Word: lire
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...Vittorio Veneto, in Rome's most luxurious cafés, aristocrats were discussing, over cream puffs, how to get out of Italy in a hurry. In front of the cafés, crippled children on crutches hobbled in a pathetically grotesque dance, hoping for a few lire from wealthy passersby. It is such contrasts, an expression of the fact that Italy's upper classes still live in luxury while two million unemployed must worry about their daily bread, that help Communism most in Italy...
...still unopened. Many begging letters Pius XII marked with a gold pencil, so that help should be sent immediately. Then he came to a letter from an industrialist who complained of the excessively high commissions charged by the Vatican for personal loans of $450,000 and 90,000,000 lire; he mentioned interest rates as high as 45%. Incredulous, the Pope glanced at the clock which, together with a tall white crucifix and a telephone, was the only ornament on his desk. There was just time to reach Monsignor Domenico Tardini, State Secretary for Extraordinary Affairs, before Tardini...
...soon established that Tardini's and Montini's names had been forged to the orders. Their findings led directly to blond, youngish Monsignor Eduardo Prettner Cippico, a well-born native of Trieste and a Vatican archivist. Though his salary was meager, Cippico owned an 18,000,000-lire apartment in Rome, an Alfa Romeo, a Fiat and a Chrysler. He liked to entertain expensively. The day before Easter last year, waiters at a fashionable restaurant at Posillipo, near Naples, had their hopes of an afternoon off dashed when Cippico phoned that he would be lunching there...
...campaign. But above all, the Communists talked about the high cost of living. In Rome's working class street, Via Gesú e Maria, a Communist tailor kept his shop open late at night. "The government was pledged to combat inflation," he told neighbors, "yet artichokes cost 70 lire each-artichokes alia Romano, have become artichokes alia signorile [of the rich...
Victor Emmanuel, in a last effort to save his line, decided to abdicate in favor of Umberto. Wearily, he penned his abdication, got the date wrong, corrected it, and paid a notary a 129-lire (15?) fee to register the document. Queen Elena cried. By this time, Italy's politicians professed not to care what he was doing or what his plans were; informed of the impending abdication, Premier Alcide de Gasperi said: "It's not even fourth or fifth on my list of matters of importance...