The town of Pomezia, 25 km from Rome - of vaccines, Fascism, World War II

Bill looks like he's in a de Chirico painting here in Pomezia

We were surprised to learn that Pomezia, a small town created from scratch by the Fascists (inaugurated in 1939) in the Agro Pontino outside of Rome, is the site of the maker of one of the most promising Covid-19 vaccines. We knew nothing about that when we visited the town - several times in years past. We tried to figure out how we missed such an important industry. You may have heard of the Advent vaccine. That vaccine is being developed by Advent, which is an offshoot of Pomezia's IRBM, together with Oxford University. Some recent information on this vaccine trial is here. It's the Astra-Zeneca vaccine whose trial was halted for a while and is now restarted.

Our mission in the times we went to Pomezia was to view the Fascist architecture (see here for a reference to other forays) and visit the WWII German Cemetery. In those days, we were exploring the iconography of war cemeteries in and around Rome (e.g. here).  

Dianne posing with enormous fasci
 in a doorway, likely to the town hall.
The year is listed as "A. XVII E.F. -
Era Fascista, year 17 (or 1939)

We stopped in Pomezia's main square to get the requisite coffee (see Bill above) and saw some signs indicating there was to be a celebration of Garibaldi. We think that's the subject of the painting above.

We didn't have to look hard for the Fascist architecture.  Here are a couple examples (left and below, plus photo at top). There are more at the end of the post.

We then headed to the cemetery, which is only a short ways out of the town center. It's beautifully maintained and peaceful, the resting place of almost 30,000 German soldiers, some of them "unknown." 

I'll skip a description of the cemetery here, since our friend and Dante scholar, Virginia Jewiss, has written eloquently about it, and I want to give more space to her analysis in a later post.

The question remains, where is the famous laboratory making these vaccines, and why did we - who scour towns and cities - miss it?

It turns out the lab is very close to the town center, across the notorious via Pontina. It appears to be not very visible from the road (on a higher piece of land).  No doubt we scootered right past it.  See maps below.

IRBM Science Park. Pomezia's town center is at the upper right. This photo is looking South.

The map below right shows the IRBM plant on the map - at Google's inverted red drop -  with Pomezia's town center just to the West. The red cross below the green space (the town cemetery) shows the location of the German Cemetery - so obviously, we scootered right by the IRBM facility.

Italy's important connections to the Covid-19 vaccines also include a glass manufacturing company near Venice, founded in 1949 to make bottles for perfume and liquors, now devoting itself to glass vials for the vaccines. Forbes featured the family-owned company in an article here.

Jewiss says there's some irony that Pomezia, a town designed to laud the Fascists, is the resting place of Germans who fought with, and then against, the failed Italian regime. I view the cemetery as a cautionary reminder of the wages of war, and Pomezia now as a sign of the future - waging a different war - against the virus.

More on the German cemetery, and some of Jewiss's interpretations of its iconography, in a subsequent post.

Dianne

Church - a central church was a
part of all the Fascist "new towns."

Pomezia's "GIL" or  youth center
(Gioventu' italiana del littorio -
the Fascist youth movement party),
the letters framed by two fasci.

 

A 50th anniversary monument (1990), testament to the town's forefathers - note the hand-driven agricultural equipment as the main symbol.

The ubiquitous "Bar dello sport,"
with a very nice 1953 decoration above the door,
echoing the style of Fascist figures
and also the town's agricultural founding.

RST's 700th Post. Holy Cow!

We've been writing this blog for more than eight years, but it remains surprising--no, astonishing--that we have managed to produce 700 posts.  Yes, 700!  If you figure it takes about 8 hours of work to produce one post (some are less, some much more--like days), that amounts to 5600 total hours spent making content.  That's like having a 40-hour-a-week job for almost 3 years.  Yikes!

To celebrate our 700th, we're offering links to some of our most popular posts (those with the most page views, and some others with lots of traffic).  Click on the link to see the original post.

Richard Meier's Jubilee Church.  The all-time page-view champ at over 15,000.  A ways out of town, but worth the trip.  #17 on RST's Top 40.

Europe's Largest Mosque--in Rome.  We may have a lot of Muslim readers, but the building is quite something no matter what religion you are.  Also on RST's Top 40 - at #24. Interestingly, a post we did on Rome's Kebab was also widely seen.

The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A Moral Act or Not?  Philosophy professor Raymond Belliotti examines the ethics of the murder by evaluating it against 7 moral criteria.







Riding a Scooter in Rome.  Actually, RST's post on renting a scooter in Rome was somewhat more popular, but this one's more useful--lots of hard-earned tips about riding a scooter in Rome, should you decide to do it, which you shouldn't.

Italy's Liberation Day: Bella Ciao.  Guest blogger Frederika Randall pulls apart the legendary anthem and examines the history of "Bella Ciao."













 Tracking Elizabeth Taylor.  ET spent some time in Rome, some of it with Richard Burton, while she was making movies.  She's still iconic here, but perhaps less so than Audrey Hepburn, whose image is everywhere.













The 1960 Rome Olympics: An Itinerary.  There's lots to see in Rome related to the 1960 Olympics: the Olympic Village; the Palazzetto dello Sport, where Cassius Clay made his name and reputation; an amazing stadium built by Mussolini where the athletes warmed up.












Garibaldi in Rome.  The darling of Italian unification, Giuseppe Garibaldi fought the French on the Gianicolo and lived to tell about it.












Via Tasso.  To most Romans, via Tasso means "place where the Germans imprisoned and tortured their political enemies," or something like that.  It's not far from the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, and you can visit, even walk into the cells and read the messages prisoners scrawled on the walls. RST Top 40, #3.

On St. Paul's Path.  Cities have their "named saints," saints special to the city.  Rome has two: Peter and Paul.  Paul brought Christianity to Rome, and was martyred just outside the city.  You can visit the sites and try to feel his presence.

Margaret Fuller in Rome: "Rome must be inhaled..."

Margaret Fuller

As is the case with Goethe, it appears the 19th-century American Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller first had sex in Rome.  Not that I want to start a Facebook page on this topic, but the effect of Rome on artists is a subject RST has been exploring for years.  And for Fuller, the apparently plain-faced, 37 year-old genius, Rome "must be inhaled wholly, with the yielding of the whole heart,...It is really something transcendent, both spirit and body."  And so she did.


This post is in essence a short biography of Margaret Fuller in Rome, including locations that can be turned into an itinerary.  At the end is a link to a Fuller-inspired tour being offered this year by a knowledgeable American group.


I must admit my infatuation with Margaret Fuller came late and via an Italian friend.  After Bill and I drafted our first guide to Rome, Rome the Second Time, we asked this highly educated friend to review it for us.  After he had read the itinerary that includes Garibaldi's defense of Rome from the Gianicolo in 1848, he said, "Of course, you know Margaret Fuller."  Of course, I did not.  All those English courses at Stanford, an MA in English, lots about Transcendentalists, and nothing about Fuller.  No doubt the syllabus would be different today.


So, yes, we included a few sentences about Fuller in RST.  But it was only when I read Megan Marshall's 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, that I understood that early feminist's effect on Ralph Waldo Emerson, among many others, and Rome's effect on her.

Via del Corso, where Fuller first lived in Rome, as a nanny for the Springs, as it might
have looked mid-19th century, with no vehicles (this photo taken recently, at dawn)

Giovanni Ossoli

Within a week of her arrival in Rome in spring 1847 as tutor for the 9 year-old son of fellow New Englanders, Rebecca and Marcus Spring, Fuller had met her future lover, the younger, not well-educated, monolingual Giovanni Ossoli.  It was a chance meeting, at vespers at St. Peter's during Easter week.


At the time, Fuller was living with the Springs on via del Corso, nearer Piazza Venezia than Piazza del Popolo.  We don't know the exact address, and now - unlike when Fuller lived there -  the imposing monument to the unifying King Vittorio Emanuele II occupies the view at the southern end of the street.

Via del Corso, no. 514, where Fuller lived when she
 returned to Rome by herself, in fall, 1847.  Ossoli found
her this apartment, close to where he lived with his parents
 - who knew nothing of his relationship with Fuller.

When Fuller returned to Rome after the 1847 summer, Ossoli found an apartment for her closer to Piazza del Popolo on via del Corso, then the most active street in the city.  Upstairs at 514 via del Corso, she could look across to the rooms Goethe, one of her influences, occupied more than 50 years earlier.


By the new year, Margaret was pregnant, and endured her first trimester with more than 40 days of unremitting rain in Rome.  "Rome is Rome no more." But in March she went to Ostia with Ossoli and "A million birds sang." By late April, the likely unmarried Margaret was "showing," and she had to leave Rome to avoid detection by anyone who knew her.  She left for the country mountain town of L'Aquila in the Abruzzi, then 3 days travel from Rome (now 2 hours by train), where she felt "lonely, imprisoned, too unhappy."  She was called a "ragazza madre," literally "girl mother," but probably equivalent to "unwed mother."

The flags mark Goethe's house, which Fuller could see from
her window at 514 via del Corso.

Meanwhile - and that's a big meanwhile - forces vying for control of Italy were raging along the peninsula. Soon not even L'Aquila was safe, because Neapolitan soldiers, loyal to the Pope, were encamped there.  So Margaret moved to the even smaller city of Rieti, with rooms overlooking the Velino River. In Rieti, on September 5, 1848, "Nino" was born.



After Nino was baptized, Fuller left the child with a wet nurse in Rieti and returned to Rome and to her job writing dispatches for the New York Tribune.  She resumed her column with an early December 1848 issue, recalling a year of "revolutions, tumults, panics, hope."




Ossoli located an apartment for Fuller at 60 Piazza Barberini, where she could see the Quirinale (then the Pope's palazzo), Bernini's Trident Fountain in the middle of the Piazza, and Palazzo Barberini, now partly obscured by mundane commercial buildings.

On Piazza Barberini, where we think #60 might have once been.

We looked for 60 Piazza Barberini.  Not only is the "modest stucco building" no longer there, but neither is the address.  It was likely swallowed up by new streets, such as via del Tritone.  Fuller biographer Marshall says Bernini's Bee Fountain was at the foot of Fuller's building, but that too has been moved since the 19th century.


From her rooms on Piazza Barberini, Margaret could hear gunshots from the various forces and see wounded men carried on stretchers.  In February the secular state was proclaimed, and from a balcony in Piazza Venezia, Margaret watched the celebrations there.

Via Margutta, where Thomas Hicks, who painted Fuller's
portrait, had a studio.  No one we encountered on the street
had heard of Hicks, or Fuller (but they''ll tell you where Roman
Holiday was filmed and where Fellini and Masina lived).

In the tranquil first few months of this new Roman state, Margaret walked the Borghese gardens, as she had 2 years earlier with little Eddie Spring.  Now the oak trees all had been cut down, for fortifications.   But the Republic was short-lived.

The stained glass symbol for the Fatebene Fratelli hospital
(featured, btw, in Angels and Demons)

With more wounded soldiers and civilians, Margaret found a role for herself.  On April 30, 1848, "Margherita Ossoli" was appointed "Regolatrice," or director, of Fatebene Fratelli hospital, functioning to this day on Isola Tiburtina, the Tiber Island in the middle of Rome.  By this time, French troops loyal to the Pope were advancing on Rome and Fuller was urged to go to a safer location.


She relocated to Casa Diez on via Gregoriana, just a couple blocks from Piazza Barberini.  This hotel had been favored by American and English tourists but, because of the revolution, was now almost empty.  We couldn't find the hotel, nor any trace of its name.  But via Gregoriana, leading to the top of the Spanish Steps, remains a popular location for foreign tourists.




Via Gregoriana - but we are not sure where the hotel Casa Diez
was located

On July 2, routed by the French, Garibaldi led his remaining troops out of the city.  Fuller watched as they passed by the obelisk in back of San Giovanni in Laterano. The next day the French troops marched into Rome.  Fuller spent her last night in Rome on the Pincio with her husband, who was camped there with his regiment.  She then left for Rieti to reclaim her son.



Fuller and Ossoli, who soon joined her, spent several weeks in Rieti, hiring a new wet nurse for their ailing son (the prior one had given him wine and water when her milk supply was short) and bringing him back to health.  They then left for Florence, where there was an American contingent. They finally booked passage on the only vessel they could afford, a cargo boat to the US, and left Livorno, on the coast near Florence, on May 17, comprising 3 of the 6 paying passengers on the "barque." It was supposed to be a 2-month voyage.  And so it was.  On July 19, the vessel went aground off Fire Island.  Only a few hundred yards from shore, Fuller, Ossoli and their son drowned.



Dianne

Large parts of this narrative are derived from Megan Marshall's excellent biography, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.  And parts were gleaned from an itinerary for a bicentennial commemorative tour of Italy following Fuller's life there.  The organizers planned to place a plaque at Fatebene Fratelli Hospital in Margaret's memory.  We looked extensively and asked many questions, but we did not see any plaque there, nor did there appear to be any similar plaques at the hospital.  Some of these same organizers are leading a 2016 tour based on transcendentalists in Italy.  See their Web site http://transcendentalisttours.com/upcoming-tours/ 

The Vatican Walls: Where Fascism Meets Catholicism, or Letting Out the Popes

On one of our great Wall Walks (we know there are those of you who have wondered what happened to our plan to walk the perimeter of the 7th-century Aurelian Wall... yes, those posts are to come), we encountered a physical reminder of the 1929 "Conciliation" between the Italian State and the Catholic Church.  The grand double arches you see in this post are impressive evidence of the Romans' ability to use architecture and symbols to constantly remind us of their history.

In 1929, Benito Mussolini signed for the State, and Pietro Gasparri, Cardinal Secretary, for Pope Pius XII, the Lateran Pacts that resolved the question of the role of the Catholic Church within the secular Italian State - basically, the territories the Church would retain, financial reimbursement for property seized in the revolution, the Church as the State church.  That question had been pending since the "Risorgimento," or the overtaking of most of Italy by the non-Papal forces, in 1870.  And, since that time the Popes had not come out of the Vatican, a self-imposed incarceration.

The Conciliation - commemorated by Via della Conciliazione, which leads from the Tevere to St. Peter's - is also known as the Lateran Pacts, because the agreement was signed in the Lateran church: San Giovanni in Laterano.  (We had always thought they were signed in Piazza della Pigna, where there is a plaque to that effect. Perhaps Il Duce and Gasparri negotiated aspects of the Pacts in that quiet piazza, in which sits a restaurant we have frequented.)

Perhaps more interesting.

So to the Wall.  The photo above, of a double archway, shows one of the first "signs" of the Conciliation that we found on our walk.  In this case we are "inside" the Wall, inside the Vatican, that is, looking out.  On the top of the arch on the left is the coats of arms of Rome, the SPQR, and on the right, the symbol of the Pope, the Pope's hat (mitre) and St. Peter's crossed keys to the Church,  (Why the balls on the coat of arms?  See below.)  So we have the Wall, we have the exit from the Vatican, now usable by the Popes, and a symbol on each gateway representing the two sides in the power struggle.

The archway in the photo above, another exit/entrance from/to the Vatican is perhaps more interesting because it has three layers of secular and Papal symbols.  On the lower level, if one looks closely (see photo left), the State symbol has 1) the King's crown 2) the fasci, representing the Mussolini government, and 3) SPQR, the ancient Rome's government acronym, adopted by Mussolini to tie his Fascist regime to ancient Rome.

The coats of arms at the top likely are older ones that were placed here. The Papal one on the left is of the Barberini Pope (see the bees), Urban VIII (1623-44), and the State one on the right is for the King of Savoy.



Finally we leave you with the grand double archway below, looking from the outside into the Bernini colonnade.  Here the multi-layered blocks and symbols appear to have both Papal and Fascist dating. There is a reference to Pius IV (IIII), a Medici (note the balls in the coat of arms in the photo at the top of the post), who in the early 1500s built the now destroyed Porta Angelica, to welcome pilgrims from the north.  It was at Porta Angelica in 1849 that Garibaldi and his troops made their first forays into Rome to take over the city from the Popes.

So perhaps the Vatican is extracting a sense of justice.  We have a gate (think exit) built after the 1929 Conciliation to acknowledge the Vatican territory and let out the Popes for the first time in almost 60 years.  But on that gate, the Vatican has placed highly symbolic parts of the 1500s Porta Angelica, the gate where at one time (1849) anti-Papal forces forcefully challenged the rule of the Popes; and the Popes won that battle.  Garibaldi's forces won about 20 years later: 1870.  While I disagree with him, David Kertzer, in his book Prisoner of the Vatican: The Popes, the Kings, and Garibaldi's Rebels in the Struggle to Rule Modern Italy, takes the position that even though Garibaldi won the battle for Rome in 1870, eventually the Popes won the war, in the sense that the Catholic Church has religious (albeit not state) dominion over more than 1 billion people.  In any event, in these grand arches and gateways, the Popes are making their point: we're still here.

Dianne

Off-the-beaten-path churches: The Basilica of San Pancrazio

"Here San Pancrazio was decapitated."

The basilica of San Pancrazio wasn't always so off-the-beaten-path.  It sits less than half a mile from the famous Porta di San Pancrazio, a gateway to the Gianicolo.

Of course, RST thinks it's worth a visit.  Even though we've lived close enough to the neighborhood several times, it did take several tries to get both of us there.  One problem, the reluctant visitor to churches that were built before 1920, and the other problem of timing our visit when the church is open.  It's widely acknowledged it gets few visitors and tourists and, therefore, is no longer always open (hours at end of this post).

Time, wars, history, have not been kind to this - originally - 7th-century church built on the alleged site of the named saint's martyrdom (see photo at top).  As Wiki Roman Churches puts it,  "It was thoroughly looted by the French in 1798, and was partially destroyed by the Garibaldians during their futile defence of the Roman Republic against the French army in 1849. This vandalism included having the shrine broken open and the relics of the martyr disposed of. Whatever the vandals did with them, whether they put them down the toilet or shot them from a cannon, it is the case that not a fragment was recovered. Hence, when substantial necessary repairs were carried out to the church in the later 19th century, a small relic was brought back from the head of the saint at St John Lateran to be enshrined."
(For more on Garibaldi and this area, which we find fascinating, see one of RST's posts.)

And if that wasn't enough, there was a collapse in 2001 that closed the church and catacombs for a while.

Yes, catacombs.  One of the reasons I like the basilica.  Like several Roman churches, it sits atop an immense catacomb, and this one is not full of a line of visitors with buses waiting outside for them.   The upside - you can have a free, private tour of the catacombs.  The downside - only in Italian.  Our guide was a sweet and dedicated man, who seemed surprised when we made a 5 Euro offering.  I like the church's Web site explanation for no fee for the visits:  "The memory of the Martyrs has no price."  The entry is inside the main body of the church - just don't fall down the hole.

The coffered ceiling.

Trompe l'oeil fresco being restored.

 The setting of the church is evocative - it's at the end of a shaded lane, with walls on each side housing the monastery and a small museum.  All of this is couched in a corner of the immense park Villa Pamphili.


And, yes, it has art works, among them a restored monumental wooden coffered ceiling and frescoes attributed to the Cavalier d'Arpino, both 17th century. 


For more information, the Roman Churches Wiki site is decent, and the church offers a pamphlet in English.  Or, you can go to the basilica's Web site, which has some extensive history; use a translation program if you don't read Italian (click on "I Monumenti"  and then either "Basilica" or "Catacombe."

The catacombs are open Wednesday and Thursday mornings, 9:30 a.m - noon, and Wednesday afternoon, 4:30 - 7 p.m.  The church is open 8:30 a.m. - noon, every day (8 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Sundays and holidays) and afternoons 4:30 - 7 p.m. (7:30 p.m. July - September, and  8 p.m. on Sundays and holidays).  It's at Piazza San Pancrazio, at the end of via San Pancrazio (where it turns into via Vitellia). The location is "due passi" (2 steps - i.e., only a little way) from part of the first water itinerary in Rome the Second Time: 15 Itineraries That Don't Go to the Coliseum.

Dianne

Garibaldi Rides Again: A New Museum in Rome

The dashing young Giuseppe Garibaldi

Rome opened a small, but intense, new museum this year on top of the Gianicolo, to our great delight. The Museo della Repubblica Romana e della memoria garibaldina (Museum of the Roman Republic and memory of Garibaldi and his followers – possibly titled by committee) – opens up to Italian and English speakers the intense 19th- century history that unfolded on the hill. The imposing gate to the city itself (see photos at end) houses the museum - it's literally IN Porta San Pancrazio.

In June 1849 some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign to end Papal rule over Italy – and Rome in particular – took place here. Damage to buildings is still visible on the road leading to Villa Pamphilli, where the Garibaldini (the Garibaldi forces) waged their last battle of that year. The top of the Gianicolo is, in a phrase coined by one of our friends, a Garibaldi theme park. And, down the hill from the majestic Fountain of Aqua Paolo is an "ossuary” – a bone repository of the many who lost their lives in those battles.  The ossuary is on the Trastevere itinerary of our new book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  More on the book at the end of this post.

All of this is clearer now thanks to sophisticated dioramas, maps, flyers in English, and other computer-assisted tools artfully placed in the Porta. We enjoyed the actor playing the part of the martyred Ciceruacchio (“Chubby” - to whom there is a statue on the Gianicolo we had never noticed before – but it too was moved for the anniversary – to a spot in the “theme park”). In a 5 or so minute wall-size video (that one can view in English) he explains why he went from being supportive of the Pope to being violently anti-Pope, which surprised us, and he chides Italians today for perhaps not being as unified as those who fought for state-hood might like them to be. Ciceruacchio, whose real name was Angelo Brunetti, has a Wikipedia entry (you can use a Google translator to get the main points in English).

An original "Red Shirt" - the Garibaldi wore, and were known
by them - and other Garibaldini memorabilia

Six of the 8 adult sons of Ricciotti Garibaldi, one of Giuseppe and
Anita's sons (i.e, their grandsons), in World War I in France.
Fighters/liberators all, along with their 2 other brothers; 2 died
in the Argonne, one in Ceylon

The battles of 1849 resulted in the defeat of the Garibaldini, a defeat which took them 21 years to overturn when in 1870 they breached the gates of Rome on the opposite side of the city - Porta Pia – and Italy’s statehood finally extended to Rome.

"We loved life, but for the health of generations to come, we chose death.  D.'Garibaldi' "- The Balkans 1943-45, and WWI in northern Italy 1915-1918.

The museum goes beyond 1849 to illustrate the subsequent activities of the Garibaldini and specifically of Garibaldi’s sons and grandsons. It’s an amazing tribute to the man and his progeny – both blood-line progeny and war colleagues.

Porta San Pancrazio has been completely refurbished.  Traffic
is no longer allowed to cross in front of it.  The large planters
are designed to deter those who might try.  And, so, one no longer needs to keep one's toes in while snacking at Bar Gianicolo (as we advised in Rome the Second Time).   

In Rome the Second Time, this outline of the 1849 battle forms a large part of Itinerary 2 – War and Water on the Gianicolo. It’s almost as if someone in the city read the book and said, hey, there’s an itinerary here! Of course they didn’t, but it’s nice to think so. And now, anyone can go into the museum and get the lay of the land before - or after – trekking around it oneself.  We've added the museum information to RST Updates - available online.

But of course the newly designed area in front of the
Porta gives many the opportunity to find new ways to park

The museum was not well attended on the free day we went this Fall (it just opened March 17 – in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, but our friends say it was so crowded on opening day that people were turned away. Perhaps this is an effort to rehabilitate Garibaldi (I recall his picture on a wall in my Grandmother’s house) who, along with his ideas of a secular state, some – like historian David Kerzer in a recent book – suggest today has been close to forgotten by the Italian people.

The museum has a website that gives details.  Open Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Adult tickets Euro 5.50. It’s worth it.

Dianne

The ossuary (and more on the Gianicolo) is featured on the Trastevere stairways walk 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. 

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.

RST Top 40. #29: Villa Pamphili Park

It's hard to know where to start with so vast a property as the park of Villa Pamphili. Perhaps it's the variety of offerings to myriad tastes that made us put it on the RST Top 40 - as in, something for everyone.

For starters, it's the largest public park in Rome at over 450 acres (it's 180+ hectares, larger than Hyde Park and about 55% the size of Central Park).



Second, it's beloved by Romans for Sunday picnics, passeggiatas (walking about... slowly), games, exercise (jogging - it was the site of the Christmas half-marathon last month - and biking are popular), dog-walking, children-minding....

Third, it's full of history (and what in Rome isn't?), especially the unsuccessful first occupation and defense of the city by the Garibaldi forces in 1849-50. A bit of that history, and of the park's, is on the Wikopedia site in English for the park. Print below shows the park when the Villa Corsini was still standing; it was destroyed in the French (on behalf of the Pope) attack on the Garibaldini in 1850.




Fourth, it has some wonderful buildings and walls left - ancient and modern, including an aqueduct that comes in from the north, crosses into and along the park, and ends in the fabulous Fontanone, the huge Acqua Paola Fountain below the park.Itinerary 2 in Rome the Second Time dips into the park off the Gianicolo.

Fifth, it's a vast nature preserve, with lots of flora (and some smaller fauna, including many varieties of birds) for the amateur botanists among us - a real green space. The park's grove of pine trees (pini, the grove, a pineto) defines one of the skylines of Rome - those gorgeous umbrella pines against the sky.

And we can also say what Villa Pamphili is not. It's not the Villa Borghese. It doesn't have a blockbuster museum, or a race track, or a zoo, or a puppet theater, or a cinema house, or a ton of tourists. Fine by us!



We've been to Villa Pamphili over and over... always with new experiences... our starter was a picnic with one of our sons where we really did try to kick the soccer ball in the pine grove. Another time we followed the aqueduct and studied the Risorgimento (the Italian drive to unification - and to unseat the Pope) of the mid-19th century. More recently, we dwelled on the graffiti particularly lush in the area of the park near via Vitellia. We recommend coming in this entrance, around the small lake to a crumbled-down water course that once formed the center of a pleasure park for the Pamphili elite and their friends. The history of the water course, and the missing statues, tells the story of the government's takeover of the park in about 1970 - yes, that's 40 years ago, not 140 - and its inability to keep the park from being raided by thieves and vandals. And yet another evening we came upon a lovely concert here, enjoying the music before rain caused us all to go our separate ways.





All of these comments just scratch the surface of the Villa Pamphili. Go for yourself and we know you'll discover something new. As one Roman blogger said recently, "Central Park and Hyde Park are parks; this is a world."




Dianne