Rambling Rome in the Rain

Today, we had our first "cartography walk," where we spend three hours walking around the city with our professor. We toured the historic Trastevere district, and spent the morning tracing the route of the historic Via Aurelia Vetus, which was one of the original routes coming into Rome. Trastevere is the area of Rome south of the Vatican and is "across the river" so to speak.

Our tour began at the Tiber Island, the only island in the Tiber River. We stood on the new Ponte Cestio and observed the Ponte Rotto bridge. The Ponte Rotto is the oldest bridge in Rome built using stone construction. However, only one arch remains of the bridge. Ancient Romans tried to fix the bridge several times but they gave up by 1598. Apparently, the wooden bridge that was here in the second century B.C. is believed to be the site where the ancient Roman hero Horatio defended Rome from invading Etruscans. Here is the poem "Horatius at the Bridge," written in 1842, that is the most famous description of the legend.

Next, our tour moved across the bridge into the Trastevere district. I was very excited to explore this district because I hadn't yet had a chance to visit the area. The neighborhood is full of a lot of small winding streets with character that I really enjoyed (see photo). We traveled north on what is today called the Via della Lungaretta, tracing the ancient route of the Via Aurela Vetus out of Rome. On the way we stopped inside the beautiful church of Santa Maria in Trastevere (photo). This church had many beautiful tile mosaics that I throughly enjoyed.

Then, we traveled up some steps (actually, a lot of steps!) and found ourselves at the Aqueduct of Pope Paul V. In the 1600s, Pope Paul restored this ancient Roman aqueduct and restored fresh drinking water to the entire area of Trastevere.

Finally, we came to the top of the hill and the Porta San Pancrazio on the Via Garibaldi. The Porta San Pancrazia was actually the site where a lot of the fighting took place between Garibaldi's men and the Pope's army during the Italian revolution in the 1850's. After the Pope won back control of Rome, he reconstructed the Porta San Pancrazio, which had been bombed out during the battle.

Next, we walked through the gardens on top of the Gianicolo, which is the name of the hill which we had just climbed. The gardens have tribute statues to Garibaldi's generals, Garibaldi, and Garibaldi's wife, Anita. I especially liked the statue of Anita because it features her riding a rearing horse sidesaddle while wielding a gun, holding a baby, and leading a charge into battle (photo). She was certainly a strong woman of the 1850's!

On the way into the gardens, we passed by what was advertised by a plaque on the wall to be Michaelangelo's house, but it turned out to be only the stone pilasters from Michaelangelo's house that were removed from central Rome after Mussolini tore down the neighborhood. The remnants were transfered to Gianicolo, infilled with brick, and promptly turned into a water cistern (picture below).
Finally, at 11:58 am, our professor took us to the top of the Gianicolo, just next to the statue of Garibaldi, claiming that we had a mysterious appointment to make. We walked down some steps and saw a large cannon being rolled out! At exactly 12 noon, the cannon sounded with a deafening boom that was certainly much louder than I expected it to be! The tradition of sounding the cannon at noon dates back to 1847. The pope at the time was tired of hearing church bells all across the city signal noon at different times, so he instituted the practice of the cannon to signal to Rome what the official time was. The cannon is mainly sounded today for nostalgic reasons and tourists, but it was a fun surprise after walking up the entire Gianicolo hill!

Another reward for walking up the hill was the beautiful views of the entire city of Rome from the top of the hill. Even though it was rainy and foggy, the views were still fairly good from the overlook in the park. On the way down, I stopped by to see Bramante's Tempietto (photo). This was another exceptional treat for me as an architecture student. I must agree with my art history teacher from freshman year- photos certainly can't do justice to this architectural staple! I never actually realized the close relationship that the temple shares with the courtyard that surrounds it when studying it in class, but the relationship became all too obvious when I went to tour the Tempietto! Finally, I walked back to my apartment thoroughly drenched, and spent cozy afternoon working on some homework.