Saturday 1 January 2011

The Times 1st January 2011 (3)

This report comes from the World News, on page 35.

Each year, the restaurant tables in the Piazza Navona in Rome have been creeping towards the Bernini fountain in the centre of the square.
Now a member of the Borghese family is leading a campaign to rout the advancing tables. Flaminia Borghese, a descendent of the 17th-century Pope Paul V, dukes and cardinals, is the head of the residents association. She accuses the local authorities of allowing the spread of alfresco dining from the pavements into the middle of the square to besmirch "historic centre".

"We need decorum because this is not decorum", she told The Times ...
The Catholic Encyclopaedia entry on Pope Paul V does not suggest that he was profligate in his lifestyle, and neither does the Wikipedia article about him. He would appear to have been guilty of nepotism in appointing family members to positions of influence.

Is Flaminia really a descendent of Pope Paul V himself? After all, we need decorum don't we?

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