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By Root 518 0

with priceless wall paintings and important architectural elements.10 By that point, it had become abundantly clear that powerful forces in the city government were determined to please the Vatican, the construction magnates, and the banksand would treat with contempt any who dared criticize its actions. Given long-standing local irritation with the power of archaeologists to stop ordinary construction and repair work in the historic center, these moves enjoyed considerable popular support-even though, again, Romans often complained about such forms of official vandalism as the destruction of old trees and favored spots for long, sun-drenched chats amid the ruins.

In arriving at their decision on the underpass, the mayor and his team undoubtedly benefited from the increasing lack of clarity in the framing of the city's future. By reworking existing plans, they were able to advance other schemes in which they, the Vatican, and the major construction firms all shared vested interests that were of questionable benefit to the local population. Indeed, it seems that they aimed at the further depopulation of the historic center. When one university professor, unable to cope with the rapidly rising rent on his apartment, went at a friend's urging to ask the church authorities if they had housing available many of the houses in the area are owned by various churches and confraternities), he was treated with great politeness and encouragement until he reached the door of the administrator: "I entered. Ice and polar cold!" The administrator, a high-ranking cleric, demanded, "Who are you and what do you want?" So he explained that he had heard that the church owned a number of properties in a state of near-collapse ~fatiscenti) and that he would be interested in taking such an apartment on and assuming responsibility for all the necessary repairs-an arrangement that church authorities sometimes adopted. The response was a haughty inquiry as to why he was bothering them: "We do not provide houses.... There is an appropriate office at city hall; go there." Despite the professor's puzzled insistence on pursuing the matter, specifically emphasizing his interest as a Monti resident, the prelate simply reiterated, "We do not provide houses."

Contemplating this "absolutely disproportionate" reaction, the professor suddenly began to realize that the tactic of sending him off to the city authorities was meant to convince him to move away altogether; and that behind this lay a strategy of discouraging residents from remaining in the historic center. As he remarked, there were "so many politer formulae for saying 'No."' In a society where even menace is especially) polite, the cleric's frigid response conveyed a clear message: in their ignorance of our plans, our underlings misled you; we do not want any but the wealthiest people staying in the historic center. The professor, not a man to stand on ceremony, was nonetheless thoroughly disconcerted by such icy rudeness and is convinced that its cause lay in an increasingly consistent policy, at the highest levels of the Vatican administration, of encouraging the depopulation and gentrification of the ancient heart of the city.

That perception accords closely with the indictment that forms the core of Berdini's study. There is a historic irony of massive proportions here, inasmuch as a self-styled leftist and people's mayor was spearheading a policy the closest precedent for which was Mussolini's dismantling of a large segment of Monti in order to build Via dei Fori Imperiali. Mussolini hoped thereby to further his goal of urban sanitization; for the Fascists, Monti and Trastevere were breeding grounds for the criminal classes, Communism, and anarchism. In Trastevere in particular, the streets had gradually been reorganized locally to provide cover for any inhabitants who wished to evade the eyes of authority. Such secrecy was intolerable to a regime bent on total regulation. Surveillance and the program of civic hygiene initiated by Mussolini went hand in hand; suspected Communists were relocated