Sorely visible: plants, roots, and national identity

Received: 3 September 2018 | Revised: 30 November 2018 | Accepted: 24 January 2019 DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10054 RESEARCH ARTICLE Sorely visible: plants, roots, and national identity Giovanni Aloi The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Correspondence Giovanni Aloi, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA. Email: [email protected] Societal Impact Statement Historical and visual culture research methods can be used to identify the complex symbolism assigned to plants in public urban spaces. This symbolism can divide opinion and generate heated debate on what is considered to be native, other, and culturally and aesthetically appropriate. This article is a contribution to the emerging field of critical plant studies, examining events in Italy when exotic plants were installed in a public square. The work encompasses elements of environmental, anthropological, architectural, and art historical studies, to reveal important aspects of our relationship with plants, other people, and our past and future histories. Summary The last few years have been characterized by dramatic sociocultural events: from Brexit to Trump's election in the USA; the unthinkable has manifested itself as the index of insidious and undervalued ideological networks. Despite the bleak outlook, the deep sense of moral loss, and ethical disorientation, these events could function as an opportunity to productively think beyond the fictitious righteousness of postmodern politics. In the middle of a cold night, in February 2017, Starbucks Coffee Co., in collaboration with Italian architect Marco Bay, installed a grove of palm and banana trees opposite Milan's much‐loved gothic cathedral. Public opinion instantly split. Milan's rude awakening revealed a tale of two cities: on one side were those who lauded the initiative and on the opposite were those who condemned the trees’ exotic origin as unrepresentative of true Italianicity. Against the backdrop of strained relationships between Italy and the European Union, due to the handling of North‐ African and Middle‐Eastern diasporas, palms and bananas have found themselves at the center of an unexpectedly acrimonious public discussion. This article considers the role played by plant‐politics and architectural aesthetics in constructing national identity and otherness while tapping into all important and often concealed aspects of contemporary society's collective unconscious. KEYWORDS architecture, banana tree, diaspora, exotic plants, gothic style, identity, Italy, national, palm tree This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2019 The Author, Plants, People, Planet © New Phytologist Trust 204 | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ppp3 Plants, People, Planet. 2019;1:204–211. | ALOI 1 | I NTRO D U C TI O N 205 The exotic grove positioned on the west side of the Piazza del Duomo is the result of a collaboration between Starbucks and Italian Milan, Italy, February 18, 2017—a few minutes after midnight, architect and urban‐green expert, Marco Bay. Interviewed soon flames engulfed a cluster of trees in Piazza del Duomo. The individ- after the arson, Bay vehemently defended the installation. “The ex- uals committing this act of arson belonged to a group of nationalist otic grove was meant to ‘surprise, seduce, and disorient’ and the in- protesters who fled the scene through the semi‐deserted piazza, stallation is not permanent”; and unless an official renewal is granted rushing down the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the direction of by the city, the trees will be removed and relocated by the end of the Scala Theater. The group's activities were announced a day 2019 (Marsala, 2017). So far it seems that the exotic grove may have earlier, on Facebook, by the neo‐fascist group Azione Identitaria failed to seduce the city as much as the architect hoped; although it (Identitarian Action), which describes itself as a patriotic and certainly has (not positively) surprised many. The suspicion remains militant, cultural movement in defense of Italian, Regional, and that the provocation was well‐planned in advance, and what Bay European Identity. The post, widely disseminated online by news might have underestimated in this case was the ability plants have to outlets, clearly connoted the gesture as political. The aim, as they ignite heated debate on Italian national identity. said, was not to hurt the plants, but to send a clear representational statement—a stark sign in opposition to the “Africanization of Italy” (Rame, 2017; Daily Stormer, 2018). Milan's most common trees are deciduous planes, acers, horse 2 | PL A NT S , A RC H ITEC T U R E , A N D A E S TH E TI C A PPRO PR I ATE N E S S chestnuts, poplars, gingkoes, and magnolias—a varied cohort of versatile and mostly non‐native varieties imported and established over I first learned about these events, not from the news but over a centuries of botanical conversation with other parts of the world. phone call with my parents who still live in Milan, where I was born. But it was palms that Azione Identitaria set alight. My mother said: “They are planting palm trees in Piazza del Duomo! Those familiar with the hustling and bustling northern Italian And bananas too! Everyone's arguing about it.” I have to admit that mini‐metropolis might be surprised to hear of palm trees in the my immediate response was of surprise—I struggled to envision how first place. Although not indigenous to the Italian peninsula, palm the tropical lushness of palms and banana trees would come into trees have long been a staple of many southern cityscapes. From dialogue with the elegantly cold and chiseled façade of the gothic Palermo to Naples, and Rome, palms are a common sight on lungo- Duomo and the neoclassical architecture of the surrounding build- mare promenades and in public piazzas. However, Milan's cold and ings. I immediately searched online to find an image; and there it dark winters badly suit the needs of these monolithic trees. Despite was. Palms and bananas facing the Duomo, lined up like a silent but climatic challenges, a few rare palms have been grown in Milan since resilient army. Nature and culture facing each other: the refined spir- the end of the 19th century, most often sheltered in the high‐soci- itual intricacy of pure pale marble confronted by the raw flourishing ety courtyards of the city's historic center. I remember, as a child, of exotic trees. For a few moments, I struggled with what seemed an peering through a corrugated gate to catch a glimpse of their fronds aesthetic incongruity (Figure 1). covered in snow; it was as close as real‐life could ever get to Fellinian cinematic magic. It was at that very point that I realized something interesting was happening, and that I needed to explore in more depth my own reac- However, the palm trees in Piazza del Duomo were a brand‐new tion to the images. The news of tree‐planting in big cities has always addition, part of a marketing campaign orchestrated by Starbucks, brought me joy. However, this instance made me realize that I never the ubiquitous American coffee company founded in Seattle at lingered too long over questions of supposed appropriateness in re- the beginning of the 1970s, which today has over 26,696 locations lation to species and geographical locations—as an immigrant myself, worldwide (Starbucks, 2017). The 42 palms, along with a grove of I find “native” a problematic concept since it is haunted by danger- 50 banana trees, were intended as a gift to the city: a celebration ous contradictions and problematic assumptions. I realized that my on the occasion of the opening of their first coffee shop in the initial surprise to the news was not necessarily linked to ecological country. appropriateness, but aesthetic appropriateness, instead. I began to In Italy coffee is a very serious business. Sacrosanct rituals wonder if the vertical solemnity of cypresses, albeit less exuberant, and traditions few dare to disrupt make coffee an essential pillar might have been a better fit for the square's history and heritage. of Italianicity. For many years, the notion of takeaway coffee was The cracks in my thinking began to show as I started to notice how deemed heretical and just the thought of hybridized drinks such as my line of thinking was implicitly frame‐worked by outdated notions Frappuccino gave espresso purists many caffeine‐unaided, sleepless of urbanistic conservation. My feelings were conflicted: I love palm nights. But times change. During the early 1980s, fast‐food seemed trees and bananas—they remind me of the long summers spent as a an impossible proposition for the country of the Mediterranean child in Calabria, the Italian deep south with its bursting flavors, rich diet. However, today, Italy boasts 560 McDonald's restaurants, 340 traditions, and seemingly insurmountable social problems. So why McDrive, and 320 McCafé outlets (www.McDonalds.it). The much was I even dwelling over the appropriateness of bananas and palms anticipated first Starbucks opened in autumn 2018, so only time will outside Milan's beloved cathedral? Where was this feeling that tell if the country will embrace the”Seattle experience.” “plants might have been put in the wrong place” originating from? 206 | ALOI Perhaps, and somewhat worryingly, people seem to seek purity like never before—a phenomenon, at least in part, generated by the overwhelming multiplicity of social‐media viewpoints and voices that saturate our everyday lives. The constant shifting of cultural parameters and the imperative to embrace and reject globalization (we have to equally love “global” and “local”) can instill in many an overrated sense of nostalgia. The suspicion that this might be true emerges when, in comparison to now, the 1980s resembles an island of peace, style, and decorum. It is in this context that a dangerous melancholia for a time that never was swells the spirits of those who (on this and that side of the Atlantic) vehemently claim to “want their countries back.” Perhaps more than ever, we are obsessed with our roots, traditions, and ancestry, which essentially anchors us to ever more fictitious identity emblems. Borders, boundaries, and perimeters thus become even more important when walls are being built, not so much to keep someone out but to keep oneself in. As essential delimitations, piazzas are historical and political constituents of most cities. In Europe, more directly, piazzas also are the contemporary incarnation of the Greek Agora’: the political and commercial heart of the social fabric. In the Agora' the athletic, artistic, spiritual, and political life of the city manifested itself in ways that fed into the formation of a shared social identity. Piazza del Duomo in Milan is no exception. It has a long history of which the city is particularly proud. Its inception dates back to the 14th century and F I G U R E 1 Palm and banana tree installation opposite Milan's much‐loved gothic cathedral, the Duomo, Piazza del Duomo, Milan, Italy, 2018. Photograph: Aloi Giovanni it is intertwined with the prestigious medieval glories of the Visconti dynasty that ruled the city for 170 years (1277–1447). Along with the Sforza, that followed, the Visconti promoted a substantial urban regeneration that promoted the arts to a degree that rivalled nearby I began to question my aesthetic assumptions further. If an appro- Venice and Florence (Longhi, 1958). priateness of style that binds plants to architecture exists, and if this Milan has always suffered from a “second‐city” inferiority com- appropriateness is dictated by our choice to situate plants in specific plex toward other Italian capitals of culture with deeper histories urban realities, then this aesthetic assumption must be supported by and more ostentatious artistic beauty. Due to its geographical an ideology. After all, curating tree‐planting for a national monument is position, it has always been a functional crossroad and strategic more complex than choosing trees for a traffic‐heavy, urban lane—the post; and during the last century, it became Italy's most powerful criteria are different. History and aesthetics intertwine in the conver- industrial capital gaining a reputation as one of the least‐cultur- sation between plants and monument to produce a complex identity ally interesting and greyest cities in Italy. Therefore, the Duomo paradigm based on a perceived continuity between nature and culture. is its jewel— a major historical and architectural accomplishment I found the idea intriguing, but I also wondered why this had never that characterizes the city's uniqueness in ways that simultane- occurred to me before. ously separate it from the rest of the peninsula. Because of its geographical position and the range of northern influences it was 3 | M I L A N : H I S TO RY, A RC H ITEC T U R E , A N D I D E NTIT Y exposed to, Milan has always fancied itself as almost‐French or almost‐German, rather than seeing itself as linked to Rome and Naples. The construction of the Duomo began in 1386. Rayonnant Today, everything upsets and offends someone, somewhere; and Gothic, a markedly French architectural style, was chosen to under- that someone's voice will be heard everywhere through social line the cultural differences between Milan, Venice, and Florence. media. The polarization of politics and cultural discourses invites French engineers Nicholas de Bonaventure and Jean Mignot were in closer, sometimes obsessive, scrutiny of representational dimen- charge of the early construction stages of the project that will take sions in everyday life, not just in the arts. Appropriation, for instance, 579 years to conclude, in 1965. For centuries, the rare pink marble of is more problematic now than it has ever been, even at the height of Candoglia, quarried in Piedmont, was shipped to the heart of Milan postmodernism. Similarly, new restrictions have been placed on the aboard large barges. For this purpose, Leonardo da Vinci perfected authorial voice—who can say what, and to whom? the city's canal network and between 1482 and 1489, designed a | ALOI 207 complex system of dams and locks that further facilitated commerce However, the term has more generally been used to designate non‐ (Valentini, 2017). white illegal immigrants from Africa and the Middle East (Bullaro, Toward the end of the 16th century, as a cultural rejection of 2010). It has thus become a popular tool of segregation—it is a stamp foreign influences began to emerge, Archbishop Carlo Borromeo of shame; a major barrier interfering with any possibility to integrate turned those who are not yet part of the community. toward more Renaissance/Italian inspired aesthetics (Ackerman, 1949). The eclectic result, which elegantly combines In this context, it is also important to remember that despite the Gothic, Romanic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Neo‐Gothic stands as history of its famous cities, Italy was only unified in 1861. Its past testament to a obstinatecity capable of accomplishing impossible as a fragmentary conglomeration of regions and city‐states charac- feats through means that victoriously bypass any cultural or tech- terized by extremely different dialects and traditions still shows its nological dependency from Rome, the Italian capital that Milan has cracks. The cultural unification of Italy has effectively been oper- always rivaled. Given its rich history and pronounced emancipatory ated by TV networks—the state‐run RAI TV, in the first instance, and cultural value for a city that has always looked at Rome with disdain, Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset, thereafter, during the 1980s. Since the it is perhaps no surprise that Piazza del Duomo would could easily unification, the wealth of languages and local customs have repre- become a nevralgic point for identity‐based issues (Figure 2). sented insurmountable barriers between north and south; the south has been perceived by the north as an underdeveloped and para- 4 | CU LT U R A L FR AG M E NTATI O N sitic part of the country. As the son of working‐class parents who emigrated from the south of Italy in the late 1960s, I have endured discrimination and abuse throughout my life in Milan. The tense feel- The negative sentiments revealed by the appearance of palm and ing in the north, eventually led to the emergence of the Lega Nord banana trees are perhaps best understood in this historical con- political party. Initially ridiculed by many during the early 1990s, the text, but also in view of the ever‐changing cultural shifts that can Lega Nord has relentlessly campaigned for the independence of the be mapped around the square itself. As a place for congregation, the north and has today also become a Eurosceptic leading voice at the piazza has become a point of reference for the many ethnicities that government. At the recent 2018 elections, the right‐wing populist have arrived in Milan from North Africa, the Philippines, and Eastern party gathered 17.4% of the vote, becoming the third largest party Europe since the late 1970s. It is not uncommon, especially during in Italy (Brighi, 2018). the evening hours, to encounter different ethnic groups spending Representatives of the Lega Nord have been no strangers to the evening chatting away and drinking in the open air while listen- racist statements and other discriminatory controversies. In 2013, ing to music. Cécile Kashetu Kyenge, the first black government Minister of But Italy's relationship with other ethnicities has recently be- Integration (2013–14) was publicly likened to an orangutan by a Lega come further complicated, starting with the common use of the Nord senator (Jones, 2013). It was therefore not much of a surprise legal‐bureaucratic and very discriminatory term: extracomunitario. to find delegates of the Lega Nord protesting the palms and bananas The word, which literally translates into “extracomunitarian” was with a banner reading “No to the Africanization of Piazza Duomo.” originally introduced in the 1980s to designate a subject whose legal They were joined by representatives of CasaPound, an openly neo‐ standing does not include citizenship of the European Union (EU). fascist party currently gaining popularity in Italy. Both groups have unequivocally interpreted the exotic trees as an “invitation to African immigrants,” and a welcome statement (Ema, 2017). 5 | ITA LY, CO LO N I A LI S M , A N D PRO PAG A N DA Italy's relationship with social mobility has always been complex and contradictory. The waves of Italian emigration that marked the history of the country never seem to play an important cultural role in the contemporary memories of those who object to the arrival of migrants. Following the Italian unification in 1861, 25 million Italians have migrated to destinations like the USA where they were ghettoized (Ben‐Ghiat & Malia‐Hom But, 2016). It could as well be that the fraught relationship between Italy and immigration has its roots firmly planted in a nearly forgotten, and yet all‐important, chapter of F I G U R E 2 Piazza del Duomo, Milan, Italy. An important, bustling Piazza and focal point for identity‐based issues? Photograph: Aloi Giovanni the country's history. Could it be that the arrival of the exotic plants in Milan's beloved piazza has awoken uncomfortable memories of the country's short‐lived colonialist period? In 1890, Italy conquered 208 | ALOI its first colony: Eritrea (Murtaza, 1998). Libya was invaded in 1911. In efforts. Fast‐forward to 2018: Italy finds itself, along with Spain and 1936 the conquest of Ethiopia by means of illegal chemical weapons Greece, at the center of a vulnerable position within the EU. As one also brought along a set of laws against the “meticciato”: the mixing of the closest and most accessible ports to waves of immigrants of the Italian race with others. This preventive measure applied to traveling to Europe in search of better futures, Italy has recently re- Italian soldiers and civilians in the colonies of Ethiopia and Somalia ceived over 100,000 immigrants per year from Mali, Guinea, Ivory (Strazza, 2012). New propagandist messages aimed at de‐coupling Coast, and Nigeria (BBC, 2018). The loss of life caused by the sink- previously incited notions of colonialist and sexual conquest by cast- ing of overcrowded vessels has made headlines around the world, ing black women as disease‐ridden undesirables. In this context, pre- while the EU continues to deny Italy financial help, or to evenly share serving the presumed purity of the Italian race entailed dissuading immigrant intake. This scenario hardly helps racial integration in a soldiers from entertaining sexual relationships with black women country that, more or less, has been defined by a sequence of politi- (Palma, 2002). These sociological manoeuvres defined by overtly cal and economic crises for over forty years. racist ideologies have developed deep, strong roots in Italian culture (Figure 3). In June 2018, news that a vessel carrying 629 migrants had been refused safe harbor on Italian shore gained attention online. This It is also at this time that theories on the inherent inferiority of black people were articulated in Italy by anthropologist Lidio was only the first, clear statement of the new populist government's stance on immigration (AFP, 2018a, 2018b). Cipriani. In his book Ethnical Absurdity: The Ethiopian Empire, Cipriani overtly likened the “black race” as sub‐human (Cipriani, 1935). Meanwhile, on Italian soil, brothels became subject to stricter racial 6 | RO OT S A N D FI X IT Y regulations and abroad, the government actively recruited white, Italian prostitutes (referred to in the official paperwork as “secretar- The fixity of plants has often been metaphorically used to visualize ies”) to entertain soldiers in the colonies (Strazza, 2012). The racist the essence of presumed human‐fixity: to truly belong to one or an- cultural propaganda that conditioned Italians during the 1930s was other continent or land. To set roots in one place has long meant to by no means an isolated case, and it can be better understood in live and develop a coherent life based on a commitment to one's own the context of the broader racial discriminations that impacted other local customs and ideals. However, these rhetorical notions of fixity nations involved in much broader and more successful colonialist could not be more fictitious when applied to the versatility of real plants; how they can, sometimes very easily, spread across new geographical territories, often adapting to less than congenial climatic conditions. Plants are never static and focussing on the fixity of the individual, concentrating on plants’ ability to disperse and migrate might allow us to let go of erroneously naturalized conceptions that only really exist in the markedly human fear of the “other.” While far‐right innuendos such as “Now the Africanization of Milan is complete: Illegal immigrants will finally feel at home” dominated the news (Donadio, 2018), a left‐wing group named “Sentinelli di Milano” (Milan's Guardians) organized a humorous counter‐protest on Palm Sunday. They invited citizens to bring with them “a plant, a fruit, or a vegetable of any form, colour, or provenance to say: we support diversity” (Mattioli, 2017). Let's be clear: never before in Italian history, have plants functioned as such charged political catalysts. Plant histories have never been linear, and more often than not their complex networks of entangled human and non‐human histories produce multiple, and sometimes ambiguous, interpretations. The original title of Marco Bay's palm and banana installation was Milanese Tropical Forest (Mattioli, 2017). This was revised by the city government to the current Milanese Garden Between XIX and XX Century. The request for a title change is perhaps indicative of an initial sense of unease with the overtly tropical connotation of the project. Instead, the final title justifies (or perhaps dilutes) Bay's cultural operation as a reference or re‐staging of the palm trees that once stood in Piazza del Duomo during the second half of the 19th century (Figure 4). FIGURE 3 Domain Italian colonialist propaganda poster, 1935, Public While it is important to abandon the idea of plant‐fixity as a metaphor of human roots, it is equally useful to challenge our | ALOI FIGURE 4 209 Palms at Piazza del Duomo, Milan, Italy, 1890s, Public Domain conceptions of time when considering the relevance of our histo- available on today's market, is a crossbred variety engineered in the ries. Despite their seemingly naturalized roots, cultural identities Duke of Devonshire's Victorian hothouse, not in Africa (Bynum & can be substantially shaped by rather short, but intensely exposed, Bynum, 2014). The plant is currently grown across the globe in over representational constructions. Bananas, for instance, have only 150 countries, from the Caribbean to Central and South America to become popular in Europe since the 1870s. The plant is not native West Africa, the Philippines, and Australia. Since the current edible to Africa, as many might believe, and its long history of domesti- varieties are seedless cultivars, propagation of plants is only possi- cation spans the involvement of many ethnic groups from around ble through side shoots and roots. This long genealogy technically the world. It is believed that farmers in Papua New Guinea and makes bananas a “transhistorical living sedimentation”, the living in- Southeast Asia first began to select and cultivate banana trees carnation of many different peoples, cultures, and geographies. from 600 BCE (Gilligan, 2018). Subsequently, Indian traders travel- Despite banana's rich and deep history, its univocal connec- ing through Malaysia brought the plant to India where it was col- tion to Africa in the eyes of contemporary Italians may spring from lected by Alexander the Great in 327 BCE who took it back with the country's relatively recent colonialist past. Bananas consumed him to Europe. Meanwhile, bananas spread to the southern regions in Italy between the 1930s and the 1950s came from the colonial of China where different varieties have been selected from 200 Italian‐Somalia town of Genale, which vastly strengthens the associ- BCE. Around 650 CE Muslim traders began to transport the plant ated racial and geographical connotations that characterize the fruit to Africa and crossbred two varieties, Musa acuminata and the Musa in today's imagery (Houtkamp, 1996) (Figure 5). baalbisiana. During the Renaissance, banana trees travelled to Italy The distinctive, straight, and unbranched morphology that charac- for ornamental purposes but were the exclusive possession of the terizes over 2,600 species of palm around the world is today universally extremely rich; meanwhile, Portuguese sailors discovered bananas recognized as a marketing emblem for leisure‐time paradise. Palms thrive in West Africa and established the first banana plantations in the in tropical and subtropical climates around the world, therefore differ- Canary Islands. Thereafter, bananas were exported to Latin America ent species can be found in Southern Asia, South America, Northwest and the Caribbean. The Cavendish variety, which is most commonly Mexico, and the Arabian Peninsula. The history of their domestication 210 | FIGURE 5 Domain ALOI Italian colonialist propaganda postcard, 1930s, Public F I G U R E 6 A row of palms at the Piazza del Duomo, Milan, Italy, 2018. Photograph: Giovanni Aloi does not begin in Africa either, as records show that early cultivation of support their case for secession. At a parliament meeting in 2013, a palms took place in the Middle East 5,000 years ago (Rival, 2014). From Lega representative stated: "I believe that Garibaldi has united Italy palm oil to dates, coconut, and raffia for rope‐making, palms have pro- while at the same time dividing Africa: There are places in our coun- vided, and still provide, substantial sustenance and resources. try that resemble Africa where the mentality and economic reality Only two species of palms indigenous to the Mediterranean don't match the productivity of the North” (Palma, 2013). area exist: Chamaerops humilis and Phoenix theophrasti. Other vari- Persistent notions of fixity and ignorance of the nature‐cultural eties, like Phoenix dactylifera, came to Italy during the 19th century. intricacies that have defined the lives of contemporary plant species Between the second half of the 18th and 19th centuries, a growth in have enabled plants to become easily conveyable emblems of cul- interest of exotic plants led to the establishment of climatization gar- tural histories. But to problematize this simplified picture, it is today dens in Tuscany where more varieties of palms could be studied. The also important to consider another factor: climate change (Figure 6). Orientalist and Primitivist waves that characterized the nineteenth It is now appearing more and more clear that the fixity of century and the Italian colonial spell of the 1930s and 1940s both plants as species incarnating the natural essence of a specific geo- reignited the interest for the cultivation and dissemination of palms graphical area is the result of a persistent myopic perspective on in Italy (Moggi, 2012). It is during this time that colonialist ambitions plant evolution and climatic shifts. Plants infiltrate new territo- established a more visible cultural connection between palm trees ries at every opportunity, utterly disrespecting legal borders and and Africa in the Italian imaginary. The more frequent extraction of trespassing human‐erected boundaries. An interesting example palm oil from Elaeis guineensis, a species of palm native to west and south‐west Africa further popularized the plant as the emblem of an exotic world to conquer, subjugate, and exploit. But moreover so than banana trees, palm's history is defined by symbolic values of immortality, triumph, peace, victory, and spirituality—palms are mentioned more than 30 times in the Bible and 22 times in the Quran. In this case, too, the palm is a "transhistorical living sedimentation" of many peoples and geographical realities rather than a specific anchor to a defined notion of national identity. However, it is likely that the right‐wing protesters’ conception of palms might also conflate multiple alterities, that is, multiple notions of otherness. Not only, in their words, has the tree been reduced to a symbolization of the African continent and its people, but the widespread presence of palms in the southern regions from Rome to Palermo has also made it the emblem of what right‐wing protesters perceive as an ultimately inferior Italy, one that they would rather separate from. Pejorative comparisons between Italy's South and Africa have been a frequent recurrence through the rise to power of Lega Nord and such rhetoric has been frequently used in order to F I G U R E 7 Banana and palm trees at the Piazza del Duomo, Milan, Italy, 2018. Will they remain in place beyond 2019? Photograph: Giovanni Aloi | ALOI is offered by the recent research led by Dr. David Greenwood at Brandon University in Canada, which has, for instance, expanded our understanding of the range and evolutionary speed of palms; 65‐million‐year‐old fossils of palm leaves found in Alberta demonstrate how different climatic conditions in the Palaeocene enabled palms to thrive much further north than originally known (Brandon University, 2017). More than a year after their arrival, the palms and the bananas of Piazza del Duomo are thriving, and the bananas are now bearing fruit (AFP, 2018a, 2018b). The controversy has quieted down and Chiquita, a well‐known Swiss producer and distributor of bananas, has seized the opportunity to promote the consumption of the fruit through performances and initiatives dotting the square. It remains unclear if the trees will be allowed to remain in place after the end of 2019, when according to the terms of the original commission they should be removed. Will public debate reignite once more? Will the right‐wing protesters joyfully exult? Regardless, this alleged misplacement of plant species has unearthed many truths. It has caused an important and unprecedented short‐circuiting of the intertwined histories of peoples and plants. It has demonstrated how important plants can be in the politics of identity construction and how plants operate in the context of important conceptions like “native” and “other”; notions usually concealed by ideas cultural and aesthetic appropriateness. But most importantly, instances such as these, in which plants become sorely visible, reveal important chains of inferences that, if untangled, might shed light on our everyday relationship with plants, other peoples, and our past and future histories (Figure 7). REFERENCES Ackerman, J. (1949). "Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est" Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan. The Art Bulletin, 31(2), 84. https://doi.org/10.2307/3047224 AFP. 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How to cite this article: Aloi G. Sorely visible: plants, roots, and national identity. Plants, People, Planet. 2019;1:204–211. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10054