Villa Altieri - "one of the most prestigious" 17th-century villas in Rome - hiding in plain sight

 Villa Altieri is one of those "Rome the Second Time" places in the middle of Rome rarely visited by the individual, and only occasionally by groups. Last year we encountered it only because we were interested in an exhibit featuring artists' responses to the Resistance in World War II (more about that in a later post). We had no idea of the place to which we were heading. What we found was a magnificently restored building, the kind of restoration for which few can match the Italians, and the layers of Rome that consistently surprise and delight us. At viale Manzoni 47, it's just steps from the Manzoni Metro A stop , on the edge of the Esquilino quartiere.

Above, the monumental entrance to Villa Altieri. Today one enters on the ground floor, beneath these grand staircases.

The palazzo is a 17th-century building. Pope Clement X (1670-76) was an Altieri, giving the family money to build this villa on top of an earlier structure.

The main hall of the ground floor of Villa Altieri has exposed "scavi" - excavations - from the earlier villa and from Roman times.

A collection of antique statues and other works is well-displayed in the various rooms. It's described as a small museum for the "prestigious" collection of the families that owned the property. Through the glass floor (a little disorienting when one first walks on it) one can see the "ancient" cobbled floors of the prior villa and the "archaeological stratifications" discovered in the restoration work.

That's me, focused  on the art exhibit. You can see the glass floor beneath my feet and some of the statuary in the hall.

A little of everything - the glass floors with
ruins below, a statue from the museum's
collection, a view out to the gardens, such
as they remain, and, center right, a painting
of Antonio Gramsci from the
 Resistance exhibition.

The city of Rome acquired the villa in 1975 and began restoring it in 2010. It's now the city's headquarters for "Culture and Historical Memory," with an archive open to the public that includes the Library of the Metropolitan City with the Historical Archive, the Study Center for literary research, linguistic and philological Pio Rajna , with the Dante Historical Library. (I'm using the site's English translation - links provided). 

The "museum" supposedly has visiting hours, but the website is woefully out of date. I suggest going when there is an event or exhibit and one can be more sure of it being open and accessible.

Facebook may provide the most up-to-date information on opening days and times. Specifically "Amici di Villa Altieri" here. It shows current events and exhibits. (Don't be misled by the Palazzo Altieri elsewhere in Rome or the Villa Altieri hotel in Albano.) 

On the other hand, the villa is so accessible, you can try simply stopping by. It's a lovely site, quintessentially Roman, with surprises from many eras.

City website on the villa here: https://www.cittametropolitanaroma.it/homepage/elenco-siti-tematici/villa-altieri/

A print - with description - from the Stanford collection here: https://web.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/vasi/catalog/appendix/vn195.html

Description of a bas relief with Mithras, here: https://www.mithraeum.eu/monument/475

Dianne

(Part Two of Villa Altieri - the exhibition of Resistance art- will be the subject of a subsequent post.)

Roman roads pave the way to prosperity in the 21st century

The old via Prenestina, a Roman road we "ran across" in the Roman countryside,
this near Gallicano nel Lazio, during our mostly-successful search for aqueducts.

At RST we're fascinated by the new in Rome, and how it often ties into the old. We've also spent a fair amount of time in and outside of Rome, "discovering" ancient Roman roads, including one in the woods that we couldn't believe dated back two centuries (see photo at right).

Via Sacra ("Holy road") on Monte Cavo
on the way to what once was probably
a temple to the goddess Diana.

At its peak (second century CE), the Roman road system covered Europe and parts of the Middle East and Africa. The tie between the old Roman roads and contemporary life is the thesis of a recent study by Danish economists that links today's European centers of healthy economic activity with infrastructure created 2,000 years ago - the Roman road system.

Looking at the Roman roads in 117 CE, the four economists conclude "greater Roman road density goes along with (a) greater modern road density, (b) greater settlement formation in 500 CE, and (c) greater economic activity in 2010." Underscoring this conclusion is their finding that this tie is weakened to the point of insignificance "where the use of wheeled vehicles was abandoned from the first millennium CE until the late modern period" - that is, in the Middle East and North Africa.  They also found market towns flourishing from the medieval period to modern times along those Roman roads.

Ancient Roman roads (light yellow) superimposed on 2010 satellite imagery of nighttime lighting in Europe. (Washington Post illustration using data from NOAA Earth Observatory, Natural Earth and Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization)

How did the economists figure this out?  Among other tools, they used contemporary population and road density and night-time satellite imagery of light. (See photo above.) The Danes piggybacked on Harvard University's research and mapping project - its Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations - which we plan to feature in a future post.

This article from the Washington Post, here, summarizes nicely the Danish research and has some illustrative maps.

The original paper is here:http://web.econ.ku.dk/pabloselaya/papers/RomanRoads.pdf

Talk about the need for infrastructure?  Could the US take a lesson here?

Dianne

Rome's New Metro "Archaeological Station" - "Archeo-Stazione" - its newest and best free museum

Travelers in the San Giovanni metro station amidst artifacts from ancient Rome.

Everyone agrees Rome's 21st-century infrastructure is deteriorating to a new low - piles of garbage in the street, holes in the asphalt big enough to close streets and kill motorists, buses catching on fire, tram brakes sabotaged, parks unkempt, trees falling on cars.  And yet, one can enter a Metro station and be in a first-class archaeological museum that opened this May.

Under this very ordinary Metro entrance
lies an incredible museum.

The expansion of Rome's Metro system to a third (!) line, the C line, resulted, as almost all excavation in Rome does, in the discovery of layers of ancient artifacts.  In this case, the discoveries at the connection of the C line to the A line at the busy hub of San Giovanni in Laterano held up the inauguration of that station by a couple years and in the process opened a window into centuries of Roman life.

Artifacts discovered under the station at this level (more photos below).

Because the station was so deep, archaeologists had the chance to reach depths they don't normally work in. As a result, they used the depth of the station to provide a timeline.  As one descends into the basic 3 levels of the station, the panels on the walls and the artifacts reveal the time lines at those depths.  It's a clever way of showing human, and pre-human, history.

At the top, times for the next trains arriving.  On the wall, an indication that we are 14 and 15 meters (45-50 feet) below current Rome and in the "Middle Imperial Age--third century AD."
Also noted is the year 216, when construction began on the Baths of Caracalla.

One of the most interesting discoveries was of a 1st-century BC water system, on a farm it appears, with pipes made from used and broken amphorae.

A 1st-century BC plumbing system (more photos at the end
of the post)

The station, which opened May 18, has been an enormous hit primarily with Romans.  It may take time for tourists to catch onto this - in reality - marvelous free or low-cost museum.

A central hub - travelers going through the station, and video displays on the right.

The first level is before the Metro turnstiles and thus is free.  But for a 1.50 euro ticket, anyone can travel down to the other levels of the station. The free level has very good videos, in both Italian and English.  The second level is the most rich in artifacts.

Dianne

The escalator going to the bottom level takes one down through time.
On the right it says "Republican age" and then "Proto-historic age."

The lowest level does not have artifacts, but has pictures on the
walls of the kind of life that existed on earth (in Rome)
at this level of feet below the current level of Rome.

A Roman delighting in her 'find.'

Pipes from the 1st century BC plumbing system
(and Bill's hand and camera reflecting in the glass)

The discovery of broken amphorae used to create a pipe
in the plumbing system.

An end piece from the side of a Roman house.

Amphorae

Amazingly enough, the remains of a wooden basket--
1st-2nd century BC.

New Life in the Tiburtina Station - shopping, education, even high speed trains

Tiburtina train station - now inhabited - for comparison, see the 2013 photo at the end of this post - virtually the same shot.

We wrote about the Tiburtina train station 3 years ago, 6 months after it opened, when it seemed like an empty movie set (see photo at end of this post), and we predicted it wouldn't find life in the near future.  We were wrong.  The station may not be chock full, but it's certainly found life.  For those who want to travel without the stress of Termini (made even worse this year with construction and new security procedures), try Tiburtina!

Finally there are coffee bars, in fact several of them.  And, you can sit down for free, you can get your own water, the barristas are nice, the place is efficient, the coffee and cornetti decent.  The arrivals and departures are clearly displayed right there.  What more can one ask?

There's even some shopping at the station - bright, clean, modern stores.  And, we found. a terrific, small exhibit on - mainly - Roman artifacts relating to food.  "Le Vie del Cibo"  - The Roads of Food - from Ancient Rome to Modern Europe -that was up through mid-June.  Hopefully another exhibit will soon go into this space.

The show was a good, fairly simple primer on Roman and Etruscan history, with lovely examples explained in both Italian and English.  And, it was free.

The Tiburtina station is the home station for some of the fast trains, and for a lot of connecting trains. Don't dismay if you find yourself routed through there.  It's also a remarkable piece of architecture.

Dianne

Tibrurtina Station 2013

Colle Oppio: In the Shadow of the Coliseum

So you've "done" the Coliseum.  It's not yet lunchtime [1-3 in Rome outside the tourist areas], you've given the fenced-in Arch of Constantine its due, and you're tired of being surrounded by tourists and badgered by folks wanting to sell you stuff. Where do you go?  What's next?

You wouldn't know it, but you're just due passi--literally two steps, but generally meaning "nearby"--from Colle Oppio [Oppio Hill], a fascinating, compact, Roman park, filled with attractions from the historic to the funky.  You can get onto, or into, the Colle Oppio through the gate, and then the path, that runs roughly north from the Coliseum, paralleling via Labicana. This is one of Rome's famous seven hills, and some say one of the most inspiring in Rome, with the Coliseum as its backdrop.

One of the first things you see, on your left, is a statue to Alfredo Oriani [1852-1909].  On the side it says A Roma Madre Ravenna.  It's a creation of the Fascist era--XIII, the 13th year of the Fascist regime, or 1935.  A novelist, poet, and social critic, Oriani's work received little attention until the end of the Great War, when it was discovered by the Fascist regime and, with Mussolini as editor, republished in 30 volumes.  Oddly, Oriani was also appreciated by leftist and anti-Fascist Antonio Gramsci, who wrote about him in his prison notebooks.  When we saw the statue, it had been lightly defaced with a right-wing symbol.







Shortly after the statue, turn up to the left.  Ahead is a large pool/fountain--another, somewhat earlier Fascist-era monument.














Perhaps its outstanding feature is the amphorae that decorate it--symbols of ancient Rome, when clay vessels of this kind were used to transport oil and other commodities.  The smaller fountains at the sides of the larger ones are of interest as well.  Above each of them is the letter "A" [for Anno, year] and the number VI [the sixth year of Fascism, or 1928].









Beyond the fountain, on a wall to the right, is some intriguing and, we assume, relatively permanent graffiti: Omnia Vincit Amore [sounds to us, who have never studied Latin, like Love Conquers All/Colle Oppio, and in the center a symbol we haven't seen before.  And just ahead, the remains of a substantial and once-elegant complex of ancient Roman baths.  These are what remains of the magnificent, 10,000 square meter Baths of Trajan (Emperor 98-117 AD), designed by the brilliant architect Apollodorus of Damascusa in 109 AD above Nero's famous - or infamous - Golden House (closed/open/closed - we think now truly closed - the conservationists can't seem to prevent its collapse.  Luckily we saw it in its brief open period a few years ago). [See Marco's update in the first comment below - there may be hope here.]  There's another piece to your left and back--we'll get there in a moment.






This park has another aspect, one that you may--or may not--appreciate.  It's a gathering and resting place for black immigrants, some of them the itinerant merchants who are ubiquitous in Rome's tourist areas, others, perhaps, unemployed or underemployed.  When we visited in May, the field next to the baths was dotted with sleeping young men.





As you move more or less back toward the fountain, and somewhat to the right, you'll find a second set of
ancient bath ruins.  These are more of the Baths of Trajan.  When we last were there, the city had put up some informative placards near the various ruin sites.  Since the baths covered 10,000 square meters and had gyms, saunas, hot and cold rooms, etc., you will find ruins dotting Colle Oppio, which has been called an archaeologist's dream.  No crowds here.

Next to this piece of the baths is another treasure, from the 1930s: a stone fountain in the modernist style, once elegant but now broken and defaced.  The marble bowl is beautiful, nonetheless.  And the fasces on the side of the fountain are remarkably well preserved.












Two more sights to see.  One is a modest, 2-story building of unknown origins--it could be hundreds of years old, or only a century--fenced in and circled by bushes and trees.  As the sign says, it's the property of the Comune di Roma--the city government--and houses the Centro Anziani "Colle Oppio": a social center for the neighborhood's population of older, retired people--of which Italy has plenty.




Our last stop is a small athletic field, in sight of the Coliseum, where we began our journey.  On our visit it wasn't being used for soccer or any other sport, but rather as a meeting place for the the area's itinerant merchants.  They often carry their wares in blue plastic bags.  On this day, these merchants also hoped to sell umbrellas.  A broader view of the field is at the end of this post.

Bill