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We were curious about the police sirens and commotion about a block from us 2 days after we arrived in our Rome neighborhood--Aurelia Nord--this year, as we were coming home from our morning caffe' coffee ritual. I thought Bill was ambulance chasing, but it turned out his nose for news was right. A trio of protestors was in front of an Eni Energy store on Viale degli Ammiragli (Eni is one of the world's largest oil and gas companies). Two held banners, one saying "Don't turns us into fossils. Join us!" and the other saying "Last Generation" (translations from Italian, mine). A third was recording the sit-down on her phone.
The 10 or so police let this go on for a while (the woman holding the "last generation banner" kept up a loud, non-stop anti-fossil-fuel diatribe [she was amazingly good at that]), then took the phone of the woman recording, took the banners and folded them up neatly, and then started taking away the 3 protestors, who went limp in their non-violent action.
Protestor Ugo Rossi being dragged by police and protestor Laura Zorzini lying down.
The newspaper reports the next day seemed to describe a different event. They spoke of broken windows (we did not see any - but there could have been some - and the photo in the paper was from a different protest months before), violence ("I violenti" - violent persons), and panic in the neighborhood. Well, no - just people like us standing around looking - until the largest policeman pointed at Bill's camera (Bill was taking these photos) and we hightailed it out of there. It seemed to us the news media wasn't at the event and simply parroted the police report.
We have since learned that "Ultima Generazione" is the name of an action organization, And that the outspoken, well-spoken young woman is Laura Zorzini, a 27 year-old from Trieste who is known as the Italian Greta Thunberg. She's been arrested multiple times, engaged in many protests, and been on a hunger strike. In this case the 3 were held overnight and then released (as we would say, probably "on their own recognizance").
Laura Zorzoni, the non-stop talker and Greta Thunberg of Italy, holding the yellow "Ultimata Generazione" sign. The third protestor is shown filming, while the police - at that point - look on passively.
[Update - December 4, 2014 - Blu has finished the artwork on the "occupied" building below. See this link for photos of Blu working on the immense project, and of the finished work. The title of the lnk isBlu unveils a majestic mural on Via Del Porto Fluviale in Rome, Italy. As our London son put it, "Blu is considered a big deal." Glad we were there early!]
For those tired of RST's obsession with Street Art, skip this post. But you'll be missing something, imho. As we noted recently by reviewing Jessica Stewart's book on Rome street art, Street Art Stories, this ephemeral form has an exceptionally good life in this, the Eternal City. And, having just returned from London and a great street art tour there (Street Art London), we're jazzed up about the form.
oops, there goes the cat
And so it was that we finally stopped in the Ostiense neighborhood (a run-down working class area that is being revived by youth and money, and was on its way enough that it made it into the original RST as part of Itinerary 4) to get a close-up look at what we drive by weekly, if not daily.
The train underpasses for via Ostiense and via delle Conce
we like the see-through aspects of the art in the underpasses
are clearly painted artistry, and they survive tagging and painting over. Some of the themes echo Rome itself, including the nearby Protestant Cemetery, where Keats's memorial has the inscription by Shelley: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water". Some are political (anti-war), and some fantastical (a unicorn, a cat eating a bird, eating a cat, etc.)..
Nearby is an "occupied" building. We've written previously about occupied cultural spaces in Rome, both on the blog and in RST. This is an occupied living space. We took some photos before being asked not to; so out of respect for the residents, we have not included any photos of the inside of this - in many ways - charming space. The occupants here celebrated their 10th anniversary on June 1-2, with some events open to the public. It's hard to get one's head around all that from a US perspective.
The residents of this building are painting the exterior, using the windows for eyes, and creatively bringing out faces. It's not done yet, one can tell. We like it.
But we learned a few days after our visit in early June that residents had filed dozens of complaints with the police about the dangers of the painter working high up without any protection. Add to that, say the residents, the fact that the large cornices are losing chunks of plaster - hence the closer of the sidewalks with the orange fencing you see in the photo above. The residents and local merchants are clearly frustrated by the police failure to do anything about the building. The artist, who doesn't live in the building but was asked by residents to do the painting, claims he will carry forth, even though the police have stopped him a couple times.
Check out the building, which occupies a former military installation; the ex'caserma, we're told, is what it's called (and, the woman we asked, said, "bello, no?" - "beautiful, isn't it?"). You can start at the corner of via del Porto Fluviale and via delle Conce.
and the 1950s madonnellas are still around
Dianne
Brazilian artist Herbert Baglione's work from 2011 is still
untouched.
It was early evening when we passed through Piazza San Silvestro. Not long ago it would have been full of buses and people waiting for them, but the piazza has been reinvented, its function as a bus depot eliminated, and what we found was a huge empty space, filled with rubble and machinery, surrounded by a plastic and chain-link fence. To serve businesses on the piazza--including the restaurant at far right, above--the sidewalks remained accessible.
As we were walking by, a young woman mounted her scooter and, cautiously, but on the sidewalk, and with a shopping bag over one arm, headed north on the east side of the piazza. Scooters using the sidewalk for a few yards, to find a place to park, are commonplace in Rome, but this woman's sidewalk journey was a longer one than usual: a whole block of sidewalk to cover before she reached a usable street.
She didn't make it. As luck would have it, as she neared the end of the block and was passing in front of the restaurant (with outside tables, also on the sidewalk), a police officer approached and--from what we could observe from afar--ordered her to turn around and walk the scooter back to where she had begun her sidewalk ride. No ticket, but embarrassing.
"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.
With its funky art shows accompanied by wine, the Romanian Academy is one of our favorite social venues. The building itself is an impressive neo-classical structure. Here we offer two views of the building, one contemporary, the other from 1968, when Piazza Thorvaldsen, on which the building fronts, was the scene of a historically significant, violent confrontation between police and students. Bill
