Rome the Second Time

The Streets of Rome: Made for Walking

2012-01-24T01:10:00.000-08:00

....me and Mamie O'Rourke
Tripped the light fantastic
On the sidewalks of New York

Some 115 years after they were written, these lines from "Sidewalks of New York" are still with us, still capable, somehow, of representing the thrill of being part of America's largest city.

On Via Cavalcanti

The song could never have been written about Rome, and not because the city doesn't have sidewalks. There are sidewalks on Via Nazionale, sidewalks on Piazza Venezia, sidewalks on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, sidewalks on the Tiber.

But Rome is not New York. Via del Corso, the mile-long street connecting Piazza Venezia with Piazza del Popolo, has sidewalks, but they are perilously narrow, and pedestrians are inevitably tempted into the street. Many streets laid out in the city's medieval period and into the Renaissance have no sidewalks, though here and there--meaning seldom--those on foot are shielded from traffic by a line of metal poles. In the tourist mecca of Trastevere, sidewalks are hit and miss. The near-in "suburbs," built with cars in mind, all have sidewalks, and many are welcome and well-used. But--and that but brings me, finally, to the point of this piece: Romans like to walk in the street. One cannot say the same of New Yorkers.

On the balcony at Via Cavalcanti

We came to this conclusion--hardly a man-bites-dog story, but interesting enough--during a recent stay in Monteverde Vecchio, an upscale neighborhood of villas and apartment buildings on the Trastevere side, where we sampled the local whites from a small 4th floor balcony. The balcony was located above Via G. Cavalcanti, half a short block south of busy Via Lorenzo Valla.

Late one afternoon, while enjoying a Sicilian Grillo and observing the regular flow of walkers below us, we couldn't help but notice how many preferred the street to the sidewalks on either side.

Some were alone, some with children in tow or in strollers, some old, some young, men and women, couples, an occasional threesome. For about 40 minutes we took the photos you see here--and many others.

There is traffic on Via Cavalcanti

But why are these folks walking in the street? One reason, we thought, was peculiar to Via Cavalcanti, a one-way street (uphill, north, to the left in the photos), which carries high traffic volume only after it intersects with Via Lorenzo Valla, a half block north of our observation. True enough, but Cavalcanti is hardly free of cars and scooters (photo at right), and pedestrians sometimes prefer the street even at its busier points.

The street may also seem attractive in comparison with Cavalcanti's sidewalks (similar to those in many outlying areas), ugly strips of cheap poured asphalt, bulging here and there from exposure to the Roman sun and erupting tree roots, seldom swept or cleaned--just plain dirty one could say--not all that wide (though wide enough for two) and used by the neighborhood's dogs, escorted by owners who seldom clean up after them. So there's that.

Still there's something else at work here, something that has to do with Rome's history, with the narrow, tangled streets of Trastevere, the Jewish ghetto, and Parione (the area to the west of Piazza Navona). Having walked these streets for hundreds of years, Romans have their own idea of what streets are and should be: though vehicles may use them, they are meant for walking.

And so it is that Romans use their streets, and not just the medieval ones, for purposes that modern traffic engineers did not intend. On the streets, they stride and stroll, walk and talk, move their groceries and their children (and their employer's children), walk their dogs, ride their bicycles. What they do not do is "trip the light fantastic"--not in the street, and surely not on the sidewalks. But then, it's not New York. It's Rome.

Bill

Church Lady revisits the neglected

2012-01-20T01:36:00.000-08:00

We've written a couple posts (including things to do around the train station) that have featured within them the long neglected - but still a gem - church of Santa Bibiana. A young Bernini designed the portico, facade and sculpture of the saint on the bones of an early 5th century church.

We've bemoaned the total isolation of this church as it is now surrounded by roads, railway tracks and railway buildings - not to mention the graffiti which supposedly never is done on church property (oh, yeah).

From one of the blog's loyal followers, BT, comes this lovely engraving of Santa Bibiana as it once looked. The print is from Rome's Palazzo Braschi collection.

Now compare that to today's Santa Bibiana (taken from the right side, as you look at the engraving).

This photo is too good, and we couldn't find any to include here that really show the church now hemmed in by train tracks, station buildings, and streets. Check this link for a better (or worse, depending on one's perspective) view of Santa Bibiana's current woes.

The posts linked in the first lines above relay some comments on Santa Bibiana by church historian Glen Thompson, and a vivid description of the unusual life of this saint.

A recent painting by Anita Viola Nielsen of Denmark shows the church
crunched in next to the modernist tower and station buildings; see

Dianne (aka Church Lady)

Ponte Ostiense: Under Construction

2012-01-16T01:37:00.000-08:00

Through a hole in the fence.

In October, we pulled the scooter off Via Ostiense for a quick look at another of Rome's new bridges. We couldn't get all that close, but we did manage to get a good pic looking through a hole in the fence (right); another with the camera held over the fence (below); and a third of a big on-site posting listing everyone who was working on the project and a rendering of what it was supposed to look like when completed.

Lots of lanes.

The new bridge, over the Metro tracks and the Roma-Lido railway, will connect the heavily-trafficked Circonvallazione Ostiense (with Garbatella to the south and Ostiense to the north) with Via Ostiense, a major north-south thoroughfare that runs right into the Pyramid. That's fine, but the real purpose of the bridge is apparently to connect Via Cristoforo Colombo (an enormous highway heading to the ocean) on the east with Viale Marconi, on the west. And to do that adequately will mean another bridge, this one to span the Tevere below the old, out-dated, over-used, but loved Ponte di Ferro ("Iron bridge", officially Ponte dell'Industria).

The Spine

On its west side, the bridge will touch down right next to the now-abandoned Magazzini Generali (General Storage Area--a now-abandoned massive market/wholesale distribution center), to be redesigned by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. There is also a larger, visionary project involved, the brainchild of former mayor Walter Veltroni, something called the Citta' di Giovani (City of Youth), which imagines revitalizing Ostiense, an older industrial but already trendy area with bars, clubs, and restaurants catering to young people. (Of course, the young folks already have started up their bars and clubs here, as we've reported - more than once.) Apparently Koolhaas is in charge of the larger project.

Elegant Curves

We would like to credit Koolhaas as the architect of the bridge, but no one is saying that, and the designer of the structure remains a mystery, Nor does the bridge have a name, although it is sometimes referred to as the Ponte Ostiense. Rome's commissioner of public works proudly announced that a bridge of this type--arches supported by steel wires was his description--would be a first for the city, and he may be right. The structure is 240 meters from end to end, with 125 meters fully suspended. Three vehicle lanes each direction (two of the six for public vehicles), and ample sidewalks for pedestrians.

Ponte della Musica

We claim no expertise in bridge design, but we like the look of this one. We would have liked it more had we not seen the new pedestrian (so far) Ponte della Musica (right), over the Tevere to the north, with its wavy curves fashioned from white tubing, not unlike the emerging Ponte Ostiense. (See our earlier post on that bridge.) After all, we're in the era of the designer bridge--like the 1950s was the era of the glass skyscraper--and some of the designs, despite their obvious differences, have a similar look and style. Not bad, just not "wow we haven't seen that before."

Bill

Fascism and the Reconstruction of Rome

2012-01-11T01:02:00.000-08:00

What was the Via dell'Impero, from
Piazza Venezia, looking toward the Coliseum.
Vehicles were prohibited that day.

Via dell'Impero

Here at RST, we knew, or thought we knew, why Mussolini's Fascist regime of the 1920s and 1930s tore down thriving neighborhoods and moved thousands of families from the central city to its outskirts. The Fascists did it, so the story goes, because they wanted to reveal and display the glorious monuments and remains of Roman antiquity, and to link that Roman heritage--a formidable lineage of empire and dominance--to Fascism. Via dell' Impero ("Empire Street"; today, Via dei Fori Imperiali - "Street of the Imperial Forums") was carved from surrounding neighborhoods not only to reveal the Roman forums along its course, but to establish a powerful visual link between the Coliseum, at one end, and Mussolini's headquarters, at Piazza Venezia, at the other. On the other side of the massive Vittoriano (the "typewriter" monument to the King Vittorio Emanuele II - photo below), Via del Mare ("Street of the Sea," today, Via del Teatro Marcello) proclaimed Rome's ties to the sea and reaffirmed Fascism's imperial vision and designs.

That's all true. But it's not enough, and it doesn't go to the heart of the matter. Not according to historian Paul Baxa, whose exceptional new book, Roads and Ruins: The Symbolic Landscape of Fascist Rome (University of Toronto Press, 2010), offers a complementary--and, in our view, wholly new, and somewhat controversial--interpretation of Fascism's interventions and urban planning.

Trenches on the Carso

According to Baxa, the key to understanding Fascism's reconstruction of Rome lies in the Italian experience in the Great War, in which the Italian army faced the forces of Austria-Hungary, first in a grisly, violent and brutal trench-warfare standoff on the Carso, a massive plateau near Trieste; then, in a high-speed, helter-skelter Italian retreat across the plain of Friuli, north of Venice. (Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is set in this warfare and retreat.)

Fascism's "new man," at what
was the Foro Mussolini

Embedded in the contrasting landscapes of the Carso and the Friuli plain, the trial of war was profoundly psychological. Using a variety of sources, including postwar memoirs, poetry, and Fascist-oriented journals, Baxa argues that the Carso meant stasis, lack of movement, confinement, restriction and claustrophia, and it created Fascism's "new man," "savage" and "primordial" (in Fascist mythology, Mussolini's Blackshirts were Italian warriors--represented in the statues that line the Foro Mussolini--who had fought on the Carso). Though encountered in retreat, the Friuli plain meant release, liberation, endless open space, the high speed movement of vehicles away from the trauma of the Carso.

The beginning of the Via Del Mare, 1930s.
Teatro di Marcello in the distance; the beginning of Michelangelo's stairs to the Campidoglio (the Capitoline Hill) in the foreground.

The Fascist reconstruction of Rome, accomplished under the Master Plan of 1931, was nothing less than the experiences on the Carso and the Friuli plain, inscribed on the map of Rome. Reacting to the confinement and stasis of the Carso, Fascism detested urban elements that restricted movement, especially small piazzas, narrow streets and dense neighborhoods. Hence the construction of the Via del Mare necessarily and deliberately involved the destruction of two piazzas: Michelangelo's Piazza Aracoeli at the foot of the Campidoglio, and Piazza Montanara, close by the Theatre of Marcellus. Similarly, part of the dense neighborhood of San Lorenzo was razed to make way for the new, modernist University of Rome.

The Vittoriano--detested by the Fascists (and
some others)

The flight across the Friuli plain was reflected in the Fascist mania for broad avenues capable of carrying vehicles at high speed; the Via dell' Impero and the Via del Mare were about speed and modernity and danger, values captured, according to Baxa, in Mussolini's motorcycle rides to his summer home in Ostia, on the sea. When Hitler visited Rome in 1938, Baxa notes, his itinerary included only one church (the Pantheon), and he "spent most of his time in the car."

Although Rome's legendary traffic has commonly been understood as a city planning failure, Baxa argues that it was "the crowning achievement of fascist culture." Indeed, at the south end of Piazza Venezia, Fascist street planning was designed to corrupt and degrade the Vittoriano, a monument that for Fascism was a symbol of a failed and decadent bourgeois liberalism. The more cars, and the less attention to the monument glorifying Vittorio Emanuele and the liberal state, the better.

For Baxa, the "new man" who had come down from the Corso was primordial, a throwback to imperial pagan Rome. For Fascism and its archaeologists, this meant that pagan Rome and the present were everything that was good and valued, and whatever was in between--the apostles, the rise of Christian Rome, the hundreds of churches of medieval Rome and Renaissance Rome--was of little consequence. For Mussolini, writes Baxa, "the grandeur of Rome was independent of Christianity." As a result, the Fascist regime clashed with Catholic Church at every turn: over what should be revealed, what should be preserved, what should be valued.

Similarly, Fascism's embrace of pagan Rome and the Fascist present involved a distaste for everything else, especially the 19th-century, the heyday of liberalism and the bourgeoisie; and areas that represented, or symbolized, the 19th-century received scant attention. Case in point: Via Nazionale, with the Vittoriano at one end, the 19th-century Piazza Esedra at the other, and fancy shops serving the haut-bourgeoisie lining the avenue. In 1932, when the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, at the heart of Via Nazionale, was selected to house a major exhibition on Fascism, the neo-classical facade of building was temporarily covered with a rationalist veneer.

Much of Baxa's view of Fascism and its urban interventions depends on the battle on the Carso and the retreat across the Friuli plain, and what those events meant not only for participants, but for all Italians. Baxa makes the case that the peculiar character of World War I in northeast Italy yielded a set of ideas and values--violence, brutality, speed, the need for space and openness, a fascination with the automobile--that would shape Fascism and with it, the face of Rome. Yes, and bravo to Baxa for making the connection. But it might make almost as much sense to argue that the horrific trench warfare on the Carso produced a deep pacifism, or that the retreat across Friuli left in its wake a consciousness of Italian weakness, including even the desire to retreat from future wars. That said, this is a strikingly original book, and one likely to force a rethinking of how and why Mussolini's Fascist regime changed the look and feel of modern Rome.

Bill

New York City, or Rome? A Response to Michael Kimmelman

2012-01-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

A portion of New York City's "grid"

We thoroughly enjoyed Michael Kimmelman's celebration of New York City's "grid" design in the January 3, 2012 New York Times. He's one of our favorites. Mr. (following NYT practice) Kimmelman, in reviewing a current exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, describes the grid as "in many ways the defining feature of the city," a "boon to private development" and, "almost despite itself, a creative template." For Mr. Kimmelman, the city's grid suggests the sort of "aggressive and socially responsible leadership" that we so badly need in today's difficult times. (Be patient, dear reader, we'll get to Rome).

While acknowledging that the grid was in a way "heartless" and even "monotonous," he remains convinced that it was a positive development: it proved responsive to the city's changing compass orientation; profitable for property owners; ecologically beneficial; conducive to sociability and building variety; "oddly beautiful"; and--a virtue that Mr. Kimmelman gives special weight and attention--made the city instantly comfortable and knowable, even for strangers.

A model of the Roman Forum

Inevitably, perhaps, the world's other great cities, notably Paris and Rome, must enter the argument. Rome does so twice. Mr. Kimmelman argues that "grid plans went back to ancient Greece and Rome." We can't speak for Greece, but the little we've seen on ancient Rome suggests that the early city, built in part on hills that flaunted the sort of strict, unrelenting grid on which New York City was based, could have served as the basis for Gotham's design. Although the Roman Forum is constructed within a rectangle, the buildings on the Palatine Hill are set at an angle to it.

A portion of a c. 1910 Rome map. At lower left,
on the right side of the river, a grid-based
Testaccio, waiting to be developed, and above it,
the Aventine, in a similar state

Beyond the Centro Storico, outlying sections of Rome, including Prati, Testaccio, and a part of the Aventine, used the grid, but these were not laid out until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mr. Kimmelman's reference to "Rome" is likely to the grid system widely used to build towns outside the capital but within the burgeoning Roman empire.

Rome appears in a second context, in an interesting and revealing comparison to New York. "In the same way," Mr. Kimmelman writes, "that tourists who come to New York can easily grasp the layout and, as such, feel they immediately possess the city, outsiders who move here become New Yorkers simply by saying so. By contrast, an American can live for half a century in Rome or Hamburg or Copenhagen or Tokyo but never become Italian or German or Danish or Japanese. Anybody can become a New Yorker. The city, like its grid, exists to be adopted and made one's own."

There's some hyperbole here--"half a century"?--and the argument that a feeling of belonging can be traced to the grid, rather than to the city's (and the nation's) function as a cultural melting pot seems forced, to say the least. We could make the case, too, that New York City's most creative folks have preferred the old city, below the grid, and especially Greenwich Village: Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jackson Pollock Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Eugene O'Neill, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Jane Jacobs, and [fill in the blank].

In one sense, though, we couldn't agree more. Rome is a much more complex city than New York and much more difficult to learn. It's full of curves and unusual angles, of piazzas, square and round and oval, that surge with energy, of parts that fit oddly and subtly into a whole that remains an intricate puzzle, replete with mystery. It has hills (more than 7, actually) and a river, one that runs through the center of the city and whose twists and turns and bridges contribute to a sense of organic complexity. Rome's cityscape--its imprint, its pattern--could never be described as "heartless" or "monotonous" or damned by the faint praise of "oddly beautiful." That's why we can visit year after year and each time feel a kind of rebirth, as if we were seeing, and knowing, the city anew. That's why being on a scooter is Rome is a pleasure and a thrill, no matter how often we do it. And that's why we wrote--why we felt compelled to write--Rome the Second Time. You're interesting enough, New York City, but you're no Rome.
Bill
from Dianne: for another of Bill's "exchanges" with Kimmelman, see his post on MAXXI, Italy's 21st century art gallery - designed by Zaha Hadid - in Rome.

Caught! A Small Drama in Piazza San Silvestro

2012-01-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

It was early evening when we passed through Piazza San Silvestro. Not long ago it would have been full of buses and people waiting for them, but the piazza has been reinvented, its function as a bus depot eliminated, and what we found was a huge empty space, filled with rubble and machinery, surrounded by a plastic and chain-link fence. To serve businesses on the piazza--including the restaurant at far right, above--the sidewalks remained accessible.

As we were walking by, a young woman mounted her scooter and, cautiously, but on the sidewalk, and with a shopping bag over one arm, headed north on the east side of the piazza. Scooters using the sidewalk for a few yards, to find a place to park, are commonplace in Rome, but this woman's sidewalk journey was a longer one than usual: a whole block of sidewalk to cover before she reached a usable street.

She didn't make it. As luck would have it, as she neared the end of the block and was passing in front of the restaurant (with outside tables, also on the sidewalk), a police officer approached and--from what we could observe from afar--ordered her to turn around and walk the scooter back to where she had begun her sidewalk ride. No ticket, but embarrassing.

Bill

Buona Giornata

2012-01-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

First, a primer: buon giorno is "good day" or "good morning"; buona giornata is "have a good day," or "have a good one," or "have a nice day." I can remember, or think I can, when clerks in the US started saying "have a nice day." I thought then it was cloying and artificial and excessive, and though I've grown used to the phrase, it still grates on me. I can't speak for Dianne, but I do know that she doesn't use "have a good day" in the States but has recently taken to using "buona giornata" in Rome, and merchants seem to respond well to it.

The coffee cup combo in the photo, provided the bar by a major Rome milk distributor, takes "buona giornata" to a new level--indeed, takes possession of the phrase and offers it back: "Sponsor Ufficiale della BUONA GIORNATA: Official sponsor of 'have a nice day.'" All, I hope, with a sense of irony--but even then I don't like it.
Bill

Not Quite a Christmas Story: A Bar and a Church

2011-12-24T01:11:00.000-08:00

In the early years of the last century, a Roman family bought a nice piece of land in Monteverde Vecchio, then sparsely developed. They hoped--indeed, expected--that the parcel's location, just a 10-minute walk from the Trastevere train station, and on what they knew would be the main road up the hill, would position the family to serve and profit from the expected traffic. Location, location, location.

Bar Vitali, modestly promoted
(the sign says only "BAR")

And it happened that way--or sort of. The Vitali family started a business there that evolved into a bar, on Via Lorenzo Valla, and it's still there, and very successful, more than 75 years later. Today it's owned by Mario Vitali, a grandson of the original owners, and it's become a bar/restaurant (lunch only), and one of more than local reputation, if only because Italian movie director Nanni Moretti lives nearby and eats there from time to time. On the MAP below, Mario's bar lies at the intersection of Via Lorenzo Valla and Via Pindemonte, the dog-leg street coming in from above.

Monteverde Vecchio in 1935. The photo hangs
in a back room of Mario's place.

The flow of automobiles and scooters by the bar is substantial, too, certainly all that one could expect in an area of one-way streets. But it is not what the Vitali family had in mind when they purchased the property. They believed then, and it seemed a very good bet, that traffic flowing uphill into Monteverde Vecchio would move straight out of the small piazza fronting the train station (and off two major thoroughfares, the Gianicolense and Viale Trastevere, which come together there) and directly northwest, onto Via Lorenzo Valla: a straight shot to the bar. Visions of coining money.

But it didn't happen that way. If you look at a map, or stroll the area, you'll see that there is no street running straight uphill from the train station. Instead, there's a church (on the map, the blue rectangle at lower right, with a cross).

The church was built in 1942 (Mario knows the date, all too well), in the last years of Fascism, and it's situated right where the anticipated road would have been. It's an undistinguished, late-Fascist-era building, just the sort of place that Bill enjoys and to which Dianne must be dragged. I don't think you'll ever get Mario Vitali inside. And now you know why.

Bill

PS from Dianne - Mario is something of a local historian and has written (in Italian only and now out of print) an intriguing family history. His grandmother, widowed young with 4 very young children, simply started cooking for local construction workers, then selling anything she could buy and break up into smaller lots. Her home turned into a luncheonette, then a store, then the bar and tobacco shop owned by Mario's father. Mario's grandmother, who had built her business from scratch, was the one most upset by the church's closing off of via Lorenzo Valla, Mario told me when I asked. But she did attend the church and her burial procession, down via Lorenzo Valla, ended there - a touch of irony in the whole story.

Deciphering Rome's Walls: Neo-Fascist Iconography

2011-12-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

If you've been in Rome 15 minutes, you've already seen, and lamented, the vast amount of graffiti that adorns the city. Much of it--notably the ubiquitous "tags" (initials, signatures) of graffiti "artists" (we're not talking about the colorful, design-based lettering that lines the train and Metro tracks)--is close to worthless, lacking in the "redeeming social value" that was the US legal standard applied to pornography in the 1960s. That said, the stuff is there, and one can either a) try to ignore it or b) take an interest in aspects of it--separate the wheat from the chaff--using the walls of Rome as a window on contemporary culture.

Note the highly stylized fasci,
below right.

Some of this reading of contemporary Italian culture requires a knowledge of Italian and a Roman friend or two, and RST can't supply either on the blog. But there's one area--the iconography of neo-Fascism--where a little help goes a long way.

Mussolini's Fascist movement (roughly 1919-1945, with Fascism officially in power from 1922 to 1943) made use of Roman symbols. One of the most signifcant was the Fascio Littorio (the bundled sheaves of wheat, with protruding axe, symbolizing power over life and death), first used as a Fascist symbol in 1919. The poster above left, using a drawing to advertise the Monday after Easter, features three small, highly stylized fasci.

The Latin/Roman influence,
apparent in the typography of a
Fascist building

Fascism also often used a "V" - the Roman way of writing (in ancient times in stone) a "U" - on its buildings and posters, and the "V" was employed by the Triple Alliance (Germany, Italy, and Japan) during World War II. On the facade of a Fascist-era building in EUR known as the "square coliseum," an inscription begins, "VN (UN) POPOLO...." ("a people....").

During the Fascist years, the "M" (for Mussolini, and hence for Fascism) was everywhere; indeed, in the 1930s a Fascist administration building in the new town of Latina (in the reclaimed marsh land southeast of Rome) was constructed in the shape of an "M." The building still stands today.

A prominent flattened "S" on
a 1939 poster ("Squadristi").

A contemporary flattened "S,"
referencing the Fascist era.

Certain other letters or modes of lettering--the squared off C is one example--may also represent a neo-Fascist hand at work. Another letter that was widely used and was highly symbolic of Fascism is the flattened, modernist-looking "S" (above, right and left).

A Celtic cross

The postwar (and especially post-1970) neo-Fascist movement used, and uses, all these symbols, sometimes in modified form, and you'll see them all on the walls of Rome. You'll also see one symbol that was NOT used by Mussolini's Fascists. The Celtic Cross was first used by a French Fascist party in the 1930s, then adopted by Italian neo-Fascists in Italy and elsewhere in the 1970s. The iron cross at left is flanked by two letters of significance for Fascism: the "M" and the "V."

A Fascist "M" and a
highly stylized Fascio Littorio

In several places we've encountered the word "Militia," followed by a figure we at first could not decipher (right).

A Fascist-era poster, 1936

The Militia "M" is adapted from a typeface used by Mussolini's regime (left). And the curious end figure, we concluded, was a highly stylized version of the Fascio Littorio (compare with those above and below).

Mayor Alemanno, attacked as a Zionist

We learned more about that "M" with the arrests a few days ago (December 13) of the leader of the "Militia," Maurizio Boccacci, and four others identified with the group. They were charged with spreading racial hatred, inciting violence, and engaging in acts against the Jewish community and against Rome's Mayor, Gianni Alemanno (right).

A "pietra d'inciampo," a
memorial paving block

Another 11 persons are under investigation for similar offenses, including supporting fascism. Specifically, the Militia members were accused of having defaced the walls of the capital with Nazi writings and with having defaced "pietre d'inciampo"-- engraved memorial paving stones in brass (resembling special sanpietrini)--that were designed by a German artist and installed beginning in 2010 in front of the homes of Jews deported from Rome to Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

The Militia denies the Holocaust

On one wall, signed with the Militia "M," the group attacked the upcoming (January 27) anniversary of the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism, known here as "il Giorno della Memoria"--essentially a day for recalling the horrors of the Holocaust and remembering its victims. "27/1 non c'é memoria!" translates "January 27: there is nothing to remember!", probably a denial that the Holocaust ever took place.

On another wall, the words "Pacifici continui a meritare il fosforo bianco" refers to Riccardo Pacifici, the president of the Jewish community in Rome; Pacifici "continues to deserve the white phosphorus," a reference to the lethal compound widely used in warfare since World War I. Several Militia writings appeared in Monti, a tourist area near the Coliseum. One of them said "Israele non esiste" ("Israel doesn't exist"). And on Via Tasso, the street that housed the SS prison from which political prisoners were removed to be executed in 1944 (and now houses a museum to honor those prisoners), someone had written, "via Tasso uguale bugia" ("Via Tasso is a lie"). Elsewhere, the anti-semitic Militia attacked Alemanno as a "Sionista" (a Zionist) [above right].

Boccacci, 54, is known to authorities for his extreme right-wing views and for a long history of participation in rightist militant groups, dating to the 1970s. He defines himself as a "soldato fascista senza compromessi" ("a fascist soldier without compromise") and has said, "I admire what Hitler did. The Jews were enemies that opposed his plans." Of the Militia members thus far identified, two were 54 years old, two 26, and one 43. Two, including Boccacci, were residents of Albano Laziale (a town in the Alban Hills close to Rome), two of Rome, and one of Ascoli Piceno (about 150 miles northeast of Rome). Until recently, the group was headquartered in a gymnasium in the north Rome suburban quartiere of Vigne Nuove, just beyond Monte Sacro.

With thanks to MV for assistance with this post,

Buon deciphering!
Bill

Metro Hazards!

2011-12-15T01:39:00.000-08:00

We assume it's necessary to warn riders on Rome's Metro, the subway system, of the possible dangers of the activity. But the ad agency hired for the task may have overdone things a bit; in any event, on this day we were amused.

From upper left, clockwise: Don't try to prevent the door from closing; Don't lean against the door; Watch for the space between the train and the platform. And--our favorite--Don't get on or off when the door is closing, because, well....

Ouch!

Garibaldi Rides Again: A New Museum in Rome

2011-12-11T01:27:00.000-08:00

The dashing young Giuseppe Garibaldi

Rome opened a small, but intense, new museum this year on top of the Gianicolo, to our great delight. The Museo della Repubblica Romana e della memoria garibaldina (Museum of the Roman Republic and memory of Garibaldi and his followers – possibly titled by committee) – opens up to Italian and English speakers the intense 19th- century history that unfolded on the hill. The imposing gate to the city itself (see photos at end) houses the museum - it's literally IN Porta San Pancrazio.

In June 1849 some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign to end Papal rule over Italy – and Rome in particular – took place here. Damage to buildings is still visible on the road leading to Villa Pamphilli, where the Garibaldini (the Garibaldi forces) waged their last battle of that year. The top of the Gianicolo is, in a phrase coined by one of our friends, a Garibaldi theme park. And, down the hill from the majestic Fountain of Aqua Paolo is an "ossuary” – a bone repository of the many who lost their lives in those battles.

All of this is clearer now thanks to sophisticated dioramas, maps, flyers in English, and other computer-assisted tools artfully placed in the Porta. We enjoyed the actor playing the part of the martyred Ciceruacchio (“Chubby” - to whom there is a statue on the Gianicolo we had never noticed before – but it too was moved for the anniversary – to a spot in the “theme park”). In a 5 or so minute wall-size video (that one can view in English) he explains why he went from being supportive of the Pope to being violently anti-Pope, which surprised us, and he chides Italians today for perhaps not being as unified as those who fought for state-hood might like them to be. Ciceruacchio, whose real name was Angelo Brunetti, has a Wikipedia entry (you can use a Google translator to get the main points in English).

An original "Red Shirt" - the Garibaldi wore, and were known
by them - and other Garibaldini memorabilia

Six of the 8 adult sons of Ricciotti Garibaldi, one of Giuseppe and
Anita's sons (i.e, their grandsons), in World War I in France.
Fighters/liberators all, along with their 2 other brothers; 2 died
in the Argonne, one in Ceylon

The battles of 1849 resulted in the defeat of the Garibaldini, a defeat which took them 21 years to overturn when in 1870 they breached the gates of Rome on the opposite side of the city - Porta Pia – and Italy’s statehood finally extended to Rome.

"We loved life, but for the health of generations to come, we chose death. D.'Garibaldi' "- The Balkans 1943-45, and WWI in northern Italy 1915-1918.

The museum goes beyond 1849 to illustrate the subsequent activities of the Garibaldini and specifically of Garibaldi’s sons and grandsons. It’s an amazing tribute to the man and his progeny – both blood-line progeny and war colleagues.

Porta San Pancrazio has been completely refurbished. Traffic
is no longer allowed to cross in front of it. The large planters
are designed to deter those who might try. And, so, one no longer needs to keep one's toes in while snacking at Bar Gianicolo (as we advised in Rome the Second Time).

In Rome the Second Time, this outline of the 1849 battle forms a large part of Itinerary 2 – War and Water on the Gianicolo. It’s almost as if someone in the city read the book and said, hey, there’s an itinerary here! Of course they didn’t, but it’s nice to think so. And now, anyone can go into the museum and get the lay of the land before - or after – trekking around it oneself. We've added the museum information to RST Updates - available online.

But of course the newly designed area in front of the
Porta gives many the opportunity to find new ways to park

The museum was not well attended on the free day we went this Fall (it just opened March 17 – in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Italian Republic), but our friends say it was so crowded on opening day that people were turned away. Perhaps this is an effort to rehabilitate Garibaldi (I recall his picture on a wall in my Grandmother’s house) who, along with his ideas of a secular state, some – like historian David Kerzer in a recent book – suggest today has been close to forgotten by the Italian people.

The museum has a website that gives details. Open Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Adult tickets Euro 5.50. It’s worth it.

Dianne

Annette Funicello, Rediscovered--in Rome

2011-12-08T01:47:00.000-08:00

We found this photo, from 1958, in an exhibit on Italian families at the Vittoriano.
It reminded us of Annette Funicello, also of Italian heritage, who emerged on television's Mickey Mouse Club and later starred in a series of "beach party" movies, wearing ever more revealing swimsuits. She was born in Utica, New York in 1942, and Funicello was her real name. Bill

Gabbo: The Death and Life of Gabriele Sandri

2011-12-03T01:05:00.000-08:00

"GABBO SEMPRE CON NOI!"   Written on a wall in the Centro. But who was Gabbo?

A few days later, in our Tuscolano neighborhood:

i nostri colori                 our colors
ci dividono...la              divide us...
mentalita ci                    mentality
unisce, "GOBBO"         unites us, "GOBBO"

Was Gobbo "Gabbo"? And who was Gabbo?

We learned that Gabbo was short for Gabriele, and Gabriele was linked to another name. This in Tivoli: "Gabriele Vive...Spaccarotella Muori!" Gabriele lives...Spaccarotella dies!" And on a wall in Monteverde Vecchio: "Spaccarotella infame!"   Spaccarotella infamous!

In a small piazza near Piazza Bologna, stickers had been placed on road signs:

Spaccarotella      Spaccarotella
Pisceremo           We piss on
Tua Tomba         Your grave

Gabriele "Gabbo" Sandri and Luigi Spaccarotella were protagonists in a deadly drama played out on L'Autostrada del Sole (the Highway of the Sun), otherwise known as the A1. It was the morning of November 11, 2007, a Sunday, and all over Italy soccer fans were traveling to root for their favorite teams.

Gabriele Sandri

Gabriele, 26, was a professional DJ and a Lazio "Ultra"--a hard-core Lazio fan--and he was traveling with buddies to Milan for a game with the Inter team. The young men had pulled off the highway into the Badio al Pino service area near Arezzo, and a scuffle or fight had broken out with a group of supporters of Juventus, a Turin squad. From the service area on the other side of the highway--divided by a chain-link fence--a highway patrol policeman, Spaccarotella, had observed the quarrel across the way. Pulling his gun, he ran to the fence and fired a warning shot into the air. The young men scattered, and Gabriele and his friends jumped into their car and headed for the entrance to the highway. According to a video [below] (apparently shown later in the courtroom), Spaccarotella ran along the fence, then stopped, aimed, and fired his gun twice, hitting Gabriele--sitting in the middle of the front seat--in the neck, and killing him. The "action" in the video begins after about 15 seconds.

As the case worked its way through an inquiry and the court system, the tragic death of Gabriele Sandri--"Gabbo"--came to represent not just police violence but the inadequacies of the Italian judicial system. Spaccarotella had claimed that his gun had gone off by accident, while he was running, and so the original inquiry was based on a manslaughter charge. The prosecutor was unconvinced, and so was Gabriele's father, Giorgio Sandri, who appeared at the March, 2008 hearing, angry at Spaccarotella's absence and convinced that he had aimed and fired his gun with intent. "He doesn't have the courage to look us in the eyes," Sandri said, adding, "he knows well that what he did he didn't do because he was inciampato (stumbling). In us the emotion is strong, and the anger stronger still."

The court eventually found Spaccarotella guilty of "culpable homicide" and sentenced him to 6 years in prison; the prosecution had asked for 14 years, partly on the grounds that Spaccarotella had made a fraudulent claim. Reached soon after by telephone, Spaccarotella said "I cried with joy. I have done well to believe in justice."

Many Italians didn't see it that way. No sooner was the verdict and sentence announced than outcries filled the courtroom and the hallways outside. Giorgio Sandri was once again outraged, and his wife, Daniela, bitterly remarked, "Now they've killed me a second time. A shame for all of Italy." Lazio Ultras considered the verdict "against all of them" and attacked two police facilities, including one at Ponte Milvio in Rome. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno--a former bad boy and probably a Lazio fan--expressed his dissatisfaction with the sentence, noting that the crime had affected the entire city. He hoped the sentence would be reconsidered on appeal "so as not to leave the Roman sporting world with a deep sense of injustice."

Spaccarotella had vowed to appeal the verdict and sentence, and it seems he did so; RST could find no evidence that he was actually serving his term.

The sentence was reconsidered. Based on a finding of "intentionality," in December, 2010 a Florence appeals court increased the sentence to 9 years 4 months. The court argued that even if Spaccarotella's goal had been to stop the vehicle and its occupants from fleeing, he took an excessive risk in shooting at the car. Hence the result--the death of Sandri--could not be understood as the product of "pure chance."

Gabbo's memory lived on, as the graffiti reveal.
He was remembered in 2009, at the final of the Champions League game between Manchester United and Lazio. Fans displayed a huge poster at one end of the field--the Lazio curva/curve, where the team's fans congregated. Lazio players wore "Gabbo" t-shirts under their game jerseys. Although Gabriele was a Lazio Ultra--on principle, reviled by fans of the Roma team--on this occasion even Roma supporters, who always sit on the curva sud, the south curve, when their team plays at Rome's Olympic Stadium, lent their support. One banner read, "Gabbo: Uno di Noi! Curva Sud." Gabbo: One of Us! Curva Sud."

A video, "Ciao Gabbo," tells the story of that day's tribute, which included a most extraordinary act of inter-team solidarity. Before the game, Lazio's captain accompanied Roma's captain, Francesco Totti, as Totti placed flowers below the poster of Gabriele: the famed leader of AS Roma, the symbol and idol of the Curva Sud, honoring a SS Lazio Ultra--at the Curva Nord.

Bill

The Station(s) at Tiburtina

2011-11-30T01:05:00.000-08:00

The Tiburtina railroad station, the one near Piazza Bologna, was torn down about two years ago, and another took its place on November 28. The old station was on Itinerary 7 in Rome the Second Time. Not because it was of any architectural merit, but because it was the place where in October, 1943 over one thousand of Rome's Jews were put on sealed trains for shipment to Nazi concentration camps. Seventeen returned. Plaques on the station platform reminded travelers of that event of the massacre of more Jews, and other innocent people, by the Nazis at the Fosse Ardeatine. The plaques are gone--at best consigned to some remote storage facility--and unlikely to reappear.

The old station was small and crowded, and the new one should be a relief. But the dominant impression is hardly one of comfort. The new station is huge. Almost comically so. Like an aircraft carrier, or the hovering hunk of high-tech metal from outer space in the final scenes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Then, as one can see in the photo (right, center of photo), in July a fire consumed a portion of the new structure. The authorities are still investigating (don't hold your breath).

We'll have to wait to experience fully the new Tiburtina station. But one part of the new building appealed to us: a colorful, angular box at the front of the station, positioned in playful contrast to the glowering mass behind it. Almost as if the architect had had second thoughts and decided to include a day-care center.

Back in our apartment, we were shocked to pick up one of our architecture books, Rationalism and Architecture in Italy during Fascism (a translation from the Italian) and see, on the cover, a design for a building--not identified elsewhere in the book---not unlike the fanciful cube at Tiburtina. Had we not seen this drawing and seen it marked as an example of rationalism, we would have labeled it postmodern, if only for its complex window treatments, the use of the pink and blue (the colors of infancy), and the presentation of an unusual angularity that undermines a message of stark modernity. While cut from the same cloth, the Tiburtina box goes a step further--and lifts our spirits.
Bill
[A reminder from Dianne - when itineraries need to change (e.g., because the station with its plaques is torn down), Updates are provided in an online document, and thru the ebook versions of Rome the Second Time. Updates can be accessed with a click on the link on the blog at right, or right here.]

Refuse Truck as Art

2011-11-27T01:03:00.000-08:00

Our via Tuscolana neighborhood is served by mobile refuse workers who operate from small trucks that carry their buckets and brooms. These refuse trucks have also become the favorites of graffiti artists, who have applied their paints in a playful way, adding a nice touch to the streetscape. The shot below was taken on via Tuscolana.
Bill

Gio Ponti's Rome Building: the Scuola di Matematica

2011-11-22T01:04:00.000-08:00

Ponti's La Pavoni espresso machine, 1948

Architect and designer Gio (pronounced "Joe," as in Giovanni) Ponti is little known in Rome. He was a child of Milan, born (1891) and raised there, and at a certain point plugged into Milan's fashion and design community. He designed stage sets and costumes for Milan's La Scala; the curvaceous La Pavoni espresso machine (1948), an icon of Italy's postwar boom and coffee-bar culture; and--perhaps his best known design effort--the Superleggera (superlight) chair [1957] for Cassina, so light that it is said that a child could lift it with one finger--though how many were given the opportunity, we don't know.

Pirelli Tower, 1956

Milan can also claim Ponti's first house (1926) and his best known building--the Pirelli Tower (1956), tall and sleek and, for a mid-century skyscraper, unusual in its diamond-referencing form.

Ponti's relationship with Fascism and the Mussolini regime are less than clear, but worth brief treatment. Postponing his architectural studies, he served in the Italian military on the Austrian front, emerging with the rank of Captain and as an admirer of Mussolini.

A Richard-Ginori dessert plate, ca. 1925

Degree in hand (1921), he turned not to architecture but to design, working as art director of the ceramics firm Richard-Ginori to produce a variety of consumer products that eschewed the avant-garde's commitment to pure rationalism in favor of mixing modernist ideas with neo-classical motifs.

Rotunda, Italia Pavilion, 1932

In the late 1920s, and especially through his magazine, Domus, Ponti became identified with the Novecento, an artistic movement increasingly favored by Facism for its advocacy of a "hybrid modernity" (see Marla Stone, The Patron State) that used traditional Italian folks motifs and subject matter, including women and landscapes. Ponti's design for the interior rotunda of the Italia pavilion at the 1932 Venice Biennale shows the architect linking modernism with classicism (here, referencing the Pantheon ceiling).

Mathematics Department Building, University of Rome, 1934

Ponti's only Rome building emerged at this juncture, just as the Mussolini regime was disengaging from Novecento aesthetics, embracing rationalism more fully, and before the regime's colonial ventures and burgeoning confidence fostered an architecture of monumentalism.

Completed in 1934, the Scuola di Matematica (Mathematics Department) building on the campus of the University of Rome is more in the rationalist mode than any of his previous structures. Today, the approach to the building is lined with dense banks of trees, square-trimmed in harmony with Ponti's modernist facade, which features thin marble facing and the standard high Fascist-like entryway, though the actual doors are modest and plain. A side view (above right) reveals the building's dynamic interior structure.

The immediate interior hall is also humble rather than extravagant, a sign, perhaps, that function is important; this is a working building, not a spectacle. Off to the left, a small, arched doorway, lined with aluminum (left), again plays down the grand.

Courtyard, Mathematics Building

Just ahead, we can see that the building has a round interior courtyard, and that the business of the Mathematics Department will take place in the curved spaces around it: offices on the inside of two long, curved hallways, classrooms on the outside. Natural light from the courtyard spills into the offices and, through glass partitions, on through onto the curving walkways.

A sign warns that the courtyard is not to be entered; another that loud talking in that space will disturb the learning process. Hundreds of cigarette butts between its stones reveal one of the courtyard's current functions. Two curving stairways in the courtyard seem to be there should a fire break out; we wonder if they're original.

The building's core rationalist aesthetic is everywhere tempered, by huge round windows in the stairwells, by the imperfect stones of the courtyard, by those playful arches in the entryway, and by small details of fittings and materials: brass handles here and there, wood trim around what would otherwise be an ordinary door (left).

Writing in Amate L'Architettura (1957), Ponti wrote: "Love architecture, be it ancient or modern. Love it for its fantastic, adventurous and solemn creations, for its inventions; for the abstract, allusive and figureative forms that enchant our spirit and enrapture our thoughts. Love architecture, the stage and support of our lives." Ponti's Mathematics Building--a graceful, functional stage.

Bill

New York City meets Rome palazzo - contemporary art in Rome

2011-11-18T01:54:00.000-08:00

It's over, but we couldn't resist showing it. And perhaps if you've read this far, our "warning, explicit material" is too late.

The pix we show are from one part of a 3-artist show earlier this Fall in Rome - Three Amigos, New York artists whose work occupied (oops, there goes that word again) very different venues. Dan Colen, here, was in Palazzo Rospigliosi, on the Quirinale hill. Colen's work, Trash, also was in the very tony - but accessible - Rome Gagosian gallery.

The explanation for the installation in Palazzo Rospigliosi is that Colen wanted to put his word works next to the "rape scenes," as he describes them, on the ceilings of the elaborately painted palazzo. Hm, not sure that's how we'd describe the palazzo paintings. See this description of the palazzo and its art work.

In any event, we think Dan's artistry worked. Let the images speak for themselves, for they surely do speak.

Dianne

The Piazza's Filthy: Why?

2011-11-14T01:56:00.000-08:00

Piazza Bologna is filthy--on Sunday, that is. According to La Repubblica, it's filthy (sporca) on Sunday because of funding cuts for overtime workers--gli straordinari--that have prevented L'Ama (the governmental entity in charge of cleaning Rome's streets and squares, the folks with the dark red trucks--photo, right) from hiring people to clean up on that day.

What makes it especially troubling is that the Piazza, located in an upper-middle-class area in Rome's northeast, is often an active square on Saturday nights, a place where one finds the "movida" (the getting together of large numbers of young people).

The newspapers present this as a social tragedy. The article opens with the story of a young mother pushing a stroller, only to have it hung up on a bunch of plastic cups. Worse still, a group of old people (anziani/ancients) reading newspapers on nearby benches find themselves surrounded by beer bottles, wastepaper and plastic bags. The president of the Municipio (the local jurisdiction) reported that he had received "dozens" of phone calls from area residents "infuriated" by the degraded condition of the piazza.

OK, so the piazza is a mess on Sundays, and the budget won't support overtime.  As everyone knows, Italy is a financial mess, and the city's no exception.  As the papers often say, things are "in tilt."

In a situation such as this, would it be too much to ask the local folks who enjoy Piazza Bologna on Sundays to lend a hand and pick up the trash? With 2 or 3 people--even old people--it might take 20 minutes to make the whole piazza look respectable, 3 minutes to pick up the junk around the benches and on the paths.

Yes, it is too much to ask--in Rome, anyway.  Romans have little sense of working voluntarily for the public good. If the "state" doesn't do it, it won't get done.  They pay their taxes, so the thinking goes, and that's enough.

Well, it isn't enough.   What stinks in Piazza Bologna isn't the trash, it's the attitude that most Romans have toward their public spaces, and toward lending a hand--voluntarily--to solve a public problem.
Bill   [from Dianne- okay, Italians are not Canadians, but neither are we. You're being a bit hard on them, aren't you, Bill?]

Russian Social Realism - in Rome

2011-11-10T01:31:00.000-08:00

The mix of Russian Social Realism posters with “occupiers” on the steps of Palazzo delle Esposizioni – the State’s large art gallery on via Nazionale – caught our eye (along with the protestors) recently in Rome. The posters are ads for a blockbuster show of Russian art of the school of Social Realism (not much else was permitted) from the 1920s to 1970s.

We almost camped out ourselves to see this show, because the museum was closed for almost a week of the protest (to the protestations of the protestors, btw), and the wait was worth it.

"Excuse us for the disruption;
Global revolution in process"
"We want it open"

Going in with our preconceptions about “bad” Russian Social Realism, we were amazed at the variety and quality of the painting. The panels – in both Italian and English (yay!) – provide good explanations of the evolution of the art form.

If you’re going to be in Rome before January 8, put this one on your list. And leave plenty of time. It’s a large and exhausting foray into Russian art of the last century.

Dianne

Food and Wine Happenings in Rome

2011-11-06T01:59:00.000-07:00

Cousins Massimo and Emiliano at the bar

RST loves a good party, as most of you know - and, as they say, you can too! Last month we hightailed ourselves to an event sponsored by Katie Parla (of http://www.parlafood.com/ - and a frequent contributor to the NY Times Travel Section). We were inspired in part because the event was at one of our favorite winebars, Il Bacocco, in an off-the-tourist-track part of Trastevere. We sang Il Bacocco’s praises and showed off their creative “finger food” in an earlier blog.

Yes, we said "Finger Food"

Katie arranged a Lazio (the province of Rome) wine tasting, complete with several Lazio cheeses and meats as well as explanations by sommelier Hande Leimer of vinoroma. E15 a person, with part of the proceeds going to a new food charity. Katie gives the details on her blog.

A crowd of more than 30 happily bumped shoulders with each other (Il Bacocco is small), most of us primary English speakers, almost everyone full-time residents of Rome.

Katie, presiding

A good time being had by all

Even if you’re temporarily in Rome, if you have a chance, hook up with one of Katie’s events (she held one in NYC recently also). Or if you’re just a foodie (we’re not, but she almost makes us want to be), her blog is for you. She alternatively waxes eloquent and is brutal in critiquing Rome's restaurants. Click on the Events tab to see what’s coming up.

And Hande does personal wine tastings and food tours in Rome (e.g. her "My Italians" session is Euro 50 per person and sells out regularly).

Dianne

Delivering the Meat

2011-11-02T01:02:00.000-07:00

Meat gets delivered everywhere, but perhaps not so obviously in US cities as in Rome. Indeed, we can't remember ever seeing a meat truck transporting carcasses in the United States. They surely exist, but they must do their thing in the back of supermarkets, far from the eyes of squeamish shoppers, who would rather not know they're eating animals.

We had these and other thoughts when we came upon a meat delivery, this one in front of a butcher shop on Via Gregoriana XIII, in a vibrant neighborhood known as Boccea (after Via di Boccea), to the northeast of Rome's center--behind Monte Mario and beyond, even, Parco del Pineto.

The delivery guys wore long burgundy coats (all the better to hide the bloodstains) with hoods, the latter to shield them from the cold and clammy meats that inevitably press against their heads.

Bill

Occupy the Theater: Teatro Valle Occupato in Rome

2011-10-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

the banner reads "How sad it is to be prudent - from
the theater workers" - the quote is from Argentinian
playright Rafael Spregelburd, and has become
a motto of the movement

Occupied space is a relatively current protest phenomenon starting on Wall Street this Fall. But for Romans, occupied space has been for decades a way of combining political statement with cultural events. The latest and most potent occupied space in Rome is Teatro Valle Occupato – the “occupied” 300+ year-old theater, Teatro Valle, just down the block from the large church, San Andrea della Valle, in the middle of what was ancient Rome.

Theater people – actors, musicians, technicians and their supporters – began occupying Teatro Valle in June when the government slashed support to cultural institutions and put the historic theater up for sale. Since then, tens if not hundreds of leading figures in the arts have spoken and performed there (e.g. Nanni Morretti – the Palme d’Or winning Italian director, and Stefano Bollani, one of the country’s top jazz pianists, playright Dario Fo, Italy's all-time top-selling novelist Andrea Camilleri). Self-management has resulted in daily programming of high quality, seminars, lectures, even guided tours.

Mamet was first performed in Rome here

We asked our Roman friends how the occupation can continue. Why doesn’t the government simply shut off the water and lights? Aren’t there safety issues? The answer seems to be that some levels of government (and the safety inspectors who apparently do come and inspect) are complicit. And thousands of people have been to the theater for something at sometime. In other words, it's beloved. The government is faced with an unpopular showdown if it tries to close “il Valle” (“the Valley”), as it’s often referred to. Hm, sounds a bit familiar just now.

Jazz musicians at il Valle

For anyone in Rome or going to Rome, perhaps even the first time, we recommend a stop at Teatro Valle, which seems to be open 24/7, and definitely a performance if your timing is right. And look for the book launch of the Italian translation of David Foster Wallace's posthumous (and incomplete) The Pale King soon at il Valle.

For more information, Teatro Valle’s website has some information in English (click on the British flag), including an October article in London’s The Guardian. There’s a lot more information in Italian that you can access using an online translator.

Until recently, to us in the U.S., the notion of an occupied space has been, well, foreign. When we’ve tried to explain to our American friends that many cultural events in Rome take place in occupied spaces, they just don’t understand it. But there they are. Many last a few months, some for decades. In the latter camp are Forte Prenestino and Angelo Mai (both featured in Rome the Second Time). And some evolve – through much work on the part of their supporters – into government-recognized and often supported spaces, such as Casa Internazionale delle Donne, International Women’s House (also in RST).

Some see Teatro Valle Occupato as distinct from these other occupied spaces. The ones we mentioned started as social centers, they say. The Valley started as a distinct protest. We're not sure that distinction is so clear. The Casa Internazionale delle Donne had protest beginnings as well. In any event, are there models here for us in the normally more-law-abiding US, whose cultural budgets seem to be getting similarly gored?

Dianne

Advertising: Totti's Cucchiaio

2011-10-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

"Clearly," intones the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard in Ian McEwan's recent novel, Solar, "advertising was an industry for third-raters." The remark gave us pause, and cause to reflect on the cast of ad execs that populates one of our favorite TV shows, Mad Men. Even so, we always enjoy scanning the latest evanescent products of the industry when we land in the Eternal City.

For the current expedition, the early favorite is a series of advertisements made for Sky, the satellite company owned by Rupert Murdoch, a competitor of Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset Premium Calcio.

Many of Italy's most famous soccer players are featured in the series. We were particularly struck (and mystified) by this illuminated Metro billboard featuring the iconic captain and star of AS Roma: Francesco Totti. Dressed in Roma colors and surrounded by Roman ruins--one of which appears to be a cross between the Coliseum and a modern soccer stadium--Totti looks gratefully to heaven, the source of the Sky "miracle": calcio (soccer) for only E29 per month. Our Rome friends (and Roma fans) were aghast at the hypocriscy of suggesting that E29 was inexpensive, and--more important--surprised that Italians would tolerate, much less appreciate, an ad campaign that rather distastefully fused the national sport with religious imagery.

And the spoon? What's with the spoon that Totti brandishes? What's that all about? In Italian the word is "cucchiaio" and, as our friends--we're at dinner when we're talking about his--immediately made clear, Totti is famous for the "cucchiaio." That is, he's widely known and admired for the soft, spoon-like shots that he has put into opposing nets over the years, shots that seem especially compelling and endearing coming from a big man with one of the game's hardest shots. Our Roma tifoso (fan) M. waxed eloquent and fondly over a particularly fine example, a penalty kick on which Totti waited for the keeper (goaltender) to move, then "spooned" to ball gently into the center of the net.

You'll find all the videos easily enough; just put Totti and "cu" into a search engine. Or click on this link for 4 minutes of the best of Totti's "cucchiai."

Bill

Pier Luigi Nervi: Palazzetto dello Sport

2011-10-21T01:36:00.000-07:00

Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazzetto dello Sport (little palace of sport) sits on its own small piece of land in the Flaminio district, a thing apart. It's a stone's throw (even for this tired old wing) from the Parco della Musica, so we've been by it, and around it, many times over the last few years, admiring its space-age design while wondering why the roof always seemed to need a coat of paint. Bill recalls being inside in 1962 with a touring group of Stanford students, unsure what to think of the building, which was new then, having been constructed for volleyball and other events at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

The Palazzetto beckoned on a recent trip to the neighborhood, when the late afternoon light drew our attention to the building's striking colored glass windows.

Walking around the exterior, we found an open entrance (!) and walked in. Voilà. Some very good volleyball players were practicing. We admired the space, took some pictures and, not wanting to press our luck further, left. A few hours later we photographed the same windows, from outside (photo at top). Lovely.
Bill

Rome is Burning: The People take to the Streets

2011-10-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

A building burning ahead on via Labicana

On Saturday we found ourselves much too close to some of the violence in Rome’s “Gli indignati” (“the indignant ones”) massive demonstration. We joined what we thought was a peaceful and lively march about 4 p.m. at the Coliseum (2 hours after the appointed starting time and about 2 miles into the route). We were enjoying reading (and translating) the various banners, stickers, sign-boards, flags that the protesters were carrying… representing dozens of groups, including feminists, unions, the handicapped, the unemployed, Palestinians, Communists, and social and cultural organizations. (And see Bill's prior post on the camp-in and protests in Rome leading up to this march.)

What we didn’t know was that some violence had already occurred on via Cavour: four autos set on fire, two banks and a supermarket (to shouts of "riprendiamoci la ricchezza per distribuirla" [we're taking back the wealth to redistribute it]) attacked, according to today’s papers.

Within a few blocks on via Labicana, moving uphill from the Coliseum, we saw ahead billowing black smoke and white smoke, and we could hear the booms of explosions and see the fire from what looked like Molotov cocktails in the air. The crowd in front of us turned and started running more than once. We turned too, and ran, but then the crowd seemed to turn back and start up again. This was not like any march we had ever been in.

Riot police and marchers in confrontation on
via Labicana

After a few blocks, we passed Carabinieri (State police forces) in riot gear, blocking the road, but not the sidewalks.

We passed a burning building – later learning it was a Defense Department building, apparently used (perhaps in the past) as a storehouse--and a string of smoking cassonetti (garbage containers) (photo at right).

As we made a right turn up via Merulana to Piazza San Giovanni, the endpoint and supposed focal point of the march, we saw more overturned garbage bins blocking the streets, some of them burning; forceful arguments between groups of demonstrators, including one episode in which people carrying Communist flags were threatened; and men in helmets, prepared for combat (photo at left).

Smoke from fires at a via Merulana intersection

Although we saw people dressed in black with masks over their faces, it was hard for us to tell the “Black Bloc” people – described as evil-doers by most people, fascists or anarchists by others, or just thugs-- from those who were simply trying to cover their noses and mouths from the smoke and tear gas. This is the first time we can recall inhaling tear gas and feeling that acrid irritation in the sinuses. There were also people eating and sharing lemons – again, attempts to fend off the tear gas.

Black smoke in Piazza San Giovanni, likely
from a Carabinieri van set ablaze

We made it to Piazza San Giovanni, where we found an enormous crowd. (The piazza is said to hold nearly 1,000,000 for rock music concerts and seemed nearly full when we arrived, and there was a huge mass of people behind us, flowing up via Merulana.) There were more black smoke clouds…clouds we did not want to approach but likely were from a Carabinieri van that was set ablaze.

COBAS union flags held high in Piazza San Giovanni;
the Scala Santa (Holy Steps) in back.

We found our way to the steps of that immense basilica (San Giovanni in Laterano – St. John the Lateran), from where one can see for blocks, but we also could feel that we might end up pinned in the piazza – not a place we wanted to be if crowds started running or became more violent.

Looking forward to the revolution and a cup of beer

We decided at that point the rally—billed as an event without leaders--was not going to have the normal speeches and focus (in spite of some huge trucks moving through the piazza with loudspeakers and…beer), and that we had better get out of the piazza while we could. We headed back down a smaller street, but one familiar to us, again towards the Coliseum.

"We'll find the street or we'll open a new one" - banner
in peaceful section of the march around the Coliseum

When we passed the Coliseum, we saw what looked like even more of the march, now an hour and a half later…thick with people, banners, chanting, and completely peaceful. These marchers, several hundred thousand, we estimate, were directed away from the route to Piazza San Giovanni, around the Coliseum and next to the Palatine Forum, toward Circo Massimo. This part of the march seemed to have more of a happy ending, or perhaps just a fizzle out.

To us, the length of the march, in time and distance, indicated close to a million people were in the Rome streets--and not that many riot police.

Peaceful marchers with Arch of Constantine in back

Today, as we read the papers, listen to the politicians’ take, and talk to our Roman friends, the consensus is that a small group of “fascists” – the Black Bloc guys – ruined the march for Rome and the people protesting, that the media seemed interested only in the violence, not the political statements being made. The Rome mayor, from a right-wing party, declared “i veri indignati sono i citidini” – “the true indignant ones are the citizens of Rome”, and that the “worst of Europe came here” – i.e., the Black Bloc members are, in essence, outside agitators.

Part of the "mess on via Merulana", the title of a
well-known Italian novel

We are left with many more questions than answers. Why aren’t these Black Bloc folks arrested before they start throwing rocks (the large “sampietrini” or cobble stones that make up most of Rome’s streets) and fire bombs? Or when they do it? Why were riot police barely a presence? Are the police complicit in “ruining” the march? Does the State want some violence so it can crack down on the left? Does the violence of a few “ruin” the political statement of many? Does the concept of indignation about economic policies that harm millions of people get subverted into indignation on the part of politicians and merchants? Can one have a successful march that is so “democratic” it has no leadership? Is what happened particular to Italy or Rome?

Bill and Dianne

The Indignant Ones: Rome joins the Wall Street Protests

2011-10-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

It was Thursday, October 13. We had parked the scooter on the Quirinale hill and walked a couple of blocks to the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, one of Rome's great museums and the site of a major exhibition of Soviet art. But when we came down the long stairs toward Via Nazionale, two large blue-and-white police vans, staffed by a dozen officers, signified something afoot, and when we turned the corner onto Via Nazionale, we found the steps of the museum crowded with tents and dozens of young people, talking and making banners--maybe planning a revolution. The museum was closed, for "security reasons," and not scheduled to reopen until Sunday.

We had stumbled upon the protests of the "indignati"--the indignant ones--modeled after the "indignados" of Madrid and, in the United States, the Wall Street protesters. Here in Rome, their target was the Bankitalia (the Bank of Italy), located just down the street from the museum. Apparently the first tents were in front of the Bank, spilling into the street and seriously disrupting the traffic--and the bus routes--on one of the city's busiest thoroughfares. A "braccio di ferro" with the police--literally "arm of iron" but translatable as a "trial of strength"--moved the tents off the street and onto the steps of the museum.

"Gli indignati" also call themselves the "Dragi rebelli"--Dragi rebels. Dragi refers to Mario Dragi, departing president of the Bank of Italy and the next head of the European central bank. Conveniently, Dragi also means "dragons," so the Rome movement has a convenient symbol--the dragon. Dragi is an advocate of immediate and severe budget cuts, beyond those generally suggested. Like right-wingers in the United States, he claims these actions will restore growth and benefit Italy's legions of young unemployed. But the "indignati" aren't buying Dragi's line or his stature as head of Italy's biggest bank. They jokingly refer to Bankitalia as "Banca d'Itaglia" (pronounced similarly, but meaning "Bank of the Cuts"). In the lingo of the rebels, another large bank, Banca Intesa, becomes Banca Intrusa (intrusive) and Unicredit becomes Unidebit--not too hard to figure out, even if you don't know Italian. Thus far it's been a good-humored movement: lots of singing and dancing.

On the steps at the University of Rome (La
Sapienza): Continue the encampment in Via Nazionale
after the forced removal of last night! Today at
4 p.m. everyone to Via Nazionale. The protest
continues. October 15 has already begun! Rise Up.

Although centered on the young, the movement is diverse; it includes environmentalists, university research assistants, various youth associations, some union people, many undergraduates, and thousands of people brought together spontaneously through Facebook and Twitter. They oppose the privatization of the water systems; defend the public schools and the universities from budget cuts; and want the banks--and not citizens--held responsible if the state fails to make its payments. They oppose Dragi's austerity measures. They know the Berlusconi government is troubled and fragile, and they hope their mobilization will prove powerful enough to bring it down.

Another part of the movement, seemingly separate but contributing to the state's anxieties about public order, is an anti-government group centered around Gaetano Ferrieri, a 54 year old Venetian who has been fasting for 131 days (and lost 20 kilos). Ferrieri has presented the government with 3 petitions, calling for the elimination of government waste and bureaucracy (and excessive stipends for managers) and for reform of the Italian election laws. But so far he's been ignored by the authorities.

Seen at Montecitorio, the Italian "house."
I love Italy. I am with Gaetano Ferrieri.

Like the Dragi Rebelli, Ferrieri's legions have taken to the streets, blocking traffic on Via del Corso while singing "Fratelli d'Italia." Although Ferrieri's hunger strike began long before protests on Wall Street set things moving worldwide, Gaetano shares the basic concerns of the Dragi rebels. "I giovani oggi," he says, "non hanno futuro, non hanno prospettive. Non siamo rassegnati, siamo indignati." Today's youth have no future, no prospects. We are not resigned, we are indignant.

Saturday, October 15 is a big day for the movement. A poster for the event employs the slogan, "Yes we camp"--in English--a combination of the Palazzo tents and "yes we can." The rebels hope to have 150,000 people in the streets--in "piazza" as they say--culminating at Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano. But they also insist that the movement will go on, that the occupation will continue. "Portate una tenda," they say: bring a tent.

Bill

Vernissage-hopping: An Evening in Rome

2011-10-11T01:41:00.000-07:00

Guerrieri at far right in khaki jacket

One of our (i.e. Rome the Second Time’s) favorite evenings is to do some serial vernissage hopping. That is, we check out a few art openings on the same evening. Recently there were 4 listed in Trova Roma, 2 within a nice walk of each other and 2 others further away. We started with one in the Centro, on via di Monserrato, home to several upscale galleries.

Dianne trying to figure out what it all means

The show here at Galleria Ricerca d’Arte is a 50-year retrospective of the Italian abstract painter, Franceso Guerrieri. The crowd here was older and tonier than we’re used to seeing at openings, no doubt because of Guerrieri’s stature in the Italian art hierarchy. The paintings are bold and visually arresting, if not in our usual canon of likes; and the vernissage was very much in our canon – full glasses of wine, substantial offerings of food, including little panini and Dianne's favorite: almonds. And, medieval Rome. Hard to beat.

We wandered through the curving streets, across the Tevere to Trastevere and an opening at a small gallery at the end of via San Francesco de Sales, nestled near the looming gates of a centuries-old villa.

Sculptor Guillermo Mora's work

Dianne still trying to figure out
what it means

At galleria “extraspazio” the artist is a 30-year old Spanish sculptor, Guillermo Mora. In keeping with the theme, the vernissage – outside on the street near the small gallery – included sangria and guacamole. The sculptures here, with the title “No Fixed Form," are certainly that. We heard a lot of Spanish being spoken.

But, placed in the gallery like installations (in corners, at angles, up high, down low), the works gave us much to talk about. And I would’ve taken one back to the states, if I could; they’d look at home in Los Angeles. And, to cap a wonderful opening, a daughter of a good friend recognized us and came by to talk for a bit. In Rome, a city of 4 million, and we run into someone we know!

Vernissage in Trastevere

We took one last stab at a gallery with the name “fuori centro” – outside the center. It isn’t too far from where we’re living. But by the time we made our way there at 9 p.m., it was closed. Even with that (a new venture into a new area), we deemed this gallery-hopping evening a grand success. Dianne

It's a Women's World: 8 Women Artists in Rome from the 70s to Today

2011-10-08T01:22:00.000-07:00

Temple University’s current exhibit in Rome underscores our mantra that one should go to the less glitzy and less publicized exhibits. Temple’s current show of 8 Italian women artists, spanning the period from the 70s to the present, is “da non perdere” – i.e., not to be missed.

The women tell their stories about being artists in a period of intense feminism, and the meaning of those heady years for their work today.

The show features a work from each artist’s earlier period plus a contemporary work. Panels in Italian and English give insight into the Italian women artists and their role in 20^th and 21st century art, because of the documentary information provided.

The show is mounted in collaboration with Rome’s Casa Internazionale delleDonne (“International Women’s House” – also noted in Rome the Second Time, as one of the city-sponsored – sort-of – “case” or “houses” of culture). “Il mondo e’ delle donne: Artiste a Roma tra anni ’70 e oggi” (“It's a women’s world: Women Artists in Rome from the 70s to today”; btw, some debate in the family about the translation). It is the first of several collaborations – to which we say “bravo”! The show – unfortunately from our perspective – is up only until October 14. Run, don’t walk. [And while you're running, run to the City's 4 big contemporary art galleries (MAXXI, MACRO - both, and G.N.A.M.) today, Oct. 8 - free as part of Contemporary Art Day in Italy.]

We couldn’t find a website for the Temple show, but for more information, contact Shara Wasserman, director of exhibitions, at s.wasserman@tiscalinet.it. Temple is at Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia 15, just a bit beyond Piazza del Popolo. The gallery is open 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and by appointment on weekends. Dianne

Craftsmanship in Rome: a Liutare in the Centro

2011-10-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

Rome the Second Time made a “find” in the Centro one recent evening. While strolling the medieval streets near Ponte Mazzini between art openings (tough duty, but…), we were entranced by the window of a “Liutare” – which we soon learned is a violin-maker.

The glimpses inside the large (for this area of Rome) store were mesmerizing: all types of stringed instruments – new and old – in a beautiful room that looked like the home of a craftsman. As we were peering in the window, a man appeared, opened the door and invited us in. He explained his craft and also invited us to his workshop in back, where three younger men were at work on various instruments. He introduced one as from Prague, another as his “son” – apparently in the sense of someone who is learning his business.

Our kind host was Claude Lebet, a “Maestro Liutaio” – Master Violin maker-- and also an author of an impressively large book (in Italian and English) on the history of violin making in Rome. Originally Swiss, Libet has lived in Italy for more than 30 years.

We lamented to Maestro Lebet that artisans seemed to be being driven out of the Centro by upscale shops, galleries, and wine bars. But, we added, his was obviously a high-end artisanship and could survive here. But he too said rents were getting very high, and indicated it was difficult even for him to remain in the City.

Claude Lebet at left

We took our leave of Maestro Lebet and his magnificent workshop, thinking how lucky we were to have stumbled on it. And, we recommend a stop here for you too. Via di Monserrato 149/150. www.claudelebet.com.

Dianne

Ponte della Musica: Rome's new Bridge to Nowhere

2011-09-30T01:11:00.000-07:00

There's a new bridge in town. Dianne says it's called the Ponte della Musica (music bridge), and I have no reason to doubt her, or hardly any. The name makes sense because it was installed to link the new left-bank museum and music area of Flaminio-- consisting primarily of Zaha Hadid's monumental MAXXI (museum) and Renzo Piano's Parco della Musica (music park), which looks downright humble next to Hadid's enormous concrete construction--with the right bank of the Tevere.

Ponte della Musica, from the right bank.

We had never seen the bridge, but knew it to be controversial. Some--not just "experts" but residents of the area--wonder why it was built at all, since it doesn't seem to connect to much of a neighborhood across the Tevere.

Looking toward Monte Mario. The center
surface is asphalt, the sides wooden planks.

Yes, the northern portion of Prati is at the left when one crosses, but straight ahead is the uninhabited rise of Monte Mario, and to the right (north) Olympic Stadium (where the soccer teams play) and an enormous fascist sports complex, built in the 1930s. On our visit, the bridge appeared to be populated mostly by joggers--who also use the right bank of the Tevere here--whose running range has no doubt been greatly expanded by the structure. Although the bridge is capable of accepting automobile traffic--not clear how much--at the moment it is open only to pedestrians.

A private athletic club on the Flaminio side.
Looks like it lost a tennis court or two.

Others have criticized the bridge for having wooden walkways (sure to weather poorly, and difficult if not impossible to clean when the graffiti writers land). It's likely, too, that the private atheletic clubs that populate the banks of the Tevere on this part of the river lost some land in the process or had their luxurious--and, until one could walk out on this bridge, hidden--lairs revealed for the ordinary public to see and envy.

Ship ahoy! Note the handrails, inspired by the
Queen Mary.

Still, we like this bridge, with its sleek, rolling, boat-like, naval look. It may be Italy's bridge to nowhere, but it's elegant and sea-worthy, and it's about time something was done for runners. Perhaps they should call it Ponte delle Joggers.
Bill

p.s. One of our readers was disappointed that we hadn't included information on the bridge's architect/designer. So...the bridge had its origins in a partnership between Davood Liaghat, who was chief bridge engineer
at the Buro Happold firm, and London architect
Kit Powell-Williams, who was working in Rome with
the engineering firm C. Lottie e Associati. Buro
Happold won a design competition for the structure in 2000.

Genazzano: The Art and Science of Fried Dough

2011-09-27T01:28:00.000-07:00

Not long ago we found ourselves among thousands (literally) of others, wandering the streets of Genazzano, a hilltown to Rome's east, just beyond Palestrina. The sun had set, and the teens were off by themselves at the end of town, some (of the boys) engaging in mock combat, others sitting on the ground in groups in a dark piazza framed on one side by ancient aqueducts and on the other by a sensational view of the valley and the Lepini mountains beyond. They knew what they were doing.

We spent most of our time on the town's main streets, people watching, at once entertained and bored by an improvisational dance troup of limited talent and a New Orleans-style jazz band doing their version of Dixieland.

Eating was the order of the evening--several of the piazzas had been strung with wire that was then draped with cut branches, creating arbor-like open-air restaurants.

We had already dined at our 3-star Hotel Cremona, but Dianne's sweet tooth beckoned, and she lined up for that festival staple, fried dough with sugar, sensibly rejecting the alternatives: fried dough with salt or smeared with Nutella, a commercial product made of chocolate and hazel nuts. The sign at the booth labeled these concoctions "Pizze Fritte [literally, fried pizzas] Da Sora Cesira [by Sister/Nun Cesira]." Probably the best translation would be "Sister Cesira's Fried Dough." 1 Euro.

It took about 10 minutes for Dianne to be served--for a reason that will soon become clear--enough time for Bill to study and photograph the "assembly line," consisting entirely of older women. One woman mixed the dough. Another shaped it into right-sized balls. A third flattened it into a rounded form and, using her thumb, put a small hole in the center.

The last on the line placed the dough into a tub of boiling oil--one after the other--turning each one to assure uniform cooking and browning, then removing them for sugaring (or salting or Nutella-ing), at the other end of the line.

Dianne's wait was predictable; there was only one tub of boiling oil, the tub held only 10-12 pieces of dough, and the cooking took about ten minutes (maybe 8). Delicious, even if not so nutritious.
Bill

Cinecittà - Don't Miss Rome's Hollywood

2011-09-23T01:08:00.000-07:00

We have longed for years to get onto the world-famous Italian movie studio, Cinecittà. But it’s always been completely closed to visitors (unless you are rich AND famous), as we note in Rome the Second Time. All of a

Finally going through the gates

sudden, it’s open, thanks to a long-running exhibition of artifacts from the fabled studio’s history. What’s more, unadvertised tours of several of the back lots leave every hour (a.m.) and every hour and a half (p.m.). Supposedly all this ends November 30 when the exhibition closes, but, as in many things Italian, it may just keep going. So if you’re in Rome, and love films as much as we do, check out the Cinecittà website to make sure the studios are open, and hie yourself there! If you take Metro A to the Cinecittà exit, you’ll pop up right in front of the studio gates. The show is 10 Euros with lots of discounted tickets (youth, students, olders, etc.). Open 10:30-7:30; closed Tuesdays; special children's area open Saturday and Sunday only.

Dirk Bogarde's costume
from The Night Porter

Back lot for Scorcese's
Gangs of New York and other films

Back lot for US TV series, Rome,
with our guide, Francesca

As the tour will tell you (there is some info in English), the studio was founded under Mussolini, at the direction of a politico who studied studios in Europe and went on to propose the largest on what was then the outskirts of Rome. It was quickly built and opened in 1937, then briefly used by the Germans during the 1943/44 occupation. It still hosts the largest studio in Europe and was the favorite place for Fellini, Sergio Leone, and many others. No, it’s not like those Universal Studio tours in LA or Disneyland, but it’s authentic.

Cinecitta' Due

If you want to do a two-fer, the fairly glitzy shopping mall, Cinecittà Due is just down the street. It has a very nice gallery on the top floor with a current exhibition – closing 6 November-- on the theme of aqueducts (they know the way to our hearts). Dianne

Photo in the Aqueduct exhibit

Watercolor in Aqueduct exhibit - by Calatrava

Golf Bags and Blood Vats - Rome's Art Scene

2011-09-20T01:44:00.000-07:00

Italy’s ability to put in contradistinction almost anything – art and labor, history and design, the repellant and the beautiful – never ceases to engage us. And MACRO Testaccio – an evolving part of the city-sponsored contemporary art gallery - has always been one of our favorite Rome locales for these contexts.

We recently marveled at the design winners in the show there that ends Sunday – the last 3 years GoldenCompass winners from the Association of Industrial Design in Italy.

Dental station

Everything from toilets to purses, bedroom lighting to sports equipment (the golf bag for my Dad), dental office equipment (right). All is set in one of the largest buildings (La Pelanda) of this former slaughterhouse in the Testaccio neighborhood. Even the blood-letting vats still stand – just a few steps from elegant dining room décor.

And we like MACRO Testaccio’s hours – 4 p.m. to midnight (except Mondays), and the other art and performances there. The evening we were at the “Made in Italy and National Identity” show we also saw a couple performance pieces by artists from the international group, “Black Market International”(as to what they meant, we’re have very few ideas, tho’ we tried – the accordion and the slowly moving bell that finally rings? The man wrapped up with little pieces of paper and string?).

The bar at MACRO Testaccio is clearly becoming one of Rome’s hot spots. And the woman in the see-through blouse just added to the atmosphere.

MARCO Testaccio is open only when there’s a show, and the price can vary (the design show is Euro 4, but somehow we got in free). Check out the current shows at their website (this is the English version). Dianne

Fashion's Night Out: Photos from Rome

2011-09-16T04:25:00.000-07:00

Nudo in Vetrina (nude in store window), as Eve at Gattinoni on Via Sistina. Object of the Gaze.

Our new friend Giorgio, the London School of Economics grad and tv newsman who's behind the new website Buzz in Rome, certainly had the right idea when we asked him if he would be attending Fashion's Night Out (Notte della Moda): "I don't like to shop." We don't either, but we couldn't resist poking around in what promised to be a huge outdoor event on a warm, late summer evening--450 shops in and around the already glitzy Spanish Steps area--especially, Bill notes, when one of the attractions was "nudo in vetrina" (nude in a shop window). We took some photos, and here they are, complete with captions. Bill

The event was produced by Vogue, which
had done something similar in Milan recently--but never Rome.
The lady in red just happened to walk by.

Selling cars near the Spanish Steps.

Broadcasting near Piazza San Silvestro.

An advertising slogan for Lancia's Ypsilon auto moves across the building.

The woman in the store window was mixing chemicals.
Why, we don't know. Woman in red, surrounded by her partner and 3 saleswomen
who no doubt were telling her how great she looked, was close to
actually buying the coat (probably several thousand Euro).

The only food and drink we found. The Asian
guy at top was pouring small glasses of wine from
pitchers, and there were small bowls of nuts, overly
policed by a tall woman.

I thought I was lucky to catch this couple in their
embrace. But the embrace lasted for several minutes.

Camper, which sells high ends shoes, had a DJ.

Free event T-shirts? Sorry. E25 (about $40)

Dressed for the occasion.

View from the Spanish Steps, looking down Via Condotti.
What would Keats - who died overlooking these steps - have thought?

The wrong place to be driving a car, or even a scooter.
Lots of frustrated motorists.

Peel me a Fig: Dinner with Friends

2011-09-14T01:19:00.000-07:00

A lovely meal with friends. We are embarrassed to say that this was our introduction to "coppiette," a rope-like strand of dried, spicy meat (akin to our beef jerky, though more tender and not packaged in plastic). Here, chopped into small, bite-size pieces, the perfect complement to a glass of wine.

The main course was a delicious "ruote" (wheels) pasta, the ingredients, including dried pachino tomatoes and capers, brought from Sicily.

Figs--fresh and dried, for comparison and contrast--for dessert, along with a lesson in how to select a perfect, ripe fig: make sure the green "shirt" is "torn" (slightly open) and there's a small hole at the bottom. Peel and eat. As Jack Kerouac wrote of the apple pie he consumed at stops across the country, "it was delicious, and nutritious of course."

For figs he might have added, "sensual." On the sensuous fig, we have the testimony of D.H. Lawrence in his poem, "Figs." "The vulgar way [to eat a fig]," he wrote, "is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite."

"The fig is a very secretive fruit" [continued Lawrence].
"As you see it standing, growing, you feel at once it is symbolic.
And it seems male.

But when you come to know it better, you agree with the
Romans, it is female.

The Italians vulgarly say, it stands for the female part, the fig-fruit:
The fissure, the moist conductivity, towards the centre."

It's a hot, steamy, late-summer evening. Time for a fig.
Bill

Rome's Mill Stream

2011-09-11T01:54:00.000-07:00

Water is one of the great unifying themes of Rome – the ancient Romans, Popes, and modern Romans just couldn’t and can’t stop working with it. We found yet another example at our current address: via della Marrana in the Tuscolana district (behind the Tuscolana train station, about 2 miles south of San Giovanni in Laterano at the city's ancient walls). The street takes an odd course, we noticed – and one can see this from a map overlay. So what does “Marrana” mean, we wanted to know, and what’s with the zig-zag street?

Nearby remains of 2 aqueducts on
via del Mandrione

One gets a sense of via della Marrana's watery
curves from this photo - complete with scootering

Turns out the answer is something like “the old [as in 1000 years] mill stream,” and “marrana” or “marana” means swamp or standing water. How to reconcile this? What seems clear is that via della Marrana follows a stream (perhaps now underneath the street, or once next to it) down from the aqueducts that sit atop the rise at the end of the street, and that several mills were sited here. One plausible explanation is that a short-term Pope, Callistus II (1119-1124) diverted a river Marana (that starts in the Colli Albani near Grottaferrata, some dozen miles from Rome) at several points until it flowed along the aqueducts (or used some of the aqueduct channels underground), and then he poured it down the hill above us to get water to San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John the Lateran – at that time the central administrative church of the papacy).

In more modern times, there were still mills along this street, at least one partially functioning within the past 10 years. The street is now in its post-industrial age, and that particular enterprise, which specialized in milling maize before World War II, now is comprised of condos. More on this post-industrial district and its conversion to residential use in a future post (we know you’re fascinated!).

Molina Natalini, the Natalani Mill, now condos
on via della Marrano

Dianne

PS – lots of controversy on the topic, but the word “marano” meaning standing water or swamp may come from the ponds that were located at certain points along the stream.

On Via Tuscolana

2011-09-08T01:25:00.000-07:00

We're happily ensconced in new digs off via Tuscolana, one of 7 Roman Consular roads leading out of the city (this one goes east and south to the ancient city of Tuscolo [hence the name] in the Alban Hills). Via Tuscolana begins about a mile from here, near the roundabout Re di Roma, goes under the train tracks and by the Tuscolana station--close enough to our apartment so that we could (and did) walk from there, with all our bags. Dianne was exhilarated by the effort, and I write that without irony.

Once settled in, we headed for one of the many (rather ordinary) bars on via Tuscolana, ordered a large ("grande") bottle of beer, two glasses ("due bicchieri") and something to nibble ("stuzzuchini"--in this case, potato chips), took it all outside to a table in the shade and watched the Roman world go by--or, should I say, the rather scruffy, middle-class Roman world of busy via Tuscolana (at via Amelia), still on holiday.

We hadn't been there five minutes when a dumpster-diver came along, looking for whatever (see pic at right--you'll have to lean forward; the guy kinda blends in).

More photogenic was the young woman who picked our corner to perform her ice cream cone. Ah, Roma.
Bill

Decadent Culture - the Rome Connection

2011-09-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

Readers, bear with me. There is a Rome connection.

Design of monocled figure,
from The Chap-Book (1894)

The picture at right is a representation of “decadent” culture. Decadent culture was always a minority culture, but it was important. It peaked in Europe and the United States in the 1880s and 1890s and again in the 1920s.

Oscar Wilde

Decadence is related to the word “decay,” and a culture of decadence emerges and flowers at those moments when nations are perceived to be in decay. In Europe, this sense of decay tracks the beginnings of the decline of European empires, or the perception that a given national economy is in decline (for example, the English economy in the late 19th century). In the United States, a sub-culture of decadence emerges when the idea grows that the great American “frontier” is closing, taking with it the frontier strengths and virtues of independence, individualism, and manliness. In both the European and the US situations, some people—those involved in the culture of decadence—

Gabrielle D'Annunzio, poet
flyer and Fascist, in an unusual pose

begin to think that their nations are populated by overcivilized weaklings. Not only do they hink that, but they ACT IT OUT, presenting themselves as examples of these overcivilized, overschooled, exhausted weaklings, as dudes and dandies caught up in their own personal version of erotic, immoral, pessimistic, bored decadence—and, oddly enough, enjoying it in a perverse sort of way. There were sub-cultures of decadence in most large US cities, each with their own ways of acting out and presenting decadence. The Boston decadents celebrated Oscar Wilde. And in Chicago there was a small circle of admirers of—hey, we’re getting to Italy here—the Italian poet Gabrielle D’Annunzio.

Which brings me to Rome. The connection is really quite straightforward. While the decadents were mainly concerned about decline and decay in their own societies, the MODEL for decline was ancient Rome. According to a well-known theory of decay and degeneration, “in Rome, at the Decline, we find precisely as at the present day, an unraveling of all moral bonds, ferocity in manners, unsparing egotism, sensualism and brutality; we find multitudes whose loathing of life impels them to suicide.”

The American decadents believed there was a very close relationship between the decline of the Roman Empire and the decline of the United States in the Gilded Age of the late-19th century: both were caused by a society that valued great wealth and the acquisition of things (economic man) over love, women, and making babies. “Taking history as a whole,” wrote one decadent, women seem never to have more than moderately appealed to the sense of the economic man. The monied magnate seldom ruins himself for love, and chivalry would have been as foreign to a Roman senator under Diocletian, as it would be now to a Lombard Street banker.” American architecture of the period, so the comparison went, was just as taudry, ostentatious, and overly adorned as the Roman architecture of the third century. Chicago’s lavish, sumptuously adorned White City fair of 1893 was as decadent as Caracalla’s over-elaborate baths.

You can read all about Roman decadence in Edgar Saltus’s Imperial Purple (1892). His motto was “I am, therefore I suffer.” Here’s how Saltus imagined a banquet in Augustan Rome: “…the guests lay, fanned by boys, whose curly hair they used for napkins. Under the supervision of a butler the courses were served on platters so large that they covered the tables; sows’ breasts with Lybian truffles; dormice baked in poppies and honey; peacock-tongues flavored with cinnamon; oysters stewed in garum—a sauce made of the intestines of fish—sea-wolves from the Baltic; sturgeons from Rhodes; fig-peckers from Samos; African snails; pale beans in pink lard; and a yellow pig cooked after the Trojan fashion, from which, when carved, hot sausages fell and live thrushes flew.” I can’t wait to try a fig-pecker.

With thanks for your indulgence, and thanks to David Weir’s Decadent Culture in the United States (2008).

Bill

Parking in Rome

2011-08-29T01:43:00.000-07:00

While thinking of something to say about the soap opera "Parking in Rome," I was reminded of evenings spent some years ago in the Re di Roma area, sitting on the window ledge of our 2nd floor apartment, watching at dusk as frustrated drivers circled the block, then circled again, and again, hoping against hope that a space would open up.

Especially in the neighborhoods, where parking enforcement is weak or nonexistent, drivers are not particular about where they park. If the regular spots are occupied, the crosswalk will do (see above left, with the car directly astride the white pedestrian-crossing lines), or the sidewalk (at right). Another
technique, though one that undermines the value of owning a vehicle, is to never move the car.

Some neighborhoods, like Piazza Bologna, have taken measures to prevent these transgressions, installing raised curbs guarded by sturdy posts at the four corners of intersections, and sometimes extending the sidewalks into the intersection to minimize the area available to rogue parkers.

In the near-burb of San Paolo, where these photos were taken, authorities met the parking crisis by converting a major vehicular underpass into a parking area (left). All the vehicles in the photo, including those in the foreground and center/back, are parked. Bill

Alberto Sordi: a Roman in Rome

2011-08-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

If you're shopping for movie posters in Rome, three, as we recall, are ubiquitous: Anita Ekberg cavorting in the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita (1960); Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck on a Vespa in Roman Holiday (1953); and Alberto Sordi putting spaghetti into his mouth in Un Americano a Roma (An American in Rome) [1954].

If you've never heard of Sordi, you're not alone, though if you expressed that ignorance to an Italian you'd be judged insane or demented. Sordi's illustrious career as an actor spanned 61 years and included 148 roles. Among his best-known films were The White Sheik (1952) and I Vitelloni (1953), both directed by Fellini, and Lo Scapolo (The Bachelor) [1955] and Un Borghese Piccolo (An Average Little Man) 1977, whose title suggests one of his most common roles. He also directed 18 films.

Sordi was Roman to the core--so much so, the story goes, that he was kicked out of Milan's dramatic arts academy for his thick Roman accent. He was born in Rome, raised in the quartiere of Garbatella and by his schoolteacher mother and musician father, and when he died in Rome in February 2003, more than a million people came to the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano to pay their respects (these days, an equal number appear in that square only for free rock concerts), and some 250,000 came to the funeral (right).

Garbatella remains proud of its native son. On one of its curvy streets, you'll find evidence of that pride: a wall-size painting, featuring Sordi's portrait and an abbreviated--if still impressively long--filmography.

Remember the name--Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone (big Albert)--especially when talking to an Italian, especially in Rome, and above all in Garbatella.
Bill

The White Vans of Rome

2011-08-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

Rome is well known for its scooters. But there's another vehicle that deserves attention. One of our Roman friends--which one we can't recall--drew our attention to the unmarked, white vans that seem to be everywhere on the streets of the city. They're long and bulky and surely a parking nightmare; not the natural choice for a commuter or a small family, and the working-class guys who in the states feel tough in their trucks would in Rome probably prefer the masculinity of a motorcycle or even a substantial scooter. So the vans they're likely to be commercial vehicles, but without the markings that would identify and publicize the business. And they're all over the place. Bill

We shot this for the Scuola Elementare, a nice example of Fascist public architecture. The white van was a bonus.

RST Top 40. NUMBER ONE! The Gianicolo at Night

2011-08-11T01:33:00.000-07:00

No. 1 – the Gianicolo at night. No contest. Even he and she agree.

The Gianicolo is a lovely hill overlooking Rome from the Trastevere side of the Tiber. It’s easy to get to, even if it does involve a bit of uphill walking. And at night, it’s simply magical. Whether you’re in Rome the first, the second, or the hundredth time, you have to go there. We never miss a chance to soak up the views and the atmosphere (from Punch & Judy shows in the daytime to lovers at night).

In fact #19, the Acqua Paola fountain, is on the way to the Gianicolo, and also looks great at night and has great views of the city. See our earlier post on the fountain.

Dianne

A PS on the Top 40 as we close it. Re the “he and she agree”: “Dianne says” and “Bill says” appear in our book, because we don’t always have the same take on Rome. (In an early manuscript of our book, we used simply “he says” and “she says”, which we both still like, but we bent to the will of an editor and changed to Dianne and Bill). And since we don’t have the same take, we made lists of our top Rome the Second Time sights. Then we collated and voted, made a few compromises (she says), and came up with our Top 40. As I noted, we both put the Gianicolo at night as #1 on our respective lists. Didn’t we, Bill? - she asks.

Yes, dear. Bill

Graffiti Report: Howen

2011-08-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Howen, on the Metro viaduct, at San Paolo

We're rank amateurs in the complex, fast-moving field of Rome graffiti. Still, emboldend by a recent visit to MOCA's daring new exhibition on graffiti in several of the world's major cities, we're offering this report on one of Rome's most talented and prolific writers. He has two names: Howen and POISON. In a 2002 comment that we found on-line, a fan wrote, "this dude has got to be one of the kings of the b-line in rome, every photo I have of it he's up in it, even after the buff he still had stuff running so ive heard." (We're not sure what the "buff" was, but suspect it was an effort by the city to cover up/erase graffiti). Sure enough, it was on the b-line--actually a viaduct carrying the b-line through the suburb of San Paolo--that we first saw Howen's work (see photo at left).

Dianne, pensive at the Pomezia cafe

Then, on a scooter trip to Pomezia, a modernist village created under Mussolini and the home of a massive cemetery housing German dead from World War II, we found another piece by Howen just over our shoulders (see the bottom of this post) at an outdoor cafe in the city center.

As you can see, Howen appears to enjoy writing his own name (at least what we assume is his name). Sometimes he also writes his other name, POISON.

We also found an on-line profile for the guy. It lists POISON's interests as: "Graffiti, muri (walls), treni (trains), e la mia metro (and my Metro). The profile notes his mood as "implacable" and offers this bio:

                POISON

                male
                102 years old
                Roma, Roma
                Italy

Bill

Howen, in Pomezia

Steppin' Out

2011-08-03T01:53:00.000-07:00

We found these long-haired, leggy young ladies on the back side of Rome's new MAXXI gallery, headed for the front entrance--about a quarter of a mile away--where they would join hundreds of others in one of those expansive evening cultural events that have recently become part of the city's burgeoning arts scene. Bill

Italian White Wines: Our Favorites

2011-07-29T01:42:00.000-07:00

Preparing for cocktail hour in Buffalo. Dianne prefers the
small, fluted Italian glass.

Not the least of the customs we’ve inherited is the “cocktail hour.” Not the sort of ongoing, all-day, workplace cocktail hour practiced in the 1950s ad biz, at least according to Mad Men. Rather, the end-of-day, conversational, finally-get-to-talk-to-your-wife, cocktail hour. Our parents’ version meant Bloody Marys on one side, Rob Roys on the other. For us it’s white wine, usually Italian.

Italian white wines are easier to understand—easier than their French counterparts, that is. That’s because the French insist on labeling wines only by region and place—Burgundy and Sancere, for example—so that the grapes used to make their wines are obscured (a Burgundy is a Pinot Noir, a Sancerre a [fine and relatively expensive] Sauvignon Blanc).

Although Italians care very much about where wines come from, most—but not all—Italian white wines are known by the grape each is made from, often followed by the place of origin. Hence Greco di Tufo is a wine made from the Greco (a name that refers to the origins of the grape in Greek antiquity) grape and is from the area around the town of Tufo, just east of Naples.

Working against tradition, we’ll begin in the Italian South and move northward toward the Alps.

Sicily

Most of the grapes grown in Sicily are either Trebbiano or Catarratto, both “boring” according to David Gleave’s The Wines of Italy (1989)—excellent but out of print and hard to find--which we’ll quote from liberally. It’s well known that the best white grapes of Sicily are the Inzolia (also the name of the wine) and Grillo, a current favorite. Grillo is native to Sicily and prone to oxidation, so don’t let it sit. According to Gleave it’s got “hints of green,” “elegant floral bouquet,” and a “unique taste of exotic and citrus fruits.” Just what we were thinking. BTW, it’s also known as Riddu, though we’ve never seen that name on a label.

Sardinia

For a while last year, our local Rome grocery store had a large supply of Vermentino di Gallura. Over a few weeks we bought it all. Gallura is a zone or area of Sardinia, and the grape is Vermentino. But it’s not the Vermentino you’ll get up north in Liguria. A different grape with the same name. Not an elegant wine, but substantial and drinkable. We wouldn’t call it exotic. Goes good with pizza.

Naples

We’ve already introduced Greco di Tufo, which is from the town of Greco (NOT!!!!). It can be “dry and elegant” as one of our sources says, and we used to buy it frequently when invited to dinner by our Roman friends. Our current thinking is that it’s a dependable dry wine, but not so interesting. Most of Calabria’s white wines are built on a Greco base.

We prefer another Naples-area wine, Fiano. Most of it comes from around the town of Avellino, also near Naples, hence Fiano di Avellino. In a recent New York Times piece extolling the virtues of Fiano, Eric Asimov called it “vivacious” and noted its “smoky, nutlike, spicy quality,” perhaps a result of new techniques, including “lees-stirring,” which involves using detritus from the fermentation process. Fiano is an ancient vine, known to the Romans as Apianum, because it tempted the bees. Lots of good bottles for under $20 in the US, if you can find a store that carries it. The other white mainstay of the Campania region is Falanghina—not an especially distinguished or dry wine, but seconda noi absolutely Italian in taste.

Rome Environs

Make sure it's "Superiore"

Much (too much) of the wine served in Rome restaurants is Frascati. Frascati’s one of our exceptions, because it’s not a grape but the name of a town in the Colli Albani (Alban Hills), about 25 kilometers from the city. Writing in 1989, Gleave described it as having “little or no character,” a conclusion based on the fact that most Frascati was made from the Trebbiano grape—easy to grow but not the stuff of which great wines are born. Today, there’s more Malvasia in Frascati, and that, and real focus on quality, means that some Frascati is very good. Look for Frascati Superiore.

West of Rome in the Abruzzi mountains the basic white wine is Trebbiano d’Abruzzo. That would suggest that it’s made from the Trebbiano grape, but that isn’t so. Trebbiano d’Abruzzo is made from the Bombino Bianco grape. A rose by any other name. Drink this wine if you’re in Abruzzo.

Umbria

There was a time when Grechetto was widely planted in the land-locked province of Umbria, to the north of Rome. But the low-yielding grape proved frustrating, and most of it died out, save for a few villages—around Todi and Foligno—where growers apparently have more patience or deeper pockets. The grape is the same as the Greco. Gleave labels it “rich, nutty, appley.” Not so dry. It gets a “B” on our report card.

The Marches

The Marches’ white wine of note is Verdicchio. It’s easily spotted in the stores, with its amphora-shaped (and now not so hip) bottle. It’s sometimes called the Adriatic Muscadet, which means it’s a bit sweeter than some. Tasty but seldom elegant, Verdicchio is meant for lunch with a panino.

North from Rome, into Tuscany

Another exception to our rule is Orvieto, named after a lovely hilltop town. Another lunch wine, only occasionally suitable for the elevated space of the “cocktail hour,” but serviceable nonetheless. A “neutral wine,” according to most accounts, its relative mediocrity traceable to large amounts of Trebbiano (again). The best of it is mixed with a healthy portion of Grechetto. Please! Please! Please! avoid the best-known brand of Orvieto: Est! Est! Est!, which is 80% (that is, too much) Trebbiano. Trebbiano is also grown in quantity in the hills south of Bologna, where it makes a “neutral” wine, sometimes and dry and freshing but “seldom distinguished.”

Vernaccia di San Gimignano is an old favorite of ours, as dry, light and flinty a wine as you’ll find it Italy—something like the New Zealand sauvignon blancs, though with more flavor. What’s the grape? Where’s it made? The best-known producer is San Quirico. We drank a lot of this wine for years, and we still do. It’s surprising that the grape hasn’t migrated.

The North

We’ve skipped Emilia Romagna (Bologna, Parma, etc.—the Northern Appenines). As you can sense, we’re not Trebbiano admirers, and that seems to be the hegemonic white grape of the region. Further north and to the east, Pino Grigio dominates. It’s good enough, Hillary, and we’ve certainly had our share, but we’ve come to think of it as a simple, rather ordinary wine, the lowest-common denominator if you will, of fine wine and good taste. A “trainer” wine. So we’ll skip it.

The northeast is also known for Tocai, a native grape that can result is truly excellent wines. A recent dispute between Hungary and Italy over the right to label a wine simply “Tocai” had Hungary emerge the winner, so exactly what the Italian version is now called remains a mystery, to us. Still, if it’s on the menu, try it; it’s always good.

We used to say that about Gavi, too. Another exception to the naming rule, it’s made in the hills near the town of Gavi in the SE Piedmont, and it’s from the Cortese grape. It’s referred to as a “Gavi” and you’ll often see “Gavi di Gavi,” which to us makes no sense. Gleave describes it as “dry, neutral and acid,” “at best a decent fresh white wine” but very “fashionable.” We couldn’t have said it better. Always presentable but never exceptional. Probably overpriced.

We were once also fans of Muller-Thurgau, another SE Piedmont wine. Light and perfumed, it’s made from Riesling and Sylvaner grapes. Then we read that it was a rather pedestrian white and, not wanting to consider ourselves pedestrian, we stopped drinking it. Not a great wine, but pleasant enough.

Our current favorite is also from Piedmont, but it has a French name, from the grape: Arneis. Native to the region, Arneis is low-yielding and in other ways problematic, a characteristic reflected not only in its price, but in the name: in dialect, Arneis means “little difficult one.” Some of the best are from the Roero region, though the one we're drinking appears to be from Langhe. According to Gleave, Arneis is light and dry, powerful yet delicate. We’ve never seen it in Rome, but then we haven’t looked; it’s that new to us. A great wine to take for dinner with friends; chances are they’ll never have heard of it—always good—and it’s a sublime wine.

Bill
P.S. See photos and info below on wine shops selling a good variety of Italian whites in Buffalo and Los Angeles (where else?). And when in Rome, check out the "wine bar" section of Rome the Second Time, plus one or two of our wine bar posts.

City Wine Merchant, where many of the wines mentioned in this post can (and have been) purchased. Corner of Main and Tupper, Buffalo, New York. http://citywinemerchant.com/ . Dave Cosentino, the proprietor at Vino Aroma, on Main Street in Williamsville, has first-hand knowledge of Italian whites, and the store carries an ample selection--as well as copies of Rome the Second Time. Vino Aroma is 2 doors west of Trattoria Aroma.

In Los Angeles,
our source for Italian whites is Domaine LA, at 6801 Melrose (don't miss the ceiling; photo below).

Filming the ancients at the home of Modernism.

2011-07-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

The Roman Forum? Cinecitta'? A Hollywood sound stage? Not exactly. We stumbled on these scenes at EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma/Universal Rome Exposition), the massive 1930s/1940s complex to the south of the city center, on both sides of via Cristoforo Colombo. Mussolini's Fascist regime built the place--now a fashionable suburb--to celebrate the 1922 March on Rome and to represent Fascism's ties to the imperial monumentalism that was perhaps the most important quality of the architecture of ancient Rome. Obviously the Fascists did it well--so well that movie companies seeking the look of ancient Rome come here to film. In this case, they were shooting outside the Museo della Civilta' Romana. . Bill

A Slave Climbs a Tree: A Story on the Origins of Common Law

2011-07-19T01:34:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger Riley Graebner is a clerk at the U.S. Court of International Trade, located in New York City. While a student at Georgetown University Law School, he studied Roman law.

As one strolls through the streets of Rome, it is well to remember that the monuments that line the boulevards are the remains of a vibrant civilization that gave rise to cultural traits and institutions that remain with us today. Among these, none looms larger than the heritage of Roman law. In the story that follows—fictionalized, but grounded in Roman legal history—the case of an injured slave joins with precedent, custom and judicial activism to make what we know as common law.

The real Gaius, a celebrated Roman jurist,
and one of a half dozen major contributors to the
Roman law. This bas relief is in the
U.S. House of Representatives

Imagine you are Gaius, a Roman citizen in 300 B.C., a carpenter and a plebian. Yours is not the dominant Rome of textbooks or HBO, but a Rome sharing power on the peninsula with other states, the Samnites among them, in the days before the Empire. This Rome is half way between shrugging off Etruscan rule and the rise of Julius Caesar—rapidly expanding but only a generation removed from a state the size of the present-day province of Lazio. Construction of the Appian Way has just begun. By 290 B.C., Rome appears to have control of much of the peninsula, but the permanency of that grip is open to debate.

Your business, Gaius, has done well enough for you to afford a slave. He’s a competent boy of 12 who helps you take care of the house and run errands. You send your slave to collect wood from a supplier outside the city limits. On his errand, the slave runs into Tulla, a fellow carpenter, competitor and citizen. Jealous of your success, Tulla orders your slave to fetch a piece of fruit from a branch high up in a tree, hoping to place him in peril. The slave loses his balance, falls out of the tree, and breaks his leg.

Roman Senators

The wheels of Roman justice begin to turn. You check the list of authorized causes of action, published each year by the praetor, the Roman juridical magistrate. You find what you are looking for: lex aquilia provides a remedy for anyone whose slave is “wrongfully” injured by another. You find another cause of action in the Twelve Tables, a quasi-constitutional document dating back two centuries. If your slave had only a bad bruise, the praetor would probably decline to hear your case; Roman justice moves only for serious offenses. But your slave will be out of commission for months and possibly permanently disabled. Under the Twelve Tables, an injury of this severity warrants attention.

But what does “wrongful” mean? Lex aquilia seems to require that Tulla made direct contact in harming your slave, but the contact in this case seems to be less than “direct.” Hiring a lawyer is not yet an acknowledged right, but you need one and, overcoming laws that appear to prohibit payment, you hire one and pay him.

A Roman Open-Air Courtroom

Case researched and prepared, you and your lawyer walk down to the Forum, where the praetor sits in his sulla curulis, surrounded by six lictors who wear purple-lined togas. A small crowd gathers to hear the day’s arguments. You call Tulla before the praetor. Tulla appears as requested, but the praetor promptly sends both of you off to negotiate for a minimum of two weeks. You try to work things out, but Tulla insists he never saw your slave and never commanded him to climb the tree.

When the praetor hears that no settlement has been reached, he announces the process for the settling the case: “Brutus will be the judge. If it appears that Tulla has wrongfully injured the slave of Gaius, the judge will order Tulla to compensate Gaius with the value of 30 days of the slave’s labor. If no evidence exists of wrongful injury, Tulla will be absolved.” With no police force to aid in collecting evidence, you investigate, talking to a farmer who observed the incident. Yes, he says, he heard Tulla order your slave up the tree. Yes, it was high and dangerous.

You and Tulla appear before the judge, Brutus. Your lawyers speak eloquently. Tulla claims he was nowhere near your slave. The farmer asserts otherwise. Brutus grants a verdict in your favor. A strict formula stipulates damages: 30 days’ worth of the slave’s labor, an amount fixed in Roman custom and practice. Under the honor system that dominates Roman life, Tulla feels compelled to pay you or he risks losing his place in Roman society.

The Forum, where the Twelve Tables were
posted.

Although many legal historians point to Rome as the birthplace of civil law—a system where statutes predominate rather than the edicts of judges—Roman legal procedure eventually created a body of case law which defined and shaped legal responsibilities. Romans called it ius honorarium, but we would probably see it as akin to common law. In our fictional scenario, featuring a slave injured by an act founded in jealousy, the expansion of codified rights by judicial fiat--the praetor’s process--has already begun. Many of the Twelve Tables have been lost to history, but the Roman Forum and the judicial legacy that began there remain to this day.

Riley Graebner

The Red-haired Women of Rome

2011-07-15T01:15:00.000-07:00

Women everywhere color their hair. What's different in Rome--and maybe Italy generally--is that so many prefer red: often red highlights, but sometimes just plain red. For years I've observed this phenomenon with a mix of curiosity and pleasure, and for years I've been trying to capture it in a photograph without incurring the wrath of a jealous husband or boyfriend, inviting a visit to the questura or--always of primary importance--making a fool of myself. At a fair in Garbatella, I got away with this one. Bill

The Colors of Rome

2011-07-10T01:02:00.000-07:00

Rome has more than its share of pleasures, but it isn't an especially colorful city. It's not Mexico City, or Quito, or Guatemala City, places where an Indian heritage has infused these cultures with bright and bold costumes and striking carvings of painted wood. The Romans love their flowers, and the shops that sell them brighten many street corners. But by and large, Rome is whites and grays and browns and even yellows, leavened here and there by the light, tasteful pastels of newer buildings or the dignified, Mediterranean Siena red that found favor with Mussolini's architects.

Yet there are exceptions. Some are high-tech intrusions, best observed at night, others aggregations of color. Some are temporary--the product of holidays--and some intended to be permanent--as permanent, that is, as petty capitalism can be. Some are offerings by fans of the Roma soccer team, others by the city's graffiti artists. And some--a red car parked in front of a red door--are just coincidence. They are only accents, to be sure, but delightful ones, we think.

Bill

The Red Bar at Parco della Musica

A wall painted by Roma fans, in Monti.

A coffee bar, San Paolo

Serendipity. A kind of found art.

A bar in Monte Verde Nuovo, decorated for Easter

Graffiti, on a highway overpass south of the city

RST Top 40. #2: Park of the Aqueducts

2011-07-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

Whenever anyone asks, what can we do in Rome if it’s really our first time, but we want to do one thing beyond the standard attractions. And, our answer usually is, if you have the time – say, half a day--go to Parco degli Acquedotti (“Park of the Aqueducts”).

From the first time we went there (taken by our friend Massimo and his children), we have been entranced. And we never tire of going back. It could be getting away from the crowds, it could be simply the stupendous size of these marvels of Roman engineering – still standing 2,000 years later, and many still in use. It could be just the pleasure of being in a large park with a bunch of, well, yes, fun-loving Italians.

Holes at top were where water flowed...sometimes
multiple ducts of water flowing on top of each other

And, to quote Goethe: "I also saw the ruins of a great aqueduct. What a noble ambition it showed, to raise such a tremendous construction for the sake of supplying water to a people."

So, yes, Parco degli Acquedotti comes in at #2 on our Rome the Second Time Top 40 list. It’s the first itinerary in our book, and easy to get to on Metro A.

Photographers, flora lovers, history buffs, loungers, eaters, drinkers… live it up.

Dianne

"Woodrow Wilson sent a bouquet of poppies."

A Dog in Rome

2011-07-02T01:57:00.000-07:00

We found this guy--in a city of small apartments, atypically large--in a second-floor window in the San Giovanni neighborhood, mourning his exclusion from the city's street life while entertaining passers-by below. If we remember correctly, the dog resides in a massive housing complex on Largo Pannonia (we hope that's correct) where Roma soccer star Francesco Totti grew up. On the broad sidewalk in front of the complex, soccer remains a favorite activity. Bill

Teens Gather: Park of the Aqueducts

2011-06-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

Teenagers get together everywhere. But in Rome they often do so in remarkable places and settings that give these meetings a grace they wouldn't have if they were to take place outside, say, a Wilson Farms store.

We recently published a photo of one such gathering, at the Museo della Civilta', amid the enormous columns of Mussolini's EUR. In this one, we're at Parco degli Aquedotti (Park of the Aqueducts), with our teens displayed along one of the park's aqueducts, low here because it's going to ground at this point (toward right), soon to be fully underground.

The name of this aqueduct is Acqua Felice. Though not of ancient origin, it's old enough (Hillary), constructed in the late 16th century under Pope Sixtus V. The Parco is fully described in Itinerary 1 in Rome the Second Time, along with a good story about Sixtus (not the nicest man) and Acqua Felice, which didn't work right when it was turned on. Those teens in the photo probably don't know the story, but they're making good use of the structure, which still carries water to Rome.
Bill

And here's a link to a Google Maps version of Itinerary 1's map:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rome,+Lazio,+Italy&msa=0&msid=115234173574934358486.00048bfd318d41d8b7cb1&z=15 Google Maps versions of all 16 maps in the Book (accessible by hyperlinks in the ebook versions) are in a document at right (under the Book Updates document), also available by this link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56172132/Google-Maps-Versions-to-Rome-the-Second-Time-book-maps

Dianne

Italy vs. Slovakia, 2010

2011-06-24T01:18:00.000-07:00

Headed for a hike in the Lepini moutains southeast of Rome, we came across this apartment building, festooned with Italian flags to celebrate Italy's presence on the World Cup stage, on the outskirts of Rome in June, 2010. We hadn't seen anything quite like it, and we turned the scooter around to capture the image.

Almost a year later, as we're showing it to our readers, it has another meaning than the celebratory one on its surface. It was taken in the morning on June 24. Just hours later the Azzurri (the Blues) would lose a crucial game to upstart Slovakia in the closing minutes--the final score was 3-2---and Italy would be eliminated in the "group" stage of the competition, before the Round of 16 in which the Italian team had been expected to participate--as usual. It was a crushing and humiliating defeat for a proud soccer power with a distinguished history--and, we have no doubt, a bitter disappointment for the residents of this building. Bill

Graffiti: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. MOCA, and Rome

2011-06-21T01:02:00.000-07:00

We recently spent some time in the pathbreaking exhibition of graffiti at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. It's enormous and powerful; not to be missed. But we were surprised that Rome was not featured, or even included. The exhibit focuses on what it describes as "key cities"--New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sao Paolo, and Paris--cities where "a unique visual language or attitude has evolved."

We can't claim that Rome has been the site of such a "unique visual language or attitude"; we just don't know enough about the art form. That said, we've never seen or heard of anything like the giant graffiti mural/posters, applied like wallpaper to buildings in the quartiere of Garbatella last spring. What we do know, having spent some time in New York City and Los Angeles as well as Rome, is that Rome seems to have MORE graffiti of all levels--the good, the bad, and the ugly--than either of those cities. For good or bad--or ugly--it's everywhere.

We've posted several times about the good stuff, and we'll leave it others with more knowledge of the international scene to make Rome's claim to inclusion as a great center of graffiti art.

Our purpose here is limited. We're offering a "typical" Roman wall on the bad and ugly end of the scale. This one is located in the suburb of Centocelle, about 20 minutes from the Center. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of such walls in Rome, crammed with tags (signatures of graffiti artists), miscellaneous markings and scraps of posters old and new. Some of the academics writing about graffiti argue that however ugly the ugly stuff is, it's essential--like a drummer learning the rudiments, a pianist practicing scales, or a skater stumbling through an early set of figures. You can't have the good--graffiti as art--without first having the ugly, then the bad. We're not sure that's true, but we've come to appreciate the energy and chaotic power of "ugly" walls such as this one.

And maybe next time Rome will make the cut.
Bill

RST Top 40. #3: Via Tasso

2011-06-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

The poet Tasso in a mental institution in Ferrara.
Painting by Eugene Delacroix.

For knowledgeable Romans, via Tasso has two meanings--two, that is, besides the obvious: an unimposing street that runs northwest for 5 blocks from behind the Scala Santa in front of San Giovanni in Laterano. One of the other meanings, of which we were made aware only recently, by way of Goethe's many references, is the brilliant, influential 16th-century poet Torquato Tasso. Born in Sorrento, Tasso spent his most productive (and most frustrating) years in Ferrara, where he wrote the lyrical epic Gerusalemme Liberata (1574) and, two years later, was incarcerated in a mental institution, perhaps for conduct that was only intemperate. He died in Rome in 1595, a few days before he was to receive from the Pope the "crown of laurels" as the king of poets.

The other meaning of via Tasso is starkly different: the Nazis' political torture prison. The official name is the Historical Museum of the Liberation--it's open and you can visit-- but what happened here at via Tasso 145 was hardly liberating. Between September 1943, when the Germans occupied Rome, and June 1944, when the city was liberated by allied armies, the prison on via Tasso--now often called simply "via Tasso"--was the scene of torture, abuse, and death for hundreds of prisoners, among them Jews, partisans, and the innocent. Late in March, 1944, all the prisoners housed at via Tasso were removed and summarily executed at the Fosse Ardeatine, caves just outside the city.

Via Tasso is a haunting place to visit. Many of the rooms of the prison now hold exhibits and documents, some of which we have translated from the Italian in Rome the Second Time. But some of the cells are still there, and there, especially, one can see--and feel--the anguish of those held here. A reader of a February 5 post on the Fosse Ardeatine sent us these lines (the translation is the reader's, too), scratched by a prisoner into the wall of his cell, returning us to the man Tasso, to his experience as a prisoner, and to the relationship of poetry to the human spirit.

L'anima a Dio
La vita al re
Il cuore alla donna
L'onore per me

My soul to God
My life to the king
My heart to my wife
My honour to myself

Bill

Bicycling in Rome's Countryside: Circling Lago di Bracciano for Fun and Food

2011-06-11T01:25:00.000-07:00

Peggy and John Preissing enjoying a gelato
on the boardwalk at Anguillara.

RST does not bicycle. So we asked John Preissing, whose bicycle has seen most of Rome’s streets and much of its hinterland, to write something for us on the sport as it is practiced in Rome and environs. In this post, John joins his wife, Peggy, and daughter Kathleen on an excursion around Lago di Bracciano, perhaps best known for its eel population. Both veterans of the Peace Corps, John and Peggy have lived in Rome (Garbatella) for three years. Peggy teaches first grade at Ambrit, an international school in Rome with a diverse student body. Kathleen has just finished her sophomore year at the Rome-based John Cabot University, located in Trastevere. John works at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, where his specialty is the improvement of agriculture research and extension programs in developing countries. He’s written on bicycling—and local eateries—for Pedals and Forks.

Biking in and around Rome can be a serious undertaking, or as one friend has described it, foolhardy. Tragic accidents in Rome between bikes and cars occur with unfortunate frequency. Two women were killed in separate incidents over the past year. The BiciRoma bike club is a strong advocate for bikers’ rights and for improving the access and safety of bicyclists around Rome. Its President, Fausto Bonafaccia, is a tireless backer. According to him, Rome’s elected officials are only slowly coming around to the traffic, health, and energy arguments in favor of biking as opposed to seeing bikers as a nuisance. I should add that Rome’s transportation department (ATAC) has recently refocused its mission on mobility, not car transportation, and now operates the city’s free bike sharing program.

Bracciano - the town, the castle, the lake

Once you gather your courage to ride around Rome on a bicycle it’s amazing how quickly the city opens up. In fact, one game we play is to see how long it takes someone during normal traffic to get from point A to point B in the city. Almost always the bike wins. Other than the indifferent Dutch and stylish Italians, everyone wears helmets and I would always recommend it. Additionally, a reflector on your bike, a light in the front, and something bright would be good to wear. But I do mean for this posting to be about biking and not about preparations or the fear of biking. A recent trip we took to Lago di Bracciano-- a large volcanic lake about 35 km (22 miles) northwest of the city-- highlights how lovely it is to ride in and around Rome.

The best way to get to Lago di Bracciano is via the regional train to Viterbo, taking it from the Ostiense train station. Buy a ticket for yourself and one your bike (either 3.50 Euros or the same price as your passage, whichever is cheaper). Buy your return tickets, too, because it can be hard to find a tabbacheria (the stores with a big “T” out front) near the trains in Bracciano. Regional trains, like the one to Bracciano, accept bikes every day of the week and the trains are supposed to have one carriage with bike racks. However, some trains don’t have the carriage so the bikes are in the corridors. The ride takes about 45 minutes, passing through the most intense urban and upscale suburban neighborhoods before reaching the town of Bracciano—also, of course, the name of the lake.

The town has one of the loveliest castles in the vicinity of Rome and really must be visited, either before or after the bike ride.

Getting to the lake from the station takes 10 minutes, all downhill. (There will be an uphill, but that’s for later.) An ideal place to start is at the Bracciano lakeside, heading east (counterclockwise). The lake is 36 kilometers (22.4 miles) in circumference. It is a favorite for Romans escaping the heat and the crowded beaches of the coast. In some ways, the lake’s shore culture is more blue collar than some of the seaside towns. The small lakeside town of the Bracciano lido has a string of restaurants, campgrounds, kayak rentals, and a skimpy beach of crushed rocks. It is lovely to sit out on the lakeside restaurants, but for most riders this is a place to start, not stop.

Anguillara, seen from the road to Trevignano.

An ideal thing about riding around Bracciano is that it is a relatively short ride with just two or three hills to challenge the rider. And, invariably each hill is followed by a delight. The first stretch takes about 30 minutes to reach Anguillara. This 10 km (6 mile) portion has some great vistas - and, oddly, a national air force museum - until it descends to the seaside town of Anguillara, made famous by films directed by Fellini and Rossellini. It’s easy to see how Anguillara attracted Fellini, with its beautiful boardwalk and town leaning heavily towards the sea. We always stop here and enjoy the first gelato of the day. The Il Gabbiano provides great gelato artigianale (homemade) with the standard flavors but an unbeatable view.

Eels decorate an Anguillara fountain.

Historically, Anguillara was known for its fishing and, of course, eels. In spite of the actual presence of eels (eel is anguilla in Italian), historians say the town’s name is from the angle at which it juts out into the lake. Today, a number of restaurants and small resorts crowd the lakeside.

Rather than just leaving town, I’d recommend riding (more likely walking if you are like me) to the top of the town to see the outstanding views from the courtyard of the Church of Assunta. Up above the lake, Anguillara has a less spectacular residential area; many people commute from there to Rome.

Descending again, continue towards Trevignano, about 15 km (9 miles), or roughly an hour along the coastal road. There are stupendous views back towards Anguillara. About 5 km before arriving in Trevignano, a bike path emerges on the right side of the road, away from the lake. It is just in time, as the road narrows and traffic picks up. Just before entering town, pass by the piccolo San Bernadino church, built in 1452 to commemorate where the saint-in-the-making preached. The last time we passed by it was being set up for a wedding.

Squid (calamari), a favorite of Kathleen
Preissing. Trevignano, with the
lake in the background.

Trevignano’s downtown is the most picturesque of the three cities along the lake. With a population of 5,000 it hosts summer events, scores of restaurants, and boutique shops that are nestled in the ancient town. Trevignano also offers free bikes for use while in town and parking on the outskirts to ease traffic. We always make two stops when we are there: first to the open water-fountain troughs, similar to Rome’s nasoni, but much bigger; and second to Casina Bianca, at the far end of town and our favorite restaurant on the lake. Try the fried calamari antipasto.

After relaxing over white wine and a pasta dish it is hard to get motivated for the final 10 km leg back to Bracciano, especially since the route includes the second largest ascent of the ride. Nonetheless, passing by the small hilltop restaurant and viewpoint of Mont Rocca Romana makes it worthwhile. Upon returning to the lakeside of Bracciano, water or beverage of choice is available at the many seaside locales.

I began this post by noting that the downhill ride from the actual center of Bracciano to the lake was a breeze. It definitely is not a breeze going back up, and most people walk their bikes part of the way. Give it a try and return to the station for the afternoon trip back to the Ostiense station in Rome. For those with remaining time (and energy), consider a visit to the Odescalchi Castle (ca.1475) in Bracciano. It looms over the city and has connections to Popes, soldiers, statesmen, and celebrities (Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini, and more recently Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes, were married in there). The castle itself is worth another post.

John Preissing

A PS from Dianne - An early post of ours mentions the water from Lago di Bracciano arriving via aqueduct (Acqua Paola) in Rome to much fanfare in the early 17th century, only to be declared really lousy. And another features a photo of a building on the outskirts of Rome with yet another eel trap.

The Dogs of Rome: a Conor Fitzgerald Novel

2011-06-06T01:45:00.000-07:00

"He's got a garage," said Blume. "Jesus, I'd give my right arm to have one of those." The speaker is Alec Blume, an American by birth and now, in his 40s, Chief Commissioner of Rome's police department--a high-level detective. Earnest, determined, smart, opinionated--"I hate Sordi. Hate his movies, hate his voice. All that Romanaccio shit"--somewhat arrogant and ethical to a fault, Blume is at the center of Conor Fitzgerald's entertaining new (2010) crime novel, The Dogs of Rome. The title refers not to the tiny, yappy dogs that most Romans favor, but to larger beasts trained to be nasty for the dog fights that all too many Romans enjoy and which take place, in the novel, in an abandoned warehouse off the Via della Magliana. (In August 2001, Rome's real police discovered 7 dogs, intended for fighting, in a nomad camp off the Via della Magliana.) Blume detests dogs, but he ends up with one--a Cane Corso, described as a dog the Romans used in battle.

A Cane Corso. Man's best
friend--except when he's not.

Novels are always partly invented, and that may be the case with several of Fitzgerald's references. I could find no evidence of a Rome restaurant with the name "Mattatoio Cinque" ("Slaughterhouse 5") nor does the internet confirm the existence of De Pedris, a shop that serves exquisite pastry. But Fitzgerald--who lives in Rome--knows his geography, and readers hungering for Rome and its environs will find in these pages references to (and comments about) the familiar (EUR), obscure (Borgata Fideni--to the north) and those in between (Corviale). One transforming scene takes place in the quartiere of Marconi, along Via Oderisi da Gubbio, Viale Marconi, and Piazza della Radio, the latter accurately noted as a great place to park a car for the Porta Portese Sunday market. Another dramatic scene plays out in the area between Via La Spezia, where Blume resides, and the Basilica of San Giovanni. Blume's parents are buried in the not-too-distant Verano cemetery.

Tourists who want to think Rome is just one gelateria after another may find distasteful Fitzgerald's conclusion that what is "eternal" about the city is its organized crime and the corruption that ripples through politics and the police force. "For a quarter of a century," one of his characters opines, "the police have not disturbed the criminal status quo in the districts of Magliana, Tufello, Ostia, Corviale, Laurentino 38, Tor Bella Monaca, Tor de' Schiavi, Pietralata, Casalbruciato, and Centocelli." In a previous post, we described Centocelli as charming. We would not--and did not--say that about Corviale, though we were fascinated by the mammoth 1970s housing project by that name. We no longer stroll, as we did only a few years ago, in the projects of Magliana.

This writer is no great fan of detective novels; he's probably read five in a lifetime. But I was very much taken with Dogs of Rome. Blume is a worthy protagonist, and Fitzgerald's story has pace and drama. Most important, there's just enough about Rome and Romans. Of one of his characters, Fitzgerald muses: "He considered going carefully...but there was no point. No policeman in Rome ever pulled anyone over for reckless driving. They considered it demeaning." Coming from a killer, but right on. Bill

Michael Graves: The Rome Connection

2011-06-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

Graves's studio at the American Academy (#9)

We've never met Michael Graves, the famous architect. But we have had a close encounter, or so it seems, looking back fifty years into the early 1960s. We were Stanford students then, doing the current version of the European tour: undergraduates on a "junior year abroad" (actually my sophomore year), thinking that Europe would always be dirt cheap. Our base was Florence, but they insisted on taking us to Rome, and in the fall of 1962 we got there, astonished by the Coliseum and the Forum but also confronted with the city's excursion into modernism: Pier Luigi Nervi's Palozetto dello Sport, which had recently been completed. We had no idea what we were seeing.

The Portland Municipal Building (1982)

And we had no idea, of course, that we had just missed Michael Graves, who had months early departed, having spent much of 1960, 1961 and early 1962 (we arrived in the fall of that year) at the American Academy in Rome and elsewhere on the continent, absorbed in his own European tour. He was not famous then. He had not yet designed the Portland Municipal Building--one of the founding works of "postmodern" architecture--nor the Humana Building, nor the Denver Central Library, nor dozens of other important structures, and it would be decades before he became one of the world's foremost designers of commercial products, producing designs for Alessi (teapot, 1985), Steuben, Target, Dansk, Disney (the Swan and Dolphin hotels), and Delta Faucet (I was repairing a Delta faucet this afternoon--perhaps one that had its origins as a Graves sketch). While in Rome, he was already thinking about product design.

Graves, sketching in Rome, 1961. He sold some
to tourists for $50.

No, at the time of our near-crossing in Rome, Michael Graves was mostly an intense 28-year old full of expectations and dreams, a Harvard M.A. in Architecture (1959), and good enough to win the Rome Prize at the American Academy, but not yet really an architect--not yet really anything. I wish we had met him then, before he became, well, "Michael Graves." We could have shared our drawings.

A Graves sketch of the Villa Borghese, c. 1961

It is not too much to say that Michael Graves was made in Rome, transformed by that year or two (however long it was) at the American Academy and by the tour of Italy and Europe that followed. Nothing gets written about Michael Graves that does not emphasize that formative Rome moment, and Graves has fed the myth with his own words. In the introduction to a recent book that recounts and fixes the architect's Rome experience with his drawings, sketches, and photographs, Graves begins right there: "The extraordinary experience of two years at the American Academy in Rome in the early-1960s transformed how I looked at the world around me. In that rich and marvelous city, I came to understand architecture as a continuum from antiquity to the present day, and thus as a language. I discovered new ways of seeing and analyzing both architecture and landscape. I also developed an urgent need to record what I saw and created hundreds of photographs and drawings."

A Graves-designed school building

Enrico del Debbio building, 1931-33

The Rome drawings that fill the early pages of Brian M. Ambroziak's Michael Graves: the Grand Tour (2005) are mostly of ancient Rome--the Coliseum, the Basilica of Maxentius, the Arch of Constantine--or of Renaissance/Baroque Rome--the Aqua Paola Fountain, Santa Maria Maggiore, Villa Borghese. He was particularly taken with the buildings and ornamentation of Francesco Borromini. But Rome's monumental and rationalist architectures of the 20th century were there to be seen, too, and it seems to us that some of Graves's later works draw as much on these buildings--essentially, the aesthetics of the Fascist era--as they do on earlier periods. (See comparison in photos above).

Graves, the Denver Public Library

By 1967 Graves had emerged from obscurity, joining Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and John Hejduk (with Philip Johnson as mentor) in The New York Five. He was mostly a house designer in the 1970s. 1982 was a breakthrough year. With the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky, the Portland Building, and two major museums, he quickly became an exemplar of the movement known as postmoderism. He came to terms with Alessi in 1985, agreeing to design the whimsical tea kettle for 1.5% of each sale; over 2,000,000 have been sold.

Rome transformed Graves, but that experience was iconic in a larger way, too. By 1960, existing movements in architecture and the arts had reached a point of exhaustion. In painting, abstract expressionists had reduced the form to an extreme of simplicity: a canvas painted in one color. There was nothing beyond, except perhaps not to paint the canvas at all. The rectagular glass box had done the same in architecture, showcasing a rigid and extreme modernism that suggested that the form, having been perfected, was untouchable. They ran out of ideas in Detroit, too, desperately attaching huge, space-like fins on the new models in an awkward, failed effort to tap the future.

Rome gave Graves--and, in the larger sense, architecture--its new direction: it would draw on the past, the collective past, on the buildings of Rome and Athens, on Egypt's pyramids, on the monumentalism of the ancients, on the towers of medieval Europe, on English furniture of the 18th century, on the fascist aesthetic, on the colors of Italy. The past was complex and seemingly limitless and, for better or for worse, it would fuel the architectural resurgence of the late-20th century. What Graves found in Rome was the raw material of the postmodern aesthetic experience.

Why Graves would start thinking about designing commercial products while in Rome is less clear, but he was hardly alone in connecting the artistic and commercial. In 1962, while Graves was wrapping up his European sojourn, Andy Warhol was having his first important solo exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York, featuring representations of Campbell's Soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles. Graves designed products; Warhol used products to make designs. Both understood the limits of modernism; both had a playful side; both drew on the unparalleled dynamism of American consumer culture to revitalize aesthetic forms.

There was one big difference--well, surely more than one, but one that's especially relevant here. Warhol cared little about the past, and he had not been to Rome--at least, not that we know of. Where Graves discovered the a glorious past that could be fashioned into the future, Warhol imagined only irrelevance. "They call Rome 'the Eternal City,' he wrote, "because everything is old and everything is still standing. They always say, 'Rome wasn't built in a day.' Well, I say maybe it should have been, because the quicker you build something, the shorter a time it lasts, and the shorter a time it lasts, the sooner people have jobs again, replacing it. Replacing it keeps people busy."

Bill

We highly recommend Brian M. Ambroziak's lovely book, Michael Graves: Images of a Grand Tour (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005). Foreword by Michael Graves.