The Overloaded Ark

I had some spare time after I had finished work in Siracusa and so I decided to visit the Archaeological Museum. The historical centre of the city is one of the closest approximations to "a rose-red city, half as old as time". The archaeological remains of Magna Graecia appear suffused with the Mediterranean sun, especially the faces of the terracotta maidens, perpetually fresh and young.

The Museum was full of teenage girls in dark blue suits. Apparently, they had some custodial role, but what it was could only be guessed: a dozen of them patrolled the museum's corridors and I was the only visitor, hopelessly outnumbered. Made up like juvenile filmstars, very much in the Southern manner, they simpered at me and followed ma around with their eyes, wistfully. Romantic notions of a rich foreigner ready to bear the lucky winner away to a new life of luxury and experience--definitely not me!

Industry and commerce are at a low ebb, unemployment is rife, and so public institutions are stuffed with employees until they appear like an overloaded ark. Nowadays, the fashion is for temporary contracts and starvation wages--the precariato. The teenage employees of the museum were too young and inexperienced to have realised the irony of their situation, but that cannot be said for their older counterparts who have weathered the temporary contracts and achieved the miracle of being taken on as 'proper' employees, not mere "collaborators". Perpetual job security and unattractive salaries have left many of them with a "world-owes-me-a-living" mentality and a marked reluctance to change anything for the better, even human relations, or perhaps especially that. These are the people who turn their backs and pretend to be busy as soon as you walk into their office. A book that purported to explain Italian culture to foreigners stated that in every office in Italy there are six people. Five of them do absolutely nothing and the sixth does the work of all of them combined and is referred to by his compatriots as "il fanatico".

If there is not enough to do--and how could there be with so much overstaffing?--then shear boredom dictates that some form of work must be invented: self-justifying work, that creates its own raison d'etre. Recently, I did a day's teaching. A modest sum will be paid to me after a majority of my earnings have been taken away in tax and social security deductions. When preparation and travel time are included, the remuneration is far from generous. To obtain it, I had to fill in eight forms. On these, I stated my date and place of birth four times. I signed eight times. I wrote my address four times and I gave my taxpayer identification number four times. I wrote my bank details three times on one form alone. I filled in an extra form on a government web site, and, strictly following instructions, I repeated my bank account details three times on the same form. Given my qualifications, in terms of labour costs the whole exercise was worth something more than a third of my net earnings. I also had to purchase and affix an administrative stamp--the cherry on top of the bureaucratic cake.

A Tuscan who went to work in the USA once said to me, I think with some justification, that "in American one works well and lives badly; in Italy one lives well and works badly". A Swiss pathologist whom I met at a conference opined that Italy is the country where genius is closest to madness. "In Italy under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed--they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce...? The cuckoo clock." Orson Welles was wrong about the cuckoo clock, a German invention, but what sort of Renaissance would modern Italian bureaucracy produce?

The Siege of Scarperia

The Florentines were worried about the lawlessness of the Apennines and the potential for invasion from the north. Hence in 1294 they chose some sites and started to build new fortified settlements on the road to Bologna: Scarperia and Firenzuola, its northerly neighbour. The former took its name from the scarp foot at which it was built, with the Mugello Apennines as a backdrop. By 8 September 1306 the construction of the town was sufficiently advanced that a ceremony of inauguration could be held. The commemoration of the diotto, 'eighth day', has been repeated each September ever since. By the middle of the 14th century the expansionist policies of Archbiship Giovanni Visconti, Duke of Milan, fully justified the Florentines' fears, for his army was marching south, sacking and pillaging towns and villages as it went.
In 1351, when the Milanese arrived, Florence was in a pitiful state, its resources depleted by a recent war against Lucca. In the Mugello the Ubaldini family of nobles was exerting tyranny from their mountain castles. The Florentines needed to take the Mugello by force and subdue its rebellious inhabitants. Meanwhile, the Pisans pretended to be neutral but secretly sent 200 knights to join forces with the Milanese. Pistoia, under the Panciatici family, wavered and threatened to betray Florence. On 26th March it surrendered without a fight to the force of 800 knights that the Florentines had sent to threaten it. A show of force was needed, because the previous strategy, based on the Trojan Horse principle, failed when the Florentine notary Piero Gucci woke up too late to infiltrate Pistoia and get his sympathisers to open the gates to the Florentine troops. Meanwhile Giovanni Visconti da Oleggio, distant cousin of the homonymous Milanese leader, led the march on Florence. Firenzuola, too distant to defend adequately, fell immediately, and so the Florentines concentrated their resistance on Scarperia.
Visconti and his troops were disorganised and in eight days of siege failed to take Pistoia. On 7 August 1351 they left it alone and instead sacked Campi Bisenzio, Brozzi and Peretola, all perilously close to Florence. However, Visconti had neglected his supply lines, so he turned to Calenzano in the hope that by taking this town, on the northern side of Florence, he could re-establish dominion over the Apennine route to Bologna, which was well-guarded by the Florentines. Iacopo del Fiore and his guards in Calenzano took fright at the advance of the Milanese army and fled to the relative safety of Florence. He was quickly sent back into the mountains to defend Scarperia at the head of a force of 200 knights and 300 infantrymen (many of whom were, however, German mercenaries).
Scarperia was by no means completely fortified. It had been under construction for less than 60 years and building works were slow in those days. Part of the town's wall had yet to be built and all there was in their place was a palisade of stakes about two metres high. The defenders rapidly reinforced this and dug two concentric ditches on the outer side. By September the Milanese were camped in the neighbouring fields and Scarperia was under seige.
Inside the defences there were 600 soldiers. A force of 1800 knights and 3000 infantrymen was on its way, but many of these were coming from Siena and Perugia and they were being harried in the Arno Valley by troops from Arezzo. The defenders looked out with trepidation upon Visconti's 2000 knights and 600 infantrymen, fearing that yet more would arrive from the direction of Bologna. The situation seemed hopeless.
On the first Sunday of October 1351 the Milanese attacked, despite the prevailing taboo against fighting wars on Sundays. They swarmed over the two ditches that surrounded the town and began to scale the walls. At first the Florentines held their fire, but when the Milanese started to climb the walls and palisade the invaders met with a hail of arrows, crossbow bolts, stones from ballistas and torrents of boiling water. They were beaten back but tried again at dawn the following day. This time they attempted to tunnel under the defences. Iacopo del Fiore reacted by ordering his troops to dig a ditch inside the walls, so that the defence would continue if they collapsed. He organised a sally and for two days his men fought with swords and maces on the open ground until eventually they reached the entrance to the tunnel and destroyed it.
After two months of marching and hard fighting the Milanese troops were beginning to lose heart. As an incentive Giovanni Visconti da Oleggio promised them double pay if they could take Scarperia and he organised a surprise attack at midnight. Fortunately for the Florentines, their sentinels had not relaxed their guard and the attack was beaten off. At dawn on 17 October 1951 the Milanese could be observed retreating towards Bologna. The overjoyed Florentines gave each of the mercenary horsemen 500 golden florins and the title of knight, while the foot-soldiers received a double-month's pay. The inhabitants of Scarperia were compensated for their privations with ten years' exemption from taxes.
For the fortitude and courage of its inhabitants, Scarperia received the honour of being the only town in Florentine territory that could adopt the white flag emblazoned with the red lily bearing pistils, which is still widely displayed there with pride.
All this my little house has seen, for the building appears on the map of Scarperia made at its founding in 1306.