BS: Crown Jewels of Italy

Subject: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Feb 22 - 08:55 PM

What I find interesting about this Brouhaha is that
only twenty years ago,
Italy decided to end the banishment of the House of Savoy.
The royals had been banished because
they collaborated with Mussolini and then fled to Portugal ...


They Want the Crown Jewels Back Vanity Fair

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 22 - 09:05 PM

Lovely country, Italy. It's my favourite. See Naples and die (or at least the Bay of Naples with its beautiful islands, the Amalfi Coast, Vesuvio, Pompei)...the alpha and omega of the Earth...

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Feb 22 - 09:33 PM

Italian Royal Tiaras

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Feb 22 - 10:24 PM

I know I shouldn't call anybody Shirley, but surely "crown" jewels belong to tje crown (as metaphor for the reigning regime), and not to the individuals whose heads might wear them? Given Italy's current regime, their national museum seems the logical resting place...

Oh, wait. Logic.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 03:35 AM

Don't call me surly.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Stanron
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 03:55 AM

There is a danger in asserting that the property of a Royal Family should be the property of the State. That danger lies in the possibility of extending 'the property of the Royal Family' to 'the property of every family' and that would include you. All of a sudden the individual owns nothing and the State owns it all. You only get the use of it while you live through the 'generosity' of the State. Nightmare. Please tell me it could never happen here.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 05:03 AM

Go back far enough in history and all precious jewels owned by royal big knobs, etc., were obtained either by slave labour, by robbing the ordinary people blind, or both. Billionaire bling.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 09:06 AM

German Prince and Princesses had all but 16 million dollars of jewelry returned by USA. Even war, rape and pillage has rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 10:41 AM

The hell with this, those jewels should be used to fund reparations to holocaust survivors, the building of holocaust memorials in Europe and to educate people in Italy on the human cost of the HoS collaboration with and support for Mussolini. Those people were lucky to get out of Italy in 1946 with their "family jewels".

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 06:33 PM

Leave us not forget the old R.A.F. slogan:

"See Naples - And Dive!"

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 07:15 PM

Naples is life itself. But don't think that your man-bag strap is strong enough, keep walking on the Metropolitana escalators, go to the scruffiest pizzeria you can find where you'll get the best Margherita pizza in Italy, spend half a day in the archeological museum (you'll remember it for the rest of your life), and, if you have time, see San Gennaro's bones in a big urn in the crypt of the duomo. Bloody Catholics. He was beheaded in the fourth century in the Solfatara crater and is now the patron saint of Napoli. If it's a nice day and you have a couple of hours, take the Metropolitana to Pozzuoli, half an hour away, and walk up the hill to the Solfatara volcano. It's all on the level, no climbing, and it's sinister in a way that will shake your bones let leave you impressed with the forces of nature...

See Naples and die...

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 09:04 PM

The argument from the Italian royal family is that these are not "Crown Jewels," which a symbols of the authority of the state. These are personal jewelry. That's a point.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: gillymor
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 06:33 AM

They should have done a better job of choosing their progenitors, who should have been given stiff jail sentences and then sent packing with only the clothes on their backs given all the atrocities committed by Mussolini and his armies.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: gillymor
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 06:46 AM

Here's an interesting article from The Guardian about how Mussolini's military more or less skated after WWII. Royal parasites have inherited much of the world's wealth, let them inherit some of the guilt as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Crown Jewels of Italy
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 10:30 AM

That Guardian article - emphasis mine. A lot of people got away with murder.

The cover-up lasts to this day but its genesis is now unravelling. Filippo Focardi, a historian at Rome's German Historical Institute, has found foreign ministry documents and diplomatic cables showing how the lie was constructed. In 1946 the new republic, legitimised by anti-fascists who had fought with the allies against Mussolini, pledged to extradite suspected war criminals: there was a commission of inquiry, denunciations, lists of names, arrest warrants. It was a charade. Extraditions would anger voters who still revered the military and erode efforts to portray Italy as a victim of fascism. Focardi's research shows that civil servants were told in blunt language to fake the quest for justice. A typical instruction from the prime minister, Alcide De Gasperi, on January 19 1948 reads: "Try to gain time, avoid answering requests."

Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Ethiopia and Libya protested to no avail. "It was an elaborate going through the motions. They had no intention of handing over anybody," says Focardi. Germans suspected of murdering Italians - including those on Cephalonia, Corelli's island - were not pursued lest a "boomerang effect" threaten Italians wanted abroad: their files turned up decades later in a justice ministry cupboard in Rome.