The Coolidge examiner., 1938-01-20

ONGs AAAAAS WIZ
X empire, does not rule
- herself. Municip a l
self-government ended in
1925. In the mayor, an ap-
pointee, is vested power for
merly exercised by mayor,
aldermen, and council. Citi-
zens of all Italy help bear the
burden of civic Identification.
Rome could not pay her enor-
nous bill alone; dreams of
artist-engineers are too far
reaching.
Streets even m old quarters are
clean. Where dark stone tenements
are demolished for parks and
squares, former inhabitants move to
gigantic apartment houses on the
edge of the Roman countryside. You
may visit the home of 500 poor fam
lilies imposing. yet simply built with
in and furnished usually with hum
BILE, long-used tables, chairs and
beds. Two rooms for about $3.50
monthly, four for $50.
Italian upper and middle classes,
who staff growing government bu-
reaus, dwell usually in ultramodern
apartments, five or six stories with
elevator, outside the "old city"
walls. You see little construction,
except government buildings, in
downtown" Rome, although many
expensive shops are modernized to
attract what United States adver-
tisements call exclusive patron
age"
Even Rome's oldest parts, swarm
ing with well-fed stray cats, are
virtually hreproof. Fire hydrants,
seldom needed, are hidden beneath
iron covers at sidewalk level
The Apostle Peter was cruciied,
they say, on Vatican hill where
stood the gardens of Nero, one Of
the cruelest oppressors Of Chris
tians. Nero is but dim, hateful
memory. Peter and his words still
live, and Christendom's largest
church stands above his tomb.
Vatican City Is Sovereign.
Ending long strife between
Church and State, Mussolini signed
the Lateran treaty in 1929, making
the State of Vatican City sovereign.
BY this accord it cannot engage in
political controversy except when
disputants unanimously ask it TO
mediate. Its power is moral and
spiritual.
Otherwise the pope is absolute
legislative, judicial, and executive
head of his l08.7-acre, art-treasure-
packed state. Italy guarantees right
of-way by wire. highway, rail and
air to the world. Exempt from Ital-
ian taxes, Vatican City may issue
stamps and coin money.
The tsar of all the Russias once
visited the pope. He paused be-
yond rainbow-shot spray to watch
two enormous fountains scintillat-
ing in the sunny colonnade-encir-
cled piazza at st. Peters.
They're gorgeously beautiful"
he exclaimed. Now you may turn
them off"
He was astonished, they say, to
learn that Roman fountains, not op-
Grated solely for him. played con-
stantly.
Men may come, and men may
60, but / go on forever" Every
old fountain seems to murmur these
lines, and well they may, for many
have played virtually without inter
ruption since the repair of barbar-
ian-destroyed aqueducts from the
same mountain rivers supplying
Rome today.
Hundreds of Fountains.
The late Professor A. D. Tani,
who loved his city and knew it as
few contemporaries did, apologized
that his Fountains of Rome" con-
tanned only 300 illustrations!
Water flows from mouths Of ami
mails and fishes, drops down artif-
cial waterfalls, pours in unbroken
sheets like shimmering glass, shoots
skyward, geyserlike, and returns as
misty rain into great marble basins
green with moss. 1t trickles down
rock ledges; it gushes sometimes in
torrents like a mountain trout
stream, always pure enough for
drinking.
Imaginative Roman artistry has
found wide scope in such creations
as Bernini's Fountain Of Trevi. or
the stone ship at the Piazza di
Spagna.
There are numberless uhlitarian