ARRIVEDERCI ROMA

 

after one wonderful year...

 

 



 

 

or...

 

 

or, perhaps more accurately...

 

grazie per tutto bella roma

OUT AND ABOUT: rome commonwealth military cemetery

to be honest with you, i was feeling fairly peeved.

i had spent ten minutes ringing the buzzer at the entrance to monte testaccio with no response. i was hot and i was frustrated. all i wanted was to see a glimpse of one of the thousands of testae (potsherds) that were dumped here between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD making monte testaccio a monte. giving up and briskly walking down via nicola zabaglia with an immensely dissatisfied look on my face, i was soon distracted by nature's heroin: the smell of freshly cut grass. following my senses, i walked towards this open green space and pushed the gate open with ease (take note monte testaccio). it felt like utopia. it was the most peaceful place i had ever been to in rome. and the most unusual thing? it was just me. just me, the lawnmower and 426 graves.

it was the rome commonwealth military cemetery in which lie the bodies of 426 members of the three armed services. the next hour was one of the most moving hours i have spent in italy. i walk past the pantheon, st. peter's and the colosseum most days of the week, but there was something about these humble tombstones that made more of an impression on me. i am 23, and what struck me most was that the majority of the soldiers were of a similar age. these tombstones were not dedicated by spouses but by parents. from parents to their children.

i thought of the centre of rome: the queues for the gelaterie, the heaving vatican museums and the thousands of people posing for photos in piazza navona and at the trevi fountain. i couldn't help but ask myself: why aren't they all here? admittedly, i wouldn't have been there if i hadn't stumbled across it, but intrigued, i looked at my most comprehensive guide book to see what it had to say on the cemetery (blue guide. buy buy buy). in 639 pages, only 2 lines were dedicated to this haven; i couldn't help but feel a little angry.

so here i am telling you all to go. you must. pay your respect to these sailors, soldiers and airmen who died for us and who died at the peaks of their lives. just around the corner from the cemetery is the bustling via ostiense where noisy romans shout about coffee, pasta and transport strikes. but here, it is pure tranquillity. i kept thinking to myself, 'at last you are all in peace'.

to the world just one,

to us all the world.

good night, god bless you.

14257928 trooper.

l. j. gould.

46th (liverpool welsh) royal tank regt. r.a.c.

1st march 1944.

age 28.

for more information on the cemetery visit: Cemetery Details

FEATURE OF THE WEEK: the queen's diamond jubilee in rome

i know it's a st. george's flag and not a union jack ('todis' supersaver supermarket were all out of blueberries), and i know its kate middleton and not the queen, but it's the effort that counts right? i bet no one else was celebrating the diamond jubilee on the appian way today.

elizabeth, this one's for you...

MINI-BREAK: florence-bologna-ravenna-ferarra

for my 16th birthday present, my wonderful dad hired my dream car for the weekend: a royal blue smart car. so when the opportunity came around to actually drive one from rome to emilia-romagna (the 16th birthday treat was simply for passenger purposes), i jumped at the chance without 2 second's thought. in those 2 seconds, i may have considered: a) a lack of satellite navigation, b) the fact that i was driving from the middle to the top of italy on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car and in a semi-automatic, c) italian drivers, d) the 15, 000 euro charge for every mile of the autostrada used, e) the fact i couldn't enter the centre of any historical city on wheels, f) the small, one way, impossible, cobbled streets of italian towns, g) my own temper, and h) the well-being of my companion. oh well.

first stop florence. this part of the journey felt as though it was being carried out on a cloud. it was 28 degrees, i was surrounded by beautiful italian campagna, i had chubby checker on volume level 20, an arm on the window, and a packet of haribo on the passenger seat. despite arriving an hour and a half late for my travelling companion (alarm clock had been set for 8pm that evening), i parked the car, hopped on the tram and before i knew it, i was standing in front of the duomo in florence in a summer dress with wet feet, an umbrella in my hand and a smile on my face. i have only been to florence once for five days, but i do feel as though i have been there, done that, got the 4000 photos. so it was nice to have the pressure off and just meander the streets, shops and churches of this beautifully clean and historical city. after seeing the fantastic sunset from san miniato al monte (above the piazzale michelangelo; much quieter up there and worth climbing a few more steps), gorging on red wine pasta and tiramisu at osteria de' benci (yum by the way), i was one satisfied ragazza.

arriving late that night to bologna, we appeared at the communal breakfast table the following morning to hear that we had both slept straight through an earthquake that was level 6 on the richter scale, whose epicentre was just kilometres away. apparently the hostel had been all over the shop and i hadn't even flinched. later that day however we got our comeuppance. whilst admiring one of the largest basilicas in town during sunday mass, a blood curdling scream in the congregation turned me into mufasa and the church-goers into a herd of water buffalo as everyone rushed to escape through the basilica's entrance. as well as aftershocks, we unfortunately felt the presence of nature in the grey skies and heavy rain in bologna. but we were the ones laughing as the continuous network of porticoes around the city kept us nice and dry. sort of.

the university, founded in 1088, is one of the oldest universities in the world. there is no doubt that bologna is a university town; with cheap eats, on-the-go piadina cafes and a young, buzzy vibe, it couldn't be doing anything else than accommodating student life. i have to be honest, nothing in particular wowed me massively but the city certainly has a lovely feel to it. one thing i did notice in bologna, was an abundance of circular niches. Usually placed high up on buildings, with figures leaning out of them as though from a round window, they reminded me of some roman tombs where the faces of the deceased are place into circular frames:

i even had a whack at it...

on sunday night we were recommended a fantastic restaurant si chiama 'osteria dell' orsa'. truly italian in both content and style, we chose from the two fresh pasta dishes on offer. on the one hand, little choice is good for me (aka the world's most indecisive person), but on the other hand, my food envy is out of control and so the fear of choosing the wrong one... pudding was a delicious tiramasu without the su. so just marscapone. washed down with a 7 euro litre of vino rosso we were as content as anything.

ravenna up next. having been told twice that it was a 30-40 minute drive away, we both felt fairly frustrated arriving 1 hour and 45 minutes after leaving bologna. borrowing the sat nav from our wonderful hostel owner seemed like a fantastic idea at the outset but if i ever hear the words 'gira a sinistra' once again i will 'gira a sinistra' and smack the closest person to me. sat nav feuds aside, our day in ravenna certainly morphed from miserable to marvellous. rain turned to sun, ghostly streets became glittering mosaics (on purchasing an 11 euro ticket that allowed us into 5 of the 8 unesco world heritage sites. can you believe that there are 8 in ravenna? beyond me...) and roman tombs became places in which to take a break (see below).
ravenna is an extraordinarily glorious place and i would advise anyone and everyone to visit. briefly the capital of the western roman empire (that is instead of ROME. big. bloomin. deal.) and then later the seat of the byzantine government in italy, ravenna is sweet and unassuming but its chapels, churches, baptisteries and mausoleums all have the potential to blow ya maind. trust me, mosaics aren't usually my cup of lapsang, but ravenna really is very spectacular indeed. and if you've had enough, make sure you get to the basilica of sant' apollinare nuovo where hidden within the tesserae is a fashion statement 14 centuries ahead of its time:

making it back to bologna through what i thought was the apocalypse (worst rainstorm i have EVER been caught in. and i'm english...) i then spent an hour and a half parking the smart car nearly killing a couple of men, a dog and my passenger on my way. lovely stuff.

tomorrow was to be even more of an adventure, we would climb one of italy's tallest towers (and a fairly precarious one at that) and we were to head into the epicentre of the earthquake...unintentionally. playing a fantastic game of 'would you rather your girlfriend had a moustache or hallitosis', we zoomed passed a sign saying 'sant agostino' with a red cross through it. low and behold we had passed through the epicentre of the earthquake and had only realised after flying out of the other side. yikes. arriving in ferarra it was hard to be so ignorant. there was red and white tape, JCBs and cracked walls everywhere. i felt like i had just walked onto a murder scene.
the city of ferarra really is beautiful and the water-filled moat surrounding the castle (one of the only few left in europe mind) is a wonderful focal point. finding a park, hopping on some swings and having a last platter of tagliatelle bolognese (traditionally not spag but tag. bet you didn't know that one. 'tag bol'? it could work), i prepared myself for the long journey back to roma.
other than stopping for tre caffe, listening to my cd 5 times on repeat and taking a wrong turning before getting to rome to a place called flaminia whose wooded lanes told me the only thing in the close vicinity was a cimitero or a cemetry, the trip went lovelily.

hercules beating the centaur nessus, loggia dei lanzi, florence.

a 21st century caravaggio no?

ponte vecchio at sunset, florence.

'a lactating nereid', or to a 21st century audience, a fembot. fountain of neptune, bologna.

basilica of san vitale, ravenna.

basilica of san vitale, ravenna.

sarcophagus fun.

gelat-i

gelat-ii

sant' apollinare nuovo, ravenna.

arian baptistry, ravenna.

arrivederci bologna.

FEATURE OF THE WEEK: translation wonders

whilst galavanting around tuscany and emilia-romagna last weekend (blog post coming soon...) i stumbled across this little translation gem. directly translating italian to english is one of my favourite things to do. up until now, my favourite has been 'una doccia a telefono' meaning showerhead, but directly translating as 'a shower telephone'. makes sense doesn't it? but whilst scanning the pudding menu in florence, i fear it may have been beaten by the most adorable fantastic bestest translation in the world ever:

FEATURE OF THE WEEK: the cardsharps

in england, i used to wake to the sound of cooing pigeons. in rome, i wake to the sound of 'the cardsharps'...

since moving into my new apartment a month ago, not a day has gone by without a card game being played outside my window. usually the same two men go head to head, and armed with their cards, they play for hours on a small wooden table which moves around the square as they please. as the hours pass, various people come over to see what all of the fuss is about. At the game's climax, crowds of men surround the table and the noise is so deafening that i would probably feel more relaxed lying on the sand of the colosseum with a gladiator's sword at my neck and 50,000 people screaming at the emperor to turn his thumb horizontally...

so why do i call them my 'cardsharps'? this is actually the title of an early work by caravaggio, and one of the first of its kind portraying low-lifes in 16th century roman society. note the man in the photograph on the left hand side is doing exactly what the man at the back of caravaggio's painting is doing (see below): spying on the opponent's cards and gesturing (lets imagine this part is happening in the photograph) the number that should be played by his friend. david hockney argues that caravaggio was the world's first photographer. if hockney is right, then this basically makes me and caravaggio the same person right?

perhaps not. but seeing as the 'cardsharps' in my piazza are up there on my list of favourite things about living in rome, we must have some things in common...

EXHIBITION: tintoretto

until the 10th june, balanced on the top of the quirinal hill, you will find tintoretto. unfortunately, the genius himself left us on 31st may 1594 and the last of the tintoretto family died in 1657, but as melania g. mazzucco tells us in the text in the final room 'they left no offspring. only - but perhaps this is everything - their works'. so here, in the 'scuderie del quirinale', we find tintoretto's offspring.
the old stables provide the perfect exhibition space with a naturally divided interior reached by a fantastic sweeping stone staircase. once fininished with tintoretto and all of his wondrousness, the journey back down to the ground floor gives the visitor what is probably one of the best views in rome. unfortunately my experience was tainted somewhat by a group of middle-aged gaggling women pressed up against the glass; but from what i could see through the blowdries, twinsets and tweed jackets, rome was looking pretty good.

jacopo robusti (more commonly known as tintoretto) was a man who liked to involve everyone, it seems. in his paintings, we see the plasticity and fullness of michelangelo's human figures, the deep penetration of space used by raphael in the vatican apartments, and the loose brushwork of contemporary venetian painters such as titian, bassano and el greco; his clientele included doges, but also the lame; and of course, his paradiso which resides in the great council hall of the palazzo ducale in venice includes no less than 500 figures.

but although tintoretto desired to be 'everybody's painter', he miraculously manages to create his own unique style. he often places his figures 'on stage', with dramatic backdrops and signifant levels of action. if we take the miracle of st. mark as an example:

here, we see st. mark descending from heaven to free a slave from torture after he had disobeyed his master in order to worship the saint's relics. as soon as our eye falls upon this painting, we become 'the audience': the action is happening right before us on a stage framed on all sides by temples, scenery and standing with us, other viewers (see bottom left corner). it reminded me of ancient greek theatre. not only did the greeks often set their theatres into the edge of hills and mountains in order to create a beautiful and natural stage set, but they also used an advanced system called a mechane which was a type of crane that enabled characters on stage to be lifted into the air. the effect was called deus ex machina, literally meaning 'god out of the machine', and it was adopted by a number of greek playwrights to represent the deification of certain characters.  st. mark swooping into the scene, and indeed other flying figures by tintoretto, reminds us of this greek theatrical tradition. so what does this all mean? well, we all know (spero...) that renaissance or rinascimento means 'rebirth' in reference to the emanation of classical culture in the 15th and 16th centuries. so whether it is conscious or subconscious, what we see tintoretto doing here is defining this term 'renaissance' pictorally by harking back to the traditions of ancient greece. secondo me...

on the other hand, whilst adopting this unique style, there are definitely elements of other artists work in his own. this got me thinking about the development of technique and style between one artist and another, leading me to see why caravaggio was perhaps so controversial... had anyone used a famous roman courtesan to model for a painting of the virgin mary before? no. had anyone decided to plunge their figures into complete darkness, lit only by a severe spotlight? no. he really was the first one to throw a massive spanner in the works. however, if we have a look at the following three paintings, we can recognise a strong thread between each artist's style:

perugino panel in sequence of the life of jesus in the sistine chapel, painted between 1477-1483.

raphael's school of athens, painted between 1510-1511.

tintoretto's st.mark's body brought to venice, painted between 1562-1566.

as well as seeing common ground (literally...) in the development of painting, i also noticed that a lot of the subject matter treated by tintoretto is not far off from the goings on of our own 21st century world. take his joseph flees from the advances of posiphar's wife, in which we see joseph rejecting poor old posiphar who lies naked and humiliated on a four poster bed; rejection being a subject matter  with which we are all familiar (not speaking from personal experience at all...). or if we look at his fantastic painting showing vulcan walking in on venus and mars having an affair, i could think of only two words: ryan giggs. and finally, something i found highly amusing, was a portrait done by domenico robusti, tintoretto's son. hung towards the end of the exhibition, next to tintoretto's last few works where his painting is of a mature style and subject matter, is the portrait of a woman bearing her breasts. in this painting, finely executed for a man of his age, a woman is shown in profile doing what it says on the tin: flashing. for me, this struck up a similarity between 25 year old men in the 16th century and 25 year old contemporaries of mine in the 21st...

the only difference is, it was domenico's sister...

for more information on the exhibition, as well as others taking place in the scuderie del quirinale, visit Scuderie del Quirinale.