Italian socialists take on Latin Lovers

international | history and heritage | other press Thursday March 01, 2007 04:02 by ribbid - iosaf "it is in these small things you see the nature of our ruling class"

being a short news-story of both human interest content & an opportunity to lambast center-socialists.

The Milvian bridge over the Tiber in Rome was first built in 206 BC out of wood and only lasted a hundred years being replaced by one made of stone in 115BC the bulk of which survives to this day though there have been renovations most notably in 1429 (common era) Francesco da Genazzano was responsible for saving it from near collapse. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the bridge was modified by two artists, Valadier and Pigiani who added the lamps. It was on this bridge that one of the pivotal moments of Western History and God's usual meddling in the affairs of men is thought to have happened. Though lest I upset anyone may I stress now that God only meddles on the side of rich and powerful men such as emperors. But the point of this article is not to report on God (who is silent these days) but to report on something small yet not trivial which illustrates the nature of the Italian ruling class.

each padlock represents a union the key of which is thrown in the Tiber

Just to complete the explanation of the importance of the bridge :- It was the month of October 312AD. The Roman empire had been split into 2 parts for almost 40 years thus making the two which stretched from the Sahara to just beyond Milton Keynes, from the Algarve to Danube basin a bit easier to run. The dividing line between the 2 empires was today's Serbian Croatian border. - The emperor Constantinius had died in 307AD leaving behind him a tense stand-off between the 2 men who wanted to control the whole thing - lock stock and barrel both of whom were declared emperor by their followers. To cut a very long story short - Constantine (the son of Constantinius) marched on Rome as "emperor" to fight the other bloke Maxentius. & it was at this battle which the silly Maxentius came out of Rome to fight on the bridge instead of waiting just up the road in the walled city.

Silliness was compounded by God's favouritism or bias - you decided - it's up to ye these days.

It is written and you just to get burnt at the stake or tortured at length if you didn't concur - that on the night of the 27th of October Constantine had a dream in which he was told he would only win his victory if he delineated the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers The sign being that of the cross. Well he did. And he won. And to say thank you to God he made the Christian religion the official state religion of the Empire - not only that he re-united both Western and Eastern Empires thus ensuring that Serbs and Croats could live in peace for evermore. Constantine went on to spill lots more blood west, east, north and south and everytime he did it with the big cross he was victorious. You could say Constantine put the "roman" into kathurlickism, & indeed almost 1,500 years after the collapse of that empire you will still find kathurlick believers in all aspects of public life but they haven't spoken latin for about 40 years.

The Roman tradition in which lovers wrote their names on a padlock which they then tried to lock to the third lantern of the Milvian bridge is the tourist guides say "lost in time". Which is utter bollox, they also tell you Constantine spoke to God. It must have begun at some stage in the mid 19th century. It can't have begun before - for the simple reason that padlocks are a relatively late addition to mass production & as I wrote earlier there were no lamps on the bridge more than 200 years ago. But in the great scale of things - it is a custom and a dinky one.

And many stories of love have been in their small way immortalised on that bridge. But now - the evil centre socialists of the Roman Council "the olive party" want to remove all the padlocks and fine any lovers who vandalise the bridge which is the sort of municipal attitude which might please Canadian tourists (in Barcelona my neck of the woods it was the Canadians who lobbied the most against graffiti) but really makes me want to pueck. But as of last night the Olive party are adamant that it is not lovers who piss them off - it's the vandalism.

I see this as proof yet again - that love & simple sentimental candy is seriously wanting in much of Europe's left. A point I explored in this comment for St. Valentine's day http://indymedia.ie/article/80637#comment183514

But really when such people may argue that it is in the interest of the state to ignore 80% of the publics' rejection of war and the alliance with the USA - you'd hardly expect them to care about all those countless lovers who really meant closing that lock and chucking that key.

information on Milvian Bridge in english : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milvian_Bridge
in italian http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Milvio

latest news on this matter from Italy -

http://www.online-news.it/default.php?page=show&argomen...=1899
http://www.tgcom.mediaset.it/cronaca/articoli/articolo3...shtml
http://www.online-news.it/default.php?page=show&argomen...=1888
http://ilrestodelcarlino.quotidiano.net/art/2007/02/27/...64628
http://ilgiorno.quotidiano.net/art/2007/02/27/5464628
http://www.lastampa.it/Torino/cmsSezioni/cronaca/200702...a.asp
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/02/sezioni/cronaca/moccia....html