Last very full day in Roma!

Tuesday October 12 turned into a beautiful day- blue sky and warmer than yesterday- high 22C.

We headed out late morning to the nearby Museo di Roma in Trastevere to see two wonderful photography exhibits.  The main exhibit was entitled:  Prima, donna. Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971).  There were over 100 photographs that covered her career, which was much more extensive than either Alonso or I knew.  The exhibit covered her first and perhaps most well known photos dedicated to the world of industry; her great reportages for major publication such as Fortune and Life, including pictures taken during the Great Depression in the United States.  The exhibit also featured her famous portraits of Stalin and later Gandhi, pictures from the USSR in the 1930s and 1941; the Italian campaign during WWII and Nazi death camps at the end of the war.  There were also pictures from apartheid South Africa and 1956 Jim Crow southern USA.  The last section of the exhibit dealt with her 20 year struggle with Parkinson's disease.

Outside of Museo di Roma in Trastevere

Intro to the exhibit

Industrial photos 1939

In 1936, Margaret contacted the writer Erskine Caldwell, the author of Tobacco Road (1932), with the aim of working together on documenting the American South during the Great Depression.  In 1937, the book You Have Seen Their Faces was published.  They were later married, but the marriage only lasted four years. 

Their book launched other investigative publications by writers and photographers included those by Dorothea Lange and Paul Schuster Taylor, and Walker Evans and James Agee.

Flood victims in line for food- Louisville, Kentucky 1937

Inside a shack, Belmont, Florida 1936

Marshall, Arkansas 1936

Margaret Bourke-White made a number of trips to the Soviet Union.  In the early 1930s, she was the first foreign photographer allowed in to photograph the phases of the five-year plan, due to her reputation as an industrial photographer.  She was also in the Soviet Union when war broke out in 1941.  She was granted permission to continue to photograph and was able to take photographs of the bombardment of Moscow and also took a portrait of Stalin that was published as an exclusive in Life magazine.  She describes using a bathtub in her hotel room to place trays of developer and having to dive under the bed during bombardments.

Tractor factory, Stalingraad, 1930

Cocktail Hall, Moscow 1941

Stalin, Moscow, 1941

Nazi bombing, Moscow, 1941

Margaret also covered the Italian campaign.  In late spring of 1942, the first uniform for a woman war correspondent was designed for her.

Shelters in a cave to flee the bombings, Naples, Italy 1943

                                             (excuse the reflection in this photo).

Black market, Rome 1945

Margaret was with General Patton's Third Army when they reached Buchenwald in 1945.  Her photographs are some of the most haunting.   

Buchenwald 1945

The dead bodies of City Council's deputy mayor and his family, after their suicide to avoid surrendering to Americans, Leipzig, Germany, 1945

She also documented apartheid in South Africa in 1950.

Gold miners, Johannesburg, South Africa 1950

Communist Party meeting, Johannesburg 1950

Miners on strike in the Robinson Deep Mine compound, Johannesburg, 1946

In 1956, Life decided to publish a number of articles on the south after the  US Supreme Court decision to maintain segregation.  Margaret participated with a number of photographs in colour from Greenville, South Carolina.

Green Forest Park, Greenville, South Caroline 1956

A chain gang solely composed of Afroaamerican men, Greenville, 1956

Margaret also travelled to India in 1946 where she met a number of times with Gandhi.  On her last day in India, she arranged an interview with Gandhi and took some photographs.  He was killed only a few hours later.

Mohandas Gandhi out for a walk with some members of his family, India 1946

Mohandas Gandhi at his spinning wheel, Poona, India 1946

The last set of photographs were taken by her friend Alfred Eisenstaedt documenting Margaret's struggles with Parkinson's disease.  She was diagnosed in the early 1950s and lived with the disease until her death in 1971.  She continued writing her autobiography even when she could no longer photograph.

Margaret Bourke-White during her physiotherapy exercises- a series of 8 pictures for Life between New York and Connecticut, 1959

Margaret Bourke-White- photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt 1959

The second exhibit was by Calogero Cascio (1927-2015 ), a Sicilian photographer, entitled Picture Stories, 1956-1971.  There were over 100 photographs documenting his career.  He was one of the great protagonist of Italian photography during the second half of the 20th century. Cascio moved from Sicily to Rome in 1949.  He shared the ideal of journalistic reportage as "political" action and co-founded the RealPhoto agency in 1963.   

It was a wonderful companion exhibit to Margaret Bourke-White, as both photographers travelled extensively in their careers and were social documentarians of their times.

Poster for exhibit--- all captions were in Italian

Al Tempio, Jerusalem 1969

Manifestazione in favore della legge sui divorzio, Rome 1970

Angelina Somma, figlia di Gerado Somma, proprietario del Botticelli ritrovato a Gragnano, Napoli 1966

Conversazione sulla strada, Ouro Preto, Brasile 1963

Combattenti Viet Cong marciano nella giungla, South Vietnam, 1960

L'Ingresso della sezione dei M.S.I., Sciacca, Agrigento, 1956 (Sicily)

Corleone (Palermo) 1958 ca.

L'ultimo saluto al padrino, Palermo 1968 ca.

La partita alla televisione, Roma, 1959

Otto ragazzi di Trastevere, Roma, 1962

La telefonata al bar, Milano, 1961

Il presidente Ngo Dinh Diem nel suo studio privato mentre osserva la mappa del Vietnam del Sud, Saigon, 1960

One of Cascio's publications

The exhibits were both fantastic and there were not very many people in the Museum on a late Tuesday morning.  We both had a much fuller understanding of Margaret Bourke-White's career.  She was a real trailblazer and an independent thinker and artist.  She was a woman of firsts: the first photographer for Fortune, the first Western professional photographer permitted into the Soviet Union, Life magazine's first female photographer, and the first female war correspondent credentialed to work in combat zones during World War II.  We also had no idea of the 20 years that she lived with Parkinson's disease.  She died at just 67 in 1971.  Cascio's photographs were new to us and gave us a view into mid-century Sicily and 1960 Vietnam, as well as mid-century Latin and South America.

We then stopped at one of the jewellery shops taking part in Rome Jewellery Week.  Anna Retico, the jeweller, at Atelier Anna Retico works in a number of different styles.  She had some very interesting earrings with etchings of buildings on old lenses from eyeglasses.  They were a bit big for me, but I did purchase one colourful earring in a different style.

Outside of Atelier

The earrings

In her workshop

We wandered to a few other stores listed in the Rome Jewellery Week brochure- but  two of them were closed.

We then walked up a very pretty street, dei Banchi Vecchia, and stopped for a late lunch at Il Goccette, under an old Vino e Olio sign.

Outside the building

A beautiful roof inside

We had some smoked salmon and a beautiful fennel, orange and olive salad.  I had a glass of red wine and Alonso had a beer.

We wandered over to Piazza Navona, which was much quieter then when we last walked through on Saturday.  The lighting in Rome has been very beautiful this trip and we sat a while and watched the scene.

Piazza Navona

No crowds 

Late afternoon 

The top of the Piazza

We decided to explore some of the side streets behind Piazza Navona.

A "Bio- Hotel"-- covered in greenery

We stopped into Santa Maria Dell'Anima,  the church of the German-speaking Catholics in Rome, which has a history of over 600 years.  It was most likely founded in 1350.   The present church was consecrated in 1542.  During the Napoleonic occupation, the church was plundered and the sacristy used as a horse stable.  In 1937, a chapel was built in commemoration of WWI soldiers from Austria Hungary.  In reading about this church while doing the blog, I discovered that the institution served as part of the Ratline to aid Nazi war criminals. 

Inside the church

One of the many treasures inside

We headed over to Campo de' Fiori, where we bought a piece of bread for our train sandwiches and some cookies from Forno Campo de' Fiori.

Forno Campo de' Fiori

Flower stall

We went for dinner at Ditirambo, one of our favourite restaurants from our 2012 trip.  It is very near to Campo de' Fiori.  We had a table on the patio and there were heaters, so we were very comfortable.

We shared an appetizer of fried artichokes (carciofi fritti).  Alonso had a piece of cod in a lovely light cream sauce and I had one of the daily specials-- home made ravioli with a cacio e pepe filling in a amatriciana sauce.

Alonso with the fried artichokes

My delicious ravioli

We shared a tangerine-ginger sorbetto for dessert.

We walked back to the apartment, crossing the Tiber once again.

Lovely reflection of one of the bridges over the Tiber

A wonderful last day in Rome.   It is now Wednesday October 13 as I publish this post.  We are heading to the train station soon for a four hour journey to Trani in Puglia.  Arrivederci Roma, the Eternal City.

The blog will continue in Puglia.