Craning our collective necks to gaze at the ceiling provided work for the tour guides, the guards periodically yelling “Silenzio!,” the refreshment hawkers at the museum entrance, the gelato sellers near the fountains, the Airbnb apartment owners near the Vatican, the ristorante owner around the...
it referred to a grill grate used for torture. The St. Laurence mentioned in the 1890 joke was purportedly martyred by being grilled to death, even quipping to his captors, "I am cooked on that side; turn me over, and eat."