As on all Fridays, today we feature an image of Rome taken by photographer, Susan Sanders. This shot of urban graffiti was taken just off Via Caio Cestio, across the street from the entrance to Rome’s Protestant Cemetery.
To see more of Susan’s fabulous photos of Rome, visit her Rome With A View photo blog.
Rome is gearing up for this weekend’s La Notte Bianca or White Night on Saturday 8 September. The entire city will stay up all night, playing host to a huge number of activities, ranging from music, art, theater, sport, cinema, literature, gastronomy and shopping. Around 1,000 artists from 29 different countries will take part in 400 events throughout the night, while many historic sites, pubs, clubs and restaurants will also remain open.
Though Saturday is two days away, some of the fun begins tomorrow evening, Friday 7 September, with a series of nocturnal activities collectively dubbed “Waiting for Notte Bianca,” that includes art exhibits, an installation in the Circus Maximus, extended museum hours, a video installation projected on the front of the newly restored Palazzo delle Esposizione, and the inauguration of an exhibition about Spider-Man in the Victor Emmanuel Monument.
While Spider-Man, the Marvel Comics Superhero created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, made his first American appearance in 1962, the Amazing Spider-Man didn’t become an Italian speaker until 1970, some eight years later, when the comic was published by Editorale Corno. The exhibit at the Victor Emmanuel monument aims to honor Spider-Man’s honorary Italian citizenship by displaying original illustrations by world-class Italian comic authors like Claudio Castellini (creator of the Italian hit comic, Dylan Dog), Gabriele Dell’Otto, Giuseppe Camuncoli, and many others. In addition, there will be a series of thematic displays dedicated to the comic adventures of Spider-Man.
The exhibit has been organized by Riccardo Corbò and is free during the La Notte Bianca festivities. From 1:00am on the night between 8 and 9 September, the three recent Spiderman films directed by Sam Raimi be projected in an outdoor space in front of the museum.
Museo del Vittoriano, Via San Pietro in Carcere. Open Friday 7 September from 6:30pm to 12:00am. Open all night on Saturday from 6:30pm with movie screening beginning at 1:00am. Free admission.
For the complete La Notte Bianca schedule, click here.
Tucked beside an ancient gate and within a bend in Rome’s third-century Aurelian Walls are two landmarks: one is the pyramid-shaped Roman tomb of a first-century civic magistrate named Gaius Cestius; the other is Rome’s Non-Catholic Cemetery (often called the Protestant Cemetery).
The cemetery got its start in the early eighteenth century when this area of town was little more than a cow field. The cemetery was established to accommodate the graves of non-Catholic travelers and residents who died in Rome, for Papal law forbade their burial in Catholic resting places.
The earliest grave discovered in the Protestant cemetery dates to 1738, an era in which Roman law required that funeral services be held after dark and by torch light. Since the early eighteenth century, approximately 4000 people have been buried in this green idyll, and today, the cemetery is one of the most peaceful and beautiful places in all of Rome.
A cemetery is a must-see for any lover of literature. In the oldest section of the cemetery is the grave of the English Romantic poet, John Keats (1796-1821). Having contracted tuberculosis, Keats came to Rome in search of a healing climate. He took up residence in a pensione overlooking the Spanish Steps, but the disease took his life just three months after his arrival.
After Keats’ death, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly visited his grave in the Protestant Cemetery and wrote that “it would make one in love with death to be buried in so beautiful a place.” When Shelley himself died in a boating accident near Viareggio in 1822, his body was cremated on the beach, but his ashes were interred in this cemetery and his grave was inscribed cor cordium or “heart of hearts.”
From the early nineteenth century to the present day, the graves of Keats and Shelley have been sites of literary pilgrimage. Oscar Wilde sought to pay homage to these Romantic poets when he visited the cemetery in 1877, immediately after an audience with Pope Pius IX. Upon seeing the grave of Keats, Wilde fell to the ground and lay prone atop the plot for a long while. When he rose to his feet he declared, “this is the holiest site in Rome”.
Visitors to the Protestant Cemetery agree that it is one of Rome’s most extraordinary sites. But, at present, the Cemetery is at risk. It was on the World Monument Fund’s 2006 list of the 100 most endangered sites on earth. Many of the cemetery’s monuments are crumbling - they’ve been damaged by pollution and by years without maintenance. The landscape is overgrown, and the site is waterlogged by poor drainage.
To help preserve the cemetery, a new organization, Friends of the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome, has been founded. Monetary donations are always appreciated, and the organization is also currently in need of volunteers to help run the visitors center. If you can offer your time, please contact Heather Munro, coordinator of volunteers, at heatherm@tin.it or 333.3092201.
Covering something with one’s hands is an instinctive protection response, and that’s what’s suggested by 1861 United’s cool (but also kind of creepy) print ads for Bye motorcycle helmets. (Is it just us or is there a bit of a Medusa quality to those hand-covered heads?)
Agency: 1861 United, Milan
Art Director: Giorgio Cignoni
Copywriter: Luca Beato
Creative Directors: Pino Rozzi / Roberto Battaglia
Photographer: Fulvio Bonavia
Heaven may be governed by the pleasure principle. If so, you can find out what the afterlife will feel like with a stay at the Radisson SAS es Hotel. The name, es, refers both to the hotel’s unusual location, on Rome’s Esquiline Hill, and to the German word for Freud’s id, that eternally desirous part of our unconscious.
It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to discover why this hotel, a product of Rome’s King Roselli architects, has been a hit. The sleek lobby seems a summary of Rome’s history, ancient past to high-style present. It showcases an archaeological site discovered while the hotel was in construction, and is furnished with glowing desk pods from which the stylish staff meet and greet hotel guests.
The more-than-comfortable rooms, white and wood in their tones, comfort both the conscious and the unconscious mind. Beds are showcased at the center of the room—a reminder that your body may need a break—and your efforts to relax are aided by plasma screen TVs, DVD players, and high speed internet connections. Despite its simple beauty, your room may not be your favorite part of the es.
On the seventh floor of the hotel, you can take your id for a dip in the rooftop pool or otherwise drench your ego with spirits from the bar, Zest, which offers an unbelievably chic view across the mass of train tracks that enter Rome’s main train station. Don’t forego a dinner at the hotel restaurant, Sette, which has become one of the hippest eateries in town. They offer creative versions of Italian standards, and in fine weather, you can eat at tables artfully placed around the drop-dead gorgeous pool.
Radisson SAS es hotel, Via Turati 71. Tel. +39 06 444 841 or Fax + 39 06 44 341 396
In past posts, we’ve featured an item that’s currently one of the most popular Italian souvenirs as well as a 2005 competition that challenged designers to rethink those trinkets that tourists take home.
Now another Italian design company is headed in the same direction. This year, Pandora Design hired industrial designer Giulio Iacchetti to restyle the Italian souvenir and we’re utterly charmed by a couple of the items he produced.
The first is a ceramic juicer shaped like Rome’s Saint Peter’s Basilica. As you squeeze your citrus across the dome of the basilica, juice fills the piazza. Don’t know if these are for sale yet, but we’ll be searching the Pope’s usual haunts for them.
The second, called Bye Bye Fly, is a fly swatter gridded like the map of Milan. Try to kill that pesky bug by hitting it with the Duomo! Oops, missed! Got it with the Sforza Castle instead! These were featured on the cover of Abitare in April and are sold by Charles & Marie.
Click here to check out the new Rome With A View 2009 calendars!
