August 15, 2015
Even if I wanted to take public transportation to all the places I want to go in Rome, it would be hard for me to do: either there are too many connections, or the wait to the next bus is too long if I miss it; or the Metro is a good walk away. Notwithstanding, to get to the Villa d'Este by 11:30 a.m. this morning, I had to stop walking and get on the Metro B line, because Tiburtina, from where my train to the Villa d'Este departed, was just too far, even for a determined walker like me.
I left the apartment at 8:00 a.m., a good two and a half hours before my train was to leave Tiburtina at 10:33 a.m. I wrote out the directions I got from Google Maps and found them logical until I got to the end of Via Cavour: I could not find the next street in the directions and found myself at Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. I asked a variety of people for directions, but everyone gave directions inconsistent with the Google Maps directions so I thanked everyone, but pulled out a map. Santa Maria Maggiore was nearby so I walked there and asked two policemen patrolling the Piazza where Campo Praetorio and via della Universita were, telling them I wanted to get to Tiburtina.
"You don't want to walk there --it's too long to walk. Take the train to Tiburtina from Termini --it's right behind you, and it will cost you a Euro. That's a much better idea."
And so I went to Termini and got on the Metro B subway. In four stops I was at Tiburtina.
The walk to Termini was very enjoyable. Everyone says Rome shuts down on ferragosto, but that's not true. I got coffee in two places --one on viale Trastevere near my apartment, the other at Tiburtina. As a reward for getting up very early and beginning my walk in the coolness of the morning, I got to see more of Rome: I found a 24 hour pharmacy on via Brancaccio, I saw tourists everywhere and people going places. Rome is like New York: two cities so full of life there is always some activity going on. The major difference is that where most of what a visitor would want to see in New York City is on the island of Manhattan, in Rome it's as if all a visitor would want to see has been spread out around the five boroughs: it's more of an effort to get around.
My effort paid off with my making it to Tiburtina with plenty of time to spare and an easy stroll to my train, which was open and accepting passengers forty-five minutes before it pulled out of the station. The ride to Tivoli took 45 minutes, the walk to the Villa d'Este, fifteen.
I remember only the chapel next to the entrance to the Villa d'Este and the villa itself, nothing of Tivoli. Perhaps we took the bus, which lets passengers off very close to the villa. Tivoli is an affluent Italian small town of no particular charm. The mountains around it, however, are a Romantic poet's dream of the sublime. For the Romans, Tivoli was a summer retreat, the air and water said to be healthier than that of Rome. Indeed, looking out the windows of the villa, watching a heavy shower build and drench the Tiburtine Mountains and Tivoli before being blown away and sun come out, was proof of the marvelousness of the climate there.
The Villa d'Este itself remains my favorite "show house". It was built to resemble an antique villa, that is, a villa in ancient Rome, with grotesques and rocaille. However, it is the water displays that take my breath away. In a world coming to realize that water is an increasingly scarce resource, the lavishness of the water sprays of the Villa d'Este may be wasteful, but I would be sad to see these hydraulic beauties run dry.
It was sad enough that la civetta, the marvelous clock that turns a mechanical owl and other figures around, is out of order. How long has it been non-functional? I asked one of the women at the ticket counter. I don't know --it's under repair, she said, non-committally.
The combination of height, landscape, rock, water, gardens and home that is the Villa d'Este is spectacular, a Baroque stage set. It was the vision of the "almost Pope", Cardinal d'Este,who threw himself into building the villa after losing his bid for the Papacy. Appropriately enough, this year there is an exhibit of designs by another architect of the lavish stage set, Franco Zeffirelli. Several of the rooms on the ground floor contain sketches of his, along with costumes and a short film briefly showing scenes from all of his works for opera and film. The last shot is of a very old man with glasses who looks nothing like the 'boy wonder" Zeffirelli was: I saw him at his last appearance at Lincoln Center in 2008, when he autographed a print of his design for the set of Cavalleria Rusticana for me. The Metropolitan Opera threw a lunch for him, but he also stopped at Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center, as they were selling prints of his set designs which Zeffirrelli was willing to autograph. At the time he was aided by a strapping young man, blond enough to resemble Robert Shaw playing Red Grant in From Russia With Love. The young man literally picked up Zeffirelli (a tiny man), and carried him out of Barnes & Noble and into a waiting limousine. He is now 92 years old and must be very, very frail, even more than the day he signed my print.
The display of designs at the Villa d'Este by a theatre director whose motto might well be summed up as "nothing too much", is an apt matching of approaches to the decoration of show places. Notwithstanding, having seen the Azedine Alaia designs at the Villa Borghese and now the Zeffirelli exhibit, I can't help wondering whether those in charge of these extraordinary repositories of Renaissance ideas of the beautiful are not feeling they have to justify themselves to a new generation of visitors by attaching themselves to contemporary cultural forces. Both exhibits are tasteful, and serve their subjects well, but inevitably push the past into a corner rather than illuminating it.
This is minor cavil, though. I'm delighted to see the Villa d'Este on the anniversary of the last time I saw it. I don't get to see the lovely chapel adjoining because I'm rushed to make my ticket entry time, and I don't get to have lunch on the lovely terrace overlooking the Tiburtino mountains because it is closed (which it wasn't last time). However, I am still convinced of the marvelousness of the site.
I leave with the thought of having lunch and finding Hadrian'sVilla, or Villa Adriana, as it is called in Italian. I go to the nearby Ariston restaurant and order the ferragosto menu for 35 Euros. It is a 3 course meal of fish and shellfish antipasto, pasta with clams and risotto with prawns served side by side; and a final course of grilled tuna and more shellfish. I get through two courses before crying "Uncle!" and ask that the third course be packed up so I can enjoy it later. The food is delicious, and restorative (I have been going on a banana and two small caffe latte).
After lunch, I try to find Hadrian's Villa, but I miss first one bus, then another. By the time I make the third bus, I'm having my doubts about the extra excursion. The bus driver settles the question by telling me that even when he leaves me at the closest bus stop to the Villa, I'll have to walk a kilometer. I am too tired by this point to contemplate more tromping, and turn around, heading for the train station, knowing I've a long trip home ahead of me.
Tivoli is not just home to Hadrian's Villa, it was home to the Villa Gregoriana, of which only a little temple ruin remains, the Temple of the Sibyl, high above the famous waterfall that inspired Romantic poets. Tivoli's wonders appealed not just to poets but to composers and artists: Franz Liszt's Annees de pelerinage contain three pieces inspired by the Villa d'Este; and Piranesi produced his Veduta della Villa Estnse in Tivoli in 1773.
When you see the wonders of the Villa d'Este set against the landscape from which it was extracted by years of unremitting labor, the expression of the powerful will of its progenitor, it is overwhelming, and awe-inspiring. That quality, what was called the sublime, is a mixture of dread and pleasure, what today we might call edgy. I'm attracted to the Villa d'Este, but I'm also unable to incorporate it into my sense of life as I know it. So it stands outside my normal experience, while simultaneously remaining unforgettable.
If I don't visit the Villa d'Este again for the rest of my life, I'll never forget it.
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