Via Casilina Vecchia: the "Funky" side of Rome

If you're searching for Rome's "funky" side, you can't do much better than a stretch of via Casilina Vecchia, running southeast off via Castrense, a street that connects the Tuscolano neighborhood with Pigneto. (We're not talking about via Casilina, a nasty street for walkers that runs parallel with "Vecchia" on the other side of some railroad tracks). 

The first thing you'll see is the massive complex of Casa Santa Giacinta--a Catholic charity serving the poor and elderly

And next to it, tucked in a bit, a cute 20th-century chapel in something akin to mission style. 

Just beyond, as the street narrows, there is (or was just months ago), a mural by Alice, a prolific Rome street artist. Part of Alice's original work (she's known for painting young women) is visible behind the cars that are usually parked there, and part has been covered by graffiti "artists." A portion of her mural is visible upper right. 

The lower left portion of this wall proved fertile territory for this "accidental art"/found art photographer, a portion of it (below) ending up as his business card.

Following the road, you'll come upon an arch, usually highly decorated by the spray-paint crowd. Why it exists we have no idea. Here is Dianne, photographed with the arch, though from the other side. 

Ahead, the centerpiece of the journey, the aqueduct Acqua Felice. It's not ancient. Dating to the late Renaissance, it was constructed under Pope Sixtus V. Still it's very cool, and here are there it utilizes the columns of Aqua Claudia (of ancient origin). "Felice" is over 28km long--and you can see it rise from ground level a few miles out at the Parco degli Aquedotti (Park of the Aqueducts). 

Just as the road looks like it's going to go through an aqueduct arch, it turns sharply left, crossing the tracks--just one lane, and quite a bit of traffic. Not the safest spot for a pedestrian. 

Then the road turns again, runs through the aqueduct--and you'll find yourself walking on its western side. 

Although most of the arches date to the late 16th century, a few--they will be obvious--were constructed at the turn of the last century to allow access for trains.

Further along, you'll find homes on one side of the street, the aqueduct (and apparently some homes and businesses) on the other. 

One of the businesses, located in and through an aqueduct arch, specializes in copies of statues and other ancient and Renaissance pieces:

This staircase seems to lead through the aqueduct to a home:

Inside one of the arches, someone has created a devotional tableau:

When via Casilina Vecchia dead ends, turn left, through the aqueduct, then immediately right onto via del Mandrione. Poet, novelist, and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini spent a lot of time in the Mandrione neighborhood, seeking the "real" Rome.  [D: all signs of inhabitants where he once strolled are now gone. No doubt in the name of "slum clearance."]

About 200 yards ahead, there's a narrow passage-way off right. 

Turning left out of the pass way, a few yards down you'll find another lane off to the right, leading to a staircase--and beneath it, the Tuscolano 'hood. Turn right at the first street and work your way back to  Piazza Lodi--and through the wall to via Castrense, and your starting point. 

Another side of Rome. Sweet!

Bill 

 

Women with Guns: Rome's New Feminism

Saudi Arabia has just labeled feminism, along with homosexuality and something else I can't recall, an "extremism."  Having survived the American 1970s as a male, I can see their point. I was forced to learn to cook!

But that was almost 50 years ago, and I wasn't prepared for the hostile, militant feminism I found on the walls of Rome in the Spring of 2019.  I should qualify the "walls of Rome" reference in the last sentence.  Most of the aggressive feminist images and slogans I found were not in "Rome," as if they were everywhere in Rome, but in certain areas of the city--especially Pigneto, but a few other places as well.

Here we go.

You may have seen this one; it's been on the RST Facebook site.  "Monogamy is the New Fascism." It's in English, so maybe it doesn't count.

This one's a stencil.  While the message seems aggressive, it's also sensible:  "Neither forced maternity nor imposed sterility."

The next one's more obviously aggressive, yet it's also vague about what it's advocating:  "We're multiplying the feminist rage."  Followed by the standard feminist symbol - in triplicate.

"Addio al patriarcato"--a reasonable translation would be "Goodbye Patriarchy."  Who could disagree with that?  The symbol here combines feminism with anarchy.  Anarcho-Feminism.

Below: "Complicit with the women who resist and kill the aggressors." That's strong.

Now we're into visuals.  Many of these fall into the "women with..." category.

As in, below, "Woman with a Drill" (and small wrench).  One could think of this as something like Rosie the Riveter, or....?    From Ostiense.

Below, a piece of wall art.  I tried to translate "Tommy gani [or cani?] sciorti" and could not.  This is "woman with dagger as hand":

Then there's "woman with dynamite" (upper poster):

And "women with guns."  Four of the figures in the poster below are women, and three of them have guns. The rally of the New Resistances was to take place in Casal Bertone--a community just north of Pigneto.

The following poster invokes the Partisans of the 1940s, and in that sense the woman with a gun is justified.  But it also says "oggi antifascisti" (today [we are] antifascists]), and it's not so clear that anti-fascism requires women (or anyone) carrying weapons:

This poster announces a "sciopero globale transfeminista"--"a global strike of transfeminists," I guess.  The woman is masked and ready for street combat.

Two more.  The first one, below, was found in Pigneto and starts with "Gender violence also involves (or concerns) you." "La Casa delle Donne Lucha y Siesta" ("Women's House - Fight and Nap") is a self-run women's organization fighting violence against women, located in the Tuscolano quartiere. Again, the image has a Rosie-the- Riveter quality, but it's more aggressive than welcoming.

And finally, from Ostiense. Here, less aggressive than anxious? (For more on the F word in Rome, see here.)

Bill
Author of "Patty's Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America."

La Follia di Giovanni (the Folly of Giovanni): A Tuscolano Story

We were walking around the back of the Basilica di San Giovanni Bosco, the enormous mid-century modernist cathedral in the quartiere of Tuscolano, when we saw it: a "container"--likely a simple shipping container--in a small park (Piazza Quinto Curzio) behind the basilica.  The sides were painted--on one side a portrait, on another vivid lettering of the standard graffiti kind.  And the words "La Follia di Giovanni" (the folly, the madness, of Giovanni).

The container in 2016.  Compare with the 2014 photo at the bottom of this post. 

For a few afternoons and evenings each week, the container is occupied by Antonio Calabrò, a physician who works a regular job at hospital Fatebenefratelli, on the

"One fights the abundance of misery by sharing"  

island in the Tevere.  On those days, the shipping container functions as an ambulatory care center for those who might find it difficult to access standard facilities: rom, the homeless, the elderly, and

The doctor at work.  Photo Daniele Malajoli.  

"clandestini" (undocumented noncitizens eager to keep knowledge of their activities from the government).

Dr. Calabrò and his equipment.  Photo Daniele Malajoli.  

Dr. Calabrò chose the name: "follia" to represent the sheer craziness of the undertaking; "Giovanni" for a variety of associations it had for him, bringing to mind the Vatican Council of Pope Giovanni XXIII; Saint Francis, who was called Giovanni; San Giovanni Bosco, the patron saint of the church next door, and a formative influence for Calabrò in his youth; and San Giovanni di Dio, founder of Fatebenefratelli.

Between its founding in 2006 and 2012, the center had 800 medical visits.  Photographer Daniele Malajoli brought the facility considerable attention with a photo exhibit on "La Follia di Giovanni," prepared for the Rome International Festival of Photography and on display in November 2014 at the Centro Culturali Gabriellae Ferri.

Bill

As the container looked in 2014: "Ambulatorio Medico."  That's the doctor at his desk.  Photo Daniele Malajoli.

Gaetano Rapisardi and the funeral of Vittorio Casamonica

"You conquered Rome, now you'll conquer paradise"  

Rome was abuzz late last summer over the elaborate, August 20, 2015 funeral given in an important Catholic church for a reputed Mafia gangster of Eastern European (Sinti) origins.

The body of Vittorio Casamonica arrived at the San Giovanni Bosco church in the Tuscolano district (not far from Cinecittà and the Parco degli Acquedotti) in a gothic-style carriage, drawn by 6 horses.  Banners and

posters proclaimed Casamonica. "King of Rome" and granted the man who'd reportedly been involved in prostitution, drug trafficking, and racketeering the status of eternal life:  "You conquered Rome, now you'll conquer paradise."  An orchestra played the theme from The Godfather.  A helicopter dropped rose petals.

Not quite sure what's happening here.  

That's all quite seedy, and Romans were justifiably upset at the spectacular celebration of someone with possible connections to organized crime, and perhaps, too, at the role of the Catholic Church in facilitating the excess and giving over a premier religious building to a ceremony involving a person whose life had hardly been exemplary.

What intrigued us here at RST was the church and, as we pursued our interests, the architect, Gaetano Rapisardi.

Unfinished tomb for
Galeazzo Ciano

Rapisardi (b. 1893) served in the Italian armed forces during World War I, studied architecture at the University of Florence and, as luck would have it, married a fellow architectural student who was the daughter of one of Rome's best-known architects, Gino Coppedè, whose Rome studio he joined not long thereafter.  He did some Rome residences, and then, with another well-known Rome architect, Marcello Piacentini, collaborated on a design for at least one building for the new University of Rome campus--likely the building that houses Letters and Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Political Science.





With his brother Ernest, Gaetano designed Casa Bonanni (1933) on the Lungotevere Marzio; the building, with its exquisite arch leading from the Lungotevere to Piazza Nicosia, now houses the Bulgari jewelers' headquarters.

Casa Bonanni, now Bulgari HQ.  Piazza Nicosia is through the arch. Nice work
connecting the Lungotevere with streets in back.

Rapisardi also designed the Stabilimento Aerostatica Avorio in Rome, a building located at via della Vasca Navale 84, near Vicolo Savini, the small street we covered in another post--just across the river from the Marconi district.  The building now houses the Department of Physics of Roma Tre University.  Since

Note Rapisardi's stone work

remodeled inside, its most interesting features are the front entrance and a front façade that uses a variety of brick and stone treatments to invoke the heritage of ancient Rome. 


Although internet sources do not reveal Rapisardi's relationship to Mussolini's Fascist regime, the fact that he designed the unfinished tomb for Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and an important figure in the regime (later executed on Mussolini's orders), suggests that Rapisardi was within the fold.

Whatever one might think of Casamonica, he chose a spectacular setting for his funeral.  The Basilica di San Giovanni Bosco is in the Tuscolano quarter, not far north of Cinecitta and just a few blocks off via Tuscolana, at viale dei Salesiani 9. Construction began in 1952; the church was consecrated in 1958 and completed in 1964.  Despite its postwar origins, it has the weight and grandeur of structures common to the late Fascist era.

At left, a view toward the piazza.  The sculpture inside the arch evokes EUR's "square coliseum," a Fascist icon.

Architecture of the piazza

And its placement, at one end of an enormous arcaded piazza, evokes--like no other place in the city- -Mussolini's Fascist masterwork: EUR.











The central dome--the largest in Rome after the Pantheon and St. Peter's--when we visited was mostly obscured by scaffolding, but one could appreciate its size nonetheless, and with the smaller dome next it, serves to highlight the geometry--not only the circle but the square--that is on display here.

Two rear bell towers--only one equipped with bells--are also in the modernist mode. All this modernism: quite in contrast to the vehicle that transported Casamonica's body.

Stained glass detail

The organ and, at far right, the baroque ironwork.

Splendid stained glass mosaics, some in the subdued tones of the postwar period, others--around the large dome--in bold primary colors, soften the geometry.  The organ is enormous. The congregation is large enough that confessional booths are marked for different priests.

Don Bosco, dreaming

A stylistically restrained piece of altar furniture, 1960
vintage.

Side chapels feature paintings of the period, some of them worthy of attention, all nicely described in small panels (in Italian). Curiously, the altar is centered by a swirling piece of ironwork in the baroque style, while nearby, restrained early 1960s decoration predominates. The overall impression is that an enormous amount of money was spent on the structure and its decoration.







In May of 2015, the saga of the Casamonica funeral story took another turn, when it was revealed that the Roman comedian Dado (Gabriele Pellegrini) had been threatened on social media because of a song and dance parody of the funeral that he'd posted on the social media.  "I don't want the moon," he sang, "I only want a funeral with Rolls Royces, horses, a cortege, and police who direct traffic only for me." "'I want a flaming casket,' he sang on, and outside the church giant photos of my face.  And a band that plays the tune of The Godfather, King of Rome."  The video of Dado's performance went viral, and it wasn't long before threats began to appear on the entertainer's Facebook page, some quite direct:  "Yes, it could be that tomorrow you die, and I'll give you a beautiful funeral....you piece of shit."  The person who left this comment, and 9 others who made similar ones, are currently being investigated by the authorities for threats and defamation.

Bill

Betty Boop: 1930s icon in Rome and Italy

Betty Boop joins an old Pepsi-Cola sign in an ordinary bar on Rome's outskirts, the "borgata" (something akin to lower class neighborhood) or quarter of Alessandrino (named for the ancient Roman acqueduct that ran nearby).
 Across the street is one of the Vatican's new churches - San Francesco di Sales. 

Rome, and Italy, have long embraced American popular culture and its iconography, with special attention to Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Mickey Mouse, and Snow White.  More surprising, perhaps, is the attention given to a less well-known cartoon character from the dawn of talkies: Betty Boop. 

We found this Betty Boop in the northern Italian city of Trieste. 
Large hips, small breasts, and lots of leg on this version.  Too sexy for Rome. 

We'll spare you the details of Betty's history--the coverage on Wikipedia rivals that of the Kennedy assassination--but here's the gist of it:  Ms. Boop was a Great Depression-era persona.  She made her first appearance on the silver screen in August 1930, in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, created by Max Fleischer as a caricature of the real-life singer Helen Kane.  In this incarnation, Betty was highly sexual yet girlish (she was officially 16), naïve and innocent--even a bit frightened about what might be out there--a well-stacked and curvaceous version of the jazz-age flapper. 

She originally had "poodle" ears, but those became earrings in Any Rags (1932), and in 1934, with the advent of the Production Code, Betty was transformed into a more mature and wiser husbandless housewife, dressed more modestly--soon to be without the earnings.  The final Betty Boop cartoon--there were over 100--appeared in 1939.  The character was revived in the 1980s for television and the comic strip, and Betty made an appearance in the 1988 film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  Marketers became interested in Betty at the same time, and her image--usually the ultra-sexy early Boop--became widely used in advertising and in the collectibles market, both in the United States and abroad.  Though most of Betty's cartoons have not been released in the modern era, 22 are in the public domain and available on the Internet.   Bill

A Betty Boop shirt, Rome (Tuscolano quarter) store window.  With earrings--and garters.  Betty as gold-digger.