Pasolini in Quarticciolo, image of the Exhibition 'Pasolini Roma'
Roma is a palindrome, a word that makes sense when read backwards. The first, understood as solemnity, perfection, grandiloquence, divinity and spirituality. Love, however, detaches something much more pure, human, sinful, simple, humble and authentic . The city of ancient stones is small and it is there, like a dead diva. The popular is eternal, immense, authentic and alive.
It is convenient to approach it with caution, in a neat and secular way, as Pier Paolo Pasolini (atheist, expelled from the Communist Party for being homosexual) did with Christ in The Gospel according to Saint Matthew . And it takes at least seven days - those that God used when he created the world - to begin to intuit it, with the always evident risk of falling into boredom, anxiety, ecstasy, insomnia, depression, disorder or restlessness. Paris will act as Cicero in this metaphysical fable.
The artist Blu leaves his mark on an occupied building in the Testaccio neighborhood in Rome
Dies Lūnae
Paris is a 33 year old boy that, on Mondays, he likes to eat wild boar meat, freshly hunted the day before. He cannot find her in Rome, so he is forced to visit Alatri (a short distance from the capital) . In addition to carrying it home, when he can, he does not hesitate to taste it at the Sisto Restaurant, where they prepare it with fettuccine and tomatoes. The morning culminates it back, stopping and n Via dell'Almone 111 to buy truffles, cavolo nero (dark cabbage), and to catch cheap water from a stream near Via Appia. Frizzing, of course.
He then returns to his home, to Montesacro, north of the city . He chose to live there because of the authenticity of the area, popular, halfway between Borgata del Tufello and Città Giardino, a concatenation of English-style villas with a profusion of vegetation. The first is one of the multiple neighborhoods that Mussolini ordered to be built to provide shelter, almost massively, to the people who lived in Via della Conciliazione and Piazza Venezia . Put another way: there was a period when Rome was just the center and was made up of Rioni (historical neighborhoods) that housed poor people. What came after was a megalomaniac outburst to extol the country and the church , “Cleansing” her of residues that hampered her unlimited power.
dies martis
Paris lends a hand some days in a neighborhood shoe store, still existing. Tuesdays are fixed. Hard working hours for few lira . The best thing is when he finishes, because he stops by a greengrocer run by Egyptians with the smell of basil, parsley, celery and mint, who give it to him every time he wears sicilian red oranges non trattate (without chemical products), artichokes, escarole, and puntarelle, a type of chicory typical of the city, much appreciated for its bitter taste.
After dinner, it is a good time to go to Mount Gennaro and especially to L'Angolo Russo (Corso Sempione) , a bar with a pastry shop where every few hours they bring out freshly made croissants and cream puffs. Her favorite tastes are pistachio, white chocolate and nutella . And the coffee, of course, in Lo zio d'America , the oldest bar in the area. If possible, have it roasted right there.
Where to buy fish in Rome? In Blue Marin
Dies Mercuriī
Our protagonist, despite not being very far from the historic center, spends months without going to it. First, because the matter seems very artificial ; second because the precariousness of the means of transport prevents it. In spring, when the weather is nice, he eats in the street with his friends at large wooden tables. A huge pot with pasta, garlic and oil Serve the plastic plates.
Pecorino cheese, optional, only appears in good times , such as the fried fish selected at the Via Tirreno fishmonger ( Blue Marine ) . And everything remains there, in those little microclimates designed to welcome people left over in the center . To people who are still making their own bread at home.
Fall in love with Desideri patisserie in Rome
Paris, on Wednesdays, chooses to bathe in the Anniene River, less suggestive but closer than the Tiber. Steal rosemary, mint and laurel from the neighbors to spread the aroma on your hands and perfume the house. He buys bread from Genzano to accompany the porchetta (and the wine) dei Castelli Romani, which every week comes to the oldest delicatessens in the city, some of them more than a hundred years old. Yes indeed, he orders the cod and fresh chickpeas for Friday.
And so he spends his days, enjoying Ponte Mammolo, Monteverde (in love with the Ambrosini bakery and desideri pastry ), Pietralata, Tor Marancia, Tor Bella Monaca, Magliana, Tor Vergata… Prints in ocher colors and, seeing from some of them the dome of Christianity . contradictory spaces. So far; so close.
Blu, the Italian graffiti artist who decorated the walls of Rome on Via del Porto Fluviale
die jovis
With Thursday, the weekend is approaching. The perfect time to visit Garbatella and Testaccio, borgate that little by little they are losing their taste for their retro trend. In the Today's Garbatella, in winter, football is still played in the oratory of San Filippo , and the kids change in the changing rooms of the catacombs.
The Montemartini museum in Rome
Also Testaccio, a few meters from the Gasometer (Iron Colosseum), from the non-Catholic cemetery, Blu's graffiti and the Montemartini museum . It is a place where, formerly, the working class lived, as it was outside the Aurelian walls . There is also its mount, built accidentally when the natives of the area stored the ceramic vessels with ointments that arrived at the old port from Spain.
Montemartini Museum: classical art in an industrial building
Die Veneris
In this anti-Rome guide, Paris, poor as it is, doesn't spend a lot of money. A fixed, on Fridays, is to eat at the Quagliaro, located in the Quarticciolo neighborhood . Quail are tasted there. Also toasts with butter and anchovies . Popular deal, eat a volta. Roman cuisine, homemade, with checkered paper tablecloths and no prices on the menu. The Mangiarozzo (the antithesis of Gambero Rosso , a kind of Michelin Guide) is a book that can help you find restaurants like this. Don't buy it in a bookstore either because there are stalls everywhere where they sell it used, stained and torn.
Corviale, that kilometric building carried out to store thousands of Italians
Dies Saturni
The week is over, and with it the feeling of being all in a loop returns. Clean air is breathed, Romanesco dialect is spoken , insults are made, voices are raised, clothes are hung out, people go barefoot, the sharpener passes by the oldest barbershop in the city, a place so distant and at the same time close to the twilight light that the Trevi Fountain spits out.
Saturday is a day to go to the market in Piazza Vittorio, and negotiate fish, buy spices from all over the world and Romanian bacon. It is also not a bad option, at least for Paris, to visit in the area Portuense the Corviale , a building occupied by the underworld. Its dangerousness is not at odds with the perspective view from a distance, where it reminds of Le Vele (Naples, famous for Gomorrah). A snake of iron and cement that stops the air blown by the sea towards the city. Hence the constant suffocation in summer.
Aqueducts Park in Rome
Dies Solis
Sunday, Lord's Day . Appropriate time to take the first means of transport and walk one of the kilometer-long streets (this is why all roads lead to Rome): Prenestin, Casilin (it is accessed from the Laziale, the oldest tram in the city with almost a century), Laurentine or Tuscolona , from where you get to Aqueducts Park.
But Paris and his people, in summer, they are more from Ostia, place where Pasolini lived. To get there, it is advisable to take the Trenino del Mare from the Pirámide metro station. In the afternoon, on our way back, we must make a stop to eat a rice ice cream at the Palazzo del Freddo Giovanni Fassi , an ice cream parlor that dates back to 1880. Once this moment of ephemeral art is over, also ideal for combating the autumn blues, it is convenient to return home while thinking of those hundreds of tourists lining up to see the Sistine Chapel after having a dry pizza.. . “And they will think that they have known Rome…”, Paris would say, if it had existed.
PS: Pier Paolo Pasolini posthumously dedicated the film to Pope John XXIII.
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