City to Mountain Top, Life to Death: Signs of Summer in Rome

If Americans can't get there, at least we can have some dreams of Rome.  Below some photos from an earlier summer, exhibiting some of Rome's uniqueness - and markers of life and death

Here's life  - a bra ad - and death - notices of death pasted over them. In Castel Gandolfo (summer home of the Popes - and featured in the award-winning 2019 film, "The Two Popes"). "In forma smagliante"  is a sort of double entendre  here, trans. "In great shape" "In top form" "Fit as a fiddle" etc.

 Though from 2012, these graffiti faces at left remind us of our 2020 "mask-up" days.

On the "life" side (mostly), right - "Brigata Peroni" or "Peroni [as in the beer] Brigade."  One doesn't normally associate brigades, as in armed forces or the anarchical - and deadly (they killed Aldo Moro)- leftists, the "Red Brigade," with beer.

Left, a fully-stocked outdoor bar/cafe', complete with the requisite photo of iconic actor Alberto Sordi, in the iconic still of him eating spaghetti (from the film "Un Americano a Roma") - we've probably seen a hundred of these in restaurants and cafes and bars - and books!

Okay - we've posted photos of the nonsensical writings on shirts and jackets, but we think not this one, which does have the word "death" in it - seen in a Rome market. I just finished reading Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way" in which he quotes some of these.  None is better than this one at right.

Eating IN the streets of Trastevere. This could be a good model for restaurants in the US
trying to expand their outside service.  Not exactly social distancing.  And no
worries from those actually standing in the street that they could be run over.

For the death end, here are two photos from the top of a mountain an hour or two outside Rome in the Abruzzi (the Gran Sasso). Yes, the ubiquitous cross was there, but also Mary, complete with rosary, and several plaques to hikers who had gone on to other heights.

In the photo below, the plaque on the right says, "Friendship doesn't need time or space. We know you will always be at our side.  Ciao Nicola."

And in that same photo, the plaque on the left reads, "In memory of Ezio Noce. Your mountain friends affectionately remember you, in this place familiar to you."

Dianne

Deaths on 2 Wheels and 2 Feet - Warnings of the Perils of Getting Around Rome

"On the streets of Rome, 25% of the deaths are motorcyclists."

This LED display is one that never ceases to disturb me as we (motor)cycle around Rome.  Bluntly stated, it cites the statistic that 25% of deaths on the streets of Rome are of those who ride 2-wheelers. "Motociclisti" here includes we scooter riders.  Bear in mind, scooters can be quite large - up to 600cc.  Audrey and Gregory rode a 50cc Vespa.

It's not just riders, though.  Pedestrians are similarly warned:

The translation here:  In Rome in 2014, 45 pedestrians were killed and 1800 injured.  As Bill recently wrote about walking around Rome, "You can walk, but they can kill you."

Just don't be looking up at these signs while driving.  I took the one below while on the back of our 250cc Malaguti scooter.  Bill has never seen one of these signs - his eyes are on the road.

Dianne

Fu-turing at Cerveteri: Discovering the Etruscans through Digital Technology

RST is pleased to welcome guest blogger Theresa Potenza.  Based in Rome, Potenza is an art historian and freelance writer.  To learn more about her private tours of Rome and read her travel and feature stories about Italy check out: www.italywiththeresa.blogspot.it.

Experience the past by leaping into the future.  At Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri, digital technology engages raw archaeology.  The long dead come to life—well, almost. 

The city of Cerveteri, located 28 miles (50km) north of Rome, was one of the largest cities of the Mediterranean before the Roman civilization.  Its burial site offers a taste of the complicated Etruscan religion and preoccupation with death and foregrounds the Etruscans’ skillful and creative construction techniques.

A new technology program at the site, called Fu-touring, enhances an already powerful in-person experience of a city of the dead.  Inside the technology center you can watch a 20-minute 3-D video providing just enough background on the people, burial practices, and art of Cerveteri to put the 25-acre (10-hectare) site into context.  Three of the tombs are enhanced inside with a 2-minute video that recreates where objects were placed along the walls, how the architectural space was carved, who was buried there, how their funerals took place in that space, and even reconstructs earthquakes and natural disasters to show how precious terra-cotta vases and other personal items were damaged over the centuries.  


Hundreds more tombs are available to visit in order to expand your imagination, including 9^th century BC small hut tombs and dice tombs, resembling shop windows, set along a main road.

The most famous tombs are those of the 5^th century BC, grande tumuli (mounded) tombs indicating an elite aristocratic class and built to imitate domestic architecture of the period.

Palazzo delle Esposizioni
April 15-July 20

These technological enhancements to one of most unique burial sites in the world, connected to a leading ancient city on a par with Athens and Rome, comes at a time when the Etruscan city of Cerveteri is in the spotlight in Rome.  An exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni--on from April 15^th through July 20^th --assembles some of the best collections of previous archaeological discoveries from inside these tombs from significant galleries around the world, including the Vatican Museums, Paris’ Louvre, and the British Museum in London. The exhibition incorporates some of the most remarkable and well-known finds from Cerveteri, as well as material recently discovered and never before revealed, providing new insight into this mysterious metropolis and the remarkably advanced pre-Roman civilization of the Etruscans.

Theresa Potenza