The ANNOTICO Report

England desperately hangs on to its Monarchy, however dysfunctional and archaic, to reassure itself that it is not really a second rate nation, and considers boiled beef its gourmet cuisine.
France makes a career out of snobbery, based largely on it's claim to fame of the Renaissance, that was overwhelmingly of Italian origin, and even though it never has won a war (without the help of the US).
Germany, however productive they may be, seem without heart or soul, and need to be less judgmental, and show more humility for recent transgressions.
Therefore, when it is said that Northern Europeans act and talk "superior" to Italians, it is laughable for them to be talking so about a country that IS a Museum, that has 90% of Western Civilization's Cultural Patrimony, and do Not fail to remember that the Romans Civilized you, and The Rinascimento Refined you!! (And it is still a work in Progress)
In the case of the Pope's Funeral, the Rome Italian's achieved a MIRACLE. The Visitor's doubled the size of the city within 10 days, with short notice, without ANY incidents!!!

The Age
Australia
By Peer Meinert
April 9, 2005

Travellers from northern Europe have for centuries mocked Italian disorder. The hotels are grubby, the streets unhealthy.
Writing in the 18th century, Goethe castigated the Italians for "leading a careless and lazy life".
Many northern Europeans still talk in cliched terms about the "chaotic Italians".
That poses the question of how Rome coped with one of the largest human gatherings in history - and that without any audible complaint.
"How the Italians managed the event is simply incredible," said Rainer Loeb, a Red Cross assistant on St Peter's Square during the Pope's funeral today.
More than 3 million pilgrims, perhaps 4 million, descended on the Eternal City. This would have been a nightmare for other large cities, whether London, New York or Paris.
But instead of collapsing under the strain, Rome seemed to cope with it all effortlessly. Not a single major incident was reported.
"When I saw the masses coming this morning, I though we would be overrun," Loeb said.
He regards it as a miracle that everything passed off peacefully, although he does also praise the professionalism of the Italian civil authorities.
"Italy has achieved something remarkable," the German doctor believes.
Civil engineer Alexander Barth, 32, was also pleasantly surprised that his stereotypes regarding southern Europeans had been pulled down. "I was totally surprised by the Roman authorities, so efficient, so friendly, so obliging," he said.
Friendliness was the byword. It appears that even the usually unsmiling Carabinieri had taken an intensive course in friendliness for this historic occasion. Always smiling, ever polite, never an unkind word.
Young Poles bedded down for the night in the Circus Maximus, in parks and on Rome's ancient squares. In the morning the city authorities provided
water for them to wash themselves.
Some faithful waited 12, 15 and even more hours in the queues to file past the pope lying in state. Panic could easily have erupted in the crowded throng.
"But the authorities organised the masses well," Loeb notes.
Northern Europeans are accustomed to voicing their prejudices about Italians: undisciplined and not to be taken seriously.
But the police managed to deal with the convoy that always accompanies US President George W Bush, navigating it through the crowded Roman streets without a hitch on Thursday.
More than 200 years Goethe wrote: "This Italy is infinitely behind other countries." Very few who were in Rome this week would agree.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/
World/Rome-copes-effortlessly-with-funeral/
2005/04/09/1112997213728.html?oneclick=true

Ancient Rome became the first city to reach a population of one million in 5 B.C.(Other sources say during the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD). It would be more than eighteen centuries before the second such city, London, would reach that milestone in 1800.

The city's population decline probably began in the late 2nd century.  Plague and economic disaster beset the city during the 3rd century, and massive barbarian invasions of Italy during the 5th century hastened the city's decline.

By the end of the 6th century, the population was less than 50,000.  Throughout the Middle Ages Rome's population numbered less than 30,000, The constant conflict between The Papal State with the great baronial families of the surrounding countryside inhibited Rome's growth until under Martin V (1417-31) a start had been made on the process that was to make Rome's fabric the rival of those of Milan, Florence and Venice.

The sack of Rome in 1527 by the armies of Emperor Charles V ended the city's preeminence as a Renaissance centre. In eight days, thousands of churches, palaces, and houses were pillaged and destroyed.

But, even under the repressive rule of the Counter-Reformation papacy, Rome recovered; a new era of construction was begun, culminating in a vast program of city planning by Sixtus V (1585-90). New streets and squares were laid out, obelisks raised, the Lateran and Vatican palaces rebuilt, and aqueducts repaired. The ruins of ancient Rome were progressively
cannibalized to provide stone, marble and lime for the new Rome whose architecture owed so much to their inspiration.

By 1600, Rome was again a prosperous cosmopolitan city. A great influx of new inhabitants attracted by employment opportunities in the papal bureaucracy and related service industries increased Rome's population to more than 100,000. Much of the big business of the city remained in the hands of foreigners, however, for the wealth and power of the Roman
nobility was based on land and ecclesiastical officeholding.

In the 17th and 18th centuries Rome's noble families built fine palaces and patronized the arts while manoeuvring to win high positions in the church hierarchy. The highest prize of all, the papal crown, brought wealth and status to the wearer's family. But as corruption and bribery within these circles became a way of life, the influence of the papacy and of Rome
declined throughout Europe and even throughout the Papal States.

Although Sixtus V had created one of the best planned cities in Europe, by the 18th century Rome was still a backward town, with poorly paved streets on which there were no road signs nor public lighting and little sanitation. To foreign observers, the Romans, from the most aristocratic families to the poorest classes, seemed to lead lives of provincial vacuity
unconcerned with anything outside Rome. The population reached 165,000 by 1790, and is now in 2005 is  4 million