In search of Fascists
Jun. 16th, 2010 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksThe weather forecast for yesterday in Rome had been for occasional thunderstorms. In fact it turned out to be intermittent rain, getting heavier as the evening wore on. Perhaps this was the reason that, like happens occasionally in a tournament, "I never got going". So, this is going to be a much briefer post than yesterday, 'cos I'm determined to get out there. The weather today is at last perfect. Slightly cloudy, max temp of about 27 degrees.
Yesterday I caught a couple of busses to near the Vittorio Emanuele II monument, so that I could get inside (it shuts at 6pm). A nice old fat caribinieri stands at the entrance, with a whistle, making sure that no-one sits down on the "sacred" steps (two soldiers stand guard over the perpetual flame in memory of the Italian fallen).
The view from the top of the monument, hailed by The Rough Guide as "the only place in Rome where the view does not include the monument".
The statue of Vittorio Emanuele II. The statues underneath are about life size. Mike Woodhouse could probably stand underneath the belly of the horse, his head nearly scraping the underside of the horse's stomach. It is, in other words, a big statue.
The Italians certainly love their marble and this is an imposing edifice.
(Here's a repeat of the earlier picture I posted)
Around the back of the Momument you come across the Forum.
I actually approached it from the wrong direction, and so couldn't get in! It was by now getting towards evening, and threatened to rain, but there was one place I wanted to see and one place I wanted to find out how to get to. This entails understanding the Italian bus network, which I don't. There were several hit-and-misses as I waited at a number of bus stops, trying to figure out which bus I wanted. Eventually I made the completely wrong decision, and had to get off after half a mile and walk.
I was aiming for via Marmorata. This took me south along the Tiber's east bank. As I wrote before, walking alongside the river in Rome is a profoundly depressing experience, since the roads are designed solely for road traffic and foot traffic is neither allowed nor catered for (no shops, hawkers, etc). It's the easiest route to follow on the map, but offers the fewest moments of interest. Rome, in other words, is not designed for pedestrians (from abroad) who are actually aiming to get from A to B. Some people like this randomness. My type of personality hates it with a passion.
One moment of interest turned up, which I think sums up the Italian road network.
Yes, on the Palatine Bridge, you drive on the left. Marvellous.
I kept on walking through the intermittent drizzle, and noticed that the Rough Guide's repetition of the standard myth "keep hold of your goods and, if you are a woman with a bag, where it as Italian woman do, with the strap diagonally across the body". Nice idea, but unfortunately completely untrue. All of the Italian women I saw with bags wore them exactly as most women do in England, with the strap hanging vertically from the shoulder.
I negotiated some more ridiculous pavement moments where, despite there being four lanes of traffic, it is the pavement that narrowd to nothingness when a building juts out inconveniently, and finally found my target.
This is the local post office on Via Marmorata. Nop-one pays it much mind and it is, annoyingly, half-concealed by trees. It was designed by Adalberto Libera and opened in 1930. Libera, as with all successful architects in Italy at the time, was not only a Fascist (mandatory if you wanted to be an architect), but was an enthusiastic Fascist.
Mussolini seemed to spot that, in a nation where everyone tries to get an edge over everyone else as a matter of principle (see inability to queue, refusal to park cars sensibly) you got less success than where people tended to be mutually co-operative. So he tried to "impose" this co-operation through the concept of fascism, where the individual was subordinate to the state. However, toujours la change... Mussolini's party quickly came to favour its own. the "mutual co-operation" never reached statewide level -- the "getting an edge" just moved up a level from the individual to the party. Once again, history shows that you can't impose a change of character.
Libera dropped out of sight for a couple of decades after the war, when being known as an enthusiastic fascist did not go down so well. But he eventually returned, simply because his stuff is so good.
I waited for ever and a day for the right bus to get back into town. I then popped into a Spar, queued forever with some provisions, walked along the Via Vittorio Emanuele II in the steadily increasing rain, and caught the 881 back here. Not a very productive day, but, weirdly, not that unsatisfying.
And, after about half an hour's failures, I managed to snap this. Not perfect, but not bad. Eight seconds at F 5.6.
A quarter moon and Venus. Did you have a quarter moon in England as well? :-)
________________________
Yesterday I caught a couple of busses to near the Vittorio Emanuele II monument, so that I could get inside (it shuts at 6pm). A nice old fat caribinieri stands at the entrance, with a whistle, making sure that no-one sits down on the "sacred" steps (two soldiers stand guard over the perpetual flame in memory of the Italian fallen).
The view from the top of the monument, hailed by The Rough Guide as "the only place in Rome where the view does not include the monument".
The statue of Vittorio Emanuele II. The statues underneath are about life size. Mike Woodhouse could probably stand underneath the belly of the horse, his head nearly scraping the underside of the horse's stomach. It is, in other words, a big statue.
The Italians certainly love their marble and this is an imposing edifice.
(Here's a repeat of the earlier picture I posted)
Around the back of the Momument you come across the Forum.
I actually approached it from the wrong direction, and so couldn't get in! It was by now getting towards evening, and threatened to rain, but there was one place I wanted to see and one place I wanted to find out how to get to. This entails understanding the Italian bus network, which I don't. There were several hit-and-misses as I waited at a number of bus stops, trying to figure out which bus I wanted. Eventually I made the completely wrong decision, and had to get off after half a mile and walk.
I was aiming for via Marmorata. This took me south along the Tiber's east bank. As I wrote before, walking alongside the river in Rome is a profoundly depressing experience, since the roads are designed solely for road traffic and foot traffic is neither allowed nor catered for (no shops, hawkers, etc). It's the easiest route to follow on the map, but offers the fewest moments of interest. Rome, in other words, is not designed for pedestrians (from abroad) who are actually aiming to get from A to B. Some people like this randomness. My type of personality hates it with a passion.
One moment of interest turned up, which I think sums up the Italian road network.
Yes, on the Palatine Bridge, you drive on the left. Marvellous.
I kept on walking through the intermittent drizzle, and noticed that the Rough Guide's repetition of the standard myth "keep hold of your goods and, if you are a woman with a bag, where it as Italian woman do, with the strap diagonally across the body". Nice idea, but unfortunately completely untrue. All of the Italian women I saw with bags wore them exactly as most women do in England, with the strap hanging vertically from the shoulder.
I negotiated some more ridiculous pavement moments where, despite there being four lanes of traffic, it is the pavement that narrowd to nothingness when a building juts out inconveniently, and finally found my target.
This is the local post office on Via Marmorata. Nop-one pays it much mind and it is, annoyingly, half-concealed by trees. It was designed by Adalberto Libera and opened in 1930. Libera, as with all successful architects in Italy at the time, was not only a Fascist (mandatory if you wanted to be an architect), but was an enthusiastic Fascist.
Mussolini seemed to spot that, in a nation where everyone tries to get an edge over everyone else as a matter of principle (see inability to queue, refusal to park cars sensibly) you got less success than where people tended to be mutually co-operative. So he tried to "impose" this co-operation through the concept of fascism, where the individual was subordinate to the state. However, toujours la change... Mussolini's party quickly came to favour its own. the "mutual co-operation" never reached statewide level -- the "getting an edge" just moved up a level from the individual to the party. Once again, history shows that you can't impose a change of character.
Libera dropped out of sight for a couple of decades after the war, when being known as an enthusiastic fascist did not go down so well. But he eventually returned, simply because his stuff is so good.
I waited for ever and a day for the right bus to get back into town. I then popped into a Spar, queued forever with some provisions, walked along the Via Vittorio Emanuele II in the steadily increasing rain, and caught the 881 back here. Not a very productive day, but, weirdly, not that unsatisfying.
And, after about half an hour's failures, I managed to snap this. Not perfect, but not bad. Eight seconds at F 5.6.
A quarter moon and Venus. Did you have a quarter moon in England as well? :-)
________________________
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Good moon
Date: 2010-06-16 09:50 am (UTC)The pictures all look good and you seem to have your head round the place a bit more now. I loved Rome and didn't have the same hassles as you, I think because the first time I was in a hire car and the second time, although on foot, we were constrained on the walking front by me Mum's range and stuck to the centre, jumping on and off the central tourer bus. Driving in Rome isn't as bad as reputation would have it. I've driven in Paris, Berlin, Manhattan and many others and Rome isn't even top 3 for scariest (Naples is the worst by a very long way).
What I missed in Rome is the capacity for almost everywhere to be fascinating. I can walk in Paris or New York and every 10 yards there is something to catch the eye, or convey the ambiance. Rome had lots of nice bits separated by dull pavement-light roads connecting them. Your pictures are making me want to go back, but the next trip to Italy will be to Florence and Umbria, a part I've never seen.
Re: Good moon
Date: 2010-06-16 07:11 pm (UTC)Yes, I'm getting the geography a bit better in my head now, although I still walked straight past a restaurant I was looking for, only to stop 400 metres further on when I arrived at th Piazza venezia. I'd completely lost my idea of where I was when I walked past it.
And, yes, Rome is an oddity. Like I say, I think it's a kind of theme park, with the people who work in the offices of the theme park interspersed between all the fun-rides.
PJ