On January 25, the Sicilian town of Niscemi found its inhabitants forced to evacuate their homes after a massive landslide. Can you imagine what it’s like to see your home sliding down a hill and turning into rubble?
The landslide, it’s said, was caused by the heavy rainfall provoked by Storm Harry. Also, according to Italy’s Civil Protection, one large landslide reactivated an old fault line creating an even bigger disaster.
The area of Niscemi is a geographically unstable terrain already suffering from erosion. Luckily, after seeing large cracks in the ground appear in residential areas, the mayor ordered an evacuation that saved many lives.
Every day, worldwide, we see disasters caused by deteriorating infrastructures and sloppy, negligent attitudes towards monitoring safety precautions. Just recently, in Switzerland, a fire started in a bar in Crans Montana killing 40 people and injuring many many others. Or, in Texas on the other side of the Atlantic, c 135 people died including numerous children at Camp Mystic when the Guadalupe flooded last year.
After a disaster, fingers are always pointed everywhere save towards the real cause. Because we know that these disasters are often provoked by thinking that it’s better to save money than to save lives.
It was George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, who wrote “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And it looks like some of us missed out on a few history lessons. Especially those related to fascism.
In 1870, Italy reached complete unification and, with Rome as its capital, became known as the Kingdom of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was declared its King.
Fifty-two years later his grandson, Victor Emmanuel III, would appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister thus permitting the National Fascist Party to gain total control of the government. All opposition was crushed and authoritarian rule imposed.
A racist and anti- American propaganda poster made by fascist illustrator Gino Biccasile via
Initially, Italian fascism was seen as something positive. After WWI, Italy was in a state of political chaos and economic despair. Fascists promised to bring stability and national pride to Italy.
Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973), an engineer student at Milano’s Politecnico and a zealous nationalist, volunteered for WWI. Part of a machine gun team, Gadda was capture and spent months in a German POW camp. His life as a prisoner in addition to his brother’s death during the war, profoundly affected his worldview. He was a convinced fascist.
Gadda finally graduated in 1920. And, until 1935, he continued to work as an engineer. But then something snapped from within and Gadda no longer felt the same enthusiasm for fascism as he had initially. Maybe because he dumped being an engineer to become a writer and thus activated parts of his brain he hadn’t been using before. And these new areas were not comfortable with fascism.
In 1945, Gadda wrote the pamphlet “Eros e Priapro” declaring that Italian fascism and the fascination with Bentio Mussolini was essentially a middle class movement. The extreme satire and somewhat obscene content created difficulties in finding a publisher. But Gadda was finding his “voice” and, in 1946, his crime novel “Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana” was published in five episodes in the magazine “Letteratura”. It would later be published as a novel in 1957 and would be considered Gadda’s masterpiece and “a philosophical meditation on a murder in a middle-class house during fascist rule, set in Rome.”
Gadda was enchanted by “cronaca nera” (crime news) and read it religiously. One story in particular mesmerized him—the story of Angela Barrucca’s murder.
Angela Barrucca is an attractive 34-year-old woman from Colleferro, a small town not far from Rome. Along with her husband and three kids, she lives at Piazza Vittorio 70. Angela’s husband is a merchant who earns well. And, unlike most Italians after the war, Angela and her family have a comfortable income.
the Cataldi sisters
Angela meets two sisters who also come from Colleferro but who have not been lucky like her. Lidia and Franca Cataldi, 17 and 23 years of age, lost their home during the bombings. And their father, a butcher, lost his business. Like so many others, the young women leave their town and go to Rome hoping to find work. There they meet Angela who is generous and tries to help them. But, instead of being grateful, they are greedy. Angela always gives them food and clothing. Nevertheless, Angela notices objects missing after visits from Lidia and Franca. Angela and her husband decide to no longer help the women out.
On the morning of 19 October 1945, the two sisters go to Angela’s house with the intent of stealing her fur coat. First, they ask her for money and when Angela says no, they start beating her up. Lidia has a knife and uses it to slash Angela’s throat. While Lidia is stabbing Angela, Franca fills a suitcase with valuable objects.
Afraid that Angela’s two year old son, Gianni, locked in the bathroom, will be able to identify them, they slash his throat, too.
Lidia and Franca are caught within a few hours. Tried, Lidia is sentenced to life imprisonment whereas Franca is sentenced to 30 years.
This is the true story that inspired Gadda’s “Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana” (translated into English as “That Awful Mess on the via Merulana”). But, instead of setting it in 1945, the setting is that of 1927 early Fascist Rome. A murder takes place in an apartment on via Merulana near Piazza Vittorio. Liliana Balducci is found dead in her home a few days after a neighbor lady has been robbed of her jewels. The theft quickly loses its importance when confronted with the brutal slitting of Liliana’s throat. Detective Francesco Ingravallo is called in to investigate the murder. Ingravallo not only knew the victim but had a secret crush on her as well.
Liliana, unable to have her own children, feels the need to “adopt” young girls as nieces to fill the void of her own childlessness. Ingravallo is attracted to the nieces but knows he must repress his urges. Like Gadda, Ingravallo has difficulties being spontaneous in the presence of women.
The book is full of sexual innuendos and often unpleasant ones at that. Gadda is blatantly misogynist and not much of a gentleman with the ladies. He describes Liliana, povera signora, as having been found “lying in an infamous position, supine…” with her grey skirt pulled up high enough to see her underclothing. And a lengthy description of Liliana’s underclothing (including garters and stockings) takes place. Ingravallo compares Liliana’s body with “those legs slightly spread as if in horrible invitation…to the furrow of the sex.” Ingravallo says it reminded him of being at Ostia during the summer “when the girls are lying on the sand baking themselves, when they let you glimpse whatever they want.”
As the investigation grows, it becomes apparent that almost everyone living in the building was connected to one of the two crimes. But the book, instead of focusing on resolving the murder, focuses on social critique and on what Calvino calls “the infinite stratification of reality”. Gadda is not interested in finding the murderer. He is more interested in practicing pastiche, playing with language, and practicing crass satire. It is a detective story where the detective doesn’t solve the crime. Like some kind of French existential novel, where, despite having read 388 pages, you have no solution to the whodunit.
Gadda had, in my opinion, a somewhat disturbed interior life. Maybe, in part, due to his childhood. Gadda was in his early teens when his dad died leaving the family in dire straits. Adele Lehr (1861-1936), Gadda’s mom, was a schoolteacher and described as “severe”. And now it was up to her to maintain her family. But her fixation with making a Bella Figura often misdirected the family’s income. In his diary, Gadda described how he would be nasty to his mom because they disagreed so much.
La Bella Figura reflects the idea that you have to present yourself in the best way possible as a form of self-respect. But also as a means to impress others.
Gadda was a Milanese snob believing that his city was fundamental for the country’s formation. The 19th cen Milanese bourgeoisies were brought up thinking that Milan was a model of enlightened rationality. But having been born and raised in Milano certainly had not made him a happy man. To the contrary. Gadda’s childhood was dominated by frustration especially after his dad’s death. The dad’s irresponsible investments created a permanent anger in mom that she shared with her kids.
In 1922, Gadda and his sister leave for Argentina on the Principess Mafalda
Gadda had a strong bond with his sister, Clara. She, too, had been victim of her mom’s need to control and the two became dependent upon one another for emotional nourishment as mom had no time for affection. Both Clara and Gadda continued to live with their mom until Clara married in her early 30s. And Gadda would continue living with his mom until her death when Gadda was 44 years old.
In 1950, at the age of 56, Gadda moved to Rome and worked for Italian radio (RAI) and lived in a cheap apartment on via Blumenstihl. And, in 1957, he published the book that would lead him to success.
After Gadda’s death, he was buried at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. However, the Milanese wanted to bring him “home” and accused the Romans of “kidnapping” Gadda. But it was Gadda himself who wanted to be buried in Rome, the city that had been his home for over 20 years.
My friend, Janet Cooper, was in Rome this past weekend. We made an appointment for Sunday morning and, as she was staying near the Colosseum, we headed towards the Fori Imperiali.
Looking away from the Colosseum and towards via delle Carine, you can see the church of Santa Maria della Neve al Colosseo on the left, on the corner with via del Cardello. Turn around and you see this:
Peek-a-Boo Colosseo
The last weekend of the month, via dei Fori Imperiali is closed to traffic making it a great place for walking with friends and family. In fact, despite the grey weather, there was much animation.
Beneath the wall is via dei Fori Imperiali (Imperial Fora). The fori are a series of monumental squares and their buildings. They are all in the same area facing via dei Fori Imperiali. The forums are: Forum of Caesar (46 BC), Forum of Augustus (2 BC), Forum of the Peace (75 AD), Forum of Nerva (81-96 AD), and Forum of Trajan (113 AD), the latter built using the spoils from Dacia.
The Forum aka Foro, was the center of public life. It offered Romans a place to congregate and exchange social and business activities.
Because of the ongoing metro construction in the area, part of via Cavour was closed. But it gave us a chance to admire the corbels aka lions holding up the balconies.
A corbel, in architecture, is a support to help bear the weight of the balcony.
“The Imperial Fora are a monumental architectural complex, formed by a series of buildings and monumental squares, the centre of the political activity of ancient Rome, built in a period of about 150 years, between 46 BC and 113 AD.”
After visiting the exhibition at Villa Caffarelli, La Grecia a Roma, we were ready for lunch at the Ghetto. But first, one last look at our surroundings.
Villa Caffarella sits up high on Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome. To get there, you must go up. To leave, you must go down.
Instead of leaving by the steep front stairs, the cordonata, we took the road going down that led to Via Del Teatro Di Marcello. It gave us a chance to see the roof tops and the cypress trees that are part of the Roman urban decor. But you can also see another Christo-type wrapping –more Jubilee restyling.
Via del Teatro di Marcello was a street created by Mussolini after tearing down other structures. Mussolini, with dreams of recreating an Imperial Rome, wanted a road that went directly from Piazza Venezia (where he made all his speeches) to seaside Ostia.
Once the descent is made, to get to the Ghetto you turn right. It’s not far and you pass near the Tarpeian Rock (but you must look up to see it).
Here we see some of the reconstructed archeological rubble made by Mussolini’s dream of grandeur. The short walk towards the Ghetto is a patchwork of architectural times and styles.
As usually happened with Mussolini induced excavations, people were displaced as homes and shops were destroyed to make room for someone else’s dream. See more of Mussolini touring the excavations of the Theater of Marcellus in 1927 and the archeological finds HERE and HERE.
Here we see what’s left of the Theatre of Marcellus (Teatro di Marcello). The arcade walls of the theatre have their “caput mundi” protective covering, too.
Abundance
Roma Caput Mundi
Our aim was to get to the bridge you see in the background. Behind the bridge is the main street of the ghetto, Via Portico d’Ottavia. The street is full of kosher restaurants with huge bowls of artichokes to lure you inside. But before ordering, it’s best to know the difference between Carciofi alla giudìa (fried) and Carciofi alla romana (braised).
The Portico of Octavia was built by Emperor Augustus to commemorate his sister, Octavia Minor, between 27-23 B.C. It’s construction completely obliterated the Portico of Metellus. Destroy one person’s dream and rebuild yours on top has become a standard.
After days and days of rain, when the sun finally comes out again, it’s time to play. Our playground today was Villa Caffarelli and its current exhibition, “La Grecia a Roma” (Greece in Rome).
I got there early and when I’m early, I take pictures.
The church at the top of this demanding flight of stairs is Santa Maria in Aracoeli aka St. Mary of the Altar in Heaven. It’s a Franciscan church and sits on the highest part of the Capitoline Hill.
2025 was the year of the Jubilee. Also known as the Holy Year, it is celebrated every 25 years. As many tourists were expected to come, major maintenance projects were started. Some were completed on time, some were not.
In the foto above, a bit of the Vittoriano (Altare della Patria) can be seen with the scaffolding still up.
To the right is the ramp of stairs leading to Piazza del Campidoglio, a public square designed by Michelangelo. Facing the square are the Capitoline Museums founded by Pope Sixtus in 1471.
In the back is a building that looks like a Christo installation because it wears the protective covering used during remodeling. The building is the Palazzo Senatorio with its double stairway.
The monumental stairs leading up to the church and to the piazza are known as cordonata. A cordonata is a sloping road interrupted at regular distances by low steps in the form of transversal stripes made of stone or bricks.
Here we are at Piazza d’Aracoeli. The building in the background was once the home of Contessa Anna Laetitia Pecci Blunt aka Mimì.
In 1929, the Pecci-Blunts decided to spend more time in Rome and bought the palazzo at Piazza Aracoeli 3. It became a cultural hub for intellectuals, musicians, and artists. Mimì also hosted a series of concerts inviting musicians such as Stravinsky and Rubinstein to perform.
Mimì was a major art patron in Rome. That is, until she and her family were forced into an awkward situation because of the racial laws imposed by the fascist regime.
Back in Rome in 1958, Mimì also initiated the Teatro della Cometa located nearby on via Teatro di Marcello. The theater has recently been resusitated by Maria Grazia Chiuri, ex creative designer for Dior.
Piazza d’Aracoeli
Shadow Selfie
Piazza d’Aracoeli
Piazza d’Aracoeli looking towards Piazza Venezia. Here is an important bus terminus aka capolinea. The new Metro line C is under construction with a stop here, Venezia.
This building has various names. It’s known as the “Altare della Patria” (altar of the homeland), the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, and as the Vittoriano.
The arch indicates the entrance to Villa Caffarelli.
From the ramp there is so much to see. Like the cypress shadows on the wall. It was near noon and the shadows were aggressive.
The Colosssus at Villa Caffarelli.
In the garden of Villa Caffarelli is a full-scale reconstruction of the Colossus of Constantine. The project was sponsored by the Prada Foundation.
info
Villa Caffarelli dates back to the 16th cen when the emperor gave Ascanio Caffarelli a piece of land on the Capitoline Hill. Here Caffarelli levelled the land so he could build a home.
The exhibit “Greece in Rome” retraces the encounter between two major civilizations. This encountered helped shape Western tastes and aesthetics.
You enter here….
A statue of Hercules. It’s not difficult to recognize Hercules in art as he generally carries a club and wears a lion’s skin.
Niobids were Niobe’s children who were slain because Niobe had a big mouth and bragged about all the children she had compared to Leto. Leto’s sons, Apollo and Artemis, were not happy about Niobe dissing their mom. So, to punish her, they killed her kids. All 14 of them.
This is a story about hubris…Niobe’s because she felt the need to brag and Leto’s boys who felt they were so important that they had the right to kill someone simply for an unconsiderate thought.
In the main room, there were various displays but they were embellished by a multimedia show projected on the back wall. The projection was big and animated and got people’s attention.
See how all the people seem interested? I get easily bored with multimedia projections mainly because I don’t like standing in one place for an extended period of time.
Notice the ceiling’s “soffitto a cassettoni” known as coffers in English.
The image projected represents Teatro Marcello and shows columns of the Porticato d’Ottaviana as well.
Holes.
So why are there so many statues with holes?
“Dying Niobe” statue and young woman hiding a smile
So many goddesses missing their heads.
Gioco dell Ephedrismos
The Game of Ephedrismos. An ancient Greek game, it had two parts. In the first, a stone was placed on the ground then players threw stones at it to see who get closer. Like darts with rocks. Who had more hits won. The loser had to have his eyes covered then piggy back the winner until they arrived at the original stone.
Romans Cleverly Used Interchangeable Heads on Their Statues…In ancient Rome, it was possible that a statue was deliberately defaced to obliterate that person’s presence. so some sculptors designed statues with interchangeable heads.
Handless
Fragment of a funerary stele found in the area of Piazza Barberini.
Athena’s head found at Frascati. It’s made from Parian marble.
Ram’s head
The ram was a symbol of strength.
The observers.
Prohibited.
I was trying to take a foto of the two statues above when one of the guards came over to me and, in a very nice way, told me that it was prohibited to photograph those two statues. Why? I asked since there seemed no problem in photographing everything else. Because, he replied, they were on loan from a collector and the collector didn’t want their fotos to be taken.
Another funerary stele…because, you know, everyone dies.
Effigy.
He was just part of the wallpaper.
I had to squat really low (risking not being able to come up again) to take this foto because it was at ground level. But it was just too curious to resist.
Funarary Stele
Broken pots and their pieces.
Also exhibited were pottery fragments coupled with drawings mimicking the pottery paintings. This made me think of Marija Gimbutas’ book “The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization”. Archive offers the possiblity of reading the book online HERE.
skyphos with meandro
lekythos with lines
more vase fragments with designs such as the chequeboard motif
The Narrative Within 