Finding another (too well) hidden gem - Diulio Cambellotti's Santa Barbara Chapel

We feel comfortable bringing this post to our readers, even in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, because even were the virus to disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't be possible to visit the remarkable chapel of Santa Barbara.  The Institute in which it is housed is closed for repairs, with no opening date in sight.  So enjoy RST's virtual tour!

We are fans of, and followers of, the 20th-century craftsman and artist, Duilio Cambellotti, who is featured in works in Villa Torlonia (especially the Casina delle Civette) and elsewhere in Rome as well as other places in Italy. Last Spring we gathered in a post several places in Rome to see his work - indoors and out. But we had missed a large and lovely one, the windows that frame the altar in the small chapel within the Istituto Storico e di Cultura dell'Arma del Genio - an odd complex of buildings Bill wrote about in 2014, near Foro Italico.

Sketch by Cambellotti of Santa Barbara
for the chapel in the Istituto...

Imagine our surprise to find a large and complex Cambellotti work later last year IN that Istituto Storico - the chapel of Santa Barbara, patron saint of, appropriately, artillerymen and miners.
(Capella Santa Barbara)


Immediately below is Cambellotti's "signature" in the windows, explaining it was his idea and design, and that Giulio Cesare Giuiliani was the craftsman (I think), created in XVIII E.F. (18th year of the Fascists, or likely 1940). One reason the enormous windows look so good is that they were restored in 2000.

In the photo of the chapel below, one can see the military men digging out a bunker at left, underground at right and in the middle, bottom and above the bottom middle panel, as radio transmitters (2nd photo below). 

   










 We were fortunate to have an extensive tour of the museum and the chapel as part of 2019's OpenHouseRoma. 

And now, I must add a postscript - unfortunately the Institute and Museum are now closed for restoration. And, as those things go, who knows for how long. It's possible one could talk one's way into the chapel. The library and archives remain open by appointment.

Below are external views of the Istituto.

Dianne

This very Fascist design is outside, but inside the external walls of the complex; in a courtyard.

Alone in the Rome Modern Art Gallery, with Cataldi and Marini

Galatea by Amleto Cataldi, 1925

We first discovered sculptor Amleto Cataldi (1982-1930) "in the weeds" in the Olympic Village (Villagio Olimpico) in Rome.  We later learned that his sculptures of athletes--placed seemingly haphazardly in green space (also known as weeds) in this athletes' housing built for the Rome 1960 Olympics--came from the 1911 Flaminio Stadium that was torn down to make way for the new Olympic stadium by Pier Luigi Nervi.

But... recently, on a visit to one of our favorite, lightly-visited museums in Rome, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Roma Capitale (the city's - as opposed to the state's - modern art gallery) we discovered a Cataldi sculpture virtually headlining the current exhibition on 1920s and 1930s Italian art, originally purchased for what was then called Galleria Mussolini.  Unlike his muscular athletes, Cataldi's Galatea here - a late, 1925 work -  is smooth and modern (note the hair-do).  The fish in her hand is appropriate because the statue was designed to be part of a fountain.

And, we can't resist another preview of this exhibition, "Fragment" by Marino Marini (1901-1980), who lived past the Fascist era.  This piece from 1929 is an excellent example of the artistic desire to replicate a ruin - to layer the past and the present.  It fits with the importance the Fascists gave to hearkening back to ancient Rome.  This fragment nude is a nice contrast to Cataldi's modern female nude.

Frammento by Marino Marini, 1929

 And when we stepped outside of the museum, we saw this creative courier and his "sculpted" vehicle.

The gallery is open Tuesday-Sunday 10 a.m. - 6.30 p.m.  Euro 7.5 for most of us.  via Francesco Crispi, 24 - between the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, up the block from the Gagosian Gallery.  There won't be any crowds.  In fact, you may be the only one there.
Dianne

A Night at the University: Mario Sironi's monumental Aula Magna Mural

We were attracted.

We're always eager to get official access to Rome buildings we haven't been in, and so in mid-May we headed off eagerly to the university--La Sapienza, as this one is known--to explore an evening open house.  Not much was open, actually, but the dinosaurs in front of one of the science buildings caught our attention, and we headed over.  That building is standard Fascist-era issue (most of the buildings here are of mid-1930s vintage), nothing about it of significant interest, really, even for RST, a fan of most of the era's architecture (including Gio Ponti's mathematics building on this campus).

Lots of people enjoy looking at rocks.

Still, we enjoyed puttering around in an old-fashioned museum of mineralogy, about which we know nothing.

Nude miners, mining

We were surprised to learn that Sicily was a center of sulfur mining, and that the mining was done by nude men.  Why nudity was required is not clear, though the poster's fine print might have offered an explanation.

Aula exterior

Having had enough of even very beautiful rocks, we took a chance and headed to the Aula Magna--the big hall on the campus that hosts concerts and other events (the official name is Aula Magna del Rettorato della Sapienza).  We had seen the exterior before, but had never been inside the building or its main hall, which features an important mural by Mario Sironi, a significant artist of the era (and the subject of a large retrospective a year or so ago). The outside of the Aula was suggestively lit for the evening, and--lo and behold--the doors to the auditorium were open.

Students with photos of themselves portraying very different
types of people (bride, hipster, etc.)

Inside, art students presented their work, a quartet offered music, and free wine was being served. We had talked to the students at the table (see left), and they were watching us.










And inside the hall, an orchestra was playing. And there was the Sironi mural.  We sat down, listened, and looked.

The mural is enormous--90 square meters--but even so, it can be difficult, as I'm sure readers will understand, to absorb the contents of such a work when there are distractions--an illuminated

The hall from our seats

audience, the music, the contours of an 80-year old modernist space, the thrill of being there. Here's what we later learned:

The mural is titled "L'Italia fra le Arti e le Scienze"--Italy between [probably better translated and] the Arts and Sciences.  As the story goes, the lead architect for the new university, Marcello Piacentini, approached the Duce with Sironi's name.  In 1933, Mussolini received the artist and acknowledged the great difficulty of presenting Fascism on the grand wall of the grand hall of the grand new university.

Sironi took the commission (we wonder if he had any choice) and, in two months, produced his mural.  It includes representations of astronomy, mineralogy, botany, geography, architecture, literature, painting, and history--the latter symbolized by the woman, at front/right, back turned, a book in her hands.  When it was unveiled, along with the rest of the university, in 1935 or 1936, it included a triumphal arch--the symbol of Roman conquests--a Fascist eagle, the Fascist date XIV (14th year of Fascism, or 1936), and a figure, presumably Mussolini, on horseback.  He liked to ride.
The mural was severely damaged a few years later, during World War II, and the early 1950s restoration by Carlo Siviero was freighted with guilt and embarrassment over Mussolini's regime and Fascism.  As a result, the restoration eliminated the man and the horse, re-sized the arch and the eagle (although we can't see the eagle), eliminated the Fascist-era date, and changed the "looks" of some of the figures.  Much was painted over.

Another, quite limited restoration took place in 1982.  The current restoration, which promises to restore the mural to something like its original state, began on July 1, 2015, just 6 weeks after our visit.  A reason to return.

Bill

Exiting the university through a Fascist-era arcade, its lines softened by the contemporary banners.

Folk Art and Fascist Architecture Treasures in EUR

Main stairway up to display rooms in the Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari.

In EUR, the southern "suburb" of Rome built originally by Mussolini, but now a thriving business center, are several unusual state museums.  One we had not been in for years is a museum of folk art (basically), or the Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari.

We were enticed to see it this summer by a talk on 1940s frescoes that we had not seen before.  These are in the process of being restored, and that process is well on its way (see photos below). 

The building, classic Fascist excess, is a treat in itself.  The displays are few; many of the rooms have little in them.  But what they have is fascinating.  Photos that follow are examples of the displays - the Macchina of Santa Rosa, a creche from Sicily, folk art puppets, as well as more views of the building, inside and out.  Likely you will be wandering the halls and display rooms alone.

One wall of frescoes.  The blank spaces aren't a degradation or failure to restore.  This is how the painting looked when work on it was stopped because of Allied bombing near Rome in 1942.

The listed hours (but don't count on them): 8:30 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, Euro 4.  On Facebook (in Italian).  Web site (not in English but use a Web translator): http://museonazionaletradizionipopolari.tumblr.com/museo

Dianne

Scaffolding and restoration continuing on the opposite wall in this hall.

Another painter - these were painted by several different
artists.

 

Close up in one of the paintings, showing folk festivals

Traditional dress.  This from my family's
home area in northern Italy, the Sondrio province.



A piece - only - of a the "Macchina di Santa Rosa," the
30 meter (100 foot) high tower carried through
the streets of Viterbo (a town in Lazio, about 40 miles
north of Rome) each September 3.  A new one is built every 5 years.
This one apparently is from 2003-2008.  You can tell how large
it is compared to my height.

From this poster, you can see that the piece of the Macchina is only just that - a piece.

A close-up of an elaborate creche from Sicily.

Puppets

Chiaroscuro ceilings.

External vie of the Museum - part of the enormous Fascist complex
that was supposed to be host the 1942 Exposition (E '42)

More architecture than objects.

Art with your food in Rome - Caffe' Palombini in EUR

Fegarotti's mosaics in Caffe' Palombini, EUR; hard
to believe this is marble

Art and food have always seemed a great combination to us (not that we’re original on that score), but usually we at RST go after the art first and the food is secondary (we might be unusual on that one).  And so it was when we first saw the mosaics at Caffè Palombini in EUR – the enormously sprawling “suburb” of Rome originally designed to showcase the Fascists’ European Exposition of 1942 (well, that didn’t happen).  EUR (including Caffè Palombini) is one of the 4 itineraries in our new book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  More information on the book is at the end of this post.

Caffe' Palombini, in the building of the "official
restaurant" next to the "square coliseum" in EUR

The mosaics are hidden in plain sight in the building that was supposed to be the “official restaurant” of E42.  Built in 1939-42, it was originally designed to have restaurants for “functionaries, workers, executives and visitors.”  And it now at least has one appealing, and multi-functional, restaurant on the ground floor.  More about food and drink later.

the often occupied side room... with the oft-ignored
mosaics

The mosaics are what brought us to Caffè Palombini.  We have gone to see them many times, usually when taking a respite from EUR’s monumental and sometimes forbiddingly cold or hot (depending on the season) buildings and street layout.  Sometimes we have to crane our heads around diners; sometimes we have them to ourselves – in the side room, to the right of the entrance, where they’re located.

The mosaics are on the theme of the restaurant and EUR – they feature a table with cutlery and flowers and EUR’s buildings in the background – all in polychromatic marble.  This gorgeous work is by Eugenio Fegarotti, who received a fair amount of patronage from the Fascists but, not being a member of the Party, eventually lost his teaching position at Rome’s Accademia di belle arti (Fine Arts Academy). There are also some lovely frescoes in the entrance room by Franco Gentilini – same period.

One of our next treks (I haven’t told Bill yet) is to search out Fegarotti’s other works, including wall mosaics at the Hotel Bristol in Piazza Barberini (which almost made our list of best rooftop bars), and in the House of the Fascists in Pomezia  (we have scouted around but never knew to look for his work), and possibly other places in the Pontine Marshes southwest of Rome, where he did much of his art and eventually moved.  Plus, Bill, we need to look at his via Margutta studio location at # 48 (close to where those Roman Holiday capers occurred). 

For a thorough biography of Fegarotti, who was active in a variety of media until his death in 1973, see this link.  If you don’t read Italian, you can use the Google translator.  It will read like pigeon English, but you will get it.

Now to food and drink.  We like Caffè Palombini.  It has an expansive cafeteria where a slew of EUR locals have lunch.  Reasonably priced.  Nice indoor and outdoor seating.  Palombini, besides being known for their coffee – which you can buy in any Rome supermarket-- makes their own pastries, candies, sells cigars and trinkets.  They have a more upscale restaurant and a lively evening bar, we’re told.  Those latter two get pricier.

When in EUR, do as the Romans do, stop in at Caffè Palombini.  But don’t forget to check out the art work.

Dianne

I can't prove it, but these mosaics in the Art Deco era Hotel
Mediterraneo near Stazione Termini look a lot like Fegarotti's work

PS  EUR has a lot of art, including Severini’s 1950s murals that we promoted in an earlier post and put on our top 40 list.

Severini's murals, along with Caffè  Palombini are in our new print AND eBook,  Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  Modern Rome features tours of the "garden" suburb of Garbatella; the 20th-century suburb of EUR, designed by the Fascists; the 21st-century music and art center of Flaminio, along with Mussolini's Foro Italico, also the site of the 1960 summer Olympics; and a stairways walk in Trastevere.

This 4-walk book is available in all print and eBook formats The eBook is $1.99 through amazon.com and all other eBook sellers.  See the various formats at smashwords.com.