Remembering Giacomo Matteotti, and the Early Days of Italian Fascism

 

One of Rome's least prominent--and probably least visited--memorials is located on the Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia, just steps from the Tevere, near Ponte Pietro Nenni--a 5-minute walk from bustling Piazza del Popolo.

There, on June 1924 (two years after the March on Rome), while walking along the Lungotevere Arnaldo, the Italian politician Giacomo Matteotti was waylaid, thrown into a Lancia Lambda, and stabbed to death. Of the 5 men involved, one was a prominent member of the Fascist secret police. The extent of Benito Mussolini's involvement is not clear. [See the RST post on David Kertzer's book The Pope and Mussolini for more information.]

Matteotti was an anti-Fascist socialist--a member of the Unitary Socialist Party--and a deputy in the parliament. Ten days prior to his murder, he had spoken in the parliament, concerned about violence that had occurred during recent elections and critical of the anti-democratic Acerbo law, which had assigned 2/3 of the seats in parliament to the party of Mussolini--the largest in the body--which had won 35% of the vote. 

The monument to Matteotti occupies a semi-circular green space on an elevated terrace above the river. The space can be accessed by the Lungotevere or from the river bank, via a substantial staircase that appears to be a part of the memorial. 

Inaugurated in 1974 (50 years after Matteotti's death) and paid for by the Socialist Party, the bronze memorial consists of two very different sculptures, both by Jorio Vivarelli (1922-2008), who as a soldier was captured and imprisoned in 1943 by the German forces. The monument includes the words, "Although you kill me, the idea within me can never be killed."

The original plaque was smashed in January 2017, 6 months before we visited the site and these photos were taken.  

Bill 

You Can't Sit Down! Places to Sit--and Not to Sit--in Rome

Neighborhood bench seating in Piazza Tuscolo, in the quartiere of San Giovanni

Fountain seating, Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore

Fortunately for the exhausted tourist--and the city's residents--Rome has plenty of places to sit down: benches in parks and piazzas, the stairs of any of Rome's thousand or so churches, the edges of the city's many fountains, and the Spanish Steps (a large group seating experience) just for starters.  

But there are some places where you can't sit down--or wouldn't want to--likely because someone doesn't want you to.  Here are a few examples.  

Bill 

Via Arenula

The sharp points on this door may be
decorative in purpose--or maybe not.

The Lungotevere.  The stairs ahead are an option, but not the window sill.

Store on the periphery

A doorway.  The left side opens--but the balls are there to prevent
anyone from sitting on the other side. 

At Santa Maria Maggiore, the stairs are available, but not that
otherwise inviting piece of iron.

This ledge on the Lungotevere would be uncomfortable.

William Kentridge's "Triumphs and Laments": A Spell-Binding, Ephemeral Work on Rome's Tevere River

One of the two processions along the Tevere in front of Kentridge's wall drawings, with enormous projections of iconic Rome figures of history - and of triumph and lamentation - against those drawings.  The "puppeteers" were colorfully dressed and highlighted as well, giving a sense of the making of the performance (see close-up below).

A must stop on anyone's visit to Rome from now (April 2016) until about 4 years from now must be William Kentridge's artwork on the right bank (Trastevere side) of the Tevere between Ponte Sisto and Ponte Mazzini.  What can we say besides just don't miss it?  Head down to the river level at one of the stairways and walk the 500 meters slowly, drinking in the great work South African artist Kentridge created on these massive river bank walls.

If there is a repeat of the performance that opened the artwork on Rome's 2,769th birthday, April 21, 2016, don't miss that either.  The music and "projections" were spell-binding.

The theme of "triumphs" and "laments" is presented by Kentridge in his main mode:  the drawing of people and animals in black and white.  We were fortunate to see a few of Kentridge's videos, in this same style, in the path-breaking 2015 video exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo). Here in Rome, the marrying of Kentridge's style with the subject matter of 2700 year-old Rome and the blackened 57-foot high walls of the Tevere (Tiber River) are quite frankly a thing of beauty.

Rome's lupa or she-wolf... here, instead of the infant twins Romulus
and Remus, Kentridge presents amphorae, or water jugs.

Kentridge draws on themes familiar to Romans - from the lupa (she-wolf) who suckled Rome's founders, Remus and Romulus - to the deaths of Rome martyrs such as Giordano Bruno (the "heretic" monk, burned at the stake by the Church in 1600), Aldo Moro (moderate politician murdered in 1978 by radical leftists) and Pier Paolo Pasolini (filmmaker and artist killed mysteriously in 1975 in the Rome seaside town of Ostia). He also uses iconic Italian objects like the Vespa, the moka coffee pot, the Necchi sewing machine, and the bicycle (from DeSica's neorealist film, The Bicycle Thief).  He also brings the successes and tragedies to the present, with references to the migrants landing on the Italian island of Lampedusa.  Persecution and migration is a strong theme in this set of drawings.

Kentridge's interpretation of La Dolce Vita.
Marcello Mastroanni and Anita Ekberg
are in a bathtub, under a shower, in place of the
Trevi Fountain.  Kentridge also makes heavy use
of carts and wheels (as here), perhaps signifying
travel through time.

 A 10-Euro booklet provides a guide to the 1/3-mile wall of art, as well as explains the techniques for making these enormous figures.  If that isn't available, hopefully some of this explanation will be online. Even without it, the work is tremendously powerful.

The iconic Vespa is at the center of this procession.

As we watched one of the opening performances on the left bank, looking across at Kentridge's drawings, we were captivated by the music of triumph and lamentation and the enormous puppetry or projections. The large shadows moving across the great walls, with the colorfully dressed puppet masters (if we can call them that) also visible, was mesmerizing.

Giordano Bruno, represented by Kentridge
through his statue in Campo de' Fiori

The music for these opening performances, composed by Philip Miller, used a variety of music types, from liturgical songs of the late Renaissance to West African slave songs, to ancient Southern Italian songs.  Frankly, the 4 of us (we and 2 of our good Roman friends) could not truly "understand" the music, and I'm not sure we were supposed to, but we did pick out the religious music, the African music, and the Italian folk music - we knew there was a confluence of musical types.  The sounds of triumph and lamentation were superimposed on each other.  It's an experience one was immersed in, rather than must or should have comprehended in its entirety at the time.

Hopefully the music too will be available in some form in the future.  Meanwhile, we will leave you with a link to our video of 30 seconds of the April 22 performance.

The making of the wall art, if we can use such simple words to describe it, is fascinating as well. We were in Rome in 2005 when Kristin Jones first presented her "lupa" - actually several "lupe" on the walls of the Tevere in this spot. She created them by erasing the background to produce the white, leaving the dirty walls to provide the figures themselves.  This same technique was used by Kentridge, who was inspired by, coached by, and encouraged by Jones, who is billed as the Artistic Director of the project.  We also need to give a shout-out to "Tevereterno", the non-profit organization that presented this as well as Jones's work in 2005, and has been working hard and long to reclaim the Tevere, under the direction of architect Tom Rankin.

Because the work depends on the erasure of dirt from the walls, the walls will in time become dirty again, and the black figures will appear to fade into the darkening walls.  That's the reason we suggest you might have only about 4 years from now to see this magnificent, ephemeral, work.

Joggers using the Tevere's bike and walking path, with Kentridge's
art as a backdrop.

Will "Trimphs and Laments" be received as great art?  We have yet to hear from establishment art critics in that regard. We do know the crowd on April 22 was wildly enthusiastic, cheering, whistling, and clapping for the performers and the art.

Dianne

Some of the hundreds of observers of the April 22, 2016 performance, from the left bank of the Tevere.

Backstreet Rome: the Tevere side of Marconi

Ready for rehab

We don't recommend the Marconi district for tourists, whether first or second time.  It has its virtues: an active street life, a wine bar and good mix of coffee bars, a book store that holds readings now and then, an outdoor market, easy access to the Tevere. But it's one of the dirtiest sections of the city, is a trifle removed from the action for our tastes, and--in our opinion--has no worthy restaurants.  When we lived there some years ago, our 2-cycle scooter broke down frequently, and we found bus service into the center inadequate.  The Trastevere train station is a 15-minute, rather unpleasant walk from the heart of Marconi.  

We recently returned to to the quartiere, not to revisit our earlier haunts, but to explore the backside of the neighborhood, the area between its commercial core (a triangle of streets to the south of Piazzale della Radio--viale Marconi, via Grimaldi, and via Oderisi da Gubbio) and the Tevere, to the east of viale Marconi.  The area was once industrial, and it retains some of that character, in stages of preservation and decay.  A series of recent interventions has fashioned a pleasant post-industrial, post-modern space, full of surprises--enough that we recommend this itinerary (for intrepid Rome explorers).

Homeless camp

Our walk began across viale Marconi from Piazzale della Radio, at via Papareschi, walking east toward the river.  Passing a school with sanctioned graffiti by Alessandra Carloni (2015), we turned right on the Lungotevere di Papareschi.  Just ahead, a homeless encampment--no one present at mid-day, but plenty of evidence of human habitation.  

Beyond (walking south), on the right, a massive early 20th-century industrial complex, today anchored by the Teatro India, now in the process of being restored along with other buildings in the group.  Don't hold your breath.  

View from the tower, to the west.

At the southern end of the industrial complex, a long, narrow park appears at the right, heading toward Marconi proper. A short tower with stairs offers views of the river. A recent construction, the park, in standard Roman fashion, is already in a state of deterioration, brickwork crumbling, facing on the sides missing in spots, and graffiti, of course--in this case lacking official approval. 

Elevated walkway, looking east toward the Tevere.  Left, the gazometro
on the far bank.  Right, redeveloped buildings housing businesses.

 

Walkway graffiti, ironic mode

Urban vineyard.  Unusual in its proximity to high-rise
residences.   

Redeveloped apartments

The walkway ends about 200 meters on, in a piazza of smaller, redeveloped buildings in Roman red--apartments and offices--and, on the north side, a tiny vineyard (above).  

Hotel.  It reaches out to you.

Redeveloped offices or apartments

We turned back here, working our way below the elevated walkway and to the right, to the front of the H10 Roma Città hotel in late modernist non-style.  We can't imagine why any tourist (or for that matter, anyone) would stay in a sterile structure in the middle of nowhere, with taxis the only convenient outlet to civilization.  Even so, the tented patio--just to the left in the photo above right--looked inviting, even at mid-day.

All stairs

After snooping around inside, we walked south in front of the hotel and took the first left, onto via Blaserna.  To the right, what appears to be a rehabbed, modernized older building. Nothing special except an elaborate set of stairs on its north side.  

Santi Aquila e Priscilla

To the left, at the end of the block, one of Rome's modern churches: Santi Aquila e Priscilla, complete with bell tower and tall cross, covered in vines and resembling an anchor.  The stained-glass windows are exceptional, but they should be seen from the inside.  

Turning left (north) on the Lungotevere Papareschi, you'll see another modern building with a substantial glassed atrium--an interesting if not compelling feature--and, beyond it, one of Rome's newest bridges, the Ponte della Scienza, a walking bridge.  

Take the bridge--sweet views of the river, without the 50-foot brick embankments found in the Centro--and turn left on the bank opposite.  

The standard graffiti.  A wonderful, up-close look at the iconic gazometro--the shell of a gas storage system.  This was once a busy working waterfront, and some businesses remain active here. 

Still a working waterfront.  The cranes once moved goods from the river to processing buildings.

A concrete watertower on the right would normally not be worthy of mention, but a special effort has

A watertower reminder of the Mussolini regime

been made to reveal and emphasize a Fascist fasces, complete with dating (A VII, or 1929).  

From this point, you can continue your walk north to the next, much older, bridge, and turn left, or backtrack, cross the Ponte della Scienza, and turn right.    

Bill

Walking the (Aurelian) Wall (III): the Tame and the Wild Sides

A handsome portion of the wall, near the Pyramid, with a tropical look

This section of the Aurelian Wall, running from Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid to the Tevere (and Porta Portese), has two faces: one quite touristy and civilized, the other rather odd and possibly even a bit dangerous.  It is noted by some as one of the longer, intact stretches of this third century wall, once encircling all of Rome.  But the stretch has its limitations, as RST discovered. [Update: a Google map that includes this itinerary.]

To the left of the Pyramid, a short section
 of the wall, extending toward - but not to -
Porta San Paolo; here you also can see
where the wall  has been removed for traffic.

The tame, or civilized phase begins at the Pyramid (here, a part of the wall - another "existing structure" used to build the wall quickly in 271-75 AD).  Because this area is well known for armed resistance to Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943, the wall here is a resource for memories of that moment.

Remembering the dead

The pillar (photo right) remembers 471 people who died defending the city.  Just beyond, between the Pyramid and the wall proper, volunteers who care for the hundreds of cats that live in a special facility here, were closing up for the day.






And beyond that, the wall itself is impressive (see photo at the top of this post), even if the grounds on the outside of the wall are unkempt and full of evidence that a lot of drinking is done here: not only bottles but dozens of bottle caps embedded in a stump.  Though we're on the outside here, the inside of the wall is accessible in this area through two cemeteries: the well-known Non-Catholic Cemetery, which contains lots of important bodies, including that of the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci, and the haunting (British) Commonwealth Cemetery just across via N. Zabaglia, just ahead (both, again, inside the wall).

Mailbox for wall "address"

Now things get a bit funky.  As we continued beyond the small turnabout/piazza, following the outside of the wall, we passed a man relaxing in the weeds, then came upon a locked gate to which was attached a mail box, as if someone had once (or still did) live inside. 

Street-cleaning/garbage truck facility restricts access to wall

At this point the wall continues as part of an Ama (trash-collecting, street cleaning) facility.  We decided we would not have been welcome inside.  So we tracked back, hoping to follow the wall from the inside, past the front of the Commonwealth Cemetery, then a bit downhill onto the road that curves (clockwise) around Monte Testaccio, with its cool collection of late-night bars.

The Aurelian wall is somewhere ahead.  To the right,
the wall of the ex-Mattatoio

Following the curving road, in a couple of minutes we ended up at the long, straight road that fronts the ex-Mattatoio (literally, Killing Center, what we call a slaughterhouse, once a stockyard).  Heading left, toward the Aurelian wall (not yet visible), graffiti covering a portion of the ex-Mattatoio, then right--there's just a glimpse of the wall here--along a row of houses occupied, we think, by new and poor immigrants, Romanians and others, perhaps Roma (Rom, "gypsies").

A glimpse of the wall, between the wall of the ex-Mattatoio (left) and housing (right)

NO TAV graffiti, inside the ex-Mattatoio

Dianne would go no further.  Bill took the first right, then a quick left, quickly observing a row of about ten home-made shacks and a big barking black dog (which was fortunately chained).  Bill, too, retreated--from danger and likely embarrassment--and our not-so-intrepid couple retraced their steps to one of several open entrances to the yards, heading to and beyond a heavily graffitied tower at the center of the complex (of the graffiti on the walls to the left, note the nice train with
the NO TAV sign: in northern Italy, especially, there's strong opposition to a proposed new high-speed train (Treno Alta Velocita) through the French and Italian Alps.

The wall ends--or appears to end.  Photo taken from train.
Despite the sign, we are still in Testaccio, not yet across
the Tevere in Trastevere.

At the far end of the large open area of the ex-Mattatoio there's another road, inside the complex, leading left.  Not useful, we decided, in locating the wall.  So we left the complex, ahead and just to the right, through an exit onto the Lungotevere Testaccio that wasn't open a year ago.  Walking left, the road ends abruptly after about 200 meters, at a railroad bridge over the Tevere.  We still can't see the wall, and-- from a train several days later--we saw why: the wall, too, ends abruptly before it reaches the river.

Along the Tevere.  If not part of the wall, what is it?

We're thinking that the wall planners didn't see any necessity for a wall along the river--a sort of natural barrier--but there is an existing wall-like section, including a tower, along the road that runs above the river here, and some - but not all - maps show the wall was indeed here.

Tent housing, along the bank of the Tevere

But (we're trying to think this through) if the Aurelian wall had been built along the expanse of river from the railroad bridge (to the south) to Ponte Sublicio/Porta Portese (to the north), then surely there would be visible remnants of the wall.  And there are none--except, possibly, that tower and related remains--or none to be seen from the road, anyway. Another theory - that the remnants of the wall became part of the now-high river embankments.  But, back to our trek: below the road, near a path that runs along the river bank, people are living amid weeds in tents and huts.  Not for tourists, not even us.

A favorite bar, at corner of via Galvani and via
N. Zabaglia.  Time for an aperitivo.  

Today's search for the wall at an end, we turned back into the ex-Mattatoio,  past the old stockyards and the giant Bambu' installation that is part of MACRO Testaccio, along the bars and clubs built into Monte Testaccio, to the next corner and one of our favorite bars.  We were lucky.  It was 6:05 p.m., and five minutes earlier happy hour had begun: an aperitivo and plenty to eat, a photo show of historic Testaccio, and all for Euro 4 per person.  What a city!


Bill   

Alberto Moravia's Intellectual Gathering Place: Home in Rome Series #4.

Moravia, one of the great 20th-century Italian writers, is not a household word in the U.S., but probably should be.  His "The Conformist" resulted in Bernardo Bertolucci's acclaimed 1970 film of the same name.   And, Alberto Moravia's experience in the Ciociara region of central Italy, where he and Elsa Morante went to escape the German occupation of Rome in 1943-44, produced the novel and film we know in English as "Two Women."  In Vittorio DeSica's film, Sophia Loren gave the performance that earned her the first major Academy Award for a non-English performance. Moravia's "Gli Indifferenti" (The Indifferent Ones), published in 1929 when he was only 22, and with some of his own money, was the work that vaulted him onto the national scene.

Moravia's study.  He personally answered every
phone call. 

So it was with perseverance (see tour hours below) that we recently made a reservation to tour Moravia's apartment of his last 30 years, in which he died in 1991.  We enjoy seeing where historic figures lived, and the ambience they created around themselves.  In this sense, the Casa Moravia (Moravia home) does the job. One can see Moravia's study, his Olivetti typewriter, the desk his sculptor friend made him, the table around which the intellectuals gathered.



This home is where he moved with his second writer-wife, Dacia Maraini, in the early 1960s, after he separated from writer Elsa Morante. The Morante-Moravia relationship was tortured, at best.  Both have been described as unusually difficult people, although they also inspired creativity in each other.  It's hard to imagine a healthy spousal relationship with a writer who was obsessed with sex and younger women (a 1971 novel was about a screenwriter and his independent penis).

Yet a great writer he was, and we can breathe in the atmosphere he shared with his wives (the third one 40-some years younger than he) and other intellectual companions, including Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Moravia's life, in addition to being shaped by his wives and friends, was also heavily influenced by his 5-year bed rest as a teenager with tuberculosis, a life-long disease for him, and by Fascism.  His father was Jewish, and the family name was Pincherle. The Fascist regime kept track of his activities. 

Moravia, by Renato Guttuso

We encourage non-Italian speakers to enjoy some of these "second time" places.  But this one is only for those who understand Italian or just must see where Moravia lived.  The "tour" of less than one hour includes a 20 minute video (Italian only) and two 5-10 minute "talks" before seeing any of the apartment.  The 15 minute tour of the premises is too small a part of the "tour," we think.

Moravia was much painted by his artist friends; as a result, a significant part of the tour is the guide pointing out paintings. There are 3 by Renato Guttuso (one of our favorite 20th-century Italian painters) alone.

via della Vittoria, 1, in boring Prati.  Moravia's
apartment occupied the top floor on the rounded corner;
the terrace is quite something. 

Moravia's apartment is, frankly, rather ordinary and conformist.  It is also in what we consider a rather boring part of Rome: Prati.  On the day of the tour, to escape June rains in Rome, we walked for 30 minutes without finding a single coffee bar - now that's deprivation. Moravia had lived with Morante just off Piazza del Popolo for decades.  The move to Prati, even though just across the Tevere and up river a bit, must have felt like a move to the suburbs.  Even so, the environment may have suited the author, whose themes of ennui, alienation, and existentialism were well served by the neighborhood.

Casa Moravia was opened only a couple years ago, though the State has owned the apartment and its belongings basically since Moravia died.  Tours are given only at 10 and 11 a.m. on the first Saturday of every month, and reservations must be made in the month preceding the one in which you wish to take the tour.  Euro 5; Lungotevere della Vittoria, 1.  Web site in English: http://en.casaalbertomoravia.it/.  For reservations, call:  +39 339 2745206 (ArcheArte).
For RST's other "Home in Rome" postings, see those on German writer and philosopher Goethe, Nobel prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello, and artist Giorgio de Chirico (in birth order).  


Dianne