From a window on Monte-Mario - II

As you peel off one layer after another of local Roman history, you find that they overlay each other like a layer cake. The charming Spanish steps are typical. You come by way of the Piazza di Populo where there is a fine obelisk brought to Rome by Augustus in the first century. Nearby is a monastery where Martin Luther lived as an Augustinian when he visited Rome before his excommunication.

When you arrive at the Piazza di Spagna (which has one more Roman fountain!) you can see the house where Keats died in 1821, and the Caffe Greco where Richard Wagner, Anatole France and Mark Twain at different times had a chance to compare Roman coffee with its German, French and American counterparts.

The steps themselves are a riot of flowers and late-blooming visitors. They were paid for by a French ambassador, but called Spanish because they are located near the Spanish Embassy. Logical? Well, it’s as logical as their present occupation, day and night, by a mixed bag of bearded international beatniks. Police are waging a war of containment against the beards who, they charge, use guerilla tactics on the tourists. The beats reply that the real gorillas are the camera toting visitors who want to take their pictures!

From the Caesars to the Beards, by way of Sixtus, Luther, Keats and Mark Twain -- all in one block!

Union In 1870, Collapse in 1945

“Recent Rome” has its show-piece in the monument to Victor Emmanuel II which glares at you in the moonlight and stares at you all day. The guide books call it “the apotheosis of Italian Independence.” It was begun in 1885, finished in 1911, to commemorate the King who presided over the intrigue and bloodshed that united Italy in 1870. The monument is a splendid pile of bas-reliefs, columns, trophies and sculptures irreverently called by its critics, “Wedding-cake, Romanesque.” The equestrian figure of the king is not bad, but grinning over it is a cavern fronted by 15 marble columns. Disillusioned Italians, recalling the dictator of the 1930’s, have given it another name, “Mussolini’s Dentures.”

The layer of 1870-1945 history is present everywhere. Some of the residue is dignified, plain and believable. Much is not. The monument is only the biggest reminder of it all; the patriots of the Risorgimento, the poets and tenors, and the marching, shouting people who were never certain whether they wanted a kingdom, a republic, an empire or an anarchy.

From Victor Emmanuel to Mussolini, Italy never really settled down -- and many were ready for the Great Showman. In Barzini’s book, the Italians, one chapter is entitled, “Mussolini -- The Limitation of Showmanship.” Certain accomplishments did appear. As edified Americans and English used to say in the 1930’s, he made the trains run on time. But why did he and the state and Italian society collapse in 1945?

Barzini argues that Mussolini was “not entirely a ruthless and cold-blooded, soul-engineer. He was an Italian. He loved a good show...a parade...a naval review. He believed his own slogans...he confused appearances with reality. He deluded the people, that was his crime. But they were deluding him too.”

After his capture by the partisans, Mussolini and his mistress were hung from a gas station roof in Milan toward the end of April 1945. Today’s visitor to Italy is reminded of the little Caesar as he watches two taxi drivers shout curses and obscenities at each other. They wave arms, fingers and heads, coming almost to the point of man-killing blows.

But the moment of physical contact does not come. The cabbies never quite match reality. Exhausted and happy, they retire to their cars in majesty.

Urban Renewal 16th Century

From my window on Monte Mario, recent Rome must give way to Renaissance Rome, even in today’s skyline. Italy reached cultural heights in the 15th and 16th centuries that have hardly been touched by any other nation. Antiquity was the guide, humanity the essence, and magnificence the ordinary way of life for those who could win it by their skill or buy it with their wealth. The others existed and hoped.

It is the Renaissance which prompts such comments as Henry James’ “At last, for the first time, I live!” and that of a Texan looking at the marble Moses and murmuring, “Man, that is really living!” (It is said the Michaelangelo made about the same comment as he threw his hammer at the realistic figure he had just carved, “Why don’t you speak?”)

Many of the great treasures of the Renaissance are in the Vatican especially the Sistine Chapel. But along a line from the Janiculum Hill to the Piazza Venezia, a series of palaces and churches are filled with them. Michaelangelo’s courtyard and cornice are in the Farnese palace, del Sarto’s “Visitation” in the Spada. Page after page from “The Agony and the Ecstasy” could be pasted on every corner of the city where Michaelangelo established his mastery over the three media of sculpture, painting and architecture.

The mystery of the Renaissance and Reformation popes is here for all to ponder. Violent and merciful men, profligates and saints, squanderers and reformers, most of them moved confidently in the culture of the time. But they were Popes in a time of revolution. Some misunderstood or ignored it. The great ones like the Dutch Hadrian, Julius and the two Pauls met the crisis by attacking the corruption. Under God, they saved the Church.

Toward the end of the 16th century, Sixtus V appeared. While he ruled the chastened Church, he changed Rome’s skyline. St. Peter’s dome was completed, the Lateran Palace rebuilt, and obelisks sprang up everywhere. He had taken over the Papal states in miserable shape. Now he cleaned them up, building new streets and trying even to drain the deadly Pontine marshes. Sixtus was a real city planner and administrator. His sense of service to his people was surely more important than the grandeur of his buildings.

Darkness Over Rome

The sun has gone down and you cannot see the hills. Soon the outlines of the great basilicas will disappear. A blotch of dark green shows where the Villa Borgese is, and “Mussolini’s Dentures” keep shining back in the moonlight.

There is another Rome (of the Caesars) and still another (Eternal Rome, the heart of Catholicism). One more installment ought to do it.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta