pictures of rome, italy

So that's where Mary's been hidin' out all these years... Catholic church buildings in Italy are so brim full of statues and iconic idols, just like in an art gallery, they have to rotate their displays and stow the overflow away in hidey-holes or behind drapes like this one, and some are only brought out on special annual occasions. So it's strange to see these statues stuffed away like this, they look more like persecuted Baptists, having to pray in secret.

Otherwise majestically beautiful old street in Rome's Trastevere district is marred by grafitti, neglected plasterwork with beautiful (though damaging) plants growing out of it, and generous helpings of dog excrement smack in the middle of the ancient cobbled sidewalk.
Italians in Rome, for all their obsession with beauty and style, have beautiful apartments, and annually spend millions on interior design and decoration - But they have no civic pride or concern for their buildings' exteriors, or for the beauty and cleanliness of public spaces.
Yet were you to attempt to buy up such choice pieces of real-estate with a view to cleaning it up and raising its value, you would doubtless find your attempts blocked by oceans-deep levels of self-interested, dog-in-the-manger family and corporate corruption.
Rome is a fabulous city, with incredible architecture, yet it is in decay. The citizens won't clean up their act, probably don't even know how anymore, but they're damned if they'll let any well-meaning outsider come in and do it for them. Everybody loses, but they don't see it that way.

Same thing, in the picturesque Campo dei Fiori district, slap in the middle of town, amongst streets packed with exclusive restaurants, antiques dealers and jewellers, this is the part of town that Rome city governors and tourism businesses proudly and continually trumpet to tourists as 'The Centro Historico Area'. Speaking of history, I wonder how long those three big dollops of dog poos have being lying there? Or that white plastic bag full of rotting rubbish next to the pillar on the left of the sidewalk, abandoned, presumably, by some central Roman historian?

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...what do Italians think about Romebuddy?