Roma

Cast of Characters

Campo dé Fiori

Caffè San Pietro

Colosseo

Foro Romano

Chiesa del Gesu

Pantheon

P. Navona

S. Pietro

Il Papa

S. Eustachio

S. Maria Trastevere

Trastevere

Bocca Verità

Fontana di Trevi

Museo Vaticani

Villa Borghese

Vittorie

Mangia!

Loose Ends

Desktops

Our goal for this walk is to see the Vittorio Emmanuele II monument, a huge blocky affair known to the Italians officially as the Vittorie and unofficially as "the dentures".

The large building seen in the panorama following is the Palazzo Venezia, once Mussolini's headquarters. Around the corner one can see the balcony from which he made his speeches. It's not easy to see, but on the right side of the Palazzo is the Venetian lion symbol.

Here we see Rose, Cicki, and Rose enjoying gelatto which we purchased at a small shop just past the Piazza Venezia.

The Italians seem to have a love/hate affair with this imposing monolith of a monument, and I think you can see why. It doesn't seem very, well, Roman. You can get a feeling for how incredibly tall this thing is by looking at the tiny black dots in the center bottom of the monument, those are people walking up the stairs. It's quite a climb to the top level. A lot of tourists are left panting halfway up.

Atop the first set of stairs is a military guard at the tomb of the Italian soldier. At least two white gloved armed soldiers stand in position astride a marble column in the center of the monument. During our visit there was a beautiful wreath and several bouquets between the guards. An Italian policeman was warning Japanese policemen not to take close-up photos of the soldiers (so I backed up to an acceptable distance). (Does this remind you of another experience I've had with military personnel warning photographers away?

From the Columbia Encyclopedia: Vittorio Emmanuele (translated in English as Victor Emmanuel) II [1820-1878] was the King of Sardinia (1849-61) and first King of a united Italy (1861-78). He ascended the throne when his father, Charles Albert, abdicated after a defeat in an 1848-1849 war against Austrian rule in Lombardy-Venetia. With the help of Cavour, whom Emmanuele appointed premier in 1852, he became the symbol and the central figure of the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian unification. Popular in Sardinia because of his liberal reforms and his respect for the constitution, he increased Sardinian prestige abroad by engaging in the Crimean War as an ally of France, Britain, and Turkey. In conjunction with Napoleon III of France, with whom Cavour had formed an alliance, he fought against Austria in the Italian War of 1859. When, in 1860, Tuscany, Romagna, Parma, and Modena voted for union with Sardinia (contrary to the terms of the treaty which ended that war), Vittorio Emmanuele and Cavour secured French consent to their incorporation in exchange for the cession of Savoy and Nice. He favored the expedition (1860) of Garibaldi into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and joined forces with Garibaldi after crossing the Papal States and defeating the papal army at Castelfidardo. Plebiscites in Naples and Sicily and in the Marches and Umbria (two provinces of the Papal States) favored union with Sardinia, and in 1861 the kingdom of Italy was proclaimed with Victor Emmanuel as king. The capital was transferred from Turin to Florence in 1865. Siding (1866) with Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War, Victor Emmanuel was awarded Venetia in the peace settlement. The remaining Papal States were protected by the troops of Napoleon III, but when he fell in 1870, Italian troops seized the Papal States, and Rome was made (1871) the capital of Italy. Pope Pius IX and his successors protested, and the so-called Roman Question remained a serious problem until the Lateran Treaty of 1929. The remainder of Victor Emmanuel’s reign was spent in the consolidation of the new kingdom. His son Humbert I succeeded him. Vittorio Emmanuele Re d'Italia - Comune di S. Angelo a Raviscanina, the seal used the during the reign of V. E. II.

Here's the view looking toward the Piazza Venezia from the middle level of the monument.

Here's the same view from the top level of the monument.

Once we got to the top Isaac let us know he wanted something to drink. So he and Rose took a break while we strolled around, taking pictures. The weather forecast was for clouds and rainshowers, but as with most of our trip, our daytimes were warm, dry, and clear. Without such visibility none of these panoramae would have been very interesting. Once Isaac was done we continued on our way away from Piazza Venezia towards the Colosseo. From the eastern edge of the Vittorie I took the following panorama, which includes Hadrian's Marketplace in the center and the Colosseo at the right.

Here's a much closer look at Hadrian's Marketplace, and the crosswalk across the Via Dei Fori Imperiali.

While I was taking these panoramae, Isaac was walking the length and breadth of the Vittorie, Cicki in hand. This was a bit of an undertaking because it had rained through the night (and what thunder!) and the smooth marble was very slippery. Our surefooted boy didn't slip, nor did he get his clothes wet, although he did feel a pressing need to "jump in the water" puddles every chance he got.

A few days later we returned to the Vittorie, this time on our way to the Chiesa del Gesu. It was another beautiful November day; great for views but still a bit warm for all those steps :-) In the following panorama you see the Vittorie at the left. We're going to climb the older steps to the Piazza del Campidoglio, with its courtyard designed by Michelangelo.

And here's a panorama of that famous courtyard, with the Vittorie out of sight to our left and the Foro Romano out of sight behind the buildings in front of us.

Well, that's the end of our trips to the Vittorie. It's not the only place in Roma to get a good view of the city, but it is a good place. On the way down the steps I noticed this view across a small park into a tiny piazza, with a viccolo (alley) dissapearing behind the buildings.