Fatal Charms

Going back to that whole Cleopatra business and farther, Rome has held a certain fascination for things Egyptian. Remnants of that fascination are still evident around the city. Purloined obelisks and Egyptian purple marble can be found all over town. Down a narrow street from the Pantheon, is a yard long stone and sandaled foot, the only visible remains of an old temple to Isis. There’s even a pyramid. There actually used to be several of them but only this one remains. 27 meters tall and built of marble in the 1st Century for praetor and tribune Gaius Cestius, it was later incorporated into the Aurelian Wall that protected and still surrounds the city. At the base of this mammoth tomb sits the Protestant Cemetery.
Cimitero Acottolico per gli Straneiri al Testaccio (The non-Catholic cemetery for foreigners in Testaccio) is the final resting spot of around 4000 souls, none Italian and none Catholic. Originally reserved for Protestants and the Orthodox, a scattering of Hebrew and Arabic headstones illustrate the relaxing of those initial proscriptions. The earliest stones date from the 1730’s and the most recent I could find was from 2007. At one time, the Catholic church stipulated that all burials had to take place after dark and reserved the right of censorship over tomb decorations and epitaphs. The cemetery is home to a few luminaries, Keats and Shelley the most prominent (Although actually, only a small but vital part of Shelley is buried here. More on that later.), Mostly it’s filled with folks unknown but no less mourned.

The cemetery is divided into two parts. The Old Cemetery, lying at the base of the pyramid is bright, pleasant, and spacious, dotted with cypress trees. It seems like a great place for a picnic. Shelley wrote that “it might make one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.” The headstones here are lightly spread with lots of green space in between. Off in one corner is the tomb of Keats, a popular visiting spot, although it doesn’t carry his name . Feeling unappreciated by his critics in the months preceding his death from tuberculosis, he fashioned his own epitaph: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” Upon his passing, his friends begrudgingly honored his request, editing a bit and adding that the grave contained “all that was mortal of a young English poet who… in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies” opted for anonymity.

Contrasted to the openness of the Old Cemetery, the New Cemetery is shadowy, overgrown, and claustrophobic. In use since 1822 (Keats, dying in 1821, just snuck in across the way), it’s not a particularly large cemetery but it’s bigger than it looks. Planted thick with trees and stones, cramped close together on a sloping hillside, little more than six inches separates its many plots. The graveled footpath is narrow and has a tendency to come and go so that often it’s hard to tell whether one’s on the path or walking across the edge of a grave. Like a number of spaces in Rome, it’s home to a host of stray cats who lend a curious ambiance to the place. There’s something a little unsettling about standing with all those gravestones at your feet, and suddenly realizing that something is brushing against your ankles.

One of the earliest residents, Shelley is buried on the highest ground against the brick wall. Actually, only his heart is buried there. He was cremated after drowning in the Ligurian Sea in 1822 and his heart was brought here for burial by his friend Edward Trelawney. When Trelawney died 59 years later, he was buried a few feet away.
There are a few folks of some fame scattered about. The American sculptor and poet William Story’s last work is Angel of Grief, the statue that adorns the grave he shares with his wife. Julius August Goethe, son of the German author is buried nearby, his name attesting to his father’s love of the city. Mostly though, the names don’t conjure up any recollection of history or accomplishment. Just names. Still, and maybe because of that, the place is fascinating. I’ve spent hours here on a few occasions, picking my way through the stones, calculating life spans and reading epitaphs. Monuments run the gamut from resolute to maudlin to heartbreaking. Many mention the departed’s passing or burial in his or her “beloved Rome.”
I suppose a number of the world’s great cities exert a pull on those outside their culture but Rome seems to be particularly attractive. Part of that is undoubtedly the density of art and architecture it holds in a relatively small space, but I think it’s important not to underestimate the subtle appeal in the fact that it’s all hanging on a spine of ruin. Chunks of marble litter some parts of town and serve as makeshift benches. Old arches and porticos are squeezed by narrow streets. Old columns absorbed by churches just a bit younger.

While the famous monuments attest to the grandeur of the Empire, they also point to the fact that when the Empire fell, it fell hard, only to suffer centuries of sacks and sieges, political infighting, religious power struggles and plain old neglect. Back street curio shops still carry copies of 18th century etchings of the unexcavated forum, cattle grazing amidst the half-buried remains of temples. Grafitti scratches mar wonders from the Colloseum to the Rafael rooms in the Vatican. It’s all very Ozymandian. There’s a certain irony in that Eternal City tag, but there's a certain romance in that crawl towards decay.
A movie called Rueben, Rueben came out twenty years or so ago starring Tom Conti as a dissipated Welsh poet on the slide and working the college circuit while he circled the drain. Towards the end he recites one of his poems (If I remember correctly, the movie was based on a Peter DeVries story so they were probably his words) in which he invites a lover to join him in setting a picnic on the precipice where they can dangle their feet into the void (or something like that). I think that same sentiment gives Rome what Shelley referred to as its “fatal charm.” While it unquestionably sports La Dolce Vita, it does so against a backdrop of tattered and ruined beauty. There’s something charming about the tension between the two.
Late last week a half dozen of us met for pizza. We were saying goodbye to a friend who was moving back to Scandanavia. At one point I looked around the table and realized that with one exception we were all from elsewhere and different elsewheres at that. I was sitting next to a young Russian woman who I knew but not well and we were talking about how we got here. I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went but at one point she said, without melodrama or callous, that she had come to Rome to die. It was a few years ago and she was feeling pretty dissipated herself at the time. The logic was if she was going to wait around for her exit, Rome would be a good place to do it. Thankfully, passing on is no longer on her to-do list and she’s looking to move on (in this life, that is) but the episode echoed that charm. Not necessarily enough to distract one from the passing of time, but enough to keep one occupied.

After dinner I decided to take a stroll. A week or so ago it seemed like spring was about to bloom but this night it was back to winter. Still, it was a dry night and pleasantly crisp and it seemed like a good idea to at least try to walk off that pizza. Eventually I found myself across town on the Ponte St. Angelo, marveling (again) at St. Peter’s dome. A little wind on the water and some pondering of the eternal verities, not a bad way to cap off the evening. Cooler still, twenty feet away a street guitarist was doling out Albinoni’s Adagio. Heck, I could have been thinking about mashed potatoes and it would have still been sublime.