36 Hours Around Piazza Navona

 A friend recently asked us for suggestions of what to do around Piazza Navona and Campo de' Fiori. She was clear that she and her companion would be in Rome only 3 days, had seen the big sights and did not want to go back to those this time, and they did not want to do much walking. So maybe this is "36 Hours in Piazza Navona and Campo de' Fiori." 

We put our heads together, created a list and a map for her, and enjoyed the exercise enough that we have made it into 2 blog posts, the first on Piazza Navona and the second on the Campo. Here's our map of Piazza Navona for starters, and you'll see #1 is Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers - not exactly Rome the Second Time, but a good place to begin any walking around.

Below is the code we gave our friends (with a few elaborations; and note she has been a French teacher - so there are a few Francophile hints here) for our suggested meanderings in and around the piazza. Bear in mind our idiosyncrasies, and that we leave all restaurant suggestions to Katie Parla (https://katieparla.com/city-guides/rome/)

Piazza Navona and environs:

1.         Fountain of the 4 Rivers (Fontana dei fiumi – Bernini)

Piazza Navona can be a magical space, especially when no one's around, like at dawn.

Piazza Navona at dawn. Borromini's Sant'Agnese in Agone (see #2, below) is at left. 

But not always. In 2014, we encountered Bernini's lovely fountain while city workers were repairing the stone pavement around it. And the piazza has its sometimes tawdry, commercial side. 

2.         Sant’Agnese in Agone – (church) by Borromini  

            So between #1 and #2 here you get a feel for the great rivalry of architects/sculptors: Bernini  - the sculptor who was an architect - and Borromini, the architect whose architecture is sculpture. You'll have to look up for yourself the apocryphal story that one of Bernini's figures in the 4 Rivers Fountain has his head turned away so as not to see Borromini's church (the statue was erected first).

3.         Embassy of Brazil – often has art shows you just walk into. We like these one-off exhibits that often are open all day, are free, get you inside a classic palazzo, and often are very good - usually contemporary -  art.

4.        Palazzo Braschi – excellent museum (generally Rome, 17^th century on), sweet café – easy to walk thru – often free shows on the ground floor – beautiful cortile - https://www.italofile.com/museo-di-roma-palazzo-braschi/ - this article says “best museum in Rome you’ve never visited." Re the free shows: it was here we learned about Raffaele di Vico and his extraordinary contributions to Rome's cityscape in the 20th century, and saw a moving photo/quotation exhibit of women trapped in abusive relationships. As noted, the shows are wide-ranging.

5.         Portuguese Institute – We have been to shows here (met the architect Julio Lafuente one evening - we are taken with his buildings), but can’t locate it nor a site for it – walking around Piazza Navona just looking is a pleasure anyway (if you can avoid all the hawkers).

6.        Stadio di Domiziano (Piazza Navona was built over it) - underground archeological site – small and interesting – not sure of opening times; sometimes has exhibits as well. This is a good way to get your ancient history fix, and to learn more about Piazza Navona - https://www.tripadvisor.it/Attraction_Review-g187791-d196846-Reviews-Stadio_di_Domiziano_Navona_Square_Underground-Rome_Lazio.html

7.         Tre Scalini tartufi – just go and get one of those to split – amazing gelato dessert – make sure you go to this corner and not across the little street to a copy cat. Tre Scalini is the real deal. We wrote about the tartufo war in 2010: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2010/08/tartufo-truffle-war.html

8.        Hotel Raphael – one of the city's best rooftop bars and lobby – interesting political stories about it too – on the way to Santa Maria della Pace and Chiostro Bramante -

The imposing exterior of the Hotel Raphael,
as it was 15 years ago. 

https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2017/04/30-april-1993-angry-crowd-throws-coins-bank-notes-bettino-craxi/

9.         Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pace – lovely, limited hours

10.      Bramante Chiostro & exhibition space - https://www.chiostrodelbramante.it/?lang=en  Beautiful cloisters and has a café, plus current show is Pistoletto –the contemporary Italian artist famed for his use of mirrors.

Bramante Cloister  - can't recall the
name of the show but fairly
certain those 2 "head" sculptures
are by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa

A work by Pistoletto--this one at the State Department.

11.      Piazza di Pasquino – the original “talking statue” - https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2012/10/pasquino-lite-romes-talking-statue-gets.html

Pasquino, right, with his messages relegated to a board next to him.

12.      Cul de Sac – on Piazza di Pasquino – considered one of the best wine bars in Rome – has food – don’t go to the salad place by mistake

13.      Otherwise bookshop – English one, just steps from Piazza di Pasquino  - on via del Governo Vecchio – nice street with boutiques, tho’ getting a bit gentrified

14.      Caravaggio – San Luigi dei Francesi – 3 amazing Caravaggio paintings – the French church in Rome

15.      Caravaggio – Basilica di Sant’Agostino – 1 Caravaggio – and the once Papal library next door is gorgeous – worth just walking up and looking at it (Biblioteca Angelica)

16.      Sant’Ivo – a Borromini masterpiece (church)

17.      Palazzo Napoleonico -  interesting for its French connection https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/01/when-rome-was-french.html - it is NOT Palazzo Altieri – the entrance to Napoleonico is on the Lungotevere.

18.      Baracco museum – ancient sculpture – we think it’s free – we’ve never been in it!

 

When Rome was French

It could be an item from Ripley's Believe It Or Not:  There was a time when Rome was French.  Not French in spirit.  Not French in culture.  Not French in tradition.  But French in the sense that Rome was French property and decisions with regard to religion, governance, social welfare, and urban planning were made by the French. 

Rome's French period began in 1798, when the French revolutionary army, taking advantage of the weak defenses of the sprawling Papal States, entered the city along via Flaminia, through the Porta del Popolo, down the via del Corso, and up the capital steps, where the "Republic" was declared.  Under what was known as the "repubblica per ridere" (The Ridiculous Republic, or, more literally, the Laughable Republic), the Pope was deported, enemies of the regime were executed in Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and increases in the price of bread led to riots in the streets. 

He loved Rome--or perhaps the idea of Rome--but he would never see the city.  The painting is in the Museo Napoleonico

Villa Medici, inhabited by the French since 1803

The Republic, such as it was, lasted only as long--about two years--as the French military was there to support it.  Yet even after 1800, as Napoleon's forces took control of much of Italy (though not yet Rome), the city remained under French sway.  The Pope was restored, though dependent on Napoleon for his post; a French ambassador arrived, taking up lodgings in the Corsini Palace; the French Academy took over the Villa Medici (1803); and wealthy French flowed into the city, preening from their fancy carriages on the via del Corso, irritating the Romans, who jeered and threw things.

Castel Sant'Angelo, where French troops were
quartered.

This period of (relative) accommodation ended in 1808, when the French army--the army of Napoleon, not the Revolution--entered the city and found quarters in Castel Sant'Angelo.  The Pope withdrew to the Quirinal Palace, a virtual prisoner.  Things got worse for the Romans on June 10, 1809, when Rome was officially absorbed into the French Empire as an imperial city.  Napoleon--who would never visit Rome--was thrilled by the prospect of joining the Eternal City with the French jewel, Paris.  The proclamation was read on the Capitoline Hill--"Napoleon the Great wants only the glory of giving you, after so many centuries of oblivion, a fate more worthy of your ancient destiny"--and an elaborate procession followed, with stops at Piazza Venezia, Piazza Colonna and, further along the via del Corso, Piazza del Popolo. 

The Quirinal Palace, where a captive Pope
excommunicated Napoleon, among others.

Romans failed to appreciate their new status, as did Pope Pius VI, who from the Quirinal Palace issued a general excommunication of those who cooperated with the takeover of the Papal States--an order that obviously included Napoleon.  Angry at the pontiff's intransigence--he had thought that
the Pope would be willing to compromise in exchange for protection--he had Pius kidnapped and removed from the city to Savona.  The attack on the Church continued with the removal of the stations of the cross from the Coliseum, the deportation of hundreds of clerics, and the closing down of the Papal welfare state, which had supported thousands of Romans unable (or sometimes unwilling) to work. 

The French under Napoleon were reformers, standard-bearers of the Enlightenment, and they made every effort to bring their modernizing perspective to a Rome that clung to its medieval ways with tenacity.  Like Mussolini, the French disliked and feared Rome's physical complexity.  They believed that its narrow, winding streets--perhaps especially the warrens of Trastevere--and its nameless streets and numberless houses--reinforced the insularity and hostility of the population, including the Trasteverini.  The French were not in power long enough to do much in the way of urban renewal, but they did manage to number the houses and install street signage and street lights, as well as prohibit concealed weapons in a violent city where nearly every man carried a knife. 

The ban on concealed weapons was not popular with the Romans, nor was military conscription, the forcing of able-bodied men to work on public projects, depots for the storage of vagrants, or efforts to suppress the lottery (Romans loved to gamble).  The new "scientific" guillotine was introduced in 1813, and torture was outlawed. 

Giuseppe Valadier's Casina, on the Pincio

The French were planners, too.  By 1810 there were plans for an enormous imperial palace, one that would have dwarfed the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II.  There were plans to turn the Lateran Palace into a hospice for beggars, to create open piazzas around Trajan's column, the Pantheon, and the Trevi fountain, and to cut new boulevards in the city.  Mussolini would have understood. 






Imagine the Tevere, navigable for large vessels,
all the way to Perugia.  The French did. 

There was a plan to open the Tevere to large vessels, all the way to Perugia, and another to create an enormous garden from the Pincian Hill to the Tevere. 

The Verano cemetery

Perhaps for health reasons, the French planned to build two cemeteries as part of an effort to bury the dead outside the city walls. 

Of all these plans, few came to fruition.  The Pincian/Tevere garden was in the works when the French departed, and one element in that larger plans remains to this day: the Casina by Italian architect Giuseppe Valadier.  The Verano cemetery, located adjacent to the Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le mura, was another French achievement.   

Canova's Pauline (Napoleon's sister), in
the Borghese Museum

The French made contributions to the arts.  Their enlightenment ideology included an interest in archaeology, and some progress was made in that area, notably in the Coliseum and at the Temple of Jupiter.  In the fall of 1809, the brilliant sculptor Antonio Canova was called back to Rome from his native Possagno to head the city's arts program.  One of his most famous works, the Venus Victrix, for which Napoleon's beautiful sister Pauline was the model, is on view in the Borghese Museum.  (Pauline eventually bought a villa--now the French embassy--just inside the walls at Porta Pia.)

The unassuming Pasquino, where
Romans expressed their dislike of the French.

As we have seen, the Romans were not pleased to be governed by the French.  As historian Susan Vandiver Nicassio writes in Imperial City: Rome Under Napoleon, "Napoleon loved Rome like a bridegroom; Rome did not love Napoleon.  The affair progressed from courtship to rape and ended, as such affairs must end, in mutual destruction."  What could the Romans do?  The Pasquino--the statue near Piazza Navona on which generations of Romans had posted their views and complaints--was covered with denunciations of the emperor and his infant son, crowned King of Rome in 1810 ("the little bastard has been crowned").  Napoleon, baffled by the Pasquino tradition of dissent, announced that "Rome has become a theatre for defamation, a headquarters for libel."  Although one would imagine that the populace would have been grateful when the French authorities decided to allow "carnival" to take place as scheduled, Romans chose to express their dislike of the occupation by refusing to participate (refusing to party!). 

It would all be over soon.  French influence in the city was dramatically reduced in 1812, when Napoleon's armies ran into trouble in Russia.  In May of 1814, Pope Pius VII entered Rome in triumph over the Ponte Milvio, the same route into the city taken by the French revolutionary forces some 16 years before.  The Romans got their city back. 

The Museo Napoleonico

Lucien, Napoleon's brother, lived in Rome from 1804 to 1808, and he returned to the city after his sibling's fall.  One of Lucien's descendants founded the Museo Napoleonico.  The museum is at Piazza di Ponte Umberto I, 1, just north of Piazza Navona. 

Bill

This account is based on Susan Vandiver Nicassio's informative and entertaining history, Imperial City: Rome Under Napoleon (The University of Chicago Press, 2005).  It is available from the publisher and on amazon.com (paper and Kindle). 

Appeal to the Vatican: Dear Pope Francis....

Rome has a grand tradition of the exercise of freedom of speech, one that included the city's puppet plays and the acerbic commentaries of its balladeers, and of course the institution of the "talking statues," on which Romans have for centuries posted anonymous critiques of whatever or whoever was bothering them.  The most popular of the statues, and the only one carrying on the tradition to the present, is Pasquino, at the corner of Palazzo Braschi near Piazza Navona.  Perhaps uncomfortable with what was being said about him, right-wing Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno prohibited the affixing of comments to the Pasquino torso, providing instead a nearby bulletin board. 

But Romans have many other ways to express their grievances, including posting complaints in the windows of their homes.  The one above, found in the left-leaning community of Garbatella, calls on the new Pope to excommunicate Mayor Alemanno.  (We are reminded of Ruben Blades' pop song, "Letter to the Vatican," and its memorable line, "Pope give me some hope and a bottle of Bombay gin.")

It's unlikely that Francis would have gone to that extreme--not the Bombay gin, but excommunication--even given what proved to be his deep concern over corporate greed, "trickle-down" economics, the impact of capitalism on the distribution of income, and other failures of the right.  In any event, it wasn't necessary; only a few months after we took this photo, Alemanno was decisively defeated at the ballot box. 

Bill
Garbatella is one of 4 itineraries in our new book: Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  In addition to the tour of Garbatella, Modern Rome features three other walks: the 20th-century suburb of EUR; 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 classic 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.

Pasquino Lite - Rome's "talking statue" gets a dressing down



in happier times

Rome, a city fairly expert on the protest scale, is experiencing a tightening of the noose by right-wing mayor Gianni Alemanno.  Alemanno has cracked down on Rome’s most famous “talking statue,” little Pasquino, who sits in an homonymous piazza right off the larger and more famous Piazza Navona.



Poor Pasquino - as last seen with a lucite stand
(right) and only a few comments

Okay, when you get your first look at Pasquino, he might not seem like much; he’s missing quite a bit of his body.  But, remember, he dates to the 3rd century BC,and he’s battered, but  still standing. 

Pasquino’s fame dates to the 16th Century, when he became the locus for comments critical of the reigning Pope.  And, his body as a place to slap on one’s protests, continues to this day.  Well, almost.  Alemanno now is insisting that instead of putting the protests right on Pasquino, they be properly put on a side board.  Where’s the fun in that?  Of course, most of the posts (the last time we went by) were satirical jabs at Alemanno for this (ahem) stupid policy.  It’s not as though Pasquino’s 3rd century BC body should start being protected now.  The real purpose of Alemanno’s edict appears to be to clean up and stifle criticisms against the mayor himself.

Comments in 2011 criticize the government

But don’t let that stop you from visiting what we now refer to as “Pasquino Lite,” and the piazza is a nice respite (with plenty of cafes and a substantial wine bar) from the busier Piazza Navona.

Dianne

For more on Pasquino, “pasquinades,” and other talking statues in Rome, see the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasquino

http://www.romeartlover.it/Talking.html