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to a career-based climb to a summit but constitute "the exercise of distributed authority, and not a centralised one"; he then implicitly links that experience with the imperfection of human existence, the source of original sin, by remarking that "in a religion with a crucified man at the centre of its attention, achievement is measured not by the rate of intended outcomes, but by how splendidly, how lovingly, one fails" (The Writings of Mgr Paul Cremona, The Times (Malta), 7 December 2006.) That remark could almost be a motto for the conduct of political and cultural life in Rome.

43. Or, as Malaby (2003, 21) dubs it in the Cretan context, "instrumental nonchalance."

44. Savagnone 1995, 172-73.

4S. It is possible that this, rather than a deliberate complicity, prompted the slow response of the Vatican to recent multiple revelations of pedophilia and other priestly abuses around the world. We should also note, however, poet Belli's cynical view; in his lifetime, during much of which the papacy was the sovereign power in Rome, the clergy apparently extracted bribes at every level of what Belli described as a staircase that grew ever narrower until it reached the very top of the building, where "the big cheese (er piii grosso), as we all know, naturally / wants to keep himself at a distance / so he can say he never got anything out of it" (sonnet no. 284; 26 April 1934). The allusion is clear. Today the term pezzo grosso (literally, "big piece") is used of any wealthy and powerful person, often in the context of property ownership.

46. See the useful discussion by Berdini 2000, 93-94.

47. See "Torna l'Ici per i beni della Chiesa," La Repubblica, 29 June 2006, p. it. The church conducted a vigorous press campaign to argue that all officially recognized religions benefited from the same exemption, and that the Catholic Church authorities had always paid tax on buildings used for commercial purposes. The former statement appears to be accurate. But it is the latter proposition that, as the La Repubblica article suggests, might now be in contention. See also Lorenzo Salvia, "Prodi boccia i tagli all'Ici per la Chiesa: cercano voti," Corriere della Sera, 7 October 200.5, P. 5•

48. It is worth noting that Pope Benedict XVI has reaffirmed the reality of hell (see La Repubblica, 30 March 2007, pp. 47-49); he also averred that those guilty of corruption would not be able to avoid eternal damnation (11 Messaggero, 2 April 2007, p. 9; La Repubblica, 2 April 2007, p. 15 ). His predecessor, John Paul II, was at some pains to insist that indulgences did not constitute some kind of price reduction (sconto) (11 Tempo, 30 September 1999, p. s). This does not seem to have convinced the general public, as is clear from the press reaction to the creation of a special catechism for jubilee indulgences ("Il man- uale delle indulgenze: Giubileo, tutti i trucchi per andare in Paradiso," 11 Messaggero, 18 September 1999, pp. 1, 11; Orazio La Rocca, "Anche una sigaretta in meno aiuta ad andare in Paradiso" (Even one cigarette less helps you get to Paradise), La Repubblica, i8 September 1999, p. 2fl. The Romans' cynicism is nothing new; in a sonnet dated 20 October 1883 (no. 23fl, Belli has an irrepressible fornicator demand, "So what if it is a sin? There's always at the ready / a good confession and communion / to make your peace with God on all the feast-days."

49. See Lombardi Satriani 1999b, 13; Niola 1995, 77-78.

So. In Sicily such silence is regarded as the fullest expression of male continence, and its violation is often punished violently; see Blok, 1974: 211-12.

51. Such a code itself communicates clear messages, to be understood in the context of a culture that invests great value in verbal dexterity and may take speech to be more deceptive or ambiguous than silence. This clearly affects the reading of performances that invoke a stereotypically silent idiom of masculinity. Di Bella (2008, 27 and passim) provides an important analysis of the phenomenon at the source.

52. In one of his sonnets no. 2; 14 September 1830), Belli pays