THE APOCALYPSE COMES TO CAMPO DI MARTE: Florentine Street Art in the Time of COVID

Breaking bounds in the depths of the COVID Quarantine...

In those stir-crazy times, going out for a walk was strictly forbidden —so the trick was to pretend that I wasn't going for a walk.

A harmless older guy? Dutifully masked? Ambling by with a conspicuous pharmacy bag (sheer camouflage, of course)?

I couldn't imagine that the Carabinieri would bother much.

Especially if I was heading away from the center of town....

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So, I trekked over the railroad tracks to Campo di Marte, past the subsidiary train station of that name.

Even in normal times, this is my favorite part of Florence—blissfully free of marauding tourists and ancient monuments.

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What is it about this territory anyway?

Quartiere Campo di Marte is a place of its own and something more.

An urban barometer? It seems to channel the shifting moods of the entire city better than any neighborhood I know.

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Campo di Marte means Field of Mars—named for the God of War in the grandiloquent language of the Nineteenth Century.

It began as a military parade ground, then came a massive infill of athletic facilities—including Florence's chief soccer stadium.

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Even when a plague is not raging, this neighborhood can feel like the outer edge of nowhere— except on game days, when it suddenly emerges as the city's beating heart.

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Sporting venues, however massive, can prove oddly ephemeral as years pass and habits change.

Along the way, Campo di Marte  developed its own history and its own archeology. We can now trace the ebb-and-flow of past projects and ponder the meanings they reveal.

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I have always been intrigued by this compact little structure from the Mussolini period, with its rationalist design and crisp edging in travertine marble (the Fascist building material par excellence).

As far as I can tell, it was the ticket office for a now vanished military stadium. It's newish replacement (a state-of-the-art track and field venue) looms immediately behind.

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On the projecting cornice, beneath the stone ledge (evidently local pietra serena):

AMICIZIA * COLORE * ALLEGRIA * "MURO CONTRO MURO" * FELICITÀ * AMORE...

That is to say:

FRIENDSHIP * COLOR * JOY * "WALL AGAINST WALL" * HAPPINESS * LOVE...

(Another inspiring word got lost behind the fence.)

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This all burst forth a couple of years before the pandemic and will fade away in due course.

A relentless swirl of good intentions— brain-stormed by local elementary school kids (I would guess), cued by over-eager adults.

MURO CONTRO MURO???

"Wall Against Wall" is an old Italian expression —signaling an impasse, a failure of communication, a mute obstruction that can lead to worse.

But there is more to this MURO thing...

The MURI DELLA GENTILEZZA (Walls of Kindness) movement erupted with a vengeance, throughout Italy and maybe beyond.

The concept is simple: You and your friends adopt an abandoned wall. You hand your best selves a few buckets of paint. Then —with the help of social media— the world becomes a finer place.

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We can get lost for ages, unpacking the weirdly upbeat messages —which come at us from every direction at once.

Under a row of Florentine lilies, a guy reaches through a hole in a fence (or tennis net?) and shakes hands wtih another guy— diversely enabled in a wheelchair. ("Friendship" and something else? I don't see "Communication" or "Understanding" on the list.)

Then there are five stars from the Florentine football team (circa 2016-17)— diverse but only somewhat (two white Spaniards, a white Argentine, a white Italian and a black Colombian).

Plus blocks from a dismantled wall— picking up the MURO theme. And an oddly elliptical soccer ball.

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Now a boxing ring with two white contenders under a flowering tree that sheds... leaves or fruit? ...labeled:

D*I*S*U*G*U*A*G*L*I*A*N*Z*A (Inequality).

On the railings, the fighters are labeled INTEGRAZIONE (Integration) and PREGIUDIZIO (Prejudice).

"Prejudice" gets the stuffing beat out of him while "Integration" prevails.

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For years, I had been walking by this curious monument once or twice a week, watching the memes of the day come and go. Then COVID struck and nothing looked the same.

Death on horseback— shooting arrows of contagion —is the most visceral emblem of the ancient Plague.

I can only guess what this scene was meant to conjure circa 2016— but in 2020, while the pandemic raged, no one could escape its age-old message.

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Then there was the rainbow thing...

In Judaeo-Christian culture, it conjures God's reconciliation with the Jewish people (or mankind more generally, if you prefer) after Noah's flood.

I have put my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Myself and the world. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, and I will remember the covenant... and there will never again be a flood to destroy all life. (Genesis 8:21)

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Peace and concord... But the years pass and one thing leads to another.

In Italy, the rainbow became the ubiquitous emblem of opposition to the 2003 Iraq War.

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Then there was "rainbow equals diversity" (multicolored, you see).

Layering meaning over meaning...

Sexual, racial and whatever else comes to mind...

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When COVID struck, countless children were stranded at home with nothing to do except drive their parents crazy.

Yet anyone with crayons or water-colors and too much time can fashion a rainbow...

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But only in Florence can a multicolored arc find its home above an old buchetta da vino ("wine hole").

For centuries, landowners sold their excess production through these small arched windows.

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"Once we get through this, everything will be fine". That is the Bible's message for the deluge.

But God's own covenant, "there will never again be a flood", proved sadly illusory.

COVID vanished briefly, then came hurtling back.

Giving kids plenty more time to make rainbows and give new twists to their meaning.

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#IORESTOACASA... Note the hashtag.

"I Am Staying in the House" began with a top-level government decree on March 10, 2020, first ordering public employees to work from home and then ordering everyone else to stay home too, whatever the cirucmstances.

This spawned a massive online campaign to make "staying at home" seem cool, not just civically responsible. (Are you listening kids?)

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At first glance, this might look like a double mano cornuta (horned hand) against the malocchio (evil eye), but with the two pinkies oddly joined to a floating valentine heart.

Except it's not...

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This is the classic Italian gesture—per scaramanzia—folding back the thumb and two middle fingers to recreate the Horns of the Devil.

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To me at least, the io resto a casa signal Iooks strikingly like a Hawaian shaka—much cooler!— the traditional aloha gesture absorbed into international surfer culture as "hang loose".

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Then you can always reach out by telephone—although I have to wonder if the young artist ever actually saw an old-fashioned land-line phone?

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Meanwhile, those without crayon-wielding detainees to placate could burrow through their closets and attics, recalling to duty proudly faded Iraqi peace banners.

But then the months passed and the pandemic remained... leaving us all twisting in the wind, showing some wear.

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Meanwhile, a little comic improv...working with the material on hand.

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FOOTNOTE:

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