Roman Shadows and Reflections

Lux in Tenebris

It's fifty years and more since I went to live in Rome. And, since returning to the UK, I have revisited again and again, drawn by friendships and memories and an inexplicable magnetism.  I lived for seven years in a flat on the second floor of this building:  

169 Via San Francesco a Ripa, (November 2011)

I have just recently been back (for the second time this year) partly to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of The Fiddler's Elbow, the first genuine Irish pub in Italy.

My link with this estimable establishment is very strong, as not only are the current and former owners dear friends of mine, but I also shared ownership of another pub with some of them. This latter enterprise was sadly sabotaged in its prime by that familiar monster, Italian bureaucracy, but still lives on as a rather good pizzeria, Alle Carrette.....

Who are you laughing at?

However, things are not all as we might wish, and two of those friends are no longer in good health, so this visit was tinged with sadness.

Yes, Italian shadows can be long.  Not only that of Carlo Alberto di Savoia, astride his horse in the Giardini del Quirinale, but also those of the traffic on Via Milano as it enters the tunnel under the Quirinale (through which I once raced my Triumph 750 against a friend's Norton Commando.... - the sound was incredible....):

Light is life, and there is often good light in Rome, adding interest to the buildings. Here is one side of the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, just by where I lived. On the ground floor to the left of the picture is the Ristorante Sabatini, where Lucio Dalla (who had an apartment nearby) used to eat; on the right of the picture is the Caffè di Marzio, where my flatmate was knifed in the stomach.

Ah, memories......

Yes, I walk round and round Rome, tripping over recollections, bumping into ghosts of the past. Of course it will be so for others, and always has been.  What was Brutus thinking of when he wandered the ancient streets before he killed himself on October 23rd in the year 42 BC?

One thing is certain, Rome then didn't look much like it does today. The Colosseum would not be built for another 120 years:

And Trajan's Forum wasn't started for a further 20 years:

But look at Rome now.....

It's still a building site.....

And it isn't just that old buildings are destroyed, or that new ones are raised. Everything changes, subtly, day by day.  In this Taverna Romana I used to eat occasionally, cared for by the husband and wife who ran it and who treated me kindly.  The sign over the door is the same, but the steel gates and the internal welcome have changed - changed entirely.....

And in Trastevere, where we used to eat at the infamously cheap Mario's (whose little daughter infamously peed on the floor one evening - Mario strewed sawdust across the puddle), and in the narrow street where my motor bike was serviced by a mechanic with imperial tools, tourists now outnumber the locals by a hundred to one:

And this is the Ponte Sisto, across which I walked twice a day on the way to and from work, where I would as often encounter Pope Sixtus the Fifth as any other stranger:

Yes, there are shadows everywhere.....  

But stairways, like this one of Bramante's inside the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, lead both up and down.....

And so I look to make the most of my time. In the grand Palazzo Esposizioni Roma I encounter Richard Avedon, In the American West, 1979-1984, an arresting series of 110 photographic portraits taken over the summers of 1979 - 1984 (during which time I was obliviously enjoying living in Rome).

The book that came out of the project features 12 year old Sandra Bennett from Rocky Ford, Colorado, on the cover:

And, despite her subsequent letter to Avedon, it is the eyes that get me. 

I move on to the Scuderie del Quirinale, where there is an exceptional exhibition (capofila della grande stagione del Cinquecento fiorentino che incarna il passaggio dal pieno Rinascimento alla Maniera) of works by, and related to, Jacopo Carucci or Carrucci, usually known as Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo..... 

And even here it is the eyes that get me......  People stare at me, questioning me, looking past me, looking through me.  What are you staring at? They demand.....  

And I don't know.  Five hundred years ago.  Still looking at me.  

Then in 1925 Giorgio de Chirico portrayed himself, looking at me glassy-eyed.....  

Giorgio de Chirico, Autoritratto, 1925, GNAMC, Roma

Forty years later (or rather, sixty years ago) my art teacher showed pictures by this artist on the epidiascope, explaining some things about steam trains entering tunnels that were then new to me..... (For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1 Corinthians 13:12)....

Giorgio di Chirico, Mistero e malinconia di una strada, fanciulla con cerchio,
anni Sessanta
(look carefully and you can see two figures with shadows in front of the girl)

Rome trips you up, surprises you, always has something different around the corner.  I drink with a Carmelite, but he tells me that the Barefoot Carmelites are something else.....

Then in The Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna they are staring at me..... Alongside de Chirico Renato Guttoso (1911 - 1987) painted himself red:

Vittorio Corcos gave us this beautiful Sogni (Dreams) in 1896:

And Maurizio Cattelan created this Sunday in 2024:

And in 2025 Alfredo Pirri produced this Passi.....

While I join in with Michelangelo Pistoletto's I visitatori (1968) and Un giovanotto (La smorfia) (1962-1975), dwarfed by grimaces and dreams.....

Hey!  It is Rome. What to expect?

Federico Fellini and Anita Ekberg on set for La Dolce Vita, 1960

Angels?

Angel feet?

My feet are tired. I walk over 46,000 steps in two days. I see shadows everywhere....

And I encounter reflections all around me:

I retire to my rooftop bar. A Campari spritz helps blur the edges:

In the streets below police attempt to manage marching protestors; smoke and whistles in the gloom while a helicopter clatters overhead.  

I sip another olive.....

I remember my young neighbours being shot. I remember Aldo Moro. I remember Emanuela Orlandi. I remember seeing Eduardo de Filippo on stage; Vittorio Gassman as Othello still in character after the show;  a party with Gina Lollobrigida on the stairs; interviewing and photographing Aldo Giuffrè in his dressing room.....  

I remember tear gas; saracinesche scrambling down as shops rushed to close avoiding approaching demonstrations. I remember earthquakes; the deaths of popes.  The deaths of friends. The death of hope. The deaths of politicians. 

And now we ourselves face the pulling down of the blinds, the tear gas of the passage of time and we stare into the face of inevitable death, in itself not a problem, but unwanted nonetheless.....

The angel of death stalks the cobbled viuzze of Caput Mondi, and we dream that she is looking for someone else.....

But one by one she picks us off.....

Who is to say who is the next to go?

All we can say is that we have had the good fortune to have had good times and that there is no going back. The world turns, and until the sun goes out there will be light and life.....

In The Fiddler's Elbow, Rome, (as often before, over fifty years)

And there is still time.....

et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. 

and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. - John 1:5

Per il mio grande amico Gino