The Flying Saucer - Il Disco Volante

I am a fan of Bad Movies.  But only of a certain type.  I have little tolerance for hackneyed plot lines, cardboard characters and so forth.  No, for a movie to really capture my imagination it has to be Inexplicably Bad.  So Bad it is surreal, leaving you to wonder if the film makers were totally clueless or were playing some 3 dimensional chess and going full meta with a message far beyond the peculiar things happening on screen.

Bad Movie fandom is pretty common.  In the old days (forget the modern revival version) Mystery Science Theater 3000 stood at the forefront of this entertainment subculture.  Now the best place to enjoy it is Red Letter Media, although they do indulge in the vulgarity of modern culture just a bit too much for my tastes.

This is all by way of introducing you to what I have always considered the Worst Movie I have ever seen, a strange creation called Il Disco Volante....The Flying Saucer in the original Italian.  Recently I had an unexpected reminder of it and in the process of following up on it I learned some things that now - disappointingly? - help make sense of it.

It was some time in the late 1960's or at most early 70's.  There was still this thing called "television" where you had multiple channels.  You switched between them using a device you grasped with your hand and turned.  For you young kids this was called a "dial".  Then as now various channels had their formats.  One liked to run B or C grade movies in the early afternoons on Saturdays.  My guess is that it was in a programming sense a dead spot that had to be filled with anything that could be acquired on the cheap.  Just cue it up.  The station is being run by Bud, he's in the back keeping an eye on the gauges and needles, answering the phone when it rings on rare occasions.  Everyone else was home on the weekends.  Bud had a lonely job, but sat there all day doing it.  In the evening he handed things off to an even lower functionary.  This guy probably drank bourbon during his shift and nobody cared.

One afternoon the offering was an odd black and white movie called The Flying Saucer.  It is the soundtrack that sticks with me.  The most powerful "earworm" my nervous system has yet encountered, roughly half the auditory output of this.....thing...was a repetitive bit of music that sounded like a vaguely Spanish, bull fighting vibe of a march.  It played all the time especially when the troop of Italian policemen tramped about the countryside trying to find people who had seen the reported "flying saucer".  As to the actual plot I can remember only a few details.  The police chief seemed very perplexed.  There was an oversexed Contessa who had one of the aliens at her villa for a while then had her servants throw him down a well just as she had done with the Resistance fighters back in the war years.  The alien was humanoid, dressed up in what would be a poor Halloween robot costume and capable, despite clearly advanced technology, of only feebly waving its arms and legs.  I got the sense that something else was going on......................but what?

Here's a clip I found on Youtube.  It does contain the hypnotic marching music so I suggest you mute it unless you want your brain to also retain it for the next fifty years!

As I said I've done a bit of research now.  The movie was made in 1964.  The original running time was 94 minutes so I don't think what I saw had been weirdly edited down.  It features an Italian comedic actor named Alberto Sordi who actually - a la Peter Sellers - played four different roles.  It was made in the same year as the most famous example of this cinematic form, Dr. Strangelove.  Sellers incidentally made something of a career of doing this.  He certainly did not swipe the idea from the Italians.

The Flying Saucer was meant to be a satire of contemporary Italian society.  The four roles played by Sordi were a dim witted policeman, a miserly accountant, an alcoholic priest, and a decadent nobleman.  Other than the first this all went way over my head.  Even viewing the clip above and now knowing rudimentary Italian it makes no sense.

And I like that.  Despite understanding what the director was going for here I still understand almost nothing else and that is just as it should be.  

Il disco Volante came to my attention after all this time when I learned that Monica Vitti who played the depraved Contessa,  passed away on February 2nd at age 90. She died of Alzheimers and I sincerely hope that the soundtrack of Il Disco Volante was not one of her last persisting memories.

Prep for Deer Camp - The Mountain of Shards

Although I did not end up using their facilities I did stop by a local gun range when I was fussing about trying to zero in my rifle with an inadequate supply of mixed ammunition.  The trap shooting season is over but you can sure see where the clay pigeons went down!

It reminded me of Monte Testaccio, the artificial hill in Rome that is made up of millions of broken amphorae.

Eventually I did get the gun sufficiently accurate at 50 and 80 yards that human error will be a bigger factor than any further tweaking.  In fact, messing with the scope now would in all likelihood be a prime example of human error!

I visited Monte Testaccio years and years ago......

Orvieto Underground

Orvieto.  It's a place I had wanted to visit on our last Italian trip.  It's up in Tuscany.  It has lots of underground things to see.

Well we included it in our trip this spring.  And I give it mixed reviews.

It is a spectacular location, an old town perched atop a big rock that rises up out of the Tuscan plains.  It looks to be, and was, nearly impossible to capture other than by prolonged siege.

But when we were there it was indeed besieged.  With tourists.

Look Marvin!  It's a CATHEDRAL!

I try to avoid being a "travel snob".  I know that absent visitors and their money many important parts of our cultural heritage would vanish. But still, seeing fancy shops selling high end crap to people strolling around speaking English loudly grated more than a little.

But the Underground stuff was cool.

There is an official tour in which you visit several complexes of caves that have been connected.  That's kind of key here...this is not a network of caves so much as a whole bunch of separate caves.  Chronologically it is a jumble.  This particular chamber was Etruscan - pre Roman - but was later expanded and in continuous use until the 19th century.  Center of the picture is an olive oil press.  Donkeys walked in circles all day to power it.

Here a later chamber has a very early Etruscan well going down into it.  That is illuminated, not daylight.  

And it goes down a very long way.  Drinking water was key to surviving a siege. When the Romans besieged the city it took them two years to capture it. They destroyed everything and nobody lived there again until the Middle Ages.

Another columbarium.  This one is not of the burial type but was for keeping pigeons. These were a pretty good protein supply for upper class households.  Every day they flew out and ate the crops of the local peasantry, then flew back home ready for the dinner table.

We also checked out a little place called "Pozzo della Cava", the Well of the Cave. This is a privately run establishment attached to a little wine shop.  A gnomish older fellow smiled and waved us through, no guide needed.

I actually found this place to be quite interesting.  It had assorted uses including as a medieval pottery.  Of course it has its own really deep Etruscan era well.  

On our way out the friendly little gnome waved my wife over.  He smiled, took her by both hands and backed up a step or two.  This put them onto a glass pane in the floor that looked down a long, long ways.  Grinning he hopped up and down a few times. He clearly did this with every visitor, or at least every female one.  A man enjoying his work.......

Overall I would give Orvieto a pass.  It has things of interest.  The Underground tour as above, a nice walk around the magnificent city walls, some Etruscan tombs. But the tourist hordes spoiled it for me.  Italy is full of marvels that can be enjoyed with less of this nonsense.

And so concludes the chronicle of Italy in Spring of 2017.  A revealing trip if stressful at points.

Santa Cecelia in Trastevere

In many ways Santa Cecelia in Trastevere is a similar site to San Cristogono which we visited on Monday.  For one thing both are "titular" churches of Rome.  This designation is a little slippery.  The term of course means "title" and strictly speaking just means that the church is assigned to one of the Cardinal Priests of Rome. Practically speaking most, but by no means all, of the titular churches were early Christian sites, usually originating in a private home during the years of persecution. They appear on various early lists of parish churches of Rome, most notably one collected in 499 AD.

Trastevere was once the most populous district of Imperial Rome.  Being across the Tiber River (hence the name Trastevere) it went into quite a decline in the Dark Ages. The churches however persisted, and it is the ecclesiastical records that shed much of the Light into that era.  In modern times Trastevere is abuzz with a milling herd of tourists, at least in the area north of Viale Trastevere.  Go a ways south, down where Santa Cecelia lies, and you will leave them behind.

It's a pretty spot.  Unlike San Christogono it still has its own garden like Piazza out front.  The columns are of course ancient, borrowed from an unknown site.  They are a matched set, two from quarries in Aswan Egypt, and two from Turkey.

The entrance to the archaeological excavations was easy to find, and an efficient looking nun was stationed there to accept our small entry fee.

Down below is the usual jumble of features and eras.  Here is a monochrome mosaic floor of Severan vintage.

Pretty much every Italian archaeological site has something like this.  A little barred off room for random things they found on their dig.  I figure all the official museums in Italy are already full up.  These remind me of Old West jail cells.

Here we see several odd holes in the floor.  At one point they were considered to be evidence of a tannery on site but the stonework does not show the corrosion associated with harsh chemicals.  So probably food storage silos.

They don't even look a little like baptismal fonts but people still toss down votive offerings in the form of coins.

Right in the middle of the dim ancient walls you walk into this brilliantly lit room.  It holds the relics of Saint Cecelia.  Maybe.

Sigh.  OK, lets talk about Saint Cecelia.  The Catholic church admits that her story is probably fiction.  You be the judge.

Supposedly she was a noble woman who secretly converted to Christianity and simultaneously took a vow of chastity.  That did not stop her parents from marrying her off to a pagan chap named Valerian.  With some (much needed?) help from her guardian angel the situation was squared with her new husband who agreed to also convert.  Valerian, his brother, and a soldier who converted while guarding them...all got put to death.  As did Cecelia.  Eventually.

First she was locked in the hot room of her own bath house for a few days.  That did not work.  Then they tried to cut off her head but somehow botched the job albeit while injuring her somewhat such that she died three days later.

After initial internment in one of the catacombs her remains - found of course to be incorruptible - were returned to the church that had been built at the site of her house.

Behind the screen are sarcophagi holding the remains of Cecelia and the other players in this bit of saintly drama.  Including her extremely understanding husband Valerian who in my book earned his sainthood at least as much as Cecelia.

The Oldest Sewer in the World

Recently I signed on to give a few talks on subjects near and dear to me for a local "Learning in Retirement" organization.  I do like to tell stories.

One program I am working up for a future date will be "Archeology of Rome - Skip the darned Coliseum!"  I figure I have enough seldom visited odds and ends to natter on for quite a while.  For instance.....lets visit the Oldest Sewer in the World.

The Cloaca Maxima is usually given this title, although to be frank who knows if some over grown ditch in the middle east somewhere actually deserves it.  It is certainly the most famous ancient sewer.

More properly it should be called a storm drain, although the dumping of human wastes into it was probably constant.  It was originally a creek, down in the valley below the Seven Hills.  Said valley would become the site of the Roman Forum, the absolute heart of the Empire but not until one of the Kings of Rome - supposedly Tarquinius Priscus - channeled the creek circa 616 BC.  In early days it was an open channel but by the age of Augustus it had been covered over.  It was big enough that officials inspecting it could travel by boat.  Standing up.

There are a few places in the Forum proper where drains go down mysteriously, presumably still into the Cloaca Maxima.  There is also an access door but they sure are not putting a sign on that!  As you go down stream towards the Tiber there are a few places where branches of the main sewer still exist as open canals.  One section can be seen near the church of S.Giorgio in Velabrio.  A photo of this and a very detailed discussion of the Cloaca Maxima can be found HERE. 

I'd like to have had a tour of the upper stretches but alas, they are almost never possible.  So I had to settle for a peek at the outlet, the spot where the Cloaca has been pouring into the river Tiber for 25 centuries and counting.

A quick internet search will give you lots of images like this, or more likely just a snap from the Ponte Palatino bridge above.  The outlet of the Cloaca Maxima is just down stream from Tiber Island.

But in my quest for archaeological knowledge I don't let the little things get in my way. Wobbly, unserious fences for instance. Hobo encampments for another.  Here we have the outlet up close.  I understand that this is pretty new....only around 100 BC.

And a peek inside.  It looks remarkably like a brewery cave but I suppose there are only so many ways to build a vaulted structure. There is still a trickle of water going through it.  But the days of the Cloaca Maxima doing serious drainage are over...it has been connected to the modern Roman sewer system.  This is probably a good idea, in ancient and even into modern times flooding of the Forum to a considerable depth happened when heavy rains flooded the Tiber and caused back flow.

"When in Rome" you spend plenty of time looking at inscriptions and trying to puzzle out what was going on.  This should properly be applied to modern graffiti as well.  I had assumed that the denizens of this little encampment were part of the wave of migrants that Italy has been seeing in recent times.  Certainly that would be the demographic of at least the visible community of street merchants, beggars and idle folks in the central city.  But with "taggers" it is hard to tell.  "Aziz" and "Abdoul" could just as easily be bored suburban teenagers.  The snazzy race cars...do they represent the epitome of Western Culture to a bunch of new arrivals scrapping to make a living?

The place certainly looks Lived In although nobody was home at mid day.  This may have been by design, there was a big international summit meeting about to begin and among other anti terrorism measures I could certainly see the Italian police rousting everyone out of places like this.  "Move it along.  No, no time to bring your shorts".

I said that visits to the main parts of the Cloaca Maxima were rare but they do happen, for film crews and such.  Here's a YouTube video for you.  Ancient Sewer diving....ah, I can still dream.

Under San Chrisogono

This week I am departing a little from my "History in a Place" format.  The three sites I will cover were indeed all on the course of one walk but are not strictly speaking particularly close to each other.
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One often overlooked place to hunt down Rome's ancient past is underneath modern day churches.  As we have seen many ancient structures were saved by being converted into churches.  And in other cases churches were intentionally built on top of pagan shrines.  A sort of architectural insult if you will.  And finally in the case of the oldest churches they may in fact have originated in Roman houses back in the days when public profession of the new faith would have been unwise.

San Chrisogono is a very ancient church right along the main street, Viale di Trastevere.  From the outside it is not very impressive. When we ducked in on a Sunday there was a service about to begin. The twin rows of columns are ancient, said to have been scavenged from a now vanished bath complex built in the area by Septiumus Severus.  The floor has ornate mosaics of 13th century date but made from bits and pieces taken from ancient structures.

Although we were prepared to simply pay our respects, perhaps drop a coin in the donation box, a sign directing us towards the archeological remains (I think they called them the Paleo Christian remains) tempted us.  Ducking through a side aisle we were smack in the middle of the altar boys and priest getting ready for show time. But a functionary sitting at a little table waved us through and for a small fee it was down the stairs to the mysterious stuff below.

The church is dedicated to the martyr Saint Chrysogonus.  The first church on the site dates to the early 300's, with frequent rebuilds since then.  It is frankly a very confusing site.  

As best I can tell, this is the apse of the original church, with the open space in the walls being where the bones of the saint were kept.

In a site of this sort any kind of basin provokes controversy.  Baptistery for full body immersion baptisms?  Or just a vat from previous industrial use?

Some stuff found during excavations is just lying around.  The brickwork to the right seems to be modern, some reinforcement of the structure was necessary to support the church above.  Note also the sturdy and very modern ceiling here.

Naturally in a church rebuilt so many times there are more recent things to catch the eye.  This painted fresco shows Saint Benedict healing a leper.  Note the leopard like spots.  Leper and leopard by the way have no common etymology.  The fresco is somewhere between 8th and 10th century AD.

Sixth century AD grave marker for somebody named Victor.  Was this another example of memorials being brought in from outlying catacomb sites?  The prohibition against burials inside the confines of the city would still have been quite strong at that point in history.

A very odd skull and cross bones with huge ears.  Another example of Ferengi First Contact?

Arches and walls, floors and pillars.  There is more of Rome under ground than above it.

Lizards and Birds

 A lizard on the rock wall of an ancient tomb.  His tail is gone...did a bird get it?

A wall painting from the 3rd Century AD.  Just a bit later than the tomb but it shows that the birds have been after the lizards for a very long time.

Tivoli - Brief Practical Tips

Tivoli is a nice day trip out from Rome.  Most people go there for one of two things: Garden d'Este or Hadrian's villa a short distance out of town.

You may have noticed that we did not opt for Hadrian's villa on this trip.  It is under continuous repairs and when we visited many of the good parts were not open. If you have a notion to visit you should investigate this first.  I'd check HERE. Note that the villa is a ways out of town.  You'll end up needing a taxi I think, as the bus system appeared sluggish.

Another place I would have liked to visit was this.

Tempio della Tosse.  It is a Roman structure quite near the Villa d'Este.  Nobody really knows what it was originally, perhaps a tomb or a nymphaeum.  In the Middle Ages it of course became a church.  For reasons that are also obscure, it is a church associated with the relief of any disease that causes you to cough!  Allergies to the plane trees in Italy this time of year would have made me an enthusiastic visitor. Alas, it is on private property.  And the most recent owners do not appear to have done any more with it than any of the others since the day when our old pal Piranesi  sketched it in the mid 1700s.

Another spot that might be worth a visit is the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor.  I was not able to find out much about this place other than that is was buried under a factory site until fairly recently.  Pictures I have seen look to be a mix of old and of new reconstruction.

Tivoli in May did not have a "touristy" feel to it.  There were some restaurants in swell locations - we ate at one that overlooked the temples - but it was mostly a local clientele.  And there is a seldom visited "down town" Tivoli that had a lot of smaller dining establishments that looked appealing.

If you opt for the Parco Villa Gregoriana hike you will naturally want to do it in decent weather.  We had a train to catch and dashed through in something like 90 minutes. It was too quick a pace.  We did not have time for any of the side paths that lead to some spectacular waterfalls.

Villa d'Este is an hour or so in the gardens, spend a bit of time in the villa building also.  It has been battered about and looted a few times, so there are very few furnishings, but the wall paintings are swell and have been nicely restored.

I almost never give lodging advice but our B and B host in Tivoli went above and beyond the call of duty.  He figured we would have trouble finding the rather out of the way location and met us on the way there.  Breakfast was great, up on the rooftop.  The price was reasonable.  If you plan to stay over night in Tivoli I therefore suggest: La Mensa Ponderaria

Tivoli turned out to be one of the favorite stops on our Italian trip.  I recommend it either as a day trip or if you prefer, to stay over night.  The train service is cheap and frequent.  And with a bit of route planning you can skip Termini Station and make your trip via the Roma Tibertina station.  It is new, clean, efficient and seems to be free of larcenous pick pockets.

Tivoli Hodge Podge

The practice of re-using older stonework for later structures is called spolia from the Latin word for "spoils".  In this context it means spoils in the sense of a spoil heap...left over stuff.  But given how badly Tivoli got bashed about in assorted Gothic and internecine combat it is likely that some of the choicer bits of ancient architectural salvage might have also been "spoils of war".

One of my Romanist pals tipped me off to Instagram and Twitter groups dedicated to "Wall Porn".  No, nothing unsavory, just interesting photos of walls, doorways, windows etc.  You could look it up.

In any case Tivoli was Spolia Central.  Just wandering about you saw old Roman stuff incorporated into buildings everywhere. One wonders what the basements look like!

A typical example.  An ancient column.  Built into a wall so rugged and chaotic that it could have been from any era.  A modern pipe keeps it company.

Some re-used columns were clearly set into place to define later doorways.

When I encounter a scene like this I have to stop and spin some theories.  Was there some convenient site nearby, making for easy looting?  Or was there some organized trade in ancient columns.  At Ostia we did see a former temple that in late antiquity appears to have been used to store stacks of columns, so who knows.  Perhaps this builder opted for the bulk discount.

Another ancient fragment juxtaposed with modern pipes.  

This struck me as rather whimsical.  I can't see any practical reason to haul a column up to second story height and mortar it in.

As I said, sometimes I just stop and stare at something until a theory comes to me. If I had done so in this case I believe I would still be there.  How do you manage to have a very modern looking brick doorway filled in with ancient looking stone?  And what is that limestone slab at the bottom, some kind of pet door?  Number 5 keeps its secrets well.

Gardens of Tivoli

Tivoli has two gardens worth visiting.  Two very different gardens.

One you have perhaps heard of.  

Here is Villa d'Este.  Built in 1550 for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este.  He was interestingly, the son of Lucrezia Borgia and was appointed archbishop of Milan at age 10.  The house is a huge luxurious thing, which naturally sits on top of an earlier Roman villa. But it is the gardens that people come to see.  They are a UNESCO world heritage site, and are pretty darn impressive.  Formal and whimsical gardens, grottoes, water features.  

With ancient sites you have to guess about such things, but in more modern places I think we can be forgiven for assuming a sense of humor is on display.  Here's a rather....maternal looking statue of the goddess Diana.

On a different fountain is this grumpy fellow.  Is he thinking "Why on earth does she turn up in public looking like that?"

Here's a short clip of one of the fountains in action.  There is also a fountain that plays music through a sort of "water organ".  I understand that this was the first such device ever constructed.

Now, here's the "garden" that is less well known.  When you walk from the train station to the center of town you go over a bridge. Notice the round temple we visited yesterday. Today we will be going into the ravine below.

This is a park called Villa Gregoriana.  What you see here looks like, and is, a deep canyon but was in ancient times an equally deep lake.  No less an authority than Pliny the Younger described a flood in 105 AD that eroded the area enough that the lake drained out through new outlets to the plain below.   

On the higher ground there are remains of a Roman villa.  This would be the service levels below the main villa.  It seems to have contained a fish pond and a vivarium where food animals were kept.

Re-using ancient stone work appears to be a well accepted practice in Tivoli.  Outside the villa was this nice picnic table and chairs.

Down and up again.  It was a marvelous zig zaggy tour of caves, waterfalls, bits of archaeology.  If you have perhaps enjoyed plenty of pasta on your Italian travels it is prudent to seek out a few calorie burning yet enjoyable activities.

Despite its small size Tivoli has more than a days worth of things to do.  I'll be summing up the "History in one Place" on Friday with practical tips on how to fit the pieces together.

Roman Tivoli

After the heat, noise and troublesome citizens we encountered near Termini station, we did go someplace nice.  Tivoli.  And people have been making this same trip and for much the same reasons for a very long time.

Tivoli is a delightful little town in the hills above Rome.  It was cool and pleasant when Rome was not, and many prominent Romans had villas out that way.  The most famous of course being the Emperor Hadrian.

Tivoli was a sort of resort community.  The name has a familiar ring to non Romanists as it was adopted for a famous amusement park in Copenhagen that opened in 1843. 

Tivoli is a very old town.  It goes back to the 13th century BC and may have been founded by Greeks.  The name perhaps references the Tibur river.  At first an ally of Rome the people of Tivoli made common cause with the invading Gauls in 361 BC. This hardly endeared themselves to their neighbors and the defensive wall still visible today dates from that era.

The city was eventually conquered by Rome and after only a couple of centuries was forgiven to the extent of getting citizenship rights in 90 BC.  A long list of Roman worthies including Augustus and the poet Horace had villas there.

In the tumultuous 6th Century AD Tivoli was at various times held by the Byzantines and by the later but no more pleasant version of the Goths.  Procopius says that a group of traitorous Isaurian soldiers (again? really?) let the Goths in, at which point pretty much the entire population was exterminated.

The Middle Ages were the usual confusing Italian anarchy. Oh, it had its ups and downs but overall the regrowth of Tivoli was sporadic and it remains a small town.

So lets have a look around.  What remains of Roman Tivoli after the Goths and the Anarchy?

Our B and B was right across from the Cathedral.  And literally under our window sill was this bit of excavated Tivoli.  It is said to be a mensa ponderaria which was the office where official standards for weights and measures were kept.  This has suggested that the Roman Forum is nearby, probably under the Cathedral.  One of the local businesses had a doorstop that might or might not be part of the Roman remains!

Here's the city wall.  Not needed during the glory days of the Republic and Empire. But when things started to go south the old walls were put into service again. They did not, alas, keep Totila and his Goths out.

On my early morning walk I ran across this nice remnant of the city gate that faced Rome.  The Porta Romana of course.

I got pretty excited over this spot.  The sign says "Vicolo deli Rovini"  The Alley of the Ruins!  Ah, but when you go down the alley it just leads to some dumpsters.  The Ruins mentioned are these nifty Roman columns.  They look almost in situ but I understand that they are an example of re-use.  Specifically these decorated a palace in the modern day Palazza Palatina.  This was said to be a place where one could claim sanctuary from the authorities.

Tivoli has its own little "Acropolis".  Two very early temples on the edge of a scenic gorge.  One is round.  The other rectangular.

The attribution of the round temple to the worship of Vesta, the Roman god of family; and the rectangular one to the Tiburtine Sybil are both uncertain.  By late Antiquity legend a Sybil, or prophetess, was said to have here foretold the birth of Christ to Augustus.  

After our little tour of Roman bath tubs you should be rightly skeptical when running across something like this on the back side of the Cathedral.  It is a Roman era sarcophagus, re purposed as a medieval sarcophagus and then later as a water fountain!

Tivoli is chock full of interesting re-use.  We shall see a few more examples presently.