Alberto Moravia's Intellectual Gathering Place: Home in Rome Series #4.

Moravia, one of the great 20th-century Italian writers, is not a household word in the U.S., but probably should be.  His "The Conformist" resulted in Bernardo Bertolucci's acclaimed 1970 film of the same name.   And, Alberto Moravia's experience in the Ciociara region of central Italy, where he and Elsa Morante went to escape the German occupation of Rome in 1943-44, produced the novel and film we know in English as "Two Women."  In Vittorio DeSica's film, Sophia Loren gave the performance that earned her the first major Academy Award for a non-English performance. Moravia's "Gli Indifferenti" (The Indifferent Ones), published in 1929 when he was only 22, and with some of his own money, was the work that vaulted him onto the national scene.

Moravia's study.  He personally answered every
phone call. 

So it was with perseverance (see tour hours below) that we recently made a reservation to tour Moravia's apartment of his last 30 years, in which he died in 1991.  We enjoy seeing where historic figures lived, and the ambience they created around themselves.  In this sense, the Casa Moravia (Moravia home) does the job. One can see Moravia's study, his Olivetti typewriter, the desk his sculptor friend made him, the table around which the intellectuals gathered.



This home is where he moved with his second writer-wife, Dacia Maraini, in the early 1960s, after he separated from writer Elsa Morante. The Morante-Moravia relationship was tortured, at best.  Both have been described as unusually difficult people, although they also inspired creativity in each other.  It's hard to imagine a healthy spousal relationship with a writer who was obsessed with sex and younger women (a 1971 novel was about a screenwriter and his independent penis).

Yet a great writer he was, and we can breathe in the atmosphere he shared with his wives (the third one 40-some years younger than he) and other intellectual companions, including Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Moravia's life, in addition to being shaped by his wives and friends, was also heavily influenced by his 5-year bed rest as a teenager with tuberculosis, a life-long disease for him, and by Fascism.  His father was Jewish, and the family name was Pincherle. The Fascist regime kept track of his activities. 

Moravia, by Renato Guttuso

We encourage non-Italian speakers to enjoy some of these "second time" places.  But this one is only for those who understand Italian or just must see where Moravia lived.  The "tour" of less than one hour includes a 20 minute video (Italian only) and two 5-10 minute "talks" before seeing any of the apartment.  The 15 minute tour of the premises is too small a part of the "tour," we think.

Moravia was much painted by his artist friends; as a result, a significant part of the tour is the guide pointing out paintings. There are 3 by Renato Guttuso (one of our favorite 20th-century Italian painters) alone.

via della Vittoria, 1, in boring Prati.  Moravia's
apartment occupied the top floor on the rounded corner;
the terrace is quite something. 

Moravia's apartment is, frankly, rather ordinary and conformist.  It is also in what we consider a rather boring part of Rome: Prati.  On the day of the tour, to escape June rains in Rome, we walked for 30 minutes without finding a single coffee bar - now that's deprivation. Moravia had lived with Morante just off Piazza del Popolo for decades.  The move to Prati, even though just across the Tevere and up river a bit, must have felt like a move to the suburbs.  Even so, the environment may have suited the author, whose themes of ennui, alienation, and existentialism were well served by the neighborhood.

Casa Moravia was opened only a couple years ago, though the State has owned the apartment and its belongings basically since Moravia died.  Tours are given only at 10 and 11 a.m. on the first Saturday of every month, and reservations must be made in the month preceding the one in which you wish to take the tour.  Euro 5; Lungotevere della Vittoria, 1.  Web site in English: http://en.casaalbertomoravia.it/.  For reservations, call:  +39 339 2745206 (ArcheArte).
For RST's other "Home in Rome" postings, see those on German writer and philosopher Goethe, Nobel prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello, and artist Giorgio de Chirico (in birth order).  


Dianne

Walking in Goethe's footsteps: home in Rome series part 1

A famous but rather odd painting of Goethe amid the Roman
ruins - it's in Casa di Goethe.  Goethe thought it was
a good likeness.

Goethe’s sojourn in Rome made him a changed man, according to Goethe himself. The greatest of German writers (e.g. Faust) and polymath, Goethe literally fled to Rome and went from being a depressive German (apologies to Bill) to an emotional expat. Some say it was because he had sex for the first time in Rome (per no less than WH Auden, writing that Goethe's diary “is that of a man who has known sexual satisfaction”).  And this is after Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther – from whose fame in part he was fleeing. We like to think it was Rome itself that brought joy to Goethe, and that’s the way his diary reads.



Goethe looking out the window of the casa.
You can put yourself here;  the window is identified at the house

Goethe called 3 September when he arrived in Rome “the birthday of my new life.”

You can step in Goethe’s steps, look out his window, and feel his presence (with some effort on your part) in the “Casa di Goethe” – or Goethe’s home – in the center of Rome, via del Corso 18 – a few steps from Piazza del Popolo.

The good news about the well-organized Germans is that the “home” is well managed and maintained, with very good temporary exhibitions, as well as some permanent ones.  But well-maintained also means it is rather soul-less, and feels like the 21st century, not the 18th. That’s why it takes some effort to be transported back to Goethe’s time.  As Goethe said in the 1700s, “What the barbarians left, the builders of Modern Rome have destroyed.”  [The best version of that line plays on the name of the fabulously rich Roman family, the Barberini - what the barbarians ("barbari") didn't destroy, the Barberini did.]  One can imagine what Goethe would think now.  One really has to stretch one’s imagination to see the “delightful view of our garden and of neighbouring gardens in all directions, for our house stood on a corner.”

The exterior of Goethe's house on via del Corso

You can check out the hours, exhibitions, and some of the holdings of the “home” at the website – in English. A visit used to be free, then was Euro 2 and now is Euro 4 – but still worth it, in our opinion.

It’s worth it because Rome so moved Goethe, much like it does us. Of course, he did some things we haven’t – he visited the upper galleries of the Sistine Chapel (tho’ have to admit, we were high up on the scaffolding when Michelangelo's Last Judgment there was being restored), ate meals there and napped on the papal throne; climbed Trajan’s Column; bathed in the Tiber (“from a well-appointed and safe bathing machine”!).

Here’s what he says in his diary:

“Now, at last, I have arrived in the First City of the world!...All the dreams of my youth have come to life….In other places one has to search for the important points of interest; here they crowd in on one in profusion.”

St. Peter’s: “has made me realize that Art, like Nature, can abolish all standards of measurement.”

And on visiting the Sistine Chapel: “At present I am so enthusiastic about Michelangelo that I have lost all my taste for Nature, since I cannot see her with the eye of genius as he did.”

On the Coliseum at twilight: ”Once one has seen it, everything else seems small. It is so huge that the mind cannot retain its image; one remembers it is smaller than it is, so that every time one returns ito it, one is astonished by its size.”

And that’s just a bit of his writings that sang to us. For more, read his Italian Journey. Plus we’ll quote from him here and there in future posts. If you’re not too well-informed about Goethe, Wikipedia does a decent job of explaining this incredible mind and person.

Dianne

Note: We’re calling this “home series, part 1” because we will feature in short order, 2 other homes you can visit – Pirandello’s and DeChirico’s.

Evidence that the painting of Goethe is iconic.
Added by Bill