Via Margutta

Via Margutta is one small street in the center of Rome, in the old quarter of Campo Marzio, also known as "the foreigner's quarter", located near to the slopes of mount Pincio. Is a place plenty of art galleries and fashionable restaurants, where before Renaissance there were only modest craftsmen workshops and stables. In the 50's, after the film Roman Holidays it became an exclusive road, residence of famous personages, like film director Federico Fellini. It can be reached from the north traveling by the Via Cassia or by Flaminia until arriving to the large square Piazzale Flaminio, and then passing through the city door in the walls that leads to Piazza del Popolo square, from this point is a walk of several meters to the left of the Flaminio Obelisk towards Via del Babuino, on the left side of this road there is an alley that leads to Via Margutta.

Etymology and History

Probably, the uncertain origin of the name comes from "Marisgutia", meaning "Sea Drop", a gentle eufemism for a dirty stream that came down from the hill of the villa of the Pincii, used like a natural cloaca. Via Margutta was the back of the palaces of Via del Babuino (Baboon road), where warehouses and stables were found. To the base of Pincio hill, there were houses of masons, marble cutters, coachmen and in the small road the activity of laborers had great space. In the Middle Ages an unknown artist opened the first workhouse where the finest craftmen of Rome made portraits, cutted marble for fountais and forged metal plates, giving birth to a flourishing industry that attracted the migration of foreign artists (Flemish, Germans, and also other Italians), they slowly replaces shacks and stables with houses, workshops and gardens. A Belgian monsignor, Saverio de Merode, in the years of Pope Pius IX, understood the change: he bought the territories of the slopes, implanted drains and transformed the alley in a street in the public city plan. Now it is a charming, calm road, smog is absent, scents form flowers can be breathed, and since its beginning, whilst being in the full center of Rome it seems an "outside door road", perfumed by trees and vineyards, and this made it a perfect choice for artists, painters, sculptors, antiquarians, even if today many of these studies have become private flats.

Yearly exposition of "100 Painters of Via Margutta"

"One hundred painters of Via Margutta", is a traditional artist meeting usually warmly acclaimed by citizens. The expo is sponsored by the Major and Province of Rome, the Lazio Region, and since many years has been an interesting opportunity to help critics to make discovery of new artists. The meeting makes Via Margutta a true gallery of art to the open, introducing beyond 1.000 works, including oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, also of unknown or not so famous artists, accurately choosen by a jury, coming from many countries. They work in every expressive tipologie like figuration, abstractionism, portrait, simbolism, surrealism, etc. Allowance is free, and the esposition is opened to everybody (is an entire road), the vision of the works is casual and an easygoing attitude is the norm.

Famous residents

Between the historical inhabitants of the street we can remember Giulietta Masina, Federico Fellini, Renato Guttuso, Marina Punturieri.

Fountain of the Arts

File:Fontana of the Arti.jpg Along the way is situated the small "Fontana delle Arti", with a triangular base, crowned by a bucket of paint-brushes (in relation to the presence of artists prevailing in the area dating from XVII century). Carved in 1927, in marble, according to the project of architect Pietro Lombardi, who had also designed other small fountains "fontanelle" located all around Rome, usually inspired to the coats of arms of the ancient roman quarter rione or to their traditional activities. Two masks are to the opposite sides, mounted over marble painter supports, one is sad and the other happy, this showing the alternate mood typical of artists, sprinkling their weak water jet in two small bathtubs.

Books and film on the life to Via Margutta

• Roman Holiday, 1953. Film by William Wyler with [Audrey Hepburn]] and Gregory Peck.
• My first forty years . Film with Carol Alt and Elliot Gould.
• Quelle Belle Ragazze di Via Margutta. (the directors, painters and writers who made the Rome of the 50's the center of the World ), 2004. Book by Giampiero Mughini