If Rome isn’t Rome

In November’s editorial Nicola Di Battista calls to action citizens and politicians for reviving Rome. Without its capital the entire country is suffering.

This article was originally published on Domus 1007, November 2016.

 

What is happening today in the world, or to put it better, in this little-big  world of ours? In one part of it we are still witnessing bloody wars and mass  destruction, waged with a barbarity we had thought no longer possible. In another part, the most important contemporary democracy, that of America, has for months gripped the whole world with its embarrassingly unseemly electoral campaign. With potentially devastating effects on worldwide public opinion.

So we certainly can’t say that things in general, and not only here in Italy, are going well at present. On the contrary, what we see leaves us in no doubt that they are going very badly indeed. Yet, we are convinced that all this, however egregious it may appear, is not the apocalypse announced. It is only the painful price to be paid for moving on from one era to another, from the old world to the new. The violence suffered today ranges from the bestial, horrible violence of wars to the no less devastating hurtfulness of political, economic and technological tyrannies that revolve on their own doings and not on humanity. This violence has handed down a steep price to be paid, probably commensurate to the enormous stakes involved: the stakes of change. The question of change is clearly a universal one. But it arises and is cultivated, constructed and realised from individuals upwards, their communities and their capacity to stay and live together, as a unified community under the conditions permitted by their time.

In a period of total dissolution of the ideologies and of the political parties or of the great ideals to be pursued, only the single communities, large or small, remain to seek models for life better fitted to human dignity, in keeping with the contemporary world and its expectations. Such models aspire to make use of everything now at our disposal in order to live better – and not for other purposes. Globalisation has made a mockery of local communities, in the name of a single thinking. Like a sort of totem, by its own realisation, it presumed to set the final goal for the progress of humanity. It had the presumption to decree the attainment of a state of life that would  involve the entire world, without exclusion.

Thus globalisation, backed and driven by the extraordinary technological innovations  that have completely changed people’s way of life, has become a universal slogan. It has monopolised our lives in recent years and made us feel that we are going through an epochal and truly global definitive change affecting everybody. Today we realise that all this has happened, that everything has really changed except humanity. In fact, we haven’t changed all that much. Awaking from the big media-tech dream, we are still asking ourselves about life and its quality, about the idea that it could be  better – not starting from the world, which we had been told was entirely with us, but from the places that we live and work in. Now we know that global is simply an immense and infinite sum of local situations, big or small as they may be.

We have all long known that Italy seriously needs to modernise itself

In that sense, the world is once again a very long way off, of no help at all in answering the questions we want to ask. For this reason, it is worthwhile talking again about our own country,  Italy, and imagining what might be its goals and aspirations – and what its role today might be. Firstly, with regard to its citizens but also to all those other populations that are likewise, each in their own way, busy searching for their way towards a better present. We have all long known that Italy seriously needs to, and must absolutely, modernise itself but, with our minds clouded probably by everything that has been going on around us in recent years, we have not yet done so.

Looking back today, we can say that this lagging behind has not all been for the worse. In fact, it is easy to see that in some other countries a modernisation achieved without awareness has ushered in an apparent wellbeing but also notable disasters. On the other hand, we ourselves are subject to the difficult condition of not living in a modern country, a country that can offer its citizens what they need to live a dignified life worthy of their time. For a long time we thought this might come from above and blamed this or that government for not fulfilling that wish. We delegated to politics, or rather to our variously alternating politicians, the responsibility of deciding on everything necessary but we did this  hazily, without first discussing and collectively identifying what needed to be done. As a result, the politicians fought battles in our name, with no awareness on our part that those were really the right ones to be fought. At this stage, however, and with the maturity gained in these recent years, unfortunately at our expense, we can now say that radical change is possible.

Politics at the moment are too factious and short-sighted. What we need instead is a shared outlook. Our politics are vague and blurred whereas we need precision and clarity. We don’t want something that is all right for everything and everyone, we need things beneficial to a community and a place, and which can above all be useful to us here and now. In that regard, we have had occasion to mention the outstanding moment currently experienced by the city of Milan and its citizens; a moment that we like to sum up in the two words heightened  awareness. This is one of those points in time when a city and its community have been able to bring about a radical change in their being, in favour of progress and wellbeing for its inhabitants and not only for them. It is a strong change because it was not imposed from above but desired and powered from below, by the communities that live and work here. We cannot at the moment say what this change may bring, we shall see. For sure, it will be a salutary, striking and above all contagious one. It is up to us now to nurture that change and to make it last.
In Rome, nothing seems to have been erased but instead fully conserved, enlarged and passed down
We have written, and feel certain, that our country suffered from the lack of a city like Milan, which had long represented one of the world’s capitals as far as modernity was concerned in the diversity of its industry, economy and habitation and hence of the good living that had – alas – been forgotten. This comeback staged by Milan to resume its due role among the world’s capitals will certainly be a good thing for the city but, at the same time, it will be a benefit to the nation as a whole which can look to it for the safe and sure guidance it long lacked. This will furthermore enable the many other cities up and down the peninsula not to have to make up any more for what Milan had for a long time not been doing but to concern themselves instead with their own destinies and their own present. Starting from what they have, from their true vocations, potential and ambitions, and to thus fully  express the capacity of the whole communities that inhabit and keep  them alive and real. Every city, large or small, can play an important role in this change because clearly Milan alone is not Italy; and if all the cities need  Milan, Milan also needs them. On this subject, Rome deserves a separate mention. Rome is the capital of this country but also the city par excellence, the city admired worldwide principally for its forms and as the physical and  imperishable witness to the history and lives of the people who in different epochs conceived, built and inhabited it.

That the city is  going through a tricky time is clear to all. Just as the grave functional problems afflicting it, which prevent it from leading a life worthy of contemporary standards, are there for all to see. But it would be a big mistake to boil the Rome issue down to this alone. Rome is much more than that. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it, alone, can recount its long and incredible history but also that of all humanity, as the history of men and women who have experienced, built and inhabited the places of their lives to meet their needs, desires and  dreams, and to have done so not just once, but multiple times, in different periods of history and in diverse conditions, with different means and people but always with the same objective: to inhabit in the best possible way the land that had been given to them.

It may be objected that what we have said about Rome actually applies to all the world’s cities, that their main reason for existence cannot  but be the same; and that many have distinguished themselves by attaining excellent and admirable results. This, too, is certainly true but Rome alone has succeeded in doing so to the umpteenth power and, as opposed to other cities, it has throughout its history done so completely and incommensurably. Unlike others, it is possible today to recount the history of this city; or rather, the various histories that have shaped it in time. Not only through the writings and words of their protagonists, the work of historians and literary output in general but above all through the tones and forms which it has assumed in the passing of time and in its succession of historical epochs. In Rome, nothing seems to have been erased but instead fully conserved, enlarged and passed down. The city’s form is there, visible and accessible to all, in its acute testimony to the course of time and to the countless human beings that created it. In Rome, the story of our past belongs not only to the erudite and wise but is within everybody’s reach.In this city the past is physical form. It potently marks and influences the present too.

If today  “Rome is not Rome”, this becomes a problem not only for the city but for the whole country

This aside, there is something else that makes it unique: the fact that it contains not just one point from the past but the combined  presence of multiple pasts, one next to the other or, rather, one on top of the other, as demonstrated by the extraordinary case of the San Clemente complex. The Rome that everyone can still see is revealed as an interminable  material palimpsest that has for millennia served as a backdrop to men’s lives, the perfect stage on which to act out the most important of human performances: real life. For all these reasons perhaps for this city, and only for it, the most  extreme and definitive definitions have been created: eternal city, caput mundi. Clearly therefore, the Rome question is absolutely  universal and not local, and should be approached as such.

If today “Rome is not Rome”, this becomes a problem not only for the city but for the whole country and paradoxically for Milan too. We think that the alleged rivalry between the two cities is food only for the glossy magazines and for gossip. The idea that the fortunes of each thrive on the misfortunes of the other is silly for the two urban situations are so different that, whatever they may happen to do, they can never enter into competition. They are too distant from each other to be able to cultivate the same projects and too large to be subjected to one another. This is why we are convinced that the rebirth of Milan can only come about completely and profoundly if Rome becomes Rome again. Milan needs Rome just as Rome needs Milan. By themselves they are only extraordinary cities. Together they can put the whole country back on its feet, besides setting fresh horizons for this old Europe that is having difficulty finding itself, unable by now to imagine its own future.

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