Quella Perugia "brutta e mafiosa" del The Guardian smontata da una lettera di Alessandra Oddi Baglioni

E' stato sorprendente ed esagerato quell'incredibile articolo del prestigioso The Guardian a firma di Paul Mason dove pur parlando dello scandalo dei fondi e delle società "ben dimoranti" in un paradiso fiscale come Panama - nel tritacarne è finito il primo Ministro inglese - ha voluto fare il paragone addirittura con la storia di Perugia del 1500, città e popolazione che non voleva pagare le tasse sul sale allo stato Pontificio, chiusa in se stessa, al limite dell'inciviltà e mica bella, prosperosa, florida come la vicina Firenze. 

Mason evidentemente per parlare dello scandalo Panama non ha saputo altro che trovare alcune pessime traduzioni o dei sentito dire su Perugia. Evidentemente nel Paese della Regina non ci sono fatti storici rilevanti da poter accostare con la teoria di Mason. Strano. Molto strano. 

Comunque in questa Perugia ancora stordita e impaurita dalle recensioni negative del caso Meredith una perugina, dotata di cultura e buona padronanza della lingua inglese, ha scritto al Guardian per ristabilire la verità storica e ribadire agli inglesi "giù le mani da Perugia", città che vanta un'università da 708 anni e che esisteva quando altre culture erano avvolte nelle nebbie della più oscura esistenza. Ecco la lettera inglese della signora Alessandra Oddi Baglioni. Sarà pubblicata dagli inglesi?

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Dear Sir,
It is source of great surprise for an Italian to witness such superficial comments about a part of our history, like those expressed by like those expressed by Paul Mason in the article with the title,” Smash the mafia elite” published 4/11.

This is even more astonishing given the reputation so far enjoyed by The Guardian. 
I -- as an Italian --- would not venture to defend the catholic marriage by insulting the conduct of Henry the Eight. I would use other argumentations. And I ask the right to replicate to the insults to the City of Perugia, used to talk about an internal British issue.
The article by Paul Mason about Perugia, at a certain point reads: “Why doesn’t the populace revolt?”
Is he really joking or what? If there is something that Perugia is well known for, it is the rebellion against the taxation of salt, the so called Salt War of 1540, an insurrection by the city of Perugia against the pontificate of Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese, maybe a friend of Florence – tell it to Mason!). He decided to levy a new tax on salt, just after a disastrous harvest in 1539, which drove up prices in Perugia and its rural hinterland.

The fierce resistance of the Baglioni family was defeated, that’s history. Your article quotes: “The Perugian elite became a closed stratum of Mafiosi”. Come on, Mafia rose 3 centuries later! It is as if I would call Thomas More a “yankee”. Would you not smile with embarrassment? 
The truth is that Perugia in the 1400-1500 attracted and hosted all the greatest artist and of the Italian Renaissance: Pietro Vannucci, known as Perugino, Pinturicchio, Signorelli. Luca Pacioli, the inventor of the modern accounting and friend of Leonardo da Vinci. The University of Perugia was flourishing since 1308.Some German printers came to the University Perugia leaving as heritage the first famous incunabula and the important treatise on the plague. 

In Signorelli 's shop the son of a certain Mr. Santi started to work: Raphael of Urbino. (Exaclty the opposite of your article: “the artistic, cultural and scientific riches moved somewhere else”). The merit was of the ruling families, like the Baglioni, the Oddi, the Della Corgna. The commission of Atalanta Baglioni allows now the humanity (including Mr. Mason) to admire the masterpieces by Raphael, The Entombment, currently at the Borghese Gallery in Rome.

We read simply Oscar Wilde: “ and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.” The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The Cambio (the Exchange) of Perugia since the 1300 was home of nobility and merchandise and carried out an important banking function like the Florentine banks. and entrusted the decoration of its premises right in the Perugino .

And all this was possible thanks to the investments that the ruling class made in the city of Perugia – especially “THE magnificent Braccio Baglioni in Italian in the text as defined by the Maturanzio and his grandson Giampaolo "

Only once Perugia rebelled against the payment of a iniquitous tax! That is why we prefer to remember the British civilization for the famous “no taxation without representation”. 
Alessandra Oddi Baglioni of Perugia