Love Locks on Ponte Milvio - a Rome tradition from popular teen novels?

 

These "love locks" seem to be in many cities these days. We saw them for the first time on Ponte Milvio in Rome (above), and assumed that was the only place they were then, and that the idea had spread. 

Above, Moccia with his first book translated
into English.

This year, while reading the first book in Federico Moccia's exceedingly popular contemporary Roman teen trilogy, I learned that Moccia's novels (specifically the 2006 "Ho Voglia di Te") are considered the source of the love locks (or are they?).

In an interview for the New York Times last March, Moccia said the idea came to him when he was in the army. "We had these locks for our bags, and when their service was over, people would attach them to the barracks fence....I thought it would be nice to turn a military thing into its opposite - make love, not war." He takes credit, the article says, for placing the first lock on Ponte Milvio. 

"Dianne, Jerry, Bill, Judy"

We put our own locks on (with good friends visiting from the US) in 2008, not too much later from that first act by Moccia. The locks were already exceedingly popular, with lock salesmen set up on the bridge, as the photos here show.

Bill and Jerry discuss with Judy, right,
which lock to buy - On Ponte Milvio.

Doing a bit of digging, I discovered the "love locks" originated not in Rome but 100 years earlier in Serbia during World War I. Nada and Relja, engaged lovers separated by the war, were separated for good when the young man did not return from the fighting because he had fallen in love with a woman from Corfu. Nada died of a broken heart. The women of the town, Vrnjačka Banja, bought padlocks, wrote their names on them, attached them to the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet, and threw the keys in the river - all to protect their love. The name of the bridge always had been "The Bridge of Love" (Most ljubavi). The whole story is here. 

Cutting off locks on Ponte Milvio (likely
there goes ours).

Since the fad started in the 2000s, bridges all over the world have become burdened with locks, so much so that some bridges developed structural problems and locks are routinely cut off (see photo right). In some places special frames are set up for the locks. Somehow this seems too civilized for me, taking the raciness and perhaps love out of it. Below, a lock frame set in Toronto's Distillery District (October 2021).

Lock frame (I recall it spells out "LOVE")
in Toronto this year.

Moccia's novels continue to be popular as well, something of a mystery to us, though admittedly we're not the target demographic. The author's effort to get published is the best story here. He started writing the first novel, "One Step to You" (in Italian, "Tre metri sopra il cielo") in the 1980s. Failing at finding a decent publisher, he paid a small publisher to release it. The 3,000 copies sold out quickly but then the publisher closed before any reprints were made. Photocopies of the novel circulated and it gained cult status (reminds me of "Peyton Place" circulating in my day), apparently especially among Roma Nord teenagers, where it's set. It's now 2 film versions and multiple translations later. With the large Feltrinelli publishing house behind him, Moccia's books sold over a million copies when released in a 2004 edition. The English language edition of the first book was published just this year; the next two are slated for next year.

Set in northern Rome, which has wealthy enclaves as well as some substandard housing, the trilogy highlights many aspects of that end of the city, including Ponte Milvio itself and cafes and hangouts in the Flaminio district south across the river. To that extent, we enjoyed the novel. 

Ponte Milvio, locks restrained.

The story is a classic: rich girl/poor boy, good family/unstable family, diligent student/truant. It's so outlandish and caricatured that we found it close to laughable. But, could 1 million readers be wrong? Are we missing empathy with teenage culture of the 1980s and 1990s?  

Almost laughable, but this was the closest I
could find to a photo of a woman sitting
backwards - here she appears to be calmly
 going to market on the back of a scooter -
 hardly a racing motorcycle in the dark nights of Rome.

Several incidents involve racing motorcycles at night on city streets, with the girl riding backwards behind the guy, tied to him via a belt. Based on the brand of fashionable belts, Chamomile, the young women are called "chamomile." So Step, the truant who has put at least one person in a coma with his fighting, talks Babi, the studious young woman, into being his chamomile. There are other, fairly uncivil acts that take place in the novel (like running out of country restaurants without paying), making us question the source of its popularity. Still, if this sort of teen activity interests you, and many claim it's all based on true incidents, go for it.  We're stopping at the first book.

Dianne

A (Rare) Children's Museum in Rome

The front of the Explora children's museum, which is built in a former tram barn
on via Flaminia in the Flaminio district of Rome, just beyond Piazza del Popolo
(Flaminio Metro stop). Inside are interesting historical photos of the trams and tram barn.

Rome is notoriously difficult for families with young children.  Look in any book that purports to suggest what to do with kids, and you will find very little for children under 6.

This photo was taken in a rare moment when no trams or
cars were zipping within inches of the baby.

It's also just plain difficult to get around Rome with young children. As the photos (left and below) show, the spot to wait for a tram has no protection from the cars and trams whizzing by. And the #19 tram that goes to the sole children's museum wasn't large enough to get a stroller in it without 2 strong people lifting the stroller over some bars in the doorway.

The tram, full of metal bars.

Any park, the zoo, a swing set - yes, those are all reasonable options.

But if you feel you've exhausted those, there is one children's hands-on 'museum' of sorts, "Explora" - which calls itself "The Museum of Children of Rome."

Delight in the cloths that came out of the wind
tunnel.

For our young grandchildren - ages 1-1/2 and 4 - it was an ideal activity for a few hours.

We were lucky, because our arrival at the museum was timed well with the very rigid time frame imposed by this private museum (more on that later).

Steering the 'train.'

The advantage of the museum is that the 'exhibits' are designed for child interaction. One of our granddaughters spent lots of time "guiding" the train that runs along the top of the museum walls. The younger one loved the "fruits and vegetables" that could be planted, picked, and shopped for. The rigid time frames allow the museum workers to clean up and set up the exhibits after each group goes through, and they also keep control over the numbers of children trying to use the hands-on exhibits.

Playing with the 'carrots.'

Coffee bar and entrance.

The museum has a perfectly adequate coffee bar in the front waiting area, and a nice dining area that is mostly outside (one reviewer complained about the plastic sheeting - what is that about? fairly standard where one gets both inside and outside environments together). The prices aren't cheap, but they also aren't exorbitant, and the food is classically Italian good.

Restaurant - and the plastic sheets are a problem??

                                                                      With the picnic area, you can bring your own lunch.  The outside area also has a zip line, that is free for anyone to use. In the U.S. this probably would be viewed as too dangerous to leave to anyone walking up to it.  Here, it was fun. Every child entering the museum must be accompanied by an adult; so the theory must be that the adults will supervise their children.

Unsupervised zip line.

 

Nicely landscaped gardens behind the museum.

Now to the rigidity. You can enter the museum only at 4 times during the day (3 in August): 10, 12, 3 and 5.  And your time in the museum is limited to an hour and 45 minutes.  You cannot leave and come back in. Every child must be accompanied by an adult, and vice versa (It doesn't have to be literally 1:1; there were 3 of us adults and 2 children). And everyone, except children under 12 months, has to pay: as of 2019, 8 Euros for adults and children 3 and over; 5 Euros for children 12-36 months. The museum oddly is private. Decent Website, and you can purchase tickets here:
https://www.mdbr.it/en/

Via Flaminia, 80/86 - 00196  Roma  info@mdbr.itTel. +39 06 3613776 

Dianne (aka Grandma)

This stock photo shows the museum can have too many children and lines.

Small Gallery Openings--a Rome Pleasure

If you're looking for something to do in Rome in the early evening--before 8, when the stores close and the restaurants open--you should consider attending an opening at one of the city's numerous small art galleries.  Notices of openings can be found in Trova Roma, an entertainment insert that comes with the Thursday edition of the newspaper La Repubblica, or in a free art publication (Art Forum) that's available in most galleries and is also online.

Some small gallery experiences are mostly interior affairs, with little "street exposure."  The gallery below, AlbumArte,  just off via Flaminia, has a small porch in the rear that was popular with visitors.

The art at these events varies from excellent to adequate to (infrequently) downright bad, as in "I could do that," or "Oh my God he wants $2000 for that!"

Outside Galleria Varsi, near Campo de' Fiori, soft focus

But unless you're a collector or a genuine connoisseur, you'll have a good time anyway, and, if you don't like the art, any pain you experience in browsing the works on display will last only a few minutes.  Whatever the quality, we recommend playing the "best of show" game (self-explanatory) and the "if you were to hang any of the works in this room in your living room, which would it be?" game.  We enjoyed the fabric collage art in this show (photo below) at Galleria Varsi by Sardinian artist, Tellas.

In addition to the art on the gallery walls, openings have three pleasures.  The first (to be accessed first thing, so you can sip as you meander), is free wine or, much less frequently, beer.  If you're really lucky, there will be some small-bite food, which the Italians will consume as if they'd spent the last year in a survivalist challenge.

Nice - from Tellas's "Fabric Series 4"

The second is people watching, a menage that includes the "identify the artist" game--not all that easy, by the way--observing the girl with the (name your color) hair, and (below) photographing people photographing people photographing art.

The third, related to the second but different, is hanging out outside, drink in hand, with the Romans.  Some of them, of course, are smokers, but they are primarily experts at the game of twilight relaxation, skilled at finding a clean hood to sit on, at dodging automobiles and scooters, and talking.  Learning these skills with a drink in your hand is the primary reason for attending an art opening in Rome.

The photos are of a late-April opening at Galleria Varsi, in via Grotta Pinta.  It was a beer night.  Brett "I like beer" Kavanaugh did not show.  There is no dress code for these affairs.  Dogs were welcome--at least at the Flaminio venue.

Bill

Zaha Hadid, Rome "Starchitect" and Designer of MAXXI, dies at 65

The Iraq-born "starchitect" Zaha Hadid died Thursday, March 31.  Her architecture has been widely praised for its ground-breaking, geometrical forms, constructions that owe more than a little to her background in mathematics and study in London with Rem Koolhaas.  She designed only one building in Rome--the state's contemporary art gallery known as MAXXI, which opened in 2010.  In our opinion, it's not her best, but we're glad Rome has this example of her work, described in the New York Times as "voluptuous and muscular, muscular...with ramps that flowed like streams and floors tilted like hills, many walls swerving and swooning."  That's the best description we've read of the building's atrium, though we remain ambivalent about MAXXI, in part because of the way it interacts with the surrounding Flaminio neighborhood.  We expressed that concern in a 2010 post, reprinted below.  An indication of her enormous influence, even with one building in Rome, Hadid shows up in more than a dozen RST posts.  We've provided links to the most significant ones just above the 2010 re-post.  Today, we, too, mourn the loss of a superb and influential architect. 
 
Significant past RST posts on Hadid and MAXXI:
As #30 on RST's Top 40: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2010/01/rst-top-40-30-zaha-hadids-maxxi.html
Hadid as one of Rome's "Starchitects": http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2010/11/romes-starchitects-meier-piano-hadid.html
One evening at MAXXI: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2012/03/evening-at-maxxi.html
A comparison of MAXXI to the City's contemporary art gallery, MACRO: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-building-wars-maxxi-vs-macro-romes.html
A walk-through of a major exhibit at the collection-deprived MAXXI: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2013/09/maxxi-francesco-vezzoli-performance.html
And the October 7, 2010 re-post:
We opened the Monday morning New York Times to discover that Zaha Hadid had won the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Stirling Prize for MAXXI, Rome's new modern art gallery.  The prize is given to the architect of the building that has "made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year."  It made us wonder about the state of British architecture.  Our doubts were confirmed when we checked a website that handicapped (like the horse races) the finalists in the competition, recently listing MAXXI as the odds-on favorite at 4:6, with another exciting and glamorous entry, Clapham Manor Primary School, at 8:1. 

Regular readers of this blog will know that the massive MAXXI, the Titanic of Museums, is not our favorite building; we're already on record suggesting that it doesn't really fit into the Flaminio neighborhood (or any neighborhood, for that matter).  And it may seem unfair that we should take another potshot at it.  But the RIBA announcement offered new inspiration.

And we were inspired enough to include MAXXI on the Flaminio walk of our new book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  See more on the book at the end of this post. 

In awarding the RIBA prize, the judges described MAXXI as the "quintessence of Zaha's [what's with the first name stuff?] constant attempt to create a landscape as a series of cavernous spaces drawn with a free, roving line."  Cavernous, yes, and the caverns are not all that badly connected inside, if that's what's meant by a "free, roving line."  So maybe the award's for the interior.  [We added the two interior photos below to the original post]

MAXXI lobby, 2010

Cavenous gallery

Outside, things are different.  We discovered the problem on a very hot day in June, escorting New York City friends to MAXXI for their first visit.  After a miserable bus ride (the tram lines were under construction), we found ourselves on the block north of the only entry point, looking forlornly at the entrance--only 50 yards away, but inacessible--and faced with a MAXXI-walk around the block with an unsettled companion who was both irritated and near prostrate with the heat by the time we were able to enter the museum's air-conditioned interior.

Maybe we should have known better where we were going, but the experience made clear to us that MAXXI's mass--its dominance of nearly an entire block--and lack of accessibility were real and related problems. 

And so we returned one evening to document the source of our irritation--and maybe have some fun.  On this occasion, the museum's offer of free admission and music had brought young people out in droves and long lines--so many that we immediately gave up any thought of gaining access to the courtyard, let alone those roving caverns inside.

Instead, we scootered around back and took some photos (above and left) of MAXXI's intimidating,  inaccessible, and ugly back side, dominated by windowless concrete massifs, colorful barriers, and fencing.

Watch for icebergs! 



Bill

The large space outside the gallery entrance works well with "big" art [photo added to original post]

(Dianne points out MAXXI is #30 on our Rome the Second Time  Top 40.) And, as noted above, it is on our Flaminio tour - both its front and its back.  Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler 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. 

Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler now is also available in print, at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores, and other retailers; retail price $5.99.

Mario Ceroli: Rome Sculptor

He's hardly a household name.  And doubtless less well known than some of the other unknowns we've featured on the Rome the Second Time blog.  But he has had, and continues to have, an impact, here and there, on Rome and its environs.  He's Mario Ceroli.

Readers of the RST Facebook page may recall that Ceroli is the designer of a very large late- modernist sculpture, a polyhedron in pine, painted red, that now resides in Flaminio, just steps away from Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazetto dello Sport. That piece--a favorite of Bill's, but not Dianne's--was designed for the 1990 World Cup (its title is "Goal"), and its original location was, appropriately, close to the stadium in which important games were played.  It was positioned in Foro Italico.

Incredibly, the sculpture may also have been located, at one time, next to Nervi's other Rome masterwork, the Palazzo dello Sport, in EUR.

Or perhaps this is a fanciful invention--that is, not a real photo.  

Ceroli is perhaps better known for another piece in wood: the Cavallo Alato (winged horse, 1987), at the Centro Direzionale Rai (RAI the television station) at the entrance to via Carlo Emery in Saxa Rubra, a town not far to the north of Rome.  The horse is covered with gold.  We haven't seen it in person.

Ceroli also specialized in church furnishings.  He designed furnishings for the church of Porto Rotondo, Sardinia (1971), and for Santa Maria del Redentore, in lovely (a touch of irony here) Tor Bella Monaca, on Rome's outskirts.   We have been to this church, which is striking on the outside and, we know now, decorated on the inside by Ceroli.  More work in wood. More photos of the interior of this church at the end of this post.

Born in Castel Frentano (in the Abruzzi) in 1938, Ceroli soon found himself in Rome's grasp.  Among his first artistic influences was the Accademia di Belli Arti di Roma.  In the 1960s he was much taken with the new vogue of pop art, and especially with the work - often in wood -  of Louise Nevelson (and see here for more on Nevelson's work) and Joe Tilson.  In later decades, his creative energies were frequently expressed in a series of multiple wood cut-outs, of the sort pictured immediately below.

A typical Ceroli cut-out sequence.  A comment on identity? homogeneity? Postmodern repetition?

A church pew, of inlaid wood

Chapel

Chapel detail

Interior, Santa Maria del Redentore

Bill