The Thousand Faces of Rome

by Sandra Jacopucci

“By express order of the Most Illustrious and Reverend Monsignor President of the Streets, it is expressly forbidden for any person to throw garbage or dump waste in this street under penalty of ten scudi and other punishments at the discretion of His Most Illustrious Lordship, in accordance with the edict issued on March 1, MDCCXXXXI.”

Translated: It is forbidden to throw rubbish in the street. Anyone who does so must pay a fine of 10 scudi and risks additional punishments. And that final Roman numeral, MDCCXXXXI, is 1741.

For those who enjoy breaking down the number, keep in mind that M means one thousand, D 500, C one hundred, X ten, and I one.
So: M = 1000; D = 500; CC = 200; XXXX = 40; I = 1
Total: year 1741

Everything is easy to understand except the D, which comes from a graphic simplification by stonecutters of the sign CIↃ that indicated the number 1000: half of it, IↃ, meant 500.

In the eighteenth century, a worker could earn one scudo or less per day (often much less), so 10 scudi was a heavy fine, comparable to several hundred euros today.
In practical terms, that plaque did not simply say “Do not throw rubbish,” but rather:
“If you do it, we will really hurt you (in your wallet).”

In this photograph there is a fragment of past and present life.

The plaque is located in the Regola district, in Via dei Pettinari. The name comes from the artisans who worked in this area during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, especially comb makers — hence pettinari. In the historic center of Rome, it is not difficult to find streets whose names derive from ancient craft guilds and trades that had their workshops here, usually located near the Tiber to allow access to water and river transport.

For example:
Via dei Cappellari, hat makers;
Via dei Giubbonari, craftsmen producing jackets or doublets;
Vicolo dei Catinari, makers of basins and metal containers;
Via dei Balestrari, crossbow producers;
Via dei Coronari (or paternostari), makers of rosary beads; and many others.

Walking along the entire Via dei Pettinari, you reach, in a straight line, Ponte Sisto, commissioned by Sixtus IV in 1475 as the reconstruction of a Roman bridge for the Jubilee year, to improve communication between the Vatican and the city center.
The bridge leads directly to Piazza Trilussa, the heart of Trastevere.

But what about ancient Rome? The problem was already very serious.

Ancient Romans had sewers (like the famous Cloaca Maxima) for wastewater, carts and slaves to collect garbage, and dumping areas outside the city. There were also laws similar to this one.
However, in reality, many people threw waste directly from windows, and the streets were often dirty despite emperors and magistrates constantly trying to impose order.

The most interesting detail is that this eighteenth-century plaque shows us that the waste problem is not only modern.
It is eternal.

And the solution has always been the same: rules, prohibitions, and fines that often fail to compensate for the lack of environmental respect.
Even today, with digital surveillance and cameras almost everywhere, it is still difficult to stop the problem.

At a time when Rome (or rather the Papal State) was already obsessed with urban decorum and streets were considered spaces to be regulated, the figure mentioned — the “President of the Streets” — was a monsignor with the authority to control cleanliness, manage traffic of carts and people, and prevent the city from becoming an open-air dump.
Anti-waste plaques in Rome number about seventy in the central districts (from 1646 to the end of the eighteenth century), all issued by the President of the Streets.

The contrast in the image made me reflect: the warning carved into travertine and, below it, graffiti, crumbling plaster, and scattered litter on the pavement.
If you look around, you realize that besides stone plaques embedded in the walls like fragments of “urban laws,” there are also many small votive shrines, known as madonnelle, with sacred images.

They are voices from the past that endure, even when everything around them changes.

Amid a certain decay to which, in Rome, we have almost become accustomed — as if it were inevitable — three centuries later the wall tells us how difficult it still is to truly stop it.

And that plaque, now almost ironic, makes us smile.

It is one of those streets — and there are many — where Rome shows itself without filters: lived-in walls, layers of history, overlapping writings, overwhelming traffic, noise, and widespread disorder.

But there is also beauty in all this: an excess of life that spills out of houses and into the streets.
As if Rome were shouting:

“Hey! You can treat me badly — I am still beautiful anyway!”

Some Roman districts (there are twenty-two in total, all within the Aurelian Walls except the last one established in 1921, the Prati district), such as Regola, Trastevere, or Ponte, are the perfect stage for this conflict.

Markets and street markets, artisan workshops, taverns, hanging laundry, smells of every kind, noises and voices echoing through the alleys.
The city has never been perfectly “clean,” but it has always been deeply human, and I believe the iconic Rome that everyone searches for is born precisely from this conflict — from total chaos and spontaneous (and inevitable) involvement in these urban and human environments.

Perhaps it is because of that magnifying glass built into my gaze that photographs begin to speak to me, opening like a kaleidoscope, and it becomes a necessity to investigate details that at first glance seem almost invisible or insignificant — details that haste or distraction would normally overlook.

And so I would like to launch into a very personal and certainly divisive comment (forgive me): graffiti are not “just scribbles.” If you observe them carefully, you usually see overlapping layers, marks made at different times, quick strokes, sometimes even artistic ones. The point is not who made them — something often easy to guess — but why.
They are an accumulation of spontaneous, uncontrolled signs.

Almost an involuntary response of a generation to its own time.
And if you look even closer… those signs become a form of writing without an author, a presence that says:

“I was here.”

I believe it is a way of leaving a trace that, when it is not indelible, does not even disturb that much.

Let us imagine Trastevere for a moment: perfectly clean and perfumed, without writings, without cars or scooters, silent and well-behaved… who would recognize it?

All of this is part of the city’s DNA and probably cannot be changed — only observed with different eyes, like those of a tourist who becomes enchanted and leaves with the desire, in the heart more than in the mind, to return.

I am attaching a poem by Andrea Menghini, Roman by birth, historic television director of Osvaldo Bevilacqua, one of the most talented contributors to Sereno Variabile, and author of Diario di borgo, his first poetry collection.

Mentre er fiume s’appoggia

 A piazza Capo de Fero dar mascherone

l’acqua scenne lenta lenta ner vascone,

er gabbiano ‘nsolente se frega li rifiuti

e si t’appoggi ar marmo de l’imperatori

senti che li respiri sua, ‘n so’ muti.

T’accorgi che la sera scóre e ce fai er bello

a senti di: “Attento a quello, ch’è ‘no sgherro?”

Sotto l’arcate ce stanno ancora li segni delle pallonate,

so’ 50 anni e stanno là, ferme e stampate,

sembra che quarcuno quelle mura co li giochi l’ha firmate.

Ma a te che te frega? Sotto sti portici, sai quanti

innamorati hanno rubbato baci alle fidanzate,

quarcuno ha raccontato pure ‘n sacco de cazzate.

Er ponte sta sempre là, er fiume s’appoggia,

la sera vòrge co tutti li colori sua;

er ponte è pieno co li rumori sua.

È estate, e l’orgia de li sensi scénne accome pioggia:

femmine scollacciate giranno ‘n bicicletta,

nervose s’accènneno na sigaretta.

S’aggìreno sfrontate pei vicoli e ‘ntanto

l’imperatori stanno là senza pericoli.

Chi sòna er sax, chi er contrabbasso,

la gente passa e se diletta.

L’arabo te venne lo spiedino

er nano te gonfia er palloncino.

Le bandiere sui palazzi, er vento l’ha piegate,

e mentre passi là de sotto rimiri li soffitti ‘lluminati.

Sai quante biondine a sti pischelli l’hanno fulminati?

E noi che stamo sotto, ritti su li marciapiedi,

le mani ce l’avemo giunte, come a dì: “Scusate!”

La santa messa pe stasera è sospesa,

sotto er ponte cor giglio, se arzi l’occhi ciài na sorpresa.

Er principe Farnese? Quello ormai s’è dato…. è ito.

Er ponte? Ah er ponte…

Er ponte è ‘lluminato, sta sempre là, è ambrato.

Là sotto, quarcuno s’è fermato.

E a te, te basta na lanterna, na fiammella

pe ‘lluminà sti vicoli, sti sassi,

della città, che ognuno chiama, eterna.

 

Photos and texts: Sandra Jacopucci

 

Leggi in: Italiano