ROME - AUTUMN 2011

We’re staying in a really nice 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a long terrace overlooking the Coliseum, I mean literally overlooking the Coliseum.

We’re on the ancient Fagutale Hill, via del Fagutale, Rione Monti, Rome. This is Rione 1, the first neighborhood of Rome, and the oldest in the city.

The Monti are the ancient hills that once included the Esquiline, Viminal, Caelian, Fagutale, Oppian and Quirinale. The Esquiline and Caelian hills have now moved on to other Rione. Redistricting is a bitch.

The Rione Monti emblem has three groups of green hills on a silver background. It’s a good hike up and down, reminiscent of San Francisco except the streets are harder to navigate. The cobblestones look picturesque but they can destroy your feet in less than 3 hrs. Tire repair is a big business in Rome.

From what is left of the Fagutale Hill we look down to the Coliseum, the Temple of Peace in the Forum and the Arch of Constantine. From windows on the other side of the apartment we can see the chariot and four horses of the quadriga sitting atop the National Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II in Piazza Venezia.

The Monti was once known as the Suburra, birthplace of Julius Caesar and home to some the most famous brothels of ancient Rome. I read it’s still home to some pretty famous brothels.

Tourists come by the thousands to the Coliseum and the Monti churches but they don’t stay here. They all go back to the Piazza Navona, Campo dei Fiore, the Pantheon, Piazza di Spagna and Piazza del Popolo. Even the Trastevere is more populated with tourists than the Monti. I’m sure in a few more years this area will get more gentrified but for now it has remained a bit removed and that’s OK with us. It’s nice and quiet. Of course, this is November. We’ll see what it’s like in June when we come back.

The downside of our apartment is the building itself. It was built in the 1960s and doesn’t quite fit the surrounding architecture. But then it’s better to sit on the terrace of an ugly building and look out at all the beauty then it is to sit in a beautiful building and look out at an ugly building. We're told that other residents of the building include film stars and politicians. In our two weeks here we only met a few trick-or-treating kids from across the hall on Holloween and a man with his mother in the elevator.

Behind the apartment on the Oppian Hill sits the church of San Pietro in Vincoli and the famous tomb of Pope Julius II, more commonly know to tourists as Michelangelo’s Moses. Michelangelo sculpted the Statue of Moses and three statues on the bottom of the Julius tomb. The rest was done by "others". The original tomb concept was much larger (40 figures) and created for a place in St Peters Basilica, but it ended up as a smaller tribute (7 figures) in a smaller church. The Popes seem to lose a lot of influence after their deaths. Payback is a bitch.

We saw an exhibit of Renaissance art in the Palazzo Sciara on via del Corso and there was a portrait of Michelangelo positioned next to an exact copy of the Moses statue. It sure looks like Michelangelo put his own face in the statue of Moses.

By the way, the horns on the head of Moses were (as most know) intended to show the radiance of light coming from him. Unfortunately through the years, many believed the statue was, in fact, revealing that all Jews had horns. I know it sounds stupid, but one can never underestimate stupidity. As a kid in the 1950s I actually heard people swear to it as a fact.

The church of San Pietro in Vincoli was originally built in 432 to house the chains that bound St Peter when he was a prisoner in Jerusalem, although when Pope Leo I received them he said they actually looked more like the chains St Peter wore when he was a prisoner in the Mamertine Prison in Rome. Of course Leo was Pope 400 years after Peter died, and how he knew one set of Roman chains from another is an amazing bit of historical sleuthing, but whatever, as soon as he proclaimed the two chains to be those of St Peter, they magically joined together into one chain and are now preserved in a glass case under the alter of the church.

Behind San Pietro in Vincoli, up on the Oppian hill are the remains of the Baths of Titus and the Baths of Trajan. They both sit on top of Nero’s fabulous “Golden House”, the “Domus Aurea”, which is once again closed to the public. Every time it opens up, something falls from one of the large vaulted ceilings. Most of it was built underground to keep the rooms cool. There was a very clever way of redirecting the light to illuminate the rooms.

After the death of Nero (he killed himself before someone else killed him) the newly installed Flavian Dynasty tried to remove all Nerone traces from the empire. His lake was drained and turned into the Coliseum, part of his Golden House was converted into the new Temple of Peace and large public baths were built over the remains of the underground sections of the Palace. The Golden House wasn’t really rediscovered until the 1500s when a boy fell through a hole in the ground near the baths of Trajan. He found himself face to face with the grotesque art of the Domus walls that soon became “the rage” during the Renaissance.

The Domus has been opened and closed quite a few times in recent years. In 2010, 60 square meters of one of the gallery vaults collapsed. It hasn’t reopened since but I’m sure it will. Things open and close all the time in Rome. Its one of the reasons we keep coming back.

About a ten minute walk from our apartment is the old 16th century Papal palace of the Quirinale Hill, currently used for state functions and the home of the Italian president, currently (since 2006) Giorgio Napolitano. Yes, there were once ancient Roman temples here as well as the baths of Constantine, the last enormous bath complex built in ancient Rome, but in the late 1500’s Pope Gregory XIII, best known for the Gregorian calendar, built his summer palace up on the hill. From then on it was enlarged and enlarged. It was the seat of government under the Napoleonic rule and then the home to the Italian Kings from the late 1800’s till the time of the Fascists.

The state rooms of the Palace are open to the public on Sundays between 8am-11:30am. We strolled over around 10am and the line was around the entire Piazza, filled with tour groups, which lucky for us, being just two people, we were let in immediately.

The State Rooms still have some of their 16th century decor but they were too pompous and too crowded with tour groups. We did the speed tour. For us, the best thing about the Quirinale Palace are the Palace Guards, known as the Corazzieri who stand at attention in their gold dome helmets for hours at a time. In the 14th century the Corazzieri fought for the King of Savoy. When Vittorio Emanuele II of the House of Savoy became the first King of United Italy he brought the Corazzieri with him. They’ve been with the Quirinale since the late 19th century, still wearing the traditional 19th century uniforms with golden helmets and long swords. In order to even apply for this special service you need to be at least 1.9 meters tall (6’3”). I guess tall people look better standing at attention for hours at a time. The Vatican has the Swiss Guard, the Quirinale has the Corazzieri.

By the way, the changing of the guard at the Quirinale Palaceis at 3:15p (4pm on Sundays and Holidays). It’s a daily pompous affair.

The heart of the Monti is along the streets of the via Urbana, via dei Serpenti, via del Boschetto and via Panesperna. It’s a small area filled with bars, shops and some excellent restaurants. We’ve become big fans of places like Le Tavernelles, Ciuri Ciuri, Gli Angeletti and Cuoco e Camicia (the cook and the shirt), a nouvelle Italian restaurant that was just opened up by the owner of our rental apartment. He’s the shirt.

On November 3rd we walked past the Coliseum, past the Triumphal arch of Constantine, down the via San Gregorio between the Caelian and Palatine Hills and over to the Circo Massimo (Circus Maximus), about a 15 minute walk from our apartment.

November 4th is National Defense Day (Armed Forces Day) in Italy and all the Armed Forces were loading in a grand display of military might; tanks, helicopters, rocket launchers. It was a special version of the Holiday to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the United Italy. The ancient racetrack was filled with tents and equipment ready to show the Romani what their taxes are used for. Gretchen loves this stuff. She could have spent the entire afternoon watching them loading in the large pieces.

On November 4th, we returned for the show. The large military equipment against the panorama of Domitian’s Palace on the Palatine was a pretty amazing sight.

From the National Defense we hoofed it along the river to the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the bridge leading over to the Castel Sant’Angelo. The bridge goes back to 134AD when it was the Aelian Bridge connecting the Campo Marzio to Hadrian’s Tomb (now Castel Sant’Angelo). During the jubilee of 1450, the rebuilt bridge was so crowded with pilgrims, hundreds were trampled and hundreds more drowned when the balustrades gave way, hurling the spectators into the Tiber River below.

In 1535 the first of the statues appeared on the bridge, stucco apostles and figures from the old testament but in 1669 Pope Clement IX commissioned Bernini to replace the old worn out figures with the 10 statues we see there today, angels holding instruments used in the Passion of Christ. Bernini only made two of them, neither of which ever made it to the bridge. They were kept by Clement IX and are now in the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte. Copies of the two Bernini angels were put on the bridge.

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, hundreds of criminal’s heads on pikes were nestled between these heavenly angels. When Pope Sixtus V took office in 1585, he was asked, as was the practice of a newly ordained Pope, to pardon all the criminals in the jails in honor of his coronation. Sixtus V instead replied “While I live, every prisoner must die." And die they did. It was said that the heads on the bridge were “more numerous than the melons in the market”

As we crossed the bridge we could still see the mark of a cannonball at the base of one of the angel statues. It was fired during the papal defense of the Vatican in 1870. The statue was knocked into the river but it was repaired and replaced. I won’t tell you which statue it was. You’ll have to look for yourself. Its pretty easy to find.

In 590 Pope Gregory the Great was making a visit to the churches of Rome, making a plea to god to end the plague. While on his way to the Basilica of St Peter, according to those who were there, the archangel Michael appeared over the military castle built over Hadrian’s tomb and sheathed his sword, signifying the plague would come to an end. The castle was renamed Sant’Angelo (Saint Angel).

In the 14th century the Popes built a long corridor from the Vatican to the fortress, kind of an escape route in case of emergency. This "Passetto di Borgo", was used twice; in 1494 when Alexander VI Borgia escaped the forces of the French King Charles VIII and in 1527 when Pope Clement VII Medici escaped the anarchy of the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor during the Sack of Rome. The Passetto is open to the public (for a fee) in the summer months. Unfortunately, it wasn’t open in November when we were there.

The Castle was decommissioned in 1901. Now it’s a really great museum with amazing views of Rome from the rooftop, the same rooftop where Puccini’s Tosca jumped to her death.

Castel Sant'Angelo is filled with papal history and the crests and names of various papal reigns fill the fortress.

We asked a couple of questions of one of the guards in the Sala Paolina, the grand apartments of the 16th century Pope Paul III Farnese. He explained the frescoes of the grand Salon were allegories to Alexander the Great (Pope Paul III used to be Alexander Farnese), Alexander on one side and Hadrian on the other. He also pointed out two cartoon tromp l’oeil frescos painted over doors leading out of the salon; Pellegrino Tibaldi’s self portrait on one and Perino del Vega’s man abducting a woman up the stairs over the another. Del Vega was one of Raphael’s best students and worked on many of the salons in the Castel. He died a few months after finishing the grotesque paintings of the Sala d’Apollo.

The Sala Paolina guard took a special liking to us and waved us away from the others, ushering us to a small passageway, down the a narrow staircase and into the Pope’s bathroom, a marble inlaid chamber and tub built for Clement VII somewhere around 1530. The floor and the water were both heated by the stove below. This was a very clever 16th century indoor bathroom. I hope his holiness got to use it when he was held captive for 6 months in the Castle Sant’Angelo during the Sack of Rome in 1527.

Another one of the hidden treasures of the city s the Palazzo Colonna. It faces the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli off via del Corso but the entrance to the tour is from the back of the Palazzo, on via della Pilotta. This is a private family home and probably the most splendid Baroque palace in the city. The State Rooms of the Palazzo Colonna are opened to the public on Saturday mornings. You can tour the private apartments as well but you need a group of at least 10 people, or pay for 10 people.

After the Great Catholic Schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Pope Martin V Colonna brought the seat of the Catholic Church back to Rome. The city was a mess. When the Papal seat was in Avignon there wasn’t much money devoted to urban projects in Rome. Martin V started his urban renewal with his own Palazzo. Some of the 15th century renovations are almost evident, but most of it has been updated to a wild 16th and 17th century baroque splendor palace mostly design by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Palazzo Colonna was redesigned about 10 years before the hall of mirrors at Versailles and there have been a number of comparisons, mostly because Lorenzo Colonna was married (for a short time) to Maria Mancini, one of the loves of King Louis XIV.

The Colonna Palace has been in the forefront of Roman high society since the 15th century and the parties have been famous. According to Pope Clement VII de Medici, who attended a party in the early 16th century, he was one of the attendees who threw small birds and other delicacies to the crowd under the balconies who were busy chasing pigs for prizes while other party guests threw cold water down on them.

In 1730, for an affair given in honor of the son of the King of Poland, male guests were required to urinate into two antique urns at the front door as a precaution against possible damage to the fine interior.

The Great Gallery is filled with recognition and adoration to Marcantonio II Colonna, the commander of the Italian navy during the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 when the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor defeated the navy of the Ottoman Empire. Of the 68,000 troops of the Holy Roman Empire, the Italian navy comprised about 5,000 of them. But the way it looks in the Great Gallery, Marcantonio II was the hero of the battle.

Aside from being one of the most impressive baroque halls we’ve ever been to, the Great Gallery has some really interesting pieces of art to visit. This is one of the largest private collections of art in all of Italy. Just the “Bean eater” by Annibale Caracci is worth the price of admission.

During the restoration of many of the art pieces in 2002, it was discovered that a few of the 16th century paintings, including “Venus, Cupid and Satyr” by Bronzino, had clothing painted onto the nudes. Apparently the reformation of the 16th century had its effect on the art collection of the Colonna family. A photo of the old clothed version sits next to the newly restored nude versions. Its really wonderful.

Another great detail of the Great Gallery is on the stairs leading from the gallery to the throne area. There is a cracked step with a cannonball neatly displayed. The cannonball landed here on June 24, 1849 when the French were shelling the city from the Janiculum hill across the river. Their canons were aimed at the Quirinale Palace but one of the balls came through the window facing the via del Corso and landed on the steps, just a few feet away from where the Colonna family thrones would have been. The Colonna thought it was a divine statement to their supreme survival and so it has remained here ever since.

The Room of the Column (the emblem of the Colonna family) was the throne room for the Prince Filippo II Colonna. It was also where Audrey Hepburn bid farewell to Gregory Peck in the final scene of “Roman Holiday”.

One night we walked from our apartment on via Fagutale to Piazza del Popolo to see a free concert of Ennio Morricone conducting an orchestral and choral retrospective of his music, and what a body of work it is; Fistful of Dollars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Once Upon a time in the West, Once Upon a time in America, Cinema Paradiso, The Mission and a lot more. The concert was free, there were thousands of people in the Piazza. They really know how to stage an event in this city. They’ve been doing it for well over 2000 years.

We went to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo the following Sunday. I read that in one of the smaller doors to the side of the main entrance, on the lintel over the door is the name of Pope Sixtus misspelled. It’s true. One side has SIXTUS, the way it should be and the other side (to the left of the main entrance is written SIXUS. They forgot the T. It was done in 1477 and still hasn’t been fixed.

We never seem to get tired of walking the same ancient streets over and over and over. No matter how many times we look at something we always see something new. For instance, we’ve studied Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (the fountain of the four rivers) in Piazza Navona maybe a hundred times and yet this time we noticed something new. Each river is represented by a “River God” statue and animals and plants that might pertain to the river and the land where it flows. The four rivers are the Nile in Africa, the Ganges in India, the Danube in Europe and the Rio de la Plata in America. The statue for the Rio de la Plata (river of silver) is sitting on a pile of coins showing the wealth to be had in the new world. The fountain was created in the late 1600s when the Americas were providing a lot of new wealth to the Church. The interesting part is that a 17th century rendition of an armadillo appears under the Rio de la Plata river god. Neither Bernini nor any of his team of sculptors had ever seen an armadillo so they designed it based on the accounts of those who came back from the American expeditions. What tales they must have heard. The armadillo looks like some kind of armored futuristic space creature form some 1980’s sci-fi comic book.

Another of the many discoveries around the Monti was the Palazzo delle Esposizioni on Via Nazionale. We saw a wonderful retrospective of Soviet Art from the 1940 to the 1970. The museum was built in 1883. It closed in 2003 for a total renovation and reopened in 2008. It might be the best exhibit space in Rome. The rooms are large and well lit. Aside from the gallery space there is a cinema and a recital hall. You can also buy a ticket that includes the Scuderia Quirinale, a short walk away which also houses temporary exhibitions.

Yes, there are great permanent collections in the Vatican, the Galleria Borghese, the Capitoline and others, but check out the temporary exhibits. They are lovingly put together and don’t usually have the crowds of the big ticket museums.

Holloween has become a popular holiday for the kids of Rome, hey, its a holiday about getting candy! We saw the kids in costume on the streets and they came to the apartment door for trick-or-treating. We were totally unprepared but luckily our host Francesca left a bowl of candies on the living room table. To be honest, we had no idea how long the dish of candy had been there but they were individually wrapped and the kids loved them.

We mostly ate in the restaurants of the Monti. Our favorites were:

La Tavernelle. The photos on the wall of visiting celebrities is reminiscent of an old New York City eatery, but don't let them put you off. This restaurant has been a local favorite since 1870. The cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta) was divine, the scallopini unequalled and the putarella (chicory) salad became one of Gretchen’s favorites. Tourists do come here. It’s written up in a lot tour books but the service is great and the food even better.

Ciuri Ciuri is one of the most dangerous places in the Monti. The best Sicilian pastries (cannoli, casserta, etc) and really really good gelato and granita. They also have a small restaurant but we’ve only been to the sweet shop. It was either fortunate or unfortunate that we always walked by Ciuri Ciuri on our way back to the apartment.

Hosteria del Nerone is a small family restaurant near the San Pietro in Vincoli, a 2 minute walk from our apartment. It was our easy, comfort food place to go. This is a real Roman style restaurant. It’s a simple place and yes, sometimes there are tables filled with tourists. The Church of San Pietro in Vincoli is a block away. The service is great and food is like you’d get at Mamma’s house.

Cuoco e Camicia, near the Metro Cavour in the Monti is a new restaurant owned by Francesco Raveggi, who also, along with his wife Francesca, owns our rental apartment. This is some of the best nouvelle cucina in Rome. Riccardo is the cuoco (cook) and Francesco is the camicia (shirt). The place has only been open for a couple months but we see a very good future. Rome needs more modern style restaurants at decent prices. Yes, there are a few Michelin starred restaurants in the city like La Pergola, Il Pagliaccio, Hosteria dell'Orso di Gaultiero Marchese and a few others but you'll pay at least 90€ per person. We ate at Cuoco e Camicia for around 90€ for the both of us, which included a good bottle of wine. And speaking of Gaultiero Marchese, the man credited with the introduction of nouvelles cuisine in Italy had created two special burgers for McDonald's. The promotion ran for only a few weeks but we were there when it happened. We love Marchesi and we've paid tribute (more than a few times) to him at his flagship restaurant near Lago D'Iseo in the north of Italy, and although we did go into a McDonald's and looked at all the advertising, we couldn't bring ourselves to dive into a Vivace or Allegro burger.

We also had a couple of lunches at Cavalier da Gino is one of those small restaurants near Parliament Square (off the via del Corso). This is one of those lunch joints frequented by politicians. We were there when the Italian Parliament voted to remove Silvio Berlusconi. Gino’s was buzzing with political intrigue. The food is typical Roman, the service is fast and you always need a reservation, unless you can talk your way into one like we did. By the way, try the tiramisu. I’m usually not a big fan of ordering it because its something I make at home, but this is much better than I make.

Another great discovery was the Café at the Chiostro del Bramante, the original cloister connected to the Santa Maria della Pace Church, in Piazza Santa Maria della Pace, a little northwest of Piazza Navona. The Chiostro (Cloister), built in 1500 is the first work of Donato Bramante in Rome. Bramante went on to architectural greatness with structures like the 1502 Tempietto in San Pietro in Montorio, the 1506 Basilica of St Peters and the 1506 Cortile del Belvedere at the Vatican. The Chiostro is currently used as an exhibit space for touring art shows. The cafe is up the stairs, overlooking the old cloister. It's quiet and the food is excellent food. It’s a great way to get away from the tourist crowd. If you like great miracle stories, the Santa Maria della Pace Church has a great one. It was once the church of the water carriers and was called Sant’Andrea de Aquarentariis. In 1482 a fight broke out in the portico where one of the columns was frescoed with an image of the Virgin Mary. One of the youths threw a stone at another. The stone missed its intended mark and instead struck the fresco of the Holy Madonna, who in turn, began to bleed. The miracle not only stopped the fight, it prompted the rebuilding of the church and renaming it as The Santa Maria della Pace.