Remembering Giacomo Matteotti, and the Early Days of Italian Fascism

 

One of Rome's least prominent--and probably least visited--memorials is located on the Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia, just steps from the Tevere, near Ponte Pietro Nenni--a 5-minute walk from bustling Piazza del Popolo.

There, on June 1924 (two years after the March on Rome), while walking along the Lungotevere Arnaldo, the Italian politician Giacomo Matteotti was waylaid, thrown into a Lancia Lambda, and stabbed to death. Of the 5 men involved, one was a prominent member of the Fascist secret police. The extent of Benito Mussolini's involvement is not clear. [See the RST post on David Kertzer's book The Pope and Mussolini for more information.]

Matteotti was an anti-Fascist socialist--a member of the Unitary Socialist Party--and a deputy in the parliament. Ten days prior to his murder, he had spoken in the parliament, concerned about violence that had occurred during recent elections and critical of the anti-democratic Acerbo law, which had assigned 2/3 of the seats in parliament to the party of Mussolini--the largest in the body--which had won 35% of the vote. 

The monument to Matteotti occupies a semi-circular green space on an elevated terrace above the river. The space can be accessed by the Lungotevere or from the river bank, via a substantial staircase that appears to be a part of the memorial. 

Inaugurated in 1974 (50 years after Matteotti's death) and paid for by the Socialist Party, the bronze memorial consists of two very different sculptures, both by Jorio Vivarelli (1922-2008), who as a soldier was captured and imprisoned in 1943 by the German forces. The monument includes the words, "Although you kill me, the idea within me can never be killed."

The original plaque was smashed in January 2017, 6 months before we visited the site and these photos were taken.  

Bill 

Touring RAI Headquarters. Or, at least we saw the horse.

The semi-artsy photo above was taken from the parkway between the two halves of viale Mazzini (at #14), across from the headquarters of RAI, Italy's largest television station, in the della Vittoria area of Rome (adjacent to Prati).  We had made hard-to-get reservations for a tour of the building through Open House Roma, the two-day, May event that promises access to buildings that are normally off limits to those without badges and the like.  We imagined observing busy newsrooms, reporters at their desks, local celebrities preparing for the news hour--or something like that. The tour is beginning to form.

Sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you don't.

Being part of the tour did get us inside the gate and the fence, and in close proximity to the "Cavallo Morente" (the dying horse). The horse is visible from the sidewalk and can be photographed through the fence, but we appreciated the closer view of what has become the symbol of the company--an odd one, we think, given that the horse is dying.

With our tour group in front of the building.

It's a well known sculpture, designed by Francesco Messina (1900-1995), who was an active sculptor during the Fascist era and managed to survive that experience without undue damage to his reputation.

In 1941--two years before the fall of Fascism--Messina was at work on four horses, of about the same size as the Cavallo Morente, that were to be installed atop the Palazzo dei Congressi, in EUR.  The war intervened, and the horses were never completed and, of course, never installed.

Thirty years later a wealthy man in the town of Formello (a town we've enjoyed hiking from not far out of Rome) acquired the molds for the 4 horses, had them cast in bronze and placed in Villa Leoni, where they are not--to my knowledge--visible to the public.  Indeed, the photo I found of the horses on the internet was not copyable by ordinary means.  I took the photo below with a camera, from a  computer screen.  (By the way, we didn't learn any of the above from the tour.)

These could be seen at Villa Leoni in Formello--if you knew the owner. 

The RAI horse motif also appears in a "Flying Horse" designed by Mario Ceroli, which we saw on our visit to the suburb of Saxa Rubra, where RAI has more operations.

A couple of shots of the building's exterior:

Angled steel columns, typical of the period.

An elegant corner staircase (we assume). Italian staircases are invariably well done.

Our group was allowed to proceed through the glass doors and into an interior courtyard decorated with a garden and fountain in, as I recall, vaguely Asian style.  I say "I recall" because we were not allowed to photograph the courtyard.  With two exceptions.  We were permitted to photograph a model of the building in a plastic case, which at least offered some sense of the structure's configuration, which is in the shape of an "R" for RAI (or even "R+A+I," depending on how you look at it):

And we were allowed to photograph a composite photograph of the building under construction.

It goes without saying that we never got beyond the courtyard.  No newsrooms.  No celebs.  No upstairs.  As restricted as we were, there were prohibitions: no caschi (motorcycle helmets), no bagagli (baggage, suitcases).

RAI is a state-owned enterprise, part of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.  It was founded in 1924, and until 1954 was known as Radio Audizione Italiane, whose initials form RAI.  Since 2000 it has been known simply as RAI (pronounced like "rye").  Designed by Francesco Berarducci (we have written about his buildings before, including a nifty apartment house in the Brutalist mode) and Alessandro Fioroni and completed in 1965, it was the first building in Rome constructed entirely of steel.  It's considered a fine example of 1960s architecture, or so we were told.  We didn't see enough to be sure.  At least we saw the horse.

Bill

"Tour" over

Monumental Sculpture meets Monumental Site: Mauro Staccioli and the Baths of Caracalla

Mauro Staccioli's "Portale," 2014.  An opening,
rather than a closing off.  Compare with Staccioli's contribution to the 1978 Biennale, below.

The Baths of Caracalla are always impressive--a Rome-the-First-Time experience, to be sure.  But for the next ten days or so the Baths are a special treat.  Through September 30, this monumental complex is the site an equally monumental set of sculptures by Italian artist Mauro Staccioli.  Titled "Sensibile ambientale" (environmental sensibility), the show is the first retrospective of the work of Staccioli, who died at age 80 on January 1, 2018.

Curated by Alberto Fiz, the exhibition features 26 pieces, some outside, above ground, and some inside, along the underground passages of the Baths.

Tuscan by birth, Staccioli received his arts education at the Art Institute in Volterra, taught in Cagliari (Sardinia) for some years after 1960, before joining the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan in 1968.




Invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale in 1978, he fashioned the wall that made him famous, even notorious: a 26-foot concrete barrier, provocatively obstructing the view of the Italian pavilion.





Working in a minimalist vein, Staccioli favored basic geometric forms but on a grand scale.  His passion was the relationship of a work of art to its environment.  Writing in Art Forum in 1995, critic Giorgio Verzotti wrote, " In his indoor as well as in his outdoor installations, Mauro Staccioli's sculptures set up a tension between the work itself and the exhibition site."

In selecting the Baths for the retrospective (we assume he was involved in that process before his death), Staccioli took on an unusual challenge.  Although many of his sculptures are huge and inherently imposing--not unlike the iron behemoths of Richard Serra--the Baths are monumental on a scale all their own.

In some cases, then, the "tension" between the work and the site is a tension between monumentalisms--the Baths on the one hand, Staccioli's sculptures on the other.  In some cases, though certainly not all, the Baths swallow, absorb, and minimize Staccioli's work, as in the photo below.

Here, Staccioli's ring sculpture is dominated by the Baths

In others--perhaps especially the interior pieces--the sculptor's creations hold their own, dominate, or (see below) simply enhance the look and feel of the Baths.  Dianne at right.

Although Staccioli did not live to see the exhibition installed, we like to think he would have enjoyed all the complex ways in which his work interacts with one of the most dramatic sites in Rome.

Visitors may (assuming it's still there) also enjoy Michelangelo Pistoletto's nicely lit "The Replenished Apple," which resides in one of the underground chambers.

Pistoletto's "The Replenished Apple"

Staccioli has permanent installations at a dozen or more locations around the world, including the Olympic Park in Seoul, the Parc Tournay-Solvay in Brussels, and Villa Glori in Rome.  Whether permanent or not, a powerful and elegant Staccioli piece fronts the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, on via Belle Arti (below). 

The Staccioli exhibit at the Baths of Carcalla closes September 30, 2018.   Bill

Staccioli's magnificent addition to the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna

A Tree Lives in Rome: Giuseppe Penone's art installations in the City.

Foglie di Pietra  in Largo Goldoni

Giuseppe Penone's massive tree-like sculptures have dominated Rome's art scene over the past few years, and one is now on permanent public display.

Another view of Foglie di Pietra  in Largo Goldoni

We'd say don't miss it, but it's hard not to.  The large sculpture, entitled Foglie di Pietra ("Leaves of Stone"), occupies a prominent spot on Largo Goldini, along via del Corso in front of the Fendi store there.  It's Fendi, the luxury brand, that paid for the sculpture and its installation.

"Penone, Fogie di Pietra stupiranno Roma" - "Penone, Leaves of Stone will astonish Rome" reads the headline of an article describing the installation of the work and using Penone's verb, "stupire" - to astonish, surprise or make wonder.  The work "rises on high because I'm working on public ground that shouldn't occupy space," said Penone.  The trees, weighing 11 tons, are designed to "provoke a sense of wonder that should make one reflect on the meaning of the work:  the reality that surrounds it, the architecture of the city based on naturalism.....it's also a reflection of the material, the marble, and nature.  The Corinthian capital [see top photo - it's the white block] represents historical memory.  I put the block on high to indicate the elevation of man and to make one think about the ruins underground below."

In 2009, Penone's work was the subject of a large exhibition at Villa Medici, the French academy in Rome.  Any time a show occupies the inside space at Villa Medici, including the ancient cistern, and the outside space, it's a great experience.  The tree and stone theme was evident in 2009 as well.











Earlier this year, as part of Fendi's grand opening of its headquarters in the Palazzo della Civilta' Romana (the Fascist era "Square Coliseum," the restoration of which Fendi also financed) in EUR, it sponsored Matrice, an exhibition of Penone's more recent work.  Speaking of this show, Penone said, "The trees appear solid, but if we observe them over time, from their birth, they become fluid and malleable.  A tree is a being that memorizes its own form."  That exhibition closed in July; some photos of it follow.

Penone, born in 1947, is considered part of the Arte Povera movement.  For those non-Italians,the Arte Povera movement was active primarily in the 1960s and 1970s and includes artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Mario and Marisa Merz.  The movement was marked by the use of "poor" or "impoverished" materials and promoted art free of established conventions.  Some of these principles still inform Penone's work.

Dianne

Outdoor sculpture in front of the Square Coliseum, EUR
part of the Matrice exhibit (no longer there).

Fendi's entrance to the restored Square Coliseum.

Mario Ceroli: Rome Sculptor

He's hardly a household name.  And doubtless less well known than some of the other unknowns we've featured on the Rome the Second Time blog.  But he has had, and continues to have, an impact, here and there, on Rome and its environs.  He's Mario Ceroli.

Readers of the RST Facebook page may recall that Ceroli is the designer of a very large late- modernist sculpture, a polyhedron in pine, painted red, that now resides in Flaminio, just steps away from Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazetto dello Sport. That piece--a favorite of Bill's, but not Dianne's--was designed for the 1990 World Cup (its title is "Goal"), and its original location was, appropriately, close to the stadium in which important games were played.  It was positioned in Foro Italico.

Incredibly, the sculpture may also have been located, at one time, next to Nervi's other Rome masterwork, the Palazzo dello Sport, in EUR.

Or perhaps this is a fanciful invention--that is, not a real photo.  

Ceroli is perhaps better known for another piece in wood: the Cavallo Alato (winged horse, 1987), at the Centro Direzionale Rai (RAI the television station) at the entrance to via Carlo Emery in Saxa Rubra, a town not far to the north of Rome.  The horse is covered with gold.  We haven't seen it in person.

Ceroli also specialized in church furnishings.  He designed furnishings for the church of Porto Rotondo, Sardinia (1971), and for Santa Maria del Redentore, in lovely (a touch of irony here) Tor Bella Monaca, on Rome's outskirts.   We have been to this church, which is striking on the outside and, we know now, decorated on the inside by Ceroli.  More work in wood. More photos of the interior of this church at the end of this post.

Born in Castel Frentano (in the Abruzzi) in 1938, Ceroli soon found himself in Rome's grasp.  Among his first artistic influences was the Accademia di Belli Arti di Roma.  In the 1960s he was much taken with the new vogue of pop art, and especially with the work - often in wood -  of Louise Nevelson (and see here for more on Nevelson's work) and Joe Tilson.  In later decades, his creative energies were frequently expressed in a series of multiple wood cut-outs, of the sort pictured immediately below.

A typical Ceroli cut-out sequence.  A comment on identity? homogeneity? Postmodern repetition?

A church pew, of inlaid wood

Chapel

Chapel detail

Interior, Santa Maria del Redentore

Bill

Art in unlikely places - Pericle Fazzini in the Piazza dell'Independenza

Detail from Fazzini's frieze

Piazza dell'Indipendenza is a few blocks from the central train station, Termini, within the confines of Rome's Aurelian Wall, but fairly modern in its appearance.  It's primarily a large transportation piazza these days, and we've mainly scootered through it with our focus on successfully exiting the other side, but sometimes taking time to observe the supposedly Mussolini faces (they don't look like him) on one of the government buildings on the piazza (photo at end).

One day this year we stopped to look at another, what seemed to us fairly nondescript mid-century (as in mid-20th-century) building that looked like it had an interesting brass frieze on it.  And so we discovered the work of Pericle Fazzini.  The frieze depicts agrarian themes, as one can see, to honor the building which was then the offices of an agrarian agency, and still bears that name: Palazzo della Federconsorzi (short for Federazione dei Consorzi Agrari).  The building was constructed in 1952-57, and we assume the frieze dates from the 1950s as well.

The Palazzo as it looks today - offices for rent.  The Federconsorzi apparently went down in a scandalous blaze in the 1990s.
It was at its peak in the 1950s, when this was built, and when it was, apparently, privatized, but received public money (Welcome to Italy).  Information on the scandal is given in detail on the Wikopedia Italian Web site.

More detail - the title of the frieze is sometimes given as "Work in the fields."

Fazzini was a noted scuptor at the time he did this frieze.  He went on to do more monumental works, including the "Resurrection," for the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall, where Benedict XVI used to give his weekly audiences.  That work shows Christ arising from a nuclear crater in the Gardens of Gethsemane.  Monumental it is.

Fazzini to us is another "find," among "modern" artists in Rome.  Like our discovery of Amleto Cataldi's sculptures in the weeds of the Olympic Village, we discovered Fazzini's piece by accident, accidental discovery being one of the great joys of Rome.  Fazzini died in 1987, known by then as a "Vatican sculptor."  The Peggy Guggenheim Museum Web site has a nice biography of him.

Dianne

Pope Benedict XVI with Fazzini's work behind him.