Via Margutta

Via Margutta is a small street in the center of Rome, in theold quarter of Campo Marzio, also known as "the foreigner's quarter",located near to the slopes of Mount Pincio. It is a place with manyart galleries and fashionable restaurants, where before the Renaissance there were only modest craftsmen workshops and stables.

In the 1950s, after the film "Roman Holiday" it became an exclusive road, and a residence of many famous people, 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 wall that leads to Piazza del Popolo square, from this point it 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

The name probably originates from the word "Marisgutia", meaning "Sea Drop", a gentle euphemism for a dirty stream that came down from the hill of the villa of the Pincii, used like a natural Roman Cloaca. Via Margutta was behind 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 a large space. In the Middle Ages an unknown artist opened the first workhouse where the finest craftsmen of Rome made portraits, cut marble for fountains and forged metal plates, giving birth to a flourishing industry that attracted the migration of foreign artists (including Flemish and German), as well as other Italians. They slowly replaced the 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, built drains and transformed the alley into a street in the public city plan.

Now it is a charming, calm road, smog is absent, scents from flowers is present, 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 has 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 arts festival usually warmly acclaimed by citizens. The expo is sponsored by the Major and Province of Rome, the Lazio Region, and for many years has been an interesting opportunity to help critics discover new artists.

The meeting makes Via Margutta a true public art gallery, presenting more than 1,000 works, including oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, also of unknown or less-famous artists, accurately chosen by a jury, coming from many countries. They work in every expressive typology like figuration, abstractionism, portrait, symbolism, surrealism, etc.

Admission is free, the exposition is open to everybody, the viewing 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

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", 1987. Film by Carlo Vanzina with Carol Alt and Elliot Gould.
* "Quelle Belle Ragazze di Via Margutta". "(the directors, painters and writers who made the Rome of the 1950s the center of the World "), 2004. Book by Giampiero Mughini