La Festa della Liberazione

We added a second Italian flag to our windows today. Today is the Festa della Liberazione, marking the liberation of Italy by the Allies. All across Rome, snatches of “Bella Ciao Bella Ciao” could be heard, that haunting hymn embraced by Italian partisans during the resistance, emblematic of Italians’ fight against fascism and dictatorial powers.  

Neighbors who partake in the Guido Guinizelli choir released a stirring version on Zoom : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlzvt_kMUk8&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0WtykNTcOrirWw5fsAfP8aBeNPqmE-tKllbKmwEn4cnZXjdpDPQADplqU

On our street, to this sign, the familiar “Andra’ Tutto Bene” (“All Will Be Well”, the solidarity-infused emblem of the pandemic) a neighbor sometime in the last day added a thermometer that is taking the world’s temperature as well as the postscript “For Now. We’ll Stay Here Till We Die.”

Impatience has overtaken Italy as the first attenuating measures (“Phase 2”) have been introduced in some regions and will follow soon in others.

In Lombardy, the ongoing crisis epicenter, the situation is the best it has been in 50 days.

The Milanese I know, and the city’s Corriere della Sera paper, speak with an unfamiliar effervescence after so many weeks of grimness of the new civic plan to introduce one of Europe’s most progressive urban transportation schemes. By this summer’s end, 35 kilometers of Milan’s street space will be transformed into experimental cycling and pedestrian areas. This should radically improve air quality in one of Italy’s most polluted cities.

A friend sent me this meme today, with the caption : “A nightmare during Phase Two. What if the wine is not on your side of the table ?”

It made me very happy to see this, because this is the sort of banter which speaks of a lightening of the heart. (Not of course if you are a restaurant owner, as there are real nightmares ahead as the restaurateurs ponder the logistics of spacing and health regulations.)

While most years there is military fanfare, extended fancery and a dramatic flyover by planes that spew red green and white vapor trails while the Italian national anthem is played, this year in Rome the Festa della Repubblica official celebrations were — to say the least — muted.

At noon, Italian president Sergio Mattarella stepped from a car, removed his mask, walked alone up the lower stairs of the Victor Emanuel monument, and was met by two masked corazzieri with a wreath which Mattarella arranged on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A single trumpeter played Taps. The president descended the steps, removed his mask from his pocket, reapplied it and drove off.

“Roba da matti !” (Crazy stuff !) said my friend Carmela in Sicily, after she had seen the televised event. “I spend as much time washing my hands after going shopping and buying the newspaper as the president did celebrating today’s Festa.” “Roba da matti !” she muttered again.

Italy was liberated 75 years ago. Italians wait now for their own liberation from the walls of the homes which since 9 March have for 60 million been their squares, their restaurants, their cafes, their gyms, their quarantines, their offices, their children’s playrooms.

Buona Festa della Liberazione to all.