GOING TO THE INDIAN: Part 2 (across the Cascine and off the Edge of the Earth)
CONTENTS:
(5) CRICKETS vs FIREFLIES
(6) LUCCIOLE, LUCCIOLI, LUCCIOLX
(7) BATWOMAN IN THE CASCINE
(8) VITTORIO EMANUELE II PLUS HITLER AND MUSSSOLINI
(5) CRICKETS vs FIREFLIES
Does the historic Caccia al Grillo still exist? If you go to Florence's principal park on Ascension Day, you now see self-conscious attempts at "reintroduction" and "revival", demonstrating that the real holiday is dead and buried.
Whatever the battle lines might once have been, the furor over Crickets in the Cascine has since been "overtaken by the arrogant ascendancy of other tastes and customs"—to quote the editorialist from La Nazione back in 1959, heraldng the advent of Canapone the Camel.
"Zone rosse" (red zones) are no-go areas. "Zone a luci rosse"—"red light zones"—are exactly what you would guess. But what are these lucciole/fireflies anyway?
As long as the Cascine has been Florence's chief green space, it has been popularly associated with two insect species: Crickets and Fireflies (albeit metaphorically in the second case). Witness the smirking quotation marks around "tornate"—"returned"—in the newspaper caption. These so-called Lucciole (Fireflies) had never left, as every Florentine knew.
From time out of mind, sex workers of various species have staked out lamposts along the park's broad avenues, plying their trade mostly to passing drivers. They also clustered around lanterns and even bonfires in wintertime. Not an exclusively Florentine custom, this nocturnal activity can still be witnessed in peripheral areas of most Italian cities.
When did "lucciola / firefly" become a jokey euphemism for "prostitute"? After World War I, two modern meanings emerged. A "firefly" was a cinema usherette (poking through the dark with a flashlight in hand, showing patrons to their seats). A "firefly" was also a street walker under a lamp post, braving the elements and whatever else.
In 1922, Daniele Serra gave durable life to the second meaning when he released Lucciole Vagabonde (Vagabond Fireflies), also known as Noi Siam Come le Lucciole (We Are Like the Firefiies).
When deepest darkness
Descends on the city,
We leave our slums.
We are fireflies craving liberty.
Aimlessly we make our way.
When we run into the police,
We sing this song,
From under a lamp post.
We are like the fireflies,
We shine in the shadows.
Slaves of a brutal world,
We are the flowers of evil.
[Quando più fitta l’oscurità/ Scende sulla città/ Lucciole ansiose di libertà/ Noi lasciamo i bassifondi./ /Senza una meta c’incamminiam/ E sotto ad un lampion/ Quando la ronda noi incontriam/ Cantiamo la canzon./ Noi siam come le lucciole/ Brilliamo nelle tenebre/ Schiave d’un mondo brutal/ Noi siamo i fiori del mal.]
Lucciole Vagabonde was composed by the prolific duo of Cesare Andrea Bixio (music) and Bixio Cherubini (lyrics) by 1921. However, it was not copyrighted and printed until 1927, when the case exploded in the Italian courts.
Plagiarism, not immorality, was the chief concern. The heirs of Giacomo Puccini and Casa Ricordi, the venerable music publisher, cited a distinct parallel between melody lines in Lucciole Vagabonde and the celebrated aria Nessun Dorma from Turandot.
That was Puccini's last opera, left incomplete at his death in 1924 and first staged in 1926 at La Scala. After much wrangling, the judges determined that Lucciole had been duly registered a few months before Turandot—and that was the end of it, in legal terms. (The 1921/22 recording was evidently not cited in the case.)
Bert Firman did a lot of recording specifically for Italy, especially after Mussolini seized on the cultural perils of unmediated foreign music. For a start, popular songs would be distributed only with Italian lyrics—resulting in a flood of purely orchestral dance music with no lyrics at all.
Daniele Serra sung Lucciole Vagabonde in 1921/22, just before the Duce's March on Rome. Although the text and music were Italian, it was a transgressive hymn to the dark side of contemporary life and not what the Fascist Corporate State had in mind. By early 1923, they had begun cracking down on street prostitution and regulating (but not closing) brothels, with an eye to Italy's public health but also her public image.
The "firefly" meme leaped over the Second World War to the present day, taking some interesting twists and turns along the way. Forty years ago, in the days before Lavoratrice del Sesso (Female Sex Worker) and the gender-neutral Professionista del Sesso (Sex Professional) entered the common parlance, their new lobbying organization was quick to reclaim the words lucciola and prostituta.
In 1976, film director Giulio Berruti took the first line of Lucciole Vagbonde's famous refrain and turned it on its head, making it the title of a whimsical yet edgy revenge comedy. His chief innovation was throwing male lucciole (or luccioli?) into the mix.
A convicted female prostitute is released from jail and decides to even the score with the dominant men who used and abused her. She transforms her home into a boarding house, attracts three male lodgers and slowly but surely forces them into prostitution by causing them to lose their "legitimate" jobs. Then she accesses their bank accounts—and the cycle of exploitation is complete.
(6) LUCCIOLE, LUCCIOLI, LUCCIOLX
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"Whenever someone decides to start chasing down lucciole, the inevitable folklore effect kicks in. We are back playing cops and robbers [guardie e ladri] in 1950s Italy, since no one ever succeeds in catching the lucciole. Mayor Dario Nardella now proposes creating a Ztl [pedestrianized zone] at the entrance to the Cascine, the area in Florence customarily assigned to prostitution (and more). While the atmosphere is redolent of the old Commedia all'Italiana, it is also cause for reflection."
The author's tone is acerbic and nostalgic—all at once—in the inimitable Florentine style. Meanwhile, there is an explicit reference to the Commedia all'Italiana, citing a genre of Italian movies that emerged in the 1950s and hung on into the early '80s.
The so-called "Italian-style Comedy" spoofed the somber tropes of post-war Neorealism, while satirizing popular habits and customs. The editor of Il Foglio name-checks Guardie e Ladri (Cops and Robbers) from 1951, generally considered the first in the genre. While Noi Siam Come Le Lucciole (1976) doesn't usually make the list of top Commedia all'Italiana classics, it comes out of that same world.
In cracking down on prostitution, Mayor Dario Nardella (May 2014-June 2024) was seeking to protect women from abuse and exploitation—a pressing concern. Indeed, the first arrest in September 2017 under the Nardella Ordinance was a male Florentine client of a female Albanian streetwalker.
Back in the spring and summer of 2017, when Nardella launched his caccia alle lucciole, he was swimmng against a rising tide of old-time Cascine nostalgia. This was unleashed by the death of "La Carlotta", one of Florence's most celebrated trans-lucciole.
I only happened on La Carlotta once, circa 1990. She was wearing an enormous fur coat while holding court at an evening event at the Museo degli Argenti (the Treasures Museum in Palazzo Pitti). Off-duty hooker and pop-culture icon, all at once...
"This Old Florence of Mine, August 30, 2017: A queen of the Florentine transgenders, Carlotta Paiano, was found dead in Lecce, her place of origin. She was 57 years old (according to various accounts) and by then she was living far-removed from the extravagances of the 1980s. For connoisseurs of the clasic puttan-tour, she put on a notable show merely by walking around half-naked."
For the Puttan-tour (puttana = whore, tour = tour), see below:
"For those of us who were making the rounds at night in Florence in the '80s, cruising by the Cascine to see La Carlotta strut her stuff was almost a mandatory rite...RIP Queen of the Trans."
"What a show for us young sprouts, hornier than ever, raised as we were on the edge of holy religion! In those days, imagine seeing all of that abundance, just as God made it!"
"I remember when I was just a kid, we would go to her on our motor-scooters and she would send us back home because we were too little for her—but with the promise to return when we got bigger! / She was always kind and well-mannered. / RIP, Carlotta! Much of Florence will remember you forever!"
"Back in the early '70s, I remember a famous trans, the first that I saw. Maybe it was la Romanina?"
La Carlotta (b.1960) was neither the first nor the last of Florence's gender-bending sex-workers: transvestites, transexuals and everything in between. In fact, she never went all the way with full reassignment surgery—unlike her older colleague La Romanina (b.1941). More about La Romanina and her story soon...
We can accompany a Florentine guy on a nostalgic re-enactment—long and rambling and thoroughly self-involved—of his youthful Puttan-tours. Usually, but not always, these were group activities, old-fashioned male bonding rituals back in the age when "normal" Italian women were still saving it for marriage, while their extended families kept watch.
Then things got a tiny bit weird... Men started including their girlfriends in these jaunts, usually after an evening at Central Park or Meccanò, two massive discos formerly at the entrance to the Cascine.
If we are linguistic completists, we can let aging specalists in arrested development tell us about the Lucciolata—which was basically synonimous with the Puttan-tour. The term evidently derived from the ultra-Florentine Zingarata, which entered the national lexicon in 1975 with the hit film Amici Miei.
The classic "zingarata" was a wild and crazy "gypsy" adventure with male friends usually old enough to know better. So, you take your basic zingarata, throw in lucciole—and there you are (while shrugging your shoulders at those other lucciolate of your childood, somber religious processions featuring lanterns).
Almost invariably, the alleged stars of the Lucciolate or Puttan-tours—the Lucciole or Puttane themselves—are cast as intriguing sex-objects but also bawdy comediennes wth hearts of gold. The entertainment they offer is titillating and edgy, but utterly risk-free—especially if you don't get out of the car (or they don' get in).
(7) BATWOMAN IN THE CASCINE
Sometimes the Lucciole or Puttane step up and tell their own stories, which are seldom easy to hear.
Back in the 1970s, I always thought that La Romanina was from Rome (La Romanina = The Little Roman, female singular declension). I saw her fairly often, making her conspicuous way through Piazza della Signoria, sharing the news of the day ("Look at my tits! I just got my shots!")
She was Tuscan, in fact—born Romano Cecconi in Lucca. She never set out to be a prositute in the Cascine, nor any place else. Neither did she mean to become a martyr to the legal and moral oppression of post-War Italy, which could be no less horrifying than in Mussolini's day.
In La Romanina's own words:
"I have been in prison four times, smeared by the press as a shady individual, chased out of my school, forbidden to leave my house after nine at night, deprived of my civil rights, of my driver’s license, of the possibility to find a job or open a shop. I endured many long months of forced residence. I have been extorted, offended and tried in court. This is all because I steadfastly maintained—with anger when required—that I would never give up dressing like a woman, feeling like a woman and being a woman."
[Sono stata in carcere quattro volte, definita dai giornali un 'losco' individuo, scacciata dal collegio, obbligata a non uscire di casa dopo le nove di sera, privata dei diritti civili, della patente di guida, della possibilità di trovare un lavoro o di aprire un negozio. Ho fatto lunghi mesi di soggiorno obbligato, sono stata ricattata, offesa, processata. Tutto questo perché ho sempre sostenuto con forza, con rabbia quando ce n’era bisogno, che non avrei smesso di vestirmi da donna, di sentirmi donna, di essere donna.]
Romano/Romina Cecconi in Florence in the early days.
Romano/Romina Cecconi left her native Lucca in the 1960s for the larger and less provincial city of Florence (which was still far from a free-wheeling metropolis). Her plan was to establish herself as a sexy yet glamorous show-girl in the mode of Coccinelle, the French transvestite sensation.
She secured a gig at the Caroli Circus, a beloved Tuscan institution, where she danced boleros and impersonated Brigitte Bardot—until a small-town priest denounced her as a “devilish tempter" (un diavolo tentatore) and she was booted out.
Romina then tried her luck in Paris, where she performed briefly at the celebrated transvestite club Chez Madame Arthur, but that didn't last. In Paris, however, she discovered hormone treatments and began her journey to a full sex-change. For that she needed money, but with sprouting breasts and softening curves, she had only one way to earn it.
Back in Florence, she emerged as a public sensation, parading through the center of town in provocative female dress, then turnng tricks in the Cascine and elsewhere. For that, Romina constructed an alternate persona, La Romanina.
Her ultimate goal was to raise money for surgery, but her efforts were undermined by constant arrest, repeated imprisonment and mounting fines. The crisis came in 1972, when she was declared "a socially dangerous person" (una persona socialmente pericolosa) and sentenced to three years of involuntary residence (soggiorno obbligato) in a village in the far South.
Romina had no choice but to force the issue, so she fled to Switzerland and underwent the operation. Then—in a massive act of simultaneous submission and defiance—she returned to Italy. At very least, the Italian government was forced to issue her new identity documents as a female. However, she still had to face a long exile in Vulturino (Province of Foggia), a remote and distinctly hostile outpost.
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When Romina Cecconi returned to Florence, she was in her mid-30s and one of the most famous people in town. She couldn't leave her old life behind, even if she wanted to. The relentlessly antagonistic press made sure of that.
As if Romano, Romina and La Romanina were not enough, they assigned her another semi-witty sobriquet, La Donna Pipistrello (The Bat Woman).
This had nothing to do with Batman's superheroic lady-friend. Rather, it turned on a catchy couplet, nicely rhymed:
Sono la donna pipistrello,
Mezza topa e mezzo uccello.
*
I am the bat woman,
Half mouse and half bird.
[Cheat Sheet: Topa/Mouse means Vagina in Italian slang. Uccello/Bird means Penis.]
Who launched the Donna Pipistrello meme? It might even have been Romina herself, at night under the trees of the Cascine. In any case, she embraced this designation and she lives with it still.
In the Cascine, after the heydays of La Romanina, La Carlotta and even Ivonne, the national and gender identities of the sex-workers fluctuated wildly.
For years, Italian cross-dressers, often from the South (like La Carlotta), seemed to dominate—eventually supplemented by Brazilian trans.
Then came a horde of unmodified females from the crumbling Eastern block—run by tough Albanian and North African pimps who scared the old-style puttane con la sopresa ("whores with a surprise") out of the park.
Then came Nigerian women who offered their services at bargain rates.
For years this was the center of night life, of entertainment, of transgression. Also of whoring. Today, the Cascine of the '90s is only a pale memory preserved by aging good-timers. They recall evenings at Meccanò or Central Park and the spectacle of the famed Carlotta and other trans. She became a myth, even for those who weren't in the habit of paying for sex. Then the crisis arrived, the discos closed and work on the new tramline gave the final shove.
Such was the state of play at the time of Mayor Dario Nardella's caccia alle lucciole. His strategy—to head off their clients by blocking traffic—never really gained traction. But meanwhile, the lucciole-luccioli-lucciolx were themselves "overtaken by the arrogant ascendancy of other tastes and customs".
Demon Nurse? Zombie Bride? Maybe a trans prostitute, pitching to a decidedly niche clientele?
In fact, we are looking at a standard female (no more, no less), merry-making her way her way through a family-friendly event—sponsored by the City of Florence, in the New Cascine, under a rebranded sign of the Bat.
Once upon a tme, back in the age of the Puttan-tour, the Parco delle Cascine seemed huge, remote and generally ominous.
In its depths were weird expanses of decaying trees, a sinking forest floor and cordoned-off buildings on the verge of collapse.
All of this was essential—no doubt—to its transgressive charm, for those who were spectators, not victims.
Could La Romanina, La Carlotta and Ivonne (of whom I cannot find a trace anywhere) even imagine a time when ordinary citizens would want to engage in nocturnal jogging or cycling—and bring their kids?
How about family picnics under the stars on warm summer nights?
For Mayor Nardella and the City Council, the way forward was clear.
They would chase the Lucciole from the Cascine by clogging the traffic arteries with special events, instituting autombile-free weekends and eventually pedestrianizing vast swathes of the park for the entire summer.
"Halloween" and "the Cascine" was a perfect match, considering the park's dramatic setting and its creepy past. The holiday (always "Halloween" in English) had burst onto the scene some twenty years earlier by way of American television and films.
In Italy, the festivity Ognissanti (All Saints) on November 1 was already a national observance, focusing on the remembrance of the dead. So, folks had the day off and were eager to make the most of the night before—while remaining whimsically in theme.
Puttan-tours...Cricket Hunts...Canapone the Camel...Indian Princes...
The list grows longer and longer, every time we set foot in the Cascine.
And who knows? Maybe if we wait long enough, Halloween Runs will recede into the past—like all the rest.
From 2016 through 2019, the Cascine event emerged as a popular favorite. Children loved it and for grown-ups, there was no better place to Tweet, Facebook or Instagram your friends.
But then COVID slammed Florence and the 2020 and 2021 events were canceled. After the recovery, the Halloween Run scored two further successes in 2022 and 2023, both copiously photo-documented. Then in 2024, it was abruptly canceled without explanation.
"We have a date for 2025!" the organizers proclaimed (with an exclamation mark). You can check back next November 1 for an update.
(8) VITTORIO EMANUELE II PLUS HITLER AND MUSSSOLINI
Florence is many wonderful things, but also a small, tightly-wrapped town.
You find monumental buildings but few large open spaces. Even the famous piazzas can feel cramped and enclosed.
Through gates and behind walls, you glimpse leafy gardens, but seldom a public park worthy of mention.
And for an Italian city—a former capital even—there are few grand avenues culminating in spectacular views.
If the Arno did not run through the middle, Florence would be one of the most claustrophobic places on earth.
Romans are known to break out in cold sweats immediately on arrival, followed by palpitations of the heart and shortness of breath. "A Firenze non posso respirare!" (I can't breathe in Florence!) is a frequent cry.
Meanwhile, there is the Cascine on the edge of town and on the edge of most people's lives. We can easily imagine this flat and often blank expanse reverting to the marshland that God perhaps meant it to be.
If we enter Florence's principal park from the city side, King Vittorio Emanuele II is our unwelcoming host—glowering over our heads, on horseback, on a high plinth.
This was not always the case. For nearly 70 years, the Cascine turned a less belligerent face to the city—looking for all the world like a normal urban park where people might go to meet friends and enjoy a relaxing walk (or bycicle ride) in the fresh air.
The huge equestrian statue had its own history, which began elsewhere in the city. The sculptor's design won a public competition in 1882 and the completed work was inaugurated eight years later in a new royal piazza—rising from the debris of Florence's ancient marketplace and her former Jewish Ghetto.
In 1932, this vast and vacuous urban space was rendered even more desolate when the statue was shifted to a new oval piazza at the threshold of the Cascine. The chief complaint was that it impeded traffic in the middle of town—especially trams and other vehicles that might otherwise pass under the triumphal arch.
Meanwhile, this royalist relic was cramping Mussolini's fascist style in the very heart of town, honoring a deceased King at the expense of a living Duce. It was also blocking the great public rallies that his regime loved.
The piazza's moment seemingly came on May 9, 1938, when Hitler and Mussolini made a jam-packed one-day visit to Florence. The painter Silvio Polloni took charge of embellishing the city, relying largely on standard ornaments—flags, standards, drapery and the like.
A massive (and very Teutonic) event was proposed for Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II and at least some of the decorations were realized as planned (the surviving photographc evidence is surprisingly slight). However, the chief gathering was shifted to Piazza della Signoria, which was already impressive enough without Polloni's help.
The two statesmen did not entirely forget Vittorio Emanuele II, first King of United Italy. In fact, the monument in the Cascine was their final stop on the way to the nearby train station—glorified by fireworks, with Duce and Führer spelled out against the trees, for a few fleeting minutes.
By the time the lights went out in the Cascine, Hitler was already making his way north to Berlin and Mussolini heading south to Rome. Meanwhile—as many suspected—the world was slowly but surely sliding into war.
Florence's ultmate park would soon be transformed into a trackless No Man's Land, where Fascists and Antifascists slaughtered each other amidst the ancient trees.
Dead men don't talk, so we will never know everything that went on during those hellish years, in the Cascine and beyond.
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