That Awful Mess on the via Merulana

NOTES

The name Remo (Remus) Gadda imagines as being disliked by the Fascists because of their cult of Romulus, founder of Rome. Eleuterio is the Italian translation of the Greek name which means "free." It's unlikely that many Fascists gave these names any thought.

The title "signorino," now disappearing from Italian usage, was given — usually by the women of the family — to unmarried men, young or old. The word, when used by Ingravallo, has a slightly contemptuous nuance.

The initials PV and BM — which will be encountered later on— are indications of various bus lines in the Rome of 1927.

One of the difficulties of the Countess' surname is that it is perilously close to several Italian obscenities, such as cazzo, caca.

Luigi Facta had been the ineffectual Prime Minister of Italy at the time of the March on Rome. Mussolini made him a Senator in 1924.

Margherita Sarfatti, one-time mistress of Mussolini and author of the fulsome biography, Dux.

Mussolini, in 1927, was also Foreign Minister. His offices were in Palazzo Chigi.

Faiti and Cengio are mountains where the Italian army fought bitterly and suffered severe losses in the First World War, and where Gadda's brother was killed. For a moment, here, Gadda identifies himself openly with Ingravallo and attributes his own bereavement to the fictional character.

Sgurgola is a small village not far from Rome, often used by Romans to indicate a backward locality, a place from which peasants come.

At a later date, Mussolini, with great bombast, was to ask the wives of Italv to sacrifice their gold wedding rings to the Fatherland.

A typical Gaddian private joke. Pope Pius XI was fond of blessing newlyweds, referring to them as sposi novelli ("fresh bridal pairs"); polli novelli is the characteristic Roman advertisement for fresh chickens. (Among Gadda's less well-known achievements is the construction, as engineer, of the Vatican Power Station for Pius XI. He also wrote the official description of it.)

Cola di Rienzo (1312-54), medieval revolutionary figure who was executed. The words "fat, he was" are a quotation from a contemporary chronicle.

Ferrania is a small city near Savona. Mussolini had planned an oil pipeline there. It was never built.

Reference to an Italian custom: recently married couples send sugared almonds in tulle bags to those who have sent — or should send — wedding presents.

cinobalànico, a word invented by Gadda, a Greco-Italian adjective created from an obscene Roman dialect expression meaning "badly done."

Cesare Beccaria, Italian reformer and humanitarian (1738-94), author of the famous Dei delitti e delle pene. The Pirroficoni case was an actual event (as, for that matter, was the crime which inspired Il pasticciaccio).

Luigi Federzoni was Mussolini's Minister of the Interior.

A Gaddian parody of the Latin inscriptions on buildings all over Italy, a custom initiated by the Popes and continued with gusto by the Fascists, who were fond of translating their names and titles into Latin. Rosa Maltoni was the maiden name of Mussolini's mother.

Irnerius, teacher of law of Bologna, was the first great commentator on Roman law (1065–1125).

Prati, a section of Rome on the left bank of the Tiber, a fashionable residential district in the early years of this century.

La Gajola is a little island off the tip of Cape Posillipo, just outside Naples.

Vittorio Amedeo II of Sardinia once gave his Collare dell'Annunziata (a decoration corresponding, more or less, to the Garter) to a group of poor subjects — an episode included in all Italian school-books for the edification of young students during the Monarchy.

The Italian Mint is in Piazza Verdi, Rome.

A reference to Alcide de Gasperi, Prime Minister of Italy at the time this book was being written.

Mussolini numbered the years of the "Fascist Era." The Year Fifteen would be 1937.

The little town of Predappio was Mussolini's birthplace.

Barbisa is the Milanese dialect word for the female organ.

"Comit" is the abbreviation for the Banca Commerciale Italiane.

Alessandro Galilei (1691–1737), architect of St. John Lateran, the beloved "San Giovanni" of the Romans.

Virginia assumes that the word pediatra (pediatrician) has something to do with feet (piedi).

Rome's Regina Coeli prison is on the Via della Lungara.

The law in Italy is enforced not only by the police, locally, but also by the carabinieri (formerly the Royal Carabinieri), a national force with a long tradition. There is ill-concealed rivalry between the two forces.

Another reference to Mussolini, son of Rosa Maltoni.

The "mountain" is that of the French revolutionary Convention. The "bull" is Danton. An obscure reference, prompted by Gadda's wide reading in French history.

The "fourth shore," an Italian jingoist slogan, referring to the shore of Libya, Italy's onetime colony.

A private reference. The Sicilian sculptor Francesco Messina was, apparently, at one time the owner of a red Lancia.

The Milanese engineer Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli was President of the Italian Touring Club and sponsored, about this time, a campaign to set up the standard Italian road signs all over the country, arousing Gadda's ire.

Vitori and Luis are Milanese dialect for Vittorio and Luigi, the names of the hapless Bertarelli.

"Hypocarduccian" is a reference to the patriotic poet Giosue Carducci (1835–1907).

References to the Italian revolution of 1848 and the brief Roman Republic of 1849.

"Gregorian" has a faintly Papal flavor, but in Roman dialect gregorio also means the "behind."

La difesa della razza was the publication of the Italian racists, sponsored by the Fascists after the special (i.e., antisemitic) laws of 1938.

The Foro Italico — formerly Foro Mussolini — is a complex of stadiums, swimming pool, and other sports buildings on the northern outskirts of Rome. It was — and still is — decorated by pseudo-heroic male statues, each representing a city or a region of Italy. Latium (Lazio) is the region of Rome.

The Priory of the Knights of Malta is on the Aventine Hill, just above the Clivo de' Publicii.

Pinturicchio (or Pintoricchio) was a nickname, meaning "little" painter; Doctor Fumi is making a pun on the name.

That is to say, to Ingravallo's native Molise.

Another reference to Mussolini.

The sibyl of Cumae (just outside Naples) was renowned in ancient times, described by Virgil in Book Six of the Aeneid.

To ward off the evil eye.

A complicated and typically Gaddian aside: he refers to the bureaucratic confusion which once had him registered as Paolo Emilio. (Paulus Emilius, in 216 B.C., advised Varro not to fight Hannibal; Varro did and was defeated at Cannae. Paulus was killed, having refused to flee when the opportunity was given him.) Then he was registered as Paolo Maria, before he succeeded in having his name entered properly, correcting also "Gadola" into "Gadda."

R.R.C.C., the Royal Carabinieri.

A reference to the Bernini St. Teresa in Ecstasy, in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.

Fara Filiorum Petri is the peculiar name of a small town in the Abruzzo from which, apparently, this carabiniere private comes. Gadda refers to him at times by the name of the town, at times by combined forms of it ("Farafilio"), and at times by his surname, Cocullo.

This whole passage is underlined by an untranslatable play on the similarity of two words, la luce (light) and I'alluce (big toe).

Babylon, in this case, means Rome.

"At prompting of the Eternal Spirit's breath," Dante, Paradiso, XII, 99 (Binyon translation).

" Crescite vero in gratia et in cognitione Domini. Petri Secunda Epistula: (111-18)." (Author's note).". . grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord. ."

"Saepe proposui venire ad vos et prohibitus sum usque adhuc. Pauli ad Romanos: (1-13)." (Author's note).". . oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but I was let hitherto. ."

Gioacchino Belli (1791–1863), Roman dialect poet.

A pun on the words prati (meadows) and pascoli (pastures), surnames of two Italian nineteenth-century poets. Pascoli, a bachelor, lived with his sister.

The soldiers of the bersaglieri (sharpshooters) regiments wear hats with special plumes of cock tail-feathers.

In Northern Italy proper names, in indirect reference, are often preceded by the definite article. Pestalozzi thought he heard her say la Camilla.

Gaetano Filangieri (1752-88), enlightened political thinker and author.

The spinone is an Italian hunting dog; the Maremmano is a large white sheepdog.

Delagrange was a French aviator who gave flying exhibitions in Italy. "Will Delagrange fly?" was the headline of his publicity poster.

Paolo Ignazio Maria Thaon di Revel, Mussolini's Minister of Finance, 1935-43. "Gadfly" is a play on the words tafano (gadfly) and Thaon.

Cf. Dante, Purgatorio, XX, 54: "Save one, who gave himself to the grey dress" (Binyon translation, a reference to the last of the Carolingians, who became a monk).

A Gaddian private joke. Originally the phrase went, "like the daddy of Vittorini" (the novelist Elio Vittorini is, in fact, the son of a station-master). Then, afraid of offending a fellow-writer, Gadda changed the name to the mysterious "Lucherino."

The Palio is the famous Siena horse race, where different sections of the city are represented, each with a special name and device: Torre (tower), Tartuca (turtle), Oca (goose), etc.

Angelo Inganni (1807-80), a painter from Brescia.

The prince would be Prince Torlonia, owner of much of the land in this area.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Rome's market square, has in its center some Roman ruins that resemble the famous faraglioni, tower-like rock formations near the shore of Capri.

Tullus and Ancus, third and fourth kings of Rome.

The word "Cacco" is close, in sound, to several Italian obscenities (see footnote, page 57), unsuited to the lips of Sora Margherita.

One feature of Fascist nationalism was the banishing from Italian usage of all foreign words: "ouverture" became "apertura," for example, and — in this case "chauffeur" became "autista."

The "battle of grain" was Mussolini's campaign to increase the production of wheat in Italy.