WALKING IN THE VICINITY OF SANTA TRINITA' DEI MONTI

written by Rosie Lehmahn  for © Nerone the Insider's Guide to Rome

 

As the access to the Spanish Steps is closed, it would, perhaps, be an ideal opportunity to explore the lateral approach to the Convent of SS Trinita dei Monti. The entrance to the Convent is up some steps to the left of the main entrance to the church. However, the convent is only open on Thursday mornings. Be sure to be there at 11am otherwise you will be denied admittence by an angry-faced nun. However persist! The convent of Santa Trinita dei Monti The Convent of Santa Trinita dei Monti was originally established as a monastery for a minor order founded by Saint Francis di Paola, who is rapresented in an extraordinary anamorphic fresco on the wall of an upper floor gallery overlooking a courtyard. The fresco is painted in steep perspective. Viewed from an oblique angle the saint is clearly visible, but when the spectator faces the fresco directly the saint vanishes and is replaced by a mountainous landscape, dotted with miniature figures. The landscape is that of Sain Francis's native Calabria, while the figures enact scenes from his life. The fresco dates from the first half of the seventeenth century and was painted by a resident monk, one Jean Francois Niceron. In another part of the convent, at present not shown, are frescoes in the Stanza delle Rovine by the french artist Charles Louis Clerissau painted about 1767. Clerissau was an associate of Robert Adam and the Piranesi, and the decoration of the room reflects the fascination of this period with antique ruins. The interior is conceived as the crumbling shell of an ancient Roman chamber, with exposed timbers, disintegrating masonary, and gaps in the walls and ceiling providing views of the sky and an imaginary landscape. The interior served as a bedchamber, commissioned from Clerissau by its then occupant, a scientist-monk, and contained a suite of specially designed furniture, sadly now dispersed, in the form of broken columns and other architectural fragments. There, in a niche in the wall, a painted dog still faithfully guards his dead master's room. Leaving the convent turn left past the church and into the little piazza by the Hassler Hotel. Directly in front of you, on the corner separating the Via Sistina from the Via Gregoriana, is a house with a delightful little rounded portico. This is belived to have been designed by Filippo Juvara in 1711 for the widowed queen Maria Casimira of Poland. The house itself, the Palazzo Zuccari, is said to have been built in the sixteenth century by the artist Federico Zuccari as his residence and studio. The door of its main, Via Gregoriana, facade is made to represent the face of a monster. Reynolds lived here 1752-3; the famous German archaeologist Winkelmann lived here 1755-68; so did Angelica Kauffman. In 1900 it was bought by Erichetta Hertz, who left her library with the palace to the German government. The biblioteca Hertziana is now one of the most famous art history libraries in the world. Via del Babuino If you have the time and inclination, retrace your steps past the Trinita dei Monti and down to Piazza di Spagna. Turn right in to the Via del Babuino where you must greet and commiserate with the battered baboon (babuino), the figure of Silenus reclining above a marble fountains filled with acqua vergine who, centuries ago, gave his name to the street. Although he has lost both hands and is pitted and eroded enerywhere, the figure has stood up to the test of time better than other of the so-called speaking statues such as Pasquino and the Facchino. Indeed in certain lights he wears a crafty woodland smile and there is still something vigorous and indignant in the attitude of the statue, as if he wold like to spring up and chastise the rude boys who cover the wall behind him with their graffiti. Look for and turn right into the Vicolo Aliberti on your right which brings you, turning left, into the Via Margutta. The buildings on the right of the street have enormous windows, proclaiming them to be artists' studios; others are famous antique shops. Here, in the heart of the artists' quarter, about a third of the way down on the right you will find the fountain of the Rione of Campo Marzio. It represents three sculptors' stools and two easels, surmounted by a vase full of paint brushes. It was made in 1927 by Pietro Lombardi. If you walk to the end and out into and up Via del Babuino you will spot the Neo-Gothic English All Saints' Church built in 1882 by E.G.Street. It comes as rather a shock. The apse mosaic was designed by Burne-Jones and the ceramic tiles by William Morris. An Historic Cup of Coffee Time for a coffee at the nearby Caffe Greco. This first opened its doors in the middle of the eighteenth century. Some say it is the self same Cafe mentioned by Casanova in his memoires as the place where he waited long for an assignment in 1734. Certainly, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was the most famous establishment of its kind in Rome; the meeting place of Roman intellectuals and of the foreign writers and artists who flocked to the city. Goethe was an habitué, so was Gogol who used to draw pictures of the Roman Campagna on the marble table tops. Byron, Listz, Berlioz, Stendhal, Baudlaire and Wagner all foregathered there. Indeed, here the American sculptor William Story (buried in the Protestant Cemetery) introduced Hans Christian Andersen to Elisabeth Barrett-Browning over a cappuccino and cornetto in 1861. So, now why not go and add your name to that already impressive list, but be warned it is a little expensive.