Reading Rome: online map projects bring the 18th century to the 21st

"Giambattista Nolli's magnificent 1748 map of Rome, a milestone in the art and science of cartography and arguably one of the most accurate, beautiful and celebrated maps of Rome ever created." 

This ode to "La Grande Pianta di Roma 1748," above, is from James Tice of the University of Oregon. More importantly, for all of us missing Rome and anyone who misses 18th-century Rome, it's the introduction to the web site https://mappingrome.com/. 

In collaboration with Dartmouth, Stanford, and Studium Urbis, Tice and his colleagues have created a superb interactive map of both Nolli's Rome and modern Rome. By clicking on the "Layers" at the left of the website, you can add modern buildings or street labels, or even fountains and rioni to your map view. All landmarks (even small ones) have detailed information on the edifice's (if it is one) history and, if missing, what happened to it. 

The website also imports information and views from Giuseppe Vasi, who, in 1763 (he was Nolli's contemporary) published a guidebook for tourists. Dear to the heart of us walkers, Vasi's tourist tome (it complements his "magnum opus" on Rome of the day) breaks the city down into 8 walking itineraries. The website "mappingrome.com" gives an outline for those itineraries, along with Vasi's plates and details on the buildings - whether extant or destroyed. You can leaf through Vasi's magnum opus on another site (https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008696169/page/n5/mode/2up) or follow the itinerary through mappingrome.com's separate Vasi layers, as below.

Above in light green is Vasi's itinerary on Day 3, from Piazza di Spagna to Chiesa e Monastero di S. Lorenzo in Panisperna (in Monti). Part of the explanation of Vasi's plate for the last reads:  [the street angle] "argues for its [the church's] having been there before Via Panisperna was cut through. This is indeed the case: S. Lorenzo was an early Christian church, many times restored and largely redone in the 1570s. The 1551 Bufalini map shows that originally the church was approached by a street coming in from the left and parallel to the church façade. By Nolli's time that street had disappeared."

Vasi's plate at left (and on the website); a tourist photo below of the church and convent today.

Clearly a lot of armchair traveling - of the best kind - is available through this amazing map project.

Once you are 'inside' Nolli's maps, it's hard to stop looking, reading, and layering.

Dianne

PS - We first learned about this mapping project in a Zoom lecture series sponsored by the American Academy of Rome - during Covid lockdowns. 

https://www.aarome.org/events/calendar/city-traces-urban-memories

Arts alert: Totti Fresco undergoing Restoration

Elizabeth Minchilli reports on Facebook that a 10-year-old fresco of the Roma soccer star Francesco Totti--off via Madonna dei Monti in the Monti quartiere--had recently been defaced and, we're pleased (and somewhat surprised) to learn, was being restored by the artists who painted the original.  The restoration effort is depicted in Minchilli's photo, above.  RST took the "before" photo, below, in 2010.  Elizabeth Minchilli's website is www.elizabethminchilliinrome.com    Bill

Gelato anyone? That'll be $3, except for Italian politicians

In these hot days of a very hot Roman summer, we were drawn to this gelato shop in Rome's trendy, though still somewhat authentic, Monti neighborhood, a stone's throw from the Coliseum (this itinerary will get you to the Coliseum).                                 

What really caught our eye was the handwritten post on the door that we've attempted to blow up below:  "For Deputies and Senators, the gelato costs 30 Euro"(close to $40)  That's for a gelato that costs you and me more like $3.00.      

So a small protest for the dysfunctional politicians.  Go for it, Beebop Gelateria!                                                              

      

Dianne

Water, Water, Everywhere? Rome's "Dry" Fountains

RST is pleased to welcome Romaphile Joan Schmelzle as guest blogger for this report on some of Rome's most curious fountains--those that don't have any water.  Joan is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and taught English in the region for many years.  She is currently active in the Center for Learning in Retirement in Rockford, Illinois.  In November, she'll experience the wonders of Rome not for the 2nd time, but the 13th. 

Having traveled to Rome several times over the last 50 years, I knew that Rome was a city of fountains and a city proud of its fountains and its wonderful water supply.  What I wasn’t ready for on my last trip was the many dry fountains that I ran into during my “fountain hunt.” 

Sad Eagle

 I found these lifeless fountains in many different parts of the city, and often there didn’t seem to be much reason for them.  I was especially surprised to see several in the Vatican Gardens during my tour.  I did see several men working in one or two different areas, but none on the fountains.  Of course, all the big show fountains were burbling away, but a couple were especially noticeable.  First was a somewhat sad looking eagle.  Judging from what looked like spouts on the top, water should have been pouring over him.   

Still thirsty

Another was a sea creature that seemed to be trying for a drink from a shell.  I fear he stayed thirsty.

Waterless Borghese Rocks

 Wandering through the Villa Borghese, I found a small area of rocks that  appeared to have once been swept by a wide flow of water and now seemed lifeless without it.   

Headless satyr (center)

I believe the saddest dry fountain in the Villa was the Fountain of the Satyrs, also called by the author H. V. Morton [see link to Morton's fountain book at the end of this post] the Fountain of Joy.  And I’m sure it once was a joyful sight.  But when I saw not only was it dry, but the smallest satyr, who was being bounced on the extended arms of the other two, was headless. This is one I would like to see being joyful again when I return to Rome.

A Dry Neptune

Across from the Pincio Hill end of Villa Borghese is one of the two huge fountains placed there by Valadier, who designed the Piazza del Popolo as we now see it.  Unfortunately, a huge statue of Neptune had no water for him to rule over.  

Monti

In another lively area of Rome, Monti, there is a fountain that I have seen running very happily with water and surrounded by people out enjoying their neighborhood.  On this trip, the fountain was dry, but it was decorated with several colorful balloons.  It seemed like the neighborhood wanted to add some life to its gathering place.

Dry wrestling

In the large park-like Piazza Vittorio, I found what at first looked like a series of twisted arms and legs but finally seemed to be at least two men wrestling with a large sea creature.

Nearby was what I took to be a tall ruin of a building, but on more research was found to be the ruins of a fountain that was once part of the ancient Trophies of Marius.

Marforio

Famous old Marforio, one of Rome’s talking statues, sits alone and dry in the entry of the Palazzo Nuovo on the Capitoline Hill.  He and his “friends” often exchanged criticisms of the government, the church, or whatever person or group that they felt deserved it. 

 Also dry this trip was Babuino, one of Marforio’s “friends,” after whom Via Babuino was named.   On my next trip I expect to see him with his trough filled; he was being restored last I saw him.

Apollo

 The garden of Palazzo Barberini, one of Rome’s top galleries, has been restored.  However, the water had not yet been sent to its fountains.  A restored Apollo with his lyre waited at the top of the hill for the water to make music for him.  Elsewhere in the garden were some rocks that looked like they should be fountains and which had water in the basins around them, but it looked more like rain water, and nothing was coming out of the spouts.

Pig and a Plaque

I conclude with one of my favorites—technically, no longer a fountain.  A small plaque with a pig atop tells the story.  With a little help from my Italian dictionary, it says: “On this site was placed the fountain which was in the way of the corner of Via dei Portughesi in the year 1874.”  I know that I won’t find water if I return to this little pig, but I certainly hope that some of my other dry finds will again be lively with good Roman water.

 A presto, Roma

Joan Schmelzle

PS from Dianne - Joan cites one of our favorite books - Morton's "Fountains of Rome."  See the end of our earlier post on the "fontanone" for info on the book; if you're a Romaphhile - get it.

Who was that Bald Woman in Monti?

On May 17 J. and I were exploring Monti while our women went to Madama Butterfly. We saw the forlorn market, discussed the Madonelle, and found the site on via degli Ibernesi, where the long-time residents of an apartment house, many of them elderly, were evicted to make way for elite tourism. Despite its age and charming, narrow, bricked streets, the neighborhood is in the the throes of gentrification, and we were soon to get a good dose of it, up close.

The real excitement in Monti on that evening was in a small piazza not far from the main square, just beneath the stairway that once led up to Angelo Mai. A private party, all roped off with yellow plastic strips like a crime scene, was goin' on. Mostly young people in black, sipping wine. At the center of things--the celebrity around whom the event was designed--was a young woman who was without hair--apparently (though not certainly) by choice. As we stood there, she was being interviewed, or so it seemed, though she was the one holding the microphone and managing the conversation. And down at one end were paintings of her lining a wall. Pop singer? Painter? Architect? Proprietor of hip new clothing store? Gallery owner? Cancer victim?

Who was that Bald Woman in Monti?

Bill

Monti Goes After the Mayor

Rome's Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, was elected two years ago on a right-wing program, and it's no wonder that he's not popular in left-wing Monti, despite the gentrification going on there. On a trek around the area a few days ago, we couldn't help noticing that one of the Mayor's recent posters (see left) was being reinterpreted by the locals.

One version had the Mayor as a clown [above right] (the words on the poster read, "Mayor, instead of laughing, why don't you present the city's budget? Problems?"). Another evoked the feminine in a mayor once known as a street thug ("merda" translates as "shit"). And a third dressed his honor up as Hitler, complete with mustache and floppy hair. Nice work, Monti!

Bill

Monti, Gentrified

Most of our readers will know of Monti, the enchanting neighborhood (technically, a rione) located between via Nazionale, the Coliseum, and via dei Fori Imperiali. And most would agree with Monica Lamer, writing in Business Week in September, 1998, who described Monti as "the most authentic and tourist-free district in the modern city." "The district," Lamer continues, "has maintained its flavor and today attracts people looking for affordable homes in a unique neighborhood." Monti has long been one of our favorite haunts; in Rome the Second Time, we've introduced readers
to two of our favorite places: the jazz club Charity Café, on via Panisperna, and Al Vino Al Vino, a busy wine bar around the corner on via dei Serpenti (photo at left).

Monti still has picturesque streets and atmosphere to spare, but our views on the area have changed just a bit after reading Michael Herzfeld's Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome (2009). Despite the general subtitle, the book is all about Monti's recent history.

Herzfeld, a Harvard anthropologist who did field work in the rione over several years in the 1990s and the 2000s, argues that Monti is not what it used to be, fifty or even twenty years ago.
Monti no longer is home to ordinary, working-class Romans plying their crafts and trades in small shops; it no longer sustains a local, working-class culture; no longer densely populated, it cannot sustain the sort of local market for food, clothing, and household items that serve and sustain so many Rome neighborhoods--that, in a sense, define them as dynamic neighborhoods.

Monti has been gentrified. Hotels and short-term lets for tourists. Trendy shops.


The process of gentrification began in the 1950s and 1960s, when, as Rome's population grew rapidly, Monti's fell. In the 1980s, as the area became more popular, rents turned up, and some locals were forced to find accommodations in cheaper, new housing developments on the city's outskirts. Still, until the late 1990s, renters were protected from eviction by a legal requirement that owners demonstrate "a pressing need" for the property. That legal protection was eliminated in a 1998 housing law, supposedly designed to protect property owners from squatters. Under the new law, owners had the legal right to evict tenants for any reason. And they did. The 1998 law had support from the right, who thought the old law gave too much protection to tenants and, more remarkably, from Mayor Francesco Rutelli's (1993-2001) leftist coalition.

Herzfeld is critical of Rutelli, who lived in Monti for a time as a child, and whose wife was born there. He labels Rutelli a "bourgeois leftist from Parioli."
He links Rutelli to powerful construction companies that were building inexpensive housing outside the city, and he laments Rutelli's neoliberal vision of the city," sustained by "market logic," that included support for gentrification and for turning Monti into a mecca for tourists and living quarters for Rome's wealthy. Interestingly, this critique of Rutelli was shared at the time by Gianfranco Fini's right-wing Alleanza nazionale. "We do not wish," Fini said at the time, "for [Monti] to be deformed into an open museum."

As you walk around Monti, you can judge for yourself whether the area has been "deformed into an open museum." One place to engage that question is via degli Ibernesi, a short and narrow street at the southwestern end of the district.


In Evicted from Eternity, Herzfeld narrates in fascinating detail what happened on that street at #23, over a period of two decades beginning in the mid-1980s. In essence, 10 long-term residents of the 18th-century palazzo on the site fought a long, bitter, public battle against eviction, first against the Bank of Rome, then against Pirelli Tire, and a series of other owners, until 2006, when the remaining 5 residents were finally forced to leave the building--and the neighborhood--where most had lived for decades.

For those unable to visit the street, we offer this virtual tour of via degli Ibernesi; #23 is at the opposite end of the street, on the far right. http://www.freereservation.com/roma2/13.htm

Today, a Google search for via Ibernesi 23 brings up the Roman Forum Residences website, on which one can book a room in a luxury hotel. A description on the website reads: "A unique luxury accommodation created to evoke sensations: an intimate residence full of delightful surprises where traces of ancient Rome cohabit perfectly with the modern comforts that the most discerning travellers require."

Bill