The Mausoleum of Augustus--You CAN go there, if you can get a ticket

 

What Emperor Augustus's tomb looked like in ancient Rome (image by 3D Warehouse).

Larry Litman at entrance to the Mausoleum

 of Augustus (there's probably a 

smile under that mask).

     One of the astonishing openings in Rome—as Covid continues to haunt the globe—is the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome’s Piazza Augusto Imperatore. Since World War II, this ancient Roman site--the largest circular tomb of the Roman world, as noted below--has sat, neglected, overrun with weeds, and closed to the public. After fits and starts for the past decade-plus, the Mausoleum was opened to visitors just this Spring (Covid be damned). Our Roman friend and guest blogger, Larry Litman, managed to snag a now-sold-out ticket. Below is his rare first-person account of a visit to this important piece of history (from tomb for Augustus to music hall to proposed tomb for Mussolini – you get the picture).

   Larry Litman wrote eloquently in March 2020 about being in Rome under one of the first lockdowns, and, since we still couldn’t be in Rome for the Christmas holidays, he gave a virtual tour on this blog of the unusual presepi or crèches in Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter’s Square).

    Larry grew up in Southern California (unknowingly, we recently visited his old neighborhood) and lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, before moving to Rome in 2007. In the early 1970s he studied at Loyola University of Chicago's Rome Center, now the John Felice Rome Center on Monte Mario. "That was when I fell in love with the city of Rome," Larry writes, "and then I had the dream of making Rome my home."

 Larry is a retired teacher/librarian from Ambrit International School and is active at St. Paul's Within the Walls (the Episcopal Church on via Nazionale).  He also volunteers at the Non-Catholic Cemetery. He has two adult children and two grandchildren living in New York City.​

 

As one enters the Mausoleum, one can see evidence of many
different construction and rehabilitation efforts
over the centuries, typical of Rome.

The Mausoleum of Augustus (Il Mausoleo di Augusto), constructed in 28 BC, was closed to the public after World War II. In March of this year it was officially reopened to the public after five years of restoration work significantly funded by TIM, the Italian telecommunications company. However, the monument’s opening was cut short by Covid restrictions which closed Italy’s museums and archeological sites. In May the Mausoleum opened again for guided groups of ten visitors at a time. Online reservations were filled almost immediately. We were fortunate to obtain reservations to visit the site on a rainy Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m.

Our group was met at the entrance by a knowledgeable archeologist who shared the features and history of this monument, the largest circular tomb of the Roman world. After descending a ramp to several meters below the modern street level we stood before the entrance to the tomb. Originally this entry was flanked by two obelisks that now stand in front of the Quirinale Palace and in the Piazza del’Esquilino behind the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore [the prior post on this blog; obelisk photos below]. 

Our guide points out inscriptions praising Emperor Augustus, inside the tomb.

The Mausoleum had a diameter of 87 meters (almost 300 feet) and a height of around 42 meters (about 140 feet). At the center of the mausoleum were a series of chambers which until 217 AD held the urns of the Julio-Claudio emperors (except Nero) and their families. The innermost chamber held the remains of the Emperor Augustus, and the surrounding chambers held the urns with the ashes of the others.

This future performance space is visible looking out from the
upper level to the center of the Mausoleum.

 

 

 

Many monuments in Rome have been used over the centuries for numerous purposes other than the ones they were built for. The Mausoleum of Augustus is no exception. Our archeologist shared some of these as she led us through the various levels and chambers of the site.

-       In the 12th century the Mausoleum became a fortified castle of the Colonna family.

-       In 1241 Pope Gregory IX expelled the Colonna family and destroyed their castle. Urban gardens started growing on the abandoned Mausoleum.

-       During the 16th - 18th centuries there were hanging gardens with a collection of Roman antiquities displayed inside the Mausoleum, then an arena for bullfights, and eventually a stage for plays and circus performances.

-       Between the years 1907 - 1936 the inner part of the structure was converted into a concert hall holding about 3,500 people, with performances by the National Academy of Santa Cecilia.

-       On May 13, 1936, Mussolini ended the concerts and initiated a plan to turn the Mausoleum of Augustus into a tomb for himself. World War II put an end to those plans.

 

The Mausoleum as seen from the street (weeds mostly cleared away).                  

    

The Mausoleum of Augustus then was abandoned until 2007 when studies began to restore and repurpose the ancient site. Today, even as it has been opened to the public, work continues on the Mausoleum’s restoration. A museum, as well as a performance stage, is being developed within the monument. The surrounding area is also being developed as a pedestrian piazza with stairs and ramps to the street level. The Mausoleum of Augustus is now becoming a part of urban life in contemporary Rome, one of the many places in this great city where the past meets the present.

Upward looking views here and below, left.

 Note: The installation of an elevator has not been completed. To tour the Mausoleum a visitor must climb multiple levels of steps.

Larry Litman

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few items of note: More photos follow here and at the end of this post.

The official website, which includes, in English, "Book Here,"  is here: https://www.mausoleodiaugusto.it/en/booking/

For now the tickets are sold out through June 30. The last two times they were available, they sold out in 24 hours each time. We are not certain when they will next be made available.

The Mausoleum is in the same piazza as the Ara Pacis, which is one of the most visited sites in Rome (pre-Covid, anyway). And Bulgari is planning a 5-star hotel in the piazza, in a large, interesting (to us) Fascist-era building facing the Mausoleum. Note this piazza was one of RST's "Top 40," even with the Mausoleum in disuse and disrepair; we called it "Rome's most abused piazza."

The two displaced obelisks are pictured below in their current locations. We (RST) had no idea they once graced the Mausoleum. The first is the obelisk at the Quirinale, and the second at Piazza del'Esquilino, in back of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Dianne

 

 

New Year's Eve in Italy in the time of Covid - Even in lockdown, some traditions remain

It will be New Year's dinner for 2
in 2020.

RST welcomes guest writer Mary Jane Cryan, who, originally from the US (she even went to college at D’Youville in Buffalo), has lived in Italy for more than 50 years. Mary Jane is THE expert on all things Etruria, the fascinating area just north of Rome that includes the lively city of Viterbo and of Vetralla, where she lives. See her terrific website here: http://www.elegantetruria.com/. Besides contributing to virtually every important guidebook to Italy and the region, lecturing on cruise ships, and speaking widely, Mary Jane is a prolific writer and publisher. Her own books in the past few years have focused on Etruria; her bibliography is on her website.

We have featured her fine work in two prior posts: one on Etruria, here: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/05/etruria-perfect-day-trip-from-rome-with.html

and another on a Borromini monastery (turned luxury hotel) in Rome here: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-borromini-monastery-in-trastevere.html

Mary Jane brings her particular insight to this very unusual “Vigilia di Capodanno” – New Year’s Eve – and New Year's Day.:

2020 will be remembered for decades to come as the year to forget. The latest, rather strict, rules for the holiday weeks here in Italy are being enforced from December 21, 2020 to January 6, 2021.

The table set for a festive crowd in a prior year
and hopefully a year to come.

 This means travel between   individual regions and autonomous provinces is prohibited, except to return to one's primary legal residence. For this entire period, travel to second homes in other regions is prohibited, making Italians even more creative since this is the time when families generally gather together.

There was a rush on trains to get to family homes before the shut down. On 25 and 26 December and New Year’s, January 1^st, leaving one's municipality was and is totally prohibited, except for work, health, or other urgent reasons.

Italians are coping with the restrictions by using their creativity: restaurants offer take-away menus which include bottles of spumante with orders. Country house accommodations (agriturismi) and hotels are serving dinner to guests in their own rooms or apartments rather than in the main dining rooms.   

Until this year, New Year’s was celebrated by young people gathering in major piazzas throughout the peninsula, mega concerts were held in Rome, and there was all night dancing in night clubs. I remember fondly one New Year’s evening spent at a concert in Bologna’s magnificent Opera House which ended with a rousing “Radetzky’s March” and bottles of spumante being shared with members of the audience and the orchestra.

What has been - and what could be - a rousing opera at a full opera house.

And a concert in a crowded
church.

Those who stay home play bingo and other board games while waiting for the countdown to the New Year. Multi-course dinners, spumante and panettone are followed with the traditional dish of lentils, for good luck, at midnight. This year the number of guests around the dining table is drastically reduced due to restrictions on travel between towns and regions.

Surely traditions like fireworks, wearing red underwear and throwing old things out for the New Year’s will still happen throughout Italy, and, even though separated by rules and distances, families will be united in spirit and by modern technology to welcome in 2021.

 

                                                                        Mary Jane Cryan

 

Sausages by the fireplace - for 2.

The Danish Academy: Modernist Treasure, or Cold and Sterile?

"I hear you knockin' but you can't come in."  We're opening with a lyric from Little Richard (RIP) because we love Little Richard and find the line descriptive of life under Covid-19. You can knock on the door of the Danish Academy [Accademia di Danimarca] (or of any other academy in Rome), but you can't come in--and may not be able to for quite a while. So what better time to explore an academy, virtually of course, through a few photos taken (some of them surreptitiously, if I recall) at Open House Roma, just a year ago.

(Open House Roma, an annual weekend jam-packed with tours of buildings and sites usually closed to visitors, [and of which we always take full advantage; see one of our many posts on our OHR discoveries here] would have been May 15-16. This year. of course, it was cancelled.)

The entrance to this academy is forbidding: up a long stairway to an immense, low, metal, black door. We were forced to wait outside until the last minute when a select few with reservations (that included us--we've learned our OHR lessons well) were invited in and asked to supply IDs.

First 'vista' when one walks in. 

Inside, a rectangular entry with a low ceiling opened up onto what could be described as an open-air sculpture garden, if it were a garden and had more than one sculpture in it.  The block of granite was carved in the early 1970s by Soren Georg Jensen (1917-1982).




Like many of the academies that dot the Rome landscape, Denmark's Academy was founded in the post-World War II Era--in 1956--to develop and nurture cultural and scientific ties, in this case between Denmark (Danimarca) and Italy. Its first incarnation was located in Palazzo Primoli, near Piazza Navona and then, in 1967, transferred to a new building of modernist design on via Omero, off Piazza Thorwaldsen, where several other academies are located (we refer to it as "Academy Gulch" in our first Rome guidebook).

The new building (funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, whose brewery founder died in Rome in 1876) was designed by Kay Fisker (1893-1965), known both for monumental forms and modernist inclinations, and was inspired by the Scandinavian architectural tradition. It is considered Fisker's "last masterpiece" (he died before it was completed), and an archetype of Danish functionalist form, in contrast to baroque Rome. Structurally, the design consists of three cubes--one for the Director and administrative offices; a second to house the "borsisti" (scholars, fellowship holders); a third containing the library--set on three sides of a grand terrace, overlooking a garden, and with a view to the West. It was restored most recently in 2014-15 under the direction of Danish architect Bente Lange.

The terrace, looking toward the gardens.  Inviting, in its way, but with the tables set far apart, hardly organic, though perhaps appropriate post-Covid-19. 

View from the terrace of the housing for visiting scholars. 

Housing for the fellowship holders, overlooking the terrazzo. 

The Academy's building is notable for the high quality of its furnishings. The classic Scandinavian furniture was designed by Ole Wanscher (1903-1985), a professor of interior design in Copenhagen.

A lounge.  Note the furnishings. 

Food service facilities.  Wood everywhere.

The multi-story library: modernist, but classical in layout. 

Conference room, artist of work on wall unknown

Curtains, rugs, and other textiles were designed by Vibeke Klint, Ruth Malinowski, and Lene Helmer Nielsen. Paintings, drawings, and etchings--most of which I did not feel comfortable photographing--are abundant. At least one, an untitled piece by Seppo Mattien--is by a Rome artist.

"Posthumous Letters to Clara Jensen," Richard Mortenson, 1970. 

As we walked around and through the complex, the two of us disagreed on our evaluation of the aesthetics. She found the buildings cold, dark, somewhat sterile, and ultimately uninteresting--not clearly worthy of reporting. He liked the combination of modernism and comfort (on the inside) and the monumentality of the complex (on the outside).

Anyway, you can keep knockin', but you can't come in. (Don't miss the interesting photo at the end of the post).

Bill

A much earlier photo--perhaps 1967--with modernist tree trimming and before vines were allowed to cover much of the brickwork.
Compare with the 2019 photo just above.