North of Naples, South of Rome

by Tullio, Paulo;

  15

  Then and Now

  Even the most cursory look at southern Italy alerts the observer to some strange combinations. There is extraordinary beauty and extraordinary mess. Town planning seems to be embryonic and ineffectual. Half-finished buildings litter the countryside, finished apartment blocks wait years for a pavement and the removal of the builders’ rubble. Large civic projects remain in a limbo of incompleteness for years and years. Roads that have been dug up stay like that for months. On the outskirts of towns there are haphazard areas of industrial estate, sprawling with no apparent overall plan.

  There is a carelessness with rubbish; it can be found in streets, hedgerows and even in the most remote parts of the Abruzzi National Park. Not all of this is the fault of the citizens; new by-laws prevent the disposing of electrical white goods with domestic rubbish. Dumps won’t take old fridges and washing-machines, but hedgerows will. Quite what else you are supposed to do other than dispose of these things furtively is anyone’s guess.

  The mountains of rubbish are a symptom of Italian consumer society. Italians have a lot of disposable income. The reasons for this are varied, but begin with the undoubted fact that the country is rich. My son learns in his Irish school that the south of Italy is chronically poor. The textbook that says this was not written in the 1950s but recently, so I am puzzled at how the author came to this conclusion. Perhaps he remembered it from the 1950s, when it was true. The fact is that this opinion, although common, is a fallacy. Italy’s gross domestic product outstrips that of the UK, which is why it is a member of the G7. The south is poorer than the north, but it is only a question of degree.

  The Italian Bureau of Statistics throws out some fascinating titbits. Italy is the largest importer in the world of Scotch whisky, diamonds, fur and luxury German cars such as BMW and Mercedes. This is not the purchasing pattern of a poor nation. These statistics become a reality to the observer of any street scene – most of these items are on prominent display.

  What makes conflicting reports on the health of Italy’s economy more understandable is the division between the poverty of the public purse and the wealth of individuals. Italy has been described as a poor country inhabited by rich people. The state has enormous trouble levying taxes on its recalcitrant citizens, relying almost totally on taxing expenditure. Thus petrol is, as far as I know, the most expensive in the world. Coupled with the fact that Italy has a car fleet of over 25 million – nearly one car for every two people – the revenue potential of this one tax becomes clear.

  Over the last twenty years the economic boom that propelled Italy into the company of industrialized nations has had a dramatic effect on the Comino Valley. This area of Italy was traditionally known as the terra di lavoro, the land of work, because for centuries its poverty-stricken inhabitants were migrant workers; they were the navvies of Italy. Great civil-engineering projects such as the draining of the Pontine marshes took their work-force from here, as did many seasonal enterprises such as fruit and grape picking in the hinterland of Rome. Or people emigrated – to the big industrial cities of the north, to other countries. The figures are mind-boggling. Over the last 100 years more than 3 million have emigrated from Lazio alone. These are the people whose ice-cream parlours and restaurants fill towns and cities all over Europe, as well as their more varied enterprises in the United States.

  Some have made their mark on history. Domenico Pignatelli and Rosa Arpino are immortalized in stone; they were Rodin’s models for ‘The Kiss’. Some years ago another Rosa, an old friend, invited my wife and me back to her house for coffee. As she went into the kitchen we idly scanned the walls. In a corner, behind a door, was a small oil painting of a vase of flowers. Something about it made us look closer. When Rosa came back with coffee, we asked about it.

  ‘Oh, that was done by a French artist, Rodin. My great-grandfather was one of his models. We’ve got five of them, I think.’

  It transpired that these had been in part-payment for modelling, but unfortunately three of them were badly damaged. They had been buried during the war to protect them from the Germans, who were not averse to a little pillaging.

  The effect on the Comino Valley of emigration was initially impoverishing. The young and the entrepreneurial left to begin new lives, new fortunes, elsewhere. As the years went by these emigrants enriched the valley, not only economically, but also by bringing back new ideas and customs. The twenty or so villagers who went to Paris at the turn of the century to model for Utrillo, Monet, Manet and Rodin brought home to Gallinaro a refreshing blast of French liberalism. This has left Gallinaro to this day the most secular of all the valley towns. Others have been great benefactors, subsidizing feste, rebuilding chapels, or supporting activities for the young, like football teams. The valley’s inhabitants have learned more of other countries through the emigrants, and increasingly visit these countries themselves, which has led to a growing awareness that life in the valley has much to recommend it. It is at least as attractive as a sprawling banlieue of Paris. The lurking inferiority complex that emigration caused is being replaced by pride.

  Increasing leisure has changed life in the valley. Now every village has a football pitch, tennis courts and running tracks, all built within the last fifteen years. Where once the only sport was boccia, the Italian boule, now the list is comprehensive. There are thirty-six sports clubs in the valley, covering activities from hang-gliding to kung fu. Not many years ago children were taken out of school to help with the harvest; now they fill their leisure time go-karting, skiing, swimming and eventing.

  When I was first old enough to be aware of my surroundings, in the early 1960s, the valley was still much as it had always been. There were few cars; people travelled only when necessary, either to market or to hospital, by bus or taxi. The blue single-deckers that served the area were reasonably frequent, and always packed with people, rabbits in wicker baskets, chickens and ducks. Once I saw an old woman with a lamb. Taxis were private cars hired out with the driver. The more affluent would take a taxi if there were at least four going to the same destination. It was a peasant society with peasant values, rather like the rural Balkans of today. It was a common sight to see women walking the road, ramrod straight, carrying loads of wood or produce on their heads, often accompanied by their husband astride a donkey, smoking a pipe. Small children had the job of driving the sheep and goats along the road, at dawn and dusk, to and from the pastures. Watching this made me understand the saying about separating the sheep from the goats. In England it seems to make little sense: sheep look nothing like goats, any idiot can tell the difference, whereas the sheep in the Comino Valley are long-legged and more hairy than woolly – like goats. You have to look very hard to tell the difference.

  Those early years were when I first came across the 10-watt electric light bulb. They were common in the houses that had electricity and in public places such as bars, emitting about as much light as a guttering candle. Through the clear glass the element glowed a dull red, its sole virtue being its minimal consumption. Nothing was wasted, care was taken with everything. Bottles of all shapes and sizes were kept and washed; thinnings from the vines or fruit bushes were bundled into faggots for kindling; every scrap of land was coaxed into growing something. These were the outward manifestations of a state of mind: everything had to be nurtured, encouraged to yield something that might make life a little more comfortable.

  In this world there was no room for the non-productive. To keep a dog as a pet was madness; a dog will eat as much as three hens and gives no eggs. There were no flower gardens, just the occasional geranium in a pot. Any scrap of land was required to produce vegetables. Trees were planted for nuts or fruit – there are still almost no evergreens in the valley. Nothing was thrown away, food scraps were composted or fed to the hens or pigs.

  Many of the traditional dishes have simply evolved from the methods of preserving the year’s crop when there was no electricity for refrigeration. Preserving tomatoe
s by boiling or making salted sausages for air curing was not a solitary occupation; because of the quantities involved, the neighbours had to help, so each family helped the others in these tasks. Life was simple and co-operative most of the time. There were no discos or hotels, there was only work, a day at the market or a game of cards in the bar.

  I report this because the prosperity that cloaks the valley today has changed people’s perceptions only superficially. People over the age of forty are still adjusting to the new world of consumerism and wealth. Several things follow from the novelty of prosperity. On the one hand people now delight in spending ostentatiously; on the other there is an abhorrence of anything that recalls the poverty of old. Not so long ago only people with money to spend bought white bread. Because it was made from wheat which is not grown in the valley, it had to be bought at a bakery rather than be made at home. The poor had red bread, made with flour from the maize that they grew themselves. Red bread is delicious, but no one eats it now; it can only be found in bakeries in Rome, where it carries no stigma of poverty.

  Every house had a bread oven, built into a corner next to the hearth, using the same chimney. It was traditionally at waist level; the space underneath held the wood. Like a pizza oven, the inside was domed and you either lit a fire in the oven to bring it up to temperature, or you took embers from the fire and shovelled them in. Monday was the day for baking. Seven large 2-kilo loaves were made, and usually some pizza as a treat. These loaves were kept in wooden chests with high legs designed to discourage rodents, wrapped in linen. By Sunday you needed good teeth for these pagnotte, hard enough to eat when fresh, but dense and tough after a few days. Before bottled gas arrived in any quantity, country kitchens had stoves which were heated by charcoal, or, if not, the cooking was done on the open hearth. Beans were cooked in a terracotta jug, placed at the side of the hearth and left overnight.

  Very little food was bought. All fruit and vegetables came from the orto, the garden, and every household kept rabbits and hens. Meat was not an everyday item, although a careful cook was able to use tiny off-cuts of pork to flavour the sugo, the tomato sauce for the pasta. With care a pig could be made to last a year – even the skin on the cured hams, hard as leather, was used to flavour the sauce. In times of real hardship it was not unknown for the skin to be used over and over again, even lent to neighbours as a kind of soup stone. In wine, too, people were self-sufficient. A tenth of a hectare planted with a local high-yielding grape will produce about 1,000 litres in a good year, sufficient for a family’s yearly supply.

  With 50 litres of olive oil, maize for polenta and red bread, beans and the occasional supplement of poultry, the staples for what was essentially a healthy diet were all there. Very little refined sugar was eaten, only fruit and honey, so even the very old kept their teeth. This diet, combined with physical work in the fields, produced a hardy race, strong, wiry and long-lived. The older women in the valley walk just as osteopaths tell us to do today: straight-backed from years of balancing loads on their heads.

  Only now are the old, traditional ways of doing things beginning to be appreciated. As soon as the first glimmerings of prosperity arrived, kitchens were torn apart, shiny Formica cupboards replaced the old credenze, hearths and brick ovens were replaced with bottle-gas cookers and heaters. In the mad scramble for modernity, in the rush to become part of the twentieth century, ugly, tacky, mass-produced tat took the place of artisan-made things. Hundreds of traditional chairs, ladder-backed with raffia seats, were discarded to make way for tubular steel; wardrobes were exiled to hen-coops as built-in laminated chipboard cupboards took their place. Today people are beginning to question their haste. Antique and curio shops are making an appearance, although they are still treated with some circumspection. I overheard one well-dressed matron say, ‘I know it’s very old, but it isn’t used, is it?’

  Perhaps the biggest contribution to the changes in the social life of the village has been made by Benito Colarossi. He returned to the valley from Scotland in the 1970s and built the Hotel Tramps on the superstrada that links San Donato and Atina. Its arrival coincided with the wave of prosperity sweeping the valley. Tourism is non-existent in the Comino Valley, so the bulk of Colarossi’s business was, and still is, receptions.

  Italians have always spent money on weddings. Even the poorest saved for years to ensure their daughters had not only a ‘bottom drawer’ – six or sometimes twelve of every sort of household linen – but a wedding to remember as well. Where once in Gallinaro these celebrations took place at home, now they are held in the hotel. Numbers have increased exponentially; it is not unusual to have 500 or more guests eating ten courses at the wedding feast. What are new are the baptismal feasts, the confirmation feasts, celebrations for passing the baccalaureate or getting a degree. Last year there was a dinner for the first anniversary of a baptism.

  Not only do these celebrations place a burden on the hosts, they also cost the guests money. It is now general practice at weddings in the valley to give as much money as the meal costs per head. Thus if husband and wife go to a reception, that is 100,000 lire each, plus a present. Not surprisingly, as the economic situation gets more austere, people are finding excuses for not attending, or the husband or wife goes alone, halving the cost. Refusals are difficult, because offence is taken. I have heard of people refusing to do further business with someone who had declined an invitation. It is therefore as much an obligation as an honour to be invited, hence the huge guest lists.

  Gifts on occasions such as these are not small. A twelve-year-old in Gallinaro got three mountain bikes at his confirmation dinner, amongst other presents. The total outlay for all concerned is astronomical. Had this child been fourteen, the gifts would undoubtedly have included a motor bike. All children from the age of fourteen are permitted to have a motorino, and they all do. These are 50 cc mopeds; they must have no more than three gears and a top speed of less than 40 kilometres an hour. The best can cost as much as a small car, up to £5,000. The children are as fashion-conscious as their parents and wouldn’t be seen dead on a motorino that was not the current model. Many companies cater to this market: Aprilia, for example, make stunning 50 cc bikes, one a fully fared racing bike, another a scrambler and, my favourite, the Red Rose, a Harley-Davidson look-alike with chrome all over it. Like all Italian design, these bikes really look the business, even if they don’t go over 25 miles an hour.

  Compared with twenty years ago when hardly anyone had a car in the valley, this is change indeed. It is not unusual for young adults to be given a car on their eighteenth birthday; in the valley the preferred choice is a four-wheel drive, a fuoristrada. By the time marriage comes around they will also be given a house to live in. In Italy home-ownership is universal, there is one house for every two inhabitants, so it is evident that many of these are second homes, either in a mountain resort or by the sea. Because they are almost all owned outright, the effects of high interest rates which cripple home owners in other countries have little effect in Italy. The ability to finance this is largely a result of the Italian family’s modus vivendi. Because families stay together in one house, savings accrue until it becomes possible to build or buy another house with little or no mortgage. The same household economies, the lack of waste, the careful husbandry, allow Italians a large disposable income, which, like everything else, is carefully husbanded in savings.

  This fact explains why Italy’s enormous state debt has not had the same crippling effect as it has had in other countries. Ninety-seven per cent of the state’s debt is internal. The borrowing has been against the savings of the citizens, not in Deutschmarks, and so devaluing the lira has not been catastrophic.

  The vast increase in spending-power has not been confined to individuals. The state has appropriated its share and some of it has been spent on infrastructure. Despite the continuing revelations of corruption and graft in all levels of the state’s administration, clearly not all the money went into lining the pockets of the
officials. Once the only task that a town hall could be seen to be doing was providing dim street lights. But then the resources were minuscule. Today Italy’s comuni are well funded, so well that graft and waste are their common currency. It is quite possible that the current trend towards financial rectitude and austerity will put an end to many of the more outrageous profligacies of the administrations.

  As an example, despite the fact that there is hardly a soul without motorized transport, in 1991 a new bus service was introduced in the valley, paid for by the Lazio region. Four bus companies, based in the four largest towns of the valley, run shuttle services all over the area. An empty one passes through Gallinaro four times a day and I have never seen a passenger on board. These mini-buses roam the byways of the valley, serving, as far as I can see, no one at all. Since no one thought it necessary to co-ordinate the timetables of the various routes, it is virtually impossible to make connections, making a trip from one town to another a lengthy process. Still, this is the kind of government waste where at least the operators benefit, if no one else.

  Town halls are now the providers of school buses, rubbish collection, urban sanitation, sewers and cultural events. This last is a new departure for the valley. In a strictly peasant society there was little room for culture in any form. The few educated people were necessarily better off than anyone else, so they could afford trips to Rome or Naples for the opera or theatre. For the majority, barely literate, these were luxuries they could neither afford nor understand. The contempt in which the contadini, the peasants, were held was remarkable. Because they could not read or write and had implicit trust in their social superiors, they were ripped-off continually. The concept of noblesse oblige had no currency in the valley. Many of those who had education and positions of privilege used both unscrupulously to further their own ends. Even today the elderly poor are often treated with scorn by minor officials such as bank clerks when they have failed to fill in some form correctly. The enormous popularity of the Communist party, until recently, is largely a result of this kind of treatment.