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National Geographic : 1981 Jun
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only thing impossible in this country is to forbid Italians to throw garbage in the streets. If you put a trash can for Italians, they throw just a little before but not inside!" Baldo grew even more animated as he took a run at the Parco dell' Appia Antica project, which aims to turn the urban Appia into a public park. It has been on the draw ing board a century and just lies there. Baldo poured me a drink, his black eyes snapping behind black-rimmed glasses, black mus tache twitching, hawklike Sicilian features tensed to strike. "I am in charge of this proj ect now and, ha! I am drinking beer because we have here an ad that says he who drinks beer lives a hundred years. But I will not live to see this park. The state and city of Rome must pay expenses. How? Our superinten dency has only a limited amount of lire to spend on all of Rome. The city is trillions of lire in debt. "Too many people meddle with this park," Baldo continued. "This lobby that writes against us in the papers-these ideal ists. As they are not in the state, they can ask everything. If you want everything, you get nothing. Italia Nostra!" The way he expectorated the name, I thought this must be a branch of Cosa Nos tra. Searching it out, I was referred, alarm ingly, to Consigliere (!) Lorenzo Quilici. But he is simply the "counselor" for a private environmental-protection organization. To him a big green strip in almost parkless Rome is as important as monuments. He proposes that control of Baldo's strip, and all state funds appertaining thereto, be tak en from the superintendency and vested in an independent commission. We were talking in the library of Rome's American Academy, and at this point librar ian Lucilla Marino raised eyebrows and said, "When too many roosters sing in the morning, the daylight never comes." WHEN CENSOR Appius Claudius began his road in 312 B.C., he had no such aesthetics in mind. Rome was in process of conquering the Samnites, who held the territory around Capua and Beneventum. Censors were responsible for roads as well as censuses, censoring, and censuring, and Appius Claudius wanted to get a military road down to Capua, 132 miles Down the Ancient Appian Way 723
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