L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano T raveling for real may be difficult right now, but nothing says we can't travel with our minds or preparing for our next trip somehow. To do both at once, I thought it may be nice to take an ideal taxi ride — walking may take too long and, with all those Sanpietrini, we may get sore feet if our shoes are not comfortable! — through Rome's many quartieri and rioni to find out where they get their curious names from. Because some of them, I'm telling you, are really quirky indeed. First things first, thou- gh. What's the difference between rioni and quartie- ri? The division has pretty traditional roots and is still in use administratively today: the city is, indeed, divided in 22 rioni, com- prised within the perime- ter of the Mura Aureliane (the Aurelian Walls), and 35 quartieri, which are outside of them. Let's start from the very heart of Rome, where the Tiber flows quietly and famous Trastevere lies, with all its colors and voi- ces. On the other side of the river, we find the R i o n e d e l l a R e g o l a . Considering we're in one of the world's holiest cities, and that the word "regola" means "rule," you may think the area gets its name from monastic rules of some sort, but that's not the case. In fact Rione della Regola is named after the Latin word arenula — by the way, as you may expect, Latin will make a welcome appearance in more than one occasion in this article — which means "sand," and it refers to the fine sand-like soil the Tiber would leave behind after flooding the area. Just a tad outside the Centro Storico, we find one of the city's most quintessential areas, La G a r b a t e l l a , in the Ostiense borough. A typi- cal popular quarter, La Garbatella is often used as a film set, so you may be more familiar with it than you think. Its name is a bit of a mystery, though, because there are several stories attempting to explain it. The first says "garbatella" comes from a peculiar method to grow vines typical of the area, once called "a barbata," transformed into "garba- tella" after a series of pho- netic changes. Another wants to associate the name to that of a woman, "Garbata" who'd have owned a tavern in the area centuries ago. Of her, however, we know nothing… Torpignattara is the curious name of an area within the Municipio V of Roma Capitale, east of the city centre. Its name, which sounds quite funny if you ask me, has histori- cal and archaeological ori- gins. Here, you'll find the Mausoleum of Elena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. Once upon a time, the building, which is still visible today, was topped by a series of amphorae called familiarly pignatte. Locals nickna- med the mausoleum the "tower of pignatte," or torre delle pignatte, and the step from that to Torpignattara is pretty short. Always in the Municipio V, we find another popular place in Rome, I l Q u a d r a r o , part of the quartiere Tusculano. While the origins of the name are far from certain, they appear nevertheless to originate back in Roman times: some believe the word "quadraro" could be the deformation of Guatralis, the name of a farmer who had received in concession a large estate in the area. However, the true historical importance of the Quadraro comes from the years of the Second World War, when it was known for being a stron- ghold for Italy's Resistenza, and one of the safest places for Roman Jews to find refuge, second only to the Vatican. This is why its name is painfully associated to the deportation to Germany, in 1944, of about 1000 peo- ple, in a dramatic episode known as the r a s t r e l l a - mento del Quadraro. In the eastern part of the city, we also find the mysteriously named C e n t o c e l l e area. Once again, we can't be sure where its name — which translates literally in "a hundred cells "— comes from, but we can say with a certain degree of certainty that the ancient Romans have something to do with it. Apparently, it comes from the Latin centum cel- lae, meaning either "a hun- dred rooms," or more gene- rally, "a hundred spaces." It is likely that the "spaces" our forefathers referred to were the arches of the Aqua Alexandrina aque- duct. If we move south-west towards Ostia, we'll meet I n f e r n e t t o . Yes, LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Some are curious, some are beautiful: the names of Rome's boroughs FRANCESCA BEZZONE instead – on the contrary, a well-conducted and well- written meta-science report published last week in the medical journal Lancet pre- sented incontrovertible evi- dence based on 25,697 patients that, YES, three common and simple public health interventions are most effective in reducing the rate of Corona virus infection: physical distanc- ing of at least 1 m (about 3 ft), consistent use of face masks, and eye protection (eg, goggles or face shields). As noted, as we age, we tend to become progressive- ly more deficient in VitD. Taking VitD supplements (i.e., VitD3) is relatively safe because it is somewhat diffi- cult to over-do it. Whereas VitD is toxic in excess, side- effects are unmistakable (nausea, vomiting, constipa- tion, headaches, increase in urination and thirst due to elevated calcium). If not immediately discontinued, excess calcium will affect the kidneys, liver, and heart, resulting in pain and organ damage, kidney stones etc. To be effective biological- ly, calcitriol (active VitD3), must find and bind to its receptor (Vitamin D Receptor, VDR) expressed on most cells in the body. VDR is a nuclear receptor, which, when activated by binding to its ligand (active VitD3) engages RNA tran- scription for certain genes and regulatory microRNA species. In other words, the complex VDR-active VitD3 is key to regulating healthy metabolism, including metabolism of our immune cells. Professor Panarese of the University of Bari published a brief report on this topic a few days ago that she and colleagues prudently con- cluded with these words: "It therefore seems plausible that Vitamin D prophylaxis ( w i t h o u t o v e r� d o s i n g ) may contribute to reducing the severity of illness caused by SAR-CoV�2, particular- ly in settings where hypovi- taminosis D is frequent," which sum up, in an unmis- takable tone of coincidentia o p p o s i t o r u m, the points briefly discussed above. Dott. Francesco Chiappelli, Prof. Emer. UCLA Center for the Health Sciences. For comments, questions or the Italian ver- sion of these few thoughts, please contact: Chiappelli. research@ gmail.com Continued from page 16 Continued to page 20 A street in Rome, with a view of Castel Sant'Angelo (Photo: Dreamstime)

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