Michael herzfeld evicted from eternity the res ome (v5 0)

EVICTED FROM ETERNITY EVICTED FROM ETERNITY The Restructuring of Modern Rome MICHAEL HERZFELD FOR STANLEY J TAMBIAH who insisted I did this first, with gratitude and affection CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments xi Overture: Encountering the Eternal City I i Sin and the City Genealogies of Imperfection Monti: Paradoxes of Poverty Sociable Spaces 14 Meeting the People 15 The Village in the City 17 Agonies and Agonistics 22 The Cadences of a Cultural Preserve 27 Popolo and Population 39 The Artisans 39 The Shopkeepers 47 Intellectuals and Politicians 49 The Wages of Original Sin 53 Accountability and Accommodation: The Pragmatics of Original Sin 53 Original Sinners or Elder Brothers? 57 The Dialectics of Casuistry and Tolerance 61 A Passion for the Past 67 Refractions of Social Life 75 Segmentation and Subsidiarity 76 The Civic and the Civil 79 Association Life 85 The Premises of Conflict 89 Theaters of Piety and Peculation 101 A Clergy Scorned 110 S Life and Law in a Flawed State 115 Laws and Regulations 115 The Limits of Law 118 The (Disreputable) Origins of Legal Loopholes 122 Indulgent Complicities 128 Forgiveness and Calculation 133 Sacred Images and Sinful Spaces 140 Scandals of Sociability 143 Friends Who Strangle 143 The Cultivation of Fear 147 Restitution and Redemption 151 Friends Best Avoided 159 A Family Friend? 162 Local Narratives: Swaggering Victims 165 Credit and Default 167 Banking on Fear 172 Tactful Silences 175 Extortionate Civilities 181 Accommodations Civil and Civic 182 Discommoding Complicities 183 Uncivil Pleasantries, Unpleasant Civilities 187 Culture and Custom 19o Peaceful Politics 195 Condominial Civilities 198 Lessons in Civic Civility 212 Spatial and Stylistic Violence 214 The Fine Art of Denunciation 219 The Logic of Denunciation 220 Performances of Policing 227 Fractured Authority: The Multiplicity of Policing 234 Extorting Coffee and Campari 238 Tearing the Social Fabric 253 Renters and Owners 253 Lawyers and Illegalities 257 Eviction and Evasion: The High Stakes of Time and Place 263 Gentrification and the Last Frontier 266 Endgame 296 Coda: The Future of Eternity 301 Notes 313 References 343 Index 357 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his book is the labor of a love deepened by the realization that Rome, despite its magnificence, is also splendidly, sometimes tragically, a place steeped in all the weaknesses of the human condition My parents first took me there when I was a schoolboy and marked my life with a passion for this extraordinary place that has only grown with the years I have tried to convey this powerful affect, along with the Romans' salty humor and gorgeous architectural frenzies, their harsh social realities and their warm gregariousness, the appealing fragility of their lives and the towering strength and self-confidence with which they meet its disappointments as well as its excitements Monti, the sector of Rome about which I write in these pages, welcomed me to a world strongly marked by these human dimensions No anthropologist, no scholar-indeed, no sentient human being-could ask for more of any place In the work that is laid out here, many people played their parts Lists are invidious and someone is sure to be omitted, simply because there were so many who enthusiastically supported my project; and because so many of the conversations I had with them continue to this day, sometimes briefly interrupted, but always insistently returning to the themes of a shared passion A few people nonetheless made especially sustained efforts, and I want to record my appreciation of their counsel, insights, and support: Loredana Acca, Paolo Berdini, Carlo Cellamare, Adriana Goni, Luigi Lombardi Satriani, Berardino Palumbo, Andreina Ricci, Paolo Sciar- roni, Riccardo Troisi, and the entire Valeri family (Vincenzo, Francesco, Andrea, and Paola) Certain colleagues also offered helpful advice on specific technical questions; these include the economist Ricardo Hausmann and the linguist Paolo Di Giovine Karen Hendrickson-Santospago converted my confusing instructions into a splendidly legible map Those generous souls who read the manuscript and offered their extremely perceptive comments on it-Augusto Ferraiuolo, Cornelia (Nea) Mayer Herzfeld, Douglas Holmes, Guy Lanoue, Lilith Abdelwahab Mahmud, Maria Minicuci, Borden Painter, Miriam Shakow, and Claudio Sopranzetti-deserve special gratitude Carlo Cellamare and Maria Minicuci also arranged for me to hold visiting appointments in their respective parts of the University of Rome-I ("La Sapienza") and engaged me in larger and extraordinarily productive discussions throughout these years of research, while Nea Herzfeld, constant companion in so many places, brought insight and a generously critical eye to this work as it progressed, besides cementing many of our shared friendships with the people of Monti and of Rome in general At the University of Chicago Press, I am deeply indebted to my old friend T David Brent, his extraordinarily efficient assistant Laura J Avey, and my meticulous, understanding, and stylistically sensitive manuscript editor Mary Gehl To the many other friends whose voices are heard with varying degrees of explicitness in these pages, or who proffered useful advice along the way, my debt is as deeply felt and appreciated as it is wideranging While the usual provisos about personal responsibility apply, I genuinely want to thank the ... items from their market shopping to increase the variety of their frugal fare and where they would greet each other and then burst into cheerful song Until the r96os and the beginning of the present... left hand and then an up-and-down gesture with the fingers closed together, to show that there was no money to be made in the district market In any case, he added rather dismissively, the old man... rented to the prostitutes on an individual basis, allowing them to return to the secretive work and ways of their trade.' When the police recently charged two madams-one aged 79, the other 83-with