In the late winter/early spring of 1948, American playwright Tennessee Williams arrived in Rome in need of a change of scenery. Williams, of course, is known for his writing set in the American South, including ”A Streetcar Named Desire” (written in 1947) and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” (1955), both of which earned him Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. But few people know – or, perhaps, they have forgotten – that Tennessee Williams was also inspired by his short stay in the Eternal City.

“As soon as I crossed the Italian border, my health and life seemed to be magically restored. There was the sun and there were the smiling Italians,” Williams wrote in his Memoirs.

Before Frances Mayes or Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about their Second Acts as foreign women in Italy (this blog calls such books the “Women Who Go Wild in Italy” genre), there was The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. In 1950, Williams published his novel about Karen Stone, an aging American screen star who finds herself alone and widowed in Rome – but with enough bank to afford to live in an apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps. In order to cope with her fading beauty, Mrs. Stone takes up with a young Italian gigolo named Paolo di Leo. In true Williams fashion, the story of Mrs. Stone is complex, evoking in the reader a range of emotions, from pity to shame to indignation to bemusement.

Behind the story of the widow and her young lover, however, is a vivid portrait of Rome in the spring and summer. During Williams’ first sojourn in Rome, he stayed for a time at the Ambasciatori Palace Hotel, located on the Via Veneto. (Note: I was unable to find any mention of this fact on the hotel’s website, but he dated many of his 1948 letters from the Ambassador Hotel.) His observations of the movements of the city, from the urchins who trolled the Spanish Steps to socialites who held court in swanky restaurants, are on display from the opening page of the novel:

At five o’clock in the afternoon, which was late in March, the stainless blue of the sky over Rome had begun to pale and the blue transparency of the narrow streets had gathered a faint opacity of vapor. Domes of ancient churches, swelling above the angular roofs like the breasts of recumbent giant women, still bathed in gold light, and so did the very height of that immense cascade of stone stairs that descended from the Trinita di Monte to the Piazza di Spagna. All day that prodigally spreading fountain of stairs had collected the sun-crouching multitude of persons who had no regular or legitimate occupation, and gradually, as the sun lowered, this derelict horde had climbed higher, like refugees of a flood climbing into the hills as the floodwater mounted. Now what was left of them crowded upon the topmost steps to receive the sun’s valediction.

Warner Brothers turned Williams’ novella into a film in 1961 starring a 47-year-old Vivien Leigh as Stone and Warren Beatty (“the biggest new name in American entertainment”) as Paolo. Although Beatty’s turn as an Italian, complete with an accent and (painted on?) tan, is slightly laughable, the film, which was shot on location in Hertfordshire, England, and Rome, it’s an enjoyable look at the early 1960s Dolce Vita-era in Rome. (There was also a 2003 Showtime version with Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez, but I prefer this classic.)

Tennessee Williams visited Rome and Italy several times after 1948, staying in the Ambasciatori Palace or Hotel Inghilterra when not in an apartment at 45 Via Aurora. He seems to have been invigorated by Rome, both because of the friendships he developed (e.g., with Italian film star Anna Magnani) and because of the city itself. In a May 1948 letter to his grandfather, who he was preparing to meet in London, Williams said:

It is difficult to tear myself away from Italy which is the nearest to heaven that I have ever been, the people so friendly, gentle and gracious and the days so tranquil and sunny.

In The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Williams may have portrayed Rome as gritty, as an aging beauty full of dark secrets. But when it came time for him to describe his true feelings about Rome, he sounded nothing less than giddy. If you’re a fan of Tennessee Williams or simply enjoy experiencing your travels through the eyes of literature, a read through  The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams: 1945-1957 is worth your time.

For this month’s Italy Blogging Roundtable, we all wrote about “Spring.” Have a look at the others’ posts on this topic.

• andiamo – A Room Full of Botticellis
• ArtTrav – It’s finally Spring in Tuscany
• At Home in Tuscany – Hot Springs in Southern Tuscany
• Brigolante – Italy Roundtable: Spring in My Step
• Driving Like a Maniac – Springing to Confusion

Map via Wikipedia

The Seven Hills of Rome mark the traditional boundaries of the city. It was on these seven hills – Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal, and Viminal – that the first settlements of Rome began and these seven hills were the ones protected within the Servian Walls. The foundations, gates, and ruins of these 4th century-BC walls can still be seen in some parts of the city. Subsequent builds of fortifications in Rome, such as the Aurelian Walls (3rd century AD) and the Leonine City (9th century AD) included other hills (Janiculum, Vatican, Pincian), but the original Seven Hills are the ones in bold above and included within the red border in the map to the right.

Now that you’ve had a short history lesson, you may be wondering what you can see today on Rome’s Seven Hills. Rather than tell you, I thought I would use the power of Google’s Street View to show you.

Aventine Hill
This is the place to see the famous view of “St. Peter’s through the keyhole” at the Knights of Malta headquarters. More on the Aventine Hill.

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Caelian Hill
The Baths of Caracalla are one of the highlights of the Caelian (pronounced “Chellian”) Hill, which is largely a wealthy residential area. The Villa Cellimontana (Caelian Mountain Villa), is a 16th century villa and gardens that many Romans frequent in warmer weather for its nature and tranquility. The villa grounds also serve as the site for an annual jazz festival.

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Capitoline Hill
The Capitoline Museums and the seat of the Roman government live here. On the higher ridge of the hill stands the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

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Esquiline Hill
The Esquiline Hill was where Nero built his “Golden House” (Domus Aurea). Today, much of the Esquiline is crowded with shops and apartment blocks. And, oh hey, on the southwestern spur of the Esquiline is the Colle Oppio (the smaller Oppian Hill) where you can admire the Colosseum.

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Palatine Hill
The Palatine, where Romulus and Remus were supposedly born, is the original hill of all of Rome’s hills. Rome’s main archeological area is here.

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Quirinal Hill
The Quirinal Palace, where the President of Italy resides, is the main landmark of this hill. Though, winding staircases and alleys from the pinnacle lead down to the Trevi Fountain [directions].

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Viminal Hill
The smallest of Rome’s Seven Hills is the site of the Baths of Diocletian, now part of the National Roman Museum. It’s all a short walk from Termini, Rome’s main train station.

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In case you missed it, this month’s Italy Blogging Roundtable topic was “Hills and Mountains.” I’m happy to be getting back in the swing of writing a monthly post for the roundtable as I’m preparing to move to Rome in 2014. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the Seven Hills of Rome. Please have a look at the other entries from our fabulous Italy blogging crew:

• andiamo – Italy Roundtable: Why Do We Love Italian Hill Towns?
• ArtTrav – Abetone: The Closest Ski Resort to Florence
• At Home in Tuscany -
• Brigolante – Italy Roundtable: The Colfiorito Marshlands

One of the segments was on the Palio, the famous, twice-yearly horse race in Siena. Mayne gained insider access to the Leocorno (Unicorn) contrada to cover the race from mane (ahem) to tail. We learn about Leocorno’s rivalry with the Civetta (Owl) contrada, the pre-race ritual of having the horse blessed in the district church, and the strategies and intrigue that go into competing in one of Italy’s oldest sports traditions. Both the footage and the commentary in this segment were compelling, so I wanted to share the video with you.

Fantastic stuff, Mr. Mayne. Mille grazie!

One of the biggest cliches – and truths – you will hear from travelers is how the best part of visiting a place is the people. Although tourists have been saying that for decades, it wasn’t until recently that portraits of people in the city in which they live became just as popular as images of buildings, bridges, and landscapes.

Humans of New York, Brandon Stanton’s photography project that he started in 2010 and that went viral over the past summer, has become the template that all other human/city photo tributes copy. Now there is Humans of Rome.

Woman in Front of Termini Station

"A Real-Life Fashion Show" in Rome's Centro Storico

Humans of Rome, begun by Roman photographer Marco in April 2012, captures the unique spirit of the Eternal City. Marco juxtaposes ancient and modern by capturing Romans of every color, creed, and age standing in Rome’s cobbled streets, posing next to fast Italian cars, marble fountains, thousand-year-old structures, and iconic umbrella pines.

I think many travelers forget that Rome is a dynamic city – a city of tradition, yes, but also one teeming with expats and immigrants. Marco’s Humans of Rome includes them all. I hope this beautiful, photographic love letter to one of my favorite cities in the world continues and spawns offshoots in Florence, Bologna, Naples, Milan, Torino, Venice…

Go check out Humans of Rome now to see the photos and read the stories (most in both English and Italian).

All photos by Humans of Rome

I just saw word on Twitter that northern Italy has suffered yet another earthquake,. A 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit the Modena area in Emilia-Romagna around 9:20 p.m. Italian time. This is the latest in a series of earthquakes to hit the region over the past few weeks, leaving more than 20 dead and thousands displaced all over northern Italy and particularly in the Po River Valley.

So what is going on here?

Sandwiched between the Alps and the Africa plate, Italy has always been a hotspot for seismic activity. The map above, sourced from Piedmont Properties via Daily Kos, shows the earthquake zones in Italy – basically the entire peninsula. The legend indicates that the strongest quakes, the Category I tremors, are common in a few pockets in Sicily, Basilicata, Puglia, Campania, Lazio, Abruzzo, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The lower-grade Category III quakes show up mostly in southern Italy. But the large portion of the country lies in a Category II quake zone. As you’ll see, almost the entirety of Emilia-Romagna lies in a quake zone.

Besides natural plate movements, Daily Kos also seems to point to fracking as a possible cause of the latest seismic phenomenon. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, “is a [mining] technique used to release petroleum, natural gas, or other substances for extraction.” Daily Kos links to a number of articles about the latest drilling/fracking/gas exploration projects in the Po River Valley.  The Po Valley encompasses a large swath of northern Italy, as you’ll see in the map below:

Map of the Po River Valley from Wikipedia

For additional updates about the Modena earthquake, follow my Milan-based friend Alex who has been staying abreast of all the Italy earthquake news on his website Italy Chronicles and his Twitter account @newsfromitaly.

The town of Cassino and Montecassino, which sits on a hill high above the town, are solemn sites of pilgrimage for many who wish to remember the war dead on both sides of the battle. In particular, Polish descendants of the more than 1,000 Polish soldiers who perished during the Battle of Montecassino come to this Lazio town to visit the massive Polish cemetery which is situated on the hill behind the monastery. Cemeteries to the other men who lost lives during the Battle of Montecassino are located near Anzio at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial (American); the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Cassino Memorial and Cassino War Cemetery on the western outskirts of Cassino; and on Route 6 in the Liri Valley (French and Italian troops). There is even a German cemetery, located in the Rapido Valley north of Cassino.

Should you wish to plan a visit to Montecassino, Dr. Danila Bracaglia, a licensed tour guide, has set up this Montecassino Battlefield Tour website with information on each stage of the Italian campaign. Also appearing on Dr. Bracaglia’s site is the following video, which I found to be a basic, but moving look at the Battle of Montecassino and its casualties as well as a lovely glimpse of the rebuilt monastery:

Photo Wikipedia

The Guardian filmed a video that looks at the destruction, including the loss of “centuries of history.” Destroyed or severely damaged in the earthquake include the Palazzo dei Veneziani and Castello della Rocche in Finale Emilia; towers of a 14th century castle in San Felice sul Panaro; and the church of San Martino in Buoncompra. Other news outlets are reporting that more than 300,000 wheels of cheese worth €250 million have been destroyed.

Dario Fo's "The Earthquake in L'Aquila"

Next month, the Italy Blogging Roundtable will celebrate our first anniversary. Jessica, Alexandra, Gloria, Rebecca, and I have enjoyed tackling a new topic each month, and we’ve especially enjoyed hearing from readers. In fact, we were so pleased with how our last invitation went for bloggers to join us at the Roundtable that we thought we’d extend another! This month, not only is the Italy Roundtable topic INVITATIONS, we’re inviting anyone who wants to participate to blog about one of the past year’s Roundtable topics. Our invitation details are at the bottom of this post. Now on to the post…

Calling Italian playwright Dario Fo a “Renaissance” man would probably irk him given his long history of questioning authority and mocking the status quo. But Fo, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 (one of six Italians to have won the literature prize) proves he is worthy of this nickname with the new exhibit of his art at Milan’s Palazzo Reale.

The incredibly colorful exhibit “Dario Fo: Lazzi, Sberleffi, Dipinti” (“Jokes, Mockery, Paintings) displays more than 400 of the writer’s paintings, drawings, and tapestries, many of which depict controversial subjects or figures, contain tongue-in-cheek and/or scathing commentary on current affairs in Italy, or touch on classical themes and stories. Painting titles include “Christmas at the Prison of San Vittore,” “Tower of Babel and the Messina Bridge,” and “The Earthquake in L’Aquila.” Fo even does his own version of “The Battle of Anghiari,” the painting that is sometimes to referred to as The Lost Leonardo. And, in true Renaissance fashion, Fo even paints himself into at least one of his own paintings. Visitors can tour a reproduction of Fo’s artist studio as well.

Says Fo of painting, “I always say I am an amateur actor and a professional painter.” After seeing the catalogue of Fo’s impressive oeuvre, I can’t help but think he could have easily made a living as a painter. Is there a Nobel Prize for Art yet?

“Dario Fo: Lazzi, Sberleffi, Dipinti” goes through June 3, 2012, at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. Tickets cost €9. Read more about the exhibit from the Milan Tourism Board or visit the official exhibition website.

Okay, okay…so I took creative license with this month’s theme “invitations.” But I think Dario Fo would approve.

Read the posts, leave comments, share them with your friends – and tune in next month for another Italy Blogging Roundtable topic.

• ArtTrav – Italian wedding invitations and customs
• At Home in Tuscany – When saying no might be a good idea
• Brigolante – An Invitation
• WhyGo Italy – The Power of an Invitation

Now, more about the Italy Blogging Roundtable anniversary:

As we’re preparing for the one-year anniversary of the formation of the Italy Roundtable, we’d like to invite you to choose one of the topics we’ve blogged about in the past year and write a post about it. We’ll highlight some of our favorites in our own Roundtable posts next month. Here’s a list of the topics we’ve covered so far – and remember, you can be as creative with your interpretation of it as you like! (We sure are…)

May 2011: Why I Write About Italy
June 2011: Driving
July 2011: Favorite Art in Italy
August 2011: vacation month, just like the Italians!
September 2011: “Back to School” or “What Italy Has Taught Me”
October 2011: Fall
November 2011: Comfort Food
December 2011: Gifts
January 2012: Crafts
February 2012: The Elements
March 2012: Roots
April 2012: Invitations (the post you’re reading now!)

Send one of us a link to your blog post or tag it with #ItalyRoundtable on Twitter so we can find it. Your deadline is May 1. Have fun and we look forward to reading your contributions!

Photo © Dario Fo

Yesterday, April Fools Day, I had a little fun with readers of Gadling, one of several blogs I write for. My article Rome Set To Close Off Trevi Fountain, Charge Admission was just a little too real for some readers. But I am here to tell you that it was completely fabricated. It was simply me taking elements from current events and a favorite Italian tourist site, dreaming up something outlandish – but not too outlandish – and blending them together.

The Trevi Fountain is one of Rome’s most famous tourist attractions and it also happens to be free. However, many tourists leave their money behind at the fountain by tossing coins into it to ensure their return. This age-old tradition (superstition) was made famous in the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain, a delightful, vintage romance that is a fun watch prior to a trip to the Eternal City. Approximately €3,000 in coins are thrown into the Trevi Fountain each day and collected each morning before the tourist throngs come back. The charity Caritas uses the Trevi Fountain change to fund programs to help Rome’s poor.

Now that you know the rest of the story, here’s the trailer from Three Coins in the Fountain. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so I can’t remember why there is also footage of Venice in the opening scenes. Meh…Italy’s all the same anyhow. Just fooling!

It has been said (too many times) that all roads lead to Rome. But did you know that you could trace botanical medicine and even the environmental movement to 16th century Italy? It was here in the city of Pisa (1544) then Padua (1545) that the world’s first botanical gardens were set up.

This month’s Italy Blogging Roundtable topic is “roots” – a nod to spring. And what better nod to spring than to go straight to the garden? I’ve covered gardens in this blog before, from a mention of the reissue of Edith Wharton’s book Italian Villas and Their Gardens to Cortili Aperti, the “open courtyards” initiative that each year gives visitors a chance to check out gardens and courtyards at private estates. But I’ve yet to touch on Italy’s many botanical gardens, which are almost always historically linked with their cities’ universities.

The Orto Botanico di Padova is the world’s oldest academic garden still in its original location and it has been a model for all subsequent botanical gardens around the world. From the beginning, the mission of the Orto Botanico di Padova has been to collect local and unique plant life, maintain an herbarium for the study of plants for use in medicine, and educate the public on botany, horticulture, and the need for plant conservation. The Orto Botanico di Padova is one of Italy’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites, having been inscribed in 1997. The most famous plant specimen at the Padua Botanic Gardens is a Mediterranean Palm, the “Goethe Palm,” which dates from 1585 and was written about by Goethe. Additionally, the gardens have a library and a museum. The Orto Botanico di Padova is open daily from April to October; from October to April, it is open mornings Monday through Saturday. The current admission price is €4, subject to change.

An Italian visitor to the Orto Botanico di Padova took a comprehensive tour of the gardens and created this video:

Italy’s botanical gardens don’t often make it on the tourist itinerary. But they are actually quite ideal, as most are located near the city center and often a quiet respite from sightseeing. Other Italian cities with well-positioned botanical gardens include Rome (near Trastevere), Bologna, Milan (it has three), and Palermo, to name just a few.

Read the posts, leave comments, share them with your friends – and tune in next month for another Italy Blogging Roundtable topic.

• ArtTrav – How to put down roots in another country
• At Home in Tuscany – Roots and Other Roots
• Brigolante – Zen and the Art of Making Gnocchi
• WhyGo Italy – Tracing Your Italian Roots

Photo Flickr/Ned Raggett