"Who are you? What are you carrying? How many are you? A florin!" It went something like this for Paolo Pinzuti, founder and editorial director of BikeItalia, who received a fine of €480 for photographing the "white roads". Yes, you heard that right, for reproducing iconic and enchanting places that the whole world envies us. That piece of land that Rcs Sport & Event has turned into myth and legend thanks to the eponymous race that is now rightly considered the "sixth monument".

The protagonist of this nonsense is the Municipality of Asciano, which did not appreciate photographs of its territories being taken without prior authorization. It's likely that what we are writing will also displease the said Municipality and they might ask us to trash it, rework it, or examine it preventively in the highest respect of Article 21, which now smells of mold.

A land of bell towers and taxes, here the Municipality of Asciano thought it best to introduce yet another one which, frankly, we thought we could do without. Pinzuti writes in his editorial: "Yesterday it happened to me: I opened our certified email and found a violation notice from the Municipality of Asciano (SI) contesting the 'violation of Article 2, paragraph 7 of the Regulation for Photo and Video Film Shoots approved by Municipal Decree No. 8 of 26.02.2016 and modified art. 2, paragraph 7 with M.C. No. 6 of 28.02.2020'" the crime being the reproduction on their Facebook channel and website of "photographic shots of the territory of the Municipality of Asciano, with particular reference to characteristic places like the Transitional Site, publicizing it in a misleading and harmful way as Gravel Supertuscan: cycling in the lands of Montepulciano and Montalcino, without the prescribed Municipal Authorization".

This is not a joke, we haven't fallen for an early April Fool's prank. We're not on "Candid Camera" and it's not even a scene from the anthology film "Nothing Left to Do But Cry", directed and performed by two giants of our cinema like Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi. It doesn't seem to be a prank, let alone a joke from "Amici Miei" with their classic premature supercazzole. It's all true, and all we can do is cry.