Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [76]
Berdini's analysis is a trenchant but also nuanced and judicious dissection of the way in which the supposedly leftist and environmentalist Mayor Rutelli replaced any notion of concerted planning with a piecemeal approach that permitted the intensified resurgence of special interests-including the Vatican's-in shaping the city's future. But it is also a highly accessible illustration of the explanatory force with which Italians, particularly those of broadly leftist conviction, invest the concept of culture. In this regard, it also helps us to understand how a measure of cultural determinism in public discourse has encouraged the persistence and exaggeration of practices associated with a particular political orientation: clientelism and favor peddling on the right, civic regulation on the left. But his account also shows quite clearly that even professions of a leftist culture do not always stand up to the temptations of power; civic morality yields to the demands of a contingent civility.
For Berdini that contingent civility is apparent in the return under Rutelli to the practice of pianificar facendo (planning as you go)-an abandonment of any kind of central plan in favor of dealing with each occasion as it arises. This effectively surrenders the initiative to wealthy and unscrupulous speculators. It is marked by the cult of particular monuments chosen for their extraordinariness (straordinarieta) rather than by a sense of the organic wholeness of the city; and this, too, not only serves monu- mentalization at the expense of local populations but also invites the highest bidders-bankers, construction magnates, media tycoons-to determine many of the important decisions. Such ad hoc arrangements to suit the wealthy and powerful have a long history in Rome.8
The (Disreputable) Origins of Legal Loopholes
Construction magnates are especially important players. Berdini's comments on their destructive impact on attempts to maintain a consistent planning policy are matched by the experience of a courageous archaeologist, Andreina Ricci, who risked professional isolation as well as possible danger to her life by exposing the connections among some segments of the conservation bureaucracy, certain construction firms, and private archaeological "consultants" who undertake excavation (excluding the professionals in the process); by officially declaring that it had exhausted the archaeological possibilities of a site in the semirural outer edges of the city (and thus far from the concentrated interests of the tourist industry), such a ghost firm (ditta fantasma), usually run by a close relative of someone in the conservation bureaucracy, would open the way to massive construction, with the consequently irreversible destruction of significant ancient remains. By daring to disobey the authorities on several counts, Ricci also exposed their weakness; they did not stop her when she began to excavate again in spite of an interdiction that had been slapped on her. It seems that certain individuals were both angry with and afraid of her because she had managed to undermine their deals.9
But the example of the city government was hardly more edifying: Berdini particularly points an accusing finger at Rutelli for his disdainful treatment of Rome's Superintendent of Antiquities, Adriano La Regina, who dared to oppose a planned underpass in front of Castel Sant'Angelo. This project, while relieving heavy traffic congestion, also entailed the destruction of an extensive and well-preserved ancient villa