and
 minutes,  not kilometers or miles (yep, we made that mistake once - 
believe me, 2 hours is a lot longer than 2 kilometers!).  And who
knows what sign was once in those pieces of metal now framing nothing.

These pleasures and anxieties can be found in the parks and hills within Rome as well. Monte Mario, which is the most significant 'mountain' IN Rome, is a great hiking spot, with lots of trails, totally confusing markings, and everything from waist-high weeds to great views (of St. Peter's, of the Tiber, of all of Rome).  We've written about it before, and we suggested a hike up it in our first guidebook, "Rome The Second Time."  Since we published that itinerary, the 'mountain' or park has had trails added, and markers added and deleted.  If you don't mind being a little lost at times, go for it.

We found this map on a signboard on Monte Mario.  It has its
defects - no numbered trails.  Where we came in and out
isn't even on the map, but it gave us some sense of where
we were.

 The last time we were on Monte Mario we encountered 4 English-speaking 'pilgrims,' who were walking the via Francigena, St. Frances's walk.  They had 100 miles under their hiking belts, from Orvieto north of Rome, and were within a couple hours of their destination - St. Peter's.  They were doing it all with some "turn left here, turn right" typed directions.  Impressive!  We, of course, told them where to find the best bar with a view in the next 30 minutes of their walk.  The pilgrims seemed happy to get that information.

We've said it before, but it bears repeating, "buon trekking."  Dianne

"CAI section Tivoli - Shits!"

"CAI section Tivoli - Bastards!"

John Hersey's A Bell for Adano: the Story of the 'Good Occupation'

Once the darling of the literary world, John Hersey's A Bell for Adano has fallen from grace, its reputation diminished to the point where no critic of standing would include the book in a list of the great novels of the 20th century.  Yet the book had its moment, and it was a long one.  Published in February 1944 to considerable acclaim, A Bell for Adano opened on Broadway (with Frederic March) in December of 1944 and in 1945 came to the silver screen (with John Hodiak) and won the Pulitzer Prize in Literature.  It was distributed free in millions of copies in the immediate postwar era, the play was produced for the Hallmark Hall of Fame Theater in 1967 and, whatever its literary merits, the novel was given in large numbers to American soldiers preparing for the conflict in Afghanistan. 

American troops on the beaches of Licata, 1943

The basic story is simple.  In the words of Wikipedia (why reinvent the wheel?) "it tells the story of an Italian-American officer [the novel's Victor Joppolo] in Sicily during World War II who wins the respect and admiration of the people of the town of Adano by helping them find a replacement for the town bell that the Fascists had melted down for rifle barrels."  How touching. There is some factual

Licata's Bell Tower

basis for the novel, though there is no Adano in Sicily.  Hersey was embedded with the US Army for 4-5 days after it came ashore at Licata, Sicily in 1943.  There, he observed the American Military Governor, Frank S. Toscani, deal with problems of the occupation.  Licata was, indeed, missing its town bell, hauled away and melted down by the Mussolini regime.

RST's interest in the book was piqued by an essay by Rutgers Professor Susan L. Carruthers in the most recent issue of The Journal of American History (March 2014).  You don't have to run out and buy it, because I'll tell you what it says--or some of it.  We can start with the title:  '"Produce More Joppolos': John Hersey's A Bell for Adano and the Making of the 'Good Occupation.'"  Carruthers' take is more complex than the novel, and more interesting, too.  She argues that all occupations--even those carried out by Americans, and even the occupation of Italy during and after World War II--are nasty affairs, a form of imperialism, really, in which the occupiers (the conquerors) are inevitably disliked by the native population (the conquered), no matter how warm and fuzzy the commanding officer and some of the troops might be.  Among the points of tension is that occupying soldiers (enough of them, anyway) invariably think that sex with the local girls is their right, to be procured by any means necessary, including "coercion and C rations."  Although some of Licata's citizens may have mourned for their bell, what they really needed was food, and getting it put them into undesirable situations (offering sex for food) or in contact with the black market, where a good portion of the available supply was whisked away by unscrupulous, greedy soldier-occupiers, to be sold at high prices.

These things don't happen in A Bell for Adano.  Flirtations, yes.  But no rape, no prostitution, no adultery, no sex for food, no sex period.  And no black market.

From the film: An American soldier, with a simple and
barefoot Italian fisherman

As told in the novel, it was, in Carruthers' term, the "good occupation."  The Americans were decent and caring, and Adano's Italians were, well, too simple to be bad: "fat, lazy, sentimental, garrulous, winsome," with

"protruding bellies, flappings hands, and gabbing mouths, given to theatrical displays of feeling and obsequious performances of deference."  Adano's Italians (Hersey's Italians) were, Carruthers argues, just glad to be liberated, eager to be instructed in the rudiments of democracy, pleased to have a strong (and benign) leader in Joppolo.  A simple people, not quite ready for self-rule.  (The myth of the good occupation has parallels: with regard to the deportation of the Jews, the myth of the good Italian and,
relevant to Italy's North African empire,
the myth of the good Italian colonizer). 

For Carruthers, A Bell for Adano's most important achievement--and arguably its most important purpose--was to present a way of thinking about occupation "without thinking of it as occupation.  Going unnamed, occupation lost its oppressive weight....Americans [who don't like to think of their country as imperialist, despite all that trouble with the Indians] could rest assured that they represented a force for good in the world, leaving only 'constitutions and parliaments,' not 'occupying armies,' as Bush put it in 2002."  Hersey's novel, she concludes, "helped freeze occupation at the euphoric moment of liberation.  What came next remained safely beyond the frame."

With appreciation and thanks to Susan L. Carruthers.

Bill

Born Again in Piazza Fiume: La Rinascente

Piazza Fiume.  As Rome piazzas go, it's not much.  Today, its main purpose is to move vehicles from one place to another: the North/South, one-way thoroughfare via Salaria drains the Trieste quartiere, dumping tens of thousands of cars and scooters daily into the piazza and onto Corso Italia, where they hurtle down the Muro Torto to Piazza del Popolo, or take a mysterious left turn, cutting back through a section of the Aurelian city wall, to access the Corso going east.  Except for a small section of the piazza on the northwest, where the intersection with via Bergamo creates a bit of civil space, Piazza Fiume is a mess. 

That doesn't mean there aren't some things to see.  Gather your pedestrian skills and cross Corso Italia with the traffic coming down via Salaria.  There, on the southwest corner, you'll find a bland 1950s building, now occupied by Barclay's Bank.  Bland, yes, but over the entrance to the left, now looking north, are a curious set of painted protusions affixed to the wall.  Like a fifties album cover.  Cool, man!

Across via Piave (the extension of via Salaria) is one of Rome's few neo-Gothic structures, with those pointed windows that seem so out of place in this mostly neo-classical city. 

And on that building--appropriately on via Piave--note the large plaque honoring the Italian soldiers who fought and died in a dramatic and successful effort to hold off an advancing Austro-Hungarian force at the Piave River in northeast Italy during World War I. 









Walk up the street, toward the piazza (beware motorists turning left!) and enjoy the interesting section of the wall and a bunch of columns in front of it (we have no explanation for this craziness, except it's eclectic Rome at its best).

Across the street, an underground bookstore boasts a section of Roman wall, jutting out into the room, and black and white photos of the city here and there. 

So there's more to Piazza Fiume than meets the eye, especially for Rome-the-Second-Time bottom feeders.  But we've saved the best for last. On the northwest corner of the piazza is a department store, La Rinascente (roughly translated "rebirth").  Against all odds and, it would seem at first glance, common sense, it's a registered and protected architectural landmark.  It was designed by the Milanese team of Franco Albini and Franca Helg--their only building in Rome--and constructed between 1959 and 1961, when it opened.  Albini was an architect of considerable reputation, his career going back to the 1930s, when he designed public housing.  

It was the second La Rinascente store in Rome (the first, opened in 1887, was until recently at the corner of via del Corso and via del Tritone--the building still exists), and Albini and Helg used the basic massing of that first store in their design for this one.  Beyond that, the modern store, for all its apparent ordinariness, was new, fresh and innovative, inside and out.  The structure is of reinforced concrete and steel frame.  The exterior infill panels--an outstanding feature--are of masonry, not flat but folded--Baroque "movement" in the facade design, some say--and tinted to recall the color of porcelain in ancient Rome.  One observer has described it as a "Renaissance facade redone with contemporary technology." 

Another important feature is the substantial, open, steel cornice, referencing Michelangelo's cornice--surely the most famous in the city--for the Palazzo Farnese. 

The Sorgente Group, which has owned the building since 2006, claims that La Rinascente "is considered the best example of the setting of a modern building within the historical context of the city."  Architectural critic Reyner Banham, likely to be less biased, nonetheless shares the Sorgente Group's admiration, while noting the limitations imposed by the era.  Albini, he notes, faced severe "cultural restraints."  "He was designing a building for a conspicuous site in the history-laden ambiente of Rome, at a time when the historical nerve of most Italian architects had failed almost completely (these were the years of Neoliberty nostalgia)."

Inside, you'll find a modern department store, recently refurbished.  Shop 'til you drop. And as you do, consider three elements of the interior.  On the top floor there's a modern bar/cafe.  Avoid it or embrace it as you choose, but don't miss a chance to look out the windows, where you'll have an extreme close-up view of the steel cornice. 

Descending on the escalators, you should know that these were installed in 2011 by the firm of Tim Power Architects, perhaps replacing an elevator.  The Tim Power firm makes much of this makeover, emphasizing the importance of redoing the building's circulation so that customers could reach the upper floors rapidly and without waiting.  (The Power folks even cite starchitect Rem Koolhaas, for whom escalators are a "key metaphor for the expanding city.")  

The Albini/Helg staircase

We hope we haven't lost you here, because there's one more gem in this building.  The chiocciola--the word means both "snail" and "spiral staircase"--which once provided much or all of the building's circulation, is a masterpiece, an "expressive shell" that draws architectural historians to the building.  You'll have to poke around to find this wonder in Veronese red marble.  Each rung of the metal railing has a small curve at the end, marking the era. 

It may well be the most sensational staircase in Rome, though modernists will claim that honor for Luigi Moretti's chiocciola in the ex-GIL (a Fascist-era youth center) at the intersection of viale di Trastevere and via G. Induno. 

The Borromini/Maderno staircase

The Albini/Helg staircase is most often compared to the 1627 marvel by Francesco Borromini and Carlo Maderno, in Palazzo Barberini.  A photographer who admires both claims that the "api" (bees) that were a required element in anything created for the Barberini family, also appear in the staircase at La Rinascente.  Check that out. 

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"

PRESENTE: A Close Look at a Tuscolano Poster

While spending a pleasant evening in the quartiere of Tuscolano, one of our old haunts, we--Dianne, actually--noticed a poster.  On the surface it was hardly unusual.  There were the standard signs of right-wing propaganda: the Celtic cross, the hyper-masculine body in marble, referencing the muscled, athletic frames of the statues across the city at Foro Italico (once Foro Mussolini) and, in the distant past, the glories of ancient Rome. 

Later that evening, and the next day, we saw dozens of these posters in Tuscolano, and for good reason.  As the very small print on the posters reveals, there is a time, a date, and a place at issue here: 7 p.m., January 7, Acca Larenzia. 

Acca Larenzia is a street nearby.  It was there, on January 7, 1978--as historian Paul Baxa explained on this blog--that a left-wing militant shot and killed two members of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano.  The event, yet another tragedy of Italy's Anni di Piombo, is remembered today where it took place.  A plaque names the two victims (and another who died days later in the chaos that followed). 




The poster, then, commemorates an event that took place 34 years ago.  But it also commemorates the Italian effort in the Great War, fought against an entrenched Austria-Hungary enemy in the northeast of Italy.  One would think that the conflict would by now be long forgotten, or at least remembered in a neutral way.  But the poster reveals the emotional intensity with which that war is recalled and politicized, even a century later.  With the prominently featured word PRESENTE, the poster announces the military roll call, where each soldier responds to his name with "presente."  There is an additional valence to this word that we discovered only recently, as we explored World War I battles sites and commemorations. 

By any measure, the most impressive commemoration of the war is the massive monument and burial site at Polazzo, southwest of Gorizia, north of Trieste, and just a few kilometers from Monte San Michele, where thousands of Italian soldiers died in a critical and much-acclaimed battle on the rocky reaches of the Carso massif. 

The monument was designed and constructed by Mussolini's Fascist regime in the late 1920s  Above the tombs, repeated hundreds of times as the monument rises on the Carso--honoring those who fought, critical of those who did not, emphasizing the duty and privilege of combat, inspiring the Fascists of the twenties and the neo-fascists of  today's Rome--is the word PRESENTE.   

Bill