Subject
The excerpt seen is from the 1954 episodic comedy directed by Alessandro Blasetti, “Tempi nostri – Zibaldone n. 2” (Our Times – Zibaldone No. 2), in particular from the episode “The Photographic Camera” featuring Totò (Dionillo, the dandy) and Sophia Loren (the girl). The scene, filmed in a studio, depicts a typical landscape of the Appia Antica with background of Roman aqueducts and the mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, as well as its characteristic cypresses and maritime pines. Many of these were planted in the years 1909-1913 under Antonio Muñoz, Inspector of the Royal Office of Monuments. Totò and Loren recite their parts among reconstructions of ancient monuments, statue bases, funerary altars and bas-reliefs.
The large sepulchre seen behind the protagonists is certainly modelled on the original tomb of Hilarus Fuscus, at the 4th mile of the Appia Antica, itself reconstructed by Luigi Canina, using brick for the façade. Between 1850 and 1853, the Piedmontese architect and archaeologist, at the behest of Pope Pius IX, had carried out a grandiose work of restoration along the first 16 kilometres of the Appian Antica, bringing to light the route and restoring many tombs. The scenographer has recreated the brick façade, in which Canina had inserted several marble fragments found nearby and a large funerary relief divided into three niches, with the busts of five figures in frontal view. Today, at the site of the original tomb we see a concrete copy, while the original is held in the Baths of Diocletian of the Museo Nazionale Romano. The inscription bearing the name of Fuscus once inserted in the reconstruction has disappeared, a fate befallen many of the marble fragments displayed by Canina, in what is essentially an open-air museum.
Director
Alessandro Blasetti
Year
1954
