A Farewell to Arms, and Hemingway's Thoughts on Rome

Shall we stay up tonight and read, dear?

Yes, let's do that.

We'll do it then.  It's a wonderful idea.  We'll have a great time.

Yes, we will.

What will you read dear?

I'll read A Farewell to Arms.  It's by Ernest Hemingway.

I've heard it's good.

I've heard it's good, too.

When was it published?

I don't know. What will you read, dear?

I'll read over your shoulder, dear.  You're so wonderful.

No, it's you that's wonderful.  You're so dear.  Come and read with me. 



Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, and Adolph Menjou in the
1932 version

 A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929.  It' a semi-autobiographical account of Ernest Hemingway's experiences as an ambulance driver in the Italian army in World War I.   We had read Mark Thompson's history of the conflict, The White War, and we couldn't resist Hemingway's story, which includes a combat injury and the retreat from Caporetto.  As the made-up lines above suggest, it's also a sentimental (if ultimately disturbing) love story.  In the book the Hemingway character speaks Italian, abeit with an accent. 

The story has been filmed twice.  The 1932 version starred Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes; the 1957 treatment featured Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.  Although Hudson more closely resembled the young Hemingway, it's the Cooper version we want to see.  Unfortunately, Deborah Kerr, the ideal Catherine Barkley, is in neither.

The Italian retreat from Caporetto

Events in the book take place entirely in northern Italy and Switzerland, a long way from Rome and a bit of reach even for the long arms of Rome the Second Time.  Yet Hemingway does offer some thoughts on the Eternal City, in the form of a conversation between Tenente Henry (Hemingway), the Major, and Rinaldi.  The Major and Rinaldi are Italian, and Rinaldi is Henry's best friend.  Henry is recuperating from a leg injury. 

The ruminations on Rome begin after several glasses of brandy.  The "I" is Henry:

We will get Corsica and all the Adriatic coast line, Rinaldi said.  Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major.  I don't like Rome, I said.  It is hot and full of fleas.  You don't like Rome?  Yes, I love Rome.  Rome is the mother of nations.   I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What?  Nothing.  Let's all go to Rome.  Let's go to Rome to-night and never come back.  Rome is a beautiful city, said the major.  The mother and father  of nations, I said.  Roma is feminine, said Rinaldi.  It cannot be the father.  Who is the father, then, the Holy Ghost?  Don't blaspheme.  I wasn't blaspheming.  I was asking for information.  You are drunk, baby.  Who made me drunk?  I made you drunk, said the major.  I made you drunk because I love you and because America is in the war.  Up to the hilt, I said.  You go away in the morning, baby, Riunaldi said.  To Rome, I said.  No, to Milan.  To Milan, said to major, to the Crystal Palace, to the Cova, to Campari's, to Buffi's to the galleria.  :You lucky boy.



I'm sure Mr. Hemingway is a fine writer, dear, but he seems a trifle confused about Rome, don't you think?

Yes he does.

Let's go to Rome!  It would be splendid.  I don't believe it's full of fleas.  We could leave tomorrow.

That's a wonderful idea, dear.  You're so sweet.  We'll have breakfast in bed, and take the first train.  .

Bill

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

Mixing religion and politics in the lively Campo de' Fiori

The dark metallic statue of Giordano Bruno, head lowered under his Dominican cloak and hood, has always seemed anomalous in the lively Campo de' Fiori. We force ourselves to think about a heretic burned at the stake in this center of Rome commerce and pleasure, where revelers party until dawn each night.

Bruno was burned alive in this piazza 409 years ago, on February 17, 1600, and the Church thought it had good reason. A defrocked monk, Bruno briefly joined the Calvinists (Protestants!) in Switzerland, and questioned a) Jesus as the Son of God, b) transubstantiation, c) the worship of Mary, and yes, d) all of the above (and more)--at least that's what came out in his trials under the Inquisition. He spent 1592-1600 in Inquisition jails. And, of course, unlike his contemporary, Galileo, he never repented.

Bruno was not only a heretic, but also a man ahead of his time. Before even Galileo, he held the stars were not fixed in the universe; he may have been the first person to theorize infinity. He combined scientific theory with a fascination for magic, making him a tough guy to appreciate in later centuries. [See Ingrid Rowland's new biography: Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic.] Bruno's work was intellectually revived (having been unknown for centuries) in the 19th century by the anti-Church forces, starting with (as usual) students at the University of Rome. After trying to make him into a figure of resistance to the Church through seminars on his work, the students came up with the notion of a statue. Intellectuals around the world, including George Ibsen and Victor Hugo, supported the cause.

The statue, designed by anti-cleric sculptor Ettore Ferrari, and erected in 1899, was the completion of the Italian conquest of Rome over the Papacy, "at least symbolically," according to historian David Kertzer in his 2006 book, Prisoner of the Vatican: the Popes, the Kings, and Garibaldi's Rebels in the Struggle to Rule Modern Italy (see Chapter 19: "Giordano Bruno's Revenge"). The planning for, and erection of the statue, was intended as a direct confrontation and affront to the Pope. When you're in Campo de' Fiori, imagine a parade of 10,000 people coming towards it, then only those with tickets in the Campo itself, over 130 members of Parliament on the reviewing stand, and the royal family and royal hangers-on not-so-discretely renting window seats in the then-poor apartments overlooking the square. There's still public acknowledgement of Bruno as a standard-bearer of "free thinkers" on February 17 each year.

So when you're throwing down a beer with fellow students at midnight, or having an 8 Euro glass of Fiano at the newest Campo wine bar at 7 p.m., or wrapped in nostalgia as the vendors set up their stands at 6 a.m., take the time to look closely as Bruno's presence. As one of the inscriptions says, "To Bruno - from the Century that he divined, here where he was burned at the stake."

If you're interested in more on the Inquisition tour, stop at the church just behind the Pantheon, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The monastery (open to visitors) attached to the church is where Galileo stood trial in 1633.

Dianne