The Forum and The Vatican
Clearing
my mother's house the other day, I came across a slim A4 folder booklet. The last page was signed and dated, by me, on
March 12th 1987.
The
title of the piece is A Week of Walks - Roman Perambulations,
and it was an attempt, at that time, to record some suggestions for friends and
family visiting the city.
Unearthing
it now is a little like coming across an old gravestone, brushing away the moss
and lichen, to read an inscription. I
hesitate to clean it up, but, inspired by a friend's recent request to offer
some advice on a trip to Rome
I
lived in Rome , in Trastevere (my blog Roma Trastevere Revisited (http://www.richardpgibbs.org/2011/12/dance-to-music-of-time.html
has more on that) from 1976 but left Italy Rome
is David Willey, BBC Correspondent
in Rome , and when he moved out to Trevignano
Romano in 2009, after about twenty years living in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
in central Rome he wrote this on the 'Dolce Vita' Rome
Over the years I have witnessed the
growing degradation of the inner city, the mindless graffiti which now deface
even newly-restored buildings and the disappearance one by one of the small
local shops and artisans - the butcher, the greengrocer, the barber, the
antique seller - as their rents became too costly.
They have been replaced by trashy
and tasteless trinket and souvenir stores, spreading like a fungus,
particularly in the area of the Trevi fountain just across the Via Del Corso,
Rome's noisy, busy and crowded high street.
I remember as a student half a
century ago in "Dolce Vita" Rome
Today the Corso with its narrow
sidewalks can be dangerous for pedestrians venturing to cross the road and the
other Saturday afternoon it was the scene of a knife fight between rival gangs
of youths.
By
coincidence, I too moved from central Rome to Trevignano Romano, similarly
tired by the traffic fumes, the noise, the heat in summer and cold in winter,
and, again by coincidence, one of my first acquaintances was an ageing shepherd
who recounted driving a flock of sheep along the Lungotevere near Castel
Sant'Angelo in his youth (and a bloody encounter with a truck at the time).
Since
then I have returned to the heart of the city many times, and, fortunate to have
friends there, I feel as at home there as I do in London
If
you look at a map of Rome , it is immediately
apparent that old Rome Tiber .
At the height of her power the Republican walls and ditches surrounded
this tightly defensible area, from the modern Terminus station to the Tiber island.
Later developments pushed the defences out to the Aurelian walls and in
some cases beyond. Now the ring road,
the raccordo anulare, is barely the limit.
One
has only to see Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves to see how transport
in Rome
The foremost sights/sites in
When
you are satisfied, however, there's one more thing to do on your first
day. Stroll down through the Arch of Titus and make your way to the top
row of seats in the Colosseum,
otherwise known as the Flavian
Amphitheatre. This must be one of
the, if not the, most famous building
in the world, and despite earthquakes, material despoliation, overgrowth and
restoration, it is still a place to take your breath away. Just the thought of one lion pulling at the
limbs of one Christian, or the harsh fragment of time, suspended in the intake
of thirty thousand breaths, as a consul turned his thumb down to the upturned
appeal of a wounded gladiator, is enough to make my head spin.
After
that, if you have the energy, wander back along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, at first on the left-hand side, where you
will see a series of maps, portraying the spread of the Roman
Empire , then cross over and walk along the Forum of Augustus. Look up
at the beautiful medieval additions to the Roman walls, and see the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi (House of
the Knights of Rhodes) with its wonderful loggia, and then pass on to admire
the architecture of Apollodorus of Damascus in the Mercati di Traiano (Trajan's Market, http://www.mercatiditraiano.it/). This massive hemi-cycle, of brick with marble
lintels and doorposts, does more than any other building, in my opinion, to
bring the Roman past to life, for these boutiques and stores and shopping
arcades are just temporarily disused, and given a few neon signs and some
baskets of fruit and veg, you would not think it was two thousand years old.
As Castel Sant'Angelo closes at two every day, it is worth starting here, and working upwards towards the heights of the Dome of
The
other association is that of Floria Tosca, who at the end of Puccini's opera
flings herself to her death from the battlements after her lover, the artist
Mario Cavaradossi, has been shot at dawn
by firing a squad, who were supposed to use blank cartridges. It is a moment of the highest drama; a
shocking climax - or at least so should it be.
On one infamous occasion, however, a slightly overweight heroine hurled
herself to her fate onto a rather springy trampoline, and consequently
continued to reappear above the parapet to the amazement of the audience, until
the final curtain covered her embarrassment.
In
Piazza Pia, resist the temptation to enter San Pietro yet, but turn right into
Borgo S Angelo and follow the covered corridor that enabled frightened popes to
scuttle to safety. Follow the fortress
walls of the Vatican
Once
you have been through this mill, if you have the strength, climb the 537 steps
to the top of the cupola of St Peter's.
If you are less energetic, the lift to the terrace is easier, and from
here you can admire the arms of Bernini's colonnade reaching out to embrace the
faithful. Fountains splash and the
central obelisk takes you back to the beginning of history. It was brought from Heliopolis
There
was a time when it was, or seemed to be, cheaper to eat a meal out in a trattoria
than to shop and cook at home, and so, when a newcomer, my habit was to go out
to dine pretty much every evening with friends.
In this respect, Rome Venerable
English College Rome
for a few days, and have had a hard day walking round the Vatican
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