The Quiet Life of the Rich

It was one of those rare times when life and art not only converged but paused to entwine and intermingle. For the lovely and the loaded in Italy, La Dolce Vita of Federico Fellini's 1959 cinema masterpiece really did exist. It was served up in 1,001 nights of frenetic cafe hopping along Rome's Via Veneto, swathed in the smart fashions of Florence and Rome and recorded by swarms of flash-happy paparazzi.

The era was dominated by members of Rome's "black aristocracy" (families that received their noble titles by papal decree) and by an international coterie of movie stars. They came to the Eternal City both to play and to work at the thriving Cinecitta, the nearby studio complex where so many U.S. films were produced that it was nicknamed "Hollywood on the Tiber."

Today Cinecitt`a stands half darkened, and la vita, even for the increasing few who can afford indulgences, is measurably less dolce. There is no dearth of luxurious living at many of the traditional haunts of wealth--from the shim mering playgrounds of Sardinia's Costa Smeralda to Rome's exclusive men's club, Circolo della Caccia, where last week as usual the preluncheon aperitifs were being served by waiters dressed in white stockings, blue knee breeches and silver-buttoned coats.

The epidemic of kidnapings and other violence directed against Italy's rich has had its effect. Since the beginning of last year, there have been 90 kidnapings, with ransoms of $1 million or more being paid on at least two occasions. The flamboyance of the moneyed life-style has all but disappeared. So have a good many of the rich. Said U.S.-born Countess Consuelo Crespi before moving to New York City in 1976: "In Italy now you want to feel rich and look poor." Sales of Rolls-Royces have fallen off to nearly half their level of a year ago. The miles of nightclub neon that used to light up the Roman nights have dimmed to a mere two stylish spots, Jackie-O's on week nights and The First on weekends. "Rich people now only entertain at home, and they don't want us," complains Photographer Umberto Pizzi. Says Designer Principessa Helietta Caracciolo: "Actually, the rich are in hiding."

Hiding-- and the various security devices that make it possible-- has become a major growth industry. Automobile dealers sell armor-plated cars, mostly unobtrusive sedans, as fast as they arrive from the factory. Shops that specialize in converting existing cars into four-wheeled fortresses have a backlog of service orders (cost: $7,000 for a compact Fiat 127, $30,000 for a Rolls-Royce). Some 400 firms have assembled a private army of 20,000 security men and women who hire out as bodyguards to wealthy clients for $115 to $230 a day each. Even having a guard dog requires a major investment: a trained German shepherd sells for $5,740, and last year Italians bought $7 million worth of them. Though kidnaping insurance is banned by law, many industrialists carry "K" risk policies written in Britain and West Germany (premium: $40,000 a year for $1 million coverage).

Largely because of the kidnaping threat, more and more wealthy Italians have decided to leave altogether or at least set up a residence somewhere outside the country. They choose places as far away as Caracas or as close as Lugano, just across the border in Switzerland. For many, the question is not so much the destination as it is how to get out of Italy with the means of supporting themselves in the manner to which they would like to become reaccustomed. Most succeed in spite of the law forbidding Italian residents to take more than $580 in lire out of the country. But authorities have started cracking down. Last month Actress Sophia Loren and her husband, Producer Carlo Ponti, were charged with having illegally transferred several million dollars abroad.

For those who stay, the ideal lifestyle has undergone a kind of genteel greening. There is a new concern about ecology, with Susanna Agnelli (sister of Fiat President Gianni) continuing to lead a campaign to preserve the wildlife of Porto Santo Stefano, the Tuscan coastal town that she serves as mayor. Rome Art Dealer Derna Querel recalls meeting several young members of the Frescobaldi and Antinori wine families who boasted of having joined in a grape harvest, including barefoot trampling of the fruit. In Rome last Christmas, a financially strapped family of the nobility threw a picnic in their palazzo to which guests were invited to bring their own liquor. "They were very casual about it --people were wearing jeans and pearls, and everyone had a great time," says Querel. "The rich miss the old days, but they learn to live without them.

They disappear and wait for times to change." Perhaps that is what makes them different from everyone else.

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