January 09

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rograms in Rome from 13 january to 10 February

Exhibitions – Opera – Concerts – Entertainment

fre

e!

Monthly newspaper · year II - issue 3

Life and disquiet

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ainter, illustrator and graphic designer, Zoe Lacchei has made a name for herself as one of the most interesting of contemporary Italian artists. The 32-year-old artist burst onto the international scene in 2004 when she realized thirteen paintings for Marilyn Manson’s Gold Disc “The Golden Age of the Grotesque”.

See pg. 9

Tiburtina Station and TAV

A change of speed

New Year Sales in Rome From 3 January until 13 February Rome retailers will be trying to boost flagging sales by offering huge price reductions. With many stores marking up 50% discounts shoppers may feel spoilt for choice. But with so many shops and so many shopping streets across the capital just where should bargain hunters go to get the best deals? Here are some simple tips on how to avoid dodgy deals and where to find the best bargains.

See pg. 6 Advertisement

www.romepost.it · 13 January – 10 February 2009

T

hree and a half hours between Rome and Milan on a red and silver super-train with a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour.

By the end of 2009 the journey time will be below three hours. Italy’s TAV service was finally introduced on 14 December 2008 on the 500-kilometer route between Rome and Milan – the busiest on the Italian railway network. It came at the end of a controversial 15-year project which saw initial cost estimates of €14b in 1991 soar to €66b at the end of 2008. The speedier service shaves an hour off the lucrative Rome–Milan route, connecting Italy’s political and financial capitals in three hours and 30 minutes 18 times a day. Further construction work on the stretch of line between Milan and Bologna will cut another thirty minutes off journey times by the end of this year.

See pg. 4

Palazzogate Rome magistrates are investigating a massive alleged property scam involving more than hundreds of A-list properties in the capital sold at knockdown prices. The affair concerns 851 apartments and buildings that changed hands for a total of 231 million euros – way below their market value.

See pg. 4

Interview with Ilaria Beltramme It’s immediately obvious that the young author Ilaria Beltramme is also an active sportswoman. She covered hundreds of kilometers throughout Rome as part of research for her first book which has proved a surprise bestseller in Roman bookstores.

See pg. 10

2 ITALIAN JOB More than 4 bln euros from criminal groups

Italy to host meeting of 50 foreign ministers

Assets seized from the Mafia Interior Minister Roberto Maroni photo: ansa

ANSA – The value of assets seized from the Mafia and other criminal groups this year is almost three times the amount confiscated in 2007, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said. Maroni said that 1.5 billion euros had been seized 2007 compared to more than four billion euros in 2008.

The minister said ‘’scores of top-wanted criminals were arrested in various Italian regions,’’ during the year. Police have done ‘’an excellent job and produced exceptional results,’’ Maroni said. ‘’It used to be that when a mafioso was arrested or died his wealth and assets were handed down

Immigrant landings up 75%

Illegal immigrants will be sent home ANSA – The number of illegal immigrants arriving in Italy by sea has increased by 75% in 2008 compared to 2007 figures, according to interior ministry figures. Around 36,900 people have landed on Italian coasts in the last twelve months, up from 20,500 last year. The majority of illegal immigrants – around More than 2,000 people 31,000 – arrived on the tiny travelled from the Lybian cost Italian island of Lampedusa, photo: ansa which is closer to the north African coast than the Italian mainland. Around 1,200 illegal immigrants have been repatriated on 38 charter flights in 2008, but numbers are set to rise in 2009 following a pledge by Interior Minister Roberto Maroni to send immigrants who arrive by boat home almost immediately. More than 2,000 people travelled from the Libyan coast, the point of departure for many migrants, to Lampedusa and its neighbouring island of Linosa since Christmas. Lampedusa’s migrant centre, which has a capacity for 800 people, has been repeatedly pushed to bursting point over the last year. Many migrants pay traffickers exorbitant fees for a place on small overladen boats, which are frequently intercepted by the coastguard as they make their way towards Italy’s southernmost island. The island’s mayor, Bernardino De Rubeis, congratulated the government on the repatriation move. ‘’It’s a strong message for criminal organisations who exploit the phenomenon of illegal immigration. It must be clear that, from now on, after illegal immigrants have been identified by the police they will be sent home. Lampedusa will finally be able to return to being known as a tourist destination,’’ he said.

Maroni has meanwhile promised to iron out areas of contention in a deal between Italy and Libya that will give the go-ahead to joint patrols of the Libyan coastline to prevent boats setting out by the end of January. ¶

to his heirs. Now when we arrest them we also seize their assets and they become the property of the State. This past year we’ve arrested 104 dangerous fugitives, 2080 gang members and carried out 181 major operations,’’ he explained.

Ministry data showed that out of the four billion euros in Mafia assets seized this year 60% were real estate holdings.

Another 21% of the assets, for a value of 1.2 billion euros, included such objects as cars, motorcycles and boats, while the remaining 19% of the miscellaneous assets, including 887 enterprises, were valued at 417 million euros. ¶

Verona to target home sex-workers

Cities against prostitution

Under current Italian law only the exploitation of prostitution – pimping – is illegal in Italy photo: ansa

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini photo: ansa

ANSA – Italy will host a meeting of 50 foreign ministers next month to discuss a proposal for the reform of the United Nations, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.

Italy’s proposal focuses on increasing the members of the Security Council ‘’on the basis of regional representation and not just as single nations, to the detriment of others’’, Frattini told the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana. It will also call for ‘’wider consensus on decisions taken by the General Assembly’’ so that approval would not just be based as it is now on ‘’a mathematical majority’’. Frattini said this would make the voting process ‘’more democratic’’.

Another important issue will be the problem of UN intervention in world trouble spots. ‘’We’ve got to agree on objective criteria which would legitimise humanitarian intervention,’’ because at present decisions are made on a case-by-case basis ‘’using varying criteria’’. ¶

ANSA – After clearing prostitutes from its streets, Verona is planning the country’s first crack-down on sex workers who operate in private apartments, said the right-wing Northern League Mayor Flavio Tosi. Residents will be asked to report people causing ‘’disturbances’’ in their apartment blocks, who will then be slapped with a heavy fine. ‘’We have moved them off the streets, but now we want to hit the prostitutes – and there are many – who work from home,’’ said Tosi, who has been battling against prostitution in the city for almost two years.

Under current Italian law only the exploitation of prostitution – pimping – is illegal in Italy, but city mayors combat the phenomenon through the use of fines, often via traffic or public decency laws. Verona and Padua were the first Italian cities to introduce an experimental scheme in 2007 cracking down on clients and introducing fines of 50 euros, which resulted in prostitutes demonstrating against the measure in the streets and offering anyone slapped with a fine a ‘’free service’’.

Although the maxi-fines have helped clear city streets across the country, Tosi stressed that mayors’ powers are still limited. ‘’Until there is a national law that governs the phenomenon of prostitution, city councils can only try to minimize the problem by using the few tools available to them,’’ he said. ‘ The government is currently mulling plans to criminalise street prostitution, and in September the cabinet gave a first green light to a new bill. If passed, the bill will hit both sex workers and clients with fines ranging from 200 to 3,000 euros and jail terms of between five and 15 days. Critics have slammed the bill, saying that clearing the streets will simply force the sex trade further underground, where they will be Nine Million clients in Italy less accessible to both police and social workers.

According to a study carried out before the increase in mayors’ powers last Prostitutes’ Rights Committee spokesperson Carla summer, there were some 100,000 prostitutes in Italy, 65% of whom worked Corso said at the time that the bill would make sex on the streets and 35% in private residences or clubs. Most prostitutes were workers ‘’more invisible and at the mercy of trafsaid to be foreigners, from some 60 different countries, 20% were minors and 10% were forced into prostitution by criminal gangs. The study also fickers’’. ‘’The traffickers will take the women off calculated that prostitutes in Italy charge an average of 30 euros per customer the streets but they will set them to work in apartand generate a turnover in the neighborhood of some 90 million euros a ments, buying up old buildings in the suburbs, and month. Clients were said to number around nine million with 80% seeking they will do so with the government’s good wishes,’’ unprotected sex. she said. ¶

PERSONALITIES OF THE MONTH NEW CIA CHIEF SPEAKS CALABRIAN DIALECT The man Barack Obama has chosen to head the Central Intelligence Agency speaks the Calabrian Siderno dialect perfectly, the cousin of Leon Panetta said. ‘’When he was chief of staff for (ex-US president) Bill Clinton I went to see him at the White House and we understood each other perfectly both in our local dialect and in Italian,’’ Domenico Panetta said.

Leon Panetta is the American-born son of Italian immigrants from Calabria (Siderno). He was Clinton’s chief of staff at the White House after serving in the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.

ITALY’S MOST CREATIVE YOUNG MANAGER Fiat heir Lapo Elkann was the most creative young Italian entrepreneur in 2008, according to a survey made of the international press. Elkann, whose grandfather was Fiat’s legendary playboy president Gianni Agnelli, has been Vanity Fair magazine’s Best Dressed Man for the past five years in a row.

According to the International Herald Tribune, Elkann is a ‘’style icon for the new generation,’’ while the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung observed that ‘’everything that Lapo Elkann wears is then copied and becomes a trend’’.

MESIC OKAYS WARTIME ATROCITY RECONCILIATION Croatia would be in favour of an official act of reconciliation between Italy, Croatia and Slovenia over wartime atrocities on the Istrian peninsula, Croatian President Stipe Mesic has said. Mesic said he approved of an act that would ‘’honour innocent victims on all sides, providing Fascism was not placed on the same level as those who fought against it’’. ‘’We must recognise the mistakes that were made by the respective parties so that we avoid ceding to those who wish to revise history six decades after the end of WWII, destroying a unique chance (for reconciliation),’’ he added

LOREN TIPS GOMORRAH FOR OSCAR Sophia Loren said Thursday she is convinced that Italy’s acclaimed Mafia film Gomorrah will win an Oscar at next year’s awards on February 22. ‘’It’s a very important film that, I’m sure, will win many prizes,’’ said Loren, who has two Academy Awards herself. ‘’I’ll vote for it. It’s a great film that says something and wants to fight something’’. Matteo Garrone’s hard-hitting Naples Mob expose’ is Italy’s candidate in the Best Foreign Film category but also hopes for nominations in the overall best film, screenplay and director categories.

ansa

ITALIAN JOB

Simplification Minister Calderoli photo: ansa

ANSA – The cabinet gave its green light to a draft bill which will cut 29,095 laws from the books in an attempt to simplify Italy’s legal system. The laws all date back from before Italy’s Constitution went into effect on January 1, 1948 and many were passed during the 1922-43 Fascist era. The bill was presented by the minister

for simplification, Roberto Calderoli, who later appeared before the press brandishing a massive dossier made up of five reams of paper, some 2,500 pages, printed on both sides with just the titles of the laws he proposed to abolish listed. ‘’If I had brought you the printed texts of all the laws there wouldn’t be enough space in this room for anything else,’’ the minister quipped to reporters.

In explaining his initiative, Calderoli said that ‘’there are laws here which are from the Fascist era and which we all thought had been abrogated long ago but are, in reality, still on the books’’.

These included one creating the Fascist corporations, which were civic assemblies made up of party members representing economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and/or professional interest and which exerted control over social and economic life. Other laws set to be axed included those dealing with fighting locusts, the loss of documents during flight, ham in a can and protecting citrus fruits from lady bugs. ¶

Vatican divorces Italian law ANSA – The Vatican will no longer automatically adopt Italian laws as its own when a new statute comes into effect. Jose’ Maria Serrano Ruiz, president of the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Vatican Law, said the move was motivated by the ‘’exorbitant number’’ of Italian laws, as well as their ‘’instability’’ and frequent contrast with ‘’the irreversible principles of the Church’’. Although the Vatican is an independent city-state, its residents are largely recognised as Italian citizens.

Under the current statute signed by Pope Piux XI in 1929, Italian laws are accepted by the Holy See except in cases where there is ‘’radical incompatibility’’ with the basic principles of canon law, Ruiz said. But the

Jose’ Maria Serrano Ruiz

Italian population nears 60 mln Rome – The Italian population is getting closer to the 60 million mark, national statistics bureau Istat said Monday. At the end of June, it said, Italy’s resident population was 0.4% up at 59,829,710, an increase of 210,420 compared to the start of the year. The North-East and the Centre showed bigger rises, 0.6% and 0.5%, while the North-West’s population was up 0.4%.

photo: ansa

Cabinet ok to law-cutting law

ECONOMICS IN BRIEF

Manufacturing: 200 production up 5% Milan – There is a positive balance for Italy s industrial sector of manufacturing numerical control machines, robots and atomization, seeing a 5% increase in production in 2008 to the level of 6,110 million euro.

photo: ansa

Over one third of new businesses created by immigrants Rome – Over one third, 35%, of new businesses created in Italy last year were owned by immigrants from outside the European Union. In 2007 one out of four mortgages were taken out by non-EU immigrants, 18% of whom own their own loan, and that the number of foreigners with bank accounts in Italy had jumped 25% over the previous year.

More Italian families falling on hard times Rome – A growing number of Italian families are finding it hard not only to make ends meet but also to buy food, according to a new report from national statistics bureau Istat. The study looked at 20,000 families during the years 2006 and 2007 and found that the percentage of those who experienced times when they did not have enough money for food rose from 4.2% in 2006 to 5.3% in 2007.

photo: ansa

Attempt to simplify Italy’s legal system

Stocks: Bastoni Queen of 2008 Milan – Bastogi (Cabassi Group), the oldest Italian company listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is the queen of Piazza Affari in 2008, gaining 47,9% from the end of 2007. The company is first on the provisional list of Italian shares compiled by Borsa Italiana, with the official prices of December 29. Second is Nova Re, which managed to climb 41,7%, third Landi Renzo, the company that makes LPG-burning system, clearly favoured by last summer’s high oil prices.

Cars: Registration in 2008 -13.36% Rome – The Italian automobile market closed the year in the red, with 140,656 new registrations, 13.29pct less than the same month in 2007. The market lost 13.36pct to 2,160,131 units over the year, according to figures issued by the Transport Ministry, the worst result in twelve years.

new statute signed by Pope Benedict XVI will mean all Italian laws will have to be examined by Vatican authorities before they are adopted as part of the city-state’s own legislation. ¶

Class Action Law delayed six months

‘’Absolutely valid, but...’’

ANSA – A law allowing class action suits will not go into effect for at least another six months, according to a measure included in the government so-called ‘1000 extensions’ bill. This will be the second time that the law, which was to have gone into effect last July 1, has been delayed.

The measure, which would allow groups of Italians to launch joint law suits against companies which they believe have damaged their interests, was approved by previous centre-left government of Romano Prodi. However, the center-right and pro-business government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi decided to postpone the law on the grounds that it needed to be, in the words of Industry Minister Claudio Scajola, ‘’revised’’. Scajola explained that while the measure was ‘’absolutely valid and important for consumers, changes to it were necessary because as it stands, we believe it would set off loads of law suits and would do consumers no good’’.

Class action is most common in the United States where it has resulted in large payouts by big firms such as Phillip Morris and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. When the law was approved last year, Italian consumer associations announced they would launch class actions for some 450,000 small Italian investors cheated by banks who sold them Argentinian bonds when they knew the country was heading for economic disaster. Suits were also expected for the financial collapse of the food multinationals Cirio and Parmalat, the latter which was the biggest financial meltdown in European history. ¶ The financial collapse of the food multinational Parmalat was the biggest financial meltdown in European history photo: ansa

3

Fiat: 2008 Registration -11,86% Rome – Fiat Group Automobiles in December registered 43.506 new cars in Italy, down 15,16% from the 51.281 units in the same month in 2007.

Over the whole year 2008, volumes fell 11,86% to 688.232 registrations, against 780.821 in 2007.

Inflation in 2008 highest in 12 years Rome – Italy’s annual inflation rate in 2008 averaged out at 3.3%, its highest in 12 years. In 2007 Italy’s inflation rate was 1.8%. Last month Italy’s year-on-year inflation rate 2.2%, down from 2.7% in November, with a 0.1% monthly decline in the cost of living index. Istat explained that the year-on-year decline in December was due to a 16.2% drop in energy costs, which fell 4% over November.

photo: ansa

Italian energy sistem ‘’secure’’ Rome – The Italian energy system will be entirely ‘’secure’’ for three weeks even if not a single cubic metre of gas were to arrive from Russia. The Industry Minister Claudio Scajola has already approved an increase in supplies from other countries, including Libya, Algeria, Norway, Britain and the Netherlands.

Wine: Prosecco must be protected Rome – Italian Prosecco must be protected at all costs; the request was formally made in recent days by the Consortium for the protection of Prosecco, for the historical production area to be raised from Doc to Docg, that is, the areas of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene. Prosecco is a Made in Italy wine product which is worth 370 million euros ‘on the shelf. The historical area produced 57.3 million bottles in 2007, a third of which is exported.

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4 ROME NEWS Vatican sources

Palazzogate

Pope’s visit to the Holy Land

piazza santa maria in trastevere

R

ome magistrates are investigating a massive alleged property scam involving more than hundreds of A-list properties in the capital sold at knockdown prices.

The affair concerns 851 apartments and buildings that changed hands for a total of 231 million euros – way below their market value.

The Rome probe was sparked by investigations into a € 400m public-services contract awarded to local businessman

Alfredo Romeo who is now in jail. A company in Romeo’s group currently holds a multi-million contract for the maintenance of roads in Rome.

Magistrates in the capital are now looking into allegations Romeo organised the property sales to a network of friends and associates who allegedly received appartments in prime city centre locations such as piazza del Gesù, the Pantheon, Trastevere and piazza Navona valued at millions for a percentage of the real market value.¶

Tiburtina Station and TAV

A change of speed High speed rail services between Italy’s two principal cities Rome and Milan finally opened on 14 December 2008. In Rome the arrival of the TAV (Treno Alta Velocità) means not only faster links with other Italian cities but is also transforming transport for millions of Romans and tourists within the Italian capital.

{ Emiliano Pretto }

T

hree and a half hours between Rome and Milan on a red and silver super-train with a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour. By the end of 2009 the journey time will be below three hours.

Italy’s TAV service was finally introduced on 14 December 2008 on the 500-kilometer route between Rome and Milan – the busiest on the Italian railway network. It came at the end of a controversial 15-year project which saw initial cost estimates of €14b in 1991 soar to €66b at the end of 2008.

The speedier service shaves an hour off the lucrative Rome–Milan route, connecting Italy’s political and financial capitals in three hours

ANSA - Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Holy Land in May would come at the right time, the Catholic news agency Asianews said. The situation of “strife, sadness and despair’’ in relations between Palestinians and Israel would make the visit “the proper thing to do and at the right time,’’ said the agency. The visit has not yet been officially confirmed by the Vatican but Asianews recalled that during the 1982 Falklands conflict, Benedict’s predecessor John Paul II visited both Argentina and England. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal, announced that the pope would visit in May. Although the Vatican has confirmed Benedict’s intention to visit the Holy Land in 2009, it has yet to give any precise dates.

Earlier this month the Italian daily Il Foglio cited Vatican sources which said that the pope would begin his visit in Jordan on May 8 and would be in Israel May 1115. According to Il Foglio, Benedict also planned to meet with Palestinian Authority officials during his visit. The daily wrote that the pope would celebrate three important masses, one in Jerusalem, one in Nazereth and one in Bethlehem. According to the daily, Benedict has no intention of meeting with representatives from the Hamas Islamic party but would visit the Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and hold talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres.

The possibility that the pope would visit the Holy Land in 2009 was first con-

30 minutes and bring the overall journey time between Milan and the capital to two hours forty-five minutes.

The Italian Railways will have to consolidate passenger loyalty before 2011, when it faces private competition in the form of NTV, a new company led by Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.

The new company, which will launch with 25 11-car AGV trains

by French engineering company Alstom SA, plans to connect Italy’s most important business centres.

Unsurprisingly Montezemolo has announced NTV’s high-speed trains will be the same colour – flame-red – as the Formula One Ferrari.

By 2011 Roma Tiburtina will be the hub of an extended national high-speed network linking not just Milan, Bologna, Florence and Naples but also Turin in the north and Salerno in the south. And the sleek red trains will glide into an ultramodern new station when a €90m facelift for Roma Tiburtina is completed by the end of 2010.

and 30 minutes 18 times a day.

Further construction work on the stretch of line between Milan and Bologna will cut another thirty minutes off journey times by the end of this year.

With the TAV Italian Railways aims to grab a large share of the 3.7 million passengers who fly the Rome–Milan route every year.

But it’s expected they won’t really start attracting large numbers of air travelers until the time gets well under three hours.

Attainment of that goal By 2011 Roma Tiburtina is expected at the end of 2010 when the track will be the hub of an extended between Florence and national high-speed network Bologna is improved to shorten that leg to

firmed by the Vatican last month after it was reported by the Israeli daily Haaretz.

At the time the Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See, Mordechay Lewy, said the visit was “very probable’’. “We’re working hard on it,’’ he said. ‘’A visit by the pope to the Holy Land would have incomparable historic value and he himself has already announced his desire to go there,’’ Lewy added. The ambassador admitted that there were “certainly differences of opinion’’ between the Vatican and the Israeli authorities, but that these did not constitute an obstacle to the pontiff’s visit. The main cause of contention between the two states centres around wartime Pope Pius XII, who many Jews have criticised for failing to speak out against the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust. ¶

The project is a complex one as it involves resizing the station, regenerating the surrounding areas and adding a stretch of road to improve the local traffic.

The architects in charge of the station redevelopment are Rome-based ABDR Associates lead by Paolo Desideri. The new design features a bridge over the existing spinal chord of the rail tracks. It will be a bridge but also an urban boulevard lined with shops and cafés that will reconnect two areas that had long been separated by the sprawling Tiburtina tracks: the residential Nomentano and the more rundown Pietralata.

The Bridge-Station is designed with flexibility of space, elegance and

Pope Benedict XVI photo: ANSA

Italy’s TAV service was introduced on 14 December 2008 photo: flickr / ambrosiana pictures

ROME NEWS Urban security

Crime drops 20% in photo: ansa

Roman Forum to get makeover

500 WiFi hotspots by 2010 Rome’s Provincial Council has unveiled a plan to create 500 WiFi hotspots by 2010. The first phase of the programme aims to provide the service in around 30 towns before extending the service to over 120 locations across the province. If all goes well the area covered by the WiFi programme will be around 5,000 kmsq making it the largest system of its kind in Italy. The

5

new hotspots will not just be connections to the internet but will also provide access to the networks of institutions such as Rome’s libraries, its four state universities and its social and recreational centres.

Consumers will be hoping the programme will go ahead according to schedule and without the all too frequent rises in costs which tarnish similar projects in Italy. ¶

ANSA - The number of reported crimes in Rome fell 20% in 2008 over the previ-

ANSA - The glories of Ancient Rome are to

ous year with even sharper drops for car

get a total makeover over the next two years.

theft and purse snatching, the city’s police

The famed architectural sights will then be

chief said. In his end-of-the-year meeting with the press, Giuseppe Caruso added

illuminated by a new lighting system. Sites

that the results of this year are more than

set for ‘‘a complete clean-up’’ include the

satisfying. We saw car thefts decline by

Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Roman and

more than 25% and purse snatchings

Imperial Forums and Nero’s Golden House,

plummet by 43% over 2007. This year also

said Heritage Undersecretary Francesco Giro.

saw a 20% fall in bank robbberies and

Long-awaited projects such as an underpass

Caruso explained that this was in large

linking the forums and a new walkway up

part due to closed-circuit video surveil-

to the Palatine are part of the scheme which

lance which has proved to be a fundamen-

aims to restore Rome’s ancient splendour

tal deterrent. “Evidence of this, he added,

by the spring of 2011. Unsightly scaffolding,

was the 15% rise in robberies at post

rusty fences and open digs will be cleared

offices where there is still no video surveillance and thus robbers run a lesser risk

away ‘‘so that the central archaeological area

of being identified”. Post office robberies

regains all its sumptuous beauty,’’ Giro said.

were the only crimes to have increased

The ‘‘crowning touch,’’ he said, would be an

in 2008. This past year saw a total of 41

‘‘integrated’’ illumination system for the entire

homicides and police were able to identify

area. Giro said the culture ministry hoped to

those responsible for them in 50% of the

have the lights in place for the 2,764th an-

cases. There was also an increase this year

niversary of Rome’s traditional founding date,

in the number of women who reported

April 21 753 BC. ¶

being victims of crime, « evidence of a growing confidence in law enforcement, » the Rome police chief observed. ¶

efficiency in mind. The new station will be a 240m long glass parallelepiped raised 9m above the ground, measuring 50m in width.

The 8 floating rooms housing cafés, VIP lounges, shops, restaurants, ticket windows and control rooms will be connected to the ground level by dozens of escalators and lifts – and to the other station buildings by a runway along the side of the bridge.

The 2 squares at either side of the entrances to the station will be redeveloped to accommodate railway offices, a bus terminal, a shopping centre, offices and parking spaces.

Chief architect Paolo Desideri says the redevelopment project aims to bring a breath of fresh air to the area and to set the foundations for a pleasant functional station, creating a new standard for Italian rail stations to come.

Work is well underway. By 2011 Roma Tiburtina will be at the heart of Italy’s new national high-speed rail network. The next step will be connecting high-speed services with neighbouring countries by completing a high-speed TAV line between Turin and Lyon in neighbouring France. The stretch will be part of a European-wide project to connect Lisbon, Portugal and Kiev, Ukraine, by train. ¶

Illegal archeological trade

Roman mosaic on web ANSA - An ancient Roman mosaic stolen from Rome’s Catacombs of St Domitilla and put up for sale on the Internet is among precious archeological objects recovered by Italy’s art police over recent months, the squad’s commander Giovanni Nistri said. The mosaic, from one of the capital’s oldest and most impressive underground burial places, was spotted on sale on a website for 55,000 euros. Dating from the second century AD, the Catacombs of Domitilla comprise around 15 kilometres of underground tunnels where both pagans and Christians were buried in wall graves. In another major operation, 500 precious votive offerings, mainly of Etruscan and Corinthian origin, were discovered in an apartment near the archeological area of Satricum, 60 km south east

of Rome. State archaeologists had been alerted to illegal digging near a nearby small lake, Laghetto di Monsignore, by mounds of debris, and art police were called in to investigate. Government archaeology chief Stefano De Caro said the finds confirmed the presence of a sanctuary near the lake that had been in use from the Bronze Age until the beginning of the sixth century AD. The votive offerings confiscated by art police were miniature ceramics such as perfume holders and were worth around 300,000 euros but had great historical value, De Caro said. In a third operation, art police seized two medieval marble heads that turned up on the antiquities market after being stolen. ¶ rome’s catacombs of st domitilla , photo: ansa

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6 ROME NEWS Romans love shopping There will be about 16 million Italian families to take advantage of the 2009 winter

Bargain hunters beware!

New Year Sales in Rome

sories, making the value of the

From 3 January until 13 February Rome retailers will be trying to boost flagging sales by offering huge price reductions. Here are some simple tips on how to avoid dodgy deals and where to find the best bargains.

2009 winter sales at 7 billion

{ Alessandro Mirra }

sales and each family will spend an average of just under 450 euros for clothing and acces-

euros, worth 19.5% of annual earnings for the sector, estimates Confcommercio (General Confederation of Trade, Tourism, Services and SMEs). ¶

photo: flickr/ Bossanostra

W

ith many stores marking up 50% discounts shoppers may feel spoilt for choice. But with so many shops and so many shopping streets across the capital just where should bargain hunters go to get the best deals?

A good bet is to take a stroll through the area known as the Tridente, the trio of avenues fanning out eastwards from Piazza del Popolo – via del Corso, via Ripetta and via del Babuino. The Tridente is central, well-served by public transport, features a huge range of shops – from top designer luxury ateliers to low-cost mass-market stores – with continuous opening hours and, above all, is probably the place where you’ll find some of the best deals in town. One reason for this is that many of the shops are brand stores which want to shift last season’s stock as quickly as possible to introduce their new product lines and so offer the biggest discounts.

On the very first day of the sales period the D&G store in Piazza di Spagna was already marking 50% discounts. Many of the top fashion stores in the Tridente are offering similar reductions (a word of warning: the Christian Dior atelier in Via Condotti never participates in end of season sales:

AltaRoma AltaModa

Italian Fashion Job Rome’s annual celebration of haute couture this January will grace the Italian capital with stylists from around the world and an exhibition paying tribute to fashion photography giant Richard Avedon.

ANSA - Rome’s annual celebration of haute couture, The 2009 edition of AltaRoma, which runs from January 31 until February 3, will be showcased in the 1300-year-old Santo Spirito in Sassia complex, rather than in the modern Rome Auditorium. “The change in venue comes on the request of designers, who prefer historic buildings for their presentations,” explained AltaRoma Director Nicoletta Fiorucci.

Around 20 fashion shows will take place during the four-day event, featuring established Italian and foreign designers but also spotlighting fresh new talent from home and further afield. Seeking out rising new stars has become a key plank in the AltaRoma programme in recent years and it has also made particular efforts to encourage non-Western designers.

Among the more established stylists from outside Europe at this year’s event are Minh Han from Vietnam and the Lebanese designers Abed Mahfouz and Tony Ward. An exhibition of work by

“A question of image”.) The low cost stores in the area, especially those along via del Corso, generally adopt a different strategy.

Sisley, Zara, Benetton, H&M and the other mass-market retailers usually open the sales period offering discounts between 2030%, gradually cutting prices still further until in the last days reductions may reach even 7080% (although of course not much stock may be left by that time). At the end of last year’s summer sales, for example, Sisley was offering men’s pinstripe suits at 60€ compared to the original price of 200€ (-70%). Similar bargains were to be found at Benetton and at the Spanish fashion chain store Zara whose retail outlets are spreading rapidly across the Italian capital. ¶

• If you’ve found a garment that you like try asking the shop assistant if further reductions are planned in the near future. She or he may be correct and tell you the truth! During the sales many stores in Rome choose to introduce the next round of price cuts on Saturdays.

• Be careful if you’re not convinced of the sale item you’re thinking of buying or if it’s intended as a gift: there is no exchange or return allowed on goods bought on sale, unless the product is defective or damaged.

• According to the city’s regulations not only the percentage discount but also the original price of the goods must be indicated on the labels.

photographer Richard Avedon will provide an additional attraction at the 2009 AltaModa, offering visitors the chance to enjoy images never before displayed publicly. “The idea came from the discovery of several boxes containing around 100 shots that Avedon took for Harper’s Bazaar magazine between 1945 and 1950,” explained Fiorucci. “These used to belong to the American model Ann Theophane Graham, better known as Theo, and were inherited by her son Enrico Carlo Saraceni.”

Avedon, who died four years ago at the age of 81, was a prominent figure in the fashion world for decades. He was lead photographer for Harper’s Bazaar for 20 years, before moving to Vogue in 1966, where he held the same position from 1973 until 1988. Avedon’s early work partly won recognition for breaking the mould of traditional fashion photography, capturing the models laughing and in action, rather than remote, frozen and emotionless. Among the top fashion names he worked repeatedly with during his career – the early part of which was loosely fictionalised in the 1957 musical classic Funny Face – were Audrey Hepburn and Versace.

The photography exhibition is expected to take place either in the Capitoline Museum or in the Villa Medici.

The show follows in the footsteps of a previous AltaRoma exhibition devoted to another fashion photography great, Pasquale de Antonis, part of ongoing efforts to expand the appeal of the event by highlighting the industry’s cultural side. ¶

Photo: AltaRoma

• Beware of the city centre stores who use the English word “Outlet” on their signs and windows. They’re almost certainly nothing to do with a genuine outlet store or factory outlet where manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public through their own branded stores. Outlet malls are booming in Italy, but the vast majority are situated way outside city centres. These urban outletwannabes may offer low prices but product quality is often low and stock old.

• If you can, avoid shopping after 4pm, especially at the weekend; you’ll only find crowded stores and stressed-out sales staff. Try between 1-4pm when there are usually fewer shoppers and you won’t have to jostle your way through to that tantalising bargain.

ROME NEWS

The Rioni of Rome: Esquilino

Roman melting-pot Esquilino was one of the first new quarters laid out in Rome after the unification of Italy in 1861, as King Vittorio Emanuele II sought to show the rest of the world a new modern face to ancient Rome. Today it is one of the capital’s most multi-ethnic neighbourhoods where you’re more likely to see store signs in Chinese, Hindi or Urdu than Italian. { Emiliano Pretto }

T

he Esquilino neighbourhood is named for the Esquiline hill on which it stands. It lies south of Termini railway station and centres more or less on the piazza Vittorio Emmanuele II. Many have renamed the quarter “Chinatown”, but in fact immigrants from more than a hundred different countries crowd its busy streets and piazzas. A thriving commercial district, Esquilino also boasts a vibrant cultural and artistic life including the Orchestra di piazza Vittorio, an immigrant band which came to represent the changing, multi-cultural face of modern Italy and became internationally famous thanks to a 2006 documentary by director Agostino Ferrente.

If you want to understand just how much Rome has changed in recent years you have to visit Esquilino. Here the changes have been radically different from the Bohochic makeover that has transformed the nearby Monti neighbourhood. Esquilino boasts no cutting-edge alternative fashion ateliers or trendy watering-holes and nightspots; it is full of dozens of restaurants featuring every kind of Asian cuisine – most of whose customers are immigrants. There are inumerable wholesale clothes shops;

Different languages, same music

orchestra di piazza pittorio

The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio was founded in 2002 by Mario Tronco, a long-time resident of Esquilino who wanted to involve the new residents in his quarter in a project that would make new exciting music and a statement about the changing multi-cultural face of Italy.

Most of the musicians in the Orchestra have come here from, among other places, India and Tunisia, Cuba and Argentina, Senegal and Brazil, Hungary and Ecuador; they’re joined by a few Italians.

Their music is instantly recognisable and utterly unique: mixing rhythms and styles ranging from gypsy, jazz, and latin, and traditional music from Africa to India.

The Orchestra has produced 3 cds and performed in more than 300 concerts around the world. ¶

7

Ethnic Cuisine One of the best Chinese restaurants in Rome is in Esquilino: Hang Zhou at Via S. Martino ai Monti, 33/c.

Two good places for Indian food are Kabir at via Mamiani, 11 (inexpensive and good quality fast food) and the Himalaya-Kashmir restaurant at via Principe Amedeo 325.

you’ll find Vietnamese supermarkets, chinese barbershops, phone- and internet-centres run by Indians. Immigration has been the driving force behind the transformation of Esquilino. Of the 1,300 or so commercial premises operating in the district 800 are Chinese-owned, around 300 are run by immigrants from other countries around the world and some 200 are owned by Italians.

Before becoming Rome’s most multi-racial neighbourhood Esquilino was a prime example of grimey inner-city degradation. Its rebirth began with a massive city-funded project to renovate and clean up piazza Vittorio. The historic (also by that time decidedly shabby and unsanitary) open-air market was moved to a new indoor home a couple of blocks east of the piazza.

The gallery of Piazza Vittorio The old market was the location for a key scene in one of the most famous Italian films of all times: Vittorio De emphasised how vital the theatre’s reopening has been Sica’s 1948 neo-realist classic “Bicycle Thieves”. It is one to the redevelopment of Esquilino by both reinvigorating of the least disputed masterpieces in cinema, with one of the neighbourhood’s cultural life and creating employthe least complicated storylines: an impoverished Roman ment. man, Antonio, is thrilled when he is at last offered a job: In 2004 one of Rome’s most luxurious hotels, the delivering and putting up movie posters. But he needs a Radisson Sas Es Hotel, opened for business just across bicycle, and must supply his own, so his wife pawns the the street from Teatro Ambra Jovinelli. family’s entire stock of bed linen to redeem the bicycle As we have seen many of the he had already hocked. On his businesses in Esquilino are first day at work, the unlocked If you want to understand just how now foreign-owned. But some machine is stolen and Antonio historic Italian names are not drops everything to go on a much Rome has changed in recent just hanging on but flourishdesperate odyssey across Rome years you have to visit Esquilino ing. None more so than gelawith his young son to get his teria Fassi (via Via Principe bike back. They create uproar Eugenio, 65-67). Also known as “The Ice Palace”, Fassi’s in classic crowd moments: in the streets, at a church mass has been a family-run business since it opened in 1928. It – and in the piazza Vittorio market, notoriously a site is Italy’s oldest and largest gelateria. where stolen goods are re-sold.

The owner, Leonida Fassi, the son of the gelateria’s De Sica’s postwar fable, beautifully shot on street locafounder, makes light of the transformation that has tions, is still a joy to watch, and the scene in piazza Vitswept Esquilino. Fifty-four of the sixty shops that share torio is one of the most memorable. the street with Fassi’s are owned by Chinese, and the shop The market has now moved on but the renovated piazza has immigrants among its staff, he explains. “We went is still the bustling heart of Esquilino – a quarter which through some tough times with all the changes in the now moves to a multi-racial beat following the influx of area, but now business couldn’t be better.” And good ice immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Balkans and South cream is delicious whatever language you order it in. ¶ America. New luxury hotels have been opened, theatres that were abandoned for years are now back in business Advertisement again. Artists have moved into the district and gleaming loft conversions are being snapped up. And of course nothing could be more emblematic of the Esquilino’s multi-cultural renaissance than the Orchestra di piazza Vittorio.

The second great symbol of the district’s new found Rome Walks Inc., an English language company vitality is the Teatro Ambra Jovinelli. The Theatre was devoted to helping the busy traveller make the closed down and abanmost out of their visit to the Eternal City. photo: flickr, doned for almost two We help visitors escape the chaos with daniele muscetta decades following a fire. carefully designed group and private tours.

Renovated and modWe also offer country walks. ernised it was reopened in 2001 and is now a thriving centre for the ed by Please visit mend best of Italian comic m o c e R ves, e t www.romewalks.com S k theatre, especially for r’s Ric , Fodo s ’ to learn more r biting political satire. e m From thers. o y n or call directly: The Ambra Jovinelli’s a and m artistic director, tv host +39 347 795 5175 and comedienne Serena Dandini, recently

8 GREEN TOURIST Feline sanctuaries

The Cats of Rome Perhaps one of the most emblematic images of Rome: cats calmly prowling around some of the world’s best-known archaeological sites as if they owned them, sprawling with aristocratic disdain along some ancient monument as they soak up the mediterranean sunshine. There are more than 120,000 stray cats stalking the Eternal City!

Associazione culturale colonia felina Torre Argentina Tel.: 06.45425240 Rifugio Felino dei Gatti della Piramide Via del Campo Boario Tel.: 06.5756085 Oasi Felina di Villa Flora via Portuense 610 c/o Villa Flora Tel.: 06.65749035 Oasi Felina Porta Portese Via Portuense, 39 Tel.: 06.5895445

I

t’s impossible to visit Rome without noticing the huge numbers of stray cats which live in the historic centre, not to mention the city’s archaeological sites, home to thriving feline communities, where the cat is king. Romans hold a deep-

rooted affection for these cats who have an ancient bond with the city. Modern Roman felines are blessed with a special band of protectors known locally as gattare, or cat ladies.

The gattare feed, spay, provide medical treatment and otherwise care for all the cats that they find, including the great number of felines abandoned by their owners during summer vacation. The cat ladies have founded several feline sanctuaries across the city, the most famous being the ones in largo Argentina not far from piazza Venezia, and within the grounds of the Protestant cemetery in the shadow of the massive Pyramid of Caius Cestius in the Testaccio district. More properly known as the Cimitero Acattolico, or non-Catholic cemetery, this lovely spot houses the graves, among others, of the English poets Keats and Shelley and the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci.

“We feed and take care of the strays,” explains one of the Piramide cat ladies. “We pay for

them to be sterilized and in some cases we can find new homes for them.”

The sacred area of Torre Argentina, which contains some of Rome’s earliest temples, was first excavated in 1929. Cats moved into the protected below-street level shortly after. The Torre Argentina sanctuary was founded in 1994 by Lia Dequel, a retired cruise ship boutique director together with another cat lover, Silvia Viviani, The shelter was set up right next to the archaeological site with its four Republican era Roman temples five meters below street level.

Through donations from well-wishers, visiting tourists and fundraising efforts, the sanctuary evolved into a professional operation, taking care of the cats by providing daily

Annual ‘Zoomafia’ report

Rome’s rubbish

Final destination malagrotta site has no facilities for differentiated recycling

Last year’s devastating trash crisis in Naples had sparked hopes that Rome authorities would learn from the southern Italian city and develope a serious programme of differentiated waste collection. But things seem unlikely to change in the near future after the head of Lazio’s regional administration Piero Marrazzo was forced to prolong an agreement which means all the capital’s waste will continue to be dumped at the controversial Malagrotta facility – Europe’s largest landfill site – just a few kilometers outside the capital.

Marrazzo blamed the move on what he said was the failure

by Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno to meet a pledge to come up with an alternative programme.

Although the city has long installed differentiated waste containers throughout the city, the privately owned Malagrotta site has no facilities for differentiated recycling. ¶

Without doubt the most famous gattara was the Oscar-winning film star Anna Magnani. The actress lived nearby Torre Argentina and regularly brought food to members of the feline colony there. She also lived in a house full of cats. ¶ anna magnani, the most famous gattara

{ Emiliano Pretto }

Feline sanctuaries of Rome

A very special cat lady

Illegal animal trade ANSA - The illegal exploitation of domestic animals, livestock, and wildlife continues to provide organized crime gangs in Italy with huge sums of money each year, according to the latest report by animal rights association, LAV. The group’s annual ‘Zoomafia’ report, which analyses illegal money-spinners involving animals, found that the business generated around three billion euros in 2007. Illegal horse racing, which takes place on racecourses after hours or on improvised tracks through city streets, remained the most profitable enterprise, pulling in around one billion euros, according to the report. The clandestine sport attracts hundreds of gamblers across southern Italy. Stolen horses are often used and many are fed powdered Viagra or other stimulants to improve their performance. In 2007 police blocked eight illegal races, arrested 30 people and reported more than 230, LAV said. They also confiscated over 100 horses, a racecourse and riding stables as well as over 1,000 doses of forbidden performance-enhancing substances.

The rigging of legal races also continues to be a serious problem, with Mafia-style gangs switching horses, bribing jockeys, disguising thoroughbreds as mixed breeds, and injecting animals with amphetamines.

Even if tricks such as doping are uncovered afterwards, payouts on bets have already been made and they are usually unretrievable. Legal betting businesses believe they lose millions of euros as a result.

The report highlighted puppy trafficking from Eastern Europe as another major money-spinner. Around 500,000 puppies are imported illegally into Italy each

food and medical assistance while sharing funds with the poorer sanctuaries around Rome when they were available. Money is especially vital to pay for the veterinary costs of spaying the strays, who number between 250 and 600 at Torre Argentina, depending on the season. Last year, the shelter spayed more than 1,500 cats throughout Rome. Many cats arrive at the shelter in a pitiful condition, victims of accidents or maltreatment. Without the dedicated work of the gattare many would not survive. Once cured some of the animals are found new homes through the shelter’s adoption service. ¶ More information about how Rome’s cats are looked after may be obtained from the sanctuaries themselves of from the City Council, which has a special office dealing with the protection of stray animals (tel.: 06.32650568).

year after being bought in Eastern Europe for around 60 euros each. Pedigree puppies can fetch up to 20 times as much on the Italian market, where traders fake documentation claiming the dogs were born in Italy, LAV said. Pets are smuggled over the border in cramped conditions in the backs of lorries, and one in four puppies does not survive the trip. Trafficking of exotic animal species such as parrots and tortoises as well as ivory, caviar and Chinese medicine containing ingredients from protected species is meanwhile worth around 500 million euros annually, LAV said. The report highlighted a new trend of illegal trading over the Internet, where species are posted directly to buyers’ homes. Colourful coral samples measuring 10 cm in diameter can fetch between 300 and 400 euros via Internet sales. Other clandestine enterprises included the theft of livestock, falsification of health certificates and the illegal meat trade, according to the report. ¶

the illegal money-spinners involving animals generated

around three billion euros in 2007

Squatting in Rome

101 things to do in Rome

Social centres are abandoned buildings that have been occupied by squatters and transformed into selfmanaged cultural and political hubs.

See pg. 11

If you buy Ilaria Beltramme’s debut book don’t ever lend it to anyone – you can be sure you’ll never get it back. Unless the borrower has managed to enjoy all 101 things. See pg. 10

L

The visionary art of Zoe Lacchei

ife and disquiet

E

clectic and passionate, exotic and erotic; Zoe Lacchei’s unmistakable artistic style is a fusion of traditional techniques and cutting-edge contemporary vision. Delicate designs of extraordinary anatomies, fragile human figures that might be angels or demons; animals on the very edge of reality; images powered by a limitless sense of fantasy. The 32-year-old artist burst onto the international scene in 2004 when she realized thirteen paintings for Marilyn Manson’s Gold Disc “The Golden Age of the Grotesque”. Lacchei’s work is frequently dark and troubling, offering a strange and precarious mix of beauty and repulsion. Life as disquiet.

– Even since I was young I’ve always found difficulty in using words to express certain states of mind and emotion; drawing has always given me a much more immediate way of self-expression. As I grew up this only became stronger and, as I gradually acquired a better working knowledge of different techniques, I found my imaginative universe expanding and I began to tackle more adult and complex themes. From the outset my aim has been to express myself through my art. Even today it’s still the best way I know of communicating to others who I am.

– Your art covers a vast range of different media and techniques.You switch with ease from one to another. Do you have a favourite?

– My first commissions were as an illustrator for adult comic books. It was easy work and well-paid; it was fun too, but if you do it on a full-time basis you have to accept too many regulations and too many compromises.

I decided to move in a different direction, I wanted more artistic freedom. I concentrated on illustration and character design. I’ve only recently started working with art galleries; it’s hard work but very satisfying.

Whatever media or technique I’m using, however, the aim is always to create an emotional impact.

– Your illustrations are often adorned with strange and fabulous animals. What’s your attraction for them?

– Through the animals I try to make manifest sensations of unease and suffering that would otherwise be difficult to express. I love insects, especially moths; but I have an almost phobic reaction to spiders – I use them in my work whenever I want to create a sensation of something dark and disturbing. I like depicting animals which provoke fear or are regarded as ugly; in every one of us there are darker elements which others – the outside world – struggle to understand.

Painter, illustrator and graphic designer, Zoe Lacchei has made a name for herself as one of the most interesting of contemporary Italian artists. { Francesca Camerino }

– From who or what do you draw your inspiration?

– Usually dream-like or surreal situations. I try and fuse reality with dream and nightmare. It goes without saying that the artists I’m most influenced by are all blessed with unusual imaginations. For example, among the contemporary Western painters I most deeply admire are Saturno Buttò, Michael Hussar and Mark Ryden.

As far as Japanese art is concerned, there’s Takato Yamamoto, Range Murata, Katsuya Terada and Yasushi Nirasawa. I also enjoy the animated films of directors like Satoshi Kon and Hayao Miyazaki; they helped me to understand how illustrated characters can still express complex psychological depth.

– Your fascination with Japanese culture is nowhere more evident than in the recent hugely successful series of paintings you produced for the “Geisha Project”. How did the project begin?

– ”Geisha Project” was born out of the idea of using the expression of the highest form of elegant feminine perfection in order to show the fragility and unease

Dreams and nightmares Zoe Lacchei was born outside Roma in 1977. After completing her high school studies at art institute where she had become increasingly interested in illustration for comic books and animation, at 19 she enrolled at the “Scuola Internazionale Di Comics” in Rome where she studied figurative and digital arts. Subsequently she focused on intensive study of the subjects she loved the most, such as human anatomy and Japanese culture.

These elements were to provide the richest source of inspiration for her later work. Her unbridled talent, expressed through shocking images and disturbing themes found few admirers in the Italian art world. In a bold move she entered one of Japan’s most prestigious competitions for illustrators and graphic artists and arrived on the final shortlist until it was discovered she was not Japanese and she was disqualified. Scraping a living thanks to a series of badly paid commissions producing graphic art, including porno-chic comic books, Lacchei sought to interest Italian publishers in her work – without success.

In 2002 she began working on a Marilyn Manson Project and in 2004 was chosen by Universal Music Italia, to produce thirteen illustrations for Manson’s Gold Disc “The Golden Age of the Grotesque”. These were then collected and published in the original portfolio “Metamorphosis, the art of Zoe Lacchei”. ¶

that may be hidden behind the austerity and rigour of a highly complex and ancient culture. The women in my paintings are not only geishas but also oiran/ tayuu, the high-ranking courtesans of early Japan.

Western culture has always viewed geishas – erroneously – as prostitutes, a sort of slave figure trained only to serve men. Nowadays there is a clearer understanding, however, that the geisha is a complete artist devoted to the perfection wrapped in the sublime detachment codified over centuries in Japanese aesthetics. My interpretation of this special world aimed to skew this rigour and austerity by depicting these women in all their sensuous and morbid unease.

I adore Japanese culture for its extravagance and complexity.

For me it’s an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

It’s a world of such extraordinary beauty, it leaves me astonished and in a state of wonder like a child.

– Do you work in Italy or abroad?

– Working in Italy is always very complicated.

Things are never easy.

People are totally obsessed with the techniques used to produce a work of art, rather than focusing on the work itself. There is also sometimes a reluctance to accept certain concepts and subject matter. I think abroad artists are granted more creative freedom and respect. There’s also more professionalism and seriousness. Often I may be working here in Italy, but only because someone on the other side of the world believes in what I’m doing.

– What projects have you got lined up for the future?

– There are several. At the moment I’m completing a series of illustrations with the overall title “Beauties & Beasts”. They are all inspired by photographs from the second half of the 19th century. After that I’ll be producing a group of illustrations entitled “Japanese Female Ghosts and Demons”. Then I’m planning a series of “erotic” illustrations featuring models like Nana - RapeBlossom, Mikaela Mae, Koneko and many others. ¶

Limited edition Giclee Prints of Zoe Lacchei’s Geisha Project paintings are currently available from the Fine Grime Gallery and Art Publishing House, Bath, UK www.finegrime.co.uk

X Interview with Ilaria Beltramme

101 things to do in Rome If you buy Ilaria Beltramme’s debut book don’t ever lend it to anyone – you can be sure you’ll never get it back. Unless the borrower has managed to enjoy all 101 things.. { Aniko Horvath }

I

t’s immediately obvious that the young author Ilaria Beltramme is also an active sportswoman. She covered hundreds of kilometers throughout Rome as part of research for her first book which has proved a surprise bestseller in Roman bookstores.

Beltramme insists the book was “written with her legs”, she covered every one of the 101 itineraries across the capital in their entirety for her quirky – and hugely successful – guidebook: “101 things to do in Rome at least once in your life” which was first published by Newton Compton in 2007.

We’re both slightly late for the interview. Beltramme because of a problem with her pet cat (can you imagine a Roman authoress who doesn’t have a cat?), me because on the way I had been re-reading her book and lost all track of time. “101 things” affords a double pleasure: it’s gratifying to find out that those parts of Rome you know and love are also enjoyed by others; and it’s a joy to set off towards as yet undiscovered destinations across the Eternal City in search of new locations, colours, tastes and experiences (how about carrying out some experiments in alchemy at the “Magic Gate” in piazza Vittorio?)

– How did you get the idea of capturing Rome through 101 different itineraries?

– The basic idea was suggested by the publisher, but he left me absolute freedom to choose the locations. It gave me a tremendous opportunity to rediscover so many places I hadn’t seen since

Ilaria Beltramme was born and raised in Rome and has lived in London and Spain. She has worked in bars and restaurants, as a translator, and has edited a travel magazine. It was there that she was contacted by the publishers Newton Compton and commissioned to write “101 things to do in Rome at least once in your life”. The book was an instant success and has sold more than 50,000. Her second book, “101 things on the history of Rome”, was published on 8 January 2009.

Journeys of the Spirit Festival

“Sing and Walk”

Journeys of the Spirit Festival, is the first international festival of the itineraries of the spirit that will be held from 15–18 January at the New Rome Fair Grounds.

J

osp Fest is a groundbreaking event that celebrates pilgrims and also involves all people who desire to “begin a journey” that stimulates and contributes to spiritual growth. Created and organized by Opera Romana Pellegrinaggio (ORP), the festival will bring together representatives of all the great religions and focus on the ethics and values these faiths share.

The festival has chosen as its motto the celebrated phrase by Saint Augustine: “Sing and Walk”, as an invitation to all to seek and find the joy of a spiritual journey.

“Pilgrimage is an experience that moves us,

I was a child. My father was an art historian and practically from the time I could walk he would take me around Rome and show me the places that he loved so that I would love them too.

– By no means all the 101 itineraries are new, but even in the better known walks you always manage to find something fresh and unusual.

– The idea was to produce a guidebook that would be useful to visitors to Rome and Romans themselves. Many of us who were born here love the city – but all too often tourists know the place better than we do! Visitors come here with their ‘things to see and do’ list on their limited time schedule and they go to it with energy and passion. Many Romans take the attitude that the monuments and all the other treasures are here, are not going anywhere and that they’ve got a lifetime to see them... I wanted to give my fellow Romans some useful tips on where they could take friends visiting the city or perhaps just simply to help them look at their hometown in a new light and to explore it with renewed interest – as if it were the first time.

– It’s not just a book to read, but to experience.

– I hope so; with passion.

– Perhaps one of the reasons for the book’s huge success is not just all the unusual information with which it’s crammed but your obvious love for your home city.

– I adore it. I feel completely in tune with its rhythms, its myriad marvels and all its imperfections. I’m delighted by the rebirth to the city’s cultural life that has happened in recent years. When I came back here in 2000 after a couple of years living abroad I discovered Rome was once again a city I could choose to live in.

I’ve never regretted it.

– A whole chapter in the book is dedicated to the Tiber. Many Romans never seem even to notice the river unless it threatens to burst its banks and flood the city as it did last December.

– I love rivers, they give added life to a city. It’s always seemed a great pity to me that the Tiber is now confined between those huge stone embankments; it’s too isolated and cut off from the city. If you look at historical paintings, you can see Rome was a city of water and light. Now there is just light. In the past it was common to take a boat ride down to the sea. I used to spend a lot of time canoeing on the Tiber. I met so many people whose lives were inextricably bound up with the river, they lived and worked there. They’re a dying race. ¶

but the exterior movement is not enough if it’s not accompanied by one on the interior.

The theme of the interior journey is important because it distinguishes these itineraries of faith from existing offerings that do not give the possibility of an interior experience that allows us to find the truth in ourselves concerning God and our world,” said Father Cesare Atuire, Chief Executive Officer of ORP. The event aims to show that intercultural dialogue that supports peace among the different religions and people of the world is possible. The festival will include seminars, roundtable discussions, workshops, films, concerts and many other cultural events. Special tours will take visitors to many of the holy sites of Rome. The wide range of activities aim to demonstrate that the religions of the world can be effective “schools” of education and peace. The wide programme of events will inform but also entertain; they seek to provide opportunity for in-depth study of and to raise aware-

ness on a series of themes inherently linked to the journey of the spirit such as the protection of the environment and eco-friendly slow tourism. Discussions and activities during the festival are organised in four thematic groups: Journey – looks at the principal itineraries of faith and is dedicated to the three principal Christian religious destinations – Rome, Santiago and Jerusalem – and the roads that lead to them.

Italy – will showcase the religious and cultural offerings that are an integral part of the country’s rich historical and artistic heritage.

World – destinations and tourism professionals – is dedicated to pilgrimage locations and the religious and cultural destinations around the globe.

Our Top Ten for all tastes 1. For the curious: try a piping hot mouthful (be careful!) of bruscolini (a traditional Roman snack of toasted pumpkin seeds) at Bakery Boccione, via del Portico d’Ottavia 1 2. For believers: see the frescoes depicting the conversion of Emperor Constantine in the Basilica dei Santi Quattro Coronati, via SS. Quattro 20

3. For non-believers: read poetry to the cats in the Protestant cemetery, via Caio Cestio 6

4. For the sporty: skateboarding in piazzale Adenauer, EUR 5. For lovers of the macabre: see a display of the vital organs of dead Popes, inside the Church of SS Vincenzo and Anastasio, near the Trevi Fountain.

6. For lovers of retro clothing: MAS, in via dello Statuto 11 7. For film buffs: a stroll through the old working-class neighbourhood of Pigneto, where scenes from “Rome: Open City” and many other classic Italian movies were set.

8. For art lovers: visit the birthplace of the Baroque: the facade of the Church of Santa Susanna, via XX Settembre 14

9. For residents: pay your utility bills in the post office at via Marmorata 4 10. For extremists: ride the number 19 tram, which trundles all the way across town from piazza dei Gerani in Prenestino (on Rome’s eastern outer limits) to piazza Risorgimento (the gates of the Vatican)

Meet – Youth at Josp Fest – is dedicated to students and young people and focuses on training and career guidance.

More than 150 exhibitors from around the world are participating in the festival. They include individual sanctuaries, study and travel organisations, hotel and accomodation companies and specialist transport operators. Rome, the only city in the world that has had 2.000 continuous years of Christianity, has been chosen as the host city for the first Josp Fest is the ideal departure point for all pilgrims to begin their spiritual journey. ¶

Rome Fair Grounds – North Entrance 15-18 January 2009, 10am – 6pm Entrance Free

XI Unusual Rome

A different way of being a tourist

Have you ever wanted to get off the traditional tourist track in Rome and try to find some new perspectives on the Eternal City? How about learning to see the city and its treasures through the eyes of an artist and drawing them; or visiting a basilica containing three churches built one above the other; or becoming a genuine connoisseur of Italian coffee?

U

nusual Rome offers visitors a different way of being a tourist, that goes beyond the traditional guided tours. We spoke to the agency director Chiara Nicodemi, who was born in Florence but has become Roman by adoption and by vocation, to find out what makes this travel organisation so special.

– Rome is traditionally a city to be seen through open-air sightseeing. But in the cold and rainy months like now what other alternatives are possible?

– There are so many marvellous churches both large and small that are full of hidden treasures. One of my personal favourites is the Basilica of San Clemente which is especially notable for its three historical layers. Or there’s Santo Stefano Rotondo, one of the largest and oldest round churches in existence. Another fascinating alternative is a visit to the historic art workshops, they’re real museums of dying crafts which are little known even to born and bred Romans. Our clients are invariably delighted. But if the weather is really bad there are also special visits to subterranean Rome – a whole new world hidden beneath our feet.

– And when the weather allows us to come back up for air?

– One of our most popular options is a course of art and drawing lessons combined with guided visits to sites of special artistic interest. When you have a blank sheet of drawing

paper in front of you it changes your perspective completely, your vision of the artwork in front of you becomes much more profound and complete.

– What about people who want more than the usual tour of the usual monuments?

– Our philosophy is precisely to combine art with the discovery of Italian culture. For example, is there a better way of getting to know Italians than drinking a cup of coffee and learning some of the most useful everyday phrases? Or learning how to cook lasagne? Clearly our clients’ needs are strictly connected to how long their stay is. Someone on a brief visit to Rome may only want an itinerary lasting 2-3 hours, while for long-stay visitors we can organise courses comprising several meetings.

– One of your most popular options are the special courses for children.

– We can all remember those school trips where we traipsed along as passive listeners.

Unusual Rome seeks to actively involve the children. We create special, fairly brief, itineraries where the kids take a leading role and participate in the experience. We give them their personal exercise books and supply them with entertaining tasks as part of an exciting ROME-POST.eps

art treasure hunt! Another very popular option is our archaeology and mosaic workshops in English for adults or children.

– You were born and grew up in Florence then, after living in Paris for two years, ten years ago you settled in Rome. How do you feel about your adopted city?

– Rome is a fantastic, enchanting city. Every single corner contains a hidden historical treasure. What most astonished me is the life in the various quarters, it’s still a very genuine city. There are so many small neighbourhoods where there’s a real feeling of living in a tight-knit community and a sense of neighbourhood pride. That’s what we aim for at Unusual Rome: to help foreign visitors experience the true human warmth of Rome and Romans. So that when they leave they will take something of Italy home with them. ¶

13-01-2009

For information and reservations: info@unusualrome.com tel. +39 348 3296384 www.unusualrome.com

11:58:22

Advertisement

The eye of the century Henri Cartier-Bresson’s centenary Rome is marking 100 years since the birth of Henri Cartier-Bresson with an exhibition of emblematic images by the father of photojournalism.

Alicante’ (1932)

‘Classics’, which runs in the Shenker Culture Club by the Spanish Steps, features 14 photographs taken between 1932 and 1954. The images, valuable originals on loan from private collections, are all signed in the margins by Cartier-Bresson and include some of his most famous works.

Although the photographer immortalized key 20th-century moments and figures during his career, the images on display are emblematic of Cartier-Bresson’s ability to perceive striking scenes in everyday life. Two of the earliest images from the collection were both taken during a tour of Spain.

‘Alicante’ (1932) was snapped outside a brothel opposite the Alicante hotel where Cartier-Bresson was staying, and shows a madam, a transvestite and a maid. ‘Seville’, taken the following year, depicts a series of children at play, framed by a hole in the wall of a ruined street.

Other photos include an image of Henri Matisse, surrounded by the doves that often appeared in his

paintings. This is a rare example of a Cartier-Bresson portrait, an honour the photographer generally reserved for his friends owing to his dislike of posed shots. Among the later works is Cyclades, Island of Siphnos, taken during a holiday in Greece in 1961.

This epitomizes Cartier-Bresson’s skill at capturing a fleeting image after carefully laying the groundwork. In this case, Cartier-Bresson came across a staircase with unusual geometric alignments and settled down to wait until the right figure made its way into the picture – in this case a running girl.

Born near Paris in 1908, Cartier-BressonC studied art, and it was only following a bout of M illness that he switched to photography, initially capturing life on the streets of Marseilles. He wasY one of the pioneers of the popular street photog-CM raphy style of the 20th century, a technique thatMY made him a huge success as a photojournalist.

CY He helped found the famous Magnum photogCMY raphy agency, along with Robert Capa among others, and is famous for his ‘decisive moment’K technique, capturing a one-off, significant instant. Although Cartier-Bresson lived until the age of 95 (he died in 2004), he stopped working as a photographer in the mid-1970s, reverting to painting and dismissing photography as nothing more than “instantaneous drawing”. The exhibition, which also coincides with the release of a new biography of Cartier-Bresson entitled ‘Photology’, will travel to a series of venues after Rome, starting with Turin. ¶

Shenker Culture Club Piazza di Spagna 66 – tel. 06.45421851 Openin hours: from Monday to Sunday 10.00-19.00, Saturday: 10.00-13.00 Free entrance, until March 28

THURSDAY 15 January FRIDAY 16 January SATURDAY 17 January SUNDAY 18 January

XII

S

quatting in Rome

{ Alessandro Mirra }

Social Centres

Social centres are abandoned buildings that have been occupied by squatters and transformed into self- managed cultural and political hubs.

The pros and the cons Critics claim they are dens of illegality fomenting political extremism. For their supporters, the centres are places of true grass roots culture and self-expression.

There are around 30 social centres in Rome. The Italian capital’s new mayor has pledged to close them down.

Some social centres in Rome: • Acrobax Project – Via della Vasca Navale, 6 – San Paolo/Viale Marconi • Astra 19 S.p.A. – Via Capraia, 19 – Tufello • Ateneo Occupato – Via Ottone Fattiboni, 1 – Dragoncello • Casal Bernocchi “La Talpa” – Via Guido Biagi, 21 • Corto Circuito – Via Filippo Serafini, 57 – Lamaro Cinecittà • deCOLLIamo – Cantiere Sociale Tiburtino – Via F. Compagna – Colli Aniene • Factory – Riva Ostiense – Ponte di ferro • Forte Prenestino Via Federico Delpino – Centocelle • Horus Occupato – Piazza Sempione, 4 – Montesacro • Sans Papiers – Viale Carlo Felice, 69b – San Giovanni • Spartaco – Via Selinunte 57 – Quadraro • Strike S.p.A. – Via Partini – Portonaccio

O

ne of the many law and order campaign pledges

by Gianni Alemanno, the centre-right candidate for Rome City Hall, was the closure of the capital’s social centres. Alemanno won the election and on 21 October 2008 police raided the historical squat at the Horus Club in piazza Sempione in the northern quarter of Montesacro. The squatters were evicted and the centre closed down.

The raid on Horus reopened a long-running controversy in the capital. Supporters say the social centres are a vital source of cultural activity for the community. Many of the centres organise concerts, film screenings, theatre and dance events, evening classes, language courses and a host of other activities. Opponents view them as dangerously unregulated and, simply, illegal.

Undeniably, most of the social centres in Rome are still squats, abandoned buildings occupied illegally. Squatters and all those who use the centres defend them by pointing out that rents and property prices in Rome are so astronomical that without occupation these hugely popular cultural meeting places would be impossible.

The origins of these centres go back to the mid-seventies when squatting movements mushroomed across Western Europe: in Spain, Holland, Britain, Denmark, Sweden – even strait-laced Switzerland – and in many other countries abandoned buildings originally occupied to provide accommodation for the homeless and unemployed were rapidly transformed into cultural and community centres. In Italy these non-profit, self-governing social centres decided to form a loose umbrella association to coordinate and strengthen their activities, grouping themselves as ‘Occupied Self-Managed Social Centres’ (CSOA).

Forte Prenestino was a military fortress in the 19th century that was abandoned in the 1960’s and has been occupied since May 1986.

It is one of the largest and most active social centres in Italy.

Sprawling over some 13 hectares in the outlying working-class neighbourhood of Centocelle, the Forte Prenestino CSOA plays an important role in its local community. It houses an exhibition gallery, practice rooms for bands, space for theatrical performances, a dark room, gymnasium, tattoo studio and cafe. Classes are held, there are regular film nights, courses on design and sculpture, and a documentation centre. The Forte also boasts its own recording studio and music label, featuring local rap and reggae bands. There’s a store/canteen, a tea-room and also a bar.

There have been numerous attempts over the years to close the centre down. In 1995 the national government tried a new tactic when the Ministry of Finance put the property up for auction with a ridiculously low reserve price. The government move sparked a massive protest campaign. The squatters at Forte Prenestino, backed by all the other social centres in Rome, drummed up enough support to

Protest against the closure of Horus Club on 23 october 2008 photo: flickr / CROSSING UNIVERSE

convince Rome City Council to pass new regulations governing acess to council property for social and cultural activities and the centre was saved. The new Alemanno administration has said it could “review” that legislation, sparking outrage from supporters of the social centres. From its outset in the 1970’s the squatter movement has always been dominated by alternative, left-leaning political tendencies and has been viewed with deep suspicion by the centre-right.

Conservatives have slammed the social centres as dangerous hotbeds of illegality, where the original offence of squatting (a misdemanour) is inevitably compounded by more serious offences escalating from drug dealing to political subversion.

Recently young right-wing activists in Ostia have been campaigning for the closure of a social centre at the Colonia Vittorio Emanuele, an abandoned council-owned holiday residential centre. The protesters, backed by local conservative councillor Davide Bordoni are demanding the historic building should be put to more “appropriate” use, such as university facilities or a day nursery.

Not all the social centres in Rome are leftist havens. Some have been organised by right-wing activists. The most famous case is Casa Pound, a squat run by young fascists since December 2003 in Via Napoleone III not far from Termini railway station. The squat, named after the American modernist poet and apologist for fascism Ezra Pound, regularly organises conferences and special events to promote far-right views on themes of local, national and international issues. If Mayor Alemanno is to remain faithful to his election pledges he will have to move against right-wing social centres too, which could provoke an unlikely alliance between traditionally opposed factions – as happened in recent demonstrations against educational reforms and spending cuts planned by the centre-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Those protests included violent clashes involving police, left-wing and far right extremists.

The police raid on the Horus social centre was followed by pitched battles between protesters and the forces of law and order. If city authorities really do decide to close down all Rome’s social centres those clashes could be just a foretaste of things to come. ¶

Books about Rome

As the Romans Do: An American Family’s Italian Odyssey

by Alan Epstein

This vibrant insider’s view of the most mature city on earth is the perfect companion for anyone who loves anything Italian.

Harper Perennial

The Force of destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796

by Christpher Duggan

Madeline and the Cats of Rome

by John Bemelmans Marciano

“The Force of Destiny” is a brilliant and comprehensive study and a frightening example of how easily nationbuilding and nationalism can slip toward authoritarianism and war.

Miss Clavel and the 12 little girls leave the gray skies of Paris for spring in Rome, where Madeline finds an unexpected adventure involving a thief, a chase, and many, many cats.

Houghton Mifflin Company

Viking Children’s Books

A Violent Life

by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Revealing that a beautiful and cultured European city has a dark and dangerous underbelly, this novel chronicles the violent lives of Rome’s slum inhabitants.

Carcanet Press Ltd.

The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo’s Forbidden Messages...

by Blech & Doliner

Two top scholars reveal the secret messages of protest that Michelangelo had hidden in his Sistine Chapel masterpiece, encouraging travelers to challenge the repressive church of the time.

HarperOne

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

by Anthony Doerr

An evocative memoir of the timeless beauty of Rome, and the day-to-day wonderment of living, writing, and raising twin boys in a foreign city.

Scribner Book Company

Rome

at

Ch r i s t m as :

a

u n i q u e

PROGRAMS IN ROME

XIII

c e l e b r a t i o n

A brief entertainment guide CLASSICAL MUSIC

EXHIBITIONS Chiostro del Bramante

The programme includes cojncerts and events of which only some are listed below. For full programme details contacts bellow.

The Myth of Julius Caesar, first ever show focusing exclusively on him alone; until May 5.

Via della Pace, tel. 06.68809035

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Vittoriano

AUDITORIUM – Parco della Musica Viale Pietro de Coubertin 30 Infoline: 0680241281, www.auditorium.com

Picasso 1917-1937, the Harlequin of Art; until February 8.

Via S. Pietro in Carcere, tel. 06.6780664

Villa Torlonia La scuola romana; until February 15.

Via Nomentana 70, tel. 06.0608 • Etruscans, The Ancient Metropoli of Latium; until March 8.

• Prague. From One Spring to the Next. 1968-1969; until February 28.

Via Nazionale 194, tel. 06.39967500

THE BEST JAZZ CLUBS

FESTIVAL OF SCIENCES – The Universe

Fondazione Memmo

The fourth edition of the Festival of Science in Rome will bring together physicists, astrophysicists, philosophers and space explorers of international fame to discuss the most contemporary and fascinating subjects.

The programme includes special events of which only some are listed below. For full programme details contact: Auditorium – Parco della Musica Viale Pietro de Coubertin 30 Infoline: 0680241281 www.auditorium.com 15–18 January

Basquiat, 40 works; until February 1.

Via del Corso 418, tel. 06.6874704

Museo del Corso Golden Age of Dutch Art shines in Rome; until February 15.

Via del Corso 320, tel. 06.67862098

Chamber of Deputies, Sala della Regina the Young Michelangelo, the Rediscovered Crucifix; until January 23.

Piazza di Montecitorio 33, tel.: 06.67601

Museo dell’Ara Pacis Bruno Munari, retrospective on one of the 20th century’s most interesting and eclectic Italian artists and designers; until February 22.

Lungotevere in Augusta, tel. 06.0608.

Museo di San Salvatore in Lauro Visions of the Grand Tour by Russian visitors to Italy (1640-1880), 60 works in collaboration with the Hermitage; until February 22.

Capitoline Museums Sévres, 1920/1980 The conquest of modernity; until March 8.

Piazza del Campidoglio 1, tel. 06.0608.

Museo di Roma “Roma, la magnifica visione” Panoramas of Rome as seen by visitors in the 18th and 19th centuries; until April 19.

Piazza San Pantaleo 10, tel. 06.0608.

TEATRO DELL’OPERA Diaghilev Musagete – Ballet With Vladimir Vassiliev and Carla Fracci Teatro Nazionale, Via del Viminale 51 13–18 January Aida – Music by Giuseppe Verdi Conductor Daniel Oren Teatro dell’Opera, Piazza Beniamino Gigli 7 20–30 January

Casa del Jazz Viale di Porta Ardeatina, 55 tel. 06.704731 · 17., 19. and 20. Jan. Auditorium – Parco della Musica Brahms: Concerto per violini, Ligeti, Bartók – Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conductor Antonio Pappano · 24., 26. and 27. Jan. Auditorium – Parco della Musica Tchaikovsky: Symphony “Pathetique” – Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conductor Yuri Temirkanov

· 15. Feb. Sala Petrassi 10.40 The Sky above us – Margherita Hack, Leonard Susskind · 16. Feb. Sala Petrassi 18.00 The dark Universe – Paolo De Bernardis, Max Tegmark · 16. Feb. Sala Petrassi 21.00 Space Exploration in the 21st Century – Enrico Flamini, Scott Hubbard, Radhika Ramachandran · 17. Feb. Sala Petrassi 12.00 The World of Quanta – Lectio Magistralis of Francesco di Martini · 17. Feb. Sala Petrassi 15.00 Black Holes and the form of the Universe – Jean Pierre Luminet, Fulvio Melia · 17. Feb. Giardini Pensili, 22.00 Winter Sky Festival · 18. feb. Sala Sinopoli and Sky above Rome, 11.00 Helicopter String quartet – Karlheinz Stockhausen · 18. Feb. Sala Petrassi, 16.00 “Origins and research in the Life of the Universe” – Antonio Lazcano, Scott Hubbard · 18. Feb. Sala Petrassi, 18.00 The History and Fate of the Universe – lectio Magistralis of George F. Smoot

Alexanderplatz Via Ostia, 9 tel. 06.39742171 Big Mama Vicolo di San Francesco a Ripa, 18 tel. 06.5812551 Gregory’s Jazz Club Via Gregoriana 54/a tel. 066796386

· 31. Jan, 2. and 3. Feb. Auditorium – Parco della Musica Julia Fischer – Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conductor Yuri Temirkanov

Fonclea Via Crescenzio 82a tel. 066896302

· 7. 9. and 10. Feb. Auditorium – Parco della Musica Martha Argherich – Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conductor Antonio Pappano

Cotton Club Via Bellinzona 7 tel. 0697615246

Istituzione Università dei Concerti

Bebop Jazz Club Via Giuseppe giulietti 14 tel. 3405560112

Università La Sapienza – Aula Magna Lungotevere Flaminio 50 tel.: 06.3610051

Castel Sant’Angelo Logos of Italy; Stories in the Art of Excellence; until January 25.

Lungotevere Castello 50, tel. 06.681911

· 6. Feb. Teatro Studio 21.00 Gabriele Coen “Jewish Experience”

· 7. Feb. Teatro Studio 21.00 Dialogo – Paolo Angeli meets Hamid Drake

The blue planet – Music by Goran Bregovic Director Peter Greenaway Teatro dell’Opera, Piazza Beniamino Gigli 7 30 January – 8 February

Major Giorgio de Chirico exhibition marking 30 years from artist’s death; until January 25.

Via delle Belle Arti, 31, tel. 06.3221579

· 2. Feb. Teatro Studio 21.00 M.I.T Meet in Town: Mouse on Mars live – Mokadelic live

· 6. and 7. Feb. Sala Petrassi 21.00 Equilibrio – Modern Dance Festival Shen wei dance Arts: “Map” Re – Part One

Palazzo delle Esposizioni

National Modern Art Gallery (GNAM)

· 01. Feb. Sala Santa Cecilia 21.00 Enrico Rava “New York Days” Quintet

· 13. Jan. 20.30 Mark Varshavsky – Lacoste – Bovino · 27. Jan. 20.30 Takacs Quartet · 7. Feb. 17.30 Teatro Olimpico Mummenschanz – first ever performance in Italy

I concerti al Quirinale Palazzo del Quirinale, Cappella Paolina Classical Music concert every Sunday, 12.00 Piazza del Quirinale tel.: 06.46991

AUDITORIUM See also Festival of Sciences and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Viale Pietro de Coubertin 30 Infoline: 0680241281, www.auditorium.com · 23. Jan. Teatro Studio 21.00 M.I.T Meet in Town: Chatteau Flight live – Raiders of the Lost Arp live – AD Bourke · 27. Jan. Sala Petrassi 21.00 An Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan · 28. Jan. Sala Sinopoli 21.00 Tower of Power · 30. Jan. Teatro Studio 21.00 Antonio Figura – piano

The Place Via Alberico 27/29 tel. 0668307137

14 NOT ONLY ROME Art s

gui d e :

e x h i b i t s

i n

PROGRAMS

I t a l y

The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy’s top art exhibitions BOLOGNA Pinacoteca Nazionale: Amico Aspertini (1474-1552), A Bizarre Artist in the Age of Durer and Raphael; until January 26.

Ligabue: Self Portrait with Scarecrow

The Hospital Garden from Saint-Rèmy

BRESCIA

PONTASSIEVE

Museo di Santa Giulia:

Sala delle Colonne:

Van Gogh, Masterpieces from the KröellerMüller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands; until January 25.

49 paintings and sculptures by Antonio Ligabue including celebrated Self Portrait With Dog; until June 7.

The same venue: Giovanni Guareschi, tribute to Don Camillo writer on 100th anniversary of birth shows 70 cartoons he penned for satirical magazine Bertoldo under Fascist regime; until February 28.

TREVISO Casa dei Carraresi: FORLI’ Complesso Monumentale San Domenico: Canova, The Classical Ideal, Sculpture and Painting; until June 21

Palazzo dei Diamanti: Turner and Italy; until February 22.

FLORENCE Palazzo Medici-Ricciardi: Raphael’s Madonna del Cardellino (Madonna of the Goldfinch) on show after eight-year restoration; until March 1 .

Palazzo Strozzi:

‘Great Works 1972-2008’; until March 22.

Brera Academy and Palazzo Stelline (Credito Valtellinese): :

GENOA Palazzo Ducale: ‘Lucio Fontana Light and Colour’; until February 15.

Fondazione Mazzotta:

Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce:

Ethnic art from Peggy Guggenheim collection; until February 22.

LUCCA Palazzo Ducale: show marking 300 years from birth of Grand Tour portraitist Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787); until March 29.

MILAN Palazzo Reale: Rene’ Magritte and the Mystery of Nature; around 100 paintings featuring Magritte’s signature apples, blue skies and birds; one of Italy’s largest-ever Magritte events; until March 29.

Caterina and Maria de’ Medici, Women in Power; until February 8.

Same venue:

Same venue:

Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and the neoImpressionists; over 100 works from major international museums; until January 25.

The Other Face Of The Soul, 60 portraits

by Giovanni Fattori, some unseen, showing other side of 19th-century artist famous for military subjects and Maremma landscapes; until January 25.

Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation:

Mario Schifano 1934-1998, Selected Works; major retrospective marking 10th anniversary of artist’s death, previously at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome; until February 1.

Shozo Shimamoto 1950-2008; until March 8.

FERRARA

Canaletto, Venice and its Splendours; until April 5.

Boccioni: Elasticità

Same venue: Futurism 1909-2009 Velocità + Arte + Azione; from February 6 until June 7.

Museo Poldi Pezzoli:

TRIESTE Ex-Pescheria Centrale: Trieste 1918, The First Redemption; military equipment, memorabilia, photos from WWI; until January 25.

TURIN Palazzo Mazzonis: New Oriental Art Museum (MAO) opened on December 5 with large Chinese collection that belonged to late Fiat chief Gianni Agnelli and Japanese masterpieces from San Paolo foundation, as well as rare Indian, Khmer pieces; until January 25.

Japanese ‘netsuke’ mini-sculptures from four Italian collections and Stuttgart’s Linden Museum; until March 15.

NAPLES Archaeological Museum: Herculaneum: Three Centuries of Discoveries; until April 2009.

PALERMO Palazzo dei Normanni: The Fantastic World of Picasso, 66 works; until March 8.

PARMA National Gallery: ‘Correggio’, biggest exhibit on once-neglected artist in years; around 80 works flanked by 40 by contemporaries, plus chance to see three most important frescos up close in city churches; until January 25.

The Bodhisattva Maitreya

Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli: 164 works from the famous Bischofberger collection; until March 1.

VENICE Guggenheim Museum: Carlo Cardazzo, A New Vision Of Art, pieces from his collection including de Chirico, Sironi, Campigli, Scipione, Marini and the architect Carlo Scarpa; until February 9.

SPORTS

The

prospects Notes from the sideline

Women’s Water-Polo

A. S. Roma Pallanuoto

The Italian Championship is a no-brainer.

Hungarian stars Ágnes

Unlike other countries

Everyone knows Italy is a nation of passionate sports fans. There are three national daily

where

offer style and expe-

fierce and the outcome in

competition

is

rience but the rest

doubt down to the wire, the

of the squad is very

Italian 2009 title will be won by Pro

Recco,

the

young and finding life

reigning league champions who last season also tri-

tough in the top tier of

umphed in the European Champions Cup. The dream team from just outside Genoa – who have claimed 22

Conti has expressed confidence the

Italian titles – are simply unrivalled. A young Lazio

team has huge potential for improvement and despite

team has enjoyed a positive season, is comfortably in

the difficult season Roma draws large and enthusiastic

mid-table and should be sure of making the play-offs.

crowds for its games.

The players have the added incentive of trying to break

is devoted to football, with little or no attention afforded to other, so-called minor, sports. In Rome

other leagues and sports. As football comes out of its midwinter break, let’s have a look at the pros-

and Erzsébet Valkay

competition. Coach Fabio

sports newspapers and dozens of specialist radio and television programmes. Nearly all the coverage

A heavyweights – and bitter crosstown rivals – Roma and Lazio. But there is intense competition in

Lazio

12 team league. Veteran

{ Marco Fagioli }

the story is the same, where sports talk programmes are dominated almost exclusively by serie

Men’s Water-Polo

The team is only 9th in the

for the capital’s sports teams

15

pects for the capital’s other sports teams. ¶

into Italy’s national squad for the World Swimming Championships, which will be held in Lazio’s home pool at the Foro Italico.

Basketball

Rugby Union

Women’s Volleyball

The team started the season with

Rugby Roma Olimpic and Unione Rugby Capitolina

huge expectations following the

Both clubs have had a season to forget and are mired

new year only 11th in the 14-team second division and

summer signings of Slovenian center

in the lower depths of Italy’s premier “Super 10” league

unlike the men’s team they’ve got no big-money back-

Primož Brezec and US high-school

(Rugby Roma start the new year in 8th position while

ers who can afford to buy in top talent. It’s going to be a

phenom Brandon Jennings. But inconsistent play (in-

Capitolina are bottom.) On December 30th the clubs

long, hard season.

cluding a disappointing contribution by the 19-year-

announced that together with second division outfit

old American point guard) and poor results eventually

Lazio they intend forming a select team to be one of

Virtus Roma

Roma

A tough year for the women’s team too. They start the

Mens Volleyball

forced the resignation of coach Jasmin Ripesa. Croatian

Italian rugby’s entrants for the Celtic League, an an-

Roma Volley

Repesa, long regarded as one of the top coaches in Eu-

nual competition involving regional sides from Ireland,

The once glorious volleyball club has now slumped

rope, stepped down in December after three seasons

Scotland and Wales. It is one of the three major leagues

to the lower depths of the second dvision and fans

with Roma after the team lost five straight league games.

in Europe, along with the English Premiership and the

are staying away in their droves. Not even the huge

Nando Gentile, one of Italy’s all-time great point guards

French Top 14. Italy’s Rugby

investments by the Mezzaroma family (construction

and a former assistant under Repesa, has taken over

Federation has backed the

millionaires) have been able to change the fortunes of

as Roma’s head coach. Deeply disappointing in league

plan for some of its teams

the team, which is only 10th in the 15-team division.

competition, Roma has played strongly in Europe. With

to join the Celtic League in

Already in October the club was rocked by a bitter legal

one round of games left in the qualifying phase of the

a move aimed at raising the

battle between the owners and star center Luigi Mas-

Euroleague Virtus has already clinched its place in the

standard of the Italian na-

trangelo, which ended when a court order allowed the

Top 16 for the third straight season.

tional team.

international to leave and seek another team.

AS Roma

No transfer, only rumours

A

S Roma look unlikely to be among the big movers during the January transfer window.

The giallorossi had repeatedly been linked with Bayern Munich’s striker Lukas Podolski, but Bayern manager Uli Hoeness announced the club will send the unsettled Germany international striker back to his former club Cologne. Roma are expected to continue scouring the transfer market for a top-level hitman, but no big moves will come before the sum-

Francesco Totti was injured before the winter break

mer. Rather than splashing out on new signings in January, the club is expected to focus on hammering out new deals as roma player alberto aquilani with several key players whose contracts will soon be up for renewal. The hugely talented young midfielder Alberto Aquilani and veteran defender Cristian Panucci are the top priority: Italian international Aquilani has been targeted by several top clubs including Juventus, Inter Milan and Arsenal. Panucci’s current contract is due to expire in June.

As serie A set to resume competition after the mid-season break, reports suggested both players were set to ink new deals that will keep them at the Olympic Stadium.

Roma captain Francesco Totti will miss the New Year kick-off with a thigh injury which is expected to keep him out for another month. Totti was injured in Roma’s last game before the winter break.

It now looks that Totti could be back on the pitch at the end of January, in time to gain match fitness ahead of the difficult tie at the Emirates Stadium, when Roma face Arsenal in the first leg of their Champions League last16 encounter on February 24. ¶

SS Lazio

Lazio homecoming for Veron?

Lazio president Claudio Lotito has given the green light for what would be a sensational return to serie A of the club’s scudetto hero Juan Sebastian Veron.

Lotito has frequently proved himself a shrewd and parsimonious operator on the transfer market by signing often unheard of players for relatively small fees, some of whom have gone on to carve out successful careers with the biancocelesti.

But bringing back the veteran Argentine midfielder – he’s now 33 – might be seen as an eccentric move even by Lotito’s standards.

Veron was a key figure in Lazio’s success at the start of the millennium when he lead the club to championship, Italian Cup and the Italian Super Cup honours.

Eventually the Argentine international left for the English Premiership where he played for Chelsea and Manchester United before returning to Argentina where he now plays for hometown club Estudiantes.

Earlier Veron told reporters he would relish a return to the Eternal City.

Lotito has said he is seriously thinking about bringing Veron back. “I am considering it because we are talking about the player who was voted the best in South America for 2008,” Lotito told Il Corriere Dello Sport. ¶

juan sebastian veron was a key figure in lazio’s success in

19982000

16 SPORTS City of Sport

The Sport City designed

by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava

New Sports Facilities In 2009 Rome will host a series of major international sports events, including the World Swimming Championships and the final of the European Champions League. Gleaming new sports facilities are being built across the city. { Emiliano Pretto }

I

Without doubt the most spectacular project is the Sport City designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava on the campus of the Tor Vergata University on the southern outskirts of Rome.

The centrepiece of the 320 million euro Sport City is two identical shell-shaped arenas, arranged symmetrically. It will look like two sails that join in the middle creating a large fan. The structure will be lit and visible from the nearby Rome-Naples highway. the original Foro, built during the 1930’s under Mussolini, but the new tennis centre will incorOne of the pavilions will house a multi-purpose 15,000 seat arena (Palasport); the other will porate the latest technology including a retractable roof for the centre court. accommodate swimming and diving pools (Palanuoto) with a capacity for 4,000 spectators.

Finally, after years of controversy, the way might now be clear for city soccer rivals Roma and The complex, spread over 53 hectares, will also include four outdoor pools an athletics ground Lazio to open their own stadiums. The clubs share the Stadio Olimpico, which is owned by the and a park. Calatrava drew inspiration for the project from Ancient Rome, especially the Circus Italian Olympic Committee, but have long expressed the desire to build their own stadium along Maximus, the enormous elliptical outdoor stadium which runs along the base of the Palatine the lines of British clubs.

Hill where up to a quarter of a million spectators used to watch chariot races and other enterRome mayor Gianni Alemanno says the time is right: “The Olymtainments. pic Stadium must go back to being the home of the national team The Sport City complex soars within a thousand-metre long oval “It is only right that Roma and Lazio and of athletics,” said Alemanno. “It is only right that Roma and surrounded by cypress trees, with new buildings for the university Lazio should each have their own venue.” rising beyond. should each have their own venue.”

Speculation is rife over the location of the new stadiums, but ne“This work is a perfect symbiosis between the renovation of the Gianni Alemanno, Major of Rome gotiations have so far been kept top secret. The projects will clearly campus and the desire to create something unique,“ Calatrava involve vast sums of money and major business interests will be innoted. “I conceived this structure giving the landscape component volved. Whichever locations are eventually chosen environmentalists are expected to oppose the great thought and following the lessons of ancient Rome.“ plans. The Olympic Stadium is a huge arena capable of holding major international events but The Sport City was to have been unveiled in time for the World Swimming Championships sadly lacking in additional facilities. which will run from 18 July to 2 August; bureacratic problems mean the complex will now not “Rome needs stadiums which also feature shops, restaurants and a whole range of other amenbe available for the event. ities,” emphasised Alemanno. “For Roma and Lazio I think we should be able to present the The Roma09 Championships will be centred on the Foro Italico sports complex which houses plans for their new stadiums by the end of January.” open-air and indoor swimming pools, the home courts of the Italian Open Tennis Tournament Even if everything runs smoothly the projects will clearly take several years to complete. In the and the 82,000-seater Olympic Stadium, home to serie A clubs Roma and Lazio, which hosted meantime football fans in the capital will have to make do with the Olimpico. On Wednesday the 1960 Summer Olympic Games and the 1990 World Cup Football Final.

27 May the old stadium will stage the European Champion Clubs’ Cup final for the fourth time New state of the art facilities for tennis and football are under construction or planned in the as the UEFA Champions League reaches its climax in the Italian capital. Tickets will go on sale city. The existing Tennis complex at the Foro Italico is undergoing a major makeover, including in the spring! ¶ the construction of a new centre court. The new buildings will use the same travertine marble as

Tata to sponsor Ferrari

“It’s a historic moment”

Grande Punto models. Montezemolo also said that he would never trade Ferrari’s driver Felipe Massa for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who beat Massa for this year’s title in the last lap of the last race of the season. “That Massa didn’t win this year was our fault. And the way Felipe coped with the defeat enhanced him in our eyes as a man and as a driver,” Montezemolo said. ¶

F

errari has found a new sponsor for its Formula 1 team, India automaker Tata Motors Ltd. “For the first time an Indian logo will appear on a Ferrari race car. This is a historic moment,” Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero Montezemolo said. Montezemolo went on to stress that as long as he and CEO Sergio Marchionne have been at the helm of Fiat, the Turin automaker has never sought state aid. Tata Motors is already a supplier for Ferrari’s Formula 1 team and the Indian company is Fiat’s partner in a plant in Ranjangaon, in the state of Maharashtra, which produces cars, motors and transmissions for both Fiat and Tata.

Earlier this year Fiat India Automobiles decided to pump some $1 billion into the plant to enable it to produce Fiat’s Linea and

Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero Montezemolo photo: ansa

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