The Money Scene In Italy

In my purse bulging with tiresome copper or gold-coloured cent coins, I carry one attractive coin which has no value at all. It is a 500 lire piece consisting of a bright silver ring round a gold centre. I was given it outside a supermarket by a kind passer-by who asked for nothing in return when I found myself without a euro coin. It works some supermarket trolleys so I keep it for that purpose.

Contrary to what one might expect from this practical equivalency, 500 lire are not worth one euro. They are worth approximately one quarter of a euro based on the currency conversion rate at the time of the change in 1992. Or, based on the scandalous price-conversion racket which happened everywhere at the time and which wiped out so many people’s margin of security overnight, they would be worth half of a euro.

Four years later, elderly people in Italy still hold out fistfuls of the new, scarcely distinguishable coins for shopkeepers to pick from, just like my grandfather did for the rest of his life after the decimal currency conversion in Britain. But while I remember my mother having to leave all her shopping at a supermarket check-out to go home to fetch the half-penny that she was short (and I mean, literally a half-penny) the relaxed attitude to change which possibly stemmed from high numbers in the days of lire, has remained in Italy. I am frequently excused grubbing round in my purse for a cent, while on the other hand I am rarely given the last isolated cent owed to me in change. I’ve heard tell that in the lira era, change was sometimes given in boiled sweets.

There is a strange mixture of precision and dodginess in a great many areas of finance in Italy. When I buy an ice cream from our local emporium and my fingers are sticky from the drips, a till receipt is pressed assiduously into my hand. On the other hand, in most non-food shops a choice is openly offered between having a ‘fattura’ (VAT or IVA invoice) and just a till receipt which means that no VAT is paid. Our surveyor, on receiving a cash sum which he clearly had no intention of declaring, wrote a receipt for me which stretched to half a page detailing (among other things) when and where he was born but carefully avoided all mention of the actual sum - one aspect of the ubiquitous ‘black’ economy.

A great deal of delicacy seems to surround most matters financial. In private arrangements, the onus is usually on the party that owes the money to broach the subject. I would guess that most Italians would rather bear a grudge to the end of time than just ask for what is owed to them. I even feel I could walk out of a restaurant without paying and only receive a look of shocked bewilderment, though I have to confess I have never put this to the test.

Restaurant meals are blessed by one particular feature – the non-necessity of tipping. It isn’t just the mean streak in me which rejoices; I also feel that tipping is patronising. It even seems to happen the other way around here, or at least it does in our local Chinese restaurant where I have been given key-rings, lucky charms and calendars at the moment of paying the bill. Similar, perhaps, is the free carrot and stick of celery which is popped in with the vegetables from a little green-grocer’s shop where exaggerated prices reflect the individual attention.

Certain Italian services seem to leave scope for generosity. With three dogs, trips to the vet happen all too frequently, so I am grateful for the in-between visits when no fee is required. Likewise, getting a new exhaust fitted or a headlight bulb changed is as pricey as one might expect at our Peugeot garage, but my heart was warmed by an instant call-out to recharge our car battery entirely free-of-charge. The Italian for ‘free-of-charge’ or ‘on the house’ or ‘with our compliments’ is ‘in ommagio’ – in homage.

Not all services cover their expenses so unobtrusively. It is continually galling to be charged a euro for the privilege of paying each and every bill, whether it be through the Post Office or the bank. There is even a twelve euro cost embedded in the first invoice for a new phone-line to cover future occasions of settling the account. I would be amazed to hear that any Italian had ever challenged this system.

Different countries, different ways. Also different times and, I daresay, regions. The robustness towards money which one might expect in a country descended from the Romans is absent in Umbria. So, incidentally, is any form of Oriental expansiveness. Pedantry tempered with grace would best describe the day-to-day atmosphere. I personally find it soothing.