Romans greeted with joy the return of the traditional white-gloved traffic cop, who rises from a podium in Piazza Venezia to elegantly direct the vehicles coming from three directions around them. Now they’ve welcomed a break from the past after Cristina Corbucci, the first female traffic controller to stand on the platform, made her debut this week.
“I think it’s fantastic, and it’s about time,” said Giuliana Cazzarolli as she watched the officers switch shifts on Thursday. “I hope she’s well paid.”
Cazzarolli described the return of the fabled “vigili” (traffic officers), who are as much a symbol of the Italian capital as the Colosseum, as “a reminder of the beautiful times”.
The platform was first introduced in the late 1920s as a way to make the traffic controllers more visible while directing traffic on what is ordinarily a chaotic square.
At that time, the pedestal was made of wood and carried to the square by the officers at the start of their shift.
Nowadays, the podium rises up and down from the cobblestones at the flick of a switch. It was dormant for a year or so while nearby roadworks were carried out.
Often described as “orchestra directors”, the traffic officers were made famous by the 1960 film, Il Vigile, which starred Alberto Sordi as a hapless traffic cop who caused mayhem with his muddled hand signals. The podium also featured in a scene of Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love in 2012.
Today, about six or seven traffic cops take to the podium in shifts. Corbucci, 43, told Il Messaggero newspaper that the job now has “the female touch”.
“Up there you really feel as if you are in the centre-of-the-centre of Rome,” she said, adding that “the truly intelligent traffic light is this one”.
To get the role, officers have to take lessons in gestures by the “maestro” Fabio Grillo, who has been up and down on the podium since 2004.
“It’s a wonderful job,” he said. “I mean look – we’re in the middle of this fantastic square which is a crossroads for Romans, tourists, everyone. You see everything.”
But while there is less traffic to conduct owing to the coronavirus restrictions, Grillo said it’s great to be back: “It’s as if some normality has returned,” he added.
Cazzarolli and her husband, Romalo, were born in Rome. Both are in their 80s. “It gives us joy to see this and reminds me of how it used to be,” said Romalo.
Another onlooker, Micaela Battistoni, who was also born in Rome, said the novelty of the Piazza Venezia traffic cop never wears off. “It really is a classic institution in Rome, something that has always been there, and so the absence was strange. It’s even better now that there is also woman is doing the job.”
