150, Festa della Repubblica Italiana (1861-2011) Festa degli Italiani

June 2 marks the birth in 1946 of the modern Italian Republic in this year of the 150th Anniversary of the creation of one united country, Italy. The President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano went first to the Vittoriano, the great white marble monument on Piazza Venezia this morning to lay a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier in front of the statue of the Goddess Roma. Then he was driven in his elegant and beautiful convertible official car a 1961 Lancia Flaminia 3035 around the Roman Forum and returned via the Circus Maximus and the Porta di Capena to the avenue which leads to the great Arch of Constantine below the Palatine Hill, considered in Antiquity the official entrance to Rome. This is were Marcus Tullius Cicero entered Rome when he returned from exile shortly before the assassination of Julius Caesar. The Presidential car like all things designed in Italy is a mixture of elegance, style, sportiness and relaxed comfort and beauty. You admire the car for its colour a medium level blue, it's a convertible and can seat 4 persons in the back and 2 in the front. It is not like a lot of other State cars anonymous and bulky, it is also not bullet proof or bomb proof. Usually the President on the right of the car and his wife or in this case the Minister of Defence on the left, on the jump seat the Chief of the Defence Staff and Head of the Carabinieri. On the front seat the driver wearing white cotton gloves and next to him the Head of the Personal bodyguard of the President, in his grand Gala Uniform.

                               Lancia Flaminia 1957-1970

There he received the salute of the Italian Armed Forces as leaders of the world gathered on the official dais on Via Dei Fori Imperiali. I learned today that the blue colour is the official colour of Italy, I always wondered why, it turns out it is the colour of the Royal Family of Italy, the House of Savoy. Italy despite being a Republic since 1946 has kept the colour blue as the National colour.

All European countries sent either their Head of State or Head of Government to the ceremonies today. Many other countries sent delegations.
Beautiful sunny day today 20 C. The parade down Via dei Fori Imperiali is largely an historical pageant this year of the Armed Forces of Italy for the last 150 years, in keeping with the events being celebrated. Very well done and high in colour. Every Army, Air Force, Navy and Police regiment is represented. Also delegations of the historical 3 capitals of Italy, Torino, Firenze, Roma. NATO sent a delegation, many countries also sent military detachments. The Italian Navy has a horse regiment, probably the only one in the world to have such a thing and the Army has a railroad regiment.

Interesting note is the seating plan on the Dais, sitting on the left of the President is the president of the Parliament and on the far right two seats down is the Prime Minister Berlusconi, he seemed to have been pushed to the side. Last year he was sitting immediately to the left of the President. President Karzai of Afghanistan was seated between the President of Kosovo and Joe Biden the USA Vice-President who did not appear to have much to say to Karzai. Though he talked up the President of Kosovo who was wearing a classic Chanel outfit.

The parade concluded with all the horse regiments coming down the avenue and the two pass by of the Italian Air Force over Rome and our house since we live in the centre. You can hear them coming for at least 10 seconds before they actually appear in the sky. This evening the President of the Republic is hosting a grand State Dinner at his residence at the Quirinale Palace.

Rimini by train

This morning we walked to the Pesaro Train station after our breakfast at the Vaccaj sisters Enoteca and bought tickets to Rimini, which is just 20 minutes away. I wanted to see Rimini because of the movie by Federico Fellini, Amarcord (1973). It is my favorite movie of all times, I have seen it about a dozen times at least and I never tire of it. The storyline is simple enough, it’s Fellini’s boyhood recollection of the town around 1926 to 1938, just before the war, when Mussolini was still popular, for some, in Italy. The story revolves around his family and his friends at school, the local priest, his mother, his crazy uncle, the lady of the tobacco shop with the generous bossoms, his old grandfather and his father who was a communist. Fellini laughs at the Fascist and their simplistic ideas for a better world and the Royal house of Savoy for their pretentions. It is also a goodbye to an Italy that no longer exist, an Italy of poverty, when life was still pretty basic, a small close world. The best a the pretty local girl could aspire too, was to marry a Carabinieri and move to Rome.

The train to Rimini is the Regional train which starts somewhere south and ends in Venice with many stops along the way. Rimini station is rather pretty, a belle époque building, circa 1890. We followed the old town circuit first stopping at the Tempio Malatestiano, a church built but never completed by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Podesta (chief magistrate) of Rimini 1453 to himself and his family. It is unfinished due to the fact that the Malatesta where excommunicated by Pope Pius II in 1460, this church was originally a Franciscan church and Sigismondo took it over, robbed marble from another Christian saint tomb to built his memorial church to himself and his lover Isotta. Inside the usual memorials to the Malatesta family, their symbol was an elephant, the motif appears everywhere, Pope Pius II so much hated Sigismondo that he declared the church to be a Pagan temple, despite this pronouncement it is today the Cathedral of Rimini.

Cathedral of Rimini, Tempio Malatestiana.

Rimini is also famous for Francesca da Polenta da Rimini, who was promised in marriage to one Malatesta brother, the good looking one, Paolo, only to find out on her wedding day that she was to marry the ugly, deformed and older brother Giovanni who in 1285 had her and his brother murdered because he discovered their affair, Dante captures the whole thing in his Divine Comedy. The Malatesta lost it all in 1500 when Cesar Borgia, a good and strong supporter of the Pope defeated them and gave their estate Rimini to the Pope to rule.

We continued to walk towards the Augustus gate C. 14 AD which marks the end of the Flaminian way which starts in Rome on Piazza Venezia. We then crossed the old town towards the Bridge of Tiberius made of Istrian stone and built between 14 and 21 AD, it is still in use and very solid, accommodating cars and people. We then walked towards the Malatesta castle which is a very big ruin in the centre of town, the Popes used the castle for centuries as a jail for their enemies, then on to the old Piazza Cavour which reminded me of the movie scene where they have a snow ball fight and also a motorcycle race around the square, the Piazza is not exactly like in the movie, but then again the movie is just a recollection of souvenirs nothing is exact. On the Piazza a pretty fountain from the Renaissance and a rather stern statue of Pope Paul V, Borghese, not a nice man wearing his Papal Imperial crown with raised hand as if to cast an evil spell.
Tiberius Bridge.


We then walk towards the seashore to the Grand Hotel built in 1908 by a south American architect Paolo Somazzi, this palace hotel figures in the movie as the place where the Prince, was it Amadeo or Umberto, comes to stay one night. In the old days the hotel was closed in winter and only opened from spring to fall. We had a lovely lunch in a grand room of marble columns and crystal chandeliers overlooking the gardens and the sea. It is an hotel where old gentleman still sleep off the afternoon with a newspaper over their faces in the salon of the lobby, the rooms are decorated in period French antiques of the 18th century. It was designated as a National Monument in 1994. Am glad we went to Rimini for the day to see it and put all these movie scenes in a physical space. Though I am sure a lot of Amarcord was in fact filmed on a sound stage at CineCitta in Rome.
Grand Hotel Rimini