Simone de Beauvoir in Rome

 

While reading Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Cafe, I learned that Simone de Beauvoir and her life-long companion, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, had spent a good deal of time in Rome--a month or two every summer in the 1950s and 1960s, and some summers before and after, about which I have less knowledge.  I was intrigued.  I ordered two volumes of de Beauvoir's autobiography (each 400 pages): Hard Times: Force of Circumstance II, covering the years 1952-1962, and All Said and Done, covering 1962-1972.  

What I learned was not what I anticipated. Both Sartre and de Beauvoir were known as deep thinkers and careful, elaborate analysts, and I expected de Beauvoir to apply their considerable intelligence to the city of Rome, to enlighten me with one insight after another. It didn't happen. There's plenty of analysis in the autobiographies--of postwar Japan, or France's poisoned relationship with its Algerian colony (one of de Beauvoir's obsessions), of the social structure of Rio de Janeiro, and so on (the duo traveled relentlessly), and of the distress of growing old and contemplating one's death--but not of Rome, where they spent, cumulatively, several years of their lives. What was going on? What did Rome mean to these two brilliant intellectuals?

In some respects, Sartre and de Beauvoir related to Rome as other tourists--though they were not so fond of those "other tourists." Although de Beauvoir wrote that they had once enjoyed staying outside the city center, and did, in fact, once live in a hotel near Ponte Milvio, their preference was for the center (they would take a car from Ponte Milvio to walk in the old city).  One hotel was the Hotel d'Angleterre, just off Piazza di Spagna [named as such, because of its popularity with the British, and now known as "Hotel d'Inghilterra"]. Another was on the Piazza Montecitorio (the Albergo Nazionale), and still another, the Hotel del Senato, on the Piazza della Rotonda (overlooking the Pantheon). [All three are still operating.]

De Beauvoir (and sometimes Sartre) did some sightseeing, inevitably at sites frequented by those "ordinary tourists," and most of them in the city center. On the Aventine Hill, looking through the keyhole, de Beauvoir wrote: "so by fixing my attention upon a small corner of the earth, beyond it I see an entire country, together with its relationship with the world." With Sartre she visited the Castel Sant'Angelo, saw the city's Caravaggios, walked the Corso ("now made commonplace and ugly"), and waxed eloquent about the beauty of St. Peter's dome against the sky. 

Beyond the city center, they traveled to Hadrian's Villa, Ostia, Cerveteri, Orvieto, the Alban Hills and the new Roman suburbs ("a ring of concrete," in the words of Italian politician Giancarlo Pajetta, quoted approvingly by de Beauvoir). But seldom are these places worthy of more than a mention, of more than the name.  In 1968 and 1969, writes de Beauvoir, "we did not leave Rome at all, and it had never seemed to us more delightful....We walked about less than we had in other years because we had the feeling of being in all the streets and all the squares of Rome at one and the same time." 

Like other tourists--at least those of means--Sartre and de Beauvoir haunt the familiar squares. Coffee in the morning in Piazza della Rotonda; for a time, Piazza Sant'Eustachio (until it got too noisy and crowded); dinner in Piazza Navona or, later on, Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere; late evening whiskey in Piazza del Popolo; the "best ices in Rome" (a standard tourist trope) at a "little street near the hotel." In these volumes, at least, there is no mention of Piazza Vittorio, Monte Mario, the Gianicolo, Ostiense, Piazza Bologna, Monte Sacro, Garbatella, or EUR--Rome's marvelous 19th- and 20th-century neighborhoods. 

At the Pantheon--a favorite piazza 

De Beauvoir could be romantic, even poetic, about Rome.  In the early 1950s, she wrote:  

"Even when its bricks are being scorched by the heat of the ferragosto [the August 15 holidays when all of Italy shuts down], when the asphalt is  melting along the deserted avenues, occasionally punctuated by a solitary, useless policeman in a white helmet, we still feel comfortable there.  This great bustling, crowded city still calls to mind the  little town founded by Romulus.  'They should build cities in the country, the air is much cleaner,' goes the old joke; for me, Rome is the country.  No factories, no smoke; there is nothing provincial about Rome, but often in the streets, on the piazzas, one feels the harshness, the silence of country villages. The old designation 'people,' in which all factions were dissolved, really applies to the inhabitants of Rome, who sit in the evening along the Trastevere [her words], on the Campo de' Fiori, on the fringes of the old ghetto, at the tables on the wine merchant's terraces in front of a carafe of Frascati; children play around them; calmed by the coolness of the streets, babies sleep on their mothers' knees; through the fragile gaiety hanging in the air, impetuous cries rise up from below.  You can hear the popping of the Vespas, but a cricket sings as well." (There's more, but you get the idea.) 

De Beauvoir and Sartre were workaholics. Both were voracious readers (that was part of their "work") and prolific, usually every-day writers.  They were also well connected with various Italian and Roman left-wing networks--they knew Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia (a terrible driver, by the way), artist Renato Guttuso, literary critic Mario Alicata, and journalists who pressed them for interviews--and these relationships took time. Their days were long but dominated by work: breakfast at ten (reading the newspapers, with the Pantheon as backdrop); writing or reading in the hotel until mid-afternoon ("we also spend many hours in our rooms"); a sandwich on the terrace; a brief walk; work until 5--and often into the evening.

Yet for de Beauvoir, Rome was a certain kind of workplace--a workplace melding into a vacation place, a retreat from frenetic travel and (sometimes) writing. "We were both," she wrote in the 1950s, "Sartre as well as myself, a bit worn out with all the traveling we had done; above all other countries we loved Italy, and above all other cities, Rome; so there we stayed."

For her, then, Rome was, at least in part, an escape. In Rome, she could ease up on being a committed (and exhausted) tourist, and ease up, too, on the writing. In the early 1960s she wrote: "[Writing] is still necessary for me, but sometimes I like giving myself a break from it: I do so when staying in Rome, for example, where I could have all the spare time I want to work....I read for hours when I am in Rome during the summer."  In language that sounds disarmingly simple, even simplistic, she describes Rome as "happy place....it's all so familiar, so happy, there's no need for words." "Rome" is for de Beauvoir a license to read (and not write) or, conversely, a license to return to writing: "Today," she wrote in 1958, "is very beautiful, very blue, I feel the happiness of being in Rome for a long time take hold of me again, and the desire to write. And I write." 

In All Said and Done de Beauvoir describes a variety of her dreams, including several that take place in Rome--"an agreeable place."  

Bill 

The hidden, hard-to-find, and worth-it churches of Rome, at least 3 of them



Recent painting of Santa Bibiana and train station tower



There’s no hard and fast count on the number of churches in Rome, and even beyond the total, there are hidden (in the sense that the guidebooks rarely get you there) churches in Rome that are real gems. Because we are Rome the Second Time, we don’t focus much on churches at all, but now and then Bill lets me be the “church lady” and point out a couple I love.

Here are 3 of my favorite “second time” churches: Santa Bibiana, Santa Sabina and San Giorgio in Velabro (note the Santa Costanza/Sant’Agnese fuori le mura complex made it into Rome the Second Time and RST's Top 40, coming in at #21 - even with Bill getting an equal vote – you can see them in our March 15, 2010 post.)

Altar with Bernini's Santa Bibiana

Santa Bibiana is the most central, yet in some ways the hardest to get to. We included it in our “10 things to do around the train station” post of August 5 of this year.  Santa Bibiana is on via Giolitti – the street that runs along the south side of Stazione Termini. It sits improbably next to the station’s outer buildings (look for the adjoining tall round tower, covered in travertine with spiral staircase – a fine example of modernism, rather than “ugly” as some have said – at least in our opinion and in the opinion of a recent Rome academy painter whose painting is at the top of this post). No doubt not in Bernini’s time, but it is now dangerous to approach the church across intra-city train tracks and the entrance to the underground passageway that leads to the other side of the major tracks – these look fairly peaceful in the painting, but believe me, they’re not.  In fact the painting relocates the church past the tower from the station, which it is not (i.e., don't use this painting as a guide to getting there). 



Santa Bibiana



The photo at right is more realistic (Bernini, if you only could see your church now! - also, a counter to those who say graffiti "artists" don't touch church buildings). 



Although the first building on the site dates to the 5th century, the extant church of 1624-26 is Bernini's, his first major commission. He already was in fine form, as shown in his portico, façade and sculpture of the saint.

Glen Thompson of Wisconsin Lutheran College, a scholar of Early Church History, has an elaborate post on the church and the saint: http://blogs.wlc.edu/history/2010/03/10/two-most-unusual-saints/ He calls Bibiana or “Vivian”…one of the strangest saints around.”

In additional to general praise of Bernini and the church, Prof. Thompson recounts: “On the interior walls are a beautiful set of frescoes from the same century by Pietro da Cortona illustrating the life of St. Bibiana. Above the altar is a breathtaking marble statue of the saint carved by Bernini, and under the altar is an alabaster urn containing her remains (or relics), found under the altar of the previous church during its seventeenth century renovations.

"But who was St. Bibiana? The early medieval stories center on one Christian family in Rome in the mid-fourth century. Bibiana’s father Flavian, her mother Dafrosa, and her sister Demetria all suffered in various ways for refusing to deny their faith, and Bibiana was executed – all during the time of Julian the Apostate. Julian was emperor from 361-363, and he tried to turn the empire back to paganism 50 years after Constantine had made Christianity legal. However he died before he got his program off the ground, and there is no record of any overt persecution of Christians in Rome during Julian’s time, much less any martyrdoms! The legends about Bibiana were made up about a century later. To us,"  Prof. Thompson continues, "it seems strange that people would invent a saint for whom to dedicate their church, rather than merely choose the name of a well-documented one. My theory is that the land for the church was donated by someone, and that the story was created to give that particular spot meaning. According to the legend, the church occupies the spot where Bibiana’s house once stood.”

You may want to pray to the saint if you make it safely to her church and also hit the unusual opening hours: 7:30 - 10 a.m. and 4:30-7:30 p.m. You can’t enter as a gawker during masses (weekdays 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. and Sundays 8:30, 10, 11:30 in the morning and 6:30 in the evening.


Interior of Santa Sabina



Another favorite second-time church of ours, also allegedly built on a saint’s home, is Santa Sabina. It's central enough that it makes it into some guidebooks; nonetheless, it's usually not on the Rome first-timer's list.  Santa Sabina is the mother church of the Dominicans in Rome, beautifully sited atop the Aventine Hill, next to a park well-used and favored by Romans for its with views of the city and Tiber. The church also dates to the 5th century and, while modified over the years (including by Bernini), as recently as the 20th century, it was taken back to its earlier style by an architect working under the Fascists, Antonio Munez. The inside of the church is cool, open and airy. The 1st millennium artifacts are impressive and stand out in this atmosphere. For more on the church and its history, see http://www.italyguides.it/us/roma/rome/aventine/basilica-santa-sabina.htm.  Also, Bill photographed the smoking (literally) bride and groom in the park there, as shown in his blog of June 23 this year. 

Interior of San Giorgio in Velabro

And finally below the Aventine, swim through the crowds waiting to put their hand in Bocca della Verita' (the mouth of truth) at the Santa Maria in Cosmedin church; go behind that to the winding streets via Velabro and via di San Teodoro.

There are several churches there with impressive histories, but we suggest first stepping in San Giorgio di Velabro. Here again, one inhales the air of the first millennium (and earlier). Definitely worth taking in that whiff of history. Bear in mind, much of this was reconstructed not only during the Fascist era but also after an explosion in 1993; the reconstruction is superb and the ancient artifacts stand out.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Giorgio_in_Velabro for more details.

Exterior and portico of San Giorgio in Velabro

We’ll pick up some other “hidden,” second-time churches in another post - some time in the far distant future when Bill once more unshackles church lady.

Dianne

Caged in Rome

A Man's Home is his Castle, and if Romans had their way, every home would be surrounded by a moat. Romans live mostly in apartments. The doors to the units usually have multiple locks with massive keys that turn a raft of thick bolts into chambers on the second door and into the floor and ceiling. Sometimes one of the locks is fake, apparently to fool would-be intruders into thinking the place impenetrable. Outside, first floor windows are invariably guarded by dense roll-down shutters and formidable wrought-iron bars with locks.

Still, we were surprised by the lengths to which one resident of the Aventine (see above) had gone to protect his balcony from invasion. Bill

Let's get Married and have a Smoke

The Aventine Hill is one of Rome's most charming and romantic spots, and this time of year its gardens embrace the photo shoots in which just-wed young couples represent their love to posterity. We found this duo, fresh from a ceremony in one of the several near-by churches, doing first things first--that is, lighting up. Bill