Neo-fascism comes to picturesque small-town Italy

 

Men outside Caffè Europa in the Roman hill town of Rocca di Papa.

We've always enjoyed watching the men (it's always men) in local bars, sitting around, playing cards, talking. It seems very communal, a good place for these apparently retired Italians. We were consequently horrified to see the small town where the photo above was taken, our favorite small town in the Alban Hills outside of Rome, identified by the New York Times this past week as a hot bed of neo-Fascism.

We had become inured to the fact that Giorgia Meloni, head of the Fratelli d'Italia party ("Brothers of Italy"), would become prime minister. For months the polls had shown her leading, even if her party received only about one-quarter of the vote. She made a pact with some other devils, including Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, on her way to the top post in Italy. Salvini was rewarded with the position of Deputy Prime Minister and - get this and don't choke - Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility (no wonder Italian Facebook went nuts over this Brave-New-World-speak).

We've also been keenly aware of the posters and graffiti around Rome that even decades ago promoted neo-Fascism. We wrote about some of these in our posts on posters and right-wing "heroes." (See here and here.)

What appalled us (and we can hear all our Roman friends going, "DUH!") was that our charming, special, sweet town voted 38% for Meloni's party, knowing they were reviving Fascism.

Are those men above likely Fascists? The New York Times featured the bar across the way, Bar Centrale. But my guess is, yes, you're looking at the right-wing there playing cards.

We had noted in a 2014 post a building we thought likely had been Fascist headquarters until after World War II. It's got the bulky look of buildings of that era, it's now a municipal building, and the date is obvious:  "A.D. 1935." One of our loyal readers, Marco, questioned that interpretation, saying: 

"I find it unlikely that the building in the photo may have been once the Party's HQ - not only the style is not Fascist in appearance, but the Fascist Era (Anno XIII E.F.) mark is nowhere to be seen on the building's façade, as are any remnants of chipped-away fasces one'd expect to find on such buildings."

He makes some good points, and perhaps we were wrong about the past (if there were some other factors we had taken into account there, I don't recall them), but there's no question about the present for Rocca di Papa.

One reason we favor the town is that it's the starting point for one of our best hikes, up Monte Cavo. In fact the photo we took, right, of Monte Cavo from the town, was taken from the now infamous (to us) Bar Centrale.

It's not hard to find men hanging out outside the bars or in the very large square that dominates the lower part of the town. (See photo below.)

From now on, we will have to listen more carefully to their conversations, though maybe we won't like what we hear.

Caffè Europa  is dear to our hearts because it's not only where we've always started (coffee) our hikes, it's also where we've ended (beer) them, and parked our scooter. The photo below was taken with our 2nd of three scooters (historically, not all at once), the foregrounded Malaguti, while the guys play cards, per usual.

That the town is picturesque is an understatement, and it's beautifully sited below Monte Cavo (see photo at end of this post). Its "shield" features the "rocca" or fortress - on the fountain that graces the top of the large square in the photo below. And the "Papa" is for a 12th century Pope who lived there (Eugenio III).

Another view below is from the cemetery, and in the distance the ruins of ancient Tusculum, a Roman town. Everything in Rocca di Papa, including the cemetery (and that 1935 building above) is on a slant, given its position on the steeply sloping hillside.

More in a later post on Mussolini and the rise of neo-Fascism.

Dianne

The town of Rocca di Papa, seen from the main piazza. The first phase of the hike to Monte
Cavo is getting to the top of Rocca di Papa via picturesque city streets. The mountain itself is straight ahead but is not visible in the photo. 

Sculptor Canova's mark on Rome

Canova's kiln, with Franz Prati's painting,
inside art space Canova22

Antonio Canova, the sculpture of the famously sexy (and mostly naked) Pauline Bonaparte as Venus (in the Galleria Borghese in Rome), is having a comeback on several fronts, one of them in Rome.

Pauline, in eternal recline at the Galleria
Borghese, in the Villa Borghese park in Rome.

Canova was considered the best sculptor of the 19th century, but as a neoclassicist, his reputation ebbed during the 20th century. Born in the Veneto in 1757 and centered in Venice, he also travelled widely and had a studio in Rome, where, in the early 1800s, Napoleon Bonaparte's sister (who married into the prominent Borghese family) was his model.

Above, the sculptures in marble, bronze, and plaster
that surround diners at the Caffé Canova Tadolini
on via del Babuino in Rome.

Canova self-portrait 1792. 
(Credit here.)

While the sculpture is on display only by means of a ticket to the Galleria Borghese, there are quite a few other "sightings" for Canova within the Eternal City. We went to one this year, discovering that the kiln where Canova's works were fired has been made into an arts and events space of note. It's Canova22, on via Canova at #22 (around the corner from via del Corso), a 4 minute walk from the studio (now a café), on via del Babuino. 

Above, Franz Prati describes his 
painting to Dianne, inside the Canova22
kiln/artspace.

Mara Van Wees's sculpture in 
the Canova22 space.

One of the "soci," or members of the art collective at Canova22, Franz Prati, showed us around the exhibition of his paintings and sculptures by his colleague, Mara Van Wees. He also explained the performance art and dance events that have been held inside what was the "fornace" or kiln. It's an evocative space, beautifully restored and converted for the arts collective.

The space/collective has a sophisticated website with information and photos, even a video of a performance taking place in the space. The website is useful for upcoming events as well. http://www.canova22.com/ (only in Italian).

Prati also showed us a picture of the street where the kiln is located, from the era. You can compare that (left) with the street today (right, below).

And if you want to stop by the café for a drink and sit amid the sculptures, go for it!

Caffé Canova Tadolini occupies the studio where Canova and his prize pupil, Adamo Tadolini, did their work. The baboon- (sort of) faced creature, or "babuino." gracing the fountain at left, is the one for which the street is named. Reviews suggest an espresso or glass of wine; skip the food.

Dianne

Extension of Rome's "C" line: Change, Disruption, and Ugliness

We lived just off Via Gallia about 5 years ago, and while there we became familiar with ongoing construction of the new "C" line of Rome's Metro system. The work currently being done will extend the C line from the existing San Giovanni Metro stop, near the basilica San Giovanni in Laterano, to the Coliseum. The new line will be beneath an area bounded on one side by the Servian wall, and on the other by via Sannio (and its street-side market) and, further down, by apartment buildings. 

It's no doubt worth doing, but as the work goes on, the impact on the immediate neighborhood is enormous. 

Progress has been made at the eastern end of the project--enough so that a nice, popular park has been carved out above the new line.  That's the Servian wall, with San Giovanni in Laterano in the distance. 

At the end of the park is one of the entrances to the soon-to-be modernized market. 

Shabby in its way, the un-modernized market is also mysterious, captivating, and souk-like.  Plans to redo the space, to make it more orderly and geometric, and less vulnerable to the elements, are posted in the market. 

The market as it is 

A rendering of the new market 

Further to the west, more or less paralleling via Amba Aradam as it works its way downhill toward Porta Metronia, the neighborhood is captive to massive red and yellow construction barriers, which were, of course, immediately covered with graffiti. Some of these barriers are within 10 or 12 feet of apartment buildings--and have been for years. 

Construction barrier at right, graffiti everywhere

Dianne, in still another place where Bill has dragged her.

The Servian wall, of ancient vintage, runs nearby, and parts of it have been braced with metal stanchions to prevent collapse, as construction shakes and rattles existing structures. 

Porta Metronia, left. At upper right, note braces to keep the Servian wall from falling down

A tennis club still exists in the path of the subway, but one imagines that will succumb as more "progress" is made. 

Tennis club. Survival in doubt.

A lovely view. Wine on the balcony?

Bill 

Rome’s newest museum: The Museum of Rescued Art

photo by Larry Litman (all photos except as noted are by Litman)

Exciting recent news out of Rome: the opening of a museum dedicated to stolen – and recovered – works, rather than one-off shows such as those held once in a while in Castel Sant’Angelo’s exhibition space or the Carabinieri museum, as occurred in 2016.

Now there’s a beautifully refurbished space that Rome resident Larry Litman (retired AmBrit librarian) recently visited and writes about here (more on Larry’s bio later in this post).

Before we launch into Larry’s first-hand guide to the new museum and his many photos of the Carabinieris' marvelous finds, we'll explore some of the hot topic news and issues surrounding the museum and the works.

Hardly a week goes by without news of “stolen” artworks being discovered in places far from where they were taken. Just this month, the New York Times reported 27 ancient artifacts, valued at $13 million, were seized from the venerable Metropolitan Museum of Art. Interestingly, it’s the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that seized the items at 3 separate times, including 21 Italian pieces taken from the Met in July, pieces that are similar to the head of Esculapius, below, from the current Rome exhibit. (One has to wonder, as one does these days, why did they have to seize the works? Why didn't the Met willingly turn them over?)

This head of Esculapius, above,
copied from a Greek original,
is from the late 2nd-3rd
century AD and was taken from the
Baths of Caracalla in Rome.

A few days earlier, the FBI Art Crime Team reported in a news release that it had recently returned to Italy a 2000-year-old mosaic. “The enormous work had been cut into 16 pieces and stored in individual pallets in a Los Angeles storage facility since the 1980s. Each pallet weighed between 75 and 200 pounds.”

We, at RST, are familiar with the art recovery section of the Italian national police, the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, or TPC (Cultural Heritage Protection Squad), but we hadn’t known of the Manhattan DA’s interest in these objects, nor the FBI's – it seems they have enough else going on these days!

Special Agents Elizabeth Rivas and Allen Grove traveled
to Italy for the repatriation of the mosaic to its home in Rome 
- photo from FBI news release.

Similarly flanking their "prize," the Carabinieri
at their 2016 news conference on art (which
we attended and covered in a post) they
had recovered, in this case a Canaletto, from
the 18th century (photo by William Graebner).

The “recovered” artworks raise multiple issues, including how a country such as Italy or Greece or even Ethiopia (more about Ethiopia in a future post) can conserve, protect, and display these objects. Italy has taken the approach of returning them to the regions from which they came, a somewhat controversial position.

Outside their storage area, next to Santa Maria
a Ripa in Trastevere, we saw the Carabinieri's 
art truck promoting their "100 opere tornano a casa" -
"100 works return home." (Photo by William Graebner)

This year in Rome we saw the area in Trastevere where the recovered artworks are – temporarily one hopes – stored. And then there’s the issue of where do the objects really belong? What about Greek vessels that were spoils of war in Greece, brought to Rome, and then stolen from Italy? To which region or country should they be returned?

Larry notes “Several years ago I visited Aidone in Sicily to see an amazing statue of Venus returned from the Getty museums in Los Angeles and a collection of Silver Plates from the Met. The region built a museum in a redundant convent to house these items and other artifacts from the area.” The long saga of the Getty's involvement in stolen works, including lawsuits and criminal actions, are well-reported in David Price Williams's 2015 "Looking for Aphrodite." The Getty also helped restore items for the Aidone museum, and put some of the objects on display (this time, on loan) at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, a sort of reciprocity (we were fortunate to see Venus in Los Angeles, before she left for Sicily). So, maybe there’s an advantage to spreading this “wealth” around. Although New York Times' writer Elizabeth Polvoledo had a different experience from Larry's in the once-Etruscan hub of Cerveteri, near Rome, where the museum did not have the staff to stay open (see caption under Larry's photo of the Etruscan female antefix below).

Journalist and author Sari Gilbert also used a stolen Etruscan vessel as the key to her intriguing murder mystery set in 1980s Rome, "Deadline Rome: the Vatican Kylix," which we reviewed here. As noted above, current, exciting, hot topics involving 2000-year-old art.

This is RST's 4th post from our "man [almost always] on the ground" in Rome, Larry Litman. Larry wrote eloquently in March 2020 about being in Rome under one of the first lockdowns. He gave a virtual tour of the unusual presepi or crèches in Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter’s Square) that year when almost no one was there to see them, and he was one of the first (as he is this time) to see the inside of the Tomb of Augustus, newly opened last year.

Larry is a retired teacher/librarian from Ambrit International School and is active at St. Paul's Within the Walls (the Episcopal Church on via Nazionale). He also volunteers at the Non-Catholic Cemetery. 

Rome’s newest museum: The Museum of Rescued Art - by Larry Litman 

Entrance (after you've purchased your ticket
around the block), still with "Planetario"
above the doorway.

In June the Rome Museum of Rescued Art (Museo dell’Arte Salvata) opened in the Octagonal Hall of the Baths of Diocletian, a 3rd century AD space within the ancient baths that many Romans identify as the Old Planetarium. (The new Planetarium is in the modern neighborhood of EUR and was built in 1928.) [Note to RST readers, the Planetarium is where the Museo della civiltà romana used to be, making the cover of our Modern Rome guidebook now misleading. Bill’s office, when he taught at La Sapienza in 1993, overlooked the Old Planetarium, now the Museum of Rescued Art.]

 

A 2nd century AD copy of a Greek statue
 of Doriforous by Polyleitos,
from the Baths of Caracalla;
so presumably it will stay in Rome.

The Museum of Rescued Art will present changing exhibitions of objects recovered by the Carabinieri unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.

For the foreseeable future there will be enough recovered items to keep the museum going. It’s giving a visible profile of the Carabinieri unit involved, discouraging theft and encouraging restitution/return.

 

This initial exhibition features about 100 objects from more than 200 artifacts, dated from the 6th century BC to the 3rd century AD, stolen over the past 50 years, that were returned to Italy from the United States between December 2021 and June 2022. The New York Times, in a piece about the new museum, called this location a “pit stop,” because all objects at some point will be returned to their places of origin in Italy.

 

An Etruscan female antefix
(ornaments at the eaves of a
building), from the beginning
of the 5th century BC. It's
unclear where this statue will
end up, possibly in a special
museum in Cerveteri, home to
many Etruscan artifacts. 
But that museum does not have 
the funds to stay open much,
according to Elizabeth Polvoledo
in her New York Times piece,
cited above..

The soaring dome of the Octagonal Hall [photo at top of post] is an impressive environment for this new Museum of Rescued Art. 

 

Admission for the National Roman Museum also allows entrance to the exhibition of recently returned artifacts. (Note: You must buy the admission ticket at the main museum entrance facing Termini Station and then walk around the block, through Piazza della Repubblica, to enter the Museum of Rescued Art.)

 

Explanatory panels on the display cases are in Italian and English, identifying the objects in each case as well as presenting a narrative about the work of the Carabinieri to identify stolen art and negotiate the return of works from private collectors, museums and galleries with the cooperation of authorities in the United States.

More photos and descriptions follow.

Ceremonial Kramer with four handles
surmounted by red impasto bowls
overpainted with white ("white on red"),
produced in Northern Lazio.

Decorated Etruscan terracotta storage
vessels. Again, one wonders where these
objects will end up.

Statue of Artemis, 2nd century AD,
from the Baths of Caracalla.

Etruscan olpe (pitcher) made
 in a Corinthian style with animal friezes,
first half, 6th century BC.

Black and white painted terracotta vessel
from the ancient town of Crustumerium,
a site now identified about 10 miles north
of Rome near Settebagni, 7th century BC.

Brown cremation urn in the shape of a house
with figured decorations (horse, soldier and boat)
on the walls and on the lid. 7th century BC.

Etruscan terracotta votive heads,
8th century BC.

The Mystery of the Crowing Rooster: A day in the Italian hill town of Gallicano nel Lazio

 

The photo above gives some idea of the hilltop nature of the town, and the curving roads.

Gallicano nel Lazio (i.e., in the province of Lazio, the same province as Rome - there's a Gallicano in Tuscany that has some history involving Puccini, but it's not this one) is one of those Italian hill towns (meaning they are situated smack dab on the hill, not just "in the hills") that have great appeal for us. Bill already posted on Facebook a bit about this town of 6,000 people, but we thought it deserved more attention than Facebook allows.

Our photo from 2014. We saw buses doing the same treacherous
turn this year.

It was Bill's pick for our almost-weekly trip out of Rome. I was delighted with his choice, because I thought we would pick our way among the fabulous aqueducts that lie below the town (more about those at the end of the post). But, no, he's "been there, done that," and so after 20 miles or so from Rome, we wound our way up the town's steep, curvy approach, deciding to bail out as tilting buildings and road curves lay above us. We parked at a new-ish gas station, perched on the side of the town's cliffs. (First we had to go through a gap in the tufo rock so narrow that it now has a light and one-way traffic at times, and we were astonished that a bus could pick its way through it - so astonished we didn't take photos - but we did find a photo from 2014, when we had the sense to take a picture - above).

The gas station that became our home base.
More on this photo at the end of the post.

When Bill asked the gas station (really the woman at the bar attached to it) if we could park there, she indicated we should park in a corner. We thought that rather silly, since the station didn't seem to be attracting customers. But we did as we were told and 'hiked' our way up to the town, finding a superimposed 'modern' staircase here and there to help us get to the top.

Dianne trying one of the vicoli.

The town had many of the small "streets" and alleys (vicoli) common for hill towns (we decided the Mediterranean diet isn't so much what they eat, but that they climb up and around all these hill towns!). 

What fascinated us about the town was its various monuments, and especially the town crest, which features a crowing rooster.  We think that's what Gallus-Canit means ("canit" perhaps related to "cantare" or singing). While the town seems named after a nobleman named Gallicano who was a friend of Constantine's, there's another story about the crowing rooster that's more evocative.

The town crest worked into the sampietrini or 
cobblestones (apologies for the car covering
the star, and Dianne's legs).

Legend has it... that one night, a group of soldiers, in the service of the enemy Rospigliosi family (aristocrats of Pistoia), tried to attack the town, taking advantage of the rest of the inhabitants. But a dog started barking at strangers. A rooster echoed him and with his insistent crow woke the population from sleep. The people armed themselves with spears, swords and everything that came within range, repelling the invaders. Since then the town, to give back to those who had, unwittingly, saved the town from occupation, took the name, by which it is still known today, of Gallicano.

.

The crest appears in many forms,
in many places in the town, including
  the parking area and this fountain.

The town was full of monuments of all types. The one above right is a war memorial which has the crowing rooster crest at the top, and a reference to 1850 (maybe to the Risorgimento [Italy's effort to create a state and release itself from Papal and other control]?), and the words: "We died, say our heroes, so we could lift the tricolor [Italian flag] of victory to the skies [heavens]."

And, to show off it's not just about roosters and war, one of the town's parks had this bench, which, if you look at it from the side, is an open book:

The excerpt from Dante's Inferno, Canto 26, reads:
"Consider your origins. You were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge."

A last monument is in the photo below. We found it while scouting the outskirts of the town.  Unfortunately, we don't have any more information on it. If someone does, let us know!

Close-ups reveal some interesting figures in the "windows" - women? immigrants? people in distress?

At the gas station, we found a good assortment of tramezzini (those crustless white bread sandwiches you wanted as kids - though they probably didn't come in funghi e spinaci [mushrooms and spinach]) and Coca Zero (apologies, but we can't celebrate the end of a hike with a beer when on the scooter). The people-watching there was good as well. The attendant was right - the gas station became the town center as people came and went after their 1-3 p.m. pranzo, buying milk, cigarettes, ice cream for their kids, lottery tickets, and gas. We enjoyed our front-row seat to the town's populace (Bill is at one of the tables on the left in the gas station photo above).

The railings to keep you from falling into the
stream below are now mostly gone.

Our final stop, at my insistence, was to get a glimpse of the wonderful aqueducts. Only this time, after 30 minutes one-way of walking, we found only one and then a blocked road.  We'll have to go back to find our "aqueduct trail" that we wrote about 8 years ago.

And, here's a photo from the 2014 aqueduct hike that should give you an incentive to try it (and us to go back)

Dianne