Entries with Tiber tag

About Vatican

On the west bank of the Tiber, directly crossways from Rome’s historic centre, the VATICAN CITY was established as an independent sovereign state in 1929, a tiny territory surrounded by high walls on its far, western side and on the near side opening its doors to the rest of the city and its pilgrims in the form of St Peter’s and its colonnaded piazza. The Latin study Mons Vaticanus (Vatican Hill) is a corruption of an Etruscan term, indicating a good place for perceptive the flights of birds and lightning on the horizon that was believed to prophesy the future. It’s believed that later St Peter himself was buried in a pagan cemetery here, giving rise to the building of a basilica to venerate his study and the siting of the headquarters of the Catholic Church here. After reaching an uneasy agreement with Mussolini, the Vatican became a sovereign state in 1929, and nowadays has its own broadcasting station, newspaper, currency and postal service, and indeed security service in the colourfully dressed Swiss Guards. However, its relationship with the Italian state is not surprisingly anything but straightforward.

You wouldn’t know at any point that you had left Rome and entered the Vatican; indeed the area around the Vatican, known as the Borgo , is one of the most cosmopolitan districts of Rome, full of hotels and restaurants, and scurrying tourists and pilgrims – as indeed it always has been since the king of Wessex founded the first hotel for pilgrims here in the eighth century. You may find yourself staying in one of many mid-range hotels located here, although unless you’re a pilgrim it’s a better intent to base yourself in the more atmospheric city centre and travel back and forth on the useful bus #64. However much you try, one visit is never anywhere near enough.

Category: Vatican

Isola Tiberina

By the River Tiber you can see the remains of Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), all that is left of the first stone bridge to span the river. Built between 179 and 142 BC, it collapsed at the end of the sixteenth century. Further down is Ponte Fabricio , which crosses to Isola Tiberina . Built in 62 BC, it’s the only classical bridge to remain intact without help from the restorers (the Ponte Cestio, on the other side of the island, was partially rebuilt in the last century). As for the island, it’s a calm respite from the city centre proper, its originally tenth-century church of San Bartolomeo worth a peep on the way crossways the river to Trastevere, especially if you’re into modern sculpture – Padre Martini, a well-known local sculptor, used to live on the island, and the church holds some wonderful examples of his elegant, semi-abstract religious pieces.

Category: Rome

Palazzo Primoli

Around the corner from Palazzo Altemps, at the end of Via Zanardelli, the sixteenth-century Palazzo Primoli was the home of a descendant of Napoleon, Joseph Primoli, and now houses two minor museums that may command your attention on the way to the Vatican, just crossways the Tiber from here. The first, the Museo Mario Praz (Tues-Sun 9am-1pm & 2.30-6.30pm, Mon 2.30-6.30pm; L4000), on the first floor, was the home of one Mario Praz, an art historian and writer who lived here for twenty or so years until his death in the 1980s, and it is kept pretty much as the elegant and cultured Praz left it. Next door, the second museum, the Museo Napoleonico (Tues-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 9am-1.30pm; L3750), is less interesting if you’re anything but an enthusiast for the great Frenchman and in particular his dynasty. Rome was home for the Bonapartes in the 1820s – Pauline married Camillo Borghese, and Napoleon’s mother, Letizia, lived nearby – and this is a rather weighty assortment of their individualized effects. There’s a letter from general himself from his exile in St Helena, a bad portrait of Pauline, a stirring depiction of general III, portraits of Count Primoli’s mother, Carlotta Bonaparte, sketchbook in hand, hung amongst a number of her own quite adept drawings, even a Emperor bike. All things considered, though, it takes a pretty gritty determination, or a peculiar fascination with the family, to get through it all.

Category: Rome

Via Giulia

Behind the Farnese and Spada palaces, Via Giulia , which runs parallel to the Tiber, was built by Julius II to connect Ponte Sisto with the Vatican. The street was conceived as the centre of papal Rome, and Julius commissioned Bramante to line it with imposing palaces. Bramante didn’t get very far with the plan, as Julius was soon succeeded by Leo X, but the street became a favourite residence for wealthier Roman families, and is still packed full with stylish palazzi and antique shops and as such makes for a nice wander, with features like the playful Fontana del Mascherone to tickle your interest along the way. Just beyond the fountain, behind the high surround of the Palazzo Farnese, the arch crossways the street is the remnant of a Renaissance plan to connect the Farnese palace with the Villa Farnesina crossways the river, while further along still, the Palazzo Falconieri , recognizable by the quizzical falcons crowning apiece end of the building, now the home of the Hungarian Academy, was largely the work of Borromini, who enlarged it in 1646-49.

Category: Rome, Venice

Ponte Milvio

On the far side of the Parioli district the Tiber sweeps around in a wide hook-shaped bend. These northern outskirts of Rome aren’t particularly enticing, though the Ponte Milvio , the old, originally Roman, footbridge where the emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in 312 AD, still stands and provides wonderful views of the meandering Tiber, with the city springing up green on the hills to both sides and the river running fast and silty below. Inside a guardhouse on the right (northern) bank of the Tiber a marble plaque bears the arms of the Borgia family – including, in the centre, the papal badge and shield of Alexander VI, and, on the right, the Borgia bull on a crest, placed there by Cesare Borgia, who was at the time his father the pope’s secretary of state. On the northern side of the river, Piazzale di Ponte Milvio sports a cheap and cheerful market (Mon-Sat 8am-1.30pm) and a handful of bars and restaurants.

Category: Rome

Testaccio

On the far side of Via Marmorata, below, the solid working-class neighbourhood of TESTACCIO groups around a couple of main squares, a tight-knit community with a market and a number of bars and small trattorias that was for many years synonymous with the slaughterhouse that sprawls down to the Tiber just beyond. In recent years the area has become a trendy place to live, property prices have soared, and some uneasy contradictions have emerged, with vegetarian restaurants opening their doors in an area still known for the offal dishes served in its traditional trattorias, and gay and alternative clubs standing cheek-by-jowl with the car-repair shops gouged into Monte Testaccio. The slaughterhouse, or Mattatoio , once the area’s main employer, is now home to the Centro Sociale “Villaggio Globale”, a space used for concerts, raves and exhibitions, along with stabling for the city’s horse-and-carriage drivers, a gymnasium and a small gypsy camp. For years there has been talk of sprucing it up into a chi-chi affair of shops and restaurants, but so far nothing has happened, and it’s likely to remain as it is for some time to come.

Opposite the slaughterhouse, Monte Testaccio , which gives the area its name, is a 35-metre-high mound created out of the shards of Roman amphorae that were dumped here over some 600 years. The ancients were not aware of the fact that the terracotta amphorae could be recycled, and consequently broke them up into small shards and lay them down in an orderly manner, sprinkling quicklime on them to dissolve the residual wine or oil and so creating the mountain you see today. It’s an odd sight, the ceramic curls clearly visible through the tufts of grass that crown its higher reaches, the bottom layers hollowed out by the workshops of car and cycle mechanics.

Category: Rome

Trastevere And The Janiculum Hill

Across the river from the centre of town, on the right bank of the Tiber, is the district of TRASTEVERE . A smallish district sheltered under the heights of the Janiculum Hill, it was the artisan area of the city in classical times, neatly placed for the trade that came upriver from Ostia and was unloaded nearby. Outside the city walls, Trastevere (the study means literally “across the Tiber”) was for centuries heavily populated by immigrants, and this uniqueness and separation lent the neighbourhood a strong indistinguishability that lasted well into this century. Nowadays the area is a long way from the working-class quarter it used to be, and although you’re still likely to hear Travestere’s strong Roman dialect here, you’re also likely to bump into some of its many foreign residents, lured by the charm of its narrow streets and closeted squares. However, even if the local Festa de’ Noantri (“celebration of we others”), held every July, seems to symbolize the slow decline of local spirit rather than celebrate its existence, there is good reason to come to Trastevere. It is among the more pleasant places to stroll in Rome, particularly peaceful in the morning, and lively come the evening, as dozens of trattorias set tables out along the cobblestone streets (Trastevere has long been known for its restaurants). The neighbourhood has also become the focus of the city’s alternative scene and is home to much of its most vibrant and youthful nightlife.

Category: Rome