The most recent attraction of Montesacro district in Rome is the long stairway of via Tremiti, ninety-nine steps connecting viale Tirreno to via Brennero, on which the verses of the poem “L'Infinito” ("The Infinite") written by Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) were painted, to celebrate the anniversary of its publication.
The
story of a stairway
The building of the stairway is contemporary to that of the neighborhood,
between the late 1910s and 1920s. Indeed the street is mentioned
in the 1922 "Stradario romano" (Street index)
by Benedetto Blasi.
In the past, the stairway had already worked as a support for
messages: in 1982 it has been painted in three bands of green,
white and red, to celebrate Italy's victory in the football world
championship, the following year it was repainted in yellow and
red. to celebrate the victory of A.S. Roma in the Italian Football
League, in 2000 it became blue and
white for the victory of S.S. Lazio, and the following year
it returned to the yellow and red
for the third title of A.S. Roma. This alternation was described
by the writer Marco Lodoli in 2005
in his book "Isole":
"In Montesacro, between viale Tirreno and via Tremiti,
there is a stairway of ninety-nine steps that has become the emblem
of the ups and downs of football in our city. When Falcao and
Conti's Roma won the title, in 1983, some enthusiastic fans painted
the profiles of the steps in yellow and red, and in the midst
of that travertine climb they painted a big tricoloured shield
... In 2000 it was Mancini and Nesta's Lazio that prevailed: and
then, on the first night of the apotheosis, it was the fans of
Eriksson's team who wrapped the stairway in white and blue ...
the following year it was Capello and Batistuta's Rome that prevailed
... the stairway certainly could not remain to Lazio ... And for
now, it is still like this ... ".
A similar story is that of the long (and wide) stairway that connects
viale Glorioso to via Dandolo, in Trastevere district, painted
in yellow and red for the last
two titles of A.S. Roma, in 1983 and 2001, cleaned (but
traces remain) aside. of the Municipal Urban Decency Office
in January 2015.
After the football splendours,
a long period of chromatic neutrality followed for the stairway
in via Tremiti, also due to the more than twenty-year absence
of titles for the Capitoline teams, and we arrived at the repainting of the steps in various
colors, by groups of citizens, including those of “99
non è cento”, who took care of the stairway to
save it from decay, especially by
collecting the numerous bottles (whole and broken) and cans left
by the uneducated people who used it (and still use it) as a night
meeting place, and pulling weeds never bothered by the cleaners'
staff of the AMA (Azienda Municipale Ambiente) perhaps for the
scruple of disturbing the vegetable well-being (some specimens
of weeds reached truly impressive dimensions).
Then, from September 2020, the III Municipality carried out a
long restoration, which ended in February 2021, repairing the
chipped steps, filling the cracks on the treads, replacing the
handrails, emptying the manhole halfway up, completely obstructed
and cleaning everything, giving back to the stairway a candid
and dignified aspect.
Here
comes The Infinite
The “Leopardi incontra le scalette” ("Leopardi
meets the stairway") project was realized on this blank support,
promoted in 2019 by the citizens' associations "99 non
è cento" and "Arte e Città a Colori"
which had requested the Capitoline Superintendence and the Municipality
to be allowed to carry out the work, to celebrate the anniversary
of “L'Infinito”, published in 1819.
The two-year delay was due in part to the Covid-19 pandemic and
in part to the fact that the stairway is placed under the constraint
of the "Quality Charter" of Rome Municipality,
which protects certain buildings or urban areas of the city, which
required additional bureaucratic time.
The work was finally authorized and created with the collaboration
of the III Municipality and "Retake" and entrusted
to the young artist Giovanni Cesi,
aka Mr. Ent, expert in graphic art and hand lettering, and was
inaugurated on Friday June 18th, 2021 at 7:00pm.
"L'Infinito" is painted from the bottom up, on the riser
of the steps, placing one verse every four steps, and reading
is possible by climbing the stairway, up
to the top. At the base of the
stairway a sentence is painted, again by Leopardi, taken from
“Il dialogo di un venditore di almanacchi e un passeggere”
("The dialogue of an almanac seller and a passer-by"),
from the "Operette morali" of 1827: "Quella
vita ch’è una cosa bella, non è la vita che
si conosce, ma quella che non si conosce; non la vita passata,
ma la futura" ("That life that is a beautiful
thing, is not the life that is known, but that which is not known;
not the past life, but the future one").
The writing is in a larger font, readable all together from top
to bottom from a point on the sidewalk of Viale Tirreno, at the
foot of the stairway, marked by the drawing of an eye.
Other
Infinites
A similar initiative, again to celebrate “L’Infinito”,
had already been implemented in Bisceglie (province of Barletta-Andria-Trani,
in Apulia), on the stairway
located between Via Porto and Via Cristoforo Colombo, and inaugurated
on 22 August 2019 , on the initiative of the Borgo Antico Association,
and called the “readers' stairway”.
How
to get there (see
map)
The stairway is very close to the "Conca d’Oro"
stop of the B1 metro: it can be easily reached from Termini, Repubblica
or Colosseo by taking the B1 metro (direction: "Jonio")
and getting off at the penultimate stop. Leaving the metro, you
should head towards the hill, at the foot of which viale Tirreno
passes, which you must cross at the pet shop, continuing for a
few meters with the hill on your left, up to the fruit and vegetable
shop, which is corner with via Tremiti.
Coming from Montesacro (piazza Sempione) you can reach the stairway
on foot, walking on viale Tirreno for 600 meters, or you can go
to the stop no. 71574 "Tirreno / Sempione" at the beginning
of viale Tirreno (from piazza Sempione turning the corner) and
take a bus of lines 86, 311, 336, 337, 338, 343, 351 (or night
92) to the next stop no. 71575 "Tirreno / Isole Eolie"
and continuing 150 meters in the same direction as the bus.
You can also get to the stairway with bus line 80, leaving from
Piazza Venezia, direction Porta di Roma, getting off at stop 81846
"Conca d'Oro MB1" and following the directions provided
for the Metro, or, again with line 80, but leaving from Porta
di Roma, direction Piazza Venezia, getting off at stop 81844 "Conca
d'Oro MB1", on the other side of the square. The same stops
can be reached with line 38, leaving respectively from Termini
Station and Porta di Roma.
|
Sempre caro
mi fu quest'ermo colle, e questa siepe, che da tanta parte dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude. Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani silenzi, e profondissima quiete io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco il cor non si spaura. E come il vento odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello infinito silenzio a questa voce vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno, e le morte stagioni, e la presente e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa infinità s'annega il pensier mio: e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare. |
Always dear
to me was this lonely hill, and this hedge, that for a wide part of the outer horizon the sight excludes. But sitting and watching, endless spaces beyond it, and superhuman silences, and deepest stillness in my thought I imagine, where my heart is about to be scared. And as I hear, the wind rustling among these plants, that infinite silence to this voice I compare: and I recall the eternal, and the dead seasons, and the current and alive, and the sound of her. So among this infinity my thought drowns: and sinking in this sea is sweet to me. |
From the top of the lonely hill Giacomo Leopardi used to see this infinite. (pictures by Alessandra Gaddini) The link between the infinity sung by Leopardi and the beautiful sunsets that are frequently seen from the top of the stairway should not be overlooked, although with a perspective limited by the buildings that limit it laterally and that face it on the opposite side of Viale Tirreno. Even the "infinite silence" can only be appreciated during certain hours of the day.
Other
stairways
On June 13th, 2024, also in the Montesacro district,
another stairway work was inaugurated, in memory of the writer
Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972),
with a project created by the cultural association "99 non
è 100", with the support of Municipality III. The
work is by the same artist who created “the Infinite”
staircase, Giovanni Cesi, aka Mr. Ent, and occupies the two ramps
that go up from Viale Adriatico towards Largo Annunciata Cocchetti
(formerly Via Monte Corona), one hundred meters away from Flaiano's
house in via Montecristo, where he is remembered by a plaque
(see also my page on "Renowned
Montesacro").
On the left ramp you read "A
book dreams. The book is the only inanimate object that can have
dreams" (from "Diario degli errori",
1976), while on the right stairway
you read: "When science has put everything in order, it
will be up to the poets to shuffle the cards all over again"
(from "Autobiografia del blu di Prussia", 1974).
How
to get there
The Flaiano staircase is very close to the central square of Montesacro
(piazza Sempione), which can be reached from Termini station with
bus 90, at the Sempione stop (71511) or 66 or 82, at the Maiella/Sempione
stop (72628), or again from Piazza Venezia with bus 60, to the
Maiella/Sempione stop (72628).
From the Sempione stop the staircase is about 450 meters away,
heading left along via Gargano and then viale Adriatico (the staircase
is on the right, on the opposite side of the junction with via
Montecristo).
Alternatively, again from the Sempione stop, you can take the
86 or 336 or 337 bus for one stop, getting off at the first stop,
Adriatico/Palmaria (71512), and then continuing for 80 meters
in the direction taken by the bus.
Bibliography:
BLASI Benedetto
(1922) Stradario romano. Dizionario storico etimologico topografico.
Edizioni del Pasquino, Roma (reprint 1980).
LODOLI Marco (2005) Isole. Guida di Roma vagabonda, Einaudi,
Torino.
PERONACI Fabrizio (2015) «Ma che decoro, so’ stati
i laziali» Fa discutere la scalinata ripulita. Corriere
della Sera - Roma/Cronaca, January 26th, 2015 link
Websites
visited:
https://fiorievecchiepezze.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/i-duecento-anni-de-linfinito/
https://www.fanpage.it/roma/sempre-caro-mi-fu-questermo-colle-linfinito-di-leopardi-sulla-scalinata-di-via-tremiti/
https://www.puglia.com/bisceglie-versi-infinito-leopardi/
https://roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/05/18/news/l_infinito_di_leopardi_sulle_scalinate_di_via_tremiti_-301589666/
https://romah24.com/montesacro/news/citta-giardino-linfinito-di-leopardi-sulle-scale-di-via-tremiti-foto-video/
http://www.vediromainbici.it/Storico/Testi%202010/2010.05.30%20Montesacro.htm
https://it.foursquare.com/v/scalinata-di-via-tremiti/4e723a65091a8493b35e6557
https://romah24.com/montesacro/news/conca-doro-interventi-anti-degrado-sulla-scalinata-di-via-tremiti-le-foto-4/
http://donnetifose.blogspot.com/2007/02/il-calcio-fatto-scale.html
page
created: February
4th, 2022 and last updated:
July
7th, 2024
