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The Arab Room of Achille Vertunni Islamic Art in the Streets of Rome

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The Arab Room of Achille Vertunni Islamic Art in the Streets of Rome Chapter 13 The Arab Room of Achille Vertunni Islamic Art in the Streets of Rome Valentina Colonna Orientalism, Islamophilia, exotic revival, and new would receive a renewed significance in Italy in artistic languages: throughout the nineteenth cen- connection with endeavors to reproduce exotic at- tury, each European country “appropriated” the mospheres. Oriental fashion began to enter the Orient in its own specific way creating stereotypes scene and became mandatory for Europe’s elites, and new genres, which then spread through simi- as attested by the decorations at stylish banquets, lar channels, including travelogues engravings, the collections of artefacts in decorative art muse- printed matters, collections of decorative arts, and ums, or lectures on the Moorish and Persian styles pavilions presented at the Universal Expositions.1 at institutes for the applied arts.4 Italy cultivated a special version of the Orient This article is based on the author’s PhD thesis.5 associated with the Mediterranean Islamic coun- Despite the fact that there has always been a ten- tries. This idea was rooted in Italy’s exposure to Is- dency to associate Rome with classical arts and lamic culture since the Middle Ages; during this culture, during the period between the second half period, certain cities, such as Venice, Florence or of the nineteenth century and the 1920 the general Genoa, excelled in commercial and cultural ex- awareness of the Islamic arts increased tangibily change with the Islamic world. Thanks to the and would, eventually even conquer Rome. Roman activity of noble families, such as the Medici in orientalism emerged as a phenomenon that would Florence or the Gonzaga in Mantua, and of mis- soon permeate entire sectors of public and private sionary orders, the import and collection of Islam- life, resulting in the creation of an image of the ic objects continued during the modern era, that Orient that was both exhilarating and short-lived. is, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.2 Rome’s Orientalism can be characterized as ur- While at the Collegio Romano in Rome, the Jesuit ban, collective and popular, often including de- Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), would found the contextualizing and deceptive aspects. It was a first significant systematic collection of Islamic special brand of orientalism that “domesticated” material.3 In any case, it would however not be be- the Orient for the purposes of everyday life.6 We fore the nineteenth century that Eastern fashions 4 Nadine Beautheac and Françoise Xavier Bouchart, 1 Rémi Labrusse, Islamophilies. L’Europe moderne et les arts L’Europe Exotique (Paris : Chêne, 1985). Stephen Vernoit, de l’Islam, published in conjunction with an exhibition of Discovering Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Collections the same title, organized and presented at the Musée des 1850–1950 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000), 13–5. Beaux-Arts in Lyon, April–July, 2011 (Lyon: Somogy ed., 5 The author’s PhD thesis in Culture and Territory at the 2011). University of Tor Vergata in Rome deals with the collection 2 Giovanni Curatola, Eredità dell’Islam. Arte islamica in Ital- of Islamic art in Rome between the eighteenth and nine- ia (Venice : Silvana Ed., 1993). teenth century, including private antique dealers and pub- 3 Maristella Casciato, Maria Grazia Iannello, and Maria Vi- lic museums. A publication of the text is forthcoming. tale, Enciclopedismo in Roma Barocca, Athanasius Kircher e 6 Anna Maria Damigella, “Presenze, memorie, caratteri dell’- il Museo del collegio Romano tra Wunderkammern e Museo orientalismo a Roma dalla metà dell’Ottocento ai primi del Scientifico (Venice : Marsilio, 1986). Novecento,” in L’orientalismo nell’architettura italiana tra © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi 10.1163/9789004412644_016 178 Colonna should briefly recall how this came about. The would gather, including no one less than Prince movement goes back to the phantasmagorical Baldassarre Odescalchi (1844–1909). constructions once used for the fireworks during Apart from isolated experiments, the appropri- secular or religious anniversaries, such as Saint Pe- ation and materialization of the Orient took place ter and Paul or the annual festival at Castel in a more elaborate manner within Rome’s artistic Sant’Angelo. These pyrotechnic devices often imi- milieu, especially within clubs and associations. tated buildings from faraway places or a distant Antiquarians were the main protagonists here past and usually designed by professional archi- who had various biographical backgrounds: tects, who copied existing monuments or created whereas some were Romans, many others were montages of various buildings. Sometimes they foreigners who invigorated the city’s cultural life.10 would even create their own imaginative versions An article by Caroline Juler examines exactly of Chinese pagodas, Moorish houses or oriental these persons among Rome’s so-called “lost nymphaea.7 orientalists,”11 that is, orientalist painters with ten- In addition, amusement parks emerged all over dencies to experiment with exotic subjects. Among Rome, such as the neo-Moorish Teatro Alhambra them, we find Attilio Simonetti (1843–1925), Achille (1880) at Lungotevere dei Mellini, a structure that Vertunni (1826–1897), Gustavo Simoni (1846–1926), D’Annunzio (1863–1938) once described as an ugly Giuseppe Signorini (1857–1932), Enrico Tarenghi wooden sideshow booth.8 The interior designs of (1848–1938), Salvatore Valeri (1856–1946), Michele Roman villas is also worth mentioning here such Cammarano (1835–1920), Cesare Biseo (1843–1909), as the “Turkish” kiosk (1788) that Francesco Bettini and Ettore Ximenes (1855–1926), a famous illustra- (1737–1815?) created for the Villetta Doria, a part of tor. The center of this circle was the Catalan artist Villa Borghese, or the neo-Moorish greenhouse of Mariano Fortuny Marsal (1838–1874), who lived in Villa Torlonia (1842) by Giuseppe Jappelli (1783– Rome as of 1858.12 Thanks to him and the “colonies”13 1852). The small neo-Moorish villa in Rome’s Pari- of other Spanish painters in Rome, such as José oli area where the Spanish painter Josè Villegas y Gallegos (1859–1917) and Josè Villegas y Cordero Cordero (1844–1921) lived, is also noteworthy,9 wich was inspired by the Alhambra and executed by Ernesto Basile (1857–1932) between 1887 and 10 Maria Giovanna Stasolla, “Il collezionismo di arte isl- 1890. With its cupolas, intertwining arches, muqar- amica tra Italia e Spagna nel xix secolo. Il caso di Mari- nas, ceramic wall facings, this villino became the ano Fortuny y Marsal,” in Arqueologìa, colleccionismo y perfect stage for oriental banquets, during wich antigüedad. España e Italia en el siglo xix, ed. José Bel- celebrities of the world of artists and intellectuals trán, Beatrice Cacciotti and Beatrice Palma Venetucci (Sevilla : Universidad de Sevilla, 2006), 661–85. 11 Caroline Juler, “Gli orientalisti perduti di Roma,” Urbe Ottocento e Novecento, ed. Maria Adriana Giusti and Ezio xlix, no. 1–2 (1986): 17–9. Godoli (Florence : Maschietto e Musolino, 1999), 108. 12 Charles Daviller, Fortùny, sa vie, son ouvre, sa correspon- 7 Nicola Lupu, “Le ricostruzioni di monumenti antichi nelle dance, (Paris, 1875), 80–1; Andrea De Angelis, “La vita girandole Vespignani,” Capitolium, (September 1935): 327– romana di Mariano Fortùny nel primo centenario della 42; Damigella, “Presenze, memorie, caratteri,” 109. sua nascita,” Le vie d’Italia, xliv, (1938):719–22; Mercé 8 Gabriele D’Annunzio, Roma senza lupa. Cronache mon- Donate, Cristina Mendoza, and Francesc Quìlez i dane 1844–1888 (Milan : Baldini-Trompeo, 1948), 88–91; Corella, Fortuny (1838–1874), published in conjunction Damigella, “Presenze, memorie, caratteri,” 110–13. with an exhibition of the same title, organized and 9 Paul Bourget, Cosmopolis, Paris : Lemerre, 1983, 179–81; Ro- presented at Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Bar- sario De Simone, “Il villino Villegas,” in L’orientalismo celona, October, 2002–January, 2003 (Barcelona : Mu- nell’architettura italiana tra Ottocento e Novecento, ed. Ma- seuNacional d’Art de Catalunya, 2003), 419–32. ria Adriana Giusti and Ezio Godoli (Florence : Maschietto 13 Walter Fol, “Fortuny,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts xi (1875): e Musolino, 1999), 117–26. 352..
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