In some cases, local traffic police officers (as happened several times in Rimini) unleashed veritable manhunts on the beach to ensure that prohibitions were respected. In Ostia, one of the most frequented beaches on the Tyrrhenian, a hunt targeting hawkers was “strengthened” with the help of surveillance by helicopters flying over the coast at low altitude to detect “sellers of counterfeit labels”.

After Chinese masseuses were banned from the coasts in Tuscany and Romagna (with regional laws approved for this purpose by the ‘red’ Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany) through a circular order by Francesca Martini, the under-secretary for Welfare, throughout the national territory, massages given by migrants were forbidden due to the risk that the “aesthetic or therapeutic services” are offered by people who “may not possess adequate experience”.

However, the hunting of vagrants and beggars (something not seen since the first half of the 1800s) was the main dish served up in the summer of “ordinances”. First off the mark was the mayor of Assisi, who immediately forbade begging and “nomadism”, drawing praise from the monks as beggars are perceived as driving tourists away from the basilica and the tomb of Saint Francis.

Meanwhile, on 10 August, following the Maroni decree, 2,412 homeless people were identified in a single day in Milan. In Pescara, Bologna, Florence, Padua, Verona, Turin, Trieste and Cortina, the council authorities decided to impose very heavy fines on those begging to raise enough money to get through the day. In Verona, the proceeds of begging are confiscated as well, as is any other money found on beggars.

Then, there is a series of other ordinances that concern so-called “urban decorum”. The frontrunner in this specialty is Florence, which has always been riven by the feuding of the PCI/PDS/DS/PD [the leading Communist and then centre-left parties].

On 11 August, the urban police’s regulation, euphemistically entitled “Norms for civil coexistence in the city”, came into force. Among other things, it stipulates that it is forbidden to lie down in the street, wash one’s armpits in public fountains, tie a bicycle to a bench, feed pigeons, play with a ball or frisbee in the street and public parks, beating towels on balconies, cleaning windscreens or asking to have one’s windscreen cleaned at traffic lights, “indecorously” eating a meal in public, throwing cigarette butts on the ground (although there aren’t any ashtrays in the street yet, etc.).

Such imagination has had its imitators in several other parts of the peninsula. In Viareggio, Capri, Amalfi, Riccione, Forte dei Marmi, Venezia, Alassio and Taormina, it is forbidden to wander with one’s top off, other than on the beach. Drinks in glass containers are prohibited in the evening in Pisa, Ravenna, Genova, Monza, and Brescia. [There is] zero tolerance for smokers in Is Aruttas, in the province of Oristano, and whoever smokes on the beach risks a 360 Euro fine. Beaches in general have become places that are not easy to visit. Across Tuscany it is forbidden to lay down one’s towel less than 5 metres away from the shore and sand castles are also forbidden because “they obstruct the passageway” and this is also the case for playing with a ball or bats and a tennis ball.