L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2019 P alazzo Senatorio broke the news a week before the holi- days. Spelacchio, Ro- me's woebegone mu- nicipal Christmas tree, a 72-foot tall Norwegian spruce brought from the Dolomites to the capital on a tractor trailer and erected in Piazza Venezia at a cost of €48,000, was dead. Outraged tax- payers stifled their grief and de- manded an explanation. At a public hearing in the Aula Giulio Cesare, experts testi- fied between sips of ice water. Antimo Palumbo, a tree histori- an, founder and president of ADEA (Amici degli Alberi), said the cause was petrified roots. When workers had poured con- crete to steady the tree, they killed it. Giulia Caneva, profes- sor of botany at RomaTre University, blamed the transport. Journeying 400 miles without a tarp or water, the tree had suf- fered from exposure and dehy- dration. But a janitor, emptying trash in the back of the hall, pursed his fingers and wagged his wrist. Everyone knew why Spelacchio was dead. Sarcasm had killed him, the poor wooden bastard. The hazing began on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, after a crane hoisted the sickly tree in front of the Vittoriano, the monument to Victor Emanuel II, the first king of Italy. The Father of the Fatherland would have objected. When his daugh- ter-in-law, Margherita of Savoy, dedicated Rome's first Christmas tree at the Quirinale in December 1876, to prove that Italians were as progressive as Anglo Saxons, His Majesty cursed and left the ballroom. Everyone in Piazza Venezia was equally upset, from the lancers guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, standing at attention in berets and capes under the eye of the goddess Roma, to the grimacing specta- tors in their Santa hats, reindeer antlers, and Olaf sweatshirts. Who could blame them? Last year, responding to complaints about severe cutbacks to holiday decorations, Virginia Raggi, Rome's new mayor, had promised the city a better Christmas tree, something wor- thy of New York's Rockefeller Center or Milan's Piazza del Duomo—not this toilet brush, this plucked chicken, this refugee from a Charlie Brown television special. Because the tree was so spe- lacchiato, so shabby and thread- bare, Romans called it Lo Spelacchio. Conspiracy theorists insisted that the tree had been poisoned. Quacks used its image to adver- tise hair loss remedies. Codacons, a consumer advocacy group, complained of "the grotesque waste of public money" to the National Anti- Corruption Authority, while the Chamber of Commerce suggest- ed using a Chipper Gandini to turn Spelacchio into pencils and toothpicks. With its own Twitter handle and three Facebook accounts, the tree had more followers than branches, but the attention could not slow its decline. Every day, despite its bright lights and col- orful bulbs, it turned grayer, shed more and more needles until it became a skeleton. Pinuccia Montanari, Rome's environmental councilor, dis- liked for letting sheep, goats, and cows graze in the city's long- neglected parks and for banning botticelle, horse-drawn buggies, from its streets, failed to assure the public. Spelacchio, she explained, was like a Picasso. Highly stylized, it needed time to make a good impression. A few days later, her department announced that the tree was dead. Someone tweeted in faulty Latin: "Ave, Virginia, morituro te salutat!" As sympathy cards flooded City Hall, the mayor's enemies pounced. "The Five Star Movement can't even manage to get a Christmas tree right," declared Elvira Savino, MP from Forza Italia. "Imagine how they would govern the country." Giorgia Meloni, head of Fratelli d'Italia, sneered: "€48,000 to kill a Christmas tree. Well done, Virginia." If Raggi had dealt with this problem the way that Maria Elena Boschi, the Minister for Constitutional Reforms, had handled the Banca Etruria crisis, Spelacchio would be a stately baobab on the banks of the Euphrates. But when pundits declared that the scandal symbolized the sorry state of the country, Spelacchio himself responded with an editorial in La Stampa, ghosted by Mattia Feltri. "Look," he said, "you have a dark, chaot- ic, filthy city. Everything is thrown on the ground, nothing works, and you do nothing but complain. I'm not a metaphor for Italy. You are." A chastened crowd gathered in Piazza Venezia on the Epiphany to say farewell to Spelacchio. The ceremony was dampened by a cold drizzle and feelings of guilt. "Today we dismantle a tree that represented so much for our citizens," said Councilor Montanari. Spelacchio would be repurposed, cut up and used to build a nursing hut in Villa Borghese where Roman moms can breastfeed in peace. What could be more sustainable? As city workers turned off the tree's lights, a lone protester chanted: "Resist! Resist, Spelacchio! You live forever in our hearts!" Pasquino's secretary is Anthony Di Renzo, professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@itha- ca.edu. Last Christmas, Spelacchio was the target of a few jokes in Rome (Copyright: Dreamstime) Lo Spelacchio Pasquino trims a tree ANTHONY DI RENZO HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS

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