"The massacre of the cobblestones," as one Roman official put it, is well under way, part of a city program to lay asphalt on streets that are used mostly by cars, buses and scooters. On pedestrian walkways and piazzas treasured by tourists, like Piazza Venezia, the city has pledged to keep the cobblestones, called sampietrini. (They were supposedly first used around St. Peter's Basilica; there is also lore about St. Peter's having saved as many souls as there are cobblestones in Rome.)

Already, with Roman streets nearly empty during the summer holiday, several main strips in the historic center, including sections of the Lungotevere, the ancient road next to the Tiber, have been paved over.

But the surprising thing - in this city concerned as much with "la bella figura" as with its self-image as charmingly, or irritatingly, resistant to the modern world - is that there has not been much outrage.

Professor Mansel Aylward, who led the study, said health care and wages had improved in the last 70 years, but expectations had also gone up.

But historian Dr John Davies said life in the 1930s was "less comfortable".

Around 500 people of all ages were interviewed in the survey, which is part of a five-year study into happiness and health at the university's school of psychology.

Professor Mansel Aylward, 62, said: "The evidence so far and from other research we've looked at shows levels of happiness have not increased since the 1930s.

"When measures of happiness were first introduced in 1950 and we compare them with what we are getting now, clearly the society of today is very much less happy.

"If you go back to the 1930s and look at the sorts of issues that are commonly been associated with people being happy, then it is very likely people were more content, even with more difficult lives, in the 1930s.