Darkest Places in Rome, Part I

"Roma, non basta una vita" say the Romans, and I believe them with no hesitation: one lifetime just isn't going to cut it.

Rome may be the most fascinating city in the world. Its aged aesthetic splendor is undeniable: a place with layers upon layers of ancient and modern history piled up on top of each other, perpetually overflowing with sounds, sights and smells of the eternal and the ephemeral fused together.

The soul of Rome is embedded in the city's abundant historical sites, although some of them are rarely included in the tourist brochures. "Why remember the dark times?" you ask. Because they are meant to be the reminders that no matter how advanced the technological development, the true measure of civilization is how the society treats its damned, destitute and unwanted.

Campo de' Fiori ("the field of flowers") is a small piazza not far from Castel Sant'Angelo that functions as an open-air market during the day and an entertainment central at night.

Campo de' Fiori is always buzzing with life. The street vendors selling fresh produce, flowers and ubiquitous Roman souvenirs - plastic Colosseums, soccer t-shirts, Pieta mouse pads. Tabaccherias bursting with brightly packaged news and cigarettes. Outdoor cafe-bars, restaurants and clubs crowded by vigorously socializing young people.

A hooded silhouette in the center of the piazza is the statue of Giordano Bruno, a Dominican philosopher and one of the countless victims of the Catholic Inquisition. On a cold February morning of 1600 (after rejecting the last offer to recant and turning away from the crucifix), he was gagged, stripped naked and burnt alive at the stake on the exact same spot where his statue now stands.

The reason for such severe punishment - even for Medieval times - is still unclear. It is known that Bruno was a Hermetic, that is: he believed in the endlessly evolving Universe with an infinity of worlds and life forms. It sounds fairly harmless now but XV century Europe was extremely inflexible about creative interpretations of the Bible. In fact, it was thought to be a radical and dangerous heresy because it made the Catholic Church with its massive repression apparatus look pompous and obsolete. But to challenge Bruno's position was to challenge the omnipotence of the Creator, to impose limitations on the world of Spirit, to admit that there is a big picture, and the Church is not in the center of it. He had to be silenced.

Some authors suggest that Giordano Bruno died because he questioned the divinity of Christ or the position of the Earth. But what if all he questioned was the divinity of Church - a crime of far more severe consequences? Even 400 years later, while admitting that it was an "atrocious death", the Catholic Church maintains that they did "everything possible to save his life". Including imprisonment, torture and violent execution, I might add. Giordano Bruno's death was at his own hands, they say.

"There is a single general space, a single vast immensity which we may freely call void: in it are innumerable globes like this on which we live and grow, this space we declare to be infinite, since neither reason, convenience, sense-perception nor nature assign to it a limit." Impervious to corruption, Bruno refused to repent, standing alone above the gullible crowds of rubbernecks. His life was meant to be forgotten, but his death still hovers over Rome's Campo de' Fiori.

Directions: there's no metro station in immediate proximity to Campo de' Fiori, but buses 40 Express or 64 to Largo Argentina will get you there.

Castle s'Angelo was built as the mausoleum to Emperor Hadrian in 139 AD. It was later transformed into a fortress, a papal residence and finally a military prison. Today Castle S'Angelo is a museum and one of the most recognizable Roman landmarks. It is also another notorious execution site.

Announced by the Bell of the Misericordia (mercy), the executions were carried out in the castle courtyards or out on the bridge, after which the heads were hung for days as a warning against pissing off the wrong people (a.k.a. "the Catholic Church"). One of the most notable trials that occurred here was that of the Cenci family.

Typically, only people from the lower class were executed - simply because they didn't have the money to buy their way out. One of the rare exceptions was the 1599 execution of the wealthy Cenci family — mother Lucrezia, son Giacomo, and daughter Beatrice.

Beatrice Cenci is a legendary figure in Italy, regarded as a symbol of uncorrupted innocence and courage. Her story - disputed by the skeptics and cherished by the romantics - reflects humanity's common hope for the evil to be exposed and the good to triumph, even if posthumously.

The legend has it that Francesco Cenci - the father of Beatrice - was a domestic despot with a violent temper. Accused of several crimes but never brought to justice (thanks to his standing and wealth), Francesco was feared and despised by everyone, including his own family. But Beatrice had another reason to be weary of her father: she was about to become a victim of incest. Desperate to save herself, she conspired with her mother and a lover to kill the lustful parent. In a different version, Beatrice was being sexually abused by her father since she was a child. One way or another, Francesco ends up with a smashed skull, and no one believes in the suicide story told by his family.

Beatrice and others were immediately arrested and tortured until the confessions were extracted from them. 22-year-old Beatrice resisted the torture for as long as she could, until she was confronted with the confessions of her family. Convicted of patricide, Beatrice and the rest of the Cenci clan were executed on the bridge, in front of the entrance to the Castle.

It is said that the crowd was so shocked and disturbed by the beheading of young Beatrice, that Pope Clemente XIII, presiding over the ceremony, decided to "mercifully" spare the youngest son, Bernardo. 12-year-old Bernardo was "only" castrated instead. No records of him survived.

His sister Beatrice, however, lives on in the imagination of people - from writers and painters like Shelley and Guido Reni to ordinary Roman citizens who believe that Beatrice's ghost still haunts the bridge, appearing every year on September 11, the anniversary of her last day on Earth, with her severed head in her hands.

Directions: metro Line A to "Ottaviano" (Vatican), you'll find it from there - it's impossible to miss; or buses 40 Express or 64 (leaving from Termini and Piazza Venezia).

The south-east corner of the Capitoline hill, and yet another ancient execution spot from which traitors and murderers were thrown down and dragged into the Tiber. The exact location of the Tarpeian rock is still disputed, placing it somewhere near the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

As the tale goes, after the infamous abduction of the Sabine women by the Romans in the 8 century BC, the resulting war between Rome and the Sabines caused the death of Tarpeia - a daughter of a prominent Roman commander.

The accounts of her death differ: in one version she died tricking the Sabines into surrendering. In another, she betrayed her own people for gold. The legend has it that even though it was to their advantage, the Sabines were so repulsed by such an outrageous act of treachery that they crushed her with their shields.

Tarpeia was buried on the hill. When Romans regained control of the Capitoline hill, they made it an execution place for traitors - making it clear which version they believed more.

Directions: the closest identifyible landmark, the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, is a part of the Capitoline Museums on the Capitoline Hill. Metro line B to "Colosseo"; or buses 40 Express, 62 or 170 to Piazza Venezia, and a short walk from there.

4. The church and convent of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

Santa Cecilia is another legendary woman martyred in Rome in the III century AD. A daughter of a Roman Senator, Cecilia became a Christian back when Christianity was considered a fanatical sect from the Middle East.

As a punishment for refusing to worship Roman gods, she was locked in her own steam room for 3 days. The heat didn't kill her, so the executioners decided to try the always reliable decapitation. The axe was applied 3 times to her neck, yet it failed to separate the head from the body. Cecilia continued living for days, singing hymns and converting hundreds into the new faith. Shortly after she died, she became known as a martyr and a saint.

The miracles didn't end there. The present church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere was built on the ruins of Cecilia's house in the 9th century, when the remains of the saint were moved here from its original burial place at the catacombs of St. Calixtus. When they exhumed the body, it was said to have had no signs of decomposition, "incorrupt".

Amazingly enough, when her body was exhumed for the second time during the church restoration in 1599, it was found to be still in pristine condition, with 3 axe marks on her neck. The event was witnessed by several people, including a sculptor who've created a statue of St. Cecilia's body (which can be seen near the church's altar), and who stated under oath that he sculpted her as he saw her, "incorrupt". His statement is inscribed on a marble in front of the statue. It reads:

Behold the body of the most holy virgin Cecilia,
whom I myself saw lying incorrupt in the tomb.
I have in this marble expressed for you the same saint in the very same posture.

Cecilia's relics are still in the crypt beneath the church, which is open for tours daily 9:30am-12:30pm and 4-6:30pm.

Directions: Piazza di Santa Cecilia 2, Roma 00153. Buses 44, 75, 170, 181 or 23 to Ponte Cestio.

5. The Colosseum

Crème de la crème of the Roman monuments and the largest amphitheater in the world, Colosseum is simply spectacular. No matter how many times you've seen it, it never fails to astonish. Even walking aimlessly through Roman streets, you're bound to stumble upon it - and be immediately shaken by the grandeur of the view. It's like in a dream, when you're walking through the forest and all of the sudden the trees part and you see a blindingly white castle on the horizon. It is also a place where over 400,000 people lost their lives.

Colosseum was built in 80 AD under Emperor Vespasian, and later finished by his son Titus. It seated about 50 thousand people and had staged sea battles, when the whole arena was flooded, contests between gladiators, between people and animals, and between animals. On just one of the many similar occasions, 5,000 wild animals were killed at a festival that lasted for a 100 days. Another festival wiped out 70 lions; 40 wild horses; 30 elephants; 30 leopards; 20 wild asses; 19 giraffes; 10 elks; 10 hyenas; 10 tigers; 1 hippopotamus; 1 rhinoceros and, among others, 2,000 gladiators. Soon addiction to "bread and circuses" led to a new form of entertainment: executions of Christians.

There were different ways of execution. The classically Roman crucifixion or the "damnatio ad bestia" (to be thrown to the wild beasts) were the known crowd-pleasers, but then some emperors got creative and developed their own unique styles. Nero, for example, invented the "twilight executions" when Christians were nailed to the cross and used as live torches to light the arena at night.

The first known Christian execution at the Colosseum was that of St. Ignatius in 107 AD. Bishop Ignatius was among many citizens of Antioch who were forced to choose between Roman gods and inevitable horrible death. Ignatius chose the latter and was arrested by the Romans. He met his end stoically and showed no fear of the animals. Minutes later, he was torn to pieces on the arena of the amphitheater. A few bones that remained of his body were secretly collected and moved to the Church of St. Clement in Rome.

Possibly the last execution took place in 404, when an Egyptian monk Telemachus, shocked by the bloody performance he was witnessing, jumped out on the arena between the two gladiators and tried to convince them to stop fighting. The crowd gave the monk a definitive "thumbs down", and he was immediately stoned to death. The incident, however, didn't go unnoticed, and a few years later emperor Honorius outlawed gladiator fights.

Directions: Piazza del Colosseo. Metro Line B: "Colosseo", or buses 87, 75, 85, 175, 571. Tel. 06 7005469.