Via Flaminia Archives - The Patroclus

August 23, 2022August 26, 2024

The Milvian Bridge at Feriae Augusti – when all roads lead OUT of Rome

During the holiday week of Ferragosto, we visited a semi-deserted Rome to see the Milvian Bridge, site of a crucial battle in 312 AD.

In August, accommodation in many parts of Italy changes from having been comparatively inexpensive to being breathtakingly expensive. And that is because in August there falls the holiday of Ferragosto, where everything closes down and everyone heads out of town.

Ferragosto has its origin in something in Ancient Rome called Feriae Augusti – the holiday of Augustus. When Octavius Caesar took over as emperor he renamed himself Augustus. He also renamed the month of Quintilis in the newly-reformed calendar after his predecessor Julius Caesar, so it became July, and he renamed the month of Sextilis after himself, so it became August. And because the hottest weather was in August and no-one felt like working, according to the popularly accepted story he decided to give all the working people of Rome a few days off, and gave himself the credit. It would have been marked by chariot races, and various religious festivals to honour harvest deities and the like. Needless to say there is debate about how accurate this account really is.

These days the 15th of August is Ferragosto and for a week or two on either side, factories close, public administration grinds to a halt and four out of five shops have signs in their windows saying chiuso per ferie (closed for holidays). Vast numbers of Italians head away, mostly to the coast but also to the mountains, and often to exactly the same place they have been going all their lives. It may be an urban myth, but there have even been stories of wanted criminals being captured in August because the police staked out the places they had been going to for holidays since they were children.

It would have been truly remarkable if the modern Ferragosto was an uninterrupted survival from antiquity – and it isn’t, of course. Or not much. What actually happened is that at first, like all other pre-Christian holidays, Feriae Augusti was incorporated into the Christian calendar, in this case being allocated to the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. No doubt under the new administration the festival retained some of the characteristics of the original, if for no other reason than that it was hot, no-one felt like working, and in any case the harvest was in.

Then, in the 1930s, the Fascist government decided to revive Feriae Augusti as a secular holiday. Like authoritarian social movements elsewhere they liked the idea of organised leisure for factory and farm workers, and thus many working class people experienced trips to mountains and the seaside for the first time. The Fascists were also enthusiastic about any links, actual or imagined, with ancient Rome, so the Feast of the Assumption got turned back into Feriae Augusti, or Ferragosto in modern Italian. Of course the religious festival is still observed, so it wasn’t an actual reversion to paganism.

After the war, the Italians had got rid of the Fascists but they found they liked the idea of shutting the whole country down for a holiday, so they kept it. And every year the cities empty, the roads clog and the beaches fill up with thousands of identical beach umbrellas, precisely arranged, where people can come back to the same position, next to the same people, every year. Most decent beaches in Italy are private property and are run as businesses, handed down through generations of the same families.

Beach Umbrellas, Cefalù, Sicily. Hasselblad 501C/M Camera, Zeiss Planar C 80mm lens, 6x6cm film back, Fujichrome Velvia 50 film (click to enlarge).

It slowly dawned on us that Rome was one of the few places in Italy where accommodation might actually get cheaper during August. And thus it proved.

We had read about how Rome is deserted during Ferragosto. Not the historic centre, because that is still full of foreign tourists, but everywhere else. We took that to be a bit implausible – after all, who could imagine Rome not being busy? But it really isn’t. The traffic was light on the Ring Road, and as we arrived in the inner northern area of Nomentano there was almost no-one on the roads. The photo below was taken from the middle of a road, the crossing of which would have been suicidal when we were last there in June.

Rome at Ferragosto — A Roman street at Ferragosto. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

All our favourite restaurants were closed, of course, but the hotel directed us to one which was open and which proved to be a decent little Roman trattoria. And a Sicilian cafe on the corner was open for breakfast pastries and evening aperitivi, so the necessities of life were available.

The Via Giulia, Rome. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

A visit to Central Rome was a bit of a contrast. While the back streets might be quiet, in the Trevi Fountain – Pantheon – Piazza Navona triangle there was a full load of tourists surging back and forth like the tides. And because this was the time of the northern hemisphere summer holidays, a high proportion of the crowd was made up of junior bogans of all nations. And they were making full use of the greatest menace in Rome this year – electric bikes and scooters. The scooter riders were the worst. They tore along both the streets and the pavements at stupid speeds, and when they had got where they were going they abandoned the blasted things wherever they felt like it.

None of them were wearing protection for heads, elbows or knees, so I wonder how busy Rome’s hospital casualty departments are this summer. Italian local governments don’t have much patience for this sort of thing so I hope to read before long that e-scooters and e-bikes are being better regulated, and stupid behaviour thereon is attracting fines. After all, you can get fined for sitting on the Spanish Steps.

The photo below shows the Porta del Popolo, with a statue of St Peter vainly pointing out the part of the city by-laws dealing with electric scooters.

The next day we decided to take advantage of the lack of crowds to do our own tour of Rome on public transport. The hop-on-hop-off Rome tourist buses cost €15-20 or more, but we paid €7 each for a 24 hour ticket and had many more options than the tourist bus. We started by taking the number 61 bus which took us around the old Aurelian Walls of Rome for a bit, then entered the central city through the Porta Pia, the gate where Italian troops forced entry to Rome to defeat Papal forces in one of the later episodes of Italian unification in 1870. The bus then bounced along some rather potholed downtown streets before taking us through the Borghese Gardens and depositing us in the “Viale Giorgio Washington” just outside the Porta del Popolo.

That is where the old Roman military road, the Via Flaminia, left the city on its way north. Its dead straight path out of Rome is followed by the modern road, which still bears its name. The number 2 tram goes along it, so we jumped on board.

Start of Via Flaminia — The start of the Via Flaminia, looking north from the Porta del Popolo in Rome. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

The tram took us past some grandiose buildings housing government ministries, and some seedy low-cost housing. Out here the Ferragosto effect was very much in force and pretty much every shop and bar was closed and shuttered. A bit like Canberra in the first week of January.

But the main reason we had gone there was because I wanted to see the bridge where the Via Flaminia crosses the Tiber. It is called the “Milvian Bridge”, or the Ponte Milvio in modern Italian. It is much repaired and remodelled since antiquity, and no longer carries vehicular traffic. Some time in the Middle Ages it was partially destroyed by one of the leading Roman families, to force traffic to use the Ponte Sant’Angelo which was in territory they controlled. Nonetheless some of the stonework around the arches looks as if it might be original.

Ponte Milvio (Milvian Bridge) — The Ponte Milvio. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

The old bridge has seen a lot. This was where the legions marched away to conquer Europe, or rebel troops like those of Julius Caesar entered Rome in defiance of the Senate.

As a defensible entry point to Rome it was the site of military actions over the centuries, and the most famous battle was in 312 AD between two rival emperors, Constantine and Maxentius. Constantine won and later claimed to have been inspired by a vision of the Christian cross. He then revoked the remaining restrictions on Christianity and started it on its way to becoming the established religion. As a result the “Battle of the Milvian Bridge” is much celebrated in religious art. Some paintings show Maxentius’s troops seeing the vision of the cross as well, throwing down their weapons and running away. Which is a bit unfair on them.

According to some accounts I have read, Maxentius had actually demolished part of the stone bridge and replaced it with a wooden pontoon bridge, which collapsed when he tried to bring his army back across it. You can see a discussion of the battle in a YouTube video here.

The Ponte Milvio and the Via Flaminia leading north from the Piazza del Popolo (source: Google Maps).

Since his defeat, Maxentius’s reputation was systematically dismantled with a Soviet-style rewriting of history. Some modern historians are trying to rescue his reputation, pointing out that the edict of toleration for Christianity, long attributed to Constantine, was very likely issued by Maxentius. You can see a very interesting discussion of this subject in a YouTube video here.

In addition, Constantine’s personal commitment to Christianity is debated. It may well just have been political pragmatism on his part, since Christianity was well on its way to becoming the dominant religion anyway, at least in terms of the number of adherents. At a time when his legitimacy might have been in question, getting a substantial part of the population on his side would have been a smart move.

There is no doubt though that his mother and daughters were enthusiastic Christians – his mother, the Empress Helena (Saint Helena to the church) paid a visit to the Holy Land and, without any obvious evidence, pronounced that manky old bit of wood to be the True Cross, and that scrubby old hill to be the site of Golgotha, here the Last Supper, there the Holy Sepulchre, and so forth. Most of her topological identifications are still observed by tradition, so she was pretty influential too. One of Constantine’s daughters was Costanza, and one can still visit her beautiful mausoleum in the Via Nomentana. I shall include that in a separate post on Paleochristian sites in Rome.

Edit: I have now posted that article and you can find it here.

The other thing that Constantine did was to move the imperial capital away from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople, after himself.

Looking down from the bridge at the Tiber now it seems hard to imagine two armies engaging on the steep banks, but those are artificial, the river having been embanked some time in the 19th Century.

Tiber from Milvian Bridge — The Tiber from the Ponte Milvio. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Another military engagement is commemorated on a plaque at the northern end of the bridge. In 1849, when France and Austria came to the aid of the Papacy to snuff out the self-proclaimed and short-lived Roman Republic, a party of Garibaldi’s troops sabotaged the bridge to prevent enemy troops crossing the river.

Commemorative inscription on the Ponte Milvio — Commemorative Inscription on the Ponte Milvio. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Once we had caught the tram back we passed through the gate into Piazza del Popolo and suddenly we were back into a Rome that was heaving with tourists. There are a couple of ritzy cafes beside the Piazza – the sort of places where the waiters wear uniforms and you pay more for a glass of prosecco than you would pay for the whole bottle in a supermarket. I was reminded of the travel writer H.V. Morton’s observation that at Florian’s Cafe in St Mark’s Square in Venice, the waiter serves your coffee “with the air of some grandee doing it for a wager”. This place had the same sort of feeling.

Despite the prices it was nice to sit looking out on the Piazza del Popolo with a drink and a sandwich. We were watching a couple of immigrants trying to sell roses to female tourists. They weren’t getting many takers. Then a sudden storm broke and for a moment all was confusion as the tourists rushed for shelter. Although we had only been distracted for a moment, by some conjuring trick the immigrants’ roses had magically been replaced by umbrellas.

July 26, 2022June 21, 2024

The Ponte Fonnaia on the Via Flaminia

Tucked away in an Umbrian wood is a two thousand year old bridge – the Ponte Fonnaia – that bore the legions northwards from Rome on the Via Flaminia.

This is intended as a brief postscript to Carsulae – On the Legions’ Road to Rimini. In that original post we visited the ruins of the Roman town of Carsulae, and I indulged in some flights of fancy inspired by Rudyard Kipling. We ended the post with an imagined legion marching away through the north gate of the town, and disappearing into the woods along the Via Flaminia, the great military road that linked Rome with north-east Italy.

Then more recently a friend told me about an intact Roman bridge a few miles north of Carsulae, so I decided to go and find it.

Finding it turned out to be very easy – it is close to an exit from the E45 motorway near the town of Massa Martana. Although at first when I got to the spot I couldn’t see any bridge. It turned out that the area in which you park your car is almost on top of it.

Unlike the Roman Bridge at Pesciano, which is showing the effect of recent restoration, the Ponte Fonnaia looks agreeably old and atmospheric.

The bridge takes the road across a small river – a torrente – called the Naja or Naia which flows down into the Tiber near Todi. It is dry in summer, so you can actually walk under the bridge.

According to the signage at the site, and a web page published by the local municipality, the original bridge was built at the same time as the Via Flaminia, that is around 220 BC. However the structure that is there now dates from a campaign of repairs and upgrades to the road that occurred in 27 AD in the reign of Augustus.

If you do walk under the bridge and look carefully you will see that the stones are inscribed with letters, some of which are Roman numerals (in many cases they are hard to make out due to age).

I have read that this is because Roman military engineers took a very organised and standardised approach. When the stones were quarried, they were cut to size at the quarry, and inscribed to show their intended location in the finished bridge.

The stones were then shipped to the building site where they could be quickly assembled like an IKEA bookcase, and the construction team could move on to the next job. I do not know whether this is a hypothesis or historically attested fact, but it seems very plausible – we know that Roman military engineers were strong on standardisation.

To the north of here, the Via Flaminia is mostly hidden under modern roads. But to the south, in the direction of Carsulae, it remains a quiet unmade country road, as in the photographs below. It isn’t hard to imagine our imagined Roman legion appearing around the bend, swinging along on the march.

July 1, 2022February 15, 2024

Foligno: The Palazzo Trinci and the Hall of the Liberal Arts

The Palazzo Trinci in Foligno has a chequered history but preserves some of the greatest examples of late Medieval humanist art.

If you are in Umbria visiting towns like Perugia, Assisi or Spoleto, you might not consider adding Foligno to your itinerary. It doesn’t sit prettily on top of a hill, to start with, and with its valley-floor location it is surrounded by industrial areas. So for us at first Foligno was somewhere we went when we needed shops. This turned out to be a mistake – the historic centre has some wonderful medieval buildings, and as I posted here it hosts one of the more impressive historical re-enactment festivals. It also features a remarkable building and museum in the Palazzo Trinci, of which more later.

Being flat gives Foligno a different character to that of its Umbrian neighbours. The locals get around the historic centre on bicycles, and this makes it feel a bit like a northern Italian town – say Cremona or Treviso. Its being flat might also give your calf muscles some relief after a series of visits to Umbrian hill towns.

Foligno duomo — Foligno Duomo. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

A brief History of Foligno

Like many other towns in Umbria, Foligno – ancient Fulginium, or Fulginiae – was founded by the Umbri in prehistory and absorbed into the Roman state in the Third Century BC. It was the point where the eastern and western branches of the Via Flamina reunited after passing either side of the Martani hills, and would also have been where the road from Perugia joined the Flaminia, so it would have been at an important crossroads.

Foligno Palazzo Trinci — Part of a mosaic floor from the Roman town of *Forum Flaminiae*, on display in the Palazzo Trinci museum, Foligno. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

After suffering the usual despoliation at the hands of invaders in the Dark Ages, Foligno recovered and for a while became an independent player in the Guelph vs. Ghibelline power politics of Central Italy. In due course it was absorbed into the Papal States like every other town in the region.

The Trinci Family

From the 12^th to the 15^th Centuries, political evolution in central and northern Italy often took the same sort of path. Towns and cities developed the institutions of self-government – administration, courts, a militia or army. In many places one or more families would become wealthy and powerful, but would exercise that power through domination of those institutions and patronage rather than assuming power formally.

Families would seek advantage over rival families, and cities over rival cities, by allying themselves with one of the two “superpower” factions – the Papacy (the Guelphs) or the Holy Roman Empire (the Ghibellines).

Events in Foligno followed that conventional course. In the early 1300s the Trinci family were rivals with the Anastasi family for control of Foligno. Originally Ghibellines, the Trinci switched sides to the Guelphs in order to gain the assistance of Perugia and Spoleto to run the Anastasi out of town. For the next century and a half the Trinci ran Foligno until they fell out with the Papacy, at which point a papal army took the town, the last of the Trinci line was imprisoned and murdered, and a papal governor took over.

The Palazzo Trinci

Like other de facto Italian rulers at the time such as the Medici, the Trinci built an imposing palace in town, right next to the “official” city government buildings.

Or rather they didn’t exactly build it. They acquired an existing palace which had been created by merging several existing residential buildings, and then they renovated it. And what renovations they were. A grand gothic façade (unfortunately replaced by a neoclassical façade after earthquake damage in 1832), an absolute jewel box of a chapel, a private covered passage linking the palace to the Duomo (cathedral) next door, and a magnificent Gothic style internal staircase linking three floors of the building. All of those I will deal with in another post, because today I propose to talk about the so-called “Hall of the Liberal Arts”.

A Miraculous Survival

But first I should observe how miraculous it is that the Palazzo Trinci and its artworks should have survived at all, after the damage it received from war, the violence of nature and the malice and ignorance of humanity.

Major earthquakes damaged the building in 1477, 1703 and 1832. The roof fell in during a storm in 1899. And in 1944 bombs fell on the buildings at the rear of the complex, and on the town hall just in front.

More damage came through deliberate actions. After Foligno was brought under direct papal rule the Palazzo Trinci became the seat of the papal governors, and many of the frescoes associated with the Trinci were defaced. In the 1470s Pope Sixtus IV moved his residence to the palace during an outbreak of plague in Rome – and ordered that all surviving references to the Trinci be removed and replaced with references to him. Not only that but in one inscription he even claimed that the splendour of the palace was his own doing!

Worse was to come. In the late 18^th Century the papal governor – a man of obvious taste and discrimination – decided that the place was looking a bit old-fashioned and had all the frescoes whitewashed over. Part of the building was converted to a jail, with inadequate sewage. Items from the archaeological collection were sold to wealthy foreigners. Even after Italian reunification and the end of Papal rule the building was to suffer further insult, being allowed to deteriorate further while housing shops, a theatre, the police headquarters and the Guardia di Finanza.

Rehabilitation of the building started towards the end of the 19^th Century and the frescoes were uncovered and partly restored in the 1930s and 1950s. However in the 1980s the roof fell in again and it was only after the 1990s that a decade-long restoration brought the building to its current state in which it became the municipal museum.

The Hall of the Liberal Arts

The high point of the Trinci fortunes came at the end of the 1300s and the beginning of the 1400s when the head of the family was Ugolini III Trinci. After conducting successful campaigns in central Umbria on behalf of the Papacy he received many honours and rewards, and life in the Palazzo Trinci started to look a bit more like that of a court.

Men of letters and artists were attracted there – people who think the Renaissance started later and in Florence might say it was a bit early to call them “humanists”, but the whole thing has a Renaissance feel to it. Two particularly noteworthy associates were the poet Federico Frezzi and the artist Gentile da Fabriano.

Frezzi wrote a laudatory poem called Quadriregio which praised Ugolino and made references to the Trinci’s claims, made by all great families at the time, to origins in mythological antiquity. In particular the Trinci traced their line back to Romulus, and the story of Romulus was illustrated by Gentile da Fabriano in one of the halls, including the story of the Trojan woman and Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia who was made pregnant by the god Mars and bore the twins Romulus and Remus (and was then executed for betraying her Vestal vow of chastity).

Execution of Rhea Silvia — The execution of Rhea Silvia, Palazzo Trinci, Foligno. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

In the photograph above, the ochre drawings visible where the plaster has fallen away (known as “sinopia”) have not been added by modern restorers. They are the drawings by the original artist before the wet plaster was applied, over which they would then quickly paint. They only become visible if the plaster is damaged and falls away.

The traditional execution method for an unchaste vestal was suffocation by being buried alive, hence the pit to which she is being dragged. It seems an odd way to celebrate a woman one is claiming as one’s ancestress, by having a large picture of her execution in the house, but tastes change. In any case the artist’s depiction of everyone in contemporary late 14th-Century dress makes it very interesting.

Gentile da Fabriano was a leading exponent of the late-Medieval style known as “International Gothic”. He was employed to decorate a large hall in the Palazzo – then the library, it is now known as the “Hall of the Liberal Arts” after his frescoes. Although Frezzi’s Quadriregio is lost, it is thought that much of Gentile’s work is derived from the poem.

The main feature of the hall is seven portraits – personifications of the seven liberal arts. These were divided into two groups. The early arts (known as the Trivium, or three paths) were Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric. The later arts (the Quadrivium, or four paths) were Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy.

Palazzo Trinci Rhetoric and Mathematics — Palazzo Trinci, Rhetoric (L) and Arithmetic (R). Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

By the way, when the Quadrivium was introduced, there was some resistance from older scholars. Younger scholars responded by suggesting that the Trivium was superficial and lightweight in comparison. “Trivial“ therefore became a term of intellectual abuse. The Palazzo Trinci frescoes do not weigh in to the debate other than to put the Quadrivium closer to the centre of the composition, implying that they are further up in the hierarchy.

But in the centre of the composition, and therefore queen of all the disciplines, was Philosophy. This, alas, was damaged beyond repair at some point. We are fortunate that in the 1770s a scholar called Ludovico Coltellini sketched various parts of the frescoes, including the head of Philosophy – a beautiful crowned woman – and his notebook survived.

Palazzo Trinci Filosofia — Sketch of Philosophy by Ludovico Coltellini, 1770s. Phone camera (click to enlarge)

The fact that Philosophy was still intact in the 1770s suggests that the damage probably occurred in the earthquake of 1832.

Palazzo Trinci Astronomy — Palazzo Trinci, Astronomy (detail). Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Each liberal art is represented by a female figure, sometimes attended by another figure, either a student or practitioner.

Palazzo Trinci Geometry — Palazzo Trinci, Geometry (detail). Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Below are Music and Logic. Music is playing a portative organ and a chime of bells, and she is clearly getting into it, or as a former conductor of ours used to say, “giving it some welly”. Logic is an older woman holding snakes. Not sure why, although Cristina Galassi (see “further reading”, below) suggests that this suggests the sophisticated deception of words. Maybe using logic to defeat deception is like wrestling with snakes.

Palazzo Trinci Music — Palazzo Trinci, Music. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

Palazzo Trinci Logic — Palazzo Trinci, Logic. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Grammar is a teacher instructing a child, holding the book for him as he traces the words on the page.

Palazzo Trinci Grammar — Palazzo Trinci, Grammar. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

A Town Called Bastard

In central Italy, nestled in the green rolling hills of Umbria, is a town called Bastardo – “Bastard”. Yes, really.

If you were in Umbria at any time in the last two millennia, travelling north on the original route of the Via Flaminia, the old military road from Rome to Ravenna, at some point you would have to cross from west to east from the Middle Tiber Valley to the Valle Umbra.

The two valleys run north-south, and are separated by a range of hills called the Colli Martani. In the south, near Terni, the hills are high and steep and appropriately enough known as the Monti Martani. Only about halfway up, a bit north of Carsulae, do the mountains descend into hills and form a saddle which wheeled traffic and marching legions might have crossed without major delays.

Near Bastardo — In the Martani Hills near Bastardo. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

So that’s where the Roman military engineers put the road, and where generations of travellers followed. And while today the heavy traffic thunders along either the E45 or SS3 motorways, around here the route of the old Roman road is mostly followed by the modest (and badly pot-holed) Strada Regionale 316.

The empire fell, the legions demobilised for ever, and for hundreds of years the only marching feet on the road were those of invaders – Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Byzantines, Germans, French and Austrians. And French and Germans again.

But there were still the tramping feet of pilgrims, and the plodding hooves and rumbling cart wheels of trade. And so it was that three or four hundred years ago an entrepreneurial person of uncertain parentage decided to open a coaching inn and stables at a crossroads. If that innkeeper’s name and the name of his inn are known then I have been unable to find them. But in any case it seems that everyone just called it Osteria del Bastardo, or “Inn of the Bastard”.

In time, other businesses and dwellings sprang up around the inn. These days it is a town which clearly makes a decent living from servicing the agricultural area round about.

Around the outskirts are businesses which look as if they would be able to sell you a piece of farm machinery, or repair it, and as you approach the town you are likely to get stuck behind a huge tractor towing a complicated-looking piece of farm equipment. In line with its comparatively recent origins, there do not seem to be any particularly old buildings in town. There is a baroque-style church at the eastern end of the town, but it is built of rather modern-looking bricks (by “modern”, I mean some time in the last three hundred years).

In the 1920s, somehow the Osteria bit was dropped, and the officially-gazetted name of the town is now simply “Bastardo”.

Approaching it from the south the SR 316 does a bit of a dog-leg, but there is a narrow, perfectly straight lane that cuts the corner, and which I was delighted to see is called Via Flaminia Vecchia (the Old Via Flaminia).

Bastardo Via Flaminia Vecchia — Bastardo, Via Flaminia Vecchia. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

I have not been able to identify the site of the original inn, but it was presumably near the main crossroads, and there is a “Hotel Bar Dany” there which, although occupying a building from the 1960s or 70s, is at the very least a spiritual successor to the Osteria del Bastardo. I suppose I could have gone in and asked if Dany was descended from the original bastard, but there would have been too much potential for misunderstanding.

Bastardo, Hotel Bar Dany. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

The Colli Martani around here are attractive and gently rolling, mostly covered in grapevines and olive trees. The wines are pleasant enough and good value, and DOC status has been granted to wines made from locally-grown Sangiovese, Grechetto, Trebbiano and Vernaccia grapes. One enterprising winemaker has called his wine Rosso Bastardo, and while its claims to worldwide fame are probably a bit overstated, I’m sure something called “Bastard Red” would sell all right in Australia.

Rosso Bastardo. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Apparently every now and then some high-minded citizens try to build support for renaming the town to something a bit more dignified, but these efforts have never quite succeeded, and so it remains a town called “Bastard”.

June 7, 2019November 19, 2023

Carsulae: On the Legions’ Road to Rimini

I’d been meaning to visit the ruins of the ancient town of Carsulae for almost a year. It is mentioned in all the historical guides to Umbria, and every time we drive up or down the E45 motorway we see the signs to it. After an unusually cold and wet May, last Friday finally promised some fine weather, and we determined to go there.

We (that is, Lou and I and you, gentle reader) had our last good look at the Via Flaminia where it passes through the gorge of the River Nera below the town of Narni, still called the Via Flaminia, but also the Strada Statale 3 (SS3), carrying heavy goods traffic. As I have said in other posts, this was the major Roman military road in central Italy. It was built in 220 BC during the consulship of Gaius Flaminius, from whom it took its name. It went north from Rome through Umbria and crossed the Apennines near Iguvium (modern Gubbio), finishing at Ariminum (Rimini). From there the roads led north, towards the frontiers of the empire.

‘When I left Rome for Lalage’s sake
By the Legions’ Road to Rimini,
She vowed her heart was mine to take
With me and my shield to Rimini—
(Till the Eagles flew from Rimini!)
And I’ve tramped Britain, and I’ve tramped Gaul,
And the Pontic shore where the snow-flakes fall
As white as the neck of Lalage—
(As cold as the heart of Lalage!)
And I’ve lost Britain, and I’ve lost Gaul,
And I’ve lost Rome, and worst of all,
I’ve lost Lalage!’

That is an excerpt from a marching song of the Roman legions – at least as imagined by Rudyard Kipling in Puck of Pook’s Hill. It is overheard by the two children in the story as it is sung by Parnesius, the centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth Legion – the Ulpia Victrix.

I’ve just done a bit of googling on these chapters of Puck of Pook’s Hill, and needless to say various po-faced modern scholars have written papers on the bits that Kipling got wrong – apparently he overstated the height of Hadrian’s Wall by several feet. But there is something about the books you read as a child that penetrates deeply, and when it dawned on me that the Via Flaminia was in fact the “Legions’ Road to Rimini” of my childhood, the memories came straight back. I realised that when I imagine a legion swinging along on the march – the tramp of sandalled feet, the sound of metal armour on leather, the smell of sweat and dust – it is not some academically impeccable history that created those impressions for me, but Kipling. And I’ve always remembered that a legion marched a set distance each day. As Parnesius explains to the children:

“A Legion’s pace is altogether different. It is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset. “Rome’s Race—Rome’s Pace,” as the proverb says. Twenty-four miles in eight hours, neither more nor less. Head and spear up, shield on your back, cuirass-collar open one handsbreadth—and that’s how you take the Eagles through Britain.”

And through Italy too, of course.

The original route of the Via Flaminia led due north from Narni. Later, a more easterly alternative route was added which took in Interamna (Terni) and Spoletum (Spoleto), rejoining the original route a bit further north, but for now we will follow the original route. After crossing the plain of the lower Nera, the road starts to rise and runs over pleasant rolling country on the western side of the steep Martani Hills. There, about half a day’s march from Narni by Kipling’s reckoning, the legionaries would have come up a long hill and found themselves in the town of Carsulae. If it was on a warm day I hope that they got an early break and that there was some cool white wine available, made then as today from the local Grechetto grape variety – described by Pliny the Elder as “typical of the area”, and still available in the local supermarkets!

For much of this part of the Via Flaminia, it is followed closely or even covered over by modern roads such as the SS3 and the E45 motorway. It makes sense that they should all follow the same route in hilly country – after all, the topology imposes the same sort of constraints on modern engineers as it did on ancient ones.

However just before you get to Carsulae the old and new roads separate. The old road runs along by itself for a couple of kilometres through oak woods, and it is here that you can find the ruins of the old town.

Parking beside the modern road we walked to the archaeological site along a path through fields of young green barley, with poppies and wild orchids lining the path, and wild roses in the hedgerows.

It took some effort for me to try and mentally superimpose an image of bustling Roman Carsulae on what is now a sleepy rural scene. An oak wood has grown up within the northern boundary of the town, and a small flock of sheep and goats was grazing under the trees.

For me the best way to try and visualise it was to walk along the Via Flaminia as it goes through the middle of the town from south to north. You start by coming up a hill and then encounter the first ruins. If you turn around and look back down the hill, you are looking at the road from Rome.

Via Flaminia at Carsulae — Carsulae: looking back down the Via Flaminia in the direction of Narni and Rome. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Turn around again, and up to the left there are the remains of baths, built over natural springs. Away to the right is some slightly more modern architecture – the church of Saints Cosmas and Damiano, built in early Christian times on the foundations of an existing building, then extended in the 11^th Century using material scavenged from elsewhere on the site. Passing that, we get to the site of the forum, on raised ground to the left. Parts of it, including the entry arch, have been re-erected, which purists might object to but I don’t mind.

Carsulae Forum — Carsulae: the Via Flaminia passes the entrance to the forum. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 40mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Carsulae forum arch — Carsulae: looking east towards the amphitheatre from the forum. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Continuing uphill along the road you can see the remains of a theatre and amphitheatre off to the right, and then the road runs into the oak wood. Looking down you can see that the paving stones in the road are grooved by chariot and cart wheels, as they are at Pompeii.

Carsulae Via Flaminia — Carsulae: the Via Flaminia with wheel ruts. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

The road starts to run downhill again and you reach the remains of a substantial town gate, beyond which the road bears left into more oak woods. This is where the northbound legions would have passed on their way to Rimini and beyond. I have no idea whether the land was wooded or cleared in ancient times, but in my imagination I saw the legionaries marching away through the gate into the cool shade of the wood, to be lost from view.

Carsulae town gate — Carsulae: northern town gate. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Carsulae was abandoned by the 5th Century. The Wikipedia article says that the reason is unknown, but that it could have been destroyed by an earthquake, or during the wars and invasions at the end of the Roman era, or that it may have become impoverished after road traffic dwindled. Signs at the site say that the town was abandoned because its position in relatively open country meant that it could not be defended in troubled times.

Note, added January 2022: I am currently reading Tim Parks’ latest book The Hero’s Way in which he and a companion walk the route taken by Garibaldi and his men after escaping from Rome in 1849. It turns out that they came through Carsulae, so while my mental image of the legionaries marching away into the wood might have been a bit fanciful, the oak trees were probably there in 1849. So Garibaldi would have ridden under that arch, and led his force off into the shadows.

May 25, 2019November 19, 2023

A Visit to Narnia

We went to Narnia the other day – not in the conventional way through the back of a wardrobe, but in a Fiat Panda. Ancient Narnia, or modern Narni, is a place that illustrates the way the geography of Italy has shaped military and political strategy, and in turn the geopolitics of Italy at various critical times. It is also a pretty medieval town.

In peninsular Italy – that part south of the Po Valley – the mountains all run roughly north-south. This means it is hard to move overland in an east-west direction, and easier to move north-south, but your opportunities to do so are constrained to certain valleys and passes. Which in turn means that certain places are natural choke-points. One such – in 1944 as well as in the Middle Ages – is Cassino, between Naples and Rome. Narni is another.

Narni sits on high ground on the edge of a deep ravine through which the River Nera – a tributary of the Tiber – flows south out of Umbria into Lazio. It is literally on the edge of the ravine; houses and palaces on the western side of the old town, including the Eroli Museum, look straight down into it. To the north and east of the town is the valley of the lower Nera, which, although surrounded by mountains, contains a good deal of industrial development. On the plain around Narni is the modern industrial town of Narni Scalo, which makes getting a decent photograph of or from the old town something of an exercise in artful composition.

Narni from the Rocca Albornoz. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

To the northeast, at the other end of the valley, is the town of Terni, the provincial capital (Umbria is divided into two provinces: Perugia and Terni). Thanks to nearby sources of hydro-electricity, Terni was a centre of industrialisation and was known as “The Manchester of Italy”. Unfortunately, one of the industries was arms manufacturing, as a result of which Terni was heavily bombed during the Second World War, destroying much of its medieval centre.

Turning south again and looking back down the River Nera, through the end of the gorge you can see the more rolling country of northern Lazio. There is a road running along the side of the gorge; now carrying heavy road traffic, this is the Strada Statale 3 (SS3), which as I noted here is still known as the Via Flaminia, as when it was first built by the Romans in 220 BC. If you were a legionary marching from Rome to the northern Adriatic coast (and beyond to the eastern frontiers of the empire), this is the way you would come. And if you were a traveller in the other direction – in an army of barbarians after the fall of the empire, or a medieval pilgrim, this is one of the few roads by which you would approach Rome. If you were coming from France or Britain you would come by sea or over the western Alps on the Via Francigena.

Looking down the Nera Gorge from Narni — Looking south down the Nera Gorge towards Lazio and Rome. The road that runs along the side of the gorge is the Via Flaminia (modern SS3). Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Dominating Narni from an even higher point is a fortress or Rocca, of a type known as a Rocca Albornoz, of which there are several examples in central Italy, and of which there were once several more. This requires a bit of explanation.

Between 1309 and 1376 a series of seven popes ruled not from Rome but from Avignon. All were French. This happened as a result of some naked power politics from the French Crown, bringing the papacy under effective French control.

When a range of factors, including the influential advocacy of St Catherine of Siena, caused Pope Gregory XI to decide to end the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy” and return to Rome, Gregory faced several challenges. One was the re-establishment of political control over the Papal States – formerly independent states in central Italy which had been brought under secular papal rule, and which, during the exile in Avignon, had started to show renewed signs of independence.

Another challenge was how to rebuild the military capacity of the Papal States to defend themselves against invasions from the “Holy Roman Empire¹” in Germany.

Both these problems Gregory assigned to the eminently capable Spanish fighting prelate Cardinal Albornoz, a representative of the church militant if ever there was one. Albornoz built a series of fortresses in towns throughout central Italy, with the immediate purpose of subduing the local population, and the longer-term aim of defending the Papal territories against foreign incursions from the north. In time many of these became prisons and symbols of the suppression of intellectual and political freedoms under Papal rule. Apart from in Narni, you can see surviving examples of Albornoz Roccas in Assisi and Spoleto among other places. They are all similar in design, with few aesthetic embellishments as they were intended for rapid construction (the Narni Rocca went up in only five years) and were to be used by garrisons, not local aristocrats. The fact that they have square towers, not round ones, shows that they pre-date the widespread use of cannons in siege warfare (cannon balls are more likely to bounce off round towers).

Narni’s most famous son, born shortly before the papal return from Avignon, was the condottiere (mercenary military leader) Erasmo di Narni, better known to history as Gattamelata or the “honeyed cat”. After serving various rulers, Gattamelata worked for the Venetians and ended up as podestà (governor) of Padua. If you have been to Padua you may have seen the celebrated statue of him by Donatello outside the basilica of St Anthony. Incidentally, this was the first free-standing equestrian statue cast in bronze since ancient times; Donatello had to rediscover the technique.

Donatello's Statue of Gattamelata — Donatello’s statue of Gattamelata in Padua. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Sonnar 150mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

If you visit the Rocca of Narni, and are fortunate enough to have as a guide the same knowledgeable young lady that we did, she will point out where the original large stone blocks of the castle walls have been replaced with smaller, more haphazard stones. This marks rebuilding after the destruction of the Rocca, and much of the town, by the landsknechts forces of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, part of a much greater cultural and human catastrophe – the Sack of Rome in 1527. Guarding the approach to Rome was not a good thing if the invading forces turned out to be stronger than you.

Narni Rocca Albornoz — The Rocca Albornoz at Narni. The lower, lighter stones, are original. The higher, darker stones show the rebuilding after 1527. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

We can recommend a couple of places to visit in Narni. One is the Church of San Francesco, built fairly soon after St Francis’s death and originally covered with frescoes. While we were there a pleasant chap turned up, who turned out to be a custodian. He offered to open up the richly-decorated Eroli chapel for us which was a bonus as it is normally only open on weekends. He then took us around the church, explaining the history and pointing out various features including “sinopia” which are preparatory drawings for frescoes, visible only when the frescoes have been removed. He also explained that the poor condition of the frescoes is due in part to the fact that in the 17^th or 18^th century, they were all plastered over and the church redecorated in the baroque style. This vandalism only started to be undone in the 1950s, but there is still a long way to go. If you visit there, please be sure to make a donation to the fund for restoration of the frescoes.

St Francis Exorcises Arezzo — St Francis drives out the demons from Arezzo, Church of San Francesco, Narni. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Eroli Chapel, Narni — Ceiling of the Eroli Chapel, Church of San Francesco, Narni. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Next door to the Church of San Francesco is the other place we would recommend – the museum and gallery in the Palazzo Eroli. The collection is small and eclectic – from a pair of preserved mammoth tusks, through various bits of Roman stonework, some medieval and Renaissance art, some third-rate baroque religious art, some strange re-creations of relics from the Napoleonic conquest of Italy, through to some Second World War memorabilia. There are two highlights. One is a room where there is an Annunciation of Pinturicchio and a Crowning of the Virgin by Ghirlandaio, both from the 15^th Century. The other is the view from the windows on the west side of the building, which looks straight down into the gorge of the River Nera.

Coronation of the Virgin by Girlandaio — Coronation of The Virgin by Ghirlandaio, 1486. Palazzo Eroli Museum, Narni. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

After leaving the museum we walked around the medieval town; there is an old fountain, some impressive municipal buildings and an appealing little Romanesque church called Santa Maria Impensole, built in 1175 on an older site on which once stood, according to local tradition, a temple of Bacchus. It retains some of the form and components of the older building, including a classical-style portico.

Narni Palazzo del Podestà — Palazzo del Podestà, Narni. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Narni, Church of S Maria Impensole — Portico of S Maria Impensole, Narni, showing antique Roman inclusions. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

From there we walked along the northern town wall, enjoying the sunshine after a period of indifferent weather in this part of Italy, and the view of the mountains to the north and east. There we found a restaurant called “La Gallina Liberata” (the liberated hen) where we had a lunch of traditional Umbrian cooking which was excellent value.

Narni Looking North — Looking north along the old town wall, Narni. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

Note (¹) In the words of Voltaire, “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire”.

May 10, 2019March 3, 2024

Of Emperors and Onions

Last Tuesday we went to a town near us called Bevagna. There had been some unusually cold weather for May, so as we bounced along atrocious Umbrian back roads in bright sunshine, through the vineyards, olive groves and spring wildflowers of the Martani Hills, we could see fresh snow on the Apennine peaks across the valley.

Apennines from Colli Martani — The Apennines from the Colli Martani. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Sonnar CF 150 lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

Bevagna sits on the north-eastern side of the Colli Martani where the hills come down to what is now a fertile plain, but which, before being drained in the Middle Ages, was marshland. Across the valley are the towns of Spello and Assisi. Like many towns here Bevagna has exceedingly ancient pre-Roman beginnings, but in Roman times it was called Mevania and lay on the western branch of a principal military road, the Via Flaminia, the route of which still runs through the town.

After the end of the Roman period, being on the Via Flaminia ceased to mean that you were on the route by which the legions marched north, but rather that you were now on the route by which invading armies marched south (more on that one day). So Bevagna would have seen Goths and Lombards in the Dark Ages. In the early Middle Ages it was part of the Lombard Duchy of Spoleto, and in the later Middle Ages it was on the route of several campaigns by the Hohenstaufen Emperors in the struggles between Papacy and Empire (whose factions were the Guelphs and Ghibellines, respectively).

During some of these later incursions, the town was largely destroyed a couple of times, so although there are a few Roman remains, including some temple pillars which survived through being incorporated into a medieval building, these days the general air of Bevagna is of the (middle) Middle Ages. It sits within a medieval town wall, the River Clitunno (the Clitumnus of the ancients) flows past, and you enter through one of the town gates. It’s very pretty, and deservedly a member of I Borghi Più Belli d’Italia.

Bevagna San Silvestro Rear — Bevagna – the rear of the Church of San Silvestro. Hasselblad 501C/M, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)

If you enter the town from the south you cross a bridge over the Clitunno and there below is a weir which creates a reservoir for what Lou identified as a public laundry, surrounded on two sides by a stone wall with a flat top on which to pound the clothes.

Bevagana Public Laundry — Bevagna – The Public Laundry on the River Clitunno. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

The main piazza is particularly attractive, surrounded by several medieval buildings including two 12th Century Romanesque churches – both built by a local master craftsman by the name of Binello – and a Gothic town hall from the 13^th Century. All were damaged in the 1997 earthquake which so badly damaged the Basilica of Saint Francis at Assisi, but have now been restored. On the front of the church of San Silvestro is a stone bearing an inscription saying (I think; medieval Latin is not my strong point) that the church was commissioned in AD 1195 by the Emperor Henry, and built by Binello.

Bevagna Inscription on Church of San Silvestro — Inscription on the front of the Church of San Silvestro, Bevagna. Nokia 6.1 phone camera (click to enlarge)

The Henry in question would have been the Emperor Henry VI Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick Barbarossa and father of Frederick II “Stupor Mundi, the wonder of the world”, who was the child of Henry’s marriage to Constance de Hauteville of Sicily. I mentioned Constance in the post on the Normans in Sicily.

San Silvestro isn’t always open, but if it is you should definitely have a look inside. It is one of the most beautiful little Romanesque churches I have seen (NB: in architecture, “Romanesque” has nothing to do with the Romans, and “Gothic” has nothing to do with the Goths.)

Opposite San Silvestro is the church of San Michele Arcangelo which has around the door some wonderful carvings of the eponymous archangel taking on the devil in single combat. The stone carvings are original; the wood carvings are relatively modern, being a mere 500 years old.

Bevagna San Michele Arcangelo — Church of San Michele Arcangelo at Bevagna. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Planar C 80mm lens, Fuji Velvia 50 film (click to enlarge).

Not far from Assisi, Bevagna is the location where St Francis is supposed to have preached his famous sermon to the birds. There is a church dedicated to the saint elsewhere in the town – at some point (presumably either in the 17^th or the 18^th century) the interior was comprehensively renovated (or comprehensively ruined, depending on your taste) in the baroque style.

Apart from its being historic and beautiful, good reasons to visit Bevagna are its gastronomy and oenology. Although the wines of this part of Umbria are not particularly famous, apart from the Sagrantino of Montefalco, they are pleasant and good value. The reds are mostly based on the Sangiovese grape, while the whites, which are very good, are made from a grape called Grechetto which I have not seen a lot elsewhere in Italy. I have read that Grechetto was the grape used to make wine round here in antiquity, but I am not sure of the authenticity of the claim.

There are some good restaurants here. I have tried a couple, but the one we will come back to is “Antiche Sere” in Piazza Garibaldi. It is a small trattoria with a limited menu, but the food is very good and made from seasonal ingredients, which is as you would expect, since it is affiliated with the Slow Food Movement . Last time we visited, in October last year, I had an omelette with black truffle and Lou had pasta with pumpkin. This time I had fresh mozzarella with Cantabrian anchovies and Lou had strangozzi pasta with freshly-gathered wild asparagus, which is much thinner than the cultivated stuff. You see people gathering it at this time of year beside the roads.

Just down the road from Bevagna is a town called Cannara which is famous for its strongly flavoured onions. The picture below is of a poster for a shop in Cannara which sells them, and which was on display in the Antiche Sere. In translation, it reads “there are more tears in a Cannara onion than in a hundred love stories”.

Note: I updated this post in June 2022 to include the interior shot of the church of San Silvestro.

Category: Via Flaminia

The Milvian Bridge at Feriae Augusti – when all roads lead OUT of Rome

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The Ponte Fonnaia on the Via Flaminia

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