See, Eat, Listen, Shop, Pray, Watch - Rome at Christmas and New Year's

RST is pleased to welcome back (her last post was in 2014, using her Etruscan specialty) guest blogger Theresa Potenza.  Based in Rome, Potenza is an art historian and freelance writer.  To learn more about her private tours of Rome and read her travel and feature stories about Italy, check out: www.tourwiththeresa.com.

There is no better place to be than Rome during the holidays.  A city that is eternally enchanting becomes even more so during the magic of Christmastime. Whether you want to shop, eat, pray, or witness the great spectacles of holiday cheer, here is a list of what to do and where as 2018 comes to a close.

See

Picasso's sculpture in the Galleria Borghese.

A special treat just this year at the Borghese Gallery, one of Rome’s most important attractions, is an exhibition of the work of Pablo Picasso. The exhibition is a rare opportunity to see Picasso’s sculptural work. It is worth a trip to Rome just to experience over 50 of his three-dimensional works, displayed in the setting of a Baroque villa and surrounded by antiquities. The exhibit runs through February 3 and must be booked in advance. http://www.galleriaborghese.beniculturali.it/it/mostra/picasso-la-scultura

For other main attractions, most museums and archaeological sites stay open through the holiday season, closing only on Christmas Day. The Vatican, however, is closed both the 25^th and 26^th.  All sites are free the last Sunday of every month; so you can enjoy entrance to the Coliseum, the Vatican, and other major sites free of charge on Sunday December 29^th (although you might be fighting crowds then).

Eat

Roasted lamb with potatoes.

Many restaurants offer a fixed menu on the holidays, which is a great opportunity to taste the local holiday traditions of Rome. Try Hosteria Grappolo D’Oro or Ditirambo in the historic and lively Campo de' Fiori neighborhood.  Their fixed menus on Christmas day feature an abundant lunch including baccalà mouse, tortellini, and roasted lamb, while the Christmas Eve dinner menu includes pasta with shrimp ragu, pumpkin crepes, and fish fillet. All are served with local wines and traditional desserts.

Campagna Amica market, on via di San Teodoro,
behind the Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill) and near
Circus Maximus.

If you are cooking for yourselves, for food shopping try the Campagna Amica market on Via di San Teodoro near the Circus Maximus. It is open only on weekends and will be bustling with activity the weekend before Christmas. The market is part of the 0-km initiative (in the U.S., we’d say “locavore”), which supports local producers. Everything at the market is produced in Central Italy and is seasonal. It's a great place to stock up on fresh fish and meats if you’d like to cook a holiday meal at home, or to collect local cheeses, honey, wine, craft beer, and other homemade items to bring home as gifts.

Listen

With its Christmas fair and live concerts, the Auditorium Parco della Musica is the place to be. Their Gospel Festival running from December 21^st to December 31^st is the most important gospel festival in Europe, presenting some of the best gospel artists from the United States. For a program of events, see their website, https://www.auditorium.com/.

Ice-skating at Parco della Musica.

The Auditorium also becomes a winter wonderland from the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8^th to the Epiphany on January 6^th, with an ice-skating rink and Santa Claus!

At 5 p.m. Thursday, December 20th, the Chorus from the University of Tor Vergata will give a Chrismtas concert of traditional songs at the Biblioteca Nazionale (Metro B).

If you’re interested in a day trip, Orvieto is a perfect idea, just 2 hours by train from Rome. From December 28th through January 1^st the hilltop medieval town will be host to one of the world’s most famous music festivals, Umbria Jazz - Winter, celebrating its 45^th year. Past performers include Miles Davis, Sting, Chet Baker and BB King. This year there will be street parades, and a mixing of food with music with many places featuring live concerts over lunch or dinner, highlighting the local cuisine and a variety of jazz sounds including soul, funk, classical, and swing. For a program of events see their website, http://www.umbriajazz.com.

Orvieto Winter Jazz

Shop

One of the world’s most creative urban markets expands to 2 levels at Christmastime. Mercato Monti, open on weekends from 10am-8pm, is laden with products, all made in Italy. The market features local, young and creative artisans, designers and innovators showcasing their handmade jewelry, leather goods, shoes, clothes and beauty supplies. Located in Rome’s “hipster” neighborhood, which also happens to be the city’s oldest, makes it the best platform for "Made in Italy." The motto of Mercato Monti is “emancipate yourself from ordinary shopping,” which is perfect advice at Christmastime. 

Pray

It always surprises me how solemn and peaceful Rome can be amid the city’s hustle and bustle. It should be no surprise, however, that the Vatican is impressive at Christmastime. Its life-size nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square this year is uniquely made out of sand, from a beach in Venice. And its decorated tree from Northern Italy is an impressive 23m (75 feet) tall. In addition to information on their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day masses and New Year’s Eve Te Deum prayer and vespers, you can find out about Vatican celebrations and Papal audiences during the holiday period online at the Vatican website, www.vatican.va, under the category of the prefecture of the Papal household.

One of the presepe or Nativity scenes on via della Conciliazione.

While at the Vatican, you will want to check out the 100 Nativity Sets exhibition on Via della Conciliazione, where Sala San Pio X will host nearly 200 (ironically) nativity sets from around the world, such as traditional Neapolitan and Sicilian wooden-crafted creches, to modern techniques using sand, terracotta, and even pasta! These creches are artisan wonders, and some are even life-size.

Several churches in Rome offer masses and music in English, which you can celebrate in a variety of ways, such as traditional midnight mass, carol service, and children’s pageants. Among the primary English language churches are All Saints' Anglican Church, St. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church and St. Patrick’s American Roman Catholic Church.

Concert at St. Paul's Within the Walls Episcopal Church.

Watch

Because Rome is a world capital, it's a great place to celebrate New Year's Eve.  This year on New Year's Eve Rome is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing with 24 hours of events.  In the Circus Maximus starting at 9 p.m. there will be a free outdoor event, a mix of "moon inspired" performers such as dancers, acrobats and an orchestra, culminating in a fireworks display at midnight.  Another option is to ring in the New Year at the Baroque masterpiece fountain called "Il Fontanone" on the Janiculum Hill overlooking the city--a magical experience (and inexpensive).

And while most tourist sites may be closed on New Year's Day, hundreds of performers will continue the celebration throughout New Years's Day around the Aventine Hill and Tiber Island.  Also on New Year's day, check out the parade of American marching bands that will perform throughout the city's historic center.  The parade starts at 3:30 p.m. in Piazza del Popolo and lasts 2 and a half hours.  Street performers, American high school marching bands and Italian folk singers will turn the Spanish Steps and surrounding area into their stage!

Theresa Potenza

P.S. For thumbnail descriptions of Christmas markets in Northern Italy, see Dianne Hales's post:
https://becomingitalianwordbyword.typepad.com/becomingitalian/2018/12/christmas-in-the-italian-language-seasonal-markets.html

"Smucinate," and other Signs of Shopping in Rome

Tourist citations of inept menu descriptions or botched foreign language translations are standard fare.  And we are not immune to enjoying the signs of petty capitalism (though we do avoid posting on menu infelicities).  Below, some of our favorite ones from this year.

You won't find this word in an Italian-English dictionary, but you will find at least some definitions of "smucinare"
 in a good Italian dictionary.  Here - at this mixed items stall in a street market - it means "Rummage at will." 
Apparently "smucinare" has some other meanings that aren't appropriate for a family blog.

The sign that accompanies these Zippo reading glasses (a good buy in Rome - about Euro 5 each, and they have 3.0s) mashes English and Italian, of course, and uses the classic Italian phrase "Buon..." whatever (as in "buon apetito," "buon giorno," "buon natale") translated - as it sometimes can be - to "happy," and "vista" = sight.  So, Happy Sight!
I also like the colors of the glasses and their cases, of which I now own a few.

This sign is appealing for its play on the Italian verb, to walk or to take
a walk, "camminare."  It's done here with an Indian style writing
and also an Indian-like spelling that ends up sounding the same
as "camminare."  And, of course, it's the name of a - in English-
tour operator.

Can't resist this one - "Torno subito" - or "Back soon."
To which our usual response is, "yeah, sure."

What I like about this photo is the services offered by a more-or-less permanent
street stand.  The hand-printed sign at left (and see below) basically says "we deliver."
  I had a nice chat with the owner - from whom I bought only a bottle of water. 
He was fascinated to know where we were from (we were in the Africano quarter,
which doesn't host a lot of tourists; it's name comes from the street names, which were
created when Italy was in the process of conquering - or failing to conquer - north Africa;
streets such as Somalia and Libia); the shop owner was an immigrant, obviously hard-working.

And then marijuana comes to Rome:

Dianne

Hogre: What's Hogre?

OK.  What's Hogre?  As this 2018 (San Lorenzo) image suggests, Hogre's a street artist, specializing in stencils and, more recently, in large posters.  Many of his early stencils feature Hogre's face, and it's likely that this What's Hogre? image is, indeed, Hogre--though perhaps years ago.  We would guess he's more like 40 now.

Hogre is from Rome, and we first encountered his work in 2010 (but heard about him as early as 2009), when we found this image of an angry, "I can't take it anymore" Hogre.

In these "early" years, Hogre's work was satiric, but quite unassuming--small in size and muted in
tone--though always identified as "Hogre."  Here are some other Hogre stencils and pasteups we found in Rome:

Achtung (2013).  Tor Pignattara.

Not sure what this has to do with Spam.  The image appears to be of the Vatican,
with a devil-like octopus hovering above.  Hogre was never fond of the Catholic Church, as
we shall see later.  2015

An Asian temple (?), atop the Coliseum. 

Ego, 2013.  Looks too old to be Hogre, as does "Achtung" (above).

Relaxing with a bottle of something.  Ostiense underpass, 2014.

"Look Inside Yourself."

Hogre's most famous (or infamous) Rome moment occurred in 2017, when he was arrested at an internet cafe in the city, charged under an obscure Italian law with a "public offense to religion," a crime carrying with a fine of up to 5,000 Euro and/or a 2-year jail term.  Hogre's sin was to use a bus stop advertising space for his "Ecce homo erectus (left, below) featuring Jesus with an erection emerging under his robe, his hand on the head of a boy kneeling before him.  Scandalous!  Hogre explained that the poster was a response to sexual abuse charges against Cardinal Pell, a high-ranking Vatican official.

"Ecce homo erectus" (left)

More recently, Hogre has been working in Warsaw and London, the latter a city he identifies with his new nemesis, the advertising industry.  "I declared war on kitsch supremacy, embodied in the ads, and definable as the refusal of everything that is considered unacceptable.  And London is the capital of this aesthetic ideal."  Put another way, Hogre detests the way today's advertising of "brand identities" suffocates individual identity.  Guy DeBord and Max Stirner are among his intellectual influences.

His campaign against the messaging of the ad industry (and those who use that industry, including government agencies) is carried out in two ways, each very different from the simple stencils that characterized his early work in Rome. One technique is to tear away at existing posters (or locating posters that have been torn--not difficult), then superimposing the text "SUBVERTISING" (that is, subverting advertising).  This technique appears to be an aspect of what Hogre calls "creative vandalism."

Hogre's second technique, more widely employed, is to replace existing posters--the standard ones, covered in glass and locked, mostly at bus stops, sometimes inside subway cars--with his own posters.  This work is usually accomplished with a group of co-conspirators, equipped with the 4-headed key required to gain access to the glassed-in, bus-stop posters.

Here's an example from Warsaw:

And one from London:

Much of Hogre's work is political.  One poster, mounted in Greenwich, featured an advertisement for Titan Deportation Charter Flights, with the slogan, "For Your Safety on Board You Had Better Be White."  Another, below, features the London police and the theme, "Help Keep Your Neighbourhood Paranoid."

"Social cleansing," also London.  Below, a worker imagines himself being swept away with masses:

Asked "What's next for Hogre," the artist replied, "I would love to shit on the tomb of Goebbels, and his legacy."  Stay tuned.  Hogre is not dead:

Looks like Rome

Bill

Hogre has recently published a limited edition book, Subvertising: The Piracy of Outdoor Advertising (Dog Section Press - "we make books with bite" - sold out as of this writing).  Much of his work can be viewed on Flickr.

Jessica Stewart's Street Art Stories Roma featured Hogre.

How Romans Peed - Celebrating World Toilet Day

In celebration of World Toilet Day, November 19, we offer some thoughts on Roman toilets. To be clear, we aren't being flip about World Toilet Day.  Its goal is worthy - to make sure everyone has a safe toilet by 2030.

The Romans were masters at building and plumbing, as we all know.  It seems obvious that expertise would extend to toilets, and so it did.  The amount of research on Roman toilets is enormous.  We offer only a few examples and thoughts here.

The old Roman seaport city of Ostia, now Ostia Antica, is on a Top Ten list for most Rome visitors. And one can't go there without seeing its common latrine, or sitting on it (hopefully they still let you do that!). RST guest blogger, Martha Bakerjian, featured this photo in her March 6 post this year:

Gemma Jansen, a Dutch historian who may have the distinction of being the world's expert on Roman toilets, published an exceedingly thorough catalog and description of all the toilets at Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana, near Tivoli, just outside of Rome).  She says the multi-seaters, which the above photo illustrates,

 "are easy to detect by the remnants of seats above a deep gutter, in front of which was a small gutter in which the toilet sponge could be rinsed. This small gutter is not sunk in the floor, but normally placed on the floor so that it doubles as a foot-rest. The gutter was generally built of bricks or roughly cut into travertine blocks; only a few toilets had sponge gutters of marble. In most cases the toilet seats were made of wood, but in some cases they are of travertine or marble."

I don't want to think too hard about it, but apparently the "sponge stick" is not a universally accepted historical artifact. The above quotation is from an article by Jansen titled "Social Distinctions and Issues of Privacy in the Toilets of Hadrian's Villa."  She also notes the multi-user toilets did not offer much privacy inside, but offered a great deal of privacy from the outside.

The private, single toilet is sometimes hard to distinguish from a nymphaeum, since they both have running water and a drain.  There are at least 19 single toilets, and several small nymphaeums in Hadrian's Villa. Jansen says, 

This is the Caracalla toilet, pilfered from the Baths of 

Caracalla around 1800. The British Museum's description

is as follows: "An ancient Bath-chair of the Pavonazzo

 marble, so called by the Italians. In the centre of the seat

is a hollow space in the form of an extended horseshoe,

 thro which the steam was received [sounds like a fancy

 Toto brand]. On each side a wheel is worked in relief,

 in imitation no doubt, of such  wheel-chairs, as were

 at that time executed in wood, resembling in some 

 degree the chairs of this day, placed on wheels for the 

 use of lame persons."

"The single toilets of the emperor and his high-ranking guests offered much more privacy. A striking discovery is the single-seat toilets for guests. From ancient sources it is clear that even high officials might use multi-seaters, and those found at the baths of Hadrian's Villa confirm this, but the provision of single-seaters specially for guests shows that, when space and money were no object, they preferred single toilets."

The toilets' size and shape, the fact that there apparently are no urinals, and the reading of some statues have raised the question of how Roman males held their penises when they peed.  Jansen is trying to determine if they simply sat when they peed, and then that they held their penises to hide them. Showing a statue (from the British Museum) of a boy peeing, she states, "the penis shows a completely different way of thinking, because the Romans and Greeks wanted their penises to be small. Because that was beautiful."

At a recent small group tour of The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's exhibition, "To Rome and Back: Individualism and Authority in Art, 1500-1800" (on until March 17), we had a lengthy discussion on penis size while viewing The Bateman Mercury (below). 

Our guide, an expert in Greek and Roman statues, talked about the research of one of her fellow graduate students into penis size in ancient Greece and Rome.  That researcher came to the same conclusion as Jansen, that a smaller penis was more desirable.  The larger penis, she said, was associated with satyrs, who could not control their libidos, and control was a virtue in the ancient world.

For more on Roman styles of peeing and Roman toilets, including those found throughout the world:

Caroline Lawrence is an indefatigable, if hippy-dippy, source. I quoted above from a sit-down interview she had with Jansen, which is reported in excruciating detail on The History Girls blogspot. Here she speculates on 10 things Romans used for toilet paper (including the pine cone - ouch! worse than my Italian grandmother's Sears catalog pages). And here she writes about the sewers of Herculaneum.  She also writes kids' Roman mystery books.

The latrines in the Baths of the Laberii at

 Uthina  (Tunisia) (from Carole's "Following

Hadrian" blog).

On her English language blog, Following Hadrian, French blogger, Carole, has an amazing collection of her own photos of Roman toilets throughout the Western - and North African - world. These include several more photos of the Ostia Antica latrines, as well as the Tunisian one at left.

There's a nice post by Stephanie Pappas on Pompeians having upstairs toilets on the Live Science blog. (Photo from her blog below.)

Barry Hobson's 2009 book is Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World. 

Jansen has published widely on Roman toilets. She edited a 2011 book, "Roman Toilets, Their Archaeology and Cultural History."  (Okay, at $58, no, I didn't get it.)

Dianne

Milton Gendel, photographer: He came to Rome and never left

Picnic at Villa Centinale, near Siena.  Milton Gendel photo.  

Milton Gendel in his Washington Square apartment, 1940s

Milton Gendel's Rome experience began with a certain serendipity.  In 1949, at age 31, the New York City native was ready to return to China on a Fulbright scholarship.  Mao's Communist government intervened--the new regime did not welcome young scholars--and Gendel made his way to Rome instead, the beginning of a 60-year relationship with the city.  He never returned to live in the United States.

Within just a few years, Gendel had become a central figure in Rome's art scene.  In the mid-1950s, he helped found the Rome-New York Art Foundation, located on the Tiber Island beneath Gendel's apartment--the same apartment featured in the opening scenes of Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960).  Through the foundation, and as the Rome correspondent for ART News, he played a central role in Rome's "la dolce vita" scene between 1958 and 1962, nurturing the careers of some of Italy's most important artists, including Alberto Burri, Toti Scialoja, Tancredi, Ettore Scola, and Mimmo Rotella.  Among those in Gendel's inner circle were Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder, and Willem de Kooning.  An early close friend was Rome's architectural theoretician, Bruno Zevi.  Zevi's introduction to Adrian Olivetti led Gendel to employment doing international public relations for the Olivetti firm.

Perhaps best known as a fashion and celebrity photographer, Gendel photographed (among others), Queen Elizabeth II, Salvador Dali, Peggy Guggenheim, and John Paul Getty.  But he was also widely known for his evocative, even poetic (moreso, at least, than the postwar neo-realist aesthetic) photos of Rome, Rome environs, and Italy.

Evelyn Waugh, Lady Diana Cooper, and Georgina Masson.
(Masson's "The Companion Guide to Rome" is our favorite
long-form Rome guidebook.)

Piazza del Popolo, sans obelisk

Church Wedding

The Flying Ephebe, Rome, 1979

In 1972, Gendel moved his studio to an apartment in Palazzo Costaguti in Piazza Mattei.  Then, in 2011, in exchange for transferring his photographic archive to the Primoli Foundation, he gained access to a first floor apartment in Palazzo Primoli, complete with a loggia on the Tevere.  He lived there until his death on October 11, 2018.

Of Rome's many treasures, Gendel was especially fond of the Protestant Cemetery (now called the Non-Catholic Cemetery); the Pyramid of Cestius; the medical museum in the Santo Spirito hospital; and Borromini's church, San Carlo alle Quartro Fontane.

An early Gendel photo, and one of his most famous.  That's Gendel's shadow in the foreground.  

Bill
For more on Gendel, see this excellent interview in Vanity Fair from 2011.  Thanks to subscriber Marilyn Hochfield for alerting us to the VF piece.

Cemetery wanderings - a great trek through Cimitero Verano in Rome

We should've known from the size of the huge green oval on Rome maps that the main Rome cemetery, Cimitero Verano, was much, much larger than it first appears.  We had visited it many years ago and appreciated its almost Rococo excesses in funerary monuments as well as notables buried there. Like much else in Rome, it was (and is) in a state of disrepair.

Also, like much else in Rome, burials in this location--along the via Tiburtina consular road and adjacent to the Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le mura ("San Lorenzo outside the walls")--have been going on for over 2,000 years.  

Virginio Vespignani's "Meditation," at the entrance
to Rome's Verano Cemetery. Note the skull under
her foot.  She is meditating on death. About 1880.

The current cemetery is basically attributable to Napoleon, who wanted to displace the Church. During his 1805-14 reign, he established the rule that burials must be outside Rome's walls (and not within church yards) and brought in Rome's notable architect, Giuseppe Valadier, to design Verano. Although the Popes took over again after Napoleon, the cemetery was expanded just after the establishment of the secular Italy monarchy in 1870.  As a result the basic design of the cemetery is not particularly religious.  The imposing entrance is dominated by four huge statues of  Meditation, Hope, Charity and Silence, rather than statues to saints.

The monument to Goffredo Mameli, who, on July 6, 1849 [here in Roman numerals]
 died at 22 of wounds in the campaign to free Italy from the Popes (the Risorgimento).
Mameli also wrote the lyrics for what is now the Italian national anthem "Il Canto degli Italiani,"
also known as Inno di Mameli (Mameli's Hymn). The monument has the Rome she-wolf
and the twins Romulus and Remus at the top. It has fasci on the sides, indicating
it might have been erected in the Fascist era. The quote on the back is from
Mameli's friend and Risorgimento giant, Giuseppe Mazzini.

Once through the entrance, and once through the older part of the cemetery, enormous newer areas open up, often in mid-20th-century architectural styles. One reason for the newer parts of the cemetery as well is the extensive bombing by the Allies of the church, the cemetery and the areas around it in World War II. 

The cemetery also is rightly famous for the famous people buried there, from actors to politicians. We found particularly interesting the monument to Goffredo Mameli in the older part.

Actor Alberto Sordi's mausoleum is one,
if not the only one, with an alarm system.
Apparently Sordi was known for wanting
to make sure no one took his "stuff,"
even in death.

The mausoleums of beloved comedic actor Alberto Sordi and Mussolini Mistress Clara Petacci are in the newer part. 

The cemetery also was divided into Catholic and Jewish sections, with an additional World War I section.  Today the burials are not so divided.  There is also a powerful memorial to those who died in the German concentration camps.

But Sordi couldn't prevent a bit of
fan graffiti.

More on those monuments and other parts of the cemetery in the captions of the photos below. There are also lists of notable people buried in the cemetery on both English and Italian sites.
And the "Find a Grave" site has Verano listed with many "Famous Memorials." such as philosopher George Santayana (who famously said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it") and author Alberto Moravia, about whom we've written.

After I wrote this post but before it was published, Cynthia Coco Camille Korzekwa posted in RST's Facebook site on work she had done and an excellent Web site (in English), with descriptions of art work in the cemetery.

One of the 20th century mausoleums and our guide,
Diego, with "lo zainetto rosso," his little red
backpack.

We owe our great trek through the newer parts of the cemetery to the guide, "Lo zainetto rosso" ("the little red backpack), aka Diego Cruciani.  Diego has an unusual sensibility and is incredibly knowledgeable.  He guides in two languages at once, basically--Italian and English. You can see his latest plans on his Facebook page. And you can join his email list (diego1cruciani@gmail.com). You just show up - no prior reservations. And he accepts very modest donations at the end (I think - after asking our other fellow followers - we contributed 5 Euros each after 2.5 hours of a tour with about 10 people).

The cemetery's Web site in English: http://www.cimitericapitolini.it/english-version/list-of-cemeteries/79-the-verano-monumental-cemetery.html.  The site also lists all the trams and buses that go to the cemetery (and San Lorenzo fuori le mura), and the hours it's open.

More photos and history below.  Dianne

And for another capital city and its history through the cemetery, see Abby A. Johnson and Ronald M. Johnson's "In the Shadow of the United States Capitol: Congressional Cemetery and the Memory of the Nation."

"In memory of the 2,728 Roman citizens eliminated in the Nazi extermination camps, 1943-1945."

Diego explains this monument to Attilio Ferraris, which calls him "Champion of the world,"
and has a bas-relief of a fallen soccer player.  Ferraris was part of Italy's 1934 World
Championship team and died at 43, in 1947,  while playing an old-timers game.

The mausoleum of  Clara Petacci, Mussolini's mistress
 who was executed with him by partisans near Lake Como in 1945.
The monument was at one time in shambles, but somebody obviously
 paid to restore it. The people in our tour group who approached
the mausoleum (several declined) are reading a recent
hand-written note to Clara.

.

A children's section.

An elaborate monument to architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo. He was notably active in Rome in the 1930s, including working on what was to be the Fascist Party Headquarters (now "La Farnesina," the State Department) and the
Fascist Piazza Augusto Imperatore, where Mussolini wanted to be buried (in Emperor Augustus's tomb). That didn't work out, but the piazza still carries its rationalist design and is in RST's Top 40. Interestingly Morpurgo was Jewish. One biographical note says simply "He was not much affected by the race laws." And he added his mother's name to his last name (Ballio) after World War II and managed to continue his profession, as did many architect's associated with the Fascist regime. He died in 1966.

A small part of a lovely grotto-like section, composed mainly of "in
memento mori" - memorials rather than tombs.

I can't find out anything more about this Guglielmotti
family.  We rather liked the mausoleum, and the sculpture--
which looks like it's from the 1970s.