Subject
The documentary “Appia Antica, storia di una tutela” (Appia Antica, a Story of Protection) by Milo Adami, with screenplay by Giuseppe Cederna, premiered in 2022 at the 25th Festival CinemAmbiente of Turin. It tells of the story of illegality and looting along the Via Appia Antica, and the commitment of those who have returned this great heritage to the public.

Director
Milo Adami

Year
2022

Subject
The excerpts catalogued are from “La Dolce Vita” of Federico Fellini, 1960, considered a masterpiece of the director and one of the world’s greatest films. Initially contested by critics, the film became a watershed in the history of Italian cinema, leading to a permanent break from the Neorealist current to instead describe the advance of the “New Italy”, opening up to the hopes, dreams and illusions of a “Dolce Vita”. The film begins with the flight of two helicopters transporting a statue of Christ to the Vatican; from above we perceive the booming city of Rome and see some of the city’s imposing archaeological resources, notably the monumental arches of the aqueduct planned in 38 AD during the reign of Emperor Caligula and inaugurated in 52 AD by his successor Claudius. Subsequently, Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist in the yellow press, follows the arrival of American actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) in Rome. Welcomed at Ciampino airport by photographers and journalists, they form a procession taking her to the Hotel Excelsior in Via Veneto. Their vehicles advance along the Appia Antica, at that time paved as an ordinary road, passing near the great Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, built in the fourth decade of the third century BC. Near the entrance to the Villa of Emperor Maxentius, the shiny new cars pass a shepherd with his flock, still a daily scene on the Appia Antica. Marcello and Sylvia, taking a night-time drive in a very impressive Triumph TR3 convertible, return to the Appia Antica. Near the fifth mile they stop in what is now Via Pompeo Licinio, beside an ancient wall made of stacked courses of squared tufa blocks: probably the remains of a Roman ustrinum, a structure once used for cremation funerals.

Director
Federico Fellini

Year
1960

Subject
“Rappresaglia” (Reprisal), 1973, was directed by George Pan Cosmatos, born in Florence to a Greek family. The film, starring Richard Burton (Lieutenant Colonel Kappler) and Marcello Mastroianni (Father Antonelli), followed several years after publication of “Death in Rome” by Robert Katz. Like the book, the film deals with the events of a partisan attack occurring in Via Rasella and the subsequent Nazi reprisal, known as the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine, on 24 March 1944, which saw the death of 335 Italian civilians and military personnel, political prisoners, Jews and common prisoners.
A column of German lorries, loaded with persons destined for death, passes along the Appia Antica. Particularly recognisable are the large brick funerary monuments of the 5th mile; also Porta San Sebastiano, or Porta Appia, one of the main gates of the Aurelian Wall, reduced to a single archway during the renovations of 401-402 AD at the behest of Emperor Honorius. Also seen is the so-called Arch of Drusus, reported in ancient sources as erected in 9 BC in honour of Drusus the Elder, i.e. Germanicus, son of Livia and adopted son of Emperor Augustus, but known to have been used in 211-216 AD in support of the Acqua Antoniniana (a branch of the Acqua Marcia), which fed the Baths of Caracalla. In the early 5th century this same arch was re-devised as the counter-gate to the secure courtyard behind Porta Appia. As we view the passage of the trucks we can also glimpse numerous marble fragments: remains of funerary monuments, many of them placed on the side of the road by Luigi Canina, who between 1850 and 1853, excavated and restored a long stretch of the road, creating a true open-air museum. In particular, the camera briefly frames an epigraph commemorating Lucius Aurelius Diophanthus, freedman of a certain Glabra, and his noble wife Titinia (LARELLIO GABRAI.L / DIOPHANTO / TITINIAI NOBILI / UXSORI).

Director
George Pan Cosmatos

Year
1973

Subject
The excerpts catalogued are from “Roma”, directed by Federico Fellini, 1972. The film is structured as a fantastical documentary recounting the Rome of the Fascist 1930s and of the 1970s in blocks of autonomous sequences, proceeding from subject to subject without transition, in which Fellini’s own autobiographical experiences transfigure reality. The film creates a visionary and lively portrait of a Rome, through the memories of a provincial youth who arrives in the city shortly before the World War II: a vision of the city that, through Fellini’s gaze, transports us to newly imagined places.

In this Rome, the Appia Antica is certainly not missing, as an integral element of the city. The excerpts open with a night shot of the so-called Arch of Drusus, in the foreground, and a striking Porta San Sebastiano, the ancient Appian gate of the city wall built under Emperor Aurelian beginning in 271 AD. In the following sequence, the camera brings into view the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, symbol of the Appia Antica. This monumental tomb was built in the last decades of the 1st century BC to honour a rich and influential Roman noblewoman, related by birth and marriage to two of the most prominent families of republican Rome: Metelli and Crassi. Quintus Caecilius Metellus, Cecilia’s father, a consul, received the cognomen Creticus for having conquered the island of Crete. Cecilia’s husband was probably Marcus Licinius Crassus, along with Caesar and Pompey a part of the First Triumvirate, established in 59 BC. The excerpt closes with the kind of scene readily visible along the Appia Antica until the time of the restoration carried out by state institutions in the latter years of the 20th century.

Director
Federico Fellini

Year
1972

Subject
The excerpts are taken from the 1964 film “Che fine ha fatto Totò baby?”, (Whatever Happened to Baby Totò?) a parody of the thriller “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”, of 1962, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Credited to Ottavio Alessi, the film was in fact largely directed by Paolo Heusch. The story features Totò and his brother Pietro (played by Pietro De Vico, sublime comic sidekick) who steal a suitcase at Rome’s Termini station but in it, discover a corpse. Setting out by car to rid themselves of the suitcase, they pick up two girls hitchhiking with a suitcase similar to theirs, and then accompany the pair to their villa of lodging. This is the Casale di Santa Maria Nova, at the fifth mile of Via Appia Antica, today at number 251 of the same road.
The villa, the property of the state since 2006, was earlier owned by the American film producers Elena and Evan Ewan Kimble, and used more than once for film scenes. The excerpts filmed outside the farmhouse reveal the scene of the Roman countryside in the 1960s, before the changes leading up to the current day. We see a view of the building structure, rich in construction phases: from a masonry cistern dating to the 2nd century AD, transformed as a medieval tower, then by the Olivetan Monks as an agricultural manor house, from which a small semi-circular votive chapel is visible, then the 20th century transformations as a civil residence. The scene of the marijuana smokers takes place inside the villa, in the large space now used by the Appia Antica Archaeological Park for temporary exhibitions. By the end of the story, Totò too has taken drugs that drive him insane, and after gruesome and sadistic murders, send him to the asylum.

Director
Ottavio Alessi

Year
1962