Behind the Ministry of Transport: Spectacular Villas from a Century Ago

 

Not long ago (Covid time--in real time, it was May, 2018), Dianne and I took a tour of the magnificent ville and villini in the neighborhood behind the Ministry of the Railroads (and, these days, also the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport). That's the big, white building on Piazza Croce Rosso/viale del Policlinico, just east of via Nomentana (and Porta Pia), the one with the iconic Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane sign on top (still serving that purpose). It's worth going across the street to get a good look at the sign, which for a time served as the front page for this Rome the Second Time blog. 

The steps of the building are a cat hangout, complete with cat ladies (gattare) who dutifully feed the felines.  Birds get in on the action too.

The tour took us north and west, to viale Regina Margarita, and beyond to the outskirts of Villa Torlonia, where Mussolini lived when he ruled Italy.  

Exceptional iron work

I no longer remember much of anything of the details of the buildings we saw. Most were constructed between 1900 and 1920--that is, before modernism became a force in Rome and elsewhere--and are usually described as being in the "Liberty" style (a term not used in the United States, where "late Art Nouveau [transitioning into Art Deco] would suffice). I thought they were extraordinary when we toured, and nothing since  has changed my mind.

The tour was sponsored by a group we've joined several times: Turismo Culturale Italiano, as part of their "Conosci Roma" ("Know Rome" series). They call these magnificent residential structures "I villini Eclettici e Liberty" (The Eclectic and Liberty small villas--one might question the "small" here). The villas give testimony, per the organization, "to an era capable of producing splendid works."

The above two close-ups of Villino Ximenes illustrate its
categorization as "the first flowering of Art Nouveau" in Rome.

Enjoy the photos (I've included only a sample--didn't want to spoil "reality"). Should you get to Rome and want a sense of how the city's wealthy lived a century ago, find the Ministry of Transport, and enjoy the walk. Walk the small streets that include via dei Villini (street of the small villas), via di Villa Patrizi (the rococo villa that morphed into the Ministry above), and the crossing streets. Then go onto viale Regina Margherita itself.

These were not all the aristocratic wealthy, but more the new class that arose from Italy's new 1870 (in Rome) statehood and all the government buildings and jobs that were suddenly proliferating in Rome. Those high-end bureaucrats needed places to live, and populated this area just outside the Walls of Rome and yet very near the state buildings (including that for the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, which is just outside the Walls). Some families with royal titles built in the area as well, ensuring they were close to the sources of  power in the country's new capital. This surfeit of moneyed people built dozens of these buildings "of great richness and decorative and architectural fantasy." Even the names of the villas and their patrons are exotic: Franknoi, Hout, Nast-Kolb, and Ximenes, for example.

The two photos above are of Villino Ximenes (1902), facing viale Regina Margherita itself (the only building in floral Liberty Style of the early 1900s, according to some scholars). Villa Berlingieri, also on viale Regina Margherita, was designed by Pio Piacentino, helped by his young son Marcello, both of whose work we've admired elsewhere in Rome, and who would later design in the Modernist style.

In front of one of the villas, we found this woman, walking her cat on a leash. Years ago we tried that. It didn't work. We did discover that it IS possible to drag your cat on a leash. 

Bill 

Things I Miss in Rome (Part II)

                   Things I Miss in Rome, 2nd Installment

Public Housing Projects

Decorated Vehicles

Paste-Ups

Roman Tree-Trimming

Relaxed Cats 

Bill

Cute Cat Clickbait - Roman style

We're not immune to cute cat photos, having owned several cats in our lifetimes - all of them wonderful in their own ways (yes, Zelda, the last, you were the best). So we have shot a few cat pix in Rome, along with shooting Bill's graffiti and my daily chronicles.

Rome is a cat-loving city.  There are its gattori - the women (mostly) who put out food for the cats, and the cat sanctuaries at the Pyramid and in Largo

Inside the cat sanctuary at Largo di Torre Argentina.

di Torre Argentina, the latter where Caesar supposedly was killed (talk about iconic places). Bo Lundin, who is the author of the Swedish guide to Rome, wrote on RST about Nelson, the one-eyed cat who hung out in those Roman ruins.

Cats chilling out on scooters are our favorites.  At the top of this post and immediately below are two from last year.

Our scooter was parked right next to this guy; so we had to take care not to disturb him (or her).

Just to show our long-lived interest, the photo below is from 2007.

Then there's this cyclist - whom we saw in both 2018 and 2019 - so we know the cat survived at least one year riding on his shoulders (and the cat obviously is no kitten).

In Villa Borghese.

We conclude with a few favorites - below, eating a potato chip on the terrazzo of Lo Zodiaco on Monte Mario (this one made it into the print edition of RST - p. 132):

That's me giving this bold cat a non-nutritious treat (the chips
came free with our drink).

And these wonderful cat/ghosts from, I recall, Trastevere.  I can't recall the graffiti artist's name, but in looking for it, I discovered lots of graffiti cats, including those by 215 and Alice (who once were a couple) and Diavù (Anna Magnani with cat). Bill says he has more photos of cat graffiti in his files as well - so there likely will be another "cute cat clickbait" post in RST's future.

Dianne

Cats Have Their Own Office in Rome

We were walking in our Monteverde Vecchio neighborhood this spring when I said to Bill - "take a picture of that," and you can see his reflection in the door's glass as he shot this photo of what looked like an office for a national cat organization:  Ente Nazionale Felinotecnica Italiana or ENFI.

I loved the photo of the cat - someone will know the breed - and the idea that the cats had their own organization.I also liked the word "Felinotecnica" - which sounded to me like a technical feline.

A little research made the organization less mysterious  - it's the Italian National Purebred Cat Association.





The Web site indicates there may be some cat turf wars going on as well.  ENFI doesn't mention other organizations by name, but indicates that more than one organization can maintain a purebred cat geneology register, and that it is one officially sanctioned to do so.  ENFI got its recognition only a bit more than a year ago - so there's lots of pride going around here.




Then there's the whole issue of whether one should breed purebred cats. Especially given all the homeless cats in Rome and the efforts in various parts of Rome to take care of them, neuter and feed them. Our Swedish friend, Bo Lundine, wrote a post here on such a cat, the one-eyed Nelson.  Well, we won't get into that debate.




And so the lesson seems to be you never know what you'll find walking around a residential neighborhood in Rome.

Dianne

Walking the (Aurelian) Wall (III): the Tame and the Wild Sides

A handsome portion of the wall, near the Pyramid, with a tropical look

This section of the Aurelian Wall, running from Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid to the Tevere (and Porta Portese), has two faces: one quite touristy and civilized, the other rather odd and possibly even a bit dangerous.  It is noted by some as one of the longer, intact stretches of this third century wall, once encircling all of Rome.  But the stretch has its limitations, as RST discovered. [Update: a Google map that includes this itinerary.]

To the left of the Pyramid, a short section
 of the wall, extending toward - but not to -
Porta San Paolo; here you also can see
where the wall  has been removed for traffic.

The tame, or civilized phase begins at the Pyramid (here, a part of the wall - another "existing structure" used to build the wall quickly in 271-75 AD).  Because this area is well known for armed resistance to Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943, the wall here is a resource for memories of that moment.

Remembering the dead

The pillar (photo right) remembers 471 people who died defending the city.  Just beyond, between the Pyramid and the wall proper, volunteers who care for the hundreds of cats that live in a special facility here, were closing up for the day.






And beyond that, the wall itself is impressive (see photo at the top of this post), even if the grounds on the outside of the wall are unkempt and full of evidence that a lot of drinking is done here: not only bottles but dozens of bottle caps embedded in a stump.  Though we're on the outside here, the inside of the wall is accessible in this area through two cemeteries: the well-known Non-Catholic Cemetery, which contains lots of important bodies, including that of the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci, and the haunting (British) Commonwealth Cemetery just across via N. Zabaglia, just ahead (both, again, inside the wall).

Mailbox for wall "address"

Now things get a bit funky.  As we continued beyond the small turnabout/piazza, following the outside of the wall, we passed a man relaxing in the weeds, then came upon a locked gate to which was attached a mail box, as if someone had once (or still did) live inside. 

Street-cleaning/garbage truck facility restricts access to wall

At this point the wall continues as part of an Ama (trash-collecting, street cleaning) facility.  We decided we would not have been welcome inside.  So we tracked back, hoping to follow the wall from the inside, past the front of the Commonwealth Cemetery, then a bit downhill onto the road that curves (clockwise) around Monte Testaccio, with its cool collection of late-night bars.

The Aurelian wall is somewhere ahead.  To the right,
the wall of the ex-Mattatoio

Following the curving road, in a couple of minutes we ended up at the long, straight road that fronts the ex-Mattatoio (literally, Killing Center, what we call a slaughterhouse, once a stockyard).  Heading left, toward the Aurelian wall (not yet visible), graffiti covering a portion of the ex-Mattatoio, then right--there's just a glimpse of the wall here--along a row of houses occupied, we think, by new and poor immigrants, Romanians and others, perhaps Roma (Rom, "gypsies").

A glimpse of the wall, between the wall of the ex-Mattatoio (left) and housing (right)

NO TAV graffiti, inside the ex-Mattatoio

Dianne would go no further.  Bill took the first right, then a quick left, quickly observing a row of about ten home-made shacks and a big barking black dog (which was fortunately chained).  Bill, too, retreated--from danger and likely embarrassment--and our not-so-intrepid couple retraced their steps to one of several open entrances to the yards, heading to and beyond a heavily graffitied tower at the center of the complex (of the graffiti on the walls to the left, note the nice train with
the NO TAV sign: in northern Italy, especially, there's strong opposition to a proposed new high-speed train (Treno Alta Velocita) through the French and Italian Alps.

The wall ends--or appears to end.  Photo taken from train.
Despite the sign, we are still in Testaccio, not yet across
the Tevere in Trastevere.

At the far end of the large open area of the ex-Mattatoio there's another road, inside the complex, leading left.  Not useful, we decided, in locating the wall.  So we left the complex, ahead and just to the right, through an exit onto the Lungotevere Testaccio that wasn't open a year ago.  Walking left, the road ends abruptly after about 200 meters, at a railroad bridge over the Tevere.  We still can't see the wall, and-- from a train several days later--we saw why: the wall, too, ends abruptly before it reaches the river.

Along the Tevere.  If not part of the wall, what is it?

We're thinking that the wall planners didn't see any necessity for a wall along the river--a sort of natural barrier--but there is an existing wall-like section, including a tower, along the road that runs above the river here, and some - but not all - maps show the wall was indeed here.

Tent housing, along the bank of the Tevere

But (we're trying to think this through) if the Aurelian wall had been built along the expanse of river from the railroad bridge (to the south) to Ponte Sublicio/Porta Portese (to the north), then surely there would be visible remnants of the wall.  And there are none--except, possibly, that tower and related remains--or none to be seen from the road, anyway. Another theory - that the remnants of the wall became part of the now-high river embankments.  But, back to our trek: below the road, near a path that runs along the river bank, people are living amid weeds in tents and huts.  Not for tourists, not even us.

A favorite bar, at corner of via Galvani and via
N. Zabaglia.  Time for an aperitivo.  

Today's search for the wall at an end, we turned back into the ex-Mattatoio,  past the old stockyards and the giant Bambu' installation that is part of MACRO Testaccio, along the bars and clubs built into Monte Testaccio, to the next corner and one of our favorite bars.  We were lucky.  It was 6:05 p.m., and five minutes earlier happy hour had begun: an aperitivo and plenty to eat, a photo show of historic Testaccio, and all for Euro 4 per person.  What a city!


Bill   

Nelson: The One-Eyed King of Torre Argentina

We are pleased to inaugurate Rome the Second Time’s guest blogger initiative with a post by author and Italophile Bo Lundin. Bo first came to Rome as a student in 1960, staying in a pensione that he describes as “high up in the buildings at the Piazza Repubblica.” His guidebook, Om Rom (About Rome) was published in 1984 and is now in a 6th edition (in Swedish only), and he adds with enthusiasm that it shares a good deal in content and sensibility with Rome the Second Time. A frequent visitor to the Eternal City (including this coming May), Bo’s latest passion is the more temporal pleasure of Capri, the subject of his new book, Pa Capri (On Capri).
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Lots of buses, a very good bookshop, some cafés and bars, a famous theatre where The Barber of Seville in 1816 met his first audience and was booed off the stage. The Pantheon three blocks away to the north, Piazza Navona and the Tiber more or less equally distant to the northeast and to the south: you can’t be more in the middle of Rome than you are here at Largo di Torre Argentina.

The name has nothing to do with Argentina; the small 12th-century tower at one corner of the large square was owned by a family from Strasbourg – and Strasbourg was Argentorum in Latin. Nobody cares much about the tower these days, but a lot of tourists peek down into the excavation, compare their maps with their view and try to find out which of the Republican temples down there is Temple A and Temple B.

In the 1920s Mussolini’s town planners had ordered a large department store to be built right here. Old houses were pulled down, bits and pieces of the temples came to light, and as so often in Rome the plans had to be changed, antiquity winning over the present day.

But there is still life among the ruins, to the delight of the tourists. Down in the Area Sacra live hundreds of cats in all sizes and all colors. Kittens play around fallen columns, cats are dozing on the temple steps or walking gracefully in the grass. A popular pastime is trying to count all the cats you see; however careful you are, you’ll find that there is always one more, peeking out from under a pillar or suddenly appearing beneath a staircase.

It was in Largo di Torre Argentina I met Nelson. I remember the date--it was April 21st, Rome’s birthday--but not the year: it must have been in the early 90s. I went down the steps in the corner closest to where via Arenula goes down to the Tiber and came for the first time to the cat sancturary hidden away in the vaults beneath the busy street.

It was – and is – run by a couple of extraordinary Roman women helped by a large crowd of volunteers from all over the world: art students, au pair girls, even diplomats’ wives. The dynamic duo Lia Dequel and Silvia Viviani came here in 1994 and have spent all their time since then caring for the cats many hours per day, 365 days per years, come rain or come shine. That's Lia in the photo at left.

When I happened to look down into the sanctuary they had more or less just started, and just the day before a kitten with his fur so full of lice and dirt that it had to be shaved off had been dumped there. He sat in a small cage, feeling rather sorry for himself, but still with a hopeful glint in his eye.
Yes, his eye. He had only one left, so of course he was christened Nelson. (See the photo at right and above left, walking toward Lia).

I did what I have done every time I’ve been in Rome since then: petted the cats, donated some money for cat food (and, even more important, for spaying and neutering the cats coming to the sanctuary) and talked to Lia and Silvia.

Every time I passed Largo Argentina Nelson had become larger and more majestic. After a year or two he was the undisputed King Cat of the colony, often sitting at the first step of the stairs leading down, so the passing tourist could marvel and maybe even walk down to contribute to his and his fellow cats’ welfare.
His fame grew. Deborah D’Alessandro, an American volunteer, wrote a book about him. Nelson il re senza un occhio won a literary award in Italy and is translated into English as Nelson the One-Eyed King. TV teams came from all over Europe to interview Lia and Silvia and Deborah.

Nelson is no more. His health suffered from the damp conditions in the sanctuary (Roman authorities have turned a very cold shoulder to calls for the place to be connected to the main sewer system), and when he finally was adopted and went to Germany he survived for a year, but died of kidney trouble, hopefully comforted by central heating and lots of love.
Now he is a legend and a symbol. I am glad that we met already at the beginning of his career, and I still visit Largo di Torre Argentina every time I’m in Rome.

So do a lot of other foreigners: once I met a German bass singer, in Rome for a season as Sarastro in "The Magic Flute"; he came every free afternoon to talk to a blind cat he had fallen in love with the year before.

You don’t even have to go to Rome to visit the Largo Argentina cats: their website (http://www.romancats.com/index_eng.php) is large and colorful and gives lots of opportunities for helping Lia and Silvia and the others by adopting cats for real or by sending money for food. You can even buy Nelson the One-Eyed King. Do that.

Bo Lundin