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"

John Cheever: Encounter with Rome

In October 1956, the writer John Cheever (the "Chekhov of the [NYC] suburbs") and his pregnant wife Mary left the Westchester, CT suburbs for a year in Rome.  He had just put the finishing touches on The Wapshot Chronicle, his first novel (it would prove a big success).  A friend found them a place to live: a grand but drafty apartment on the fourth floor of the Palazzo Doria-Pamphili, across Piazza Venezia from where Mussolini had governed. 

The comfy palazzo where the Cheevers lived.

Their landlady was the Principessa Doria herself, but she couldn't or didn't fix the kitchen gas leak or clean the clogged drains.  Thanksgiving soon arrived, but no one in the family knew much Italian and the shopping for the holiday went badly, and instead of roast turkey the Cheevers dined on salami, cheese and bread.  "I still cook breakfast in my underwear," Cheever wrote, "in this Palace of Justice or Haunted Public Library."

No, Rome wasn't an American suburb, and perhaps that's why Cheever had trouble writing during his stay in the city.  He managed one short story--one even he didn't much like--but that was it.  As usual, he socialized, often with a cocktail in hand.  While Mary and the Italian maids took care of their baby (born at Salvador Mundi Hospital, on the Gianicolo), John explored the "Academy" (the American Academy, on the Gianicolo) and what he called the "nonAcademy."  According to his biographer, Blake Bailey, he found a good number of "duds" in each group, which in some cases may have meant they didn't drink as much as he did.  He had a long, pleasant walk with Robert Penn Warren along the Via Aurelia, but despaired at Warren's quoting of Dante and the writer's other intellectual pretensions.  Similarly, he found another Academy Fellow, Ralph Ellison, friendly enough but given to "talking about negroes" and philosophizing about "mass motivation."  Cheever had read Ellison's masterpiece, Invisible Man, and found it--not unlike Warren and Ellison--"longwinded."

Cheever was not the first person to be
uninspired by the Tomb of Augustus

One imagines that Cheever and Ellison, despite their differences, found common ground in their shared inability to appreciate the charms of the Eternal City.  For Cheever, that disaffection owed something to his failure to learn enough Italian to feel comfortable, but it was more than that.  On his first day in the city, an exasperated Cheever, coming upon the less-than-august Tomb of Augustus, lamented, "Is this all, is this all there is?"  No, it wasn't all there is, but it seems Rome's great monuments of antiquity never quite captured Cheever's fancy. 

That said, America's greatest short-story writer (or so some think) may have found in Rome a place in which to revel in his romantic (and bisexual) thoughts and fantasies.  The city's "mystery," as Bailey puts it, appealed to Cheever; he "liked the strangeness of Rome."   "At nightfall," Cheever wrote, "the combination of dim-lamps and Roman gin make me feel very peculiar....The city seems mercurial and while it is lovely in the sun with the fountains sparkling, it looks, in the rain, like the old movie-shot: European capital on the Eve of War....the atmosphere of anxiety and gloom is dense."

Roman gin?
Bill

intimissimi: Too Much Intimacy

What are these Italian guys doing?  They're doing what I'm doing: hanging out in front of intimissimi while their wives shop for bras, panties, slips and other intimate apparel.    Bill

Love Poems: on the Streets and Sidewalks of Rome

Rome's walls--the walls of buildings, the sides of trains and Metro cars--are full of graffiti, some of it reaching the level of art, some of it powerfully political, much of it juvenile scribbling. 

Much less common than wall writing, street and sidewalk graffiti appear here and there, most often on the city's ordinary and ugly asphalt sidewalks, but sometimes on the cobblestoned streets.  This form of writing is seldom political, and never artistic--at least not in the bold letters/colorful sense that one normally associates with the best graffiti.  The streets and sidewalks are a space for personal statements: congratulations and best wishes, vows of commitment, and poems of love. 

Among the simpler statements is "Buon Compleanno Princepessa" (Happy Birthday Princess) and "Claudia Ti Amo" (top) which hardly needs translating. 

From a street in Monteverde Vecchio

And "Auguri Dottoressa"--with the date, September 29, 2011.  Auguri means something like "best wishes," and while "Dottoressa" could mean a woman doctor, here it probably means a woman graduate of any program. 




The love poems proved surprisingly difficult to translate, and we sought help from our friend Massimo, a professional translator.

Here's one:

Tuscolano

                                                                                   
  15.09.11                         September 15, 2011
  Guardami negli occhi     Look me in the eye
  Dimmise non                 Tell me [dialect=dime se non] if you don't                           
  Vedi che io                     See that I
  Sono sempre                   Am always
  Qui X te                          Here for you

Massimo notes that X means "per"--that is, "for"--a custom that derives from the way Italians learn their multiplication tables: 2 X 2 is recited "due per due." 

Another poem:

A Garbatella manifesto

ora che                             now that
ora che 6 con me             now that you're with me
io vivo questo attimo       I live this moment
io vivo fino in fondo        I live fully [to the end of time?]
con te                               with you

Here "6" means "you are" because, in Italian, "6" and "you are" are both spelled and
pronounced "sei." 

And our final example:

Tuscolano

Accettami cosi...Ti          Accept me as I am
Prego..non guarda           Please do not look [see below]
..Nella mia testa              Into my most personal thoughts
Ce un mondo da             
Ignorare!                         There is a world to ignore
28.10.11 Ti Amo             October 28, 2011  I love you

Massimo suggests that this poem might have been penned by a non-native Italian: in the second line, "non guarda" should be "non guardare."  Or perhaps the letters "re" are on the white curb and not visible--or the author ran out of space. 

When we found this last poem, it had been on the sidewalk for about 8 months--obviously written with indelible paint.

Bill

The Best in Italian technology: the Sky Drain

A standard sky drain.

We wouldn't recommend most Italian home technology.  The washing machines are small and take hours to do their work; bathroom showers are served by a variety of weird contraptions; plugs come in a bewildering variety of configurations and are often loose and unreliable. 

Even skydrains are vulnerable to breakdowns.  This
one needed to be propped open with a pasta roller

We are, however, fond of one particular piece of kitchen equipment.  It's not electric, and the mechanics are simple.  This little low-tech gem sits above the sink.  When the cover is down, it looks like any cupboard.  But water goes straight down into the (hopefully) sink.  It's essentially a drain, a descendant, we like to think, of the first and greatest Roman drains: the cloaca maxima (#40 in RST's  Top 40). 

This drain just drains dishes.  Because of its position, we call it the "sky drain."  Sky drains are important because Roman kitchens are small and dishwashers few.  Simple. Convenient.  Efficient.  Nice.

Bill