Li mondezzari del 1700

Today i want to say goodbye to all of you because i'm going on holiday and this is my last post..until i'll be back! A Night in Rome blog close for just 2 weeks!

Beware...today's topic is really really dirty!! Enjoy and when you are in Rome pay attention on where you are walking! ;-)

A really thorny problem in Rome, during 1700, was the elimination of the urban garbage. Until the 1800 was a common habit, both for the poorest families and for the servitude of the richest ones, to melt the daily domestic garbage leaving itself all along the way, in the square and at the street crossings. Only when the garbage piles became a really big cumulus (a “mondezzaro” according to the lexicon of that age & how is written on the marble plate above!) a little cart reached in order to carry it away, sometimes after weeks!! This situation easily get worse not only due to the fact that the street were cleaned up from the equine excrements only once a week (by the prisoners who, for this reason, were periodically lead in chain to the city) but also to the fact that the so called “ammazzacani”,(ancient version of the modern dogcatcher) to resolve the problem of the wondering dogs and cats attracted by the garbage, used to pull them down using poisoned scraps and leaving the dead animals along the city alleyways! Many were the consequences of this dramatic situation especially from the hygienic & sanitary point of view; first of all, the bad smell that exhaled from the big cumulus of garbage especially during the hottest seasons…
Also in 1700, a century not famous for its hygienic measures, all these situations had really to turn out troublesome for who lived in the palaces near such “garbage collections”!

Trying to get the situation better, at the end of 1600 appeared, at first on the walls of some important churches (Sant'Agostino, Saint Carl al Corso, Saint Theodore, and many others), some inscriptions which prohibited to accumulate refusals foreseeing pecuniary and corporal penalties for the transgressors. Such a deterrent probably had the hoped effects, because by the half of 1700, especially at street crossing, under the noble palaces, began to being emanates the “editti” to let people know how to behave with garbage. In these “editti” was made prohibition to throw garbage near the palaces making the “mondezzaro”. Such “editti” were emanated by the President of the Roads (a high administrative charge that presided to the order of the city ways) who delegated the Master of the Roads the task to control that the provision was respected.

The content of all these plates was substantially the same but it was not important because at that time just few people were able to read!

Therefore, between 1717 and 1771, on the walls of the historical center appeared a great number of marble plates bringing the prophetic admonishment: do not soil here!


The plates also exposed the penalty previewed in case of remissness to the prohibition: pecuniary punishment, personal capture, corporal pains or excommunication (if you had left garbage near a church!!). Entities and modalities were at the discretion of the President of the Roads. The aim of these multiple endorsements was to hit both the sending and the material executor of the crime: the executor (usually a servant) was usually subject to the corporal pains, while the other (the master) would have had to pay a high fine (“alla pena pecuniaria sia tenuto il padre per li figli e li padroni per li servitori” the father pays for the sons and the master for the servant).
Moreover, in order to convince the population to delate the anonymous filthy persons, some “editti” contained the norm that a part of the fine would have been given to the prosecutor, whose name obviously would have remained secret.
The prohibition remained more over a long time until the fall of Papal State (1870); the rigor that the civic administrators put in applying the beautiful endorsements inspired Belli for one of his most famous “ironici sonetti”:

« Per questi editti di sasso, divenuto più nero della scrittura che vi fu incisa, può ancora accadere che qualche fantesca maledica chi non le insegnò l'alfabeto »
Today you can still find in Trastevere, scattered here and there, the modern version (written on a piece of paper) of the ancient marble plates which invite to :

“please don’t leave garbage here, the apposite baskets are really near!”

(Here is a list of all the marble plates you can find in Rome, there is also one in Piazza della Gensola near our apartments!)

La Gricia

Have you ever met an Italian who didn't speak about food & wine?

I don't think so. May be never! Romans love food, for us is a real pleasure to seat, eat and drink a glass of good wine.

Remember...who reserves time for a meal is someone who likes life pleasures!

Before giving you councils on where eating out in Rome (avoiding disaster if you don't know the right places!) we want to show you how to cook, by yourself, a typical roman dish: spaghetti alla gricia! After you have made it you'll be able to comparate them with the one cooked in a restaurant...you could be very surprised and discover, why not, that you are better than a roman cook! :-)

Let's start our cooking lesson n.1 SPAGHETTI alla GRICIA:

Gricia is a simple dish of pasta dressed with two products largely common in the countryside around Rome: Guanciale, a type of bacon made out of the cheek of the pork, and Pecorino a very tasty sheep cheese. Ingredients: 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil - 4 oz (115 gr) guanciale diced (or substitute with unsmoked bacon) - crushed red pepper1 lb - pasta ( 450 gr spaghetti) - salt1/4 cup (50 gr) - pecorino romano cheese, freshly grated.

In a frying pan, pour the olive oil, and add the bacon and generous red pepper. Fry over medium heat until the bacon is browned.

Cook the pasta in abundant salt water following manufacturer’s instructions. Taste for readiness from time to time, until is "al dente" (firm but not too soft or overcooked)
Drain and transfer pasta to a bowl. Top the pasta with the bacon and the freshly grated cheese.
Toss vigorously. Serve hot at once

This is how the dish should be look like.....BUON APPETITO!

If you think that your dish doesn't look good ... better eat out!! Better to remind that in Rome people usually eat out starting at the earliest at 8-830 p.m and restaurants close around 1130-12 p.m, especially on weekends. Here are some good restaurants addresses: to eat pizza Ai Marmi, to eat typical roman specialties Dal Cordaro, for the romantic atmosphere and good quality food try Spirito Divino.

BUON APPETITO A TUTTI!!!!

La Lupa del Campidoglio

Before starting these pages on "Curious Rome" i could not image that Rome could have so many hidden & original aspects! That's ok! I'll have topics for the next 2 or 3 months & you'll always have something to read!!

I've always had the curiosity to know more about the living wolf of Campidoglio. Sometime Rome's beauties disappear in a City full of traffic, people & caos. Our start & end point today is Via del Teatro Marcello, near the Campidoglio. Look at the right of the Campidoglio perron, behind the bus stop, hidden by grass bushes there is a big cage that looks like an aviary...oh yes i have to admit for many years i've thought that there were birds, instead....

of the living “Lupa del Campidoglio”!! The story of a living "meat & bones" wolfe put in a cage at the slopes of the Campidoglio hill began at the end of 1800. It was the 28 august 1872 when the Communal Council of Rome, with its decision n° 52630, decided to put “..in the gardens of the Campidoglio hill, in an appropriate cage, a living wolfe as a symbol of Rome, the Communal Council previews for his maintenance the expense of lire 23.50 monthly” . When Rome became the Capital of the united nation Italia in 1870, decided to assert and celebrate her public and new laic image using the master symbol typical of the Imperial Rome: the wolfe, to remind that one who, according to the legend, noursed Romolo (founder of Rome) and Remo. Romans liked very much the idea to show a wolf as the symbol of the City, so lot that the wild animal became quickly the first symbol of the City and many were the romans who stopped in front of the cage looking at the animal. Years passed by slowly and the wolfe, always sobstituted by new exemplaries, still hold in the small cage obtained inside the cove on the slopes of the hill. His way to walk, going on and back, was so typical that became a "way to say" when someone is phrenetic: " me pari 'a lupa der campidojo!" (you look like the Campidoglio wolfe!). Only in 1975, the Communal Council of Rome, decided to stop this sad exhibition which not only didn’t celebrate the glory of the city but, on the contrary, forced a wild animal who lives in wide spaces, to live in a small an humid cage just to exposure!

We have to say that the bad tradition to show animals on the Campidoglio hill didn't start with the wolfe, many ancient reports of 1400 tell, infact, the story of a magnificent lion caught in the far lands of Africa and hold in a cage on the Campidoglio hill, until the time he was pulled down for having killed a passing. He was then immediately sobstituted by a new one in marble...beautiful & less aggressive!!

Dear roman wolfe...

Just to have fun!

Sorry guy but today i really need a time break!! ;-)

When i decided to start this "English-Rome" blog adventure i could not image that it would have been so laborious!! Remind always.... usually i don't speak english in my daily life! And admit it....today my brain is burning!! So, thinking about today's post i have choosen a "light" topic to relax ;-)

Today i want to introduce you.....my super-fantastic cousin and his bionic ability!

Do you know what is parkour?

Parkour (sometimes abbreviated to PK) is a physical activity, of French origin, that shows the art of displacement. The aim is to move from point A to point B, overcoming obstacles in the surronding enviroment, as efficiently and quickly as possible using principally the abilities of the human body (people doing PK are called "traceuses"). It is an art that resembles self-defense in the martial arts. According to the founder David Belle, the spirit of parkour is guided in part by the notions of "escape" and "reach," that is, the idea of using quick thinking with dexterity to get out of difficult situations.

Much more than Superman & Spiderman...here is my cousin FLOWGUN (Fabio)!!

Have your first meeting point with PK looking this video & if you like it here is the second... a little home made movie "no doping parkour" (my cousin is the black bionic machine obviously!).

"... don't say PK but live Pk let it becomes your philosophy to do everything in your life!"

La Porta Alchemica

Here is another unknown & dark side of Rome, it was the 1680...

...when the door, now called "The Alchemical Door", was strongly desidered and built by the Marquis Massimiliano Palombara. He built the Magical Door in its residence, Villa Palombara, situated in the country side of Rome on the Esquilino hill nearly to the today called Piazza Vittorio, where today it has been placed. The interest of the Marquis for the alchemy was probably due to his frequentation, since 1656, of the roman Court of Queen Cristina of Sweden. The Queen was strongly fascinated by alchemy & science, she owned an advanced laboratory, managed by the alchemist Antonio Flag, in Palazzo Riario (today Palazzo Corsini center of the Lincei National Academy on the Gianicolo hill) that later became an Academy attended by all famous personages, erudites and esoteric doctors of that time as Francisco Giuseppe Borri, Giovanni Cassini, Francesco Maria Santinelli.

The Legend......

According to the legend, transmitted to us in 1802 thanks to the Abbot and erudite Francesco Girolamo Cancellieri, the story began when a travelling pilgrim identified with the alchemist Francesco Giustiniani Bono dwelled in the gardens of the Villa for a night searching for a mysterious grass able to produce gold. The following day he disappeared through the door leaving behind himself some gold straws, the result of one good ended "alchemica trasmutazione", and many other documents with mysterious enigmas and magical symbols hiding the secret of the "pietra filosofale" (do you remind about Harry Potter?! ;-)).

The Marquis decided to write down, on the five doors of Villa Palombara (today we can only see the Alchemical one), all the contents of the manuscript & all symbols & enigmas in hope that someone would be able to decipher them and transform things in gold. Perhaps the enigmatic paper could refer, for historical and geographic agreements, to the mysterious manuscript "Voynich" a part of the collection belonged to King Rodolfo II of Boemia.

This is what we can see today in Piazza Vittorio....

Symbols....

All symbols, affected on the Alchemical Door, come from the illustrations of alchemy and esoteric books, infact the design on the fronton (the two overlapping triangles) appears exactly equal on the frontespiece of the allegorical book "Aureum Seculum Redivivum" by Henricus Madatanus. The other Alchemical symbols, cram along the door (on the right and on the left), follow the sequence of planets, associated to the correspondents metals: Saturno-lead; Giove-pond;Marte-iron;Venere-branch;Luna-silver;Mercurio-mercury. Perhaps such a sequence comes resumption from the text "Commentatio de Pharmaco Catholico"published in the "Chymica Vannus" of the 1666. To every planet is associated a watertight maxim, to read from the bottom up to right in order to come down from above on the left, according the direction indicated from the hebrew maxim "Ruach Elohim".

The door must therefore be read like the monument that marks the historical passage of the upsetting symbols of Christianity towards the new spiritual model that was being developed in the 1600's.

Hope to have given you a pleasant passage through the Alchemical Door! :-)

A look through a lock

There are many kind of locks but only looking through this one you'll have a breathless sight!

Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, over the Aventino hill, will give you the most original vision you ever had.

Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta

Looking through the hole, on the main door of the Palazzo dei Cavalieri di Malta, this is what you'll see....
This beautiful square not only shows an amazing sight over Saint Peter's dome (try it in the evening time!).....
...but at the same time hides one of the most fascinating legend of the city. By the legend the Aventino hill should be a single, vast and sacred ship for the Templar Order ready to sail towards the "Terra Santa" (the Holy Land). Infact, if you take time to visit the gardens, the square and the building, you'll find a lot of curious symbols, words, images and figures that remind us about the Sacred Order. The southern side of the hill, the one which goes down toward the Tiber River, has a typical V shape like a ship bow, the entrance to the Villa should be the main entrance to the sailing boat, all gardens labyrinth simbolize the ship cables and the strange symbols, engraved on the "obelischi", should be secret messages to whom who know the esoteric writing.

In this magic place nothing is like it seems....

The roman great "Big Ben"

Every day at the same time since 1846

It was the 1st of december 1846 when Pope Pio IX introduced the custom of announcing mid-day throughout the city in a rather curious way: every day at 12 o'clock a cannon shot was fired from the top of Sant'Angelo Castle striking the official time until 1903!
It was more than necessary to avoid confusion of the bells ringing at different times. In 1903 the location of the gun shooting ceremony moved to Monte Mario and one year later to the top of Janiculum, the highest spot in rome.

The daily gun-shot was stopped during the II nd World War but in 1959, on April the 21st (the day traditionally believed to be "Rome's birthday"), the ceremony was resumed. Since then, it has never been stopped again:still today, in the age of precision quartz watches, the firing of the Janiculum's gun is a popular daily event for roman people. The blast is so loud that it can be clearly heard throughtout the center of Rome, despite nowdays the heavy traffic may sometimes cover it! Many romans still check their watches to the sound of the peculiar "time alarm" from the Janiculum.

A personal gift from the city of Rome for you!