Rome Journal XV: The Tiber

"Fluvio Tiberius" by Hallie Cohen

The Tiber runs through Rome, the Seine through Paris and the Thames, famously through London.  “Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song,” wrote Edmund Spenser in his “Prothalamion.” The river’s name probably derived from the same pre-Roman sources as Tiberius, which was a common name for those of both aristocratic and common estate. Romulus and Remus of course were left to sink or swim in the Tiber and thus began Rome and the phrase “crossing the Tiber” has taken on a religious significance to the extent that it connotes a kind of conversion to Catholicism and a recognition of the Papacy, as a representative of God on earth. The Tiber had a history of flooding up until 1876 when the city attempted to control the waters with stone breakwaters and streets called lungoteveri. The Tiber divides Rome. For instance if you are visiting the Colosseum or the Circus Maximus, which are part of the Rome you may know from postcards, you cross the Tiber at the Ponte Suplicio to enter Trastevere, which is a more bohemian part of the city full of winding ancient where artists studios compete with churches for the visitors attention. We associate the Seine with lovers, the Thames with royalty and the Tiber with empire. You might not talk about the Tiber like you do the Seine or the Thames and its not the subject of musical works like the Danube, but it’s where Rome was founded and as you pass over it, you feel it’s the elemental silent force out of which a civilization was created. As Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon he makes the fatal choice between politics and power, his desire to be a hero or a politician, famously intoning "the die is cast." And we know where that landed him. "I see war, horrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood," said Virgil in The Aeneid.

Rome Journal III: The Janiculum Hill

View from the Gianicolo (photograph by Hallie Cohen)

Janus Films was the company that originally produced the Ingmar Bergman movies you watched in the 60’s (now Bergman films are distributed by Criterion). There was a famous Janus film logo that created a frisson whenever you saw it since you knew that it was going to introduce say the famous trilogy Winter Lights, Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence. Janus, the two faced God, after which the company was named is also the provenance of Rome’s Janiculum Hill or Gianicolo (as it's called in Italian) on which can be found several other kinds of cultural institutions including the Spanish Academy in Rome and the American Academy in Rome,  which occupies the auspicious McKim, Mead, neo Renaissance building near the top. Toward the very summit, cars zigzag wildly around an arch which contains the Museo della Repubblica Romana e della memoria garibaldina. There are many other cultural wonders on the Janiculum including San Pietro in Montorio which contains the Templetto, the tomb designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Donato Bramante, at the purported location of the martyrdom of St. Peter. The Janiculum is not one of the seven hills of Rome (though it's the second highest, it lies outside the borders of the city proper) but from the gardens of the Villa Aurelia which is now also part of the American Academy you can see all of Rome. In 1849 the Janiculum was the site from which Garibaldi successfully fought of the invading French army. One of the streets leading to the top is the Via Garibaldi. The Janiculum descends right into Trastevere, the artistic and bohemian neighborhood full of winding streets that contain its own set of wonders including Saint Cecilia in Trastevere, with Stefano Maderno’s famous and highly realistic sculpture of the writhing martyr replete with axe marks on her neck.