From our first day out in the city, I found that I have more of a fascination for the little hidden details down alleys than I have for any monument in a large piazza. The walls, faded frescoes, and graffiti that I’ve found speak to me about the city, its continuity with art and the way even a crumbling wall can still be important to the structure of a baroque building. It’s easy to ponder a large iconic statue. But the walls are rushed past. Only the studious traveler will stop to consider what they are saying as you make your way to those many famous piazzas. The pictures that follow are a few that I’ve chosen from my favorite walls from the our stay in the city. Hopefully, they give an idea of the kind of Rome that is easily missed but worth hunting for.

The first photo in this set was the first photo to really attract me in Rome. We had set out from our hotel (days before we got keys to our flat) to get lost in the city. With a GPS-enabled phone, this is a favorite pastime of mine, so I dart down as many alleys as I can to really get to know a new city the way a local might. This wall came out of nowhere, southwest of the Giardino di Quirnale, and is (I believe) the backside to the Palazzo della Consulta, which is right across from the Palazzo Quirnale (from the front, this a beautiful baroque government building).  

It is a bit overexposed towards the end of the alley, but it’s a cell phone taking a picture at midday. I was drawn towards the plant is growing out of the red Roman brick. The wall, to the touch, is porous and soft. Dirt comes off easily on your fingertips. I absolutely love that this large wall is the backside to a baroque government building. It speaks to the way Rome coexists between the architectural ages unlike any city I’ve ever been to. 

The second photo in the set was taken in Il Cacere di Mamertino, the Prison Cell of St. Peter. The site, while very historically important and holy, is now a tourist trap. You’re required to go through it at a pace set by a ridiculously cheesy audio-guide.  You’d have to be an arrogant American to hold up the group so you can steal a moment in quiet corners to yourself to reflect and take a photo of something not lit up by a grandiose light show. In this case, I decided to be that arrogant American.  

The above is a fresco, faded in the corner of the chapel. According to legend or history, whichever you prefer, St. Peter baptized his prison guards here before being crucified. On his way out of the cell, he bashed his head against the stone wall and a spring gushed forth. The prison became a chapel and has been a pilgrim site ever since. (This is according to the audio guide. I doubt that at ten euros with a thirty minute audio guide that it is still a pilgrimage site). 

This shot is taken with my iPhone, like the first photo. I like it because it feels like a secret. You aren’t directed to look at it or dwell on it and, like photos later in the set, it is a type of graffiti meant to express the sentiment of the people that lived in Rome at the time. Even though it now sits in a tourist trap, it still speaks to the joy and hope those pilgrims felt and communicates to me in the midst of a commercialized audio tour. 

The third photo is very much like the first. It is a shot of the back of the Palazzo Farnese, which is the palatial home of the French Embassy. Like over by the Quirnale area, this is down a small alley and it is a night and day difference from the Palazzo’s baroque façade. Because of this, I’m in heaven. This is one of thirty pictures snapped with my iPhone as we headed towards Trastevere for dinner. To think that this kind of wall functions structurally today is amazing enough, but to think that it also vanishes into what most tourists see as the Palazzo Farnese blows my mind.  

The fourth photo reminded me very much of the fresco I’d seen in St. Peter’s Prison cell. It’s a stones-throw away from the alley in the prior photo. I love the color composition for both this wall and the fresco in St. Peter’s cell, the way they are both peeling from the walls and are both remnants of Rome’s ideas, expressions and events. I took a wide angle shot of this graffiti as it sat in the alley, but then I remembered the fresco, got close to the wall, and took it in as detailed a way as I could. 

The fifth photo was taken with my Nikon (yes, I do have a real camera). It was one our way down the Via Marguta on Thursday, towards Fellini’s home. Again, I have a penchant for Rome’s graffiti and the way it speaks to what is really going on in the city better than any tourbook can. This photo, like the other two graffiti shots, is peeling. Also, like the two wall shots, there is something growing over it, doing damage to the poster, but enhancing it aesthetically. 

This photo is not a wall, but the Ponte Sisto. It’s the oldest bridge connecting Rome to Trastevere, an eclectic neighborhood across the River Tiber from the main historic area of Rome, is magical. It was ignored by popes for centuries and so retains it’s medieval architecture. Alleys are narrow and wind up a tall hill from the banks for the Tiber. Food is as good here (or better) than it is on the other side of the river, but it is also a third of the cost. There are pine trees and vines climbing buildings and you can smell the difference the profusion of plants make in the air. Here you see graffiti everywhere and it adds to the beauty of the city.

I love the above picture. It’s such a subversion of the typical “picturesque” Italian door. It has the hanging flora festooning the walls, the virescent paint against coral-colored walls, but it’s also covered with graffiti. Not exactly what you would expect. And yet, as common as ivy-covered walls are in Trastevere, graffiti is even more common. These next four are graffiti found on the walls in Trastevere. 

These photos not only demonstrate the way art is used on walls in Rome, but also how they speak to a certain attitude of this particular Roman neighborhood. The graffiti in Trastevere is different from the rest of Rome. It is thoughtful. It lets you know that you’re now in the Bohemian part of town. It also re-impresses how important street art is to Rome. The silver she-wolves on the bridge, in particular, are a remnant of a museum-sponsored graffiti project that covered the entire city months before we arrived. 

This ninth shot is in Vatican City, five minutes up the way from Trastevere. The poem says (roughly translated) “A white page is a hidden poem”. I loved finding poems in unexpected places. Similarly, this next shot, though it isn’t on a wall, is another graffitied poem.

It says, (again, very roughly translated), “After another year we will be here to speak of love.” I bent over the marble rails at Pincio Hill and there it was. Another unexpected encounter with street poetry.

*

These are just a few of the walls that captured my imagination. I loved that way that frescoes are still preserved but also still current. I love that art is thrown up on streets to speak to the character of the city, its thoughts, its conflicts and its values. I love how you pass a polished baroque facade on one street, then pass a corner and enter and alley and see that the same building does not date back four centuries, but almost twenty centuries. It feels like the owners of the building are trying to hide that fact, facing the antiquated side into a dark alley. But when you find these things, and notice the details, you feel like you’ve uncovered that secret and gotten to know this well-known city much better than any guidebook could tell you about.