Culture of Rome

Literature

Birthplace of the Latin language. Since the times of Ancient Rome, the city was a great cultural center, Roman literature was heavily influenced by Greek authors from its beginning, but it was also very influential and left a deep mark on Western literature. In this period, in fact, poetic currents were born such as that of the "Poetae novi" or "neòteroi" (new poets) and lyric poetry and names such as Horace, Catullus, Cato and Sallust stood out. Also famous and characteristic was the image of Virgil, who, crossing several literary styles, composed works of great value still cared for, including the Aeneid, a legendary epic poem in Latin.

In modern times, Rome has been for centuries a place of inspiration for many artists and writers, attracted by the ancient and historical beauties of the city. The first books printed in Italy were produced in Subiaco (a town near Rome) at the end of the 15th century, it was the first place in Italy to be equipped with a printing house for printing books, founded by the Germans Konrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, inside the Abbey of Saint Scholastica.

Rome, together with Naples, Florence and Milan, has always been one of the leading cities of Italian and European literature. During the end of the 17th century, the Academy of Arcadia was founded in Rome. It was born on the occasion of the meeting, in the convent annexed to the church of San Pietro in Montorio, of 14 men of letters, belonging to the circle of Queen Christina of Sweden. It was a meeting place for many writers, poets, artists, politicians, aristocrats, composers and musicians of the time. The academy is considered not only as a simple school of thought, but as a real literary movement, between the Baroque and the Age of Enlightenment, which developed and spread throughout Italy during the 18th century in response to the "Baroque taste", an artistic movement that was considered by many critics to be bizarre, eccentric and artificial.

The 18th and 19th centuries were dominated by internationally renowned writers who lived in Rome, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with his Italian Journey and his tribute of love to the eternal city, by Stendhal and his evocative Promenade dans Rome (Roman Walks). Located at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Piazza di Spagna, there is the house museum where John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley lived. But also Nikolai Gogol and Hans Christian Andersen, in the city the Danish writer wrote his first novel L'Improvvisatore.

During the 20th century Rome was the home of some of the greatest Italian writers: including Gabriele d'Annunzio, Luigi Pirandello, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Italo Calvino, Tommaso Landolfi, Carlo Levi, Luigi Malerba, Giorgio Manganelli, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Pier Paolo Pasolini. Some of the greatest novels of the era are set in Rome, including D'Annunzio's Il Piacere set in Rome at the end of the 19th century, The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello, That Awful Mess on Via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda set in the city during the Fascist period, History by Elsa Morante set in Rome during and immediately after the Second World War, Ragazzi di vita by Pier Paolo Pasolini set in the suburbs of post-war Rome.

Libraries and archives

The National Central Library of Rome (BNCR) is, together with the National Central Library of Florence (BNCF), one of the two Italian national libraries that have the main task of collecting and preserving all Italian publications. It is located in Viale Castro Pretorio, near Roma Termini station, in Rome. The BNCR is the largest libraries in Italy. Its permanent hub is "La stanza di Elsa", where the suggestions of Elsa Morante's writing laboratory are recreated through the original furnishings that made up her studio. There are also furniture, portraits, archives and autographed papers of Gabriele d'Annunzio, Umberto Saba, Grazia Deledda, Carlo Levi, Pier Paolo Pasolini and many others.

The Italian word for library is the expression: "Biblioteca", which derives from the Latin "Bibliotheca" which in turn takes its name from the Greek expression "βιβλίον" (biblíon) «book».

The city has numerous libraries of various types and sizes: the Biblioteca Angelica; the Vatican Apostolic Library, in the Vatican; the Biblioteca Casanatense; the Library of the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, the Hertziana Library; the Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina of the Sapienza University; the Biblioteca Vallicelliana. The name Biblioteche di Roma refers to the network of 37 public libraries in Rome.

Numerous Roman libraries participate in the National Library Service of Italy (SBN). Thanks to the "OPAC SBN". it is possible to carry out web searches in the current catalogues of over 100 library institutions in the city, aggregated in the various regional centres.

As the capital of Italy, the city has two National Archives: the Central Archives of the State, which preserves (with some exceptions) the documentation produced by the bodies and offices of the Italian State since its unification, and the State Archives of Rome, which until 1953 also performed the functions of the former.

The Vatican is also home to the Vatican Apostolic Archives.

Cinema

Rome hosts the Cinecittà Studios, the largest film and television production facility in continental Europe and the centre of the Italian cinema, where a large number of today's biggest box office hits are filmed. The 99-acre (40-ha) studio complex is 5.6 miles (9 km) from the centre of Rome and is part of one of the biggest production communities in the world, second only to Hollywood, with well over 5,000 professionals—from period costume makers to visual effects specialists. More than 3,000 productions have been made on its lot, from recent features like The Passion of the Christ, Gangs of New York, Adult Swim, The Life Aquatic and Dino De Laurentiis’ Decameron, to such cinema classics as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, and the films of Federico Fellini.

Founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini, the studios were bombed by the Western Allies during the Second World War. In the 1950s, Cinecittà was the filming location for several large American film productions, and subsequently became the studio most closely associated with Federico Fellini. Today Cinecittà is the only studio in the world with pre-production, production, and full post-production facilities on one lot, allowing directors and producers to walk in with their script and "walk out" with a completed film.

Language

The original language of Rome was Latin, which evolved during the Middle Ages into Italian. The latter emerged as the confluence of various regional dialects, among which the Tuscan dialect predominated, but the population of Rome also developed its own dialect, the Romanesco. The ancient romanesco, used during the Middle Ages, was a southern Italian dialect, very close to the Neapolitan. The influence of the Florentine culture during the renaissance, and, above all, the immigration to Rome of many Florentines who were among the two Medici Popes' (Leo X and Clement VII) suite, caused a strong change of the dialect, which resembled more the Tuscan varieties (the immigration of Florentines was mainly due to the Sack of Rome in 1527 and the subsequent demographic decrease). This remained largely confined to Rome until the 19th century, but then expanded other zones of Lazio (Civitavecchia, Latina), from the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the rising population of Rome and to better transportation systems. As a consequence, Romanesco abandoned its traditional forms to mutate into the dialect spoken within the city, which is more similar to standard Italian, although remaining distinct from other Romanesco-influenced local dialects of Lazio. Dialectal literature in the traditional form Romanesco includes the works of such authors as Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, Trilussa, and Cesare Pascarella. Contemporary Romanesco is mainly represented by popular actors such as Aldo Fabrizi, Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Anna Magnani, Gigi Proietti, Enrico Montesano, and Carlo Verdone, Paola Cortellesi.

Entertainment and performing arts

Rome is an important centre for music, and it has an intense musical scene, including several prestigious music conservatories and theatres. It hosts the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (founded in 1585), for which new concert halls have been built in the new Parco della Musica, one of the largest musical venues in the world. Rome also has an opera house, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, as well as several minor musical institutions. The city also played host to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1991 and the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2004.

Rome has also had a major impact in music history. The Roman School was a group of composers of predominantly church music, which were active in the city during the 16th and 17th centuries, therefore spanning the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. The term also refers to the music they produced. Many of the composers had a direct connection to the Vatican and the papal chapel, though they worked at several churches; stylistically they are often contrasted with the Venetian School of composers, a concurrent movement which was much more progressive. By far the most famous composer of the Roman School is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose name has been associated for four hundred years with smooth, clear, polyphonic perfection. However, there were other composers working in Rome, and in a variety of styles and forms.

Religion

Much like the rest of Italy, Rome is predominantly Roman Catholic. Although Rome is home to the Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica, Rome's cathedral is the Basilica of St. John Lateran, located to the south-east of the city-centre. There are around 900 churches in Rome in total, aside from the cathedral itself, some others of note include: the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, the Basilica di San Clemente, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and the Church of the Gesu. There are also the ancient Catacombs of Rome underneath the city. Numerous highly important religious educational institutions are also in Rome, such as the Pontifical Lateran University, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Pontifical Gregorian University, and Pontifical Oriental Institute.

The territory of Vatican City is part of the Mons Vaticanus, and of the adjacent former Vatican Fields, where St. Peter's Basilica, the Apostolic Palace, the Sistine Chapel, and museums were built, along with various other buildings. The area was part of the Roman rione of Borgo until 1929. Being separated from the city, on the west bank of the Tiber river, the area was an outcrop of the city that was protected by being included within the walls of Leo IV, and later expanded by the current fortification walls of Paul III/Pius IV/Urban VIII. When the Lateran Treaty of 1929 that gave the state its present form was being prepared, the boundaries of the proposed territory was influenced by the fact that much of it was all but enclosed by this loop. For some tracts of the frontier, there was no wall, but the line of certain buildings supplied part of the boundary, and for a small part of the frontier a modern wall was constructed.

The territory includes Saint Peter's Square, distinguished from the territory of Italy only by a white line along the limit of the square, where it touches Piazza Pio XII. St. Peter's Square is reached through the Via della Conciliazione, which runs from the Tiber River to St. Peter's. This grand approach was constructed by Benito Mussolini after the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty. According to the Lateran Treaty, certain properties of the Holy See that are located in Italian territory, most notably Castel Gandolfo and the major basilicas, enjoy extraterritorial status similar to that of foreign embassies.

In addition to Catholicism, various world religions are present in Rome, which makes it one of the most important cities in the world for worship and pilgrimage.

A large Jewish community has been present since the late Republican era, in particular in the Roman Ghetto, one of the most important neighborhoods of the city. Judaism has one of the largest synagogues in Europe, the Tempio Maggiore of Rome. The Jewish tradition is very linked to the city of Rome, also linked to the fact that many typical dishes of Roman cuisine are of Jewish tradition, such as Carciofi alla giudia.

Other major religions, there is the Waldensian Evangelical Church with the Waldensian temple in Piazza Cavour, Orthodoxy with the church of Santa Caterina Martire and Mormonism with the temple of Rome Italy.

Rome is home to two Buddhist temples of Chinese culture. The Putuoshan Chinese Buddhist temple in the Esquilino neighborhood, in what is effectively considered the Chinatown of Rome (due to the high concentration of Chinese), in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II the Chinese New Year is also celebrated every year. The second temple is the Hua Yi Si, opened more recently in 2013, is the largest Chinese Buddhist temple in Europe, located in the eastern suburbs of Rome. Most of the Chinese Buddhists in Rome are faithful of the Chán school.

In recent years, the Islamic community has grown significantly, in great part due to immigration from North African and Middle Eastern countries into the city. As a consequence of this trend, the comune promoted the building of the largest mosque in Europe, in the Parioli district, which was designed by architect Paolo Portoghesi and inaugurated on June 21, 1995.

Finally, the Roman gentiles of the Associazione Tradizionale Pietas have begun erecting temples since the 2000s and every year they carry out public religious functions like the ceremony of the Natale di Roma.

Pilgrimage

Rome has been a major Christian pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages. People from all over the Christian world visit Vatican City, the seat of the papacy, which is entirely within the city of Rome. The Pope was the most influential figure during the Middle Ages, and even today he remains one of the most powerful and influential figures in the world according to Forbes. The city became a major pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages and the focus of struggles between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire starting with Charlemagne, who was crowned its first emperor in Rome in 800 by Pope Leo III. Catholics believe that the Vatican is the last resting place of St. Peter. to this day, thousand of believers flock to the city to Rome. One of the pilgrimage stopping point is pilate's stairs where, according to the Christian tradition, the steps that led up to the praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, which Jesus Christ stood on during his Passion on his way to trial. The stairs were, reputedly, brought to Rome by St. Helena in the 4th Century. For centuries, the Scala Santa has attracted Christian pilgrims who wished to honour the Passion of Jesus.

Tourism

Rome today is one of the most popular tourist destinations of the world, due to the size of its archaeological, artistic and historical heritage. Among the most significant places are the numerous museums – (Musei Capitolini, the Vatican Museums, Galleria Borghese) – aqueducts, fountains, churches, palaces, historical buildings, the monuments and ruins of the Roman Forum, and the Catacombs. Rome is the 3rd most visited city in the EU, after London and Paris, and receives an average of 7–10 million tourists a year, which sometimes doubles on holy years. The Colosseum (4 million tourists) and the Vatican Museums (4.2 million tourists) are the 39th and 37th (respectively) most visited places in the world, according to a 2009 study.

Rome is a major archaeological hub, and one of the world's main centres of archaeological research. There are numerous cultural and research institutes located in the city, such as the American Academy in Rome, and The Swedish Institute at Rome, to name a few. Rome contains numerous ancient sites, including the Forum Romanum, Trajan's Market, Trajan's Forum, Ostia Antica, the Colosseum, and the Pantheon, to name but a few. The Colosseum, arguably one of Rome's most iconic archaeological sites, is regarded as a wonder of the world.

Rome has a growing stock of contemporary and modern art and architecture. The National Gallery of Modern Art has works by Balla, Morandi, Pirandello, Carrà, De Chirico, De Pisis, Guttuso, Fontana, Burri, Mastroianni, Turcato, Kandisky, Cézanne on permanent exhibition. 2010 sees the opening of Rome's newest arts foundation, a contemporary art and architecture gallery designed by acclaimed Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. Known as MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts it restores a dilapidated area with striking modern architecture. Maxxi features a campus dedicated to culture, experimental research laboratories, international exchange and study and research. It is one of Rome's most ambitious modern architecture projects alongside Renzo Piano's Auditorium Parco della Musica and Massimiliano Fuksas' Rome Convention Center, Centro Congressi Italia EUR, in the EUR district, due to open in 2011. The Convention Centre features a huge translucent container inside which is suspended a steel and teflon structure resembling a cloud and which contains meeting rooms and an auditorium with two piazzas open to the neighbourhood on either side.

Fashion

Rome is one of the world's fashion capitals. Major luxury fashion houses and jewellery chains, including Bulgari, Fendi, Laura Biagiotti, Brioni, Gattinoni, Renato Balestra, are headquartered in the city, or were founded there, and other major labels, including Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani and Versace have luxury boutiques in Rome, primarily on Via dei Condotti, one of the most expensive street in Europe.

Rome's tradition and connection with high fashion dates back to 1871, with the proclamation of the city as the capital of the country and the establishment of the Savoy court, with the consequent arrival of new tailors and the birth of elegant ateliers.

The period of the Dolce Vita and the Italian economic boom caused glamor to explode in the city: against the backdrop of the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and Via Veneto, dresses with precious fabrics and details, worn by the divas of the silver screen, muses of Italian masterpieces and American blockbusters filmed in the Cinecittà Studios.

Media

The first newspaper printed in Rome was the Diario Ordinario, established by the Chracas family in 1716, marking the beginning of regular news publications in the town. Before its establishment in 1716, other newspapers printed in the Papal States were already circulating in Rome.

Rome is one of the most important media centers at a national and international level. Many of the most popular national newspapers such as La Repubblica, Il Messaggero, Il Tempo, Il Foglio, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Secolo d'Italia, il manifesto and the news magazine L'Espresso have their central editorial offices in the city. Is home to the main Italian news agencies such as ANSA, one of the largest in the world, Adnkronos, AGI and askanews. Sports newspapers such as Corriere dello Sport and free newspapers like Leggo. Also Treccani, Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Letters, and Arts, is based in Rome.

It is the headquarters of RAI, Italy's national public broadcasting. It is the first television hub in Italy and one of the largest communications companies in Europe. Owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, RAI manages numerous terrestrial and subscription television and radio channels.

Rome also hosts two Mediaset production centers (the Safa Palatino Studios and the Titanus Elios Studios). La7, one of the largest Italian television companies, is also based in the city.

Most of the Italian national news programs are broadcast from the television studios in Rome: TG1, TG2, TG3, TG5, TG La7 and Rai News 24.

Among the Italian radio stations with national distribution, Radio Capital, M2o, Radio Dimensione Suono, Radio Maria and Rai Radio are based in Rome with 10 radio networks.

Many of the largest mass media multinationals operating in Italy, such as Netflix, Warner Bros., NBCUniversal and A&E Networks have their Italian operational headquarters in Rome.

Cuisine

Rome's cuisine has evolved through centuries and periods of social, cultural, and political changes. Rome became a major gastronomical centre during Ancient Rome. Ancient Roman Cuisine was highly influenced by Ancient Greek culture, and after, the empire's enormous expansion exposed Romans to many new, provincial culinary habits and cooking techniques. In the beginning, the differences between social classes were not very great, but disparities developed with the empire's growth. Later, during the Renaissance, Rome became well known as a centre of high-cuisine, since some of the best chefs of the time, worked for the popes. An example of this could be Bartolomeo Scappi, who was a chef, working for Pius IV in the Vatican kitchen, and he acquired fame in 1570 when his cookbook Opera dell'arte del cucinare was published. In the book he lists approximately 1000 recipes of the Renaissance cuisine and describes cooking techniques and tools, giving the first known picture of a fork. Today, the city is home to numerous formidable and traditional Italian dishes. A Jewish influence can be seen, as Jews have lived in Rome since the 1st century BCE. Vegetables, especially globe artichokes, are common. Examples of these include "Saltimbocca alla Romana" – a veal cutlet, Roman-style; topped with raw ham and sage and simmered with white wine and butter; "Carciofi alla giudia" – artichokes fried in olive oil, typical of Roman Jewish cooking; "Carciofi alla romana" – artichokes Roman-style; outer leaves removed, stuffed with mint, garlic, breadcrumbs and braised; "Spaghetti alla carbonara" – spaghetti with bacon, eggs and pecorino, and "Gnocchi di semolino alla romana" – semolina dumpling, Roman-style, to name but a few.

Sports

Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Rome, as in the rest of the country. The city hosted the final games of the 1934 and 1990 FIFA World Cup. The latter took place in the Stadio Olimpico, which is also the home stadium for local Serie A clubs A.S. Roma and S.S. Lazio, whose rivalry has become a staple of Roman sports culture. Footballers who play for these teams and are also born in the city tend to become especially popular, as has been the case with players such as Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi (both for A.S. Roma).

Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics using ancient sites such as the Villa Borghese and the Thermae of Caracalla as venues. For the Olympic Games new structures were created, notably the new large Olympic Stadium (which was also enlarged and renewed to host qualification and the final match of the 1990 FIFA World Cup), the Villaggio Olimpico (Olympic Village, created to host the athletes and redeveloped after the games as a residential district), etc.

The Stadio Olimpico is also the home stadium for the Italy national rugby union team, which has been playing in the Six Nations Championship since 2000. Rome is home to local rugby teams, such as Unione Rugby Capitolina, Rugby Roma, and S.S. Lazio Rugby 1927. And it is home to many other sports teams, including basketball (Virtus Roma), volleyball (M. Roma Volley), handball and water polo.

Every year the city of Rome is the home of many international sporting events:

• Every May, Rome hosts the tennis tournament ATP Masters Series on the clay courts of the Foro Italico;
• International horse show "Piazza di Siena", equestrian competition held since 1922 in piazza di Siena, inside Villa Borghese;
• Golden Gala Pietro Mennea international event of athletics which takes place annually at the Stadio Olimpico;
• Every March it organizes the Rome Marathon, with departure and arrival in Via dei Fori Imperiali.

Also Cycling was popular in the post-World War II period. Rome has often hosted the final part of the Giro d'Italia.

Education

Universities

The city's first university, La Sapienza, was founded in 1303. Two further large public universities were founded in the late 20th century: Tor Vergata in 1982, and Roma Tre in 1992; today each has around 38,000 students. Also state-supported is IUSM, a vocational university with 2000 students located in the Foro Italico district and dedicated exclusively to sports and movement sciences.

A large number of pontifical universities and institutes are located in Rome, including the Pontifical Gregorian University, founded in 1551 and the oldest Jesuit university in the world, and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the ‘Angelicum’) which represents the ongoing Dominican scholastic tradition established by St. Dominic and St. Thomas Aquinas.

The city is also home to a number of private universities. The Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta (LUMSA) is a Catholic institution founded in 1939. LUISS, founded in 1966, has faculties of Economics, Law and Political Science. The Università Campus Bio-Medico is a small Catholic university which focusses on medicine, nursing and biomedical engineering. The Libera Università degli Studi San Pio V, founded in 1966, has faculties of Economics, Foreign Languages and Literature, and Political Sciences. There are also Roman centres of the Milanese Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and of the Istituto Europeo di Design, a design school founded in Milan in 1966 which now has a presence in eight cities and two continents.

Foreign universities based in Rome include The American University of Rome and the John Cabot University: private American liberal arts institutions founded in 1969 and 1972 respectively The Link Campus is an international university initially constituted as the Italian branch of the University of Malta. Also present are St. John's University, a branch of St. John's University in New York City and the John Felice Rome Center, of Loyola University Chicago.

Healthcare

Health care and emergency medical service in the City of Rome and its suburbs are provided by the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN). In Italy it employs 617,246 people, the healthcare facilities in Italy and Rome are divided into Local Health Authorities (ASL), Hospitals, University Hospitals integrated with the SSN, Hospitals integrated with Universities.

Rome is home to some of the main public and private hospitals in the country, an organizational chart that includes: Agostino Gemelli University Policlinic, known for having repeatedly treated famous patients such as Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, Policlinico Umberto I, Bambino Gesù Hospital, Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital, Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Tor Vergata Polyclinic, Campus Bio-Medico, Casilino Polyclinic, Sant'Eugenio Hospital, Sant'Andrea Hospital, San Filippo Neri Hospital, San Camillo-Forlanini Hospital, Sandro Pertini Hospital, San Carlo di Nancy Hospital etc.

Italian healthcare is managed by the Italian regions, each region has its own healthcare system which reports to the national healthcare system (SSN). The regional system of Lazio provides various structures to which one can turn for various specialized socio-health services, through the "Case della Salute", a network of health structures spread across the territory.